“Of course. Let me set you up in Joe’s office, and anyone you want can come in.”
Khoury had furnished his office in the eclectic style that was typically Khoury, with a huge and elaborately carved Chinese ebony table for a desk, a black leather chair, a leather couch, a carved ivory table, assorted lamps, and Impressionist prints on the walls—all inside closed drapes that did not let sunshine in to interfere with the way he had the room lighted.
“My, this is some beautiful office,” said Columbo. “I wouldn’t want to smoke a cigar in here.”
“Joe would appreciate it if you didn’t,” said Kimberly. “When occasionally I smoke a cigarette, it annoys him. I’ll send in Mrs. Russell. She’s his secretary. If there’s anyone else you want to see, just tell Mrs. Russell.”
While he waited for the secretary, Columbo studied two mounted movie posters that hung on Khoury’s walls.
The first of the two pictures advertised was called Galactic Revolt. The poster featured paintings of the principal characters—a hero clad in a skintight white knit suit with loose, knee-high brown leather boots, brandishing a pistol-like weapon; a nearly naked heroine, dressed as a slave girl with manacles on her wrists; and a man with white beard and glasses, wearing a long white coat, meant apparently to represent a scientist. (Maybe somebody had followed the comic strip “Buck Rogers in the 21st Century,” as Columbo had when he was a boy. The scientist character always wore a long white lab coat, thick, round eyeglasses, and had a white mustache, and in his speech balloons began every utterance with “Heh.”) The background behind these characters was a collage of lesser characters. About half of them were reptiles that stood erect, wore clothes, and threatened with weapons, and the other half were all-but-naked slave girls.
Robert Norton played the hero, Fairleigh Richmond the heroine, and Mario Salvatore the scientist.
Dino de Mantova had directed. Co-producers were Yussef Khoury and Antonio Vado. Executive producer was Antonio Vado. Production designer was Steven Heck.
The second poster advertised a picture called Return to the Galaxy. The artwork was much the same. Robert Norton again played the hero and Fairleigh Richmond the heroine. The scientist character was gone. The same director and production designer remained. Antonio Vado was again co-producer with Yussef Khoury, but the executive producer was Alan Bennet.
The secretary entered the office. “Hello, Lieutenant Columbo. I’m Eleanor Russell.”
A handsome woman of perhaps forty years, Eleanor Russell had an olive complexion, black hair, and dark-brown eyes. She wore a bright-red cotton knit dress just short enough to show that her legs were shapely. She sat down on the end of the couch opposite Columbo.
“Uh, Mrs. Russell, I don’t want you to think that Mr. Khoury is a suspect in the death of his wife or anything like that,” Columbo said to her. “It’s just that in the way we work we have to ask all kinds of questions and get all the information we can. I want you to understand.”
“Lieutenant Columbo,” she said crisply, “Yussef Khoury is perhaps the finest man I have ever known in all my life, and if I knew he’d killed Mrs. Khoury, I don’t think I’d help you to convict him of it.”
“That’s plain enough,” he said. He nodded as he turned down the comers of his mouth. “Plain enough. Does that attitude come from another judgment: that Mrs. Khoury was not a very nice woman?”
“Mrs. Khoury was not a very nice woman. Lieutenant. She was an abusive drunk.”
“That’s plain enough, too,” said Columbo. “How about Mr. Heck?”
“Steven Heck was a Hollywood hustler, Lieutenant. Do you know the meaning of the term?”
“I think so. But how about if you tell me?”
“Steven Heck was a liar, a cheat, and a thief,” she said. “To put the matter plainly.”
“And if you knew who killed him, you wouldn’t tell me.”
Mrs. Russell drew a deep breath. “I’m not sure I’d go that far, Lieutenant. Or with Mrs. Khoury either, really. Actually, if I knew who killed them, I would tell you. They were despicable people, but nobody deserves to die that way.”
Columbo fumbled in his pockets for a pencil— and this time found one. He made a note in his book. “Ma’am, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me just what Mr. Heck did that makes you call him a liar and a cheat.”
