Columbo: The Hoffa Connection Page 10

“Whatta ya mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. The old man gave me the impression he wasn’t anybody to mess with. Anyway… Regina was the center of a vortex, and before long she sucked me into it.” Mickey grinned and shook his head. “I should have put that in other terms. The point was, I didn’t want to know anything negative about her.

  Lieutenant… I was in love with her.”

  “Seems like a lot of people were,” said Columbo. “Mostly people who didn’t know her.”

  “Lieutenant… We don’t need to go into details. It’s been six months since the last time. But she was… something extraordinary. At first I was naive enough to suppose she couldn’t have done what she did if she didn’t love me.”

  “You knew her about six years?”

  “A little less than that. It wasn’t always a pleasant relationship. You’ll find out when you go over the books of Regina, Incorporated—if you haven’t already—that she reduced my compensation three times. She didn’t need me as much anymore. Or so she thought.”

  “She humiliated people,” Columbo suggested. Mickey nodded. “She did that. She was like a vampire. She sucked people dry and cast them aside. I think she would have cast me aside sooner or later.”

  Dog rolled over on his back, thrust all four feet in the air, and yawned.

  “He’s got no manners at all.” Columbo shook his head. “Never could teach him anything. I guess he learned everything he figured he needed to know before I got him.”

  “He’s alright,” said Mickey wanly. “I wish I had a dog like him.”

  Columbo tipped his glass and swallowed the last of his beer. “Well, I won’t need to bother you any longer. Thanks for the beer. Ya play pool?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “I know where you can get the best chili in Los Angeles, have a beer or two, and play pool. Over the lunch hour.”

  “Chili, I’m afraid, is an American taste,” said Mickey. “And I used to try my hand at snooker back in London, but I was never really very good at it.”

  “Sn— Oh. You English fellows call it ‘snuke-er.’ We call it snooker. Never played it. Big tables with rounded comers on the pockets, right?”

  “It’s the English pool-type game,” said Mickey. “Our people love it. You know, pool and billiards go back a long way with us. At Knoll House, down in Kent, there’s a pool table King Charles II is said to have played on. With square cues that had flat handles.”

  “Imagine that!” Columbo stood. “Well, sir. I’ll take Dog home.” He stepped to the window and looked down for a moment at the highway and the beach. “Y’ got a nice view here.”

  “I’ve lived better places,” said Mickey.

  “Right. Well… thank ya again.”

  Mickey Newcastle opened the door.

  “Oh, say. There’s one little thing that bothers me. Maybe you can clear it up, so I’ll sleep comfortable all night and won’t have to think about it.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Well, ya see, on Friday morning you said you got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and you heard a scream. You went to the window, you said, and you pulled back the drapes. Right?”

  “Yes…”

  “And you saw a light-haired man in a red jacket. He broke out running and ran into the diving board and fell down. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m curious how you did that, because from the window in the room you had that night, you couldn’t have seen the diving board. There’s a real healthy palm tree there in the corner between the wing and the main house, and the palm fronds block the view of the diving board. They block the view of all that end of the pool.”

  “Oh…” said Mickey. “I can explain that without any problem. I said I looked out the window. I did. But when I saw the man, I opened the sliding glass door and went out on the balcony. That’s how I saw the man bang into the diving board.”

  Columbo nodded. “I’m glad I asked, and I’m glad you explained it,” he said. “Little things like that, little details, bug me. That’s the way I figure out cases, y’see: by noticing little discrepancies and— It’s not the way real clever detectives solve cases, but it’s the way I have to do, since I’m not as smart as some of them.”

  “That’s how it was. Lieutenant. I went out on the balcony.”

  “But you didn’t see Regina in the pool?”

  “No. Maybe that’s because I was staring at the man. Maybe it was because she’d sunk and was under a reflection on the water. I don’t know. I saw him, but I didn’t see her.”

  Columbo nodded. “Good. I won’t have to worry about that.”

