And that overlooked the really unpromising offers I’d had since I’d turned in my shield for a private operative’s license and a used hair shirt. But I didn’t want to take the chance of depressing Crenshaw so much that he ran off before paying the bill. McGinty had a couple of lads in the back room who were expert at handling slow payers.
Carlo picked that moment to arrive bearing about half of a charred cow and a disgusted expression. For the next little while I was too busy to do much talking anyway, so a discreet little silence, broken only by grunts from my side and the gentle lapping of the broth in Crenshaw’s bowl, fell over the table. I couldn’t help admiring his way with a soupspoon. Each spoonful rose what seemed to be about four hundred feet from bowl to thin-lipped mouth with unerring precision and zero fallout. His back was parade-ground stiff, the eyes resting comfortably on the middle distance.
Once Crenshaw had reduced the broth to a polite level of about three sixteenths of an inch—without unseemly bowl-tipping—he placed his spoon at parade rest and patted spotless lips with the spotless linen napkin. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Goodey,” he said, “if I give you the background of the—situation—while you go on with your meal.”
Caught in mid-chew, all I could do was bobble my head up and down. I could have used a bit more butter for my baked potato, but it didn’t seem fair to make Crenshaw wait any longer. And I knew that Carlo would get after me about taking in too much cholesterol.
Crenshaw correctly interpreted my mime and began: “Mr. Goodey, are you familiar with an organization called The Institute?”
I nodded, choking only a little, and managed: “I’ve heard of it. But all I know is that it’s some kind of cult down below Monterey that seems to have some problems with the neighbors and the authorities from time to time.” I could tell from his expression that I hadn’t exactly put The Institute in a nutshell, but he plowed on. “Last summer, Mr. Goodey, my granddaughter, Katharine Pierce, joined The Institute at its headquarters at Las Palomas near Big Sur. Katharine—-her friends called her Katie”— he said this as if it were a mystery—;“was a restless young girl. She quit Stanford University and had had a certain problem with—”
I could see that he was a bit stuck, so I swallowed the last of my steak and said: “Drugs?” It was a bit of a guess, but not that great considering what I knew of The Institute.
“Barbiturates, Mr. Goodey,” he said, in case I was mentally bunching her with hash heads and needle enthusiasts, “Originally prescribed for her nerves. Unfortunately, Katharine became somewhat dependent on them. It was nothing really serious, but the doctors couldn’t seem to help her.’’ He paused. “Nor could I.” That was probably as close to a confession as I was going to get out of Fred Crenshaw. “Then, early last summer, she went to a lecture given by a man called Hugo Fischer, the founder and president of The Institute. I don’t quite understand what happened, but within days, Katharine had left her apartment on Nob Hill and had moved into The Institute’s mansion at Las Palomas, taking a certain amount of money with her. Fortunately, most of her inheritance was legally tied up, but—”
Crenshaw suddenly realized that he was getting off on a tangent. Looking about as embarrassed as his nature would allow, he finished starkly: “On a Sunday morning late last December, Katharine was found dead on the rocks below the mansion. She had allegedly fallen from a roof terrace during the night.” He leaned on the word allegedly so hard that it nearly snapped. And he wasn’t too happy with fallen.
"At The Institute,” he went on, "they claim that Katharine jumped to her death. I don’t believe it. I want you to go down there and find out exactly what did happen. Will you do it?”
I didn’t say anything right away. There was something boiling behind his cool exterior, and I wanted just a peek at it. Even a dead-broke private investigator likes to get a glimpse of the real person who’s hiring him. I took longer than was strictly necessary polishing off the claret and then spoke slowly.
“You think someone may have pushed your granddaughter to her death from that terrace, Mr. Crenshaw.” I didn’t ask him; I told him.
Crenshaw’s eyes, never jolly, took on a glittering hardness. He put a well-manicured hand on either side of his soup bowl; the knuckles were dead white.
“Mr. Goodey,” he said with tightly reined vehemence, “I know that someone at The Institute injected my granddaughter with a heavy dose of barbiturates and then threw her to her death on the rocks below. I want you to find out just who did it and see that they are punished. Will you do it?”
There was only one answer to that question, and I gave it. Crenshaw went back to being an aging, none-too-healthy business executive with a big problem. He put his hands back in his lap and asked me if I’d have any dessert. I almost said yes, but then decided that I couldn’t face Carlo’s disapproving eyes.
Instead, we talked a bit more, and Crenshaw gave me three things: a check for a retainer big enough to let me hold my head up among my fellow men and my creditors; a thin, blue-folder report marked: “Confidential—Monterey County Sheriff’s Department”; and another thicker report from an outfit called Brazewell Associates, Beverly Hills, California.
We agreed that I’d get in touch with him in Los Angeles just as soon as I had anything to report. To nobody’s surprise, Carlo gave the bill directly to Crenshaw. Outside McGinty’s, Crenshaw favored me with a crisp handshake, advised me that he was staying at the Fairmont Hotel, and vanished in a taxi, leaving me standing there with only two problems in the world: getting used to having money in my pocket again, and finding out who—if anyone— killed Katie Pierce.
Did someone kill Katie Pierce, or did she jump to her demise? And what trouble will Joe Goodey get himself into finding the truth? Grab your copy of Not Sleeping Just Dead from your favorite online bookseller to find out today!
Goodey's Last Stand: A Hard Boiled Mystery (Joe Goodey) Page 21
