Darkest Hour

by Nielsen, Helen

“You can”—Wanda had been studying grammar and diction—”you may have a lifetime pass,” she said.

  They said good night and Simon put down the telephone and got inside his Aquascutum. Just a few minutes alone with Wanda had made it much easier to face the mess waiting for him at Motel Six.

  • • •

  In less than a decade Marina Beach had been transformed from a sleepy resort and artist’s colony into a settlement of near-city status, and all of this had come about by virtue of a freeway system which laced out from Los Angeles to bind together with carbon-monoxide-fumed arteries heterogeneous masses of people who had heretofore lived in blissful oblivion of one another. The lights of the new residential area winked brightly on the black hills as Simon eased the XK-E down the slope toward the civic center. Most business houses were closed at this hour. The new city hall, the taxpayer’s Taj Mahal on the mall, was bathed with light, and the motels and hotels along the highway still displayed their colorful signs with an occasional red “No Vacancy” announcing a bright victory over seasonal lag. Simon turned south on the highway and drove slowly to a small family-style beer bar on the near side of the Motel Six marquee. He knew the neighborhood. The bar and motel were owned by Bob and Linda Gusik, a decent pair of native Marinians who wouldn’t renew Eve’s rental in the morning if they learned what she was trying to do.

  Simon was suspicious. The Eves of this world weren’t especially ingenious and rarely worked as loners. Ambush was a game he didn’t care to play. With this in mind he drove in at the bar entrance and found a shadowed corner at the rear of the parking area where he could leave the conspicuous Jaguar and proceed on foot. It was Thursday night and the Gusiks were having more trouble than usual keeping the clientele orderly; that meant that no one inside the building was likely to have heard the roar of the XK-E. Simon avoided the action area and approached the motel through the back alley. The sound of surf chopping at the rocks twenty feet below land’s end covered his footsteps en route, and the sound of unsynchronized television sets covered them inside the court.

  Eve hadn’t lied. A red neon sign at the front entrance stated: “MOTEL SIX—All Rooms $6 Up to 4 Guests. TV—$1 Extra.” The “Vacancy” sign was glowing and a lighted telephone booth stood sentinel before the manager’s office where a “Ring for Service” bell was connected to the bar next door. The office was deserted and the shadows plentiful, and Simon skirted the light and conducted a one-man Nielsen poll all the way to room 118: the late movie was leading two to one with a yelping poodle and a crying child tied for second place.

  Room 118 (there were no separate cabins) was located toward the rear of the farthest wing under a stairway leading to an upper level. The door stood hospitably open, but the room was dark except for about three inches of light showing through the opened bathroom door. Simon rapped sharply on the front door but he couldn’t be heard from the bathroom because the shower was turned to full power. His knock caused the door to the room to swing inward, disclosing a small room furnished with one double bed, a dresser and a cheap lounge chair. The spread was still on the bed but had been turned down enough to dislodge the pillows which were stacked double against the headboard facing the television. Simon was now practically inside the room and, since it was doubtful that Eve was entertaining guests in the shower, he felt reasonably safe in entering. He closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to get accustomed to the change of light. The sound of the shower didn’t abate. A cheap overnight case stood open on the floor at the foot of the bed. Tossed over the lid was a green jersey knit coat dress, a brief, a bra and a half slip. On the bed was a large plastic handbag, a white vinyl raincoat and a printed headscarf. All is fair in love, war and blackmail, and so Simon made a quick but thorough examination of the bag and of the pockets of the coat. He wasn’t surprised at not finding the pictures of Kwan unguarded. Even Eve wasn’t that careless. He did find the bag in a complete state of disorganization and dumped the contents on the bed. There was a large plastic compact, a lipstick (orange sherbet), an amber comb and a small package of Kleenex, a woman’s wallet of red leather, containing a checking-account identification for Eve Necchi from a San Diego bank, a Social Security card in the same name, a sweepstakes ticket and three snapshots of herself and an aggressive-looking Marine sergeant in various poses of self-conscious affection. The printed border on the snaps all carried the date: 1959. There were two twenty-dollar bills in the currency compartment and several dollars in silver in the coin purse. That was all. Simon replaced every item, closed the bag and returned it to the bed.

