Death Spins the Platter

14

It was after eleven when Layton drove away from the Pagoda Apartments. Turning west on Sunset, he turned off at Lomitas and headed for Crescent Drive.

Hubert Stander’s house was a mammoth three story of elderly vintage surrounded by elderly eucalyptus trees and elderly box hedges. To one side of the vast lawn glimmered a swimming pool of an outmoded type beside which a stout woman sat sunning herself.

There were no cars either in the driveway or at the curb. Since the two Homicide men had not yet arrived, Layton drove past without hesitation. On Santa Monica Boulevard he found a cheap restaurant and had an early lunch.

It was almost noon when he returned to the Crescent Drive house. This time a shiny Ford sedan was standing at the curb, and two men with their hats in their hands were talking to the woman in the lawn chair. Layton spotted Sergeant Trimble’s scar. He parked behind the Ford and crossed the lawn to the pool.

The detectives glanced around at his approach.

Trimble said, “I thought you’d turn up. You work all day Sunday, too?”

Layton smiled. “That makes three of us.”

Winterman ignored him.

The woman was about fifty, Layton judged, a fifty gone to blubber and pot. She had a fat, bland, pleasant face framed by dull dark hair turning dirty gray. Her stout figure was encased in a modest blue sun suit through which he could see the ribs of an old-fashioned corset. Her shapeless bare legs were lumpy skinned, with an intricate network of varicose veins that made them look like old maps.

“Jim Layton, Mrs. Hubert Stander,” Trimble said. “Layton’s from the Bulletin.”

“How do you do, Mr. Layton. My goodness! Police officers, now a reporter. What on earth is this all about?”

“Tutter King,” the one-eyed detective said.

“How silly of me not to have guessed,” Mrs. Stander exclaimed. “Hubert’s one of your witnesses, isn’t he? So sad, such a young man committing suicide.”

There was an air of good-natured vagueness about her, as though she were constantly peering at things she did not quite understand but was ready to take on faith.

Trimble said, “You say, Mrs. Stander, that your husband flew to Las Vegas yesterday evening. Do you happen to know why?”

“I believe Hubert mentioned that it was at Mr. Hathaway’s request. Some act or other they’re considering putting on at KZZX. Hubert enjoys talent scouting, and Mr. Hathaway often asks him to take such trips.”

So that was how Hathaway knew of Stander’s extramarital activities, Layton thought. He was Stander’s regular alibi.

“But why do you want to see my husband?” the stout woman asked. “I thought Hubert had answered all your questions.”

Ed Winterman said, “There’s a couple more we thought of.”

She looked puzzled. “Well, he ought to be home any minute now.”

“Oh, Mrs. Stander,” Layton said, “did you happen to be watching The King’s Session with Mr. Stander Friday?”

“No, I missed it,” she said sadly. “I always miss everything exciting. Mr. Stander watched it alone.”

Layton caught Trimble’s good eye, and Trimble nodded for him to keep going. “I suppose he always watched the show.”

“Heavens, no, Mr. Layton. Hubert isn’t interested in such childish things as dance music. He watched Tutter King’s show Friday because he was afraid the young man might make some tactless remark over the air — being fired, you know, his last show, and so on. As it turned out, Hubert had good reason to feel apprehensive.”

“That announcement King made at the beginning, huh?” Sergeant Trimble asked casually.

“Yes. Hubert was terribly disturbed. He kept walking around the house and looking at his watch — poor dear, he didn’t know what that young man was going to say. Finally — oh, it must have been twenty minutes to four or so — I heard him go into the kitchen and start rummaging around, banging cupboard drawers — I’ve never known Hubert to be so upset — and when I went into the kitchen and asked him what he was looking for, he shook his head and said he’d just found it — whatever it was — and he had to get over to the station. And he took the car and left.”

“Drawers in the kitchen,” Sergeant Winterman said. “I’d never have said Mr. Stander was the poke-around-in-the-kitchen type, would you, Harry?”

Trimble chuckled. Mrs. Stander looked doubtful, as if she were not quite sure where the humor lay. Layton glanced at Trimble, and he felt a sudden chill.

The one-eyed detective took a huge handkerchief out of his pocket and swabbed the back of his neck. “Say, Mrs. Stander, while we’re waiting for your husband, would you mind if I went up the house and got a glass of water? Talking about kitchens reminded me.”

