Trouble in Rooster Paradise

by T. W. Emory

  “The first one has quite the moniker. He’s a fella named Guy de Carter. He’s got a kisser that sort of reminds me of Smilin’ Jack from the funny papers. Mustache and all.”

  Again with the funny papers. Smilin’ Jack was a debonair-looking comic strip character that was a caricature of the movie star Errol Flynn—or vice versa.

  “This de Carter works for an ad agency in the same building where the murdered girl worked. He says his company handles their ad work. The second witness is one Addison Darcy. He’s a longtime local about as well-heeled as Lundeen. Darcy was a customer in the store when the lover’s spat broke out. The third onlooker is the widow of a Dr. Henry Arnot. Gal’s name is Blanche. She was there on business. Hell, it’s not enough for ’em to hawk fancy toilet water. This Blanche Arnot says she teaches the salesgirls to walk and talk straight while they do it. Probably teaches them to piss and flush straight too.”

  Milland shook his head. “I’ll put addresses and phone numbers to two of these names for you before you leave.”

  “What about the third?”

  “Addison Darcy lives in The Highlands.”

  “Oh, rally?”

  “Yes, rally. He made his statement and referred us to his lawyer. Like I say, I’ll get you the dope on the other two. Good luck on reaching Darcy.”

  “Thanks, Frank. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me two. And I’m keeping track. You just missed the Engstrom kid’s old man, but his lawyer’s still with him.”

  He led me away from the clamor of the squad room over to a nook used for conferences.

  “He’s all yours,” said Milland.

  I heard arguing on the other side of the door. I knocked and opened. Two men stared at me with expressions that said altercatio interruptus. I entered and the older of the two stood up and refreshed the crease in his pants. His crisp charcoal suit gave him a prim aspect that went with a genteel demeanor. He seemed to know who I was and why I was there. He introduced himself as Hiram Pender, attorney for Bern Engstrom and ipso facto for Dirk Engstrom.

  “He insists on talking to you alone,” Pender said to me. He gave his client a parting look that could pass for pity or disgust. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  I closed the door behind Pender. He was polite enough, but I consider lawyers guilty until proven innocent. So far as I knew he was just another highbrow thimble-rigger in an intellectual shell game, with truth as the pea. Now you see it—now you don’t. Even if they do sink their chops into some meaty issue, truth isn’t usually their objective. I see them as modern wizards who conjure for cash and celebrity.

  I told Dirk my name. He stayed motionless and ignored my extended hand. I sat down in the chair behind the solitary desk in the room.

  “I’m working for Rikard Lundeen, which means I’m working for you, Dirk.”

  “Don’t call me Dirk. Only my friends call me Dirk.” His complexion had crimson patches. His lower lip curled slightly to one side and uncurled only when he spoke.

  “Okay, then. How’s kid suit you?”

  He gave me a glacial stare. Kid it was.

  Dirk was a good-looking kid in his early twenties. His white slacks and Anzac-blue windbreaker told me he wasn’t working at the jewelry store when the cops scooped him up. He had sandy-colored hair with an unruly forelock that matched his present disposition.

  “I didn’t kill her. Nobody here believes me, of course. Not even that pettifogging shyster of my father’s.”

  “Your father and Rikard Lundeen are behind you. And if I can help, I will.”

  “I don’t hear a very confident tone. You think I killed her too, don’t you?”

  “What the police have on you is pretty compelling.”

  “I didn’t threaten to kill Christine! That guy is lying,” he said throatily.

  “What about the blood on your shoes?”

  “I don’t wear two-toned wingtips. Those aren’t my shoes.”

  “And the gun the cops found?”

  “It’s not mine. No one believes me. It was after nine this morning when I felt it while I was reaching for underwear. I was shocked to find the thing in my drawer. I put it down on the bed when I heard the police knocking on the door. I don’t even like guns.”

  “You gave the gun to the cops?”

  “One of them spotted it on the bed. I told them I just found it in the dresser.”

  “You let them search your place?”

  “How was I to know I had something to hide?”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Humor me. What kind of car?”