  The shower was still running. An opened fifth of Ancient Age stood on the dresser with two glasses. One glass was smeared with orange lipstick and the other was still wrapped up in the sanitary container. The bottle was almost half empty but there was no ice and the whisky didn’t look tempting. An opened pack of True menthols stood beside an ashtray full of butts with orange smears on the mouthpiece. Double bed, single occupancy. So far the picture was clear.

  But the shower was still running.

  “Anybody home?” Simon called. “You’ve got company.”

  There was no response. Simon walked to the bathroom door and pushed it with one foot. The door swung slowly open against a wall of steam rising from behind the curtained shower stall. “Eve!” he shouted. “How the hell can you breathe in this mess?” It was no time for modesty or protocol because the water rushing from the shower head was hot enough to scald, and anyone on the receiving end was getting parboiled. He grabbed the curtain and yanked it back against the wall. Through the wall of steam he could see the faucets and a quick twist of the wrist stopped the flow. As the steam cleared he saw Eve propped against the tile splash wall opposite the faucets. She was in a sitting position with her arms hanging limply at her sides, one leg thrust out before her and the other bent at the knee and leaned grotesquely against the wall. She wasn’t naked. She wore the familiar wet chiffon mini-nightgown that clung to her body and had been rolled up over her hips, and a bedraggled wisp of a bed jacket. One gold bed slipper was still on her left foot, but the mate had slid down over the shower drain and she now sat in at least an inch of steaming hot water. She didn’t move. Her head was bowed prayerfully on her chest, and when Simon grasped a handful of dripping hair and raised her face toward his the reason for her condition was obvious. Eve’s neck had been broken. She was dead.

  Moments later Simon’s brain began to function. No woman was likely to enter a shower unassisted wearing a nightgown and bed slippers. Even if Eve had consumed most of the whisky since their telephone conversation and staggered into the shower by mistake, the first blast of hot water would have prompted a fast exit. Simon began to feel conspicuous. He snatched up a handful of toilet tissue and mopped his fingerprints from the faucets and the edge of the shower curtain. He was no pathologist, but it seemed about as likely that Eve had broken her neck after entering the shower as it did that Kwan had beaten himself and then leaped up on the wrought-iron skewer on his balcony railing.

  Eve Necchi. She couldn’t have been much over twenty-five. She wasn’t bad-looking and had been very pretty when the snapshots in her wallet were taken. It was a dirty way for anyone to die—even a blackmailer—and there was something disgusting and obscene in the way she was sprawled on the shower floor. Much as he hated to, he turned the faucet back on, yanked the curtain back in place, dropped the tissue-paper sponge into the wastebasket and returned to the bedroom. He whipped out a pocket handkerchief and carefully scrubbed the plastic purse and its contents. He hadn’t touched the bottle or the glasses on the dresser. The doors were all right. He had kicked open the bathroom door and rapped the front door with his knuckles. As panic subsided, the more rational aspects of self-preservation returned. He looked for the telephone, but Motel Six didn’t provide room phones, only the public booth outside the manager’s office. A telephone was important. Eve’s death might have been an accident, but the odds were on the long side and every hour her death remained u
nreported lessened the chances of the police nabbing the killer. And nabbing this killer, Simon reasoned, could save him a lot of footwork and rental on Hannah’s guard dog.

  He opened the door and peered out. There was no sign of life in the courtyard and the shoot-out on the late movie made a good cover for footsteps. Nobody with the show turned on was likely to move an eyelash from the screen until the final fade-out. He left the door of 118 open as he had found it and hurried back to the XK-E. Minutes later he was driving south on Coast Highway, and about two miles later he stopped at the telephone booth in a darkened service station long enough to place a call to Detective Lieutenant Franzen at the Marina Beach City Hall.

  Simon stretched his handkerchief over the mouthpiece.

