Death Was in the Picture Page 4

  He went back to observing. Dex enjoys watching people and this was a good place for it. There was a wide spectrum of people in attendance. To Dex, they seemed to represent all walks, from men in sober business suits to women in next to nothing at all. It seemed to him that, throughout the evening, he’d caught glimpses of studio heads, actors, agents and others from all branches of the entertainment industry and perhaps even representatives from local government, but it was hard to be sure about a thing like that. Men like that don’t wear signs.

  As far as Dex could see, there was a single thing that connected the group: almost to a one, they wore their entitlement and privilege like a badge. They were beautiful and affluent and careless and well fed. In the confines of these rooms it was possible to believe in a world where the county borders were not patrolled by Los Angeles policemen to keep transients out. It was possible not to think about soup lines and the crowds of men waiting for handfuls of jobs at construction sites every morning. It was possible, but Dex didn’t make that choice. He maintained his position, kept his eye on Laird Wyndham—now back on the phone—wrapped his hand around his bourbon and did a slow burn.

  Later Dex would figure perhaps another half hour passed before a scream broke over the din of the party. The band stopped on a gasp and the silence that filled the wake of the music seemed louder than the dance tune they’d been playing.

  “Oh my God,” a woman’s shrill lament. “Oh my loving God, someone help me.”

  Without even thinking about it, Dex unsnapped his holster, making sure he could get his gun clear in a hurry. At the same time, he moved toward the source of the sound: a bedroom at the back of the bungalow.

  The door was open now, light spilling onto the carpet in the hall like a puddle of blood. People seemed to be moving both in and out of the room. Fear was a rising tide. Dex could smell it, could even taste a bit of it himself.

  The cause of that tide was apparent even from the doorway. Dex did not recognize the girl on the bed in that first fast look, but he saw all he needed to make his decision.

  He was not at first certain she was dead, but it was clear that she was damaged. Her head was on a pillow, but at an unnatural angle. And she was absolutely still.

  Rhoda Darrow pushed her way through the gawping throng and into the room and took command. She picked up the girl’s wrist, took her pulse, shook her head.

  “She’s gone,” Rhoda said. There was sadness in her voice; concern. But Dex thought he tasted artifice; saccharine on the tongue.

  And then, “Where is Laird Wyndham?” It was Rhoda who said the words, but Dex heard them repeated through the bungalow, like a stereophonic echo from all corners. In seconds it was apparent that he wasn’t there.

  “What did you do then?” I asked, wide-eyed.

  “I left,” he said, inspecting the end of his index finger.

  “You left?”

  “Sure. There was nothing I could do, Kitty. The girl had checked out. Anyway, I figured I’d been hired to keep my eye on Wyndham and once I realized he’d vamoosed, I figured I was duty bound to follow him.”

  I could see the sense in that. “So where did he go?”

  Dex looked sheepish. “I don’t know.”

  “C’mon, Dex. You’re no palooka. How could you have lost him?”

  “By the time I figured he’d left the party and went after him, he had disappeared without a trace.”

  I rolled my eyes at the bit of drama, but prepared to move on. “So you went back to the party?”

  Dex shook his head. “Naw. I checked the hotel grounds pretty good: from the parking lot to the pool, all the bars, the lobby. No sign of Wyndham and no one had seen him. By then I was getting a bad feeling about the whole business and, since the guy I was tailing had up and disappeared, I figured I’d just get the hell out of there. Sort it all out with the client in the morning.”

  “Except, of course, by morning, Wyndham had been arrested.”

  Dex ran his hands through his hair again. But all he said was, “Right.”

  “OK, Dex: I don’t understand. I mean, look at you,” I pointed at him with my thumb and he knew I meant the whole package: he had apparently decided to drink himself stupid at his office rather than someplace else. And though yesterday he’d been sunny and sober, today it was like he couldn’t get the alcohol into himself fast enough.

  “I don’ know Kitty … it’s just that…”—he hesitated, as though grappling with the words—”like I said, the whole business was kinda fishy from the get-go, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t know if I would say that.”

