Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery Read online

  Professor Geiger, in no uniform but a droopy herringbone jacket, sat five rows in front of the Survivors.

  Mildred had a brother. No one knew where he was. No one had known for as long as she had been married to Shelly.

  There were none of Mildred’s several lovers. No friends. Not even her hairdresser, who had taken an ample chunk of Shelly’s money over the years. I take that back. There was a solitary man sitting alone near the exit door. He wore a sport jacket and tie and kept glancing at his watch. He looked a little like Warner Baxter.

  “… to contemplate what good she may have done had her life not been ended at so young an age,” the minister said.

  Contemplating what hell she could have brought to Shelly and all who chanced to meet her would have been a more realistic enterprise.

  I had called Marty Leib between funerals. He didn’t have to bother to tell me that using his services on a Sunday morning meant double the per-hour fee. Shelly would be paying for it and, according to Leib, Shelly would soon be able to afford it.

  “Good news, bad news, neutral news,” Marty had said. “Which one first?”

  Marty had talked to the company in Iowa that wanted to buy Shelly’s snore-away device.

  “It was a joy, Peters,” Marty had said. “It started as negotiations and ended as an agreement to surrender. Sheldon Minck will get a cash payment of $172,000 plus one percent of the retail price of every device sold. The $172,000 will not be an advance against that one percent.”

  “Your cut?” I’d asked him.

  “Ten percent,” he said.

  “Now the bad news?”

  “No, let’s do good-bad news,” he said. “Mildred was worth a total, including jewelry, real estate, insurance from her parents’ death a few years ago, of about $200,000. She left no will. Shelly gets the whole caboodle.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “And bad. Motive, Peters, motive. Mildred had filed for divorce. If the divorce had gone through, whatever she had would now go to some distant relative, perhaps that long-lost brother. Have you got anything for me?”

  I told him about the kid finding the bolt in the park. I told him what Shelly had said to the kid about thinking Mildred had a heart attack.

  “And that’s enough to convince you of Sheldon’s innocence?” he asked.

  “Enough,” I said.

  “Enough to convince me, providing we can prove the bolt you found was fired from Dr. Minck’s crossbow and that he had not fired it earlier. Still, it provides some obfuscation. Not as much as a qualified ophthalmologist will, but something.”

  “It gets a little more complicated,” I had told Marty. “I found out this morning that there were no fingerprints on the bolt we found in the park.”

  “I’ll have to think about that one,” he said.

  We hung up. It was funeral time. First Ruth’s and now Mildred’s.

  “The kingdom of the Lord in the Land Eternal,” the minister was saying now, her arms outstretched, her robe hanging like wings. “And we all say—”

  “Amen,” the cop cuffed to Shelly said. The rest of us added our amens.

  The woman in the white robe beckoned toward Shelly and the cop. They rose and made their way up the platform to the podium.

  Shelly squinted out at us, cleaned his glasses on his shirt and said as he looked at the orange urn, “Mildred had good teeth and gums. You’ll have to believe me, those of you who didn’t know her, but I’m a dentist and I know good teeth. Heredity accounted for a lot of Mildred’s dental health, that and hygiene.”

  The cop handcuffed to Shelly looked at his prisoner with an expression that suggested he thought he might just be needing backup.

  “I didn’t kill Mildred,” Shelly went on. “At least, I don’t think I did. Maybe I did. I know she’s dead.”

  Someone in the audience—I think it was Martha, the Deerslayer—coughed. Shelly squinted toward the back row.

  “My friends know I loved Mildred, loved her with … for her sense of humor, her beauty, her compassion, her … Well, not for her compassion.”

  Which, I thought, was as evidently nonexistent as her sense of humor and beauty. All that Mildred had lacked to make her picture perfect was snakes where her hair was.

  “She left me. She took up with other men. That bothered me, particularly when she picked up with that little guy who she thought was Peter Lorre. You remember that, Toby?”

  Everyone turned to look at me. I nodded to show that I remembered.

  “See?” Shelly said. “And did I forgive her? For that? For everything? For taking the house, all the money in the bank accounts, the car?”

  He was still looking in my direction. I nodded again. It wasn’t enough for Shelly.

  “Tell them, Toby.”

  “He forgave her.”

  “Mildred’s favorite food was lobster tail,” Shelly went on. “Her favorite writer was Pearl Buck. Her favorite radio show was Big Sister, though she liked Dinah Shore. Now she’s in heaven. Mildred, not Dinah Shore. I’m sure Dinah Shore will go to heaven, but not for a long time.”

  Shelly looked at the cop who looked away, feet apart, eyes now forward, waiting.

  “I met Mildred when I was in dental school,” he said. “She came into the clinic. I cleaned her teeth and we fell in love. In spite of what some people said at the time, she didn’t marry me just to get away from her father who was involved in bootlegging and was facing eight federal charges, as was her mother. We never had children. Mildred didn’t like them. She said they don’t clean under their fingernails, even the really good ones, unless they’ve got some kind of mental thing about keeping clean.”

