Poor Poor Ophelia

by Carolyn Weston

“Can’t do that, Mr. Saretti. You see,” Krug said, “she’s dead. You can read all about it in the papers.” Then thanking the speechless landlord, he firmly closed the door in his face.

  Silently they surveyed the shabby apartment—a single room really, with a hot plate, a mini-refrigerator, a studio bed, table and two chairs. The bedcover was newish, Casey noticed, a piece of madras in several shades of orange. Arranged on it were two velvet pillows, one purple, the other brown—all from the Akron store on Sepulveda, he guessed, as were the badly sewn curtains which matched the spread.

  “What a dump,” Krug muttered. “And for this these stupid kids leave home?”

  “Looks like she tried with it, anyway.” Casey peeked out the window. “Nice view of nothing. You figure that uncle story is legitimate?”

  “Sounded okay to me. The only thing he faked was where the brother lived.”

  “And maybe what her friendly lawyer took out of here.”

  Krug grinned. “Sharp, Casey, very sharp. Next thing I know you’ll have a sergeant’s badge, and I’ll have to start worrying who gets the next lieutenancy.” He hesitated, looking around the room. “Okay, let’s get started. You take that end, I’ll take this. Too much to hope for, I guess, she might have an address book, anything like that. But maybe we can find something. Take it easy,” he reminded, “we might want some prints out of here later.”

  For instance, Casey thought, David J. Farr’s?

  SEVEN

  Their search produced a photo of the girl, which they confiscated, two postcards signed “Del,” both mailed in Venice, and a telegram—obviously much-read from the look of it—sent care of General Delivery, Santa Monica, two years ago. “Regret inform your father passed away early today,” it read. “We pray for him,” and it was signed, “Reverend Parker.”

  “Not much use probably,” Krug commented, “but let’s take it along. If we can locate this reverend, maybe he’ll know the brother’s whereabouts.”

  Then they left quickly, by-passing the Sarettis with practiced ease.

  Oppressed by the meanness of the dead girl’s existence, the morbid greed in the Sarettis’ faces as they had waited full of questions at the bottom of the stairs, Casey breathed in deeply once the house was behind them. Human nature, he thought, keep it. Then recalling the silhouettes of the fat pair standing side by side against the dusty light from the oval door pane, he smiled to himself. Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Relieved by absurdity, his spirits lifted in the fresh air, the late low sunlight which bathed the street in a benevolent glow. Across the way, he noticed a woman wearing a faded muumuu watching them from her front porch. “Evening Outlook reader,” he murmured. “They couldn’t have got word of that medical report in time to print it, could they?”

  “They got name and address, that’s enough for that type. She’ll cancel her subscription if it ain’t murder tomorrow.” The door on Krug’s side stuck on the high curbing as he got into the car. He tugged at it irascibly. And when Casey slid in behind the wheel, his weight releasing the door again, Krug slammed it so hard the chassis shook. In silence, they drove off down Pacific Street.

  Dry-mouthed and tobacco-hungry—he had smoked his last one on the way—Casey looked longingly at the Coke and cigarette ads plastered on a grocery store window. Murder leaves a very bad taste, he thought. And there are times when you wish you’d listened to your father.

  “For a guy who knows everything about everybody,” Krug was muttering, “that Saretti character was sure light on names. We got Uncle Nameless and Friend Nameless—a fifty-percent blank, as far as I can see.”

  “Could turn out to be a hundred percent.” Casey licked dry lips. “We’re only guessing the friend is Farr. You think Saretti might know where the brother is?”

  “Could be.” Fishing out a cheroot, Krug lit it with one of his sulphurous-smelling kitchen matches. “That kind of foxy slob always holds back something.” He puffed mightily. “But in his case, it’s probably nothing important.” He puffed again. “Unless she was pushing.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely. Sure, they picked her up on possession, but it was only one joint, Farr said. That’s standard equipment in her set.” Realizing they needed a telephone now—the Sarettis didn’t have one—he slowed at the corner of Main. “You want to phone from here?”

  “Nah, let’s check in. We might as well save our money. Farr’s bound to be the type to give us an argument.”

