“Pickle me for a beet!” Bertha said under her breath as I opened the door.
Chapter 5
It was late afternoon when I pulled in to Susanville. I located myself in a motel and registered under my true name, giving the address of the agency.
I looked up the Susanville Undertaking Parlors.
“You have a body here — Nickerson?” I asked.
The man at the desk sized me up carefully, then made a show of looking through some records and a card index.
“That’s right.”
“Can you give me his first name?”
“Drude,” he said. “D-r-u-d-e.”
“Know anything about the man’s background or anything?”
“It was a coroner’s case,” he said. “Injuries on the highway.”
“When’s the funeral?” I asked.
“Private.”
“I know it’s private, but when?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet.”
“Could I see the body?”
“It’s a closed casket case. Who are you?”
“The name,” I said, “is Lam, Donald Lam, from Los Angeles.”
“A relative?”
“No, I’m interested.”
“What’s your interest?”
“Just checking. Nickerson lived in Citrus Grove. How come they aren’t having the funeral there?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“The coroner handled the case?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll get in touch with the coroner.”
“Do that.”
“How about this man’s clothes?” I asked. “I take it he had identification. Could I take a look at his driver’s license?”
“I’d have to get permission.”
“How long would it take?”
“Not long.”
The man picked up a telephone, dialed a number, said, “There’s a Donald Lam here from Los Angeles inquiring about Drude Nickerson, wants to take a look at the man’s driving license and stuff that was in the clothes, wants to be sure of the identification, making inquiries. What’ll I do?”
The man listened for a moment, then said, “Okay.”
He hung up the phone, and said, “A representative of the coroner is coming right over. He’ll show you what you want to see if you can give him a reason.”
“I’ll give him a reason,” I said.
I waited for about two and a half minutes. I tried to get the man at the desk in conversation, but he’d quit talking. He made a great show of doing some paper work.
The door opened and three men walked in. They had LAW stamped all over them.
The man at the desk motioned toward me with his thumb.
The three men moved in on me.
“Okay,” one of them said, flashing a badge. “I’m the sheriff here. What’s your interest in the Nickerson case?”
“I’m making an investigation.”
“Why?”
“I’m a detective.”
“The hell you are.”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s take a look.”
I showed him my credentials.
The sheriff looked at the taller of the two men, said, “All right, Lam, this is the second pass you’ve made on this case. This gentleman here is the sheriff of Orange County.”
“How are you?” I said. “Glad to know you.”
The Orange County sheriff nodded curtly, made no move to put out his hand. “What were you doing checking newspapers in Citrus Grove yesterday, asking about the Endicott case?”
“I was looking up the facts.”
“All right,” the local sheriff said. “I think you’d better come with us.”
They moved in, one on each side, and escorted me out to an automobile.
They took me direct to a private residence. I assumed it was that of the local sheriff.
The sheriff from Orange County took charge. He was rather a nice individual, but he was determined and he was mad.
“You can’t pull a run-around like that with the law,” he said. “You’re a licensed member of a detective agency. This is murder.”
“Sure, it’s murder,” I said.
“Now, you went down to the newspaper in Citrus Grove and started messing around looking up dope on the Endicott murder, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, because we have the information that—”
I said, “If you get your information straight, you’ll find that I was looking up Endicott’s marriage.”
The men exchanged glances.
“Get the newspaper on the phone,” I told them. “I’ll pay for the call. You’ll find out that I didn’t show the faintest interest in the murder at that time. I was looking up the marriage.”
The sheriff waved the matter to one side. “All right. No need to put through the telephone call. We’ll take your word for it. You were looking up the marriage. Why were you looking up the marriage?”
“Because I already had everything on the murder.”
“You admit that?”
“Sure, I admit it.”
“You’d been looking up the murder?”
“Of course, I’d been looking up the murder.”
“Well, now that’s a lot better. That’s just a hell of a lot better. Now why were you looking up the murder? What’s it to you? What do you know about the case?”
“I know everything that the police have given the newspapers about the case,” I said. “The death of this fellow Nickerson gives it a swell angle. I’m looking up a whole series of unsolved murder cases in the Southwest. I’m going to write a regional book. I don’t know whether to call it ‘Southern California Murders,’ or what to call it.”
“Don’t expect us to fall for a line like that,” the sheriff said.
“Why not? There’s money in that stuff. You can sell it to some of the magazines that specialize in true crime stories, and then you can bring it out in book form.
“In case you folks are interested, I put in a lot of time yesterday and a lot of time today investigating the William Desmond Taylor murder. Now there’s a story!”
“Yeah, it’s been written up about seventeen thousand times,” the Orange County sheriff said.
“Not the way I’m going to write it.”
“What’s the way you’re going to write it?”
“I’m not going to blab that around and have some other writer beat me to it.”
“What writing have you ever done?”
“None.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” the local sheriff said.
“A man has to begin sometime.”
The Orange County sheriff took over. “Yeah, you start in spending a lot of money for traveling expenses. You want to begin at the top,” he said sarcastically.
“Well,” I said, “you began at the top.”
“What do you mean by that crack?”
“You had quite a story about the Endicott murder in one of the true crime magazines. Had you ever done any writing before?”
“I didn’t write it,” he said. “That was ghosted. They used my name.”
“Well,” I told him, “I think I’ve got a talent for writing, and, because of my position as a private detective, I think I can get the inside track on some of these stories and get some red-hot stuff.”
I grabbed up my brief case and said, “Here, take a look. I have no objection to showing you the notes I have on the William Desmond Taylor case. I’m not going to tell you my angle of approach on that case, how I’m going to treat it, but you can take a look at the notes.”
They took a good, long look at the notes. They went through every notebook in the brief case. They exchanged glances. They were puzzled and angry.
“Why did you come to Susanville?” the deputy asked me.
“To check on Nickerson.”
“Why?”
“Because if Nickerson is dead, you’re never going to find the murderer in that Endicott case.”