After our late lunch and some time playing computer games, I left Cal’s house and drove down the twisting dirt road to Highway 285.
I cranked the air conditioner, turned left, and headed back toward Denver. It was four o’clock, but I was moving against the flow of commuters heading home to the mountains, and even with the endless construction traffic on 285, I had plenty of time to get to Henri’s shop before it closed. A gang of construction workers sweated under the intense heat of the sun, and I was thankful that I was sitting in the 4-Runner with cool air blasting on me. I didn’t envy them a bit.
I pulled into a space on Broadway a little before 5:00, locked the car, and strolled to Henri’s shop. The chimes above the door announced my entry into Classic Hollywood Memorabilia, and a wave of cool air hit me as I shut the door. I took off my sunglasses and looked around, but didn’t see Henri or anyone else.
“Hello?” I called out, thinking I heard a door at the back of the shop close. Henri sometimes exited through a rear exit to the alley where he parked his car and where the trash dumpsters were located. Since it was the end of the day, maybe he was taking the trash out.
I called his name again, louder this time.
Nothing.
I meandered around a locked display case full of autographed pictures, letting my eyes linger on the various items as I made my way to the back counter. Among the objects were a number of Charlie Chaplin pieces. There was an autographed picture of Charlie Chaplin in his tramp garb. I remembered reading in a collector’s book that photos of The Tramp signed by Chaplin were rare. This one was in pristine condition, with a price of $12,000, a bargain for a Chaplin collector. Next to it was Chaplin’s book, My Trip Abroad, written in 1921. I wondered how Henri acquired such a rare find. I didn’t see a price tag on it, but a signed picture of Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s leading lady in many of his early silent films, had a price of $300. I lingered for a moment, wondering about the actors and their lives. What was going on in Charlie’s life when he signed the photo? Why did Edna Purviance’s career falter after she quit working with Chaplin? Okay, I’m weird like that.
I glanced up from the display case. “Henri?” I called again.
I studied a couple of posters on the wall before I moved over to the counter. Sean Connery stared down at me, the dashing secret agent holding the Walter PPK up near his face. Next to that were nice copies of the first two James Bond movies, Dr. No and Goldfinger. I could only hope my Bogart poster would look as good as the ones Henri had hanging on the walls. I leaned my elbows on the counter and waited for Henri to return.
After a moment, I pushed aside a stack of papers, bored. Some of the bold lettering in Henri’s sloping handwriting on the top paper caught my attention: “Academy Award”.
“Interesting,” I said to no one as I turned the page so I could read it better.
Henri had written a list and jotted notes beside some of the points:
Statuette weight: 6 ¾ lbs
Height: 13 1/2”
Plaster molding
“A little bit of research?” I again talked as if Henri were in the room listening to me. “Statuette base: solid black marble.” I continued to read: “The statue sits on a canister of film, with 8 cutouts in the reel.”
Little bits of trivia I didn’t know, but it made for captivating reading, at least if you had any curiosity about the Academy Awards. I did know that the Academy Award was officially named the Academy Award of Merit, that it was nicknamed “Oscar” but the origins of the nickname are under some dispute, and that the number of awards and categories have been in flux since the Academy first started giving out the awards at a banquet in 1929. And I knew that an Oscar was worth over $10,000 brand new.
I read on, pausing occasionally to decipher Henri’s writing. I was thoroughly engrossed in Henri’s notes when I heard a car starting up outside. I stopped reading, cocked my head like a dog, and listened.
After a moment, I heard the noise again, and this time it sounded distinctly human.
“Henri?” I said loudly, my eyes roving around the store.
I heard the noise a third time, and it sounded like a groan.
“Is that you?” I stepped around the counter and poked my head into the back room. Nothing but a wood table, and an organizer box containing scissors, knives, other tools, and pens.
And Henri Benoit lying in a crumpled mess on the floor, his legs tucked underneath him at an awkward angle, his bifocals broken on the floor near him. A pool of blood had formed underneath his head. In a cursory glance I couldn’t see where he was wounded, but his white ponytail was turning a dark shade of crimson.