  Nine

  1

  Johnny Corleone drove skillfully. That didn’t make much difference in Los Angeles, where the traffic cops had no appreciation of fine cars and fine drivers. Only on rare occasions did he have the opportunity to demonstrate what he could do with his Ferrari; and this Monday morning, returning from the medical examiner’s office, did not offer one of those opportunities. Mickey was just as happy. Johnny could be scary when he decided to put the car through its paces.

  Mickey Newcastle had never owned a Ferrari, but he had owned two Jaguars and an Austin-Healey, and he knew what fine cars were. Sitting in the beautiful red machine, his thoughts turned to what might have been if he had not become hpoked on substances. He could still be driving a car like this, except for what he had smoked and sniffed and shot up.

  Drugs hadn’t ruined him as a performer. He could go out on the stage right now and do what he had done in the seventies. What he’d said to Lieutenant Columbo was right: he’d simply gone out of style. And he’d smoked, shot, and sniffed everything he’d made and saved. Oh, it had been glorious! He had wedded himself to all the delightful things chemistry could do. And he had to meet his bride’s demands. Right now, he was beginning to feel the pangs of need.

  “We’ve got a problem, Mick,” said Johnny. “We might as well face up to it.”

  “I can think of more than one problem,” said Mickey unhappily, “starting with the fact that I’ve got to have some money to cop. I’ll be shaking before the day is over.”

  “Where you need to go, Pershing Square?”

  “Around there.”

  Johnny pulled out his billfold and handed Mickey two fifty-dollar bills. “That handle you for a day or so?” Mickey nodded. “For a day or so.”

  “Now let’s talk about something more important. Excuse me, I guess nothing is more important than copping some speedball when you need speedball. But listen to me. Somebody saw us Thursday night. There’s a witness.”

  “Jesus Christ'.”

  “Well… This is Monday, and that was Thursday. Our witness has kept clammed so far.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But let’s do some figuring. I looked up and saw the old man in his window. Okay. But somebody else was standing at the sliding door in the cross hall. I only got a glimpse. Whoever saw me look up ducked back into the dark.”

  "Who?”

  “Think about it. Who’d it have to be?”

  “Who the hell did it have to be?”

  “It had to be Bob or Christie. Why would the Gwynnes be in the hall? They could look down from the sliders in their room. If Bob or Christie heard the screaming, that was where they’d have to come to look: from the door between the hall and the balcony. There was nobody else in the house. It had to be one of them.”

  “Why haven’t they said anything?”

  “Could be one of two reasons.” Johnny turned the car onto Broadway. “If it was Christie, she didn’t have her lenses in—which is what she told Columbo—and couldn’t see enough at that distance to identify anybody. So why didn’t she tell Columbo she went to the window and looked but couldn’t see anything? At least she could have said that much. That wouldn’t have hurt her, would it?”

  “Good question,” Mickey said. “That she hasn’t said anything probably means she wasn’t the
one.”

  “That leaves Bob. He knew I was never just a house-boy, and I’d guess he’s not talking because he’s afraid to be the guy that fingers Johnny Corleone. Or maybe he figures he’s got us between a rock and a hard place and can hit us up for something. He’s got nothing to gain by squealing to Columbo, but maybe he figures he’s got something to gain by showing me he’s a good guy who wants to be on the right side of things.”

  “Besides,” said Mickey, “maybe he didn’t give a damn that Regina was dead. She’d given him a hard enough time.”

  “I figure we’ll hear from brother Bob pretty soon.”

  “Next subject,” said Mickey. “We just gave blood. To match bloodstains on her robe. There weren’t any bloodstains on her robe!”

  “Right. But the guy who refuses to give that blood is in deep you-know-what. I don’t understand this Columbo character. He acts dumb. But he isn’t, is he?”

  Mickey shook his head. “I should be so stupid.”

  “Anyway, we got an eyewitness. One of the two, or maybe both. What are we gonna do about it?”

  “Are you telling me we have to get rid of the two of them?” Mickey asked ominously.

