Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice

by Ron Goulart

  The Same Lie Twice

  A John Easy Mystery

  Ron Goulart

  A MysteriousPress.com

  Open Road Integrated Media

  Ebook

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  I

  THE SLIM NAKED GIRL was floating several feet above him. John Easy rose up through the bright blue water. He ran one hand along the girl’s smooth stomach as he neared light and air. The surface of the pool shattered like a mirror and Easy saw reflections of himself go rippling away. He came up beside the slender blonde girl, treading water. “Good morning,” he said.

  Jill Jeffers smiled at him, placing her hands on his shoulders. Her gold-blonde hair was damp, clinging to her tan neck. “I think,” she said, “I’m getting used to affluence.”

  Resting his palm on her left breast Easy said, “Skinny-dipping at dawn. That’s a step in the right direction.”

  Jill gestured at the big white rancho-style house which surrounded the pool on three sides. “I slipped out quietly so as not to wake you.” She kissed him, then said, “Anyway, it’s not dawn. It’s nearly seven.”

  “That’s close enough to dawn,” said Easy. He was a tall wide-shouldered man of thirty-two, dark and rough-edged.

  The pretty girl smiled at him, then at the early morning sky, faintly gray and hazy. The house had red tile roofs and much black wrought-iron grill work. Bright green shrubs and ferns filled the terraced patio area around the large pool; palm trees grew close to the sprawling house. “I’m glad I leased this place,” said the girl. “I’m glad I know you, John. It makes getting used to being an heiress much easier.”

  Easy made a somber face. “Yes, I’m good for transitions.”

  “And afterwards.” Jill hugged him and for a few seconds they both sank down underwater.

  When they surfaced again, Easy frowned. A gentle honking sound was coming from the big white house; over the sliding glass doors of the dining room a mounted red light was blinking. “Phone,” he said to the dripping girl.

  Jill sighed. “Probably somebody for you, some client. I don’t have any anxious friends at the moment. Well, I’ll go answer it.”

  They swam over to the metal ladder and Easy helped the pretty girl out of the water with a hand on her bare buttocks. “Unless it’s a first-rate emergency, I’ll call them later,” he said.

  While Jill ran back to her house, Easy strolled around to the low diving board. He watched her until she stepped into the dining room. Easy’d known Jill for almost two months now. Someone had hired Easy to find her. He found her, and he’d kept seeing her since.

  Easy stepped to the diving board’s end, glancing upwards. Six sickly seagulls were flying high overhead, hunting for the nearby Pacific. The autumn morning was grayer than it had been a half-hour ago. Easy bounced a few times and dived.

  “Oof,” he said when he surfaced. The water had slammed his unprotected groin. He gingerly turned over and floated on his back, locking his hands behind his head. The half-dozen beat-up seagulls were back overhead, circling and making awk sounds.

  Easy closed his eyes, drifting in the warm water. The gulls went away and there was nothing to hear but the palm fronds softly rustling.

  Then he heard Jill’s bare feet come hurrying across the tiles.

  “John,” called the girl.

  Opening his eyes, he swam over to her side of the pool. “Something?”

  The slender girl had pulled on a short orange-colored terry robe. She knelt one-kneed beside the water and the robe slid away from one tan thigh. “It seems,” she said, “I do have friends with problems after all.” She paused, touching her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “John, could you talk to a friend of mine?”

  “Now?”

  “Well, now and probably later in your office.”

  Easy pulled himself up out of the pool. “What exactly is wrong?”

  The pretty blonde handed him a fresh folded white towel. “This is a couple I know. Jim and Joanna Benning. Joanna used to do some modeling and commercial work. I met her then.”

  Easy rubbed himself dry, then wrapped the towel around his waist. “Who’s on the phone?”

  “Oh, it’s Jim.” The girl gestured toward the now-open sliding glass door. “Can you talk with him?”

  “Wait,” said Easy. “Give me a few more details.”

  “Joanna’s disappeared.”

  Easy grinned. “Another lost girl.”

  “Well, that’s right,” said Jill. “You located me when I was missing. Jim knows I know you and, John, he really sounds desperate. Will you help him?”

  “How long has his wife been missing?”

  “Five days.”

  Easy sucked in one cheek. “And he’s only getting anxious now?”

  Jill took Easy’s hand. “Come on inside and I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.”

  “I’m trying to give up coffee.”

  “I know. I meant a substitute I picked up at a health food store over in the valley, made out of bran and figs. Anyway, John, I’ve known Joanna and Jim for a couple of years. They’re both fairly high-strung people and … well, I think Joanna has gone off before. Though never for this long.”

  “He hasn’t tried the police?”

  The girl shook her head. “I think … well, I get the feeling Jim suspects she’s gone off with some other guy. He doesn’t want the police digging around in something like that.” They crossed the threshold of the large dining room. On a darkwood sideboard a white phone sat off the hook. “You can help, can’t you?”

  Easy said, “Tell him to come into my office this morning, around 9:30.”

  “Couldn’t you say something hopeful to him right now?”

  “No,” replied Easy. He went away to get dressed.

