by Kip Chase
Carmichael grunted.
CHAPTER SIX
THE girl was a doll. Pinkie had been craning his neck for a glimpse of the well-stacked Miss Fuentes, but he forgot all about the chief’s secretary when he got a look at the newcomer. She had been waiting in the same small room where Dr. Newton had been interrogated but was ushered into the chief’s office when the three men arrived. She had long, honey-blonde hair which she wore carelessly at shoulder length. It was the kind of hair that didn’t need much grooming. Her face was fresh and pixieish; she was about his age, Pinkie decided. She wore a grey sweater with a soft plaid skirt. Her tanned legs made stockings unnecessary. When she spoke it was with a breathy quality Pinkie found charming. The one sour note, as far as he was concerned, was a modest solitaire on the third finger, left hand. The first thing she said was, ‘Jack was in that room, wasn’t he?’
‘Jack?’ the chief inquired politely.
‘Dr. Newton. I can spot his tobacco a mile away.’ She laughed, revealing teeth that would go well on a poster. ‘That’s what I’m here about. I can’t find him. I’m Lydia Drew.’
Chief Delmar looked puzzled. ‘Should I know you, Miss Drew?’
Again she flashed the all-American girl smile.
‘I guess you wouldn’t at that. He certainly wouldn’t tell you. Doesn’t want me “involved”, no doubt. But I thought you police checked up on everybody anyway, at least everybody in a murder case.’
I’m afraid we missed the pleasure of checking up on you, Miss Drew’, said Delmar gallantly. ‘Just what is your connection with Dr. Newton?’
‘He’s my fiancé. As soon as I read about Mrs. DeVoors I called him, but I couldn’t get in touch. This morning I called the hospital, but they said he was still out. I thought you might have seen him. Have you?’
The chief coughed. ‘Yes, I’ve—er—seen him. But he’s not here now.’
The girl frowned. ‘I wonder …’ she began.
‘If you’ll pardon me, miss’, Carmichael interposed. ‘I think he may be up at Mrs. DeVoors’s lodge. Did you call there?’
‘Yes, I did, just a few minutes ago.’
‘He may be out horseback riding, looking for his father’, Carmichael said. ‘Mr. Newton senior is, I understand, out on something to do with deer hunters. His son might be looking for him.’
The girl brightened. ‘Oh yes, fence riding. Well, sorry to bother you all. Guess I’ll have a ride up to the lodge.’ She turned to go.
‘Oh, Miss Drew’, Pinkie’s voice caught the girl at the threshold of the office door. ‘My grandfather and I were just on our way to the lodge. Would you care to ride with us?’
Carmichael looked at his grandson with astonishment.
‘Thank you, I would’, Lydia smiled. ‘That old clunker of mine is no good on steep roads. I’ll put it in the lot across the street and see you in front of the building.’ With a final dazzling smile she was gone.
‘Now what in damnation …’ Carmichael began.
‘You would like to have a look at it, now wouldn’t you, grandpa?’ Pinkie said soothingly. ‘And probably Chief Delmar would like to have someone on hand in case old man Newton shows up. Wouldn’t you, chief?’
The chief grinned. ‘I was going to send one of my men up till dark,’ he said, ‘and if you’re going anyway it would save me a man. And I can use him.’
‘All settled, then’, Pinkie concluded cheerfully as he wheeled Carmichael out of the door.
While Pinkie threaded his way through the hazards of the San Bernardino freeway with the skill of a born Los Angelean, Lydia Drew chatted briskly. She was, they soon learned, a graduate psychology student at the University of Southern California. She had met Dr. Newton at his aunt’s home a year ago.
‘Though I was persona non grata at the DeVoors’s after we got engaged’, she laughed. ‘Jack and his aunt did not get along well. I believe their relationship was the result of a certain rigidity in the old lady’s personality …’
She talked on, revealing she had met Mrs. DeVoors through the secretary, Elinor Wycliff. Elinor had been Lydia’s room-mate as an underclassman, but had to drop out for financial reasons. ‘I like her, except she dyes her hair. She got the job with Mrs. DeVoors through the campus placement service.’
‘Tell me, Miss Drew,’ Carmichael managed to get in as the girl paused for breath, ‘do you know the guests who were in the house at the time of the murder?’
‘Well, I knew many of her friends. I wasn’t completely ostracized. There were the Count and Countess, Mr. Veblen, that Indian man—that’s all. Were there any more?’
‘No’, Carmichael said. ‘And how well did you know them?’
‘I know them better than they know themselves’, the girl answered seriously.
Carmichael was startled. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Well, you see, last semester I had testing procedures and we all had to test a number of people.’
