Rook Takes Knight (The Howie Rook Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  “Sorry about that, Lou.” Rook picked up the heavy reference books to return them to the proper shelf over the racing editor’s desk, and then winced.

  “What’s with your shoulder? What’s happened to you, Howie?”

  “Skip it. That may be in the news story too. Plus a photograph that may shock you right out of your swivel chair.” Rook headed for home. It had occurred to him that he would have to dig his one halfway respectable dark suit out of the closet and it would probably need pressing, so he’d have to take it out to a tailor shop on Santa Monica, and there was the problem of a clean white shirt and a sedate tie—

  And he had to bathe, at least the unbandaged portions of his anatomy. It was when he was in the tub, of course, that the phone rang. He was tempted to ignore it, but finally he dripped his way out into the living room and barked “Hello!”

  “Mr. Rook?” It was a woman’s voice—but not Deirdre’s.

  “Who else?”

  “This is Miss Crowley, at Keyes Color Processing. Mr. Keyes said to tell you that your blowups are ready.”

  They had almost slipped his mind, a Freudian block perhaps. But an idea came to him. “Is Mr. Keyes around?”

  “Why, I don’t think so. He worked late last night, rushing through your order. I believe he’s left for the day—”

  “But he lives upstairs, doesn’t he? May I have that number?”

  “It’s an extension—I’ll be glad to connect you.” Her voice was honeyed today, and Rook made a mental note that Miss Blue-Platinum Crowley might be worth personal investigation and perhaps an evening of dinner and bowling or a movie, when and if this was all over.

  “Keyes speaking,” came a masculine voice.

  Rook identified himself. “Your office called to say my enlargements are ready. How’d they turn out?”

  “Well, that depends. If you thought the little four-by-five was disturbing, the ten-by-twelve will really bug you!”

  “Look,” said the big man. “I’m pressed for time. Mr. Agnews, Deirdre’s attorney, thinks he may need to use the prints today. Maybe for the D.A.’s office, maybe for the newspapers …”

  “The papers would give more space to the one with the dog in the photo, staring up at her sympathetically,” Keyes said, speaking no doubt professionally. “More human-interest punch.”

  “Mr. Agnews thought that would be overdoing it. Anyway, you said something to the effect that if there was anything you could do—”

  “Name it! You want me to have them delivered?”

  “I’m not sure if there’d be anybody around Agnews’ office on a Saturday—”

  “To where you live, then?”

  “I won’t be home. But I have to be at the funeral, at Forest Lawn, Glendale, at four—”

  “Nothing to it. I’ll see that they’re there.”

  Rook thanked him and hung up. He finished his bath, shaved carefully, and arrayed himself in the dark suit and tie. A funeral was a funeral, and he couldn’t afford to be noticeable in his everyday casual attire. He remembered that his breakfast had been sketchy in the extreme. There was beer and liverwurst in the refrigerator, and saltines—his more or less regular K-rations—but he was on an expense account now. And heaven only knew when he would have dinner tonight!

  He stopped in at a drive-in and had a malted milk and something called a “Mammothburger,” the name presumably meaning to relate to its size but from the taste it could just possibly have been made from one of those old Siberian mammoths the archeologists dug up. As he ate he listened to radio station XTRA again, but there was nothing in the news broadcast relating to the Charteris murder case. Somehow he had had a hunch there might be.

  Would any self-appointed champion of the lovely Deirdre sit quietly back and let the lady be thrown into jail? Surely there would be some overt act of some kind …

  Unless his whole theory of the case was in error. Where had he failed? On an impulse he drove over to the medical building, had the usual difficulties in getting past Miss Whatshername, and then once again he and the medico were facing each other across the desk in the consulting room. “I suppose this is another emergency?” asked Dr. Lloyd with some asperity.

  “The same one. But first, as long as I’m here I’d like a prescription for some pain pills, and some liniment for my shoulder …”

  “Take off your shirt!”

  “Doc, you have a morbid desire to get me undressed!” Rook argued that he hadn’t time and that it was only a bruise, but he was overruled. He had to submit to examination and a chest X-ray.