  II

  EASY PARKED HIS DUSTY black Volkswagen in the small parking lot behind his Sunset Strip office. A Negro comic was unloading party dresses and wigs from the trunk of a new Mercedes 220S. He winked at Easy.

  Inside his private office Nan Alonzo, Easy’s short broad thirty-six-year-old secretary, was hunched at the airconditioner with both stubby hands resting on it. “This thing is making a funny noise,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Maybe it’s shivering.” Easy sat down behind his metal desk, felt at his In box.

  “Men and women have different heat-awareness thresholds,” said his secretary. “We were talking about that at my group therapy session the other night. How’s Jill?”

  “Adjusting to her new affluence.”

  “She’s a nice girl,” said Nan. “A little frail maybe, but a nice person. Usually I wouldn’t encourage you to date a client, but I approve of Jill.”

  “She’s not a client,” said Easy, “or a former client. I met Jill when I was working for somebody else. She was the object of the quest.”

  “They didn’t let Bogart keep the Maltese Falcon,” said Nan.

  “Which shows how working conditions among private detectives have improved since those grim depression years,” said Easy. “A friend of Jill’s is supposed to come in this morning.�
��

  Nan inclined her head toward the other door. “He’s out there already. Been here since 9:15, with a manila envelope in his lap.”

  Easy picked a Pentel pen out of the cup of them next to his desk calendar and moved a memo pad reading John Easy & Associates, Detective Services to the middle of his blotter. “What’s in the envelope?”

  “Clues,” answered Nan.

  “He told you?”

  “Seems like a nice guy,” said Nan, nodding. “Shall I send him in.”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  Jim Benning was thirty years old, just under six feet tall, lean and dark, his hair starting to thin. He touched at the thin spot as he sat down in the client chair. Looking directly across at Easy he said, “I appreciate your seeing me, Mr. Easy. Jill says you’re very good.”

  Easy looked from Benning’s face to the manila envelope he was clutching. “Where do you think your wife is?”

  Benning opened his mouth, but didn’t speak for a few seconds. “I have no idea. I’m hoping you can find her somehow.”

  “You don’t want to let the police look for her?”

  Lowering his head, slouching slightly in the metal-frame chair, Benning said, “Okay, maybe I have a suspicion. A suspicion about where she might be.”

  “Another guy?”

  Benning touched at his thinning hair again. “Joanna has always been … restless I guess. The thing is, Mr. Easy, she promised me she wouldn’t wander off anymore. She promised me only a couple weeks ago and then … I don’t know.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “Nearly six days now,” said the young man. “Last Friday when I came home from the agency—I write copy for the Arbogast & Joseph Agency—when I got home about seven Joanna wasn’t there. No note or anything, though that part wasn’t unusual.” He exhaled loudly. “I don’t know. Jesus, you can get into such strange routines. You put up with some pretty odd things and pretend they’re normal.”

  “Your wife has wandered off before?”

  “Yes,” answered Benning in a dim voice. “I’m afraid so.” He shook his head and gave a sad laugh. “See, it’s not odd she’s gone, but it is odd she’s been gone so long. This part of it, this being gone for almost a week, this is new. I’m worried. Maybe she’s been hurt this time.”

  “Has she gone to places where she’s likely to get hurt?”

  Benning looked directly at Easy once more. “I don’t know, exactly, where Joanna goes.”

  “She never told you, gave you an alibi?”

  “Oh, sometimes she makes an excuse and sometimes she doesn’t. The thing is, she really did promise me she’d stop all this. For a week there it looked like things were going to change.”

  Easy said, “Usually she’d be away from home at least once a week?”

  Laughing, watching the gray rug, Benning said, “Doesn’t sound like much of a marriage, does it? I don’t know. The past year or so things began to go blooey, you know. Joanna and I got to fighting more and she started going away by herself more.”

  “She’s stayed away overnight before?”

  “Sure,” said Benning. “Sure, I’m afraid so. Overnight several times, a lot of times. Lately a couple of weekends, too. I just don’t seem to be very good at … at controlling the situation.”

  “The times your wife told you where she was going, what did she say?”

  “She’s supposed to have been attending some sort of psychiatric thing once a week,” said Benning. “Down in San Ignacio, a psychodrama lab run by this guy Darrel Skane. He’s been written up in the LA Times. Joanna thought something like Skane’s lab might help her settle down.”

  “Do you know if she actually went to any of Skane’s sessions?”

  “I think so. I’m not certain. Jesus, you’ve got to accept people some, trust them. I didn’t want to go playing detective with my own wife.”

  “How does she usually get where she’s going?”

  “She drives, is that what you mean? We’re a two-car family.”

  “Which car did she take this time?”

  “The Pinto,” said Benning. “It’s last year’s model, sort of a sand color.”

  “License number?”

  Benning’s lips formed a small O while he thought. “The number is J525262. Yeah, that’s it.”

  Easy put the license number on the memo pad. “I assume you haven’t heard of the car in six days either.”

  Benning’s mouth made a bigger O, then he said, “Oh, you mean have the police reported finding the car anyplace. No. It’s still as lost as Joanna.”

