One Grave Too Many

by Ron Goulart

  “Dad didn’t tell him everything, only bits and pieces. He knew there was that piece of paper, that it was hidden in one of dad’s books.” Gary lowered his head, put his hand over his eyes. “I … never visited my dad very much when he was there. Maybe he meant to tell me about the money and I …”

  “Where might your father have hidden the money?”

  “Hell, anyplace,” said Gary. “Dad owned a dozen pieces of property or more, before they took it all away from him. He had a spread up near Camarillo, a movie ranch out in the Valley, three orchards down in Orange County. Oh, yeah, we were pretty affluent before they caught on to him. Everything was lost, except the house in Beverly Hills where my sister lives now. Well, that was lost, too, but her husband bought it back for her.” He put his hands on each side of his plate, looked across at Easy. “Chatto will keep looking, won’t he?”

  “Yeah, he will.”

  “Then he may try to hurt Gay or …”

  “Or Danny.”

  “Danny,” repeated Gary. He took a deep breath. “You found me, Easy, which is what Gay hired you for. Can I hire you now? To stop Chatto.”

  “Sure,” said Easy. “And the simplest way to do that is to find the money first ourselves.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU didn’t get much sleep,” said Nan as Easy came in from the midday parking lot behind his office. “What’s been happening to you?”

  Easy set his bundle of borrowed archeology books on the edge of the desk. “I didn’t get much sleep and somebody threw a chair at me.”

  “A chair?” His secretary gave a final delicate twist to the air conditioner control.

  “And our new client was in it at the time.” He slumped into his swivel chair. “Our new client is Gary Marks.”

  “You found him?”

  Nodding, Easy said, “Remember when everybody used to talk about the domino theory?”

  “Knock one over and the next one falls and so on and so on.”

  “This is a case like that. Finding Gay Holland’s lost brother is only the start of something.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Right now it looks like a treasure hunt,” said Easy. “God knows what it’ll turn into when the next domino falls over.”

  Nan came across the room to look, head tilted, at the stack of books. “Oh, I almost forgot. There was a cable from Jill.”

  “Where is it?”

  “They don’t give you anything tangible, they call on the phone,” explained Nan. “The message was ‘Arrived safely. Miss you already. Love, Jill.’ You’re probably not used to getting sentimental messages like that.”

  “No, especially third hand.”

  At the doorway to the outer office Nan asked, “Want me to fetch you something to eat?”

  “I had some breakfast at home about an hour ago,” Easy said. “Maybe later you can get me a corned beef on rye from across the street.”

  “You really ought to cut down on those. I worry about your intake of nitrates … or is it nitrites.” She returned to her desk.

  Easy picked up the top book on the stack and began going through it. He learned several things about Roman forts but nothing about where the Marquetti money might be buried or hidden. The next book was called Introduction To Archeology. On page 14 he found what he was after.

  “Aha,” he said.

  Nan reappeared in the doorway. “You’ve discovered something?”

  Steepling the book, Easy reached for a memo pad. “This is the message old Vincent Marquetti left for his son.” He wrote PD Angelo S15W4.

  “Oh, certainly,” said Nan, rubbing her broad nose with her thumb knuckle, “that’s a simple archeologist’s way of designating a spot to dig at a particular site.”

  Easy narrowed his left eye. “You’re an archeology buff?”

  “I was engaged once to a guy whose ambition was to go to Mexico and excavate ruins. So I heard a lot about it,” said Nan. “He did finally go, with some twenty year old stewardess. I don’t think he ever dug up anything.”

  “I just came across the explanation in this book,” said Easy. “Apparently you pick a fixed point and rule an area into five foot squares. Then you label each square as it relates to the fixed point.”

  “That’s right. Your square is fifteen squares south and five west of the point.”

  “That’s what PD stands for, point of departure.”

  “Is that where the treasure’s going to be buried?”

