The Boy Who Never Grew Up (19 page)

“And you didn’t hear anything in the night?” I asked her.

“I heard nothing.”

“Pry bar didn’t wake you?”

“I heard
nothing
,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes at me. “My office door was closed and my air conditioner was on. I’m also a heavy sleeper.”

“What time did you get up?”

“Six. I work out at our health club every morning before work.”

“Which is where?”

“Next door to the commissary.”

“You didn’t notice anything unusual when you left?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you come in here?”

She drew herself up. “Why you slicin’ and dicin’ me, man?” she woofed.

“He’s not accusing you of anything, Sarge,” Shelley said soothingly.

“Of course he’s not,” said Bunny. She glared at me. “Are you?”

“I am not,” I assured her.

Sarge relaxed. “No, I didn’t come in here,” she said with exaggerated patience.

“Who discovered the break-in?” I asked.

“I did,” Shelley replied. “I came up here right after you guys left, about a quarter to eight. I was the first one in. The doors were locked. I came in, found the desk all busted and the negatives gone.”

“So it happened some time between one-thirty in the morning and a quarter to eight,” I mused aloud. To Shadow I said, “None of the doors were forced?”

“No, sir,” he replied, looking down at his big feet. “Whoever did it had keys. Or else he picked the locks. Ain’t like they be dead bolts or nothing. Professional could be in and out like a mouse.”

“A professional would have picked the desk lock, too,” I said. “Not smashed the drawer in.”

“Maybe he tried to pick it and it wouldn’t cooperate,” countered Shadow. “Hard telling.”

“This was no wild search,” I suggested. “Whoever did this knew exactly where you kept the negatives. Penny knew?”

Shelley froze, eyes widened as if he’d just taken a pair of scissors in the back. “No way,” he said in a stunned half-whisper. “She didn’t know. I’m sure she didn’t. She couldn’t have. But then that would … that means somebody
else
tipped off Zorch …”

“So it would seem,” I said.

It got very quiet in Shelley’s office. The only sound was Lulu burping sourly under my chair. Alka-Seltzer. She needed an Alka-Seltzer.

“Who else knew?” I asked.

“You may include the Shadow out,” the security chief spoke up promptly. “The Shadow don’t know nothing about such executive business.”

“That’s true, he didn’t,” Shelley acknowledged. He looked warily around the room at the others. “Just the family knew. No one else. Just us.” His eyes returned to me. “And you. You knew.”

Lulu growled softly. I assured her I could handle it. To Shelley I said, “Care to elaborate on that?”

“I did mention them to you in New York,” he pointed out. “I even told you where I kept them. You show up in town and, bam, your first night here they disappear. You have to admit—”

“Let’s not be bashful about this,” I said. “If you think I had something to do with it come right out and say so.”

“No, wait, Meat,” Matthew broke in, horrified. Everyone looked at him in surprise—these were the first words he’d spoken since we arrived. “Shelley wasn’t saying you did it. Tell him you weren’t saying that, Shelley. Please tell him.”

Shelley didn’t say anything for a moment. Just sat there in his high backed chair, watching me with his close-set eyes. “I wasn’t accusing you,” he finally confessed, most sincerely. “I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. I’m just kind of upset right now.”

“I understand,” I said. And I meant it. Because I realized exactly what Shelley realized—somebody in this room was involved. Only who? And why? Was it to get back at Pennyroyal? Maybe so. But there was a heavy downside to such sweet revenge—escalation. The more the war between her and Matthew heated up, the less likely it was that they’d ever patch it up. Which made the future for Bedford Falls look even iffier. Then again, maybe that was the whole idea. Maybe someone in the family
wanted
to see the studio fall. But why? What possible reason could they have? I turned to Shadow and said, “Did anyone come onto the lot after midnight last night?”

“Yessir,” he replied. “You did.”

“Besides me.”

“The Shadow seen nobody,” he replied.

“Any messengers? Delivery boys?”

“Nobody.”

“Did you leave the gate at any time?”

“Only to conduct some personal business,” he replied. “And I had someone else spell me. Nobody came through. It was a quiet night. Damned hot.”

“Who else besides the family was here?”

Shadow scratched his chin with a thick finger. “The security men. The Shadow can vouch for all of them … A comedy team writing late on that witch sitcom. They be around pretty often … Also a film producer who was brushing up on a little late-night business with his secretary, if you know what I’m talking about. Man’s won two damned Oscars. Don’t know why he can’t rent that poor girl a furnished room with a hot plate somewheres.”

