Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 7

  "Yeah."

  Jim Gray had a knobby, lined face and thin gray hair, but a young smile. His two front teeth were crooked and poked forward in the middle of his mouth like the bow of a small canoe, and they gave his smile an almost impish appearance. He wasn't impish.

  "How about Waverly?"

  "He and Gant must be pretty thick. You told me about him publishing that paper Inside — you didn't know the rest of it, huh?"

  "Come on, Jim, what rest of it? I ordered that damn TV set for you. It'll be delivered this afternoon."

  "Hey, man, that's great — but you didn't have to do that. Well, Waverly must know Gant pretty good. Al put up the money so's he could start his little paper."

  "Gant did? He put up the cash to start Insider?"

  "Yeah, you got it."

  "You sure, Jim? It could be pretty important."

  "Sure I'm sure. I ever give you a bum steer?"

  He hadn't, at that; and he'd given me some very good ones. "Any details?"

  "Well, you know Gant, he don't sign no papers or nothing like that. Way I get it, Scott, he give the money to an old beast name of Madelyn Willow — used to be in the movies, I guess — and she put up the dough. That's all I could scrounge, but it looks to me like Waverly must've had some idea where the money really come from."

  "Yeah, You'd think so." There was another intriguing angle to what he'd told me. Madelyn Willow was, indeed, a former actress. She was the ex-actress who owned the acreage on which Slade's current film was being shot. Maybe it didn't mean anything. For that matter, maybe none of Jim's info meant anything — yet.

  That was all Jim had for me, so I dropped him off a couple of blocks from the bar where I'd found him. As he got out of the Cad I said, "You see anything else that enamored you while window-shopping?"

  "Enam . . . What?"

  "Anything else you thought was cute."

  "Hum. Oh, no. But If I pick up any more info I'll sure let you know."

  "Do that, Jim."

  He strolled down the street.

  And I decided it was time — now — for me to call upon Gordon Waverly.

  I phoned the Police Building and learned that my client was no longer in jail. Under California law, when a man is charged with an offense punishable with death, he can't be admitted to bail "when the proof of his guilt is evident or the presumption thereof great"; nonetheless he'd been sprung.

  Part of the reason, I gathered, was that the suspect was Gordon Waverly. But more, the police had — as yet — not even a smell of possible motive. Means and opportunity, of course, but not the third leg of the prosecutor's tripod. And certainly there was no evidence he'd been lying in wait, or that the murder had been "willful, deliberate, and premeditated." Also the kickbacks from the FBI and Sacramento had been blank on both Waverly and Pike.

  Consequently, Waverly was charged with murder in the second degree — which is bailable. And he was out. In fact, he and his attorneys had left the Police Building only minutes before my call.

  I stayed on the phone long enough to learn that the Crime Lab had worked over the ivory idol and found not only quite a bit of Finley Pike on it but also traces of another blood type, which was the same type as Gordon Waverly's. It could have come from Waverly's pounding on Pike with his fists and then using the idol itself on Pike, or — the view I argued — from his hands being pounded and bloodied by somebody else, the real killer, swinging the idol after using it on Pike. Neither the police nor I won that argument.

  So I headed for an argument with Gordon Waverly.

  I parked next to the Inside building, went in through the sighing glass doors, and stopped before the bosomy blonde receptionist. She made an "O" of her mouth and blinked, big-eyed, at me.

  "Hi," I said. "Is Mr. Waverly here yet?"

  "He just came in. Just this minute, practically."

  "Fine, I'd like to see him."

  "He went right by me. Like last night."

  "Shouting?"

  "Ha-ha," she laughed. "Goodness, no. He didn't say a word. And I thought surely he would. After all that's happened. After . . . all."

  Oh, she was bubbling with curiosity, overflowing with unasked questions. Unasked, but about to be asked any instant.

  "Well, I'd like to see him," I said.

  "Yes. I'll buzz him. I guess you found him last night, didn't you?"

  "Yeah. And I'd like to find him again, if it's all right. I'd like to see him. You know, today. In fact, as soon as possible."

