One Grave Too Many

by Ron Goulart

  “What tomatoes?”

  “The lug of them in the backseat,” explained Hagopian. “That is, they were in the backseat. Now they are strewn out there all over your … but you don’t want to hear any more about my day to day tribulations in the goofy capital of the western world. I hear you found Gary Marks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t appear too triumphant.”

  “There are other things to find.”

  “Such as?”

  “A million bucks.”

  Hagopian slapped his briefcase down on top of the desk. “That’s what everybody wants in these parts. You’ll have lots of competition.” He thrust a hand inside the briefcase. “I’m in a spiritual rather than a materialistic mood tonight. I think, quite possibly, John, I have witnessed a real religious miracle. We may have some trouble getting the church to accept it, especially in the light of recent Supreme Court decisions, yet I …”

  “I have a suspicion it involves tits.”

  “That it does.” Hagopian pulled a handful of photographic proof sheets. “You recall I told you I was going to interview a noted pea-brained starlet yesterday. Well, I am ready to swear she had negligible boobs the last time I saw her. Yesterday, after only four short weeks at the Thorpe Ranch, she’s got quite impressive ones. You know, the kind that …”

  “The Thorpe Ranch?” Easy stood up.

  “Yeah, that’s where the Me & Jesus Commune lives. If you’d care for documentary proof of the miraculous changes in this bimbo’s knockers, here are the contact proofs of the pix we shot of her.”

  Easy sat on the edge of his desk, picked up the sheets of tiny photos. “Gary Marks’ father used to own the Thorpe Ranch.”

  “I know, I’ve got clippings about the place in my files.”

  Easy went over the sheets of photos page by page. As he scanned the third sheet he suddenly said, “Hey!”

  “They are incredible tits, aren’t they?”

  “Where’d you shoot this run of shots?”

  New rings formed beneath the TV Look writer’s eyes as he tilted to look at the photos upside down. “Of her hugging the angel? Out on Boot Hill. You can’t have a movie Western location without a graveyard.”

  The run of seven pictures showed the young blonde actress leaning or embracing a five foot tall marble angel. Beyond the mock cemetery a forested area showed. Tapping the tiny pictures, Easy said, “That’s where the money is.”

  “You’re right. In a goofy town like this there certainly is money in big tits. That’s been my …”

  “Not that kind of money.”

  “You mean this million dollars you were talking about,” said Hagopian. “Would that be part of the elder Marquetti’s swindling earnings?”

  “Several people seem to think so.” He stretched out a hand and pulled the phone over. As he punched out a number he said, “We’ll see if Gary Marks is going to be in shape to do some digging tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 15

  EASY STEPPED OUT OF his VW into the steamy yellow morning and noticed the shotguns pointing at him.

  He walked around the dusty front end of the car and opened the passenger door. “Couple kids over by those walnut trees,” he said as he helped Gary Marks out. “Got shotguns.”

  The small dark young man said, “That’s not very Christian.” He grimaced as his foot touched the dirt. “I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. I feel a lot stiffer all over than I did last night when you phoned. Your Dr. Clayton says, by the way, there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage.”

  “I can take care of any digging.” Easy reached into the backseat for the shovel he’d borrowed from Hagopian. “I want you along as a representative of the family.”

  Gary was looking at the Thorpe Ranch. It was spread out below, the town covering about three acres of flat sand-colored ground. All the traditional buildings of the fantasy Old West were there: saloons, feed stores, sheriff’s office, gambling casinos. A stockade fence had once circled the entire ranch but parts of it had long since fallen over and they lay in the weeds where they’d hit. “The old place hasn’t gone to pieces as much as I expected,” he said. “Looks like they’ve even been painting it.”

  Easy spotted the graveyard, with the stone angel rising above all the other fake tombstones. The woods beyond the graveyard, mostly oaks and pines, covered several acres. “Let’s walk toward the place where the gate used to be,” he said. “Find out what sort of move these shotgun kids have in mind.”

