EQMM, September-October 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  But first, I had to act like the good old-fashioned private eye that I was.

  I had to boldly go where no private eye had gone before.

  I parked the car and walked up the driveway, determined to knock on the house's beautiful oak door.

  * * * *

  The woman who answered the front door was indeed lovely and just barely middle-aged (damn that cop) and not at all willing to admit that one Stanley Donen lived in the house—at least, not until I mentioned the cop, and the fact that I would be happy to call him to the house right now to verify that this was the address on Stanley D's arrest record and that he had, in fact, talked to her.

  She didn't look dumb. She knew that lying to the cop in the middle of an investigation was a very bad thing.

  "Okay,” she said with a sigh. “I know him. But his name isn't Stanley and this isn't his house."

  I could've guessed the “his name isn't Stanley part,” but I hadn't been so sure about the house. I had a dozen follow-up questions, but she still had her manicured hand on the door ready to slam it, so I decided to ease into the toughest question.

  "Whose house is it?” I asked.

  "Mine,” she said.

  "Just yours?” I asked.

  She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.

  "Yes,” she said with some irritation.

  I nodded, not wanting to upset her too much. “And you are?"

  "Not willing to suffer an interrogation,” she said and tried to slam the door.

  But I'd been prepared for that move, and I caught the door with my hand. I was stronger than she was. She had gym muscles, which looked good. I had real muscles, which didn't improve my appearance at all.

  "I can find out at the county,” I said. “Then I'll just come back with my trusty cop friend, and we'll both find out what you know."

  She narrowed her eyes, shook her head slightly, and sighed. “Roxanne Winterbury."

  That name rang a bell, but I wasn't sure which bell it rang. Could've been any bell, really. I wasn't willing to ask her. Not yet.

  "And how, Roxanne, do you know our friend Not-Stanley?"

  "We go to the same gym,” she said.

  Okay. That surprised me. I'd expected to hear that she'd met him in a bar.

  "What gym is that?"

  She named an upscale place in one of the upscale strip malls not too far from here. The kind of place that cost you fifty dollars just to walk through the door and ask a question.

  "And what's Not-Stanley's real name?"

  Her lips thinned. She clearly wasn't supposed to tell me this. “Doug Sirk."

  "Doug . . . Sirk?” Then I spelled the last name.

  "Yes,” she said.

  "As in Douglas Sirk?"

  "I suppose. Why? Do you know him?"

  I knew of him. Douglas Sirk was another director, not as well known as Stanley Donen. Sirk's career, in movies, anyway, only lasted through the 1950s. I didn't know of anything he'd done after 1959—and I wasn't sure why. Death, moved to television, retired—I had no idea. I was a movie buff, not a movie obsessive.

  "No, I don't know him,” I said. “Not personally, anyway. But I do need to talk to him about what happened yesterday."

  "Oh,” she said. “It was just one of his pranks. It backfired because some bartender called the police."

  I blinked at her, a little too stunned to say much more. Actually, confessing to a crime when you actually hadn't committed a crime was a misdemeanor, which was only enforced when you actually cost the city some money, which he had.

  Only he hadn't really cost it enough to make things terrible for him—not yet, anyway.

  "Prank?” I asked.

  She laughed a little nervously, then bit her upper lip and shrugged. “He likes to say outrageous things to upset people. Usually he gets a good story out of it."

  "But yesterday, he got arrested."

  "Well, who would believe that a man like that shot his wife?"

  I would, I almost said, but didn't. Clearly Miss Roxanne Winterbury wouldn't. Proving, of course, which one of us was gullible and which one was cynical beyond belief.

  (And making me wonder why the gullible one had the manicure, the rock the size of Rhode Island, and the mansion in Beverly Hills.)

  "The bartender clearly believed him,” I said.

  She sighed. “I know. I'll have to talk to Doug about it the next time I see him."

  So he hadn't talked to her since she lied for him. I found that fact fascinating all by itself.