  She got a hurt look. First Waverly wouldn't talk to her, and now I wouldn't talk to her. Men were against her. Ha, if only she knew. I kind of think she did know. Especially in that scoopy blouse, with its wowy neckline.

  She waited, but I outwaited her. Finally she fiddled with the intercom and said, "Mr. Waverly, Mr. Shell Scott is here to see you." She still remembered my name, but she didn't coo it this time. Of course, it's a little hard to coo it.

  I heard Waverly's voice, flattened by the intercom. "Splendid. Send him right in, Miss Prinz."

  Maybe, I thought, it wasn't going to be so splendid. But following Miss Prinz' directions I went to the hallway, left two doors, and into Gordon Waverly's office.

  It was a big room and — I was grateful to note — not pink. Pale beige paneled walls, burnt-orange carpet, darker beige divan and chairs. Neat and not too gaudy. Waverly's desk was a big gray-brown job made of something like pecky cypress or cedar, behind it an oversized leather chair studded with brass buttons along the seams. And in the chair, Gordon Waverly.

  He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on last night, but he looked spruce and gay, as if he were about to leave for a party. His lean, tanned face had been recently shaved, his tie was neatly knotted, and he looked rested. A small white bandage marred the smoothness of his straight gray hair. He was smiling as I entered. I wondered if he'd heard about the murder of Natasha Antoinette.

  "I see you got sprung from jail," I said.

  "Yes." He nodded. "I had much to think about, and finally phoned my attorneys. I've decided I should tell you all I know about the events of last night."

  "It's about time. Or rather, it's a little late."

  He pushed his eyebrows up, pulled them down. "What does that mean?"

  "It means whatever you've got to say had better be damned good."

  He did the bit with his eyebrows again, but remained silent. So I said, "Maybe I'd better tell you just how good. Let's start at the beginning, with our initial talk on the phone — and I still don't know what that was about. A woman, allegedly Natasha Antoinette — "

  "Allegedly? Mr. Scott, I assure you — "

  I went right on, " — Merely said hello, and then reported that you wanted to talk to me. At your request I came to your office, but you'd left. I found you at Finley Pike's. Curiously, as I arrived there a carful of hoodlums was also arriving, precipitously. They belonged to a mobster, blackmailer, slob, and killer named Al Gant. Later, after you'd been hauled to the can, the police shot and killed a heavy man named J. B. Kester outside the garage at the home of Finley Pike. Kester just happened to be one of the men in that carful of Gant's hoodlums. I've today learned that the same Al Gant put up the money which started, or at least helped to start, Inside."

  His jaw had been slowly drooping, indelicately, which wasn't like Gordon Waverly at all — unless that's the impression he desired to convey. Now his jaw dropped even farther open, and he started to speak but thought better of it.

  I finished it up. "I happen to know Natasha Antoinette, and tried to get in touch with her — my reason being, to tell you the truth, to find out if she really was with you last night, and if she could explain what the original fuss was about. With you in the can I didn't think there was any great rush, but I was wrong. I'd have worked a lot faster, and harder, if I'd had any idea she was going to be killed."

  He paled. Visibly. I didn't know how he could have faked that. But there might have been a number of reasons for his apparent shock.

>   He said something, finally, but his voice was so low I couldn't hear the words. "What?" I asked him.

  He swallowed and repeated, "Killed? Did you say killed?"

  "The more accurate word would be murdered."

  He didn't speak. I waited. He closed his eyes, moistened his lips, then blinked and looked at me. "When did this happen, Mr. Scott?"

  "This morning. About ten a.m., maybe a little after. I was a bit too busy to note the exact time."

  He said quite softly, "I'm afraid I should have told you a good deal more last night."

  "No kidding."

  He stared past me, not speaking.

  "That's all I've got to say," I told him. "For now. But it leaves a lot of questions unanswered — by you. And if you can answer them all, you're damned good."

