“Which one’s most fun to read?” Otto asked, nodding to one of the desert’s thousand daytime waitresses who have a tough time making it during the short tourist season, and who all walk like their feet hurt.
“Morning,” she said, pouring Otto’s coffee. “Hot enough for you today?”
“Sure is,” Otto said.
“That’s half a the day’s conversation,” Sidney Blackpool said to Otto.
“Where we eating tonight?” Otto asked, thus completing the other half.
“You wanna play golf today or make our show for Watson?”
“I was thinking, Sidney, maybe we oughtta get the business over with in case he calls and wants a report.”
“I don’t think he’ll call,” Sidney Blackpool said. “He must know unconsciously that this is a fantasy. He’s just … just a screwed-up father who can’t deal with the loss of his son. Maybe lots a guys in his shoes if they had his money’d do strange things to try to find some …”
“justice.”
“I was gonna say peace. He told me he knows there’s no justice.”
“I feel sorry for the guy, Sidney. Let’s work on his case today. We got all week to play golf. Wanna drop by Palm Springs P.D.?”
“I was thinking about going by Watson’s house,” Sidney Blackpool said. “After all these months I don’t suppose Palm Springs P.D. knows anything we don’t already know. The houseboy’s supposed to be there.”
“How long’s he been with the family?”
“Only two years.”
“Let’s pin it on him.”
“Maybe we could get in nine holes this afternoon,” Sidney Blackpool said.
The Las Palmas residence of Victor Watson was a disappointment to both cops. They were expecting a Beverly Hills mansion rather than a sprawling one-story home without real style that couldn’t even be seen behind the jungle of oleander. In Beverly Hills the residents claimed they wanted privacy but made sure that the ogling masses could at least see upper windows and gabled roofs over the vine-covered walls and through the wrought iron.
Victor Watson’s home was 1950-ish, flat-roofed, spread around a large oval pool with a small grove of orange trees at the rear. The property was about an acre and a half in size. The drive-in gate was locked and they rang the buzzer but got no answer.
“The houseboy might be out to the store or something,” said Otto.
“Might be back in that grove,” Sidney Blackpool said, climbing up on the gate to take a peek.
“I got my new pants on, Sidney, and I’m too old to climb.”
“It’s only an electric gate. Just lean on it with the whole two-sixty.”
“Probably set off an alarm,” Otto said, leaning his weight onto the gate and pushing against the jointed arm, which creaked and gave. The gate clanged shut after they were both inside.
“Cost the ten grand he gave us just to repair our damage,” Otto said.
“Can’t waste too much time, Otto. We gotta play golf.”
Both men went to the driveway on the side of the house and Otto yelled, “Hellooooo!” but there was no sound from the grove except for desert birds chattering in the trees.
Sidney Blackpool peeked in the garage and saw the Watson Mercedes. Otto rang the front doorbell and could hear music inside.
“Let’s go around to the pool,” Otto said. “Maybe he was working on his tan and fell asleep.”
The pool was impressive because of its size. There was a separate spa, large enough to accommodate the kind of orgy Otto dreamed of joining this week.
“Whaddaya think, Sidney?” He winked toward the spa. “All this privacy. Bet they could throw some parties.”
“What the hell’s that?”
By a chaise lounge in the shade of the patio roof was a coffee cup spilled. Sidney Blackpool touched the coffee, which was cold. On the patio stones near the overturned cup was an unmistakable smear of blood. It looked very fresh.
“Let’s get in that house pronto,” he said.
It wasn’t difficult. The French doors leading to the patio were unlocked and the detectives entered carefully, looking at each other as they both realized they were ready for a golf vacation, not a homicide investigation. They were unarmed.
“Anybody home?” Otto yelled, half expecting an intruder wet with gore to come slashing out of a closet.
The home bore the touches of Mrs. Victor Watson. There was the same dizzy designer mix that Sidney Blackpool had seen in Watson’s outer office: Grecian urns, broken remnants of Roman antiquities in bas relief, pre-Columbian artifacts, eighteenth-century English landscapes, and three “conversation areas” that were overwhelmed by massive sofas, settees and loveseats, which were supposed to say, “We are desert casual in this house,” but which to Sidney Blackpool said, “I am without subtlety but do I ever have megabucks.”
The radio’s music was coming not from the main bedrooms down the hall by the entertainment area but from the other side of the house, just off the kitchen. Otto picked up a vase, hefted it like a club, shrugged at Sidney Blackpool and put it back down. Both detectives were a little tense as they crept past a huge kitchen containing commercial gas ranges and ovens, freezers and refrigerators, all in stainless steel, which would’ve satisfied the needs of any restaurant chef in Palm Springs. There was an old chopping block in the center of the kitchen, showing a patina of fifty years. On the chopping block was a fourteen-inch butcher knife, stained by blood.
Now Otto Stringer wished he’d kept the vase, and started looking for a real club. They crept a little more quietly toward the sound of the radio. It was turned to one of the Palm Springs stations, which, like the rest of this valley, refused to march with Time past the era of Dwight Eisenhower.
The song on the radio was “Wheel of Fortune” by Kay Starr. They could hear the sound of a shower running. Kay Starr finished her song and the programmed music segued into “Long As You Got Your Health,” by Ozzie Nelson.
Otto tried to break the rising tension by whispering, “I didn’t know he sang.”
“Who?”
“Ozzie Nelson. I thought he was just Ricky’s old man on television.”
Sidney Blackpool stuck out his foot and nudged the bedroom door open. The music and shower got louder. They tiptoed toward the bathroom and could see that the shower curtain was drawn but there was no one standing behind it. Then they saw the outline of a human figure crumpled in the bathtub.
Sidney Blackpool leaped forward and jerked the shower curtain back.
A hairless man screamed, “Yeeeee!” dropping his toenail clipper and leaping to his feet. He was jockey size. His reflexes didn’t make him throw up his hands in defense. His hands flew over his genitals. He stood with his hip toward the detectives, his knee raised, covering his crotch. “Who are you?” he cried.
“Sergeant Blackpool and Detective Stringer,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We were told you’d be expecting us. There was blood on the patio. And a butcher knife. We thought …”
“Oh, God!” the little man cried, wrapping himself with the shower curtain.
“We’ll let you get dressed,” Sidney Blackpool said, and both detectives retreated to the living room.
“Poor little guy,” Otto said. “Coulda swallowed his tongue.”
“Make him a little more security conscious,” said Sidney Blackpool, wondering if the well-stocked bar in the living room contained Johnnie Walker Black. Then he looked at his watch and saw that it wasn’t 10:00 A.M., and thought that the Johnnie Walker impulse was very bad, vacation or not.