  “Apart from some bruises and contusions and abrasions and a couple of cracked ribs, you’re not in bad shape,” pronounced Dr. Lloyd. “A few days in bed, Howie—”

  “That’s out of the question. I’ve got to get to a funeral.”

  “Well, it’ll be your own if you don’t slow down.” After some growling, the doctor taped up Rook’s barrel-like chest, gave him some codeine pills, and then let him dress. “You ought to be flat on your back, and I’m afraid you won’t do any bowling for some weeks. Does it hurt now?”

  “Only when I laugh, as the settler said when he had an Indian arrow through his chest. But what I wanted to ask you, Dr. Doug, was this. You remember that picture I showed you yesterday?”

  “Who could forget it?”

  “And you said it couldn’t have been faked?”

  “I did. No woman could mark herself up that way with lipstick or anything, not for the color camera. I told you I’d testify to that in court if need be.”

  “But how about somebody else painting it on for her, somebody who’d once been a make-up artist in a film studio?”

  “Why—now then—” said Dr. Douglas Lloyd. “Offhand—well, the color of the bruises was so typical—I’m not saying that I’d reverse my original verdict, but it gives me to think—”

  “Me too,” said Howie Rook, who now was not a happy man, for more reasons than two.

  XI

  ROOK WAS A MAN who disliked funerals, and usually avoided them. In recent years he had had to attend too many last rites for boon companions and fellow scribes who had drunk their cups an hour or two before, as Omar sang. But this was strictly in the line of duty.

  He still somehow managed to arrive at Forest Lawn a little ahead of time. The Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, in spite of the studied quaintness of the name, was a demure and unobtrusive little funeral-and-wedding chapel, set in the midst of trees and shrubbery but short on heather. You can’t have everything, Rook thought.

  The place was beginning to fill up. Perhaps some of these people were mourners come to pay their last respects, but most of them were probably here out of curiosity—or to get a look at the widow. Some paused to inscribe their names in the ornate book on the stand in the entrance hall, most did not.

  As yet there was no sign of any delivery boy with the enlargements, but Rook resolved to stand near the front doors and keep an eye out. Anyway, here came Mike Finn, out of breath and looking pleased with himself. The subdued strains of recorded organ music coming from the front of the chapel covered conversation well enough for privacy.

  “I got the complete official make on everybody,” said the ex-cop. “But for my money it doesn’t add up to much—”

  “I thought McDowd might cooperate.”

  “You know, Howie, I don’t think he’s entirely satisfied with the case he handed over to the D.A.’s office. I got the idea he’s thinking there’s more to it—” Finn broke off as Deirdre Charteris came in, flanked by Sister Mary on one side and Ed Patch on the other. “She has no criminal record, anyway,” the ex-cop said. “I mean our client. Not up to now, anyway.”

  Deirdre looked neither at them nor at anybody else as she went forward into the chapel. The beautiful face was masklike now, eyes straight ahead and unseeing—almost trancelike. For some reason she had decided to wear a modish gray suit instead of some approximation of the traditional widow’s weeds. And now she was characteristically and almost defian
tly choosing to take a front pew under the stained-glass “Annie Laurie” window instead of accepting an attendant’s gestured invitation to usher her into the curtained alcove at the side, where she would have been out of view of the crowd. The organ music now segued into “Abide with Me” …

  People were coming in faster now—Rook trying to catch a glimpse of every face. Here and there he recognized people who had been in the photos taken at the Charteris parties—a city councilman and wife, even Dr. Mortensen, the psychiatrist. It was going to be a full house.

  At that moment Rook felt something slide discreetly under his arm. He turned quickly—to see Mr. Anton Keyes beside him. “Delivery boy was out, so I thought I’d bring the stuff myself,” he whispered. “I made half a dozen in color and the same number in black-and-white glossy, in case you want to give ’em to the newspapers.”

  “Very thoughtful of you. Thanks a lot.”

  “Anything else now?” The man’s gargoyle-face wore the expression of gravity suitable for the occasion, but also a look of concern. When Rook shook his head, the man said, “You still think they’ll arrest Dee?”

  “We won’t know until later. I’m to drive her down to Mr. Agnews’ office after this is over and then he’s supposed to surrender her in the D.A.’s office around six P.M. I suppose you’re going to stick around, and perhaps say a word to Deirdre afterward?”

