Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  CHAPTER 7

  THE ROOM, THE size of a small storefront shoe store, was dark except for the low platform at one end bright with overhead lamps. Folding chairs sat facing the platform. I was sitting on one side of Joan Crawford. Marty Leib was sitting on the other. Tony Sheridan, an assistant district attorney, sat directly behind us. There were also two plainclothes detectives and a couple of uniformed cops.

  “Okay?” asked one of the plainclothes detectives.

  Sheridan, tall, lean, and recently discharged from the army after two Purple Hearts and a case of battle fatigue, said, “Okay.”

  I had picked Crawford up at her house just after the sun came up. She was wearing a plain black dress and a floppy hat with a big brim and dark glasses. She did her best to hide her lack of enthusiasm about my Crosley and got in the front seat.

  “Phillip is home with the children,” she said.

  It was Saturday.

  I started driving.

  “He wanted to come, too, but if both of us were there, we’d have to get someone to watch the children, and the likelihood of my being recognized would certainly be increased.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Do you?” she asked, looking at me while I drove. “What do you think of when my name is mentioned?”

  “Movie star,” I said.

  “Yes, movie star,” she said, finding her cigarettes and lighting one. She didn’t ask if I minded. I did, but I didn’t say so. There wasn’t much room in the Crosley, and cigarette smoke makes my eyes burn and gives me a headache.

  She sighed.

  “Mr. Peters”—she half-turned toward me—“I come from a very poor family. My formal education ended with the fourth grade. I’ve been singing, dancing and acting my heart out since I was ten years old. I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t want to do anything else. Yes, I’m a star, and I intend to remain one. Are you certain there will be no reporters today?”

  “You see the Times this morning?” I asked, eyes on the road.

  “No,” she said.

  I handed her the folded copy shoved alongside the seat on my left.

  “Page three, bottom left,” I said.

  She took the paper, turned the page quickly, and folded the paper in half. She read it to herself. I knew what it said under the headline, which read: Dentist Kills Wife in Park with Crossbow. The article said that Sheldon Minck, a dentist, had shot his wife to death with a crossbow in Lincoln Park. The article also said Shelly and his wife were “estranged” and that he claimed he was in the park practicing. The only other piece of information of interest was that there was a witness who was passing by when the killing took place. There was no mention of Billie Cassin or Joan Crawford.

  “This is good,” she said with a slightly relieved smile.

  “Good, but not perfect,” I said. “Even if there are no reporters at the line-up, one of the cops may recognize you and tell a reporter.”

  “You can stop that from happening?”

  “I called Shelly Minck’s lawyer this morning. He’ll be there. He said he’d try to make some kind of deal with the district attorney’s office.”

  “A deal?”

  “If Shelly pleads guilty, your testimony won’t be needed.”

  “He intends to plead guilty, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “The other possibility for a deal would require my finding who killed Mildred fast, before you have to be in a courtroom where there would probably be a reporter or, if not, there would definitely be people who’d sell the information to the closest reporter for a few bucks.”

  “I see,” she said. “So …”

  “I’ve got to try to find the murderer fast.”

  We didn’t say much more. I wanted to turn the radio on and listen to anything, but I didn’t.

  “Very well,” she said. “If you become certain that this will appear in the press or on the radio, let me know and I’ll do what I can to salvage … No, it can’t come to that. I can’t let it.”

  The last was said with such determination that I turned to look at her. I saw the face of a woman I wouldn’t want to tangle with. I couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses. I didn’t think I wanted to. She was wearing makeup, but not much, and it was possible that with only a quick glance, she might not be recognized.

  “When we get there,” I said, “take off the glasses, don’t walk fast, and don’t smile. I’ll go in first. You follow.”

  “And the point of this?” she asked.

  “To keep from drawing attention to you and to give me a chance to spot anyone who might be a problem.”

  We were almost at the Hall of Justice now, and I didn’t want to answer more questions than I had to.

  “Problem? You mean like reporters, a fan?”

  What I meant was “like a pink-faced kid with a blowgun,” but I only said, “Right.”

  She went silent, thinking, smoking, and giving me a headache.

  “What if I don’t identify this Dr. Minck?” she asked.

  “They won’t believe you,” I said. “The D.A. will give you lots of trouble, and they might even decide to have a not-very-nice but very long talk with you.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, let’s go.”

  We went. So far everything had gone reasonably well. Now we sat in the dark while five men were paraded onto the platform and told to face forward with their backs against the dirty white wall.

  Shelly was facing us at the end of the line to our right. He was wearing a blue shirt and an expression of openmouthed blinking bewilderment. He took off his glasses and squinted into the darkness in front of him.

  “Number five,” said one of the detectives. “Put your glasses back on.”

  Shelly put the glasses back on.

  Next to him was Jerry Pants, a pickpocket I recognized, who was two inches shorter, thirty pounds lighter and about a decade younger than Shelly. Jerry Pants looked bored. He had played this game many times before. In the middle of the lineup was a cop whose name I didn’t remember. The cop was tall, in good shape, and blank of face. Next to him was someone about Shelly’s shape and age, who even had a bald head and wore glasses. The glasses weren’t as thick as Shelly’s and I’d give five-to-one they were plain glass. He was a dark-skinned Negro. The last man in line, at the far left, was lean with a wrinkled face, large eyes, and a grin that revealed a very small number of teeth. He bounced from one foot to another, either practicing a dance step or needing the bathroom.