  Casey doubted this. Farr was too smart. But having learned the hard way not to argue with Krug, he kept his doubts to himself. Noticing that the traffic on Main was heavier now, he glanced at his watch. It was nearly five. Quitting time. For an hour the freeways and surface streets would be clogged—the sort of fast murderous traffic he enjoyed, even though he knew the daily toll of lives and limbs it took.

  “Remind me to call home,” Krug was saying. “Roast we’re having—ten bucks’ worth—and I have to miss it.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Her mother’s birthday, what else?” He grinned around the cigar clenched in his teeth. “You get married, make sure she’s an orphan.”

  “And rob my kids of a set of grandparents?”

  “Let your own folks do double duty. Believe me, it’ll be worth it.”

  Relieved of thinking by these effortless banalities, Casey focused his mind on David J. Farr. An attorney. A corporate specialist. Which meant his acting for Holly had been friendly—as he’d said—not professional. But like how friendly? Casey wondered. And did it signify more than coincidence that despite the hugeness of the metropolitan area which included Santa Monica, Farr and the girl should be local residents? True, as far as life styles were concerned, Ocean Avenue and Pacific Street might as well be as distant as Bel Air and Watts. Nevertheless, the actual mileage could be covered in a quarter of an hour or less. Convenient, Casey thought. Very. And therefore—in the language of the soap operas his mother watched—the possibility of a relationship. But if so, Farr wasn’t admitting anything.

  “What’s doing?” Krug inquired of the office in general as they walked in a minute before five. “Any confessions, admissions, or suspicions?”

  “Deadsville here,” Ralph Zwingler replied. “But Van Nuys just put out a bulletin. They picked up some nut claims she grabbed the Sampson kid, but somebody else killed him. A dud, they figure. So do I. That witness who saw a bearded man putting the kid in a car seemed solid to me. On the other hand”—he shrugged—“the woman’s got a record back East for kook stuff like child stealing. Nothing violent, though.”

  “No woman would’ve messed up the kid like that,” his partner, Haynes, said gloomily. “That’s a Leopold and Loeb job. Right out of the detective magazines. Some rotten pervert’s thrill kill.” Wearily he rubbed his eyes, then replaced his dark-rimmed glasses. “Sometimes I wish I was a bus driver, they sleep nights.”

  “Go on,” said Krug, “they got traffic nightmares. And everybody knows they don’t like people, either.” Then he turned to Casey. “Okay, partner, I’ll get a teletype out on the reverend. Then I’ll nail down Farr while you do your bit at Synanon. Ralph, how about you and Haynes starting a check list going? I want every hotel and motel in this district covered before tomorrow morning. What we’re looking for is a big guy about fifty-five or so. Sandy bushy hair and a mustache. It’s a fifty-fifty chance his name could be Berry.”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Casey’s mother said—a style of conversation she had adopted from television—“you’re going to be late. As if you weren’t always.” Her sigh was a soft hissing in his ear. “Well, it’s stew tonight, so it’ll warm up fine. We’re going to the movies, by the way, so the dogs’ll be inside. Don’t forget to let them out first thing you come in.” Then, surprisingly, she giggled. “Omar Sharif”—she pronounced it sheriff—“in that Russian movie. They’re showing it again at the Aero.”

  “That
’s the third time,” Casey said. “Haven’t you had enough of his soulful eyes?”

  “Not yet. Anyway, he’s a relief after all those sex-mad motorcycle toughies. Don’t forget about the dogs.”

  “I won’t. See you later,” and he hung up. “Our deal still on?” he asked Krug, who was on the phone but evidently waiting. “A buck for every solid fact I can pry out of our neighbors at Synanon.”

  “A deal I expect to cost me nothing.” Abruptly his grin disappeared. “Mr. Farr,” he said harshly into the receiver, “this is Sergeant Krug, Santa Monica Police again. We’d like to talk to you some more about the Berry girl—”

  If Farr did it, Casey thought as he walked out, that’s the panic button. And surprised, he found himself hoping it wasn’t. Why, he wondered—because he liked Farr? Then he realized the answer was more self-revealing than that—one of those revelations like a two-sided mirror which unmasks both analyst and analysand: Krug wanted Farr to be guilty, because for Krug, Farr’s guilt would confirm some prejudice.