  “And the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “Worse than that furniture polish you call bourbon?”

  “Much worse. And it would take more than a pint of Jack to wash this away.”

  “Judging by the state of you, it looks like you’d be willing to see how much it would take.”

  Dex went all quiet again for a while. I could see him working things out in his head. I felt a little sorry for him. I do when he’s like that; when the drink is close on him but not quite there. He can still see the shape of things then, still see how things are. But the checks and balances are injured. He can put the pieces together, but they don’t always add up.

  “Well, time to face the music, I guess,” he said finally. “Get Xander Dean on the phone for me, will you?”

  Back at my desk, I dialed the number the big man had left the day before. I let it ring a dozen or more times before I decided to try later. Determined to let Dex ripen in whatever juices he was brewing, I busied myself with various housekeeping chores in the outer office. At three that afternoon I went out for the late edition of the newspaper from the vendor who always sold his papers just a few steps from the front door of our building.

  STARLET SLAIN, the headline of the Los Angeles Courier blared, and then, beneath it in slightly smaller letters: LAIRD WYNDHAM’S LATEST ROLE: MURDERER?

  “Sad business, huh Miss Pangborn?” the elevator operator shook his head when he noticed the paper in my hand. “I just saw him in Lake Country Cowboy a month or so ago. I would never have suspected anything. He seemed like such a nice guy.” I just looked at the young man, but didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  Back at the office I brought the paper straight in to Dex. “Is this her?” I said pointing to a studio photograph of a young woman on the cover of the Courier. The paper said her name was Fleur MacKenzie. She looked breathtaking. And now she was dead.

  “Yeah, that’s her all right,” Dex said, taking the paper. “But you wouldn’t have known it if she was standing here next to this photo when she was alive. I’m guessin’ this was taken a few years ago.”

  I took the paper from Dex and, uninvited, plopped myself back in the chair opposite his desk. He didn’t stop me. We both knew he wasn’t in reading condition and he trusted me to hit the highlights.

  As I settled in I realized that there were lots of highlights here Dex probably wouldn’t even want to hear about—not just now, anyway. In his current state he was likely to rush out and hurt something. He’s a man who loves many things, and not all of them stuff you and I would agree with. But, at heart, he’s a man who loves the truth.

  From the first, I suspected I’d find no truth in the Los Angeles Courier. Even so, my heart sank as I read. I’d been completely in the thrall of Laird Wyndham, motion picture star. Over the years I’d spent so many hours with him in darkened theaters. I’d seen him ride into a sunset on the back of a noble steed, the virtue of the girl he loved intact due his own diligence. I’d seen him conquer corporate iniquity and overcome human greed and outdistance human hatred. I’d seen him die, gloriously and with honor. In over a dozen films I’d seen him spit in the face of all that is dark in the human heart and stand up for all that is good and gallant. I loved him for it. I loved him for what he’d helped me to believe.

  And I wasn’t alone, hadn’t thought I was alone. So many others
—millions of others—loved him for that golden light he helped shine on humanity. I would never have thought it could be different.

  Yet here I was, curled into the big chair in Dex’s office, not even at first aware of the tears that rolled down my cheeks as I read.

  “It’s like it’s not about him at all,” I said at length.

  “How so?” Dex asked. I tried not to notice when he poured another couple of fingers of bourbon into his glass. The hard liquor slid over the ice and glinted with a mean promise.

  “The man in this article,” I said slowly, considering my words, “the man they describe here. He’s a monster.”

  Dex didn’t answer right away, just heaved a big sigh and took a hit of bourbon, like he was hoping the drink would add clarity. I’m guessing it did not. Finally he grunted. I took that to mean he wanted me to explain myself.

  “It’s just the way they talk about him. Here,” I said, “listen to this: ‘When the news vaults are considered, very little is known about Laird Wyndham, beyond the most basic of studio-provided information.’ See? What does that mean, Dex? They’ve been writing about him constantly for as long as I’ve been old enough to read a newspaper. And now—suddenly—they don’t know anything about him. I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to distance themselves from all the nice things they said in the past.”

