Dead Hero

by William Campbell Gault

  And if not Horse or Linda, who? I would be starting cold. I always did but not usually undercover.

  I was just finishing my coffee when I saw the Santa Monica Police car stop at the curb in front. I moved back from the window behind the partially closed drape as the uniformed man on this side opened his door.

  From the front of the building a woman came out to meet them. Was this the gabby neighbor who had talked to Ruth so long? And then another thought hit me. Did Ruth tell her I was here and ask her to phone the police as soon as she was safely out of the house?

  That didn’t make sense. The woman below was pointing up toward San Vicente, the direction Ruth’s car must have taken on leaving here.

  One of the officers was looking up toward this window and then both of them started for the front door. It was too late for me to run; by the time I could get to the rear steps, I’d be visible.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen and tried to breathe quietly. I heard their feet coming up the steps, coming down the hall. The door chime gonged its double tone. I didn’t move.

  One of them muttered something and the gong sounded again. The door knob rattled. I stopped breathing.

  After what seemed like minutes but was probably seconds, the sound of their footsteps was going down the hall again.

  I waited until the car door slammed below before moving back to the street-side window. The woman was no longer in sight, but the officer behind the wheel had made no move to start the engine. They were going to wait

  For Ruth? How did they know she’d be back in any reasonable time? They sat and sat while I sweated. Half an hour went by, an hour. I went to the bathroom and came back and they were still sitting there.

  And then, finally, I saw the white Peugeot coming down the street from the direction of Wilshire.

  Damn it! If the officers suggested coming up here, Ruth could easily panic. And if they had information that I was here, they’d insist on coming up. I saw her car slow down while she was still half a block away, ready to make the turn into the parking lot driveway.

  And then the significance of the police car in front must have registered with her. The white car increased its speed as the officer on the curb side started to climb out.

  The Peugeot went merrily past as the officer scrambled back into the car, as the man behind the wheel started the engine and swung in a vicious U-turn, siren wailing.

  The car was too long to make the turn in one swing; the driver was forced to back up in order to complete it. That should have given the little white car at least another block of advantage. I had seen Ruth handle that curve below Scooter’s house and judged the block was a good edge. I had at least five minutes to get out of the neighborhood.

  I opened the door quietly and looked down the hall to see if the nosy neighbor was anywhere in sight. The hall was clear; I went noiselessly down the concrete steps to the parking area.

  And now where?

  In this tight little town the public transportation was erratic and Callahan was both hated and despised by the authorities. I wanted to get back to Beverly Hills, where I was only despised. But how?

  In the distance, I could hear the wail of the siren and then its descending tone indicated that Ruth had probably stopped running from the law.

  I took off in a direction opposite from that sound, hoping my Irish luck would hold. The route I was taking would eventually bring me to Wilshire. I knew there was a bus route there plus a number of shops where I could get out of sight of a police cruiser. If I had a long wait for a bus, I would need cover.

  My luck held. I came to Wilshire on a bus-stop corner and one of the monsters was only two blocks down and heading my way.

  It was a Los Angeles-bound bus; it would go through both Westwood and Beverly Hills. My office was in Beverly Hills, my apartment in Westwood. But there was a strong possibility both of these havens were under more than casual police observation. I took a seat near the door and went over in my mind the roster of my friends.

  Randy would be at work now; he was a coach at a Valley high school. My stuffy attorney would never give sanctuary to a client evading the police. I went through the thin list of names and came up with nothing.

  The bus went growling along through the Wilshire traffic. It rumbled past Purdue Street. The West Los Angeles Station was on Purdue Street. A smart investigator would have got off there — a smart investigator with no loyalties.

  If I was so loyal, why didn’t I have a friend I could go to now? That wasn’t fair; Horse would take me in. But we couldn’t be connected in the police mind and I didn’t want to face Linda, not yet.

  Through Westwood, making very few stops, ponderously approaching the area where I would be forced to make a decision.

