The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  “So you know,” she said.

  “I found the body.”

  Her tears threatened to fall again, but she held them back. “They said you were supposed to be here last night. It seems that the fact that you weren’t is not in my favor just now.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said.

  “Shem and Mandy were sleeping together. It wasn’t any secret. Everyone knew.”

  “It didn’t bother you?”

  She looked at me with eyes that were suddenly indignant. “Of course it did. It killed me. But what could I do?”

  “You could have left him.”

  “Oh, it’s so easy for a stranger to stand there and say I should have left him. You come in and you know: leave him!”

  “I didn’t say you should have, I said you could have. And I didn’t say it was easy.”

  She collapsed back on the loveseat again. “What does it matter? Mandy killed. Why does any of it matter?”

  “I hope that’s not what you told the police,” I said.

  She shook her head, her voice growing pinched again. “No. They just wanted to know where I had been, over and over. I said here. But I can’t prove it. I’m a suspect in a murder. Oh, God! I thought I was finished with the police. Finished with prisons, finished with the police, a new life here in the saint’s city.”

  She sounded as though she was just barely keeping hysteria at bay. I remembered Al Knox’s original description. And now I could see the capacity for panic, for melancholy. I took a step forward, but resisted the urge to put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going to be arrested. We just need to figure out what really happened. Then you’ll be in the clear.”

  She looked up at me and it was almost as though she noticed me for the first time. “Mr. Foster? What do you want? What are you doing here?”

  “Protecting myself as much as you. The studio fired me this morning. I don’t know which of us is being set up here, or maybe it’s both of us, but I needed to talk to you before figuring out what to do next.”

  She looked frightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “That’s my job, not yours. Can you tell me what’s this about prisons, and police? Is it connected to something that happened to you in France...?”

  I thought she was going to start crying again, but the spell had passed. Now her delivery was cold, her accent heavier than when she had been taking pains to control it. “My father was a safecracker.” She rubbed the heel of one palm against her eyes as she spoke, first the left, then the right. “He was killed in prison many years ago.”

  “The police questioned you about his death?”

  She turned her look on me. “It was many years ago.”

  All the same, I could see how it could play into Samuels’ circumstantial case, if she’d been questioned once about another murder. But I didn’t say anything about that to her. “There’s nothing you could do to document your time last night?”

  “I was asleep in bed,” she said.

  “Your husband’s son? He’s staying with you, isn’t he?”

  “Shem sent him back east yesterday afternoon, before all of this.”

  “The neighbors, then? Maybe they could confirm you never went out.”

  “They could say they saw my car still here, but there was enough traffic on the street last night, no one could say I didn’t get a ride. Anyway, our nearest neighbors were out late to a gala.”

  It was still all circumstantial. They didn’t have the murder weapon, they couldn’t have her prints in Ehrhardt’s house, and they didn’t have a witness. But people went to jail on circumstantial evidence. They certainly went to trial.

  I had another idea. “Let’s go back to the man you thought was following you. Was Miss Ehrhardt always there too, when you saw him? You told Al it was usually on the studio lot, right?”

  She looked frightened and the pitch of her voice went up. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because maybe the man following you was also following her.”

  She knitted her brow in thought, shaking her head back and forth. “I couldn’t say, not for sure. Probably yes, she was there, but...” Back and forth, back and forth. “I don’t know about at the first fitting. And I thought there might be someone following my car once or twice; I was alone then.” The memory seemed to trouble her. Her eyes were wide now with fear. She shook her head even faster.

  “Miss Rose?”

  She sat up rigid. “No, it couldn’t be that he was following Mandy. He’s following me.”

  “Don’t get excited.”

  “No, no, no.”

  I reached for her, but before I could get to her Miguel was there with a drink on a tray. “Try this, Miss Rose. Try this.”

  He managed to get the glass into her hand, and she raised it mechanically, still shaking her head. The liquor went in, she shuddered, and fell back. Miguel grabbed the glass from her hand before the last sip could spill. He looked at me, imploring, and then left the room with the tray tucked under his arm and the glass in his hand.

  “You don’t have more on the description of that man,” I said, a fighter kicking his opponent when he’s down.

  She said nothing.

  “Okey,” I said. “I’ll show myself out.”

  That didn’t get any reaction either. She just lay there, collapsed, her beautiful face miserable in a way that the public never got to see on screen. It was disconcerting, like seeing the skull beneath the skin.

  I made my way back to the front hall. Miguel was waiting for me.

  “You see how fragile Miss Rose is?”

  “Yeah, I see. Did she pull the same act with the police?”

  “Nearly.”

  “Samuels can’t want her for this. He’d see right away she’s no good for it. Unless he tries to play her as crazy.” It was my turn to shake my head. “Listen, I didn’t get a chance to ask Miss Rose. Are she and John Stark close? Would she know his friends?”

  “Not that I know of. Miss Rose keeps to herself.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.” I put on my hat and took a step towards the door. “Call me if there’s an emergency. I’m not wanted here otherwise.”

  “Actually, Mr. Rosenkrantz would like to see you.”

