Shills Can't Cash Chips

Chapter Fourteen

We went back down to the car. The chief started the motor. His eyes were narrowed in thoughtful speculation.

He turned on the radio and called in to the dispatcher. “This is Chief Dale in Car One. I’m working on a case. Anything new on that Holgate case? Over.”

The dispatcher said, “Bulletin from the Los Angeles police just a few minutes ago, putting out an all points bulletin on Donald Lam. They’ve buttoned up the case against him and are ready to charge him with the murder of Carter Holgate. Over.”

Chief Dale said, “Thanks. Keep in touch.”

He shut off the radio and grinned at me.

“Your friend on the Los Angeles police force doesn’t have much faith in you, does he?”

“Not much,” I said. “How about making a telephone call?”

“Sure thing. Anything you want, Lam.” He grinned again and said, “Anything you want. You name it, you can have it.”

Then he began to chuckle.

“Some reason why Holgate wouldn’t want to take the responsibility with you, Chief?” I asked.

“You’re damned right there is,” Dale said. “It’s a long story. Holgate was a high-pressure salesman. A good enough egg, but strictly high pressure. A friend of mine had some property up in the mountains. Holgate offered to trade it for a couple of lots in his subdivision. She went for it in a big way.

“After the trade had been made for about sixty days, it turned out there was a new highway going through the mountains and the location went right through the property this girl had owned. I don’t know how much Holgate made out of it, but it was plenty.”

“Did she do anything about it?” I asked.

“She didn’t,” Dale said. “But I had a talk with Holgate.”

“What did he do?”

“He laughed at me.”

“So,” I said, “in case you were in a position to jail Holgate for drunk driving, hit-and-run... I’m beginning to see a great light.”

“And I’m beginning to see a great light,” Chief Dale said. “For your information, Lam, there’s a special meeting of the council at nine-thirty this evening and one of the subjects on the agenda is getting a new police chief. When you dropped into my office it was manna from heaven. I hadn’t told my wife about it because I didn’t want to worry her. I was going to go home, have cocktails and dinner, and had made arrangements to be summoned on the telephone so I could go up to the council meeting and be available. But they hadn’t invited me to be present. They were having an ‘executive session’ and I gather my successor may have already been picked out sub rosa. — Here’s a good isolated telephone booth. Put through your call. Got all the money you need?”

“I have a credit card,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll wait here.”

The chief settled back in the car and lit a cigar. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

I put through a call to the office.

Bertha Cool answered. “Where the hell are you?” she said. “My God, do you know what’s happened? That s.o.b. Frank Sellers, let that Ace High Detective guy sell him on the idea you were cutting corners. Heaven knows what sort of evidence they cooked up, but Sellers rang me up and told me to have you surrender yourself at once.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him the truth. I told him you’d gone out and I didn’t know where you were, and he said I had fifteen minutes to locate you and if I didn’t locate you in that time he was putting out an all points bulletin, that he was tired of being made a patsy.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“That’s it— Oh, wait a minute. Elsie wants to talk with you... Where the hell is she? She said she had something else that might interest you. I guess she’s gone out.”

“All right,” I said. “Here’s what I want you to do, Bertha. Get in your car and drive just as fast as you can to the Miramar Apartments in Colinda. You locate Elsie. Leave a message for her in her apartment house if you can’t do anything else. Tell her to bring her scrapbook on automobile accidents and hit-and-run and get the hell out there just as fast as she can. I’ll meet you there.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as you get there.”

“Do I get dinner first?” Bertha asked.

“Hell, no,” I said. “You get out there just as fast as you can, and get Elsie out there.”

I hung up the phone and started putting on an act. I’d pretend to drop a coin, then I’d dial a number. I kept that up for nearly ten minutes, pretending to talk and listen.

Chief Dale sat in the car, grinning. When he showed signs of getting restless I went out of the booth.

“Took you long enough,” he said.

“I had several calls.”

“All done?”

“All done, Chief.”

“Well, Donald, I don’t want to be hauled on the carpet for conspiring to protect a felon. You’re wanted for murder. Hold out your wrists.”

