Vein of Violence

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Got you, Sergeant,” I said. “I suppose my aunt will be released?”

  He nodded. “The Lieutenant was miffed and lost his head for a second there. She’s — not easy to get along with, your aunt.”

  I agreed she wasn’t and promised to see him in the morning. I went down to where Jan was waiting.

  “Aunt Sheila will be released soon,” I told her. “I suppose the party is over?”

  “Definitely. Do we have to wait for them?”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “I suppose it would be rude, but I want to be alone, with you.”

  Mercurial Jan …. I wondered if I had read her right. I asked shakily. “Alone? Where?”

  “My place,” she said. “Alone with you, at my place.”

  I took her hand and we went out into the soft rain.

  FIVE

  THE RAIN KEPT coming down. Next to me, on her big bed, Jan dozed restlessly. It had been a strange encounter, passive, suppliant at first. And then murmurings and trembling and clutching co-operation and a choked cry at culmination. With a few tears.

  The beat of the rain grew heavier and the gurgle from the eave troughs louder. Jan stirred and asked dreamily, “Can’t you sleep?”

  “No.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “About you and me. About Mary Mae Milgrim and my Aunt Sheila.”

  “What were you thinking about us?”

  “About what a dead end we’re in. We’ll never be married, not to each other.”

  “I don’t want to think about it, not tonight.”

  “Okay.” I turned over and stretched.

  Oblivion had almost drowned me when she asked, “What do you mean — dead end?”

  “You know what I mean. You won’t marry a poor man and I won’t run my profession like a rich man. We’re dead-ended; we’re hanging onto a hopeless hope.”

  She sighed and stretched. “Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  There weren’t enough tomorrows. There were too many yesterdays and not enough tomorrows. But who could convince Jan of that? She made a living off the glamour trade; reality lived off her street.

  The rain was a downpour now, and again there was that rare sound of thunder. Jan stirred, murmuring in her sleep.

  Down, down, down came the rain, finally bringing oblivion to me.

  In the morning, the Times gave the Mary Mae Milgrim death complete coverage. There was a full page of pictures, mostly stills in roles that had brought her fame.

  Some pictures must have been shot at the party after I had left. John Davenport and Enrico Rivali were shown at one of the bars and there was a shot of Scooter Calvin with Joyce Thorne. Raymond Yoshida was identified as a servant of Mary Mae’s; I had assumed he had been hired only for the party. He was a gardener.

  There were a number of quotes from the ancient stars who had attended the party, a last pathetic effort to get some ink in a world that had forgotten them. All of them had identified themselves as “Mary Mae’s best friend.”

  No one had identified himself as an enemy, but it seemed plain there must have been at least one. How many of them, however, would know how to acquire a lethal does of coniine? Someone with a chemist friend?

  “It’s shocking, isn’t it?” Jan asked. “All her friends looked so — so resigned, defeated. And yet one of them must have retained enough animosity to kill.”

  “Nobody,” I said, “has mentioned the possibility of suicide.”

  “Suicide — ?” Jan stared in wonder. “What made you think of that?”

  “Nothing, really. Except that everyone else seems to have completely overlooked it. And I would guess eighty per cent of all premeditated poisoning deaths are self-inflicted.”

  “If you know that, the police must know it. They don’t tell everything they know to the newspapers, do they?”

  “Not in Beverly Hills. But still, those police reporters should have thought of it. I suppose the magic of Mary Mae Milgrim is still powerful down on First Street. It isn’t the first name they’ve covered for.”

  Jan sipped her coffee and turned to the society pages. All the crimes bored her except the crime of bad taste. Perhaps I misjudged her; perhaps it was fright more than boredom that kept her out of the other pages. Unless I was involved in a case, I rarely looked at anything but the sports pages.

  Lieutenant Remington was quoted as stating a potentially revealing line of inquiry had been opened and his hopes for success were optimistic. He hadn’t seemed optimistic to me when I had left him last night. This was possibly only a quote for the taxpayers.

  I finished my coffee and kissed my girl and went down to see Sergeant Gnup.

  He was in a room next to Lieutenant Remington’s office, talking with some reporters for the afternoon Los Angeles papers and one reporter from the Beverly Hills Bugle.

  I took one look at all of them and closed the door quietly again. I went down the hall to Lieutenant Remington’s office.

  He looked up from his desk and frowned. “Sergeant Gnup busy?”

  “With the vultures of the press,” I agreed. “I dropped in to learn what this ‘potentially revealing line of inquiry’ is that you were quoted about in this morning’s Times.”

  He sighed. “Sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  I sat patiently and humbly in the chair on the other side of his desk and watched him sign some papers and read a few reports. He was probably hamming it up a little in order to establish my lowly place in his scheme of things.

  When he had milked the scene dry, he looked up thoughtfully and said, “Our revealing line of inquiry would be Joyce Thorne. Unfortunately, this Department hasn’t the men or the time to completely investigate her background and — and alliances without outside help.”

  “And that’s where Callahan comes in?”

  He nodded and fiddled with a ball-point pen on his desk.

  “An interesting assignment,” I said. “Are you embarrassed, Lieutenant Remington?”