“How thoughtless of me,” Mrs. Stander said. She began to struggle to her feet. “I’ll go right in and make you some mint juleps.”

“I wouldn’t think of disturbing you,” Sergeant Trimble said firmly. “You sit right back down there, Mrs. Stander! What’s your maid’s name again?”

“Helga?” Mrs. Stander giggled. “Oh, dear, don’t let Helga hear you call her a maid. She runs everything! I’m just a parasite.”

“I guess she must be in the kitchen getting dinner,” Winterman remarked.

“Oh, yes. On Sundays we eat promptly at one. You’re sure you don’t want me to make you some juleps?”

“We’re not allowed to drink on duty, Mrs. Stander,” Trimble said. “You’re thirsty, Ed, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Winterman said.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Stander,” Layton said. “I think I’d like some water, too.”

“Oh, dear,” the stout woman said again; but she sank back.

At the rear of the house there was a broad concrete apron separating the garage — it looked as if it might have been converted from an old carriage house — from the back porch. Trimble, Winterman, and Layton trudged up onto the porch and Trimble rapped on the screen door.

“Yah, yah?” A fat and buxom blond woman of Mrs. Stander’s age, in a spotless white housedress was perched at a kitchen table deftly chopping raw cabbage with a big chef’s knife. She did not look up until they had filed into the kitchen and the screen door banged. Then she inspected them briefly and returned her attention to the cabbage. “What is?”

“Police,” Trimble said. The woman dropped the knife as if it had sliced off her finger. He flipped open his wallet and showed her his badge. Layton thought she was going to topple from the stool.

“I... do something?” she asked faintly.

“You’re Helga what?”

“Helga Braunschweiger. I got already my first papers—”

“Relax, Helga,” Trimble said. “We just want some information. Do you have an ice pick?”

“Ice pick?” Her thick lips remained parted. “Yah?”

The two detectives exchanged glances.

“We’d like to see it.”

“Ice pick, ice pick,” Helga said, raising her leviathan bottom from the stool and looking around in a panic. “Where do I see the ice pick?” She trundled over to the cabinets and began pulling drawers open. “I got to think where is it. Today everything is freezers with ice cubes...”

“Here, lemme help you look,” Sergeant Winterman said.

“Wait!” Helga panted triumphantly. “I remember. In this one I see it. Yah.” She pulled a drawer open. It was a mess of small tools and miscellaneous hardware items, “Ach, that Mr. Stander! A thousand times I tell him from my kitchen to stay out...” She glanced up at the men with a frightened look. “It is not here now. Mister Policemen, with my own hands I put it here—”

“When?” Trimble said. Winterman was going through the drawer like a petty thief on the run. He shook his head at Trimble and went to work on the other drawers.

“Long, long time. For what do I need an ice pick? In here I put it so I do not stick myself—”

“When did you see it last, Helga?”

The woman moaned. “When... when...?” She looked up eagerly. “Now I remember! What today is? — Sunday... Saturday, Friday, Thursday — three days ago I see it! In the drawer, Mister Policeman. The drawer I open a thumbtack to get, and almost I stick myself on the verdammte ice pick — it is so sharp, the point—”

“Yeah,” Sergeant Trimble said. “That’s fine, Helga. You’re going great. Now tell me: What did that ice pick look like? Describe it.”

“Was here when I come work for Mrs. Stander. Four years already. But like new. Like never used it was.”

“But what did it look like? The handle, for instance?”

“Like? Like wood, plain wood. No paint. But with varnish over.”

“No ice pick, Harry,” Ed Winterman said. Every drawer in the kitchen was open, the contents a hopeless jumble.

“Thanks, Helga,” the one-eyed detective said, and he nodded curtly at his partner. “Let’s go.”

“What’s going on here?” a voice demanded.

Hubert Stander, carrying the small overnight bag, was glaring through the screen door.

“You better come in, Mr. Stander,” Trimble said slowly. “We have some talking to do.”

The chairman of the board of Station KZZX seated himself carefully in the fine old morocco-leather wing chair behind the hand-carved walnut desk. He had led them in silence through a spacious living room filled with what Layton suspected were show pieces of antique furniture to the tall, walnut-paneled, book-lined study.

Layton gently shut the door. Mrs. Stander was still sunning herself on the lawn. He could see her through the narrow opening in the brown velvet drapes.