  God, Casey thought as he climbed into the car again, his certainty only increasing his shame. If we despise each other—not only as individuals but types—how can we go on working together? But they had to. It was as simple as that. And the burden of need was his, Casey realized. As the burden of failure would be, too.

  Feeling mysteriously struck—weakened but perhaps wiser—he drove the few blocks to the beach-front building which housed Synanon headquarters. Parking sloppily in front, he entered, thinking, Know thyself. Know thyself, hotshot. Then he buttonholed the first person he saw—a hairy adolescent—and began asking questions about Delbert Berry.

  EIGHT

  He had to meet some people at six, he explained, an unexpected and unavoidable appointment.

  “Oh, that’s too bad, Mr. Farr. But you do look better—”

  Than what? he wondered irritably. Was it her country background that made her invariably come up with these personal comments? But as the secretary smiled sweetly, he relented. She was a nice girl, warm and sympathetic and wholesome, a good secretary. It wasn’t her fault she was homely. “I’ll be in early tomorrow, if anyone asks,” he promised. “Meantime you might dig out that Jasprey file and have it ready on my desk tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Farr. Get a good night’s sleep now. ’Bye.”

  My office wife, he thought sourly. In the carpeted corridor leading to the elevators, Muzak played with insidious softness. I’ll see you again whenever something or other. He punched the call button savagely, shutting his mind to the suggestion of the lyric, the apprehension which pulsed in him like a separate life.

  “Yessir, Mr. Farr, coming right up!” the parking attendant called from his cubbyhole booth as Farr stepped out into the subterranean garage.

  The day’s gathering of carbon monoxide stung his eyes and burned the sensitive membranes in his nostrils. Farr sneezed twice as he fished in his pockets for coins. By the time his car whirled up, radial tires singing on the glossy pavement, his eyes were streaming.

  “Gets you, don’t it,” the attendant commented. “Pure poison, that’s what it is. I oughtta be drawing hazardous-duty pay. Thanks, Mr. Farr. See you tomorrow—”

  Gunning up the ramp to ground level, Farr blinked painfully, half-blinded by the piercing bolts of reflected sunlight from windows and windshields and chromed bumpers. All of Beverly Hills seemed to glitter in spite of the purplish-brown veil of smog. He fumbled for his dark glasses as he headed for Wilshire, finally finding them wedged into the bucket seat on the passenger’s side.

  Like to talk to you some more about the Berry girl, the grating voice kept repeating in his head. Cop voice, overbearing and full of certainty. But didn’t they always speak as if they had something on you?

  “But surely,” he’d protested, “we can talk over the phone about whatever it is, can’t we? I mean, I’ve been there once, Sergeant. As far as I know, I told you everything I know about her.”

  “Maybe so, Mr. Farr”—a flat, stubborn, unyielding tone—“but there’s a couple items we didn’t cover with you.”

  “What, for instance?”

  “We’ll let it wait till we see you. Say, this evening sometime? At your place on Ocean?”

  His knuckles whitened as he clenched the wheel, turning right on Wilshire Boulevard. How had they found out where he lived? Then Farr realized he had told them. Of course he had. Take it easy, he told himself. All you have to do is play it cool. Straight, but cool. You’re involved, yes, but only marginally. One weekend, that’s all it was…

  Two days and three nights—the Friday of the party, Saturday and Sunday—a weekend bash with a kooky girl whose body and time were as free as air. They made love and they slept. They took showers together, they ate scrambled eggs at four in the morning, huddled in blankets on his balcony which overlooked the sea. The only time they left the apartment was for dinner Saturday night. But all day Saturday and Sunday she kept running out with only her dress to cover her, feeding quarters into the meter at the curb down the street where she had left her car, a beat-up old Volkswagen.

  Finally irritated by these periodic disappearances, Farr said, “Look, about two more of those trips and somebody around here is going to report me for white-slaving or something. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me pay a parking ticket? Or better still, if you’re so worried about it, let’s deliver your car home. You said you lived only ten minutes away.”

