Murder Most Ingenious

by Kip Chase

  ‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Harrison’ he said with a show at putting up a bold front.

  ‘I think we do. Say, why don’t you sit down, Jack? You look nervous.’

  Christie paused, started to shake his large head in protest, then sat down.

  ‘That’s fine. Now then, let me tell you a little story.’ Harrison paused, puffing liberally on his cigar. ‘You know, in my business I have to deal with a lot of people. Sometimes I have to try and persuade them to do something they don’t like. Now, I had an offer a little while ago from a friend of ours to see if I could – ah – talk you into dropping that development idea of yours up on the Peninsula. For business reasons I said I’d take on this little job. Now there are a couple of ways I could do this. One, I could just come and ask you straight out. Now this would probably work. For some reason I have a way of talking people into things. I guess you’d just call it a gift of gab.’ Harrison chuckled slightly. ‘Trouble with this is, some people might get nervous and do something foolish. Would you believe it, Jack, some people would actually like to see me dead. So I like to give myself a little insurance. You following me, Jack?’

  ‘Now look here, Harrison. I don’t know what it is you want, but . . .’

  Harrison’s voice, hard as tempered steel, broke into Christie’s protest. ‘I asked you if you followed me, Jack.’

  ‘I – I don’t think so.’

  Harrison shook his head sadly. ‘All right, let me lay it out for you. Goodall wanted you to lay off the Palos Verdes development. We made a deal. Then I got to your girl friend. She agreed to make a tape of you in her bedroom. Goodall gets bumped off and the deal falls through. Next thing I hear they pick the girl up off the beach full of salt water. Now, I don’t know anything about that Goodall job, or that girl either, and I don’t want’a know anything. I stay in business ’cause I know how to keep out of trouble, and I don’t plan to change my way of living. I know you’ve been to the cops. I don’t know what you told ’em. But you better not go again. And if they pull you in, you keep your big yap shut. I got a few friends down there and I got a way of knowing who talked and who didn’t. I think you know I mean business. Just in case you got any doubts about it you have a look on page seven of the second section of the Times this morning.’

  Harrison stood up suddenly and deliberately snuffed out his cigar on the polished surface of Christie’s desk. The realtor’s naturally swarthy complexion had a pallid green look about it. Again he licked his lips. ‘All right, Harrison, all right. I like to stay healthy.’

  Jock Harrison nodded curtly. ‘You better believe it, boy’, he said softly, then turned and left the room.

  For a full minute after Harrison left, Christie sat immobilized in his chair, his hands at his side, his face set in an expression of mixed fear and repugnance. The smell of Harrison’s cigar still hung heavy in the air. Finally, Christie stood up, turned, and fumblingly opened the window behind him. He extracted a glass and a bottle of whisky from his desk; his hands were shaking so hard he had difficulty pouring out the drink. He gulped it down quickly, then poured another. The intercom on his desk buzzed harshly.

  ‘I’m busy, Miss Wiggins’, he said shakily into the speaker. He flipped off the switch and again raised the glass to his lips.

  Christie returned the bottle to the desk drawer, then sat staring at the wall. It’s all her fault, he was thinking. If I hadn’t got mixed up with that little slut this never would have happened. Why is it, he thought resentfully, a man can’t have a little fun without getting into trouble. It’s not fair, and it wasn’t really my fault. She led me into it.

  It is extraordinary to what extent a man will rationalize to convince himself that his troubles are not of his own making. In point of fact, Christie had pursued Jeanie relentlessly, pestering her night after night for a date until finally she gave in through sheer weariness of turning him down, and after he had achieved the relationship he sought, again by wearing down the girl’s resistance, it was he who contrived to drag the affair on and on. Jeanie would have been happy to have dropped it almost as soon as it began but she had been a weak-willed girl and the combination of Christie’s aggressive tactics and his begrudgingly offered gifts were too much for her to cope with.

  There was a discreet knocking at the door. Christie wearily raised his head and irritably answered, ‘Yes? What is it?’

  The door opened and Miss Wiggins thrust her head into the room. ‘Jack?’ she asked questioningly.

  ‘Dammit, Mary, I was trying to think.’

  A faint blush appeared on the powdered cheeks of Miss Wiggins. ‘I’m – sorry,’ she faltered, ‘but the intercom was cut off and that man that was here . . . he seemed quite unpleasant. I – just wanted to – check.’