“Henri!” I shouted, dropping on my knees beside him. I gently touched his shoulder and looked into his eyes. They had a glassy sheen to them.
“Oh no!” My hands shook as I placed a finger to his neck. A faint pulse beat against my skin. Henri was alive, but just barely.
I had to try three times before I could get my cell phone out of my pocket, and I chided myself to calm down as I dialed 911. The operator spoke in a gravelly voice as she took down the address. She said she was sending an ambulance, and told me not to touch Henri. She tried to keep me on the phone, but I hung up.
“What happened?” I asked Henri.
His near lifeless form didn’t move, but his eyelids flickered, reminding me, strangely enough, of an old movie reel in slow motion. I watched his chest. It rose a millimeter, then sank again. Over and over.
“Come on, Henri. Hang on.” I sat back on my haunches, feeling totally helpless, and waited.
Finally, faint sounds of sirens permeated the silence.
“They’re coming,” I murmured to Henri. His face was pale, and it seemed that his breathing grew even shallower.
The sirens’ blare grew louder, and then the floor vibrated as trucks rumbled slowly to a stop out on Broadway. I left Henri and ran out to the front of the store.
“He’s in here!” I bellowed, frantically waving my arms toward the store entrance. As the rescue workers hopped out of the ambulance, a police car screeched to a stop in front of the fire truck.
I guided two firemen, a trio of paramedics, and two police officers to the back of the store. Two paramedics rolled a stretcher covered with white sheets between them. On it they had piled a couple of boxes of supplies. They hurried around the display cases to the back room, leaving the stretcher by the counter.
“Step back here, sir,” said one of the firemen, an ox of a man with thick arms and a large square jaw, as he pushed me back.
“What happened to him?” one of the paramedics asked me.
“I don’t know. I came in and heard him back here.”
I stood just outside the door and watched as the paramedics set to work on Henri. One put a pressure cuff on his arm, and another carefully lifted one of Henri’s eyelids, shining a flashlight in his eyes.
“Do you know him?” The third one, a woman, glanced up at me as she prepared an oxygen mask to put over Henri's nose and mouth. The other two talked to each other in clipped tones.
I nodded mutely.
“Do you know his health history? Is he allergic to any medications?”
“No,” I said, my voice faltering. “I don’t know.” I knew very little of that kind of information.
“Do you know what happened here?” one of the officers asked me, oblivious to the conversation I’d just had. I had to look up to answer because he was so tall and thin.
“No,” I muttered, my attention riveted to Henri and the rescue work.
I was vaguely aware of the officer talking to his partner while I watched the paramedics. After a minute of hurried but efficient work, the woman spoke into a small, square mike attached to her shoulder. She waited for a response before placing a towel under Henri’s head. She barked a couple of orders, and the other two assembled a makeshift carrier underneath Henri.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
One paramedic, so young I wondered if he was still in high school, turned to me as they lifted Henri with the makeshift gurney and settled him onto the stretcher.
Instead of answering my question, the paramedic said, “What’s his name?”
“Henri Benoit.”
“Are you a family member? His son?” the female paramedic asked. Her bright red hair belied her calm, bedside tone.
“No. I’m a friend,” I said. “Is he going to be all right?” I asked again.
“At the very least he’s sustained a head injury. We won’t know the extent until we can get him to the hospital for tests.” The woman held back as the other two paramedics started rolling the stretcher out of the store. “We’re taking him to St. Anthony’s Central,” she said as she followed them. “You know where that is?”
“Yes,” I said as I followed them, keeping vigil until Henri was safely installed in the back of the rescue vehicle. The fire truck and rescue vehicles blocked one lane of traffic, and people gawked as they slowly drove past.
The engine started up, and the rear doors of the ambulance slammed shut. I stared into the back window. Henri lay with the oxygen mask over his face. The paramedics continued to attend to him as the truck pulled away, engine grumbling and sirens wailing. The fire truck took off, and I stood in the street until the hoses and ladder disappeared from view.
“I’m Officer Hammer,” the tall one said as he pulled me back to the sidewalk.
