Rook Takes Knight (The Howie Rook Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  “If it’s absolutely necessary,” Agnews said, being a man notoriously slow with a buck. “You coming right downtown now, Howie?”

  “Just as soon as I prepare a document for your eyes alone and for my own amusement and edification. A list of all suspects, possible and impossible, Hal. See you later.” And Rook poured himself another beer, sitting down before his ancient upright typewriter. Half whimsically, half seriously, he began to put down what he thought of as his overnight selections—remembering way back when the Santa Anita race track was new and he had been drafted for a few months into the old Chronicle’s sports department. He began:

  OL’ COLONEL ROOKS ANALYSIS

  (Third day of meeting, track fast, weather threatening) Feature Race (open to all) the Homicide Handicap, to be run in honor of the late John Charteris, Esq. The horses are picked to finish in this order, by handicapper’s preference. For the Hemlock Cup, added prize one all-expenses-paid trip to San Quentin-by-the-Bay.

  HOT PIANO (Ruggles) This one seems likely to take it all, has plenty of nerve, some speed, and is said to come from behind. Somewhat inconsistent in past performances. Definitely saw the photo, very probably is still in love with Deirdre. Claims to have no car at the moment and says he isn’t driving due to loss of license, but could easily have taken bus or taxi to neighborhood of supermarket to pick up Dibbles’ wagon. Probably goes to the post odds-on favorite but some question of condition. No alibi yet. BEST BET.

  LEGAL EAGLE (Holtz) Seems a little out of his class in this type of race, but is a slick performer and may like the going. From a deluxe, winning stable. Saw the photo but has a sort of alibi. As successful trial lawyer would seem more likely to attack victim in court than on the street. A perfectionist in everything, he might have ideas of adding Deirdre to his collection of objets d’art and making her Mrs. Holtz after the heat dies down. Is he smart enough to have used tactics foreign to his accepted image, with the deviousness of the legal mind? Can’t forget that he is the only person so far whom Deirdre might consider as second husband. This one COULD SURPRISE.

  SISTER MARY (Patch) A dark horse in a wide-open race. Unruly performer, not noted for minding her own business. Possible double motive here—revenge for her younger sister’s mistreatment and desire to get rid of big debt to Charteris. His death presumably makes Deirdre wealthy and some of it would rub off on relatives. At least she and Ed wouldn’t have to pay off the loan. She took photograph and showed it to husband, at least. Carrying extra weight for age, said to be quarrelsome and nervous in stall. Shows a lot of fight and is often in close quarters. A real longshot but TAB. Her chances improved by her running as entry with

  FATSO (Ed Patch) Has been running in cheaper company but may like the route. May come from behind if stablemate sets the pace. Was disturbed by photo of Deirdre, but motive would be monetary rather than concern for Deirdre—nothing to show he was sweet on her or likely to be the gallant type. Probably has alibi (the night spot) but must be taken into consideration.

  ARTISTS AGENT (Linsky) This veteran campaigner has gone well in claimers, runs handily, and will not ever be left at post. Alibi full of holes, claims he was at home reading script and watching TV but did not answer Deirdre’s phone call. Almost certainly saw photo or at least heard of it. Has paternal or avuncular fondness for Deirdre and could feel responsible for having introduced her to Charteris. THE ONE TO WATCH.

  WILL-O-THE-WISP (Nemo) Another dark horse. Past record cloudy, except for mysterious and annoying phone calls. Did not know Deirdre well or would not have mispronounced her name (unless hastily covering up). May or may not have shadowed Deirdre or spied on her. EXTREME LONG SHOT.

  MACHETE MAN (Gregorio) Import from the Philippines. If he has record, not yet available. Has possible double motive—devotion to injured mistress and resentment against employer. Could possibly gain from Charteris’ will. May have alibi but probably it would depend only on wife Maria, other half of this entry. May be only a couple of generations from jungle head-hunters and could have seen photo or been told of it by wife. Murder by auto seems uncharacteristic, but COULD SURPRISE.

  HOUSEMAID (Maria) No information in record books on past performances or on alibi. Seems the weaker half of this entry and if driven to killing would probably turn to poison or blunt instrument. But could easily have seen photo in her mistress’s handbag or even seen Deirdre’s injuries in the course of her daily duties as maid-of-all-work.

