Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery (21 page)

“Which means?” I asked.

“We think we’re close,” said Pete.

“There’s no event in here tonight,” said Blackstone. “I’ve reserved the room for a reenactment that we’ll conduct after our show at the Panfages. We’ve got the guest list, and everyone on it is being called now and urged to return for the event.”

I told them about what Jimmy Clark had seen, about Rand the waiter.

He told me that Gwen was out of the hospital and ready to do the show that night.

“We told her ‘no,’” said Blackstone, “but I did ask her to come here tonight.”

“If we’re ready,” said Pete.

“If we’re ready,” Harry agreed.

“We have to reenact it?” I asked.

“An impossible murder,” Harry said. “The police are baffled. An audience of magicians expecting a solution from Blackstone. I’ll never have another moment like this. I’ve invited that policeman with the red face and hair.”

“Cawelti,” I said. “You think you’ll be able to tell us who killed Ott?”

“We’ll be able to show you how it was done,” Harry said. “As for who did it, I think we can guarantee the revelation of at least one guilty party.”

The Bouton brothers looked at each other with satisfaction.

“No formal wear required tonight,” said Blackstone.

“Good,” I said.

“Back to work,” said Harry, heading back to the platform.

“Back to work,” I agreed and went through the door and back across the lobby.

I made what I thought was going to be a quick stop at our office, which was only a few blocks from the hotel.

Mistake.

Alice Pallas Butler was sitting at the conference table with her arms folded across her more than ample chest. Jeremy was a very big man. Alice was a match for him. Before they were married, Alice had run a very soft-core pornographic printing operation out of her office in the Farraday. In moments of trouble—meaning a possible visit from the police—Alice had been known to pick up the small printing press, which weighed something in the vicinity of two hundred plus pounds and take it out the window and up the fire escape to the roof.

Jeremy had won her over to the beauty of poetry instead of pornography and she had taken to it, printing Jeremy’s poems for about a year before taking to Jeremy, as well, and marrying him.

They had a daughter, Natasha, who was just starting to walk and was definitely talking. Natasha looked nothing like either parent. She had a beautiful round face with big brown eyes, a great smile, and no sign that she was going to grow into someone with the size and strength of either of her parents.

“Where’s Natasha?” I asked.

“Upstairs with her father,” Alice said. “She’s taking a nap. I think she’s going to start reading soon.”

I didn’t sit.

“She’s not even two,” I said.

“Her father is a genius,” Alice said seriously.

I could have contested that having been subject to Jeremy’s poetry for a lot longer than Alice, but I just nodded in agreement.

“I have something to say,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t?”

I thought she was going to say I had my last warning about involving her husband in one of my cases, that she knew someone had been murdered, that she wanted me to tell him to stay home. We were past the “or else” stage. She had given that to me two cases ago.

“My husband is almost sixty-three,” she said. “I think he should be taking care of this building, his family, and himself.”

So far, it sounded like what I expected to hear.

“You want me to tell him that I don’t need his help,” I said. “And if I don’t you will do me bodily harm.”

“No,” she said. “If he wants to work with you on these things, I’ve decided I don’t have the right to try to stop him. I can only let him know how I feel. Jeremy needs to be needed. He would never admit it. He values your friendship. God knows why.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“He’s a poet.”

“I know.”

“And he’s also the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

“Me, too.”

“So, I won’t ask him to stop anymore,” she said, still sitting. “But if any harm comes to him when he is working with you, you’ll deal with Alice Pallas Butler. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“You don’t want to deal with Alice Pallas Butler.”

“I do not,” I said.

“He told me about what you’re doing tonight, the Blackstone business. I want to be there with Jeremy.”

“My ballroom is your ballroom,” I said.

She got up now and walked to the door.

“I left some photographs of Natasha on your desk,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Her father is in some of them.”

“And you?”

“I’m behind the camera watching,” she said. “I’m a watcher.”

“I’ll remember that.”

And she was gone. I went to my desk. The four photographs, all black and white, were lined up so I could sit at my desk and look at them. The kid was cute, bright, smiling. Jeremy holding her. He wasn’t so cute. I piled the photographs and put them in my top drawer. Alice had a point.

