by Ron Goulart
“Ah, but you have, Whitman,” Groucho corrected. “My associate here, a shrewd lad despite his strong resemblance to a rustic bumpkin, found that out.” He patted my shoulder. “He used to be a crime reporter.”
“Because Bayside doesn’t have its own,” I added, “I know that two of our prominent funeral parlors take turns acting as the morgue. Peg McMorrow’s body was brought here for its autopsy.”
After sitting up straighter in his chair and shooting his cuffs again, Whitman told us, “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, gentlemen.”
“Banana oil,” observed Groucho, fishing a book of matches from the Trocadero out of his side pocket. “The autopsy was performed here and you later shipped her body off to be cremated. What we want you to tell us is”—he held up his left hand, fingers spread wide, and started to tick them off—“One. Who ordered that cremation? Two. What were the results of—”
“I’m sure that you probably are as astute as Mr. Marx claims,” the undertaker said to me, his chill look containing a trace of pity for my incurable stupidity. “Be that as it may, I can assure you that I’m unfamiliar with Peg McMorrow and that she was never in my establishment.” He scowled in Groucho’s direction. “I recall now reading an account of the poor child’s unfortunate suicide in the newspaper yesterday, but that is absolutely all I know about her.”
Groucho lit the cigar and then took a deep drag on it. “See here, Whitman, I resent—” Suddenly smoke came spilling out of his nose. Leaning far over, he began to cough violently.
When I reached over to thwack him on the back, he waved me away and continued to cough.
Groucho went lurching out of his chair and tottered over to the door. Still coughing and spilling out cigar smoke, he dived into the hall. “Glass of water,” he called as he went loping off.
The undertaker rested his arms again on his desk. “I’ll confide something in you.”
“About Peg McMorrow?”
“No, no, don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Denby,” said Whitman, his frown deepening. “I was merely going to mention that I’ve never found Mr. Marx particularly funny in the movies.” He shook his head. “My idea of a truly amusing motion picture comedian is Buster Keaton—as well as Harry Langdon and Harold Lloyd.”
“None of them makes many films these days.”
“Yes, and it’s a pity. I can recall that—” He stood up, glancing toward the doorway. “Feeling better, Mr. Marx?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Groucho assured the undertaker, easing over toward the desk. “In fact, fit as a tuba, which is bigger and brassier and accepted in all the best places. Shall we go forth into the night, Rollo?”
I rose up out of my chair, eying him. “If your spasms have subsided, sure.”
“I am entirely spasm-free.” When I was standing between him and Whitman, Groucho gave me a quick wink. “Except for having coughed up several feet of intestine, I am as good as new.” He leaned around me, giving the funeral director a lazy salute. “Thank you for your time and courtesy, Whitman. The next dead man I run into, I’ll surely recommend you to him.”
“Good evening, Mr. Marx,” Whitman said. “I do hope you’ll be able to find work now that your movie career is at an end.”
Out in the shadowy, floral-scented and thickly-carpeted corridor, Groucho leaned close and whispered, “Have no fear, Sergeant Heath, I’ve—” He stopped talking and frowned down the hall. “Ixnay, it’s an umpchay.”
Standing in a doorway at the far end of the hall was a tall young man of about twenty. He had a broom in one hand and was wearing a pair of faded overalls. He was watching Groucho with what can only be described as a sappy grin on his face.
“Your admirers are everywhere,” I suggested as he took hold of my arm and tugged me in the direction of the front door.
“Nonsense, an admirer of an artist of my caliber would never seek employment as a janitor in a run-down abattoir like this,” Groucho pointed out. “I also might’ve said that an admirer of mine wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. But that’s probably too obvious, huh?”
“Too obvious, yeah.”
When we were out in the faintly misty night and moving away from the sprawling thatch-roofed building, Groucho said, “We’ll pop back and poke around after that putz Whitman departs for the day. I hope to Jehovah he doesn’t spend his nights inside there, sleeping in one of his coffins.”
“How are we getting back inside?”
“I took the opportunity, while out pretending to recuperate from my bronchial seizure, of slipping a matchbook between the door and the doorjamb of the side entryway to Repose Room Three,” he explained as we neared my yellow coupe. “We’ll head over to Peg’s cottage now and after we’ve searched there, we’ll sneak back inside this morbid wickiup and—”
“You expect to accomplish all this in under an hour, do you?” I inquired as I slid in behind the wheel. “Because, as I’ve probably mentioned before—”
“As you’ve probably mentioned, Nurse Jane? You’ve been babbling about your upcoming assignation with this bit of fluff ever since we ventured forth on—”
“The point is, Groucho, I really would like to wind things up tonight by ten.”
“Keep in mind, young man,” stated Groucho as the car pulled away from the curb, “that the weariest river runs not smoothly but too well and that many a Maxie Rosenbloom is born to blush in the desert air.”
“All too true,” I conceded, aiming my car toward Peg McMorrow’s cottage. “But what in the hell does it have to do with the situation at hand?”
“Not a blessed thing,” he admitted. “I’m just attempting to keep you distracted until we do what has to be done.” He paused, looking out into the thickening mist. “This is, no kidding, important to me.”