  “In these clothes?” Keyes indicated his Hawaiian sport shirt and purple Hollywood slacks. “Anyway, Miss Crowley—you know, the gal in my office—drove me here, and I can’t keep her waiting. Saturday night is our night to howl.” He gave Rook an exaggerated leer and man-to-man wink, and slipped away.

  “Who’s he?” demanded Mike Finn. “Somebody new working with us?”

  “A sort of volunteer helper, name of Keyes.”

  “Keyes—Tony Keyes? You had him on our make list!”

  “Just covering every angle. He dug up Danny Ruggles’ name for us, used to know Deirdre way back when. What’s the dope on him?”

  “Plenty! Possession of obscene films. He and some other studio technicians made a non-union, State’s-rights feature movie called Back to Eden a few years ago. They were found guilty and fined, only the state supreme court reversed the conviction on the grounds that the naked human body isn’t necessarily obscene—”

  “It isn’t necessarily beautiful, either,” Rook came back. “I saw that nudie film not six months ago, in one of the little art theatres on Melrose. But Deirdre wasn’t in it—not unless she wore a blond wig, took off three inches and put on twenty pounds. There goes another pet theory. What did you get on the rest of them?”

  “Mostly a lot of nothing. Ed Patch—felonious assault, three years ago. Hit another guy over the head with a bottle in a saloon brawl. Witnesses didn’t show up, case dismissed. Nothing on his wife, Mary, except speeding tickets and one drunk-and-disorderly—”

  Just then Harry Holtz came by them, impeccably attired in morning coat and striped trousers. “Assault and battery against the husband of one of his clients, two years ago. He broke the guy’s jaw. But the witnesses swore the husband swung first. Holtz came out of it smelling like a rose, case dismissed.”

  “He would,” said Rook. “But if you didn’t do better on the rest of ’em, we’ve been wasting our time. Here’s Max Linsky—what’s on him?”

  “Morals charges involving a would-be child actress, back in 1950. Found guilty, appealed it, and finally got off when somebody discovered that the complaining witness was twenty years old and had a vag-lewd record back in Kansas City.”

  “For Hollywood agents, being sued by child actresses is an occupational hazard, like most malpractice suits against doctors,” Rook said.

  Gregorio and Maria Santos now appeared, dressed in their fearful and wonderful Sunday best, adding a colorful note. “She was a taxi dancer, a B-girl, and did a little hustling in her day,” said Finn. “And Gregorio was picked up on a traffic charge in 1949 and found to have a switchblade knife and some of the wrong kind of cigarettes in his car. He got off easy with a small fine and a year’s sentence, suspended.”

  “We all have our little secrets, don’t we?” murmured Rook.

  “Harry Holtz was his attorney. I guess that was before the guy became a specialist in divorce.”

  “Or because Holtz defended the man as a favor to Charteris.” But Rook was thoughtful. And here came Danny Ruggles, with a friend whom the ex-cop recognized as the bartender at the Phoenix. Rook and Finn hastily drew apart and pretended not to be acquainted at all. But the pianist, wearing a sharply cut pin-stripe suit and black bow tie, seemed not to notice them. Ruggles started forward as if he had some idea of sitting down beside Deirdre, then evidently thought better of it and dropped, with his companion, into a side pew. “And on him we drew a blank,” said Finn. “Except for the driving citations, the 502s, he’s clean.”

  This was a disappointment! Rook himself had been in the toils of the law more than any of the suspects, though on somewhat different charges! The services in the chapel were now under way, and a plump lady had sung “No Man Is an Island” and another plumper lady had read Tom Moore’s “He Is Gone from the Mountain.”

  “Here comes somebody,” he whispered. It was a tall, lean, Gary Cooperish man in a light tan suit. “That’s Charley Booth. About our last chance. Anything on him?”

  “He was brought up before the California Racing Commission last year on charges of doping a mare named Foolish Fancy, at Keeneland. But a stableboy was found in possession of Benzedrine sulphate pills, and Booth was cleared. Also one assault-and-battery charge, when Booth beat the hell out of the stableboy. The judge threw that out of court.”

