by Jerold Last
Suzanne took a long drink from her chai tea. “What did you have in mind, Roger?”
I played with my wine glass while I worked up my courage to ask her my most important question. “I’d like to keep on seeing you, Suzanne, even though this case is over. Will that be possible?”
She blushed a bit, then looked up at me. “I know I’m not supposed to answer a question with a question, Roger. But in this case I have to. What took you so long to ask?”
---------------------------THE END (or maybe it’s the beginning?)---------------------------
Story2.SOMEONE DID IT TO THE BUTLER
“Someone Did It To The Butler” was my first attempt to write the classic California mystery that popularized the style in the pulp magazines our grandparents read. The title, and the name of our featured corpse, is obviously intended to be a riff on the classic “The butler did it”, made famous in several of the old classic English mystery novels. This story just squeaks by into the novelette class (more than 7,500 words) at a length of 7, 889 words. It was my first attempt to write fiction at this length since a very, very long-ago English class at The University of Wisconsin on short-story writing. The story was written after my third novel, “The Surreal Killer”, as were all of the entries in this anthology, when I began experimenting with style and content.
This is the first Roger and Suzanne story set entirely outside of South America. It takes place in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, California. My family lived in Pasadena for a couple of years when I was a young child. I visit Westwood and the western pieces of LA for professional work (UCLA) and to visit cousins from both sides of the family who live there, so the locale has meaning for me and I know the area. In this series entry, Roger and Vincent Romero are hired by the local police chief to guard the voluptuous body of a rising Hollywood starlet from Argentina (there’s the South American connection you were looking for) at a big Beverly Hills party. Another connection to South America is the character of “Vincent Romero”, who we first met as a professor at a Chilean university in “The Surreal Killer”. We’ll be seeing more of Vincent in several of these stories and in the newer novels.
An important producer is shot and killed at the party. Roger is hired to solve the murder by the producer’s widow, finding himself investigating various Hollywood types at the studio making the starlet’s current film. The story is a classic whodunit in a classic setting for the genre.
I found writing at this length much more difficult than constructing a full-length novel because, quite literally, every word mattered. The story has previously been featured in the on-line “Espionage Magazine” and on Roger and Suzanne’s blog, “South American Mystery Novels and Stuff.”
Someone Did It To The Butler
by Jerold Last
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2012 © Jerold Last
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I.The corpse on the floor
ChapterII.Later that night
ChapterIII.The next day
ChapterIV.Day three
ChapterV.Crime does not pay
Chapter I.The corpse on the floor
Our nice quiet evening with the stars was interrupted by a scream from upstairs.
“I’ve got it. You two stay with Vera and make sure she’s safe.”
I ran up the stairs towards the sound of the screams, which continued. A bathroom door stood open, with a screaming lady I didn’t know standing there, and a corpse I did know, our host Raymond Butler, laying on the floor in a pool of blood. At a quick glance, the size of the hole in his head at the entry wound suggested he had been shot with a .38 or 9 mm caliber handgun as the cause of death. My first task was to get the screamer calmed down and out into the hall so I could close the door and maintain the integrity of the crime scene. Then I grabbed my cell phone, dialed 911, and reported the murder. The dispatcher ordered me to stay on the scene until the cops arrived.
I phoned Vincent to suggest that he, Bruce, and Vera make a quick exit from the premises and go somewhere out of potential danger like the client’s hotel and wait there until the police had questioned me and turned me loose to go on with our business.
Bruce, Vincent, and I were guarding the body of the Argentine actress and sexpot Voluptia Vasquez at one of the biggest parties in Beverly Hills this year. We were at a prestigious address in a large private home in the 90210 ZIP code. The mansion belonged to the estate of the corpse and to his surviving wife. Both of the Republicans and a substantial percentage of the many Democrats and anarchists in the movie business were here, elegant in expensive clothes and jewelry.
This was a weird gig for us: The Beverly Hills Police Department had asked me to provide security for the actress during this party as a freebie as they were understaffed due to the current round of budget cuts. In return, we would get a lot of goodwill from the local police and the opportunity to hand out our business cards to the wealthy movers and shakers who attended the party. The Police Chief assured me that it would be a nice quiet evening with the stars, good canapés and a good buffet table, and great advertising for my detective agency.
At the time, my agency consisted of Vincent and me as full time employees, with Bruce occasionally filling in on bodyguard jobs as needed. I was the only one with a P.I. license, while Vincent was accumulating the necessary supervised hours to get his.
I'm Roger Bowman, about 6 foot, two inches tall, 190 pounds, 36 years old, blue eyes, and a former Los Angeles police detective and patent lawyer. Over the last couple of years, much of my best detective work has been done in South America.
