The Brink of Murder (14 page)

I
F AN ORDINARY
citizen saw a girl fall to her death and suspected she was pushed he might, if he had enough Chutzbah, tell the police. Normally, he would forget it. Simon had the Chutzbah, but he was still Barney Amling’s lawyer and didn’t know if his client was at home or abroad, alive or dead. He might even have been in Mary Sutton’s apartment helping her through the window. One thing he did know: the torch Paul Corman insisted the dead woman carried for her missing boss had been large enough to light up the sky. It was obvious that she would have covered for him if he needed cover. But even unrequited love has a breaking point. If Knox Reardon suspected foul play when he made that careful search of her apartment he was keeping it to himself. What was smart for a policeman was just as smart for a lawyer and so Simon kept his suspicions from everyone except David Adler, who knew privileged communication when he heard it. Simon left the detective’s office with the Castile file locked in the trunk of his car and headed for Marina del Rey.

It was a holiday weekend and, chill wind or no, boat lovers flocked to their floating escapes like convicts with a three-day rehabilitation pass. The parking-lots were filled almost to capacity and most of the gates leading to the berths were unlocked because the boat owners were bringing in groceries for the holiday. The sky had cleared, the sea was calm. Like long-necked birds the sailing craft that headed out to sea glided swiftly under power with all sails furled inside blue or gold canvas protective covers. From a public telephone booth Simon called a friend, an airline pilot who lived in one of the marina apartment complexes, and asked about Verna Castle’s boat. It turned out to be as much of a secret as the
Queen Mary.
It was a 48-foot Chris Craft, custom designed for the original owner with an aft stateroom large enough to contain a queen-size bed. Verna Castle had purchased it eighteen months ago and it hadn’t been out of the harbour since she took possession. Apparently she was no kind of a sailor. She just liked living on the boat. She had re-christened it
Funky Frigate
and, although Simon’s friend didn’t know the berth number, he did know the area where it was anchored. Armed with that information Simon had little difficulty locating the craft. Finding the gate to the boats locked, Simon waited until a grocery-laden lady approached key in hand. When the gate was unlocked Simon waved both arms at a man sunning himself on the flying bridge of a fishing cruiser and yelled: “Hi! Waiting for me?” The man waved back guiltily, as if trying to remember what pest he had invited aboard during his last drunk, and Simon slipped through the gate without question.

The
Funky Frigate
was at the very end of the floating dock. She was gleaming white with a flush deck and an extended hardtop. All the chrome was polished and the master’s flag was flying. She was beautiful but no competition for the girl with ash blonde hair hanging halfway down her back who was climbing down the accommodation ladder to the dock. The girl was about eighteen with everything assembled exactly right. Her faded blue tee-shirt and white duck shorts fitted as if they had been sprayed on like body paint, and her face had a scrubbed clean look that defied suntan. She stepped down on to the deck and turned towards Simon, fixing him with a wide, blue stare that showed no interest except mild surprise.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

Her voice was a husky whisper.

“No,” Simon said, “but that can be remedied. I’m looking for the
Funky Frigate.
I heard she was for sale.”

“You’ve got the right boat but the wrong information,” the girl said.

“Maybe that can be remedied too,” Simon said. “May I go aboard?”

The girl didn’t reply. Simon’s answer came from the deck.

“Cherry, tell the man to get lost. And while you’re in the liquor store see if they have any of that bitter lemon mix I like. We used up the last bottle yesterday.”

Simon looked up. It was Verna Castle all right. She wasn’t dressed as fancily as in the photos with Barney Amling. Her dark red hair hadn’t just been groomed in the beauty parlour and her orange float coat didn’t come embroidered with jewels. She wore sun-glasses, a white knit shirt, faded blue jeans and canvas shoes that looked as if she had been walking through a swamp. He could see them because he was already more than half way up the ladder. “The boat isn’t for sale,” she said.

Simon climbed on to the deck anyway. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I own an Erickson twenty-seven. Now that I’m married I thought I might go for something larger.”

