Severed Key

by Nielsen, Helen

  By the time Wanda concluded the call it was after five. Simon tried to go back to sleep but it was useless. If the LA police were checking as far as Las Vegas so early in the game, they must be serious about that murder charge. It didn’t make sense. Keith was working on a case—trying to find out who had written that letter from Stockholm and why. He was too good an operator to let his personal life spill over into his work. Simon thought back to everything that had passed between them on the previous night. There was nothing in Keith’s manner to indicate he had any hang-ups that could lead to murder, and there was plenty of time, once they had returned to his apartment, to talk about the situation if there had been one. And who was this dead woman? Someone he had dated before, according to Kelly. Presumably he had met her again at Kelly’s party. If so, where did he hide her yesterday morning when Simon was alone in the apartment? And why hadn’t he mentioned her when he put in that phone call to the Century Plaza. At this point in the mental recapitulation Simon pulled up short. Keith had said something on the telephone—quite excited and cocky. He had referred back to that Saturday at the airport when he added the afterthought: “I don’t, repeat, don’t make mistakes about screws.” He had learned something, then, about the two men Simon met at O’Hara’s table in San Diego—Franklin and Pridoux. What’s more, he had learned something that directed his attention back to the man he had insisted they were watching—Angie Cerva.

  Angie Cerva had only one good arm and was a financier now, instead of a killer, but he wouldn’t hesitate to have a woman strangled and planted in the bed of anyone who might get in his way.

  By the time Simon’s mind had travelled so far, the windows were reflecting the first traces of daylight. He switched off the alarm setting and headed for the shower. Hannah and Chester were still asleep in their respective rooms when he left the house. A soft fog hung over the marina as he drove the XKE down the winding road from the heights and headed for the freeway, and it wasn’t until he was several miles inland that the early sunlight came to view. Reaching the city, he drove directly to the coroner’s office to get a report on the dead woman. The preliminary medical examination—reduced to layman’s terms—stated that the girl had died of strangulation caused by the belt of a man’s dressing-gown. Her body bore a few minor bruises, no cuts. Blood alcohol content: 0.2 …

  Simon stopped reading the report and turned to the coroner’s assistant. He was an intense young man who wore wide, mod-type eyeglasses and the blond shadows of embryo sideburns. “0.2,” Simon said. “In other words, she was drunk.”

  “Second stage,” the assistant responded.

  “Here in the lab we call 0.1 the first stage, or dizzy and delightful. Stage two, or 0.2 content, is drunk and disorderly.”

  “Any more stages?”

  “Right. 0.3 is dead drunk—unconscious. Beyond that you’re in trouble, man—or out of it if you don’t like living.”

  “Tracy Davis, then, was beyond the delightful stage.”

  The assistant shrugged. “That depends on how you like your women. The vaginal swab, you’ll notice, was negative.”

  “Negative? But she was found in a man’s bed.”

  “Right. Wearing a chiffon mini-nightgown. It happens that way sometimes. A man has a problem and thinks it’s the woman’s fault. He loses control and we get another body for the morgue.”

  “You don’t know Jack Keith!” Simon scoffed.

  The young man nodded. “True. But did you know him—that well?”

  “When did she die?”

  “Can’t tell you that for certain. Rigor mortis generally occurs two to six hours after death. The body was discovered a few minutes before four p.m. yesterday and the fingers were stiff when I first saw the body about twenty-five minutes later.”

  “Two to six hours,” Simon mused. “Leaning which way?”

  “Well, it was a warm afternoon—she’s young and slender. Leaning towards the six, I’d say. Maybe five hours.”

  “Thanks,” Simon said. “Now, I’d like to see the report on another body that was brought in here night before last. A man named Arne Lundberg.”

  The attendant didn’t seem surprised. “Are you Keith’s lawyer?” he asked.

  “What do you know about Keith?”

  “Only that he was in here yesterday morning asking the same question. I’ll tell you what I told him—just to show you that my heart’s in the right place. Lundberg died of drowning.”

  “No doubt of that?”

