Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Aimee Semple McPherson?” I closed the door. “You opened the door for someone pretending to be … forget it.”

  Shelly took off the robe and threw it in the general direction of a chair, missing it by only four or five feet. He stood, rotund and pink in his white boxer shorts and started to put on the clothes I had brought.

  “Timerjack’s dead,” I said when he was dressed and adjusting his glasses.

  His right hand was almost through his sleeve. He stopped.

  “You killed Timerjack?” he asked with openmouthed awe. “For me?”

  “I didn’t kill him. The police are going to think you did. Your will? Did you leave everything to Timerjack or to the Survivors?”

  “The Survivors,” Shelly answered. “But I’m going to change that. I’m going to leave everything to the American Dental Association. They won’t try to kill me. They can afford to wait till I’m dead. I’ll leave you something, too—not enough to make it worth killing me for.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “Room service. Stay in the room. Your name is …”

  “Wayne Strunk,” he said with pride. “I’m a retired army colonel with a war wound. My wife is waiting for me in Des Moines and my children, Betty and Diane, are both in high school.”

  “You don’t need a story, Shel. The waiter won’t ask you for one, just your signature.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to have one ready,” he said.

  “Have you ever been to Des Moines?”

  “No.”

  “Well maybe the waiter has. Just sign for the food, keep the door locked, and rewrite your will. I’ll be back in the morning. There’s paper and a pencil inside the table next to the bed.”

  Before I left, I used the phone to call Gunther and Violet and told them to stop looking for Shelly. I finished by calling Joan Crawford, who answered the phone with a tentative “Yes?”

  “We’ve bought some time,” I said. “They police won’t need you while they try to find Shelly.”

  “Is that man really a dentist?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Disgusting. I’ve been cleaning up after him for hours. If I have to testify against him, I intend to do so with great enthusiasm.”

  “He’s harmless,” I said.

  “I am not,” she answered. “Keep me informed.”

  “I need you tomorrow,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Back to Lincoln Park. Same time. I’ll pick you up. That okay?”

  “I’ll see to it that it is. Will you be driving that little car?”

  “Only one I’ve got.”

  “We’ll take a cab,” she said and hung up. I hadn’t told her about Timerjack. No need.

  Mrs. Plaut did not greet me at the boardinghouse this time. The newsbreak on the Blue Network had told me it was almost midnight, though my father’s watch said it was about eleven minutes to three on some day at some time in the universe of forgotten dreams. I took off my shoes as soon as I went through the front door. There was no light under Gunther’s door when I got upstairs.

  I was tired. I went to my room, took off my clothes, made a minimal effort to hang the pants and jacket neatly and threw my underwear and socks into the rear of the closet, where a small pile was forming. I’d have to deal with it soon.

  I put on a clean pair of boxers and a white T-shirt and pulled the mattress down on the floor, along with a sheet and my two pillows.

  I tried to put things together after I turned off the light and got down on the floor. It was either too complicated or too simple. Too simple meant that Shelly was definitely doomed. So, I had to think “complicated.” I fell asleep.

  I dreamt of bicycles and Beethoven, crossbows and corpses, at least I think I did. I know they were all on my mind when I had gotten under the sheet committing myself to shaving in the morning and finding a killer.

  The door opened with a bang and I looked up, still nearly asleep, at a dark figure that was definitely not Mrs. Plaut.

  “Get up.”

  I recognized the voice.

  “What time is it?”

  “Get up,” Detective John Cawelti ordered.

  “Why?”

  He turned on the light and looked around my room with a small shake of his head to let me know he didn’t think much of my castle.

  I didn’t think much of John Cawelti, red hair parted down the middle like a Gay Nineties bartender, his face pockmarked and pink, his teeth large and his lips drawn back in a perpetual and insincere smile.

  Mrs. Plaut came in pushing her way past Cawelti and jabbing him with the handle of her morning mop.

  “What the hell you doing, lady?” he said as she turned to face him.

