Murder in the Air (11 page)

Bud had always gotten a certain pleasure out of making women fall in love with him. With his money and dark good looks, it wasn't hard. Sure, he might be getting older and his hair might be receding, but it was also as brown as the day he turned thirty, and so was his mustache, which he kept trimmed and narrow. At heart, however, Bud was a realist. Women, whether they declared their undying devotion for you or not, always left, sooner or later. And then, once more, you were alone. That's why he always had another woman waiting in the wings ready to take over for whoever was on their way out the door. To his way of thinking, it was simple logic.

The problem was, Bud didn't have anyone but Giselle right now. Oh, he had an occasional sexual dalliance, but there was no one else who cared about him. Without his usual safety net,
he was like a man trapped in a burning building. For the moment the fire against his back felt warm and pleasant, but when the flames got too intense and he was forced to jump, no one would be there to catch him. You never knew what a woman was going to do, and Bud wasn't going to be alone for Christmas, that was for damn sure. Maybe it was time to go on a little shopping trip downstairs. He'd been shopping at Man-derbach's for years—and not just for his suits and ties.

As he eased his head back against his leather chair, there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said, cringing at the sound of his own voice.

His secretary, Loretta Nallen, breezed into the office. She was wearing her usual Monday-morning navy-blue suit. Setting a yellow file folder down in front of him, she began to straighten his papers.

Her energy was making his headache worse. “Do that later,” he grunted, slumping forward and resting his head on his hand.

“Still feeling like old Mr. Scrooge, are we?”

Loretta might be the best secretary he'd ever had, but she talked like a grade-school teacher. It drove him nuts. “What if
we
are?”

She tsk-tsked.

“Look, Ms. Nallen, if you're waiting for the Ghost of Christmas Past to provide me with a Yuletide epiphany, it's not going to happen. Let's just can the Christmas crap for the duration, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Manderbach.”

He knew he was being humored. “What's this?” He flipped open the folder and found some typed pages.

“Don't you remember? You asked me to call WTWN to see if that program Mr. Greveen told you about in his fax was on the level. When you found out it was, you ordered me to listen to it last night and then make a full report. That's the report.”

With his personal life in such upheaval, he'd completely forgotten.

“I had dinner over at a friend's house,” continued Loretta. “Carol Richards? She works in housewares down on four.

Anyway, when we were done, we listened together. I hope you don't mind that I added some of my opinions to the report.” She picked up a crystal paperweight and began polishing it with a clean tissue. “I could be wrong, Mr. Mander-bach, but I think that show's going to be very popular. It has the nostalgia factor working for it. And the first episode really grabbed me.”

“Do tell.”

She tapped the pages. “It's all right there.”

“Dandy. Thanks.”

“Anything else you'd like before I go?” She placed the paperweight back on the desk.

“No. Yes. Bring me two aspirin. And a glass of water.”

“Of course.”

“And hold all my phone calls.”

“Certainly.”

“Oh, and send a dozen roses to Giselle Tannanger. You've got her address.”

“Long-stemmed?”

“Whatever.”

“Any particular color?”

“Pink. No, red.” His last girlfriend had liked pink. Giselle's favorites were red. Or—was it yellow?

“Is that all?”

“For now.”

After Loretta was gone, Bud grabbed the report, slipped on his reading glasses, and skimmed the first page. He might as well get his mind off his headache.

Loretta had been her usual thorough self. She'd covered everything from the opening music to the end credits. The
Dallas Lane
theme song was “I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” an old Irving Berlin piece done by Les Brown's great swing orchestra. She'd even included the names of the actors. Much to his surprise, Bud recognized them. “My God,” he whispered, massaging his brow, “they've hired back the old cast and crew.” Everyone was there, from Heda Bloom right on down to the sound-effects technician.

His interest now piqued, he read on:

I found the opening episode quite gripping. Dallas Lane, a tough, tall-dark-and-handsome ex-GI from “nowhere in particular,” runs his PI business out of a sleazy downtown bar called DuFour's. It's on Sixth Street, just south of city hall, in a fictitious Midwestern town called Mill City. When he's not out on a case, he's sitting at the bar having a sandwich and a beer, or using the bar phone to make phone calls, or talking to his girlfriend, who works as a waitress in the late afternoons and evenings. Her name is Lucy DuFour.

Lucy is the daughter of the bar owner, and of course she's blonde and gorgeous. While Dallas hasn't exactly proposed marriage, we all know they're sweet on each other. He bounces his theories off Lucy. That's partly how we get to know what he's thinking, and partly how we learn that he and Lucy are in love.

Dallas meets with all his prospective clients at DuFour's. The bar is dark and the drinks are cheap, a perfect business office as far as he's concerned.

Dallas is irreverent, wisecracking, and street-smart. A typical PI. He's concerned about people, wants to help the underdog—the little guy. Perhaps the actor's voice adds to his appeal. Whatever the case, we learn all of this information through the opening dialogue. It's a cold winter night. Lucy is just about to close down the bar and make Dallas take her home.

Enter a woman. We can tell by her voice that she's older. Since we can hear Dallas's thoughts, he describes her as “in her mid-forties, rich-looking and scared.” She's says she's come to DuFour's looking for Dallas Lane. The bartender checks her out briefly and then points her to the end of the bar where Dallas and Lucy are talking.

The woman introduces herself as Irene Hewitt. She explains that her son is in trouble and she's come to ask Dallas for help. Dallas takes her over to a booth, where the woman opens up with a terrible tale of woe.

It seems her son, Judson Hewitt, has been accused of
the murder of his girlfriend. It happened at Wallace Pond, a lake right on the outskirts of the city. It's a wooded area, and since the murder took place on a cold January night, the only witness was a priest, an older man who was headed home from a wake.

