The Brink of Murder

by Helen Nielsen

  The morning paper hadn’t picked up the Mary Sutton death story in the early edition that came on the coffee tray, but it did announce the termination of the overcast. Simon gave Wanda permission to drive her little compact back to the beach if she stayed on the freeway inland from the coastal fog. As soon as she pulled out of the garage he headed the Jaguar towards the office of David G. Adler.

  It was on the ground floor of one of the older buildings that survived the widening of Fairfax Avenue. Simon drove into the parking-lot and walked back to the front door. A buzzer sounded as he stepped inside but the office was empty. It was about the size of a double garage with two desks, four chairs and the rest of the area taken up by filing cabinets and bookshelves. A partition at the rear of the room marked off what Simon supposed to be the stairway to the upper floor until a bumping, rolling sound preceded a hearty-voiced: “Don’t go away. I’m coming as fast as this contraption will move.”

  Simon advanced towards the sound and saw a barrel-chested man with curly grey hair manipulating a powered wheel-chair with a combination of expertise and boyish glee. He was about 45 and must have been quite an athlete before his legs became useless stumps lost in the folds of his gabardine slacks. The slacks were held up by striped suspenders that showed beneath an unbuttoned cardigan as he steered the chair down the ramp from the second level. He made a smooth turn into the office and rolled into place behind the second desk.

  “You’re Simon Drake,” he said. “Recognize you from your picture in the paper when you married Wanda Call. Lucky bum!”

  “I agree,” Simon said.

  “And I’m Adler,” the man added. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I usually have a receptionist but nobody’s working until Monday except you and me.” Adler opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a rather thick file. “I live in the upstairs apartment,” he added. “After our talk yesterday I came downstairs and did a little research on Alverna Castile. You know interesting people, Drake. Not quite up to your usual clientèle.”

  “I don’t know her at all,” Simon said. “I just know of her. When I was in college her name was bandied about the frat houses quite a bit.”

  Adler chuckled. “That must have been about the same time I was in the army getting ready to leave some of my anatomy in Korea. Alverna had several houses then. The fancy one, the one the newspapers called the Love Chalet in the Mount Waterman recreational area, and cut-rate places at San Diego and Long Beach. The Love Chalet was strictly first class. One hundred dollars a night in the days when a hundred dollars was real money.”

  Adler opened the file as he spoke and his fingers, as long and tapered as a musician’s, withdrew a carefully-typed, double-spaced sheet of legal-size paper.

  “I have a contact in the profession who specializes in this sort of thing,” he added. “I called him last night and he sent over everything he had on Alverna. I’ve condensed the material in this profile, but the press clippings and other data are here for you to double-check.” He began to read from the typed sheet. “Alverna Castile, born 19 June 1932. Daughter of Maria Castile, a prostitute, and Donald Castile, a dock worker who was killed on the job when Alverna was three. Whether or not the mother was a prostitute before this event is unknown. Probably not. But by the time of Maria’s death when Alverna was fourteen, the daughter was already in the trade. She was supporting a half-brother, Anthony, aged five, father unknown.

  “Alverna was made a ward of the court and placed in a juvenile home, and this is interesting because it’s the only time in her life that she ever appeared before a judge. She was a witness in the trial you mentioned on the telephone yesterday and, by that time, one of the most successful madames in the ancient trade, but she never was convicted of any charge or served a day of her adult life in jail.”

  “Good connections,” Simon said.

  “The best. At the time of the Smalley affair—he was the policeman who was dismissed from the force on a bribery charge and yelled foul, naming all those glamorous names that made the headlines in ‘57—she was rumoured to have the wealthiest clientèle this side of Polly Adler. Smalley, incidentally, never proved any of his charges and left the area shortly thereafter—probably at the request of his insurance agency. I don’t know where he is now. My informant suggests Miami but that’s hearsay.”

  “I’m not interested in Smalley,” Simon said. “I’m interested in Alverna.”

  “Right. Alverna escaped from the juvenile hall before her fifteenth birthday and married a longshoreman twenty years her senior. His name was Joseph Carnes. Marriage kept Alverna out of the courts and that’s apparently what it was for because she seems to have gone right back to her old trade.”

  “What happened to Carnes?”

  “Died of acute alcoholism in 1954. I doubt that they ever lived together as man and wife but Alverna, who had gotten up off her back and became an entrepreneur, paid all his bills at the sanatorium where he spent most of the last three years of his life. She never married again. At the time of the Smalley inquiry she was only twenty-five and reputed to be worth three hundred thousand dollars. Like any smart peasant she put her money in land. She owned all the properties where her houses were located including fifty acres of resort lands surrounding the Chalet. The Chalet burned to the ground in ‘59. Maybe arson but it was never proved. All that’s still standing is a brick barn and a few sheds. She sold off the land after the fire—all but a couple of acres around the barn. It’s enclosed with an electrified fence and a lot of ‘Keep Out’ signs. I haven’t checked it out but presumably she still owns the property. Smart peasants always keep something in reserve.”

  “When did she get out of the vice field?”

  Adler’s eyes crinkled in an appreciative smile. “How do you know she did?”