Bruce is a former Navy Seal, now a full-time nanny for our eight-month-old son Robert. He's from West Hollywood, flamboyantly gay, slim and wiry, has dark hair with a cowlick, is in his mid-30s, and good looking with an infectious smile. He's also a very good associate to have on your side in a fight. It said something about Hollywood-type parties that more people tried to hit on Bruce than me that night.
Vincent is Vincent Romero, a former CIA agent in Northern Chile. He's about 50 years old, in superb shape for his age, almost 6 feet tall and wide across the shoulders. He's got a permanent tan from his long time in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and is very, very good looking according to my wife Suzanne.
We met Voluptia (real name, Vera Cohen) for the first time at the party, and she seemed pleased that she would have three handsome escorts wherever she went this evening. Her stage name was well chosen: in a word she was voluptuous, with a beautiful face, big breasts, a small waist, and an old-fashioned hourglass figure. She must have been about 25 years old and exuded sex appeal. Her nominal escort was her agent, Harvey Schwartz, who was too busy working the room schmoozing with the rich and famous to pay much attention to our client.
The screaming lady in the bathroom was one of the catering staff taking a short break from walking through the mass of guests with various trays of hors d’ouvres and drinks, and was a most unlikely suspect.
The first police that arrived were uniformed patrolmen and patrolwomen who took names of guests and secured the bathroom crime scene, but left any real questioning for the detectives who would arrive next. Then came CSI and forensic technicians to gather physical evidence, a coroner to pronounce that the dead guy was dead so the body could be taken to the morgue, and the first pair of detectives. Detective Murphy and his partner, whose name I never learned, came over to me. Murphy, a short guy with a serious case of short guy syndrome, wearing a fedora hat just like a Hollywood cop from a 1940s movie, started his interrogation. The partner took notes and was clearly there to be seen, not heard. He collected my name and address.
“You’re the one who called the police, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a private detective.”
He scrutinized my license carefully. “What are you doing here at a Beverly Hills party for the rich and connected?”
“I was asked to bodyguard one
of the guests.”
“Which one?”
“An actress named Vasquez.”
“Are you carrying a gun?”
“No.”
“Do you really want me to believe that you’re here as a bodyguard and you’re completely unarmed?”
That didn’t seem to deserve an answer.
Murphy turned to his partner with a sneer. He exuded cockiness, arrogance, and a permanent chip on his shoulder against taller people like me. “He probably shot the victim, dumped the gun, and decided to bluff it out. Put the cuffs on him and let’s get him down to the station and see if we can sweat a confession out of this cheap private dick.”
This stupidity had gone far enough. “You might want to call your chief and check me out before you find out how much it can cost both you personally and the city of Beverly Hills for you to make a warrantless arrest with no evidence.”
“I don’t have to arrest you to take you downtown,” blustered Murphy.
“Actually, you do.”
“What do you think you are, some kind of lawyer?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I am a lawyer.”
“So, what are you going to do about it if I cuff you now and haul your ass down to jail for resisting arrest?”
That was my cue to stand up and move into his personal space where I towered over him. “If you’re dumb enough to try, I’ll put you in the hospital for resisting my citizen’s arrest for criminal assault and felonious assault with a deadly weapon. I’d suggest that you call your chief first. He's the one who hired me to come here tonight and bodyguard the actress.”
He yielded with bad grace and made the phone call. Then he turned to his partner. “This clown has some juice. The chief says to let him go.”
He turned back to me and tried to look ferocious. “You haven’t heard the last of this, punk. I’ll be watching you.”
Chapter II.Later that night
I caught up with my colleagues and Vera at The Beverly Hilton Hotel. She had one of the private villas in the back, courtesy of her studio. It was a reasonably long walk from the hotel lobby through the back door and several hundred yards of lawn to her villa, which was indeed very private. There was a complete wet bar, so I helped myself to a nice single malt scotch. I had a few questions for the body that we had been hired to guard.
“Did you know Raymond Butler before tonight’s party?”
“Yes he is, actually was I guess, a corporate vice president at the studio that brought me here from Buenos Aires to star in a new movie we’ve started filming. His brother Willard is producing the movie and his wife Ingeborg is the set decorator on the film. So I’ve met the whole family at work, and they’ve had me to their house for dinner a couple of times.”
“Did you all get along together?”
“Of course. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I certainly wouldn’t do anything to risk my future in Hollywood. I’m making more for this film than I’ve been paid during my entire career in Argentina until now.”
“Do you know if Raymond had any enemies?”
“Of course he did. He was rich and powerful. People envied him or tried to use him all the time. He could be very difficult if you argued with him about anything and a vindictive enemy.”
Her English was very good. She had a sexy voice I could listen to all night and just the right amount of accent to make her exotic. If she could act as well as she spoke and looked, she had a great career ahead of her.
