A Gambling Man
Page 34
“So do we wait here for Prettyman?”
“Now that I know Pickett has arrested Kemper, I’m pretty damn certain that Ern’s not gonna show up here. Pickett will. And then I think I might actually fear for our safety.”
“So what do we do?”
“You got your car out front?”
“Yeah.”
On the way out, Dash stopped at Earl’s body. He knelt down and closed the man’s eyes.
“He was a crook, and he hated my guts, but anybody who thinks they had a harder life with fewer opportunities than Earl is seriously fooling themselves.”
“You think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“Maybe. Let’s hit the road before Carl Pickett hits us.”
“Where are we going?”
“I think it’s time to check in with our client.”
Chapter 61
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” snarled Steve Prichard, the front-desk sergeant. He apparently had the graveyard shift tonight and was not happy about it.
“We’re here to see our client,” said Dash calmly.
“Your client?”
“Douglas Kemper. I understand he was booked for a double homicide. I presume an alleged murderer would not be able to post bail.”
“He’s here, but you can’t see him.”
“How many years you got to your pension, Steve?”
“Five, why?” growled Prichard.
“Because you’re never going to make it with that attitude.”
A pulse beat in the blue vein at the cop’s temple. “You threatening me?”
“No, just stating a fact. Rogers versus California, 1934. Cops denied a suspect seeing his attorneys and private investigators. All charges were dropped, a writ of habeus corpus was issued by the court, and the suspect walked free. And the cop who did the denying was busted down to riding in a prowler for a month. Then, for good measure, they canned his ass seven months before his full ride kicked in. You want to go down that road, Stevie boy, it’s okay by me.” He glanced at Archer. “Let’s go wake up Kemper’s lawyer and get the lawsuit filed before this lug uses what little brain he has and comes to his senses.”
“You ain’t bullshitting me?” Prichard barked.
“Look it up, Steve. You can read, can’t you?”
Prichard glanced at Archer and then grabbed a set of keys off a hook.
He pointed a big finger at Dash. “Just one night I hope to run into your fat ass all alone on a dark street.”
“Why, Steve, you ain’t one of them guys that like guys, are you?”
Prichard’s face flushed, but before he could say anything Dash continued, “Our client? Before I really get mean.”
Prichard led them back to the holding cells and over to the cage containing Kemper. He was seated on a metal bench, his back to the wall and his collar and necktie still undone. His very expensive suit jacket rested on the bench next to him. He had a shiner on one eye and some hardened blood on his lip.
As Prichard unlocked the door, Dash said, “Who roughed him up? You?”
“He tripped and hit that handsome puss of his on the wall,” said Prichard with a grin.
“How is it that everybody who gets arrested in this town suddenly forgets how to walk?” Dash eyed Prichard and the ring of keys. “Call Ernie in here.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not letting you lock us in there and then forget you did.”
“I don’t know if he’s here.”
“He’s here. And I know Pickett’s not.”
Prichard left and came back with Prettyman, who said, “Willie, I’m sorry—”
“I know. Now take the keys from Steve and sit down with us and maybe you’ll learn something along with me and Archer.” After Prichard left, they all sat across from Kemper.
“Which one did that?” asked Dash, pointing to his injuries.
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not. Heads-up for you, the elevator guy at my building named Earl had his throat cut and Doctor Myron O’Donnell has a third eye. I’m thinking O’Donnell was the target though they clumsily tried to make it look like a narcotics steal.”
Kemper sat up straight, looking scared. “What the hell is going on?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Archer interjected, “You told us that O’Donnell had performed a recent surgery on your wife for appendicitis?”
“That’s right.”
“And you said her mother and father had used O’Donnell as well?” added Dash.
“Yes. Eleanor caught her arm in a piece of machinery at the shop where she kept her plane. She lost a lot of blood, but O’Donnell fixed her right up, good as new. And Sawyer had to have an operation after a car accident years ago.”
