One Deadly Dawn Read online

  One Deadly Dawn

  by

  HARRY WHITTINGTON

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  THE PARTY broke up about 1:00 A.M. Some studio people had dropped in to talk shop, the thing had ignited, and here I was closing the door on the last couple … unknown faces who kept telling me what a wonderful time they’d had, Mr. Fisher. And when they were gone I was sorry.

  I checked my watch, thinking a lot of things — the martini some doll had spilled on my Stevenson first edition, Lorna walking in crying and going out crying, the second shake-up in the office this week, this acute sense of needing Betty, the way things had been with us once, and when was I going to get over it?

  A glance in the wall mirror should have been enough to remind me I wasn’t the type for this unrequited lover role. Pagliacci was for the Met.

  I scrubbed at my stubbled jaw, seeing myself through bourbon-tinted corneas. I was six-feet tall, thirty-one, face not so bad, too thin, needing a shave, good profile, gray eyes — but it just didn’t add up to anything. Probably it was my forehead — give a guy an intelligent looking forehead and he’s dead.

  I pushed my fingers through the skinny strands of lifeless hair, faintly angered at nobody but me. Spend your life among Hollywood leading men and soon you’re saddled with a beauty complex no matter how intelligent you once were.

  I waded through the debris, taming off lights. A chair was overturned, somebody had left his tie hanging on a floor lamp, one plastic slipper sat upright on a bookcase, and a book end was smashed and matted with hair; I knew this was silly because nobody had even raised his voice in anger all evening.

  The last thing I saw in there were the photos of the starlets … Thanks, Sam … Sweet Sam … Always my Sam … Nowhere without you, Sam … and then I walked into my bedroom to sleep alone.

  I ignored the farm-country folders on the bed table. The hungrier I got for a place like that, the more I turned my back on it. If I wanted it so badly, why didn’t I just go? That was a good question.

  The light glittering on the slick folder covers hurt my eyes, and I snapped it off savagely. I undressed in the dark and fell across my bed, asleep before I could wriggle my toes under the sheet.

  I dreamed about fire bells and street-comer Santas and electric-eye buzzers. Then I was in my office and the telephone was ringing but I wasn’t going to answer it because old Yol Myerene was calling personally to tie the can on me, and if I didn’t answer the phone he couldn’t do it; that didn’t make much sense because I’d been begging the old man for months to release me. But the phone went on ringing and finally I had to admit it was my phone and I had to wake up.

  I recognized his voice; as his press agents said, once you heard it, how could you ever forget it? But it had been a long time since his press agents said this, a long time since he’d had a press agent and I was clabbered because my watch showed 3:00 A.M.

  “Sam,” he said. “I thought I’d never wake you up.”

  “You think you have?”

  “Sam, this is Jack … Jack Roland.”

  “That so?”

  “Sam, I’m in San Carlos De Rafael. I’m in jail.”

  “So? What else is new?”

  “Sam. For God’s sake, I’m not joking.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Sam, there was nobody else I could call. You got to help me. If there was another soul I could have called, I’d never have bothered you.”

  The burning fuse started a chain reaction behind my eyeballs. “You don’t really think your being my ex-wife’s husband gives you any ties on me? You’re not really that stupid.”

  “It’s partly because of Betty I called you.”

  I looked at the farm folders, the autographed starlets on the wall. Nowhere without you, Sam. My hand tightened on the receiver. “What about Betty?”

  The line hummed. “She doesn’t know anything about this yet. It’s terrible trouble, Sam. The worst.”

  Sure, call old Sam Howell. When trouble gets bad, call good old Sam. I pushed my hand through my thinning hair, wondering if other people’s troubles could be contributing to its loss.

  “And you want me to hush it up so she never finds out?”

  I heard him exhale heavily. “We can’t keep Betty from knowing, Sam. They say I killed a man. If you don’t help me, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  I didn’t speak.

  I was awake now, aware of the smog sifting in through the open window, of chill-bumps across my shoulders. In my life I was prepared to hear everything; sometimes I felt I had already heard everything, at least twice. Maybe I had daydreamed a few horrible fates for Jack Roland in Cinemascope and technicolor, but for a lot of reasons this one had never occurred to me, and now when I heard it, it sounded incredible.

  His begging for help, though, was right in character.

  Sam.

  “All right.”

  “I thought the connection was broken. Sam, I didn’t do it. No matter what else you got against me, Sam, I never lied to you.”

  “Was it a woman?”

  His voice caught. “No. Some guy named Pawley. Fred Pawley.”

  Some guy named Pawley. All those years in the movies, stinking up screens from Pawtucket to Palo Verde with his overacting, and now he threw away lines.

  “The publisher?”

  “If you want to call him that. He owns that scandal sheet, Tattle.”

  I stared at a starlet photographed in what she considered appropriate for hanging in my bedroom. It was unbelievable.

