Rook Takes Knight (The Howie Rook Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

“You never went to the supermart at all?”

  “Perhaps occasionally, but—”

  “Using your little red MG?”

  “Wait a minute!” interrupted Agnews. “What does it matter if sometimes when she was in a hurry she used the nearest market?”

  “When did you last visit the supermarket on Montana?” Hal Agnews shook his head at that one, and Mays continued, “Well, when did you last drive a 1956 station wagon?” with the same lack of result. “Then did you drive any borrowed station wagon last Wednesday night?”

  Agnews nodded, and she said “No!”

  Mays opened the desk drawer and made a point of reading from what might or might not have been an official report. “I have information,” he said, “that the owners of the Dodge wagon that killed your husband had left an old hat in the car, that the driver of the death car was wearing a man’s hat, and I have a further report from the police laboratories that several jet-black hairs were found stuck to the sweatband of that hat. In the light of all this, would you care to change your last statement?”

  “She would not,” said Agnews quickly. “There are black hairs and black hairs. I’d like to see that lab report.”

  “In due time, Counselor. Mrs. Charteris, of course you wouldn’t mind letting us have a lock of your hair to put under the comparison microscope?”

  “You know very well we’ll say no to that,” Agnews put in. “And I think that’s enough questions for my client right now. She’s just been through the ordeal of a funeral, remember.”

  Mays waved his hand impatiently, and then held another consultation with his aides. “I think it’s time for the stenographer,” he said.

  “You’ve got all the statement you’re going to get!” Agnews came back. “I’ve been letting you fish around all over the place because I know very well that my client is innocent and I hoped you’d have sense enough to see it too. And don’t give me that stuff about a stenographer—everybody knows this room is wired for sound. You can have the material portions of what has been said typed up and after I’ve read it maybe I’ll let my client sign it. I allowed you a lot of leeway, Wilt, because I hoped you’d see the light and let Mrs. Charteris walk out of here with us. But evidently you’re hell-bent on making an arrest, and so I want to point out a few things …”

  “There’s no use presenting arguments at this time,” Mays said.

  “And if you press for indictment and trial, on the basis of the thin case you have, I’ll tie you up into knots and you know it. Before you’ve got a case, you must put my client behind the wheel of that station wagon, and you can’t do it!”

  Mays looked smug. “There we disagree. And perhaps we won’t need to tie her to the Dodge, after all.”

  “Well, it may be a little early to claim discovery and a list of your witnesses, and you may have something up your sleeve. But I’m going to be frank with you and lay our cards on the table.” With a flourish Agnews took from his briefcase what Rook instantly recognized, with some horror, as his whimsical “Ol’ Colonel Rook’s Analysis.” The attorney slapped it down on the desk in front of Mays and his cohorts. “This may serve to remind you that our client is not the only suspect in this case.”

  Mays glanced at the document, did a double-take, and then started to read aloud, “For the Hemlock Cup, added prize one all-expenses-paid trip to San Quentin … Hot Piano … Ruggles … this one seems likely to take it all, has plenty of nerve, some speed … said to come from behind … somewhat inconsistent in past performances … No alibi …”

  Deirdre now was looking ice daggers at Rook, who sank down in his chair and tried to be as invisible as possible. “I think you get the gist of it, Wilt,” Agnews was saying.

  “Very illuminating,” admitted the Assistant D.A. “You have an unorthodox approach to criminal investigation, Rook. But we might even find this of use.” He handed the paper to one of his aides.

  “That’s not all,” said Hal Agnews. “Not only did Howie check alibis, he also discovered that the driver of the death car was of different physical proportions from our client.”

  It was Rook’s cue, and he presented a terse resume of the seatbelt discovery, and the change in the angle of the rearview mirror. “Interesting but inconclusive,” Mays said. Then Rook brought up the cigar that Mimi Dibble had discovered in the car and thrown away on the way home. “Somebody probably dropped it as a blind,” Mays said.

  “It would have been somebody who didn’t smoke cigars, himself,” Agnews argued. “But I’m not through. Howie has something else to report. Last evening, about eleven, while crossing Tigertail Road toward the Charteris house, he very narrowly escaped being run down by a car, and has certain injuries to prove it. I think it’s more than likely that he escaped John Charteris’ fate only because he was quick enough to leap back where he was sheltered by the bulk of his own car.”

