He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) (12 page)

“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has never deemed me qualified to receive its award for direction,” he said, moving to my side. “They did, however, ask me to present the award this year for best direction to John Ford for his beautiful and touching
How Green Was My Valley
. Well, at the dinner, one of the distinguished guests was the ambassador of China, the country for which our hearts bleed as it suffers at the hands of Japan. When I introduced the ambassador, I spoke with emotion of the honor of his presence at the gathering and concluded by saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, His Excellency, the Japanese ambassador.’ I corrected my error too late and compounded it later that evening during the presentation to John Ford, a navy commander, whom I addressed as Major Ford. On the way home that night, my wife remarked, ‘Well Cecil, at last you have done something that Hollywood will remember.’ While I can display some amusement about that night now, I’d like to do something that Hollywood will indeed remember, perhaps a film tribute to our fighting men, a tribute I can best complete if our Mr. Ressner does not interfere.”

He led me to the door and opened it. A car pulled up and De Mille shook my hand.

“The driver will take you wherever you are going,” he said. “Take care and let me know how it comes out.”

“Can I suggest that you keep these doors locked?” I said, stepping into the drizzle.

“Would it really do any good?” he said with a smile.

“Probably not,” I shrugged, “but we don’t like to make it easy for our enemies.”

“Indeed not,” agreed De Mille with a genuine smile. “I’ll keep them locked.”

I had the driver take me to my office. The Farraday was dark and reasonably silent on a Sunday afternoon. I opened the front door with my key and went through the dark lobby, trying to keep my mind on Ressner and the case, but knowing where it was headed. I went up the stairs in near darkness and fumbled at the door to Shelly’s and my office. Inside I hit the lights and listened to my footsteps move across the floor.

A note was pinned to my cubbyhole door. I tore it down and saw that Shelly had scrawled, “What do you think of it?”

“It” was an ad torn from a newspaper. The ad was no more than an inch high and one column wide. In the top of it was a drawing of a tooth with lines sticking out around it like the lines kids make to show the sun’s rays. The ad copy read:

DR. SHELDON MINCK, D.D.S., S.D.
DENTAL WORK WITH THE PAIN REMOVED
A Clean Healthy Mouth Is Your Patriotic Duty
Appointments Now Being Taken
Very Reasonable Rates For All
Discounts For Servicemen, Their Families,
City Employees and The Aged

The ad closed with our address and phone number. I went into my office and dropped it on my desk.

I had the number for Grayson’s in Plaza Del Lago and I tried it. It rang and rang and rang, but I held on. Eventually a voice, male and serious, came on.

“Grayson residence,” he said.

“Miss Ressner, please, or Miss Grayson, whatever she wants to call herself,” I said.

“Are you a reporter?” the man’s quivering bass voice demanded.

“No, a suspect. My name is Peters. Just tell her, cowboy, and let her decide if she wants to talk to me.”

“You’re the one who killed Harold,” he spat.

“I didn’t kill Harold or anyone else. Just put Delores on and go back to whatever you were doing. This is my nickel, remember.”

The phone went down hard on wood, and I waited. Out the window the sun peeked through a couple of clouds, didn’t like what it saw, and went back in again. Delores came on the phone.

“Hello,” she said, full of confidence.

“Were you going to tell them the truth at some point, or are you planning to let me hang for your father’s crime?” I said sweetly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You—”

“The L.A. cops and I are going to find your old man, and it won’t be long. We have enough on the time of death from the coroner, the questions about the stolen Packard, and the fact that his fingerprints are on the knife to nail him.”

“There were no fingerprints on the knife. The police said …” Somebody was kibitzing behind her, but she shushed him.

“Maybe not,” I agreed. “But if you keep this up, when we grab your old man and crack this, you are going to be in trouble as an accessory to murder. I’m having a bad day, maybe a bad decade, and I’m in the mood to trample people who try to make it worse. It’s raining here. I lost my car. I’ve got no money and I’m damn mad, lady. You want to go down with your old man, it’s your bingo card to play.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, breaking slightly.

“Think fast,” I said. “If I get him before I hear from you, it’s too late.” I gave her my phone number and hung up.

There wasn’t much else I could do to stall. I kept a Gillette razor in the bottom drawer. I’d already shaved in the morning, but I wanted to be sure. I took it out to Shelly’s sink along with a frayed toothbrush. There was plenty of sample toothpaste and powder around the office. I picked up a blue and white tin of Doctor Lyon’s.

The sink was still piled high with dishes, and a spider was busily setting up house. I murdered him and set aside the razor and brush. I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, and went to work. Using tooth powder for soap, I had the dishes shiny in ten minutes. I considered doing the whole office, looked at my watch, which told me nothing, and decided that I couldn’t stall anymore if I was going to make it.

I shaved, dried myself with a reasonably clean towel, brushed my teeth, and got the caked paste out of the brush with hot water. At that point, someone knocked at the outer office door. I yelled “Come in” and he did. He was about six feet tall, short sandy hair, glasses, a nice suit and a little briefcase under his arm. He looked like an up-and-coming young movie star, the kind of actor you’d expect to see standing next to Robert Taylor as they defended the Pacific.

“Mr. Peters?” he asked stepping in.