Melvin Rand’s address was off of San Vicente, a street of three-story apartment buildings with courtyards and signs in front saying that you were looking at the Reseda Palms Apartments, or the Mexicali Arms, or, in Rand’s case, Caliente Fountain Court.

The fountain was small, in the center of the courtyard, and needed a good cleaning. Green algae turning black lined the stone sides of the round pool into which the fountain trickled. There were pennies on the bottom of the pool, not many. Most of them were green, too. I threw one in and made a wish as I headed for the entrance to the right at the rear.

The names of the tenants were on little cards slid into slots. The cards were different colors, some typed, some scrawled. Rand’s was typed.

I didn’t ring the bell. There wasn’t any, just an apartment number and a stairway I didn’t have to walk up, because Rand’s number was six which was at ground level.

The blinds were down on Apartment Six. I knocked. It was definitely past my lunchtime. Mrs. Plaut’s Spam casserole and the two donuts I had with Phil at the drugstore were holding me together, but I decided that if Rand didn’t answer, I’d find someplace to get a fried egg sandwich and come back. I knocked again. Nothing. I looked around. No one was in sight, and all I could hear was the trickling of the fountain behind me.

I tried the door. It wasn’t locked. I considered not going in. People locked their doors in Los Angeles. There was a war going on. Wars made people a little crazy. Some of them, particularly gangs of young guys facing the draft and willing to take some chances, would consider an unlocked door an invitation and a locked one a challenge.

I went in, found the light switch on the wall to my right, hit it, and closed the door behind him.

Melvin Rand did not make me look for him. He lay on the floor in the middle of the small living room into which I had stepped. He was definitely the same guy Wilde had sent running at Columbia. He was wearing nothing except for a pair of shorts and a bright yellow short-sleeved shirt opened to reveal a not very neat hole in his chest right about where one might expect to find his heart. In his right hand was a gun. In his left hand, a sheet of paper. His arms were sprawled at his sides.

I pulled out my handkerchief, wiped the light switch where I had touched it, and moved to the body. There wasn’t much blood, but what there was was enough.

I touched the body. The room was warm. So was the former Melvin Rand. He hadn’t been dead long. I angled my head to see if I could read what was on the sheet of paper in his hand without touching it. I could. It was written in block letters in ink and unsigned.

I
KILLED
C
UNNINGHAM
. I
KILLED
O
TT
. I
AM SORRY
.

B
LACKSTONE IS INNOCENT
.

That was it. It was probably the most unconvincing murder made to look like a suicide I’d ever seen. Now, for most people, a statement like that wouldn’t mean much, but I had, in my nearly half century of existence, witnessed four fake suicides.

Using my handkerchief, which I carried less for my allergies and more for occasions like this, I searched the apartment as quickly as I could. There wasn’t much to it, just two rooms and a kitchenette. The bedroom was small. The room where Rand lay looking at the ceiling wasn’t much larger.

I found one Waterman pen. I unscrewed the top and touched the point. It was dry. It hadn’t been used to write the note in Rand’s hand. I looked for paper and found some sheets on a table near the bed. They didn’t come close to matching the one in Rand’s hand.

I looked at the note again. If someone was trying to clear Black-stone of two murders, he, she, or they had made him look more guilty. Plus, now they had added a third murder to the list.

Cawelti was a vindictive, petty, grudge-carrying hothead, but there were some things he was not. He was not corrupt, and he was not congenitally stupid. He would come to the same conclusion I had, and then Blackstone would be in even worse trouble than he had been when Rand had still been breathing.

I finished looking around. No address book. No checkbook, no notes. There was a black chest in the bedroom closet. I opened it. Magic tricks. No black satchel full of money. I snapped it shut and got out of the apartment, closing the door with my handkerchief-covered hand.

“He in?” a man’s voice said behind me.

I didn’t know when he had crept up on me. I lifted my hand and knocked at the door I had just closed.

