The Case of the Angry Actress: A Masao Masuto Mystery (7 page)

“Fingerprints on the gun?”

“Are you kidding?” Beckman said.

“What do you think?”

“What should I think? If Mrs. Tulley let him have it, how did she get around to the other side of a locked door in all of ten seconds, and who drove Tulley's car out and down almost to Lexington? They all seem to have heard the car start, and the maid saw it swing out of the driveway. Mrs. Tulley left the maid upstairs so that accounts for her. The cook is an old Mexican lady, and Doc had to give her the real thing, not a placebo. So what is left?”

“Speculation,” Masuto said thoughtfully. “Fascinating speculation.”

“You put the two broads together?” Beckman asked.

“At least the two deaths,” Masuto replied. “The poor Chief wanted so desperately not to have a murder in Beverly Hills.”

“Come in,” Lenore Tulley said in reply to Masuto's knock. She was not in bed, but sitting by the window, fully dressed and smoking a cigarette. Unlike the rest of the house, Mrs. Tulley's bedroom was aggressively nonmodern, with a mahagony four-poster bed, a large hooked rug, dotted Swiss curtains, and two very fine and expensive early American chests. While Masuto's knowledge of furniture and decor was by no means encyclopedic or wholly discriminating, he was possessed of good taste and he recognized that while the room was odd, or at least at odds with the rest of the house, it was neither vulgar nor pretentious.

“My hair used to be brown,” Lenore Tulley said evenly. “I graduated Smith, class of '56. I am not a bona fide California product, and the furniture in this room was in my room in Connecticut when I was a kid. I am frightened but not grief-stricken, Sergeant. Let me make that plain. It is an ugly thing—and very upsetting too—to have your husband murdered while you are forced to stand on the wrong side of a locked door and do nothing about it. Believe me, if it were possible, I would have saved my husband's life. I disliked him intensely, but I had no desire to see him murdered. If I do any weeping, it is only for myself. One never really recovers from a murder, does one?”

“That all depends,” Masuto said, smiling slightly. “The victim never recovers, does he? The murderer sometimes recovers, I suppose. The innocent bystander—well—tell me, if you disliked Mike Tulley so, why did you remain married to him?”

She shrugged. “That's almost too complex to unravel. We separated twice. I am very wealthy—much more than he—but more recently. My father died last year, and I inherited a great deal. There's a community property law in this state. I was not in love with anyone else. I am neurotic as hell and I see an analyst five times a week, and in this rotten social blister called Los Angeles, there's a certain value in being married to a TV star. There's no other status out here. Also, Mike made divorce a rough thing—”

“Then generally speaking, his death benefits and liberates you,” Masuto said softly, not knowing what reaction this would evoke from her.

But she only shrugged and nodded. “If you want to look at it that way. I suppose poor Mike made it a little easier for me. I don't know.”

“And the murder—can you talk about it now?”

“Why not?”

“Dr. Baxter said you were hysterical.”

“So I was upset. That idiot doctor of yours gave me a couple of aspirin. He partakes of a general Beverly Hills belief in the stupidity of women. I'm all right now.”

“As I understand it, you were on your way out to make a luncheon date and you knocked at the door of the study. You were coming from upstairs?”

“That's right.”

“From this room?”

“Yes.”

“How long had you been here in this room?”

“About an hour—dressing, makeup. My maid, Binnie, was with me—not to help me dress. I can dress perfectly well by myself and I prefer to. But Binnie had a fight yesterday with some stupid kid she's dating, and she was crying on my shoulder.”

“You left her in the room when you went out?”

“No, she followed me out on the landing and began to whine about what should she do.”

“Giving you an absolutely perfect alibi,” Masuto reflected.

“Well, don't hate me for that, Sergeant. No one will believe it. By tonight, everyone will have made up his or her mind that I killed poor Mike.”

“I don't think so. Now, you knocked on the door. Did you hear the woman's voice immediately?”

“No. there was an interval of silence. I suppose you could count ten. Then that crazy voice.”

“Crazy? Why crazy?

“That's it. I don't know.”

“But you said crazy voice. Why?”

