Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors (12 page)

“Sorry, comes with the case. You tend to speak the local Hollywood lingo in no time if you are surrounded by movie and music stars and execs. Most jewels were stolen from people who were associated with the LA music and film business.”

“Movies per minute,” I muttered.

“Excuse me? Well, the pieces that were stolen have high face value, but in most cases an even higher collector’s value. And our thief mostly went for those, just like the two pieces stolen from Swan Collins. All the other loot was just window dressing, in my opinion.”

I contradicted him. “The other explanation is that we have a skilled thief from a totally different background, let us say bank robbery, who simply gets the instructions about what to steal from a fanatical collector who is part of ‘the business.’”

“Of course that is a valid option, too, my dear.”

“One more ‘my dear,’ and we have a murder added to my rap sheet.”

Due to the escalating friction between us, we took a small break from our conversation and I went to powder my nose, while he went outside with his cellphone to get updates on whatever.

“So, what do you have in mind for me, Fowler?” I asked him outright after we had reassembled and reordered refreshments.

“Your favorite insurance agent together with the LA police task force did a little detecting and found out the following.” Fowler brought up another folder. “Here, you see the lists of the people who visited each of the crime scenes from about three months prior to the break-ins.” Rows of names with all the different break-in locations were listed in separate columns on the right. With some crosses here and there, it looked like a database printout.

“You don’t want me to go through it, do you?” I asked doubtfully, thumbing through the inch-high stack.
 

“The computer did that for us and came up with a list of four individuals who showed up at least three times at the twelve break-in locations.” Fowler produced another sheet of paper which he placed in front of me but covered the content with his hand.

“That is conclusive for the police and you?” I said.

“No, and this is where you come in.”

“I mean, this could be perfectly harmless. The people in question could be the party kings of Bel Air or the recommended sought-after pool cleaner.”

Fowler nodded. “Right, completely, but I want to make sure.”

“And you propose what for me, exactly?”

Fowler rolled his eyes briefly and made a “go on” sign with his right hand as if I had to figure that out for myself.

“Fowler, could you please be specific?”

“For legal reasons, I don’t want to.”

“You piece of fake British chicken shit,” I shouted, and the whole restaurant went quiet and looked at us. I apologetically raised my hands and stared the masses down. Life continued. Hopefully TMZ was not present on the premises. I turned back to Fowler. “Okay, I will spell it out for you, and you may just nod or shake your blockhead. I will check out the four names on the list and take a look at their underwear drawers at night.”
 

“I expected nothing less from you, Calendar,” Fowler said and took away his hand that covered the names.

“Phil Krueger, Jeannie Anthony, Pretty McAllister, Gordon Webber,” I read quietly. I pointed at Jeannie Anthony’s name. “I know her of course. Interesting fact is that Rip Delaware was her companion at the Swan Collins party.”
 

“But Rip showed up only at the Collins party, never before,” Fowler remarked. “Same as you, by the way.” He apparently had done his homework.

I shrugged it off. “Pretty McAllister, how could I not know her as I was framed for the theft of her necklace?”

“And ruined it completely,” Fowler threw in.

“Hell, she could make it into a reality show—
Pimp My Jewels
. Phil Krueger? Never heard of him.”

“He is an exec at Mountainview Studios and better known for his constantly changing string of blonde girls and affairs. I think he holds the record for Hollywood divorces, about ten ex-wives behind him,” Fowler explained.
 

“And Gordon Webber?”

Fowler sighted. “Mr. Gordon P. Webber is the other reason I asked you for help. He is a huge movie fan and in a way he is the epitome of your ‘Hollywood party animal’ … and his status gets him invitations of all kinds to all the major events in LA-LA-Land.”

“Come on, don’t make it so exciting. Who is he?”

“He is the chief of police of the city of Los Angeles, nickname…,” Fowler said.
 

And I completed, “…the Party Chief.”
 

Fowler looked sheepishly at me. “Sorry about that.”

That remark called for a round of fresh coffee. Fowler sipped silently and watched the Pacific Ocean while I picked through the different reports. I decided not to form a theory at this point. What was more important to me was: how could I ever get out of this mess?

Fowler came back and sat down again, gazing outside.

“Okay, this is all well and good.”

“Intrigued?”

“Of course. Especially….” I stopped myself.
 

“Yes? Something caught your eye?” Fowler peered over at the paper I held in my hands.
 

I shook my head. “No, nothing in the report, but I have a general problem here. I almost started deducing and brainstorming just as if you were a good friend and we were exchanging ideas how to improve the security of jewelry owners.”

Fowler cocked his head. “Your point, my dear?”

I almost took his hands to plead with him. “Fowler. You are my arch enemy. I couldn’t just bounce some ideas of you like I would … with myself. I almost started discussing the style of the Hollywood burglars and commenting on the difficulties of education.”

“Education?” I had lost Fowler—or maybe not.
 

“Stop it. Yes, how do you think the imitator of my alleged style knows his handiwork? You don’t learn these things in evening school, you read me?”

“You are right, Calendar. Where
do
you learn these things?” Fowler looked at me intensely, his features turning into a snake ready to strike.
 

“That is exactly my point! I cannot tell you. I throw in a point, an idea, an observation, and you could ask intelligent questions that I could answer truthfully, you would follow up with questions, and sooner than we know it you have unraveled my complete personal network of friends and colleagues, and you would pester them with questions of our common involvement of jewelry thefts for the last five years.”

Fowler looked at me quietly for a minute. “How do you expect our cooperation to work then?”

