by Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley
Elvis halted on the stairs, gasping for breath. God forgive me! He hadn’t actually thought about it that way before: Jilly-Jo Cathcart was a widow because of him! Her husband had been about to give him incriminating evidence, so they shut him up for good. And now Squirm too—he’d be sitting in prison, but at least he’d still be alive if Elvis hadn’t butted in. God help me, I’ve done terrible harm!
Elvis limped slowly down the rest of the stairs, pushed open the door to the street, and drew in a lung full of fresh air. A Latin beat pulsed out of the open door of the record shop. Elvis leaned on his crutches, listening. It was one of those heroic-sounding Spanish numbers with a wailing solo trumpet. The horn sounded sorrowful and brave at the same time, like a bull fighter who’s down and bleeding bad, but won’t give up—not yet. Not ever.
If Elvis just walked away from this whole rotten business, Holly McDougal’s murderer could rest easy for the rest of his life. Same for whoever turned Jilly-Jo Cathcart into a teenage widow. Now what kind of man turned his back on that?
Elvis spun around. He left his crutches leaning against the outside wall, hobbled back up the stairs, and stumbled into Regis’s office.
“It ain’t over, Regis!” he bellowed. “None of it!”
Regis looked up at him from his desk, a sneer plastered on his plastered face. He was drinking straight from the bottle now. Elvis lunged across the desk and smacked the bottle out of his hand. It bounced off the wall and shattered on the floor. Regis cringed, his hands flying up in front of his face like a terrified child.
“You’re a quitter, man!” Elvis snarled. Regis didn’t move. “Yesterday you said your life had turned around, and today it’s like nothing happened. So you got ghosts! We all got ghosts, Regis! You got LeRoy, I got Jesse Garon and then some. But you’ve turned yours into a stinking alibi! An alibi for being a loser and giving up on your God-given chance to love a good woman with one pure heart!”
“Leave me alone, Elvis.”
“Hell I will!” Elvis snapped back. “We started this thing together and we’re going to finish it together. Now put your head under the spigot and let’s get to work.”
“What work? Squirm is—”
“He ain’t dead yet. At least far as I know. Wash your ugly face, Regis. Sober up, man!”
Elvis picked up the phone, dialed the operator, and told her to get him the number for the Los Angeles Times. Seconds later, he was put through to Mike Murphy at the city desk.
“Mr. Murphy, this is Elvis Presley.”
“Sure, buddy. And I’m Frank Sinatra.” A pause and Elvis heard Murphy’s muffled voice call out to his office mates, “Got another ‘Missing Elvis!’ Number three this morning!”
“Listen, Mr. Murphy, I made your acquaintance the other day at a press conference over at MGM. You’re the one asked me to comment on something Hal Wallis told you. Something not too flattering, as I recall.”
“Jesus, you are Elvis, aren’t you?”
“Through and through,” Elvis said. “We don’t have much time, Murphy, so listen up. I’ve got reason to believe Squirm Littlejon’s escape is no accident. It’s a set-up so the authorities can hunt him down. Hunt him down and kill him.”
“Jesus!”
“Murphy, you got to get this out fast so they don’t dare do it. So folks will get riled up real bad if they even try. It can’t wait for tomorrow’s paper. Can you do that?”
“I can put it out on the wire. They’d pick it up on radio in less than an hour,” Murphy said. “But, Elvis, I need more. A lot more. Like who the hell set this thing up? And I need to know for sure that it’s really you. I can’t run with a story like this without—”
“It’s me, all right, and time’s running out. The troopers could have Littlejon in their sights already.”
“If this is a hoax, I’ll lose my job, damnit.”
“Your job, Murphy! Not your life!”
“Where are you, Elvis?”
“West Hollywood,” Elvis said. “I’ll tell you exactly where if you promise to put that story on the wire right now. Immediately! Then you can get yourself over here and I’ll give you more. An exclusive.”
A long pause at the other end. Then, “Deal. Where are you Elvis?”
Elvis gave him Regis’s address. “I’ll be here for an hour, no longer,” he told the reporter and hung up.
