The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four) (17 page)

“You’re in good company for a change,” he said. “The FBI doesn’t either. Think you might tell me where you were yesterday between about noon and two?”

He was about as disarming as a charging rhino.

“Having lunch with Rathbone,” I said. “Why?”

“Guy named Barton, Air Force major got a few bullets in his pump out in Westwood,” Phil said, staring at me.

“So?” I said blankly.

“So, Schell, the dead Nazi in your dental chair had Barton’s phone number in his wallet. Schell knew Barton, and they both wind up dead on the same day, and you discover one of the bodies.”

“So,” I said.

“So,” said Phil standing up, “the call to report Barton’s death came from a guy with a phony Italian accent. Do we know anybody who likes phony Italian accents?”

I shrugged.

“More coincidences,” Phil said, turning to the third folder. “Early this morning we got another call from someone with a phony Italian accent, complaining about a prowler with a gun. The prowler happened to be in your back yard, and the Italian gave a phony name. More coincidence?”

“You are one hell of a good cop, Phil,” I said seriously.

“Maybe you’re just one hell of a poor private detective,” he came back. “Ever think of that?”

“What happened to the prowler?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Got away. Took a few shots at the cops who came to check. One of the cops said he got a glimpse of the guy. Looked like Dracula. You know anyone like that?”

I said I didn’t. Phil put his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were getting a headache. He suffered from migraine headaches. The headaches made him angry, and instead of giving in, he always fought them. A steady stream of coffee always seemed to help when a headache was coming, and a steady stream of me always seemed to make it worse.

“You don’t intend to tell me anything, do you, Toby?”

“I don’t know anything, Phil. Honest to God, I don’t know anything.”

He looked at me evenly before he threw the file of photographs in my face and reached over the desk for me. I backed away just in time. Phil’s headache had slowed him down. The problem was that even though it slowed him down, it made him more determined. He came around the desk and I backed up to the wall.

“The FBI on my back,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “The Air Force on my back. Mysterious messages from Nazi corpses. And you.”

No sound of rushing feet came from outside. It seemed they were used to people being thrown around Phil’s office. Having been thrown around Phil’s office several times before, I decided not to let him hit me without some return fire this time. It might just provoke him even more, but sometimes a man has to put his back to the wall and stand up for what he believes. This wasn’t one of those times, though; I was just tired of getting clobbered.

Phil stopped a few inches in front of me. A blue vein throbbed in his forehead. I was fascinated. He stopped dead.

“Get out,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

I collected the file and its contents from the floor and put it on his desk, pocketing the photograph of the message in blood.

“Phil,” I said, looking at his back. “I’m sorry, if …”

“Just get the hell out of here. I’ll probably find your corpse somewhere in the next few days, and that’ll just add to my work load.”

A few more cops and robbers were in the squad room. It still smelled of sweat and coffee. The fat lady was telling her tale to a young uniformed cop, who listened attentively. Seidman was in a corner talking to a tall, skinny guy who kept nodding in agreement. I left, feeling pleased with myself that I had gotten something to work on.

I made phone calls from the Rexall Drug Store near the station and marked each one in my Hughes expense book. The first call was to Dean at Hughes’ Romaine office. I told him Hughes owed me for two more days work. He said he’d have it delivered to my office. Then I called Bugsy Siegel. After I convinced a guy with marbles in his mouth that Siegel knew me, he gave me the phone number of a gas station on Sunset where I could reach him. I called the station, and a guy named Moll answered. He got Siegel to the phone.

“It’s me, Peters,” I said. “You said you’d help if I had a problem. I’ve got a problem. I want everyone who was at Hughes’ party last week to be there again on Saturday at eight. Some of them might not want to come.”

“And you want to be sure they’re there, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“I already got my invitation from Hughes this morning,” Siegel said. “Give me the list, and I guarantee they’ll all be there.”

I pulled the list from my pocket and read the names and addresses to him, omitting the now deceased Major Barton. I also thought Hughes was one efficient son-of-a-bitch to get invitations out so fast.