“Lieutenant Columbo, I think you should talk to Adam Brinsley. Mr. Brinsley is Mr. Khoury’s accountant. I think Mr. Brinsley will confirm what I’m about to tell you, that Steven Heck stole from Mr. Khoury.”
“How did he do that?” Columbo asked.
“I’m not sure. I doubt that Mr. Khoury would want me to mention it. But I overheard a telephone conversation between him and Mr. Brinsley, and the talk was about money spent on the motion- picture productions Steven Heck designed for Mr. Khoury.”
“Tell me about Mr. Khoury’s movie business.”
“Others can tell you more than I can.”
“But you can get me oriented, so to speak,” said Columbo. “Just give me an overview of it, as ya might say.”
Mrs. Russell drew a deep breath. “All right. I came to work for Mr. Khoury in 1976. Mr. Khoury, Senior, died in 1973, and the present Mr. Khoury had decided to change the business in several ways. One of the ways was that he built the lingerie shop on the second floor and established for it a line of merchandise he called the Khoury Collection. Then in 1978 he began publishing the Khoury Lingerie Calendar. It’s more modest than the Playboy Calendar and less modest than the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Have you ever seen it?”
“As I matter of fact, I have,” said Columbo.
“So what’s that got to do with his making pictures? I’ll tell you. In 1978 he made a video tape of the calendar. It showed all twelve of the models, parading around in Khoury lingerie. That was a big success. He sold a lot of copies. It even ran on some cable television outlets. It’s been an annual thing every year since—the Khoury Collection Video. Gradually he improved the production, added music, dancing, scenery, and of course the models had to have the talent to dance or sing. That got him interested in film production, and he formed Khoury Productions. His first film continued the theme. The heroine of Joelle wore Khoury lingerie as her costume in a good many scenes. Lieutenant, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“That’d be kind of you, ma’am, if it’s not inconvenient,” said Columbo. “Black, no sugar.”
Mrs. Russell got up and left the room, and Columbo walked around, looking. Columbo walked over to the posters again and cocked his head to one side as he studied the garishly drawn characters, particularly the nearly naked slave girl.
“Spaghetti sci-fi,” said Mrs. Russell when she returned with their coffee. “They made the first one in Italy, on soundstages outside Rome. They made the second one here. Fairleigh Richmond is Anna Maria Tavernelle. She doesn’t speak English. They dubbed her voice for both pictures. They tried as much as possible to have her face turned away from the camera when she spoke lines. Actually, she didn’t speak many. She was to look at, not to listen to.”
Columbo sat down again on the couch. “Did these pictures make money?”
“Really, you must talk to Mr. Brinsley about that.”
“Miss Dana referred to Mr. Khoury’s studio. What and where is that?”
Mrs. Russell shook her head. “That’s a fancy name for Mr. Khoury’s other office. He never calls it a studio. Obviously he doesn’t keep a soundstage tied up so he can call it his studio. Like any other independent producer, he rents a soundstage when he needs it. He has only made four pictures: Joelle in 1987, Revolt in 1989, Return in 1990, and Lingering Melody in 1992. Have you ever seen any of them, Lieutenant?”
Columbo shook his head. “I’m afraid not, ma’am.”
“If you can get a video tape of it, you should look at Lingering,” she said. “It’s a fine picture, got wonderful reviews. It wasn’t a spaghetti flick, far from it. It had two Academy Award nominations, for best actress and for prod
uction design. But it lost money. A lot of money. It was a succès d’estime. It didn’t have a gaudy poster. That’s why you don’t see one on the wall.”
“Did Mr. Heck work on that film?”
“Oh, yes. To give the devil his due, Steven Heck had talent. He imprinted a distinctive style on the pictures he worked on, particularly on those where he had a more or less free hand—which Mr. Khoury gave him. That’s why he got an Oscar nomination that year.”
“Where will I find Mr. Brinsley, ma’am?”
“At the Khoury Productions office. That’s in a building not far from Twentieth Century-Fox. I can write down the address. Mr. Khoury shares the office with Antonio Vado, his co-producer. Mr. Vado is working on other productions now, of course. He has to make a living.”
