The Last Embrace

by Denise Hamilton

  “Ooh, there’s a nip in the air today,” Jinx said, looking flushed and happy. “I should have gotten my winter coat out of storage. Now I’m going to freeze down in La Jolla.”

  “Borrow mine.” Lily tossed it to her.

  “Gosh, thanks. We’ve all been admiring it.”

  A honk came from out front.

  “Oops, gotta run. Thanks, Lily of the Valley. Wish me luck.”

  She winked and ran out. Lily went to the window and saw two heads leaning together for a smooch as a little convertible roared off. Jinxie had a date!

  The mailman strode up the street, and Lily couldn’t help staring. He was six feet tall and sun-bronzed, with chiseled features and muscles that moved under his uniform. He might have been an actor playing a mailman. Soon he was hiking up the rooming house stairs, pulling out letters and a brown package that would never fit inside the mailbox.

  Lily cracked the door and offered to bring it inside.

  “Sure, miss.” The mailman beamed a thousand-watt smile. “Say hello to Jeanne for me.”

  The package was for Mrs. Potter. Lily shuffled through the letters. An envelope addressed to Doreen Croggan on official L.A. County stationery caught her eye. It had been stamped and rerouted because it bore the wrong address. Lily checked the postmark, saw it went back ten days.

  She was still staring when Mrs. Potter came in from the yard. Her hair was gathered up in a kerchief. A smoky fire smell clung to her clothes.

  “I’ll take the mail.”

  Lily slid the letter into her skirt pocket. Then she handed over the package and the rest of the mail. “Is that all?” Mrs. Potter glanced suspiciously at Lily.

  “Yes. I gave a friend this address and she’s already written, bless her heart.”

  “Awfully fast for the mail,” Mrs. Potter said skeptically, but her attention wandered as she shook her package. “It’s from my sister. Wonder what could it be.” She walked out.

  Lily waited until Mrs. Potter’s footsteps receded. Then she ran upstairs, sat at her vanity table, and examined the envelope more closely.

  District attorney’s office, read the return address. With the name B. Keck above.

  Lily slid a nail under the flap of the envelope and slit it open. She pulled out the watermarked sheet, unfolded it, and read:

  Dear Miss Croggan:

  Pursuant to our conversation of October 5, I have made discreet inquiries regarding the matter we discussed and learned enough to satisfy myself as to the veracity of your statements and to open a file. I have tried unsuccessfully to reach you by phone to discuss my findings. Please call my office at your earliest convenience so that we may proceed.

  Sincerely,

  Bernard Keck, Investigator

  Office of the District Attorney for Los Angeles County

  BK/ph

  Lily read the letter twice. It was dated only days before Kitty disappeared. She knew that the district attorney’s office prosecuted crimes in L.A. County. What had Kitty discussed with Bernard Keck? Could it have triggered her murder?

  She closed her eyes and considered her next step. Rummaging through her suitcase, she found a notepad and copied the letter. Then she tore out the page, folded it, and stuck it inside a Bible on Kitty’s bookshelf, placing the original in her purse. Going downstairs, she picked up the phone, then thought better of it. Someone in this house had almost certainly blabbed to Confidential. Had that person also kept the DA investigator’s messages from reaching Kitty? Lily flashed again to Mrs. Potter, hand outstretched for the mail.

  When she stepped outside, the pack of journalists moved like a primitive ectoplasm toward her. She ignored them and hurried to the drugstore where she ate most of her meals, heading for the wooden phone booth in the back. When she found the directory listing for the district attorney, she thumbed in a nickel and asked to speak to Bernard Keck.

  “He’s out sick,” a secretary said.

  “Has he been ill long?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “This is Li—this is a friend of his. I’ve been trying to reach him.”

  “He’s been out since October twelfth with a respiratory bug.”

  The day Kitty’s body was discovered.

  Lily swallowed. “Can I reach him at home?”

  “He sure ain’t in Reno.”

