“One of your people could have done it.”
“Sorry,” Albindi said. “The witnesses all confirm that the windows were up, and photographs taken that night before your wife’s body was moved show the heater on its highest setting. The medical examiner says it would be enough to push the time of death back at least a half hour, maybe more.”
The search party came downstairs. “No luck, Lieutenant,” one of them said.
“There’s a garage out back. Lots of boxes and cartons, so take your time.”
Albindi and Whittaker trailed along as Watson walked slowly through the house to halt at the back kitchen windows. Crisp sunlight filtered through lightly-leaved trees outside and was mirrored in the line of forsythia across the back where, despite the last few days of cold weather, more yellow buds had opened. The room was silent, then Watson pulled a letter from his pocket and crumpled it.
“It came today,” he said, tossing it into a wastebasket. “A letter from Creighton Prep saying they had a vacancy for Ellen.” He had heard the running footsteps across the yard outside.
A young detective stuck his head in the door. “We found it, Lieutenant! Up on one of the back rafters.”
Albindi turned to Watson. “Mr. Watson, I’m arresting you for the murder of your wife. You have the right to remain silent—”
Watson held up his hand to stop him and, for the first time, Albindi saw his shoulders slump.
“All these past months, my daughter — Ellen — she’s been so quick to understand and make excuses for every no-good, lazy malcontent in the country.” He looked at them despairingly. “I wonder if she’ll understand all this — or me?”
Albindi couldn’t answer.
Bad Actor
by Gary Brandner
A dose of one’s own medicine, however bad, may be better than nothing.
Young would-be actors filled the waiting room of the Bowmar Talent School. They paced the carpet or perched on the chairs, sizing up the competition. I walked through the crowd to the reception desk and gave the girl my phony name.
“I’m Alan Dickens. I’d like to enroll in an acting course.”
The girl smiled without really looking at me and answered in a voice like a recorded message. “Fill out an application and leave it in this basket. You will be called for an interview.”
I took a blank form from a stack on her desk and went over to a table where a couple of beach-boy types were struggling with their spelling. In this room full of eager kids I felt about a hundred years old.
I had felt much younger the day before when I rang the doorbell at Frank Legrand’s house in San Gabriel, where the suburban greenery was a refreshing change from my dull office.
Legrand himself answered the door. A narrow-shouldered man in his mid-forties, he wore a dark business suit and a worried expression.
“Thank you for coming out, Dukane,” he said. “I... I’ve never done business with a private detective before.”
“Not many people have,” I told him.
After inviting me in, he got on with the business. “As I told you on the phone, I want you to investigate this Bowmar Talent School.”
“You said your wife and daughter were involved,” I prompted.
“Yes. A month ago Tina, that’s my daughter, acted a small part in her high school play. A couple of nights later a man from this Bow-mar outfit came to the house and said he’d seen Tina’s performance, and wanted to enroll her at the talent school. I was against it, but Tina got all excited and Esther, my wife, said it couldn’t hurt to go down and talk to them. So the next day she and Tina drove into Hollywood, and both signed up for acting lessons. The cost seemed way out of line to me, and it sounded like those people had made some questionable promises about putting Esther and Tina into the movies.”
“If you think there’s fraud involved you ought to get the police in on it.” I lit a cigarette and looked around for an ash tray.
Legrand jumped up and said, “Here, let me get you something.” He left the room for a minute and came back with a china saucer. “You can use this. When Esther and I quit smoking she threw out all the ash trays in the house so we wouldn’t be tempted.”
I took the saucer from him and dropped my burnt match into it.
He said, “I don’t really have anything to go to the police with — just a feeling. Anyway, I don’t care about prosecuting these people. The important thing to me is my wife and daughter. I don’t want them to get their hopes built up and then be hurt.”
Legrand’s eyes strayed to a pair of silver-framed photographs on the mantel. One was a dark-haired woman with dramatic eyes. The other was a pretty teen-ager with a face unmarked by emotion or intelligence.
“What makes you suspect that the school isn’t on the level?” I asked, tapping ashes into the saucer.
After a moment Legrand said, “Dukane, I love my wife and daughter. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them. But I know them both very well, and believe me, they are not, and never will be actresses.”
I had accepted a retainer then and gone home to prepare for my entry into show business.
Now I waited in the lobby of the Bowmar Talent School while the receptionist worked her way down through the completed forms to mine. Then I almost blew the cue by not reacting when she called my new name. When the girl repeated it, I came to and hurried up to the desk.
“Miss Kirby will talk to you,” she said, indicating a tall female seemingly made of styrofoam and vinyl.
I followed Miss Kirby through a short hallway with several doors opening off of it, and into a small office with walls the color of cantaloupe. She sat down and I took a chair facing her.
“Well, Alan,” she said, scanning my application form, “so you want to become an actor, I see.”
“I hope so,” I said bashfully.
Miss Kirby leaned toward me, and the shadow of a frown marked her plastic features. “I hope you won’t take offense, but you are just a tiny bit, er, mature to be starting out on an acting career.”
My face stretched into what I hoped was a boyish grin. “I suppose I am starting a little late, but I just decided last month to have a fling at it. If it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to the bank.”
“Bank?” Miss Kirby’s interest picked up.
“My father owns a bank back home in Seattle. I’ll have to take it over eventually, but in the meantime I’d like to try what I’ve always wanted to do — acting. Unless you think it would be a waste of time.”
Her tiny frown erased itself. “You know, Alan, now that I look at you more closely, I think you’re just the type the studios are looking for these days. There are plenty of handsome juveniles around, but rugged leading men are hard to find. Yes, you’re definitely the Burt Lancaster-Kirk Douglas type.”
I lowered my eyes modestly.
“Come along now and we’ll get some pictures of you.”
“You want pictures of me?”
“Right. To send around to the studios and agencies. You want to get your face known in the business as soon as possible.”