The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery (2 page)

“Could Mr. Greenberg have died of fright? Or excitement?” Masuto asked.

“Of course. That's the nature of the disease. Or of ten other trigger causes.”

“Is there no way to tell?”

“None.”

“Even with an autopsy?”

“No way.”

“And you agree?” Masuto asked the medical examiner.

“Yes, Masao. Absolutely.”

“Just one or two more questions, Dr. Meyer, and then you can leave. Did you expect Mr. Greenberg to die so suddenly?”

“How does one know?”

“But you must have had some idea of how bad the disease was.”

“Of course I had some idea. I had a very good picture of his sickness.”

“Suppose he was a lucky man—which he was not. How long might he have lived?”

“Ten years—twelve. You simply cannot pinpoint it. Maybe five years—maybe twice that. Would you like to see his body?”

Masuto nodded, and Meyer led him upstairs to the master bedroom, where under a sheet the mortal remains of Al Greenberg reposed. Masuto uncovered Greenberg's face and looked at him for a long moment.

The living room was French, a combination of several Louis', with a huge, pale Aubusson carpet. The viewing room was practical leather—two enormous leather couches and half a dozen leather lounge chairs. At one end, the projection room, at the other the screen—but both now concealed behind beige drapes. A third wall, where the drapes were drawn back, revealed the planting behind the house, a small tropical jungle which separated the house from the swimming pool. A well-equipped bar and an orange rug completed the furnishings.

There were nine people sprawled on the couches and chairs, and they all looked at the door with a more or less common expression of sullen annoyance as the two men entered, Detective Beckman with Masuto behind him. Death muted them, yet they were annoyed and put upon. One of them, a lean, good-looking man in his middle forties, said something about house arrest being a little less than to his liking. “I have had about enough of it,” he said tartly.

There were four men and five women in the room. Masuto recognized the man who had spoken. His name was Mike Tulley, for years a small part player in Westerns, who now was a sort of star in television terms. He had a program of his own called “Lonesome Rider,” and his rating was high and he earned well over three thousand dollars a week.

Another man, older, tall, with white wavy hair and very certain of his presence, rose and came toward the detectives. “Easy does it,” he said, “We're all under a strain, you know. My name is Murphy Anderson. I was Al's—that is, Mr. Greenberg's lawyer. Also his business associate. We've all been shaken by his death—” He had addressed his words to Masuto.

“You are a policeman, aren't you?” he added.

“That's right.”

“You're in charge here?”

“With my colleague, Detective Beckman.”

Masuto absorbed the room. You listened and absorbed; you were conscious of many things, which was in the manner of his life and way, and you pressed conclusions away from you. He noted the five women in the room. There was the strawberry blonde, whom he had seen at the door. There was a girl with dark hair. The other three were blondes. But all five, in the particular manner of Beverly Hills, could have been cast from the same mould. Two of them rose after he entered and then slipped onto the chair arms. Another went to the bar and mixed a drink. All appeared to be about the same height, each with the same trim, tight figure. Even their faces were alike, noses tip-tilted, mouths full. They were a part of a social organism that demanded beauty and alikeness, yet each was different, separate, unique. One of them he recognized—Phoebe Greenberg, widow of the dead man. She was neither prostrated nor weeping, but since she could hardly be more than thirty, with a husband who had been sixty-three and ill and very rich, this was not a matter for surprise.

Of the men, he had recognized only the actor, Mike Tulley. Now he added Murphy Anderson, lawyer, to the file. Anderson would be about fifty. He introduced the widow, then his own wife, Mrs. Anderson, the girl with the dark hair. Then Murphy Anderson introduced Trude Burke, the strawberry blonde.

“I am Detective Sergeant Masuto, Beverly Hills police,” Masao Masuto said politely. “I understand that this is a strain for everyone concerned.”

The youngest man in the room rose and introduced himself as Sidney Burke, the head of a successful PR agency. That made him the husband of the strawberry blonde. He was about thirty-seven, small, tight, competent, with pebble-black eyes. Tough, dangerous, wily—all words that Masuto remembered and discarded. You simply did not know. It took time.

“More than that, it's a stupid imposition,” Burke said.