After a moment I said, “I know, yeah. Okay, I can be a little late getting to Jane’s.”
“That’s the spirit. You’re exactly the kind of man we’re looking for in the Salvation Army,” said Groucho, smiling. “Come around to headquarters in the morning and we’ll issue you your tambourine.”
Ten
Out in the bay, somewhere unseen, foghorns were calling.
Next to me on the shadowy back porch of Peg McMorrow’s cottage Groucho quietly remarked, “What Boy Scout troop did you acquire this trick from?”
Ignoring him, I concentrated on picking the back door lock.
“I suppose they couldn’t openly award you a merit badge in housebreaking,” he continued, teeth clamped on his dead cigar. “Though, lord knows, it’s a lot more valuable knack than being able to roast weenies over a sooty campfire.”
The lock finally produced a gratifying click. I nodded and very carefully turned the knob. The door creaked faintly as I urged it slowly open.
We crossed the dark threshold into the kitchen and I shut the door. The small room smelled thickly of stale coffee and cigarettes.
“I have the impression I just stepped in a patch of Jell-O.” Groucho clicked on the small flashlight he’d brought along and illuminated the floor.
What he’d trod on was a sponge.
It would’ve been difficult not to have stepped on something. All the drawers had been yanked out and their contents dumped on the yellow linoleum flooring. The cabinets, too, had been ransacked and even a wicker basket that held movie magazines had been upended and searched.
The beam of Groucho’s light brushed across smiling images of Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford and Eleanor Powell. “Did I ever tell you what transpired between Crawford and me in a cramped phone booth south of the border?”
“Nope.”
“Just as well.” He played the light around the room. “You know more than I do about how the local bobbies operate. Would you say this was their work?”
I shook my head. “They’re somewhat less obvious than this.”
He leaned his backside against the edge of the small white-painted kitchen table. “Which means somebody’s been poking here.”
“Yeah. Mos
t likely hunting for something small and flat.”
“What makes you say that, Rollo?”
“Well, they dumped out the silverware drawer,” I pointed out. “That indicates, unless they were just out to make an ungodly mess, they were hunting a relatively small object. But they also tore that scenic calendar off the wall and flipped through it. Which suggests something flat that could be hidden behind a page.”
“Letters?” suggested Groucho. “Pictures? Bonds? Money? Legal documents?”
“Any of those, yeah.”
“I doubt Peg kept much in the way of cash, bonds or stock certificates around her digs.” Groucho straightened up. “Before we inspect the rest of her place, I want to take a gander in the garage.” He, flashlight dangling at his side, went loping into the hallway.
“Holy mackerel!” I heard him remark from up front in the living room.
I caught up with him and saw what he’d seen.
The living room had been very thoroughly searched. Everything that had been on the walls—pictures, photos—was on the floor. Apparently impatient when the glass doors on the small bookcase wouldn’t immediately open, the searchers had smashed them and dragged all the books and bric-a-brac out. Every sofa cushion and chair cushion had been removed and slashed open. Feathers, cotton and some kind of crunchy sawdust were strewn all across the faded carpet.
“Bastards,” muttered Groucho, sitting on the arm of the devastated sofa and shining the flashlight at the debris.
“Somebody wanted something she had, something important to them,” I said. “I wonder if that’s why they killed her—and if they found what they were hunting for.”
“Goddamned cops.” Groucho, angry, stood up. “They come in here on their big flat feet, they see this godawful mess—and what? Do they think Peg tossed her own house before stepping into the damn garage to kill herself?”
“They overlooked the fact she was murdered,” I reminded him. “They could sure as hell overlook this.”
I could see his face in the glow from the flashlight in his hand. His expression shifted suddenly from anger to perplexity. “What is it?” I asked.
He snapped his fingers. “What did I show you up at my palatial mansion?”
“A second-rate pastrami sandwich?”
“Besides that.”
“Pictures of you and Peg.”
“Exactly.” Crouching, he started a more thorough inspection of the stuff that was scattered about the room. “Peg loved to snap pictures, always had a couple of cheap cameras around. She used to carry a Kodak Brownie with her all the time. But I don’t see a camera anywhere.”
“Where’d she keep her pictures?” I was moving in his wake, checking over the spill on the floor.
Groucho halted, frowning back at me. “You’re right, Rollo. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of a camera and there’s no sign of any of the little fat photo albums she had,” he said. “They might be in her bedroom, but I have a hunch we won’t find ’em there either.”
That turned out to be true. The bedroom, which was thick with the scent of a floral perfume that reminded me of the funeral parlor, had been thoroughly searched, as had the tiny room where Peg had kept the boxes she never got around to unpacking. We found no cameras and no collections of photographs.
Groucho, however, did come across a couple of interesting items. One was a meal check from the True Blue Cafeteria over in Hollywood.
“This dump is right around the corner from the Young Actresses’ Club where Peg used to live when she first hit town.”
“And?”
“You’re not being observant,” he mentioned, using the light as a pointer. “This happens to be dated just last week.”
“You mean you’re curious as to why Peg’d be having a seventy-five-cent dinner in a place where she probably hadn’t eaten in years?”
