Shills Can't Cash Chips

Chapter Thirteen

I got in touch with Montague Dale just as he was closing up his office for the evening, and he wasn’t in too good a mood.

“It’ll have to be brief, Lam,” he said when I gave him my card. “I’m late now. I’ve been working in connection with that Holgate case, and my wife is having some friends in for cocktails and dinner. I’m late and you know what happens when a man’s late for a shindig of that sort.

“Moreover, I understand from the sheriff’s office and the Los Angeles police that you’re mixed up in this Holgate case in a big way and I guess it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say can be used against you. Now, I don’t have any personal hard feelings. Thank heavens, the Holgate case is out of my jurisdiction because it’s beyond the city limits of Colinda. It’s in the hands of the sheriff and the metropolitan police in Los Angeles. On account of the conditions under which the body was found — apparently nobody knows just where the guy was murdered.

“Now then, what’s on your mind?”

I said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with the Holgate case — at least, not directly.”

“All right, what is it?”

I said, “Your car was sideswiped a while back and you were run into the ditch and—”

His face suddenly purpled. He said, “Now look, Lam, I’ve discussed that all I want to, and there’s no need trying to needle me...”

“I think I can perhaps help you solve that accident,” I said.

He stared at me. “You think you can find who did it?”

“I think you can find who did it,” I said. “I give you a clue.”

His face suddenly relaxed. He went over to his office desk, picked up the phone, dialed a number and said, “Hello, darling. An emergency has just come up... Yes, yes, I know... You carry on. I may be just a little bit late... All right, honey, that’s the way it goes.”

He hung up the telephone, gestured toward a chair and said, “Sit down, Lam. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Now tell me about it.”

I said, “I’m going to put the cards right on the table with you, Chief.”

“That’s the best way to do. Go ahead.”

I said, “I have an idea about what happened on the thirteenth of August. I’ve tried to sell that idea to the Los Angeles police. Sergeant Sellers investigated it with me and we thought we’d struck pay dirt. Then the thing blew up in our faces and he’s off me. He’s off the whole theory.”

“Well, if it blew up in his face, you can’t blame him.”

I said, “Only one phase of it did. We got hold of the wrong phase. We took the wrong turn in the road.”

“All right, what’s the right turn in the road?”

“You are.”

He said, “Don’t talk in circles, Lam. Put it on the table.”

I said, “All right. Holgate had an automobile accident on the thirteenth of August. He reported to the insurance company that he had collided with the rear of an automobile driven by Vivian Deshler who lives at the Miramar Apartments and that the accident was his fault. The front end of his car was caved in, not so bad that he couldn’t drive it, but nevertheless caved in, and the injuries to Vivian Deshler’s car were rather slight.”

Chief Dale’s eyes narrowed. “Go on,” he said.

I said, “Vivian Deshler said she had sustained a whiplash injury and made a claim against the insurance company. From the way the claim was prepared the insurance company felt there was a professional hand somewhere in the background.”

“A shrewd lawyer?”

“Could have been.”

“Go on, Lam.”

“Well, the funny thing is that there were no witnesses to the accident, that the front end of Holgate’s automobile was pretty badly caved in, but the back of Vivian Deshler’s car, which was a light car and should have been the one that sustained the most damage, was only slightly injured.

“There were some other things about the accident that began to look a little peculiar. Then I found out that Holgate’s car apparently was in good condition at four-thirty on the afternoon of the thirteenth; yet the accident was supposed to have taken place about three-thirty. I guess there’s no question that Vivian Deshler’s automobile was damaged by three-thirty in the afternoon. Doris Ashley, her friend, saw the car at that time and the tail end had been crumpled — not too bad but enough to notice.”

“Go on,” Dale said.

I said, “The records show that nobody said anything about any accident taking place at the location given in Colinda until the next day.

“Now then, under all the circumstances it occurred to me that perhaps Holgate had been mixed up in a hit-and-run accident that happened sometime in the evening, that he was in a quandary as to what to do; that he told his girl friend, Vivian Deshler, about it, and Vivian Deshler said, ‘Well, my car was damaged this afternoon. Why don’t we claim that the damage to your car was done when it hit my car and report it as an automobile accident?’

“ ‘That would account for the damages to your car. You could take it right in and have it fixed. You could report an accident to the insurance company. They’d have an appraiser come and take a look at your car and then the claim agent would come and talk with me and I’d tell him my story. That would account for the damages to your car and let you out of the hit-and-run deal.’ ”

A smile began to spread across the chief’s face. “You got anything that’ll support this except theory?” he asked.