Masuto's eyes deliberately avoided the final couple. The remaining man, fleshy, balding but once quite handsome, with a long, thin nose and excellent chin and mouth, pinged on the detectives's memory. He had been a sort of a star—just after World War II—but briefly. Then a very successful agent—or was it a producer?

He rose and said, “My name is Jack Cotter, officer. This is my wife, Arlene—”

Of course, the agent. And now Al Greenberg's vice-president in Northeastern Films.

“—and I am afraid that I am responsible for the imposition. Entirely responsible. You see, I have made a damn nusiance of myself by insisting that Al was murdered.”

“You can say that again!” Tulley snorted.

“A veritable goddamn nuisance,” said Burke.

“Suppose you shut up, Sidney. You talk when you're told to talk,” Tulley, the TV actor, said.

“Just who the hell do you think you're putting down?” Burke demanded. “I don't work for you, Mister. You're a client of mine, and now that Al's dead, I don't want such clients. So up your ass!”

“Take it easy, Sidney,” Murphy Anderson said. “You too, Mike,” he told the actor. “Just take it easy. Jack heard something, and not to report what he heard would make him an accessory after the fact.”

“What fact?” Sidney Burke demanded.

“The fact of a murder—if a murder took place. I don't like the whole thing any more than any of you, but there it is—”

Masuto held up his hands for silence at this point. Being a policeman in Beverly Hills might not be exactly like being a diplomat to the Benelux countries. It might be better compared to being a UN representative to a small, new country. It required tact, judgement, and above all, good manners—and control.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “the sooner and the more quietly we conclude this, the better. As you know, Mr. Greenberg was quite ill, and it would appear that he died of natural causes. But appearances are frequently deceiving. Now if you heard something, Mr. Cotter, that bears on Mr. Greenberg's death, I think you should state it for me in as few words as possible, while we are all still here.”

Cotter nodded. “We finished dinner a few minutes after nine. Ordinarily, we might sit at the table a while, but Al did not feel too good, and he said that he'd go upstairs and have an Alka Seltzer. Everyone got up. Then the girls left with Mike and Sidney and Al. I am told that Al went up to his bedroom on the second floor. The kitchen people said that. Al went through the kitchen to the pantry, where he has a little private elevator. The others went into the living room.”

“Sidney and I went into the viewing room—here,” Mike Tulley interrupted. “The girls went to freshen up.”

“All right,” said Cotter. “Murph—Mr. Anderson—and I sat at the table with cigars. We had things to talk about, and then Murph said about something that before we discussed it any further, we should get Al's point of view. It was almost a yes or no matter, so Murph said that he would wait at the table while I went upstairs. I went through the living room and up the stairs. No one in the hallway up there. I knocked at Al's bedroom door. Then I heard Al say, ‘For Christ's sake, put that gun away and give me my medicine—please—' He was pleading, crazy, desperate, pleading. He was pleading for his life.'”

Out of the corner of his eye, Masuto saw Dr. Baxter, the medical examiner, come into the viewing room, and he moved his head for Baxter to join him. Cotter waited. The room was very quiet now. Baxter walked over to Masuto, who whispered to him, “Medicine?”

“He was on quinidine according to Meyer, but also armed with nitroglycerin sublingual. He would have that in his pocket. Every angina does. But his jacket was off and across the room from where he lay.”

Baxter spoke softly, but not so softly that everyone in the room could not hear him. Phoebe Greenberg began to cry. She must have washed off her makeup and she was pretty without it. It occurred to Masuto that perhaps she had wept earlier. Emotion and the display of emotion by the population of Beverly Hills was not anything that Masuto felt competent to analyze or predict.

“Please continue,” he said to Cotter.

“Yes—of course,” Cotter said. “Al was pleading, and then this dame's voice says, ‘Like you gave me mine, you bastard—remember?' And Al pleads again, ‘Please, please—' Then I start banging on the door and I hear a thud. I hear Al fall, I guess, but the door is locked. I know that Al's room and Phoebe's are connected. Each of them has a dressing room that leads into a bathroom, and the two bathrooms connect. So I run to Phoebe's room—I guess I did some shouting. In Phoebe's room, I saw Stacy—Murph's wife—she was lying on the bed, resting. Then I bust through the connecting rooms to Al's room, and there's Al on the floor, dead. I didn't know he was dead then, but that's what Meyer said. So I go to unlock the hall door and get help, but it's already unlocked. And that's it.”

