Shell Scott: Kill The Clown Part 2

We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes, then she said, "I'm pretty tired, Sh.e.l.l. Think I'll go to bed."

"Oh?"

There must have been in my expression something of what flashed through my mind, because she smiled and added, "So you'd better run along. I feel wretched, really."

"Oh." It had quite a different sound this time, even to my ears.

She walked to the door with me and outside, and as I turned toward her to say good night, she lifted her face and looked up at me, her lips parted, gleaming, and curved slightly upwards at the corners in what might have been the start of a smile. Might have been - but I would never know for sure, because I put my hand behind her, in the small of her back, and pulled her close against me.

She didn't resist, didn't pull away, and I saw her eyes close, lids falling heavily as her lips parted even more, and then those lips were on mine. On mine like melting lava, hot and wetly pulsing, curling, trembling. It could have been seconds or minutes later that she pressed her hands against my chest and pushed me away from her.

"Good night, Sh.e.l.l," she said softly, and then she was gone. The door closed behind her.

I turned and walked to my car and got in, and if anybody nearby had been desirous of shooting me, that would have been the best possible time for it. I drove toward town with a silly smile on my still tingling lips, and it was only when I had practically reached the Civic Center in downtown L.A. that I thought about looking behind me.

But I made it to the Police Building with no trouble, and took the elevator to the third floor. As I walked into room 314, Homicide, Sam came in the door behind me.

Sam is my very good friend, Phil Samson, Captain of Homicide. He's a wide, hard man, with thick shoulders and big, heavy-knuckled hands. He looks a little like a tank made out of people, and he can hit a hoodlum harder with his brown eyes than most men can with a large stick.

We said h.e.l.lo and I asked him, "What's the story on Chester Weiss, Sam?"

He nodded. "I hear you were the one found the body."

"Correct. He spilled some interesting items about Frank Quinn to a client of mine, one Doris Miller." I filled him in on the high points, then briefed him on my trip to Quinn's and the Freeway excitement, while he nodded, grunted and knuckled his gray hair a time or two.

When I finished he said, "Yeah. The gentleman you shot in the face - "

"Was no gentleman."

" - is in the morgue. Name of Arthur Hay Grant, known when alive as Turkey Grant."

"Cold Turkey now. You found him, huh?"

Sam nodded. "We picked up the gun off the Freeway, Thompson submachine gun, no prints, no numbers. Found Grant in the car up near Brush Canyon, no driver, no witnesses. Car had been wiped clean - it was registered in Grant's name. Criminalistics is still checking the car and gun."

"And Weiss? I know, of course, who killed the man. But how did Quinn do it?"

"You know - of course, huh?" Sam shook his head. "He died of a heart attack."

"Sure. That's like saying death killed him. Come on, what really did him in?"

Samson sighed. "I just told you. Heart attack. Nothing funny about it. We talked to his doctor - Weiss was under a physician's care, you know."

"I heard."

"He told us Weiss could have gone off any time. A year, month, today. So it was today. Last night, actually. Want to look at the Coroner's report?"

"Might as well."

Sam got the report and gave it to me. I digested it. Or, rather, tried to. Medical language is like Esperanto spelled inside out, a secret doctor-language apparently designed to make falling hair sound like a ruptured bladder. But I managed to decipher enough to discover that the P.M. showed recent heart damage, arteries plugged up like sewer pipes, and the deceased had expired as the result of a "coronary occlusion," which sounds as if both his kidneys had exploded simultaneously, but which meant that Chester Weiss had, indeed, died of a heart attack.

"Well, nuts," I said. "So how come Quinn knew something had happened to Weiss?"

"Maybe he didn't - you've been wrong before. Or maybe he knew Weiss was dead. So what? That doesn't mean he killed him."

"Well, it makes no difference now, anyway. That slob tried to kill me today, and if I keep on living I'm going to get the b.u.m."

"Wish you luck," Sam said. "We'd like to get him ourselves." He paused. "Funny thing, here a few years ago this guy was a punk. Now if he gets into some kind of bind half a dozen respectable people stand up for him."

"Yeah." I thought about that. "Sam when did you first hear of Quinn?"

"First we had to do with him was the time of the Prentice case. Four years ago, maybe a little more."

That was the name - Prentice. It had been tickling my brain earlier, but I hadn't been able to pin it down. "Raleigh Prentice, wasn't it?" I asked.

Sam nodded. "Suicide. Quinn had an appointment to meet Prentice at his home that night. When Prentice put a bullet into his head, Quinn was parking his car out front."

"Interesting. You sure it was suicide?"