“Well, you’ve been most helpful, Mrs. Russell,” said Columbo. “I guess maybe I’ll stop by the production office and see who’ll talk to me.”
“I can call and tell them to be expecting you,” she offered.
“No, thank ya. I’m not sure exactly when I’ll go there. So thanks for your help. Very kind of you.” Both of them stood. They left the office, and Mrs. Russell returned to her desk in the anteroom. Columbo paused, fumbling in his raincoat pocket for a cigar, which he would light, being now out of Khoury’s office.
“Oh, say,” he said to Mrs. Russell. “I did mean to ask about Miss Murphy. Did you know her?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Tell me about her,” said Columbo.
The secretary shrugged and shook her head. “You know all about her, don’t you? I mean, you know she was a Manson girl and all that.”
“Yes, ma’am. I do know all about that. I’m curious about how she was here.”
Mrs. Russell stiffened. “She was working downstairs as a sales clerk. She told Mr. Khoury she had been trained in secretarial work and asked if he could use a secretary up here. He knew I could use help—the amount of work he requires is more than one secretary can handle, really—so he brought her up here. He knew who she was. It was very kind of him, and at the same time very idiosyncratic, to bring her into our executive offices.”
“Was she any good as a secretary?” asked Columbo. “Come to work every day and on time, and all like that?”
“Uh… Yes, she was reasonably good. She was anxious to please. If Mr. Khoury hadn’t told me who she was, I would never have guessed she was a Manson girl called Puss Dogood and had spent several years in prison, I assigned her work to her. I had no reason to complain about her.”
“Did she ever talk about Charlie?”
“Not until I asked her,” said Mrs. Russell. “Then she said enough to demonstrate that she was completely flaky on the subject. I understand she smoked marijuana, but she never showed the least sign of it here.”
“But Mrs. Khoury didn’t like that she was working here,” said Columbo.
“No. She didn’t like it a bit.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you a tough question. I can’t help it. I have to ask. Do you think it’s possible that Mrs. Khoury suspected Mr. Khoury had, uh… an intimate relationship with Cathy Murphy?”
Mrs. Russell frowned and lifted her chin. “I don’t know. Lieutenant. I really wouldn’t know.”
“So you don’t know why Mrs. Khoury was abusive toward Cathy Murphy?”
“Mrs. Khoury was an abusive woman, Lieutenant,” said Mrs. Russell crisply. “She would have been abusive to me, except that I plainly told her to go to hell one day.”
“Did she complain to Mr. Khoury about that?”
“I don’t know if she did or didn’t. He never said anything to me about it.”
“Well, thank ya again, ma’am. I appreciate your help.”
3
Kimberly Dana was in the reception area as he came out, as if she had been waiting for him. “Did you see everyone you wanted to see, Lieutenant?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I did. Mrs. Russell was very helpful. She, uh, did suggest one thing. She said I should see Mr. Khoury’s film Lingering Melody. It’s not part of the investigation, but I certainly would like to see it. In fact, I’d like to see his other pictures, too. You wouldn’t happen to have tapes?”
“I can lend you the tapes,” she said. “I’ll have to ask you to return them. They’re my personal copies.”
“Hey, that’s very kind of you, Miss Dana. I appreciate it very much.”
She led him into her office, which was of modest size but luxuriously furnished, with the same posters on the walls as hung on Khoury’s. He noticed the lettering on her door—
KIMBERLY DANA
Executive Assistant
“Here they are,” she said. She took them from behind a sliding door in her credenza. “Lingering Melody and the two sci-fi’s.”
“I’ll bring them right back,” he promised.
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Well, I did happen to notice the way you’re listed on the door. Would I be totally outa line to ask just what an executive assistant does?”
“I understand what you are suggesting,” she said coolly. “And the answer is yes. That’s what I do.”
“I wasn’t askin’—”
“In addition, I have some very specific administrative duties, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do, ma’am. I didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t.”