  "What made you lie for him?"

  "It was part of the prank.” She waved that manicured hand, letting go of the door as she did, and nearly knocking me off balance.

  "He set it up ahead of time?"

  "He does that,” she said. “He goes around asking pretty women to be his alibi, and when they accept, he figures out something for them to alibi him for. It's his way of picking up girls."

  Then she giggled in a wholly inappropriate way for a woman of recent middle age.

  I could dispute the pretty part and I felt slightly vindicated about the pickup line part, but I still didn't understand exactly what was going on here. “When did he ask you to alibi him?"

  "Oh,” she said and frowned. “Maybe a week ago? At the gym's juice bar. You know."

  "No,” I said. “I don't know."

  I almost added that no respectable place calling itself a gym had a juice bar. But again, much as I wanted to alienate this woman, I didn't dare.

  She must have sensed my judgment, because she didn't say anything. So I did.

  "Did he give you his phone number?"

  "Oh no,” she said. “We see each other every day. We're both there from nine until ten. By then the early morning crowd has cleared out and the staff has had time to clean off the machines."

  I shuddered a little. “Did you see him this morning?"

  "No,” she said.

  "Was that unusual?"

  "I was running late. Sometimes he finishes early.” She said that with a bit of a blush, which made me wonder if that last sentence was a double entendre.

  So she kept track of him, but he didn't wait for her.

  "How do you know it was a week ago that he asked about the alibi?"

  Her blush grew just a bit more. “We decided to share a post-workout smoothie. We hadn't done that before. I nearly missed a standing lunch date."

  "What exactly did he ask?"

  "He asked me if I would be his alibi.” She smiled at the memory. She really was a pretty woman. Damn her. “And of course, I said yes."

  Of course. Because that was what any sane woman would do.

  "So he told me that if anyone showed up asking for Stanley Donen, I should tell them I'm Stanley's wife and that he wasn't home at the moment, but that he had been home for the hours they were asking about."

  "Even if they were cops?” I asked.

  "He said he knew people on the force. He said it would be harmless fun."

  I nodded, as if I understood. I guess I did understand. This Stanley Donen/Doug Sirk was a nutball.

  And so was this woman.

  "You didn't ask why he needed an alibi?” I said.

  She laughed. “Of course I did. He told me he was playing pranks on friends. He'd tell them something outrageous and if they were silly enough to check, my response would confuse them more."

  "Did it?"

  "Oh yes,” she said and giggled again. That giggle would really be annoying from a two-year-old. On a woman in her late thirties, it was obnoxious as hell. “Those police officers frowned at me, looked a little angry, and then apologized. I think it was worthwhile just to have a member of the LAPD apologize, don't you?"

  I had a good relationship with the LAPD, despite its press.

  "They may not see it that way, ma'am,” I said, sounding a bit like an LAPD officer myself.

  The smile fled her face, and she suddenly looked frightened. Maybe she wasn't as smart as I had originally given her credit for.
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  "Did I do something wrong?"

  "You lied to the police in an ongoing investigation, ma'am,” I said. “They might consider that terribly wrong."

  Then I turned on one foot and marched back to my car, feeling a little less confused and a lot more satisfied. I didn't hear the door close behind me until I'd reached the street.

  So Roxanne Winterbury had watched me leave. Which meant she was thinking.

  I wondered if that meant she had lied about her friend Douglas Sirk's phone number. Wondered if she was reassessing the relationship or wondering how to warn him.

  Then I decided it didn't matter.

  Warn him about what? That an ugly private eye was looking for him? That would frighten him how?

  I wasn't sure what I'd do when I found him. Except tell him to stop besmirching the names of beloved directors (even if that was stretching it in the case of Douglas Sirk).

  Still, this whole case was getting curiouser and curiouser, to quote Alice in Wonderland. And I really did want to find out what was down that rabbit hole.

