Trouble in Rooster Paradise

by T. W. Emory

  “You’d planned to kill de Carter?”

  “Oh, yes. By then it was quite necessary. He’d become a loose cannon, I’m afraid.”

  “And you figured the cops would nail me as his killer.”

  Blanche nodded. “I hoped they would. I didn’t think you had any way to connect me to any of it. The houseboat belongs to Guy’s grandmother, who now spends her dotage in a Portland old folk’s home. I relieved you of those photos you’d stolen. Without them, I didn’t think you had much in the way of real evidence to go along with whatever tall tale you planned for the police. Besides, Gunnar, I rather liked you.”

  “I’d have preferred flowers or maybe a necktie,” I said.

  “But why, Blanche?” asked Britt, anguish in her voice. “You … you certainly don’t need the money. I thought Henry left you well off.”

  Blanche dismissed her remark with the wave of her free hand. “Don’t be naïve, my dear. It’s never been about the money.” Blanche looked from Britt to me. “You understand that, don’t you, Gunnar?”

  “I think I do. The blackmail racket was a means to an end. You probably had some plan to eventually have the whole thing come out in the open to besmirch Darcy’s enterprises and shame his family. But first, you hoped Darcy himself would become one of your victims. You planned to string him along. You wanted to torment him.”

  “That’s correct,” Blanche said, giving me another smile of approval. “Both of the girls started out cultivating this randy old goat. But he seemed particularly taken with Meredith. He always did like full-bosomed women. So I switched Christine to another mark. That Christine was a clever one. She sensed Darcy and her new target were particularly important to me. I think that’s what sparked her greed. She demanded more money. The little tart even insisted that her raise be retroactive. It was fine with me, but not Guy de Carter. He lacked my sense of fair play, I’m afraid.”

  I said, “You deliberately tried to confuse me with your talk of foolish young women and vindictive rich men. And you made Christine out to be anything but shrewd.”

  Blanche was silent and thoughtful for long moments. Finally I pointed to Addison Darcy. “You’re not doing this to him just for Alexis, are you Blanche?”

  She fixed her gaze on me.

  “You’re avenging Sally Miller. You’re avenging your friend Sal, aren’t you?”

  She pointed the gun at Darcy again. “I detest him,” said Blanch with a twisted smile. “I loathe him for what he did to Sal. I had a long and drawn-out revenge planned … but, the precipitous actions of Guy de Carter have necessitated … innovation. Guy stupidly tried to make amends by taking a potshot at this worm. Foolish man. He thought I’d be pleased. But he botched that too. He really should have stuck with his strong suits.”

  Blanche fixed her eyes on the shrinking old man on the floor as she resumed speaking. “Sal didn’t deserve what he did to her. Not at all. She was one of my dearest friends. We shared dreams. We helped each other. She was like a sister to me. Closer than that, really. She had the talent and the looks. She’d had an offer to make motion pictures. She could have been another Gloria Swanson.” Blanche again motioned to Darcy with the gun. She shook her head and made an incredulous face. “He didn’t even remember Sal at first … not until I reminded him of a few things. Can you believe it?”

  I heard a whimper come from Darcy.

  “Sal believed his lies,” Blanche continued, her mouth pulling tight to her teeth and her brow getting taut. “She passed up that movie contract. She said she just knew this rich scum would marry her. She said she knew it just as sure as night follows day. Instead, he beguiled her and treated her despicably, like she was dirt under his feet. Sal withered away. The betrayal, the prison sentence … it killed her.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I figured to just keep her talking.

  “How long did it take you to trace Darcy to Seattle?” My question penetrated the dreamlike state she’d entered. Her face muscles slackened and her countenance smoothed out.

  “But I wasn’t looking for him, Gunnar. Not at all. I happened to see his picture in the newspaper the first year after I married Henry and moved here to Seattle. Henry … he told me to forget about it. Henry didn’t fully understand. Not at all.”

  “But you couldn’t forget about it,” I said.