  “I saw nothing but headlights coming at me,” Rook put in. “I didn’t get a look at the driver, or see make or license number.”

  “Then it could have just been a near-accident,” Mays decided. “You’re not trying to suggest that the murderer of Charteris has suddenly decided to go wholesale and knock off just anybody?”

  “Howie may have been getting uncomfortably close to the real killer,” Agnews argued. “And don’t forget that another murder associated with the case, when she could have been proved safe at home, would put my client in the clear. Which fits our theory that her husband was killed by somebody misguided enough to think he was doing her a favor, somebody who knew of her mistreatment by Charteris—”

  “I’ll compliment counsel on his ingenuity,” Mays said. “But—”

  “Then I’ll show you something else, which will be Defense Exhibit A if you go to trial with this!” And Hal Agnews took out the enlarged color photo of Deirdre’s back and shoulders and slammed it dramatically down on the desk. “That was perpetrated by John Charteris three weeks and four days ago, and the photo taken by my client’s sister!”

  Mays glanced at the enlargement, and his reaction was everything that anyone could have expected, and more. His eyes bugged out, his jaw dropped open. One of the Silent Three beside him, looking over his shoulder, whispered, “Christ Almighty!”

  “Can’t you see a life-size blowup of this on an easel right in front of the jury?” demanded Hal Agnews.

  Mays was poker-faced, but he said. “If this is on the level—”

  “I have a medical opinion—” began Rook, then caught himself.

  “Okay, okay.” Mays waved his hand. He looked from the photo to Deirdre and back again, no doubt calculating the probable odds against him, with this photo and with her dark beauty on the witness stand. But he had the courage of his convictions—which as Rook knew hadn’t been too many of late. “I think you’ve supplied us with the motive, Mr. Agnews,” he said complacently. “We will, of course, continue the investigation. And thanks to our friend here for the list of possible co-defendants. I’m sorry to have to say it, Mrs. Charteris, but I think you may have used this picture to inspire somebody with the actual commission of the crime, which still makes you equally guilty—”

  “That’s a contemptible lie!” Deirdre cried. “I don’t—” Then she caught Agnews’ eye and was silent again.

  “Would you care to volunteer for a polygraph test?”

  “Yes!” she cried.

  “No, Deirdre,” said Hal Agnews. “Because the so-called lie detector is far from infallible and its evidence is not admissible in court anyway. And if the test did come out in your favor they’d just bury the results.”

  The Assistant D.A. must have expected this. “Then, Mrs. Charteris, it is my unpleasant duty to—” There was a momentary respite in the form of the sudden ringing of a telephone on the side of the big desk. Mays picked it up and growled, “I said no calls!” But it rang again, in short, staccato blasts. He grabbed the offending instrument and roared, “Didn’t I tell you—” and then broke off and listened for perhaps a full minute or
more, saying only an occasional monosyllable. At long last he said, “Very well, but I ought to have your shield for this!” When he hung up he seemed to find it difficult to speak.

  “Bad news, Wilt?” asked Hal Agnews hopefully.

  “There is a new development,” Mays said. “That was the West L.A. police. You may as well know it now—it’ll be out over the radio any minute. Half an hour ago a man identifying himself as Daniel Ruggles walked into the station, dictated, swore to and signed an affidavit that from about 11:35 Wednesday night to 12:45 Thursday morning, Mrs. Deirdre Charteris was with him in his apartment!”

  “Oh, no!” cried Deirdre wildly. She began to sob.

  “Shut up, please!” Hal Agnews told her. “What else, Wilt?”

  “According to the statement, Ruggles claims that there is eyewitness corroboration. The delivery man from the neighborhood liquor store on Chatauqua is supposed to have come over with a bottle of brandy and some ice around midnight. And seen the lady there, partially—well not entirely—clothed. Police are looking for him now. But the desk sergeant took the statement and tried to phone me and couldn’t get through, so he just let Ruggles walk away without making any attempt at holding him, the dumb flatfoot!”

