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NEW CENTURY PULP
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THE CASE OF THE PINK LADY
A Dick Nixon Mystery
By Casper Bogart
NEW CENTURY PULP
Portland, Oregon
For More Titles by Casper Bogart :
http://www.amazon.com/author/casperbogart
A Word From The Author
I love politics, and I love mystery fiction. In the last half of the twentieth century, one of the most fascinating public figures was Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United States.
Nixon was widely considered to be one of our more brilliant Presidents. History also tells us that he had a darker side. I find him unendingly interesting.
It is an historic fact that Nixon returned to Los Angeles after Kennedy beat him in 1960. Nixon also ran for governor, and lost. He also practiced law. But becoming a Private Eye is completely the product of my imagination. By doing so I am able to examine what made one of our most interesting Presidents tick.
One other note: the fictional Nixon as I write him here, uses profanity. One need only listen to the Watergate tapes to know that the historical Nixon also knew his way around a swear word.
I hope you enjoy this story. It was delightful to write!
I would also love it if you would consider joining my email list, and your honest review helps me as a writer tell the stories you want to read.
Email List: http://eepurl.com/LOoWj
Reviews: http://amzn.com/B006T3T1P2
Your friend,
Casper
To my Editor J.S. — with Love
THE CASE OF THE PINK LADY
A Dick Nixon Mystery
By Casper Bogart
He was still lightly buzzed from the whiskey he had pounded down all night, and the caffeine from the coffee he had just gulped was making him sweat. Or maybe it was the lights for the television cameras. It must be a hundred god damned degrees up here, he thought.
He stood behind the podium and looked down at the reporters. He could hear himself talking, but it was a distant voice, far, far away. The voice in his head was much closer.
Pricks. You never, ever gave me an inch, the voice said. I went to Russia. I waved my goddamned finger under Khrushchev's nose. I got Hiss, that lying commie spy-bastard and threw him in prison. When Ike had his heart attack, this country would have been screwed if I hadn't been the Vice President. But did you ever cut me one, miserable, little break? Hell no! In the campaign, it was all Kennedy. Kennedy of Hah-vard. How could a poor boy from Whittier College possibly be as good as Kennedy the "bronze warrior?" Never mind that old man Kennedy stole the Presidency from me. Fucking dead people voted for Jack in West Virginia! And Chicago. And Texas! Did you rise up in patriotic indignation and cut me a break, even then? Hell no. The 1960 election was mine! And you let him get away with it…
He looked down at the reporters in their shitty suits, scribbling in their miserable little notebooks. He knew that he was still talking, but his out loud voice was even fainter now, and the voice in his head grew even more agitated.
So I come home to California, biding my time until I can get back into the arena, challenge that pussy hound Jack Kennedy for the White House in '64, and what do I do? What the fuck do I do? I run for Governor! Shit, I never wanted to be Governor. Who the fuck suggested I run for Governor of California in nineteen fucking sixty-two?
He looked around the room, saw his political advisors, ashen and pale faced. Murray Gold, his head man, all six foot six of him, stood in the back of the room, a cigar sticking out of his face. Wasn't it Murray who told him to run?
But damn it, he had listened. And he had run. And he had lost, by a landslide. And now he was standing up in front of these miserable reporters, conceding the election. Then he heard himself say these words, out loud: “Just think how much you're going to be missing; you don't have Nixon to kick around anymore.”
He flashed his phony, I hate-you-assholes grin. Then, he was off the podium, heading through the buzzing crowd of cocksuckers with pens in their hands, down the hall of the Beverly Hills Hotel, out the door and into the waiting car. Let Governor Brown have the state of California, he didn't want it anyway.
In the car he turned towards them once, and wanted so badly to give them the finger. Instead, he flashed a V for Victory, and the car took off, and he sped away into a political wilderness.
***
He spent the next several weeks in a deep depression. He tried to find solace in his family — his wife, Pat, and their two girls, Trish and Julie. Pat seemed almost happy and said they'd have more time together now that they were out of the fishbowl.
But damn it, he loved the fish bowl! The fish bowl of politics was what he lived for. The notion of being a lawyer in Brentwood, California made him want to puke. How could he possibly get excited about winning a divorce case for some Beverly Hills cheese bomb when he had been within a few thousand votes — dead people's votes, at that — from being the most powerful man on earth?
Nixon stood by the side of his pool, staring at the label on a bottle of pool chemicals. He was dressed in a Hawaiian Shirt, it being Saturday, complimented by black trousers and black wingtips. The wingtips, he thought, with some satisfaction, were nice and shiny. He supposed that he could just let himself go and not polish his shoes, just let them get all scuffy. God knows he felt like it, but he would never give his enemies the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting.
“Add one cup,” he read out loud. He was trying to clear his pool of the layer of scum floating on the surface. His girls wanted to swim (even though it had been fucking cloudy for two weeks), to do normal summer time kid things after their bizarre life as kids of a United States Senator, then Vice President, then Presidential candidate, then candidate for Governor. Now they were kids of a loser, but at least they'd have half a normal life. Even Nixon saw the benefit in that.
