Unhappy Hooligan

by Stuart Palmer

  “Nope. All old Mr. Wilson could tell us was that it was an old Ford, a boy and a girl in it, getting away in one hell of a hurry. You know how many hopped-up old cars there are in the city, mostly with cute signs like ‘Support your local fuzz’ or ‘Make love not war’ or even ‘Help stamp out virginity.’ If the old man had got even the first couple of letters of the license we could have got on the hot line to Motor Vehicles in Sacramento and had it run through the computers, but as it is, we’re up the creek.”

  “Mind telling me what, if anything, your men got on the death car?”

  “No prints, except those of the couple who owned it. Ashtray was empty. Smears on the fender matched Charteris’ blood type, fabric was from his slacks, dog’s fur matched. No question but it was that car.”

  “Thanks,” said Rook. “Mind giving me some names and addresses?”

  “Now, Howie, after all! If Wilt Mays finds I’m cooperating with a defense investigator—”

  “I still carry a press card, and I’ll probably do a story on this for the Tribune. Doesn’t that give you an out?”

  “Oh, what the hell!” McDowd read off the names and addresses of Wilson and the Dibble couple. “But I doubt if you get anything more out of them than we did. The old man just gets rattled and clams up, and the Dibbles don’t care about the murder, they just want to sue somebody for the damage to their car. How you going to operate, Howie?”

  “Good question. I’m working—I have to—on the premise that Deirdre is innocent. I’ll just have to rush off in all directions and check everybody who knew the Charteris couple …”

  “Shooting at the moon, huh? Well, I’ll tell you one thing. When you got a case involving a dame as luscious as Mrs. Charteris, you can’t figure her out of the setup. The job was either done by her or because of her, mark my words.”

  “Thanks. And if I get anything I’ll fill you in first, Mac.”

  “You’d better. Anyway, I wish you luck. I hope I’m wrong about Deirdre—she’s sure one beautiful hunk of stuff.”

  “I noticed that too,” Rook admitted. He hung up and turned his attention to the morning papers. Both Tribune and Times had gone easy on the Charteris story, saying little more than that it was the official theory that it might have been not accident but murder, and that an intensive investigation was under way. He checked his watch—it was still too early to get hold of Lou Elder at the Trib city room, but Rook called him at home and managed to get the city editor out of bed. Lou had once, on the old Chronicle, been a cub reporter under the big man’s stern tutelage, and the two had remained friends.

  “So hang on to your hats, boys, here we go again!” said Lou. “I had a hunch this might be a story, so I already had everything on the victim pulled out of the files. Going all the way back to when he was president of his class at UCLA, and then a boy wonder playing polo at Midwick and Riviera. Inherited some dough from a grandfather, spent most of it on fast women and slow horses, then settled down and parlayed what was left into a nice pot. Navy lieutenant in World War II, fought the battle of the Potomac.”

  “Any scandals?” pressed Rook hopefully.

  “Nothing worse than a night-club brawl or two—he punched Frankie Sinatra or Sinatra punched him, but that could happen to anybody. Played around with the Hollywood crowd for a while, had his name linked with various stars and near-stars, then finally surprised everybody by marrying the relatively unknown Delaney girl. Most of the clips on him are from Sports or Society, nothing red hot.”

  “Never married before?”

  “Seems not. He played the field until he got married. I don’t think we have anything on the wife, even in Drama. She was the face on the cutting-room-floor type, wasn’t she?”

  “Maybe, Lou. But she’ll be all over the front pages any minute now, I’m afraid. So get ready. You’ll have the exclusive when and if I get it. And pictures too—maybe one picture that’ll set your teeth on edge. But my advice to you is not to go overboard on any handouts you get from Wilt Mays or anybody in the D.A.’s office. Agnews thinks they’re going to try to try this case in the newspapers first, and we’d like to block that.”

  “You and Agnews are fronting for the widow, and Mays is really going to try to set her up for the hit-run murder?”

  “Looks that way. So let the other papers go along, it may backfire.”