  “A Chrysler Windsor coupe—a ’47. Why? What’s it matter?”

  I told him how I’d met Christine the night before she was killed. I told him the masher story she’d given me and about the Packard that followed us. That shook him up a bit.

  “Any of your friends drive a fairly new Packard?” I asked.

  “No … I don’t think so. No.” His hostility began to fade. “Christine and I … we were together that night. Just before you say you met her. I was taking her home. We’d had a bite to eat. She made me pull over on Market Street to let her out. We’d had a big fight.”

  “Sounds like you’ve had a lot of those lately.”

  He didn’t hear me, or pretended not to.

  “Do you think it was a masher following her that night you met her?” he asked.

  “Beats me. What about last night? You don’t have an alibi for the time she was killed, do you?”

  “No. I argued with her in the store earlier yesterday like they say. I lost my head. I do that sometimes. I suppose I shouted some. But I didn’t threaten to kill her. I swear it. And afterward I went back to work and finished the day. When work was through I went straight home and downed a six pack of beer and half a bottle of bourbon.”

  I asked him to tell me about his relationship with the Johanson girl.

  He explained that he’d graduated from the University of Washington the year before. He’d met Christine the first month he started working for his father.

  “She’d come in to buy a pair of earrings,” he said softly. “Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me.” He paused for a minute or so to struggle with his emotions. Finally he took a deep breath and continued.

  He told me how he hated the jewelry business, but started seeing a future in it when he met Christine. She gave him the incentive he lacked.

  “My dad could tell the difference in my attitude. I was whistling coming in the door in the mornings.”

  Soon he’d also become one of those repeat customers at Fasciné Expressions Meredith had told me about. Christine and he started dating. She was reluctant at first, but he was persistent. Everything was going well. At least Dirk thought so. And in the last couple of months, things had started to get serious. On his part, anyway.

  “I wanted her to quit her job and go back to school. I said I’d help her with money. That place wasn’t good for Christine.”

  “Not good how?”

  “I could see what it was doing to her. The attention from male customers was starting to turn her head. More than once I walked in to find a customer standing a little too close, or maybe holding her hand. I’d gone in there yesterday to apologize for the night before. I wanted to patch things up. Do you know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “But when I walked in and saw that old lecher Addison Darcy sniffing the nape of her neck, I exploded. That geezer’s old enough to be her grandfather!”

  Dirk spoke of Christine in the present tense. It may not have meant much, but the blood that rushed to his face sure did.

  “Is that what the fights were about? Your jealousy?”

  He gave me a sour look. “I had good reason. You didn’t see what I saw.”

  Dirk told me he’d recently raised the topic of their future together. He’d brought up marriage. His serious t
alk had started to upset Christine.

  “She had ideas in her head about moving to New York. But I don’t think that was what made my marriage talk upset her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t really know what I mean. I just saw little changes in her when I started to get serious. She’d get upset real easily. She’d burst into tears a lot. Cry on my shoulder. Do you know what I mean?”

  I said I knew what he meant.

  “She kept telling me that she wasn’t good enough for me. Like she was tainted or something. That kind of nonsense. But I couldn’t get her to see reason. That night you met her at the movie house, she’d just broke up with me. It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t.”

  He stared through me. I mulled over what he’d said.

  “Any sign of a break-in at your place this morning?”

  “Wha … why? Oh, you mean someone might have planted the shoes and gun?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “It’s what I told the police. I told them someone had to have planted that stuff.”

  “Any sign of break-in?”

  He thought about it. “No. My apartment is on the first floor. I was dead to the world after the booze. I’m not much of a drinker. I suppose someone could have sneaked in. I’d left the window open. But … who would want to set me up? Who?”

  “Got any enemies, kid?”

  He shook his head. It must have been nice being so well-liked.

  “Clearly your girlfriend did.”

  Dirk had a bad case of calf love, bull lust, and green-eyed monster. Such a combination of symptoms has been known to lead to murder. But I sensed something wasn’t right.

  I stood up, and he did too.

  “Does … does this mean you believe I didn’t kill Christine?”