  “Gimme an option,” Johnny said. “But don’t worry about us getting rid of them. If anything along those lines has to be done, somebody will do it for us.”

  “My God, Johnny! Who are we mixed up with?”

  “Don’t ask. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Isn’t that an old saying: ‘What you don’t know—’?”

  “Don’t believe it,” Mickey said bitterly.

  2

  Bob Douglas and Christie Monroe lived in a small, palm-shaded stucco house in Van Nuys. Columbo arrived there at mid-morning on Monday.

  “I’ve been expecting you, Lieutenant,” she said as she greeted him at the door. “You understand Bob isn’t here.”

  “That’s what ya told me on the phone, ma’am. I can talk to him some other time.”

  “Well, come in. I’m sitting out by the pool. Would you mind if we talked there? Can I offer you coffee? It’s ready.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  She stepped into the kitchen to pick up a thermos carafe and a mug, then led Columbo out into a walled-in garden with swimming pool. After she had poured coffee for them both, she slipped out of a short flowered silk wrapper and tossed it aside. She was wearing a tiny white bikini, and as she stretched out on a towel on a wheeled wooden chaise longue, she put on a pair of dark sunglasses.

  “Bob will be here late this afternoon,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure where he is, or I’d call him.”

  “Don’t bother yourself about it, ma’am.”

  “He’s out trying to scare up a new contract. He’s very good at what he does, but there aren’t very many shows that can use his special talent.”

  “Somebody called him a genius.”

  “He is, but there’s not much demand for geniuses.”

  “And what about yourself?” Columbo asked.

  “I have to find a new job. I’m not a genius. There’s more demand for me.”

  Columbo nodded. “Right. That’s the way it is with me. I’m sure no genius. I just plod along, doing what I do the best I can, and some way there’s always been a job for me.”

  Christie smiled at him. “Have a pencil today, Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” Columbo grinned and pulled a long yellow pencil from his inside jacket pocket. “This time I actually do.”

  “Then, uh… do you have a pencil ?” she asked,laughing.

  “Aww. Mrs. Columbo must have sharpened it too sharp.” He frowned over the broken point. “Well, sometimes it doesn’t pay to get up in the morning.”

  “Anyway, how’s the investigation going? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Right now, ma’am, I’m focusing on two things. The first thing is, I gotta have a motive. Y’ see, I can’t figure out why somebody’d want to kill her. It could be that somebody came onto the property and did it. More likely somebody in the house did it, and—”

  “That makes me one of the prime suspects,” said Christie. She pulled off her sunglasses. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Well… not necessarily.”

  “If you haven’t found out yet, my name is not Christie Monroe. I am Christina Oleson, from Swift Falls, Minnesota. Not quite Lake Woebegon, but something like. I took the name ‘Monroe,’ thinking it would suggest Marilyn Monroe. Of course— Actually, I have a better figure than she did.”

  Columbo smiled. “I’ll testify to that, ma’am.”

  “Oh, don’t call me ‘ma’am,’ dammit! You’re not a movie cowboy, and I’m not a schoolmarm. Use my name, Lieutenant.”

  “My friends just call me Columbo… Christie.”

  “Columbo.”

  “Anyway. Motive. The way it looks to me, everybody in the house that night had a lot to lose by Regina’s death. You had a good job—I suppose it was a good job. I’ve heard you fought to save it when she threatened to fire you. Mr. Douglas had a good contract with her. The Gwynnes say they’ll lose a fortune from her death.”

  “Don’t be naive about that, Columbo.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “Regina is worth more to the Gwynnes dead than she was alive. Stores are selling out of her discs. Joshua Records is going to be hard put to keep up with the demand. And the demand will continue. Think of the greaseball junkie. God, if only somebody’d had the gumption to murder him!”

  “Grease… Who?”

  “Ell… viss. Elvis Presley. If he’d lived, he’d have alienated his fans. So would Regina, sooner or later. Death is the best thing that ever happened to her, business-wise.”

