Mildred Pierced (3 page)

She stepped back as I knelt to remove my shoes.

“Your hands,” she said.

I looked up.

“Show me your hands, please,” she said with a smile that pleaded for indulgence.

I showed her my hands.

“I’d appreciate it if you would wash your hands. I’ll show you where.”

I finished with my shoes and placed them just inside the door. She closed it and led the way.

“We use only half the house now,” she said.

I wondered if the reason was that she hadn’t made a movie in over two years except for a walk-on as herself in
Hollywood Canteen
or because her husband Phil Terry’s career had gone from almost up there to out of the business.

She led the way to a small, sunshine-bright kitchen, then turned to smile at me as she nodded toward the sink.

“I was working in the garden,” she said proudly, looking at the window.

I looked out it myself as I washed. There was a good-sized vegetable garden. She put down the trowel, took off her gloves, and laid them all neatly on a table near the back door.

“Nice,” I said, rinsing my hands and looking for a towel.

“Thank you. To your right, on the rack.”

There were two clean white hand towels. I dried my hands and started to put the towel back.

“No,” she said sharply. “Under the sink. There’s a bin for used towels.”

I opened the door under the sink, found the bin, and dropped the towel in. Then I turned. Dr. Peters was ready for surgery. I felt like holding up my hands and waiting for her to put rubber gloves on me the way the nurses did for Lew Ayres in the Dr. Kildare movies.

“This way,” she said, turning and walking out of the kitchen into the dining room.

“Please,” she said pleasantly. “Have a seat.”

I sat. So did she. She pulled an unopened pack of cigarettes from her apron, opened it, lit one, and pulled a clean ashtray toward her from the center of the table.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Would you like some coffee?”

I felt like asking if she planned to throw the cup away after I drank from it, but settled for a simple “No, thanks.”

“Fred said you are an honest man and that you have some questions for me,” she said. “I have one for you. Ask your questions. Then I’ll ask mine.”

“Okay,” I said. “This is about the woman you saw killed in Lincoln Park yesterday.”

She looked at the ceiling and sighed. “So everyone knows. I was afraid of that.”

“Everyone
doesn’t
know. You gave the name ‘Billie Cassin’ when you were interviewed by the police,” I said. “But Shelly Minck recognized you, or thinks he did.”

“Shelly …?”

“The fat little man in the park with the crossbow. Your real name is not on the report.”

“Not yet.” She shook her head. “Cassin was my stepfather’s name. I was called Billie when I was a young girl. I didn’t even know it wasn’t my real name.”

“Can you tell me what you saw yesterday?” I asked. “I know you told the police. I read the report, but they’ve already decided they have their killer.”

“The funny-looking little bald-headed fat man with the thick glasses?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Why are you …?”

“Sheldon Minck is a dentist. I share office space with him.”

“Fred said you’re a private investigator.”

She was smoking nervously now.

“I sublet an office from Shelly,” I said. “I’ve known him a long time. I can’t see him committing a murder.”

“It was his wife, I understand?”

“Mildred,” I said.

“That’s a coincidence,” she said.

“Coincidence?”

“I’ve just been offered the lead in a movie called
Mildred Pierce.
Wonderful script. It’s about a woman who confesses to killing her philandering husband.”

“Did she do it?”

Crawford laughed.

“See the movie when it comes out,” she said.

“Mildred Minck was a philanderer, too,” I said.

Crawford looked serious now. “That doesn’t help your dentist.”

“I know. Mildred was no great beauty and not much in the way of charm, either. But she was determined.”

“All right.” She put out what was left of her cigarette and folded her hands on the table. “Yesterday. About eleven in the morning. I was going to meet Phil, my husband, for an early lunch.”

“Where?”

“I had it with me in a paper bag,” she said. “He was getting off work at the airplane factory in order to try out for a part in a film. Mr. Peters, it wouldn’t be difficult for you to find out my husband is working in an airplane factory while his agent tries to find him roles. We have no servants. We use only half the house to keep expenses down. I make his lunch and dinner and take care of the house and children. They are out this afternoon at a birthday party.”