‘Test?’
‘Yes, you know, the M.M.P.I., the T.A.T., Stanford-Binet, and …’
‘Would you mind going over that again more slowly?’ Carmichael asked weakly.
‘Oh, sorry. The M.M.P.I., that’s the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory; the T.A.T., for Thematic Apperception Test; Stanford-Binet and Wechsler, those are I.Q. tests, the Wechsler’s superior; then the Rorschach, of course, those are those ink-blot things; and, let’s see … well, there are some more but I can’t think of them right now. Oh, yes …’
‘Just who did you give these tests to, Miss Drew?’ Carmichael cut in hurriedly.
‘Those people I mentioned, and Elinor—Jack, of course. That’s all.’
‘Not Mrs. DeVoors?’
‘No, I asked her, but she turned me down. Funny, she was usually interested in things like that.’
‘And just what did these tests reveal?’ Carmichael asked in a soft voice.
‘My gosh. I’d have to have a couple of days to tell you all that. Besides,’ she added truthfully, ‘my interpretations are probably not very accurate. To tell you the truth, I’m not too hot on clinical. My field is experimental.’
‘Nevertheless, Miss Drew,’ Carmichael said, ‘I’d be very much interested in your interpretations. Would it be possible for you to make arrangements to explain them to me some time in the near future?’
‘Sure, Carmichael—you don’t mind if I call you Carmichael, do you? Call me Lydia. Happy to oblige. Turn to the left here, Pinkie.’
Presently, at Lydia’s direction, Pinkie whipped the car round the corner of a small dirt road to be confronted with iron gates bearing the legend:
DEVOORS
NO HUNTING
NO FISHING
KEEP OUT
Lydia fished behind a gate post, brought forth a key, and opened the padlocked gates.
The house, reached after a tortuous mile-long climb past wild manzanita, varied cacti, and scrubby oak, was of redwood board and batten. It was single-storied, but appeared spacious. A kidney-shaped swimming pool graced the neatly manicured front terrace. Behind the lodge was a building which looked as if it might contain stables. A surfeit of greenery in the surrounding countryside attested to their entrance into the pine country. There was no car in the drive.
‘Shucks’, said Lydia. ‘Guess Jack’s not here. Quite a layout, though. Would you like to have a guided tour?’
With Pinkie providing the energy for Carmichael’s chair, they began at the swimming pool.
‘Heated’, Lydia announced. ‘Thermostatically controlled. Anyone for a dip? No? Over there is Fox Canyon. Very few foxes, but lousy with deer. And to our left is Turtle Mountain. Two thousand and fifty feet, and I’ve climbed every foot of it. Now the house.’
‘You’ve really got this joint cased’, Pinkie said as Lydia fished the front door key out from under a potted geranium.
The girl laughed. ‘I should. Jack spends his weekends up here with his father. That is, when he’s not engrossed in something. And I do mean engro
ssed. I usually tag along. You have to be a key hound to get around here. Mrs. DeVoors had an obsession for keeping things locked up. Basic sense of insecurity.’
The interior was furnished in Old Spanish style with little of the clash of motif that characterized the town house. Lydia showed them through bedrooms, identifying each successively, and at the rear of the house a small, sparsely-furnished room used by the senior Newton.
‘And this,’ she said, throwing open a door off the main sitting-room, ‘is, or was, Mrs. DeVoors’s pride and joy.’
It was a den, or at least ostensibly a den. It held the shelves of books, the leather and stained furniture and old prints normally associated with such a room. But what made the room present a peculiarly un-denlike appearance was a desk covering almost half a wall. And it was not a small wall. Lydia seated herself at the huge desk.
‘I suppose you know Mrs. DeVoors was gadget-happy. Inferiority feelings. Watch this.’
She pushed a button on a panel to her left. On the opposite wall a film screen was revealed by a sliding panel. Simultaneously a 16-millimetre projector appeared on the desk from some inner cavity. Another button disclosed a TV screen inset. A third button brought forth a tray, with Scotch, glasses, soda and, almost unbelievably, a dish of ice cubes.
‘There are more,’ said Lydia, ‘but I’m sure I’m boring you. Oh yes, you might be interested in that phone.’ She indicated an ordinary black telephone at her elbow. ‘It’s bugged.’
‘No kidding?’ said Pinkie.
‘No kidding.’ Lydia pulled open a drawer to her left. It contained a tape recorder. ‘The ringing of an incoming call sets the thing going’, she explained. ‘As soon as the receiver is lifted, the recording starts. To record an outgoing call you have to flip a switch.’