  “Never. And then, irony of ironies, Alexis took up with his son. So this bastard ruined Alexis’ life, as well. When he did that, everything that happened to Sal got raked up all over again. But still, I did nothing. Henry told me it wasn’t worth it. Sal used to say, just as sure as night follows day. No, Henry just didn’t understand. Not one bit.”

  I had a weird epiphany. “But when Henry passed away and Alexis died in Steilacoom, you couldn’t stand it any longer. You had to act. You came up with a plan.”

  “That’s correct,” said Blanche, her voice full of bitter scorn. “It was a rather delicious plan. I had to finally rid the earth of this vermin. And after him, it will be his old buddy’s turn.” She glared at Darcy. Then her eyes shifted to Britt and me. Blanche got up off the settee, and as she took a step toward her intended victim, she pointed her gun at us in warning.

  Darcy was sobbing and barely managed to mutter, “Please …” as Blanche grabbed him by the scruff of the neck as if to put down a dog.

  I had few options. I stood ten feet from them. I watched and waited for her eyes to leave me a second so I could leap at her to plow her over. As a plan it didn’t even qualify as a long shot.

  “Put the gun down, Mrs. Arnot.”

  The command came from Walter Pangborn. He stood in the doorway in his stocking feet holding his 8mm Lebel revolver. It was leveled at Blanche.

  “No!” Blanche screamed in rage. Her automatic had been pointed at Darcy’s head, but Walter’s intrusion caused her to aim it in his direction and fire.

  The crack of Blanche’s automatic was followed almost immediately by the report from Walter’s Lebel so that the two noises made a protracted sound like crackling thunder. For a fraction of a second it looked as though they’d each missed, as both posed in a kind of frozen showdown.

  Nothing made sense. Then everything made complete sense. The doorjamb next to Walter’s shoulder was shredded and splintered by the slug from Blanche’s gun. I noticed it just as Blanche crumpled to the floor.

  Britt screamed.

  Walter stood motionless, still holding his revolver. It’s a peculiar thing about the Lebel. Its cartridges were grievously underpowered. So much so that a Frenchman had to hit a Boche in a critical part of his body to knock him down.

  I walked over to Blanche Arnot and felt for vital signs. A futile gesture. The slug from the Lebel had taken her in the chest.

  I looked over at Walter. His twisted face told me that he already knew what I went ahead and said anyway, “She’s gone.”

  I helped Darcy to his feet. “Help me with him, will you, Britt?”

  She was in a daze, her eyes fixed on Blanche. I padded over to the settee and grabbed a folded afghan. I used it to cover the body. Some people need a gesture like that as much as they do a period at the end of a sentence. Britt’s daze ended.

  Britt attended to Darcy while Walter went to check on Hildy. I went to a neighbor’s house to use the phone. I reached Frank Milland at home.

  Chapter 19

  At that point Kirsti’s face was ice-pale. She certainly didn’t want me to suddenly break off when I did, but I told her that at that moment my old bladder trumped all the youthful curiosity she could muster. And then, after I’d taken care of business and she’d wheeled me back from the men’s room, I told her I was in desperate need of some of that hardtack and pickled herring she’d brought me.

  “That Blanche Arnot was a real sicko,” Kirsti said. Her face was its normal color again. “So what happened next?”

  I held a hand up palm forward to let her know I needed to finish chewing and swallow. After doing so, I took a sip from the water bottle she handed me and
said, “The cops took our statements separately. After the housekeeper Hildy was checked over by the medical examiner and told what little she knew, she went off to bed. We learned from her that Mrs. Darcy was away visiting family in New Hampshire. She’d been forced to tie up her employer and then Blanche knocked her out.”

  “How did Addison Darcy handle it all?”

  “The last I saw of him, he was taking a bottle from a liquor niche. Doctor’s orders be damned, he had a more immediate ailment to reckon with and so he went and buried himself in some remote corner to empty his mind.”

  “What about Britt and Walter?”

  “After the cops quizzed them they went to the kitchen to drink coffee while they waited for me.”