  “Like that, huh?”

  “Yes, like that. Deirdre didn’t do it, Lou. It seems there were a couple of eyewitnesses to the killing, two kids parked in a hot-rod, and I’ve got to locate them somehow. Do you think if we offered a reward of say a hundred bucks—?”

  Lou said he doubted if teen-agers today ever read anything but the Free Press and the other hippie sheets peddled along the Sunset Strip. “But I suppose we can try it in want ads.”

  “Run a box, offering the reward and asking the couple who were parked in the Ford on Darlington near Gretna Green late Wednesday night to come forward. Okay? And don’t forget, play this story easy.”

  Rook hung up. Then—after having to look in his little black book for a number that would have been on the tip of his fingers only a few months ago—he dialed again. There was a considerable wait, and then a faint “Hello?”

  “Evelyn, this is Howie!” The fair and fortyish lady, like most of the amiable females Rook took out for occasional dinners and bowling, had eventually come down with a bad case of honorable intentions. Rook had been a reasonably happy widower for many years, and liked it that way. But he usually managed to part friends.

  “I know it’s Howie—and I know it’s around eight o’clock in the morning, you rat fink! I thought you’d gone off and joined the French Foreign Legion or something—”

  “I’m on a case. Will you look up something for me in the back files of that scandal sheet you call a fan magazine?” And he explained.

  “I should really tell you where to go, Howie dear. But I’ll look … only this is going to cost you dinner, with wine yet! Call me at the office around noon.”

  He put down the phone for now and started to make a list of things to do this morning. It was too early for most of them—people were still asleep, offices weren’t open. And it was still too early to do anything about enlargements of that confounded photo. Rook sprawled out in his ancient Morris chair and thought. Sometimes that wasn’t a bad idea, in a case like this.

  Rook’s mental processes were not those of other men, and certainly not those of other private investigators. He had sometimes found it useful to try to dissolve his own personality into the minds of the adversaries. Who could have killed John Charteris—and why?

  He leaned back and closed his eyes—and immediately there appeared before him his own King Charles’ head, the photo of Deirdre. It was ugly, it was evil, it was obscene. But he had seen ugliness, and evil, and obscenities before. This photo was different—

  And then suddenly Mr. Howard J. Rook smote his forehead with the heel of his hand, so hard that he could almost feel his teeth rattle. He called himself names that he wouldn’t have thought of applying to his own worst enemy. Then he grabbed for the phone and called the very private and unlisted number of Hal Agnews’ apartment. After a long wait he heard a mumbled “Agnews speaking.”

  “Hal, old buddy! I hope I didn’t wake you from rosy dreams of Sophia Loren, as you said to me last night?”

  “Don’t try to be cheery this early in the morning! No, Howie, no dreams. If you must know, I didn’t sleep worth a damn. I can’t seem to get that photo of Dee Charteris out of my mind …”

  “You too, huh?” Rook felt triumphant. “Hal, right there is our answer! You and I didn’t even know the lady until yesterday, but the photo knocked the wind out of us so we can’t forget it, right?”

  “Right, I guess. And think what it’ll do to a jury, with the biggest enlargement I can get, mounted on an easel and standing right by the bench during the entire trial, so the jurors will see nothing else!”

  “Easy, Hal.” Rook had a sudden suspicio
n, perhaps unjust, that the attorney hoped in spite of himself that this case would actually come to trial—it would give him an outlet for all sorts of histrionics and the publicity would be of tremendous value. “Remember, neither of us wants Deirdre to go through that ordeal. But look, I’ve got a hunch. No matter what she says, I’m sure as shooting that Deirdre showed that photo to somebody. It stands to reason! When she gave the envelope to you did she have to go somewhere and hunt for it?”

  “Let me think. She—she had the envelope of prints and negatives in her handbag, why?”

  “Then she’d been carrying it around with her. She’s only human, and she proved to us that she wants sympathy. And what do you imagine the effect of that photo would be on a man who was secretly just a little in love with the lady? As it would be hard for any normal man in his right mind not to be, if he was around her very much or if he had sentimental memories of her?”