“Doesn’t seem to be there,” I said, turning to face an old man with stoop shoulders, a little shorter than me with bright blue eyes in a very craggy face. He was wearing overalls and a gray work shirt.

“You a friend?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Greater California and Arizona Life Insurance Company. Harvey Cortez. Got a call from Mr. Rand, but …” I shrugged. “It happens in my line of work. They tell you to come and they’re not there.”

“You weren’t in there just now?” the old man said.

“Nope,” I said.

“Mrs. Gatstonsen next door said she heard a noise from in there a little while back,” the man said. “Like something breaking, someone falling down.”

“Seems quiet in there now,” I said.

“Mrs. Gatstonsen is always hearing noises,” he said. “She’s a widow.”

“That explains it,” I said. “You think she might be interested in insurance?”

“Ask her,” he said. “Your risk. She’ll give you coffee and an earful, and I doubt she’ll buy the time of day for a penny—but it’s your time.”

“I guess I’ll skip Mrs. Gatstonsen,” I said.

“Briefcase,” the old man said.

“Briefcase?”

“Where’s your briefcase, Mr. Harvey Cortez?” he asked. “Insurance man without a briefcase.”

“In my car,” I said, pointing at the street. “Wanted to be sure Mr. Rand was home. It’s heavy and I’ve got a sore arm. Handball.”

He stood there for a few seconds, sizing me up. I smiled. I don’t think he liked what he saw and he would certainly remember me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’ve got no time for games,” he said. “Never did.”

“I’m not playing …”

“Handball is for people who can’t fill their time with what’s worthwhile,” he said.

“You’re a man of strong convictions,” I said. “I respect that.”

“Then vote for Dewey,” he said.

“I will,” I lied. “Better get going.”

I looked at my father’s watch on my wrist. I didn’t pay attention to the time. It was never right. I didn’t wear it to know what time it was.

I stepped past the old man, knowing he was watching me over his shoulder. I walked at what I considered the normal pace for an insurance salesman who had clients to see and a living to make.

It wouldn’t take long for the old man to try the door of Rand’s apartment. It wouldn’t take long for him to reach for the phone and call the police. It wouldn’t take long for John Cawelti to come looking for me.

The lunch crowd was gone, so Anita took her time serving me a tuna on toast, fries, and a Pepsi. I could have gone back to the Farraday, picked up a few tacos from Manny’s, sat at my desk, and waited for Cawelti to come for me.

My tooth was most definitely bothering me, creating a constant heavy pressure that I still didn’t want to call pain. I used the oil of cloves. I also needed a dose of common sense, a remedy I generally was a little short on. I told Anita what had happened at Rand’s apartment.

“So?” I asked, washing down a French fry with a drink of Pepsi.

She brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead and said. “So, I think you should pull out a nickel, put it in the phone, call Phil and tell him what happened.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But he’s got sick kids and …”

“He’s a big boy,” said Anita, taking my now-empty plate and walking over to put it in the bin of dirty dishes under the counter.

“Very big,” I said.

“Got a nickel?” I asked.

“It can be arranged. How’s that tooth?”

“Playful,” I said.

She reached into her uniform pocket, came up with a nickel and flipped it to me. I caught it in my palm and closed my fist on it.

“Just like in the movies,” she said with a smile.

I went to the phone in the back of the drugstore near the washrooms and called Phil’s house. Phil’s sister-in-law Becky answered.

“Me,” I said. “How’s everyone?”

“Doctor Hodgdon said we’ll all survive.” Her voice dropped. “How’s Phil been behaving?”

“Like Phil,” I said. “Well, not exactly.”

“Right,” Becky repeated. “Not exactly. He’s going through the motions, Toby. You have some good news for him?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“I’ll put him on.”

I looked over my shoulder toward the counter. Anita was serving coffee to a guy in a brown delivery uniform. He was leaning forward and grinning. Anita was smiling. I was jealous.

“Toby,” came Phil’s voice.

I told him about Melvin Rand, my tap dance with the old guy Mrs. Gatstonsen had called.

“Where are you?”

I told him.

“Stay there.”