  I was questioned in Addison Darcy’s parlor. Frank Milland sat where Darcy had the day I’d visited and I was planted in the armchair across from him. Bernie Hanson joined us seated on a muslin-covered ottoman he’d found in some far-off corner.

  “Walter and the Anderson dame both heard the Arnot woman confess to killing de Carter,” Milland said, lighting a cigarette and cupping his hands to shelter the match from a nonexistent breeze. “Darcy’s a mess. He won’t say a peep without his lawyer present. He don’t seem to know shit from Shinola right now, anyway.”

  “But you’ve got enough to let Dirk Engstrom walk,” I said.

  Milland sniffed the air and nodded. “And between your client and Darcy, none of this is going to get in the papers. No juicy details, anyway. You can bet on it.”

  “The rich have their own ideas about the free press,” I said, but no one saw the humor.

  “So was this Arnot broad whacky-brained or what?” Milland asked.

  “My guess is she’s always been a little … pixilated.”

  “Yeah … ain’t we all,” said Milland, laughing.

  “You might look into her medical records, but chances are there aren’t any. Her husband was a medical doctor. From what I’ve learned he was a stabling influence on her. My guess is he was probably more than that. Maybe he kept her medicated. Who knows? Something sure went haywire with her when he died.”

  I told them the stories of Sally Miller and Britt’s Aunt Alexis and the tie-in to Addison Darcy.

  “So what you’re saying is that the Arnot broad nursed a grudge that turned into a Frankenstein monster,” said Hanson.

  “It looks that way. Alexis’ death opened an old wound that had never really healed.”

  “And how. I’d say it opened and festered,” Milland said. “So when her old man croaked, the Arnot broad snapped. Is that the idea?”

  “Sure looks that way. I don’t know how she ever got teamed up with Guy de Carter. She’d been a chorus girl and had worked in Hollywood in her youth. So she’d been around. She might have sized him up and saw his potential. It’s hard to know. But together they hatched a pretty sordid shakedown racket. De Carter was in it strictly for money and probably for the kicks. But Blanche Arnot was hoping to parlay it into a diabolical act of revenge.”

  “And it probably would have worked, too,” Milland said before giving out with a triple tsk. “Some people’s children.”

  “How’s Walter going to fare on the shooting?” I asked.

  “He fares okay. By all accounts it was self-defense,” said Milland. I could hear respect in his voice when he added, “A dead shot, that Pangborn. And a cool customer to boot.”

  Hanson looked at his notebook. “The Anderson gal told us that when the Arnot broad was about to shoot Darcy, she muttered something about it being his old buddy’s turn next. Did you catch that too?”

  I nodded.

  “With Darcy all clammed up, we were hoping it might make sense to you. The ‘old buddy’ part, I mean,” said Hanson.

  They’d found the pack of blackmail photos in Blanche’s coat pocket. I’d also given them Christine’s diary. Both items sat on the ottoman next to Hanson. I pointed over to them.

  “You might find the answer in those,” I said.

  But I knew otherwise.

  Walter asked Milland for a ride home. He’d rightly sensed that I wanted some time alone with the dazed Britt Anderson.

  She wore a small, formal smile as she got in the car. I popped a couple of cloves in my mouth to occupy my tongue. Neither one of us spoke for at least five minutes. Finally she did.

  “I never thought … I mean, my anger had passed. I no longer felt vengeful …. I just naturally assumed ….” She stopped. She was struggling to retain composure.

  We all do it. Even when we know better, we still do it. We impose our ego on others. It’s as though our individuality is like a shoe that’s supposed to fit all feet, even though we know damn well it’s as unique as a tailor-made boot that’s been broken in and well-worn. So I sympathized with Britt, but didn’t voice it.

  After a few more minutes of silence I said, “I want to apologize for suspecting you for even a moment. I—”

  She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “There’s no need to explain, Gunnar. If I were in your position, I probably would have concluded similarly, given how things developed. You were only doing your job.”

  She said it with a clinical detachment. She looked very calm. The silence resumed until we were parked outside her place on Queen Anne Avenue. I didn’t expect her to invite me in, and she didn’t. But she didn’t leave right away either. She wanted me close a little longer, but not too close.