  "I can't." His sharp-boned face looked a little gray. "I can't," he said again. "Oh, my actions — " he waved a hand in a fluttering gesture — "those I can explain. But the rest . . ." He licked his lips again. "How was Miss Antoinette killed?"

  "She was shot. By someone using a rifle. While before the cameras in Jeremy Slade's current production. Isn't it time you came up with some answers instead of questions?"

  He straightened in his chair and looked at me, and his jaw firmed a bit. He said levelly, "Are you eager to retire from my employ, Mr. Scott?"

  He sounded a little hardboiled. Either he figured, as he'd once indicated, that an attack was the best defense, or there was more than a little backbone in his back.

  "I laid that out for you last night," I said. "I'm in this to the end of it, no matter what comes up along the way, if you level with me — and if you're clean. If you're not, the hell with you." I paused. "You'll have to admit you haven't given me much to work on."

  He nodded. Then he brushed his hand over his hair, wincing just a bit when he rubbed the white patch over the lump, or what was left of it. "I do admit I have not told you everything. But I had good and sufficient reason for not doing so before, as I shall explain. I was merely protecting myself. And I had no idea whatever that such a tragic . . ."

  He stopped and sighed, then went on briskly. "Last night shortly before nine p.m., Miss Antoinette burst into my office. She had a gun in her hand."

  "She had a — wait a minute. Your receptionist told me nobody came in past her."

  His face grew an expression of mild irritation. "Miss Prinz is not allowed to smoke in the office, but is a slave to nicotine." I had a hunch he didn't smoke. "She often goes to the ladies' rest room to satisfy her ungovernable craving. We both pretend I don't know about it I should guess she was smoking when Miss Antoinette came in. That is of no importance at the moment. Miss Antoinette did burst into my office, and she did have a gun in her hand." He stopped momentarily.

  "O.K. Carry on."

  "Miss Antoinette was in a perfectly frightful state. She had obviously been crying and was very distraught. She cried out something like, 'You monster, you criminal' — I'm not sure of the words. It was a moment of some confusion, and I admit to a feeling of apprehension at sight of the gun. Justifiable apprehension, as it turned out. She fired that gun at me."

  "The hell she did."

  Gordon Waverly looked at me with the air of one long suffering and, lapsing into the speech of the common man, said, "The hell she didn't. She tried to kill me."

  TWELVE

  I said, "She took a shot at you here? In this office?"

  "She did."

  "Then there ought to be a bullet buried, if not in you, at least somewhere around the joint."

  That flicker of mild irritation again. "Obviously, her aim was not perfect." He swiveled sideways in his chair and pointed. Once he pointed at it, the hole was quite apparent. A small dark spot in the center of one of the pale beige wall panels.

  He said, "I am disappointed that a man so ready with large and even minute observations would fail to notice the spot where the bullet lay buried." But then he smiled. "Forgive me," he said. "I should not have indulged in the doubtful pleasure of sarcasm. But your manner, Mr. Scott, is — well, abrasive. At any rate, there is the hole. The bullet barely missed my head. Shall I continue?"

  I grinned. "Please do."

  "I was astonished. Needless to say — or perhaps I should say — I hadn't any idea what possessed the woman. I was, I'll admit, frightened. More precisely, I was petrified. If she had fired that infernal weapon again she might have hit me, and I should not now be telling you this. But she did not fire it. She swayed, then burst into sobs."

  I got out a cigarette and stuck it between my lips, then remembered Waverly's comment about "slaves to nicotine," and glanced at him. He nodded. I had permission. I lit up and sucked smoke deep into my lungs. Maybe that was why Miss Prinz wasn't allowed to smoke. If she breathed any deeper than I'd seen her breathing last night, she'd have to buy a whole new wardrobe.

  Waverly went on, "I was by then able to get up and approach her. I led her to a seat and managed to calm her somewhat. While sobbing and dabbing at her eyes, she told me that only an hour before she had been approached by a large and extremely unpleasant individual who had attempted to blackmail her. She had convinced herself that I had sent him. Or, if not I personally, that I was at least the individual responsible."