“Because it was different, I suppose. A high, hysterical voice. It shook and trembled. I just never heard a voice like that before.”

“Then it did not remind you of anyone you know?”

“Maybe. I am not sure.”

“Look, Mrs. Tulley, either it did remind you or it did not. Which is it?”

“It reminded me. It reminded me of someone's voice.”

“Who's?”

“I don't know.”

“Dear lady, please. Be reasonable. If it reminded you of a voice, you must know who it reminded you of.”

“I don't.”

“All right. Was the voice mocking? Hateful?”

“Mocking, I would say.”

“And your husband's voice?”

“Afraid. Oh, my God, he was so afraid—you know, I can't feel any real grief and yet it breaks my heart. He was so afraid.” She began to cry and went over to one of the chests for a fresh handkerchief.

“Are you all right?” Masuto asked.

“Quite. Go on, please. I want to see the bitch who did this drawn and quartered. Why? What gave her the right? Because a man's a louse? If you go around killing every man who is a louse to some dame, then you'll end the male population, period! I hate her. Tulley—Tulley was just a permanent adolescent, an all-American boy who never grew up, just like every other all-American boy. Why did she kill him? He wasn't even a real, high-class louse. He was only a slob, a good-looking TV slob.”

“What bitch?” Masuto asked. “Samantha?”

She studied him narrowly for a moment. “What do you know about Samantha?”

“A bit here. A bit there. What do you know about her?”

She cried a bit again, and then she dried her eyes and said, “I wish I was like you, Sergeant.”

“How is that?”

“Japanese. Out of it. So I could stand back and look at it. You must get some kind of special kick out of looking at a sewer.”

“I live in the same sewer,” Masuto said. “Also, I'm a Nisei. Here I am and here I live. I would like to talk about Samantha.”

“Oh, I just bet you would!”

“Will you?”

“You are damn right I will. Talk and anything else that will put a rope around that bitch's neck. Shall I tell you something, Mr. Detective? I had not seen my father for two years, but when he died it was the worst thing that ever happened to me until now. Maybe worse, because I loved him and I could never break down the wall between us. Do you know who I ran to the day he died?”

“Al Greenberg?”

“That's right, Al Greenberg. And that rotten bitch murdered Al Greenberg and now she murdered Mike.”

“When did you find out about Samantha?”

“Last night. After you left. It was a stinking, dirty mess, just the way this whole thing is. I don't know how to tell it to you.”

“Any way. Try. I'm not a human being. I'm a cop.”

“He accused me of being Samantha, Sergeant. Can you imagine? He accused me of being Samantha.”

“Well, that's not so strange. He was overwrought, terrified, filled with guilt. Did you know about Samantha at that point? When he accused you?”

“No. I did not. Furthermore, I made him understand that when he and his anthropoid buddies were having their gangshag, I was in Smith College in western Massachusetts. And then that fool—that poor fool had the nerve to ask me whether I could prove it.”

“Then you knew what had happened to Samantha?”

“No. Not then. I'm mixing up the sequence last night—that's because I'm upset.”

“I understand,” Masuto said. “He accused you of being Samantha, but you did not know what he meant?”

“Exactly. I said to him, ‘Mike, are you nuts?' Oh, I was no joy. I hate myself. But I did not know he was going to be killed. I said, ‘Mike, I always knew you were a louse, but I always figured you for a louse with marbles. Do I have to tell you that I am your own miserable, everloving wife, Lenore? Smith College, class of '56. Have you really flipped? Haven't you looked at my yearbook? What kind of a nut are you? And who is this Samantha?' Then he wanted out of the whole thing, but I wouldn't let go. Then he told me. I think he enjoyed telling me.”

“The dressing room, the part in a TV show, the arrangements that Sidney Burke made?”

“Right down the line. Oh, he was a daisy, my Mike—right down the line. Do you mind if I have a drink?”

“Go ahead.”

“Will you join me?”

Masuto shook his head. Lenore Tulley went to a cedar chest, opened it and by that motion caused a small but well-equipped bar to rise out of its depths. She poured herself a straight vodka and threw it down her throat.