  There was a pregnant pause. “Howie, you’re a genius!”

  “Just remember you said that when my expense account comes in. I’ve just obligated you for a hundred-dollar reward through the Tribune, hoping to locate those eyewitnesses, and I’m going to have to call in a leg man on this case.”

  “Ouch,” said the attorney. “Take it easy, I haven’t got any money out of the client yet. But if you need help, give Mike Finn a ring.”

  Finn was a retired police detective, who had his own shoestring agency out in the Valley, occupying his time mostly with skip-tracing and subpoena service. But he was a determined little bulldog of a man and he did have a state ticket. “I’ll call him,” said Rook.

  “Howie, I’ve been lying awake and worrying. Is our client innocent?”

  “I can’t read minds, but I think she is. Though the Irish are bad haters and can brood over a wrong. But she’d hardly have used that particular murder method, nor would she have killed her own pet. No, Hal. Charteris was killed by somebody who saw the pictorial proof of Deirdre’s torture, and who brooded over it and then set out to do something about it, like a knight of old going forth to do battle with a dragon.”

  “It’s a good theory, Howie. You mean some boy friend?”

  “Somebody close to her, or who used to be close to her, or who would like to be close to her. Who else? And this narrows it down so we’re not working in the dark—all we have to do is to find out who she showed that photo to! But frankly, when we get him I’d rather give him a medal than turn him over to the law.”

  “Likewise—but the code of the Round Table doesn’t hold in our courts today. Somebody may have been trying to do Deirdre a big favor, but he only managed to put her own lovely neck in jeopardy. She’s got to open up. You have a way with women, go see her. I’d go with you but I have to be in court at ten o’clock on a probation plea …”

  “That’s okay,” said Rook quickly. He preferred seeing Deirdre alone anyway, and if possible without that creep of a sister.

  “Bear down, Howie. We’ve got to come up with something tangible by tomorrow afternoon, remember—or Deirdre goes to jail!”

  “I’m well aware of that. I wonder how much of an estate Charteris left, and how he disposed of it. Have you checked with Hardy and Wolff about the will? I have a sort of wild hunch there might be some joker in that, or a freak codicil …”

  “I only got on this case late yesterday afternoon, Howie! I’ll phone them as soon as I get down to the office. And when you phone Finn tell him to keep the expenses down. Good luck!”

  Rook finished dressing, made one attempt to phone Deirdre and found the line busy, and was soon in the Plymouth and on his way out to Brentwood. But as he was about to turn off Sunset onto Kenter he abruptly changed his mind and made a left—to the annoyance of the drivers immediately behind. It had suddenly occurred to him that photo enlargements in color might take time to process—certainly longer than black-and-white. Since he was but a few blocks from the Brentwood Pharmacy—the address was on the envelope in his pocket—he headed down in that direction.

  But here he struck a snag. The girl at the cigar counter, who doubled in cosmetics, candies and photo film, gave him the sad news that he couldn’t possibly get any color work back until Tuesday. “We don’t do the work out in the back room,” said the young lady through her gum. “The stuff is picked up each evening by the man from the photo lab, and comes back in two days for black-and-white and three or four days for color. Even on special order you couldn’t get any color through this weekend, because today is Friday—”

  “I know what day it is,” said Rook. “Where’s the lab, then?”

  “It’s Keyes Color Processing, on Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. near Bundy.” She looked dubious. “They don’t do retail …”

  “Thanks anyway,” he told her, and took off. But as he headed south he soon saw the street sign for “Darlington.” Here he was, right in the neighborhood of the tragedy—he might as well have a look.