  “There’s a dame passed out in room one-eighteen at Motel Six,” he announced. “I don’t mean passed out like drunk, man. I mean passed out like dead.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Simon returned to the XK-E and barreled south, and he didn’t slacken speed until the turn-off in Enchanto-by-the-Sea that took him to Sam’s place. The hour was late, but he wasn’t surprised to see light at the windows. It would be some time before Vera Raymond began sleeping regular hours again. He gunned the motor twice before parking in the driveway, and she must have heard him because she was opening the door as he mounted the stairs. She was courting sleep. She wore a Scotch plaid flannel robe over blue nylon pajamas, and her feet were lost in a pair of deerskin scuffs that must have belonged to Sam. Informality didn’t upset her—not when something living, breathing and English-speaking was on her doorstep.

  “I received your flowers,” she said. “They’re lovely. I’m holding the telephone number in reserve for the night I start screaming at the shadows on the walls.”

  Inside, the television was turned on. Vera lowered the volume. “I don’t really watch or listen to these late movies,” she said, “but it seems nice to have somebody around even if they are only pictures.”

  “I could use a drink,” Simon said.

  She laughed. “Of course you could! And here I stand gabbing! Take off your coat, Simon, and sit down anywhere. Is bourbon all right?”

  “Perfect,” Simon said.

  “I’ll take your coat. Why, it’s damp! Is it raining out?”

  Simon almost explained that the night air at water’s edge is always damp, but he didn’t want to commit himself as having been anywhere near the ocean until after Lieutenant Franzen made public what he found at Motel Six.

  “It’s misty in spots,” Simon said.

  Vera tossed his coat over a side chair and got busy with the bottles at a small portable bar.

  “Over ice?” she asked.

  “Right.”

  “With—?”

  “With loving hands and a warm heart. Come on, have a drink with me. It will do you good.”

  She was a strong woman. She must have been sitting there alone for hours, but she was too canny to start drinking alone. People acquired crutches that way, and Vera Raymond had two very good legs that she intended to land on when the shock of Sam’s death wore away. After they were seated at the divan facing the fireplace, and after the drinks had been sipped, Simon asked Vera to think back again to the night Sam received the call that sparked his drive to San Diego. Not wanting to frighten her, he kept the inquiry low-key as if merely continuing their previous discussion of Sam’s unfinished story. He wanted her to conjure up a name, a phrase, anything that might definitely tie the call to Monterey. She tried but it was useless. He mentioned the name Kwan for reaction value, and she shook her head.

  “Sam never referred to such a person in my presence. Who is Kwan?”

  “I’m not clear about that myself,” Simon admitted. “All I know for certain is that he was killed Sunday night at the Balboa Hotel in San Diego, and those pictures that Sam took were of Kwan. That’s what Sam was doing in San Diego all night, Vera. He wasn’t trying to rehabilitate a juvenile delinquent.”

  She absorbed the information quietly. She had a quick mind and powers of imagination.

  “So that was Sam’s big story,” she mused.

  “It looks that way.”

  “What do the police say about Kwan?”

  “They don’t. At least, I’m not asking questions directly and nothing’s been volunteered. Kwan’s dead—cremated and, presumably, returned to his ancestors. He never made the front page and he’s already forgotten.”

  “But the police never close a case, do they? I mean, not until it’s really closed. I wish I could finish Sam’s story for him.”

  “Maybe you can—indirectly. What do you know about Monte Monterey’s activities since he stopped making pictures? How long since you’ve seen him, for instance?”

  Vera held her glass in both hands, rolling it gently in her palms. She watched the wordless picture on the television screen for a few moments and said: “You think it was Monte who called Sam Sunday night, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I’ve tried not to think about it, but I suppose you’re right. Sam would have known Monte’s voice and gone to San Diego if Monte asked him to. After all, Sam was Monte’s brother-in-law for many years. Yes, if Monte was in trouble he would have called Sam. But I can’t tell you anything about his activities for the last—oh, twelve or so years. The last time I saw Monte was at Lola’s funeral. That was in April of 1953. His career was all but over then. It was the next year, I believe, that he moved to Mexico City, and after that he traveled a lot. We received a Christmas card from him one year that was posted in Mexico City, and a year later there was one from Buenos Aires. They stopped coming for a few years, and then we received one from Paris, so, you see, Monte was mobile. There were no letters or gossip. Just cards. After Paris they stopped coming.”