Nearby his dog, Checkers, an ancient, half blind cocker spaniel, farted and then turned and barked at its own ass. Nixon shook his head in disgust and moved upwind. He fumbled with the jar of chemicals, finally popping the lid off but spilling the contents into the pool.
“Shit,” he snapped, and gave a frustrated kick at Checkers, who somehow (perhaps from years of this sort of treatment), managed to avoid the incoming size ten. Nixon looked down and saw the container bobbing in the water, the spilled chemical dissolving and sinking to the bottom. It was the perfect metaphor for his own, dissolving prospects. Well, maybe not the perfect metaphor, but it was screwed up and so was his life, so it was close enough.
“Dick?”
It was his wife, Pat, calling from the kitchen window.
“What is it?” he answered, annoyed with himself that he sounded so annoyed, especially with her.
“Telephone. I think it's Murray.” Her voice sounded angry; with Murray came politics and she had had enough.
“I’m coming.”
As he walked towards the kitchen, he made a mental note to say something nice to her that day. Maybe he'd compliment her voice; it sounded the same as it had years before when he had met her doing an amateur theatrical in Whittier. "Don’t laugh," he had told her after knowing her for all of five minutes, "but someday I'm going to marry you." She had laughed at him when he said that, but when Nixon wanted something, he didn't let go. He pursued her without mercy. He even drove her on dates with other guys, waiting around until the end of the
evening to drive her home.
He finally wore her down. He won in the end. Sometimes in his life he actually won.
Nixon took the phone. "What is it?"
“Dick, it's Murray.” As if he didn't recognize the voice of a man he had known for twenty-five years. “Dick, I'm in trouble.”
Like I was in trouble when you convinced me to run for Governor?
“It's Saturday, Murray. I'm cleaning the pool. The girls and Pat and I are having a picnic and we're going to swim.” Of course, now that I dosed it with a full bottle of chlorine, if we actually got in it would eat our skin off.
“Dick, there’s…” In the pause, Nixon listened to the crackle of his phone line. “There's a dead girl in my driveway.””
Nixon wet his lips. “Don't make any sort of, uh, statement. I'll be right there.” He hung up and grabbed his car keys from the kitchen counter.
“You're not going out?” Pat said. “What about the picnic?”
“Uh, it's Murray— ”
“Forget about Murray! You're out of politics, remember? The people of California have made that clear!" She paused and looked down at the salad she was making. "Clear in a way I never could…”
Nixon had no answer for her. He knew she hated the life of a politician's wife, knew that she was hoping he'd take that joy killing partnership at the Brentwood law firm, come home at night for dinner, have pool picnics on Saturday and live a normal life.
Silence. Standing there in his avocado green kitchen, he remembered his decision to compliment her. He stepped to the back door and paused, not looking at her.
“You have a lovely voice, you know that?”
As she watched him go, Pat Nixon wondered if she really knew who she had been married to all these years.
***
Nixon rolled his new Lincoln convertible down Palm View Drive. A new car was an indulgence, he knew, but shit, it was the same model that was used in Presidential motorcades. If he couldn't be President, at least he could ride like one.
The black and whites were out in front of Murray's house, lights flashing. There was a police barrier up, and Nixon was relieved to see no reporters there, at least not yet.
The young cop guarding the barrier recognized Nixon and let him through. He approached the scene and saw a pale looking Murray, towering over a dick in a shitty gray suit, the same kind that reporters wore.
About ten feet away, right there in Murray's driveway, was a 1959 red Thunderbird. The back driver side passenger's window was also red, red with the splash of blood, and the front driver's side window was shattered, probably from a bullet. He could make out the figure of a woman behind the wheel, a blonde, with pale skin, pink with sunburn. He glanced through the window and saw a pistol with a silencer in her hand. Crime scene boys were snapping photos.
“I’m Dick Nixon, Mr. Gold's attorney” At least he was now. He might be a washout as a politician, but he was, when all was said and done, still a lawyer.
The police dick turned around, and Nixon pegged him at about forty. He was muscular and trim, and made the shitty suit look halfway decent. His hair was buzz cut, and when he saw Nixon he grabbed his hand and started pumping it.
“Mr. Nixon, I really want to thank you, sir. I want you to know that I really appreciate what you were doing in Washington, rooting out the commies and all. I was in Berlin at the end of the war, and I got a look at those reds close up and I didn't like what I saw, I can tell you that damn thing.”
This produced a conspiratorial nod which Nixon figured he'd be wise to return.
“I’m glad to have been of service, Detective —?”
“Myers. Jimmy Myers.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Detective.”” Nixon turned and looked up at Murray. “You all right?”
Murray nodded, but Nixon thought he looked like something Checkers had thrown up. “Detective, would you mind telling me what the situation is here?”
“This morning the paperboy found the car and the dead girl. The Coroner tells me it looks like time of death was between midnight, and three in the morning. Twenty-six years old, blonde, good looking. Name on her DMV is Mary Kate Wilson. Single, lives in an apartment on Doheny. Gun shot wound to the head, gun in her hand, looks like suicide. She must have recently been to the beach, because she's pink all over. Hey! Kinda like when you ran for the Senate against the Pink Lady!”