  * * * *

  The gym felt like it was its own personal rabbit hole.

  First of all, it wasn't a “gym,” but a personal health and fitness club. And it nearly did cost me fifty dollars to get in the door.

  No one got inside without paying some kind of deposit, preferably with a valid Black American Express card.

  I got in because I had a valid private-eye license, not one of those fakey things they sell on late-night TV. To the bouncer's credit (and yes, the place had a bouncer—although they probably called him a security guard), he actually knew the difference between a fake private-detective license and the real thing.

  He not only let me in with great reluctance, but he shadowed me with even greater distaste. If I hadn't showered that morning and if I wasn't wearing the cleanest of clean clothes, I would have thought that my body-odor quotient was high—even for a personal health and fitness club.

  The front desk put the reception desks at most five-star hotels to shame. It covered half a wall, had more computers than a bank, and a staff that looked so buff the soft lighting reflected off their perfect muscles. Unlike the folks who usually man the desk at a personal health and fitness center, these folks looked like they actually had an IQ as well.

  I introduced myself while I held my wallet open, showing the license. One of the buffettes looked at me, then looked at another buffette who apparently was nonverbally dispatched to find the head buffette. Who came out of the back wearing the gym-rat equivalent of a suit—khaki pants, a designer golf shirt, and a watch that cost five times the price of my iPhone. He smiled, and I half expected to see that little starlike glimmer on his perfectly even, frighteningly white teeth.

  "Ah, Miss Sweet,” he said in that unctuous tone used only by maitre d's at upscale restaurants, “let me help you with your quest."

  I so badly wanted to correct him. I was Ms. Sweet, not Miss Sweet, and private investigators did not have quests. We had clients.

  Only I really didn't have a client here, now did I? I had a hunch. A hunch that was slowly turning sour.

  We went around the lovely desk, past the banks of computers, and off in the distance, I could see high-end treadmills and ellipticals, filled with high-end (and somewhat desperate) people, all of whom looked extremely serious about their treadmilling and ellipticaling.

  We slipped into an office twice the size of mine. The head buffette gestured toward one of the chairs in front of his expensive desk, and I sat down, discovering that the damn thing was as comfortable as my couch. I tried not to relax in it.

  "Mrs. Wimberly Winterbury called,” he said, and I was so startled that I missed the rest of his sentence.

  That's why Roxanne's name was familiar. Wimberly Winterbury had died less than a month ago, leaving her his 1.2 billion-dollar estate, but his children (all twelve of them, with his six previous wives) were contesting the will. She was living on her generous allowance in the home he had bought for her before they married.

  I knew all of this because, in L.A., you can't avoid the high-end gossip, particularly if it involves gold diggers, more than a billion dollars, and angry relatives.

  "Miss Sweet?” the head buffette was saying in that unctuous tone. Apparently I had missed something after all, probably some crap about confidentiality, blah, blah, blah.

  So I went on the offensive.

  "I'm a bit disturbed here, Mr. . . . ?"

  "Nevins,” he said.

  "Mr. Nevins,” I said in my friendliest tone. “I'm investigating some disturbing reports concerning Mr. Sirk. It turns out he's been using a fake name. Douglas Sirk isn't his real name at all."

  "Nonsense,” he said. “His identification checked out perfectly."

  Meaning his credit card worked.

  "What identification do you require?” I asked.

  Nevins pulled up a file on the flatscreen computer next to his desk, discreetly turning it away from me so that I couldn't see the information as it showed up.

  Wimberly Winterbury died, and his widow became involved with a con man who needed an alibi shortly thereafter. I was on the news and the next day, the same con man was talking to me.

  Was that the link between us? Our trashy TV news coverage? Because it certainly wasn't the fact that we were both middle-aged, pretty, and rich. I was middle-aged, but pretty and rich seemed to have passed me by.

  "He showed us his driver's license, of course, and his credit card,” Nevins said.

