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Authors: Ron Goulart

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BOOK: One Grave Too Many
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“Is that part of … part of somebody?”

“Chatto and his buddy are in the can.” Easy took a blank white envelope out of the pocket of his $225 sport coat, dropped the bone into it. “Were you out here last night?”

“Christ, no,” answered Gary. “It’s enough of a problem getting my pants and shoes on. I’m not quite ready to dig holes like that.”

Easy put the envelope away. “Did you tell anyone else about the message your father left?”

“No, nobody,” Gary assured him. “Well, no one except Gay and …”

“And who, Danny?”

“Not Danny. I haven’t been able to get hold of her,” said Gary. “But I did tell Sandy, Sandy Feller, my partner. He came to see me at Dr. Clayton’s setup yesterday afternoon and I talked about this whole mess. Sandy and I have been friends since we were kids and I always talk every …”

“I’ll talk to him now.”

“Wait a minute, Easy. There’s someone else who knows all about this,” said Gary. “That fag who lives with my Aunt Vida. He was right in the house while Chatto and McBernie worked me over. That message must have been repeated two hundred times at least.”

“Okay, I’ll check on Jordan Crossen, too.”

Gary took a step back from the pit. “What was in that damn hole anyway, Easy? Money or somebody’s body?”

“Both,” said Easy.

CHAPTER 16

T
HE FAT MAN IN
the candy-stripe sport jacket was reaching into his sample case. “Take these home for yourself then, young lady.” He held out a handful of boxes of recording tape.

The slim Negro receptionist refused. “We’re happy with the tape we’re using now.”

“So it wouldn’t hurt to take a freeby?”

The black girl noticed Gary Marks and Easy. She stood up behind her white desk, grinning. “Welcome back, Gary.”

“Hi, Marlis.”

The tape man held his fistful of boxes out toward the approaching men. “Mr. Gary Marks, is it? Here are some samples courtesy of the Ichijiku Company of Japan. We’re new, but …”

“Is Sandy in?” Gary asked the girl.

She shook her head, poking a finger into her afro. She shrugged. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Here you go,” the tape man said to Easy, “try these samples. At Ichijiku we like to say, we’re new but …”

“Thank you very much.” Taking the boxes of tape, Easy put a hand on the man’s candy-striped arm. “We’ll run some field tests on this and be in touch with you.” He helped him shut his sample case, aimed him at the door and gave a light shove.

“What about Sandy?” asked Gary.

“He’s not here,” replied Marlis. “I got in around half past nine and he wasn’t here and there’s no message any place in the office and the answering service hasn’t heard from him.”

“Nearly noon. You call his house in Ninguno Canyon?”

“Was going to when the Japanese tape man came barrelassing in.”

“Call now.” Gary rested both hands on the edge of the white desk.

Easy sat on a black chair next to a trophy.

After a moment the black girl hung up the desk phone. “Busy signal.”

“Funny,” said Gary. “He’s not the kind of guy to wander off and not tell us.”

“We’ve got the Kane taping at two.”

“Well, I’m up to handling that if he’s not here by then. Where is it, Norliss Recording?”

“Yeah, Studio … Studio 3. Two o’clock.”

“Try his house once more.”

Marlis punched out the number again. “Busy.”

Gary, with his slight limp, walked over and sat next to Easy. “You don’t think … I mean, there’d be no reason for anyone to grab Sandy the way they did me. Would there?”

“What’s his address?”

“26 La Paloma Lane, over in Ninguno Canyon. You know where that …?”

“Yeah.” Easy rose. “Ill drive over.”

Gary was looking at the silver cup which rested on the white pedestal next to the chair. “This is the first award we won. Second place in the humorous 20-second spot division. That was for one of our Soy Poppos series. Pretty good, for the time. Sort of a Doyle-Dane fee to it. Maybe I better come along, huh?”

“Stay here,” Easy told him. “And if Feller shows keep him here until I can talk to him.”

“There’s got to be somebody at his house. Otherwise we wouldn’t get a busy signal,” said Gary, going toward the door with Easy. “Maybe he’s just got a touch of something. Sandy usually isn’t sick, though.”

Easy opened the white door and went out.

There were too many cars around. Three parked in front of the low shingle house, two more parked on its short gravel driveway and one parked right out on the lawn.