  “Damn, now I seem to have a limp.” Marks, his left foot dragging, walked down the dirt road next to Easy.

  “Far enough,” said one of the boys. He moved into full view, stock of the shotgun resting on his hip. He wore only a pair of coveralls. His hair was tied behind with a string of yellow leather.

  Easy kept on coming, the shovel swinging in his hand. “My name’s John Easy,” he said.

  “We’ll shoot, no matter what your name is,” the other boy told him. He was chubby, wearing tight Levis and a blue workshirt.

  “I’m a private investigator,” said Easy, stopping where he was. “We’d like permission to look for something here at the Thorpe Ranch.”

  “So that’s your story?” the chubby one snorted.

  The other boy climbed up the road toward Easy. “You’re not going to get her away from us. You go back to Palos Verdes and tell her folks that it doesn’t matter how many private cops and thugs they send. She’s of age and she’s here by her own choice and the will of God.”

  “I’m not looking for any girls,” said Easy. He nodded at Gary. “My client’s father used to own this place. We think something important to the family may have been left here.”

  “You can save your lies.” The boy was only ten feet from Easy, had the barrel of the shotgun aimed at Easy’s chest. “After what you’ve done, we got us a right to maybe just shoot you down anyway.”

  Easy frowned at him. “Something’s happened?”

  “When you found out you couldn’t take her from us, couldn’t defy the will of God, you decided to do other harm to us.”

  The chubby boy said, “That was my favorite dog, too.”

  “What happened to the dog?”

  “You ought to know. You cracked his skull sometime last night. We found him lying out in front of the saloon come sunup this morning. Vet says he probably doesn’t have a chance to make it, even with all of us praying for him.”

  A tall blonde girl was watching them from the gap in the fence some twenty-five yards downhill. She let go of the fence pole and came up in Easy’s direction. She had on a dark blue body shirt and khaki slacks. “You’re a friend of Mr. Hagopian’s, aren’t you?” she asked him.

  It was the young actress Hagopian had interviewed. “That’s right. And you’re …?”

  “Jiminy Sage,” smiled the girl. “You were at a cocktail party at the TV Look offices a few months ago, but I don’t suppose you remember me. You seemed completely occupied with that gossip columnist Judy Teller. Of course, that was all before I heard from God and came to know how foolish cocktail parties were.”

  “Jiminy,” said the chubby young man, “this is one of the guys who wants to take Nancy away.”

  “You’ve got me mixed up with some other operative,” said Easy.

  “Oh, your friend looks like he’s going to fall over.” Jiminy ran to take Gary’s arm.

  “I’m okay.” His face had gone a sweaty white. “Not up to standing around in the sun, I guess.”

  “Were you in an accident?” the lovely blonde girl asked. “You come right down into the town and sit in the shade.”

  “Jiminy,” said the other boy, “these men …”

  “Oh, this is John Easy,” she told them. “He has a very fine reputation. He wouldn’t handle anything sleazy like trying to get Nancy back for her folks. Would you, Mr. Easy?”

  “I renounced sleazy cases years ago.”

  After a long silent moment the boys lowered their guns. “Wh
at is it you’re supposed to be doing here?” asked the chubby one.

  “We want to look around in your Boot Hill and in those woods next to it.”

  “You’re not planning to dig up sacred ground?”

  “That’s not a real burying ground,” Easy told him.

  Jiminy, still holding onto Gary’s arm, was guiding him down to the Western town. “Haven’t I seen your picture in Ad Age or some similar publication? Of course, I don’t read such publications any longer.”

  “Probably. I’m Gary Marks. I run an ad shop called Marks & Feller.”

  “Oh, of course. You did that clever commercial about the man going down into his toilet in a diving suit, didn’t you? I thought that was very clever.”

  A German shepherd on the porch of the hotel stood up and commenced barking. He didn’t approach them, though.

  “Sit in the shade with Jiminy,” Easy told his client. “I’ll measure off the squares and call you after I’ve done some digging.” He strode down the main street toward Boot Hill.

