The April Robin Murders

by Craig Rice

  “It would be more helpful,” she said, “if he could tell what horse was going to win in the seventh tomorrow. But I guess that’s asking too much. And all this is a lot of fun, but just what are you boys doing here?”

  “We live here,” Bingo said stiffly.

  She glanced around the room, observing its lack of furniture, and not overlooking the half-unpacked luggage and blankets. “You don’t look particularly settled and cozy,” she commented, “but I admit you do look moved in. And granted it’s none of my business—yet—just who told you that you could live here?”

  “Nobody,” Bingo said, even more stiffly. “Nobody had to. Because we bought the house.” His hand started for his pocket, and the papers given him by Courtney Budlong. Then he changed his mind. He agreed heartily, but silently, with Adelle Lattimer that it was none of her business, and he intended to leave it that way.

  She stared at him. “Is this another gag?”

  “It’s no gag,” Bingo said. “We bought it from Mr. Julien Lattimer. Through Budlong and Dollinger in Beverly Hills.” There, that ought to hold her.

  “But you can’t have bought it from Julien Lattimer,” she said, still staring at him. “He’s dead. He was murdered.”

  “So you say,” Bingo said. “But a firm like Budlong and Dollinger knows what it’s doing.”

  She nodded at that. “But damn it,” she said, “if the son of—if he isn’t dead, where the hell is he?” She looked accusingly at Bingo and Handsome as though they’d deliberately hidden him.

  “Why should we know?” Bingo asked. “We just bought a house from him, that’s all.”

  “You mean you didn’t see him?” she demanded.

  “No, we didn’t see him,” Bingo said. “We saw Mr. Budlong, the real estate man.”

  She scowled, and looked very lovely in spite of it. “It all sounds fishy to me. Very fishy.”

  Before Bingo could say anything in return, Handsome broke in and said placatingly, “Why don’t you just check with Mr. Budlong? He’ll be able to explain everything to you, without any trouble.”

  “Sure,” Bingo said. “He’ll be able to tell you all about Mr. Lattimer.” He started to add, “Dead or alive,” and decided against it.

  “I’m going to do exactly that,” she said. “The very first thing in the morning, too.”

  Bingo started to remind her that tomorrow was Consolidation Day, and decided against that, too. Let her find out about it for herself, even if it did put her to an inconvenience. It was Handsome, still placatingly and very amiably, who did remind her.

  “Oh, hell,” she said. “I never can keep track of these California holidays.” She sniffed. “Consolidation Day! Silliest-sounding thing I ever heard of!”

  “Maryland has a holiday named Repudiation Day,” Handsome said. “On November 23rd. I don’t know why. And Boston has Evacuation Day on March 17th, and I don’t know anything about that, either. So Consolidation Day doesn’t sound so funny. And there must be some reason for it, only I don’t know what it is.”

  “And I don’t particularly care,” Adelle Lattimer said. She sounded a little more agreeable. “All right, I’ll see Mr. Budlong day after tomorrow and get this straightened out. I don’t suppose there’s a drink in the house?”

  Handsome went to investigate the kitchen. Their guest relaxed a little. Suddenly she took a deep breath. “What smells funny?”

  “Just a little dry-cleaning fluid,” Bingo said. “Got spilled out in the back room.” No point in telling her any more details about that, either.

  Handsome came back with glasses and a quart of beer he’d found in the icebox. Adelle Lattimer lit a cigarette, settled down, and began to look comfortably at home. “You boys from New York?”

  Bingo nodded and said, “We’ve only been here a few days, as a matter of fact. Decided to move the business out here. The headquarters, anyway.”

  He was pleased to see that she looked suitably impressed. “Doing well?”

  “Couldn’t be doing better,” he assured her. “Takes a little time to get settled, of course. We haven’t even decided on our office space yet—but we’re thinking of a nice little building of our own, somewhere on the Strip, or in Beverly Hills.” Well, he was thinking about it. It was one of the main topics of his thought these days. “A good place to live came first.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose you know this place used to belong to April Robin.” He wondered whether or not she’d lived in this house, as Mrs. Julien Lattimer.

