He jostled for a place at the counter and ordered coffee and a Danish pastry. While he ate he eavesdropped on the conversation of the two middle-aged women beside him who were embarking on a trip to Dallas.
“I’ve got this feeling I forgot something. I just know...”
“The gas. Did you remember to turn off the gas?”
“I’m sure I did. I think I did. Oh, dear!”
“You brought the dramamine, I hope.”
“Here it is. Not that it will do any good. I feel sick already.”
“Imagine the nerve of them making me weigh my purse along with my luggage just because it’s a little oversize.”
“Even if I didn’t turn off the gas the house wouldn’t blow up, would it?”
“Take the dramamine. It will quiet your nerves.”
When they left, Dodd silently wished them bon voyage and put his topcoat over one of the vacant stools to save it for Smitty.
He was on his second cup of coffee when Smitty came in. “Done?”
“Done,” Smitty said. “Saturday, September thirteen. Pilot Robert Forbes, lives in San Carlos but now in flight. Co-pilot James Billings, Sausalito, now off duty. Radio operator Joe Mazzino, Daly City, now on sick leave. Three stewardesses. Two of them, Ann Mackay and Maria Fernandez, are now in flight. The third, Betty deWitt, turned out to be married and was fired last week. Her husband’s Bert Reiner, a jet pilot attached to Moffett Field and they live in Mountain View down the peninsula. Mrs. Reiner’s your girl, if you can get to her.”
“How come?”
“She was the only one of the crew on both flights, the thirteenth and fourteenth, taking the place of another girl who was ill. The trouble is, Betty might not want to cooperate. She was sore as hell when they found out she was married and gave her the sack.”
“I’ll try my luck anyway. Thanks, Smitty. You’re a model of efficiency.”
“Don’t applaud,” Smitty said. “Just pay.”
Dodd gave him ten dollars.
“Jesus, you’re a cheapskate, Dodd.”
“It took you fifteen minutes to get the information. That’s forty bucks an hour. Where else could you make forty bucks an hour? See you later, Smitty.”
He took the Bayshore Freeway back to town. When he reached his office his secretary, Lorraine, was on the phone and he knew from the sour expression on her face that she didn’t like the assignment he’d given her.
“I see... Yes, Mr. Kellogg must have given me the name of the wrong kennels. Sorry to have bothered you.”
She hung up, crossed out another number on the scratch pad, and immediately began dialing again.
Dodd reached over and broke the connection. “Aren’t we speaking to each other this morning?”
“I have to save my voice for all these lies I’m telling.”
“Any luck so far?”
“No. And I can feel an attack of laryngitis coming on.”
“Until it arrives, keep phoning.” Dodd knew better than to sympathize with Lorraine’s ailments, which were numerous and varied enough to fill a medical textbook. “Any mail?”
“The letter came you were waiting for from Mr. Fowler in Mexico City. Special delivery. I left it on your desk.”
Lorraine took a cough drop, parked it expertly inside her left cheek and began dialing again. “I am calling about Mr. Kellogg’s Scottie...”
Dodd opened his letter. It was typewritten in the uneven hunt-and-peck style Fowler had used when he was a sergeant on the Los Angeles police force, and bore no date, return address or salutation.
Good to hear your voice again, you old sinner. But what’s all the hurry and excitement about anyway? Everything at this end seems on the up and up.
Mrs. Kellogg was released from the A.B.C. Hospital on September twelve. I talked to the interne working on the ward she’d been in. He was reluctant, twenty-five bucks worth reluctant, but he admitted that the authorities weren’t anxious to have Mrs. Kellogg leave so soon and gave their permission only when Kellogg offered to hire a nurse to accompany his wife on the trip home. According to the interne, there was considerable disagreement among the doctors about the severity of Mrs. Kellogg’s concussion. Concussions can’t be measured exactly even by an electro-encephalogram test, which Mrs. Kellogg refused to submit to when she learned it involved needles inserted in the scalp. Personally, I can’t see where Mrs. Kellogg’s fear of needles fits into anything, but you wanted me to give you every single detail, so hang on. The interne’s diploma is still wet, so naturally he knew all about concussions. He read it to me out of a book: the severity of a concussion can be judged by the degree of retrograde and anterograde amnesia involved. Ain’t it the truth?
On the day of Mrs. Kellogg’s release she and her husband returned to the Windsor Hotel. From there he put in a call to a Mr. Johnson at the American Embassy. Telephoning in this country is an art, not a science, and the switchboard operators have the temperament of opera stars. The wrong words, the wrong tone, and the telefonista gets her wires crossed. Apparently, Kellogg used the wrong tone. There was a lot of trouble about the call, which is how I happened to find out about it from the telefonista herself. I went over to the Embassy and talked to Johnson. It turned out that he was the man who’d broken the news of the affair to Kellogg and offered his services when Kellogg came down here.
Kellogg’s request was simple enough. He wanted the name of a reputable lawyer who specialized in civil matters. Johnson sent him to Ramon Jiminez. Jiminez is a substantial citizen, active in politics, as well as a smart lawyer. He refused to give me any information. But when I told him I already had the information and merely wanted a confirmation or denial, he admitted that he had executed a power of attorney giving Kellogg control of his wife’s affairs, financial and otherwise. Everything was legal and aboveboard. At the mere mention of the word coercion, he blew his stack (in a nice, quiet way, of course) and asked me to leave his office. My own feeling is that there can’t have been any coercion involved or Jiminez wouldn’t have touched the thing with a ten-foot pole. Why should he risk his reputation for the peanuts Kellogg could afford to pay? (I’m assuming that your statement about Kellogg’s finances is accurate.)
Now, about the other matters you wanted me to check. No official hearing, like our American coroner’s inquest, was held concerning Mrs. Wyatt’s death, but some dozen eyewitnesses gave depositions to the police. The ground witnesses, i.e., those passing on the avenida, must be discounted, their stories were so contradictory. A combination of excitement, darkness, superstition and religious awe doesn’t make for accurate observation. Mrs. Kellogg’s account of the tragedy agreed substantially with that of the chambermaid, Consuela Gonzales, who for reasons known only to herself was spending the night in a nearby broom closet and heard Mrs. Kellogg screaming. She rushed into the room. Mrs. Wyatt had already flung herself over the balcony and Mrs. Kellogg was lying on the floor in a dead faint. I tried to contact Miss Gonzales at the hotel but she was fired for stealing from the guests and being insolent to the manager. The bartender, while not a witness to the death of Mrs. Wyatt, testified that she was very drunk and in a belligerent mood. If you’re looking for sour notes, you have one right there: belligerent drunks pick fights with other people, not themselves. But this is pretty slim — belligerence can turn to depression at the drop of another martini, or, as in this case, tequila. In any case, the police here — and they’re not as carefree and inefficient as you’ve probably been led to believe — are thoroughly satisfied that Mrs. Wyatt’s death was a suicide. They released her body and her effects to her sister in San Diego, Mrs. Earl Sullivan.