  “No doubt. The Gettler test was positive.”

  “And the body alcohol?”

  “Not as high as the girl’s.”

  “I thought the tenants in the complex said he’d been drinking all day.”

  “I don’t know about that. You’ll have to check with the detective division. But he could have been drinking all day—slowly. Maybe that’s why he drowned himself. Depression. Alcohol is a depressant, you know.”

  “What about the blood smear on the ring and on his chair?”

  “His own. There was a small cut inside his mouth—the left side. He might have fallen against something. That probably accounts for the girl’s bruises—unsteady on her feet. She has a couple of broken fingernails, too, and under one nail we found a hair.” “Male or female?”

  “Female. An eyelash—dark brown. She might have rubbed her eye.”

  “Or fallen against something,” Simon said dryly. “Thanks a lot. You’ve been very co-operative.”

  The lab attendant grinned. “Lieutenant Howard from Hollywood rang this morning and said that you would be coming in and we were to show you every courtesy. Anytime, counsellor.”

  Like the blind men who had gone to see the elephant, and each received a different impression, Jack Keith’s conclusion about the cut inside Lundberg’s mouth differed from the police interpretation. Keith was too smart to leap to conclusions without cause. He must, then, have information the police didn’t have. Whatever that information was, he must have come into possession of it in the morning hours of the previous day between the time he had scribbled a note and left it on the bar for Simon and the time of his phone call to the Century Plaza—a matter of two or three hours at the most. Lacking access to Keith himself, Simon decided to attempt a reconstruction of the detective’s actions during that period. The search began back at his penthouse apartment.

  The search almost ended at the same place. Stepping out of the automatic elevator opposite Keith’s apartment door, he was confronted by a uniformed policeman who refused him permission to enter without a police pass. The bluff that had worked in the crowded corridor outside Lundberg’s apartment wouldn’t work in this situation. Simon returned to the elevator with the intention of going down to the lobby and ringing Lieutenant Howard—his co-operative spirit might extend beyond the medical examiner’s office—but his hand reached out to the control button and punched the designation for two floors below Keith’s. It would be early for Kelly Kendall to be awake, but a change of pace would be good for her.

  He rang the bell four times before Kelly, hair tousled and eyes blinking, opened the door. She was still buttoning the front of a fluffy pink robe, and her view of Simon was somewhat blurred by one false eyelash that had come loose at the corner and slanted down to her cheekbone. She stared at him for a moment and cried:

  “Oh, it’s you! I wondered where you went. Have you been standing out there all night, poor dear? Come in. Come in.”

  The apartment was shockingly quiet in comparison to the way Simon remembered it at the party. Disorderly but quiet. The coffee tables were heavy-laden with soiled glasses and filled ashtrays, and someone had left a pair of men’s field boots on one lamp table. Approaching the divan, while Kelly closed the door behind him, Simon saw what went with the field boots. A pair of feet—male and sockless—extended over the end of the divan. The owner of the feet was completely concealed beneath the folds of a huge saffron quilt from which came the measured sounds of snoring.

  Kelly came to
the end of the divan and smiled gently.

  “He was left over,” she explained. “Nobody went home with him last night and I don’t know where he belongs. Do those boots look familiar to you?”

  “You’re a party ahead of me,” Simon said. “I was here the night before last.”

  “Oh, you must be tired! Can I get you something—drink? Seltzer?”

  “Hot coffee?” Simon suggested.

  “The exact thing! Come on, dear, I think there’s a kitchen over here somewhere.”

  Simon knew the way to the kitchen, having passed through it on his way to the rear door the night before. Kelly was sufficiently adept at the culinary arts to boil water and measure the proper amount of instant coffee into two cups.

  “Black?” she queried.

  “Black,” Simon said.

  “Yes, that’s the usual.” Kelly took the steaming cup in both hands and sipped the contents slowly while Simon took giant swallows. When he was certain she was thoroughly awake, he said: “Have you heard from Jack Keith?”

  She lowered her cup and scowled. “Now you sound like that gloomy policeman who was here last night. He came in with Marge and Lennie Rattigan—I thought he was a guest. Do you know Marge and Lennie?”