  She looked unimpressed, took a gulp of her beer, and said, “The hell you say.”

  “You remember April Robin, of course,” Bingo said.

  “I don’t remember her,” Adelle Lattimer said. “Sure, I know who she was. But after all, she was before my time.”

  Bingo doubted that. He decided it was time to change the subject anyway. “You certainly seem anxious to find Mr. Lattimer,” he prodded her.

  She put her glass down, hard. “Look. He’s worth money to me. If he’s alive, he owes me nearly twenty grand in back alimony. Nineteen thousand two hundred, to be exact. Dead, he’s worth a quarter of what he left, if you follow me.”

  “I get the idea,” Bingo said.

  “And it’s plenty,” she told him. “But being married to him for two years was worth it. Of all the dull, dreary little characters. Oh, he did have a certain charm when you first knew him. Sort of poetic, and serious. Looked poetic, too. Dark hair with a little gray. Graceful. You know the type. But after you got to really know the stodgy, penny-pinching, gloomy little bastard—” She paused and said, “I guess I shouldn’t speak bad of the dead.”

  “If he is dead,” Handsome said.

  “And if I can prove it,” she said. “Don’t think I haven’t tried to have him declared dead by the courts, because I’ve been doing practically nothing else. With no success. If his body doesn’t turn up, somewhere, sometime, I’ll have to sit out the seven years, I guess.”

  “If we find it,” Bingo said, “we’ll be glad to let you know.”

  “Do that,” she said. Then she looked at him suddenly, her bright blue eyes narrowing a little. “In fact, if you boys want to pick up a little extra loot for yourselves, you might spend your spare time looking around. If you’re going to live in this house, you might just stumble onto something, so to speak.”

  “Not his body, I hope,” Bingo said. He said it lightly, but with an icy spot in his stomach.

  She said, very seriously, “Look, if his body had been here, it would have been found. But there might be something to lead to where it is. The cops went over this place with an extra small-size fine-tooth comb. No dice. After she”—the tone of voice in which Adelle Lattimer said “she” left no doubt in Bingo’s mind as to whom she meant—“got cold feet and scrammed, they went over it again. And again no dice. Finally the court appointed a trustee to look after the place and the rest of the estate. The trustee had the place gone over with an even smaller fine-tooth comb than the cops used. No dice ever, anytime, for anybody.”

  Bingo said, “And what makes you think we’ll be more successful than they were?”

  “Well,” she said, “you live here. I tried to get a private dick in here on my own. No luck. First she was living here, and then her housekeeper stayed on as caretaker. Phony insurance inspectors—electrical repairmen—we couldn’t get anybody in. But you are in.” To Bingo’s relief, she didn’t ask questions about the caretaker.

  “Naturally,” she said, “I don’t expect this for nothing. Anything you turn up that leads to finding his body—I’ll give you a cut of what I get.”

  Bingo thought for a minute. “A quarter?”

  “I was thinking more of five percent,” she said.

  They discussed the figure back and forth for a while, plus the fact that even five percent of the at least hundred thousand dollars she stood to inherit was a considerable sum, and ended by agreeing on ten.

  “He was a rich widower when I married him,” Adelle Lattimer said. “
I think he married me because he thought he’d be more of one. Richer, I mean, not more of a widower. But I disappointed him. I own a nice little hat shop in Pacific Palisades, but that’s all. It’s just that I look and act rich, and that’s what fooled him. So we wrangled for a couple of years, and I got a smarter lawyer than he did, and quicker, and got my four hundred a month alimony, now long overdue, and my share in his will.” She smiled. “I’m a shrewd businesswoman, in my way.”

  Distinctly one he wouldn’t care to have on the other side in a deal, Bingo thought. He said, “This—Lois that he married—was she rich?”

  Adelle Lattimer shook her head and laughed. “I don’t think she had a dime. No, this time Julie was the sucker. He fell in love with her. I mean he really fell in love with her. She’s a pretty little thing. Not much sense, if she picked him. Unless she married him for his money, which is what probably happened.”