  COUSIN GEORGE (Worthington) Half of a dubious late entry, no record of past performances. Couldn’t have seen photo unless somebody mailed it to him and would probably have had no concern for Deirdre anyway. Only possible motive (remote) would be to kill Charteris and frame Deirdre so that he and other cousin would be residuary legatees. UNLIKELY.

  EVANGELINE (Corey) Little information on this other half of entry from up North. Apparently neither belongs in this race and no evidence they were even in Los Angeles area last Wednesday night. ONLY THIN OUTSIDE CHANCE.

  HORSEMAN (Booth) Little information on this one either. Had business and perhaps gambling connections with Charteris, was attracted to Deirdre and possibly attractive to her, at least at one party. Also stood to inherit half of Carbon Copy, an equine property of dubious value. Further investigation may make SHORTER ODDS ON THIS ONE.

  FLYBOY (Church) Unlikely to even start. Said to have been campaigning overseas and to be through. Check on possibility that he was missing in action rather than killed, perhaps taken prisoner and released or made an escape. Could just possibly be in U.S.A. by now. Was once in love with Deirdre. A QUESTION MARK in the race.

  Rook paused, read over his meanderings, and then refreshed himself with another beer. The list was as complete as he could make it, though there was always the possibility of some added starter. And he reminded himself that he must be completely objective, so with some reluctance he added:

  QUEEN OF EIRE (Dee) This dark and lovely filly seems completely out of it, but is well liked by the police and by the D.A.’s office. So must be listed here, if only for the record. Might be capable of murder under great provocation but not after cooling-off period of three weeks, nor would she kill the dog! Alibi not established. But she wouldn’t have had to let out Dibbles’ seat belt, she would have had to take it in to fit her waist. SHOULD BE SCRATCHED.

  “There!” said Howie Rook to himself with a certain sheepish satisfaction. Perhaps it was childish, but somehow it helped to get it all down in black and white. Perhaps after the council of war with Agnews and Mike Finn at dinner tonight he would have to rearrange the positions. Even now he felt like retyping the whole thing and moving Charley Booth up among the favorites. He folded up the sheets of typescript and put them in his pocket, leaving the carbons on the machine. He then automatically started to pour himself another refreshing dark beer—but stopped short with the can in one hand and the “church key” in the other.

  “No,” said Howie Rook. He put the beer back in the refrigerator and the opener in the drawer. It occurred to him that a cold shower might be more to the point. After all, he had had only about four hours’ sleep last night, and that in a contorted position. “And after a day like today—” he groaned.

  Luckily he had no idea of the little goodies which Fate had in store for him this evening, not to mention the morrow.

  VIII

  THEY SAT IN A leather-upholstered booth, by romantic but inappropriate candlelight, in Paix’s French-family restaurant in the wrong part of downtown Los Angeles. And no doubt the hovering waiter thought them a strangely assorted threesome. They had put away their dinners silently and efficiently, and now they looked upon the cart loaded with French pastries without interest.

  “I think for dessert I’ll just have a double Scotch-and-water,” said Mike Finn, the ex-detective sergeant of police, grown gray in the swivel chair and heavy in the paunch but still with Irish in his heart and fists and with a certain amount of English on the ball.

  “Make mine double Henness
y and soda,” decided Hal Agnews, the quicksilver-minded, golden-tongued trial attorney with the stage manner and the little bald spot suggesting a monkish tonsure, or that he had been the loser in an Indian raid. “And of course beer for you, Howie?”

  “A double black coffee,” said the semi-retired newshawk, former intercollegiate light-heavyweight wrestler, true-crime writer, and at the moment a private investigator self-conscious in a new haircut. “How about if we get down to cases? Mike, what you got?”

  Finn looked at Hal Agnews, who nodded. “Okay,” said the ex-cop, pulling out a dime-store notebook. “On the Filipino servants, Gregorio and Maria Santos. They have a little cottage on Mott Street, in the quieter part of Boyle Heights. I tried to get a line on them in the neighborhood market and liquor store, and got nowhere. Mexican-Filipino-Negro area. Any strange Anglo that wanders into the neighborhood is presumably a cop or a bill collector, so everybody clams up. The Santos couple, after they’d shooed maybe a dozen kids out of the living room, were suspicious of me at first, until they found out who I was working for and why.”

