by Barbara Paul
All I want is a home and family, that was to be my line. But it wouldn’t be very convincing if I was already married, would it? And Nathan Pinking, watching how much time Ted and I were spending together, had started to see his whole campaign for the new series going straight down the toilet. So one Thursday morning he calls Ted in and tells him to kiss Kelly goodbye.
It had gone too far. Nathan Pinking was controlling lives and money and television shows and indirectly even Cameron Enterprises—and he was getting away with it. The man had no right to that kind of power. He was sure to misuse it; Nathan wasn’t really a very smart man. He was a ruthless man, and self-defensive—that’s why he’d gotten as far as he had. Now he had to be stopped. It was clear the only thing for me to do was go to Marian Larch and tell her everything I knew.
And in doing so throw away my chance at my own TV series. My own series. Based on a pilot produced by Nathan Pinking. A chance I might not ever get again.
My own series.
Maybe I should wait until after the movie pilot was made.
CHAPTER 12
MARIAN LARCH
Captain Michaels was openly relieved when he got word from the DA’s office to let Fiona Benedict go. The case against her had been shaky to begin with and she never had admitted shooting at Richard Ormsby. Now that it was clearly somebody else who killed Ormsby, the prosecutors knew they’d never make the charge of attempted murder stick. Especially since the earlier murder method had been repeated—a public shooting at a television station. ‘I always had a feeling she was innocent,’ the Captain said.
‘Innocent my foot,’ I said. ‘Innocent of Ormsby’s murder, yes, but guilty of trying to kill him earlier. Two different events.’
‘Hey, what you got against little old ladies?’ the Captain grinned. He was in a good mood since things were working out the way he wanted them to.
‘Surely she’s not old enough for the little-old-lady label,’ I said. ‘Early sixties. That’s too young.’ I refrained from pointing out that Fiona Benedict was only about ten years older than Captain Michaels himself. ‘She fired that gun at Ormsby—six times she fired it. The fact that somebody else came along and did the job right later on doesn’t change what she did in that CBS studio.’
‘Bull,’ said Michaels bluntly. ‘She should never have been arrested in the first place. That woman’s no killer. You’re the only one here who thinks she’s guilty.’
‘Because I was the only one there when she first learned about Ormsby’s book. It literally put her on her knees, Captain—it hit her that hard.’ I didn’t particularly want Fiona Benedict behind bars; there were far worse criminals roaming the streets. But any investigation of Ormsby’s murder would have to take into account the earlier, unsuccessful attempt by Dr. Benedict. Whoever investigated mustn’t make the mistake of assuming the same person shot at Ormsby both times. ‘I want to be assigned to the Ormsby investigation,’ I told Captain Michaels.
‘You and every other gold shield in Manhattan,’ he grunted. ‘No, you stay put on the Rudy Benedict case—I’m pulling everybody else off, I need the men. Anything new on the Pinking and Zoff power struggle?’
I thought power struggle too fancy a term for the sniping going on but didn’t say so. ‘Only that Nathan Pinking is now indicating his willingness to sell his share of Leonard Zoff’s agency. If the price is right.’
‘Why the change of mind?’
‘Zoff isn’t taking the offer seriously. I think it’s all part of the same game of cat and mouse those two have been playing for twenty-five years. That’s how long they’ve known each other, a quarter of a century. And they’ve hated each other every minute of it.’
‘So why is Rudy Benedict the one who’s dead?’ Captain Michaels scowled. ‘Pinking bought scripts from him, period. That’s the only connection, the whole relationship? And not even that much a one between Benedict and Zoff. There’s some other connection we don’t know about. Larch, I want you to find it. No more excuses, no more fiddling around. Find that connection.’
‘What if there isn’t any?’
‘Find it anyway.’
Get out there and scrounge. I left the Captain’s office and went back to my desk. It was going to take some doing to concentrate; I kept thinking about the Richard Ormsby killing. Whoever had shot the Englishman had certainly done Fiona Benedict a favor. Two favors. Killed her enemy for her and got her out of jail at the same time. Two big favors.