  Easy didn’t have to do any digging.

  He’d, using a cloth tape measure, spent fifteen minutes measuring out the first squares. A half dozen of the Me & Jesus kids stood down at the edge of the graveyard and watched him. None of them spoke or came near.

  The square he wanted, as he’d suspected, was going to be up in among the trees. He entered the woods, measured off a few more squares.

  Then he saw it.

  He exhaled through his nose, rolled up the yellow tape and went down to get Gary.

  “You didn’t dig this just now,” said his client when he saw the deep hole in the ground.

  Shaking his head, Easy said, “Somebody else got here first. Which may explain why the dog got knocked out last night.”

  The hole was four feet deep and three wide. It lay in a small clearing surrounded by oaks and pines. You couldn’t see the Western town from here.

  “No money, nothing,” said Gary.

  Easy knelt beside the freshly dug pit. “Not quite nothing,” he said. He poked a finger into a clump of earth, extracted something white. It was the bone out of a human toe.

  “Is that part of … part of somebody?”

  “Chatto and his buddy are in the can.” Easy took a blank white envelope out of the pocket of his $225 sport coat, dropped the bone into it. “Were you out here last night?”

  “Christ, no,” answered Gary. “It’s enough of a problem getting my pants and shoes on. I’m not quite ready to dig holes like that.”

  Easy put the envelope away. “Did you tell anyone else about the message your father left?”

  “No, nobody,” Gary assured him. “Well, no one except Gay and …”

  “And who, Danny?”

  “Not Danny. I haven’t been able to get hold of her,” said Gary. “But I did tell Sandy, Sandy Feller, my partner. He came to see me at Dr. Clayton’s setup yesterday afternoon and I talked about this whole mess. Sandy and I have been friends since we were kids and I always talk every …”

  “I’ll talk to him now.”

  “Wait a minute, Easy. There’s someone else who knows all about this,” said Gary. “That fag who lives with my Aunt Vida. He was right in the house while Chatto and McBernie worked me over. That message must have been repeated two hundred times at least.”

  “Okay, I’ll check on Jordan Crossen, too.”

  Gary took a step back from the pit. “What was in that damn hole anyway, Easy? Money or somebody’s body?”

  “Both,” said Easy.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE FAT MAN IN the candy-stripe sport jacket was reaching into his sample case. “Take these home for yourself then, young lady.” He held out a handful of boxes of recording tape.

  The slim Negro receptionist refused. “We’re happy with the tape we’re using now.”

  “So it wouldn’t hurt to take a freeby?”

  The black girl noticed Gary Marks and Easy. She stood up behind her white desk, grinning. “Welcome back, Gary.”

  “Hi, Marlis.”

  The tape man held his fistful of boxes out toward the approaching men. “Mr. Gary Marks, is it? Here are some samples courtesy of the Ichijiku Company of Japan. We’re new, but …”

  “Is Sandy in?” Gary asked the girl.

  She shook her head, poking a finger into her afro. She shrugged. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Here you go,” the tape man said to Easy, “try these samples. At Ichijiku we like to say, we’re new but …”

  “Thank you very much.” Taking the boxes of tape, Easy put a hand on the man’s candy-striped arm. “We’ll run some field tests on this and be in touch with you.” He helped him shut his sample case, aimed him at the door and gave a light shove.

  “What about Sandy?” asked Gary.

  “He’s not here,” replied Marlis. “I got in around half past nine and he wasn’t here and there’s no message any place in the office and the answering service hasn’t heard from him.”

  “Nearly noon. You call his house in Ninguno Canyon?”

  “Was going to when the Japanese tape man came barrelassing in.”

  “Call now.” Gary rested both hands on the edge of the white desk.

  Easy sat on a black chair next to a trophy.

  After a moment the black girl hung up the desk phone. “Busy signal.”

  “Funny,” said Gary. “He’s not the kind of guy to wander off and not tell us.”

  “We’ve got the Kane taping at two.”