  Her long hair flew as she shook her head violently. “No, man, can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because somebody might wire it with a bomb, that’s why.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” he groaned, irritated by now with these wild fancies which had seemed, at first, delightful to him. “Okay, forget it.”

  But she didn’t. “You wouldn’t like me in a million pieces,” she said later.

  “This goes back, I take it, to the Mad Bomber?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, it might be restful.” He felt her stir next to him, and in the time-erasing, heavily draped dimness of his bedroom, sensed her sudden remoteness—a withdrawal as chill as the onset of sickness. “Holly, come on now, you can’t be serious.”

  “Would you believe me if I said I was?”

  “But—that’s crazy!” He tried to see her expression, but she burrowed into his side, hiding her face. “Holly, look at me.” He tugged at her shoulders. “Holly? Will you—” then he gave up. “All right. I quit. What the hell are you really trying to tell me?”

  “You don’t want to know. You’re scared,” she whispered, and where her breath blew on him, moist and warm, his skin quivered. “Poor-But-Honest hates even the smell of trouble.” Then she rolled over and tickled him furiously. “Forget it, man! Like they say, only time will tell. Time-time-time,” and she blew in his ear. “Tell you what, P-but-H, I’ll make a deal with you. How’s this for action? If he gets me, see, you send orchids to my funeral. A big vulgar wreath, you promise? If you do, I’ll leave you my wheels in my will.”

  “That great Volkswagen?” Feeling foolish for his momentary alarm, Farr laughed. She was impossible, he thought, a kook and a fantasizer. But she wouldn’t catch him again. “Such a priceless legacy,” he said with mock pompousness, “should by rights go to your heirs, you know.”

  “Oh, I like the sound of that. My heirs, he says. Heirs says my very own mouthpiece.” The rumpled bed rocked as she sat up suddenly. “What time is it?” A pale, lissome ghost, she jumped up and ran to the windows. As she yanked back the draperies the glare from the sea sprang blindingly into the room.

  “Brutal wench.” Farr buried himself under the wrinkled bedsheet. “What’re you doing? Stop it. I’ve got to sleep—”

  But urging, tugging, tickling him unmercifully, she got him into the shower. No more fun and games, either. She
bullied him into shaving next, and by the time he was through, she had his clothes laid out.

  “But why?” he kept asking, bewildered. “What’s the rush? Where’re we going? God, what a fiend, I’m asleep on my feet!”

  Where they went was Santa Monica Pier—a seven-minute drive in her rattly old car. And munching a hot dog, dizzy for sleep, he trailed her by stands selling candied apples, popcorn, fish, souvenirs, chances on prizes if you won unwinnable games. She seemed to be looking for something, but whatever it was, she would not say. Then at last by the Penny Arcade, she stopped before a weatherbeaten sign advertising Anything Sealed in Plastic. Protect Your Valuables Large or Small. “Wait here,” she commanded. “And quit yawning, man, or the fuzz’ll come along and bust you for nodding.”

  Wondering vaguely what nodding might mean, he wandered to the edge of the pier, and leaning on the clammy cold rail, stared moodily at the opaque water. His body felt like a hollow reed. Under his eyelids, sleeplessness was a gritty deposit which made blinking painful. Nodding, his mind plodded like an exhausted animal around the familiar word used unfamiliarly. In the lexicon of the turned-on, some drug-using connotation, he decided. Users were heads; non-users, straights. Holly knew, of course, because of her brother.

  She’s trouble, he thought suddenly—a start of alarm which jolted his lethargy. And she’s in trouble of some kind. Yawning helplessly, his longing to rest an unromantic, satiated misery, Farr decided to get rid of her as soon as possible. Fun was fun, he told himself, but involvement with her could only end in embarrassment of some sort. And he couldn’t afford the faintest touch of anything troublesome or offbeat in his life now. Not if he expected to go places at Scobie, Stone—

  “Look,” she cried behind him. “See?” and she waved something shiny in his face as he turned.

  Staring at it—his business card laminated into plastic, with a metal eye at one end—Farr’s heart sank. Stupidly he asked, “What is it? Why did you—?”