  ‘Now that you’re here you might as well come on in’, Christie grumbled.

  Miss Wiggins closed the door behind her, then advanced haltingly towards the desk. Her face wore an expression of timid expectancy.

  Well, thought the realtor to himself sourly, I always have Miss Wiggins.

  Fifteen

  AUGUST IS a bad month in the Los Angeles environs. It is warm, sometimes humid, and often smoggy. On week-ends the normally congested traffic becomes a quagmire of vehicles fleeing the city for the comparative comforts of the beach or desert.

  At ten o’clock on a Saturday morning Carmichael fought the traffic southbound on the Hollywood Freeway. He had long since concluded that for some inexplicable reason people living on the northern perimeter of Los Angeles preferred recreation areas lying south of the city, and vice versa. Grimly he endured the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the eye-smarting atmosphere, and the idiocies of Southern California drivers. He made the cloverleaf turn at the civic centre and began fighting his way westward.

  It was with a good deal of relief that he manoeuvred the tired Ford into a parking place behind the Sheriff’s Substation. He made his way into Horowitz’s office without help, there to find his friend gloomily poring over a welter of papers scattered over his desk.

  ‘Morning, Carl’, Carmichael said in what he hoped was a cheerful tone. His only response was a tired nod.

  ‘Not so good, huh?’ Carmichael pursued.

  ‘Lousy.’ Horowitz got to his feet with a hollow sigh, crossed the room, and filled an enormous brown porcelain cup with coffee from a percolator. ‘Coffee, Carmichael?’ Horowitz said without turning around.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Coffee?’ the detective repeated in a louder voice.

  ‘Eh?’ said Carmichael. ‘Oh. No thank you, Carl.’

  Horowitz gave a tired smile. ‘Little groggy this morning, are you? You don’t seem to be hearing too good.’

  ‘No, I feel fine. Watching you get that coffee just made me think of something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, it’s probably not important. You got anything new in that stack of papers there?’

  ‘Not a thing. Just between you and me, Carmichael, I’m getting discouraged as hell.’

  ‘I’m not exactly optimistic myself’, Carmichael admitted. ‘One thing keeps bothering me.’

  Horowitz plunked back down behind his desk, setting the steaming cup of coffee in front of him. ‘Yeah, me too. Just one little detail. Like, who did it?’

  Carmichael chuckled slightly. ‘The angle I can’t figure is how that girl Jeanie fits into the thing. If we just knew for sure it was murder it would help. What sort of read-out are you getting on her background?’

  Horowitz shuffled through the papers, came up with a manila envelope, and tossed it into Carmichael’s lap. ‘Have a look.’

  Carmichael spent several minutes reading the reports. It was a life history with which he was all too familiar – farm girl from the Midwest, runs away from home when she is fourteen, comes to California, gets work as a waitress by lying about her age. Usual scrapes with the law, picked up drinking in a bar when she was sixteen, juvenile court locates her parents, ships her back ho
me, two months later parents notify probation officer the girl has left home again, think she’s headed back for California but can’t be located. Next official record is marriage licence filed in San Diego County, then a two-year period filled in by investigating officer’s report that girl and her husband, a sailor, live more or less normal married life in San Diego except that neighbours reported Jeanie dated heavily during the times her husband was on sea duty. Next entry was a drunk driving charge when Jeanie was nineteen. She pleaded guilty, was fined and released. Investigators picked up the trail two years later when she left San Diego for the Los Angeles area; she worked as a waitress at two bars in the area before being hired by Willie Delaney. Her former employers were non-committal; she was reasonably reliable, they reported, did her work well and was popular with both fellow employees and customers. More reports followed: from her landlady, the people she worked with, the local credit bureau.

  Carmichael finished reading the papers and stuffed them back into the envelope. He pulled at his nose reflectively.

  ‘I just feel we’re missing something, Carl’, he said finally.

  The detective answered peevishly, ‘Dammit, I know we’re missing something. But what is it? Every lead we get turns out to be a big fat nothing.’

  ‘Let’s see’, Carmichael mused. ‘That address was down on the Strand somewhere. What was it, an apartment?’

