The shoot stopped so the camera could be moved. Columbo sat through two more shots of the same scene, fascinated. “Boy,” he said to Willsberger when they could talk, “I sure wish Mrs. Columbo could see this!”
“Well, bring her around,” said Willsberger. “We’ll be glad to have her watch us shoot.”
“I’ll do that,” said Columbo.
“Okay. I guess you didn’t come just to see us at work. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“I guess you knew Mrs. Khoury pretty well,” said Columbo. “Am I right?”
“Rather well,” said Willsberger. “I could even say better than I wanted to know her.”
“You didn’t kindly overlook her faults, I imagine,” said Columbo. “Am I right?”
“I was not at pains to find fault with Arlene,” said Willsberger, “but she had faults, and I couldn’t help but notice.”
“Then, tell me if you ever suspected she meddled with cocaine or crack.”
Willsberger frowned. “Lieutenant,” he said, “Arlene may have done a lot of things I know nothing about, but it’d surprise me very much if she as much as experimented with cocaine, in any form.”
“What’s the basis of your judgment?” Columbo asked.
Willsberger hesitated, apparently searching for words. “In my business,” he said, “I have to put up with a lot of people who use a variety of chemicals. In that unhappy experience, I have acquired some insight into the symptoms. I wasn’t handcuffed to Arlene Khoury for the past ten years, so I can’t testify as to what she may or may not have ingested, but I can tell you she was free of the usual symptoms of cocaine use.”
“Did you ever know her to use crack?” Columbo asked.
“No, Lieutenant. That’s what I’m saying. I never knew her to use anything like that.”
Columbo nodded. “Okay. One more thing. You know that knife you showed me? The Bali-Song?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if I could borrow that for a day or so. I’ll be careful with it and bring it back.” Willsberger lifted his eyebrows and for a moment hesitated. “Yes, of course,” he said then. “I’ll call my office and tell my secretary to get it out for you. I’m afraid to ask why you want it.”
“Nothin’, probably,” said Columbo. “But I have to check all angles, y’ understand. I have to check all angles.”
4
Columbo arranged to see Puss Dogood in a room where both of them could smoke, and when they sat down to talk he lit a cigar and handed her a pack of Marlboros. She shook out a cigarette and dropped the pack into the big pocket on her gray uniform dress.
“For once, I gotta match,” he said. “When I bought the smokes, I asked the man for a book of matches, and I stuck ’em in my coat pocket and managed not to lose ’em.”
“Thanks, Columbo,” she said. She lit her cigarette and drew deeply on it. She blew out smoke, then said, “You’re an odd cop. What do you want, a confession?”
“To what?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “To the Khoury murders, of course. Incidentally, Kid’s been talking with a public defender. He may ask a judge to let her out of here.”
“What about you?”
Puss shook her head. “I’m a permanent resident.”
“You just might be, if you don’t start tellin’ the truth,” said Columbo.
“Have I lied to you?”
“Somebody has.”
“About what?”
“Boobs is out. Out on bail. I wanta know the answer to somethin’. Do you know her? Or do you not know her?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. You may want to confess to the murder of Mrs. Khoury and the others. You may want to plead guilty. What I’ve gotta think about is, if you do and if you’re not guilty, somebody who is walks. That means there’ll be murderers loose on the streets.”
“Lieutenant Columbo, there are always murderers loose on the streets,” she said.
“Okay. Let me remind you of something else. You told me you’re worried about Kid. Well, if you plead guilty to three murders, what happens to Kid? Or to Bum, for that matter?”
“What do you want from me, Columbo?”
“I’m tryin’ to clear up some little points in this investigation,” he said. “So tell me, did you know Boobs or didn’t you?”
Puss shrugged. “So I knew her.”
“And you got her the job at the Khoury house. Right?”
“I got her the job. So what?”
“How’d you work it?” Columbo asked.
“I just told Joe Khoury that a friend of mine, a girl, needed a job in the worst way. He asked me if she was one of my family.”