The story the priest later tells the police is this: He was walking along a section of the lake when he heard some shouting. A second later there was a loud bang, like a gunshot. He took off running toward the sound and came upon two young people. A man was standing with a gun in his hand, staring quietly at a woman lying on the ground at his feet. She wasn't moving.

Fearing the worst, the priest shouted for him to stop. The man seemed startled by the sound of the priest's voice. He dropped the gun and rushed up an embankment to his car. The priest watched him drive away. When the priest finally reached the woman, she was dead. Shot in the head.

Dallas asked where the young man was now. The woman answered that he'd tried to get away, but the police had found him in a hotel room in Seattle. He'd been brought back to stand trial. All she had to prove her son's innocence was a letter, one he'd written to her just before he left.

Dallas asked to see it. It said something like, “Mom, by now you've heard what happened. Don't believe what the priest says, please! Wait until you hear the entire story from me. Your son, Judson.”

Bud looked up. He didn't have to read any more. He already knew the end of the story.

Without wasting a minute, he buzzed his secretary. “Get me Wish Greveen on the line. He's staying at the Maxfield Plaza. I want to talk to him right away. No excuses, Loretta. If he's not there, find him.”

Bud felt a sinking feeling inside his stomach. This
was
the Ghost of Christmas Past come to torment him, to take his revenge. The funny thing was, he wasn't surprised. He'd been expecting the ghost for years.

March 2, 1959

Dear Mother:

Several clays ago I left the hospital in Tel Aviv, thanks to you and the money you sent me. However, I was too weak to travel. I spent some time resting at a friend's home, someone I met while I was in the hospital, a man Vve grown to trust. He's a businessman, a Polish Jew who went to school in England. I'm almost certain now that Vve eluded my trackers, hut he knew I didn't feel entirely comfortable in Tel Aviv, so he convinced me that I should move one last time. On his recommendation, I traveled by bus to a smaller town.

I'm now renting an apartment. My friend's brother-in-law owns the building and has given me a remarkably cheap rate. Here, finally, I believe I can recuperate.

Today, I thought I would try to fill you in on what happened to me after I left the Continent. I'll be brief since sitting up for prolonged periods still leaves me exhausted.

The day after I wrote you from Eindhoven, I bought a motorcycle from a man in town, and then hit the road the same night. I hardly stopped to rest for the next two weeks. During the entire time I never saw a single person following me. I ended up in Athens, where I booked passage on a boat to Palestine. It was on that boat that I was mugged and lost most of my money. Thank God I was able to retain my passport. Even though it's a fake, it's served me well.

When I arrived in Haifa, I knew I was ill, but I thought it was a result of the beating I took. The man who attacked
me kicked me in the stomach. The pain in my lower abdomen grew so intense that when I got to Tel Aviv, I fainted in the doorway of a restaurant. I woke up in a hospital, where I was told my appendix had to be removed immediately, before it ruptured.

The first few days at the hospital are a complete blur to me now. I believe I was operated on late on a Wednesday afternoon. By the weekend I'd recovered sufficiently to call my friend in New York and ask him to wire me some money so that I could pay my bill. He, of course, had none to offer, and that's when I wrote to you. Your speedy reply saved my life, in more ways than one. It also told me you still care about your wayward son. I hold on to that thought, Mom, and hope that soon you can write to me here.

But back to my most recent odyssey. I'd no sooner been given the okay to leave the hospital than I developed peritonitis. From what I was later told, I was in a coma for almost a week. I'm not sure I was expected to live.

But I did live, though Vve lost a lot of weight and I'm very, very weak. The worst part for me now are the night sweats. I wake up soaking wet, disoriented, and jittery. Unfortunately, Vve used up just about even- dime you sent me, and I'm afraid I have no other choice but to ask you for more help. I hope someday to be able to pay you back. Right now could you see your way to wiring my New York friend another several hundred dollars? Whatever you can spare would be a lifeline for me until I can resume a more normal existence.

Although I feel much safer here, I'm still concerned that you're being watched, and that your mail may be opened and read. That's why this letter has come to you in a different manner. My friend in New York is sending it to a friend of his in Minnesota, who will pass it on to you as discreetly as possible. I hope this doesn't present you with any problems. When Vve recovered a bit more, and continue to remain certain of my invisibility here, Vll give you my address and we can begin a real correspondence. Be
sure that you destroy my letters. If they fell into the wrong hands, both our lives would again be in great danger. I don't have the strength to run any longer, Mom. At least, not until my health improves.

Next time I write, I hope to resume my story. I find myself dissecting the events of last fall almost continuously now. But thankfully, my more comforting thoughts of you, and of home, are never far from me.

With much love,
Justin

11

As soon as Bram arrived at the station on Monday morning, he was informed that Dorothy Veneger had summoned the cast and crew of
Dallas Lane, Private Eye
to discuss last night's premiere. Hurrying down the hall, he couldn't wait to hear the initial reports. Was it a hit? A miss?

Heda Bloom hadn't shown up for any of the rehearsals and probably wouldn't make it to the meeting either. Everything had been left to Dorothy to arrange, and in Bram's humble opinion, she'd done a highly professional job. He liked Dorothy. She was smart and sensible, two qualities often lacking in management and creative types, as far as he was concerned. Yet nobody felt particularly at ease in Dorothy's presence. Not only was she always in a hurry, but she never engaged in small talk. Still, the success of the first episode had depended almost entirely on her unflagging energy. Dorothy brought a tremendous infusion of confidence to the proceedings, something everyone needed.