Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  At the Wilshire Station, I waved at Corso at the desk before Gunther and I went up the stairs to the squad room. Cawelti was leaning over a desk, his face about six inches from the detective sitting behind it. The detective’s name was Bywaters. He had about a dozen years in, and Cawelti wasn’t going to break through Bywaters’s bored expression.

  The room was reasonably full. Typewriters clattering, people talking, a woman weeping, a skinny Mexican-looking guy in a zoot suit sitting on the wooden waiting bench swaying from side to side with a smile on his face, eyes closed, singing something in Spanish. A short, heavy Negro woman on the singing Mexican’s right clutched her bulging brown shopping bag and moved as far over as she could to avoid contact with him.

  Cawelti looked our way, stopped in mid-expletive, caught the look of surprise and smiled.

  Gunther was at least slightly out of place in most locations, but not here. People came into the squad room in all sizes, shapes, colors, and attitudes. He wasn’t even worth a second glance by people caught up in their own problems and the legal system.

  “Been looking for you,” said Cawelti as he approached me, voice raised over the noise level. He ignored Gunther.

  “I’ve been busy,” I said.

  “I know. Come with me.”

  I didn’t like his confident tone. I didn’t like his smile. But then again, I didn’t like him when he was being his usual boiling self, either.

  He moved around the desks and went to my brother’s office, opening it for us. We stepped in and he closed the door decisively.

  The desk was clear. The walls were clear. A chair behind the desk. Two in front of it. There was a wooden crate near the door with a colorful sticker on the side with the painting of a dark-haired white-toothed red-lipped girl in a turban. She was holding an orange. Under her picture were the words “Florida Tender, Juicy Oranges from the Gibson Palmetto Groves.”

  There were no oranges in the crate now, just a pile of papers, some small cardboard boxes, framed awards, and a photograph of Phil, his three kids, and Ruth looking up at me.

  “Have a seat,” Cawelti said, brushing back his hair with both hands.

  He got behind the desk and waited for Gunther and me to sit.

  “This your office now?” I asked.

  “Mine? No,” said Cawelti, looking around. “But, with Phil officially resigning effective the end of the month, I’d say the odds were good that I’ll be moving in here.”

  “I wouldn’t do it till Phil’s officially gone,” I said.

  He held up both hands. “Wouldn’t think of it. I didn’t pack up his stuff. Seidman came in and did it. You want to take the box with you?”

  “No room in my car,” I said. “I’ll let Phil pick it up. He might want to say good-bye to you.”

  “We’re going to give him a party.” Cawelti grinned, his hands folded on the desk. “I’m not sure when it will be, but I’ll be sure to be here for it, even chipped in a five for a retirement present.”

  “You’re a saint,” I said.

  “You want some coffee?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “Little guy want some?”

  “I don’t know, John,” I said. “Do you?”

  He unfolded his hands and leaned back. I wasn’t going to get through to him. He had a rabbit or a snake in his pocket. He would let it out soon.

  “Chair’s not comfortable,” he said. “A hard ass on a hard chair was all right for Phil, but I think the next person in here will bring his own chair.”

  “I heard the commissioner is thinking of promoting Connie Jacobian from undercover to detective,” I said. “Heard the commissioner and mayor thought they could make some big publicity points by appointing the first female detective captain in a major American city.”

  Cawelti’s smile dropped. The old look I had come to know and loathe came back for an instant and then disappeared.

  “You’re yakking, Peters,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Got something for you,” he said reaching into the desk drawer and coming out with a gun. I recognized it. “Yours. Serial number checks with your registration. Know where we found it?”

  “I reported it stolen,” I said.

  Gunther interrupted, “I think I’d like a cup of coffee.”

  “Wait.” Cawelti didn’t remove his eyes from my face. “You reported it stolen about an hour ago. It was found last night at a murder scene.”

