The Lofty Perch: Poached Parody, page 9
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
A tear rolled down the feathers of her cheek. “Not this time. Does Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers know?”
“I’m going over there now to tell her.”
“She’ll understand.”
“Yes, and she won’t have to pay Monel any more money.”
“Do you know?” The swan’s feathered fingers moved to her mouth, and more tears appeared in her eyes. “Only Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers knew. She didn’t even tell my parents.”
“Here now, are you upsetting my patient?” The otter stood at the door and gave me a hard stare.
“I’m not trying to, but if she wants to talk it out, wouldn’t it be best to while she’s under supervision?”
The nurse looked at me then gave the swan a questioning glance.
“It’s all right, I want to tell him everything,” said Julie.
“Well, just call out if you need me, and you,” the otter shook a finger at me, “Don’t get her upset,” and moved off down the hallway.
“Do you want to hear all about what I did?” asked Julie.
“You don’t have to; I already know what happened. Why don’t you rest up and tomorrow we’ll take a trip to visit your parents? Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers is paying for the trip.”
“She is? How nice of her. She’s ever so nice.”
As nice as a hungry barracuda, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. After reassuring the swan and saying goodbye to the otter, I took my suitcase and headed off to confront an egotistical emu.
The only detour I made was to the pawnshop where I’d stashed the coin Sidney Ingram sent me.
CHAPTER 32
The moonlight shone down on the Sayers house, and the only thing keeping the place from having an abandoned feel was the light in two of the lower floor windows.
A loon I’d never met answered the door when I knocked. “Yes?”
“Lucius Anoraq, I’m here to see Mrs. Lidia Hopkins-Sayers.”
“She’s gone to bed early.”
“Tell the emu it’s about Julie Fellows.” I added a growl to the sentence and the loon’s eyes grew wide.
“One moment.” She closed the door, and I waited until she came back. The loon didn’t say a word as she let me to a second-floor room.
Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers sat in an overstuffed chair in front of a card table, a quilted robed wrapped her bloated form. Chintz heavily coated the entire room, even the blue and silver wallpaper couldn’t help with the designer’s nightmare.
“What do you want now, Mr. Anoraq?” The emu didn’t glance up from her card game.
“Julie Fellows came to my apartment tonight. She was in shock and fainted. Don’t worry, she’s being taken care of by a doctor. Seems she’d been over to Monel’s place.”
After finding a chair that wouldn’t have me sitting in a submissive position, I sat down. Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers stared at me clutching the cards in her hands. “I should have never called you in the first place, but I couldn’t stand being duped by that hussy. Losing the coin would have been worth not having to put up with you.”
“But you did get your coin back. Though I doubt he told any of us the truth about what really happened. As for your daughter-in-law, Edmond knew where she was all the time.”
“The stupid fool is trying to protect her.”
“The female knows she made a mistake in marrying your son. With a bit of an incentive, the divorce should be relatively painless.”
The emu glared at me. “Are you going to tell me what happened to Julie, or just be insolent?”
“You sent her over to Monel’s place with five-hundred dollars. Only when she got there, the pronghorn was dead. Someone shot him. Blackmailers tend to end up that way if they’re not arrested first. He’s been blackmailing you for eight years. How much have you paid him?”
“What makes you think he was blackmailing me?”
“April 26th, 1933.”
The panic in her eyes was unmistakable, though she tried hiding it by drinking her ever present port wine.
“The coroner reported it as accidental death,” I said. “How nice of him. Especially with the rumors of suicide running about and the fact he was broke. A lot of people where craning out the window at the time, he just went a little too far. The life insurance on him came in handy, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Julie Fellows was your first husband’s secretary. She was young, naïve, and a bit fanciful with her ideas about males, I bet. What did he do, get drunk or high, and scare the swan out of her wits? Did she get back at him by pushing him out the window?”
“He was an odious male.”
“So you decided to hush everything up to avoid a scandal.” It was a load of bollix. I already knew the emu had killed her husband and was only keeping the swan around to insure someone else would take the blame if everything came out.
“How did Monel find out? Did he get a picture?” I asked.
“He said he did, but I doubt he had anything, or he would have shown me.”
“A fluke shot with whatever camera he had at hand. Maybe he was worried you’d bump him off if he pressed too hard. How much did you pay him?”
The emu sent me a look that said she wanted to bump me off, but I ignored it, lowered my ears and bared my teeth. “How much?”
“Eleven thousand seven hundred dollars including the five hundred delivered today. Julie always delivered it. She thought of it as her penance.”
“When you married again, you kept her on. Did anyone else know?”
“Of course not. How big a fool do you take me for?”
I bit my lip, in an attempt not to answer that question. Instead I said, “Julie came to my apartment saying she shot Monel. Only she didn’t. The gun she carried was filled with blanks. If I hazard a guess, I’d say Edmund switched the real bullets out. Her parents want her to come home, so the five hundred you were going to give Monel will make a nice expense packet for sending her back to Wichita. You don’t need her anymore.”
“You don’t say.”