  “Well, Deirdre,” said Hal Agnews gently.

  She hesitated. “It—it’s not true. I mean—I don’t—”

  “Are you saying Ruggles and the corroborating witness are both liars?” the attorney pressed.

  She subsided. “Oh, well—yes, I guess it’s true. But—but I didn’t want—you see, Danny is married and his wife is out of town and she’s going to have a baby in six or seven months and I made him swear to keep out of this no matter what happened to me because I’m not going to ruin another marriage, can’t you all see—?”

  Rook was wishing again that he had stayed away. But Agnews said, “That statement should do it. It’s the voluntary word of a man who has a lot to lose by making it, Wilt.”

  Mays looked like a man caught in slow quicksand. But he had evidently gone too far out on a limb to back out now. “For my money this doesn’t change anything,” he said doggedly. “I smell collusion. I think it’s a fake alibi that you two cooked up between you to use if worst came to worst. The delivery man is probably friendly with Ruggles, and would swear to anything for a quick twenty. Maybe Ruggles is just trying to be gallant and come to a lady’s rescue and maybe”—his face brightened—“maybe he himself needs the alibi!”

  “Oh, come now, Wilt!” said Agnews in disgust.

  “But isn’t he number one on the list right here?” Mays turned to one of his aides. “I want an immediate APB on Daniel Ruggles!” The man nodded and hurried out of the room. “When we get hold of Ruggles, and the liquor store delivery man, I think we might have a little three-way confrontation with your client, Counselor. Any objections?”

  “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised. But at the moment the Defense rests.” Agnews looked confident. “In the light of this new development, surely you can release Mrs. Charteris on her own recognizance?”

  “I think,” began the Assistant D.A. with a toothy smile, “not! Not even for an old friend like you, Counselor.” He nodded to one of his remaining aides. “Go ahead, Sam.”

  The operative hesitated, then went over and handed Deirdre a piece of official paper, which Hal Agnews immediately took from her nerveless fingers and put into his pocket. Then he drew her to her feet. “Go along with him and say nothing,” he told her. “Especially to a cellmate, who’ll probably be a policewoman in disguise. We’ll have you out of there in no time.”

  “Yes,” she said, obviously not listening. Somehow she seemed to have melted around the edges, like an ice cream cone in August. Rook tried to catch her eye and give her a reassuring smile, but she didn’t seem to be aware of him, or anything. Like a tired zombie she was led out of the room, and the door closed firmly behind her.

  XIII

  “SO YOU HAD TO go and do it,” Hal Agnews said to the man behind the desk. “ ‘Whom the gods would destroy …’ ”

  Mays was staring at the color photo with an oddly calculating look in his eye. Finally he handed it to his assistant-assistant, with muttered instructions. Then he stood up, dusted off his hands, and said, “I believe that’s all, gentlemen.”

  “What about the little formality of arraignment?” Agnews asked.

  “Oh, yes. Will Tuesday be convenient?”

  “The sooner the better, naturally. Will you admit to bail?”

  “In a capital case? You’re out of your mind!”

  “There are precedents. And since it’s obvious that you hope to try this case in the papers, Howie and I will now go and prepare our own press release—which I promise you will be a daisy. Publication of the photo alone should build up public sympathy for our client. It’ll be hard to find anybody on the jury list who won’t have seen it.”

  Rook was thinking that Deirdre was now being led down the long corridor, running a gauntlet of flashbulbs popping in her face and stabbing questions from reporters. Odd how your point of view changed when you were on the other side of the fence, as he was now. After the ordeal of the press she’d be taken over to the jail elevator and then would come the ceremonies of being fingerprinted and photographed front and profile and issued rough jail clothing …

  But Hal Agnews seemed as buoyantly confident as Mays was phlegmatic. “No hard feelings, Wilt,” the attorney was saying now. “But I’ll make you a side bet of one thousand dollars that this case makes you look so bad that in three months or less somebody else is sitting behind your desk. Is it a bet?” He held out his hand.

  Mays seemed on the verge of accepting. Then he drew pettishly back and slammed his own hand down upon the desk. “I don’t bet with two-bit shysters!” he snapped.

