“You okay, Red?”
She said something so quietly I couldn’t make out her words over the noise of the engine. I asked her to repeat it.
“I said, who’s Mabel Yemm?”
I think I must have swerved a little because a car in the next lane blared its horn. I went with the simple answer. “She was my first case.”
“You made a lot of notes back then. I’ve been filing, see.”
“I worked that out.”
“What was she? A fraudster? Femme fatale? Black widow?”
Again, the most straightforward answer seemed appropriate. “Another missing person.”
“Why’d you keep the notes?”
“She’s still missing.”
Red grabbed my arm—she must have picked up on the tremor in my voice. “Who was she? Why was she so important to you?”
I found I was unable to answer her.
“Oh my, I’m sorry. Was it… personal? Were you close?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Well, if I’m working with you, isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not always,” I told her emphatically. She got the message and dropped the subject.
We lapsed back into silence and stayed that way for the next few miles. Then, when I’d gotten over the shock of hearing Red mention a name I hadn’t said aloud for many years, I cleared my throat and told her, “We need to have a story ready for the receptionist at the sanatorium.”
“Oh don’t worry about that. I have it all worked out.”
It was ten minutes before six when we made it to Santa Barbara. We asked on the shorefront for directions and the sanatorium came into view five minutes later. It was too big a risk to drive Mannix’s car up to the main door, so we parked a couple blocks away and made the final approach on foot. The driveway must have been half a mile long, and when we finally reached the reception desk the clock showed three minutes after six.
“Visiting hours are over.” The unsmiling woman behind the desk didn’t even bother to look up.
“But we’ve come such a long way,” Red said in her most pleading of tones.
“Four o’clock till six. Those are the rules.”
“It’s only just after six. I’ve come to see my sister, Clara. Clara Lockhart. Couldn’t I just pop in and say hello? I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Four till six,” she repeated, lifting her head just a little.
I watched her expression carefully. She hadn’t reacted to the mention of Clara’s name. It hadn’t triggered any response at all. Red leaned against the counter. I held back, scrutinizing the reception area for anything that might be useful to us. Red seemed to be handling the situation just fine, all by herself.
“We’ve driven up from San Diego, you see. That’s practically Mexico. We would have been here sooner if it weren’t for the terrible accident.” The receptionist wasn’t impressed by Red’s storytelling skills. She dropped her head again and went back to her paperwork. No doubt hoping Red would get bored and go away. “It was terrifying,” Red continued, undeterred. “We almost skidded right off the highway. We’re really quite lucky to be alive…” She patted her chest with a fluttering hand and panted out a few breaths.
I sure was impressed. I wondered if Red might have made it big in the movie business if she’d set her mind to it. I tuned out her performance and scanned the noticeboard on the wall behind the desk. It appeared to be full of schedules and activities. Some lists seemed to be for “patients”, others for “residents”.
Suddenly there was a lot of noise behind us, so much so that it shut Red up. We both turned to see what the commotion was. Two muscular orderlies were practically carrying a woman out of the building. “But she’s my daughter! I have every right to see her.”
“Rules is rules,” one of them said.
“Four till six,” said the other as they bundled her through the double doors.
As Red entered into another round of pleading with the receptionist, I stepped forward and surreptitiously studied the paperwork lying on the desk behind the counter. Reading upside down is a valuable skill for an investigator. Almost as important as the ability to charm old ladies. I saw Vanderspoel’s name at the top of a list just as the orderlies returned from the parking lot.
“Derek! Peter!” the receptionist barked. “Would you please show these two visitors where the exit is?”
There was no point in arguing. We left quickly, avoiding the need for the orderlies to demonstrate just how persuasive they could be.
Out on the driveway Red asked me if I’d noticed anything useful.
“Vanderspoel’s timetable for tomorrow.”
“And?” Her eyes widened with excitement.
“At ten o’clock he will be administering Electroconvulsive Therapy on a certain Miss Clara Lockhart.”
28
We walked slowly back down to the main gate while Derek and Peter watched us from the porch. Bethesda Sanatorium was an impressive gothic mansion with a view of the ocean that would have been a grand private home before the Crash. Now the only people who could afford houses like that were movie stars and corporations, and this far outside Los Angeles, that meant many of the big houses had been turned into rest homes and private hospitals.
The mansion sat on a large lawn surrounded by woodland and looked like it had been imported, brick by brick, from Bavaria or some place where it would once have been the home of a count or a baron. It even had turrets. It was vast. Two or three times the size of William Powell’s place, even if you added in the pool house.
We turned a corner and finally were out of the eyeline of the guards.
“What do you reckon, Red. Twenty bedrooms? Thirty?”
“I couldn’t possibly guess.”
“Clara’s in there somewhere, and we’ve got to get her out before she sees Vanderspoel.”
Instead of heading out through the gate and finding supper in downtown Santa Barbara, we ducked into the woods and tracked back up around the house. Red learned a valuable lesson about the detective business—appropriate footwear.
“Do you think they patrol the grounds with dogs?” she asked.