  “Well, I’m up to handling that if he’s not here by then. Where is it, Norliss Recording?”

  “Yeah, Studio … Studio 3. Two o’clock.”

  “Try his house once more.”

  Marlis punched out the number again. “Busy.”

  Gary, with his slight limp, walked over and sat next to Easy. “You don’t think … I mean, there’d be no reason for anyone to grab Sandy the way they did me. Would there?”

  “What’s his address?”

  “26 La Paloma Lane, over in Ninguno Canyon. You know where that …?”

  “Yeah.” Easy rose. “Ill drive over.”

  Gary was looking at the silver cup which rested on the white pedestal next to the chair. “This is the first award we won. Second place in the humorous 20-second spot division. That was for one of our Soy Poppos series. Pretty good, for the time. Sort of a Doyle-Dane fee to it. Maybe I better come along, huh?”

  “Stay here,” Easy told him. “And if Feller shows keep him here until I can talk to him.”

  “There’s got to be somebody at his house. Otherwise we wouldn’t get a busy signal,” said Gary, going toward the door with Easy. “Maybe he’s just got a touch of something. Sandy usually isn’t sick, though.”

  Easy opened the white door and went out.

  There were too many cars around. Three parked in front of the low shingle house, two more parked on its short gravel driveway and one parked right out on the lawn.

  There was also a bald man in a wrinkled blue suit standing on the grass and taking pictures of the Feller house. “Officer,” he called toward the open front door, “would you stick your head out a little bit more so I can get you in this next one?”

  The uniformed cop obliged.

  “That’s terrific, officer, only don’t smile like that. Look serious, look official. That’s nice, very nice.”

  Easy cut across the grass and walked along the red brick path toward the front steps.

  “Go away,” said the young cop.

  “What’s wrong here?”

  “You go away. Maybe tonight you can read about it in the paper.”

  Behind the young cop was the living room. It was shadowy in there, drapes drawn. “I’m John Easy,” Easy said. “I’m a private investigator, working for Feller’s partner. Is Feller here?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about his wife?”

  “She is, sure enough.” A frown touched the young man’s flat face. “You got some IDs on you?”<
br />
  Easy got out his wallet, extracted his identification papers. “Who got killed?” he asked.

  Returning the IDs, the young cop said, “Maybe you ought, since you work for his partner, talk to Lt. Smith.” He went away, saying, “Wait right there.”

  The bald photographer yelled to Easy. “Want to give me your name in case I need it for a caption?”

  “James Oliver Curwood,” answered Easy.

  “Come on in,” said the young cop out of the shadows of the Feller living room.

  Lt. Smith was sitting in a tan armchair. A thickset man with black wavy hair. He wore rimless glasses. “John Easy,” he said, remaining slouched in the chair. “You shot somebody over in Beverly Hills yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why was that? I forget the details.”

  “Couple guys were trying to kidnap my client’s sister,” said Easy. “What happened here?”

  “Go look in the bedroom.” Smith inclined his head slowly to the right.

  Easy went around him and down a hall.

  There were three men in the bedroom. None of them paying attention to the girl on the bed. Someone had cut her throat. The whole room seemed bloody.

  Another flashbulb went off and Easy turned away. Back in the living room he sat on the sofa across from the police lieutenant. “That’s Mrs. Feller?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “Never met her.”

  “It’s her,” said Lt. Smith. “Good thing they didn’t have any kids. You can’t explain things like this to kids.”

  “What about Feller?”

  “They found him a little bit after dawn this morning,” said Smith. “Sitting in his car, facing the Pacific. Throat cut, too.”

  “Where was that?”

  “He was down by the beach in San Amaro. We got the call to come up here and break the news to the wife, see what we could find out. The man I sent found the front door wide open and she was in there like you saw her.”

  “What time you figure she was killed?”

  “Not much later than six this morning. About three hours or so after he was.”

  From where he was sitting Easy could see into the dining room. He noticed all the drawers had been yanked out of a large bureau. “Somebody looking for something?”