  And then I remembered Bob Dunne and found the slip on which I had written his new address — 9638 Hemphill. It was a short street, if I remembered it right, not too far from Wilshire.

  There was a possibility Bob was home. New York was still on daylight savings time. That meant, by our time, that the market closed at eleven o’clock. It was noon now.

  I got off the bus at the 9500 block and started to walk north. Once off Wilshire, I was in a residential area and nobody (except a servant) walks in the residential areas of Beverly Hills; anyone on foot is automatically suspect.

  Lacking wings, I walked on, hoping Hemphill wasn’t far, hoping it came as far east as the block I was on, hoping Bob Dunne had meant what he had said over the phone.

  I came to Hemphill finally and walked west for a block and a half to 9638.

  It was a large but low house of light green board-and-batten and fieldstone, set below the level of the street. From where I stood on the sidewalk, I could see the far end of the back yard and the farthest tip of the oval swimming pool.

  I could hear someone splashing in the water as I went down the inclined, curving drive to the wide front door.

  The door chime was loud enough to be heard from where I stood but evidently it couldn’t be heard back at the pool. Nobody answered my summons.

  I rang once more and waited for a few seconds before walking around the silver-gray Thunderbird on the drive and heading for a walk that bordered the garage on the left. It led around the house, all the way to the pool area.

  The splashing had stopped; a woman in a white swimsuit was lying prone on a red-and-white striped beach towel near the diving board. She was of medium height and slim; her hair was a silver-tipped black, thick and lustrous.

  “Mrs. Dunne — ?” I called.

  She looked up lazily. “Yes. Are you the man from Timmons?”

  “I’m Brock Callahan,” I said. “I wanted to see Bob.”

  “Oh?” Her eyes widened. “You’re the — the detective. “ She stood up and stood there in stiff indecision and what could have been fear.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I phoned Bob at his office. He gave me this new address.”

  She still stood in the same position, studying me apprehensively. She had brown eyes in a strong-featured but extremely attractive face. The brown eyes continued to stare.

  I said, “I’m evading the police only because I am trying to protect a client, Mrs. Dunne. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

  She managed a weak smile. “You don’t frighten me now. I was a — little startled. “ She indicated a deck chair. “Come over and sit down. I didn’t hear your car.”

  “I didn’t come by car. I probably shouldn’t have come here at all, but I thought Bob might be able to help me. “ I came over to the deck chair and sat down.

  She sat on the beach towel, her knees up, her poise returned, her dark eyes still intently on me. “I’m sure he wants to. He told me about the person you were — watching. He wasn’t much of a man, that Donald Calvin, was he?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Did you like him?” she persisted.

  “Until last night, I did. What time does Bob get home?”

  “Around three or four.” Her tone was faintly b
itter. “The market closed at eleven but Bob works on and on and on….”

  I made no comment.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked. “I would.”

  “Beer is all I usually drink,” I said.

  “You have to be unusual today,” she told me. “I haven’t anything in the house but gin, vermouth, and ice. Your Martini won’t even have an olive in it.”

  I sat in the deck chair and watched her legs as she walked toward the house. I thought about the big, loose mouth of Bob Dunne. He had told his wife about Scooter and Linda. And who else had he told?

  When she came back with a pitcher of Martinis, loaded with ice cubes, I asked, “Did you lose everything up at Malibu?”

  “Except for some personal things, yes.” She sighed heavily. “Of course, we still have the ground. I just hope Bob doesn’t decide to build on it again.”

  “I take it you’re not a Malibu fan?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “The Colony, maybe. But not that bleak, God-forsaken hill where we lived — never again!” Her hand shook as she poured my drink.

  “Could I have some ice in it?” I asked. “I’m not much of a man for the hard liquor.”

  “My!” she said. “I thought that’s all you fellows ever did. Chase blondes and drink. Of course, my experience with your — profession has been only fictional.”