He couldn’t see her eyes very well through the sun-glasses, but he had the uneasy feeling that Verna Castle was reading him like yesterday’s headlines. When the girl called Cherry hesitated, the woman waved her on with an impatient gesture. “I can handle this,” she said casually. “If you see Freddie and Rod ask them to drop by this afternoon. I feel like some cut-throat gin-rummy.” When Cherry moved off down the dock with a rear-view mobility that was wondrous to behold, Simon sighed audibly. Verna whipped off the dark glasses and glared at him. “That’s my niece, Cherry Lane,” she said. “Hands off and eyes front.”

Simon grinned. “I told you I was married. It’s just nice to know they’re still being made that way.”

“All right, you’ve looked. Now shove off, sailor.”

“I haven’t seen the boat. Most people who own something in this class like to show it off.”

“The next time I give a party I’ll let you know. On second thoughts, I don’t think I will. Your face is beginning to seem as familiar as your manner—and you’re no sailor.”

“That’s what the Marina Beach Yacht Club keeps telling me,” Simon said, “but I try. My name is Simon Drake. You may know me better as the man who married Wanda Call—or even as Barney Amling’s lawyer.”

The light of discovery must have been too bright for Verna Castle. She put the dark glasses on again. Before she could do anything else, Simon whipped out the envelope containing the two photos and let her see the contents. See—not touch.

“Where did you get these?” she demanded.

“I can’t tell you that. What you can tell me is why you were dining with Amling and why he spent a night in your private suite at the Marina View Inn.”

“Get lost!” Verna said.

“Your vocabulary is limited,” Simon observed. “Mine isn’t. I make my living talking. Now I can show these photos to the police or to the FBI. I can even show them to the newspapers. That would really make a hot story because the newspaper morgues still have the story on Alverna Castile and her lucrative trade in upper-class prostitution. People get tired of reading about wars. They might enjoy reading about you again and that could endanger your social standing with the yacht club set.”

He tried to sound menacing. It was discomforting to hear her sharp laughter.

“Get with it!” she said. “Haven’t you heard of the new morality? If word gets around about my past I’ll be the most popular hostess afloat.”

“That’s possible,” Simon conceded. “Especially if somebody thinks you’ve got a piece of the missing nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Verna Castle didn’t laugh.

“Fink!” she said.

“You’ll have to do something about that vocabulary, Alverna. You give yourself away every time you open your mouth. Now suppose you just explain your business with Barney and we can be friends.”

“You called it,” she said. “It was business. Only business.”

“Barney had a very nice office for conducting business.”

“He also has a very nice home in Palos Verdes which isn’t too far from here. It was easy for him to stop by on his way home from work.”

“But he didn’t go home.”

“Lawyer,” Verna said wearily, “the only reason I keep that suite at the Inn is for business conferences and as a convenience to friends. The truth is, I’m scared to death of freeways. I do very little driving any more. Now you, being a sailor, must know there’s a new marina at Dana Point. The Golden Fleece is doing so well I’ve been thinking of trying another restaurant down there. For expansion of business I need capital. Barney Amling dispenses capital. I’ve been doing business with him for years. I have a good credit rating.”

“And all of this was just in the nature of discussing a new loan?”

“Exactly. The night Barney stayed over at the Inn was one of those messy, foggy nights and he was tired. He complained of a headache. I told him to stay over and sleep it off. If he had any other reasons—like trouble at home, for instance—he was too much of a gentleman to discuss it with me. If you really are his lawyer you must know that.”

“Keep talking,” Simon said. “I may be buying.”

“There’s nothing else to talk about. This thing about his disappearance and the Pacific Guaranty shortage was as much of a shock to me as to anyone else. I called Ralph McClary the day the story broke and got full assurance that the money was insured. I’m a depositor, too.”

“Then you haven’t heard from Amling?”

“Of course not. I don’t know how you got these pictures. Maybe Barney’s wife is neurotic and hired a private detective to check up on her handsome husband. That’s her problem. I haven’t catered to an errant husband in over a decade. Check it out.”

“All right,” Simon said, “but these photos were made within the last two months. Maybe you can help me in another way. If you’ve done business with Barney for several years you might have noticed any change in his behaviour. You mentioned a headache. Did he seem to have any other problems you could pin-point?”

“Such as?”

