“All right,” said Columbo. “Money was missing. That was the first thing. By the way, what did the Khourys pay you to work for them?”
“Three hundred dollars a week.”
“According to Mrs. Takeshi, the amount stolen probably didn’t come to as much as a hundred dollars,” said Columbo.
“The silver was worth a lot more,” said Boobs. “If I’m any judge.”
“And they found that under the front seat of your car,” said Columbo.
“Right.”
"Melissa!”
“How long were you in jail?” Columbo asked.
“Three or four hours. Mr. Khoury came and told the cops he wouldn’t press charges, so they let me go”
“Okay, I guess that’s about all I wanted to ask you about. Miss Mead. You’ll still be here with Squatty, so I can find you if there’s anything else?”
Boobs glanced at her father and mother, then nodded.
Columbo stood up. “I thank ya all,” he said. “I hope you understand that in my line of work we have to ask some tough questions. It’s nothing personal.” He nodded and moved toward the door.
“Uh, Lieutenant Columbo…” said Lloyd Mead. “I said I’d take Melissa to dinner this evening. I’m afraid that has a potential for a somewhat tense evening. I’m going to ask Mr. Schob to join us. Could I interest you in coming, too? It’s a little unusual, I suppose, but if Melissa is no longer charged with anything—at least anything more serious than possession of a little marijuana —then maybe it’s not improper.”
“Oh, sir, I—”
“I’d appreciate it, Lieutenant,” said Boobs quietly. “I really would.”
“Lieutenant Columbo probably has a family expecting him at home,” said Martha Mead.
“As a matter of fact, it’s my wife’s night to go to her accounting class at the university,” said Columbo. “But I—” He glanced down at his rumpled gray suit.
“Your choice of restaurants. Lieutenant. I bet you know good places in Los Angeles,” said Lloyd Mead.
Columbo frowned. “As a matter of fact, there’s a place I’ve been meaning to try,” he said. “I understand they have good steaks and fish. It’s in a motel called Piscina Linda. Might be kinda interesting. Nothing fancy, y’ understand, but interesting.”
3
“I guess I, uh… I guess I oughta apologize for suggesting this place,” said Columbo. “Mr. Khoury eats here often, and he’s supposed to have gourmet taste.”
“Don’t apologize,” said Lloyd Mead. “It’s really not bad. And, as you said, it’s interesting. California… Wide open onto a swimming pool. Real California.”
“If you like steaks and French fries, it’s the perfect place,” said Schob. “And I’m a man who likes steaks and fries.”
“Well, the sole wasn’t so good,” said Columbo. “I guess you’re right. They know how to grill steaks.”
“What did you think of the wine?” Columbo asked Lloyd Mead.
“Very good, for a California red,” said Mead.
“But can you imagine a connoisseur of good food and wine eating here?” asked Columbo.
“Really, Lieutenant,” interjected Martha Mead. “The place is actually not so bad you need to keep apologizing for it.”
“Thank ya, ma’am. I just thought I was recommending a place where a man with very distinguished tastes eats, and—If you’re not unhappy, I’m not.”
Part Four
Bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing IN the sheaves,
Here we go rejoicing,
B-RING-ING IN… the sheaves.
Twenty-One
1
Tuesday morning. Columbo met with Yussef Khoury in his office above the store.
“Lieutenant, it has become obvious that you suspect me of killing my wife,” said Yussef Khoury. “That’s all you’re doing, that I can find out about: questioning my friends, my housekeeper, and so on. You have Cathy Murphy in jail, but you’re not focused on her.”
“Not so, Mr. Khoury,” said Columbo. “I am focused on her. I’ve questioned her several times, also her friends. I expect to talk to her again today.” They were in Khoury’s opulently furnished office, Khoury seated behind the huge and elaborately carved Chinese ebony table that served as his desk. Columbo, in his raincoat, sat on the leather couch and had opened his notepad on the intricately carved ivory table.