  Her hand was steady again as she handed me the glass with ice cubes added.

  I said quietly, “You’ve adjusted pretty well to what must have been a frightening experience.”

  She smiled cynically. “Not too well. You noticed my hand shaking before, didn’t you?”

  I answered her smile.

  She held the hand out again and made it tremble. “Maybe it’s a delayed reaction. Although I must say I was perfectly calm until you came, Mr. Private Eye.”

  It could have been a flirtatious remark, but I didn’t read it that way. My presence here had probably reminded her of last night’s fire and there had been more than a fire to unsettle her. A murder had been committed only a few hundred yards from her house.

  Chapter 5

  THE ALCOHOL MOVED into my blood stream, releasing some tensions, distorting my situation into a different focus. I decided I was being a patsy, risking my license on the doubtful theory that the police (or I) could find the real killer before I might be apprehended.

  I couldn’t hide forever; I was in business in this town. And why should I automatically assume the local papers would do a smear job on Linda? Big names made the news; who was Linda Malone?

  These thoughts I had, rationalizing my cowardice, softened into self-tolerance by the booze. Until Bob Dunne came home.

  We have two papers in this town and Bob brought the afternoon paper with him. We had just had the second-worst fire in fifty years. But the front page gave almost as much wordage to Ruth Hansel, a citizen as unknown as Linda Malone.

  It had a solid cliché name for the murder now, the Love Nest Murder. There were posed theatrical portraits of a few of the starlets Scooter had squired and a non-posed newspaper shot of a frightened Ruth Hansel, mouth open, eyes wide, backed against a corridor wall in the Malibu Sheriff’s Station.

  The group caption identified them as girls being questioned in the killing.

  Did the flames of passion burn as high as the fire that detroyed …?

  Prime Hearstian prose, larded with innuendo, absurd conjecture, soap-opera emotion, and misinformation. Ruth Hansel’s attempt to clear my name had made her the target for today. The less important news from Washington and Moscow had been forced into the inner pages.

  Toward the end of the piece on Ruth, there was a reported quote from a deputy at the Malibu Station to the effect that possibly Brock Callahan had met the same fate as Scooter Calvin. Perhaps, the theory continued, I had been hired as a bodyguard by Scooter and been a victim of the same killer.

  The only important item in this bit of irony was the officer’s name. It was Deputy Anthony Bogaro. A year or so back I had done a job for Tony Bogaro, cutting a few ethical corners to save his kid sister from a marijuana possession rap.

  Bob Dunne sat quietly at the edge of the pool as I digested all this. He was a thin and balding man under forty with a handsome but faintly effeminate face.

  “Well? “ he asked, when I put the paper down.

  I said, “I was about ready to turn myself in — until I saw the job those vultures did on Ruth Hansel.”

  Bob sipped his Martini. “There’s a room here, Brock, over the garage. And your own bath. You’re welcome to it as long as you need it.”

  “You’re sticking your neck way out, Bob, harboring me.

  He finished his drink and poured another. “If I hadn’t opened my big mouth, nobody would be looking for you. Drink?”

  “No, thanks. Bob, you’re in a sensitive business. You can’t afford to — ”

  He stopped me with a raised hand. “I insist! And don’t you worry about that crummy job at Barton, Boldt, and Bernstein. I won’t be there after the first of the year, anyway.”

  From her reclining position on the towel, his wife said, “That’s news to me, Robert Emmet Dunne. Just exactly where will you be after the first of the year?”

  He looked at her without interest. “In Pango-Pango, drinking fermented coconut juice and chasing native dancing girls.”

  “Huh! “ she said. “Big talk Bob Dunne! “ She turned over on her stomach, cradling her head on her crossed forearms.

  Bob smiled at me wearily. “Pleasant domestic scene, isn’t it? We get along better than this usually. “ He inhaled. “Last night was rough on us both.”

  “It must have been. Has your phone been connected yet?”