“I cannot brainstorm and exchange ideas with you, Fowler. Our ‘collaboration’ extends only to our common case of the Hollywood thefts, not any further. I help you to find the real culprit and receive a get-out-of-jail card in exchange. But that is as far as it goes.”

“You mean, you will not discuss things with me?”

I gave a single, serious nod.

Fowler folded his arms, frustrated. “How do you expect us to work together then?” We were running in circles.

“We discuss strategies as I see fit. I let you run errands and deal with certain red tape.” I counted off on my fingers. “I investigate and deduce and let you know when I have something interesting, but we won’t be developing theories and leads together. Of course, if you want, you may tell me about your theories, but it remains a one-way street.”

“You cannot be serious, Calendar. It’s your thirty days; without me, you will be lost.”

“This is not about us, at least not this time. I need your help, and I appreciate your help, but it will not work the way you thought it would, so we need a small change of plans.”

“So I’m going to be your lackey? Or what?” Fowler’s face turned a darker shade of red. “You need my expertise, and I need to be briefed in order to be in the loop.”

“You will be briefed, but nothing more.”

“This is an unnecessary risk. My professional calling is at stake here, too. Remember who got you out of jail?”

I looked him square in the face. “That is a risk you probably have figured out to the tenth of a percent with the help of your computer, but I have to take this step in order to save myself from the next big thing. There will be a life after this case; at least, I hope there will, and I need to plan for that as well. My way or the highway for both of us, Fowler.”

Fowler threw up his arms, almost toppling his cup. “Your show, your floor. I’ll send you a subscription of
Reader’s Digest
when they book you for good.” He grabbed his briefcase and his jacket and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving me with the check.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A.K.A.

To my surprise, Fowler was waiting outside of the restaurant in his car, motor running.

I slid in beside him. “Still not enough of me?”
 

“I forgot that I had to drive you home.”
 

“It’s a mile, Fowler. In Redondo Beach. I could have walked.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Fowler started to drive in the direction to my shop. “What are your first steps? Any ideas already?”

“Believe it or not, we are already in the process of visiting the first suspect,” I told him. He started with a question but thought better of it and just shrugged, sighed, and drove.

He parked in front of my shop and locked his car like any good European did. He turned toward my shop door, but I took his arm and led him across the street, opposite the parking lot toward Benedetto’s Pizza.

“Signorina, what I cannot understand is: why don’t you ever order a pizza from my establishment? Is it in the dough? Is it in the sauce? Are you allergic to any of the ingredients?” Luigi Benedetto was the prototype Italian restaurant owner: black hair, overweight, white apron, and a pride that had made the Roman Empire what it had been two thousand years ago.

“Luigi, did your pizza cook Rick leave any forwarding address? A phone number?”

“Don’t tell me; don’t tell me…. I know, it is the cheese, is it? You don’t fancy regular mozzarella cheese? Can I indulge you with sheep cheese? Or mozzarella buffalo?”

“You could indulge me with contact information of your former pizza dough maker!”
 

“I will create one just for you. Just let me order mozzarella buffalo, and I will name a creation just after you. It is not the dough, Signorina Moonstone. I had Rick on for only two weeks. He did good work, but all he did was prepare dough according to my old family recipe. He left without notice, didn’t turn up for work on Tuesday after his day off Monday.”

“All you can tell me is that this guy worked for you and you never had any personal data? Address, phone, social security? Nothing?”

“I gave you the address, Signorina; I gave you what I had on file for him.”

“But my friend here checked it out via the police, and the address and phone number are fake. They don’t exist. And the social security number will be a fake, too, we believe.”

“Signorina, this is all the wrong approach. If that young man, Rick, had an eye on you, or you had an eye on him, it would have been so easy to ask him out for two weeks. Now that he is gone, you come, and now you stop ordering pizza from me altogether, the best pizza in South Bay, but look for a lost boy. Your assistant, Signorina Otis—”

“Luigi, it is Signora Otis. She is married.” That fact stopped him in his tracks because he had to weigh his Catholic principles against drawing in customers with sexy young men.

Fowler stepped forward, out of patience. “Did Mr. Dexter befriend any of your staff? The drivers or the waitresses in your restaurant?”

Luigi let go of me finally and bore his Italian hurt pride fangs into Fowler.

We had espressos at Starbucks around the corner, not at Luigi’s place.
 

“Don’t you think that this is too easy?” Fowler was asking.

“No, it is exactly as a professional thief would have done it,” I said, hiding my eyes behind my sunglasses. We were sitting outside on the sidewalk. I enjoyed the March sun and the warmth on my skin. It countered the dark, terrifying fears of damp and moldy jail cells that were buried deep down in my stomach.

“So, what? Your friend Rip Delaware was a pizza dough maker at this restaurant, was working under the fake name Rick Dexter, and quit without notice. Just like probably one million hired hands before him. Probably a W2 or a social security scheme. Not that I could blame them, with a boss like that on your back all the time.”

“He was staking me out. He knew somehow that I was going to be at the Oscar ceremony and party with Nicole Berg, and he planned his act accordingly.”

“And he knew that two weeks beforehand? When Mrs. Berg was still going out with that photographer Sturgis? How would he have known that? Calendar, I think there was another reason to it.”

“I didn’t say I already had everything figured out,” I defended myself.
 

“From the beginning please. Why should he have anything to do with this case?”
 

“Because, dear Fowler, he was the only person at the party who wasn’t searched at all.”