  I shook my head. Nobody would believe that tonight we had spent an hour cutting up Pawley and the flood of so-called exposé magazines that was overflowing on every newsstand. We had sat around, snug and not important enough to be touched, discussing the suits filed against them by movie stars and society people, agreeing that a good reputation is the most important asset of actors, actresses, producers, directors. I had seen loss of reputation kill off many a star. He could quite logically value his reputation as highly as his life.

  We had discussed all this, but it had no relation to Jack Roland and his recent years. Nobody had mentioned Jack Roland all evening.

  But Pawley was someone who gave conversation a lot of mileage. We could talk about him as long as the gin lasted. His magazine’s subhead bragged, We Tell What The Others Never Dared Tell. Sure, we said, sooner or later somebody was going to shoot Fred Pawley unless he wore his money belt like a bulletproof vest. But nobody would have thought Jack Roland would ever be accused of killing him.

  “How did it happen?” I said, still not believing it.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He’s dead…. Sam, I can’t talk. Not on the phone. Get down here, Sam. You’re my only hope.”

  I replaced the receiver, thinking about that. I was his only hope, the only one he could call. If I were all that stood between him and the gas chamber, somebody up there didn’t love him, either.

  I sat down on the side of the bed. Millions of people had paid millions of dollars to see him, and I was the only one he could think of who might lift a finger to help him.

  I looked at the
bed, thinking there wasn’t anything I needed more than ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. The sheets still looked clean and fresh. The smog was sifting through the window, pushing aside the curtains, bringing in the chill right off the ocean. I was the only one he could call? Not only was that ironic, it was probably true.

  My mouth stretched wide in a yawn, so wide my muscles still ached after I closed my mouth, and I let myself think about Jack Roland in the gas chamber. I couldn’t buy that, either.

  • • •

  The business section of San Rafael was one block long, running between the Santa Fe Railroad and the dry bed of the San Rafael River. It was black dark at 5:00 A.M. when I drove into town across the narrow bridge. Not even one car was parked on the length of the red-brick street and there was no sign of life.

  I felt that old compulsive ache looking at the village. This was the sort of place I wanted; a house and twenty acres out about ten miles from a small town like this. There was only one thing wrong with San Rafael — it was too near Los Angeles.

  I drove slowly, looking at the dimly lighted buildings, pretending this was the little town I wanted and that I belonged here. Eucalyptus trees lined the street between sidewalk and parking meters. I passed the San Rafael Hotel, the Rexall Drug Store, the Acme Radio & T.V. Sales and Service Shop, a red-front supermarket, a hardware store, some dress shops, a garage and then the tan and brown Santa Fe station.

  I parked, wandered around the place until I found a man sleeping between some milk cans.

  “Where’s the jail?” I said.

  “I ain’t done nothing.”

  “I’m looking for it.”

  “What you done?” He sat up.

  “A friend of mine murdered some guy.”

  “Oh.” He was standing by then and his eyes bugged. He pointed back along the street. “You turn left up at the Rexall Drug Store. You can’t miss it. You’ll see a light out front.”

  I drove back along Main Street. It was so quiet I heard a rooster crowing in somebody’s back yard. I knew better; this town had been discovered. All along the coast the smart sets discovered these little villages and moved in with then-station wagons, Cads, servants and swimming pools. They yakked about the treasure of a hideaway they’d found, and the village boomed, then the smart ones found it crowded and went looking again.

  I turned left at the Rexall Drug Store and at the end of the block I saw the jail. Seven or eight cars were parked out front, and the whole building was brightly lighted.

  A half-dozen men were talking in the outer office. They stopped talking and stared at me. The shock and suppressed excitement showed in their faces; murder had blasted San Rafael out of its warm bed.

  A uniformed man looked up from the desk. I told him who I was, said I wanted to see Jack Roland.

  “How d’ya know he’s here?”

  “He called me. Asked me to come down here.”

  “Oh.” The patrolman scowled. “You’re that guy. You’ll have to talk to Sergeant Scully.”

  He got up and jerked his head, motioning me to follow him to the corridor behind the front office.

  He knocked at a closed door and after a moment a voice said. “All right. What is it?”

  “Sergeant, the guy from Hollywood — the man you let Roland call — he’s out here.”

  There was an impregnated silence and then the door opened. Scully stood in the doorway looking me over, letting me know that he didn’t care much for what he saw. He’d never work up an argument from me on that. Scully was about my height, weighed over two hundred, had a ruddy complexion. His shirt was sweated, opened at the collar and his tie hung awry. No studio would ever hire this boy to play a police sergeant.

  “Come on in,” he said. He closed the door behind me, pushed a chair toward his desk with his shoe, nodded for me to sit down. He went back around his desk. “My name’s Scully. Sergeant Mike Scully. Who are you, and what do you want down here?”

  “Sam Howell,” I said. “Jack Roland asked me to come.”

  “What are you, Howell? You a lawyer? A relative of his?”

  “By marriage.”

  “What?”