  “I didn’t notice it was gone till this morning. I called as soon as I checked my glove compartment and found it missing. Did someone get shot with it?”

  “No,” he said. “But a kid died, the kid from the Survivors compound, Lewis Helter. Remember him? Blowgun.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “His mother’s in County Hospital,” he said. “Burns, concussion. Might die. Remember her, too?”

  “His mother?”

  “Martha Helter,” Cawelti said. “How could you forget your own sister, Mr. Biggs?”

  He had me. The explanation was simple. The nursing station had been told to report on any visitors. The nurse with the glasses had probably called in my description before I had even left the hospital. It’s not hard to describe me. Flat nose, a few scars and a face that wouldn’t get me any leading-man roles.

  I waited for him to say something about Phil being at the hospital. Since Phil was a cop and showed his identification, the nurse had probably not considered him to be someone whose presence needed to be reported. I didn’t enlighten Cawelti.

  “No answer?” said Cawelti with obvious joy. “Then how about this? In the bombing that killed the kid and may yet kill the Helter woman, a man escaped, a man with a shotgun and a limp left arm. Any idea of who that might be?”

  “A Nazi saboteur,” I said.

  “An escapee from the state mental facility,” said Gunther.

  “John Wayne,” I guessed.

  “Hermann Goering,” said Gunther.

  I was watching Cawelti. His face was almost the color of his hair. I knew I couldn’t have been identified with certainty by any of the witnesses from last night. I had been covered in thick soot.

  “How’s your arm?” Cawelti asked.

  “Which one?”

  “The left arm,” he said. “Let’s see you lift it over your head.”

  I grinned and threw my arm up toward the ceiling. It hurt like hell and I fought to keep from throwing up or passing out. I kept grinning and flexed my fingers.

  “Feels fine,” I said.

  “Take off your shirt and jacket,” Cawelti said.

  I hesitated. Gunther said, “County police guidelines and Los Angeles Police Department regulations concur that without a warrant, the police cannot conduct an examination of a citizen unless there is sufficient cause to believe that he might be illegally armed. You will require a writ to get Mr. Peters to remove his shirt unless, of course, you wish to charge him with a crime.”

  “Okay,” said Cawelti. “I’ll charge him, you little smart-ass son of a bitch.”

  “With what?” asked Gunther.

  “Obstructing justice. Resisting arrest. Suspicion of murder. Leaving the scene of a crime,” said Cawelti.

  “The department has been sued twice in the last eight months for dubious arrests of citizens,” said Gunther. “In both instances, the cases were settled out of court with cash compensation and disciplinary action against the arresting officer.”

  “How would you like to be stepped on like a bug?” Cawelti said, getting up from behind the desk.

  “I would like very much for you to make the attempt in front of a witness,” said Gunther calmly.

  “Am I under arrest, John?” I asked.

  He hated when I called him “John” instead of “Detective Cawelti” or even just “Cawelti.” It was one of the small pleasures I had when I was with him.

  “Get the hell out,” he said, sitting again.

  “My gun.” I rose, along with Gunther.
/>   “That stays. We’re still checking it out. You’re still a suspect and you’re staying one. And if you were thinking of leaving town, please, please do, so I can track down your ass and pen you like a baboon in Griffith Park Zoo.”

  “It’s always good to talk to you, John,” I said.

  “Wait,” he said as Gunther reached for the door. “Minck.”

  “I’ll be straight with you, John,” I said. “I’m looking for him. I think someone helped break him out of jail to kill him, the someone who really killed Mildred Minck.”

  “Bullshit. Minck killed her. We’ve got a witness.”

  “I’ll give you a name,” I said.

  “A name?”

  “The person who got Shelly out of jail, the one who plans to kill him. Sax, James Fenimore Sax, founder of the Survivors for the Future. I think he’s a white-haired guy with a craggy tan face who uses the name ‘Anthony.’ ”

  “Anthony what?” asked Cawelti.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “I’ll tell you when I do.”