“You're sure you won't join me?” she asked Masuto again. “You know—you're a good-looking cop. How old are you?”

“Old enough not to drink in a lady's bedroom while I am on duty.”

“How about that? Shouldn't you have a stenographer in here taking notes and all that?”

“No. You're not a suspect—”

Detective Sy Beckman knocked on the door, and then entered. “Masao,” he said, “what about the news boys talking to Mrs. Tulley? Also the CBS and ABC and NBC trucks are outside. They all want Mrs. Tulley.”

Masuto looked inquiringly at Lenore Tulley, who shook her head and said, “I have had it. They can drop dead, the lot of them. Los Angeles, farewell. They can get lost in the smog.”

“You'll have to talk to them sooner or later,” Beckman said.

“Then later.”

“Tell them she is prostrated and unable to talk to anyone.”

“No!” she exclaimed.

“Tell them that,” Masuto said.

Beckman left, and Lenore Tulley said to Masuto, “You got a hell of a lot of nerve for a—”

“For a Jap?”

“Just don't push me around. I have had enough of being pushed around.”

Masuto rose abruptly and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“To look for whoever killed your husband, instead of pushing you around.”

“Oh, stop being a horse's ass and sit down,” she said. “I never met a male who didn't have all the engaging tactics of a frustrated six-year-old. You're married, right?”

“Right.”

“I never met a decent man who wasn't. Only the slobs are
libres
.”

“
Libres?
”

“That's what they call the cabs in Mexico. It means they're free for customers.”

“Murphy Anderson is sitting down in your living room.”

“Let him set. You keep testing, don't you?”

“That's what they pay me for, Mrs. Tulley—”

“Call me Lenore. You've moved into my bedroom.” She poured herself another vodka and tossed it down, shivered, and said to Masuto, “What are you, anyway? I mean, Christian or Mormon or ancestor worship or what?”

“I am a Buddhist, Mrs. Tulley. You've been married six years. No children?”

“That is none of your damn business. Christ, maybe it is. I don't know what is your business. I was married to Mike. You know, he kept a little book of every dame he took to bed, one hundred and twenty-seven entries, names, places, dates and physical descriptions, just in case he should confuse them.”

“He showed it to you?”

“No, my dear Detective Masuto. I got at it when he was away. Dirty curiosity. And you want me to have kids with that? Oh, no—thank God, that's one I missed.” She stared at him then with awakened interest. “Good Lord, you still think that maybe I am Samantha, don't you?”

“No, you're not Samantha. But suppose we take four of your friends, Mrs. Tulley—Trude Burke, Phoebe Greenberg, Stacy Anderson and Arlene Cotter—”

“My friends?”

“You know them well, don't you?”

“What is well? Arlene Cotter is a bitch with the mouth of a snake. Stacy folds her hands across her belly and she drinks too much. She's contented Beverly Hills. Phoebe Greenberg—well, no one knows her. I don't even think Phoebe knows her. The day after she married Al, she became Great Lady of Beverly Hills. It's the only part she ever had and she decided she would play it better without any speaking lines. And Trude Burke is a little tramp.”

“Oh? What do you mean when you call someone a tramp?”

She downed a third vodka and replied, “I mean I'm being a bitch. And if you don't know what a tramp is, my inscrutable Oriental, look it up in Mencken on slang.”

“And which of the four is Samantha, Mrs. Tulley?”

“You must be kidding.”

“Not at all. Will you answer a question truthfully—one question?”

“You're impugning me, and I no longer like you, Mr. Chan. I know damn well what you intend to ask me. You are going to say, ‘My dear Mrs. Tulley, is one of them Samantha?' The answer is yes. One of them is Samantha. You're goddamn right one of them is!”

“Which one?”

Lenore Tulley shook her head. She was a little drunk and she was becoming thoughtful.

“Which one?”

“Fuzz,” she answered with distaste. “What am I doing here in my own bedroom with an Oriental fuzz playing psychological games with me? Drop dead, Mr. Detective.”

“You said you wanted to get your husband's killer.”

“Did I? What could I have been thinking of? Killing Mike was a public service. She deserves a medal.”