Just exactly how good a friend was Roberta Morrissey anyhow?
Feeling an absolute fool, I called one of the investigators assigned to the Ormsby case and asked him about Roberta. He said she’d been talking long distance to her husband at the time Ormsby had been shot; the hotel switchboard records bore her out. I thanked him and hung up, feeling an even bigger fool. Was anyone in the world a more unlikely murder suspect than Roberta Morrissey? Well, maybe on the face of it Fiona Benedict was more unlikely—but look what she’d done. Little old ladies just weren’t what they used to be.
I forced my attention back to Rudy Benedict. To Pinking and Zoff. Leonard Zoff and Nathan Pinking were involved in a one-upmanship contest that just kept accelerating and accelerating, with no real resolution in sight. Right now it looked as if Pinking was ahead in the success race, but I supposed that could easily change. I wondered if that was what really drove those two—the desire to outdo the other.
I thought about talking to both of them again, but there wasn’t any point. Pinking would tell me some new lies and Zoff would call me Miriam and I’d be no further along than I already was. Kelly Ingram was making a TV movie and wouldn’t be back in town for another week. Nick Quinlan was making a movie too, in Munich—in German, no less; his part was to be dubbed, fortunately. Fiona Benedict would soon be on her way back to Ohio, and Roberta Morrissey with her.
This might be a good time to go talk to Ted Cameron.
Homework first, though. I called Bill Sewell at Heilveil, Huddleston, and Tippet and invited him to lunch. He accepted; he always did.
Heilveil, Huddleston, and Tippet was a firm of stockbrokers, and Bill Sewell was a very junior partner there. He was a reliable source of useful information, if we didn’t tap him too often. I think Bill enjoyed being a police contact, although he said he did it for all the free lunches he got. We met at a restaurant on St. Mark’s Place, and I waited until we’d ordered to ask him about Cameron Enterprises.
‘Good time to buy in—shares are dropping a little,’ he said. ‘But that’s not what you want to know, is it?’
‘It might be. Why are the shares dropping?’
‘We’re getting rumors of internal dissent. Happens a lot in these third- or fourth-generation family businesses. One small business grown into a conglomerate, squabbling among the descendants of the founder, family unity merely a fond memory from the good old days.’
‘Ted Cameron’s in danger of losing control?’
‘That’s about it. Way I hear it, Augusta Cameron and a few of the others haven’t been too happy with the way Ted’s been running things for some time now. But recently something’s brought it all to a head.’
‘What?’
‘That I can’t tell you—the rumors stop there. Haven’t really tried to find out, though. But the shares go on dropping, a point or two a week—good indicator of how fast the rumors are spreading. Ted’s been challenged before, and he’s managed to pull out of it. But this time I think it might be different.’
‘Will it hurt the company?’
‘Depends on who ends up in charge.’
‘Do you know Cameron?’
‘Met him. Weird eyes.’
The food came then. I gave Bill a chance to take the edge off his hunger and then asked how the decisions for spending the advertising budget were made at Cameron Enterprises, but he didn’t know anything about that.
‘Why the interest in Cameron Enterprises?’ he asked.
The rules of the game were that you gave something for something
—but the something you gave should always be less than the something you got, ‘They’re sponsoring a television show next season, and we’re investigating the death of a TV writer.’
‘Sounds pretty thin. Any connection between Ted Cameron and your dead writer?’
‘None that I can see. Frankly, we’re reaching.’
He grinned. ‘I knew that when you invited me to lunch.’
I paid the tab; Bill waved a cheery goodbye and headed back downtown to his office. I went back to Headquarters and did the paperwork for other things I was working on; the Rudy Benedict investigation was no longer a full-time job. At four o’clock I had an appointment with Ted Cameron that had taken me a couple of days to get; Kelly’s boyfriend was a busy man.
The corporate headquarters of Cameron Enterprises were on Lexington. The reception area was curiously undistinctive, but the receptionist was expecting me and led me to Ted Cameron’s suite—where it took two secretaries working in relay to conduct me into the inner sanctum.