  “Let it go. No, I’m no relation. I’m no lawyer. He used to work for the same studio that I do.”

  “Oh.” He nodded and leaned across his desk as if this were the heart of the whole matter. “What studio is that, Howell?”

  “Twenty Grand Pictures.”

  “That right? What do you do there?”

  “Public relations.”

  “What?”

  “Handle publicity.”

  “You want to explain that a little bit?”

  “It’s self-explanatory. I handle publicity.”

  “Do you, Howell?” He looked wise, pleased with himself. “But how do you handle it? You’re one of the boys who doesn’t get things in the papers. In fact, you’re employed specifically to keep stuff out of the newspapers. Isn’t that right, Howell?”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes. Depends on what it is.”

  His mouth pulled down. “That’s what it is. And that’s what you’re here for this time, right, Howell?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything except what Roland told me over the phone, and you look as if you were listening to that. That’s all I know about it.”

  “Don’t try to slick talk me, Howell. Won’t do you any good to pry around here. Won’t do you any good to see this guy Roland. He was there. He has a motive. And he’s guilty. That’s the way it is.”

  “Fine. Maybe that’s why I drove down here. I want to see his face.”

  “You think you’re pretty slick, Howell. It won’t work. I know how you movie people snarl things up. Take that William Desmond Taylor case. I can tell you, I’ve read every word on that thing. Why, if the police had kept the movie crowd from screwing the works, they’d have had that one solved in a few hours. It still isn’t solved, thanks to you movie birds fouling up everything — ”

  “I was about four years old at the time.”

  “Makes no difference. You’re one of the same bunch and you’ve learned all the same tricks. Only they won’t work with me; we’re keeping you people out of this one You catch?”

  “What you’re trying to say is that I can’t see him.”

  “Clear enough what I’m saying. I’m saying it won’t do you any good to see him. I’m telling you I’m hep to how you studio people snarl a thing up when it involves one of your stars.”

  “Stars?” I said. “Where have you been the past five years? The last picture Jack Roland made is now knocking them dead on the late-late-late show.”

  “He’s still one of you people, and all your tricks won’t work. Remember when that poor movie woman was killed in her car in her own garage. Before the movie people got through, they had it a suicide; she went out to the car, turned on the engine and sat there waiting to die. Only she managed to change a dress she’d worn to a party, talked to three or four guys, and was even seen alive ten hours after the studio people claim she had committed suicide.”

  “A real mess.”

  “Indeed, a mess. But we’re having no mess like that in this town. Not while I’m in charge of this case. You needn’t bring your smart guys in here thinking you can foul up a clear, open-and-shut case of murder.”

  “I have no desire to.”

  “Then why are you down here?”

  “I told you. Roland called and asked me to come. I came because he was in trouble.”

  His laugh told me what kind of truth he thought that was. “And your studio didn’t send you?”

  “Listen, my studio cares less about Jack Roland than anybody — except me. I don’t care at all. Last time I saw him he was doing toothpaste commercials for eating money.”

  Scully got up, paced the room. It was a box, and hot with the windows closed. There was a fan on the filing cabinets but it wasn’t running. Scully’s desk was cluttered, not in any way that denoted a lot of industry, but a lack of it. Some of the l
etters were opened and dusty, and some hadn’t even been slit.

  He stood in front of me. “You’ve got to have some reason for being down here. If you want to get along with me, you better plan to play it straight.”

  “I tried to. As I told you, he called me. The poor slob said he had nobody else. I believed him. I came down here. That’s it. All of it.”

  He leaned forward. “Cut out those quarterback sneaks, Howell. You didn’t come down here to hold his hand. What do you want down here? We had a murder, and we got the killer. We don’t need you messing it up.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll help you ease him into the gas chamber, Scully. I’ve got no love for him. But he is alone He says there are two sides to this story. You mind if I go in and hear his side of it?”

  He looked at me for a long time. “You’re wasting your time.”

  He shrugged and walked over to the door. “Come on. You’re down here; you can talk to him. But just don’t try to snarl things up, Howell. That’s all.”

  I followed him out of the hot office and we went along a breathless corridor. A jailer let us into the cell-block and I heard somebody cry out. There was Jack Roland, clinging to the bars of his cell like in one of his grade-B movies.

  Chapter Two

  I STOOD OUTSIDE Roland’s unlighted cell. I saw the cord and the suspended bulb, but for the first time in his life Roland must have preferred darkness to glare, or, frightened, he had not considered the effect he might be sacrificing by standing in just the faint light from the corridor.

  “Thank God you came,” Roland said.

  Sergeant Scully walked about six feet from us and leaned against the wall between cells. Most of the cells were dark; there were only a few inmates in the place. But the odor had been there for a long time.

  “You asked me,” I said.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Neither did I. But I did. What do you want?”

  His hands whitened on the bars. I looked at him, really seeing him for the first time in God knew how many years. For a long time when I’d been forced to work with him, I’d spared myself by never looking at him.