For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series (21 page)

“
That protectiveness is
exactly the motive for murder. And, I’ve already looked at
Thornbird’s computer, there’s nothing there. Now I’m thinking
there’s another machine that he used, but I can’t find it” Henry
answered. “I’m already planning on going over to talk with another
of Thornbird’s former clients Mrs. Icklebee tomorrow morning, but I
don’t have much hope, so far his past customers have turned up
nothing. Beginning Monday, I’m going to poke into this whole secret
society business to see what I can uncover.”

“
You’re going to be on
dangerous territory my friend. You’d better update your will and
make sure I get the house.” Charles had a wry smile as he turned
off the television and headed for bed.

Chapter 15

Saturday, April
22

Saturday morning began with
a little light overcast over Palm Springs. Henry was listening to
the television weather report; apparently they were seeing the
remnants of a tropical storm over Baja California, the clouds
drifted all the way up to the Coachella Valley. The weather
forecasters said the skies would be clear by late morning or
midday. Henry was relieved; he wanted everything to be perfect for
his barbecue with Rosie this afternoon. He had time this morning to
go talk with Janet Icklebee, do some shopping and get everything
ready for this afternoon.

He was glad that the
housekeeper, Juanita, was coming on her regular Saturday morning
cleaning. That meant that his place would sparkle and shine in the
afternoon. He hoped Rosie would be impressed, though he was a
little uncomfortable that she knew as much about him and his house
as she already did. He figured she looked it up somewhere; probably
the Riverside County title records where the deed to the house was
registered or the real estate Multiple Listing Service. He shrugged
his shoulders as he thought about it, if he had still been on the
police force, he probably would have run her license plates through
the Department of Motor Vehicles and he would know a lot about Mrs.
Rosie Murphy. More than she knew about him – all she really knew
was how many rooms his house had or how much he had paid for
it.

Charles was swimming laps in
the pool with Pierre, who obviously had forgotten all about having
his nap interrupted last night, keeping pace and barking
encouragement. He waved at them and left the house to head for
Janet Icklebee’s place over on Calle Rolph, only about four blocks
from the house where Thornbird was murdered. He purposely drove
there by way of the house on Granvia Valmonte. With the crime scene
tape and door stickers gone, it looked just as peaceful as the
other homes on the block. He noticed that someone had taken down
the “for sale” sign as well; he supposed there was a bit of
cleaning up to do inside before it went back on the
market.

It didn’t take him very long
to get to the Icklebee residence and he parked on the street in
front of a well kept little house and walked up to the door. Before
he could knock the door opened and a woman who he estimated to be
about ninety smiled and stuck out her hand.

“
You must be Henry Wright,
please come in.” Janet Icklebee had obviously seen some sun in her
life; her brown face looked more like a leather purse than anything
Henry had ever seen. Her tan face made her teeth look extremely
white as she gave him a big smile and her bright blue eyes looked
at him with intensity and it felt as though she was looking right
through Henry.

Mrs. Icklebee was wearing a
pale blue housecoat that wasn’t quit buttoned all the way up and
her feet were in plastic slippers with white fur and little silver
heels. Her gray hair was swept up in a sixties kind of style and
she had glasses on a chain around her neck. Her eyes made him feel
a little uncomfortable, but he returned her firm handshake with his
own.

“
It’s good to meet you Mrs.
Icklebee; I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.” Henry
stepped inside the door. “Please, call me Janet. No matter how old
I get, when I hear someone say Mrs. Icklebee I start looking around
for my mother-in-law, rest her soul.” She led the way to the living
room, but as Henry closed the front door behind him, he stopped in
his tracks in the entry. Covering the entire wall were black and
white pictures of celebrities and movie stars, all of them in
identical silver frames. It almost looked like something that you
might see in a restaurant frequented by celebrities.

“
That’s quite a collection
you have there.” Henry said looking closely at some of the
pictures. “Yes, isn’t it?” Janet was already in the living room of
the house, and turned around. “You must have thirty or so faces
that I recognize.” Henry noted that most of the photos were
standard studio publicity shots and most of them had signatures and
personal inscriptions to “Harrison”.“Oh, yes, there are a lot of
famous people on that wall, I’m surprised you don’t recognize all
of them, but then maybe you are too young to remember some of these
folks.” She walked back over to the hallway and looked at the
photos with Henry.