Cameron himself looked besieged, that’s the only word for it. He made an effort at appearing calm, but his physical mannerisms revealed a lot of inner tension. When he turned from the window to greet me, the movement had a clearly self-protective posture to it.
I reminded him we’d met before, in Nathan Pinking’s office. I don’t think he remembered me, but he pretended to; whatever his problems, he hadn’t lost his manners. ‘What can I do for you, Detective Larch? My secretary said you were investigating a murder?’
‘Rudy Benedict’s murder. Did you know him?’
‘I know who he was. We never met.’
‘Have you had much contact with television people? I know LeFever isn’t your first venture into TV advertising.’
‘We’ve done mostly spot advertising up to now. We’ve sponsored a few specials, but we’ve never undertaken a series before. So to answer your question—no, I haven’t had much contact with television personnel before now. Rudy Benedict’s path and mine just never crossed.’
‘Who made that decision, Mr. Cameron? To sponsor a series, I mean.’ I was looking straight at him and I swear his irises turned invisible as I watched. He didn’t move his head or anything, but the blue just vanished.
‘A great number of people contribute to a decision like that. Our advertising manager, the budget director, a demographics consultant—’
‘But ultimately somebody has to say yes or no. Whose responsibility is that?’
‘Mine, of course. Why do you ask?’
Flank attack. ‘Why is there so much hostility between you and Nathan Pinking?’
His jaw clenched; one of those giveaway signs. Too giveaway, it seemed to me. A successful businessman would have to hide his reactions better than that, wouldn’t he? Ted Cameron made me think of a dam about to break. ‘I have difficulty in working with a man for whom I have no respect,’ he said in answer to my question about Pinking. ‘But it’s something I often have to do.’
‘Then why sponsor LeFever if you think so little of Pinking?’
‘It’s the show we wanted, not its producer. We can reach millions of potential customers through LeFever. That’s all we’re interested in.’
Sounded reasonable. Okay, try the other flank. ‘What are your chances for retaining control of Cameron Enterprises? Is Augusta Cameron likely to win this one?’
I had to admire the way he took it. He didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about or stall for time or anything like that. ‘So even the police know about it.’ He smiled wryly and stood up and began to pace. ‘May I ask how you found out?’ Still polite.
‘One of our sources on Wall Street.’
He nodded, continued pacing. He was harried-looking and obviously under pressure, but he still managed to look, well, graceful as he paced the room. I could see why Kelly was so taken with him—the man had style. He was attractive in such a subtle way—nothing obvious or overstated about him. Ted Cameron had a quiet kind of magnetism I’d missed completely when I first met him. But Kelly Ingram had spotted it. She’d spotted it the first time she laid eyes on him.
Finally Cameron decided on an answer he wanted to give me. ‘For some time now, Aunt Augusta has been challenging me over the presidency. She does this periodically—about every two years, I’d say. You know she runs Lorelei Cosmetics, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s not enough for her. She wants to run the parent company instead of just one of its subsidiaries. At first she was content to try to wheel and deal her way into power—she didn’t resort to frontal attack until I moved the corporate headquarters to New York. She—’
‘Excuse me—when was that?’
‘Ah, thirteen … twelve or thirteen years ago. Formerly we were headquartered in Los Angeles, where Lorelei Cosmetics is located. Aunt Augusta felt threatened when I took the business offices to the other side of the country. She changed her tactics.’
‘And this time?’
He was silent a moment. ‘This time she has new allies. Some other members of the family.’
‘Why? Why would they side with her against you this time?’
‘Because of certain matters of policy—and that, Detective Larch, is in the nature of being a company secret. Don’t ask me to reveal business decisions to someone outside the firm because I won’t do it. Besides, what does all this have to do with Rudy Benedict’s death? It looks as if you’re investigating me instead of him. I don’t see the connection.’