  “Like I said, kid, anything’s possible. Let’s just say I’m believing the proof stacked against you a little less.” I showed him my right thumb and index finger separated by an eighth of an inch.

  “Oh.”

  It wasn’t very encouraging, but it wasn’t meant to be. Good cheer wasn’t my normal stock-in-trade. I turned to leave.

  “Mr. Nilson,” he said, his voice an octave higher than it had been.

  I looked back at him. “Yeah, kid?”

  “Thanks for helping Christine out the other night.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “No, I mean it. Some other guy might have taken advantage of her.”

  Gunnar the Gallant. I liked the sound of that. I preferred it to Gunnar the Randy. I figured there was no sense spoiling matters by mentioning Christine’s titillating kiss, the stirring effects of her sex appeal, or the moves I was willing to make had she been amenable.

  “And, Mr. Nilson, one more thing. You go ahead and call me Dirk.”

  In those days, Seattle wanted to be San Francisco in the worst way. But probably the most obvious testament to the city’s uninspired humdrumness was its lack of A-1 restaurants; the kind long known to San Franciscans. The closest thing to fine eating was found in the better hotels. Fortunately for my pocket book and stomach, there were a number of decent eateries scattered around town, however humble.

  Mrs. Berger was an excellent cook, but she held dinner for no man. If you weren’t promptly seated at 5:00 p.m., your plate was removed and the food was served. Your absence was noted, but mourned only when liver was on the menu. My Longines said 5:05, so I headed for Market Street.

  Holger’s Café couldn’t match the grill at the Hotel Sorrento and its Ballard location didn’t offer the scenic view atop the Camlin Hotel, but Holger Lindgren served up a mean chicken-fried steak, and I’d take an eyeful of Verna Vordahl over Elliott Bay any day of the week.

  Customers were parked on all stools but one. Holger’s clientele were chiefly single men—mill workers, mechanics, and tradesmen. Holger chatted with regulars as he worked at the grill, his cook’s hat down to his eyebrows at its usual rakish angle. He was the proud conductor of a hungry orchestra—the din of their conversation mixed with rattling stone- and silverware as they chowed down. It was the mealtime version of ruffles and flourishes. The familiar sounds and smells gave me a kind of serenity.

  Verna Vordahl waited tables. She was a big girl but lean. Five eleven, and 36-23-34 was my best guess. Holger called her “My lovely Amazon.” She had a pallid complexion with hair the color and texture of an Irish setter. A thin aquiline nose, heavy brows, and a broad face were kept from grimness by a lively disposition and a sort of alchemy she did with vivid brown eyes and lush lips that curved into a sweet smile.

  Verna never slouched, and her sturdy hips always moved in easy rhythm with the nimble flex of a pair of Betty Grable legs. As I sat down I noticed that her movements seemed more frenetic than usual. I looked around at some of the other customers. I could tell I wasn’t the only one preoccupied with the supple shape encased in a blue waitress uniform that on her was transformed into erotic body armor.

  Lustful eyes might mentally disrobe her, but as Hank Vordahl’s wife, she was off limits to the male patrons of Holger’s. Verna was accustomed to being gazed at, and while she probably even liked what she took for speculative appreciation, I doubt she fully realized just what a star performer she was in many a private fantasy, and how feverishly customers ate to sublimate. Holger knew exactly what was going on, and he wisely paid Verna top wages for her marquee value.

  Verna’s hash-slinging was a foreign and violent ceremony that day. Plates slammed when they should have landed gently. Silverware clashed and clanged instead of being scooped up with a thuffing noise. I had reason to suspect she was redirecting her own sexual tension and conflict. It was the first time I’d seen her since learning the news. I counted Verna as a good friend, so I faced one of those uncomfortable crossroads that comes with the obligations of friendship. I knew I had to bring up the subject sometime if I wanted to keep coming to Holger’s. But it had all the charms of broaching funeral arrangements to an aged parent.

  “Sorry to hear about you and Hank.”

  I was suddenly one of Hitler’s generals, Verna was the Führer, and the Russians were storming Berlin.