“
Come into the living room
and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?” She led the way
into the living room that was packed with furniture that looked as
though it was all bought at the same time in the mid-sixties. Henry
had been in houses like this before; it looked as though Mrs.
Icklebee had downsized her house, but not her furniture collection.
There was no problem finding a place to sit, there were two sofas,
four matching chairs and little tables taking up nearly every
square foot of space in the living room. Even though everything was
very dated, just as the outside of the house, it was very clean and
neat.

“
Do you have coffee? I take
it black.” Henry said, finally choosing to sit down on a blue
velvet sofa with little white cotton doilies for headrest covers.
“Sure, I made a fresh pot a little while ago.” Mrs. Icklebee walked
into the kitchen and came back with two mugs filled with coffee.
She carried the cups that were filled to the brim as though it was
nothing and she did it every day. He guessed that she was over
ninety, but she didn’t move like it. “Where did you get all those
pictures?” He asked setting the coffee mug on a little green
crochet doily on the coffee table that had a number of doilies all
different colors.

“
How long have you been here
in Palm Springs young man?” Mrs. Icklebee sat down in a Queen Anne
chair that had obviously seen better days, but seemed to fit her
like an old glove. “I’ve been here just about three years or so.”
Henry wasn’t used to being the interviewee and her eyes still made
him uncomfortable. “Then you wouldn’t remember the Willow Springs
restaurant, would you?” Mrs. Icklebee set her coffee down on a blue
crocheted doily.

“
I’ve heard of it, it was a
fancy place on South Palm Canyon Drive wasn’t it?” Henry could not
get used to thinking of her as Janet. She was easily one of the
oldest people he had ever interviewed in a murder case. But she
didn’t act as if she was that old and he knew she wasn’t frail; he
had been surprised at her strength when he shook her hand. “That’s
right; it was a beautiful building, designed by one of Palm
Springs’ well known modernist architects.”

She had this look in her
eyes as though she could remember the building in its heyday.
“Sadly even the building is gone now, everyone wants
Jack-in-the-Box style architecture, no one cares about a nice
building and a great atmosphere to enjoy a meal anymore. Eating has
been turned into a biological function, not an enjoyable
event.”

“
Did you buy these pictures
from the restaurant when it closed down?” Henry picked his coffee
up; he was a lot more comfortable when he was the one asking the
questions. “Oh no, we didn’t buy them, they were given to us by our
customers. Harrison, that was my husband, that’s him right there.”
She pointed at a large picture on the end table that showed a tall
handsome man in a tuxedo and a much younger but still very tan
Janet Icklebee in a formal gown. “Anyway, Harrison and I owned the
Willow Springs for many years, and Harrison was the manager; all
those people whose picture you see in the hallway were in our
restaurant for dinner.”

“
So you’ve been collecting
these for a long time then.” Henry asked. “Well, we stopped getting
them when the restaurant closed down, so what we have there is all
that we have left. We gave some away over the years.” She waved her
hand in the direction of the entry. “They actually looked a lot
better in the old house; we had a lot more space there. When we
moved here, the entry was the only place we could hang them. But I
like the way it looks there, it reminds me of Willow
Springs.”

“
Did you ever buy any or get
any photographs after the restaurant closed?” Henry was sure there
was a connection with these photographs and Thornbird. “Buy these
pictures? My dear, these are cheap black and white publicity shots
that the stars gave away by the dozens. I wouldn’t buy one of
these, what are valuable about the pictures is the person and the
memory of the time that our customers gave them to us, other than
that, they have no value. I’d never buy one.” Mrs. Icklebee had an
indignant tone in her voice. “You ask as many questions about these
pictures as that realtor Mr. Thornbird that you’re here to talk
with me about.”

