In some odd way—as Columbo saw it—she had not looked as ghastly lying in her blood as she did now, washed clean of blood, pallid and cold. Dr. Culp had not begun the autopsy yet, so he had not yet opened her up. But her wounds, now bloodless, were hideous dark holes, sickening to see.
“Do you see anything odd about those stab wounds?” asked Dr. Culp.
Columbo peered at the wounds. He saw what was odd, but he wanted to know if the doctor was talking about the same thing. “Please point out to me what’s odd,” he said.
The doctor put a gloved finger on a chest wound. “Look at the bruise,” he said. “When a knife is thrust into a person, usually it goes in as far as the guard between the blade and handle will allow it—assuming the point doesn’t hit a bone. When the guard strikes the flesh, it can make a bruise. In fact, it usually does. But look at that bruise. It’s almost ten inches wide. The guard on a knife is never more than three inches wide. Even that’s unusual. Most of them are no more than an inch and a half. This bruise is the best defined, but she has several others.”
“What are you saying, Doc?”
Dr. Culp turned up the palms of his hands. “I don’t know what to think. The blades that killed these people were attached to something, something that made it possible for the blades to strike with extraordinary force. I’d think of the bayonet attached to the end of a rifle, but again the guard wouldn’t be nine or ten inches wide.”
“‘Extraordinary force…’ Like what? Like—?” The doctor shook his head. “The body of Heck… It has a cracked rib. Whatever this thing was that the blade was attached to hit him so hard it cracked a rib.”
“A strong man,” said Columbo.
“Wielding a vicious weapon,” said Dr. Culp. “They were killed with knives, then? They weren’t shot or something else?” Columbo asked.
“No. The Latino houseboy was struck at the base of the skull with something heavy. I’d judge he was knocked down first and only then stabbed. His wounds are in the back, as you saw.”
“What bothers me, Doc, is how these people were caught and suddenly killed with knives and don’t seem to have tried to get away. That’s why I asked if somebody shot them or maybe even drugged them first.”
“Let me give you something that’s going to bother you even more,” said Dr. Culp. “The wounds on all three bodies seem to have been made by one blade, or identical blades. The blade or blades that killed these people are sixteen centimeters long, a little more than six inches. Two and a half centimeters wide—just about an inch. No hunting knife. That’s a stiletto.”
“Zip knife,” Columbo suggested.
“Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But somehow attached to some kind of handle that made it possible to hit damned hard with it, so hard it broke a rib.”
“Were all of the stabs done with this same kind of blade?”
Dr. Culp nodded. “That’s why I haven’t autopsied Mrs. Khoury yet. I’ve measured every stab wound in all three bodies. I’ve had all three bodies photographed, and I’ve numbered the wounds. Not every stab went in sixteen centimeters, but they were all the same width.”
Dr. Culp picked up a thin steel measuring rule, calibrated in millimeters. He inserted it in one of the stab wounds in the corpse of Arlene Khoury, to demonstrate that the wound was one hundred sixty millimeters—sixteen centimeters—deep.
Columbo scowled and turned away.
“Most of the wounds on the bodies of Mrs. Khoury and Mr. Heck enter at an angle approximately ninety degrees to the plane of the body. One of the wounds on his body enters at an angle approximately forty degrees above that plane. That suggests to me that he was sitting maybe halfway erect when he was first stabbed. That stab penetrated his heart. He would not have remained halfway erect after that but would have slumped down. Two wounds in Mrs. Khoury’s body are about twenty degrees above the plane. I would guess she was lying on her back when somebody lunged at her with the knife. The ninety-degree wounds were made by somebody standing above the two people and repeatedly striking downward. All the wounds to the houseboy are close to the ninety-degree angle. I think he fell after he was struck on the back of the head, then someone stabbed down from above as he lay facedown on the floor.”
“Were these people drunk?” asked Columbo.
“The two in bed were. Which may explain why they did not instantly react to the attack. The houseboy was not.”
“How drunk?”
