I returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, waiting for Dan and whomever he’d brought with him to come in. Someone knocked on the front door several times before I could get there and open it. Dan stepped inside, followed by two uniforms, a photographer and Jack Walsh, the county medical examiner. All eyes shifted immediately to the woman hanging by her neck from the living room beam. Dan motioned to the photographer, who began taking several shots of the victim from a few different angles. When he had what he needed, he nodded to Dan who motioned to the two officers. They set the step stool upright again and one of them stepped up on it while the other grabbed the woman around her thighs. The officer on the stool cut the rope above the woman’s head and the body sank down with the officer holding on to it. The two officers laid the body out on the living room floor and stepped back to give Jack Walsh some room to examine Vivian Dunbar.
Jack removed the rope from around the woman’s neck and laid it aside, feeling the vertebrae in her neck. He felt around to the front, probing with his fingers. When he’d finished, he looked up at Dan.
“I’ll know more once I get her on the table and get a look inside,” Jack said.
“Go ahead,” Dan said. “We have what we need for now.”
Jack stepped out onto the front porch and waved his two assistants in. They walked up the sidewalk, pulling their gurney with them. They carried it up the steps and into the living room, setting it next to the body. When they had the body back out to the wagon Jack turned to Dan and said, “Give me an hour or so and I’ll be able to tell you a lot more about this.”
“I’ll meet you back there later,” Dan said, closing the door behind Jack.
Dan turned to me. “You wanna tell me what you were doing here, Matt?”
I explained about my findings after I’d walked the route between the murder scene and Virgil Dunbar’s house. “Doesn’t seem likely that Dunbar could have murdered Miller, walked back home and still had time to dispose of bloody clothes, which he most certainly would have had on if he’d been the killer.”
“That information didn’t show up anywhere in my reports,” Dan said.
“It might have,” I said, “if anyone had taken the time to look into it. But it seems they saw the body and the way his head had been hacked up, put two and two together and decided that Dunbar was guilty. Once they decided that, they stopped looking for any other suspects.”
“Well, I’ll make sure this additional information gets into the report,” Dan said.
I looked around the room and then at Dan. “What do you make of this?” I said. “Vivian comes to me to clear her brother and ends up swinging at the end of a rope.”
“Either she felt guilty about something and did it herself,” Dan said. “Or someone else did her in to shut her up. Maybe she was getting too close to the truth. Hard to tell at this point.”
“Have you looked into Mike Miller’s background yet?” I said.
“Looking for what?” Dan asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe some connection to Virgil or Vivian Dunbar.”
“Connection?” Dan said. “What kind of connection?”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of the photo in my pocket. Dan would have to make the connection on his own. I couldn’t very well hand over the photo now. Especially since both people in the photo are dead.
“I’ll have a look into the connection angle,” Dan said. “Most murders happen between people who know each other. It’s very unusual for anyone to kill a total stranger.”
“Listen Dan,” I said. “If we’re done here I have to get going. I’m meeting Amy tonight.”
“Still going strong?” Dan asked. “Can I expect an invitation in the mail one of these days?”
“Let’s not rush things,” I said. “Amy’s a great gal, but we still have to get to know each other a lot better before we entertain those kinds of thoughts.”
“You’ve been married before, Matt,” Dan said. “You’ll know if and when it’s right. Go on, go see your girl. Have a good time. Try to forget about all this for tonight and show her a good time.”
“Thanks Dan,” I said, heading for the door. I turned back at the last second. “Let me know if you find any connections between Miller and the Dunbars.”
“Sure thing,” Dan said.
I drove back to Hollywood but instead of going home or to my office I turned in the opposite direction and drove to the library. Amy was behind the front desk stamping books that had been returned earlier that day. Without looking up she said, “I’ll be with you in just a second,” and stamped three more books before looking up. When she saw me she smiled widely and a little more of me melted away.
She reached across the counter and laid her hand on top of mine. “Hello, Matt,” she said. “What a nice surprise. What’s the occasion?”
“Does there have to be a special occasion before I can stop by to see my girl?” I said.
“You have a girl here?” Amy said, looking around the room.
“You,” I said. “You’re my girl, aren’t you?”
“Do you want me to be?” Amy said.
She didn’t have to answer. Her smile and her eyes told me what I wanted to know.
“What time are you done here?” I said.
Amy glanced up at the wall clock. “Another fifteen minutes yet,” she said. “Can you stick around for a while?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be over in the movie section boning up on my trivia. Can’t have my standing in the trivia community compromised.”
“It’ll take more than a fifteen minute stroll through the movie books to beat me,” Amy said. “You might even have to attend a few more movies.”
“I would,” I said, “if I could find someone to go with me. Know anyone like that?”
Amy pressed her index finger to her temple and pretended to think, looking a little like Ray Bolger in the Wizard of Oz when the Wizard awards him his diploma. “I think I know someone who’d be thrilled to go with you.”
I looked sideways at Amy without moving my head. “If you’ll just point her out for me,” I said.