  “I think she’s telling you that you’re not welcome in her house,” I said, sitting up.

  The handle of Mrs. Plaut’s mop was now aimed like a narrow lance at the neck of the detective.

  Cawelti and I had a long, colorful, and not happy history. He had decided long ago that the best way to get back at my brother, who hated him and whom he detested back, was through me. At least, that was the way I think it started. Gradually, over very little time, Detective Cawelti decided that I deserved to be the object of his loathing on my own merits.

  “He insinuated himself in,” Mrs. Plaut said, eyes fixed on Cawelti who tried to look amused but couldn’t help showing respect for the woman and her mop. “He claims to be from Fish and Wildlife. I think it has something to do with that cat you keep sneaking in here.”

  There was a cop named Sloane behind Cawelti, a big older guy who had no affection for Cawelti. Sloane was there to back him up. Sloane could get the job done.

  “Will someone tell me what time it is?”

  “Almost seven,” said Mrs. Plaut. “I was preparing breakfast, wild-rice oatcakes with syrup, when these two burst in claiming to be from Fish and Wildlife.”

  “We’re the police,” Cawelti shouted.

  Mrs. Plaut blinked.

  “They are,” I said.

  “Then more’s the shame on them for their rude behavior,” she said, feinting at Cawelti with her mop. He backed away.

  “Get dressed, Peters,” Cawelti said. “You’re coming in for questioning.”

  I got up slowly, trying not to let him know that my back was doing its usual morning minutes of aching.

  “Why?”

  “You were seen last night on Hollywood Boulevard with Sheldon Minck, a fugitive. You drove away with him. You aided the escape of a jail breaker.”

  “Who said so?” I said, putting on my pants and trying to shake sleep from my eyes.

  The sun was just coming up, and I needed a shave, a shower, clean teeth, and at least some coffee, if not one of Mrs. Plaut’s special breakfasts.

  “A reliable citizen called in,” he said.

  “Who happened to be on Hollywood Boulevard and recognized Sheldon Minck and me?”

  “That’s the way it is,” Cawelti said. “And I believe him. We checked with the newsdealer whose booth you and Minck were standing in front of. He remembered you.”

  Dressed the way Shelly had been and given my face, that didn’t surprise me.

  “Can I shave and—?”

  “Just get your shirt, some pants and shoes on,” Cawelti said impatiently.

  “Like so much doo-doo,” said Mrs. Plaut angrily. “I don’t care if you are from the Fish and Wildlife Service or the police. Mr. Peelers is going to make himself presentable or you will have to subdue me. And there will be a price to pay for that.”

  “Listen, lady …” Cawelti said between clenched teeth. But he got no further. Mrs. Plaut cracked him over the head with the handle of her broom.

  Cawelti grabbed his head and grimaced. Mrs. Plaut raised her mop again. Cawelti stepped toward her with the back of his hand pulled back.

  I took a step forward, but Sloane beat me to it. He grabbed Cawelti’s arm with one hand and Mrs. Plaut’s
mop with the other.

  “John,” he said softly. “He’ll smell better washed up, and we’ll get the crazy old lady off our back.”

  Cawelti shook loose and made a face that punctuated his pain. Mrs. Plaut lowered her mop.

  “Go shave, brush your teeth, and wash up, but no shower and we’re not stopping for breakfast,” Cawelti said. “Ed, you check out the bathroom and watch the door.”

  “Truce?” Sloane asked Mrs. Plaut. She looked at me.

  “It’s okay,” I told her.

  “Personally, I think that one”—she nodded at Cawelti—“has nothing to do with Fish or Wildlife or the police. I believe he is a wayward drug fiend.”

  With that, she strode out of the room, and we heard her stamp her way to and down the stairs.

  I grabbed my razor, soap and towel and headed past Cawelti and Sloane for the bathroom. I looked back to see Cawelti mouthing something and biting his lower lip while he put his right hand on top of the lump that was surely rising.

