by Sean Dexter
“Cute.”
“I have an idea,” Sonny said, “but I doubt either of you will like it.”
“Go ahead,” said Lopez with little passion.
Sonny was right. We weren't crazy about his idea. For lack of better one, we decided to give it a shot.
Lopez led me and Sonny out of her office and then she escorted Sarah Landers back in.
-7-
The call from Lopez woke me before eight the next morning.
So much for sleeping in late on a Saturday.
Lieutenant Lopez had come down hard on Sarah Landers the second go around. She learned that the woman had one child, a son who stood to inherit everything. Lopez told me that she scared the crap out of the woman with talk of obstruction of justice. Lopez warned Landers that if she tried reaching her son, who was now formally a suspect in a conspiracy to commit homicide, she risked imprisonment. Landers was told not to answer her home telephone.
It was a colossal bluff, Lopez figuring Sarah Landers could not reach a lawyer before nine on a Saturday morning for consultation. The Lieutenant had a uniformed officer drive Landers to her home and stay outside the house; the BMW remained where it had been parked in the school lot.
Lopez then called the son, reporting that a late model BMW had been discovered abandoned behind a school building. There was no sign of its owner, who had been identified by the vehicle registration as Sarah Landers. The woman could not be reached at her home address. The car would be held at the city auto impound until someone came to claim it.
“Did he sound mildly concerned?' I asked.
“He gave it a good try, he asked if there was anything he could do,” said Lopez. “I asked him to phone me as soon as he heard from his mother, and I said we would phone him if we heard anything. Got a pencil?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
I jotted down the son's number.
“I'm at my office, Diamond. I'll be hunched over my telephone waiting for your call.”
“Don't hurt yourself, Lieutenant” I said, and ended the connection.
When the dial tone came back, I punched in the number that Lopez had given me.
After three rings a man answered.
“Time to settle up,” I said.
“What the hell happened? They didn't find her body.”
“They will, eventually, I took her for a little ride. Do you have the cash?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me in an hour. The Home Plate on Lombard, I'll be at the counter. Don't be fucking late.”
“How will I know you?” he asked.
I was very glad to hear that he needed to ask.
“I'll wear a fucking carnation,” I said, “I'll know you. Don't make me fucking wait.”
I hung up. I called Lopez.
-8-
I sat at the counter of the Home Plate Diner drinking coffee and glancing out the front window waiting for Daniel Landers to arrive.
Before long, a car pulled up and double-parked across the street. I watched as he climbed out from the passenger side, carrying a large brown envelope. A woman behind the wheel rolled down her window to say something to him as he started to cross. I recognized the driver; I had followed her from the dance studio to her car the night before.
Landers walked in and I waved him over. He sat at the stool beside me. He placed the envelope on the countertop without looking at my eyes. I asked if he needed a receipt and he shuddered. He was about to get up when Lopez walked in. It was the first time I had seen her out of a business suit. She looked good.
“Daniel Landers,” she said, slapping handcuffs on him in the blink of an eye, “you are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. You have the right to remain silent, I hope you do. You have the right to an attorney; I would not recommend using your mother's attorney. If you cannot afford a lawyer, we'll see what we can do.”
“Lopez,” I said, as Landers stood frozen in disbelief, “there's a gal in the Pontiac across the street who you may want to talk with.”
Lopez took out her two-way radio and called Sergeant Johnson. She told him to pick up the woman in the Pontiac before we came out. I saw Johnson's unmarked Ford pull up beside the other car less than a minute later.
-9-
Dan Landers confessed the moment they got him over to Vallejo Street. He claimed it was her idea, the girl in the Pontiac. He'd met her a few months earlier when he picked his mother up from the studio, one of Sarah Lander's dance students. They began to see a lot of each other and before too long she was filling Dan's head with visions of a rosy and financially secure future for the two of them.
Daniel Lander's had no idea who the hired gun was. He had dropped word here and there that he was looking for one and someone contacted him. Landers had deposited the first twenty-five thousand at a drop the previous Sunday night, a trash barrel at the corner of California and Van Ness. The only phone number Landers had was the number for my office, Daniel had apparently written it down incorrectly. Without the contract killer it would be a tough case to prosecute, but the experience would certainly discourage Landers from trying anything like it again and perhaps give his mother reason to reconsider the provisions of her last will and testament.
And that was that.
Or so I thought.
-10-
Five days later, late Thursday night, I arrived at my apartment from a pinochle game at the Pacific Heights home of a fellow PI. As I pushed the key into the door lock, I felt what could only be the barrel of a handgun pressed up against the back of my head.
“Don't fucking turn around,” the voice said.
“Not a chance,” I said.
“Word has it that you cost me twenty-five grand, Mr. Diamond, and that really fucking upsets me.”
“It wasn't my intention,” I said.
“Nevertheless.”
“Look at it this way; you made twenty-five thousand without having to kill an innocent woman.”
“In my business, Diamond,” he said, “that is little consolation. If you ever try pulling something like that again, intended or not, you will find yourself at the top of my fucking list. Contract work is getting difficult to come by these days, and I won't have someone pinching any of the few jobs that still trickle my way.”