  “Then Minck is dead?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “He’s got something Sax wants, and as long as Shelly doesn’t tell him where it is, Shelly stays alive.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Peters?” Cawelti said, rounding the desk and taking a step toward us.

  “Hope,” I said.

  Gunther and I went through the door into the squad room, expecting the door behind us to open, but it didn’t. We said nothing till we got back on the street.

  “All that stuff about police guidelines and lawsuits,” I said.

  “I took some liberties with the stipulations of the law and the nature of certain complaints against the police,” he said with dignity as we got to the Crosley.

  “You lied,” I said.

  “Convincingly, I believe.”

  “Very,” I said.

  “How is your arm?”

  We got in the car.

  “Hurts,” I said.

  “I shall drive you to Dr. Hodgdon’s,” he said. “There may have been some slow-working poison in that dart. The pygmies of Guam have an extract from the venom of the brown tree snake that can cause pain and very gradual paralysis.”

  We were in traffic now.

  “I appreciate the words of comfort,” I said.

  “Reality must accompany comfort if the solace is to be of meaningful value,” he said. “Shall we stop for coffee and something to eat on the way?”

  “Think I’ll live that long?” I asked.

  “If it is the toxic venom of which I spoke, it will take some time before the effects are irreversible.”

  “I’m comforted,” I said. “I’m in pain. I’m comforted and I’m hungry.”

  We stopped at a bustling deli on Melrose and had the fifty-cent luncheon special. The coffee was good.

  CHAPTER 17

  DOC HODGDON WAS eighty. He had retired about ten years ago to read, play handball at the Downtown YMCA, where he regularly beat me, do some research, and write a book. The working title of the book was Watch What You Eat. The subtitle was It Could Be Fatal. He still saw an occasional patient in his office at home and had sewn me together from time to time.

  “Infected,” he pronounced as I sat on his examining table. He inspected and touched the skin around my wound. “Not poisoned. This happened last night?”

  “Before midnight,” I said.

  “Definitely not poison,” he said, changing the bandage on my shoulder. “Whoever patched you up did a good job.”

  “Her name’s Anita,” I said.

  “Nurse?”

  “Works at a drugstore lunch counter.”

  “She’s in the wrong line,” he said. “Never saw a dart wound before. Interesting.”

  “Very,” I said.

  “I have seen one,” Gunther said. “In the circus in Austria long before the war. Intentionally inflicted in that instance also. Caused the loss of the eye of Herman Salthoffer, an aerialist. He wore a patch after that and claimed a war wound so he could collect a pension.”

  “Takes all kinds,” said Doc Hodgdon, helping me on with my shirt. “You won’t be playing handball for a while. Try not to use that arm.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. “What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing, Toby,” he said. “Unless you can deliver a late life of relatively good health, quiet tranquillity, and the assurance that I will finish my book.”

  “You’ve got it,” I said.

  Back in the car, I told Gunther I’d drop him at Mrs. Plaut’s, check for messages and head for my office.

  “Shelly might get a chance to call me again,” I said.

  “And if not?” Gunther asked.

  “Then Sax might try to kill me again.”

  “And that is what you wish?”

  “Don’t think I have much choice, and if I’m lucky I’ll get him.”

  “A trap?” Gunther said enthusiastically.

  “As soon as I figure one out.”

  “May I ponder it?”

  “Be my guest.”

  When we got to Mrs. Plaut’s, she said there had been no phone calls, but that didn’t mean she was right. Without her hearing aid, a blockbuster could have dropped three blocks away on Hollywood Boulevard and she wouldn’t have heard it.

  “The police were here,” she said. “The disagreeable man with red hair.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I think his teeth are false,” she said.

  “You may well be right,” I agreed.

  Gunther nodded to indicate that he, too, agreed.

  “Mrs. Plaut, your late husband’s pistol,” I said. “You still have it?”