Dash said. “Now, whose idea was it for you to run for mayor?”
“It was my idea.”
“Armstrong didn’t put you up to it?”
“Look, I know everyone thinks I’m his lapdog, but the fact is, I don’t need help from him. When I told him I was running, he raised no objection, but I’m funding the campaign myself. He hasn’t put up one dime, nor would I take it if he offered.”
“You led us to think that he was supporting you,” said Archer.
“Did I? Well, maybe I did. But he’s not.”
“Why did you come to me to look into this blackmail scheme?”
“I asked my lawyer. He knew about you.”
“And does your lawyer know your father-in-law?”
“Well, yes. Sawyer recommended the guy to me. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Your wife called Armstrong tonight,” explained Archer. “He showed right up.”
“I bet he did,” Kemper muttered.
“Whenever father and daughter are together she becomes a different person. And not in a good way.”
Kemper seemed to appraise Archer in a new light. “You just described my marriage.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “I love Beth. From the moment I saw her, I was nuts about the woman. I loved her mother, too. Eleanor was a dynamo and Beth took after her.” He paused again. “That was when Sawyer wasn’t around. When he was, Beth just clammed up, became a totally different person, like you said. She’d defer to him on all subjects. Took his side against me. It made me mad. It enraged me, in fact.”
“And how did you manifest that rage, Mr. Kemper?” said Dash.
“I never touched a hair on her head and I never would. But…but I started going out on my own, pretended to play the field, acted like some sort of sap you’d see in the movies. Slept in separate rooms. I…I guess part of me thought it would make Beth jealous. The only thing it did was—”
“—it drew her to Benjamin Smalls,” said Archer. “They were having an affair, weren’t they? Ironic, since you were the one playing the ladies’ man, but had remained faithful.”
“I don’t blame Beth for what she did. I feel like I drove her to it. And I know Sawyer was in the background feeding her all sorts of lies about me, trying to destroy our marriage. And he intimated to me that Beth was sleeping with our chauffeur, Adam Stover. I didn’t want to believe it, but it made me suspicious.”
“Yeah, we met handsome muscle boy. He’s definitely not your wife’s type. But you made Armstrong’s job easy, you dope,” pointed out Dash.
“But I never did anything with the woman who was killed. And I sure as hell would never have murdered Wilson.” He paused and looked at Archer. “Why do you know about the island? What the hell would anyone do with it?”
“Well, I think your father-in-law is planning to build a huge casino complex on it,” answered Dash.
Prettyman interjected, “You can’t have a casino in California, Willie.”
“That chunk of rock ain’t part of California,” retorted Dash before turning to Kemper. “Your country club that has the marina and big dock. Does Armstrong have an ownership interest in that?”
“
Yes. It was my first big project. I needed his backing.”
“What’s the ownership split?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Not to be blunt, but what happens to it if you get gassed in the chamber at San Quentin?” said Dash.
Kemper paled. “I…Beth gets everything that I own.”
“Meaning, realistically, Armstrong will own it all.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Beth just can’t seem to say no to him.”
Archer said, “The day Eleanor Armstrong died in that plane crash, Beth was supposed to go up with her, but instead she went to a luncheon that you had arranged. How did that come to pass?”
“It was Sawyer. He really arranged the luncheon and he insisted that Beth be there.”
“I think Armstrong told Beth that it was your idea, not his.”
Kemper slowly nodded. “It seemed like the light went out of our marriage after Eleanor’s death.”
Dash glanced at Prettyman. “Carl’s going to come up with anything he can to lock me and Archer up. So we’re going to have to lie low for a bit.”
“Okay, Willie, but watch your back.”
“Hell, Ern, you know I’m as familiar with my back as I am my front.”
They walked out of the cell, where Dash buttonholed Prettyman out of Kemper’s earshot. “Okay, here’s the deal, Ern, you got any guys on the force who actually know Pickett’s a bad cop or who aren’t on the take themselves?”