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Sloane whispered.

  I got ready as quickly as I could. When I came out of the bathroom, Sloane was talking to Gunther, who wore a little green robe and carried a zippered kit with his toiletries.

  “Gunther,” I said. “Two things. Call Marty Leib. Tell him I’m at the Wilshire Station, and see if you can find out if there are papers on the Survivors for the Future and whose name is on them.”

  “I will,” said Gunther.

  “Let’s go,” said Sloane.

  On the way out the door, Mrs. Plaut handed me a wild-rice oatcake in a napkin. It was hot. She glared at Cawelti and said, “I’m going to discuss your behavior with Jamaica Red. He’ll have some choice words for you should you ever dare return.”

  With that, she went back into her apartment and closed the door.

  Sloane drove. Cawelti sat in the backseat with me. He kept adjusting his jacket and I watched the sun come up while I finished my wild-rice oatcake.

  “I think it has cranberries in it,” I said, holding up what was left.

  Cawelti pushed my hand away.

  He looked out the window and said nothing.

  We were at the Wilshire Station before eight. The squad room was just changing shifts, and the cops going off were talking to cops coming on and telling them what was going on and whose turn it was to make coffee.

  I knew where we were heading. Cawelti led the way adjusting his jacket as we went into the interrogation room. The room didn’t have a two-way mirror, just a small wooden table, three wooden chairs, and freshly painted white walls with a smudge directly across from the door we came through. The smudge was red. Suspects were supposed to think the smudge was blood. It probably was. There was a fat green-gray Los Angeles telephone book on the table. No phone. I took my seat facing the door. Cawelti sat across from me. Sloane stood with his back against the door, arms folded.

  “You know a man named Lawrence Timerjack,” Cawelti said.

  “Is that a question?”

  “No. Fact. His people say you went out to his place and threatened him.”

  “I went there to talk to him about Shelly,” I said. “He welcomed me with ax, gun, bow and arrow, and blowgun. What’s this got to do with someone saying they saw me with Shelly last night?”

  “Timerjack’s dead,” he said. “Strangled.”

  “Wasn’t much of a survivor, was he?”

  “He wasn’t strangled,” Cawelti said.

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No, I wanted to see how you’d react. He was shot in the face with one of those things from a crossbow.”

  “And you think—?”

  “Minck, with you as an accomplice,” Cawelti interrupted.

  “Why would Shelly kill Timerjack?” I asked.

  “He’s nuts.”

  “I should have known you’d have a good explanation.”

  “I’ve got you, Peters.” Cawelti adjusted his jacket again. “We start by you telling me where you’ve got Minck.”

  “Why don’t we start with who called to tell you I was on Hollywood Boulevard last night with Shelly?”

  “There’s not much left of your nose,” he said. “An accident with a telephone book could flatten your face so it looks like the new freeway. Where were you last night?”

  “Most of the night, till I went home at midnight, I was in my office working.”

  “Working on what?”

  “A case. We’re not really getting anywhere here, John.”

  “Detective Sergeant Cawelti,” he said between clenched teeth.

  I checked my watch. It was who-the-hell-knows-when. Marty Leib should be showing up soon. All I had to do was keep fencing with Cawelti.

  “Want to know where we found Timerjack?”

  “My office,” I said.

  “No, Pershing Park. That’s not far from your office.”

  “Not far,” I agreed. “Sometimes I bring my lunch there and listen to guys on soapboxes warning us about communists, capitalists, government plots to turn us into zombies by putting chemicals in our ice cream, the end of the world, the—”

  “What happened to your car?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Rear window shattered. Hole in the dashboard.”

  “A crazed seagull,” I said.

  “You keep looking at the door,” Cawelti said. “You think your brother’s going to come in and save your ass? He’s suspended.”

  “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, John, but I don’t think I want to answer any more questions till my lawyer gets here.”

  Cawelti pushed his chair back and stood up, his hands on the table, his face a foot from mine. He smelled like Double Mint Gum.