“Don't worry, it was my first and last hit,” I said.
I felt the gun barrel move away from my head.
I finally found the courage to turn around.
I found myself alone.
*****
J. L. Abramo was born in the seaside paradise of Brooklyn, New York on Raymond Chandler’s fifty-ninth birthday. Abramo is the author of Catching Water in a Net (Winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Award for Best First Private Eye Novel); the subsequent Jake Diamond novels Clutching at Straws and Counting to Infinity; the stand-alone thriller Gravesend and the newly released Chasing Charlie Chan.
The Case of the Derby Diamond
by
Jeffrey Marks
Jeffrey Marks usually writes cozies, but he can still turn in a great hardboiled story. This story, about a disabled vet-turned-PI investigating the theft of a diamond necklace during the Kentucky Derby, is a nice example of how well writers can emulate the classic Black Mask style.
I didn’t see how Mrs. Van Hoskens could tell that she was missing a particular necklace. The dame had more ice than the Titanic. Of course, the rich hold on to everything that they have with both hands. Still, the Derby diamond had quite a history. A jewel-encrusted horseshoe surrounded the seven-carat diamond. It had been created for the owner to wear at one of the earliest horse races in Louisville, nearly 70 years ago. The current owner was a wife of the one of the town’s leading industrialists, who only wore the diamond once a year for her Derby party. Rumor had it that it took two sets of hands to hang it on a woman’s neck and fix the clasp.
Me, I was lucky to be able to have one hand to hold anything in. I’d lost my right hand at Okinawa and been sh
ipped home to Louisville. I couldn’t go back to my job as a cop; no one wants a right-handed man pointing a gun with his left. So I got my PI license and waited around for a way to make some dough. The war had made it tough on everyone, but the rich still hung out at home while the others fought.
One of my friends on the force had tossed me this case. The uppercrust didn’t want a fuss made about the loss of the jewels; Mr. Van H had informed me over the phone that he just wanted it back without a hubbub. That’s the way it worked when it was one of your own. I would have done the same for any of the guys in my company – if they had jewels to steal.
So I’d come to the home of the Van Hoskins to talk to the dame about her missing necklace. I figured that she suspected someone in particular of taking it. If the servants had stole it, she would have called the cops. That left her high-class friends. No one in Glenview would be subjected to the third degree. It was all velvet gloves and polite questions off River Road.
Mrs. Van Hoskins greeted me at the door. I’d been admiring the view from the bluffs. The Ohio River drifted idly by, oblivious to pain, suffering and war. A guy could forget about Hirohito in a place like this.
None of the servants seemed to be around. Maybe they’d be shipped out to Pearl Harbor or beyond, like so many others. Or it just furthered my suspicions that she thought one of her friends had stole it and she didn’t want the servants to know a thing about it.
“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Donnelly?” She waved a hand at the chair by the door. It didn’t look like something I’d want to sit in, but I did anyway. The knobby little chair sat in the entryway. I was good enough to find her jewels, but not to be treated like a proper guest in the home.
“Thank you.” I took a closer look around the room this time. The room was filled with stuff that looked like she’s taken it from a museum. I didn’t see this kind of décor often. After all, I was from the West End, the other side of town from Glenview. We didn’t even visit the museums over there. There was no sign of Mr. Van Hoskins. Apparently, he spent a great deal of time away from home. There didn’t seem to be much of his personality in what I could see of the house.
“When did you discover your diamond missing?” I asked, trying not to calculate my fee as we sat there.
“Well, as you may know, the van Hoskins throw a Derby party every year. It’s quite the event to attend.” She made the announcement like a spud like me might know it. “I wore it that evening and noticed it stolen at the end of the night.”
“Someone heisted it off your neck?” I had a hard time seeing how that albatross would not be missed by even the richest of dames.
“No, I was wearing the diamond at the party, when the clasp broke. It fell down my décolletage and I had to retrieve it.” She had the good graces to blush when she pronounced that word. I’d never heard it used in a sentence in my life. I knew then that I was way out of my league with this case. She played with the skin just under her three chins as if she wanted me to look at her amble bosom. I hadn’t been with a woman since my wife had left, and I wasn’t looking to change that with this dame. The cuckolded husband owned enough business in Jefferson County to make sure I never worked again.
“So you put it back on or stowed it aways somewhere?” She wasn’t the only one who could use words that the other wasn’t likely to say.
“Well, I put it in my room until I could have a proper look at it. I couldn’t abandon my guests that way.” She gave me a look that could have wilted the Japs. Roosevelt could have used that look for a secret weapon to win the war. “After all, one does not leave the Binghams waiting.”
I bit my lip to suppress a smile. “No, of course not.” Louisville’s first family wanted nothing from me, so I figured I was safe in not caring.
“Well, the party was starting to break up anyway, so it wasn’t a concern. I put it away and went back to the guests. After the last guest left, I went back upstairs to see what had happened to the clasp and it was gone.” Mrs. Van Hoskins had begun to pace the marble floor. Obviously the incident had upset her. Who could entertain when the guests were after your jewels and not your banter?