  “Deirdre must have alerted them,” Agnews put in.

  “An old Chevy in the driveway, a TV set in the house that Mr. and Mrs. Charteris gave them for Christmas. No overt signs of sudden wealth, no signs of being in debt over their heads. Very proud of their old Spanish blood, but from appearances I’d say they’re both pretty much pure Tagalog. They had nothing much to say about Charteris except that they’d worked for him for six years and he was poco loco sometimes when he got mad. Both of them obviously devoted to Mrs. Charteris. Worried about their jobs if Deirdre has to close down the Brentwood house. They knew they were going to get something in the will, because Charteris had promised them …”

  “Isn’t making a will a bit odd for a man still in his forties?” Rook interrupted, looking at the attorney. “Not just a will but the funeral arrangements and everything? Could he have been contemplating suicide, maybe?”

  “Most men make wills when there’s property involved, especially when they get married. Anyway, it’s clear he didn’t do the Dutch act, so what?” The attorney nodded to Finn.

  “Neither Gregorio nor Maria has any alibi for the time of the murder except the ones they give each other. In spite of all the kids they got already they were probably in the bedroom working on another.”

  “Luckily for the poor, the best things in life are free,” put in Hal Agnews. “Go on.”

  “I saw a framed newspaper clipping about ten years old—Gregorio in fight trunks. Seems he used to be a featherweight in the prelims at the Olympic and around. Could be a tough guy to meet in a dark alley, but if the idea of murder occurred to him, I don’t think he’d use a car. More likely a switchblade.”

  “How about the photo I told you to mention?” Rook wanted to know.

  “When I started fishing in that direction they froze. No comprehendez nada. But they knew that plenty was wrong between Charteris and their mistress—they’d heard divorce mentioned, and angry voices. If either of them had snooped they could have seen the photos in Mrs. Charteris’ handbag, or Maria could have actually seen the marks if she’d been acting as ladies’ maid. I doubt if they’d be inspired to do anything about it anyway—primitive people don’t get easily upset about an ordinary thing like wife-beating. Of course, they did have expectations from the will—”

  “Three or four months’ pay?” Rook shook his head.

  “There’s nothing to prove either one or both of them didn’t get in their old heap that night and drive away and do the job. But in my opinion, for what it’s worth, Maria would have put ground-up tiger whiskers in Charteris’ dinner if she wanted to do away with him, or Gregorio would have used a knife or maybe karate.”

  “It’s been proved,” said Rook, “that most murderers use as a weapon something they’re accustomed to. There was a cleaning woman a few years ago who did in her mistress with a vacuum cleaner—”

  “Yes, Howie!” cut in Agnews. “Okay, we shelve the Santos couple for the time being. What if anything did you get in Covina, Mike?”

  “For background, the Corn Patch is a fairly gaudy night spot in an early-to-bed town, located on Barranca Street not far from the big Eastland shopping center. Featured topless waitresses until the city fathers cracked down on them a couple of months ago. Afternoon business is just fair, mostly beer and sandwiches, juke-box music. I guess it picks up some in the evening, when they feature a country-music band and square-dancing. According to the bartender, the place has been open over a year and for the first six months it ran in the red but has been picking up. The usual thing—they lose money on the food and make it up on the liquor. But it’s no gold mine.”

  “Could have been a tax write-off for Charteris,” said Agnews.

  “It’s really a sort of Poppa and Mama store. Ed Patch, big and fat and jovial, roams around glad-handing the customers and keeping an eye on the bar and the kitchen, being his own best customer both places. His wife Mary is usually at the cash register. If they paid themselves regular salaries there wouldn’t be much profit—but of course they have free living quarters upstairs, with an outside entrance. I don’t see how they could have been paying Charteris much off on the loan, which from the look of the place must have been a hundred grand at least, maybe more.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Rook. “What about alibis for Wednesday night?”