I told him he was right, walked into my office, and pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk. He sat, adjusted his glasses and tie, and looked at me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

I had been thinking that if he was a client desperate enough to look me up on a Sunday I would do my best to get a reasonable advance out of him and put him aside for a few days.

“You were wondering why I’m not in the services,” he said. “I have an ulcer in my colon.”

“Sorry to hear that, Mr.—”

“Gartley,” he finished reaching into his portfolio and pulling out some papers.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Gartley?” I asked folding my hands on the desk and giving him my most professional look.

“Though I’m not in the services”—Gartley went on finding the right papers—“I am doing work essential to the war effort. What does a war require?”

“Men, guns, an enemy,” I answered.

“Money, Mr. Peters,” he said shaking some of his papers at me. “Money. And I help to get it.”

“You’re raising money, selling bonds?” I guessed.

He shook his head no.

“We have written to you several times but you haven’t responded,” he said the way you talk to a kid who hasn’t eaten all of his peas.

“We?” I tried.

“Bureau of Internal Revenue,” he said sadly. “You owe your government some money. Your income tax forms were, at best, a mess.”

“I never got your letters,” I said looking for something to play with. I found a mechanical Eversharp pencil that hadn’t worked for years.

“Possibly, but unlikely. According to our records you made only one thousand eight hundred sixty-seven dollars in 1941. Is that true?”

“True.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Peters, but that is a bit difficult to believe.”

“I forgive you. I also agree with you. It’s difficult to believe. Look around. I have a luxury office in a select location, drive the latest in modern transportation, have a standing reserved table at Ciro’s and Chasen’s, and reside among the stars. Drop by my house later. I’ll have the servants prepare a picnic on the patio.”

“You are being sarcastic,” Gartley said without smiling.

“I’m trying,” I agreed. “Now where do we go?”

“You give us a detailed listing of all your property and a more complete set of data on your purchases and expenditures.” He handed me about seven pages of forms with spaces and lines and Internal Revenue Service written in the upper-right-hand corner.

“And if I don’t?”

“You will be prosecuted for failure to cooperate with the federal government. In wartime that can be a quite serious offense.”

“I have no money,” I said standing up and turning my pockets inside out, which was a mistake, since I did have some change that went flying. Gartley had seen it all before. He simply looked at me, readjusted his glasses, and began putting papers back in his briefcase.

“It is difficult for us to understand,” he said evenly as I sat down without bothering to push my inside-out pockets back in, “how someone with the clients you had last year, some of our most reliable and wealthy citizens, could have so little income.”

“I’ll explain,” I said twisting the Eversharp so that the little piece of metal at the end stuck out. “If I’m lucky, I work maybe a month or two each year on cases that pay reasonably well. That’s four to eight weeks. Outside of that I take odd jobs at store openings, busy hotels, picking up on bad debts. I made more when I was a guard or a cop.”

“Then,” Gartley said quite reasonably as he rose, “why don’t you go back to those occupations?”

“I like what I’m doing,” I said.

Gartley looked around the room, shrugged, and said, “You have one week to turn those papers in. You could and probably should put down a good-faith payment of a hundred dollars, which will be returned to you should our investigation of your form so indicate.”

“I haven’t got a hundred dollars. I haven’t got a decent suit. I’m not sure if I can pay my rent next month and I need some new socks.”

Gartley nodded and left. I looked at the forms. They gave me a headache. I considered trying to fill them in while I was sitting there, but the Eversharp didn’t work and I couldn’t find a pencil. Besides, I had something else on my mind.

It was raining. Maybe I couldn’t get a cab. Maybe I couldn’t get there in time. Maybe I should work on the case, go to see Mae West, head for Talbott.

Enough. I turned off the lights and went to the door. The Farraday hummed at me, and I walked down slowly. By the time I hit the front door, the rain had stopped again. The streets were wet, and a cab was cruising at about three miles an hour. I stepped out and motioned for him. He made a lazy U-turn and came to me.

I got in and told him where to take me. I hadn’t brought a present. I had given Alcatraz to Phil. I could have stopped at a drugstore or flower shop, but what the hell. Whatever I got she wouldn’t like. What do you give your ex-wife when she’s getting married? You give her a kiss goodbye, that’s what.

The trip should have taken twenty minutes to the Beverly Wilshire. It probably did, but it felt like five minutes. I got off at the hotel, paid the Sunshine cabbie, and went in. The doorman smiled when I asked where the Howard wedding was being held. Everyone smiled me into the right room. It was big. It was money. It was Howard and TWA.

The ceremony had already begun when I stepped into the room. There were about sixty people seated, watching. Anne was dressed in a brown suit, her favorite color, and Ralph was wearing a matching brown. His white hair was Vitalis smooth as he put the ring on her finger.

I couldn’t tell what denomination the clergyman performing the ceremony was. It didn’t matter. It was legal and it was over. Ralph kissed her, and they turned to face the guests. Anne’s eyes were moist and she caught me at the door. She gave me a small smile and I nodded and smiled back.

I’d lost my Buick and my wife in twenty-four hours. Maybe, if I really worked on it, I could lose my health or my life in the next twenty-four. Something touched my sleeve. I looked at my side but no one was there. Then I looked down at Gunther.

“I thought, perhaps,” he said softly, “that you might like a nearby friend.”

CHAPTER 6