“By family he meant—”
“Charlie’s family. I said she wasn’t exactly but that she hung around with us. I told him she had a good education and if she got dressed up could make a good impression in the store.”
“He didn’t even interview her.”
Puss shook her head. “He didn’t interview her. At first he said have her come in so he could talk to her and see what qualifications she had. The next day, I think it was, he called me in his office and told me to have Boobs go up to the house and report to the housekeeper. It wasn’t the kind of job Boobs wanted, but she was into a dealer for some money, and she’d take any job she could get. She’d tried turning tricks and didn’t like that. She’d take any job. Really, she didn’t make enough before they fired her to pay off her dealer, so she had to turn tricks for a couple of weeks.”
“When I asked you about her before, you told me you didn’t even know her,” said Columbo.
“Being a friend of Puss Dogood is not the world’s greatest thing to be right now. You had the Kid and Bum in the slammer. I wasn’t going to help you put anybody else in.”
Columbo stood up. He grinned and shook his head. “Don’t do me any favors,” he said. “You might want to do some for yourself, though. Like, by telling the truth when I ask you something.” Puss crushed her cigarette in an ashtray. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
“One more thing,” said Columbo. “How do you suppose Khoury’s silver got into Boobs’s car?”
She returned his grin. “C’mon! How the hell would I know?” she asked.
5
Toward the end of the day, Columbo drove to the morgue to deliver Willsberger’s Bali-Song to Dr. Harold Culp. They did not meet in the autopsy room, and Columbo was glad to be spared the sight of another cut-open corpse. They met instead in Dr. Culp’s antiseptic little office.
“I brought you something to look at,” said Columbo as he opened the box containing the folding knife.
“Ah. The weapon that killed Mrs. Khoury and the others,” said Dr. Culp.
“Maybe,” said Columbo. “Not this one. But one like it.”
The doctor opened a drawer in his desk and took out a short measuring stick calibrated in metric units. He began to measure the knife. “Sixteen centimeters long. Two and a half centimeters wide. Those were the dimensions of many of the wounds.” He rolled the Bali-Song over and over in his hands, extending the handles, closing them. “Yes. This could have been the knife. Or one just like it.”
“That’s interesting,” said Columbo.
“Something else about it,” said Dr. Culp. “You see the way you can grip it, with both handles extended at right angles to the blade? That gives a powerful thrust. It would also explain the broken rib and the large bruises around some of the stab wounds.” He shook his head. “This thing is deadly.”
Columbo nodded. “I’m gonna see if I can find another one,” he said.
Twenty-Two
1
Dog loved to go for a walk, especially in the morning, especially on the beach. Columbo enjoyed taking him early in the morning, when the beach was all but deserted, when he could release Dog from his leash and the happy Basset hound could scamper after gulls and hermit crabs, could bark, could drop what he needed to drop—which Columb
o could cover with a kick of sand or leave for an incoming tide. Dog would get thoroughly saltwater wet—to which of course sand clung and turned him into a dripping sand sculpture.
Columbo had surprised—astounded would have been a better word—his wife some years back by coming home from the pound with “the mutt with soulful eyes,” as she called him. Amused friends had waited impatiently to hear what name Columbo would give his dog. He disappointed them. He had explained that he wanted to watch the dog for a while and see what habits he had, then to name him something like “Frisky,” or “Snoopy,” or “Scamp.” But later the lieutenant had to explain, “All he does is sleep and drool, and I can’t hardly name him.…”
So the dog became Dog. Aging, he slept more and drooled more, and he remained Dog.
King Canute could not make the incoming tide retreat, and neither could Dog, though he tried, charging at incoming waves, barking and snarling threats he seemed to think the waves might heed, or should, anyway.
Every gull on the Pacific coast knew him—or so Dog must have believed, since there was no gull who would let him cross the last three feet and pounce. They seemed to ignore him until he was that close, then flapped their wings and moved no more than ten feet and let him resume his stalking.