There was also a bald man in a wrinkled blue suit standing on the grass and taking pictures of the Feller house. “Officer,” he called toward the open front door, “would you stick your head out a little bit more so I can get you in this next one?”

The uniformed cop obliged.

“That’s terrific, officer, only don’t smile like that. Look serious, look official. That’s nice, very nice.”

Easy cut across the grass and walked along the red brick path toward the front steps.

“Go away,” said the young cop.

“What’s wrong here?”

“You go away. Maybe tonight you can read about it in the paper.”

Behind the young cop was the living room. It was shadowy in there, drapes drawn. “I’m John Easy,” Easy said. “I’m a private investigator, working for Feller’s partner. Is Feller here?”

“Nope.”

“How about his wife?”

“She is, sure enough.” A frown touched the young man’s flat face. “You got some IDs on you?”

Easy got out his wallet, extracted his identification papers. “Who got killed?” he asked.

Returning the IDs, the young cop said, “Maybe you ought, since you work for his partner, talk to Lt. Smith.” He went away, saying, “Wait right there.”

The bald photographer yelled to Easy. “Want to give me your name in case I need it for a caption?”

“James Oliver Curwood,” answered Easy.

“Come on in,” said the young cop out of the shadows of the Feller living room.

Lt. Smith was sitting in a tan armchair. A thickset man with black wavy hair. He wore rimless glasses. “John Easy,” he said, remaining slouched in the chair. “You shot somebody over in Beverly Hills yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why was that? I forget the details.”

“Couple guys were trying to kidnap my client’s sister,” said Easy. “What happened here?”

“Go look in the bedroom.” Smith inclined his head slowly to the right.

Easy went around him and down a hall.

There were three men in the bedroom. None of them paying attention to the girl on the bed. Someone had cut her throat. The whole room seemed bloody.

Another flashbulb went off and Easy turned away. Back in the living room he sat on the sofa across from the police lieutenant. “That’s Mrs. Feller?”

“Can’t you tell?”

“Never met her.”

“It’s her,” said Lt. Smith. “Good thing they didn’t have any kids. You can’t explain things like this to kids.”

“What about Feller?”

“They found him a little bit after dawn this morning,” said Smith. “Sitting in his car, facing the Pacific. Throat cut, too.”

“Where was that?”

“He was down by the beach in San Amaro. We got the call to come up here and break the news to the wife, see what we could find out. The man I sent found the front door wide open and she was in there like you saw her.”

“What time you figure she was killed?”

“Not much later than six this morning. About three hours or so after he was.”

From where he was sitting Easy could see into the dining room. He noticed all the drawers had been yanked out of a large bureau. “Somebody looking for something?”

“They went through most of the closets and the larger chests and bureaus. Tore up the garage, too.”

“Must be something big.” The books and the pictures in the living room hadn’t been touched.

“Maybe you have a notion.”

Easy said, “I’m working for Gary Marks. His father was Vincent Marquetti.”

“I remember him.” The lieutenant sank further into the chair, watching Easy. “You think it’s money that’s behind this?”

“Those guys in Beverly Hills,” Easy said, “had the idea Marquetti left a million bucks or so buried someplace around LA.”

“Where does Feller come into it?”

“He and Gary Marks were partners in an advertising agency, been friends since they were kids,” said Easy. “I don’t know.”

“Think maybe Feller got hold of that dough?”

“I think he found something,” said Easy.

CHAPTER 17

T
HERE WAS A HUGE G
worked into the design of each of the wrought-iron gates. They stood open in the late afternoon.

Easy, this time, had parked his Volkswagen across the road from the Goffman estate. As he approached the open gates in the red brick wall a warm inland wind began to blow. It had some of the hot dry feel of a Santa Ana wind, and it swirled grit and leaves.

The windows of the red brick gatehouse looked black in the thinning sunlight. The wooden door of the small square house was shut.

After watching the gatehouse for a half minute Easy walked on by. Dry leaves were spinning over the vast green lawns, lifted by the warm wind and then dropped.

No one showed on all the Goffman acres. No one hailed Easy.

He went up to the front door, pushed the bell button. A portion of
Greensleeves
played inside the big house. No one came to open the door.

“You can leave it around in back.”

Easy turned to see an old man standing down on the gravel path. “Nobody home?”