Regis was back standing behind his desk, water streaming down his face onto his jacket. He looked halfway to sober.
“Get me Dr. Garcia on the phone,” Elvis barked at him.
Regis snapped to the task like an army recruit. He handed Elvis the phone while it was ringing at the other end. Delores Suarez picked up in Santa Teresa.
“Buenos tardes.”
“Dr. Suarez, this is Elvis. I’m back in California with Regis and I got to talk with Dr. Garcia, ma’am. Is he there?”
Garcia came on the line a moment later.
“Hector, we got an emergency going up here. Littlejon’s escaped and they’re hunting him with rifles. We’ve gotta move fast. Can you get yourself up here right away? I’ll pay for everything, of course.”
“This is very sudden.”
“I know it is, Doctor. First, I couldn’t wait forty years. Now I can’t wait a day.”
Garcia hesitated for only a moment. “I will make arrangements immediately, Mr. Presley,” he said.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Elvis said. “Bring what you can for that DNA fingerprinting. I’ll fix you up with a lab up here for the rest.”
“Very good.”
“And Doctor?”
“Yes, Mr. Presley?”
“Bring Dr. Suarez with you, if you don’t mind. We need all the help we can get.”
“I will see if that can be arranged,” Garcia said.
Elvis told him to call back with his arrival time. When he hung up, Regis was still standing in front of him, still dripping, but now looking extremely agitated.
“I … I’m not sure I’m ready to see Delores just yet,” he stammered.
“Then don’t look at her,” Elvis snapped. “Now what about Holly’s safety deposit box? I want to get in there today.”
“Not possible,” Regis said. “I looked into it. You need to petition the court to appoint a personal representative for the estate. And before you even do that you have to conduct a search to make sure there’s no existing trustee or conservatoire. And then you’ve got to wait until they set a hearing date for—”
“Hold on, Regis. If I walked into the bank today with the key to Holly’s deposit box and said I wanted to get into it, what would they ask me for?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. They’d need a court order designating you as the personal representative of the estate.”
“What does it look like?”
“What?”
“That court order thing. What does it look like?”
“You know, it’s an official document of the State of California,” Regis said. “Letterhead, official seal, judge’s signature.”
“You got one of those?”
“You mean from another case? Yes, somewhere, I suppose.” Regis gestured toward his file cabinets.
“Get it!” Elvis snapped. “Then get your friend next door to make up a new one for Holly’s estate with me as trustee or whatever the heck it is. If he can do passports, this should be a piece of cake.”
“I could be disbarred for—”
“Disbarred? From what—the corner saloon? Get it, Regis! Get moving now!”
Once again, Regis hopped to it like a buck private.
Elvis picked up the phone again and had the long-distance operator connect him with Bob Reardon’s private line at CCI.
“Warden Reardon here,” a decidedly tired and taut voice said.
“It’s me, Elvis.”
“Jesus, Elvis! I can’t talk with you now!”
“Reardon, don’t shoot him, you hear? Order your men—”
“Right, heard all about it on the radio,�
�� Reardon groaned. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, buddy.”
“You’re a patsy, Reardon. They’re using you. After they’re done, they’ll hang you up to dry.”
“Go to hell, Elvis!” Reardon blurted. “I’ve got enough grief without you—”
“Don’t shoot him, you hear?”
The phone went dead. Elvis tapped the cradle until he got the operator again. This time he gave her the number for the William Jackson Clinic in Alamo. While it rang, Elvis watched Regis pull a file out of a cabinet and start for the door.
“It’s out on the radio already,” Elvis called to him. “That should make them think twice about pulling any triggers out in Tehachapi.”
“Let’s hope so,” Regis said. He actually saluted Elvis before heading next door to the Rodriguez Travel and Counterfeiting Agency.
The receptionist put Elvis right through to Billy Jackson.
“What’s happening, Mr. P.?”
“More than I can tell you right now, Billy. But listen, are you still in contact with Connie Spinelli?”
“Close contact,” Billy said. There was a smile in his voice.
