Poor Poor Ophelia

by Carolyn Weston

  “Yeah, that’s what they’d do.” Krug looked at him speculatively. “Okay, she got busted, then what? You acted for her? In court, I mean?”

  “No, it didn’t get that far. I just bailed her out.”

  “You mean the case is still pending.”

  “More water?” Casey asked.

  Farr shook his head. “No, thanks. Yes, still pending.” He blinked again, dizzily, refusing Casey’s offer of a cigarette. “I don’t smoke, thanks.” A deep shuddering breath went through him. “I can’t believe it. She was so—I don’t know—”

  “Alive,” Krug filled in for him. “They all are. That’s what everybody says. He or she was so alive. They can’t believe it.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do hear these things over and over again.” Abruptly, Farr stood up, crumpling the paper cup. “If there’s nothing else—”

  “There is,” but Casey made it sound easy. “Next of kin. Any family you know of.”

  “Well, there’s a brother. And I think,” he said vaguely, “I heard something about an uncle.” Then, distractedly, he peered into their faces. “Was it—suicide you think?”

  “Can’t tell yet,” Krug said. “She have any reason you know of to kill herself?”

  “No.” Again a shuddering breath. “There was the accident, though. A mild concussion, they said. And of course the pot thing. Possession. She s-seemed afraid. But of course,” and his voice trailed off.

  “This brother of hers,” Krug reminded him. “You know where we can locate him?”

  “Uh—let me see if I can remember what she—” As he hesitated, Casey and Krug exchanged a glance. Stalling? Second thoughts? With a patience amazing in so irascible a man, Krug smiled faintly, waiting while David Farr thought it over. “I—I think she might have said something—a place down here somewhere. In Santa Monica. Some sort of club or—”

  “Synanon.”

  Amazed as he always was by Krug’s seemingly intuitive guesses, Casey observed Farr’s surprise and the beginnings of something like chagrin.

  “Yes, that’s it, I believe. Synanon. He had some trouble a while back with drugs, I believe.”

  “Looks like it runs in the family. Okay,” Krug said briskly, “if you’ll just walk back with us and sign the form—” and they started off down the corridor again.

  By the time they reached the squad room upstairs, Farr appeared self-possessed—as dry as Krug and coldly matter-of-fact—which fact, Casey knew, bugged Krug no end. “Smart prick lawyer,” he said when Farr had left. “I’d like to take one apart for exercise every morning. Now, what do you figure that razzle-dazzle about the brother was all about?”

  “Protecting himself probably. After all,” Casey said, “if you were a junior member of a fancy Beverly Hills law firm, you wouldn’t want any connection with the drug scene, would you?”

  “Maybe not.” Krug sucked his teeth, then delicately extracted a sliver of hamburger, flicking it into his ashtray. “Okay, let’s forget it till we get the preliminary M.E. Hey, Ralph,” he called across the long room, “what’s doing on that knifing case?”

  Overweight and balding, Ralph Zwingler grimaced drolly. “Nada.” Unsticking himself from his chair, he ambled over. “Three pickups, all with flick knives, all in the vicinity, all with a beef against the victim. Two are winos, the other one’s a glue sniffer, or something like that. For my money, they should all be locked up.”

  “How about witnesses?”

  Ralph Zwingler shrugged. “You know that turf. Everybody sees everything, and nobody knows nothing. We either lean on everybody who was half a mile around, or go eenie-meenie-minie-moe, and get ourselves some suspects and witnesses.”

  Krug nodded. “Unless the Lieutenant tells you otherwise, try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll haul the whole goddam street in.” He glanced around as Casey moved. “Where you going?”

  “To play eenie-meenie-minie-moe.”

  “Not till we get that report on the girl.”

  For an instant Casey’s breath caught. “You expecting anything?”

  “I always expect something.” He kept looking at Casey. “You notice anything special about her?”

  Casey tapped a Carlton out of his pack. “One, she was too pretty to die so soon. Two, the belt of her jacket was missing.”

  “Three, she had a gorgeous pair of tickets. Four—ah, you’re blind, sport, you’re blind! You have to wait for a report to see the hit marks?”