  “Good question. Seems that Ed and Mary both are always there on weekends or on a big night. Other times they spell each other. Right now Mary is away at her sister’s—you both know that. But I managed to talk to Ed Patch, giving him a flash of my old badge, which I forgot to turn in when I retired, and gave him a song and dance about looking for a wronggo who’d jumped his bail in L.A. and was supposed to have been seen in the place Wednesday night. He stalled around and finally admitted he wasn’t around the café the latter part of the evening, said he was in the apartment upstairs soaking his corns and watching TV. Mary, he claims, was running the store that night. Says he fell asleep over the Late Show and doesn’t know exactly when she came to bed.”

  “But surely some of the other employees would know whether she was at the cash register or not,” Agnews put in.

  “Wait, Hal. I found a colored boy, a sociology major at State, who works there nights as busboy and doing clean-up. He says that business was so slow Wednesday night that they shut up real early—he can’t say exactly when but it could have been as early as eleven P.M. It seems there was a political shindig and free barbecue and beer over at the Elks Hall. Nobody stays away from free food and drink. What few customers there were took the hint when the music shut down and the busboy began to pile chairs on the tables.”

  “So there’s nothing to prove that Mary Patch or Ed or both of them didn’t take off on the San Berdoo freeway and hightail it into town, traffic being light at that hour,” observed Rook sadly. “So we can’t eliminate anybody!”

  “I only work here,” said Finn. “But I got me a memory like an elephant is supposed to have, and I know I’ve seen Ed Patch somewhere in the course of duty. Could have been in a line-up or in the mug files. And he made me for a copper before I even opened my mouth, which is always an indication.

  Which gave Rook an idea. But Agnews was saying, “What about their car?”

  “Cars, you mean. Mary has an old brown VW, and Ed a Buick pickup. There’s a two-car garage in back, but my informant didn’t notice if either or both cars were there when he left.” Finn finished his drink. “Then off I went to Pomona fairgrounds. I fell flat on my face. The thoroughbred races are running, and that’s no time to try to talk to a trainer. Somebody said if I wanted to see Booth I could maybe catch him about sunup, the time everybody is out watching the workouts. I didn’t want to wait around, so I figured I’d go back in the morning …”

  Hal Agnews said he thought that was indicated, but Rook said, “No. Maybe I’ll handle that myself. I want you, Mike, to tail Danny Ruggles tonight and stick with it no
matter how late it is. Here’s a photo of him with a five-man combo, clipped out of Billboard. The address is Seaview Apartments on Adelaide Way. If he’s already left, just try to pick him up among the bars and night spots south along the Coast.”

  “Why Ruggles?” the attorney wanted to know.

  “Because I have a hunch he’ll probably try to set up a fake alibi for himself. Anyway, he’ll probably get stoned—and possibly he’ll talk to a friendly stranger.”

  Finn nodded. It was evident that he didn’t mind a night out on the town, as long as it all went on the swindle sheet. “And another thing,” Rook said. “Mike, do you still have drag enough to get a departmental make on Patch, through the state intelligence bureau in Sacramento?”

  “That’s not so easy now. They got rules since the new chief came in. The request for a make is only supposed to come from the officer assigned to a specific case.”

  Agnews asked if a few bucks or a bottle of Scotch in the right places would make any difference, but Finn still looked dubious. “I’ve a better idea,” decided Rook. “This is in connection with a pending case, and McDowd owes us a favor. Go ask him tomorrow. If he goes for it, you might ask for a make on everybody …” He was writing down a whole list of names. “After you’ve seen Ruggles through the evening you can get some sack-time. But see or phone McDowd in the morning. And I’ll want you at the funeral.”

  “You think his guilty conscience is going to make the murderer show up there?” Finn was shaking his head. “That’s screwy—”

  “The whole case is screwy! But a guilty man—or woman—has to have different reactions than an innocent bystander. My ringing doorbells today, and your trips to Boyle Heights and Covina, might just possibly start repercussions. The guilty party may not be smart enough to sit tight and do nothing, he may get clever and take evasive action of some kind. This is a peculiar murder, an offbeat, cold-blooded execution. Give ’em a chance, most killers outsmart themselves, and—”