  “I get it,” I said grumpily. “Now that the chips are down, they’re not sure which way they’re going to land.”

  Dex cracked a smile. “Listen, Kitty: you’re the one who went to the big fancy school up in Frisco, not me. But I’m pretty sure you’ve mixed up those metaphors pretty good.”

  “Well, you know what I mean, Dex. Anyway, it says here the MacKenzie girl was a starlet,” I said, getting back to it. “And lookit: they even used the word ‘dewy.’ I don’t think I’ve ever seen that word in a sentence before.”

  Dex snorted. “Well, it don’t fit the girl I saw, that’s for sure. It might have once. It didn’t anymore. Last night she didn’t look dewy so much as soaked. Leastwise,” he added, “when she was alive, I mean.”

  “‘Dewy,’” I tried it out on my tongue. “It wouldn’t fit a lot of people, I’m guessing. Wouldn’t fit you, Dex,” I laughed.

  “I was dewy once,” Dex said. “Woke up one morning on someone’s lawn.” He looked at me closely. Squinted. “Guess it would kinda fit you, though.”

  “Huh,” I said, lobbing the sports section at his head before I settled back into my reading. He caught it deftly, nodded thanks and bent to it. I was glad to see his hand-eye coordination had recovered. Despite the fact that he was drinking again. Or maybe because of it.

  The rest of the article about the MacKenzie girl was more of the same. I moved on not knowing much more about Fleur MacKenzie than I had going in. Obviously the reporter hadn’t either, but had just shuffled the information available into various patterns in an effort to fill out his allotted space.

  I moved on to a piece about Wyndham’s background, and here things got a bit more interesting. From the looks of things, the reporter had been so busy digging up dirt on the actor he hadn’t bothered spending much time on the girl. Perhaps that would come tomorrow. Meanwhile there was enough material on Laird Wyndham to keep Hollywood tongues wagging for the next two weeks.

  For starters, I read, he hadn’t been born Laird Wyndham. “Oh dear.” I read: “‘Charles Richard Dickey.’”

  “What’s that?” Dex said, looking up.

  “Wyndham’s real name: Charles Richard Dickey.”

  “Chuck Dick Dickey?” Dex smirked. “That ain’t good. Sounds like a clown throwing up.”

  “And he’s not from Boston,” I went on.

  “Sure he is,” Dex said. “Old Boston family. Tea parties and stuff. I remember reading that much myself.”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Orchard Street. Lower East Side. Manhattan.”

  “Means nothin’ to me,” Dex said.

  “Me neither. But the way they’re saying it here,” I tapped the paper in my lap, “not good.”

  “Well, I don’t care. And I figure you don’t care, am I right?”

  I nodded agreement. “I don’t care. And if changing your name meant you were a murderer, why … everyone in Hollywood would be in the hoosegow.”

  “It’s true. Lotta people in that business change perfectly good names. Let alone Chuck Dick Dickey. Naw, he’s no murderer. In fact, I’d put money on it. I was there. I know what I saw. And you can roll a baby in baking flour, but that don’t make him a polar bear.”

  I hesitated, derailed for the moment by the vision of a flour-dipped baby. “Well,” I reminded him hesitatingly, “there was maybe a lot you didn’t see. You said the bedroom door was closed.”

  “Still, I saw a lot of Wyndham through the evening. And he didn’t look like he was fixing to snuff out anyone’s lights.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked.

  “What makes you think we have to do anything?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno, really. It just seems like you know more than most of the people that were there. And you’re a professional. You know what to look for.”

  Dex smiled. “You’re a sweet kid, Kitty. I like having you around. I don’t tell you that enough. You brighten the place up. But, in this thing? I just don’t know that there’s anything that can be done. Least of all by us.”