  Horowitz shook his head. ‘Nope. A small house. More like a bungalow – three rooms. Pretty crummy.’

  ‘You’ve been over it pretty thoroughly, I suppose?’

  ‘Sure. Turned it upside-down. The usual pile of junk. Jesus, some women are pigs.’

  ‘Your people searched it?’

  ‘No. Local police. I went over there myself after they finished, and I saw the report.’

  ‘Tell you what’, Carmichael said. ‘L.A.P.D. has a real hot-shot investigator. His name is Sam Bagley. How about giving him a crack at that place?’

  ‘Sure. But I don’t see what good it would do.’

  Carmichael grinned. ‘Chances are, none at all. But you never know. I’ll make the arrangements.’

  ‘Okay.’ Horowitz slumped wearily in his chair. ‘Pulled in Harrison last night, by the way. Worked him over pretty good, but you were right. We didn’t do any good. He just kept claiming Willie Delaney was an old friend of his. He wouldn’t think of harming a hair of good old Willie’s head, and so on. Then the sonofabitch would just sit there and grin at us, knowing damn well we knew he was lying and that there was nothing that we could do about it. Damn!’ Horowitz smote one hairy fist against his palm. ‘Guys like that make me see red. I’m gonna nail that bastard. Maybe it won’t be this time and maybe it won’t be the next time, but we’ll get him and when we do we’ll get him good.’

  A uniformed deputy poked his head in the door. ‘Man out here to see you, Lieutenant’, he said. ‘Name’s Williams.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Send him in. This guy called me up early this morning. Said he wanted to see me. I told him to come on around. His name is John Williams. He’s a buddy of Craig’s and Ortega’s. The three of them were in Korea together’, he explained to Carmichael.

  Carmichael nodded. ‘Oh, yes. The Third Musketeer.’

  Horowitz blinked. ‘What’s that? Oh, yeah. I guess that’s what they called them.’

  John Williams entered the room.

  Horowitz introduced himself and Carmichael, then motioned John into a straight-backed chair. ‘Now, Mr. Williams, what’s on your mind?’ the detective asked pleasantly.

  John moistened his lips, then began hesitantly, ‘Well, it’s – about Pat. Mrs. Craig. George’s wife, you know.’

  ‘Yes?’ Horowitz said encouragingly.

  ‘I guess I better begin right at the beginning. I introduced the two of them, you know. Or I suppose you didn’t know. Anyway, I did. When the three of us got out of the service George and I went to U.C.L.A. together. Tony thought college was a waste of time. I met Pat when we were in our second year. She was just getting started as a singer, working in some little dump in Venice. I took her out a couple of times and of course she met George. They got along just fine right from the first, but George didn’t want to ask her out. He didn’t want to cut me out, you know. But I could see what was happening, so I told him for Chrissake go ahead. There were plenty of girls around. But I’m getting ahead of myself.’ John paused, dipped into his coat pocket, and brought out a packet of cigarettes. He then fumbled absently for some matches.

  Horowitz tossed him a box from his desk drawer.

  ‘Thanks.’ John lit up with slow deliberate motions, blew out the match, dropped it in a square glass ashtray on the desk, then took a long drag on the cigarette. He stretched out his legs and slouched back in the chair.

  ‘You know, it’s a funny thing. L.A. is a big town and I haven’t lived here very long. About six years now, I guess. But it’s amazing how many things you can pick up when you’re not even trying. I guess you fellows are acquainted with Jock Harrison.’

  Horowitz and Carmichael exchanged grim smiles. ‘We know him’, Horowitz said.

  ‘I’ll bet you do. Well, Pat Craig knew him too. Before her name was Craig. He – uh – sort of sponsored her, you might say. A young kid like that has a rough time getting started. She doesn’t make much money and she’s gotta have nice clothes and all that kind of stuff. When I first met Pat I didn’t know she was one of Harrison’s girls. I found out about that later. That was after she started going with George. I didn’t say anything because George is kind of funny about some things. Then after they got married Pat asked me to come down to where she was working at the time because she wanted to talk to me. She knew that I knew about Harrison and she asked me if I ever told George about it. I said no and she said that was good because she didn’t think George would be very sympathetic. She said she and George were very happy together and she didn’t have anything more to do with Harrison or anybody else. She said please not to ever tell George. I said sure, I had no intention of telling him anyway, and I didn’t.’