  Mrs. Dunne said, “It’s connected. There’s one in the kitchen and one in the den.”

  From the kitchen phone I tried for the next ten minutes to get through to Ruth Hansel. But the line remained busy. After her experience with the reporters, she had probably taken her phone off its cradle.

  I sat in the kitchen for a while, trying to plan my next moves, while out at the pool the Dunnes bickered through an early cocktail hour. Mrs. Dunne had been about a third loaded before her husband had come home.

  When I went out again, Bob said, “You’ll need a car, won’t you? Maggie told me you hid yours.”

  I nodded.

  He looked at his watch. “I could rent you one. There’s an agency less than a mile away.”

  “In whose name?”

  “Mine.”

  “And then if I get nailed — ?”

  He smiled. “So, okay, I’ll rent it in Maggie’s name.” He winked.

  His wife turned round to survey us both. “I don’t like to play the ungracious hostess, but aren’t you living a little dangerously, Bob Dunne? I think you’re taking a light view of what could be a serious decision.”

  He colored and carefully avoided looking at me.

  I said quickly, “Mrs. Dunne is right, Bob. I’ll get a car some other way.”

  It was her turn to color. She said evenly, “It wasn’t Bob’s decision I was complaining about, Mr. Callahan. It was his comedy approach to it. And you can call me Maggie. Just about everybody else does.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You may call me Brock, ma’am.”

  She laughed. Her husband smiled. She said, “I’ll drive you down, Bob, and you can drive the rental car back.”

  He looked at her doubtfully. “You’re sure you’re not — ” He broke off.

  “Drunk? I’m not.” She rose and put on a fingertip-length terry cloth jacket. “Let’s go.”

  She stood there regally, all woman on the outside, all first sergeant on the inside. Bob sighed, glanced ruefully at me, and climbed slowly but obediently to his feet.

  “I’ll be waiting,” I told him. “Good luck.”

  They went away and I was left with the empty Martini pitcher and a number of misgivings. Bob Dunne had acted impulsively and courageously but I doubted his stamina. At th
e moment, perhaps, his job didn’t look like much to him; the stock market had been in the doldrums for months. But his mood could change with a five-million-share day.

  Maggie, now, would be an ally less fragile. I wasn’t sure, however, that she was an ally. Ruth Hansel was. After what must have been considerable police and newspaper interrogation, she had retained enough spirit to decoy the police away from the apartment and give me a chance to escape.

  Horse would be an ally and so would Randy Roman and so would my own true love. And who else? Deputy Anthony Bogaro? He was an officer of the law; his first duty was to the law. That meant he was morally bound to bring me in.

  But his instincts? He was an emotional young man under his rigid exterior and he worshipped that frivolous sister of his.

  I was sure the police knew things they hadn’t released to the newspapers. Bogaro had been the deputy who had discovered the dead Scooter. There was a thin chance he might trust me; it was a chance I decided to take.

  Maggie Dunne came back before Bob did; Bob was stopping to pick up some liquor and delicacies for a party they were planning tonight.

  “In celebration of the fire being out,” she explained. “One of Bob’s whimsies.”

  “Is it finally out? “ I asked. “The last I heard, it was only under control.”

  “That’s ‘out’ enough for Bob,” she answered. “He doesn’t need much excuse for a party. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

  We went through a back door into the garage and up a flight of plank steps to the room Bob had offered me. It was more than a bedroom; an alcove in one wall served for that. It was a large, high-ceilinged room overlooking the pool, furnished a lot better than my humble apartment in Westwood.

  “The agency has sent over a housekeeper,” Mrs. Dunne told me. “I’ll have her bring up your linen. You’d better stay in the bathroom, out of sight.”

  She went down the steps again as my licentious fantasies faded and I went to the bathroom to drink three glasses of water. Breakfast was eight hours into history and I had put away three Martinis while gabbing with Maggie Dunne at the pool. My stomach rumbled; there was some rubber in my knees.