“They might.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her feet. “I can’t run very fast in these. I may need a little help.”
“Can you climb a tree?”
“Gee, Mr McCoy, anyone ever tell you you’re a true gent?”
“Not for some time.”
“Figures.”
We came round the back of the mansion making sure we kept ourselves hidden among the trees. Dusk was falling and it was noticeable how few lights were on inside the building. Were the rooms empty? Were the patients asleep? Or in the dining hall? We carried on walking, picking our way carefully through the pine cones and twigs that covered the ground.
A modern addition had been built onto the back of the mansion. It looked like a provincial lawyer’s office: square, cheap and dull; much like the lawyers who work inside them. Here the lights were on and the smell of cooking wafted out of a rear window. I presumed it housed the staff quarters.
An ear piercing shriek sounded out across the grounds.
“What’s that?” Red asked, sticking her fingers in her ears.
I winced and plugged my own. “Intruder alarm?” I said.
It carried on in shrill bursts and I remembered where I’d heard something similar before: San Quentin where it had been the exact opposite of an intruder alarm. I wondered if someone was trying to escape, but when the alarm stopped suddenly I guessed they had simply switched it on after visiting hours had ended. It was a good way of reminding residents not to attempt to leave.
If it was tough to get out, I reckoned it would be even tougher to get in: every window at ground level had thick steel bars. Bethesda was beginning to look like a prison masquerading as a hospital. I thought about what Red had told me about E.C.T. I thought about the drugs I’d collected from Vanderspoel. A wave of pity for the residents came
over me. “Poor Clara,” I said out loud.
“What was that?”
“It’s time for dinner. Come on, let’s find something to eat.”
We decided it was probably best to retrace our steps rather than carry on with our circumnavigation. While we made our way back to the main gate, several cars left the Bethesda as the staff went home for the night. We’d almost reached the gate when a tremendous noise erupted behind us. I spun around to see two big dogs tearing through the woods, kicking up the floor of pine needles as they charged toward us.
Red snatched at my arm as I maneuvered myself in front of her. The snarls and barks grew louder and my pulse quickened. The dogs were less than forty yards away. In the distance I saw a groundsman. He was holding a gun. Red squeezed my arm. A moment later the two dogs were almost upon us.
“Sit,” I said firmly and raised my hand. “Sit.”
It was a trick I’d learnt years ago. The dogs slowed up and their barking and snarling turned into confused yelps.
“Sit, there’s a good girl. Sit down now.” I lowered my arm and showed them my open palm. “Sit!” This time I yelled at them and they both obeyed.
I exhaled.
I risked a step forward and reached for the nearest dog’s head, my hand caressing the animal behind her ears. “What a good girl.” The look on Red’s face was a picture. Then I realized that the groundsman was fast approaching, his weapon raised.
“Good evening,” I said. “You have some lovely dogs here.”
“Don’t move.”
Instinctively Red and I raised our hands. The dogs started to whine as we waited for the groundsman to trudge toward us.
“You’re not residents, are you?” he said.
“No, no sir. We’ve just been visiting.”
“Who?” He was younger than I’d expected, probably no more than forty and looked like he could still hold his own in a brawl.
“My sister,” Red said.
He looked at both of us in turn. “What you doing in the grounds so long after visiting time?”
“My wife was upset,” I improvised. “She just needed to take the air.”
“Well I’m about to lock the gate so I reckon you’ve had all the air you’ll be getting.”
I nodded. “We’ll be on our way. Come on, darling. Let’s go.”
I could feel his stare as we picked our way out of the trees and back onto the driveway as surely as I’d felt the hot breath of his dogs.
We walked out of the compound and made our way back to the car in silence.
Once we were safely inside the Cadillac, Red finally spoke.
“That was a nice trick with the dogs, Spencer.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you liked it.”
“But don’t you ever call me ‘darling’ again.”
29
After dinner, we checked into the Ocean View Motel. My budget didn’t allow for the advertised view, so we took a couple adjacent rooms with a nice aspect overlooking the parking lot. I pretended I was beat and told Red I needed to rest: that way I could figure out how to snatch Clara out of Bethesda before her brutal appointment with Dr Vanderspoel.
The truth was I didn’t want Red anywhere near that place again, but the only way I could ensure she stayed away was to keep her in the dark. I was counting on the Ocean View being as cheaply built as its $3-a-room tariff suggested, and as soon as I shut the door and heard Red exhale on the other side of the paper-thin walls, I knew all I had to do was wait for the sounds coming from her side of the partition to stop: when she went to bed, I planned to sneak out and head back to Bethesda.
I was expecting Red to take a long while to retire—she’d insisted we make a detour to the drugstore so she could pick up nighttime essentials—but not long after we’d said goodnight, she was snoring louder than a sailor. I never knew a dame could make so much noise.
About ten, when she’d been asleep for a good long while, I carefully opened my door and snuck out of the room. I couldn’t risk starting up the noisy Cadillac, so I walked back to the sanatorium.