  “Because I think she’s changed her name and is operating in a legit field now.”

  “You’re right. After that fire in ‘59—in the winter, I think, November or December—Alverna Castile dropped out of sight. All her properties were sold off including, I suppose, the famous card file. Within a year nobody talked about Alverna Castile again. She was issued a passport in 1961 and spent some time abroad. The only thing I have of a later date that pertains to her in any way is a 1965 conviction of Anthony Castile on the charge of assault with intent to kill.”

  “The half-brother.”

  “Yes. He had gone into a foster home when the mother died and ran up quite a record with the juvenile authorities. Like Alverna, he escaped conviction and we can assume it was her money that kept him out of jail. Attempted murder is another matter. He was no longer a juvenile and he drew a ten-year sentence.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “San Quentin. He lost his chance for parole a couple of years later when he was in a knifing mêlée that put him in the hospital for a while. Either Alverna’s money couldn’t help him any more or she washed her hands of him somewhere along the line. There’s no evidence that they were ever close.”

  “Any pictures?” Simon asked.

  Adler thumbed through the file and took out two newspaper clippings dating back to the 1957 affair. One picture showed a well-dressed young woman with a movie-queen figure holding a large handbag over her face. The other photo caught her full-face and angry. Fifteen years could make a lot of difference in anyone’s appearance, but Simon was convinced this was the same woman who had been photographed twice in the company of Barney Amling. He took out the two photos and placed them beside the clipping.

  “What do you think?” he asked Adler.

  The investigator leaned over the desk and snapped on an intensity lamp for closer scrutiny. “Alverna Castile,” he said.

  “Now she calls herself Verna Castle. She owns The Golden Fleece restaurant, the Manina View Inn and lives on a yacht at Marina del Rey.”

  Adler still stared at the photo. “She’s better looking now,” he said. “What’s she doing with Barney Amling?”

  “That’s what I’m hiring you to find
out. I’m Amling’s lawyer.”

  Adler whistled softly. “Wouldn’t the newspapers like to know about this. Not to mention the police and the FBI!”

  “Luckily, they don’t,” Simon said. “Verna Castle took out a loan from Pacific Guaranty two years ago. I want to know how big the loan was and what rate of interest she pays—if any. I also want to know if there’s any connection between Verna Castle and Vincent Pucci, another Pacific Guaranty customer.”

  Alder leaned back in the wheel-chair and drummed his fingers on the top of the desk. He might be crippled below the waist but he was still a dynamo of energy waiting to be turned on.

  “Do you think Amling took the million dollars?” he asked.

  “Nine hundred and fifty thousand,” Simon corrected, “and I don’t think he took it unless there was some tremendous pressure. I think he was blackmailed.”

  “Is that a hunch or do you have facts?”

  “At the moment it’s a hunch and the egotistical belief that I know something about Amling’s character. He’s a family man, Adler, and he had it made. He had no reason to throw his life away. These pictures were taken within the last two months before his disappearance. I’m not going to tell you who took them or how they came into my possession, but I do want to know why Amling met Verna Castle at her restaurant on at least two occasions and why he spent at least one night in a suite she maintains at the hotel. I don’t think it had anything to do with passion.”

  “I’ve got a hunch you’re right,” Adler said. “The old Alverna was too hard-nosed a businesswoman to give anything away. I’ll tell you a little story to illustrate what I mean. When I was in boot camp in ‘52 the Chalet was a thriving enterprise. Some of the fellows in my squad decided it would be great to go up there on a weekend pass, but that came to two big bills and none of us had that kind of money. So we set up a raffle—twenty tickets at ten dollars a piece. I was in on it but I didn’t win and that was a relief. You might not suspect it, but I was a shy country boy at the time. The fellow who won was hell-bent for anything. He was just ahead of me in the action that cost me the use of my legs. They took him home from Korea in a box. But he had his weekend with all the trimmings: Champagne, massage, the girl of his choice for two nights. Before he left he told the girl about the raffle and she was so amused she told Alverna. Well, Alverna said it wasn’t right that a kid who was going overseas to fight for his country should be out so much money for a little fun so she got generous. But not too generous. She returned his contribution—all ten dollars of it. Do you want to take the file with you?”

  “After that story I’ll have to get to know Alverna better,” Simon said. “I’ll go over it in detail when I get back to the beach. I’m giving you my card with my home telephone number. Call me as soon and as often as you learn anything interesting. Did you know that Amling’s secretary died last night?”

  Adler nodded. “It was on the radio just before you came in. She died as a result of injuries incurred when she jumped out of a window to escape a fire in her apartment.”