“I’ll call Rathbone,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll come. I’m worried mostly about the Gurstwalds and your friend Norma Forney.”

I was also worried about Siegel, but I let that pass.

“The krauts will be there,” Siegel said amiably. “So will Norma. Anything else?”

“No,” I said.

He hung up. Then I called Rathbone and asked if he wanted to take a ride out to Mirador with me to talk to Schell, the butler. He said he would, so I headed to Bel Air to pick him up after taking a look at the photograph of the word in blood. It got me nowhere. My reasons for taking Rathbone were more than just to satisfy his curiosity. I figured that with him at my side, Sheriff Nelson and Alex the Deputy might be less inclined to lynch me, which is why I also agreed to let Rathbone take his car and drive.

He talked about his new Holmes movie script, and I brought him up to date on the case including my trip to Calabasas, the identification of the corpse in the dental chair, and the fact that Barton knew that corpse. I also told him about the FBI’s interest.

“Curious,” said Rathbone, who was wearing a dark suit and a white sweater. “If your skeletal friend is to be believed, he and his cohorts did not murder the man in the chair and probably did not murder Major Barton.”

“Maybe,” I said, playing my tongue against my raw cheek. “Then who did and why? I’m grinding up bodies, but I don’t know if I’m getting any closer to finding out who killed anybody or who, if anybody, took Hughes’ plans.”

“And so,” he said, “out of frustration, you set up a little gathering of suspects for Saturday night in the hope that something will happen.”

“Like Holmes,” I said, watching the telephone poles flit by.

“No,” said Rathbone, “you, like so many others, have not read the Holmes stories. Holmes did not gather the suspects. That, I think, was a creation of the American theater which Conan Doyle deplored. It is a bit of bravura and vanity which would not have been beyond Holmes, but would probably have struck him as ungentlemanly, though it is sometimes difficult to penetrate that persona so carelessly created.”

We were nearing Mirador and the turnoff. I told Rathbone about Sheriff Nelson, and he suggested I slouch down even more. I slouched, and Rathbone drove evenly down the wide main street of Mirador. Alex wasn’t at his post in the window. The yellow police Ford wasn’t in front of the station. The car door still lay in the middle of the road, but there was no cat or kid. I sat up and Rathbone drove down the road, past the Gurstwald’s and into the Hughes’ driveway.

The Mirador police car was there. I sighed and led Rathbone to the front door. Toshiro answered.

“Good to see you Peters, Mr. Rathbone. You came just in time for a problem,” he said seriously.

He turned and led us down a corridor to a big paneled door, which he slid open. It was a billiard room pretty much like any billiard room you see in the movies except for the sheriff and the deputy at the table and the corpse in the butler’s uniform lying on his back on the green cloth. I knew it was a corpse by the open eyes and the knife in his chest. That didn’t surprise me. I was used to corpses, even ones with open eyes and knives in their chest. I wasn’t even surprised by the fact that the corpse was wearing a butler’s uniform. What did surprise me was the fact that I recognized the corpse on the table. He was the skeleton who had taken me for a ride to Calabasas.

“Come right in, Mr. Peters,” Nelson said, glancing at Rathbone, whom he recognized. “Mr. Rathbone? Sir, a pleasure to meet you, even under such circumstances.”

Rathbone took his hand and looked at the corpse.

Nelson looked at the corpse as if he were trying to line up a double rail shot but didn’t know how to do it with this obstacle. Alex just stood looking at us.

“We seem to have Mirador’s first murder in a decade,” Nelson said with a false grin. He looked scared and confused. He was a man who didn’t know what to do with a corpse.

“Last murder we had was back in 1930,” he said, avoiding the immediate problem. “Wife hit her husband with a rock down at the beach after a party.”

I looked at the body.

“Victim’s name is Schell,” said Nelson. “Martin Schell, part-time butler here. Case looks pretty simple.”

“How is that, Sheriff?” said Rathbone with sincerity.