“Nope.” The old man wore a soft-brimmed gray hat and a shaggy green sweater. He had on a pair of spectacles with the tortoise-shell frames patched in three places with flesh-colored Band-Aids. “You ain’t the boy from the liquor store, though, are you?”

Shaking his head, Easy went down to the old man. “Who are you?”

“My status, you mean? I’m the head gardener,” he replied. “Also caretaker at times like now.”

“I’d like to get in touch with Mrs. Goffman.”

The old man reached into a lumpy pocket of his sweater. “Lots of fellows your age would, I imagine.” His freckled hand emerged with an assortment of objects on its palm. “Had some sugarless gum here somewheres.” He plucked a book of matches from his hand, returned it to the lumpy pocket.

“Can you tell me where she’s gone?”

“Nope.” He took a spool of fishing line off. “Sugarless gum tastes about one notch better than buffalo dung, but I got to watch my carbohydrates.”

“I’m a private investigator. My name is John Easy,” said Easy.

“You must be the fellow who coldcocked Ennis.” His stiff old fingers located the pack of gum. “There you are, you little booger.”

“It’s important I talk to Mrs. Goffman,” Easy said. “Maybe it’ll save her from having to talk to the cops.”

“Don’t much like Ennis myself.” The old gardener began to chew a stick of gum. “I’ll tell you now, Easy, I got no idea where exactly they took her.”

“Somebody took her away from here?”

“Bright and early this morning. Usually she ain’t up before midway through the day. But this morning she was, looking a little rumpled, though as pretty as ever. They stuck her in the limo—and
woosh.

“Who?”

“Ennis and Hoffine,” said the old man. “Hoffine’s the big clod who calls himself the second gardener.”

“She didn’t want to go?”

“Didn’t seem any too happy about it. She wasn’t screaming and kicking, but she was calling this one an SOB and that one a bastard pretty fast and furious.”

“Ennis and Hoffine, they took her away on orders from the old man?”

“Oh, sure. He was in the doorway right up there, wearing one of his fancy Italian silk robes.”

“Has this kind of thing happened before?”

“Yep, once in a while the old boy decides she needs a rest.”

“Where do they usually take her?”

“Well sir, usually they took her to a place the old boy’s got up around Russian River,” said the gardener. “Big hunting lodge sort of place, as I’ve heard tell.”

“But you don’t think they took her there this time?”

“Couldn’t very well. Place burned down about a month ago in one of them runaway forest fires.”

“Any idea where else she could be?”

“Nope. Sooner or later I usually find out, but right this minute I ain’t yet.”

“Okay,” said Easy. “What about Goffman himself?”

“Business trip, least that’s what he told everybody. Couple of days up north somewheres, Frisco or someplace like that.”

“You don’t think he really went there?”

“Hard to say.”

“You saw him this morning. Do you know if he spent the night here?”

The gardener chewed his gum for a few seconds. “Now that’s funny,” he said finally. “Matter of fact, the old boy came sneaking home about seven this morning. Might just be he’s got a little something going on the side, too.”

“Goffman got here at seven,” said Easy. “And what time did they haul Danny Goffman off?”

“Hour or so later,” answered the old man. “Quite a bit of yelling and shouting went on between seven and eight.”

Easy nodded. “Okay. I’d better get to looking for her.”

The gardener said, “I was figuring on ending my days with this particular job. Now I get the feeling that, unless I kick the bucket in the next day or so, I ain’t going to get my wish. What do you say?”

“Some things are going to fall apart, yeah.”

“Well, so be it then.” He walked with Easy toward the big iron gates. “Be extra careful with yourself today, Easy.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like the feel of this wind. And the way the sun’s been looking. It’s earthquake weather.”

“I’ll watch out for quakes.”

The old man walked slower and slower and in a moment he was far behind Easy. “You do that,” he called after him.

CHAPTER 18

T
HE VOICE CAME OUT
of the ceiling. “In here, Easy.”

Easy looked across the empty recording studio at the glass window of the engineer’s booth. Gary Marks was sitting in there alone.

Despite air conditioning the smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the empty room. Three pages of loose script, a purple ditto copy, lay scattered on the thick gray rug. A half-eaten apple rested in a glass ashtray atop a mound of cigarette ends.

BOOK: One Grave Too Many
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