Crabs were not so clever. He could move to within one foot and sniff and growl. They knew he would not approach closer—not since the morning when one of them had fastened a pincher on his lip and hung there throughout a long gallop up and down the beach. Crabs would rise and glare at him, and Dog would frown and ponder, and would invariably decide to break off the confrontation.
Occasionally in the hour just after dawn, Dog would interrupt a pair of young lovers who should have gone home earlier. “It’s a public beach, kids!” he seemed to say with his wide eyes and wagging tail, and he would scamper away exuberantly, as if their interrupted energies had been transferred to him.
Columbo enjoyed walking along the beach at sunrise, but it could be boring after a little while. With Dog to amuse him, he was never bored.
It was a time, too, when he could clear his mind of things that had intruded on his sleep. He would get up, let Dog out for his first morning necessities, make a pot of coffee, and eat a hard-boiled egg from the refrigerator, before setting out in the car for the beach. He couldn’t do it often, only once a week at best, but when he did, he enjoyed it.
He was almost never interrupted and resented it when he was.
“Hey, Columbo!”
He looked up and saw Captain Sczciegel waving at him. He waved back, reluctantly, and the captain trotted across the sand toward him. He watched skeptically as the captain, who was older than he was, trotted a hundred yards over the sand.
“Mrs. Columbo told me where to find you,” said the captain, only a little winded. “When I saw the car, I knew—”
“Some of these days I’m gonna have to get a new car,” said Columbo.
Captain Sczciegel smiled. He understood the sarcasm, a rarity with Columbo. “Something odd has happened,” he said. “I thought you’d wanta know.”
Columbo nodded. “Sure. I wanta know.”
“Guess who got bailed out of the slammer last night?”
Columbo closed his eyes. “Puss Dogood.”
“Also the Kid and Bum. Three thousand bucks. They were being held on a thousand apiece, on the possession charge—”
“Four lids,” said Columbo.
“Well… We’d never charged them with anything more serious.”
“We didn’t have evidence to back anything more serious,” said Columbo.
“Anyway… The three thousand dollars was posted for them last night a little before midnight. By guess who?”
“Yussef Khoury,” said Columbo.
The captain nodded. “Yussef Khoury.”
Dog ran up and clamped his teeth on Columbo’s trouser leg, which he shook gently.
“Wants my attention,” said Columbo, reaching down to scratch Dog’s ears. “It’s his time, y’ understand.” He bent over and spoke. “Listen, pal. I need a bird. A gull. Go get me one, okay?”
Dog looked up with sorrowful eyes, as if he couldn’t believe his master would assign him so impossible, so frustrating a task. But he seemed to resign himself to it, looked around for gulls, spotted a few working over something in the edge of the surf, and galloped off to give the assignment a valiant effort.
“Not all,” said Sczciegel. “There’s more. The night shift didn’t understand the significance of the release of these people. By the time anybody put two and two together, Puss and her buddies had absquatulated. Gone without a trace. Those people have a way, you know.”
“Like from Spahn Ranch to Barker Ranch,” said Columbo. “Check Death Valley. Also, there was a fourth Manson type, who was never arrested. Buddy Drake. He has a car.”
“But why would Yussef Khoury put up the money?” Sczciegel asked.
“I can think of reasons,” said Columbo. “I guess we’ll have to ask.”
Columbo walked toward where Dog was busily stalking gulls. The captain followed him.
“I’ve already had a call from the mayor,” said Sczciegel. “And that’s just the start. Why did we let these people go? What am I gonna say?”
“What did you say to the mayor?”
“I said we were almost ready to close the case.”
Columbo nodded. “Right. Good enough. We’re almost ready to close the case.”
Sczciegel’s chin jerked up. “You mean it? You know who killed Arlene Khoury, Steve Heck, and Sergio Flores?”
“I’m ninety percent sure,” said Columbo. “Ninety-five.”
“And it’s not Puss Dogood?”
“No, sir. It’s not Puss Dogood.”
“You never did think it was.”
