Death Spins the Platter

12

Layton was in the Police Building by 8:20 a.m. There were already half-a-dozen officers in the Homicide squad room. Detective Sergeants Harry Trimble and Ed Winterman were seated side by side at one of the long tables; Winterman was filling out a form and Trimble seemed to be telling him what to write down.

As Layton strolled in, the hot-shot speaker coughed and began to blare: “Attention all units vicinity Vermont Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. ADW northeast corner intersection. Victim down, dead or seriously injured. Suspect armed with hatchet last seen proceeding on foot south on Vermont. Description WMA, dark complexion, black hair...”

Everyone in the squad room had automatically stopped to listen. At the “Approach with caution” sign-off one detective, with a Mexican face, hung up the phone he had been using. “Sandy and I’ll take it. Let’s roll, Sandy.” A towheaded officer hurried out after him. The remaining officers, including Trimble and Winterman, just as automatically resumed what they had been doing. Layton had to remind himself that all over Greater Los Angeles people were either getting ready to go to church or turning luxuriously over in bed.

Trimble nodded at Layton’s approach. Winterman did not even bother to raise his head.

“Park it, Layton,” Trimble said. To his partner he said, “Can the report for now, Ed.” Winterman slipped the form into a file folder sourly.

Layton sat down on the opposite side of the table. “Understand you were looking for me late yesterday. You come up with something?”

“A couple of pretty good motives for murder,” Layton said.

The glass eye stared at him. “For instance.”

Layton took the recording company Christmas letters to Hathaway from his breast pocket and tossed them across the table. Both detectives reached for them quickly. “Note that every one of these, at the bottom, refers to the enclosure of a check. There were lots more letters, but I only took the ones where the secretary had pulled the boner. Motive?”

“Could be,” the one-eyed detective said. He seemed angry. “How’d you get these, Layton? From where?”

“George Hathaway’s wife. She’s suing him for a divorce.”

“I know that.” Trimble’s anger, Layton suddenly realized, was directed at Winterman. It must have been Winterman’s job to check out Hathaway. The swarthy sergeant’s complexion was beginning to look like old mahogany. “I appreciate this, Layton.”

“One thing, Sergeant,” Layton said. “I promised to try to keep these letters out of the papers, with the single proviso that you don’t charge Hathaway with murder and have to use them as evidence. How about it?”

Trimble did not hesitate. “If the D.A. will go along, so will we.”

“Also, if the D.A. decides he has to release them, I want my exclusive. I’m not doing you guys’ work for no pay, and on top of that letting myself be scooped on my own story.”

“I’m sure the D.A.’ll agree to that.” Trimble’s scar writhed. “But you said something about a couple of motives, Layton.”

“This one is privileged, so I can’t tell you its source. It’s a pip — a double-barreled pip.” Winterman was hanging on every word, and Layton felt sorry for him. “Hubert Stander—”

“Stander?” the one-eyed detective said.

“Hubert Stander secretly owns a controlling interest in one of the big recording companies — Southwestern. He’d be in trouble if the FCC found out. He knew all about King’s payola deals, and he turned his back in return for King’s plugging Southwestern discs. So on that count alone Stander had at least as much reason to be scared of what King was going to ‘announce’ at the end of his last show as Hathaway had.”

“And the other barrel?” Trimble asked. Winterman had slunk far down in his chair.

“Lola Arkwright used to bed down in a love nest Stander was paying for. Tutter King came along and she switched beds.”

“That one we knew,” Winterman said quickly.

Trimble was drumming on the table. “The info about Stander and Southwestern is privileged, you say. You’re not a lawyer, Layton. You can’t plead privilege. Who was the source of your information?”

“Whoa, Napoleon, not so fast,” Layton said. “Not only can reporters plead privilege, they do it all the time. And I’m doing it now.”

Trimble said dryly, “A lot of judges have disagreed with your interpretation of the law, Counselor. And the reporters wound up in jail.”

Layton held out his wrists. “Let’s go, Sergeant.”

