Dead Seed (6 page)

“He’s young,” I said, “but a pretty solid young man if we judge by today’s standards.”

“That’s not saying much. I’ll have him call you.”

When Corey phoned, I told him about the call from Sarkissian.

“You blew your cover?” he asked.

“Watch your tongue, kid. I wanted to warn you not to use my name up there if you get in.”

“I didn’t plan to. And I’m already in. I start working there on Monday.”

“Doing what?”

“Washing dishes. I’m not proud.”

“We can’t afford to be in our business. And even they have to pay you the minimum. Good work!”

“You blew your cover?” he said again. “I can’t believe it!”

“It happens,” I said sternly. “Be damned sure you don’t. You’re not using your own name, are you? Remember, you’re in the phone book.”

“I had to use my right name,” he explained, “so I wouldn’t get cheated out of my Social Security some day. And my phone number hasn’t been listed yet. I’m safe.”

“Your phone number isn’t listed? How did Mrs. Lacrosse get it?”

Silence on the wire.

“Come on, Corey!”

“I consider that privileged information, Mr. Callahan.”

“I’m waiting.”

“All right! There’s a cop down at the station that I know. He’s the same cop who steered me to the job at that TV store. But you’re not going to get his name from me, so don’t try.”

I had another tentative line to draw among the less obvious connections, from Corey to the crooked cop. It would intersect the line from the crooked cop to Kelly.

“Okay, peeper,” I said. “It’s your neck.”

I phoned Vogel to give him this tidbit. His son answered. He told me his father and mother had gone fishing up at Lake Cachuma. They wouldn’t be home until late tomorrow. Bernie had found his two days of peace.

It clouded up again that night, promising us the beneficence of rain. But if it rained every time it clouded up in Southern California, we would have to live in boats. The morning brought the sun again.

Jan and I had finished breakfast and were about to divide up the Sunday
Los Angeles Times
when Mrs. Casey came in with a pronouncement.

“They’re home next door,” she told us. “I was watching the late movie in my room last night at one o’clock when I saw her car drive in.”

“I hope they came home with answers,” I said.

“And I hope you’re not going over there with questions,” Jan said. “If they have something they want to tell us, they will.”

“I hope so,” I said.

The kitchen radio was on, giving us the weather report. It was interrupted by a news flash. The legendary Hollywood agent, Sidney Morgenstern, had been found dead on the sand some two hundred yards east of the Hotel Biltmore beach. He had been murdered, bludgeoned to death.

“I’m going down there,” I said.

“We have a date for golf with the Vaughans at eleven o’clock,” Jan reminded me.

I stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “God, how trivial can I get? Go!”

I
HAD EXPECTED TO
see the Biltmore crawling with cops, but decorum reigned; the law had left. Service and decorum are Biltmore hallmarks. I knew the manager; he was one of Bernie’s poker victims.

He told me, in his office, that the body had been discovered at five o’clock this morning by a pair of lovers on the beach. The local news station had not been alerted until after eight.

“Do the police have any suspects?” I asked.

“An actor. Fortney Grange. Do you remember him?”

I nodded. “Was he staying here?”

“No. He came to see Morgenstern. One of our room-service employees was going past Morgenstern’s suite around ten o’clock, and he heard Grange and Morgenstern having a loud argument inside.”

“Did they go to the beach together?”

“Not according to the desk clerk. Tell me, what’s your interest in this, Brock?”

“Grange is a friend of a neighbor of mine. Bernie and I have been working on some shenanigans that might possibly involve him.”

He looked at me skeptically.

“Scout’s honor,” I said. “Bernie is up at Lake Cachuma, fishing. So I thought I’d get what I could before tomorrow. I know Morgenstern was Grange’s agent, and Grange has been missing for a couple of days, so—well, I thought there might be a connection.”

He still didn’t look convinced.

“Why would Morgenstern wander on the beach at night?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He quite often did at night on his previous visits here. He told me he planned to move here.”

“Could I speak with the employee?”

“He’s not here. He works nights. He’s probably down at the station, answering questions. His English is poor, so we sent his sister down to interpret for him about an hour ago. She works here as a maid. They are Chicanos, but the boy hasn’t been in this country long.” He smiled at me. “And that’s all I can tell you—now.”