  “Must be,” said Easy. “The only problem is trying to figure out where the starting point is. That’s what Angelo refers to, I imagine.”

  “Could be somebody’s name, could be a place,” said Nan, “or maybe an angel.”

  “That’s what Angelo means in Italian,” said Easy. “So someplace in this city of angels we have to find one specific angel and start digging.”

  “Probably isn’t a person. He wouldn’t stay still enough to be a fixed point. Might be a statue or something like that.”

  Easy tore off the memo page, folded it and dropped it in the jacket pocket of his $250 suit. “Saw some statues up at Gay Holland’s Beverly Hills place. I’ll see if she knows anything about this angel.”

  “It’s urgent, is it?”

  “Where Gary Marks was,” said Easy, “was in the hands of a couple guys who tortured him for three days off and on to get him to tell him what this message meant and where the money was. They got away from me.”

  “Which means they’ll try to question him again.”

  “Him or his sister. I hired Mogensen and Akers to keep an eye on her home. Gary Marks is going to be spending the day at Dr. Clayton’s private hospital in Santa Monica, so he should be safe.”

  “You didn’t tell me how much money was involved.”

  Easy moved to the door. “A million dollars.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THERE WAS MOGENSEN’S THREE year old Mustang, with the plastic Jesus standing on the dash, parked across the road from Gay Holland’s mansion. But the operative wasn’t in it.

  Easy drove on by.

  The house rose up at the top of several slanting acres. There was a man-high adobe wall, whitewashed and topped with bright red tiles, circling the entire estate. From where Mogensen was parked he’d be able to see through the wide wrought-iron gate in the wall and get a pretty fair view of the front of the house.

  The spreads on either side of Gay’s home were even vaster. There was nothing but shrubbery and trees showing on the neighboring grounds. Only one other auto was parked on this block, a Mercedes 220S which had been repainted a fire engine red.

  “Maybe he’s only relieving himself in the greenery somewhere,” said Easy. “But …”

  He turned uphill at the corner. Leaving his dusty VW some distance up and away, he started on foot toward the rear of the estate.

  Blue jays were squabbling in a laurel tree near the backside of the adobe fence. Somebody’s Siamese cat was watching them from a clump of brush. There were no people on the sidewalks, no cars on the street.

  Easy unbuttoned his jacket, ran straight at the wall. He gripped its top with fingers as his right foot hit it about three feet from the ground. He went sailing over it, landing in a bed of scarlet and gold flowers.

  Twenty yards ahead of him loomed a huge greenhouse. Its door hung open and several of the squares of glass near the doorway were cracked and fragmented.

  The inside of the big glass-walled building reminded him of both a steambath and a funeral parlor.

  He found Mogensen spread out on a gravel walkway, his head resting on a snaking green water hose. Long strips of white surgical tape had been slapped over the detective’s mouth, he was tied with fresh new clothes line. His eyes were closed.

  Easy squatted beside the man, nudged him. “Mogensen. Hey, what happened?”

  The detective did not stir, his eyes remained shut.

  He was alive, but unconscious. Easy left him whe
re he was.

  He found another tied-up man in the garage building. Chauffer apparently. Bound and gagged, out cold.

  “Chatto and McBernie must have only recently arrived,” Easy said to himself. He stayed in the doorway of the garage, watching the rear of the house.

  Several of the windows to the left had white cafe curtains with a pattern of tiny strawberries.

  Easy came out into the bright afternoon, moving carefully toward that side of the house. He held his .38 revolver in his hand.

  Hundreds of flickering white butterflies came swooping low over the grass and shrubbery. They surrounded Easy for an instant, then swirled away.

  Inside the house Gay cried out.

  Easy continued to move cautiously. The cry had come from the part of the house he was aiming at, the kitchen.

  The floor of the large kitchen was covered with forest green indoor-outdoor carpeting. Lying in front of the olive green refrigerator was a middle-aged black woman in a white uniform. She was tied and gagged in the familiar Chatto-McBernie style.