  He found the corner where the two quiet residential streets crossed. All was now sedate and serene in the morning sunlight; there was nothing to show that tragedy had struck here only some thirty-odd hours ago. He cruised up Darlington, to where the station wagon must have lain in wait, if the police reconstruction of the event was valid. There were no clues lying about and he hadn’t expected any. The driver would have remained here but a few moments anyway. Rook turned and came back, retracing the presumed route of the death car. Charteris would have been walking north on Gretna Green, headed toward home. He would have been struck on the crosswalk here, been knocked into the air and forward to land here …

  Rook parked at the curb and got out. There was nothing in the gutter, the street cleaners or somebody with a hose had seen to that. But this was the spot marked with an imaginary X all right. And in that little white house behind the luxuriantly blooming petunias must live Mr. David Wilson, the octogenarian gentleman who had just missed being an important witness and who still might be persuaded to remember something—anything!—that would help. If he would talk—

  If he would talk! After Rook had rung the bell and come face to face with the spry, bright-eyed, gnarled gnome of a man, his only problem was how to get away. The old man had evidently had a heyday with police and reporters and was desperate for more attention. But alas! he only doggedly repeated his original story.

  “I was a-watching Johnny Carson on the boob-tube, and I heard this noise outside—a sort of slithering bump-smash it was—and I turned on the porch light and went out and there were the bodies, man and dog, right in my gutter, and the young couple that had been necking over under the old eucalyptus tree in the old flivver were just starting up and I seen ’em go roaring off …”

  “Yes, Mr. Wilson, but I wondered—”

  “You a genuine reporter, why ain’t you writing this down?”

  “Because I’ve got a pretty good memory—like I think you have. Now when you said ‘flivver’ that means a Ford, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, an old Ford, like I said to the police. But that wasn’t the car that did the dirty work. Headed in the wrong direction, the kids was. And they’d been parked there a couple of hours. Ain’t saying what they musta been doing, either. Don’t need to, do I? None of my business. I was young once, believe it or not.”

  “You catch anything at all of their license plate?”

  “Like I told the cop, the first letter coulda been O or C or G.”

  “Or Q maybe? Okay. But you remember it was an old Ford. Was it covered with silly signs and slogans?”

  “Hell, no! Clean as a whistle, all polished and nice. You don’t hardly ever see a clean, shiny Model-A Ford like that—”

  “Wait a minute!” cried Rook. “You said a Model-A?”

  “Why sure. I owned one of the first that ever come into Sauk County—that’s back in Wisconsin. I oughta know—mine cost eleven hundred dollars!”

  “But you didn’t mention this to the police?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe the cops got me sort of rattled, with the body
laying there and all that, and the ambulance screaming.” The old man shrugged. “Didn’t have much time for me, they didn’t.”

  “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Wilson.”

  “Remember, the full name is David E. Willson—with two l’s!”

  “I won’t forget,” said Howie Rook. On the way back to his car he stopped to pick a petunia for his buttonhole—things were definitely brightening.

  He should call Mike Finn, but that could wait until he left the photo negative. He drove south to Santa Monica Boulevard and then left into the no man’s land west of the freeway, now devoted mostly to used-car lots, beer emporiums, thrift shops and the like. A low-rent area. The address he sought was a two-story brick building on the corner, its display window filled with dusty and sun-faded aerial shots of Los Angeles and the surrounding scenery, with little eye appeal for Rook at any time and none at all now.

  Inside, behind a long counter, a not-so-young female with incredible blue-platinum hair was typing out business statements and at the same time making a complicated luncheon date over a phone cocked to one shell-pink ear. She took note of his presence—and his masculinity—with a flick of incredible eyelashes, finished the phone call, and rose to face him. She managed a smile. “Was there something?”

  “Is, dear lady, not was. I need some color enlargements, big ones.”

  “We only blow up to ten-by-twelve on color, but—” She looked dubious.

  “Okay, then. But it’s got to be a rush job.” And he produced the manila envelope. But Platinum-Hair objected that this was Friday and they couldn’t possibly promise any color prints for delivery until Monday—or Saturday night late if somebody worked overtime. But Hal Agnews needed them, or thought he needed them, earlier than that. “I’d be willing to pay extra.” She still shook her head. “Well, do you suppose I could speak to the manager?”

  “That would be Mr. Keyes, the owner. But he may not be in—”