Neither did I. ‘Just a standard procedure of police work, Mr. Cameron. We check everything, even things that don’t seem to have any connection at all.’ He didn’t quite believe me, but that was all right. I made one more try. ‘This matter of company policy you don’t want to talk about—it wouldn’t have anything to do with the way you spend your advertising money, would it?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m just not going to talk about it.’ His words were calm, but his voice was tight and pinched. He opened the office door and stood waiting for me. Our brief interview was over.
I left wondering if we could get the Los Angeles police to go after Augusta Cameron. Since she was the one who was so bothered by the ‘secret’ company policy, maybe she’d be more willing to talk about it than her beleaguered nephew.
A few days later I found a note on my desk saying Kelly Ingram was back in town and wanted to see me immediately on a matter that was urgent and important.
Urgent and important? Well, certainly mustn’t delay, then. On the way over to her place I tried to guess what might be so urgent. (And important.) Another bottle of Lysco-Seltzer? Not likely, not again. Hate mail from Fiona Benedict? Silly.
When Kelly opened the door, the first thing she said was, ‘Nathan Pinking is interfering with my sex life and I want you to make him stop.’
Well, that was something I certainly hadn’t thought of. I invited myself to sit down and waited.
‘Nathan’s blackmailing Ted,’ she said bitterly. ‘He’s forcing him to sponsor LeFever, and he’s forcing him to stay away from me.’
I asked her how she knew, and she launched into a long story of improbable events and overheard conversations, all neatly wrapped up with some cause-and-effect deductions on her part that I had to admit sounded pretty plausible.
‘So he’s afraid I might marry Ted,’ Kelly said, still talking about Pinking. ‘He busted us up because I’d be no good to his smarmy little promo scheme if I was married. I have to stay fresh and available.’
A renewable virgin? ‘What’s Pinking got on Ted Cameron?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said with real despair. ‘Marian, this is just making me sick! Can you nail Nathan for blackmail without … without …’
‘Without exposing what Ted Cameron’s done that’s made him vulnerable to blackmail?’ I sighed. ‘If he’s committed a felony and that comes out in the investigation, we can’t just look the other way, you know that.’
‘But if what he’s done isn’t illegal, if i
t’s just, oh, personal, or something he doesn’t want the rest of the family to know about or something like that—you wouldn’t have to hassle him then, would you?’
‘No, we’d have no reason to.’ I couldn’t quite figure Kelly. Surely she knew if she blew the whistle on Nathan Pinking the chances were that Ted Cameron would get caught in the blast too. She sounded just a touch angry when she talked about him, I thought. Because he’d allowed himself to be outmaneuvred by someone like Nathan Pinking? ‘You must be awfully sure Ted hasn’t broken the law.’
‘Well, yes.’ She didn’t sound sure. ‘He’s a good man, Marian. He’s not like Nathan Pinking.’
‘So what’s to keep him from blabbing—Pinking, that is? Even if the police do keep quiet.’
‘Well, I was thinking maybe plea bargaining. You know, you could promise him a lighter sentence if he’d keep his mouth shut?’
In her own way Kelly was a rather worldly woman, but sometimes she could be so naïve I wanted to scream. ‘In the first place,’ I said, ‘would you trust him to keep his word? I wouldn’t. Second, I don’t have the authority to agree to plea bargaining, that’s up to the prosecutor. Third, we have no evidence of blackmail yet and may not be able to get any. Don’t worry, don’t worry—we’ll give it our best shot.’ She’d looked panicky there for a moment. ‘But you’ve got to realize there’s a big difference between knowing somebody is a blackmailer and finding evidence that will stand up in court. I believe you’re right about Pinking—I already thought his relationship with Ted Cameron had a strong odor of fish about it. That two-sided face of Pinking’s should have warned me,’ I said facetiously, in a weak attempt at lightening the mood.
All it did was puzzle Kelly. ‘Two-sided face? What are you talking about? You mean two-faced?’
‘No, I mean his face has two sides to it.’
‘Hasn’t everybody’s?’
Why had I started this? ‘Nathan Pinking has halves of two different faces, and they don’t fit together. Hadn’t you noticed?’
