Death Spins the Platter

8

On Saturdays Layton worked half a day. Early in the morning he phoned Homicide and learned from Harry Trimble that there was still no decisive development in the case. After lunch, on the drive back to his apartment, he suddenly found the prospect of walking into its unkempt emptiness too grim to contemplate. He drove, instead, to the Police Building on Los Angeles Street and parked in the Building lot.

Layton took one of the automatic elevators to the third floor and went down the hall, past the Detective Bureau, to room 314. Sergeant Trimble was sitting at one of the long tables in the squad room studying the contents of an open file folder.

Layton dropped into a chair opposite him, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and reached over the table to hold it under Trimble’s nose.

The one-eyed detective glanced up. “Hello, Layton,” he said. He took a cigarette absently, his eye going back to the folder. Layton stuck a match and made for Trimble’s nose again. “Oh, thanks,” Trimble said. He puffed, began to choke, leaned back, and eyed the cigarette suspiciously. “What are you smoking these days, cubebs? What is this thing?”

“It’s a new cigarette named Safe Side. All filter — no tobacco.”

“You kill me.” Trimble tossed the cigarette into an ash tray and lit one from a pack of his own. “Well? How did you make out with the widow?”

“I didn’t know you cared,” Layton said lightly. Had they had a tail on her? “Beautiful place she and Tutter built out in the Valley. Full of his stuff, by the way. That Arkwright number was lying her red head off.”

Trimble grunted a noncommittal grunt. “Tell me more, Layton.”

“There ain’t no more,” Layton said. “What’s on this end? Anything on King since I phoned this morning?”

“I’ve just been going over the paper.”

“Coroner’s report?” Layton asked, eying the folder.

The detective closed the folder. “Just an oral one. Inquest is Monday.”

“Don’t I know it. They called me at the shop — I’m a witness. What’s the oral report?”

“King died practically instantly — the blade went into his heart dead center. Angle of wound such that it could have been self-inflicted. Unless we turn something up before Monday, the coroner’s jury is sure as hell going to bring in a verdict of suicide.”

“Do you think it was suicide?”

The detective scowled. “No sign of a struggle, no sign that anybody else was in the room... I dunno, Layton.”

“The room,” Layton murmured. “I ask you, mon sergeant: Does a guy leave his own dressing room to walk across a hall and go into an empty one in order to commit suicide?”

“Yeah, there’s that,” Trimble said. He sighed. “The screwy thing about this case is that, if it was murder, a lot of people had the opportunity to, commit it. Each one passed those dressing rooms alone.”

“Except the two kids.”

“And they could be in cahoots.” A grin lifted Trimble’s scar and made his glass eye glitter in the shaft of light. “Even you were alone in that hall, Layton.”

“Me?” Layton said, astonished. “You mean I’m a suspect?”

Trimble laughed outright. “No motive. We know you never met King before yesterday afternoon. Unless you’ve got a thing about disc jockeys.”

“Mad about them?” Layton asked hastily.

“Anyway, you were there on an assignment. We checked with your editor.”

“Thanks, pal!”

“We also checked,” Trimble said with a shift of tone, “we also checked into Mrs. King’s and Lola Arkwright’s backgrounds.”

Layton said casually, “And?”

“Seems both were telling the truth about their relationship with Tutter.”

“How can that be? Their stories contradict each other. One of them has to be lying, Trimble, and it’s obvious that it’s Lola—”

“No.” The detective stopped.

“Go on.”

“No,” Trimble said again. “You’re too damn easy to talk to. Nice to have seen you, Layton.” He stubbed out his cigarette.

“Look, Sergeant,” Layton snapped, “I was in on this from the start. From before the start! I figure that entitles me to the inside track. Besides, you and I share something on this case.”

“What?”

“We’re both pretty sure it’s murder. Loosen up, Trimble. Maybe we can help each other on this one. It’s Saturday afternoon, and you know what that means — I’m here on my own time. So I can play it any way you say.”

Trimble’s one eye speared him “I’m probably going soft in the head to trust one of you bastards,” he said suddenly. “But all right.” He leaned forward planting his huge palms on the table. “It’s King who was lying. To both women.”

Layton said softly, “The double-life bit.”

“That’s it.” Trimble opened the folder. “This is a report just in. Two couples out in the Valley back up Mrs. King’s story — she and King have been living as man and wife in that Chapter Drive house right up to yesterday, and these friends of theirs say they never saw any evidence of marital trouble. And here’s a report on the Arkwright girl. Friends of hers bear out her story. They say King and Lola have been cozying up for months. She bragged to her friends only a few days ago that he was going to marry her as soon as he got certain personal matters straightened out. The friends took it for granted Lola meant the mess he was in because of the payola scandal. They didn’t know King had a wife.”

“Lola knew.”

“But not that he was still living with her — Lola claims he’d told her he hadn’t had anything to do with his wife in years, and I believe her. It’s my hunch this Lola broad’s been steering King toward a preacher for a long time, and he told her he had a wife in self-defense. But the guy got himself in a bind between the two women, maybe one he couldn’t wriggle out of. It’s sure going to look that way to the coroner’s jury — if the subject comes up at all — and with the payola business and the cancellation of his TV show on top of it, I don’t know that I’ll blame them if they bring in a verdict of suicide.” The scar writhed in a scowl. “But then I think of that surprise statement he announced for the end of the telecast. Would he make a promise like that over the air if he was intending to kill himself during the news break? It doesn’t figure.”

“It might,” Layton said, “if what Lola told you is true — that the surprise was to be his announcement of their engagement.”

