THIRTEEN
The clock on the stove read ten after twelve. Casey leaned against the sink, yawning hugely, sipping warmed-over coffee. On the back porch one of the dogs was scratching. Time for a flea-powder raid, he decided. But tomorrow was soon enough.
The chili con carne dinner he had eaten on top of their pizza lunch rumbled alarmingly, and he reminded himself that the only exercise he’d had today was getting in and out of the Mustang. He had missed a workout at the gym yesterday, too. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up as beefy as Krug. Fat fuzz. Well, you would be a policeman.
Yawning repeatedly, Casey went softly through the dark rooms of the wide-eaved, rambling shingle bungalow he had grown up in, unconsciously avoiding the places in the floors which had always creaked. The dining room smelled of cooking, and the centerpiece of homegrown roses. In the hall the scent became tart, artificial—his father’s aftershave. They must have gone out tonight, probably to play bridge at the neighbors’.
Undressing slowly in his own front bedroom, Casey stared out at the quiet street, savoring the one small bit of real luck he and Krug had had today. A nugget maybe. Only time would tell. Detecting was like panning gold, he had found, mucky, monotonous drudgery for the most part—but sometimes, like tonight, the spadework seemed worth it…
Mrs. Allman was in a state of shock, they had discovered when they called to check after leaving the Flesher girl’s apartment building. According to Merriweather’s mellifluous report, the lady had taken to her bed and would not be available for questioning until tomorrow.
“So the hell with the Beautiful People,” Krug growled. “Let’s keep hitting the kids. Sooner we nail ’em all, the better.”
He called in to the bureau next, and through the glass wall of the public phone booth, Casey could see that the news was not good. He braced for a storm when Krug returned to the car.
“Guess what? All the creeps have been covered. All got a story, but nobody’s been in to sign a statement.” The Mustang lurched as Krug climbed in, seething. “What a load of bullshit. Kid gloves we got to use, he says. For Chrissake, we should’ve hauled ’em all in, first thing! Why wait till they got their stories matched up?”
Casey drove off silently. And glimpsing the headlines at a corner newsstand, he smiled to himself. More fuel for the fire. “Take a look, Al.”
A big black banner on the Evening Outlook read drug cure hypnotist slain. They paused long enough to buy a copy, and Casey drove on while Krug read aloud: “ ‘Police Say Leads Assure Quick Solution of Heinous Crime.’ What lead, for Chrissake?” He rattled the newsprint furiously. “Goddammit, we should’ve scooped ’em all up while we had the chance! I’ll lay you ten to one they’re all together right now, cooking up the rest of the story. Listen to this shit.” He glared down at the newspaper lying open on his knees. “ ‘Using a power as ancient as the pyramids, Dr. Stephen Myrick was able to effect miraculous results with seemingly hopeless drug cases.’ Newspaper reporters! Christ, we’ll have every nut in town calling on this one. And you know what that means. Overtime till it’s coming out of our ears.”
Turning left on Lincoln, Casey headed south through Santa Monica. To the east it was night, but westward over the sea the sky was still brilliant with the sun’s afterglow—a deep, clear summer-blue unmarred by fog or smog. But by the time they had passed the city limit and swung west toward the huge marina area, dusk had fallen. Lights like low stars burned here and there among the forest of masts. Cabin windows of motor launches glowed. They followed Admiralty Way by new apartment complexes, quaint and fancy restaurants, finally locating the docking area Merriweather had mentioned that morning.
The Allman houseboat turned out to be a big one—a white, painted aluminum structure floating on a double hull—moored at the end of a long series of small boat slips. On the dark, still surface of the waterway, the ungainly craft’s reflection was transformed, a dreamboat swimming dim and illusory as a medium’s vision. Music drifted across to them from the wide awning-covered afterdeck. In the darkness under the fringed canvas a shadow stirred; a cigarette glowed, shooting sparks as it was tossed overboard.
“You two look out of place here.” A husky, glamorous voice floated to them. “Cops and boats don’t go together any better, it looks like, than bookkeepers and horses. You want to come aboard?”
Clumping across the short gangway first, Krug looked teetery and unsteady on his feet. Cops and boats, Casey thought. Bookkeepers and horses. He could sense the amusement of the shadowy figure lounging in the deck chair, watching them.