Amy slapped my arm playfully. “It’s me, you big lug.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re gonna force yourself on me, I guess I can take you.” I smiled back at her and then walked over to the books about movies and movie stars. I’d taken a book off the shelf, carried it over to one of the tables and had lost track of the time while leafing through it when Amy came up from behind and grabbed me behind the neck and started massaging my shoulders.
“Mmmm,” I said. “I’ll give you half an hour to cut that out. And you better not let Amy see you doing that?”
Amy stopped massaging and slapped my shoulder. I turned around and looked up at her. There was that nervous schoolboy feeling again. I never wanted it to go away.
“You ready to go?” Amy said as I slipped the book back onto the shelf.
“Whenever you are,” I said. “Where to first?”
“I have to go home and change clothes and freshen up a little before I can go anywhere,” Amy said.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“Kind of handy, me living walking distance from my job,” Amy said.
“That it is,” I said, walking her out to my car.
I drove Amy home and waited at the kitchen table as she changed her clothes and powered her nose and did whatever it is women do when they say they have to freshen up. As I sat at the table, I pulled the photo of Vivian Dunbar and Mike Miller out of my pocket and examined it, looking for anything that could shed a little light on this whole mess I’d become involved with. As I sat the staring at the photo, Amy soft footed up behind me and looked over my shoulder at the photo.
“Who’s that?” she said.
I slipped the photo back into my pocket. “No one,” I said. “Just a picture.”
“Can I see it?” Amy said, sitting next to me.
I didn’t see any reason not to sha
re my find with her and pulled the photo back out of my pocket, passing it over to her. She looked at the couple in the picture and then over at me.
“Somebody you know?” she said.
“Someone I did know, briefly,” I said, pointing out Vivian in the snapshot.
“How did you know her?” Amy said.
Then it dawned on me. I hadn’t seen Amy since last night and hadn’t had a chance to tell her I had a client. Or at least I did have a client until I found her hanging in her living room.
“The woman in the photo,” I said, “is Vivian Dunbar. The guy next to her is Mike Miller.”
Amy looked at me strangely. “And how do you know them?” she said.
“I never met him,” I explained, “but she hired me this morning. I didn’t get a chance to tell you. I haven’t seen you since last night. Anyway, Vivian came to see me this morning in my office and wanted to know if I’d look into her brother’s case. He was arrested a while ago for the murder of that guy that they found on Mulholland Drive.”
“Oooh, I read about that one,” Amy said. “Pretty grisly, from what I remember. Some guy got his head split open with a hatchet, wasn’t it?”
I pointed to Mike Miller in the photo. “He was the victim,” I said.
Amy thought for a moment and then her eyebrows shot upwards. She pointed to Vivian in the photo. “And her brother killed him?”
“That’s what the police are saying,” I said, taking the photo from Amy and slipping it back into my pocket. “Vivian hired me to see if her brother, Virgil, really did it or if he was innocent.”
“Boy,” Amy said. “What are the odds?”
“Of what?” I said.
“Of her and her brother’s victim ending up in the same photo.”
“It gets stranger,” I told her. “I went to see Vivian a couple hours ago and I found her at home just hanging around.”
“So?” Amy said.
“I mean really hanging around,” I said, and explained Vivian’s condition the last time I’d seen her.
Amy pressed her hand over her mouth and gave me a wide-eyes stare. “My god,” she said, pulling her hand away from her mouth, “what happened?”
“You sure you want to know?” I said. “The details aren’t pretty.”
“I can take it,” Amy said.
I told her about Virgil’s original murder twelve years ago and his stint in the asylum and about this latest murder in the same fashion Virgil had employed all those years ago. I explained about Vivian coming to see me and how I’d walked the route between the murder scene and Virgil’s house.
“Then he couldn’t have done it,” Amy said. “He didn’t have time to get home and get cleaned up before the police picked him up.”
“That’s what I told Lieutenant Hollister earlier,” I said.
Amy thought about all I’d told her and a puzzled look played over her face. “Well,” she said, “then where did you get that photo of Vivian and the victim?”
“Amy,” I said, “If you’ve seen enough private eye movies, you know that the P.I. and the cops don’t always see eye to eye on everything.”
“Yeah?” Amy said.
“Well,” I explained, “I found that photo in Vivian’s house, hidden inside her toilet tank in a plastic bag. It would have been a lot easier to throw it away or burn it, but apparently it meant enough to her to keep it, but keep it hidden. Why do you suppose she’d do that?”
“You asking for a woman’s point of view on this one?” Amy said.
“I guess I am,” I said. “How do you see it?”
Amy mulled it over for a moment and then offered, “I’d say she and the victim knew each other very well, according to the pose in that photograph. It looked like they were more than just friends and she wanted a keepsake of that friendship.” Amy paused.
I nodded my head, “No, keep going, you’re doing fine. What else do you think?”
“Seeing that photo,” Amy said, “makes me wonder if she might be hiding anything else.”