“That was yesterday afternoon,” Trimble growled. “Last night we questioned her again, and she finally admitted she’d only ‘hoped’ that was going to be his announcement. It turns out he hadn’t even hinted to her what he was going to say. In fact,” he went on, the scowl again in evidence, “he hadn’t really committed himself to marrying her, let alone announcing their engagement. He pulled the same line on the redhead that he used on his wife — he couldn’t afford to injure his ‘public image’ as an unattached dream-boat.”

“Then Lola was lying yesterday with that talk of a Mexican divorce!”

“It was a lie she’d also talked herself into,” Trimble said dryly. “When Tutter’s career went up the flue, Lola got a weaseling half-promise out of him that he’d at least straighten out his personal life. Right away in her hot little mind this becomes a quickie divorce and wedding bells. You know how women are.”

“No, how are they?” Layton said. “And that takes us back to what King really intended to announce at the end of the show. From some remarks he made, to me before he went on the air, it might have concerned the payola scandal.”

Trimble looked interested. “In what way?”

“Well,” Layton said, “my information is that George Hathaway — and other executives of KZZX — knew all along that King was accepting payola.”

“And were taking a cut?” Trimble asked swiftly.

“I didn’t say that, Sergeant. Neither did my informant. I don’t know.”

“Who told you this?”

“Sorry,” Layton said. “I promised to protect my source.”

Trimble shook his head. “If that’s all it was — Hathaway and others knowing King was on the take and doing nothing about it till their hands were forced by the investigating committee’s publication of the report — where’s the motive for murder? All right, so King accuses them on the air. All they’d have to do is deny it — the word of a group of respected TV executives against the sour-grapes accusation of a self-confessed greased-palm artist.” He shook his head again. “I don’t buy it.”

Layton rose. “Got a make on the ice pick yet?”

“Hardly used, of a type manufactured by a New Jersey company, for twenty-five years, national distribution. You can buy one just like it in any dime or hardware store in town.”

Layton took the Freeway to the Sunset Boulevard interchange. He drove up Sunset to Station KZZX-TV.

The receptionist from the future favored him with a dazzling smile of recognition. Today he was not dazzled. He returned her smile for business reasons. It got him past her desk.

Hazel Grant was distant. “Mr. Hathaway’s left for the day.”

“Know if Stander’s around?”

“I haven’t seen him, Mr. Layton.”

“Lola Arkwright?”

“Miss Arkwright was employed by Tutter King, not by KZZX. She’d have no reason to be here.”

“Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Grant.”

She did not reply.

Layton tried the board chairman’s door. It was locked.

He wandered around the corner and past the dressing rooms — there was a seal on number 1 — to the Studio B and C control room. A cooking program was on the air in B. In the booth two engineers sat at the panel while a third man stood behind them, watching. The standing man was tall and thin and totally bald.

On impulse, Layton tapped on the window. The bald man turned around. Layton beckoned, and the man said something to the other two and stepped out into the hall.

“I won’t keep you a minute,” Layton said.

“It’s all right.” The bald man grinned. “They do the work. I’m an executive.”

“Edwards, chief control engineer?”

“By God, I’m famous. How did you know?”

“I’m Jim Layton of the Bulletin.”

“You were the news hawk here yesterday during all the excitement!” Edwards shook Layton’s hand fervently. “What’s the latest lowdown on the King case?”

“It looks as if the official verdict’s going to be suicide.”

The engineer shook his gleaming head. “I guess that payola thing busting wide open was too much for King. Though I’d never have said he was the kind of guy who’d put out his own candle.”

“Oh,” Layton said, “then you don’t think it was suicide?”

“I guess it must have been if the cops think so. They sure tore this place apart yesterday, and everybody in it, from Mr. Stander and Mr. Hathaway on down.”

“Say, that reminds me,” Layton said. “Talking about Hathaway, I mean. He said yesterday he’d come to this booth to see you, Edwards. During the newscast. What was that all about?”

The engineer’s expression turned wary. “Why don’t you ask Hathaway?”

“Because he’s left for the day, and I didn’t think of it till just now. What was it, top secret or something?”

“Well...” Edwards glanced around, grinning. “We did have general instructions yesterday for everybody to cooperate with you, and nobody’s rescinded the order. He wanted me to brief my control team in Studio A about the last few minutes of The King’s Session telecast.”

“How did he mean?”

“That announcement of King’s at the start of the show that he was going to make a special statement just before the signoff — it bugged Hathaway. He heard it on the monitor in his office and hotfooted it down here during the newscast to tell me what to do when King started his statement. If I even suspected he was going to say something derogatory about KZZX or anyone connected with it — zooeyl — I was to cut him off the air.”

“Did Hathaway give you any idea of what he was afraid King might say?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. He’s been blowing his top like an overloaded boiler every hour on the hour the past few weeks.” Edwards grinned again. “Me, I’m chicken. Mine not to reason why.”

“I know what you mean,” Layton said sympathetically. “I don’t suppose his disposition was helped any by that payola mess.”

“It went sour long before that.” Edwards looked around again. “Wife trouble,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, yes,” Layton said wisely.

“I suppose you know all about it, but what you may not know is that she kicked Hathaway right out of the house.”

“No!” Layton said. “She did?”

“I met that bitch once,” the engineer said. “God knows Hathaway’s no bargain, but a dame like that would drive any man nuts. I hear she’s accusing him in her divorce complaint of everything from sodomy to making burnt sacrifices.”

They chuckled companionably together.

“Well, I won’t keep you from your work any longer,” Layton said, “—Tom, isn’t it?”

“Hal.”

“Sure — Hal. Been wonderful talking to you, Hal.”

“Any time, Jim.”

They shook hands like old buddies. Layton maintained his stroll until he was out of eyeshot. Then he began to sprint.