“Oh, I’ve already checked out the scene. Monel is indeed dead. Oddly enough it looks like suicide.”
“Males like Monel don’t commit suicide.” The words spat out of Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers beak.
“Too true. Though Mike Deter did try to frame his wife. If he really thinks she did it, she probably thinks he did. No matter, it’s up to the police to sort the mess out. Bet they’re crawling all over the place by now. By the way, we both know Julie didn’t push your first husband out the window.”
I got up and wandered over to the French doors. Someone was smoking a cigarette out on the porch swing in the back yard.
“What has me still puzzled is the doubloon. Did you really get it back? Is there any distinguishing marks to prove it’s the real one?”
The emu had gone back to her card game. “The coin maker’s initials are on the left wing and not the right. The coin is in the strong room if you don’t believe me. Edmond can show you.”
“Good enough. Please have Julie’s things packed up and sent to my apartment in the morning. We both know that with Monel’s death the swan is of no use to you anymore.”
With that, I turned and walked out of the room. I was downstairs and halfway to the door when I nearly bumped into Edmond on his way inside the house.
CHAPTER 33
“Good evening,” said Edmond. “Are you leaving?”
The bird looked like he couldn’t wait for me to go. Too bad I didn’t feel like obliging.
“Not until I talk to you.”
“What if I don’t feel like talking?”
“You’ll feel like talking about Monel.”
“I barely knew the pronghorn.”
As tempted as I was to roll my eyes, I refrained. “So then why did you call on Monel last night?”
“Who said I did?”
“Would you like to talk about the different brands of cigarettes or colors of lipstick on butts? Then again, you use a holder, and holders make distinctive marks just as your wife has a curious habit of tossing her butts in the trashcan.”
“Leave Victoria out of this.” The bird puffed out his feathers, but it only made him look fat.
“Fine. While your mother still thinks the story you gave her was a cover for Victoria taking the coin, I know better. You took the coin, not to give Mike Deter, but Andrew Monel. Why? Because I had a coin just like it locked up on Santa Monica Boulevard while you were spinning your lie. Sidney Ingram sent it to me after he realized he was into something crooked.”
“He knew you?” The look on the emu’s face was comical, and he dropped into the nearest chair.
I wasn’t about to explain how I knew about Ingram. “The mole wasn’t the brightest, but he knew to get help when he was in over his head. He was watching your house and spotted me. Seems he was hired to sell a coin. Gatwick was willing to buy the coin, but he also knew enough about it to know it was stolen. Either he told Ingram the coin was stolen or tipped him off.”
I lit a cigarette and tossed the match into a plate on an end table. “Maybe I should start from the beginning. Monel and his buddy had an idea to make money while you had access to a rare coin and needed money. You stole the coin; they made the copies using the same process dentist use in their job. Ingram was hired because he was a dope and didn’t ask the right questions. Only Gatwick’s call to your mother and subsequent hiring of me had you panicking. Take some advice, don’t ever try to pump a detective for information, you give too much away.”
Edmond lit his own cigarette and looked like he was about to burst out crying at any minute as I talked.
“Monel gave you a coin when you asked for it back. Probably not the real one, he would have kept that one for himself. Did I mention he used Mike Deter’s wife to deliver the fake coin to Ingram to sell? Seems Deter was having his wife followed and didn’t like Monel. No matter, the pronghorn used everybody. After meeting with Gatwick, Ingram got scared. I was to meet him at his place and have a talk, only Monel got wind of it and got to the mole first. But not before the mole mailed me the coin.”
I gave Edmond a smile.
“The pronghorn must have been furious. He killed the mole. When a search of the apartment didn’t bring up the coin, he went after Gatwick. Too bad the platypus was old and had a bad ticker. Monel still couldn’t get hold of the coin. That left you.”
CHAPTER 34
If Edmond could have laid an egg, I think he would have. He certainly looked stressed. “Why me?”
“Because you knew too much. Oh, he couldn’t kill you. That would end his hold on your mother. Did you know your mother sent Julie Fellows over to Monel’s with the latest blackmail payment?”
“Why would my mother be paying blackmail?”
“Come off it, Edmond, you’re not as dumb as you’d like people to think. You know what happened to your father. Julie found Monel dead; he’d been shot the night before. The poor swan was a wreck when she showed up at my apartment to tell me all about it. She confessed to murdering him even.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“I know she didn’t. Out of all the characters in this mess, only one person makes sense. Everyone risks being tied back to Sydney Ingram but one. That person is you.”
“Me?” The high note the emu hit had me chuckling.
“Did he send for you? Tell you he was in a jam and that if he went down, so did you? Is that when he told you about the proof he had against your mother, or did you already know about that?”
“He was gloating. The liquor he was drinking only made it worse. He was downright belligerent. I planned on using my own gun, but he had one in his robe pocket. The pronghorn was so drunk it was easy to disarm him. I thought it was rather funny to put his own gun to his head. The way he babbled when I demanded to know where his so-called proof was. Only his gun must have been filed down or had a hair trigger. It went off, and I jumped back. I think I knocked a picture down. What else could I do but try to make it look like a suicide? It was his gun.”