  Agnews pantomimed surprise. “Howie, don’t forget to mention my offer of that little bet in your story, it’ll add color. And also put in about the Assistant District Attorney calling me a two-bit shyster in front of witnesses.”

  “Mr. Agnews, will you and your alleged investigator get out of here before I—” Mays was dangerously close to boiling point.

  Agnews let go one last parting shot. “Good evening, Wilt. Have a good dinner, my old friend and distinguished opponent, because for damn sure you’ll soon be eating crow!” Rook, having had more than enough of this, was already holding the door open. The two men walked down the corridor, and Agnews—making one of his mercurial changes—was his own calm self again. “Howie, I saw you didn’t approve of my needling Wilt a little. But I know him—and when he gets angry he makes mistakes.”

  “Okay,” said Rook. “But I’m thinking of Deirdre.”

  “If she’d only told us the truth in the beginning! Only I don’t know if she was ever in Ruggles’ apartment or if she’s just taking advantage of his grandstand play. Anyway, it’s an alibi.”

  “And what happens to the alibi if they’re tried jointly, as co-defendants?”

  “We’ll face that when the time comes. Right now Mays is probably thinking that maybe our client will be interested in copping a plea and turning state’s evidence for a promise of leniency.”

  “Hal, you don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Well, I still like Ruggles for the killing. If it weren’t for the guy from the liquor store, who may be a figment of Ruggles’ imagination … If we could only get our hands on him before the police do. Mike might work it, but you had to send him off on a snipe hunt.” They were walking down First Street now, lonely and deserted as only downtown Los Angeles can be on a Saturday night. The lights of one coffee shop gleamed across the way. “Shall we go over and have a post-mortem and a bite to eat at Ptomaine Tommy’s?”

  Rook said he wasn’t hungry, which was an understatement. “I’ve got to get on the phone and see if Lou Elder can hold up at least the final,” he said. “If you’re coming back to the office bring me a chocolate bar or a sandwich or something.”

  “Sure … I’ve got a couple of e
rrands, but I’ll be there to read your masterpiece. Here’s the office key so you won’t have to break your way in. The switchboard is dead but there’s a phone in my office with a permanent outside line.” And Agnews was jauntily on his way.

  Rook, for once feeling his years, climbed the stairs (no elevator service at this hour, of course) and once inside the suite he turned on all the lights and opened a couple of windows. Then he phoned Lou Elder. “But it’s almost seven thirty!” wailed the city editor. “The paper’s practically gone to bed!”

  “The story’ll be a lulu,” Rook promised. “And there’s a picture that’s got to run with it.” Lou protested that there wasn’t time to put through any photos, not now. “Send a boy over for it right now and you can have the cut made while I write,” the big man said.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking!”

  “Lou, did I train you to be a newspaperman or a damn journalist wearing spats and carrying a cane? The other papers will only have the bare facts of the arrest, but I was right there in Mays’ office and you’ll have a beat!”

  “Beats and scoops went out with Front Page, Howie!” But the city editor hesitated and was lost. “Okay, I’ll send somebody over. Do the story as an all-out feature and we’ll by-line it.”

  “Right.” Rook hung up, sought for and found a can of beer in Hal’s little refrigerator, and sat down again before the big IBM. Then he typed “By Howard J. Rook” and sat in thought. He began: “Only a little more than an hour after she had been a chief mourner at her husband’s last rites at Forest Lawn, Mrs. Deirdre Charteris (24) was arrested on a complaint signed by Asst. Dist. Atty. Wilton C. Mays and booked for the murder …”

  He tore that out of the machine, snorting his disgust. Then: “Deirdre Charteris, former television actress professionally known as Dee Delaney, was placed under arrest early yesterday evening and charged with the brutal hit-and-run murder of her husband, John Charteris, in spite of an alibi …” That went crumpled into the basket.

  There was a hammering on the door. The messenger from the Tribune had arrived, to rush away again with one of the photos. Too bad Lou wouldn’t be able to use it in full color, but even in black-and-white it had plenty of shock value. Rook got himself another can of beer and sat down at the electric monster again. “A surprising development in the investigation into the hit-run murder of John Charteris (48), wealthy Brentwood socialite and sportsman …” No good.