“How close?”
“She’s staying with me here in Alamo. I’ve been meaning to call you and tell you all about, but things have been moving kind of fast in my life, friend.”
“I’m real glad for you, Billy. But I want you to keep a close eye on Miss Spinelli. I’m dealing with some awful people out here. Terrible people. And they seem to have one heck of a long reach.”
“I hear you, I’ll look after her,” Billy said. “Listen, you want to say hello to her? Actually, she’s been meaning to call you herself.”
“Sure.”
Connie Spinelli came on with a girlish, “Hi there, Mr. Presley.”
“You sure sound good, Miss Spinelli.”
“Never been happier,” she replied. “Listen, Elvis, I happened to think of something the other day. I don’t think it means anything, but remember when I said the man who threatened me had a World War One army outfit on? Looked all spick-and-span like it wasn’t real, but out of a studio wardrobe?”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“Well, the thing I remembered is that one time my friend Patty over in wardrobe told me that this exec kept borrowing outfits from her. Mostly World War One stuff. All the same size. And Patty said she knew it couldn’t be for a movie, because they weren’t shooting any war pictures at the time.”
“What was his name?” Elvis asked. “The executive, I mean.”
“It was a she,” Miss Spinelli replied. “Woman named Aronson over in development.”
“Thank you, Connie,” Elvis said.
“I’ll put Billy back on,” she said.
“Mr. P.?” Billy’s voice.
“What is it, friend?”
“You take care, you hear? I can’t be losing any more kin in this lifetime.”
“God bless, Billy.”
“God bless, Mr. P.”
As soon as Elvis got the dial tone again, he called the Colonel’s office at MGM without so much as taking a breath.
“Parker here.”
“Tom, it’s me. Any calls?”
A sound like a sputtering lawnmower erupted in Elvis’s ear. For the first time that morning, Elvis had to smile.
“Any calls?” Parker bellowed. “Any calls? Nothing but calls, nonstop. New York Times. ABC radio. Where are you? What the hell are you up to, Elvis?”
“Taking care of business,” Elvis said.
“Who’s bloody business, boy?”
“Squirm Littlejon’s, for one.”
“Jesus, Elvis! You’re killing us, do you know that? Killing every damned thing I ever worked for. They’re going crazy over here. The last thing MGM wants is for this Littlejon business to burst into some kind of—”
“I don’t give a mare’s rear end what MGM wants, Colonel,” Elvis hissed.
“By God, you will, son!” Parker barked back. “You will and then it’s going to be too late. You got a demon inside you, boy. A demon that’s doing it’s damnedest to destroy you.”
“I got a demon, all right, Colonel,” Elvis replied evenly. “And he’s been suffocating for years.”
Elvis hung up before Parker could say another word. Regis was back, standing in front of him with a surprisingly animated expression on his face. He’d probably snuck in another little tequila toast with his friend, Rodriguez. Never mind—at least he was back in action again.
“Rodriguez’ll have that court order made up in a couple of hours,” Regis reported proudly. “I got inspired in there, Elvis. Listen to this.” He unfolded a piece of paper and read, “‘This instrument grants access, including but not limited to, the following sites and institutions: Barclay’s Bank of London, Los Angeles Savings and Loan, the Brink’s Bank,—’See that? I bury it in there so they’ll never suspect—”
“You’re a genius, Regis,” Elvis said, rising. “But it’s time to pack up, partner. Grab that DNA kit. We’re going to a funeral.”
18
The Ceremonial Blotting of the Tears
Mike Murphy was coming up the stairs two steps at a time as Elvis and Regis came scrambling down. Murphy was a lanky young man with a freckled face that didn’t quite fit with his prematurely bald head.
“Mr. Presley! Thank God, it is you.”
“Mr. Murphy, glad you could make it,” Elvis said, not missing a step. “I do appreciate you keeping your end of our bargain. Word’s out on the radio, I hear.”
Murphy made an abrupt about-face on the stairs and fell in step behind them.
“My ass is really on the line, you know, Elvis,” Murphy said.