  “All right. Well. Thank you.” Lily pursed her lips, nodded. “Ah, miss, would you by chance happen to have his home—”

  “No, I don’t.” Lily heard the phone being replaced in its cradle.

  She looked around, saw a man just outside the booth, watching her. He had a shifty look to him. Was he following her? Had he been listening in?

  The man stuck his face against the glass. He tapped his foot. “Lady, you gonna spend all day in there?”

  Flustered, she walked out. The man went in, muttering about crazy dames who think life is a coffee klatch.

  Lily retreated to the powder room. When she came out, the booth was empty. With relief, she hurried back in. She flipped to the residential section of the phone book this time and found an address and phone number for Bernard Keck. She jotted it down, then inserted another nickel and dialed.

  “Hello?” said a gruff male voice.

  “Mr. Keck?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Is this Mr. Keck?”

  The line went dead. Lily frowned and called again. This time it rang and rang.

  Lily hung up. A new thread had emerged in the pattern, was growing more discernible with each step she took.

  She didn’t want to go to Bernard Keck’s house alone, but a glance at her watch told her Pico would still be at Warner Brothers. She reread what she’d jotted down: 817 Park Place. The telephone prefix indicated MacArthur Park. It was the middle of the day. What could happen in broad daylight?

  There were children feeding stale bread to the ducks at MacArthur Park and men playing chess at the tables. A vet in a wheelchair, some kind of medal pinned to his chest, pushed himself along. Several pensioners with canes sat on benches overlooking the lake. Flanking the park on all sides were apartment buildings. Some were elegant and well kept, with awnings and liveried doormen, and others looked like they needed a new coat of paint and masonry repairs.

  Lily hopped off the trolley and found Keck’s building. It was one of the nicer ones, flowers growing in coffee cans, lace curtains billowing in the afternoon breeze. She looked up the tenant roster, found a listing for B. Keck. Apartment 706. She entered. The elevator was decorated with Art Deco tulips etched in brass. She closed the metal accordion door and pushed the button for the seventh floor. The old elevator lurched up.

  She emerged into a hallway and followed the numbers to Keck’s apartment. The door was ajar. She stood there nervously, then knocked. A uniformed policeman came out.

  “Who are you?” the man said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Pardon me.” Lily didn’t like the look of things. “I must have the wrong apartment.”

  She turned to leave, but the policeman asked her to step inside, where a second policeman was going through the pockets of a man’s coat.

  “What’s the matter, Officer?” Lily asked.

  “I’ll tell you what’s the matter.” He turned to the other cop. “Sarge, this girl was snooping outside Keck’s door.”

  The sergeant turned. He had a narrow face and deep-set eyes that crinkled suspiciously.

  “I was not snooping,” Lily said with indignation.

  “You live in this building?”

  “I’m apartment-hunting. I must have the wrong place, though. So I’ll just be going.”

  “Wait just a minute.”

  “Why can’t I go? Who’s Keck, anyway, and what are you doing in his apartment?”

  “He’s dead,” the sergeant said shortly. “Took a walk out his living room window an hour ago.”

  “What?” Kitty pressed her hands to her cheeks.

  “You a friend of his?”

  “No. I
told you—”

  The sergeant put his hands on his hips. “Yeah, you told me. The detectives will want a word with you. Meeks, escort the lady downstairs.”

  Lily went back down in the elevator with Officer Meeks. From the lobby, they cut through a courtyard and out into an alley where a queasy-looking cop stood guard over a bulky tarp. Lily saw concentric rings of splattered blood and something more solid where the body had landed. The warm unpleasant smell of viscera filled the air. Lily turned, her gorge rising.

  Meeks led Lily to two detectives named Topper and Chubb who were taking statements from neighbors. There were also several reporters and a news photographer. Lily was disappointed not to see Harry Jack. She would have appreciated a friendly face.

  Meeks described her sudden appearance and Topper asked what the hell she’d been doing in the building.