  “Now take your time,” Sheridan said behind us. “Look at them carefully.”

  “Tony,” Marty said with a sigh. “This is supposed to be a lineup, not a sideshow.”

  “You wanted the lineup, Martin,” Sheridan said evenly.

  “Miss Cassin has already given a description of the man she saw in the park,” Marty said. “There should be five men up there who fit the description, not one.”

  “We get who we can get,” Sheridan said. “Well, miss?”

  “The one on the far right,” John Crawford said, her voice a little higher than normal and her accent that of a Southern belle, or at least one in a movie.

  “Number five, step forward,” the cop called out.

  No one moved. Pants put his hand on Shelly’s shoulder and Shelly said, “Who me?”

  “You,” said the cop.

  Shelly shuffled forward.

  “You sure?” Sheridan asked over her shoulder.

  “That’s the man,” she said. “I gather he hasn’t confessed to his crime.”

  “He hasn’t confessed,” said Marty slowly, “because he is innocent.”

  “You can go now, miss,” Sheridan said. “We’ll be in touch if we need you further.”

  Crawford rose, her face averted from cops and Sheridan, and followed me out of the room.

  “They recognized me, didn’t they?” she asked as soon as we were in the empty hallway.

  “Marty and Sheridan? Yes. Marty won’t want
you to testify in a trial court. Who would doubt the word of Joan Crawford?”

  She laughed.

  “You might be surprised,” she said. “I’ve lied with great sincerity to a great many people, primarily men, and even on occasion to myself.”

  “You’d make a great prosecution witness,” I said, walking with her to the elevator. “My guess is Sheridan’ll figure he’s better off keeping this one as quiet as he can. He’s not ambitious. He doesn’t like reporters.”

  “But if Dr. Minck’s lawyer and Mr. Sheridan do not come to an agreement …”

  “You’re out of the bag, which is why we’re going to Lincoln Park now.”

  Marty Leib called out, “Wait,” before the elevator arrived. We turned to watch him move slowly toward us.

  “Nice suit,” I said.

  Marty nodded and looked at Joan Crawford.

  “Miss Cassin,” he said with a smile that said he clearly knew who she was. They shook hands. He didn’t let hers go. “I represent Dr. Minck, the man you just identified. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “Well … I—”

  “Dr. Minck has asked to see Mr. Peters. While he’s doing that, you and I can spend a few minutes together, please.”

  He still held her hand tightly.

  “I don’t bite,” he said with a smile.

  “I do,” Crawford answered, pulling her hand from his angrily. “Do I have to talk to him?” she asked me.

  She was my client. Shelly was my friend. Marty was Shelly’s best chance at getting out of this with minor burns. I was his second-best chance.

  “I think it would be a good idea,” I said.

  “Very well,” she said. “Where?”

  Marty stepped back and held out his right hand, palm up to show her the direction.

  “I’ll meet you at the car in ten minutes,” I said.

  “More like twenty,” Marty said.

  “Fifteen,” I said.

  “I suggest we stop haggling over my time,” Crawford said, definitely irritated. “I’ll get there when I can, and I intend that to be very soon.”

  She walked a few steps ahead of Marty so he could get a good look at her legs. Grable might be the pinup girl with the gams, but Crawford’s matched hers and more. Besides, Grable was pregnant now, and there hadn’t been a new pinup of her in two years.

  The elevator came. I went to the visitor’s room, checked in with the guard, and sat in the same chair as the day before. This time there were two other prisoners with visitors. One pair included the fat Negro man from the lineup. On my side of the mesh his visitor was an equally fat Negro woman with a straw purse perched in front of her on the counter. The other duo comprised an older guy whose white hair needed combing and who was listening to a man in a suit with slicked-back hair.

  They brought Shelly in, and he sat across from me.

  “You know what just happened to me?” he asked.

  “I was there,” I said.

  He did a triple squint and opened his mouth.

  “I’m a dead man, Toby,” he said. “Tell me, tell me the truth, I’m a dead man.”

  “You ever hear of Greenbaum and Gorman in Des Moines, Iowa?” I asked.

  “They’re involved? Now they’re making electric chairs and gas chambers?”

  “I don’t think so, Shel,” I said. “What do you know about them?”

  “Toby, can we please concentrate on trying to save my life here?”

  “I’ve got good news,” I said.

  Shelly stopped fidgeting and looked at me in anticipation of a reprieve.

  “What?”

  “Greenbaum and Gorman want to talk to you about your anti-snore gizmo.”

  “My … Greenbaum and Gorman? They’re the biggest.… Most of my office equipment comes from them. I’m going to be rich,” he shouted with a laugh. “I’m going to be rich.” Then his voice dropped. “And I’m going to be dead or in prison. You know what irony is?”

  The white-haired prisoner, whose head was still down said, “The agreement between two parties that an action or utterance which appears to be one thing is perceived by both of the parties and perhaps others as carrying a meaning other than that which appears on the surface.”