“
Oh, did Mr. Thornbird ask
you about the photos as well?” Henry was curious, maybe this was
the connection he was hoping to find. “Why he was so curious, he
spent about an hour looking at all of them and asking Harrison
which stars had lived here in Palm Springs, and who had owned
homes, and which of them dined with us and all of this stuff. Why
when Harrison finally gave him a picture of Sammy Davis Jr. you’d
of thought he had given him ten thousand dollars!” She shook her
head at the memory.

Well, Harrison Icklebee
probably gave Thornbird about fifty thousand dollars with that one
photograph Henry thought. That would be about how much Thornbird
would increase the price of a house. He’d have to go back home to
check his list to see which property Thornbird had sold as Sammy
Davis Jr.’s house. “Tell me more about how the dealings you had
with Mr. Thornbird.”

“
Well, about a year and a
half ago Harrison decided that our old house was too big and it was
getting to be too much with the stairs and all and he wanted to
move. I told him I didn’t think it was necessary, but he insisted.
I think he knew that he was not going to be with us much longer and
he didn’t want me in the big house by myself.” She wiped her eye,
though Henry didn’t see any tears at all.

“
So is that when you met Rex
Thornbird?” Henry picked up his coffee and took another drink. “We
called Thornbird and he came right over and looked at our house.
That’s when he asked all about the photographs, and said he thought
he could probably find a buyer for our place. He asked us what we
were looking for and we told him a much smaller house, no stairs
and down here in the flat part of Palm Springs.” She took a sip of
her own coffee as well.

“
Is that when he showed you
this house?” Henry asked. “No, he showed us a lot of other houses
first and none of them impressed us. Our old house up on the hill
was very nice and spacious with wonderful views and we were kind of
disappointed at what we were looking at down here in this area.
You’d have liked our old place, much grander than this.” She looked
up towards the San Jacinto Mountain. “You know in the early fifties
one of the local architects was having some hard times, not
everyone liked these modern buildings he was designing. Anyway, we
traded meals at the restaurant for the house plans and then had it
built. He ended up doing ok with his business afterwards, and our
house ended up really nice.” Mrs. Icklebee got up and headed
towards the kitchen. “If you’re ready for more coffee, I’ll bring
out the pot.”

“
Ok, I’d love some more, you
make very good coffee.” Henry smiled. “Listen, you don’t spend as
many years in the restaurant business as I did without learning how
to make decent pot of coffee.” Mrs. Icklebee came back carrying a
large silver carafe and she filled Henry’s cup back up to the brim.
“What finally convinced us to buy this house was that Rock Hudson
lived here in this very house right after he finished filming
Giant. He was such a nice man, it’s really a shame that he passed
away so young. His picture is there in the entry, he wrote the
nicest dedication to Harrison on it.”

“
Did Mr. Thornbird tell you
that Rock Hudson lived herein this house?” Henry took a small sip
of the hot coffee. “Yes, that’s right. Mr. Hudson came to the
restaurant a bunch of times when he was here, that’s how we knew
that he lived here in Palm Springs, we just didn’t know where until
Mr. Thornbird told us.” Mrs. Icklebee got that same look in her
eyes as though she was reliving the days that she was seating Rock
Hudson at his favorite table.

“
And you never went to Rock
Hudson’s house during all of the time he was coming to the
restaurant?” Henry didn’t think Hudson had owned this house, but he
wanted to know if Mrs. Icklebee knew. “No, no of course we didn’t.
He was our customer; we never went to any of our customer’s homes.
Funny that you should ask if we had ever gone to his house, Mr.
Thornbird asked us the same thing, we gave him the same answer I
just gave you.” Mrs. Icklebee smiled at the
recollection.

“
Did you call Mr. Thornbird
recently to have him help you find a house for your sister?” Henry
asked. Mrs. Icklebee’s eyes welled up with tears and started
sobbing at that question and she got up to get a box of tissues
from the bathroom. “I’m sorry.” She walked back in with the tissues
and said in between sobs. “My sister just passed away a week and a
half ago, I came back from the funeral yesterday, I thought I was
all right, but it suddenly hit me that I won’t talk to her ever
again.”