“Santa Monica Police Department,” Krug was saying. “I’m Detective Sergeant Krug, this is Detective Kellog. You want to step over here, ma’am”—hesitating near an open cabin doorway where the light streamed out—“we’ll show you our identification.”
Long legs in white bell-bottoms shifted, then she was still again. Still sounding amused, she said, “Uh-uh, I’m too lazy.” A beautiful woman, Casey thought, mysterious and desirable. Intrigued, he peered through the shadows at the pale, indistinct oval of her face, finally deciding that she wore large mod glasses which seemed tinted, but lightly, for he thought he could see her eyes glistening. “If you want to sit down,” she was saying, “there’re some chairs over there.” A ghostly pale arm pointed the way.
Bumping each other and then the wood-framed canvas chairs, they both sat down. “We’d like to talk to Mr. Allman, too,” Krug said. “Is he ho—I mean, on board?”
“No, he’s baby-sitting tonight.” Something flashed. Her glasses, Casey thought. Groovy shades. Then ice clinked; she was drinking something. “I’d offer you some of this,” she said, “but it’s only iced tea. When the cat’s away, the mouse doesn’t play.”
Recognizing the forties style, Casey suppressed a sigh. Late Late Show dialogue. Bogart and Bacall. Disappointed, he retouched his idea of her, bringing it closer to middle age. “You must be”—mentally he fished for the name he remembered scribbling in his notebook—“Mrs. Doris Cesana?”
“Chay,” she said. “It’s Italian. Chay-sahna.”
“Sorry. Mrs. Cesana.” She wore a kind of knit cap, he could see now, a sleeveless shirt over the white bell-bottoms, and she was barefoot. Even in the dimness, her rings flashed a message of many carats.
“You live here, Mrs. Cesana?” Krug was asking, coming only vaguely near her pronunciation. “This your home address?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“You any relation to Mr. Allman?”
“My God,” she said, laughing softly, “how square can you get?”
“Just asking, Mrs. Cesana. We like to know where we stand.”
“Look, let’s not beat around the bush any more than we have to, okay? Bob’s with Mona now, but he lives here. I didn’t dig that one-big-happy-family arrangement.”
“Yeah, I bet you didn’t. How about Myrick, Mrs. Cesana—How did he fit in?”
“Nicely, Sergeant.” She moved languidly. “Why don’t you let your friend ask a couple now?”
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll talk if he wants to.” Krug hesitated. “Mrs. Cesana, when was the last time you saw Stephen Myrick?”
“Yesterday. He and Mona and I had lunch together at Le Bistro.”
“What time did you leave?”
“About three, I think. Close to, anyway. They went on home. To Mona’s, that is.”
“Where did you go, Mrs. Cesana?”
“To have my hair done.” Her voice thickened, as if she were laughing silently. “Blondes may have more fun, Sergeant, but they also spend more time in beauty salons.”
“Is that a fact.” Krug cleared his throat. “What time did you get back here yesterday, Mrs. Cesana?”
“About six, I guess.”
“Was Mr. Allman home when you got here?”
“No, he usually doesn’t arrive till about seven. They
work late at the studios, you know.”
“He an actor, Mrs. Cesana?”
“No, a producer. He does documentaries. All that turgid stuff about drug problems and homosex—”
“About last night,” Krug broke in. “Mr. Allman got here about seven, then?”
“That’s right. We had a quick drink while we dressed for dinner. Mona always gets livid if you’re not there on time. And she loathes cocktails, so you’ve got to sit right down. Not that I blame her,” she added, “she’s a magnificent cook.”
“The way we heard it, you didn’t leave there till about two this morning. That’s a long dinner.”
“Well, we made up in brandy and liqueurs for all the martinis we missed.”
“How about Dr. Myrick? Did he come by at all?”
“No, he had some problem about that stupid group of his.” She groaned suddenly. “God, I can’t believe it. Just can’t believe—He was the most alive person I ever knew. You know what I mean? One of those”—her voice broke, turning guttural—“those strong people. Everybody loved him. Leaned on him. Even when he was doing his graduate work at Berkeley, people were already coming to him—”
“We appreciate how you feel,” Krug interrupted impatiently, “but if you don’t mind, we’ll get to the background stuff later.”