I held out my wrists. The chief snapped handcuffs on them. “You’re under arrest,” he said. “You’re my prisoner. And I just want you to know that while you’re my guest in the jail at Colinda, if there’s any damned thing on earth you want, all you’ve got to do is to mention it. You can have special meals, special attention, a telephone in your cell, you can see anybody you want to. You can have anything you want except a dame. That I can’t get for you.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

“Don’t thank me,” he said.

“Are you going to take me down to the jail before you—”

“Before I see Vivian Deshler?” he asked. “Hell, no. Don’t think I’m dumb and don’t be dumb yourself, Lam. I just put those handcuffs on you as a token. You’re my prisoner — and you’re too damned smart to try to escape. You may be innocent of the murder but after you’ve been placed under arrest by an officer, making an escape is a felony and — well, I wouldn’t like that, Donald, and I could be awfully mean if something happened that I didn’t like.”

“I understand,” I told him. “I’m sitting right here.”

“Those handcuffs too tight?”

“No, they’re very comfortable.”

“Okay,” he said. “Here we go.”

We drove out to the Miramar Apartments, and the chief took me up in the elevator with him, handcuffs and all.

We went to Vivian Deshler’s apartment.

The chief pushed his finger against the mother-of-pearl button and held it there until Vivian Deshler opened the door.

Dale pulled back his coat. “This is the police, Miss Deshler. I’m Chief Dale of Colinda, the chief of police.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “What can I do for you, Chief?”

“I want to talk.”

“Come in and sit down, Chief Dale,” she said. “You’re very welcome. I’m going out a little later but...”

The chief moved into the apartment and I followed him.

She saw me then and said, “Well, just a moment. I didn’t know you had a guest.”

“He isn’t my guest,” Chief Dale said. “He’s my prisoner. He’s under arrest for the murder of Carter Holgate.”

“Good heavens,” she said. “He’s under arrest! Why, I knew they were investigating him and—”

“He’s under arrest,” Dale said.

“Donald,” she said, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to rub it in. I— Well, you can understand.”

I said, “It’s quite all right,” and sat down, putting my elbows on my legs so that the bright reading lamp shone down on the manacles on my wrists.

“I’m investigating this accident of yours,” Chief Dale said. “The one where Carter Holgate is supposed to have bumped into the rear of your car and—”

She drew herself up and said, “I am not going to be questioned any more about that accident, Chief Dale. I have talked about it until I’m sick and tired of it. I have a claim against the insurance company, I have now retained an attorney, I have decided to file suit. My attorney has advised me to say nothing about it.”

Dale said patiently, “I understand. That’s looking at it from the standpoint of a civil action. But now I’m looking at it from the standpoint of a criminal action.”

“What do you mean?”

Dale said, “I now have pretty good evidence that Carter Holgate smashed into my car on the evening of the thirteenth of August. He was driving while he was drunk.”

“For heaven’s sake,” she said.

“Now, that accident occurred a little after five-thirty in the evening,” Chief Dale said.

“Well, what do you know!”

“That’s exactly it,” Dale said. “I know so much that I want to know a little more. In fact I want to know quite a little more.”

She was doing some fast thinking.

“That must have been his day for accidents,” she said.

“Now,” Dale said, “I want to know about his accident with you. I want to know about when he hit your car.”

“Well, to be perfectly frank with you, Chief, I’m not certain of the hour. I am of the date but—”

“Was it after dark?”

“No, no. It was in the afternoon. It was— I just can’t go back in my mind right at this time and pinpoint the exact hour.”

I said, “Her friend, Doris Ashley, saw her car about three-thirty or three-forty-five and it had been smashed at that time, so the accident must have taken place before then, Chief.”

Vivian flashed me a look of pure venom.

“That right?” he asked Vivian.

“I wouldn’t know. Anything Doris says — she’s a very truthful girl and quite observing.”