Carmichael had been watching the demonstration with little interest. He had found an old trunk in one corner which he was attempting to open. Pinkie gave him a hand. The trunk contained period dresses, spangled tights, make-up kits and the like.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Carmichael vaguely, ‘Mrs. DeVoors liked to keep up her acquaintanceship with the theatre. She had been an actress, I understand.’
‘So she said’, said Lydia scornfully. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Why not?’ Pinkie asked.
The girl shrugged. ‘Just didn’t seem to have the personality for it. Rigid. I think I already mentioned it.’
‘Maybe she was a bad actress’, Pinkie suggested.
‘Maybe.’
Pinkie tried on a dark-haired wig. ‘Will I do?’
Lydia giggled. ‘Never.’
The stables proved to be less entertaining. Lydia explained the horses were out to pasture, that the senior Newton must have had to catch one to saddle up. His car was there; she pointed out a dusty Ford of uncertain vintage.
‘Now here’s a little quirk of Mrs. DeVoors’s personality maybe you can figure out’, she remarked. ‘I haven’t been able to. She gave strict orders to keep deer hunters off the place, you know. But Jack’s father has to keep the deep freeze filled with venison. That he shoots, that is. Well, that’s all right, but the thing is he can’t eat any himself. The old gal wanted to be sure there’d always be plenty on hand for her guests. She was selfish, all right, Jack’s right about that.’
She showed them a giant deep-freeze unit, locked, and a special bran-mixing machine for the horses’ feed; also, unaccountably, locked. They started back to the house. Half-way, Pinkie noticed a group of carrion birds of some sort hovering over the adjacent canyon. He pointed them out to Carmichael.
‘Well, boy, go on, go on’, the old man grumbled. ‘Whatever it is they’re after couldn’t be far. Damn this wheelchair.’
‘I don’t think you’ll miss anything, Carmichael’, the girl said. ‘Always some dead animal or another around here.’
Pinkie returned to confirm Lydia’s prediction.
‘Deer’, he said. ‘Dead.’
‘Your first corpse, eh’, Carmichael chortled. ‘Well, what can you tell me about it?’
‘Well,’ said Pinkie, ‘it was dressed.’
‘Dressed?’
‘Yeah. You know, skinned, cleaned out. Hard to tell much though. Birds have made it pretty messy.’
‘Are you sure it’s a deer?’ Carmichael asked.
‘Of course I’m sure. I know a skinned deer when I see one.’
‘What else can you tell me about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Pinkie helplessly, ‘just a dead deer.’
Carmichael lectured for ten minutes on the importance of thorough scrutiny. They had, meantime, returned to the house, where Lydia had draped herself on a contour chair in the front room. When Carmichael had finished speaking she nodded her head approvingly.
‘Most enlightening, Carmichael’, she said. ‘Now then, are you boys going to stick around?’
Pinkie glanced at his grandfather.
‘Well,’ said Carmichael, ‘I did see a fine illustrated edition of Pickwick Papers in the den. Let’s sit it out for a while.’
Pinkie let him go. In the glow of pleasure he anticipated in talking to Lydia, he had forgotten the Scotch.
Fifteen minutes later they heard the crunch of car wheels on the gravel drive. Jack Newton strode in, a frown on his round face. When he saw Lydia, he smiled.
‘Looking for me, darling?’ he asked. He greeted Carmichael and Pinkie with curt nods.
‘No sign of my father, I gather?’ He was answered by a shaking of heads. ‘When I think of that old man, beating his way through the brush … well, he won’t have to do that any more.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jack’, Lydia said. ‘Your father doesn’t mind it. He’s actually a suppressed Thoreau at heart.’
‘Jack adores his father,’ Lydia went on to Carmichael and Pinkie. ‘Almost to the point of an Orestes complex …’ she caught the scowl the doctor threw at her … ‘I’m only kidding, Jack. But you do worship him, don’t you?’
‘I suppose I do. I should. The man’s a saint. As near as they come, anyway. Now, Lydia, you go on back to town with these gentlemen. I’ll spend the night here.’
‘I’ll stay with you’, Lydia said. ‘You know he’ll be in before Wednesday for sure.’ She turned to Carmichael in explanation. ‘First game of the World Series on Wednesday. Jack’s father is a confirmed baseball addict.’
‘Please, I’d rather talk to dad alone, when he gets here.’
Lydia turned in exasperation to Carmichael and Pinkie. ‘This old-fashioned ninny doesn’t want you to know I sleep with him’, she explained. Carmichael turned scarlet. ‘I have tried to explain to him his guilt simply arises from an obsessive …’
‘Please, Lydia’, Dr. Newton said in a strangled voice. He shot an anguished glance at Carmichael and Pinkie.