“Wait a minute,” Casey said, “Mrs. Cesana, did you know him then? At Berkeley?”
“Didn’t I just say I did?”
“Then you must have lived around the area. Maybe in San Francisco?”
“That’s a fairly obvious conclusion.”
“Did you work when you lived there, Mrs. Cesana?”
“Gawd,” she drawled. “Sergeant, your friend’s too klutzy for me. Maybe you can tell me what he’s getting at?”
“My pleasure,” Krug said happily. “One more question ought to do it, Mrs. Cesana. Is your husband’s name by any chance Angelo?”
A nugget, for sure.
FOURTEEN
The next morning their day began as usual with the rundown, starting with the captain’s customary review of the cases which might require cooperation from other departments. Then the lieutenant took over, and they discussed the overnights and daily reports on every case open in Santa Monica, including two new ones—a possible suicide which had just come in, and a holdup the night before at a residential hotel on Second. “The kicker on this one,” Timms said, “is that the night clerk is an old guy. Got so scared, I guess, he had a heart attack. Anyway, by the time a squad car got there, the poor bastard was almost dead. All he could tell them was two guys, both black.”
“Could be the same two pulled that gas-station heist last week,” Ralph Zwingler said. “I put the word out, but so far nobody’s popped with anything.”
“Sounds to me like they got to be from out of town,” Haynes said gloomily. Which meant the holdup men would be unknown to informants who, for a price, might name them. “You want us to try LA and Beverly Hills, Lieutenant?”
“Might as well. Nothing new developing with our killing in the park?”
“Zilch, sir,” Zwingler reported. “We’re at a standstill. All we’ve got is an unclaimed motorcycle. No family we know of yet for the decedent. A dead end on contacts. Narco says Taylor was for sure a dealer—pot, smack, pills, the works.” He shrugged callously. “Small loss to the world, right? Our maybe-witness can’t add anything to his story about seeing a guy sitting in an import car near the scene. Except maybe the car was blue or green.”
Have to see what turned up, if anything, Timms said. Wait and see, the investigator’s motto. Night tour had corroborated Eddie Parsons’s story, he told them. Neighbors on both sides claimed at least three boys were there Monday night with the television blasting. “According to the statements we’ve rounded up, they’re all pretty much in the clear. Only one hole in the doughnut—the Flesher girl. Maybe the Simmons girl’s parents can give us a line on her. Could be the two kids were friends.”
“Yeah, I thought of that already,” Krug said. “Missus isn’t talking, but Mister might. We’ll catch him at his office.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Funny, none of those kids mentioning that the Simmons girl was dead.”
“Could be self-protection,” Zwingler suggested. “She checks out as an OD. Got to be the dirtiest word in their language right now.”
“All right.” Timms leveled a finger at Casey. “Where’s the report on that woman you talked to last night?”
“Cesana, Doris,” Krug answered before Casey could. “Also known as Lila. Also known in her flaming youth as Delila.” He yanked the report Casey had been typing out of the typewriter. “Here it is, hot off the presses.”
“Yeah, twelve hours late. ‘Mrs. Doris Cesana,’ ” Timms read, “ ‘stated that she knew the decedent for more than twenty years, first in San Francisco, then later in Los Angeles.’ ” He scowled at Krug. “What about Santa Monica?”
“That comes later. Story is, she and her husband, Angelo Cesana, came down here in 1960. But three years later she divorced him and went back to Frisco.”
“Looking for Myrick, you think?”
“Yeah, but which Myrick, that’s the problem.” Krug grinned. “Want to bet his brother’s got one of those glamour-puss shots, ‘To Bill with Love,’ signed ‘Lila’?”
Timms looked interested all of a sudden. “What do you think?” he asked Casey.
“Well, it’s only a guess,” Casey said carefully, “but offhand I’d say she was just trying a number on us.”
“Meaning what?”
“She isn’t getting any younger and—well, she likes being thought of as—you know—still irresistible.”
“For Chrissake,” Krug muttered.
But Timms ignored him. “Better not jump to any conclusions,” he advised. “This brother doesn’t look too far-fetched to me as a possible suspect. And here could be a motive.”
“But he must be nearly—” Casey stopped himself too late.