“Now, I’m going to be fair with you, Miss Deshler,” Dale said. “If Holgate hit my car, pushed it into the ditch, then drove on, that would be a crime. That’s a hit-and-run. You understand that?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“And,” Dale went on, “if anybody conspired with him to cover up that crime or help him escape the penalty, that person would be an accessory after the fact and would be guilty of lots of things — not only guilty of the crime as an accessory, but guilty of criminal conspiracy. Do you understand that?”

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Yes,” she said after a moment.

“Now under those circumstances,” Dale said, “would you have any statement to make to me, Miss Deshler?”

“I... I know that— Now, wait a minute, let me think... I’m sorry, but would you excuse me for a moment, please? I haven’t been feeling well lately. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

She got up and vanished through a door in the apartment.

Dale winked at me and then got up and tiptoed to the closed door. He took a little microphone attachment from his pocket, put it up against the door, put earphones in his ears, snapped on a switch and listened.

A grin came over his face as he listened.

He looked at me and winked once more, then kept listening for what must have been two or three minutes.

Suddenly he jerked the earphones out of his ears, detached the device from the door, slipped it into his pocket, tiptoed back to his chair and seated himself.

The door from the bedroom opened. Vivian Deshler said, “I’m sorry to have been so abrupt but I’m having some kind of an intestinal upset and— Well, I hope you don’t think I’m unladylike.”

“Not at all,” Dale said.

“Now, just what was it you wanted to know, Chief?”

“About that accident.”

“Oh, yes. Well, I’ve made a statement to the insurance company. I’ve made statements to the police, I’ve made statements to investigators, I’ve... I’ve just made so many statements I’m sick to death of that accident.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Chief Dale. I was injured in that accident. I had what they call a whiplash injury and I understand that can be very serious, but I’m just so sick and tired of the whole business that I’ve decided to absorb the loss myself. I’m going to withdraw my claim against the insurance company and forget the whole business. I’m going to go away and try to rest. My doctor thinks that complete rest with nothing to worry about may do a great deal to restore me to health.”

She looked at me. I twisted my arm so that the light reflected from the handcuffs. She stared at them with fascination.

“Well, that’s all very nice,” Dale said. “I hope you recover your health. I might tell you, Miss Deshler, that this means a good deal to me, getting this case solved, because you see my car was pushed into the ditch by a hit-and-run driver. I now have reason to believe that driver was Carter Holgate and that he used this purely imaginary accident he had had with your car to cover up—”

“What do you mean, an imaginary accident?” she asked with cold dignity. “There’s no reason he couldn’t have been in two accidents. If he was drunk—”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Dale interrupted, “that the accident was wholly imaginary.”

“Well, I like that!” she said. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“Frankly,” Dale said, “I’m accusing you of lying, Miss Deshler. I’m accusing you of having faked the accident to your car and of having conspired with Holgate to involve your car in an accident with him. That was designed to get Holgate off the spot and, in case you’re interested, I used a listening device when you were supposedly in the bathroom with your intestinal upset.

“You telephoned someone and asked him for advice as to what to do. Now, who was it?”

“That,” she said, “was my lawyer and you have absolutely no right to eavesdrop on a conversation with a lawyer. I am going to ask you to leave my apartment.”

“I’ll leave if you insist,” Dale said, “but when I leave it’s a declaration of war. I’m giving you a chance now to come clean.”

“What do you mean, come clean?”

“To tell me the truth.”

“What do you mean you’re... giving me a chance?”

“If you tell the story now,” Dale said, “I’ll give you the breaks. If you don’t, I’ll throw the book at you.”

She bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“I think there is.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, if you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.”

“That’s better.”

She said, “It all goes back to this man that you have with you, this Donald Lam.”

“And how does he enter into the picture?”

“He enters into it in this way. He’s trying to protect the insurance company that hired him. He bribed Lorraine Robbins, Mr. Holgate’s secretary, to say that she saw Holgate’s automobile after four o’clock, and that it was all right. He’s left a dirty, slimy trail of corruption all through this case. He’s resorted to intimidation of witnesses, he’s resorted to bribery, and he’s committed downright perjury.