"No question about it," Sam said. "His wife was in the hall outside her husband's study, and saw him pull the trigger. Went into hysterics right after - but she saw it, all right. I don't know what Quinn was doing there - we talked to him, of course, and he said Prentice had contacted him, asked him to come around that night."

"Asked him, huh? Prentice leave a note?"

"No, nothing was found. Just left a mess in his study."

"Wouldn't you expect a suicide to leave a suicide note, Sam?"

"Some do, some don't. But Quinn couldn't have killed Prentice himself, if that's what you're thinking. It was definitely established, by neighbors, that Quinn was outside when the shot was fired. He heard the shot himself, and heard Mrs. Prentice screaming, went inside the house and actually calmed her down. Helped her a lot, she said."

"A big heart, that Quinn."

Sam grunted. "Quinn even called us from the house, reported the death. Last time he ever called the police, far as I know." Sam got out one of his black cigars and stuck it, unlighted, into his mouth. "What got me about the whole thing, Prentice was a respected businessman, worth a million bucks or more. Why would he have asked a punk gunman like Frank Quinn to come calling that night?"

"Are you sure he did? Or is that just Quinn's story?"

"Quinn's. But we can't ask Prentice."

He started to say something else, but I held up a hand. A thought was buzzing faintly. "Wasn't there something else around the same time, Sam? A friend of Prentice's . . ."

"Yeah, probably his best friend. Man named Schuyler, George Schuyler. He got himself killed right after - the next night I think."

Now it came back to me. And Schuyler's death hadn't been a suicide. Not unless he'd been a very speedy contortionist. He'd been shot five times, including once in the back.

"He didn't have an appointment with Quinn, too, did he?"

Sam grinned. "Not so far as we know, Sh.e.l.l. He probably didn't know he had an appointment with anybody."

"n.o.body got caught for that one, huh?"

"Nope. Not yet. Case is still open."

I lit a cigarette, dragged on it. Then I said, "Well, that's four-year-old history. Back to the Flagg thing, Sam. How about this Heigman, the p.a.w.nbroker who's supposed to have sold Miller the murder gun?"

"Month or two after Miller was transferred to Q, Heigman closed his shop and went away somewhere."

"Where?"

"I dunno."

"Maybe he moved away like Flagg. Or - like Weiss?"

Sam grinned. "You're reaching."

I shrugged. Maybe I was. After a moment I said, "Sam, I'd like to talk to Miller."

"In Q?"

"Yeah. I'd like to see the man, size him up, hear what he has to say." I looked at my watch. "It's only a little after six. If I can get on a jet leaving L.A. International in the next hour or two, I could be in San Rafael by nine or ten o'clock. If you'd pull a few strings . . ."

He scowled. "There's nothing he can tell you that isn't in the trial transcript."

"Maybe not. But I'd like to look the guy over anyway." I paused. "In the interest of Justice, Sam?"

Still scowling he said, "Check with the airport. If you can get a plane out tonight, I'll arrange the rest of it."

The United DC-8 touched down at San Francisco's International Airport at nine-twelve that night after a fifty-eight minute jet flight from L.A. I grabbed a taxi and was inside the walls of San Quentin prison, talking to the warden, before ten o'clock. Everything was arranged, and a guard took me to an empty cell adjacent to the cell block in which Miller had spent the last months; Miller was just being transferred there as I arrived. A uniformed guard went inside the cell with me, and the steel door was closed and locked behind the three of us.

Ross Miller was a good-looking man, tall and slim, with a strong face and a lot of wavy black hair. There were fine lines around his eyes and mouth, probably put there by the months in Death Row.

I said, "I'm Sh.e.l.l Scott, Mr. Miller, a private investigator." We shook hands and I added, "Your sister hired me to work on your case."

He seemed surprised. "Doris?"

"That's right. Didn't you know?"

He sat down on the edge of the bunk, shaking his head. "First I heard was a little while ago when I was told you wanted to see me."

"Well, Doris - Miss Miller - didn't come to my office until early this afternoon. She told me everything she could, and I've read the trial transcript, done some other checking. But I wanted to get your story from you, personally."

He was quiet for a few seconds, looking at me. "You're going to try to establish my innocence? Get a stay?"

"I'm going to try."

He started to speak, then stopped. In a moment he went on quietly, "Do you think there's - any chance you can convince . . ." He let the words trail off, but looked at the walls around us and waved one hand in an all-inclusive gesture.

"There's a chance," I said. "I can't promise anything - except that I'll give it a d.a.m.ned good try."

He looked intently at me, nodding slowly. "I'll bet you will at that." Then for the first time his sober, almost rigid expression relaxed as he slowly grinned. "Well, Scott," he said, "I wish you lots of luck."