  Through the gap in the curtains on the furthest right window Easy could also see McBernie himself. The black man was holding Gay Holland from behind. His hands gripped her arms just below the elbows. The gauze and tape on his left arm didn’t seem to keep him from exerting considerable pressure.

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear, love,” Chatto said to the struggling girl. “We don’t intend to waste as much time on you as we did on your brother.”

  “I know what you did to him,” the girl said.

  “That’s lovely then, dear, because you know what you’ll get if you don’t tell us what this little message from your dear departed daddy means.”

  Apparently the two men took turns with their gun. Chatto was holding the .45 automatic today.

  Easy moved along the row of windows until he saw fluttering curtains. This window was half open. Kneeling, he again looked in.

  “You and your brother damn well must know what this means,” insisted Chatto as he waved the slip of lined paper. “Otherwise there’s no reason for the old boy to have left it, do you see.”

  Easy steadied his gun hand with his left palm. He aimed at Chatto’s right arm and fired.

  He missed.

  “Hell’s bells!” yelled the wiry little man. He spun, squeezed off a shot in the general direction of the windows.

  Two panes over from Easy glass came exploding out into the afternoon. The cafe curtains flapped and a row of decorative salt and pepper shakers which had been sitting on the ledge tumbled out and landed, smashing and clacking together, on the ground.

  Before the last one hit Easy fired again.

  The impact of the slug forced Chatto to start walking backwards across the forest green rug. His gun hand went up and up. He fired the automatic into the ceiling. Hanging brass skillets swayed as he stopped against the wall stove. His curly head thumped against the glass oven door. The timer bell started ringing.

  Chatto let go his gun, pressed both his hands flat to his bloody side. The blood kept on coming out. “Oh, my god, my god.” He stumbled. His knees slammed the floor, then his face.

  McBernie had turned Gay so she shielded him from the window and Easy’s gun. “Okay, mother humper,” he called, “you shoot and this bitch takes it and not me.” Moving sideways, he tried to keep the girl in front of him while he grabbed the .45 automatic up off the floor.

  Gay kicked out backwards.

  It caught the slightly bent McBernie in the crotch. He yowled, releasing his hold on the girl.

  The window was just wide enough for Easy to squeeze through. He did that while the fat black man was still hopping.

  Easy dealt him three chopping blows to the side of his neck.

  McBernie collapsed, falling hard across his bleeding partner.

  “This would be Beverly Hills,” said Easy. “The cops are very fastidious up here. They won’t like a mess like this at all.” He walked over to the olive green wall phone, reaching for the receiver. “You okay?”

  The dark-haired girl watched him for a few seconds. Then she ran to him, put her arms around him and her head on his chest. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. They haven’t been here long,” she said.

  Easy took his hand off the phone.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE LAST CAR DOOR slammed outside in the darkness. The last car drove away from the mansion.

  Gay was standing, arms folded under her breasts, looking into the empty gray stone fireplace in the living room. “I feel like lighting a big roaring fire,” she said. “Though I guess that wouldn’t be very appropriate on a muggy night like tonight. What time is it anyway?”

  Easy looked over at the clock on the mantel above the empty fireplace. “Little after eight.”

  Glancing up at the high ceiling, the girl frowned. A low mechanical voice was talking up above somewhere. “Oh, the radio in my bedroom,” she said. “I turned it on just before those two … men broke in. It’s been babbling away up there all this time and I never noticed it till now.”

  Easy was leaning against a heavy dark wood table. “All the cops were very polite.”

  “They must have heard of you. They treated you with … well, respect.”

  “Not me,” he said. “Me in this particular context.”

  Gay said, “I suppose you’re right. This house and the Holland name … make a nice invisible shield to protect me. There’s still going to be a lot of rigmarole to go through, though, isn’t there?”