There was no police officer at the station today who would welcome my appearance there. The few friends I had at the station didn’t work on weekends. I went home.

“I phoned Carol,” Jan told me, “but Charles said she was not accepting any calls. He told me Fortney is down at the police station with Carol’s attorney. Are you going down there?”

“No. Did you phone the Vaughans to cancel our date?”

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure when—”

“Then let’s play golf,” I said. “Our neighbors don’t need us. They’ve got her money.”

She stared at me. “Now, what’s bugging you?”

“Butterflies,” I said. “Let’s go. I want to hit a bucket of balls before we play.”

I can sympathize with victims. But not people who run away from their problems. They rank with quitters to me. Fortney Grange certainly had not killed his longtime friend. That I couldn’t believe. But there was a strong possibility that Morgenstern had died because Grange had run. A good agent, and Morgenstern had clearly been that and more, protects his client. Quite often, he protects his client from the client’s worst enemy—himself.

But to die for a client? For ten percent of the gross? There is no ten percent death; death is always one hundred percent.

The lovers had fled with their secret. Morgenstern had died with his secret and possibly because of it, the “private things” he had come to town to tell them. He had been
their
victim.

The six o’clock news on the local station had more on the story. Grange had admitted arguing with Morgenstern. He had been indignant with his agent, he had told the police, because he had learned there had been several offers for small parts in pictures over the last few months that his agent had turned down. Grange was still being held, pending bail.

“He lied, didn’t he?” Jan asked.

“I guess. Maybe not.”

“Did you tell the police Morgenstern was here Friday night?”

“There weren’t any policemen around when I got to the hotel.”

“Don’t you think you should phone them?”

“I’ll wait until Bernie is back to work tomorrow.”

“You sound down,” she said. “I thought you would be champing at the bit, ready to dash out and find the killer so you could prove your hero’s innocence.”

“He’s not my hero and I’m not sure he’s innocent. When are we going to eat?”

“In about an hour. I’ll fix you a drink.”

She brought me a bourbon and water almost as strong as I usually made for myself, and twice as strong as she usually made for me.

“Drink up,” she said, “and grow up. The man is a human being, subject to all our human frailties. He is not a knight in shining armor, or a dauntless Western marshal. He is a human being who happens to be an actor.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I know that!”

“And maybe,” she went on, “everything he has done that troubles you was done to protect Carol.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “I can’t believe that running away was Grange’s idea, not yet, not quite.”

I didn’t have much talk to offer the rest of the evening. Jan and Mrs. Casey discussed the murder, offering their opinions, pro and con. They waited up for more on the story on the eleven o’clock news. I went to bed.

The urge to steer clear of the mess was strong in me. But one man hadn’t run; there had been one hero involved, the late Sydney Morgenstern. I went down to the station next morning.

Bernie was in Chief Harris’s office. I waited in his. When he came in, I asked him, “Am I cleared for action?”

He nodded. “More or less. Did Morgenstern get in touch with you?”

“He came to my house. He had a message, he told me, for Grange and Miss Medford from Carl Lacrosse. He wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

“And now,” Bernie said, “the messenger is dead. Did he tell you where Lacrosse could be reached?”

“No. He saw him at a gallery in Los Angeles. He doubted that Lacrosse was still down there, because his exhibition ended two days ago.” I related the rest of my conversation with Morgenstern.

And then I asked, “Now, what do
you
have?”

“Not much.” He took out a cigarette, studied it, and put it back in the pack.

“I see what you mean by more or less,” I said. “More from me and less from you.”

“Stop pouting, for Christ’s sake! I was thinking.”

He took out a cigarette again, looked at it and lighted it. I went over to open a window and came back to sit down.

“It ties in with Kelly,” he told me. “The hotel has a record of a phone call Morgenstern made to Kelly’s house.”

“Oh, boy! Has Kelly been questioned?”

He shook his head. “We can’t locate him. He’s not home. Nobody is there.”

“How did Grange learn that Morgenstern was at the Biltmore?”

