“DO WHAT?” GRANT’S big heatlamp-tanned face was flat.
“Don’t say anything more, Dale.” Georgia Tanner came in, practically sprinting. Clearly she’d been eavesdropping from outside the door. She glared down at Clifford. “You won’t get far boosting your arrest record when you have no chance of obtaining a conviction. Weren’t you listening when I said Ivy’s estate wasn’t worth committing murder to acquire?”
“You’re the first one to bring up murder, Counselor. I’m tempted to think there’s a reason it was on your mind; but that would look like I was only interested in making a bust. But since it’s on the table, a house this size on two acres in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in a town with the highest property values in the world? How much was the last offer?”
The attorney’s eyes dilated behind her glasses. “I didn’t say—”
“It’s California, sister. Everyone wants to live here, even Republicans.”
“Twelve million. She told the agent she’d burn the place down before she’d let some Arab potentate house his harem in her garden.”
“Was Grant present when the offer was made?”
The nephew’s face darkened. He took a step toward her chair. A hand squeezed his shoulder, stopping him. Valentino knew what that grip felt like. Vivien had entered, followed closely by Louise Grant, as silent as ever.
“I know how you did it,” Clifford said. “I just wanted to see if I could jolt you into blurting it out, but you’ve got a smart lawyer. Did you think I wouldn’t know what to look for in an O.D. case? Did you think even if I missed it, the medical examiner would too? The skin around even the tiniest punctures discolors and swells as a body’s temperature goes down.”
Valentino said, “But you barely glanced at the body.”
“I knew what to look for, and where to look. In most cases of this type, it’s in the jugular.” To Grant: “Last night, after Georgia Tanner left and you were sure your aunt and her watchdog were asleep, you let yourself in, using your key, and dissolved a lethal dose of Seconal into a solution. It’s my guess you came here already loaded for bear. We’ll search your place for any pills you may have left behind. You’d know how much to use from your med-school training, and anyone can get hold of a hypodermic.”
Vivien chimed in. “I’m a light sleeper. Seems to me I’d of heard something.”
“Not unless there was a struggle. Being family, Grant knew where she kept the pills. He smeared his prints, because to wipe them off would’ve ruled out suicide, and dumped the pills down the sink. A million dollars for ten minutes’ work is good wages even by Hollywood standards.”
Grant boiled over. “This is pure guesswork! Worse, it’s slander! I’ll—”
Tanner shushed him.
Clifford looked at her. “You should take your own advice, Counselor. We’ll be asking you again whether you disclosed the terms of the will to Grant.”
Flushing again, Tanner said, “I may have mentioned something; to Mrs. Grant. She confided to me that she was worried about her husband’s business. I—I sometimes think I’m part of this family. Louise is the worrying type. I wanted to comfort her. I swore her to secrecy,” she added, with a glance Louise Grant’s way.
“You can trust a spouse to keep a secret, if one of them is dead.” The sergeant returned her attention to Grant. “You forgot one thing: Ivy Lane’s nightgown. Tanner said she liked to put on a show for strangers, and you said yourself your aunt enjoyed being the center of attention. She had a closet full of beautiful negligees. The woman you both described would never have taken her own life in plain flannel.”
A bellow shattered the tension in the room; it was the cry of a mortally wounded grizzly. Vivien reached down from his great height, snatched Grant’s stacked lapels in his enormous hands, and lifted him off the floor. Grant gulped for air.
“Put him down!”
Four heads swiveled toward Louise Grant. The nephew’s wife had an open purse in one hand and a hypodermic syringe in the other. She held the needle in an underhand grip like a switchblade. The point glittered.
“Put him down or I’ll stick this in your kidney.” Her thin, drawn face was feral.
Harold and Howard, who’d been hovering inside the doorway, stepped toward her. They stopped at a gesture from the sergeant.
The bodyguard lowered her husband to the floor and let go. Grant clawed the yellow handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face.
Clifford’s head moved less than a hundredth of an inch. In less time than that took, one of the officers had Louise Grant in a chokehold and the other wrested the weapon from her hand before she could react.
The sergeant repeated the movement. The arm was withdrawn from the woman’s throat, but the officers remained at her side, muscles flexed.
“She wouldn’t die.”
Everyone else was silent, watching Louise Grant. Her face now was drained of energy, her voice entirely without emotion.
“She was going to outlive us all. Dale’s business was failing. She could have sold the house, bailed him out, and had plenty left over, but she refused. I pleaded with her. She said he should have considered the consequences when he dropped out of medical school.”
“Louise.” Grant twisted his handkerchief between his fists.
“I knew you’d never do it. She made you dance to her tune, the same way she manipulated all her leading men. It was no act. I was a registered nurse when I married you. Remember how refreshed you felt this morning? I spiked your tea last night with Seconal. I was gone for over an hour with your key to this house and you slept right through it.”
“Cuffs,” Clifford told the officers. “Miranda. There’s a lawyer present, remember.”
The forensics team came—Harriet wasn’t with it, but it was a big detail—and the sergeant’s work was finished for the time being. Valentino offered her a lift back to West Hollywood. The unmarked car she’d come in was crowded with Harold, Howard, and their prisoner. Clifford frowned at the compact’s tires, but climbed into the passenger’s seat.
He drove. “How’d you guess it?”
“‘Guess’? Just for that I should issue you a citation for those baldies we’re rolling on. You think we dumb flatfeet can’t crack a case without Inspector Pinchbottom and the Little Rascals? We flag more killers in a week than Ellery Queen did in his whole career. Plus we’re real.”
“I don’t suppose I could ask you to crack mine.”
“And spoil your fun? One thing.” She looked straight ahead. “What I said before, about coincidences; don’t bet the farm on that. If Van Oliver was killed under contract—even if Ivy Lane did arrange it—the statute of limitations doesn’t apply. As long ago as that was, there may be someone still around who knows enough to be dangerous.”
He guided the car a block in silence. “Thank you.”
“Well, don’t get all mushy about it. I didn’t cross my fingers when I swore to serve and protect. That means everyone, even walk-ons billing themselves as detectives. We should’ve trademarked the name a hundred years ago.”
They were at the station. She said, “Don’t get dead, okay?”
“Well, thanks, Sergeant. I didn’t know you cared.”
“Sure I do. I got corpses stacked six deep, a husband who thinks I threw him over for the M.E., and a kid who half the time calls me by my sister’s name. If you do get dead, try to do it on the sheriff’s time.” She got out.
Like mad dogs, Englishmen, and the sun, Angelinos rarely miss an opportunity to enjoy a starry night. Valentino’s quarters, in the concrete bunker of a fireproof projection booth, had no windows, so after dark he went to the terrace to howl at the moon; or at least to look at it.
As he did so, his silhouette showing against the light spilling out the open door, a movement across the street below caught his eye. A figure that had been standing under a streetlamp turned into a dark doorway. In the process, Valentino saw a face lifted to the spot where he stood gripping the wrought-iron railing. There was no doubting it this time: The man wearing a trench coat and snapbrim hat could have doubled for Van Oliver in his prime; a dead ringer in every sense of the phrase.