“He’s sworn that he was a witness to the accident and he wasn’t a witness at all... That accident took place just as I have described it and if you want to throw your weight around and browbeat somebody, you go get Lorraine Robbins and start working on her and you’ll find out that Donald Lam and she have been in cahoots on this thing all the way through.

“And if you want to know, Donald Lam was out there at Holgate’s place before he ever got in touch with Lorraine Robbins and lured her out there with the excuse that they should look for Carter Holgate. I think he has an accomplice. I don’t know who that accomplice was, but those are the facts in the case and I’m not going to be pushed around by any murderer who is trying to clear his own skirts at my expense.

“Now you’ll pardon me, Chief Dale, but that’s the last statement I intend to make. I hadn’t intended to go that far because I don’t want to accuse anyone else of crime. I believe in living and let live, but I’ve been crowded just too far. I am now going to consult my attorney and I’m not going to make any other statement to you or anyone else except in the presence of my attorney.”

She got up and said, “I’m sorry to be abrupt, Chief Dale, but this interview is terminated.”

Dale said, “Don’t let yourself get all worked up, Miss Deshler. I’m just trying—”

“I’m sorry, but you have questioned my word and I am now satisfied that this whole case has been stirred up by Mr. Lam, who has obtained money under false pretenses, who has made false affidavits, who has tried every dirty, sneaky trick in the quiver in order to discredit me and in order to get the insurance company that retained him off the hook.

“I’m surprised that an officer of your experience would fall for this type of thing. You certainly should consider his interests in the case and what he is trying to do. He is a murderer who is trying to draw red herrings across the trail, and you have fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the whole history of investigative work. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m... I’m going to the bathroom again.”

She made a run for the door, slammed it shut and locked it.

Dale looked at me. I could see doubt creeping into his eyes.

“You going to let her get away with that?”

“Hell’s bells, what are you going to do?” Dale said. “She said she was going to the bathroom. This time she’s smart enough to go there. She locked the door. I can’t smash the door down and drag her out of the bathroom. I haven’t any warrant. I haven’t even anything to go on — except your word!”

He looked at me again and said, “Come on, Lam. I guess we’ll go down to headquarters. I’ll have to notify Los Angeles that I have you in custody.”

He walked over and opened the door. “Come on.”

I followed him out into the corridor.

“When you come right down to it,” he said, “your theory stinks.”

“Why does it stink?”

“What incentive did Vivian Deshler have to fake an accident with Carter Holgate?”

“A whiplash injury,” I said. “Look into her past and I don’t doubt you’ll find she’s been in an automobile accident before, claimed a whiplash injury and received a damned good settlement from some insurance company.”

“Could be,” Dale said, his voice indicating he wasn’t particularly interested.

He led the way to the elevator.

“I’m going to think over your theory of this thing, Lam, and I’m going to talk with this Lorraine Robbins.”

“She’s here in this apartment house,” I said. “You might just as well make a good job of it while you’re doing it.”

“She lives here?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” Dale said. “We’ll talk with her. But I don’t mind telling you right now, Donald, that I’m sorry I got the cart before the horse on this thing. I should have talked with her first before I went in and tried to get rough with Vivian Deshler.

“She’s in a position to make quite a squawk if she gets an attorney. I accused her of faking an accident, all on the strength of a theory you had, and your theory is supported on what you say Lorraine Robbins told you.

“I guess my personal interest clouded my judgment a little bit.”

I said, “All right, come on, let’s go talk with Lorraine Robbins.”

“You, Lam, are going down and sit in my automobile. You’re going to be handcuffed to the steering wheel. I don’t want you to try any funny stuff. For your information, your stock has taken a sharp nose dive in the last fifteen minutes.”

He took me back down to the automobile, handcuffed me to the steering wheel, went back to the apartment house.

Minutes passed. Ten minutes became fifteen minutes.

A car drew up, looked around for a parking place, finally found one.

I twisted around as much as the handcuffs would let me.

Bertha Cool and Elsie Brand got out.

Elsie was carrying a scrapbook.