  “What’s a girl supposed to do, Gunnar?” she asked in her throaty contralto voice. “I could deal with his nightmares from the war. And who don’t need a good belt now and again? I understand that. And I been workin’ since I was six years old, so I didn’t mind helpin’ out with expenses till Hank settled on somethin’ steady. But comin’ home in the middle of the day to find him and some B-girl in the very bed I picked out and am still payin’ for …. Well, a girl’s gotta draw the line somewheres. Am I right?”

  I told her she was right.

  She took in a deep breath that lifted her breasts like hillocks in a seismic upheaval. After a heavy sigh the trembler stopped. The seismologist seated next to me put a big tip on the counter and left.

  “I mean, what’s a girl supposed to do?”

  “I understand.”

  “I got me a place over in Greenwood. Moved my things out. Let Hank stew in his juices.”

  “What else could you do?”

  “That’s right. He keeps beggin’ me to come back. He tells me things are gonna be different and that he’s a new man.”

  And how about a purpose in life to go with that new man? I thought but did not say. No point in it. She’d have become instant snow-girl and I’d have to forget about those timely and cheery refills.

  Hank Vordahl was a big, rock-jawed man with shoulders that could double as a warehouse’s main support beam. Unfortunately for Verna, Hank’s decisions and actions were those of a ne’er-do-well. A dreamer of big dreams was Hank Vordahl. The only successful thing he ever did was to get Verna to believe in his dreams and marry him. The year before, the owner of an appliance store downtown needed a delivery man. The guy knew me, so I recommended Hank for the job as a favor to Verna. The first two days went okay. On the third day Hank was so sauced he drove that truck with his lips right th
rough the front window of a café in West Seattle. Thankfully no one was hurt.

  “So how’s it going?” I asked.

  “So far so good, Gunnar. But it’s only been five days, so I figure it won’t hurt for me to give it another week. Just to be sure. No sense rushin’ things.” She took in another deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s gonna have to start all over again. I told him I expect flowers, candy, wining and dining. The whole works. We got our first hot date Friday night. Need another refill, hon?”

  When I finished my meal I put a clove in my mouth and an extra big tip on the counter before I went over and put a nickel in the payphone.

  I called Rikard Lundeen.

  “Things are bad for young Dirk,” he said as soon as I said hello. “It looks like the hot-tempered fool might have killed her, son.”

  I agreed, but filled him in on what I’d done so far, only giving him the gist of what I’d learned.

  “So you believe he’s innocent,” he said when I’d finished.

  “What I believe is that something’s fishy. Finding out what and why looks to be a Herculean task.”

  “You’re the man for it, son.”

  I told him I wanted to talk with the onlookers to Dirk’s scrap with Christine. “I can reach two of them with no problem. The third might be a little challenging.” I gave him the name.

  “Addison Darcy, that pompous windbag. We’re old friends. Old friends.”

  I asked him what he was like.

  Mr. Lundeen hesitated. “What do you need to know, son?”

  “As much as I can. I never know what might be important going into an interview.”

  After a silent moment, he sighed and laughed a concessionary laugh. “Addison’s a crafty sonofabitch. He’s about my age—a few years younger. We’re still partners in some interests, although he’s become a fairly mute one in recent years. He’s the ‘Dar’ in Darlund Apparels. But you probably already knew that, eh, son?”

  I told him I didn’t know that.

  “Addison was always at home, whether in a boardroom or a bordello. He was a wild one when we were young. Always a cool businessman, but definitely a rounder who mixed pleasure with business. I liked the ladies myself, you understand, and still do, as you know. But when it came to womanizing, it was a rare one who could keep up with Addison Darcy in his youth. He married a gal from a New England family. Very old money dating back to the time of the Revolutionary War. They have two married daughters who live out of state, but they lost their son in the war. The boy’s death changed old Addison. Heartache and getting older finally slowed him down in a way marriage never could. But he also lost his drive—a certain zest he once had. He’s cut back on active management of his holdings, divested a bit, and rarely bothers with new ventures. That boy of his meant everything to him. Everything.”