The Brink of Murder Page 2

  “Chester,” Simon called, “you look like a professor.”

  Chester Jackson completed the hitch and stood to full height. Smiling, his face became instant inspiration for an advertising agency with a dentifrice account.

  “That’s what I am—almost,” he answered. “I just came from an interview. After the first of the year I start teaching in a private college near Riverside.”

  “Congratulations! But Hannah won’t be happy.”

  “No sweat with Hannah. We’ve got it all worked out. I bought one of those little cars that makes 30 miles to the gallon and I’m staying on at The Mansion as long as she needs me.”

  When Wanda climbed out of the cabin Chester whistled appreciatively. She wore a jacket identical to Simon’s, except that hers was zipped up to the throat of her turtle-neck sweater. White Levis were rolled up to her knees. Barefoot, she carried a well-packed sea-bag over one shoulder while the wind teased her long, blonde hair that had gone the way of all hair over-exposed to sun and sea. She wore no make-up and her nose was peeling.

  “Now that’s what I call a well-trained bride,” Chester said. “You’ve got her barefoot and toting the gear.”

  “But not pregnant,” Wanda laughed. “At least, I hope not until I finish my next recording session.”

  “You could handle it,” Simon said. “Any woman who can turn out a perfect soufflé on the kind of seas we’ve been navigating could give birth to triplets at a rock festival without missing a beat.”

  “Rough weather?” Chester asked.

  Simon took the sea-bag away from Wanda and gave her an affectionate slap on the bottom. “It hasn’t been a sea of glass,” he admitted. “Hey, what kind of vehicle is that?”

  Chester opened up the trunk of the little car that was parked alongside the dock and it looked as if the chassis had split in the middle. After Simon tossed in the sea-bag, Chester closed the trunk lid that included the rear-view window and a pair of side vents. “Lots of storage space,” he explained. “The trunk goes all the way up to the front seat.”

  “And the front seat sits over the bumper,” Simon said. “Where’s the motor?”

  Chester scowled. “I knew there was something I forgot to ask the salesman. Well, let’s all pile into the front seat and see what happens when I turn on the ignition.”

  The little car took off with a surprising burst of power. The marina receded in the rear-view mirror as Chester turned off on a winding street that would take them across Pacific Coast Highway and thence through the fringes of Marina Beach up to the old section called Marina Heights. Destination was a restored Victorian mansion that Simon had purchased for a song and refurbished for a few grand operas and a concert season. Left behind were the tiny weekend cottages and the plate-glass and concrete boxes of the new tracts. Left behind was the sea that now blended with the lowering sky until only the foam of white water lashing against the rocks gave evidence of its presence.

  Chester shifted into low gear for the climb. “Hannah was ready to try communicating with a ouija board before we got your ship to shore,” he said.

  “Doesn’t she know I’m a big enough boy to play with boats and girls?” Simon asked.

  “Correction,” Wanda insisted. “Not girls, plural; girl, singular.”

  “See?” Chester chided. “I told you that Justice of Peace in Vegas meant business. Which reminds me, Simon, in your gay bachelor days did you know a classy-looking brunette named Carole Amling?”

  “I knew her best when her name was Carole Ehrenberg,” Simon answered. “When she married Barney Amling it put our relationship on a different level.”

  “Barney Amling?” Wanda echoed. “The name is familiar.”

  “It should be. You must have been about eight years old and still trilling hymns in your father’s gospel choir when Barney Amling won his first all-American football honours. He racked up a couple more and a Heinzman trophy before he turned pro’. That’s when he married Carole and broke my sophomore heart. It’s harder to lose an older woman.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Wanda said.

  “When one is a sophomore,” Simon explained. “Later in life the situation reverses. What sparked this discussion of Carole Amling? Where did you meet her, Chester?”

  “She’s at The Mansion right now,” Chester said, “listening to Hannah’s memoirs of her show-biz days. When I left Hannah had covered the phase when the ardent lover crippled her with a Luger fired in jealous rage and was working up to the time you bought The Mansion from her, when she was down to her last annuity, and kept her on as house mother.”