“Well… Not pass-out-cold drunk. I wouldn’t have wanted to go for a drive with one of them. Point-one-eight. That’s pretty damn drunk.”
“How about cocaine?” Columbo asked. “We found crack in her handbag.”
Dr. Culp shook his head. “Not a trace. If they’d had coke in their blood, with point-one-eight alcohol, it wouldn’t have been necessary to stab them.”
“Of course, there could be another reason why they didn’t jump and run or jump to try to defend themselves,” said Columbo. “Maybe they knew the people coming at them and didn’t expect to be attacked.”
Dr. Culp shrugged. “I said the alcohol might explain. I didn’t say it did.”
“How about sex?” Columbo asked. “I guess these two people had been—”
“And how,” said Dr. Culp. “That could be another reason why they didn’t jump up. They were plain exhausted.”
2
Columbo was tired. This was turning into a long day. He stopped at a telephone booth, called home, and talked with Mrs. Columbo.
“Yeah, I know, I know. Every station, every paper… Suspects in custody? We got no suspects in custody. The people they’re talking about are in for possession of marijuana… Captain says what? Case closed tomorrow? I’ll be lucky if I can close it in six weeks… Right now, I’m checkin’ up on the husband, which I gotta do. Gotta do. Y’ know? Anyway, I got nothin’ else going in the case yet. Listen, I’ve got to check with some people at a motel called Piscina Linda. So I’ll be late… No, not too late. Hey, I had a spicy seafood salad for lunch, so let’s have something good and simple for dinner. Good and simple. Simple and good. And I got a present for you. Y’ won’t believe! I’ll explain it all when I see you. Say an hour.”
Fifteen minutes later he reached Piscina Linda and pulled the Peugeot into the parking lot. The attendant, Jorge Mendez, welcomed him and asked him if he was just there for dinner or would be staying the night.
“Neither,” said Columbo, showing his shield. “I’ll be in and out in fifteen minutes.”
“’Kay,” said the young man. “I’ll keep your car right over there, handy.”
“Lemme guess,” said Columbo. “You’re from N’ Yawk, right?”
“Right. I talk like you, man.”
“Lower East Side?”
“Naw. Other end of town altogether. Washington Heights. I worked downtown. Maybe some of that got into me.”
“You read the papers, watch TV?” Columbo asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’m Lieutenant Columbo, LAPD homicide, and if you read the papers, watch television, you know why I’m here. Your name is?”
“Jorge Mendez. What’ve I got to do with what happened to Mrs. Khoury?”
Jorge was a wiry young man, so thin in fact as to suggest he shot something, but the muscles of his arms were like cords, and he was alert and springy on his feet.
“Nothin’. Nothin’ at all. But, y’ see, when you’re investigating a murder, you gotta check out everything, every little thing. Like, right now I need to know exactly when Mr. Yussef Khoury arrived here last night and when he left. Is that because I think Mr. Khoury might have killed his wife? No. It’s because that’s what I have to do. Did you take care of his car last night?”
Jorge nodded. “I always take care of that car. You got a car like that”—he paused and cast a curious glance at the Peugeot—“you make sure it gets nothin’ but first-class treatment.”
“I know what ya mean. So you’d remember when Mr. Khoury arrived and when he left, right?”
&nbs
p; “Right. It was, like, seven-thirty, man. He drove in like always, bringin’ that luscious broad of his.”
“And he left—?”
“Like one-thirty. Little before. That Mercedes was the last car I handled last night. Usually he leaves earlier. It’d been anybody else, I’d have checked out at one and let him pick up his car keys at the desk. But not Mr. Khoury. I know he’s gonna hand me ten bucks for takin’ special care of that car.”
“Okay, so he came at seven-thirty and left about one-thirty. And Miss Dana was with him, right?”
Jorge nodded. “Sure. Don’t quote me, but this is where he shacks up with that broad. That car and that broad! The guy’s got it made!”