“Not after five minutes looking at the case,” said Columbo.
Dog gave up on the gulls and ran back toward his master and the stranger who had interrupted his time. He’d caught no gull, but he had charged into an incoming breaker, which had rolled him over and over, and he was soaking wet. Tail wagging, he ran up to Columbo and the captain and happily shook.
2
Columbo took Dog home, then drove to headquarters and signed in.
He greeted Elliott Carter, a black detective sergeant in the burglary division. “Hi-ya, Carter.”
“I checked that file for you, Lieutenant,” said Carter. “Actually, I’ve even got my notebook here. And look what it says.”
Carter handed Columbo a spiral-bound steno pad. He had investigated the complaint, called in by Mrs. Takeshi, of the theft of silver at the Khoury house.
“See what I wrote down?” Carter asked. Columbo nodded over the final entry.
* * *
Closed. Mr. Yussef Khoury declines to press charges. Highly doubtful silver was stolen from house. More likely planted by somebody.
* * *
“I asked if the girl’s fingerprints were on the silver,” said Columbo.
"Nada fingerprints,” said Carter. “Wiped clean and handled without putting any more on.”
“Well, thank ya. Carter. That’s very helpful.”
“You ever meet the young lady we arrested that afternoon?” asked Carter.
“I had a meeting with her and her family Monday night,” said Columbo.
“Man! She deserves her nickname, doesn’t she?”
“Twice over,” said Columbo.
3
Columbo placed a call to Antonio Vado, the producer. Vado came on the line, greeting him enthusiastically.
“Hey! Lieutenant Columbo! Glad to hear from you.”
“I’d like to stop by, sir,” said Columbo. “I’ve got just one little question I’d like to ask you. Nothing very important. Just one of those little points I gotta clear up.”
“Lieutenant, I am up to my you-know-what in alligators all morning. But, look—I’m having lunch at the Topanga Beach Club. Kind of an occasion. Something to celebrate. Love to have you join me
.”
“All I need to ask is—”
“You can ask it, pal! Over lunch. Hey, it’s gonna be a fun occasion! C’mon. Unwind! We’ll slip off to the side, so you can ask me in private, if you need to. About one?”
“Okay, Mr. Vado. About one.”
It would give him time to stop by the main Los Angeles post office and talk with a postal inspector.
A little before one, he drove up to the valetparking station at the Topanga Beach Club.
“Whatta ya want me to do with the car, sir?” the attendant asked him.
“Park it. Park it. And drive it very carefully. It’s a French car, and it’s got a lotta miles on it, which is the result of my treatin’ it right. I mean… you don’t see very many cars like this anymore.”
“Yeah,” said the attendant. “I don’t remember ever seeing a car like this before.”
The Topanga Beach Club was a country club without golf, having instead an Olympic-size pool with diving bay, tennis courts, squash courts, and a bowling green—all overlooking but separated by a wall from the public beach. Columbo had eaten unch there before, notably with the Texan Charles Bell, one of the conspirators in the murder of television news personality Paul Drury. He remembered that the lunch tables had a view of the ocean.
He remembered too that he would draw stares if he did not check his raincoat, so he left it with a check girl who was surprised to see it on a hot, sunny August day.
The maitre d’ remembered Columbo. People tended not to forget even chance encounters with a homicide detective, particularly one who had sent a prominent member of the club to prison. “Mr. Vado’s table?” he asked.
Columbo nodded, and the maitre d’ led him to a table set for six people, near the glass, with a pectacular view of the blue Pacific. Kimberly Dana sat there, sipping from a Bombay gin martini. “Lieutenant Columbo! This is a surprise, though suppose it shouldn’t be; no one ever knows where you’ll show up next.”
She was wearing a skin-tight navy-blue unitard—a term new to Columbo—and a loose navy-blue tunic with a neck designed to slip off either shoulder and show the strap of the unitard. The unitard clung to her legs and hips, shaping itself to them, while the thigh-length tunic hung loosely and casually.
Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders Page 20