“And no one came through the gate until the workers arrived this morning?” I asked him.

“That’s right,” Shadow affirmed. “Except for Shelley, that is.”

“At seven-thirty,” I said, nodding. “We ran into him when we were leaving.”

“No, this was before that,” said Shadow. “About six.”

“You were here earlier?” I asked Shelley.

“Well, yeah,” he replied sheepishly. “We swung by to pick up my car on the way home from the airport. I left it here while we were in New York. I followed Shelley and the kids up to the house and took a shower and then I came back.”

“All you did was pick up your car? You didn’t come inside?”

“Not me,” he said. “Shelley came upstairs. But just for a second.”

“Upstairs where?”

“Here, to use my john. She doesn’t like public lavatories. A thing she has.”

“Ever since she was a little girl,” confirmed Bunny. “She’d hold it in for hours until she—”

“Did she know where you kept the negatives?” I asked Shelley.

“Wait one second, Hoagy,” he said angrily. “You’re not trying to say my wife had anything to do with this, are you?”

“I am not,” I said. “Just exploring the possibilities.”

Shadow cleared his throat. “If I may explore another one …”

“Go ahead, Shadow,” said Shelley.

“We do have good security, sir, like you said. But it ain’t like we’re some kind of strategic military installation. We’re mostly set up to protect against people making off with our stuff. The cameras and sound equipment, props, office machines. They need a car for that—that’s why we funnel all our traffic through the one gate. But if somebody genuinely wants to get on this or any other film lot undetected, he can do it. Under the fence. Through the fence. There are bound to be soft spots. Local kids, they sneak onto the lot all the time, fool around in Homewood, drink their beer. We chase ’em off, plug up the hole, they just find another one. There’s no stopping ’em.”

“Shadow’s right,” Matthew agreed. “I used to get onto the Panorama lot all the time when I was in high school, and they had great security there.”

I tugged at my ear. “If someone knew this lot well, Shadow, would they know where those soft spots are? A former employee, perhaps?”

“Possibly, sir.”

“Who do you have in mind?” Shelley asked me.

“I can think of two former employees right off,” I said. “There’s Johnny Forget, who has a personal connection with Zorch of the deepest kind, and then there’s Pennyroyal herself.”

“Not Pennyroyal,” said Matthew, dismissing the idea. “She’d have to be crazy.”

“I can think of worse words to call her,” muttered Bunny.

Matthew rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Ma, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I?” she fumed.

“Johnny Forget,” said Shelley, mulling it over. “Interesting …”He shook his finger at me. “You think a lot like a lawyer, Hoagy.”

“I don’t deserve that,” I snapped. “I really don’t.”

“I meant it as a compliment,” he protested.

“Sorry, my mistake.”

“Meat’s kind of touchy,” explained Matthew.

“I heard that,” chimed in Sarge, drily.

“So what do I tell the press?” Shelley wondered aloud.

“Tell them you’ve launched a full-scale investigation and expect to have results very soon,” I suggested. “Which is to say—tell them nothing.”

“Sold.” Shelley glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a four-thirty doctor’s appointment. I’d better run.”

“Getting that wrist looked at?” I inquired.

“My colon,” he replied, reddening.

“Shelley had polyps a few years ago,” disclosed Bunny. “Benign, thank God, but he has to be checked regularly. I have a hair appointment myself,” she added, taking to her feet.

“Want me to drop you there, Bun?” Shelley asked his mother-in-law.

“Thank you, no,” she replied. “I have a number of other stops to make—it isn’t easy keeping food in the house when there’s a growing boy around.” She smoothed Matthew’s hair lovingly, carefully avoiding his bald patch. “Not to mention a little girl.” She made kissy noises at Lulu, who moaned softly under me. “She gets to have my tuna surprise tonight,” Bunny announced. “It’s Sarah and Benjamin’s favorite.”

The moan was louder now.

“We’ll have to take a rain check,” I said.

“You’re not coming over for dinner?” asked Shelley.

“Can’t. Sorry.”

Lulu rubbed my foot gratefully with her head. She hadn’t done that since the time I first introduced her to caviar.

“How about stopping by for dessert?” pressed Shelley.

“I’ll try.”