  Easy pointed the cap end of his pen at the large manila envelope the young man held pressed against his chest. “You brought something to show me?”

  “Pictures of Joanna.” Benning opened the clasp of the envelope and drew out two glossy photos of his missing wife. “These are two or three years old, taken when Joanna was still actively modeling.”

  The girl in the photos was about twenty-five, a tall brunette. Pretty in a cool and formal way. “Joanna Feyer,” Easy read off the bottom of the photo.

  “Her maiden name. She used her maiden name for her career.”

  Setting the pictures aside, Easy asked, “She have any relatives in the LA area?”

  Benning shook his head. “No. She’s an only child and both her folks are dead. She’s got no close relatives anywhere,” he said. “She’s not at any of our friends’ either. I’ve called all the people we’re close to.”

  “I’d like those names anyway.”

  “Here’s a list I made, in case you did.” Benning pulled a folded sheet of yellow copy paper out of the envelope.

  There were five names on the list. “Anything else in that envelope?”

  Benning hesitated. “I guess maybe I have been playing detective.” He slid one hand back into the wrinkled envelope. “Jesus, the things you do you never think you’re going to do. I’ve been … I’ve been going through Joanna’s purse and her clothes lately. When she’s asleep or out. I found a few things. Maybe they’ll help you. I don’t know.” He handed Easy a small sheet of blue memo paper. “I found this in her carcoat a month ago.”

  Written on the memo, in neat printing, was the name Ned and the numbers 203-0247. “Who’s Ned?” asked Easy.

  “I have no idea. That’s a San Ignacio number, though.”

  “Have you tried calling it?”

  Benning shook his head. “I haven’t had the nerve.” He returned his hand to the envelope and came out with three canceled checks. “I haven’t called this one either.”

  The checks had been written over the last four months, one every four weeks or so. Each was for one hundred dollars, drawn on the San Ignacio Mariner’s Bank and made out to a Dr. Gill Jacobs. They were signed with the name Joan St. John. “Do you know what kind of doctor Jacobs is?” Easy asked.

  “A psychiatrist,” said Benning. “I found him in the yellow pages. He’s got an office in Santa Monica.”

  “Any idea why your wife would use the name Joan St. John?”

  “No, but that’s her handwriting,” said the young man. “Oh, and there’s no Joan St. John listed in San Ignacio or Santa Monica, or in any other town around here. I checked through a whole lot of phone books.”

  “You think she might have a house or apartment of her own someplace?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s liable to do.”

  “It’s not anything she’s talked about?”

  “No. Most of our talks these days … arguments is the better word. No, we don’t go into any coherent details.” He reached one more time into the envelope. “This is the last thing.”

  Easy took the matchbook from Benrang. It was black and on its front was the single word, in glittery gold ink, Maybe? “This is from that nightclub,” said Easy. “Place in San Ignacio.”

  “Yes, the Maybe Club. Supposed to be, from what I hear, a swappers’ hangout, you know, swingers.”

  Easy said, “Okay, I can lo
ok for your wife. I charge $100 a day, plus expenses.”

  “I can afford that,” the young man assured him. “Jesus, I make $25,000 a year with the agency. Isn’t that ridiculous? Joanna thinks I’m worth a hell of a lot less. Will $300 in advance be enough?”

  “Sure. See my secretary on the way out and she’ll fill out the necessary papers,” said Easy. He tapped his desktop with his pen. “I can find your wife, but I can’t make her come home. You understand that?”

  “Yes,” said Benning. “I want to know if she’s alright. This, the way I feel right now, it’s like waiting for the guy upstairs to drop the other shoe. I want to know if she’s left me or what.” He stood. “Shall I leave all this stuff with you?”

  “Yeah.” Easy stood too and shook hands with his client. “I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything.”

  “Good luck.”

  After Benning left Easy sat down and picked up one of the pictures of Joanna Benning. He sat watching it for a long minute. Then he dropped the photo and shook his head.

  III

  THE RAIN STARTED WHILE Easy was walking down Cherokee, big warm drops splashing black on the dusty sidewalk.

  A sixty-two-year-old newsboy in a brown leather jacket and brown cap came running by, clutching a fat brown-covered scrapbook under his arm. He shook his head, saying to Easy, “Shit, it’s going to rain all over my Ann Sheridan collection.”

  Easy walked on. The hot rain slapped down all around him.

  Two frail teenage girls with straightdown hair were ducked under an awning in front of a defunct shoe repair shop. The frailer girl was vomiting on the stone doorstep, trying to mask her mouth with one thin hand.

  On the next corner a cowboy actor who’d had a series four years ago was standing with his arm around a second-rate agent and crying.

  When Easy came to the single dwarfed palm tree growing out of the sidewalk he turned down an alley. At its end stood a big brownstone warehouse. Easy reached out and rapped on the warehouse’s oaken door with a knobby fist. Set in the middle of the door was a small nameplate reading: Hagopian.

  The heavy door opened six inches and Hagopian’s hawk-nosed face looked out. “Hey, John Easy,” he said. “I don’t have my pants on.”