  I turned back. “And how would Mr. Rosenkrantz know I was here?”

  “He saw you come in.” He indicated the stairs and said, “If you’ll allow me.”

  I thought about how it was really not my business. I thought about how little I had to go on. I thought about how the studio and the police had told me to clear out and stay clear.

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  FIFTEEN

  The room was supposed to be a study, but the same person who decorated Hub Gilplaine’s office had decorated this room too. Every visible surface except for a small path from the door to the desk was covered in books and papers. There were unfinished shelves screwed into the length of one wall, bowing under the weight of the books piled on them. One shelf had ripped out of the wall and fallen onto the books on the shelf beneath it. That one only held because of the piles of books on the floor propping it up from below. The papers were strewn about in inelegant stacks, the edges curling. There appeared to be a green imitation-leather easy chair in one of the corners, but there was no way to get to it now. By comparison, the surface of the desk was relatively tidy, dominated as it was by an Underwood typewriter. There was a bottle of vodka that had had a good deal of its contents acquainted with a glass, and an already empty bottle on the floor beside the desk chair. The place smelled of alcohol and old paper.

  Rosenkrantz turned to face me. He looked pale and his eyes were dilated, but he had no trouble sitting up straight or tracking me. When he spoke, it was surprisingly clear, the sign of a practiced drinker. “You followed me from the Carrot-Top,” he said.

  It didn’t require an answer so I didn’t give him one.

  “You saw what they did...”

  “What who d
id?” I said.

  “This goddamn life. This goddamn city. These goddamn people.”

  For a great writer, he seemed awfully hung up on one word. “Had she any enemies?” I asked.

  He looked up again. “What are you, the police? They were already here.”

  “Okey. Then what did you want to see me about?”

  “They say Clotilde did it.”

  “They do.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “I know.”

  He nodded, satisfied with the work that had been done so far. We had who didn’t do it established beyond a doubt. He shook his head as he reached for the bottle and brought it to the rim of his empty glass. He didn’t have any trouble with the maneuver. “Mandy didn’t have any enemies. No one she’d fought with. Nobody she was scared of. Nobody who cared either way.”

  “Friends?”

  “I know that she made friends with a few of the girls that worked in the club where she was waitressing, but just to go out and have a laugh with. Maybe some of the valets too. She was new to San Angelo.”

  “And the name of the club?”

  He lowered his head and looked at me out of the tops of his eyes.

  “The Carrot-Top.”

  “No, but close enough. The Tip. That’s where I met her.”

  “You said you could put her in movies.”

  He shrugged, raising his glass in a toast. “And I actually did.” He drank the whole thing down in two gulps.

  “I guess there’s a first for everything,” I said.

  He raised his empty glass again. “Hear, hear.”

  “Well this is lots of fun. You could probably charge a door fee. You might need to share the alcohol though.”

  “She was a swell kid, Foster. I didn’t love her. In fact we fought just as much as we laughed. But she could really lay into you, and always made it good afterward. She was a swell kid.”

  “Sure. And she had a heart of gold. And she never would hurt a fly.”

  His face clouded and he looked up at me. “Ah, go to hell.” He grabbed the bottle for a refill.

  “Should I send Miguel up with another bottle?”

  “Why weren’t you here last night doing your job!”

  “I know my place,” I said. “I know I’m not supposed to say, why weren’t you here with your wife, or why weren’t you at Miss Ehrhardt’s place to protect her. Because if we always ask ourselves why then pretty soon we can make anything our fault.”

  “Especially when it is.”

  I nodded. “Then too.”

  He sneered and shook his head. “God, the people in this town will cut your throat and tell you they’re giving you a shave. They’re not people, even. They’re money, with no eyes and no heart, or they’re raw desire hidden behind bulletproof glass. You can see them, but you can’t touch them. Either you go through the system until you’re just money, too, or you find out that your bulletproof glass wasn’t as bulletproof as advertised. If at any point you remember you’re a person, you better watch out, you’re halfway on the bus home.”

  “I hate to interrupt the great American man of letters while he’s being insightful, but you’ll have to excuse me.”

  “You’ll go and talk to Hub now, won’t you?”

  “I’m no longer working this case.”

  “That’s why you came here. Because you’re no longer working on it.”

  “Just some matters I wanted to tie up.”

  He considered me for a moment. “When you go see Hub, ask him about Janice Stoneman.” He waited for me to write it down. I didn’t. He refilled his glass and downed it without preliminaries, then sat staring at it. “Huh.” He looked up from his empty glass. “In my books, the characters always have a moment of realization, some object or event that crystallizes their very being. Not the trash I write for Gilplaine, my real books. But who really recognizes the moment that his life changes? At the time, I mean. Maybe later, but not at the time.” He shook his head and sighed. “I was wrong, what I told you a minute ago. It would be bad enough if it was those Hollywood bastards that cut your throat. But no, you cut your own throat. Up until the moment it’s done, it’s not done, but once it is done...” He opened his hand in front of him as though letting a lightning bug go.