  “I told the other officer, I’m apartment-hunting and I must have lost my bearings and ended up at the wrong one. The numbers are so poorly marked around—”

  “Did you know Bernard Keck?” Topper interrupted.

  “No,” Lily said truthfully.

  “ID, please,” Topper said in a bored tone.

  She pulled out her passport. His eyes flicked over it, then up at her. “What brings you to Los Angeles, Miss Kessler?”

  “I grew up here. Came back to see if I wanted to stay.”

  “Well, you sure don’t want to settle in this building. Fellow named Bernard Keck just jumped off the seventh floor. Or was pushed, we’re not sure yet.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “Where you staying, Miss Kessler, in case we need to ask you further questions?”

  Lily bit her lip. “Hollywood.”

  “Address, please.”

  In a low voice, she rattled it off.

  The muscles around Topper’s mouth twitched. “That address sounds mighty familiar. Now, why would that be?”

  She looked levelly at him. “I don’t know.”

  Topper snapped his fingers. “Chubb,” he called, “I need you here a minute.”

  When the other detective arrived, Topper rattled off the Wilcox Street address. “Isn’t that where the Scarlet Sandal lived?”

  “That a boardinghouse?” Chubb asked, sticking his little finger in his ear and twisting vigorously. Lily wondered if it stimulated his memory.

  “Yes,” she admitted with reluctance.

  The two detectives drew closer. They’re about to put two and two together, Lily thought. They’ll go back to the bullpen and tell Magruder and Pico and they’ll grill me and I’ll end up having to tell them everything. Lily clutched her purse where the letter nestled.

  “Did you know that dead broad?” Topper asked.

  “Was she as good-looking as her va-va-voom publicity photos?” Chubb added.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Lily saw her escape hatch. She made her face guileless.

  “I never met her,” she said. “I just moved in the other day.”

  “Must’ve met our buddy Magruder, then.” Topper grinned. “And his wet-behind-the-ears partner.”

  “That Sam Pico’s kid?” Chubb said.

  Topper nodded. “The fix was in on that one.”

  They chortled, then turned back to her. “They talk to you yet?”

  “Briefly,” Lily said, her cheeks scarlet. “But since I didn’t know Kitty Hayden, I didn’t have anything to tell them.”

  They gave her the cold stares of seasoned pros who smell a liar. It was her unexplained presence here, her halting answers, the sick look plastered across her face. They must not have been aware of Keck’s connection to Kitty or they would already have bundled her off to headquarters for questioning. What had the DA investigator learned? Something explosive enough to get him killed? All of a sudden Lily was afraid. She’d planned to tell Pico about the letter, but these detectives had just hinted that he was dirty too.

  The fix was in on that one.

  And Pico himself had warned her not to trust Magruder. So who could she trust? Until she figured that out, she’d better keep quiet or risk the fate of poor departed Bernard Keck.

  “If you’ve got a place in Hollywood, why you looking to move?” Topper asked, sniffing out her lies.

  Lily tried to look pious. “Not being an actress, I don’t have much in common with those girls.”

  “’S quite a coincidence, still,” he said, closing in. “You crossing paths with two suspicious deaths in less than one week.” He stared, trying to flush her untruths into the open.

  Lily shrugged. “I can only hope it’s the last,” she said with utmost sincerity. “Now, if that’s all the questions you’ve got, Detective”—Lily looked at her watch—“I’ve got an appointment to look at a bungalow court in South Pasadena.”

  “You can go,” Chubb said. “Magruder wants you, he knows where to find you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Lily took the bus back to the rooming house and ran the press gauntlet. One photographer stared with predatory intensity. He was a new face, she hadn’t seen him before, and he aimed his camera right for her and snapped away like she was Kitty Hayden come back to life.

  Inside, her anxiety spiked again when Mrs. Potter handed her a message to call Pico at once. Lily tucked the note inside her purse.

  “Aren’t you going to see what he wants?” Mrs. Potter hovered by the hallway phone.

  An icy wave of paranoia washed over Lily. “As soon as I freshen up,” she said.