  “Do you remember any more of Monte’s family?”

  Surprisingly, Vera laughed. More surprisingly, the laugh was vibrant and alive.

  “The Moraleses? Oh, they were something! Monte was the eldest and that made him the head of the clan. Lola came next. She was the raving beauty Monte guarded like an overzealous duena until Sam married her and rescued her from the dark castle. There were two other sisters, but I don’t remember much about them. By that time I was more interested in Sam. I suppose they married and each raised a brood of children.”

  “Wasn’t there a brother, too?”

  “Of course—Joseph, the baby. Oh, he was darling, Simon! He was beautiful! He would have made Monte look like Dracula on horseback if he’d ever gone before the cameras, but Joe went into the army just before Pearl Harbor and was killed in action in the South Pacific early in the war.”

  “But he did marry, right?”

  “Yes, indeed. It was a beautiful wedding. Monte paid for everything. Joe didn’t have a dime outside his PFC pay, but the ceremony was held at the Seville Inn chapel, and the bride and groom spent their honeymoon in a bridal suite—” Vera broke off abruptly. “That’s scary,” she reflected. “It’s the same hotel where Monte fell to his death. Whitey told me about it yesterday, and I remembered that winding stair well, but I didn’t make the association. Lola had some photos taken—Sam probably has them put away someplace— of Joe and Juanita standing against the guard rail. They were so very young and so much in love.”

  “JO to JM,” Simon reflected, “ten-twenty-four-forty-one.”

  “What?”

  “An inscription in the wedding ring found on Monte’s body.”

  “Joe’s ring? That’s odd. I always thought that his body was never recovered from the sea. Maybe Monte knew something that he never told Lola or Sam. He was never very close to anyone after Joe’s death. It did something cruel to him; he became hard and distant. He was someone who had been so deeply hurt that he didn’t want to ever be put in a vulnerable position again.”

  Vera shuddered involuntarily. The fire was warm and there was still half an inch of liquor in her glass, but the chill she reacted to was something deep inside that would nev
er entirely leave her now.

  “I can use a refill,” Simon said quickly. “How about you?”

  It gave her something to do, and she seemed grateful. She left the divan and returned to the portable bar, and while she poured two more drinks Simon put another log on the fire. It was eucalyptus wood and burned easily, releasing a spicy scent into the room. Vera returned with the drinks, but now she was frowning apprehensively. “You puzzle me, Simon Drake,” she said. “You’re a busy, successful man. Why are you so interested in Sam’s death?”

  She was sharp. She didn’t ask why he was interested in Monte’s death, or even in the mysterious Mr. Kwan’s death. It was Sam’s funeral that he had attended. It was Sam’s trail he was trying to trace. Simon accepted his drink and shrugged, trying to act casual and not disturb her.

  “Sam Goddard was a colorful character. I’m interested in contemporary history.”

  Vera wasn’t impressed. “Let me put it another way,” she said. “You’re an expensive lawyer. Your time must be valuable.”

  “It is,” Simon said. “That’s why I’m here. I could be wasting precious hours preparing some corporation case for trial, but I got lucky early in life. Ten years ago I won a patent suit for a friend who had a great idea and little capital. I took out my fee in stock. What do you think happened?”

  “Nutty putty?” Vera asked.

  “Not quite that good but you’re warm. I’ve made enough on that stock to buy the old Victorian mansion in Marina Beach and with it the one and only Hannah Lee, and I have enough left over to play it cool from here to the finish line. In other words, Vera, I work when I have a feel for a case, or when somebody I like is involved. If I want to sit here with you and drink your booze and talk all night, I can do just that.”

  Vera came back and sat down beside him. She seemed satisfied with his answer and sipped her drink slowly while he told her about the pictures that were stolen at the Balboa Hotel in San Diego. He didn’t dwell on Eve, or mention where he had found her about three quarters of a late, late show ago, but Vera was quick on the uptake.