“One last question. Is there anyone you can think of who hated Raymond enough to kill him?”
“Take your pick. Anyone who wanted his job, who wasn’t cast in his movies, or feels they weren’t paid enough for acting, filming, or writing in one of his movies. Probably half the people in the industry had a motive to kill him, or thought they did.”
“I don’t think you’re a target, but just in case someone thinks you are I’d like Vincent to stay here overnight to make sure you’re safe. Vincent runs the body guarding part of my detective agency. Is that OK with you?”
Arrangements were made, Vincent stayed on the living room couch, and Bruce and I went home, a half a mile or so away. Bruce lives with Suzanne and me. He works full time as a Nanny for our son Robert, now 8 months old, and also works an erratic schedule with Vincent Romero when he needs help guarding bodies.
My wife Suzanne met us at the door. She's about 5’8”, 32 years old, lean athletic body just about as good as new since giving birth to our son, Robert, 8 months ago, Scandanavian looking face, long blond hair, and an aura of success and good breeding. Her look is almost always casual but at the same time Los Angeles sophisticated.
“Your party made it on to the TV news tonight. You may want to check it out.”
We went into the family room to watch the TV, already on. A talking head on the TV was standing on the street with the house where Raymond Butler hosted his last party in the background. She was talking gravely, in the vain hope that nobody would notice that she didn’t have anything to say.
“The murder took place on the second floor of the house you see behind me. A famous producer and studio head, Raymond Butler, was the victim. He was 54 years old and had been nominated three times for an Academy Award for his popular action films. The police have made no comments yet about the killing, except that they are optimistic that there will be an early arrest in this case.” She droned on, but I tuned it all out.
Just then, the phone rang. It was after midnight, so that was strange. I answered it and listened to my new client explain why she wanted to hire me. I finally hung up and turned to Suzanne and Bruce.
“That was Inge Butler. Apparently Detective Murphy has decided that I’m not guilty after all and that makes her the best suspect since she’s in line to inherit a lot of money. She wants to hire me to look after her interests and find the real killer. Money is no object—She is offering my regular fee, all of our expenses, and a substantial bonus if we identify the actual killer. I think it’s worth a shot since I’m not particularly busy for the next few weeks. I’m invited for breakfast tomorrow to discuss the case. Would you like to go with me, Suzanne?”
Chapter III.The next day
And that’s how the two of us ended up over an elegant brunch of things laden with cholesterol that tasted good late the next morning with Inge and Willard Butler. Inge was a statuesque blond of about 45 who had kept her figure and looked very attractive. She was dressed casually in designer jeans and a designer T-shirt that had probably cost her the better part of $400 or more for the outfit. Her body language said, “Look at me”, and my guess was that any man would do just that.
Willard was a lot less impressive. He was in his mid to late forties, balding and foolish enough to try to hide it by growing his hair long on the sides and brushing it over the big bald spot. He was maybe five foot eight, soft and paunchy looking, and sort of blended into his surroundings like an oversized mouse.
Inge smoothed cream cheese over one side of a toasted bagel, added capers, sliced red onion, lettuce, a tomato slice, and Nova Scotia smoked salmon, and capped it off with the other half of the bagel. She took a bite, chewed, and explained to us that life with Raymond was not a bowl of cherries, but that they were both creative people and that was typical when two creative people were married.
“Of course we had fights. Doesn’t every married couple? But making up was half the fun, and we always did. With me as your client, you should get some cooperation from the police. Why don’t you start looking for the killer there, with an objective eye examining the evidence, and not jump to the same conclusion they did that the spouse is always the most logical suspect.”
I was about to impress my client, always a good way to start a relationship.
“I’ve already done that. I stopped off at the Beverly Hills station on the way here. They don’t have much. Your husband was shot with a 9mm pistol, which they haven’t found. Nobody heard a shot, so the pistol may have had a silencer on it. Or maybe there wer
e enough champagne corks popping that the sound of the shot was just missed. He was killed 10 or 15 minutes before the body was found, so he died after the party was in full swing. Nobody seems to have seen him any time near then so we don’t know where he was or what he was doing for almost an hour before he was murdered. If there was a suppressor, the killing was probably done by a professional, who somehow got in and out with nobody seeing him or her. It’s more likely that one of the guests at the party did it, with or without a suppressor. I think we need to look for someone at the party with a motive. It isn’t likely that this murder will be solved with DNA or forensic evidence. It looks like it was very well planned and cleanly executed. Do you have any ideas who I should begin with for my list of suspects?”
“How about Voluptia Vasquez? She was a lot better performer on his casting couch than on the screen, and I know that Raymond was considering firing her from the movie and sending her back to Argentina, since he was the one who sponsored her H-2 visa. That would have been a big hit for her income and her ego.”