  “Poor Carole,” Simon said.

  “Serves her right!” Wanda insisted. “She should stay at home with her football player.”

  “That,” Chester remarked drily, “is what she wants to do but she needs help. Barney Amling has disappeared.”

  By this time the little car had passed through the wrought-iron gates that marked the entrance to Simon’s property. The doors of a carriage house turned garage stood open and Hannah’s red Rolls-Royce, vintage of 1926, was in its place beside Simon’s new Jaguar. In addition, a new black Cadillac sedan took up half the driveway. Spying a medical symbol attached to the rear licence plate, Simon asked:

  “Is Hannah ill?”

  “Hannah’s fine,” Chester said. “The Caddy belongs to a doctor named Larson. He brought Mrs Amling to see you. She’s too uptight to do any driving herself.”

  Leaving Chester to manage the sea-bag, Simon slipped his arm about Wanda’s shoulder and walked her into the house. Hannah and the unexpected guests were in a first-floor sitting room just off the foyer.

  When Hannah Lee found Chester Jackson, complete with new teaching credentials and an unemployment card, sitting out the line at the local unemployment office, she had hired him on the spot, ostensibly as cook and houseman, which he was not, but actually as companion and therapist in her long struggle to get out of the wheel-chair status which had terminated her theatrical career in the early thirties. In this latter capacity Chester proved to be a miracle worker. The wheel-chair had long been banished to a local veterans’ association, and even the walking stick, which Hannah still carried on occasion, was more for dramatic effect than necessity. She held it now, sceptre-like, as she sat in a fan-backed chair from which she could simultaneously observe her callers and the doorway through which Simon and Wanda entered.

  “Look what came in with the tide!” she cried as they came into the room. “We were about ready to alert the coastguard. Storm warnings are out all along the coast.”

  “Overdramatizing, as usual,” Simon said. Then he spied Carole Amling seated on a red-velvet divan alongside a vaguely familiar man who might have been recognizable without black-rimmed glasses that magnified his intense blue eyes. Carole was surprisingly recognizable. Except for an air of maturity and suppressed anxiety, she wouldn’t have looked out of place in a school sweater with cheer-leader’s pom-poms in her hands. She wore a simple black suit and a red paisley hairband that accentuated her high forehead and large brown eyes. She was a small woman with a generous mouth, lightly rouged. At the sight of Simon the tension lines about her mouth relaxed into a wan smile.

  “Simon—” She rose from the divan as she spoke. “I’m sorry to come without warning like this, but I do need help. Is this your wife? She is lovely.”

  Simon made the introductions. Wanda, to her credit, made no apology for Levis and unshod feet.

  “Do you remember Eric Larson?” Carole Amling asked. “He insists that he met you years ago, Simon.”

  The vaguely familiar was identified. “Of course,” Simon said. “After your father’s death. How are you, doctor?”

  Larson unfolded from the divan to tower protectively above Carole Amling. He was on the short side of 40 with pale blond hair that was beginning to recede from a healthily-tanned forehead. “I’m worried,” he said quietly, “and so is Carole. We’ve been walking around the edge of a volcano for a week and it’s gettin
g uncomfortable.”

  “A week?” Simon echoed. “Is that how long Barney’s been missing?”

  “More than a week. For the first few days we assumed he had gone to Mexico City. There was a monetary conference.”

  “Let me tell it, Eric,” Carole begged. “Simon, you know that Barney does travel a lot and often without much advance notice. For the last year he’s kept a packed travel-bag in his office for these quickie trips. A week ago Friday afternoon he called home and said he was flying to Mexico City. I wasn’t home but Kevin took the message. I was disappointed when he told me because we were hosting a charity dance at the country club Saturday night, but, like any executive wife, I took it in my stride. But, Simon, whenever Barney has to make these sudden trips he always calls me as soon as he reaches his destination. I waited up until 3 a.m. Saturday. There was no call. He didn’t call during the whole of Saturday. When Eric came by to take me to the club I was at the edge of my nerves. Together, we called hotels in Mexico City until we located one where a monetary convention was in progress but Barney wasn’t registered. I left word at the hotel to have him call me as soon as he came in and went to the club with Eric.”