  No wonder David J. Farr hadn’t known her very well. A drug addict. “Okay,” he said, “I’m blind. You think Farr knows?

  “Could be.” Looking pleased with himself, Krug pulled a kitchen match from his shirt pocket and lit it, Marlboro-country-style, with his thumbnail. Shoving the sulphurous flame under Casey’s nose, he said ironically, “Allow me.” Then, letting the match burn down almost to his fingers, he fished a thin cigar out of the box in his coat breast pocket, and puffed on it mightily. “We’ll see,” he said calmly as smoke billowed around his time- and weather-cured face. “That’s what we’re here for. To wait and see what’s a case and what ain’t. Then we move—right?”

  THREE

  Dizziness and the nausea of shock persisted, but by holding himself rigid, frantically focused, David Farr managed to get to his car. Then he began to shake violently. “Oh, Christ,” he kept whispering as his teeth chattered and he fumbled to get the key in the ignition. “Oh, Christ—Christ—” and inside the narrow cockpit of his second-hand XKE sportster, the metallic-acid smell of his own body was suddenly strong and musty. An animal smell. The stench of fear.

  Rolling down the window, he breathed in deeply, groaning unconsciously as he exhaled. Her drowned face kept flickering behind his eyes—seaweedy hair; sticky-lashed closed sleeping eyelids; lips drained and thinned and lifeless. Holly. No more. What did I do to her?

  He had met her at a party he hadn’t wanted to attend—one of those client’s bashes which were compulsory, he’d discovered, if you expected to prosper at Scobie, Stone and Levinson. When in Rome, do as the Romans. On the West Coast, he had found, clients liked social mix-ups. “The entourage syndrome,” he privately called the custom. They got a kick out of introducing “my lawyer” or “my surgeon” or “my very own accountant” to their friends.

  Feeling adrift among strangers that evening, he had wandered around with a drink in his hand, wondering how soon he could decently leave. Then he had spied the girl. Another loner, obviously.

  “No, not Molly,” she’d shrieked over the din of the rock band. “It’s Holly. Holly Berry. Quaint, yes?”

  “Oh, very,” he’d yelled back. “Want to dance, Holly Berry?”

  “Not now. Maybe later, okay? Come on.” And as unaffectedly as a child, she had taken his hand, leading him away from the earsplitting twang of electric guitars and a portable organ boosted electronically to the highest pitch.

  Out a French door of the sprawling hillside house they went, down a winding walk to a terrace illumined only by the eerie turquoise glow from underwater lights in the swimming pool. “Wow,” she breathed. “Listen! Peace, man, peace.”

  “Don’t you like rock?”

  “Sure, doesn’t everybody? But these private party gigs are a drag.”

  “Ah, I see now. You’re with the band.”

  “Sort of. Like a sister bit.” She made a childish face. “Sometimes when they’re stoned they let me sing. But not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “Very Important People here, man. Any minute now they get signed for a recording contract, next thing they know they’re the Beatles.”

  “They believe—but I gather, you don’t.”

  “You want me to bad-mouth my brother’s friends?” She tossed back her long straight silky-pale hair. Her wide eyes—blue? green? he couldn’t tell—glistened with shimmering water reflections. “Anyway,” she was s
aying, “never mind about them, okay? Let’s you and me talk like crazy. You look like a rapper, and I feel like rapping.”

  “Well,” he said, pleased, “that’s quite a responsibility. Tongue-tying, in fact. I mean, what if it turns out I bore you?”

  In the bluish unsteady glare from the pool, her smile was melting. “Eastern Establishment,” she said softly. “Harvard or Yale. Prep school. The last of a long illustrious line of loot-laden Wasps.”

  In spite of himself, Farr laughed. “Right, wrong, and wrong.” He felt suddenly and absurdly happy. “Yes on Harvard—a scholarship. No on prep school. A thousand times no on the loot-laden kinfolk.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said wisely. “We have here a poor but honest boy out to realize the American Dream?” She nodded judiciously. “Very interesting. Veree. What’s your name, Poor-But-Honest?”

  He told her.

  “I’ve got a twin named Delbert,” she confessed. “Would you believe it? Delbert Berry. He should call himself Huckle. Names can wreck you if you’re not careful.”