  Shelly and I both turned to look at him. He was now looking up at us.

  “Well,” Shelly began.

  “… taught English literature at U.S.C.,” the white-haired fellow said. “Now … this.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Shelly, his voice now low, said, “Toby, you’ve got to help me here. I’m going nuts. I’ve only been here two days and the food is starting to taste good to me. I’m in a cell with two men who keep swearing at each other and threatening each other. And they keep having arguments, and they keep asking me which one of them is right. I try to even it out, but they both hate me. One of them is crazy. He eats shoe polish. Brown shoe polish.”

  “I’m doing what I can, Shel,” I said.

  “Well, do what you can’t,” he said, looking around the room as if it had begun to close in on him. “What good is being rich if you have to spend your life in a cell with a lunatic who eats brown shoe polish?”

  I had no answer.

  “At least the food is good,” I said.

  “Actually, it’s not bad,” he said. “I’m worried about losing my patients, Toby.”

  “Try to keep calm, Shel,” I said.

  “Not ‘patience,’ ‘patients,’” he said with exasperation. “I have people who rely on me for healthy teeth and gums.”

  And they now have a reprieve, I thought. Instead, I said, “I’ll get you out of this. Just do what Marty says.”

  “Leib? He says we’re going to claim it was an accident, and if that doesn’t work, he’ll plea-bargain and if that doesn’t work, insanity. I don’t think he wants to go to trial.”

  “Shel, when we tell him that Greenbaum and Gorman are interested in your snore gadget, he’ll come up with other options.”

  Shelly shrugged.

  “I gotta go, Shel,” I said. “The woman who witnessed you killing Mildred is downstairs waiting for me.”

  “What? The one who identified me? Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, Shel. I’m going to try to convince her that you didn’t do it.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, trying to sound like William Powell doing Nick Charles. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Before he could say anything else, the white-haired man who used to teach English at U.S.C. said, “Technically, he didn’t kill her with a crossbow. He killed her with a quarrel, or bolt fired from a crossbow. To kill her with the crossbow, he would probably have to beat her over the head with it.”

  The well-dressed man with the slicked-back hair adjusted his tie again and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. I wondered what the professor was accused of—probably murder by boredom.

  Joan Crawford was sitting in the Crosley. I had left the door open. Her window was down. Her floppy hat covered her eyes, and she was smoking.

  “How well do you know that lawyer?” she asked when I got behind the steering wheel.

  “I’ve used him,” I said cautiously.

  “I think he suggested that I lie about seeing Dr. Minck shoot his wife,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” I said, moving into traffic.

  “I will not be manipulated,” she said firmly. “I will not perjure myself. I intend to tell the truth.”

  She was glaring at me again. I smiled.

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I said. “I didn’t have breakfast this morning. You want to stop for coffee?”

  She didn’t say no, so I headed for the drugstore where Anita works behind the lunch counter. I was hungry. Mrs. Plaut had told me I had to stay for breakfast. I told her I couldn’t. She was serving Eggs Benedict Arnold.

  “A hearty breakfast is the key to a fruitful day,” she had reminded me.

 
I had apologized, dressed quickly and got out before she decided to barricade the door and spoon feed me.

  I had another reason for wanting to stop at the drugstore. Joan Crawford was Anita’s favorite actress. Rain was Anita’s favorite movie, but The Women was a close second.

  Crawford flicked on the radio. We listened to The Man Behind the Gun. I had a headache.

  CHAPTER 8

  ANITHA WAS AT the far end of the counter carefully slicing a pie in preparation for the lunch crowd. There were no customers at the counter, and she finished slicing the pie before she glanced up, saw me, smiled, and then noticed the woman at my side with a floppy hat and sunglasses.

  Anita froze.

  Now Anita is, as Mrs. Plaut once pronounced her, a head-on-her-shoulders, feet-on-the-ground woman, but the sight of Joan Crawford swept away her practicality.

  I had known Anita for more than thirty years. I had taken her to our high-school prom in Glendale. I had lost track of her till a year ago, when I walked into this drugstore and ordered bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee on the twenty-five–cent breakfast special.

  Anita had been married, widowed and raised a daughter. I had been married to Ann, divorced, no kids other than me. Aside from Carmen, she of the ample bosom and placid exterior, who spent her days as the cashier at a deli I no longer frequented, there had been no other woman in my life until Anita. I had fruitlessly and uselessly pursued Ann, who was now on her third husband, a movie actor whose name was known but whose movies didn’t draw in big dollars. I wondered if Joan Crawford knew Ann’s husband. I decided not to ask.

  Anita wore little makeup, had dark blond hair, and carried her age on a good-looking open face that let you know the woman was ready for whoever walked through the door, be it an old boyfriend from high school or a movie star. But she hadn’t been ready for Joan Crawford.

  Anita wiped her hands on a towel, strode toward us behind the counter as we sat stood waiting.

  “This is my friend Anita,” I said.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Crawford held out her hand.

  Anita took it briefly and shook. “I’ll bet people are always telling you that you’re their favorite movie star and they’ve seen all your movies,” Anita said.