My look must have given away something about what I was thinking.

“Yes, Joan Crawford is, at the moment, only a housewife. But that is about to change.”

“
Mildred Pierce?
”

“Exactly,” she said. “And I don’t want morbid headlines that might make the studio change its small collective mind about the movie.
Joan Crawford Eyewitness to Bizarre Murder. Dentist Murders Wife in Front of Joan Crawford. Movie Star Watches While Man Murders Wife.
You understand?”

“And …?”

“I think I’d like to ask my questions now.” She leaned toward me, her eyes sincere and just a little moist. “I would like to hire you to keep my name out of the press. I understand from Fred and I’ve heard from several other friends in the business that you specialize in doing just that. So …?”

“I’m investigating the murder of Mildred Minck,” I said. “I’m working for Dr. Minck.”

“Are the tasks mutually exclusive?” she asked, her eyes open wide.

She didn’t blink. Movie stars don’t blink when the camera is on them and they’re doing a take. Crawford was doing a take.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Good.” She sat back and reached into her pocket for her now-open pack of cigarettes. “Shall I consider you hired?”

“Don’t you want to know my rates?”

“I’m not working,” she said. “But I’m not penniless, either. I’ve made quite a bit over the past twenty years.”

“Thirty dollars a day plus expenses,” I said. “Two hundred dollar retainer, nonrefundable, not applicable to the total.”

“That sounds reasonable,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind cash. I’d rather not have any canceled checks made out to a private investigator.”

“Cash is fine.”

“Wait.”

I sat waiting. This wasn’t what I expected. I hadn’t even asked her about the “alleged” murder yet. I’d learned to use the word “alleged” from Marty Leib. There was always hope that the crime, if I was representing the accused, was an accident—or the work of someone else.

I reached over for the pack of cigarettes she had left on the table and started turning it over and over just to keep my fingers busy. I don’t smoke. Never did. Neither did my brother or our father.

I was still playing with the pack when she returned. She stopped suddenly, the cash in her hand, and watched me. Then she handed me the bills, reached over and took the pack, and walked into the kitchen. I turned to watch her through the open door as she stepped on the pedal of a tan metal trash can and dropped the cigarette pack into it. The lid dropped down. She returned to the dinning room and sat across from me reaching into her pocket for a fresh pack.

“You’ll give me an itemized bill when you’re finished.”

“Yes.”

“If you succeed in keeping my name from the press”—she opened the fresh pack and gave me a look that said don’t-touch-this-one-or-you’ll-be-sorry—“I’ll give you a bonus of three hundred dollars.”

“Very generous,” I said.

“I believe in incentives,” she said. “Now. You want to know what I saw.…”

I put the bills she had given me into my pants pocket without looking at them.

“It’s very simple,” she said, removing the cellophane from the pack in her hand. “It was near the tennis courts.”

“Was there anyone playing?”

“No. I came down the path behind a patch of trees.”

“And you saw no one?”

“On the path? No.”

“Don’t people recognize you?” I asked.

“I was wearing dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat and a plain dress with very little makeup. Most people seem to think I’m just a housewife who bears a slight resemblance to Joan Crawford.”

I thought, but didn’t say, that in Los Angeles nothing calls more attention to someone than dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat.

“He was standing there,” she said. “With that thing out of an old costume drama.”

“The crossbow,” I supplied.

“I saw the woman start to take her hand out of her purse and go to her knees and fall backward,” Crawford went on, looking at the backs of her hands.

“How close was she to the target?”

She shrugged. “About fifteen feet or so to the right of it.”

“You saw him fire the crossbow?”

“Yes.”

“And then she went down?”

“Yes.”

“He was aiming it at her?”

“I don’t know. He was waving it around before he pulled the trigger or did whatever one does to fire. I was looking only because it seemed so odd to see someone in the middle of the lawn with such a weapon.”

“How did he react when he saw her go down?”