  John shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wet his lips with his tongue, then continued.

  ‘So, the point of the whole thing is this. You guys are digging around trying to find a murderer and all these people are involved in it. Harrison and Willie Delaney and Pat and George. And Tony too, I guess. But that hasn’t got anything to do with Pat. Anyway, sooner or later you’re gonna find out about Harrison and Pat. That is, how it was with them before she got married. And then you’ll talk to George or some reporter will get a hold of it and it will all be out. That’s why I’ve come to you now. I figure if I do you the favour of giving you this information maybe you could do me the favour of keeping it quiet. It’s got nothing to do with Goodall’s murder or that girl Jeanie or anything else. I suppose it’s your job to check things like this, but I don’t see why George has to know about it.’

  John stopped speaking, then snuffed out his only half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray.

  Carmichael spoke first. His voice was slow and easy, but his eyes were bright with interest. ‘This is rather interesting, Mr. Williams, and I’m glad you came to talk to us. However, there are a couple of things that puzzle me. You say that Harrison, Willie Delaney, and Mrs. Craig are all tied up in this. What makes you think so?’

  John raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Well, it’s rather obvious, isn’t it? That girl that got killed, Jeanie, worked for Delaney, and Harrison was involved with her. Then that Palos Verdes land deal that Goodall was upset about. I naturally assumed the killings were related.’

  ‘Well,’ Carmichael smiled, ‘you are assuming more than we do. We’re not even convinced the waitress was murdered. It might have been an accident or suicide.’

  John shrugged. ‘Maybe. But the point is you’re going to be looking pretty closely at all the people involved here and that’s going to include Pat and George. And you haven’t answered my question. Will you keep George from knowing about Pat and Harrison?’
/>
  ‘Lieutenant Horowitz will have to answer that one’, Carmichael said.

  The lieutenant cleared his throat. ‘It’s not our intention to cause family trouble, Mr. Williams. Sometimes these things happen but, uh, in this case I don’t see why we couldn’t have a little talk with Mrs. Craig without involving her husband. Of course, you never know what these things lead to.’

  ‘Sure. I understand. I’d appreciate the effort, though. Well, if you don’t have any other questions guess I’ll be going. Thanks.’

  Getting nods of dismissal from both the men, John left the room.

  Horowitz turned to Carmichael with a quizzical look. ‘Well?’

  The old man shook his head, a thoughtful frown on his face. ‘I don’t know, Carl. I can’t quite fit him in. How much have you turned up on him?’

  Horowitz shrugged. ‘We got his service record. You know about that, of course. He went to college when he got out, like he says. Had a real good record in school. Want me to get the folder?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, like I say, there’s not much there really. When he got out of school he got himself a job with some electronic outfit over by the airport. I forgot the name of it. He’s still there. Very highly thought of by his employers. The only thing that really ties him into this at all is his friendship with Craig and Ortega. And, oh yes. Jack Christie is his landlord.’

  ‘And he knows about Harrison and Mrs. Craig’, Carmichael pointed out.

  ‘Yeah. That too.’

  ‘Where was he the night Goodall was killed?’

  ‘Claims he was at home. He doesn’t have any witnesses and there’s no way to check it.’

  Carmichael gave a noncommital grunt. He leaned back in his wheel-chair and brushed away a stray wisp of grey hair.

  There was a brief silence. Carmichael was thinking. It’s so easy to lose your way in a case like this. So many people involved, each with their own little axe to grind. Must keep your eye on the fundamentals. Who profited from Goodall’s death? Who had the opportunity to kill him? For motive we would have to list his wife and granddaughter who inherit from him. Yet financially in the long run they were probably better off with him alive, unless one or the other had an immediate need for cash. Jack Christie, I suppose, would have to be considered, though the business disagreement he had with Goodall would hardly seem to justify murder. Tony Ortega? No motive except for the painting. But Tony would know that a painting like that would be very difficult to dispose of. Probably take years and he doesn’t seem like the patient type. Ah, yes, the painting. A motive for anybody, really. So much for motive. And as to opportunity, there’s the real stickler. The only real solid possibility there is the guard, Otis Phipps. And that has been a dead end. There is something about that killing that doesn’t fit, the old man mused. There is a piece missing.