“Here’s the keys to my car… uh—You say you’re just gonna move it out of the way?”
“Right. It’ll be right over there.”
Columbo walked into the lobby of the motel. It was an interesting place, though nothing at all like the Khoury home or the Khoury store. Odd place to be favored by a man who made elegance his life’s obsession. So, okay, it was where Yussef Khoury brought Kimberly Dana for a little anonymity and privacy. In that sense it wasn’t bad. Men took their girlfriends to cheaper places. Columbo could see through the dining room to the swimming pool that gave the place its name. That was nice.
He went to the desk and showed his badge to the clerk. “Lieutenant Columbo, homicide. I’m working on the Khoury murder case. Mr. Khoury says he was here last night. Can you confirm that?”
“Yes, sir,” said the clerk. “He was here.”
“Your name is?”
“Frank Taylor. Mr. Khoury came in about seven- thirty and left sometime after I went off duty. I work from four to midnight.”
Taylor looked like the four-to-midnight clerk in a hot-sheet motel. If Columbo had seen him on a bus he would have taken the gray little man in the cheap suit and steel-rimnied eyeglasses for a motel clerk.
“Did he sign a register, sign a card?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” said Taylor. “Mr. Khoury telephones in the morning and reserves his suite. He pays by check, sent when he gets our bill.”
“He’s a regular customer, then,” said Columbo.
“Yes, sir.”
“Since how long?”
“Four or five months.”
“You know what they’re here for, I imagine,” said Columbo.
“No, sir, I don’t. They do come down for dinner, and about midnight they want coffee brought up by room service. That’s a standing order. They always spend two or three hours alone in their suite. I don’t speculate about what they do. It’s none of my business.”
“And somebody took coffee up to them last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to talk to the room-service waiter who took their coffee to them.”
Taylor nodded. “I’ll call for him. He’ll be in the kitchen and will come out through the dining room. His name is Eduardo.”
“Thank ya,” said Columbo.
He walked over to the broad open doors of the dining room and looked in. The menu was posted on a lighted stand, and he glanced it over. This was more his kind of restaurant, offering steaks and chops and roast beef, chicken, and several kinds of fish. It had a salad bar. Honest food, nothing fancy, no surprises. Maybe he’d bring Mrs. Columbo here for dinner some night. She’d enjoy looking at the pool.
Eduardo was a slight, gray-haired man. He approached the detective with conspicuous trepidation, so much that it made Columbo wonder if he was not another illegal like the murdered houseboy.
“Relax, Eduardo,” he said to him. “I just want to ask you a question or two.”
Eduardo nodded.
“You took coffee up to Mr. Khoury’s suite last night. Right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Eduardo with a thick accent that turned the word “sir” into “seer.”
“Do you always do that? I mean, every time he comes here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything different about last night?”
“No', sir.”
“Did Mr. Khoury say anything to you?”
“No, sir. I never see Mr. Khoury. Always, I put the coffee service on the table and pick up the big tip he always leaves. Mr. Khoury and his lady are in the privacy of their bedroom. I come back after they leave to pick up the coffee service.”
“You don’t really know if they were in the bedroom, then,” said Columbo.
“I hear the voices,” said Eduardo.
“How’s that? You heard them talking in the bedroom?”
“I hear the voices,” Eduardo said again.
“Could you understand what they were saying?”
“Oh, no, sir. Through the door I hear. I knock once on the door, so they will know the coffee is there. Then I leave.”
“Did they say ‘Thank you’ or something like that?”
“No, sir.”
“Do they ever?”
“No, sir.”
“So all you ever do is come in, leave the coffee, knock once on the door, pick up your tip, and leave.”
“I knock outside in hall and say ‘Room service.’ I wait a little, then let myself in with my key. Put the coffee service on the table. Pick up my tip. Knock once on bedroom door. Then leave.”
“Thank ya, Eduardo. You’ve been very helpful.” The room-service waiter, obviously relieved, turned to walk away.