  She poured the rest of the beer into her glass. “It’s to laugh, I mean it! Here this poetic-looking smoothie makes a thing out of marrying women with money. Finally, when he’s got it made, a cute little bleached-blond babe comes along and marries him for his dough, and ends up killing him for it. Well,”—she lifted her glass—“good luck, boys.” She finished her beer in a gulp, and rose. “If you find anything, I’m in the phone book.”

  They showed her to the door and watched while she got into a convertible several inches longer and several shades brighter than theirs.

  “Handsome,” Bingo said when she was gone, “how much did this guy leave?”

  “There wasn’t any exact figure,” Handsome said. “It was about half a million bucks, though.”

  Bingo sat down on the slightly lumpy davenport and did a little fast mental arithmetic. Adelle Lattimer would get a quarter of that, according to the will. And ten percent of that—

  “But Julien Lattimer’s not dead,” he said suddenly. “He can’t be dead. Handsome, how could he sell us his house, if he was dead?”

  “We’ll find out from Mr. Courtney Budlong,” Handsome said soothingly. He brought over Bingo’s mauve and lime-green striped pajamas, slippers and a blanket.

  Bingo settled himself as comfortably as he could on the davenport and, for a moment, considered telling Handsome to leave on one of the lights. Then he decided to keep quiet and see if Handsome might not have the same idea. After all, a strange house in the dark—even if there wasn’t much furniture to trip over—

  Handsome put a flashlight on the table by the davenport. Bingo sighed inwardly and let it go at that.

  A little light came in from the windows off the balcony, just enough to make the room seem even more enormous, and more empty. Bingo pulled the blanket tight around his chin and tried to shut his eyes. There was still the odor from the caretaker’s room.

  Suddenly he felt an almost overwhelming desire to wake Handsome, to pack everything and pile it into the convertible, and head for New York. He told himself firmly that they’d at last arrived in Hollywood, that they were going to get rich, that already they owned a house that belonged to April Robin, with a famous motion picture producer and a society widow for neighbors, and that they would make all kinds of valuable contacts through their friend Mr. Courtney Budlong. He thought of Ciro’s, of the Sunset Strip, of Hollywood and Vine. He tried to visualize a little office building in Beverly Hills, with their name in chromium letters like those on BUDLONG AND DOLLINGER. He still wanted to go back to New York.

  He found himself even thinking wistfully of Eighth Avenue on a cold rainy day in March, or of West 34th Street in a July heat wave.

  The future suddenly seemed filled with entirely too many problems. Not the least of them being that the April Robin mansion had probably seen at least one murder.

  New York seemed so far away, so very far away.

  Finally, with the feeling that daylight was about two ticks of the clock away, he slept.

  A series of resounding buzzes at the door woke him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and realized that while daylight had gotten here all right, it hadn’t been here long. He looked at his watch. Seven in the morning. Who would be calling at seven in the morning?

  Handsome had thrown on a bathrobe and gone to open the door. He came back with two men, an anxious look on his face. “It’s the police, Bingo,” he said.

  Bingo grabbed his own bathrobe, thankful that it was the forest-green flannel one.

  One of the men was tall and very thin, with the most deeply lined face Bingo had ever seen. It was also the saddest face he had ever seen, with a thin, mournful mouth and weary eyes. “I’m Perroni,” he said. “My partner’s Hendenfelder.”

  Hendenfelder was also tall, but heavy-set. His face was round, pinkish and expressionless.

  Handsome whisked the blankets away. The two plain-clothesmen sat down. Bingo just sat still and worried.

  “Might’s well come straight to the point,” the one named Perroni said. “The Lattimer case is my baby. Been on it since he was reported missing. Found no proof he was murdered yet, but I will. Now you had a little trouble here last night.”

  “The housekeeper tipped over a can of cleaning fluid,” Bingo said quickly. “Breathed in a lot of it. I hope she’s better.”

  “She didn’t tip it over,” Perroni said, in his melancholy voice. “Somebody poured it out and put her nose down in it, after feeding her a drink loaded with knockout drops. And she isn’t better, she’s dead.”