Khoury had telephoned headquarters, spoken with Captain Sczciegel, and asked that Lieutenant Columbo come by to see him. Telling Columbo about the call, Sczciegel had warned him that Khoury was angry.
“Lieutenant, I don’t like to talk to you this way, but I think I had better tell you I have many prominent and influential friends in this town.”
“Yes, sir, you sure do,” said Columbo. “And they think very highly of you, too.”
“Please understand I don’t mean to threaten you. I probably said too much just there. But the newspapers are asking what’s holding up the investigation into my wife’s death. Friends are calling me and asking the same thing. Cathy was arrested within hours after the death of Arlene, but she and her friends are being held on a marijuana charge. Everybody I know or talk to thinks it’s obvious Cathy and her friends are the killers. If it’s obvious to everybody else, why is it so mysterious to the police?”
“Well, ya see, sir, it’s in the nature of our work. What we have to do is put together enough evidence to get a conviction. And when there are discrepancies, we’ve gotta resolve them. If we don’t, you can bet the defense lawyers will use them.”
“Give me an example of a discrepancy that’s so great,” said Khoury.
“Well, sir, here is something that bothers me. I saw the bodies of Sharon Tate and the others killed in the house at 10050 Cielo Drive. I wish I hadn’t, but I did. The bodies of Mrs. Khoury and Mr. Heck were very different.”
“In what respect, Lieutenant?”
“Miss Folger and Mr. Frykowski had tried hard to escape. Their killers ran them down and shot and clubbed and stabbed them. Miss Tate and Mr. Sebring had probably tried to run, too, from the looks of it. But in this case, only Sergio Flores tried to escape.”
“I know what you’re trying to suggest,” said Khoury. “That Arlene and Steve knew their murderers and didn’t suspect until it was too late that they were about to be killed. They had to be killed by somebody they knew. Well… Arlene knew Cathy Murphy very well, very damned well.”
“Wouldn’t she have been surprised to see her walk into her bedroom in the middle of the night?” Columbo asked.
Khoury shrugged. “Okay. That leaves me. I could have walked in on them and—”
“That doesn’t make much sense either,” said Columbo. “Mr. Heck was in bed with Mrs. Khoury. I’d think he would’ve jumped out of bed pretty fast when he saw you coming in. I mean… Well, you can see what I mean. Besides, it looks awfully unlikely that one person could have committed all three murders. So two people came in, maybe three.”
Khoury sighed impatiently. “All of which leads us to what?” he asked.
“I just wanted to show you what I mean when I say the case is not as simple as it looks,” said Columbo. “Believe me, sir, I lay awake nights, running the facts around in my head, trying to make sense of them.”
“You can understand how I have to feel—”
“Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely.”
“Is there anything else you need to ask me?”
“Actually, sir, there is,” said Columbo. “I try to stay away from subjects like this, but the fact is it might be helpful if you told me just what kind of relationship you have, or had, with Cathy Murphy.”
“You’re asking if I had an affair with her,” said Khoury. “The answer is yes. Puss is a very complaisant woman. Lieutenant. If she thinks you’re doing something nice for her, she’s happy to go to bed with you. It doesn’t mean anything to her. She’s just being friendly—reciprocating friendship. I wouldn’t say she has the morals of an alley cat. The truth
is, that sexual intimacy doesn’t have the same significance for her as it has for you and me.”
Columbo nodded. “I understand. How does this fit in, timewise, with your relationship with Miss Dana?”
“When Kim and I… fell in love, I stopped seeing Puss. Puss worked in the store for six or eight months, then I brought her up to the third floor as a secretary. That would have been last fall, maybe October. My relationship with Kim developed in March, February and March.”
“And Mrs. Khoury’s relationship with Mr. Heck? When did that start?”
“I don’t know. For a while they tried to hide it. Maybe two years.”
“You and Mrs. Khoury?”
“Not in the last five years.”