“Yeah, sure. A few.”
“Good. Call ’em in and have them help you play guardian angel. If Kemper bites it, all my plans go sideways.”
Archer and Dash left.
“Where to now, Willie?” asked Archer.
“Midnight Moods.”
“Why?”
“I have to ask Mabel Dawson about an old vaudeville performer named Guy Parnell.”
“And that case you told Prichard about? Rogers versus California?”
“The technical term for that, Archer, is ‘bullshit.’ But it’s all in how you sell the line.”
Chapter 62
THEY FOUND DAWSON BACKSTAGE watching Callahan perform another set.
Dash glanced at the packed house, checked out Callahan doing a song-and-dance routine, and said, “And tell me again how you’re not the luckiest sap on earth, Archer?”
“It’s complicated.”
“In my day, it wouldn’t have been.” Dash eyed Dawson. “Okay, Mabel, we need to talk.”
“Not now. I’m busy.”
“There have been two more murders.”
“Here?” she snapped.
“No, but they’re connected. Now, why did you kick Guy Parnell loose early?”
Dawson slowly turned to look at him as Callahan belted out Dinah Shore’s “I’ll Walk Alone.”
Archer thought, Well that song fits her to a T.
Dawson said, “I…I guess he had a change of plan.”
Dash shook his head. “It’s what we in the business call a rhetorical question, Mabel, because I already know the answer. I dropped enough coins to talk to Parnell long distance. He’s in Detroit with an extra five hundred bucks in his pocket on top of his full seasonal wages courtesy of you.”
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I…I don’t recall.”
“Sure you do. Armstrong told you to do it, and so you did what you always do when Armstrong tells you to do something. Now the question is why he wanted you to do it.”
“Is this another rhetorical question?” asked Dawson, looking ill now.
“Yeah, it is. They needed his room to kill Fraser and Sheen. They transported Fraser from that room to hers after she was dead using the connecting attic space between the two rooms. They left Sheen in Parnell’s old room after the poor guy was murdered.”
Dawson took a deliberate step back. “I don’t know nothing about that.”
Dash shook his head and smiled. “Come on, Mabel, you’re up to your baby blues in this, honey. See, you told us Fraser liked rich men. Now, who’s the richest of all in this town and a widower and available to boot?”
“You’re nuts. Armstrong’s almost old enough to be her grandfather.”
“You’d be surprised at how millions in dough can make people seem a lot younger. So you arranged for poor Ruby to meet up with Armstrong in Parnell’s old room, only it was Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in there and not Armstrong. They pretended her throat was a steak, and then they deposited the lady in her own room through the crawlspace after cleaning up the blood. When you went looking for her, why do I think you skipped Parnell’s old digs? If you had opened that door and seen them cutting up poor Ruby, they might have had to kill you, too.”
“This is crazy talk, Willie,” said Dawson.
“Then why are your eyebrows sweating? Armstrong already knows what I’m about to tell you and here it is: You are what we call in the business a loose end. He’s had four people killed so far. What’s one more, sweetie? You get my drift, or are you under the delusion that you’re actually something special?”
Dawson plopped down in a chair that Archer had hastily drawn up for her while Callahan launched into Sinatra’s “Five Minutes More.”
Dash knelt down next to her and gently patted her hand. “Come on, Mabel, I got nothing against you. And I bet you didn’t know what they were going to do to poor Ruby.”
She shook her head and said in a hushed voice, “I didn’t. I swear to God. I thought I was doing her a favor. You know, hooking her up with money. The poor kid. Why…why would they do that to her?”
“She was just a murder to pin on somebody else,” said Dash. “Look, you got someplace safe out of town you can go to for a few days?”
“My sister’s. In Long Beach.”
“Okay, but first, we’re going to my office. I’m going to have an affidavit typed up and you’re going to sign it.”
“What affidavit?” she said, her eyes bugging out at the man.
“Just saying what you already told us. I’ll get my secretary to come in, type it up, and notarize it.”