  His face showed his annoyance. “Embarrassed? Why should I be?”

  “I don’t know. You seemed embarrassed. What is so special about Joyce Thorne?”

  “We have private information. It is not for publication yet. The information we have will have to be made public at the proper time by Miss Milgrim’s attorneys.”

  I stared at him. “Are you telling me that Miss Thorne is one of Miss Milgrim’s heirs?”

  “The only heir,” Remington said. “And the estate is — impressive.

  I shook my head. “Well, I’ll be dammed!”

  “Miss Thorne has not been informed as yet,” Remington went on. “We hope to withhold the information as long as we can. And I’m thinking that you’re the wrong man to investigate her. “

  “Because of her body or the boodle, Lieutenant?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m not a lecher,” I said. “I’m not Joe Puma. I’m a square, Lieutenant, poor and honest. Occasionally, I am a victim of my strong romantic compulsions, but I have never accepted a dishonest dollar.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at the top of his desk.

  “If you really didn’t trust me,” I pointed out, “you wouldn’t have told me the secret that only you and her attorneys know right now. Something else must be eating you, Lieutenant.”

  His eyes came up to meet mine. “Yes. You’ll be working for Homer Gallup. Does that mean you’ll also be protecting him?”

  “From what? How could Mr. Gallup be involved? He bought that house at Miss Milgrim’s asking price only because of sentiment, because he wouldn’t think of haggling with his idol.”

  “Is that so? He was very sure, however, to get all mineral rights in the property, wasn’t he? Are you trying to tell me an oil man doesn’t know that geologists considered that area very promising?”

  I said nothing. This was all news to me.

  “Do you think he really wanted that place as a ho
me?” Remington asked quietly. “The people in that area have kept the oil men out of there for years. Because they think of it as a place for a home. Do you think that was Gallup’s only concern?”

  “Yes,” I said honestly. “As a matter of fact, a friend of mine is already preparing to completely redecorate the place.”

  “Miss Bonnet?”

  I nodded.

  He chewed his lower lip.

  I said, “Even if he had planned to drill there, what possible reason could he have for killing Miss Milgrim? The property was in escrow, soon to be delivered to Mr. Gallup.”

  “With one reservation,” Remington said. “So long as she was alive, Miss Milgrim was to retain free occupancy of that gardener’s cottage on the place. And so long as she retained occupancy, there was to be no oil well drilling.”

  Again, I said nothing. Again, he had pulled me out of the dark into the frightening light.

  My mind went back to Cini’s, when Jan had called Darrow.

  “No,” I said. “Lieutenant, it was only a coincidence that Homer Gallup happened to be shown Mary Mae Milgrim’s house. He was shown a number of others, first, but they were too modern for him.”

  “Is that so? I happen to know that he admired that house long before Wallace Darrow ever showed it to him.”

  This was turning into the day of revelation. I was speechless for the third time.

  “You really are an innocent,” Remington said scornfully. “How in hell do you think a man gets to be a millionaire? By being jovial, by throwing parties and picking up tabs and slapping his friends on the back? Do you think that outsized Rotarian image he’s built in your mind is real?”

  I gulped, and remained silent.

  Remington shook his head wonderingly. “And Sergeant Gnup thinks you’re a cynical man.”

  “I’m not. But I think you’re way off base on Homer Gallup. Who told you he’d seen that house before?”

  “Darrow. He said that he and Homer were alone for a few minutes when they were going through those other houses, and Homer asked him if it was true the Milgrim house was for sale. Darrow said it was and Homer told him not to tell your aunt it was his idea, but to show them that house. Then Darrow passed the buck to Miss Bonnet, he claims, and she suggested looking at the Milgrim place.”

  Jan, my Jan…. She hadn’t said a word to me about this….

  “Well — ?” Remington asked.

  I shrugged.

  “What are you thinking?”

  I sighed. “I’m thinking nothing is ever the way it seems, is it?”

  He didn’t answer. He turned silent again and stared at the top of his desk.

  “And now,” I guessed, “you don’t trust me, either.”

  He gave it some thought and finally made a decision. He looked up and faced me as squarely as a con man. “I trust you, Brock. You keep us informed, every day.”

  They needed me. They hated to admit it, but they needed me. I rose and said with simple dignity, “Every day. We’ll lick this thing, Lieutenant.” I gave it the proper pause and added, “Together.”

  I thought he winced, but I pretended not to notice. I bowed gracefully and left him with his thoughts.

  The logical place to head for was the gardener’s cottage still occupied by Joyce Thorne. But I had another mission first. I headed for a place nearby, the working base of my semi-true love.

  The door was wormwood and the uncapitalized black script on the shining show window read jan bonnet — interiors.

  She was in the rear of the shop, showing some damask fabric to a bulky dowager, when I entered. She nodded to me and continued to give her attention to her client (customer).

  I sat on a fragile gilt chair and pretended to be absorbed in a trade magazine.

  The dowager left eventually, promising to return after she had talked with her husband. Jan came back from the doorway to stand in front of me.

  I looked up from the magazine and said, “My own true love.”