  Both of which were easy to get, even if they weren't yours. “How long has he been a member?"

  "Six months,” Nevins said.

  "And have you been deducting the fees every month?” I asked.

  "Heavens, no,” Nevins said, and he made that phrase actually sound convincing. “We charge annually."

  "One big lump payment,” I said.

  "Along with an initiation fee in the first year,” he said. Then he looked at me blandly. “It does separate the wheat from the chaff."

  And I was clearly chaff.

  "Would you do me a favor?” I asked. “Would you run a small charge on the credit card?"

  "We can't do that, Miss Sweet,” he said in his most disapproving tone. “We don't give other people money from someone's credit card."

  "It's not for me,” I said, and resisted the urge to add, you dumbass. “I want to see if the card is still working. If it is, then you can reverse the charge and apologize if he sees his bill. If it isn't, then I'd like it if you talked to me about Doug-las Sirk and let me know what's in his file."

  "I'm sure it's legitimate."

  "You do know that he was arrested yesterday, right?"

  Nevins looked at me with alarm.

  "For shooting his wife,” I said.

  Nevins's alarm grew. I'd never seen a man's eyes get that big.

  "Roxanne Winterbury alibied him without even knowing why,” I said. “And he didn't use the name Sirk. He used the name Stanley Donen."

  "The director?” Score one for Nevins.

  "And if you go to the Internet Movie Database, you'll realize that Douglas Sirk is the name of a movie director as well."

  That seemed to convince Nevins more than the credit-card idea. Still, he punched several numbers into the computer, paused, and said to me, “Do you think twenty dollars will suffice?"

  "I think it'll tell us what we need to know,” I said.

  He finished punching in the numbers, then stopped and stared at the screen. Then he punched in more numbers, and more numbers, seeming more frantic with each punch.

  "Good Lord,” he said as that unctuous mask dropped away. “I'll tell you what I can, Ms. Sweet, but I really don't have much here."

  Damn if he didn't suddenly become a human being. One who might have helped in a very large theft. But I didn't tell him that. I figured he was smart enough to figure that one out on his own.

  "I'll take what you have,” I said, unable to resist sounding just a little unct
uous myself.

  * * * *

  What he had were two bogus credit-card numbers, one stolen driver's-license number, an address, and a cell phone number. Nevins wanted to call the cell, but I persuaded him not to. I also persuaded him to wait until I was done with my investigation before he called the police.

  "We don't want to tip off Mr. Sirk, now, do we?” I asked.

  Nevins agreed. Besides, he probably needed some time with his lords and masters to figure out how they handled account fees paid with a credit card issued to a man with fake identification.

  That the ID was fake was pretty easy to prove. The California Department of Motor Vehicles couldn't tell you who a license belonged to, but they could tell you who it didn't belong to. And a call to the DMV with the license number came back with the information that that particular number and that particular name did not go together.

  Which was more than enough for Mr. Nevins, but not quite enough for me.

  As I left, I called a buddy at the LAPD to see if he could (quietly) let me know who the number did belong to.

  It belonged to one Fred Zinnemann, yet another director, whose last film came out in 1982. But the heyday of his career was—you guessed it—in the 1950s (if you ignore my two favorites, Day of the Jackal and Julia). He was the guy who directed High Noon and I was tempted to whistle the theme song as I trudged through the streets of L.A., because I was beginning to feel like Gary Cooper, all alone in my quest for justice.

  Donen / Sirk / Zinnemann had to have used more fake information to get that driver's license. The fact that he existed in the DMV's database meant that he had actually gone through them to get the Zinnemann license. Which meant that the birth certificate he presented had to look real to them. What I couldn't get my LAPD friend to find out was how long Zinnemann had had the license. Cops weren't supposed to dig in DMV records either (weird California laws) and so he didn't want to go back to his source.

  So I had three fake names, two bogus credit cards, a real driver's-license number, a cell phone number, and two addresses.