I said, “I think we can get quite a bit. If Holgate’s car wasn’t smashed at four-thirty in the afternoon, if Vivian Deshler’s car was smashed at three-thirty, that’s pretty damned good evidence that the report of the accident was a fake.”

“Would Holgate get murdered on account of it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think that Holgate contemplated the fact that his girl friend, Vivian Deshler, was going to put in a whopping big claim against the insurance company for a whiplash injury. I think that the minute that happened, Holgate realized he was involved in a criminal conspiracy, in obtaining money under false pretenses, that he could go to prison, and that he’d got himself out of the frying pan and into the fire. I think perhaps Holgate began to get cold feet and wanted to get out.

“I think that when Holgate realized the insurance company wasn’t satisfied with the explanation he had made about how the accident occurred, he became terribly apprehensive, and since a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, the people who were mixed in it with him—”

“You mean Vivian Deshler murdered him in order to keep him from blabbing?”

“I don’t know who murdered him,” I said. “The murder may have no connection with the hit-and-run accident. On the other hand, it may all be tied in together.

“What I’m doing is tying up loose ends, and what you’re interested in is getting this hit-and-run accident solved.”

“Am I interested in it!” he said. “That’s the understatement of the year. That damned hit-and-run may cost me my job if I can’t solve it.”

“Mind telling me about it?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” he said. “I was driving along the street going home when I saw this car coming behind me and I didn’t like the way it was driving. It didn’t occur to me that the man was drunk but I thought it was reckless driving. I pulled off to the side of the road and just as the man came up I held out my arm for him to stop. I was going to flag him down, take a look at his license, throw a scare into him and maybe give him a ticket.

“Instead of doing what he should have done, he swerved the car directly toward me, smashed into the left rear of my car, pushed me clean over into the ditch. Then his car glanced off and away he went.

“I was shoved off the road so far I thought I was going over. I was fighting the steering wheel for a matter of seconds. My left rear tire had blown out under the impact. I couldn’t chase him and under the circumstances I didn’t get any kind of a description.

“It’s one of those things. No one could have secured a description, but because I’m chief of police and because I’m always yelling about keeping your presence of mind and getting a description of any car that acts suspicious — well, I don’t need to draw a lot of diagrams for you. Now that’s the situation.”

“All right,” I said. “You’ve been anxious to solve it. You’ve got evidence.”

“You’re damned right I’ve got evidence,” he said.

“How much evidence?”

“Quite a bit. When the car hit me it smashed the right headlight. We have part of the lens. Some of the paint came off and we have a piece of grill — the stuff was from a Buick. If we could ever have found the damned car we could have made a case all right. But we couldn’t find the car.”

“You covered repair shops?”

“Of course I covered repair shops. What the hell! I had every repair shop that did any work on a car, particularly a Buick of that model, make a detailed report to the police.”

“All right,” I said, “then the accident was investigated.”

“That’s right.”

I said, “Let’s see if you have a report on work that was done on Holgate’s automobile.”

He studied my face for a minute, then began to grin. “Lam,” he said, “there’s just a chance — just a chance, mind you, that you’re a lifesaver.

“I don’t know as I’d buy this if it weren’t for the fact that I am personally involved. It’s a farfetched theory and I don’t know, I have an idea you may be trying to cut yourself a piece of cake and get yourself out of a murder case.

“Before I look, I’m going to ask you one question. I want a frank answer. The authorities feel that you were in that place of Holgate’s before you went back there with Holgate’s secretary, apparently to discover the wreckage. Now, I’m going to give you one test question: Were you in there or weren’t you?”

I looked him in the eyes and said, “I was in there.”

“And then you went back the second time for a cover-up?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know what had happened, but I had made an affidavit that I’d seen that accident of Holgate’s—”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because,” I said, “I wanted to smoke the thing out in the open. I felt that if I made an affidavit that I’d seen the accident, that would start putting on pressure. You see, someone had been advertising for witnesses to that accident, offering first one hundred dollars and then boosting the ante to two hundred and fifty.”

“Holgate, in desperation, trying to buy a perjured witness?” he asked.

“That was my theory at first,” I said, “but after I made the affidavit I was satisfied that it was someone who was trying to cover up for Holgate.”

“Who would cover up for him?” he asked.

“Two people,” I said. “One of them, his partner, and the other one, Vivian Deshler.”

“His partner. You mean Chris Maxton?”

“That’s right.”

“And you think he might have?”