  It was too chilly by the pool, but they stayed anyway, huddled together, rapping—as Holly called it—until finally Farr became aware that it was after midnight. “Listen,” he said reluctantly, “I’ve got to show inside for a little while,” and he explained that the host was a client, he himself less a guest here this evening than the bona-fide representative of his firm.

  “So he’s a slave, too,” she commented. “Right on for Poor-But-Honest headed for the top.”

  “Now, listen—”

  “Leave it lay, man. I never heard a worse reason for coming to a party. But I forgive you, P-but-H.” Then she sighed gustily. “Okay, hand me a card and tell me to call any time, any time at all.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to brush you off.” Helplessly he searched her tender almost-beautiful face, hoping she’d meant it as a gag. But she was either serious or not relenting. “All right,” he said at last, handing her his card. “But I’d like to do the calling, Holly. I mean, I want to. Oh, hell,” he groaned, “I just get deeper and deeper in it, don’t I? But I do like you, and I want to see you again.”

  “ ‘Scobie, Stone and Levinson,’ ” she read. “Lawyers, yet. Big Beverly Hills mouthpieces.” As she looked up at him, something curiously like apprehension flickered in him. Then she smiled, and whatever it was, was gone. “David J. Farr, do you promise to be my lawyer when I get in trouble?”

  “Well, that all depends. But you said ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ You’re expecting trouble?”

  She only smiled and inquired if he was listed in the phone book. His home phone.

  Yes, he admitted, in the Western Section.

  “Me, too. I mean I live in that part of town. Just imagine,” she said drolly, “neighbors yet. Like you Brentwood, me Ocean Park?”

  “No, me Santa Monica. I live on Ocean Avenue.”

  “Right in the middle of the geriatric set.” She giggled. “Man, you surprise me!”

  “Oh, come on”—he laughed—“it isn’t all that bad. Only every other building is a retirement setup. Anyway, I like being near the water.”

  “Not me,” and her shudder looked real, not done for effect. She was scared to death of the sea, she confessed—a disappointment for Farr, since he had almost made up his mind to ask her to go sailing sometime.

  But anyway, he promised himself, he would call her, and soon. Having decided that, shivering slightly in the manzanita-scented chill dry night wind, he said goodnight and left her, climbing the path to the blazing house, where he hung around until he was sure his host and hostess had noticed him. Then he waved goodnight and slipped out. By the time he got home, Holly was there waiting.

  FOUR

  “Well,” that wasn’t much use,” Casey said disgustedly as he hung up. “Delbert Berry has left Synanon. Split, they say, a couple of weeks ago. They weren’t very happy about admitting the fact.”

  “So who’s surprised?” Krug grunted. “Not one in a hundred of those junkies ever kicks the habit.”

  “Maybe so, but you’ve got to admit Synanon’s got a better record than any other cure factory.”

  “Sure, and why? Because they never let the poor suckers go, that’s why. They got a whole empire—garages, gas stations, what-have-you—all run by free junkie labor.”

  “You mean ex-junkie, don’t you? And they get board and room, plus some walking-around money.”

  “What’re you, public relations for them all of a sudden?”

  “Just keeping it straight, Al, keeping it all straight.” Casey picked at what looked like a pimple on his wrist. As it began to itch, he realized it must be a fleabite. Time to chase down the family bowsers, he thought, and change their flea collars. Who else but his mother would tolerate no less than three homely mutts around? “Listen,” he suggested, “what if I take a run over there—try talking to a couple of the Synanon people? Maybe one of them’ll know something about that uncle Farr mentioned.”

  “Better save it.” Krug glanced at his watch. “Won’t be any time now till Ralph rolls in with his batch of so-called witnesses.”

  And he was right, as usual. A few minutes later Zwingler arrived with his partner and another team, bringing between them a mixed bag of possible witnesses to the knifing. And, as expected, all proved to be deaf, dumb and blind.

  After an hour of intensive questioning, Casey gave up on the one he’d drawn—an amiable, talkative young hotcat with mountains of hair, blue-lensed spectacles, and a murderous case of halitosis. “Okay,” Casey said wearily, “you can go now. But if you should happen—”

  “Sure, Captain, you bet. I remember something, I’m gonna slide right in here and lay it on you.”