All through dinner, while Red was working through possible solutions to Clara’s predicament, I was busy plotting my own rescue plan. During our earlier visit I had seen several of the day shift leave but not a single car arrive. I took this as a good indication that there was just a skeleton staff at night and assumed most of the people who lived on the premises would probably be in bed themselves after ten. If I could just find a way in—which I had to concede was a very big if, especially considering the dogs, alarms and men with shotguns—I figured I could manage to avoid running into whoever was patrolling the inside of the building. Clara Lockhart was sleeping in one of those rooms. All I had to do was open every door until I found her.
I’d decided to leave my hat, jacket and tie in the motel room: a guy wandering the corridors of a hospital at night might look a little less conspicuous in his shirt sleeves. There was no way of concealing the Colt so I had to leave that behind too. I wanted to have the option of playing the part of a disoriented resident.
Climbing over the main gate proved to be a cinch, and I used the cover of the trees to sneak up on the mansion. I stopped for a moment, held my breath and listened. In the distance I could hear the surf, and the rhythmic hum of the cicadas close by told me they were untroubled by the presence of predatory dogs. I carried on toward the main building. There still weren’t many lights on. As far as I could see the reception area was manned—I could make out a large figure standing near the door. From this distance I couldn’t tell if he was armed. On the second and third floors I could only see two lights on. Two lit-up windows out of more than thirty. The place had retired for the night.
I continued to the back of the house, hoping to spot a door left ajar or an open window. But everything at ground level seemed to be firmly shut. I had two options, neither of which filled me with hope, but at least one of them didn’t put anyone else’s life in danger. The first was to start some kind of diversion. Fires usually work well. Far enough from where people were sleeping but close enough for the staff to evacuate the building. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the risks were just too high. My other option was to attempt to get in through the staff quarters as these were the only rooms without bars at the windows.
I waited in the woods for an hour or so, monitoring the low, square addition at the rear of the main building. It was two stories high with ten or twelve windows on each level. There was one door, but as far as I could tell it could only be opened from the inside. I was glad Red wasn’t with me: she didn’t have the footwear for climbing up drainpipes or clambering through windows.
I started to notice a pattern: every so often a light would come on at a window on the second floor, then a two or three minutes later it would go off again. I figured it must be a bathroom. I reasoned that meant I could be pretty sure when the light wasn’t on, the room would be empty. It seemed like the best way in, even if it did mean climbing up to the second floor. Bathrooms have one particular advantage for anyone planning on entering through a window: there’s an awful lot of pipework attached to the wall outside—perfect for making an ascent.
I slowly left the cover of the woods. I got as far as the lawn and stopped. And listened. I heard no dogs, or the crunching footsteps of an armed patrol, just the faint warble of a radio set from one of the rooms. I opted for speed over stealth and hurried to the back wall. With my back pressed up against the brickwork, the only way anyone could see me was if they leaned out of a window. I took a few deep breaths and relaxed a little.
The outlet pipe was perfectly vertical. I tugged on it and it seemed secure but there was only one way to find out if it would take 170 pounds. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks and shimmied up the pipe like I was Tarzan’s chimp. If anyone heard me on the other side of the wall, they didn’t bother to open their window to take a look.
I reached the bathroom window and strained hard not to breathe too deeply: I considered
myself to be fitter than most, but hauling yourself vertical will take it out of anyone. I reached out and grabbed the window ledge while my knees clamped tight against the pipe. I felt along the window frame, hoping to find a latch I could pop open.
The light flashed on inside. I snatched my hand away and grabbed the pipe, hoping whoever was in there wasn’t planning on taking a bath. There was a limit to how long I could hold on, and I already felt my grip weakening. A few seconds later I heard the sound of running water, then a flush, and then more running water. Come on, pal, I said to myself, hurry up. The muscles in my legs were burning with the strain of clinging on.
After an eternity, the light went off and I reached out again for the ledge. I shimmied up a little higher, trying to get a better feel of the window. I couldn’t even get a fingernail into the gap between window and frame. It seemed there was no way of opening it from the outside. Disappointed, I scrambled down, collected my footwear and scurried back into the woods. And waited.
Into every investigation, a little luck must fall, that’s what I always tell myself, and I knew if I hung around long enough I might just get a break. It came around midnight. One of the workers with a room at ground level opened a window. No lights came on, it seemed they had gone straight back to bed. After ten or fifteen minutes, I tiptoed over the lawn to the open window and listened. I heard snoring, almost as loud as Red’s.
I pulled at the just enough to peek inside and saw two dormitory beds, both occupied. I let the curtain fall shut. I pulled air down into my lungs and tried to calculate the odds of one of the occupants waking up and discovering me climbing through their window, or creeping across their room. The chances were fairly high. But I had run out of options. This was my last shot. I had to go for it.
I discarded my shoes again, opened the window as far as it would go and hauled myself up. I got one knee onto the window frame and waited. The snoring continued. There weren’t any other noises coming from inside. I pulled up my other knee and then tucked my feet under my haunches so I was crouching. Again, I waited and listened. Nothing. I gently pulled back the curtain. Both men were still fast asleep in their beds.
1 The Hollywood Detective Page 13