  “No, but I think I know the policeman.”

  “What a shame! They do such lovely collages. Anyway, the policeman started asking about Jack Keith. It got to be a drag. He wouldn’t even take a drink.”

  “Did he tell you why he wanted Keith?”

  “Yes, I think so. Wasn’t it that—yes, somebody died in his apartment.”

  “Somebody was murdered,” Simon corrected.

  “Murdered.” Kelly lingered over the word and then pushed her coffee cup across the bar. Without a word, she turned and walked into the living room. Simon watched her go to the divan and lift one end of the quilt. She dropped it again immediately and returned to the kitchen, smiling. “I just remembered that Jack wore some boots like those to Squaw Valley once, and he snores the same way. But it’s not Jack.”

  “Kelly,” Simon said, “you’re a lovely, delicious creature and I hope your party never ends, but we have to be serious now. Jack Keith is in trouble. The police think he killed that girl. Her name is—was Tracy Davis. Do you know her?”

  “Tracy! Oh, that’s awful! She was at my party the night you were here. She lives just downstairs.”

  “Downstairs where?”

  “Here. Three floors down. I think she dated Jack a few times.”

  “Was she with him at the party?”

  “They danced together, I think. Oh, yes. I remember now. She was wearing a new dress—or was it a trouser suit?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Simon said brusquely.

  “But it does! Somebody spilled booze on the top and she asked Jack to take her down to her apartment so she could change.”

  “Was she drunk?”

  “No. The man who spilled booze on her was drunk. I had to ask him to leave. I think he was a lawyer, or something. Oh, dear, now you’re offended.”

  “I’m not offended,” Simon insisted. “Did Tracy and Jack come back to the party?”

  “I don’t think so. No, I’m sure they didn’t. I remember Jack saying something about having to go downtown in the morning. He works a lot, you know.”

  “What colour was the dress—or trouser suit?” Simon asked.

  “White—that’s why it looked so terrible with something spilled on it. Is that important?”

  “It might be. I wonder if it’s in her apartment.”

  “Why don’t you look and see?”

  “Police. They have Jack’s apartment locked up tight. Probably the same with the girl’s.”

  “But I have a key for Tracy’s place. She left one with me because she was always losing keys and that way I could let her in. It seemed like a good idea, so I left one of my keys in her apartment. We both hated to bother the manager late at night.”

  “Where is the key?”

  “In a desk in my bedroom. I’ll get it. No, wait. I’ll put on some slacks and go with you. That way, if there’s a policeman, I can talk to him while you go in the back way. Besides, I can recognize the trouser suit—or dress.”

  When Kelly returned from the bedroom she had straightened her eyelash, brushed her hair, and changed into a lime-green knitted slack-suit and sandals. Beckoning to Simon with the key, she opened the door and stepped out into the hall. Simon followed leaving the left-over guest still snoring on the divan. They took the automatic elevator down three floors and proceeded to find Tracy Davis’s apartment. The door was locked but there was no police officer in sight. Kelly unlocked the door and ushered Simon inside. The drapes were drawn but it was now mid-morning and there was sufficient light to see that Tracy Davis hadn’t lived in anything like Kelly’s style. There was no bedroom: the large studio room was bisected with a moving partition that was only partially drawn. At the far end of the room was a bar-type kitchen and a door, open, leading into a bathroom-dressing room area. While Kelly turned on the lights, Simon examined the bed. It was queen-size and appeared not to have been slept in since it was last made. Carelessly made, at that. Straightening the spread over one exposed pillow, Simon asked: “Does this place have maid service?”

  “If you can pay the extra,” Kelly responded. “Tracy didn’t have a maid. She said it was silly in so small an apartment.”

  The apartment, Simon conceded silently, could have been placed inside Kelly’s living room with a few square feet to spare.

  “Actually,” Kelly added, “Tracy couldn’t really afford to live in this building, but it’s a good address for making contacts.”

  “Contacts for what?” Simon asked.