Trimble grinned. “You’re more valuable to me nosing around. I’m pretty damn sure I know who gave you the dope on Stander, anyway. Any more tidbits, Layton?”

“Well,” Layton drawled, “old Hubert Stander is out of town. Did you give him permission to go?”

“Hell, no!” Trimble looked at Winterman, and Winterman shook his head with great vigor. “Where’d he go, do you know?”

“No. But a maid or housekeeper or something — name is Helga — told me he’s due back by plane at eleven this morning.”

“You’re a one-man police force,” Trimble growled. “Thanks, Layton. We’ll be waiting for Mr. Stander on his exclusive patio. Anything else?”

“Yes. Now you can do something for me. What’s Lola Arkwright’s home address?”

Trimble sent Winterman a curt nod, and the squat detective got up like a good boy eager to please and went to a tier of filing cabinets.

“Pagoda Apartments, apartment sixteen,” Winterman said, after searching through a manila folder. “That’s in the nine-hundred block on Palm Street. North Hollywood.”

Layton jotted down the address. “What’s her phone number, Sergeant? She’s not in the book.”

Winterman gave him a number.

“Thanks, gentlemen.” Layton put his notebook away and rose. “See you tomorrow morning at the inquest.”

It was a one-story U-shaped pink stucco building with a veranda running around the front and sides, the door to each of its several dozen apartments opening onto the veranda. Palm Street was nearly at the Beverly Hills line. The Pagoda Apartments looked expensive.

Apartment 16 was in the left arm of the U.

It was a few minutes to ten when Layton pressed the doorbell. Faint chimes sounded. He waited ninety seconds and then pressed the bell button again.

He was about to ring it a third time when a door chain rattled and the door opened not quite as far as the chain would allow. Lola Arkwright’s face peered out. Her eyes looked puffed and sleepy, her red hair was tousled, and he could dimly make out a negligee with a nightgown underneath.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. Even her voice sounded mussed, “What do you want?”

“In,” Layton said. “Palaver.”

“For God’s sake,” she said. “You woke me up. Come back in an hour.”

“My intentions are strictly reportorial.” Layton smiled. “You can duck behind a screen or something while we talk.”

“I don’t have a screen. You’ll have to come back.”

“All right, Miss Arkwright.” Layton shrugged. “I’ll wait out here on the veranda.”

“No,” the redhead said sharply. “I don’t want my neighbors seeing a man hanging around my door. Will you please—?”

Something clicked in Layton’s head. This wasn’t in character.

“Then let me wait inside,” he said. “Unhook the chain. I’ll give you a chance to make it back to the bedroom.”

“Nothing doing!” Scared. What was she scared about? “If you don’t go away right now I won’t talk to you at all!”

“There you have me.” Layton made it sound rueful. “Okay, honey, to wait in my car? At least that way you can signal me when you’re dressed. Maybe it won’t take you an hour.”

He could feel the pressure behind her hesitation. Finally she said, “All right,” in a sweet voice, and shut the door. Layton heard the click of the bolt.

As he sauntered past her windows on the veranda, he noticed out of the corner of his eye two slats of a Venetian blind part slightly. He grinned to himself and made for his car. He had parked almost at the end of the left side of the building, and he walked toward the car in a careless manner. When he got to the car he looked casually back, just in time to see the two slats close.

Immediately he made for the rear. There was an archway, as he had suspected, leading to a courtyard, into which opened rear exits from each apartment.

Layton settled himself in a deep shadow beside the archway, lit a cigarette, and waited.

He was working on his third cigarette when his wait was rewarded.

The rear door of apartment 16 opened and a tall man stepped hurriedly out. He was carrying a small overnight bag. He strode toward the archway as if he were late for an appointment, squinting in the strong sun. As he passed under the arch Layton caught a whiff of fresh after-shave lotion.

The man was expensively dressed and he had gray hair.

Layton stepped out of his shadow in the distinguished man’s wake and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

The man whirled as if he had been stabbed.

“Morning, Mr. Stander,” Layton said cheerfully.