“Only two people in the house,” he said. “Cook is in a drunken heap in his room. Jap here,” he said nodding at Toshiro, “is still standing. He must have done in the butler. Fight or something.”

“If I killed him,” Toshiro said reasonably, “why would I call you?”

“Cover yourself,” he said. “Happens all the time.”

“I thought your last murder was in 1930,” I said. “That’s not all the time.”

“With apologies to Mr. Rathbone here,” Nelson said, removing his straw hat and mopping his brow, “I’m gonna have to tell you to keep your remarks to yourself, Peters. I might start asking you questions about this.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I’ve got an alibi. I just drove in from Los Angeles with Mr. Rathbone.”

“I wasn’t accusing you,” he said peevishly, “just checking all the possibilities.”

“Well you might start by calling the State police,” I suggested. “The longer that corpse lies there, the tougher it’s going to be to get any information from it. I assume you are going to call the State police to handle this, or were you going to take it on your own?”

“I was just about to have Alex call them when you came in,” Nelson said nervously. “Alex, find a phone and call the State police. Tell them there’s a murder here. Tell them.…”

“I know what to tell them,” Alex said with what might have been sarcasm. He started to leave the room.

“And take this Jap with you and keep an eye on him,” Nelson said, looking at Toshiro. “The troopers are going to want to talk to him.”

Toshiro shrugged and accompanied Alex out of the billiard room. Rathbone circled the table, examining the corpse and the floor. Nelson warned him, not knowing what else to do.

“This house is full of exits,” said Rathbone. “A side entrance, rear entrance, garden entrance.” He opened a door in a corner and looked in the room beyond. “There’s an open door leading down to the beach. I’d guess our Mr. Schell had an assignation here with someone. He assumed the house would be relatively deserted except for the cook and chauffeur. There is no sign of a struggle, so apparently he had no fear of his murderer and anticipated nothing.

“I’ll bet the Jap did it,” said Nelson.

“Well, if he did,” said Rathbone,” he changed his clothes before calling you. Look at the knife. Whoever plunged it in hit a main artery. Blood spurted out. See the lines of blood on the handle. Might not have been a great deal of it, but certainly a spray would have hit the assailant. The young man who was just in here is certainly dry and there are no stains on him. You might check his room, but I’m inclined to think he was telling the truth. His point was well taken. Why call you with evidence so clearly against him coupled with a quite reasonable assessment of the present prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment in this country?”

“He was being clever,” said Nelson, “trying to throw us off.”

“There is,” said Rathbone, “such a thing as being so clever that one is stupid. Whatever he may be, the calm young man who just left here is not stupid. However, there’s no reason to debate the issue, sheriff. We can leave that for the State police.”

“What was Toshiro’s story?” I threw in.

Nelson looked at me with distaste, but Rathbone’s show of attentiveness changed his mind, and he talked, keeping his back to the corpse.

“Said he heard someone going out the door in the other room,” Nelson said. “Didn’t see anyone. Then he came in here, saw the corpse and called us. Said it didn’t take him more than three minutes to get to the phone. We got here five minutes later, about two or three minutes before you came in.”

Over Nelson’s shoulder, I nodded to Rathbone, indicating that I wanted to get out of the room. He took the cue with a lift of his chin and said, “Toby, would you go out in the car and get my cigarette case? I seem to have forgotten it.” Before Nelson could raise a protest, Rathbone went on, “Sheriff, you might want to step over here and have a look at this.”

I hurried out of the room and found my way to the servants’ quarters. I didn’t run into Alex and Toshiro, but I went past the room where the cook, Nuss, was sleeping in the same position I had seen him in 24 hours earlier. I found the room Toshiro had told me was Schell’s and went in fast. I didn’t find much, but I did find a photograph of Schell and the man who had been found strangled in Shelly’s dental chair, the man who Phil said was Wolfgang Schell. I put the picture in my pocket and hurried back to the billiard room. If I had it figured right, two brothers named Schell and a Major named Barton had been killed by hands unknown in the last few days. Whoever the killer was, he believed in variety: one strangling, one shooting, one stabbing.