‘All right, all right’, the girl said. ‘I just can’t understand …’ She walked back to the car mumbling.
The ride back was spent in comparative quiet, with Lydia hunched dejectedly in the back seat making only occasional comments on the idiocy of modern social mores. It was past four when they got to the San Margaret police station, where she bade them a hasty farewell and skipped off.
‘My God’, said Carmichael. ‘Are all the college girls these days that casual about their sex lives?’
‘No’, said Pinkie regretfully. ‘Most of them don’t have that much sex life to be casual about. Are we going back to the DeVoors place now?’
His grandfather shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough for today. We’ll see the secretary girl and the Countess tomorrow. Let’s head for the barn.’
But Carmichael was not quite finished for the day. When they arrived at the stucco house in North Hollywood they found the reporter, Sullivan, lounging in the front room.
The old man groaned. ‘What now, Sullivan?’ he asked wearily.
‘Just for a minute, Mr. Carmichael, I would appreciate a few pearls of wisdom.’ The reporter grinned to negate any facetiousness that might be attach
ed to the phrase. ‘And I do realize it’s an imposition’, he added.
‘It is’, said Carmichael ungraciously.
‘By the way,’ Sullivan said, ‘your daughter is off to a bridge game. She wasn’t too happy about leaving me here alone. I guess she finally decided I had an honest face. Turkey sandwiches are in the icebox for you two, she said. And I suppose you can guess what I’m here for. Just a little angle. Any little angle. What’s your idea so far?’
‘Honest to God,’ Carmichael said, ‘I haven’t a thing to go on, not a thing. It takes time. You know that. And this one may take lots of time.’
Sullivan nodded. He noticed Carmichael’s face looked very tired.
‘Sure. Well, I’ll be toddling. One thing,’ he carefully inspected his fingernails, ‘what did you think of the Count?’
‘Not much. Why?’
‘Did you know he’s a phoney?’
Carmichael hitched his shoulders. ‘We’ll find out what he is.’
The reporter pursed his lips. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. What I should have said, it’s the general opinion he’s a phoney.’
‘The general opinion?’
‘I’ve run into this guy before’, Sullivan said. ‘He’s a professional social parasite. Trades on his so-called title. Most of the social set laugh at him. A few outside the main swing, such as Mrs. DeVoors, get sucked in for as long a stay as he can stretch it. Now his wife does look like a countess, and acts like one, I’ll grant you. But that’s probably why he married her. Anyway, thought I’d make sure you had his number.’
Carmichael nodded glumly. ‘Thanks, you never know …’ his voice trailed off. ‘Say,’ he said suddenly, ‘how about a beer for the road before you go?’
Sullivan smiled his very false-teeth, but very warm smile.
‘Sure.’ He had noticed the sick-looking lines were fading from Carmichael’s face.
It was eleven before Pinkie got to bed. He slept soundly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SULLIVAN sat at his desk in the city room of the Los Angeles Sun, staring stupidly at the blank piece of paper in his typewriter. He had found, as he grew older, that the spark which had instantaneously been generated when he had faced his typewriter as a young man now needed a reasonable warm-up period. It was seven in the morning. He started to type. After three paragraphs he read over his efforts, grimaced, tore the sheet from the machine and threw it into the wastebasket. He got up, wandered into the editorial lounge and refilled his coffee mug from a silex. The coffee was supposed to be fresh every morning, but the night crew usually didn’t bother with it. They just added more grounds and reboiled what had already been made. This morning the brew was particularly gummy and foul-tasting. He sighed and walked over to the night-wire editor’s desk. The night-wire editor was preparing to leave. ‘Don’t louse it up, Sullivan’, he grumbled as he pulled on a shabby tweed coat. He was a small, dyspeptic man who wore the traditional green eye-shade pulled down almost past his nose. Sullivan murmured his assurances and began to flip through the yellow sheets of the United Press. The news was sorted in order of importance, at least of its importance in the opinion of the night-wire editor. Sullivan started with the pile marked ‘Top Stories’. He read with complete lack of interest of Ike’s refusal to withdraw Federal troops from Little Rock, of the birth of quintuplets in France, and the impassioned efforts of Mr. Lodge to convince the United Nations General Assembly of the importance of not trading with Red China. He by-passed ‘Other News’, ‘Features’, ‘Columns’, and ‘Eight-Pointers’, and turned with interest to ‘Sports’. Stengel had picked Podres to start in the first game of the World Series tomorrow, Sullivan noted with satisfaction. Crandell and Logan might be able to give that left-hander a rough time, he thought to himself. He was a confirmed Yankee-hater.