  “When somebody gets shot in your kitchen,” Easy said, “your life’s going to be complicated for awhile. You better call Carlos Denny sometime tonight. Be a good idea to get your attorney in on this right now.”

  “What did they say about the little one’s condition? I was talking to Lt. … whatever when the ambulance came.”

  “Lt. Benfield. And Chatto, that’s the blond guy, will survive.”

  The dark girl walked to a fragile-looking chair and sat down. “I’m still not all that clear on everything that happened. I told Lt. … Benfield that they seemed to think I knew where some money or other of my father’s was hidden. I didn’t, as you advised, say anything about what had happened to Gary. Since he’d decided to keep that whole business in the desert quiet.”

  “That one was easier to squelch. Too many people involved this time, and Chatto shot.”

  “It’s funny … I thought that little one … Chatto … I thought he had something written on a piece of paper. But we couldn’t find any such paper in the kitchen.”

  From out of his jacket pocket Easy produced the folded piece of ruled paper. “No, because I took it.”

  “Oh? Isn’t that evidence?”

  “It’s what this whole frumus is about, and I don’t want this message in the papers and on the six o’clock news.”

  “What difference does it make now? Those two men are caught, there’s nobody else to bother Gary or me.”

  “Chatto and McBernie think your father hid a million bucks around LA somewhere,” Easy said as he unfolded the paper. “And you know what they tried. If anyone else gets the idea you or your brother know the whereabouts of the dough, they may come at you, too.”

  Gay put her hands on her knees, sighing. “Then it can keep happening, again and again.”

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Until we find the money.”

  She sat up, staring at him. “Don’t you believe me either? I don’t know about any hidden money … I don’t!”

  “But you might know what this message means.”

  “You sound like the little one.”

  “Your father wanted you or Gary to be able to figure it out,” said Easy. “He wasn’t trying to stump you.” He moved nearer to her. “I’ve already figured out most of it. It’s based on a simple archeologist’s way of laying out a dig site.”

  “That was my father’s hobby,” she said, “archeology.”

  “What he’s telling you in this message is to look for a square of ground that’s a
specific distance from a fixed point,” said Easy. “The problem is we don’t know where the fixed point is. Does Angelo mean anything to you?”

  “I used to date a boy named Angelo when I was in high school. But when I got to college I didn’t run with Italians anymore.”

  “Some kind of angel maybe,” suggested Easy, “a statue. Is there anything like that around here?”

  “What you want is a church.” The girl shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. It simply doesn’t mean anything to me.” He was close enough for her to reach out and take hold of his hand. “I don’t mean to be nasty … but … I appreciate you, Easy. Getting here when you did, doing what you did. And for letting me hold on to you while we waited for the police. Could you … would you stay here tonight … with me?”

  Easy put his hand over hers for a second, then he pulled free and away. “I’ve got to keep hunting for the money. If you …”

  “Oh, I don’t give a damn about the money.”

  “Other people do. Call me if you think of anything.”

  He left her standing there.

  CHAPTER 14

  EASY WAS STRETCHED OUT on the couch in his office, hands locked behind his head, studying the ceiling. Yesterday’s quake had caused two hairline cracks to shoot across the plaster.

  An automobile engine roared, then sputtered and died in the parking lot outside. After ten seconds of silence there was a scraping crash. More silence, followed by what sounded like a car door being ripped from its hinges.

  Footsteps sounded on Easy’s backsteps; someone knocked on the door.

  “Come on in, Hagopian,” said Easy.

  “Do you know Ralph Nader’s address?” asked the writer as he entered, his scuffed black briefcase clutched by his right elbow.

  Sitting up, Easy asked, “Having trouble with your car?”

  “Not my car. Melody borrowed the Jag to drive over to Ventura for the grand opening of an organic supermarket. She loaned me hers. The automatic shift things are a long way from perfected on that make. Dangerous, in fact.” He sat down behind Easy’s desk in Easy’s swivel chair. “She’s not going to be happy about the tomatoes either.”