“Wonderful,” exclaimed Bunny. “I’ll save her some leftovers.”

She bustled out, charm bracelet clanging, followed closely by Shelley. Matthew slowly got up and went into his office, shutting the door softly behind him. Sarge watched him, her brow furrowed with concern. Then she sprang up from the floor and strode out the door to her own office.

“There goes one fine-looking woman,” observed Shadow wistfully.

“Little young for you, isn’t she?” I asked, grinning at him.

He yawned and knuckled his eyes. “Man’s got to have his fantasies.”

“That he does. I understand she has a fiancé in jail.”

Shadow made a face. “He’s trash. Don’t give a damn about her. She don’t love him no more herself. No, sir, there’s only one man for Charmaine. Woman don’t show a man that kind of devotion without she loves him.”

“Does he know?”

He showed me his gold tooth. “She don’t even know it herself.”

“Then how do you know?”

“The Shadow knows plenty,” he replied. “What he don’t know is why Mr. Shelley won’t bring the police in on this. It’s robbery, plain and simple.”

“There are two possibilities. One is that he’s afraid of the press, like he said.”

“And what’s the other?” Shadow asked.

“That he knows more about who took Pennyroyal’s negatives than he’s letting on.”

He thought this one over, nodding to himself. “He was wrong about you.”

“Was he?”

“You don’t think like no lawyer at all. You think more like a man who’s been directing his feet to the shady side of the street.”

“That can’t be helped, I’m afraid,” I told him. “The fancier the address the shadier the street. Ask any realtor.”

Abel Zorch’s street had plenty of shade.

He lived on Hazen Drive up in the hills north of Sunset off Coldwater Canyon. Cherokee, a steep, winding road, got me there. Lulu rode next to me in the Vette with her shades on, feeling somewhat better after lapping up an Alka-Seltzer. The air was a little cooler and a lot less smoggy up in the hills. It was dusk.

Hazen was narrow and quiet, the houses the usual jarring mix of new and old, gaudy and gaudier. Most were set back from the road behind walls with remote-controlled iron gates. None were small. None would fetch less than two million, no matter what the economy was doing. The entertainment business constantly generates new millionaires. And discards old ones. Zorch’s was a fine example of the early mishigothic style of architecture, complete with turrets, stained glass windows, and ivy-covered walls. A cream-colored Rolls Corniche convertible was idling there outside the gate with its top down, unoccupied. His. The man certainly got good service—he already had his new windshield. The driver’s door was open. The gate was closed. Zorch was nowhere in sight. I idled there in the road, waiting for him to return. A car came up behind me, wanting to get by. I swung around next to the Rolls in the apron of the driveway so it could, and that’s when I saw him.

He was there on the pavement next to the intercom box set in the wall. On his back, staring up at the sky. He’d been shot twice, once in the forehead, once in the groin. For some reason, he had bled very little. Maybe that’s just how reptiles are. I got out and went over to him and discovered the Rolls was not unoccupied. Geoffrey with a G lay sprawled across the front seat, minus one side of his head. He had bled a lot. The blood was quite fresh. It had just happened. I found myself unable to move for a second. All I could do was stand there and stare. Slowly, I backed away from the Rolls and got my battered silver flask of calvados out of the glove compartment of the Vette. I drank deeply from it, Lulu whimpering softly next to me. I bent down and stroked her, wondering what Abel Zorch had been so anxious to talk to me about. It was vital, he said. Vital. I took another drink and put the flask away. Then I went for help.

L
AMP DIDN’T NOTICE ME THERE AT FIRST. ZORCH
and Geoffrey with a G hogged his immediate attention. Dead bodies will do that. He stood huddled over Zorch’s with three uniforms, asking questions and giving orders. A fourth uniform quizzed the young, muscular Filipino houseboy who had been inside when it happened, and was now standing next to the Rolls, weeping. I lounged across the street against the Vette, arms folded, watching. It wasn’t until Lamp pulled aside two of the uniforms and told them to canvass the neighbors that he noticed me there. First he did a startled double take. Then he grinned and waved me over. Lulu came, too.

“Read any good books lately, Lieutenant?” I asked, as I strolled across to him.

“Only when you write them, Hoagy,” he exclaimed, pumping my hand vigorously. “Cheese and crackers, it’s good to see you.” He bent over and scratched Lulu’s ears. “And you, too, little gal.”