“Oh. One more thing,” said Columbo, stopping him. “Those voices you heard through the door. Could they have been the television?”
Eduardo frowned and nodded. “Could,” he said solemnly.
Ten
1
On Thursday morning Columbo signed in at his office to begin his daily shift. He had a reputation for an untidy desk and for an ever-growing stack of forms he was overdue in filling out, and when Captain Sczciegel came along and said good morning, Columbo glanced at that stack and wondered which one was urgent now.
Sczciegel, a tall, thin man as bald as Kojak, wore a red-and-blue tie and a blue-and-white striped shirt. He carried his snub-nose service revolver in a holster behind his hip—which made Columbo uncomfortable, because he did not carry his own revolver and the captain sometimes asked about it.
“Are we to understand, Columbo, that you don’t think the Manson people are very good suspects?” the captain asked.
“There are too many holes in that, Captain. I’m not saying Cathy Murphy and her friends didn’t do it. I’m saying there are a lot of things unexplained. And I don’t see the explanations right now.”
“What alternatives are there?” the captain asked.
“I don’t have any,” said Columbo. “But, for example, it’s plain that whoever did it knew something about the house and something about the habits of the people who lived there. That doesn’t seem to fit Cathy Murphy and her Manson-type friends. Mr. Khoury himself says Cathy Murphy was never in the house.”
“Khoury has a girlfriend. Mrs. Khoury had a boyfriend. What’s that have to do with it?” Columbo shrugged. “No quick answer.”
“I’m not asking for a quick answer, Columbo. But you know we’re going to be pressed.”
“Gotcha,” said Columbo.
“You’ve seen this, I suppose,” said Sczciegel, handing Columbo a newspaper.
“Yes, sir. I’ve seen it,” said Columbo, though he glanced over the story again.
Macabre Coincidence Or Satanic: Macabre Coincidence Or Satanicplot In Khoury Murders?
By Al McCoy
By macabre coincidence, or maybe not by coincidence at all, the triple murder on Tuesday night at the Yussef Khoury mansion on Mulholland Drive occurs on the twenty-fifth anniversary, to the day, of the very similar murders of Sharon Tate and her friends by the notorious Manson Family.
The Tate-LaBianca murders are a dark episode in the history of our city, which most people would like to forget. They cannot forget them, however, when so similar a grisly crime is repeated on their twenty-fifth anniversary.
> Police say the Khoury murders are not the first Manson copycat murders they have had to investigate. From time to time over the years, someone has killed with brutality reminiscent of the tragedy on August 9, 1969. What gives these murders a peculiarly haunting aspect is that a suspect now in custody is one of the original Manson girls and was once pregnant by Charles Manson.
While it is premature and would be improper to guess at the guilt or innocence of the suspects now in custody, the similarities and the coincidence of the date are so striking as to lead to a conclusion that either the Manson-type suspects are guilty, or they are the victims of an elaborate frame-up.
Police say they are working on both possibilities.
* * *
“Al’s just doin’ his job,” said Columbo, handing the paper back to the captain.
“But he isn’t making mine any easier,” said the captain, as he walked away.
2
Kimberly Dana welcomed Columbo to the executive floor at Khoury’s.
“Joe won’t be in until after the funeral,” she said. “And maybe not for a few days after. He’s very upset. Neither of us has kidded you about the way things were between him and Arlene, but she was, after all, the mother of his children.”
This morning Kimberly wore a pair of formfitting white jeans with leather belt, a white T-shirt, and an oversize coral linen blazer. The blazer hung loosely around her, and she had rolled up the sleeves. Columbo guessed it must be a style, because this woman wouldn’t wear anything not in style.
“Mrs. Columbo really appreciated the gift and told me to be sure to thank you,” he said to her. “And you were right. One size does fit all.”
She smiled. “I’m glad to hear it, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I thought I ought to interview some of the people who work here. Like Mr. Khoury’s secretary. Routine, y’ know. It’s the way we work. Have to talk to everybody.”
Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders Page 8