  Bingo sat holding his breath. In his heart, he’d known all along it was that way, but he’d refused to admit it.

  “And also,” Perroni said. “What’s all this nonsense about you buying a house from a man that was murdered four years ago?”

  six

  “It isn’t nonsense, and we have bought a house,” Bingo said. “And nobody seems to know if the guy was murdered or not.” It wasn’t exactly the tone of voice to use to a cop and he knew it, but this was entirely too early in the morning to be polite to anybody.

  “Oh now, let’s be friendly about this,” Detective Hendenfelder said. His attitude seemed to imply that if Bingo and Handsome had really bought the house, they were important people and should be treated courteously as such, and if it turned out that they hadn’t, no real harm would have been done. “Too bad we had to wake you up so early, but that’s the way things are because—well, because that’s the way things are. Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk this over, h’m?”

  Perroni simply said, “Where was this woman’s room?”

  Bingo rose and showed him. The first cigarette of the day was making him feel a little better, and if the big fat-faced cop was willing to be friendly, why, Bingo was willing to go along with him. Besides, he and Handsome had nothing to worry about, and nothing to lose except a little time.

  The small room still smelled heavily of cleaning fluid. Perroni sniffed and said, “Whew!” He looked it over with sad, mournful eyes, and finally said, “Have to go through her things, but we can do that later.” He led the way back into the living room, to Bingo’s relief.

  “All right,” he said with a sigh, taking out a notebook. “What do you know about the woman?”

  “Nothing,” Bingo said. “Absolutely nothing. She was around yesterday afternoon and we saw her—not to speak to—when Mr. Budlong was showing us the house.”

  “Budlong?” Detective Perroni asked.

  “Mr. Courtney Budlong,” Bingo said.

  “Budlong and Dollinger?”

  “They sold us the house,” Bingo said. “Or, Mr. Courtney Budlong did. Say, did you know that this house used to belong to—”

  “Stick to the woman,” Perroni said.

  Bingo said stiffly, “That’s the only time we ever saw her. Alive. Mr. Budlong said she’d been the caretaker. And that her name was Pearl Durzy.”

  “That’s the only time you ever saw her?”

  “Just like I told you,” Bingo said. He wished Handsome and the fat-faced cop would hurry up with that coffee.

  “You’re not bein
g very informative,” Perroni complained.

  “I don’t know what you want to know,” Bingo said.

  The coffee arrived just in time. Handsome had even located some cinnamon rolls and warmed them. Life began to get brighter.

  “You looked the house over yesterday afternoon,” Perroni said, as though his patience were being strained toward its outer limit, and declined coffee. “Then what did you do?”

  “Then,” Bingo said, “we went into Beverly Hills with Mr. Budlong and bought it.”

  “Just like that,” Perroni said.

  Bingo nodded and said, “Yes, just like that.” How else would anyone buy a house?

  “We’ll get back to that later,” the detective said. “What did you do after you bought the house?”

  “We went back to where we’d been staying, and packed,” Bingo said. “A very nice place. The Skylight Motel.” He was beginning to wish again that they’d stayed there. “We took some pictures of it, and then we came back here.”

  “Took some pictures?” Perroni asked.

  “A present for the lady that owns it,” Bingo said. And whose business was it, anyhow?

  “Professional pictures?” Hendenfelder said, with a show of interest.

  Bingo handed him a card of the International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America. He looked impressed and handed the card to Perroni, who didn’t.

  “All right,” Perroni said, tucking the card in his pocket, “you came back here. Where was this Pearl Durzy then?”

  “We don’t know,” Bingo said. “She wasn’t here.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t here?”

  “Well,” Bingo said, “there wasn’t any light on. In her room, I mean.”

  “She could have been sitting in the dark,” Perroni said, “or taking a nap.”

  “Yes,” Bingo said. “She could. It just didn’t feel like she was here, that’s all.”

  Detective Perroni looked at him glumly and silently.

  “Or she could have been dying already,” Hendenfelder said.