  “Maybe,” Simon said, “but I’d like to see the autopsy report if you can arrange it. I was in the street outside that apartment when she came out of the window. Have you ever seen anyone try to escape from a burning building by jumping backwards?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IF AN ORDINARY citizen saw a girl fall to her death and suspected she was pushed he might, if he had enough Chutzbah, tell the police. Normally, he would forget it. Simon had the Chutzbah, but he was still Barney Amling’s lawyer and didn’t know if his client was at home or abroad, alive or dead. He might even have been in Mary Sutton’s apartment helping her through the window. One thing he did know: the torch Paul Corman insisted the dead woman carried for her missing boss had been large enough to light up the sky. It was obvious that she would have covered for him if he needed cover. But even unrequited love has a breaking point. If Knox Reardon suspected foul play when he made that careful search of her apartment he was keeping it to himself. What was smart for a policeman was just as smart for a lawyer and so Simon kept his suspicions from everyone except David Adler, who knew privileged communication when he heard it. Simon left the detective’s office with the Castile file locked in the trunk of his car and headed for Marina del Rey.

  It was a holiday weekend and, chill wind or no, boat lovers flocked to their floating escapes like convicts with a three-day rehabilitation pass. The parking-lots were filled almost to capacity and most of the gates leading to the berths were unlocked because the boat owners were bringing in groceries for the holiday. The sky had cleared, the sea was calm. Like long-necked birds the sailing craft that headed out to sea glided swiftly under power with all sails furled inside blue or gold canvas protective covers. From a public telephone booth Simon called a friend, an airline pilot who lived in one of the marina apartment complexes, and asked about Verna Castle’s boat. It turned out to be as much of a secret as the Queen Mary. It was a 48-foot Chris Craft, custom designed for the original owner with an aft stateroom large enough to contain a queen-size bed. Verna Castle had purchased it eighteen months ago and it hadn’t been out of the harbour since she took possession. Apparently she was no kind of a sailor. She just liked living on the boat. She had re-christened it Funky Frigate and, although Simon’s friend didn’t know the berth number, he did know the area where it was anchored. Armed with that information Simon had little difficulty locating the craft. Finding the gate to the boats locked, Simon waited until a grocery-laden lady approached key in hand. When the gate was unlocked Simon waved both arms at a man sunning himself on the flying bridge of a fishing cruiser and yelled: “Hi! Waiting for me?” The man waved back guiltily, as if trying to remember what pest he had invited aboard during his last drunk, and Simon slipped through the gate without question.

  The Funky Frigate was at the very end of the floating dock. She was gleaming white with a flush deck and an extended hardtop. All the chrome was polished and the master’s flag was flying. She was beautiful but no competition for the girl with ash blonde hair hanging halfway down her back who was climbing down the accommodation ladder to the dock. The girl was about eighteen with everything assembled exactly right. Her faded blue tee-shirt and white duck shorts fitted as if they had been sprayed on like body paint, and her face had a scrubbed clean look that defied suntan. She stepped down on to the deck and turned towards Simon, fixing him with a wide, blue stare that showed no interest except mild surprise.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  Her voice was a husky whisper.

  “No,” Simon said, “but that can be remedied. I’m looking for the Funky Frigate. I heard she was for sale.”

  “You’ve got the right boat but the wrong information,” the girl said.

  “Maybe that can be remedied too,” Simon said. “May I go aboard?”

  The girl didn’t reply. Simon’s answer came from the deck.

  “Cherry, tell the man to get lost. And while you’re in the liquor store see if they have any of that bitter lemon mix I like. We used up the last bottle yesterday.”

  Simon looked up. It was Verna Castle all right. She wasn’t dressed as fancily as in the photos with Barney Amling. Her dark red hair hadn’t just been groomed in the beauty parlour and her orange float coat didn’t come embroidered with jewels. She wore sun-glasses, a white knit shirt, faded blue jeans and canvas shoes that looked as if she had been walking through a swamp. He could see them because he was already more than half way up the ladder. “The boat isn’t for sale,” she said.

  Simon climbed on to the deck anyway. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I own an Erickson twenty-seven. Now that I’m married I thought I might go for something larger.”

  He couldn’t see her eyes very well through the sun-glasses, but he had the uneasy feeling that Verna Castle was reading him like yesterday’s headlines. When the girl called Cherry hesitated, the woman waved her on with an impatient gesture. “I can handle this,” she said casuall
y. “If you see Freddie and Rod ask them to drop by this afternoon. I feel like some cut-throat gin-rummy.” When Cherry moved off down the dock with a rear-view mobility that was wondrous to behold, Simon sighed audibly. Verna whipped off the dark glasses and glared at him. “That’s my niece, Cherry Lane,” she said. “Hands off and eyes front.”

  Simon grinned. “I told you I was married. It’s just nice to know they’re still being made that way.”

  “All right, you’ve looked. Now shove off, sailor.”

  “I haven’t seen the boat. Most people who own something in this class like to show it off.”

  “The next time I give a party I’ll let you know. On second thoughts, I don’t think I will. Your face is beginning to seem as familiar as your manner—and you’re no sailor.”

  “That’s what the Marina Beach Yacht Club keeps telling me,” Simon said, “but I try. My name is Simon Drake. You may know me better as the man who married Wanda Call—or even as Barney Amling’s lawyer.”

  The light of discovery must have been too bright for Verna Castle. She put the dark glasses on again. Before she could do anything else, Simon whipped out the envelope containing the two photos and let her see the contents. See—not touch.

  “Where did you get these?” she demanded.