“There is another element of it. Let’s get that straight, Lieutenant. Joe loves me, and I love him. What’s happened is a terrible tragedy, beyond what’s obvious. I’m trying to protect the man I love, as much as I can. That’s why I’m in the office, which is certainly not where I want to be. If I could be where I want to be, I’d be with him. You can understand, can’t you?”
Columbo suddenly realized that he had been backing away from her. He stopped. “Oh, absolutely,” he said. “So thank ya again, Miss Dana. I’ll bring your tapes back tomorrow.”
Eleven
1
The gull-wing Mercedes was of course a conspicuous, memorable car. Driving it, a man had no anonymity whatever. Leaving the house late on Thursday morning, Yussef Khoury drove his second car, an inconspicuous red Toyota that offended him for its lack of elegance but served him when he wanted to go somewhere without being instantly recognized—and without risking the theft of a classic automobile.
Apart from the car, he was also making a point of anonymity. He wore golfing clothes: bright-red slacks, a lemon-yellow shirt, and even a plastic mesh cap lettered with the words bel aire.
Le Cirque was a restaurant in Pasadena. He drove into the parking lot, parked his own car, and went inside. Kimberly was waiting in a booth, sipping from a Bombay gin martini and nibbling on a sesame breadstick.
“I half expected to see the cop in the raincoat sitting here with you,” said Khoury as he sat down. “When I came out of the water yesterday afternoon, there he was, sitting on the beach, waiting for me. That was spooky, let me tell you.”
“The man is no dummy,” she said. “He’s playing dummy. It’s an act.”
“He hasn’t bought the Puss Dogood, Helter Skelter deal at all,” said Khoury. “We might as well not have bothered to do that part of it.”
“We haven’t dealt the Boobs card yet,” said Kim. Khoury nodded. “Deal it. Deal it tonight. It’s not going to do much for us, but we went to enough trouble to set it up, we might as well use it.” He shook his head. “We need something to reinforce the case against Puss.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I’ve got an idea about what might reinforce it good.”
“Like what?”
“Like reporting a piece of Arlene’s jewelry missing,” Kimberly suggested. “A valuable piece.”
“It would have to be a piece of jewelry she never really had,” said Khoury. “They inventoried what was in the room yesterday morning.”
“I hate to suggest this, Joe, but what about the jeweled gold choker you gave me?”
“Why that, for heav
en’s sake?”
“Listen to me, Joe,” she said. “There has to be a record that you bought it, that you paid for it. I’ve never worn it in public, only when you and I were alone. If it were missing—”
“At least it offers a motive—”
“Exactly. I won’t ask what you paid for it.”
“You’ll have to know. I bought it from Harry Winston’s for $48,350.”
She seized his hand. “Oh, Joe! I knew it was a very generous gift. But I didn’t dream it was that much!”
“If I report it stolen, we’ll have to dispose of it. The risk that somebody might someday find it…” He shook his head. “You’ll have to throw it off* the pier, like the Bali-Songs.”
“Oh, my god!”
He shrugged and turned down the corners of his mouth. “There’s no option, Kim. No option. If we decide to do it. Anyway, I insured it.”
“Which brings in an insurance investigator.”
“Well, what’s he going to do—argue no one was murdered? You know, this may be a very good idea. I would hardly have murdered my wife for forty-eight thousand dollars. The Manson crowd might. Somebody else might.”
“Columbo is going to ask why the murderers stole that piece alone.”
“I can answer that question. The last time I saw it, it was lying on the dresser, in a tray where she kept her wristwatch and other things of the kind when she went to bed. Her regular jewelry was in drawers. The murderers were in a panic and grabbed what they saw.”
Kimberly shook her head. “But then why did they come in the first place? I mean, if they knew she had valuable jewelry—and I suppose she had other things—why didn’t they take the time to—”
“Two reasons,” he interrupted. “Puss Dogood came to murder Arlene because she hated her and had good reason to hate her. She’s a member of a group that has demonstrated its willingness to commit murder, for a reason or without a reason. Maybe they came just to kill. Maybe they came to kill and to steal. They killed, anyway. Then— Sergio interrupted them and probably screamed. That scared them. They grabbed what they saw and ran.
Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders Page 9