  "Did she describe this guy? And was it anybody she knew?"

  "She described him quite well, but it was no one she knew, nor did her description fit anyone with whom I am acquainted."

  "O.K. Leave that for now. What did the guy have to bleed her with? That is, what did he know about Natasha that made him think she'd pay money to keep it hushed?"

  "She had been going for some time with a married man. Early this month they were — hitting the jazz spots out of town, as she put it. It was late Saturday night, and they had drunk a good deal, especially the man. Returning to Los Angeles, her escort, who had been driving erratically, struck another auto from behind. The other car went out of control and off the road, crashing into a tree. Miss Antoinette's companion did not stop, but instead drove in great haste from the scene of the accident."

  Waverly rested both hands on his desk and pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Now, the man who approached her last evening possessed this information. He claimed there had been a witness to the crime. However, Miss Antoinette insisted — to me, not to the man attempting extortion — that the driver of the other car could not possibly have seen them, and that the accident could hardly have been witnessed by anyone else. It occurred on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and there was little illumination except that from the automobile's headlights. She insisted that, even had someone been nearby, he could not have seen the car's occupants, certainly not with enough clarity to identify them. She was quite positive about that. Therefore, she assumed the only possible explanation was — "

  It hit me. "Wait a minute." I held up a hand to stop him. I got up, walked across the room and back. Then I turned and looked at Waverly. "Don't tell me Nat — Miss Antoinette — wrote a fool letter to Amanda Dubonnet."

  He smiled again. "Marvelous. How did you deduce that?"

  "Is that what happened?"

  "It is."

  "Damn her hide." I sat down again. "And I didn't just pull the deduction out of the air. A little while before Nat was shot she read a story in this morning's paper about your being held as a suspect in Pike's murder. That didn't set her off. But at the very bottom of the page was a line to the effect that Pike wrote the column 'Lifelines for the Lifelorn,' for Inside, under a pen name. The story was continued there, and it happened just before she turned the page, to where the pen name, Amanda Dubonnet, was given. When she read that bit about Pike's being the author of the letters-to-the-genius column, she keeled over. If she'd spilled the whole story to Pike — Amanda — in a letter, then told you, after taking a pot-shot at your head . . . Well, I'm starting to understand why she keeled over this morning. She must have thought her going to see you last night caused you to murder Pike. Not to mention the fact that she probabl
y felt the whole scandal was going to blow up in her face."

  Waverly nodded. "There is one other good reason why she might have fainted, Mr. Scott. If she believed I had murdered Mr. Pike, it is possible she felt I had lied to her last night, had then silenced Mr. Pike — and would thus soon have to silence her also."

  "Uh-huh. Of course, she was wrong."

  "Completely."

  "Did Natasha spill all the beans in a letter to Amanda?"

  "That is what she told me. Of course, she did not use her real name, but did include her real address. Which isn't surprising, really, since she had no reason to expect any action other than a letter from Amanda, or possibly a personal reply in the column — we receive hundreds of letters which can't be used in the column, you understand."

  I nodded.

  "As for the letter itself, it was several pages, I understand. She not only told of her involvement with this man, and of the hit-and-run accident, but said that she felt her escort should have stopped to give aid, and that she should inform the police of what had occurred. But she was also afraid she might herself be prosecuted, or jailed, in the circumstances. Her letter, I gather, was much like thousands of others we have received, a rather tortured outcry, and a plea for information and advice."

  "You gather? You mean you don't really know what was in her letter?"

  "I have not seen it. Mr. Pike would have received it."

  "Ah."

  "Do you begin to see — "

  "Yeah. I do begin to."

  I had not only begun to see, but Waverly's words were still going around in my head — "a letter much like thousands of others we have received . . . tortured outcry . . . plea for information and advice. . . ."

  Waverly pulled at his lower lip. "You understand, Mr. Scott, Miss Antoinette's story did not unfold as I have been presenting it to you. It came from her in jerks, spasmodically, in bits and pieces — which, slowly, I put together into what I can only call an appalling pattern."