  “Tell Hub I don’t ever want to see him again.” He picked up the bottle, but I didn’t wait for him to refill his glass.

  Downstairs, there was no sign of Miguel. Miss Rose must have required his further assistance. If I’d been smart, I would have counted myself lucky that my own assistance was no longer required. But like the man said, you don’t know you’re holding the razor until after it’s too late.

  SIXTEEN

  It was a little after noon. The Tip served lunch, but Gilplaine probably didn’t come in until mid-afternoon; part of his job was to be seen by the night people. I stopped at the lunch counter in the hotel across from the Blackstone and had a melted cheese sandwich with a slice of bacon as its backbone. The coffee had grounds in it, but I drank it anyway. The mid-day paper was out and there was now a small piece buried on the last page of section one, no more than four inches, about a waitress killed in Harbor City. I wondered how Rosenkrantz would take that. They cut your throat even after they’ve cut your throat.

  Back in my office, I picked up the phone while walking around the desk to my chair. There were any number of cops I could call to look over the morning report for me, some who might even do it. But if I was going to end up in Harbor City again, it was best to maintain good relations. Samuels picked up on the third ring. “Shouldn’t you be out investigating something?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Foster. I was wondering if you could give me a little information.”

  “Try the operator. I’m busy.”

  “You get a chance to glance over the morning report? It’s out already, isn’t it?”

  “You think I have time for that kind of thing? I’m working a murder. What are you doing? I told you to cool it.”

  “New case. Missing person. Wanted to relieve you of any concern about my intentions with regard to your murder.”

  “Okey, funny man. You’ve got five minutes. Who you looking for?”

  “Name’s Greg Taylor. Blonde male, clean-shaven, early to mid twenties, last seen wearing pale blue pants and a white shirt with no jacket or tie. Real pretty boy.”

  A moment passed while Samuels flipped through the list of the night’s crimes. After a minute, he said, “Nothing. No luck. Now is there anything else I can get you, your majesty?”

  “No, that’s about what I expected. Thanks, Samuels, call me if you need me.”

  He hung up without a reply. It was good for him to think that I owed him something. He’d be more likely to keep me informed that way. I checked my watch. Just after one. It was still a little early for Gilplaine to be at the Tip. I found a rag stuffed in the back of one of my file cabinets and gave the office the once over. It probably only kicked up more dust, giving it a chance to redistribute, but at least I didn’t feel as much like an embarrassment to my profession. I threw the rag back where it had been hiding. I couldn’t think of any other stalls, so I locked up the office and headed for the Tip. If Gilplaine wasn’t there yet, I could at least feel out the other employees without his interference. It was the best lead I had.

  The lunch crowd at the Tip was just finishing. Still, everyone looked up when I came in, to make sure I wasn’t someone important. I wasn’t.

  The room was smaller than it looked in the newspapers. There were maybe twenty circular tables in the center of the room around the fountain. Some were large enough only for two, some for up to four. They were each draped with two tablecloths, one white that hung to the floor, the other small and black that hung over the edge of the table just enough to form isosceles triangles at each place setting. The tables were bunched close together, with hardly enough room for the tuxedoed wait staff to fit between the patrons’ chairs. There were circular booths lining the two ou
ter walls, four to a side, and a staircase just inside the door led to an open balcony with three more booths that had a view of the whole room. The centerpiece was the fountain, an imitation Roman marble with Cupid sitting at Aphrodite’s feet, shooting a plume of water from his bow and arrow into the well below. Or maybe it wasn’t an imitation. I wasn’t an expert on Roman statues.

  All of the tables were filled. The noise was distracting. The kitchen was in the back, and there was another door in the back wall labeled Private.

  The maître d’ was a thin man in his late fifties. He combed his scant hair over his balding crown for the maximum effect. He unwisely sported a Hitler mustache, and both the mustache and the remaining hair were pitch black. He adjusted the leather reservation book on the podium in front of him with both hands and looked at me down his nose with borrowed superiority.

  “Do you have a reservation, sir?”

  “I’m not here to eat,” I said.

  There was a spark of recognition in his eyes. “Of course not, sir. Police, then.”

  “Private. Work here long?”

  “Only six months, sir. I used to be at the Haviland on Seventh. May I ask what this is regarding?”

  “Do you know Mandy Ehrhardt?”

  “Should I, sir?”

  “You can stow the sir, and stop answering my questions with questions. She used to work here.”

  “No,” he said, pausing to pretend to think about it, “I don’t believe I know anybody by that name. Now you’ll have to tell me what this is about or I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave. This is a private establishment.”

  “Yeah, private. Where everyone can see everyone.” I handed him my card. “I want to see Gilplaine.”

  The maître d’ sucked in his lips and held my card away from him by its edges. “Mr. Gilplaine is not here at the moment.”

  I had expected Gilplaine would be out, but I recognized that ‘not here at the moment.’ Not here for me. I pushed. “Why don’t you show him the card and let him decide if he’s in or not?”

  He seemed to be deciding whether it would be safe to throw me out or if I actually had some pull with the boss.