“That’s what strikes me as odd, uh-huh.” He folded the yellow slip of paper and deposited it in a side pocket of his coat.
The meal check he found beside the bed. Next to the toppled dressing table bench he spotted a receipt from the Mermaid Water Taxi Service of Santa Monica. Holding it up, he said, “This is the outfit that runs suckers out to the Encantada. That’s the gambling ship moored off Pacific Palisades and—”
“I know. I was over there once or twice when I was working for the Times.”
“My dearly beloved brother Chico has been ferried over to that barge far too many times to count. Where he ever got the notion he could beat the system and…” Groucho sighed, shook his head and dropped the receipt into the same pocket with the meal check. “Peg was over there just three nights ago.”
“Vince Salermo operates the Encantada,” I said. “According to what you found out from her onetime roommate, Peg was seeing Shel Leverson, one of Salermo’s goons.”
“Could be Leverson, and maybe Salermo, were among the last people Peg ever saw.”
“Be interesting to find out if she had a reason besides gambling when she went to that ship.”
“We’ll do that,” promised Groucho.
* * *
The garage, when we finally got around to it, was disappointing.
Well, not exactly disappointing. It simply didn’t offer any overt information about the cause of Peg McMorrow’s death.
Unlike the cottage, the garage was neat and clean. It was also totally empty.
The car the young actress had died in wasn’t there. And not a box or a tool or even a scrap of paper remained. In addition, the gray cement floor had been very recently scrubbed and scoured.
“The absence of anything,” announced Groucho after we’d taken it all in, “is the biggest clue we’ve come across so far.”
“Possibly, but difficult to bring into court.”
“Even so, it’s obvious that someone has been working damned hard to remove all traces of what the hell really happened here,” he said. “Nobody would go to that trouble to cover up a suicide.”
“The thing is, Groucho, this couldn’t have been done without the Bayside police knowing about it.”
“We already agreed that the local gendarmes are goniffs.” He handed me the flashlight, inserted a fresh cigar into his mouth and began, with hands locked behind his back and shoulders hunched, to pace the spotless garage. “Can we, do you think, find her car and get a look at it?”
“Probably not,” I answered. “I’d bet that it’s either at the bottom of a lake by now or in the process of being dismantled at some remote junkyard.”
“I suppose we— Hold it.” He dropped to his knees suddenly. “Shine the light here.”
I did.
He was poking his finger at a small, faint brownish spot on the concrete. “That’s a bloodstain. That proves that Peg was—”
“Nope, all it proves is that she shed a drop of blood in here in the recent past.”
“You know damn well they killed her.” He stood up, hands on hips, glaring at me. “So why are you standing there like a schmuck and pretending that—”
“Hey.” I took hold of his arm. “You know Peg was murdered. I know she was murdered. Hell, the police know it, too,” I said evenly. “But, for reasons we don’t yet know, it was covered up.”
“Unhand me and—”
“Listen now. Losing our tempers and yelling at each other isn’t going to help,” I told him. “If we’re going to find out who killed her and—more importantly—bring them to justice, then, c’mon, Groucho, we have to keep calm and cool and calculating. Okay?”
Groucho chewed on the end of his unlit cigar for a few silent seconds. “No one has dared address me in that tone before, suh,” he said finally. “But, damme, lad, I admire your spunk and when I order you keelhauled, why, sirrah, I’m going to instruct Midshipman Easy to use only little itsy-bitsy barnacles.” He moved back from me, turning away.
“I think we’ve uncovered about all we can here,” I told him, moving toward the door into the darkened cottage. “We don’t want to linger.”
; Groucho was quiet as we made our way back through the house.
Very carefully I eased the rear door open. The mist was thicker and the foghorns were still calling.
I stepped out into the night first, followed by Groucho.
I’d only taken three steps across the damp lawn when somebody tried to kill us.
Eleven
I heard the loud chuffing sound, heard the slug go thunking into the wood of the door just behind me, then realized I was being shot at.
“Down,” I warned, diving for the ground.
Groucho was already on the lawn, muttering, rolling in the direction of a low, sparse hedge.
Another shot came, this one digging a rut only a few inches from his head.
“Gentlemen, this is hardly sporting,” he observed, scurrying toward a break in the hedge.
The third slug dug up grass uncomfortably close to my left ribs.
Down the block a dog had started barking vigorously.
Then a woman opened a window and started yelling. “What the hell is going on? Stop that!”
There were no more shots. Then a car engine came to life.
Because of the fog I never got a look at whoever it was that was shooting at us. And I didn’t see the car that went roaring away now.
“Can you beat that?” Groucho sat up. “That old biddy told them to stop and they did.” He, groaning once, wobbled to his feet. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You okay?”
“A shade moist from frolicking in the topsoil, but otherwise hunky-dory. And you?”
“I’m all right,” I told him. “What say we get the hell out of the vicinity, before someone summons the law.”
“Or unleashes that hound.”
We headed for the next block, where we’d left my car under a pepper tree.
Just as I started the car, I became aware of distant sirens. “Cops,” I observed, pulling away from the curb.
“Did you get a look at the bozos who mistook us for fish in a barrel?”
“Nope. Did you?”