“Bertha!” I shouted.

She didn’t hear me.

“Elsie!” I yelled.

Elsie looked up and looked around.

“Over here, Elsie!”

Elsie saw me then and came running.

“Why, Donald — what is it? Whatever’s happened?”

Bertha came waddling up behind, took a look at the handcuffs and said, “So they found you.”

“They found me,” I said. “What did you want to see me about, Elsie? What was the news?”

She said, “Something in one of the scrapbooks, Donald— Oh, I hope it will help!”

“All right, what is it?”

She said, “The stick-up of that bank out in North Hollywood where they got away with forty thousand dollars. The getaway car was some kind of a sports car and no one got a very good look at it, but one of the witnesses said the hind end had been damaged. It had a big dent of some sort in it. It—”

“When was it, when was it, Elsie?” I asked, interrupting her.

“Just shortly before closing time on the thirteenth.”

I turned to Bertha. “You get the hell up to apartment six-nineteen in the Miramar Apartments. Vivian Deshler is in there. Either she was mixed up in that bank robbery or her car was. That explains the mystery. That’s the reason she was willing to ride along with Holgate. Now remember, there has to be some connection. Somebody that knew Holgate’s car was smashed had to know that the tail end of her car was caved in and she needed an explanation for that quick. Otherwise she’d have been connected with that bank robbery or her car would have been.”

Bertha blinked at me a couple of times, then turned and started for the apartment house.

“You want Elsie with you?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” she said. “I don’t need any help and I don’t want any witnesses.”

Elsie said, “You poor boy,” and climbed into the car beside me.

She’d been in the car about five minutes when Chief Dale came out and started walking thoughtfully over to the car.

“Hello,” he said, stopping suddenly and his hand dropping to his hip. “What’s all this?”

“This, Chief,” I said, “is my secretary, Elsie Brand. She saves interesting newspaper clippings of unsolved crimes.”

“All right,” he said. “What’s it all about? Now, just a minute, Miss Brand, this man is my prisoner. Don’t try to give him anything, don’t try to release those handcuffs.”

“I think you’re horrid,” Elsie said to him. “The idea of suspecting—”

“Take it easy, Elsie,” I said. “Show Chief Dale the clipping you were telling me about.”

Elsie squirmed out of the car, opened the scrapbook and pointed out the clipping to Chief Dale.

Dale leaned forward to read it. He read it once, looked up, squinted his eyes thoughtfully, then read it twice.

Then he said, “I’ll be damned!”

There was a long silence.

“How did you come out in there with Lorraine Robbins?” I asked.

“Lam,” he said, “she’s on the up and up. She’s a good kid. There’s something fishy about that accident just as sure as hell. Holgate’s car was all right at four-thirty on the thirteenth.”

“And,” I said, “Vivian Deshler’s car had the rear end caved in at three-thirty on the thirteenth.”

“By God, if it all does tie in! If Holgate was the hit-and-run guy and if that Deshler car was the getaway car in that bank robbery— Good God Almighty, what that would do!”

I said, “Be a pretty nice thing to clean all that mess up and walk in on the meeting of the city council at nine-thirty, wouldn’t it, Chief? You could show them that you’d cleared up the mystery of the hit-and-run driver, that you’d solved the bank robbery and—”

“All right,” he said. “I’ve fallen for it once, I’ll fall for it twice. I’m going back up.”

“Better take me with you,” I said.

He shook his head.

“You may need a witness.”

He thought that over.

“Two witnesses,” Elsie said.

“You take shorthand?” Dale asked.

She nodded.

“All right, come on,” he said.

He unlocked the handcuff that was holding me to the steering wheel, hesitated a moment, then snapped the handcuff back on my wrist. “Remember,” he said, “you’re still under arrest. I’m investigating this damned story but I’m not buying it. Not yet. I’m window shopping.”

We started toward the entrance to the apartment house.

I stalled things along as much as I could but eventually we got into the elevator and got up to the sixth floor.

As we walked down the corridor I could hear sounds of banging and thumping.