  Shelly paused, his eyes moist. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his uncuffed hand. Then he faced us again and continued, “What was I saying?”

  The cop whispered something to Shelly. Shelly nodded and, facing us again, said, “Amen.”

  We all repeated it. The cop started to lead him away, but the pudgy dentist stopped short and called out, “I’m not sure where I’ll keep her ashes. I don’t know if I can have them in prison, but if I don’t go to prison, I’ll keep Mildred in my office. I spend more time there than anywhere else. You can come and see her whenever you want. And since you’ve come to this service, I’ll offer all of you a twenty-percent discount on all dental work.”

  This time the cop yanked Shelly from the platform and an unseen organ began to play “Coming Through the Rye.”

  The Survivors gathered at the rear of the chapel. Professor Geiger moved to the center aisle to put a hand on Shelly’s shoulder as the cop hurried him out. Shelly gave me a pleading look. I smiled and winked and probably did something with my shoulder to suggest that I had everything under control.

  When he was gone, I started toward the door. Lawrence Timerjack and the two burly mourners I didn’t know blocked my way.

  “Peters,” he said, Lewis on one side, Helter on the other. “I intend to tell you something. I intend to tell it once. I intend it be acted upon or, maybe better, not acted upon. You understand?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Peaches,” said Timerjack.

  I looked at young Pathfinder Lewis, he of the pink cheeks and the blowgun. Lewis grinned.

  “Some people read tea leaves or palms,” said Timerjack. “I read peach pits.”

  “And what do the peach pits say?” I asked.

  “That you’re all wet and sticky, and that if I wanted to make you more than just wet and sticky, well, you wouldn’t have been here today to hear Pigeon Minck’s heartfelt speech.”

  “So you want me to stop trying to find out who killed Mildred Minck?”

  “I’m a straightforward man,” Timerjack said. “Don’t know how to be anything else. You’ll find out anyway, so it’s best if I’m straightforward with you.”

  “Find out what?”

  “Dr. Minck’s will left everything to his departed spouse. In the case of her death, which is the
case, everything of Pigeon Minck’s goes to the Survivors.”

  Which, I knew, meant a little under four hundred thousand dollars.

  “But Shelly has to die for you to collect,” I said.

  “We do not want that,” said Timerjack.

  There was a long, long pause while Timerjack waited for me to figure something out.

  “With Shelly dead, you get everything. With Shelly in jail, you figure you can talk him into giving you a lot of money.”

  “While we fight the government to free him from an unjust charge,” Timerjack said. “If you meddle, anything could occur.”

  “Like Shelly going free and having time to think that being a Survivor might not be a very good idea?”

  “We are prepared to hire you,” Timerjack said. “Deferred payment when we start receiving money from Pigeon Minck. All you need do is two things. First, you stop looking for someone else who might have killed Mrs. Minck. Second, you help convince Pigeon Minck that I am his best hope for freedom.”

  “How much of a payment?”

  “Five thousand dollars,” he said.

  “What if I said twenty thousand dollars?”

  Timerjack glanced at Anthony at his side and then looked back at me.

  “We would consider it,” Timerjack said, now standing at parade rest. “Consider it seriously.”

  All of which suggested that Timerjack definitely knew about Shelly’s no-snore deal and probably knew about Mildred’s money.

  “So will I,” I said, stepping forward so that the two guards had to step out of the way or else put their hands on me. I look tough. I even work out at the downtown YMCA playing handball with Doc Hodgdon and punching the light and heavy bags.

  The problem is that none of this assures me of winning a fight. My record would keep me far off the rankings of contenders in middleweight, my weight class. All of which means that I lost more than I won if victories were counted in blood, bruises, and broken body parts. But I had one thing going for me: I didn’t give up. Whoever took me on or out, including the two bodyguards, were going to have to work like hell to keep me down and would be taking care of their own first-aid problems.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “These are the last of the Mohicans, Uncas and Chingachgook.”

  “Your knowledge of the canon is admirable even if your sense of humor isn’t,” Timerjack said, motioning for the two goons to let me pass.

  Shelly and the cop were nowhere in sight when I left the chapel. I headed across the lawn to the sound of a rippling harp in the direction of the parking lot.

  Had Timerjack just admitted to Mildred’s murder? Not quite, but it was clear he wasn’t going to make it a long mourning period.

  My list of suspects was short. Considering Mildred’s charm and taste in men, there had to be more.

  The next stop was the house where Mildred had lived, sans Shelly, for almost a year.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE HOUSE WAS on Orange Grove just off Pico. It was a two-story red brick building with a sloped roof and two steps up to a cherry-wood door with a shiny brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head.

  Shelly had always wanted a knocker in the shape and color of a gold tooth, but Mildred had shot down that idea before he could even describe the tooth. His backup idea had been a curled mink, but Mildred had argued—reasonably, for a change—that not everyone would recognize it was a mink.

  I didn’t use the lion’s head knocker. No one was supposed to be home. Mildred had changed the locks so I couldn’t go to the flower bed on the side of the house for the spare I knew about. If there was a spare, I didn’t have time to look for it, anyway.