  “It was better than moping at home,” Larson said.

  “Eric stayed over on Sunday,” Carole continued, “and scolded me into believing that Barney had found the hotel booked up and was staying with friends. I called three families in Mexico City where he might have been but none of them had seen or heard from him. On Monday we went to his office. He had left word with the garage-attendant that he was going away for a few days and, through him, left instructions for his secretary, Mary Sutton. But he hadn’t told Miss Sutton about the trip or mentioned it to any other associates at the office.”

  “But there is a conference in session,” Simon reminded her.

  “Was a conference,” Carole corrected. “I sweated out Monday and Tuesday without word from Barney and then called the hotel where it was being held again. I was told the conference had concluded and Mr Amling hadn’t answered any of the page calls put out for him.”

  “Have you checked with the airlines?” Simon asked.

  “As soon as Carole completed the call to Mexico City,” Larson said. “No line scheduling flights that way had a record of Barney on their passenger lists for Friday or any other day.”

  Chester came into the room after dropping the sea-bag on the foyer floor. Wanda, aware of the growing tension, dispatched him to the bar to create a pitcher of dry martinis. But it would take more than a cocktail to dispel Carole Amling’s gloom.

  “Barney didn’t go to Mexico City,” Simon reflected, “but that doesn’t mean he didn’t go to a business conference somewhere. I don’t pretend to understand Barney’s profession, but I do know it’s a complicated one. He might have deliberately misled the office staff because the meeting was too secret. Have you checked the airport parking-lot for his car?”

  “What do you mean?” Carole asked.

  “He was driving when he left the office, wasn’t he? You said he left word with the garage-attendant. If he took any flight from LAX his car is still there.”

  “Any flight, Simon?” Hannah asked.

  “Right. A flight to Washington D.C., for instance.”

  “But it wouldn’t matter where Barney went,” Carole insisted. “If he’s all right, he would have called me.”

  “If he could. I’ve been in conferences so hectic I couldn’t take time to make a phone call.”

  “For more than a week?” Carole asked.

  Simon couldn’t answer that question. Chester arrived with the martinis and gave him a welcome respite. It was Wanda who continued the conversation.

  “If you’re afraid your husband’s been hurt, Mrs Amling,” she said, “why not check with the hospitals or call the police?”

  “We called the hospitals in the area yesterday,” Dr Larson replied. “No trace of anyone answering Barney’s description. As for the police, I’m sure you can understand Carole’s reluctance to take any action that would cause publicity. Her husband is the president of a multi-million dollar operation which handles other people’s money.”

  “Eric, please,” Carole protested.

  “I’m sorry, Carole, but it has to be said. I brought you here because you were desperate and thought Drake could help you. I’m sure he’s too intelligent not to have thought of it himself.”

  “A missing Savings and Loan president could make a headline writer’s day,” Simon admitted. “We want to find Barney—not ruin him.”

  “That’s exactly why Mrs Amling and Dr Larson came here,” Hannah observed over the rim of her martini glass. “They want to hire Jack Keith and you know he doesn’t take clients without a recommendation.”

  “He also doesn’t answer his telephone,” Larson said. “Carole knew you used his private-detective service in conjunction with your own legal practice and thought you could put in a word for her.”

  Simon finished his drink and held out his glass for a refill from the pitcher Chester was tending. “I’m sure Jack would take the job without my influence,” he said, “but he isn’t available right now. He’s on vacation somewhere out of the States and he never sends postcards.”

  “But surely he’s coming back,” Carole said.

  “When he’s ready. Jack doesn’t live by any time clock but his own. I’ll try to reach Jack; I’ll even do some probing on my own. I can imagine how you feel, Carole, but this is probably nothing at all. Why don’t you relax with another drink while Wanda and I change, and then we’ll scare up some dinner.”