“Technically it was a gun he stole off a draft horse, but never mind.” I crushed the cigarette I’d been smoking out into the dish I’d put the match. “What a mess. Good question what the police will do. Everyone’s been playing with that gun since you killed Monel.”
Edmond gave me a blank look. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s too confusing to explain, but you’re not the only one who wanted Monel dead. You’re just the last person anyone would suspect. If the police do arrest you, a good lawyer should get you off. No one likes a blackmailer. Just watch your back with your mother or she’ll hang you out to dry.”
“But… I… you’re not going to turn me in?”
“No, but that’s the only thing I’ll do. The police already suspect me of holding out on them, and they’re right. No, waiting it out will be the best thing. Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it. I don’t like you, your mother, or your wife, but Julie is a nice swan, and she doesn’t deserve the hell your mother put her through. Goodbye.”
“How can I ever thank you?”
“I’ve already told your mother that I’m taking Julie back to her parents and to have her things sent to my place. Please make sure she does that.”
Turning away, I left the house and drove back to Hollywood where I checked into a hotel with a bottle of whisky.
CHAPTER 35
At three o’clock we were both packed and ready to go. From the monograms on the suitcases, it looked like Edmond had used two of his own. When I asked the doctor if Julie would ever get well, his prognosis wasn’t good, but he agreed that taking her home to where family could take care of her was probably the best choice.
“I’m sorry,” said Julie. Standing in the hallway in her pantsuit, she still reminded me of a lost gosling.
“For what?”
“Yesterday, what I said.”
“Don’t worry about it, I know you didn’t kill Monel. When you arrived at his house, the pronghorn was already dead. Now we just need to get you home to your parent’s house. I called them, and they’re all excited about seeing you. It’s been so long, they thought they’d lost you.”
Worry flooded her face. “But Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers?”
“Is paying for the trip.”
“Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers has always been nice to me, but she’s never been able to spare me for so long. Are you sure?”
I bit my lip, thought about what I was going to say, and let it rip. “You didn’t shoot Monel, and you didn’t push Ross Hopkins off his perch. The emu fell out the window. Granted, you had the opportunity and the motive, but you held back. I bet you even fainted. Trust me, you didn’t push him.”
She’d jumped when I’d made the statement, but after that, the swan was content to believe what I said. I had to bite my tongue every time she mentioned what a wonderful person Mrs. Hopkins-Sayers was, but I kept reminding myself what the doctor said as I piled the suitcases into the car. It was going to be a long drive.
CHAPTER 36
The drive took ten days. Julie’s parents were happy to see her and distressed by what little I did tell them about the situation. Aside from blaming themselves, they promised to do their best to see she got help. When I left, Julie was in the kitchen making pies. She kissed me goodbye and wiped away the flour she got on my fur.
When I got home, I contacted Lieutenant Jorgensen about the Ingram case. What he told me couldn’t have been put into a Hollywood movie because nobody would have believed it.
Monel’s death was grudgingly accepted as suicide. Not because of the prints, but the powder nitrates on his hand. A partial from the draft horse on the trigger of the gun that somehow managed to miss being wiped off, caused the police to go over both apartments again, looking for Monel’s prints. They found them, but they still didn’t have a motive. At least not until they found his partner Q.R. Jacobs.
The toad got himself pinched in Salt Lake City when he tried peddling one of the doubloons. Of the dozen coins the police found in his hotel room, only one was genuine. Jacobs didn’t know where Monel had gotten the coin, but no matter how many times a plea was put in the papers, the owner never came forward. Jacobs went down for fraud, but not murder.
Jorgensen said he never believed in the draft’s confession; the act was just to get me to talk. As it turned out, the police put the draft in a lineup, and he was fingered in five drugstore holdups with a condor named Antonio Ottaviano. The condor was never found.
“Why did Jacobs run?” I asked.
“Because the old cat who ran the elevator told him the Josef Gatwick was murdered. He was afraid he’d be next.”
Jorgensen walked me to the office door and patted me on the shoulder as we said goodbye.
Back in my apartment among my old things, I set up my chessboard in a Capablanca and went fifty-nine moves, chased with a glass of whisky.
Collect alL THE POACHED PARODIES BOOKS
The lizard fifth
Scarlet Crop
The Lamarre Curse
The Persian Penguin
The Crystal Screw
The Lean Male
kAISER WRENCH
I, the Tribunal
My Claws are Quick
Retribution is Mine!
A Solitary Evening
The Great Slay
Pet Me Fatal
The Female Trackers
The Worm
The Contorted Figure
The Figure Fans
Existence…Eliminated
The Carnage Male
Dark Lane
Lucius Anoraq
The Long Slumber
Goodbye Gorgeous
The Lofty Perch
The Female in the Water
The Wee Sibling
The Lengthily Farewell
Recap
For more information go to www.stacybender.net
Bender, Stacy, The Lofty Perch: Poached Parody