  My decision was simple. Shelly owned the house. Even if I were caught breaking in, I’d tell whoever caught me that I had Shelly’s permission and, providing jail time had not turned his brain to apple butter, he would back me up.

  I moved to the back of the house where the small yard was surrounded by bushes. I could see the neighbors’ homes on both sides. There hadn’t been any cars parked in the driveways or on the street in front of either of the houses.

  I broke a small window in the kitchen as quietly as I could, reached in and undid the latch, pulled the window up, and climbed in. I was on the kitchen table slipping off a red-and-white checkered tablecloth. The cloth and I thumped to the floor.

  Though I had known Shelly for more than five years, I had never been in the house before. Mildred didn’t approve of me and, to be fair, she was right not to. But then again, I didn’t approve of Mildred.

  I got off the floor, put the cloth back on the table, and threw the larger pieces of window glass in the garbage can under the sink. They landed on some bunched-up and crumpled sheets of paper. I fished the paper out without cutting my fingers on the glass and unfolded them on the table.

  There were three sheets.

  The first one was addressed, “Dearest Mortimer.” That was all it said. I put it aside. The second sheet was addressed to the Los Angeles Times and listed four suggestions to the editor including moving the war news off the front page because it was depressing, eliminating the stupid sports news, stop attacking President Roosevelt, and refunding her subscription money because the newspaper failed to cover three events about which she had informed them. There was a number five on the page, but Mildred had, apparently, decided to scrap the letter before she finished it.

  The third sheet was a list of things to do. Each item had a line through it indicating, I assumed, that the task had been done. The list read:

  Call Ferris and Paine about slowing down divorce.

  Move hairdresser up to Monday to be ready for funeral.

  Change dinner date with Jeffrey to eight o’clock Tuesday instead of Thursday.

  Call the Randolphs and tell them you’ve decided not to sell the piano.

  Change meeting with Leland to seven.

  That was it. The item that interested me most was the hairdresser. Whose funeral was she planning for? I doubted it was for her own. I also wondered why she wanted to slow down her divorce from Shelly.

  I put the first two sheets back in the garbage and pocketed the list. That was when the music started.

  “Somebody came and took her away,” came the male voice behind Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra.

  The music was coming from the front of the house. I had lots of choices. I could dive through the window and probably put myself in traction for a few weeks. I could open the door and run, which might work, or I could do what I knew I was going to do.

  I didn’t have my gun. I seldom carried it. It was usually locked in the glove compartment of my car. It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with guns. I’d been a cop, an armed security guard, and I was a licensed private investigator. I was also a terrible shot and as much a danger to innocent bystanders and myself as I was to whomever I might be trying to shoot.

  The hell with it. I went through the kitchen door, heading for the music. It got louder as I stepped into the dining room. There I saw a lightweight table of black-painted wood with thin metal legs and six chairs that matched the table. Next to it was a black sideboard with silver handles on the drawers with a painting of Mildred above it. At least I think it was supposed to be Mildred, an idealized Mildred, a Mildred as played by Binnie Barnes.

  I went through the dining room and into the living room. It wasn’t large and was almost all white with lots of chrome. In here I found myself facing a man standing next to a Zenith phonograph. He was holding a small stack of records each in a brown paper sheath.

  “Mildred loved these,” he said, glancing over at me.

  I recognized him. He had been the one who looked like Warner Baxter, sitting by himself at Mildred’s funeral service. He was tall, wearing a definitely nonfunereal pair of dark slacks and a sporty lightweight dark green jacket with a white shirt and yellow tie.

  “‘Baby Face,’” he said holding up the record. “Sammy Kaye.”

  I took a few steps toward him. The closer I got, the older he lo
oked. His black hair was definitely dyed, a good job, but Hollywood dyed. The tan looked real, but I wasn’t so sure about the perfect teeth smiling at me as he held up a record.

  “‘The Wang Wang Blues.’ Paul Whiteman.”

  “You want to dance?” I asked.

  “With you? You’re not my type.” He grinned, shook his head, and held up another record. “‘South America, Take It Away.’ Xavier Cugat.”

  “How about Mildred? She your type?” I asked.

  “Mr.…?”

  “Peters,” I said.

  “Mr. Peters, Mildred was most definitely my type. It wasn’t just her charm, beauty, and brilliant wit that drew me to her. It was her generosity. I’ll miss her.”

  “How did you get in?” I asked.

  “I have a key.”

  He put down the stack of records. Tommy Dorsey did a solo on his trombone. We both listened.

  When it was finished, he lifted the arm of the phonograph, removed the record, and turned the machine off.

  “I came for a few of my things I left here.” He straightened his tie and smoothed his jacket. “Including these records.”

  He oozed false charm like a B-movie character.

  “My name is Jeffrey Tremaine.” He held out his hand.

  We shook. New friends. Maybe we’d go out and have a few drinks together, become buddies. He had a firm grip.

  “Why did Mildred change your dinner date with her from Thursday to Tuesday?” I asked.