  “The Buntline Special? Of course. It was one of his treasures. He once had the honor when he was a boy of firing it at Geronimo. Of course that was after Geronimo was tamed, but the mister was young and impetuous and carried his grudges lovingly.”

  “He missed Geronimo,” I said.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “Because Geronimo died of old age,” I said.

  “Indeed,” she said pensively, “were not my mister not but a bit more than a child, I think he would have been chastised severely, his weapon removed and his liberty curtailed.”

  “But you have it?”

  She had shown it to me once, a long-barreled antique that she kept oiled in a drawer in her sitting room.

  “Loaded and always ready for the descendants of Geronimo to seek me out for revenge. The mister warned me that Indians either forgot attempts on their lives immediately or held their hurts in the family forever.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “You think I might borrow the gun?”

  She cocked her head to one side. “You mean to shoot something with it?”

  “It might come to that.” I didn’t mention that the most likely person to be shot when I had a gun in my possession was me.

  “You’re after large vermin?” she asked, and I realized she was talking to her boarder Tony Peelers in his capacity as exterminator.

  “Very large,” I said.

  “Badger, coyotes?”

  “Maybe both, maybe something bigger.”

  “Then the mister’s gun is just the ticket. I’ll get it and a box of bullets.”

  While she went for the gun, Gunther said, “Toby, recall what Dr. Hodgdon said about your arm. Perhaps I should accompany you?”

  “I’ll be fine, Gunther. Thanks.”

  I pictured Gunther holding the gun, which was probably as long as one of his arms and twice as heavy.

  Mrs. Plaut returned with the weapon and handed it to me. The barrel was about a foot long.

  “Fully loaded and ready,” she said. “Single action. There are some that say this gun never existed, that Ned Buntline, the famous writer, never gave one to Wyatt Earp. Well, it may be that he did not give one to Marshal Earp, but in your hands is the proof of its existence.”

  Then she handed me the box of bullets. Th
e box was red and white, and on it was written in ink “Purchased this day of May 10, 1881.” I put the bullets in my pocket and considered how to hide the gun.

  “Wait,” said Gunter, hurrying up the stairs to his room.

  “Keep it clean. Shoot it straight and if the creature you kill is of edible ilk, bring him to me.”

  “I will,” I said, wondering if badger and coyote were edible in Mrs. Plaut’s culinary world. I didn’t choose to think about humans.

  Gunther came back down the stairs carrying his briefcase.

  “It may fit in this,” he said, handing it to me.

  I slipped the gun in. It just barely fit at an angle. I snapped the buckle.

  “You look like an editor now,” Mrs. Plaut said.

  “I’m a man of many professions,” I said. “Thanks for the Buntline.”

  “No notches in the handle if you kill anything,” she said. “The mister was most particular about that. He would say, ‘People who notch their guns when they kill are fools. They announce their deeds and attract enemies.’”

  “I’ll remember that,” I said. “I’ve got a call to make. I’ll be right back down.”

  Gunther and Mrs. Plaut stood talking while I went up the stairs, briefcase in my right hand, moving slowly to appease the pain in my shoulder.

  At the top of the stairs, I put down the briefcase and went into my pocket for change, found it, and pulled out my notebook.

  Phil Terry answered the phone.

  “It’s Toby Peters. Is your wife there?”

  “No. She’s at Warner Brothers. Script reading with Curtiz. She wasn’t looking forward to it.”

  “I’ll call back later,” I said. “Tell her I think I’ve got things taken care of. She’ll understand.”

  “I hope the police don’t cause a problem at the studio,” he said. “There are always reporters around.”

  “Police?”

  “Policeman called a little while ago and asked to talk to Joan. I told him she was at the studio.”

  “What did the policeman sound like?” I asked.

  “Funny you should ask. British accent. Not much of one, but I’ve done British and … I didn’t know there were Englishmen on the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  “Takes all kinds,” I said. “He was driving a green Ford?”