I grinned back at him. "O.K., just start in from the beginning and tell your story."

He went over the whole thing; there wasn't anything new, all the important bits were identical with what Doris had told me and what Miller had testified to at the trial.

I said, "This phone call you got on the night Flagg was killed. You didn't recognize the voice?"

He shook his head. "The guy said he was Casey Flagg, and I didn't have any reason to doubt him - not then. He said he was sorry about the beef we'd had, we should let bygones be bygones and so forth, and asked me to come right over. He said he was leaving in a few minutes, so I'd have to hurry." Miller paused. "I remember checking the time, and it was ten minutes after eight p.m. Maybe five minutes later I was in the Whitestone, went right up to the penthouse."

"And Flagg was dead when you walked in?"

"Shot in the head. The door was unlocked. I went in. Casey was face down on the carpet. I turned him over - I shouldn't have, I suppose. But, h.e.l.l, I didn't know he was dead." Miller sighed. "He was limp, his body warm. It must have happened just a few minutes before. I was still looking at him when the police came in."

Miller rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Scott, I still thought I'd just been talking to Casey on the phone. I must have seemed plenty dopey to the police - it wasn't until later I realized somebody else must have phoned me, probably whoever really killed Casey. And unless Bat Man flew in the window up there and out again, it was somebody Weiss took up - before me - in the elevator. I figure it was Frank Quinn, or somebody who did it for Quinn."

"The Lopez woman testified Quinn was with her at the time."

"So she lied. And Weiss lied. And this I know: Heigman sure as h.e.l.l lied. I never even heard of him until he was called as a prosecution witness. I almost fell off my chair. That's when I knew for sure it was a cold-blooded frame. The rest of it might have been crazy coincidence, but not Heigman's testimony. That was perjured testimony designed solely to frame me."

"You didn't buy a gun from Heigman?"

"Scott, I've never owned a gun in my life. I've never been in any p.a.w.nshop - not Heigman's, not anybody's."

"Well," I said, "if he committed perjury, almost surely Weiss and the Lopez gal perjured themselves too." I paused. "In fact, Weiss is the reason for your sister's coming to see me." I told him what had happened during the day, stressing that though this was a break, with Weiss dead it wasn't of any help to him. Not yet.

Miller was quiet for a while. Then he said, "If you can get to Heigman - that's the weakest spot. His testimony about the gun is what really convinced the jury."

That was about it. In another minute I got up to leave, and Miller said, "Scott." He cleared his throat. "Thanks for coming up here. And . . . for what you're doing."

"Sure." I waved a hand at him and went out.

A few minutes after three in the morning I was in my Cad again, rolling along Santa Monica Boulevard. The Turbojet which had brought me back from San Francisco had landed at Los Angeles International Airport less than an hour before, and I'd driven straight to L.A.

If I'd had any lingering doubts about Miller's innocence, they were gone now. I believed him. Moreover, I liked the guy. "I wish you lots of luck," he'd said. Yeah. I'd need it - we'd both need it. With Weiss dead and Heigman's whereabouts at least temporarily unknown, that left me, at the moment, only Quinn himself and the woman who'd alibied him at the trial, Lolita Lopez. Her address was still the Whitestone Hotel. So that's where I was going.

I knew what to expect of Lolita. n.o.body who could get chummy with such as Frank Quinn would have anything in common with Snow White or Miss Universe. Not, at least, this universe. No, just as the professional criminal is ninety-nine times out of a hundred coa.r.s.e, crude and callous, a being of belches and scratches, so the hoods' women are, with rare exceptions, messes - dingy, dried-up messes with cheap clothes and too-blatant makeup, foul mouths, muddy minds, women to whom life has been not merely cruel but s.a.d.i.s.tic.

The desk clerk in the Whitestone told me Miss Lopez was in room 26. I took the stairs to the second floor. It was well after three a.m., but I preferred this hour to an earlier one. Probably the Lopez babe would be asleep. People awakened from sleep are less likely to have their guard up. And if you expect to shake anything out of the kind of women who alibi the Frank Quinns of the world, you had better catch them with their guard down. At least, that's what I was thinking as I stopped in front of room 26.

I knocked hard and loud. It sounded pretty official even to me. I heard the sound of movement inside. It had come too soon after my knock for the woman to have been in bed, worse luck. So take it as it comes, I thought. Move in fast, hit her with the questions, keep her off balance.

The door opened.

I said, "Good - uh." If this was a female hoodlum, I was ready for a life of crime.

"Wow," I said, "are you Lolita Lopez?"