“Do you know who saw the necklace come off you? How many people were around?” I could begin to see her worry. She should have had the rock on all night, so there wouldn’t have been a chance to take it off her. The whole thing was coincidence. Only the people who saw it come off and the people who were left at the party had the opportunity to take it. The staff would have been too busy. Mrs. Van Hoskins didn’t look like the type to let the help lounge around on her dime.
“I have a guest list that was made for the party. I’ve taken the liberty of marking off the names of the people who weren’t able to make it or who had left the party before my necklace broke. In that way, you can see that there are only a few people who would need to be bothered with an inquiry. I would expect your cooperation in keeping this hush-hush.”
“Of course.” In all my years of police work, I’d never met an upper crust who didn’t expect the entire investigation to be under wraps. The rich didn’t do things any different than the rest of us; they just paid good money to keep it out of the papers. “I will have to ask a few questions of the people who were at the party. Other than that, no one needs to know.”
I knew how true those words would be. My wife had left me when I’d come home unable to wrap my arms around her, and my office was a one-man business. Necessity to turn a buck, rather than liking to keep things lean and mean.
I decided to start with Miranda Beck, the well-known socialite. I knew that she wouldn’t have had anything to do with the theft, but the thought of being in the same room with her was a tad intoxicating. I had seen her picture in the Courier-Journal since I’d been home. She was the kind of dame that I could get my arm around and not let go, but that wasn’t likely to happen. Still she agreed to see me at the English Grill restaurant at the Brown Hotel for a drink. I wasn’t up to buying dinner, but the drink seemed harmless enough. The lobby was full of boys stationed at Fort Knox, on leave for the weekend and seeing how the better half lived.
Miranda was sitting at a table when I arrived. Even with the shortage of staff at the hotel, she hadn’t had a problem in getting a drink. She tipped a martini and smiled at me. “So how can I help with this? Are you really a private investigator? I’ve never met one before.” She smiled at me over the lip of the glass and made me forget why I’d come to the Brown. Part of me wanted to hold her and forget the world for a while, but Mrs. Van Hoskins would appreciate that. Her rocks were the reason I was supposed to be here. I kept reminding myself of that as I tried not to stare at her beauty. She had the long neck of a swan and its graceful ease. Her blond hair stroked her chiffon-covered shoulders and went well with the soft green of her gown and eyes. I would have gladly given both hands to keep her safe from the evil of the world.
I was surprised that she still ran with the swells, but I guess that tastes don’t change as fast as circumstances. Her father had died in the stock market crash of 1929. He’d taken a long leap from a short building downtown when all of his clients’ funds disappeared. He’d been playing fast and loose with other people’s money. Miranda had managed to land a good-looking member of society, but Herr Rommell had seen the end of him. Beck had been lost in North Africa, and hadn’t been heard of since then. Miranda still made the rounds of the social events, and the Derby was still the event to end all events. No one who could still muster a fancy gown would want to attend the Van Hoskins’ party.
As it turned out, Miranda wasn’t able to help me much with the case. She remembered the incident with the necklace and remembered Mrs. Van H putting it in her room, but she wasn’t able to help much beyond that. Mrs. Van Hoskins had made a fuss about the clasp, loud enough for everyone to hear. Miranda mentioned a few people who had been in the room, but no one that my client hadn’t highlighted for me. Melinda scrunched up her face when one particular name came up in the conversation. I took that as a sign that
perhaps the person in question didn’t measure up to the social standards set by the elite of Louisville, or it might have just been a bad smell in the air. But since I didn’t have any other leads, I thought that I might as well follow up on her unspoken ideas.
Miranda her turned up her nose at the name Mark Anderson, and I went to see him next. He was one of the few on the guest list that I’d heard of, and not in a good way. Anderson had been linked to a number of married women throughout the first three years of the war. My ma cleaned for a few of the fancy folk up on the Glenview bluffs and she’d heard stories about him. Once she’d even seen him leaving the home of a young war bride, well into the morning. Ma had gone about that for two days. I hadn’t heard any mention of him before Pearl Harbor. He seemed to materialize out of thin air at the start of the war, to pick up the pieces for all the war widows and women who had been left alone during the early days of the war.
For some reason, despite his well-formed physique, he’d managed to come up 4F with the draft board. He hadn’t appealed the ruling and he’d stayed home while my buddies had gone off to fight the Japs. It made me all the more suspicious of him.
My suspicions ended at the door. Anderson wasn’t going to be telling me much of anything. In the past twelve hours or so, someone had taken a chunk out of his skull with a fireplace poker. The iron utensil still lay on the floor next to the body. He looked as if he’d been taken by surprise. His eyes were wide open and his mouth formed a small “O”. The blood had sprayed across the room in an arc, telling me that whoever did this didn’t hesitate to think about it.
I didn’t touch a thing before I called my buddies on the force. I could hear them now, cussing me out for stumbling on more work for them. I was supposed to be taking the easy cases, so they could stop in at Heintzman’s Bakery for a donut or two. I tried to take in the scene before they showed up, but I didn’t see anything out of place or anything that looked like a tony necklace. I tossed his bedroom before the boys showed up, but nothing was there that looked like the Derby diamond.