  And you’re gone, she thought.

  An unmarked cop car was parked outside her window when Lily came out of the shower. Magruder and Pico hadn’t wasted much time. Just this morning, she’d been eager to tell them about Max’s erratic behavior. Now she wanted to avoid them, but they were waiting downstairs.

  Still, she dressed with care in the waning light, clipping on garnet earrings, even a splash of Kitty’s Arpège. Detective Pico was in the parlor, flipping through a movie magazine. Magruder wasn’t in sight. A fizzy warmth flooded through her. She knew she shouldn’t trust Pico any more than his partner after what she’d overheard today, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Ah. Miss Kessler.” He rose, tossing aside the magazine. “Mrs. Potter said you didn’t answer your door when she knocked. Have you been hiding from me?” Hands clasped, gaze steady and impersonal.

  “I was in the shower. And I…didn’t get the me—”

  One eyebrow went up. “Mrs. Potter insists she relayed the message.”

  “I mean, I was going to call you when—”

  “Fine. Let’s go.” He gave her an inscrutable look, already heading for the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  To jail? she wondered. Would he arrest her for withholding evidence? Should she show him Keck’s letter now, get it over with?

  She followed him, a million questions blooming, then dying, on her lips. When he stopped, they almost collided. He smelled like a canyon after thunderstorms have pummeled the wild thyme and rosemary. For a moment they regarded each other.

  Then his mouth twitched. “You hungry?”

  They were driving in his car again, and it was dark, the city lights sparkling like a pirate’s chest, and without even asking, he’d flipped on the heater, placing his large hand over the vent to test the air temperature. She had no coat tonight because she’d loaned it to Jinx. KNX was on low, the newscaster reporting that housewives from the Pasadena Women’s Club had marched through downtown wearing heels, pearls, and gas masks, demanding that the city clean up the smog.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I’m supposed to be following you, so I figured I’d make it easy on myself.”

  So she’d been right the other day in Culver City.

  Her nerves twanged like a plucked string. “Why?”

  “Magruder thinks you’re going to lead us to the killer.”

  “I thought you didn’t trust Magruder.”

  Pico gave her a rueful look, like he regretted his earlier words. “I was wro
ng. Magruder’s an okay guy.”

  “I see. So how am I going to lead you to the killer?”

  One side of his mouth curled up. “Just keep nosing around and asking questions. He’ll find you.”

  “I’m the bait?”

  “Sure. But don’t worry, we’ll swoop down right before he strikes.”

  Seeing her alarm, he added, “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  Had she imagined a husky tone creeping into his voice?

  “Fumiko told us you found Max Vranizan crawling around in your shrubbery this morning,” Pico said after they’d driven awhile.

  “It was worse than that. He was drunk as a skunk and tried to grab her.”

  “I asked if she wanted to file charges, but she declined. We had a little talk with him anyway, told him it better not happen again. He knows we’re watching him.”

  “What happened with Kirk Armstrong?” Lily asked.

  “Nothing,” he said glumly. “He’s either a very good actor or he’s telling the truth.”

  “Any word on Freddy Taunton?” Lily asked, thrilled at this rush of information.

  “No, but his apartment manager, Mel Booker, was found shot to death this morning outside the Radcliffe Arms.”

  Lily gasped. “I bet he tried to sell those photos to the wrong person. I’m telling you, it’s all connected. We just don’t know how yet.”

  “You be sure to let us know when you figure it out,” Pico said.

  He headed downtown and turned right onto Commercial Street. The tantalizing smell of baking bread filled the air. TAIX FRENCH BAKERY, the sign said. He pulled up to a yellow loading zone, not even making a pretense at parking legally. One more droit de cop.

  “Bakery?” she asked, making a pretense at gaiety. “Does that mean it’s bread and water and I’m your prisoner?”

  “The restaurant’s next door.” Pico gave her an enigmatic look. “French. Figured you’d like a classy joint.” He fumbled for the door, held it open.