Nixon smiled. The reference was to his 1950 Senate campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas. He had done a nice smear job on her, calling her a fellow traveler and The Pink Lady, as in pinko commie sympathizer. It worked rather well — he beat the pants off her. Off course, she also tarred him with the moniker, Tricky Dick. But hey, playing in the arena, you had to be ready to take your licks.
Detective Myers said, “If you don't mind, Mr. Nixon, we'd like to take Mr. Gold downtown for some questions, since the car was in his driveway.”
“Naturally,” Nixon said. “May I first have a word with my client?”
Detective Myers raised both hands in surrender. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”
Nixon grabbed Murray's arm and walked him up on the lawn. “Well?”
“I don't know her Dick, I swear it.”
Nixon looked up and into his eyes. He might be telling the truth. “You go out last night?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I watched a few minutes of Jack Parr and went to bed, just before midnight. Cops woke me at 7:30 this morning.”
“Witnesses? Where's Mildred?”
“She's in St. Louis visiting her sister. This is screwed up, Dick. Am I in trouble?”
Nixon looked at Murray. “Not if you're telling me the truth. I'll go with you to police headquarters, you'll answer their questions, and I'll use my considerable charm with the Detective here to keep your name out of the papers. Providing you're being square with me.”
“I am Dick. I swear it.”
That was the second time he'd said that. Nixon was instantly suspicious when anybody swore to anything. He had learned that lesson during Senate hearings. But he had known Murray for years, so he let it pass.
“Go on in the house, clean yourself up, put on a suit. You look like hell. And change your shoes, Murray. Christ, they look like you haven't shined them in a year.”
Murray looked vacantly at his loafers. “I walked through the lawn sprinklers. Eighteen dollar shoes." He grabbed Nixon's arm. "Dick, thank you. I know I let you down, with the campaign and all…”
Nixon waved his hand as if shooing away a fly. “Enough of that crap, Murray. We lost. It's over.”
But as Nixon watched him walk into the house, he wondered why he hadn't fired his ass after he lost the Presidential election in 1960.
***
Later, Detective Jimmy Myers walked him through the police automobile impound facility. Nixon had gone with Murray and acted as his attorney while Murray made his statement at headquarters. The cops seemed to be signing off on the idea of a suicide, and Murray was released, with a request to stay close, in case something turned up. Nixon stayed behind to double check Murray's statement, and then asked a favor of the detective that seemed to surprise the hell out of him: he wanted to see the dead girl's car.
“Uh, I want you to know how much I appreciate this, Detective,” Nixon said as they approached the red Thunderbird.
Myers shrugged. “Anything for a great American like yourself. But I don't get it, Mr. Nixon. What is it you want to see? The case has been filed as a suicide, and your friend Mr. Gold is in the clear.”
Which seemed all too fast and all too convenient to Nixon.
“Well… I'm just a curious fellow.”
They came to the car, and Nixon made a mental note of the plate number. Then he moved over to the driver's side. The window was shattered. “May I have a look?”
Myers shrugged again. “Be my guest.”
Nixon opened the door. Dried blood was on the seat and the inside of the door, running down to the rug. The back window had
dried splatters on it too. Nixon remembered seeing that cherry red color at the scene.
“Mind if I sit in the driver's seat?”
“Sure. The lab boys already got everything they need.”
Nixon slid behind the wheel. He sniffed the air, and looked outside to where Myers stood. “The victim vomited?”
“Yeah. She'd been drinking.”
Nixon looked in the rear view mirror. “That's odd.”
Myers leaned down and looked in the car. “What's odd, sir?”
“The mirror. It's pointing way up. How tall was the girl?”
Myers pulled out his notepad. “Mary Kate Wilson, five foot nine inches tall, a hundred twenty pounds.”
Nixon looked in the rear view. All he could see was the top of his hair. “Hmm. I'm six feet.” Actually, he was five eleven and a half, but six feet sounded more manly, so from the time of his first campaign he had added a half inch. “I can't see a thing.”
Myers thought a second, but then gave what by now was his customary shrug. “This car was crawling with lab guys. Somebody probably moved or bumped the mirror. I'll ask around, but I doubt it means anything.”
Nixon took this in. Then, with a burst of energy he slid out of the car. “Thank you, Detective.”
Detective Myers handed him a piece of his notepad. In it was a scribbled phone number. “My home, so you can call me with any question, anytime. Say, can I buy you a cup of Joe, sir?”
Nixon flashed his phony smile and used what had become his stock, clever answer, to get out of something he didn't want to do. “No thank you. Gotta go home and fornicate with the wife.”
***
Nixon stopped at a branch of his bank and got five dollars in dimes for the pay phone. He placed a call to the North Hollywood office of the DMV. An employee there had been the campaign committee chairwoman for the Van Nuys Nixon For Governor office.
The Case of THE PINK LADY (A Dick Nixon Mystery) Page 1