  The Anglican minister was about to hold forth, but waited as now an elderly couple appeared, the man leaning on a gold-headed cane and wearing a hearing aid, the woman in rusty black lace. They were ushered down to take the front pew opposite where Deirdre and the Patches were sitting, which had up to this moment been reserved. They pointedly refrained from noting the existence of the widow. “That has to be the cousins from San Francisco,” whispered Rook. “I guess we can scratch them both—neither one looks as if he could drive anything more recent than an electric brougham!”

  The minister’s voice droned on. “Just what are we here for anyway?” Finn wanted to know. “You really got a wild idea that the murderer will be irresistibly drawn to the funeral, maybe?”

  “Mike, I don’t know!” It had originally been Rook’s idea to look for somebody who didn’t show up. But everybody had! What bothered him most was the uncomfortable feeling that the adversary—whoever it was—was one step ahead of him all the way. He had played chess games like that, in which he could have brought off a brilliant victory and mate in two moves, but never got to make those moves either because his queen was boxed in a corner or his bishop was blocked by his own pawn. The minister was going into his prayer now …

  “You ought to see a big Requiem High Mass!” said Finn, who was taking a dim view of it all.

  “There was a widely held idea in medieval times that if a murderer was forced to touch the body of his victim, the wounds would start to bleed again,” whispered Rook.

  “But this casket is closed and—you’re not serious!”

  “No, but what a great idea it would be if we could lock the doors, with all the suspects here, and stage a dramatic showdown scene—” Finn only shook his head sadly.

  Suddenly it was all over. Everything stopped. Then Deirdre and her sister and brother-in-law made an exit through a side door; everyone else stood up and started to gather their hats and belongings. The cousins from San Francisco came slowly out, with Evangeline Corey complaining in a rather loud voice something about “John may have been an agnostic, but I think cremation is a pagan rite! That woman—”

  “And they inherit all the dough,” whispered Finn. “I mean, if—”

  “If Deirdre is tried and convicted, yes.” Rook sighed. It had been, to all intents and purposes, a dr
y run. The faces of the departing crowd (mourners? guests? congregation?) were all set in the proper masks of assumed respect and solemnity. There were disappointingly few signs of sorrow, much less of guilt. One woman in a ratty mink cape came out dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief—but she could have been one of the weirdos, the funeral buffs, who get their kicks from attending the last rites of perfect strangers.

  The chapel was emptying fast now. “Well?” demanded the ex-cop. “You got anything more for me to do, or you just keeping me around for company? If you ask me, this is all one big snipe hunt and you’re holding the bag.”

  “I may need you yet.” Rook looked around and found a water fountain, where he could take another codeine pill. He was not a happy man, for he had had a strong if quite unreasonable hunch that the murderer of John Charteris, the forgotten man who was now on his way to the crematorium and an ornate little marble urn, had been among the others here, laughing up the proverbial sleeve.

  They had given Deirdre time enough for any last words and commiserations with her friends. “Stick with me, Mike,” he said, and led the way outside and around the shrubbery to the smooth green lawn by the side door. There stood Deirdre, wearing sunglasses now and a scarf. Sister Mary and Ed Patch stood firmly beside her, and the suave Harry Holtz was holding her hand and saying something to her. Deirdre clung to him for a moment—but it was hardly indicative of anything, for she also clung to Max Linsky when it came his turn. The San Francisco cousins had evidently departed without any last words, and presumably Gregorio and Maria had slipped away, wanting to be unnoticed. All that was understandable, but where was Danny Ruggles?

  A couple of reporters and a photographer, all of whom Rook knew by sight, were hovering nearby, ready to pounce on Deirdre. “This I think you and I can handle,” said Rook grimly. “How are you at giving the bum’s rush if indicated?” Finn said it would be a pleasure. But it turned out that the representatives of the press deferred to Rook’s pantomimed “Lay off!” signal and drifted away. But it would be a different situation, he realized, if and when Wilt Mays went through with the arrest. At that moment Deirdre would become, in a sense, public property, the fair target of every photographer and every sob-sister of either sex. Well, that could be faced when the time came.