Columbo nodded. “I hope you can forgive me prying into your personal life this way, but—”
“Think nothing of it, as I’ve said before.”
Columbo stood. “Well, sir, if you don’t have anything more you want to say to me, I’ll be on my way.”
Khoury came out from behind his desk and shook Columbo’s hand. “I hope you have good luck, Lieutenant. You can understand my emotions.”
“I sure can, and thank ya for your time.” Khoury opened the door.
“Oh,” said Columbo. “There is just one other little thing I’d like to try to clear up. Just how did you happen to hire Melissa Mead to work at your house?”
“Puss asked me to give her a job.”
“Puss says she doesn’t know her.”
“Unfortunately, Lieutenant Columbo,” said Khoury icily, “my friend Puss Dogood does not always tell the truth. Her sense of… morals, ethics, whatever… is unique.”
“Then I suppose Melissa looked good when you or Mrs. Khoury interviewed her.”
Khoury shook his head. “We didn’t interview her. I took her on Puss’s recommendation.”
“But she proved to be a thief,” said Columbo.
“Yes. Well… To tell you the truth, I was not convinced Melissa Mead actually was taking money. I could have been wrong about how much I’d left lying around. But when the silver service disappeared and the police found it in her car—who else could have taken it? I mean, if we want to wonder if maybe somebody else took it and put it in her car, we have to ask who? I trust Mrs. Takeshi implicitly. She’s been with me for many years. And Sergio— You know, there is one possibility.”
“What is that, sir?”
“That my wife did it. That Arlene put the silver in Melissa’s car, to get rid of her.”
“Why would she have wanted to get rid of her?”
“God knows what moved Arlene sometimes. She disliked Puss. Well… I guess she had reason. Or thought she did. She wasn’t completely rational at all times, Lieutenant. She drank heavily. And you know she used crack from time to time.”
Coiumbo frowned. “How do I know that?”
“You found crack in her handbag,” said Khoury.
“Oh—Well, that’s right, we did. A little.”
“Maybe her dealer killed her. Have you checked out that possibility?”
“Uh… Yeah, right. We’ve been looking into that possibility.”
“Sure,” said Khoury. “Let’s say he came to the house from time to time and sold her stuff. So he knew the place. And maybe she owed him money. Or maybe… Well, all that’s speculation. But you see what I mean. I hope you’re checking every possibility.”
Coiumbo nodded. “Oh, sure. Every possibility, sir. You can count on it.”
2
Columbo stared at the five balls that remained on the pool table, shaking his head in dissatisfaction at how they lay. He continued to shake his head as he chalked his cue generously, sprinkling blue chalk over his raincoat.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you did that on purpose, Mulhaney,” he said to the young detective sergeant from the Scientific Investigation Division.
“Well, position is half the game, isn’t it, Lieutenant?” Mulhaney asked.
“Yeah, but now I’ve gotta do something like the same to poor Jackson,” Columbo complained, “and probably he can’t do it to you, which will leave you an open shot.”
“Next game,” said Jackson, “you two guys are gonna play, and I’m gonna watch. I’m not in your league.”
“Y’ gotta think, Ted,” said Columbo. “That’s all that’s wrong with your game of pool. You make good shots, but you don’t think ahead. You don’t plan your game.”
“How could anybody think while spooning this stuff down his throat?” Mulhaney asked.
The young detective sat on one of the stools at the foot of the table, cue propped against the wall behind him, bowl of Burt’s chili in one hand, spoon in the other. Jackson rather enjoyed the chili, though not as much as Columbo did, and his bowl sat on a shelf on the wall, beside his can of Dr Pepper, and he stood and ate, pouring on a lot of salt.
“Let’s see here, now,” Columbo muttered as he bent over the table and took aim. He sent the cue ball into the right-hand cushion with a lot of right-hand English. The cue ball skidded along the cushion, glanced off the orange five ball, and crossed the table to the far cushion, where it came to a stop. It left Jackson an open shot on the five but not a shot he was likely to make—not a shot any player was likely to make.