“Whose isn’t these days?” Regis chimed. The man’s mouth was clearly in full working order again.
Grabbing one of his crutches from the wall on his way out the door, Elvis used it as a cane as he made his way to his car. Murphy followed and automatically got into the back seat when Elvis opened the door for him. Regis gave directions to the L.A. suburb of Maywood and they were on their way.
Elvis snapped on the car radio and scanned up and down the dial, stopping whenever he heard an announcer’s voice. In five minutes time, they heard three separate news bulletins on Elvis Presley’s suspicions about the Littlejon prison escape. Two of the three included droll allusions to the questionable status of Elvis’s mental condition, one of these suggesting that he was popping pills of some kind, but Elvis couldn’t have cared less because all three reports concluded with an update on the manhunt in the Tehachapi Mountains: Not a sign of Frederick Littlejon. The Squirm slithered on.
Elvis gave Murphy a run-down on what he’d been up to the last few days, leaving out parts and names that he didn’t want in the press just yet—no mention of Connie Spinelli, nothing about Holly McDougal’s call-girl operation or her impressive savings account. But he went into detail about Garcia’s conclusive medical evidence that someone other than Squirm Littlejon had had sex with Holly just prior to her murder.
“Let me get this straight, Presley,” Murphy intoned from the back seat after Elvis had finished. “This stuntman, Grieves, was probably threatening you, but you’re not absolutely sure. And he may have been responsible for Will Cathcart’s death, but it might have just been some crazy bull with high blood pressure. But the one thing you are sure of is that this doctor somewhere in the middle of Mexico has figured out a way to pin-point who exactly had sexual intercourse with who and when. Except that nobody in the world believes him.”
“That’s right,” Elvis replied.
“I better start looking for work immediately,” Murphy groaned.
“I got a job for you already,” Elvis said.
There was only one Christian cemetery in Maywood but by the time they found it, the funeral service was already in progress. Elvis opened up the cell-gathering kit that Dr. Garcia had put together for him. He made up vials with a few drops of suspensory fluid in the bottom, pasted blank lab
els to each, then handed Regis a handful of tweezers, eyedroppers, and little squares of blotting paper, and stashed the rest in his jacket pocket.
“Garcia says just about anything does the trick,” Elvis said. “A fleck of skin, a teardrop, a strand of hair. They all got the same markers under a microscope.”
Murphy rolled his eyes heavenward; he looked like a man who had just gotten off the plane in the wrong country.
“Got to be sure you got the right name with the right sample, otherwise it’s useless,” Elvis went on. “That’s your job, Murphy. Maybe tell them you’re doing a story on the funeral for the Times and you want to spell their names right.”
“Just like that,” Murphy said incredulously. “While they’re saying the Lord’s Prayer, you and Regis attack them with eyedroppers, and then I ask them to spell their names.”
“Something like that,” Elvis said, pulling out his crutch from behind the driver’s seat. “We’ll play it by ear.”
Indeed, the preacher was leading the assembled mourners in the Lord’s Prayer as Elvis, Regis, and Murphy approached the grave site. As Elvis had hoped, there was a load of the stuntmen present—he recognized some of them from pictures he’d been in, and the rest he could tell by their bowed legs and leathery faces. Squirm’s fellow stuntmen were surely prime suspects. There was no sign of Grieves, though, and that was a real disappointment because he was at the top of his suspect list.
There were several surprising mourners on hand: Miss Aronson was standing next to Ned Florbid, MGM’s production executive, both in expensive-looking tailored black outfits. Pretty high level representation from the studio for the funeral of a stuntman—especially for one who’d only been working for them for a year. And, lo and behold, standing just behind Jilly-Jo Cathcart and her two children was none other than Wayne LeFevre. Now what the devil was he doing here? Whatever the reason, Elvis was glad he was here; ever since Elvis had heard Wayne’s oily encouragements on Holly’s bump-and-grind screen test, he had suspected that his double had developed more than a passing acquaintanceship with the murdered teenager. This little stop at the Maywood Cemetery held the promise of being unusually efficient.