  Carole Amling glanced nervously at the windows where the brief sunset had faded behind an invasion of fast-moving storm clouds. “It’s going to rain soon,” she said. “I have to get home to my boys. Kevin’s fifteen now but Jake’s still pretty much of a baby at times. I’ve had trouble enough trying to explain Barney’s absence without giving them more to worry about.”

  Carole and Larson were leaving. Simon walked them through the foyer to the door. Larson stepped outside but Simon restrained Carole with a touch. “There’s one thing I have to know,” he said. “Has Barney started drinking again?”

  She looked shocked. “Drinking? Oh, no! Not for thirteen years, Simon. He’s even a ginger ale man at parties.”

  • • •

  Since they were not having guests, Simon and Wanda slept upstairs in Wanda’s bedroom. Wanda’s because hers had a fireplace and a king-sized bed.

  “Once you get used to pink satin sheets they’re not so bad,” Simon observed. “Do you sleep in short nightgowns when I’m not here?”

  The nightgown, also pink, was accordion-pleated chiffon. It was just a shade shorter than a mini and Wanda had acquired a fantastic tan on the cruise that made her skin glow amber in the firelight. “To be honest,” she said, crawling into bed beside him, “I usually sleep in the nude.”

  “Well, let’s not be formal.”

  “Please, I have a glass of wine in my hand. You know what Hannah says about wine with and after prime rib.”

  “I know what Hannah says about almost everything but I missed that one. Besides, I think you’re making it up. Why so pensive?”

  “I’m thinking about Carole Amling. Was she really your first girl, Simon?”

  “I never said she was my first girl. She was my first love.”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “Yes, she is. When I was eighteen I was in love with her for at least three months.”

  “At eighteen that can be a long time.”

  “Practically forever. Anything else you want to know about Carole and me?”

  “Yes. What were you whispering about in the doorway when she left?”

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you. I asked Carole if Barney had started drinking again. She insisted that he hadn’t.”

  “Is that important?”

  “Very. Barney Amling was as straight a guy as ever lived. Then he was injured in a football game four years after he turn
ed pro’. He was good, remember. The fastest runner and possessor of the best throwing arm in his day. That made him number one target for any opposing team, and in the pro’ leagues they play for keeps. Barney took a lot of knocks but in his last game the whole line piled on him. By the time they piled off again his football days were over.”

  Wanda shivered and snuggled closer. “That must have been hard to take.”

  “Harder than you know. Barney had married Carole as soon as he turned pro’. When he was crippled they already had their first son, Kevin.”

  “And no job.”

  “It’s not quite as grim as it sounds. Carole’s father, Jacob Ehrenberg, was a successful architect. Eccentric as hell but successful. He had connections and Barney had a name. By the time he was on his feet again he had an executive job where he could use his aggressive spirit behind a desk instead of on the playing field. How well he did that is proved by the fact that he became president of Pacific Guaranty when he was thirty.”

  “But the drinking—”

  “I’m working up to that. Barney was a natural at business but didn’t know it. It was a traumatic transition—football hero to cripple, cripple to executive. Maybe he suffered a lot of pain in those years and that’s why he started on the juice, or maybe it was to bolster his nerve in the new game. Somewhere along the line he got hooked on the happy stuff that didn’t make him happy. By the time Kevin was pushing three, Barney was an alcoholic. Go ahead and finish your wine. I’m not giving a temperance talk.”

  Wanda sipped slowly. “But he licked it,” she concluded.

  “Not without help. He licked it because Carole loved him enough to throw down a challenge. She told Barney that she was leaving him until he quit drinking. Then she picked up little Kevin and came to me. I had my law degree by that time and was beginning to keep up with my rent payments. Carole started divorce proceedings and took to the hills. It was almost a year before Barney saw her again. In the interim he spent several months in a sanatorium and emerged a member in good standing of Alcoholics Anonymous. That, my girl, is how a woman in love saved her marriage and her man.”