  Columbo ran his hand through his hair, tipped his head, and frowned. “Not personal-wise,” he said.

  “Not personal-wise, no. She wasn’t a nice person, but she didn’t deserve to be murdered. I suppose somebody has told you what she did to me. I detested her. But I couldn’t have killed her. I mean, emotionally I couldn’t have. Physically— No. She was strong, Columbo! A weak person—a person without good muscle tone— couldn’t have performed the way she did.”

  “Mr. Douglas—”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard what she did to Bob. You’ve heard enough to know. He was fool enough to think that meant she loved him. Kill her? If he wanted to kill her, why’d he wait until last Thursday night? Why didn’t he do it when she dropped him? That was when it hurt.

  Now… Now he has me, and I can do anything for him she could do—and better, because he knows I love him.”

  “Johnny Corleone?”

  Christie shrugged. “There’s a good question. Who knows who he is? What he is?”

  “Mr. Newcastle?”

  “Has anyone told you that Regina caught him stealing money from her?”

  By now Columbo’s coffee was cool enough to drink, and he spoke into his mug as he said, “Tell me about that.”

  “I hope you get confirmation from somebody else, but the fact is, Regina caught Mickey stealing money from her bedroom. I don’t have to tell you, he has an expensive habit. She shared stuff with him, too: grass, coke, and so on— but never heroin and never speedball. She never shot anything. How do I know? She told me. Regina would never shove a needle in her veins. She liked her body too well for that.”

  Christie used her right index finger to snap away a gnat that had landed in her navel.

  “She destroyed Mickey’s self-esteem, Columbo,” she went on. “You know, she was what they call a ‘ball buster.’ She did for Mickey what she did for Bob. Hell, they ought to form a fraternity and have secret handshakes and rings and all that: all the guys she did her special thing for. But she made Mickey Newcastle know, over the years, that she needed him less and less, that he was a has-been and, much worse than that, a junkie. That’s the worst thing in the world to have to face, Columbo: that you were something good and now you’re not, not anymore. Anyway—”

  “The money, C
hristie. He stole money from her?” Columbo prompted.

  “Regina didn’t like credit cards. She didn’t like the paper trail they left. She carried a lot of cash. I’ve been with her when she paid a dinner check for eight or ten people, and she’d pull hundred-dollar bills from her billfold; and you could see there were still plenty of them in there. I was told she kept money in the house—tens of thousands.”

  “Now—”

  “I didn’t see Mickey steal from her, Columbo. I can’t testify that he did. I can only tell you what I heard her say.”

  Columbo nodded. He reached in his pocket and pulled out half a cigar. “Do ya mind?” he asked. “It bein’ outdoors—”

  “Be my guest,” she said dryly, clearly telling him she wished he wouldn’t but wouldn’t ask him not to.

  He did not light the cigar. He fumbled in his pockets for a match, didn’t find one, and put the cigar back in his pocket rather than ask her to go in the house and bring him a light.

  “She loved to raise hell,” said Christie. “I don’t know. I think she got a sadistic pleasure out of it. One night in her dressing room, about four months ago, she was giving me hell. She hated the way I danced because she knew I could dance much better than she could. So she was in an angry mood. Mickey came in. He always liked me and always defended me against her rages. That night she turned on him and shrieked at him that he was a thief. I don’t remember the exact words, but she told him to stay out of her bedroom. I supposed she meant, you know, sexually. But that wasn’t it. ‘What’d you grab this time?’ she yelled. ‘Fifteen hundred? I’m taking it out of your check, you thieving hophead bastard.’ ”

  “She had a safe in her bedroom,” Columbo said.

  Christie nodded. “She had it put in right after this episode. She turned on me and yelled, ‘You ever speak a word of this, I’ll—’ She left it there, but I knew what she meant.”

  Columbo put his coffee mug aside on a glass-topped table. “I’d appreciate it if you and Mr. Douglas would give us blood samples,” he said. “You can stop by and let the medical examiner take them, or you can have them taken by your own doctor.”