  “Contacts for whatever Kelly was doing. Publicity, mostly. Oh, dear! Only one closet! Well, all the better to find a soiled garment in.”

  Kelly opened the closet doors and started her search. Simon proceeded to the kitchen where he discovered a clean breakfast setting in the dishwasher and a soiled highball glass on the counter. He sniffed the glass. Bourbon. He opened a cupboard and found a half-filled bottle of Jim Beam with a stained label that looked as if someone had poured carelessly. He lifted the bottle and found a whisky ring on the shelving.

  “It isn’t here!” Kelly called from the closet. “The white thing—whatever-it-was—isn’t here.”

  “It’s probably in Keith’s apartment,” Simon said.

  “The new blue golf dress isn’t here, either.”

  “What new blue golf dress?”

  “The one Tracy wore when we went golfing last week. She got some grease on it from the door of my car.”

  Simon moved on to the bathroom and turned on the light. A fluffy blue robe hung on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. At the cosmetic table he found an open powder box, a few soiled tissues and an open box containing one false eyelash—dark brown. He found the mate on the bathroom floor stuck in the spillage from a broken jar of cold cream. A gold monogrammed bath towel was folded neatly over a rod near the bath, but the towel rod attached to the lavatory held only a wash cloth. He opened the clothes hamper and took out a matching hand-towel as Kelly came to the bathroom door.

  “Nowhere,” she reported. “The white thing is missing from the closet, and so is the blue golf dress and the yellow skirt Tracy wore the day we went to see my cousin’s new baby. What are you doing?”

  Simon was sniffing the hand towel. He held it under her nose and watched her grimace.

  “That’s awful!” she said. “It smells like my coffee table every morning.”

  “Essence of dried bourbon,” Simon nodded. “He folded the towel and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “Now,” he continued, “what happened to Tracy’s yellow skirt when you went to see your cousin’s baby.”

  “Well, Tracy held the baby—”

  “I get the picture. Maybe you can answer another question. Where did Tracy have her cleaning done?”

  “At Peter’s—it’s just next d
oor to the complex.”

  Simon went to the telephone and dialled enquiries. He got the number of Peter’s Cleaner and made a second call. He asked if Miss Tracy Davis had come into the shop at any time the previous day, and then scowled over the answer. When the conversation was over he put down the telephone.

  “Well?” Kelly demanded.

  “No luck,” Simon said. “I was hoping to find someone who had seen her alive in her apartment yesterday morning, but Peter says she had an arrangement. Her hours were irregular and so whenever she wanted something cleaned she left it in the janitor’s closet next to her apartment. The janitor brought down the three garments yesterday morning.”

  “Then we haven’t accomplished anything, have we?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. We know that Tracy came back to this apartment and changed her soiled dress, and, unless the police have found another dress in Jack’s place, and I would have been gloatingly informed if they had, she traversed three floors up to his penthouse wearing nothing but an abbreviated nightgown.”

  “Oh, wow!” Kelly breathed.

  “You took the ‘wow’ right out of my mouth,” Simon said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WASN’T A homey, morning coffee-klatch-after-the-kids-have-gone-off-to-school type of building. It was a sophisticated, swinger and hard-nosed businessman environment, and it was possible that the trek Simon had described could be carried off without raising the eyebrows of any resident or maintenance personnel who might have seen this mid-morning excursion. But the lab report had stated that Tracy Davis was in an advanced state of intoxication at the time of her death. That would have made her more noticeable. Lieutenant Howard was too much the professional investigator not to have checked out any possible eye-witnesses. Apparently having found none, he was satisfied to fix Tracy as an all-night visitor in Keith’s apartment. What Howard didn’t know was that Simon Drake had occupied the bed in Keith’s den and found no evidence of the soon-to-die Tracy on the premises in the morning. True, he hadn’t looked in Keith’s bathroom before leaving the apartment. But there had been only one breakfast coffee cup addition to the sink collection, and Jack’s note made no mention of another guest. Not being coy, he would at least have penned a warning against excess noise if Tracy had been on the premises.