  “I don’t like you, Peters.”

  “I figured that out from the subtle clues you’ve been dropping for the past five years,” I said.

  “You know why?”

  “I’m my brother’s brother,” I said.

  “That’s part of it. You’re smug. You are a smug wiseass son of a bitch who doesn’t take anything seriously. It’s all nine innings of game time to you. You’re an overgrown kid who pretends nothing gets to him. Well, I’m going to get to you.”

  “And Phil?”

  “Your brother’s building his own tomb,” said Cawelti. “Just a few more stones in place and he’s buried.”

  “You have a brother, John?” I asked.

  He backed away a few inches.

  “You get along with him?”

  “My brother died in the last war,” he said. “My only brother.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry.” He slapped his palms on the table. “I want Sheldon Minck back. I want him off the streets, and, as an added bonus, I want you up for charges of aiding and abetting an escaped prisoner to elude the police. In short, Peters, I want you off the streets.”

  “Why don’t we talk about it over a cup of coffee?”

  There was a rumbling sound beyond the door and a knock. Sloane stepped back and let Marty Leib in. Marty was wearing a dark sharkskin suit and a yellow-and-red striped tie. He was carrying a briefcase.

  “What is my client charged with?” Marty demanded.

  Cawelti couldn’t ignore Marty. Marty took up too much space, and his bass voice filled any room in which he happened to be planted.

  “I haven’t decided,” Cawelti said.

  “Evidence? Reasonable cause? Witnesses?” Marty asked placing his briefcase on the table after pushing the telephone book away.

  “Your client was seen with an escaped individual. We have reason to believe he knows where this individual is and—”

  “The individual we are talking about is another client of mine, Sheldon Minck, a respected dentist.”

  “Your two clients, on their own or together, murdered a man last night. That’s in addition to Minck killing his wife in the park. For that one, we have an eyewitness.”

  “In sum
,” said Marty, “you have no idea of what you are doing.”

  “Hold on.”

  “I don’t think so.” Marty took some sheets of paper clipped together from his briefcase. He handed the sheets to Cawelti who read them.

  “We are walking,” Marty said. “That copy is for you. Unless you produce a credible eyewitness to my client’s association with an escaped criminal, I think I’ll have to send a letter to the commissioner claiming harassment and strongly suggesting that, if you pursue this, we will bring suit against you, the police department, the mayor, and possibly the state of California.”

  “I can hold him here for questioning,” Cawelti said.

  “Based on what? Nothing. We’re leaving here now. Come on, Toby.”

  I got up and followed Marty, briefcase in hand. Sloane moved out of the way to let us pass.

  “Marty,” I began as we headed down the steps from the second floor to the lobby of the station.

  He held up his left hand and kept walking as he said, “There are two things I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to hear that you know where Dr. Minck is. I don’t want to know if you killed Lawrence Timerjack or even know who did it. Clear?”

  “Clear,” I said.

  “You’ll have an updated bill in the mail today. Pay it right away, Toby. You need me.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You know what I’d like?” he said, still walking.

  “A nice tall glass of Ovaltine?” I said.

  “No,” said Marty. “I’d like Sheldon Minck to turn himself in. If any more people are killed with crossbows, there is no doubt that he will be blamed. I don’t want him blamed. I want him victimized.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We get Shelly back in jail, buy a crossbow and kill someone. I’ve got a redheaded cop in mind.”

  “Very witty,” said Marty, pausing to check his wristwatch. “You keep displaying your wit, and the time clock keeps running.”

  “I’ll shut up,” I said.

  “You have any ideas?”

  We were out on the street now, the sun bright, people in a hurry.

  “The scene of the crime,” I said.

  “You read too many detective stories when you were a boy,” said Marty, moving to a perfectly polished black Chrysler at the curb. “Killers don’t return to the scene of their crime. They stay as far from it as they can. At least, that’s always been my advice to clients who may or may not have committed a crime. But do they listen?”