“You might have something there,” I said. “You know, you might make a good private eye yourself.”
Amy hooked her two thumbs into her lapel, looking a little like Abe Lincoln giving a speech. “Why thank you, Mr. Cooper.”
“No, I mean it,” I said. “In fact, because of something you just said, I think I need to take another look at Vivian’s house.”
“All right,” Amy said. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s?” I said. “This is my job we’re talking about here. It’s probably not a good idea for you to get involved in murder like this.”
“Hey,” Amy reminded me. “You came to my job to see what I do. I should at least get to come with you and see what it is you do. It’d probably be our most memorable date.”
“You might be helpful at that,” I said. “You could think like a woman better than I could. All right, come on.”
I drove Amy over to Vivian Dunbar’s house. Dan and his officers had long since left and the house was easy enough to get into, locks or no locks. Once inside I pointed to the spot where I’d found Vivian hanging from the beam in the living room. I showed her the bathroom and lifted the toilet tank cover. She looked down into the tank and saw the twisted coat hanger.
“And this is where she was hiding the photo?” Amy said, pointing to the toilet tank.
“Yeah,” I said. “I thought that was a little strange. I mean, think about it. If she wanted to keep the picture, why hide it in the toilet tank?”
Amy didn’t even hesitate. “Because she suspected that someone might find it or look for it and there was something about it she didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“That’s kinda what I thought,” I said. “But if she hid it, that meant that she was pretty sure someone would come here looking for...what?”
“Clues?” Amy said.
“Clues to what?” I said. “Unless...”
“Unless she was involved somehow,” Amy offered. “And what would cause her to get involved?”
“Go ahead, Sherlock,” I said. “You doing fine. What would cause her to get involved?”
“First thing that comes to my mind is a cheating partner,” Amy said. “Nothing gets a woman’s blood boiling faster than some two-timing rat.”
“Boy,” I said. “You have seen way too many noir mysteries, haven’t you? You’ve even picked up the vernacular.”
“Well, it’s true,” Amy said. “An otherwise timid woman could be driven to desperate acts given the right set of circumstances.”
I looked at Amy. “Wouldn’t it be something if Vivian killed Miller?”
Amy didn’t laugh. Instead she looked serious.
“Hey,” I said. “I was just joking.”
“Not so fast,” Amy said. “Let’s run with that supposition for a moment. From what you’ve told me so far, let’s see if we can’t piece this together into something that makes sense. If Vivian killed Miller and if she knew how to pin it on someone else and if she was trying to cover her tracks...”
“Yes,” I said. “Continue.”
“That’s it,” Amy said. “I was just iffin’ to see where it might lead.”
“And where’s that?” I said.
“Okay,” Amy said, “let’s go back a bit. If she killed Miller, why’d she do it? That’s our first question. If she did, her motive could be, and this is just an educated guess, her motive could be jealousy. What if ol’ Mike Miller and she were involved and he was stepping out on her? Let’s just suppose for a minute that she killed him with the hatchet. Granted, it wouldn’t be my first choice or weapons, but she had a plan.
“And her plan would revolve around her brother getting released from the asylum,” I said. “And it would also involve his particular mode of killing.”
“Which Vivian would have know about,” Amy said, jumping in. “And she would have know the location of Virgil’s murder. She’d have to lure Miller there with a promise of something or other and then, WHACK, one
in the head.”
“And she would have been splattered with blood,” I said. “And since she had a car, it would have been no problem for her to make it home unseen in plenty of time to change her clothes and wash up.”
“And here we are in the house she would have come to,” Amy said. “And if she hadn’t already disposed of those bloody clothes...”
“Then they would still have to be here somewhere,” I said. “Suppose we have ourselves a look around the house?”
“See,” Amy said. “Gumshoeing is exciting.”
“Amy?” I said.
“Yes, Matt?” Amy said.
“Would you do me a huge favor?”
“What’s that, dear?”
“Could you not refer to my job as gumshoeing, please?”
“No problem,” Amy said. “Would you perhaps prefer sleuthing or peeping or maybe tailgating or...”
“How about just investigating?” I said.
“I can live with that,” Amy said.
“I’ll start in here,” I said, gesturing to the living room. “You wanna take the bedroom?”
“I’m on it,” Amy said, walking down the hall to the bedroom.
A few minutes later we met in the kitchen, where we both went through the cupboards and the pantry with no better luck. That left the dining room and the bathroom. We both tackled the dining room, going through all the drawers again and looking under table tops and drawer bottoms with more of the same lack of results.
“That just leaves the bathroom,” I said, gesturing with a open palm in that direction. “Shall we?”
On the way to the bathroom, something made me look up at the ceiling. There was a trap door overhead in the hallway that made me stop, look around and grab one of the dining room chairs to stand on. I stepped up onto the chair, lifted the trapdoor and peered into the void. There was nothing but beams and joists and rafters and a lot of dust. I sneezed, closed the trap door and stepped back down off the chair.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 93