“There’s evidence indicating he did. He paid me two hundred and fifty dollars when I convinced him that I’d been a witness to the accident.”

Dale sat at his desk and thought things over. “You’re rather unconventional and rather daring, Lam,” he said. “You’ve stuck your neck into a lot of nooses trying to help a client.”

“If my theory of what happened is right, my head will come out of the noose,” I said.

“And if it isn’t?”

“I’ll get my damned neck broken,” I told him.

“You sure will,” he told me, and got up and went to a filing case. He pulled out a manila envelope, took it over to his desk and started pulling out papers.

“Hell, yes,” he said, “the Holgate accident was reported, but our traffic department didn’t look into it.”

“Why?”

“Repairs were made in a garage in Los Angeles and the investigation was made over the telephone. The garage reported that it was a Buick automobile all right, but that the damages to the car were all accounted for, that both cars were in there being appraised by representatives of the Consolidated Interinsurance Company, and that all details of the accident had been verified, and the insurance company had admitted liability and ordered the cars fixed up.”

“The detailed injuries were not described?”

“Sure, they were described,” he said. “The whole front of the Buick car was caved in. Both headlights were smashed. All of the grill was gone.”

I said, “If you want to keep anyone from identifying a hole in a garment, all you have to do is to take a pair of scissors and make the hole bigger. All Holgate had to do was to take a hammer and add to the injuries.”

Dale said, “Lam, you fascinate the hell out of me. I’m not going to buy this wild-eyed theory of yours, but I’m sure as hell going to investigate it, and man, oh, man, how I hope you’re right!”

I said, “You know there’s a cover-up going on. When do you start investigating?”

“When do I start investigating?” he said. “Right now.”

He dialed the phone again and said, “Sorry, honey, but I’m not going to be home. No, this is important. I can’t tell you about it on the phone and... I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to make apologies to the guests. They know that I’m on call twenty-four hours a day and this is one of those things... Atta girl, I knew you’d co-operate... You carry on and do the best you can.”

He hung up the phone and said, “What’s first?”

I said, “Chris Maxton. He’s the one who put the ad in the paper offering two hundred and fifty dollars reward.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that? He was trying to help Holgate out.”

I said, “Why help Holgate out?”

“Because Holgate was his partner.”

I said, “What do you mean, help? Holgate had admitted liability to the insurance company. The insurance company had admitted liability to Vivian Deshler. Any witness to the accident could only have testified that it was Holgate’s fault. So why the hell would he be helping Holgate out getting a witness?

“The only reason he could help Holgate out with a witness was because he knew the accident was phoney and he was willing to offer a big enough bribe to get some person to perjure himself—”

“Let’s go,” Dale interrupted.

“Do you know where to find Chris Maxton?”

“Sure I do. He has an apartment here in town.”

“Married?”

“Man about town,” Dale said. “He plays around a bit, has some pretty good-looking babes on the string.”

“Including Vivian Deshler?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Dale said. “I’ve never cared enough to find out, but I’m going to make it my business to know now. Come on, Lam, let’s go.”

We got in the chief’s automobile.

The chief drove conservatively for about three blocks. I could see that he was thinking over my theory. The more he thought it over, the better he liked it.

At the end of three blocks he put on the red light. At the end of five blocks he turned on the siren.

Chief Dale was in a hurry.

We got to a rather swanky apartment house, and the chief parked his car in front of a fireplug, said, “Come on, Lam.”

We went up in an elevator, and the chief pushed the mother-of-pearl button.

Chimes sounded on the inside.

Chris Maxton came to the door. He didn’t see me for a moment but saw the chief.

“Why, hello, Chief,” he said.

“I want to talk with you,” Dale said.

Maxton was flustered. “I... I’m not alone... I—”

“I want to talk with you,” Dale said.

“I... I have a young woman here. I—”

“I want to talk with you.”

“Look,” Maxton said, “give me just ten seconds to get her...”

Dale started in.

“Go in the bedroom, honey,” Maxton called over his shoulder.

He said, “It’s quite all right, Chief, but— What the hell, who’s this with you?”

“Donald Lam,” Dale said. “Do you know him?”

“Do I know him? The two-time chiseling, dirty crook! Why didn’t you say this had to do with the case against Donald Lam? I’d do anything to nail that two-timing—”

“Take it easy,” Dale said, pushing his way into the room. “You just answer questions.”

“Well, I’m making a complaint. I’m having Donald Lam arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses and—”

“Save it, Chris,” the chief said. “You just answer questions. What the hell’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Chris said. “Oh, just a little sociable party.”