“When Miss Medford phoned the house from Solvang the butler told her. Grange came down to talk with him, he claimed, leaving Miss Medford in Solvang. After his talk with Morgenstern, he went back to Solvang and picked up Miss Medford and came home.”

I said, “Our housekeeper saw them drive in at one o’clock on Saturday night.”

Bernie nodded. “That should be about right with what the night clerk in the motel at Solvang told us.”

“Is Grange still being held?” I asked.

He shook his head. “He was released last night. He will answer no more questions unless his attorney is present.”

“He’s no longer under suspicion?”

“Not much.”

“Why not?”

“Morgenstern was also robbed. His wallet was gone. He’s not the first victim of a mugger on that beach.”

“And if the killer wanted to hide his motive,” I pointed out, “robbing the man would be a clever ploy, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. “That is exactly what I told Chief Harris just now.”

“And he argued with you? He wants to write it off?”

“Not exactly.” He paused, staring past me. “But a flashy Hollywood agent, he says, and—” He broke off, his eyes blazing.

“Flashy—? Morgenstern? I never met a classier guy. Is the man crazy?”

He didn’t answer.

And then it hit me. “You think the Chief is anti-Semitic? You think that’s the reason you can’t make captain?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“I do. You know I’m not in Chief Harris’s fan club, nor has he ever been in mine. But anti-Semitic? No way! Hell, you’re the guy who defended him every time I rapped him.”

“All right, all right!” he said irritably. “So I’m over sensitive. Let’s stick with the subject at hand. Did you learn anything over the weekend?”

I told him that Corey, the boy detective, had landed a job at the cult. I told him about Corey’s unidentified cop friend in the station. “He could be Kelly’s friend, too,” I pointed out.

He nodded. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

He and I had become we. I smiled at him and asked, “Have you considered the possibility that Morgenstern could have phoned Kelly’s house to talk with Mrs. Lacrosse? She could be a suspect.”

“I didn’t. But Captain Dahl did. And he told me that at the time Morgenstern was killed, Mrs. Lacrosse was up at the gate of The New Awareness, raising hell with the guard.”

“And the guard called the law?”

“No. A police car was cruising past the road that leads to the place. The officer saw Kelly’s pickup truck turn in. They keep an open eye for Kelly up there. The officer followed it in with his lights off.”

“Kelly was with her?”

He shook his head. “Some redneck cousin of hers from Arizona. But it was Kelly’s truck, wasn’t it? He has to be our main man.”

One way or another, Bernie was determined to nail Kelly. That could lead us down some dead-end trails. I didn’t voice the thought.

He phoned the Roquel Gallery in Beverly Hills. They had no current address for Carl Lacrosse. He had told one of the employees there that he planned to go to Norway. Another runner. If any more turned up, we could stage our own track meet.

We were going out to try to find Kelly when the Chief stopped us in the hall. “Could I see you for a moment in my office, Mr. Callahan?”

We went in, and he closed the door. Chief Chandler Harris is a penguin-shaped man with a flushed complexion and cynical blue eyes. He said, “Bernie went out of here miffed and I suddenly realized why.”

“Because you called Mr. Morgenstern a flashy Hollywood agent?”

“That’s right. He told you?”

I nodded.

“That was a dumb remark of mine!”

Nobody has ever confused you with Albert Einstein,
I thought. I said, “We all make dumb remarks at times, Chief.”

“I know. But think of how he must have construed it! I admire Bernie Vogel more than any officer I’ve ever had.”

“He’s the cream of your crop,” I agreed. “I’m surprised he hasn’t made captain.”

“He thinks that’s the reason?”

I shrugged.

“It’s seniority! I’ve told him that a hundred times. I’ve fought the commission on that for years and Bernie knows it. Look, you tell him he can take all the time he wants on this murder. You tell him I don’t care how long it lasts.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Because I’m embarrassed, damn it!”

“Okay,” I said soothingly. “I’ll handle it.”

When I rejoined Bernie in the hall, he asked, “Another lecture on police procedure? He read you the riot act again, didn’t he?”

“Nope. He thought you might have misconstrued his remark about Morgenstern. He asked me to set you straight on that.
You
are his favorite cop.”