  I squirmed a bit under the unexpected compliment. “Thanks,” I sort of stammered. But I could tell Dex wasn’t listening. He seemed to have gone away somewhere quiet where he could think deeply. I read while he pondered. Finally, he spoke again. “You know, this thing with the papers. It’s all a bit too pat.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. I said so. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” is what I said.

  “Well, how is it that the newspapers loved Wyndham yesterday. And they loved him all this time. Then, suddenly, he’s got horns and a tail?”

  “He’s accused of a pretty horrible thing, Dex.”

  “Still. That ain’t enough. The studios care for their own, Kitty. There’s lots of things we don’t read about in the papers. Things that’d curl your hair. The studios fix it. They hush things up. Happens all the time.”

  I was skeptical. “How do you know that?”

  “Hell: lookit what I do for a living. And I talk to other P.I.s. It’s even a job I’ve had on occasion: making things go away.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  He stroked what would become a full beard if he didn’t see to it soon. “What am I saying? Good question. I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to give it some more thought. Meanwhile, do you think it’s possible Wyndham got on the wrong side of someone?”

  I was aware of looking at Dex carefully. Of cocking my head to one side like a dog listening. Something must have resonated. “What do you mean?” was what I said.

  He pulled the newspaper toward him, read the lurid headline, slapped it back down on the desk. “Well, lookit, Kitty: they’re calling him a murderer. No pussfootin’ around.”

  “So you’re saying … what? That someone at the paper has it out for him?” There must have been a skeptical note in my voice.

  “I’m just sayin’ it’s a possibility, is all.”

  “Anyway,” I pointed out, aiming for a reasonable tone, “it was your job to follow him and you did that. With him in jail, I guess your job is done.”

  “What does it say in the paper about evidence?”

  “What evidence?”

  “That’s what I mean. If the cops bundled him off to the can, they must have had some reason for thinking it was him.”

  I bent back to the paper for a bit. Scanned here and there through the stories about Wyndham. “No,” I said after a while. “Nothing specific. I mean, the cops arrested him, right? You know they’ve got some kind of evidence. But they’re not saying what it is here.”

  Dex looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything. Everything that needed
saying between us had been said.

  “Guess I’ll get back to work, Dex. Holler if you need anything?”

  “Well you could try Xander Dean again,” he said. “Other than that, I’m OK.”

  The second time I tried Dean’s number brought the same response: a lot of ringing. I would maybe have tried again, just to make sure I hadn’t misdialed, but I heard the sound of flatfoots snuffling toward the office and I replaced the receiver.

  In fairness, there is probably no way I could have known it was flatfoots. But it seems to me I could hear a certain bold incompetence in those footsteps and a certain confidence combined with weakness of character. There weren’t a lot of places you find such deep troughs of that combination outside Chief Roy E. Steckel’s Los Angeles police force.

  The cops didn’t even hesitate to give me the time of day. I might not have been sitting there at all. They just barged right through and into Dex’s office, without any by-your-leave. I followed hard on their heels, intending to apologize to Dex for letting them through, but it took me some time to sneak a word in even at the edge.

  “O’Reilly,” Dex said warmly. “Houlahan. Great to see you ladies. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’ve got a feeling it wouldn’t take you much to guess.” The speaker was short and dangerously red in the face, like an encounter with too many stairs would put him in the hospital. Maybe keep him there forever. I wasn’t sure if this was O’Reilly or Houlahan, I’d never taken the time to tell them apart, but on consideration, I figured it didn’t much matter.

  “Well, maybe yes and maybe no,” Dex said affably. “Why’nt you boys come on in. Take a load off.” He shifted his attention to me, standing in the doorway, not sure what to do or say. “It’s OK, Kitty. I know they didn’t ask your permission. You go on back and get that typing done.”

  I shot Dex a look he didn’t see. I didn’t have any typing to do and I was pretty sure Dex knew it. And I was unconvinced of Dex’s need to impress the flatfoots with his busyness. Still, Dex had asked for typing so typing he would get. His was the name at the bottom of my pay checks, after all. His was the name edged in gold letters on the front door.