Columbo picked up his spoon and bowl and ate chili as he watched.
Jackson, who shot skillfully but did not plan, as Columbo had said, did his best to sink the five but could not and left it in the middle of the foot cushion. He left Mulhaney much as Columbo had left him: with a very difficult shot on the five.
Mulhaney was of course required to hit the five ball. What he wanted to do was hit it, then send the cue ball behind some other balls, leaving Columbo no shot at all. He studied and studied, aimed and aimed, and shot. The cue ball retreated behind the seven and eight, as he wanted, but the five did not behave; it kissed off the nine ball and came to a rest in midtable, giving Columbo an open shot.
Columbo grinned. He put down his bowl and spoon, picked up his cue, and moved to the table.
He sang as he sank the five ball and drove the cue ball into position for the six.
* * *
“Bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing IN the sheaves,
Here we go rejoicing,
B-RING-ING IN… the sheaves.”
* * *
He ran the table and picked up the one-dollar bets lying on the head rail.
“Don’t play pool with him,” said Jackson. “I tell ya. Don’t play pool with him.”
“Evidence of a wasted youth,” said Columbo, picking up his bowl. “But it’s worth it for you two guys to lose a dollar or three, to get to eat chili like this. However—I gotta change the subject.”
“I’d like to do that,” said Jackson.
Columbo lifted himself up on one of the high stools. “Business,” he said. “The day when we were at the Khoury house, the three of us together, you told me, Tim, that you’d found four lumps of crack in Mrs. Khoury’s handbag. I asked you not to mention it to anybody. You, too, Ted. Did either one of you mention it?”
“When I turned it in to be held for evidence, I gave Captain Sczciegel a confidential report on it,” said Mulhaney. “Nobody else knows anything about it.”
“I haven’t said anything about it,” said Jackson. “They hadn’t used it,” said Columbo. “Mrs. Khoury and Heck. The autopsy showed it wasn’t in their blood. They were drunk as lords, but they hadn’t had anything else.” He frowned and nodded. “Isn’t that interestin’?”Mulhaney picked up his cue. “Give me a chance to get even,” he said.
“Like to,” said Columbo, “and we will sometime, but right now I gotta go see a movie.”
3
He telephoned Benjamin Willsberger’s office and learned that the director was shooting that afternoon. Good. Columbo had enjoyed watching the shoot on the Culver soundstage and was glad for an opportunity to see more.
Once again, Brad Volney and Katherine Boyd were before t
he cameras. Last evening Columbo had asked his wife about the two stars, and she had given him a run-down on them. Katherine Boyd was best known for her roles as an earthy girl, a little too provocative and not quite modest enough for the innocent she really was. A quip around town was that Brad Volney could never play a cowboy. Anything but the rugged outdoor type, he was the archetypal urban male, never able—maybe never willing—entirely to shed his Brooklyn accent. He was conspicuously suited to the sidewalk, unsuited to the plains and mountains; and another joke about him was that he probably didn’t know one end of a horse from the other.
As before, Willsberger’s gofer handed Columbo a script, open to the scene being shot—
* * *
122 INT. SCHMIDT BEDROOM—NIGHT
Nancy lies on iron bed. She wears shiny satin slip. Kurt sits on bed talking with her. He wears ribbed vest undershirt and dark pants.
KURT
If I don’t… It’s the only chance I got.
The only chance! What’m I supposed to tell the man?
NANCY
What do you want me to say?
KURT
How ’bout sayin’ Go for it!
NANCY
(mournful, resigned)
Go for it.
KURT
I’ll be back in a week.
NANCY
If everything goes okay. If it don’t, you might not come back at all.
KURT
The man knows what he’s doin’! Ya gotta have faith in somethin’, in somebody.
That’s the only way anything is ever gonna turn out right. Y’ gotta believe!
* * *
Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders Page 19