  “I suppose I’ve been more than a little naïve. It … it’s unsettling. Embarrassing even. It kind of makes me doubt all my relationships. I guess I never really knew Blanche Arnot.”

  “You knew what you knew. People are polychrome. You were just ignorant of Blanche’s darker shades, that’s all.”

  “It’s so confusing ….”

  “She was a very sick woman.”

  Britt thought about that, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Do you run into this kind of thing often?” she asked, looking at me with gloomy speculation.

  “At times. But it’s not the usual or always this extreme.”

  “How can you stand it?”

  I thought a moment before I answered. It wouldn’t do to tell her I’d become inured. Too cavalier.

  “Maybe I fool myself into thinking that I can stand it. Walter says I’m gifted with a little spark of dogged idealism. He says it keeps me from going crazy.”

  She shuddered. “I couldn’t do what you do.”

  Suddenly the atmosphere was tinged with a mixture of apprehension and sexual tension. For a time she even became coy and mildly flirtatious. At one point I had the distinct feeling that the least little glance or touch from me would squeeze her out of halter-top and pedal pushers like toothpaste leaving a new tube.

  But there was to be no clinging together. No putting red-blooded distance between ourselves and the earlier nightmare. For just as suddenly, she changed the mood with a barrage of friendly questions about trivial things. She talked about a few old school chums. I told a humorous story from my army days.

  Finally Britt stifled a yawn with her fingertips, giving me the signal as universal as a thumbs-down or an index finger pulled across the neck. After a quick but gentle kiss, we exchanged courteous goodnights and she got out of the car.

  It wasn’t déjà vu. I had experienced something like this before.

  I watched as she began her ascending walk up the slope leading to her apartment. Britt’s unhurried strides reminded me of the night I dropped Christine off and watched her climb her aunt’s footpath. As I had then, I now stared in forlorn fascination as Britt’s denim pedal pushers defined the back of each shapely thigh as one leg darted out in front of the other.

  I watched until she disappeared inside her place. Like Christine, she didn’t turn to wave. I didn’t expect her to.

  This time I didn’t feel like Fred Astaire as I drove away from her. I felt a keen detachment from everyone and everything. And I was pretty sure I’d later be turning disappointment into virtue by m
eans of a bone-chilling shower.

  But before I took that shower I checked in with Walter Pangborn. He was busy painting toy soldiers at his workbench and listening to Music Till Midnight on KRSC. The bottle of Black & White and a half-empty shot glass were nearby as well.

  He offered me a drink. I declined, and kept standing by the door.

  “French Imperial Guard,” he said, holding up the soldier he was working on. “The grand saga continues.”

  He meant life in general or his project for Perry. Probably both. I just smiled what had to be an exhausted-looking smile. Walter put the toy man down and took a sip from his shot glass.

  “My only hope, old socks, is that she died immediately … that there was not even a split-second comprehension that I’d killed her.”

  “I understand,” I said. I really did.

  I bid Walter goodnight and headed for that long, cold shower.

  Chapter 20

  I dreamt I was at a burlesque show with my old partner Lou Boyd. Several people in the audience were smoking opium. Mrs. Berger was on stage keeping rhythm with the music being played as she artfully hid her nakedness with ostrich feathers. Just as she was about to show all, the scene shifted and I was hugging trees in the Hurtgen with Guy de Carter. He was outfitted for combat and between explosions was shouting, “We gotta go, sport. We gotta go.” He took off running and I woke up. It was one of those sleeps that leaves you more exhausted than before you went to bed.

  Sunday morning I strolled into the kitchen long after everyone else had breakfasted. Mrs. Berger and Walter were at the table.

  Mrs. Berger was saying, “Then we’ll have the big fella say to Penny, ‘That’s a colossal lookin’ run you got in your hose, girlie-girl.’ ”

  Like a dutiful stenographer, Walter scrawled the banal drivel in his tablet stuffed with notes.