A woman screamed.

“What’s that?” Chief Dale asked.

I made my last stall. “It came from that apartment over there,” I said.

“I thought it came from farther down the line,” Dale said.

“No, I’m quite certain it was this apartment,” I said, and caught Elsie Brand’s eye.

“It came from this one right here,” she said.

Dale hesitated a moment, then went over and banged on the door of the apartment.

There was no answer.

He banged again.

After a moment a woman who had some kind of a robe hastily thrown around her shoulders, and who seemed to be completely nude except for that, opened the door a crack.

“Well,” she snapped, “what is it?”

“Police,” Dale said. “We’re investigating a disturbance.”

“There’s no disturbance here.”

“Didn’t you scream?”

“I certainly did not.”

Dale said, “I beg your—”

The door was slammed in his face.

Dale looked at me and said, “I’m beginning to know how the Los Angeles officers feel about you, Lam. You knew damned well those sounds didn’t come from that apartment. What are you stalling for?”

I said, “I could have been mistaken.”

“And you could have been playing games,” Dale said.

He strode on down to 519 and pressed the mother-of-pearl button.

Nothing happened.

After a moment he banged on the door with his knuckles, a hard, peremptory police knock. “Open up!” he said.

There was a moment of silence, then the door was jerked open.

Bertha Cool, her face flushed, said, “Well, come on in! Don’t stand there in the hallway gawking.”

Vivian Deshler was standing over in a corner sobbing hysterically. Her skirt had been ripped completely off. She was standing there in bra and panties, and the panties were embroidered with fancy mottoes.

“Who are you?” Dale asked Bertha Cool.

“I’m Bertha Cool, Donald Lam’s partner,” she said, “and this little minx is going to make a confession to you about being mixed up with a man by the name of Dudley Bedford in a bank robbery out in North Hollywood. They got about forty thousand dollars in cash and it’s somewhere in the apartment here. Where is it, dearie?”

Vivian Deshler put her hands in front of her eyes. “You stop!” she said.

Bertha Cool moved toward her. “Where is it, dearie?”

“In the suitcase in the closet!” she screamed. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you dare!”

“Look in the suitcase in the closet,” Bertha Cool said matter-of-factly, and walked over to the closet, took out a coat and tossed it to Vivian Deshler.

“Stick this around you in case you feel self-conscious,” she said.

Dale looked at Bertha, looked at Vivian Deshler, looked at me. “And who murdered Holgate?” he asked.

“Do you need to ask?” I said. “You’ve seen those panties before, you know. She could get plenty of information out of Maxton — the cocktail party and all the rest of the background she needed.”

Dale said to Bertha Cool, “Can you keep her from trying to escape?”

“I can keep her from so much as flapping an eyelash,” Bertha said. “She tries to pull out on me and I’ll slap her to sleep.”

“You’re deputized,” Chief Dale barked. “I’m going to take a look in that suitcase.”

He was back in two minutes with the suitcase opened and looking at the money all neatly arranged in packages.

It was at that moment a latchkey sounded in the door of the apartment.

Vivian Deshler sucked in a deep breath to scream a warning.

Bertha Cool slapped her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her. She doubled up like an accordion.

The door clicked back and a smiling, debonair Dudley Bedford came marching into the room.

He took one look at what was happening and went for his gun.

Dale beat him to the punch. “You’re under arrest,” he snapped. “Get your hands up.”

Bedford slowly elevated his hands.

“Turn around, face the wall,” Dale ordered. “Now stick your hands out behind you.”

Bedford did as he was instructed.

Dale came over, unlocked the handcuffs from my wrists, put them on Bedford’s wrists, looked at me, grinned, looked at his watch, said to Bertha, “You’re deputized as a matron. Get some clothes on that prisoner and get her up to the station house. I’m in a hurry. I want to get a complete confession out of these people and I want to have it by nine-thirty.”

Bertha said, “Get some clothes out of the closet, dearie, and you’d better take those ornamental panties off. Where you’re going, nobody gives a damn about smart mottoes embroidered on fannies.”