Crawford looked up, a slightly puzzled expression on her face.

“Peculiarly,” she said. “For an instant, he didn’t react at all, just looked in the general direction of the target and then it was evident that he saw the woman falling. He looked …”

“Surprised?” I supplied.

“Surprised, stunned, horrified by what he had done. Certainly not calm and composed. He went over to her and knelt. I hurried back down the path. I found a policeman about five minutes away and told him what had happened.”

“You didn’t see anyone on the path? A skinny redheaded kid?”

“Oh, yes. On a bicycle. He drove past me just before I saw the policeman. I don’t think I told the police about the boy. Is it important?”

“The boy stopped to help Shelly. Shelly says he told the kid he thought his wife had a heart attack,” I said.

“I’m not sure that proves—” she began.

“—that Shelly didn’t know his wife had been shot,” I finished.

“If he was telling the boy the truth, and he didn’t kill his wife .…” She smiled.

“Then you didn’t see him kill her and you’re out of it,” I said.

Her smile disappeared.

“But I
did
see him shoot her.”

“We’ll get back to that. What happened after you got the policeman?”

“I waited for the officer on a bench near where I had found him. He ran down the path toward the lawn where I had pointed. And that’s all.”

“Would you mind showing me in the park where all this took place?”

“Can it wait till tomorrow morning? I have to pick up the children, and Phillip is coming home early.”

She looked at me earnestly. If she had been convinced my hands were clean, I think she would have touched me.

“What time did you see Mildred Minck get killed? I mean, was it right at eleven?”

“A few minutes past,” she said.

There wasn’t anything more to ask. We decided that I would pick her up at nine the next morning after the children were in school and her husband was at work. I wanted to look at the scene at the same time and, if possible, in the same light as when Mildred had died.

We walked back to the front door, passing a large living room with thin metallic lamps and sofas that looked never sat upon.

She stood in the doorway while I walked toward my car. I turned to watch her. She was wearing a sad, put-upon smile.

London could take it. The smile said Joan Crawford could, too.

It was late in the afternoon. I decided to find Lawrence Timerjack, founder of Shelly’s Survivors for the Future.

I
DROVE UP
Cahuenga Boulevard toward the Hollywood Hills and turned right onto Holly Drive. From there it was a series of about twelve turns onto small, winding streets. I got lost, had to turn around and asked a pair of ten-year-olds how to get to Hollywood Lake.

It took me five more minutes to hit Hollywood Lake and another ten to find a low fence that surrounded three log cabins about fifty yards away from the lake shore.

The gate in the fence was simply a thin log with a wooden sign next to it with the words “Survivors for the Future: Just wait. We’ll see you.”

I parked and stood in front of the gate, pretending to admire the woods on either side of the fenced property that seemed to be about the size of a small city block.

I could have simply lifted the log and walked in or climbed over the fence. The place was not really built for survival in case of enemy attack.

After about three minutes, the door to the middle cabin opened and four people came out. The one in the lead was small and wiry. He had short-cropped blond hair and was wearing a black short-sleeved pullover T-shirt and denim slacks tucked into army boots. He held a bow in his right hand and a quiver of arrows bounced on his back.

Following him were a man, a boy, and a woman.

The boy was about seventeen, the woman in her forties. The fellow with them was steel-gray-haired, bronzed, with a craggy face, and around fifty. He had a holster and gun strapped under his left arm. They were all dressed like the man they were following. As they came closer, I could see that the boy had pink-fuzz cheeks that told me he had never shaved. The woman was heavy, her dark hair tied back with a tight band. The boy’s hands were empty. So were the woman’s, but she had a leather sheath on her hip that contained a knife just short of being called a sword.

When they arrived at the gate to face me, I could see that the blond man’s face had a leathery outdoor look and that his eyes were unsure about what they were looking at. One eye—his left—looked directly at me. The other eye looked off to the right. He reminded me of a lizard I’d seen in the Griffith Park Zoo.

“We help you?” asked the lizard, his voice low.