“Officer Grossman,” the second officer said to me. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.” He was in his late forties, with chubby cheeks and a spare tire around his waist. Tufts of gray hair fell in a mish-mash way as he scratched his head. He held out a meaty hand, indicating that I should accompany him back to the shop.
“Did you know him?”
“Yes,” I said, coming out of my shock. I gave him as much detail as I could about Henri.
“What happened?”
I launched into an explanation as Officer Hammer came in. While Officer Grossman and I talked, he tramped to the back of the store.
“Henri was expecting me,” I said. “We were going to talk about a poster he was appraising. When I came in, I thought the shop was empty, so I waited. After a few minutes, I heard Henri. I found him on the floor like that, and called for help.”
“Where did you think he was?”
“Outside in back. That’s where he parks.”
If the explanation satisfied Officer Grossman, he didn’t show it. He jotted down my answers in a tiny notebook.
“Place is clean,” Hammer said. “No sign of forced entry, no sign of a weapon, and the cash box under the counter’s got a wad of cash and a few checks in it.”
“They could’ve taken some memorabilia,” I said.
Hammer shrugged. “We won’t know that until the victim...” he paused and cleared his throat, “until Mister Ben...” he stumbled over the name, “until your friend can do a thorough inventory.”
“Do you have any information about his family?” Roberts asked me.
“His wife’s name is Evaline.”
“We’ll need to get in touch with her,” Hammer said.
“I’ll call her,” I said. “It’ll be much easier to hear this from me.”
“Do you know Mr. Benoit that well?” Roberts continued. He pronounced the name perfectly and received a glare from Hammer for his efforts.
“We’re friends,” I said, stretching the truth.
“Okay,” Roberts hesitated, but both he and Hammer looked relieved. Better for me to deliver the news about Henri than them.
“Can you lock up here?” This from Roberts.
“Sure. I’ll take care of everything.”
“We’ll wait.” Roberts took a relaxed stance and crossed his arms. They obviously weren’t going to leave me here alone. I couldn’t blame them. Hammer asked for my personal information, and didn’t seem impressed when I handed him my business card.
“Doing a little snooping?” Hammer tucked my card in his pocket.
“I was here on business,” I said.
“How about an ID?” Hammer asked.
I dug out my wallet and handed him my license. He wrote down everything and handed it back. “You’ll stay in town, right?” He said as if he were speaking to an imbecile.
“Of course.” I was getting irritated, knowing full well they thought of me as a suspect.
They spent a few more minutes in the back of the shop while I tried to find Henri’s home phone number, but I could feel Hammer’s eyes on me as I went to the counter and found a Rolodex. Silently thanking Henri for holding on to some old-fashioned ways, I spun the wheel until I found the “B’s”, and in seconds I was dialing Henri’s phone.
“Allo?” a light and airy voice asked.
“Mrs. Benoit?”
“Yes?”
I identified myself. Although I had never met Henri’s wife, she obviously knew who I was, because she immediately began discussing how much Henri liked talking old movies with me. I had to interrupt her to tell her about Henri.
“My Henri! Is he okay?” Her accent was not as thick as Henri’s, but her fear and concern sizzled through the phone lines.
I explained what I knew and told her where the paramedics had taken Henri. I said that I would close the shop and meet her there as soon as I could, and hung up.
For the first time since I found Henri, I let my nerves settle. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Focus, I thought to myself.
I tiptoed into the back office, watching the officers. Hammer was speaking into a radio, probably getting a background check on me, and Roberts was examining the back door.
I stood near the spot where Henri had fallen and let my eyes wander around the room. I didn’t see anything out of place, at least from what I remembered of the room. I didn’t see my poster, but Henri could’ve had it stored somewhere, awaiting my arrival. The pens and paper that he kept on a shelf above the table appeared undisturbed. The trashcan on the floor was tipped over and a few crumpled papers were strewn out, but nothing else seemed wrong.
Except for the spot of blood soaking into the carpet. I shook my head in dismay. Who would do such a thing to someone like Henri? A robber?
I eased out of the office and made my way through the rest of the store, but I didn’t see anything missing from the display cases. But there were so many items. How could I know if something was stolen?
I felt helpless, and hoped Henri would be all right.