  “You do that.”

  As he padded out fast, leaving behind him the fetid scent of a mouthful of caries, Casey opened the nearest window, breathing in deeply. The fog was lifting, he noticed. Burning off, as they said around here. In an hour or so the sky would be blue, the ocean sparkling, the horizon almost limitless. A nice day for the beach.

  Krug was still busy with his possible witness, so Casey wandered out, heading for the morgue without realizing it—perhaps because he was thinking about David Farr. A young attorney. A corporate specialist. David Farr was exactly what his own father had wanted him to be. A professional man. No use trying to convince George Kellog that what his son had chosen was also a profession—not lucrative, to be sure, but nevertheless honorable and useful to society…

  “Beware,” the morgue attendant muttered as Casey entered the morgue, “himself is here, loaded for a day of forensic miracles.”

  Casey grinned, and forewarned, gave him the okay signal. He braced himself for Harold Deacon, M.D., Ph.D., member of the innermost councils of the John Birch Society. “Morning, Doctor,” he called breezily. To Deacon, it was always morning. Keep off politics, he warned himself. “Anything interesting happening yet?”

  “That would depend on what you consider interesting, wouldn’t it?” Round one, Dr. Deacon. Fishy behind tinted spectacles, his pale eyes glared expressionlessly. “All right, come on, I know what you want,” and crackling like a paper man in his stiff white laboratory coat, he led the way.

  Holly Berry. Once again she lay exposed—half effigy, half human—a poor helpless corpse without even the privilege of modesty. But at least, Casey thought, she isn’t nameless.

  “Good thing, too,” Deacon replied when he told him. “You get these waterlogged ones, it makes fingerprinting a problem. On the other hand, she wasn’t in very long. Only a few hours, I’d say. Overnight, maybe.”

  Tall and skinny, badly stooped, he reminded Casey of Uriah Heep. It was his hand-rubbing, perhaps. He was always dry-washing—as if the chill of the dead could never be wiped from his fingers.

  “My preliminary report’s ready,” he was saying, “but as long as you’re here, I don’t mind spe
lling it out. See here—” Deacon was pointing to a contusion below her left ear which Casey had hardly noticed. “Doesn’t look like much, does it? But that’s what killed her, not the water. If you want the particulars, read the report. What it boils down to is somebody clouted her, and it did the job.”

  Casey sucked in his breath. “It couldn’t have been accidental?”

  “An off chance, maybe. But you’d better figure on homicide. Could’ve been a karate blow. But that’s your department, isn’t it? She was knocked around, too, but the abrasions don’t look new to me.”

  “We heard she was in a wreck.”

  “Might account for some of it.” Over his granddaddy spectacles which had come in fashion again—although Deacon would not know it—his eyes looked alive now. “You saw the needle marks, I suppose?” pointing to the delicate flesh on the inside of her right arm. “She must’ve been left-handed. A novice, I’d say. That’s the only place she’s got ’em, and your ordinary user’s usually stuck up like a pincushion.” He hesitated, his pale clean fingers resting—almost possessively, Casey thought—on the lifeless flesh. “Something else, too. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but we don’t want to pass up any details, do we?” Deacon was famous for preliminary reports full of what he called “details,” and he looked very pleased with himself, pointing them out. “See her wrists. No, look closer,” he urged impatiently, “she won’t grab you.”

  Casey bent closer, noticing suddenly that the tiny arm hairs were gone from both wrists—as if cuffs had worn them away.

  “Could be something to do with that wreck you mentioned,” Deacon said. “There’s a bit of chafing. I’d say adhesive tape, maybe—lots of it, and tight. No abrasions to account for bandaging, so your guess is as good as mine.” Then he grinned widely, telegraphing a Deacon-style witticism. “Maybe she wore two of those wide-band wristwatches? Your mod replacement for the chastity belt.”

  Dull salacious bastard. Wondering what Dr. Freud might have made of Deacon, Casey concealed his distaste, asking noncommittally if there was any sign of attack, anything of that nature. And in favorite territory, Deacon turned solemn once more.