“Fifty? At least forty-five?” Timms was not amused. “For your information, Kellog, crimes of passion are not limited to the under-thirty age group. That’s point one. Point two is, Myrick’s brother was trying the worst way yesterday to work up a stink that those kids in the group did it. They didn’t realize he was taping their sessions for a book, the brother says. Everything they said in private was going to turn up in print. And when they found out, he claims, they felt betrayed, so they killed him.”
“What’s so crazy about that?” Krug’s tone was belligerent.
“Maybe nothing,” Timms said patiently. “Except so far they’ve got alibis. All I’m saying now is, William Myrick isn’t in the clear. It’s only an hour down here by plane from San Francisco, and between all the airlines there must be twenty, thirty flights a day. So the next step is a query to San Fran PD, right? We want chapter and verse on William Myrick’s activities Monday night.”
“Something else, too, Lieutenant,” Casey added as Krug headed for Communications. “Mrs. Cesana let a hint drop. Nothing we could pin her down on. But it was something about the decedent serving notice a while back that he didn’t want any of his friends dropping in.”
“This got something to do with Miss Crewes, you think?”
“Maybe, sir. But maybe not, too.”
“All right, see what you can get out of Allman when you see him.”
Through the marine operator, Casey called Robert Allman at the houseboat, finding that he had already left. From the studio in San Fernando Valley, he received the report that Mr. Allman had not yet arrived, so he left the number and a message for the producer to call as soon as possible.
While he was on the telephone, more news from the lab arrived. One of the victim’s contact lenses had been smashed, possibly under the feet of his murderer. Any suspect’s shoes should be sent for testing, since there was a possibility that
tiny pieces of optical plastic might still be found imbedded in the soles. Also a variety of latent prints had been lifted from the scene; Detective Bureau should note that any and all visitors to, and residents of, the decedent’s premises must be fingerprinted before the latents could be sorted out. The confiscated tape of the Monday meeting contained a little over one hundred minutes of miscellaneous talk. A transcript would be typed and sent up as soon as possible.
The autopsy report arrived shortly after Krug returned, confirming the information in the preliminary PM that the victim had not eaten for several hours prior to his death, and that he had died instantly of massive cranial injuries inflicted by a large heavy instrument. There were no bruises, lacerations, no matter under the fingernails—no sign, in short, of a struggle. It was the opinion of Dr. Harold Deacon that the murderer had struck from the rear, and with intent to kill, taking his victim by surprise. Time of death was placed after ten, but before midnight Monday.
“Which leaves us six kids, that Flesher girl, a pack of fat patients and the Crewes woman—just to name a few,” Timms said moodily. “That bronze thing he was killed with sat on that table in the front hall. Looks to me like Myrick was in his office, heard something maybe, came out to investigate and surprised whoever it was.”
“Could have been the doorbell he heard,” Casey suggested.
“Right, we can’t discount it could’ve been a caller,” Timms agreed. “But I also like the idea of somebody already in the house. Somebody laying for him. Somebody who knew the housekeeper was off the premises.”
“The only person who fits that,” Krug said, “is the Crewes dame.”
“Well, I’m not discounting her by any means, Al,” Timms said. “What the hell, we can’t cross out any of ’em yet! Not unless we can find a neighbor or somebody who saw something definite. So far, all we’ve got from canvassing is a lot of gripes about the motorbikes and those kids meeting there.”
The incoming lines began to light up then—the nut calls Krug had predicted. One was from a clairvoyant who, for half the reward, offered to use her occult powers to solve the murder of Stephen Myrick. Haynes kept trying to explain to her that no reward had been offered, but the seeress was either stubborn or hard of hearing. Zwingler’s call was from a full-blooded Apache whose talents as a tracker had been used, he claimed, in many a manhunt. All he asked in return for his services was a lot of the sort of publicity which might help him break into film work. Another call, from an elderly citizen who claimed to have seen a band of bloodstained hippies roaming north of Montana near Ocean Avenue on Monday night, occupied Krug and Casey. “How come you didn’t call the police, mister?” Krug asked. Well, he didn’t realize, the old man sputtered, and anyhow, if the police didn’t want his help…
Rouse the Demon: A Krug & Kellog Thriller (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 3) Page 7