“But then I’ll be—”
“What you’ll be is smart. You’ll get a deal. No jail time. And your story is memorialized for all to see if need be.”
“You swear?”
“So long as you’ve been square with me on your involvement, yeah, I swear. I’ll fix it with the DA. Now go pack a bag and we can drop you off at the bus station after we go by my office. Memory serves, there’s a southbound bus that leaves in about two hours that stops in Long Beach. You give me your sister’s phone number and I’ll be in contact. Okay?”
She nodded dumbly.
Archer went with her while she packed a bag, then they drove to Dash’s office. He had phoned Morrison from Midnight Moods and she was already there, waiting.
Archer looked at Morrison, all efficiency and professionally outfitted at this time of night, and wondered if she just waited by the phone all night for a call from Dash to say he needed her.
Dash and Dawson wrote out what she was willing to say, and Morrison typed it up in triplicate. Dawson signed three times and Morrison notarized all of them.
After that they drove Dawson to the Greyhound terminal.
She said, “Since I signed that paper, will you still need me?”
“We’ll have to see how it plays out. If it goes to trial, I’ll personally come and get you.”
They watched her get on the bus ten minutes later.
Archer said, “So, we can bring it all down with her affidavit?”
“Not even close, Archer. He said, she said. And unfortunately Armstrong’s words will carry far greater weight than a dame who runs a burlesque.”
“So why’d you have her do it?”
“Every little bit helps, and it was a way to scare her into getting to a safe place.”
“That was good of you, Willie.”
“I don’t have much good in me, Archer. But when it does come out, it feels pretty swell. Can I take another pull on your flask?”
“When Pickett and his clowns finish there, I’m going back to the doc’s office.”
“Why’s that?”
“To figure out why somebody needed to kill Myron O’Donnell.”
Chapter 63
ARCHER LOOKED ALL OVER MIDNIGHT MOODS until he found the old gent. He was the one Wilma Darling had pointed out to him the night they’d been having a drink on the terrace. He had the same lovely young lady sitting in his aged lap. Archer asked his questions and got his answers, which he grimly accepted as they proved his forming hunch correct. Then he drove straight to Wilma Darling’s bungalow, where he confirmed that the Ford coupe was gone and the place was empty. Next, he pulled out his map and saw the general direction he needed to take. He figured forty minutes if he made the Delahaye get real excited.
He kept the pedal to the floor, and thirty-eight minutes later he pulled into Ventura. He stopped at an all-night dance club—where people seemed to be having a good time without getting murdered—and asked for directions to his final destination. The bouncer actually knew the address and told Archer how to get there.
“That’s Wilma’s place,” said the man, a beefy gent with a bald head and hands the size of watermelons.
“Her place?”
“Yeah. Hey, you one of her customers?”
“Customers?” Archer said, puzzled. Then he quickly recovered and said, “Yeah, yeah, I am. Any idea where she is?”
The bouncer’s friendly features fell away as it was clear he did not believe Archer. “Forget it, mac, just forget it. Now beat it, I got work to do.”
He walked away, leaving Archer deeply disturbed.
The house was a one-story stucco with a red tile roof and enough plants, trees, and flowers to hide it from its neighbors. Its backyard was basically the ocean. A storm was drifting in, as Archer had found storms often did around here. It was like the Pacific wanted the coastal residents to be as wet as it was.
The Ford coupe wasn’t in the carport. The porch light was on, and that was it for illumination at this time of night. He pulled the Delahaye farther down the road and out of sight of the house. He got out and flitted back up the quiet street. He chanced looking in the mailbox and pocketed a couple of pieces of mail he found in there, which told him a lot, although the bouncer had already done that. He next circled back around, jumped a fence of the house next door to hers, and traversed the backyard, where the smell of charcoal from a recent cookout competed with the eucalyptus trees for dominance of his nostrils. Although he could still smell his sweat and the stink of fear that went along with it.