  She took a breath. “You’ve talked with Wallace Darrow, I’d guess.”

  I shook my head. “But I have his story. You and he conned my poor Aunt Sheila, didn’t you?”

  She closed her eyes wearily. She opened them and said, “Brock, Homer wanted that house so badly he could taste it. What could I do? He has a right to his own impossible taste, hasn’t he? What was I supposed to do?”

  “The least you could have done was confide in me,” I answered. “Why didn’t you?”

  “And have you go blabbing it all to your Aunt Sheila? What would she think of me?”

  “She’d have thought a little more of you than she’s going to, finding it out this late.”

  Jan stared. “You mean you’re going to tell her — now?”

  “I’m sure the police are. Because, you see, the police don’t believe Homer wanted that house to live in. They think he wanted it for the possible oil under it.” I told her what Remington had told me.

  When I had finished, she said, “That’s ridiculous! That’s absurd! How could they think such horrible thoughts about such a nice man?”

  “Maybe he’s not a nice man,” I said. “Maybe he’s only a rich man. In your lexicon, the words might be synonymous, but the police don’t take quite the same innocent view of it.”

  Her soft brown eyes flared. “Watch it — ! Watch your nasty damned tongue, Brock Callahan.”

  I stood up. “Don’t take out your sense of guilt on me. I think what you did was inexcusable.”

  Silence, while her eyes grew harder and harder. Then she said,” Get out. Get out right now. And don’t come back!”

  “I’ll wait for your call,” I told her. “And when the time comes, I’ll probably accept your apology.”

  “Go — !” she shrieked, and I went.

  The rain had washed the streets and dispelled the inversion that gives us our smog. I turned the flivver toward Sunset Boulevard and the temporary domicile of Joyce Thorne.

  She was home this clear morning. There were no traces of grief on her face, though her manner was sober, her voice soft and her dress black. The black dress and the jet hair accentuated the warm ivory of her complexion. She was no sun worshiper, this one; she was all woman.

  The living room was raftered and the longest wall afforded a vast view of Beverly Hills.

  “These servants lived well,” I commented.

  She smiled distantly and indicated a chintzy upholstered chair.

  I sat down and looked out at the view. Without turning my head, I said, “Have the police been a nuisance?”

  “Nuisance?” Pause. “I wouldn’t say they were exactly that. They questioned me — rather stubbornly, I thought, and went over the same ground again and again. But I suppose that’s all part of their jobs.”

  “When is the funeral?” I asked.

  “There will be no public service,” Miss Thorne said quietly. “Her attorneys have already told me she wished to be cremated.”

  I turned to look at her. “You’ve been in touch with them?”

  Her deep blue eyes met mine candidly. “Yes. Why are you surprised?”

  “I’m not. Did I look surprised?”

  “You looked more than that. You looked — startled.” She sat on an upholstered love seat nearby and faced me. “Mr. Callahan, why are you here? Certainly not to learn when the funeral is to be, or how much trouble the police have given me. Are you working on this case?”

  I nodded. “In co-operation with the Beverly Hills Police Department.”

  “But for your Aunt? To protect her, is that right?”

  I shook my head emphatically. “Why should my aunt need protection?”

  “Isn’t she the logical suspect? Who else is there?” Her voice was less soft.

  “According to — one of my informants, there was a whole room full of Miss Milgrim’s enemies at the party.”

  “That’s — absurd!” Color came to the flawless cheeks. “Who would say a horrible thing like that?”

  “Someo
ne in a position to know. Miss Thorne, there aren’t any favorite suspects at the moment. As the people are questioned, and start to tell lies, a pattern will eventually emerge. Until that time, everyone at the party and a number of people who weren’t officially there will all be suspects.”

  “Lies — ?” she asked. “What kind of lies?”

  “All the kinds. Some by the innocent and some by the involved. People lie for a variety of reasons and the reasons have to be sorted and the lies fitted into the puzzle. It’s a complicated business, but the police understand it very well.”

  A long, long silence. And then she asked, “How could I be a suspect? I loved Miss Milgrim. What reason could I have for harming Miss Milgrim?”

  I shrugged. “If she left any estate worth mentioning, you could be one of the heirs. Did she have any relatives?”

  “Only a brother she hasn’t seen for twenty years. He lives in Florida.”

  “He was notified, of course?”

  She nodded. “He — didn’t approve of Miss Milgrim. I imagine she left her money to charity.”

  “Was she well-to-do?”

  “She was rich.” Her voice was a whisper. “She was very careful with her money. And she made it in the days before income taxes were high. It must be an enormous estate.”

  I asked casually, “How did you happen to go to work for her?”

  She expelled her breath. “My parents knew her. She was a very good friend of my mother’s. I had some — theatrical ambitions and Miss Milgrim suggested I come to work as her secretary and companion and in that way meet some people who might do me some good theatrically.”

  “I see. Are your parents local people?”

  She nodded, looking out at the hills. “They live in Santa Monica.”

  “You’ll be going back to them now, will you?”

  There was a trace of belligerence in her face. “No. Mr. Gallup told me I could stay here as long as I wanted to. I like it here.”

  “Rent free?” I asked.