Under other circumstances Layton would have quailed under Stander’s pale, contemptuous glance. “I suppose,” the distinguished-looking man said to the two detectives, “this Peeping Tom of a so-called newspaperman had told you all about Lola and me.”

“Why, no, Mr. Stander,” Sergeant Trimble said, and Stander’s pallor deepened. “What’s all this, Layton?”

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” Layton said. “Thanks, Mr. Stander, for doing it for me. Stander wasn’t in Las Vegas last night, Sergeant, and the only talent he was scouting was in Lola Arkwright’s apartment. He spent the night there.”

“And I was going to throw the book at you for leaving town without permission,” Trimble said to Stander.

“Well, I didn’t,” Stander said through compressed lips. “And since I didn’t, I can’t see that where I spent the night is anyone’s concern but mine.”

“You can’t?” Trimble said. There was the thinnest edge of triumph to his voice. “It just about rounds out one of your two possible motives for killing King.”

Stander placed his large, square hands flat on his desk. “I’ve already discussed both of them with Layton. It’s absurd for you or anyone else to think that either would make me take a human life. Anyway, motives hardly constitute evidence. Is there anything else, Sergeant?”

“Yes,” Trimble said. “Where’s the ice pick that was in your kitchen tool drawer as recently as the day before King was found with one just like it in his heart?”

“Ice pick?” Hubert Stander repeated. He licked his lips. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll spell it out for you, Mr. Stander. Your wife says you watched King’s last show Friday — at least the start of it. She says King’s announcement that he was going to make an important statement at the end of the show disturbed you enough for her to notice it — and I don’t get the feeling that Mrs. Stander usually notices very much. She heard you opening drawers in the kitchen, looking for something. When she asked you what you were looking for you told her you’d found it, and you then left — in a hurry — for the TV station. According to your housekeeper, the tool drawer in the kitchen contained an ice pick which fits the description of the one that killed King. The ice pick is gone. Produce that ice pick, Mr. Stander, and we’ll leave you to enjoy that delicious dinner I smell cooking.”

Stander’s pallor by now was alarming. He was making an undisguisable effort to control himself. “I don’t know anything about an ice pick, Sergeant. I didn’t even know we had one. And I haven’t looked into the tool drawer in the kitchen for months. Small repair jobs around the house have always been done by our houseman or other servants.”

“Give me their names,” Sergeant Winterman said, pulling out a notebook.

“Right now we have no one but Helga.” A slight beading of sweat became visible on Stander’s forehead. “Mrs. Stander has trouble keeping help. You see—”

Winterman put his notebook away, and Stander stopped.

Trimble was getting colder and grimmer by the second. “You say you haven’t looked into the tool drawer in the kitchen for months. Yet your wife told us she heard you opening drawers like mad in there. How is it you missed the tool drawer?”

“I... don’t remember opening it. Maybe I did. If I did, I didn’t see an ice pick—”

“Just what were you looking for in those drawers Friday afternoon, Mr. Stander?”

Stander said quickly, “My car keys. I thought I’d dropped them on the kitchen table on my way through before lunch. When I couldn’t find them on the table I assumed Helga had put them away in a drawer. I opened most of the drawers looking for the keys until I suddenly remembered I hadn’t put them on the table at all, I’d slipped them into my trousers pocket. And that’s where I found them.” There was a silence. The beads were now fat drops, one by one coursing down Stander’s nose. “Don’t you believe me, Sergeant? It’s the truth!”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Stander,” Trimble said, “I’m going to have to ask you to come downtown with us.”

The man of distinction was beginning to take on a wild look. “You can’t mean that. My wife... King committed suicide... You have no authority to arrest me in Beverly Hills—”

Who said anything about arrest, Mr. Stander?” the one-eyed sergeant said. “I’m just asking you to accompany us downtown for further questioning.”

“I won’t go!”

“Ed,” Trimble said to Winterman, “you’d better phone the Beverly Hills station and ask for a couple of their boys, pronto.”

“Wait,” And now Hubert Stander, chairman of the board of KZZX, was nakedly trembling. “I don’t want a police car to be seen here... and don’t tell my wife... I’ll go with you.”

“I think that’s the sensible thing to do, Mr. Stander,” Trimble said pleasantly.

Stander rose. “There’s just one thing,” he said in a very thick voice.

“What’s that?”

“I want to phone my lawyer.”

Sergeant Trimble made a gracious gesture toward the telephone on Stander’s desk.

“Be my guest.”