Still silence. Most of them were watching Cotter, not the detective, who said, “Whose voice did you hear, Mr. Cotter?”

“Don't you think we asked him that?” Sidney Burke said. “The other cop asked him. But he's playing cute. Real cute. Now he's going to take you into the next room and pin it on his choice.”

“Oh, why don't you shut up,” Cotter said tiredly. “What I got to say, I say right here. Murph's my lawyer, and he's here. I don't know whose voice it was. Whoever the dame was, she was crazy mad. Her voice was choking and hoarse. I don't know whose voice it was.”

“But it was a woman's voice—of that you're certain?”

“I never gave it a second thought.”

“A man's voice can sound like a woman's voice.”

“No.”

“Very well,” Masuto said, smiling sympathetically. “Dr. Baxter here—” pointing to him, “—is our local medical examiner. It is his opinion at this moment that no crime has been committed, that Mr. Greenberg died of natural causes—”

“How in hell you can talk like that after what I heard, I don't know!” Cotter burst out.

“Please, Mr. Cotter—what you heard indicates that violence might have threatened Mr. Greenberg. It would appear, from what you tell me, that a woman was in the room with Mr. Greenberg and that she threatened him with a gun. But it would also appear that Mr. Greenberg's heart attack had already started. Possibly this woman or person refused to hand Mr. Greenberg the sublingual tablets upon which his life depended. We don't know, and we also do not know that a crime has been committed. Murder is a very ugly matter, Mr. Cotter, and for the moment I feel it would be best for everyone concerned to refrain from using the word. This does not mean that we will not pursue our investigation. We certainly shall. But for tonight—well, I think Mr. Anderson will agree with me.”

“I certainly do!” Anderson said emphatically.

“Then I think that if I may ask a few questions, brief and to the point, you can then leave. No more than ten minutes.”

“I think I have had about all I can stand,” Phoebe Greenberg said softly.

“Then two questions and you can leave. Firstly, do you own a gun or is there a gun anywhere in this house?”

“No.”

“And where were you when Mr. Cotter shouted?”

“Apparently I was in the pantry elevator on my way up to the second floor. When I got out, there was the commotion—and Al was dead.”

“I felt bad,” Stacy Anderson said. “That's why I went up to Phoebe's room to lie down. Phoebe said she would bring me a cup of tea. But Al was in his room already, and the doors were closed—two doors, so I could not hear anything. Not possibly.”

“Then you went into the kitchen?” Masuto asked Phoebe.

“The pantry. We have a hot-cold water cooler there. No one saw me, if that is what you mean.”

“Thank you,” Masuto said, bowing almost imperceptably, a tribute to the lady of a house where he once had a friend, for even the small warmth of slight aquaintance is a form of friendship. “You may leave us now, and we will trouble your house only a few minutes more.”

“Stay as long as you need to, please.”

Masuto decided that he liked her. She either mourned the dead in her own way or not at all; it was her affair. He nodded to Baxter's unspoken question, and the doctor said, “I would like to have an autopsy done, Mrs. Greenberg.”

“If you wish. If it will help.”

“I think it will only help to put away doubts—but that's important.”

“Then do as you see best.”

And with that, she left the room.

Detective Masuto turned to Trude Burke.

“I was in the john,” the strawberry blonde smiled. “I guess supper agreed with none of us.”

“Where?”

“Front hall. Came out, heard the commotion, hotfooted it upstairs and almost fell over Arlene.”

“You mean Mrs. Cotter?”

“Yes. Jack, her husband, was in the hall then, yelling for a doctor.”

“Mrs. Cotter?”

Arlene Cotter rose, glanced quizzically at her husband and then nodded at Masuto. “No alibis—poor Oriental detective. I did not know there was a Nisei on our darling little police force. I was in the guest powder room, upstairs, when I heard the commotion and bounded into the hall. I went in there with Lenore Tulley—didn't I, darling?”