“When you dined with him—did he drink anything intoxicating?”

“Do you see any liquor glasses at his place at the table?” Verna countered. “Just a water glass. You must know that Barney Amling was an alcoholic. Alcoholics can’t drink.”

“And you’ve had some experience with alcoholics, haven’t you? Do you remember the name of the sanatorium where your husband died?”

Verna’s body stiffened under that blousey jacket. “Mr Drake,” she said, “I’m not answering any more questions. I think it’s time for you to go unless you want me to call the marina patrol and have you put off my boat.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Simon said. “I can look it up.”

“You can also get into a lot of trouble if you try to give me aggravation,” Verna said. “I was born on a boat, Mr Drake. Did you know that? A barge. A barge in San Pedro harbour. It didn’t have a queen-size bed or two heads with gold fixtures the way this yacht does. It was a crummy place to be born and a crummy place to live, so I don’t live that way any more. I’ve got it made, and a woman with that kind of a beginning doesn’t make it without learning how to protect herself from the killer sharks. Now if you look over your right shoulder you’ll see two of my friends coming to play gin. They like me. If I tell them that I don’t like you, they won’t like you either.”

Simon looked. The two friends were tall. One had a barrel chest and wore his shirt unbuttoned to show a lot of greying black hair. He had the shoulders of a Ram tackle and a pair of lethal-looking hands. His companion was boyishly slender, younger and wore a little Swedish-type yachting cap. He carried something in a loosely knit tote bag which he held high as they neared the boarding ladder.

“Cherry delivered the message and we decided to come early,” he called up to Verna. “We have a lobster and you have that fabulous galley going to waste.”

“Wonderful!” Verna cried. “Too bad you can’t stay for dinner, Mr Drake. Rod’s the best cook in the marina. Freddie’s gifted too. He was the heavyweight boxer of the Sixth Naval District—or some such thing.”

Simon took a good look at Freddie and friend. “I have a new pair of pyjamas and a karate robe you fellows would love,” he said, “but Miss Castle is right. I was just leaving.”

Simon walked back up the dock and met Cherry Lane at the gate. She didn’t seem to notice him. She hugged the bag from the liquor store to her bobbing breasts and sauntered off towards the
Funky Frigate
wearing an empty smile. She was as sensual as sin but the smoke from her fire wasn’t blowing his way. Simon looked after her, pondering the many facets of the new morality and the odds against Alverna Castile’s half-brother having sired such a daughter in his early teens, and then returned to the Jaguar. He was locking the photos in the trunk with Adler’s file when he saw Verna Castle come trotting up the deck and through the gate. He thought for just a moment that she might be coming after him. Instead, she hurried to the pay phone and began pumping coins into the box like a masochist pumping a Las Vegas slot machine. He ducked inside the car and watched her complete the call. The extra coins meant that it was to a point out of the area. She got her party and began to talk heatedly, waving her free hand as if the phone booth was full of gnats. Once she stopped to put in a few more coins for overtime. By that time Simon realized that a woman who lived aboard her boat must have a telephone there but a call of that nature couldn’t be made with guests aboard. She finished the conversation with a gesture of impatience or despair, slamming the receiver back on the hook. She walked back towards the boats at a slower pace with her shoulders hunched against the chilly air. She wasn’t as invulnerable as she seemed.

• • •

When Simon reached The Mansion he learned that Hannah had given Wanda a sedative and sent her upstairs to bed. It was a good place for her. She was unnerved enough from seeing Mary Sutton plunge to her death through a fiery window without being drawn further into the Amling affair. Hannah thrived on mystery and had to be brought up to date on Simon’s activities since he went off in search of The Golden Fleece. He showed her Kevin’s photos and Adler’s file on Alverna Castile. She was fascinated.

“I remember the scandal well. Some of my dearest friends were incommunicado until it blew over. Alverna never wasted her personal attentions on any but the well-heeled. I knew a countess, a genuine one, who was one of Alverna’s top-salaried courtesans—by choice, of course. The whole operation worked that way. None of that sordid underworld business of picking up stray runaways and giving them the knock-’em down, beat-’em up, rape routine to make passive little sex machines out of them. Alverna had style.”