The chief looked around. There was a bottle of whiskey, some ice cubes, a couple of bottles of mixer, two empty glasses, a couple of women’s shoes on the floor, a bra hanging over the back of a chair and a skirt rumpled into a corner.

Maxton said, “I’d just shut off the hi-fi when I heard the chimes.”

“No, you didn’t,” Dale said, walking over to the window and looking out. “You shut off the hi-fi when you heard the siren. What the hell kind of a joint you running here?”

“Now, take it easy, Chief, take it easy,” Maxton said.

I realized that the chief was getting him in the proper frame of mind, putting him sufficiently on the defensive so he’d spill everything he knew. It was a good job.

The chief went over to the corner, picked up the girl’s skirt and looked at it. He walked over to the bra, looked at that, turned to the davenport, walked over and picked up a square box that had just been unwrapped. The wrapping paper was there on the floor.

The chief reached into the box, pulled out a pair of silk panties. There was lettering all over the silk.

“What the hell are these?” Dale asked.

Maxton said, “I sent away for them. They were advertised in one of the men’s magazines as the ideal gift for the one girl friend.”

“I see,” Dale said, “and you’d just talked the young lady into trying them on to see what they looked like?”

Maxton grinned sheepishly.

Chief Dale glowered at him, said suddenly and accusingly, “Why the hell did you advertise for witnesses to that accident?”

“I... I wanted to — well, I wanted to help my partner out.”

“Cut out that jazz,” Dale told him, “or I’ll open that door and run you both in for running an immoral party.”

Chris spilled words out in a stream. “Well, you know how it is, Chief. My partner was involved in an accident and— Now look, Chief, you couldn’t drag the young woman into this — and this is my apartment. I pay rent on it and—”

“To hell with that stuff,” Dale said, “get back to the case. Why did you try to dig up a witness?”

Maxton took a long breath and said, “All right, I’ll tell you why I tried to pick up a witness. I thought the accident was a phoney.”

Chief Dale sat down. His face softened. “Now you’re beginning to talk,” he said. “What made you think it was phoney?”

Maxton said, “I knew damned well it was phoney. Holgate’s automobile was in good shape at four-thirty that afternoon. Whatever happened took place sometime after that.

“My partner had been drinking. He’d been involved in an automobile accident and he sure as hell was going to lots of trouble to cover it up.”

“So what did you do?”

“I wanted to find out about it.”

“By trying to bribe a witness to say he’d seen it?” Dale asked suspiciously.

“You don’t get the sketch,” Maxton said. “I wanted to prove that there weren’t any witnesses. In that way I could prove there hadn’t been any accident the way Holgate claimed. I intended to offer up to five thousand dollars to anyone who could prove that he’d seen the accident, but I wasn’t going to stick my neck out all at once. I was going to make it a sure thing and play it up in such a dramatic way I’d cook Holgate’s kettle of fish.

“I figured I’d start the ante at a hundred and then, when no witnesses showed up, I’d increase it to two fifty, then five hundred. Then, when no witnesses showed up, I’d make it a thousand. Then, with no witnesses, I’d make it two thousand. By that time I’d be sure of my ground and I’d have had the ads attracting so much attention that the insurance company would get suspicious and everyone would get suspicious.”

“That’s better,” Dale said. “Why did you want everyone to get suspicious?”

“Because,” Maxton said, “Holgate thought he had something on me and was trying to force me to sell out my interest in the partner-»hip for less than it was worth. I just felt that I’d get something on that smug s.o.b. so he wouldn’t be pushing me around. Now if you want to know, that’s the truth.”

“How do you know his car was in good shape at four-thirty in the afternoon?” Dale asked.

“I’d rather not go into that.”

“And I want you to go into it.”

“All right, his secretary told me.”

“How did she know?”

“It was her birthday. There was a sort of office party and—”

“Cocktails?” Dale asked.

“Cocktails.”

“Go on,” Dale said. “What happened?”

“And then this cheap, chiseling, two-bit punk, Donald Lam, got in the picture and told me such a convincing lie about having seen the accident that I came to the conclusion my suspicions were all wrong and I drew in my horns. I threw up my hands, decided I was licked and then paid the s.o.b. two hundred and fifty dollars in cash to boot.”

Dale thought things over for a few moments, then he began to chuckle.

He got up and nodded to me. “Go on with your party,” he said to Maxton. “I’m sorry I interrupted you and I hope the panties fit.”