Stuart Kaminsky - Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

My leads had almost run out. All I had left was Gable and the hope that Wherthman would remember the name of the other midget who had worked and fought with Cash. Both were slim. Something had to make sense, and I was heading in the right direction or there wouldn’t be two bullet holes in my Buick.

Judy Garland had told me production was starting on Ziegfield Girl today so I headed for the studio. It wasn’t far from Grundy’s place. I took another look at his card and put it away, reminding myself to ask if Nimble was his real middle name if I should ever see him again.

It was a little after ten when I arrived at the studio. Buck McCarthy was on the gate and he sauntered over to me, chewing a wad of gum and pretending it was a plug. He leaned into the window.

“Miss Garland said to hurry you in if you showed up,” he said. “You know the way?”

“Yep, you want to drive?”

He declined this time, and I drove slowly to her dressing room. I didn’t see any stars, but a group of carpenters working on the fake front of what looked like the Taj Mahal. The fake front was leaning against a real building.

Judy Garland wasn’t in her dressing room, but Cassie James was, which suited me fine. Today she was dressed entirely in pink with a red patent leather belt. She smelled like July in the mountains. When I knocked and came in she was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the pot brewing in the corner.

She gave me a small smile and handed me the cup. Something was wrong. She sat in a straightbacked chair and crossed her legs.

“Someone tried to kill Judy,” she said.

For a second or two I didn’t absorb the words. Maybe I even thought I imagined them, but I hadn’t.

“Tried to poison her,” Cassie continued.

“How? When?” I sat with my coffee on a chair a few feet from Cassie.

“When we came in the morning, there was a pitcher of ice water on the table. Judy was a little nervous about starting the picture today and her throat was dry. I poured her a drink and started to hand it to her, but it looked a little discolored. I smelled it, and it smelled strange. So she didn’t drink it.”

“Then how do you know it was poisoned?” I asked.

“We called the doctor. There’s one on hand whenever shooting is going on. He said it was filled with arsenic. A mouthful would very likely have killed Judy.”

Cassie was certainly nervous, but not in panic.

“It’s lucky you noticed,” I said reassuringly. “Where’s Judy now?”

“She’s shooting. I told her to take the day off and wait till we talked to you, but she wouldn’t do it. She got sick once during the shooting of Oz and held up shooting for a while. She doesn’t want to do it again.”

Cassie gave me more information. The dressing room door hadn’t been locked so anyone on the lot could have come in with the water. The poison water had been dumped out after the doctor confirmed the presence of poison. It wasn’t clear whose idea the dumping was, but no one had questioned it. The pitcher was glass, but with everyone handling it there probably wouldn’t have been worthwhile prints anyway.

“O.K.,” I said, standing up and putting down the cup. “I think we should call the police. Someone tried to kill me yesterday, too.”

She got up suddenly and looked shocked. I was touched.

“What happened?” she asked, stepping toward me.

“Someone took a couple of shots at me and obviously missed.” She took my hand. It was time to work up more sympathy.

“They may try again,” I said.

“Did you see who did it?” She was looking into my eyes, clearly concerned and interested.

“No, but I’d like it to stop. So I’m going to try to get some police protection for Judy and do my damndest to find out who killed Cash and is trying to make Judy and me a duo of death.”

I’d heard that “duo of death” phrase in a Captain Midnight show and always wanted to work it into a conversation. This was the first chance I had. I pushed my hat back further on my head and took Cassie’s hand in mind. I was glad she wasn’t wearing her tape measure.

“I’ll call the police and tell them what’s happened. It might give them second thoughts about Wherthman being the killer. Then I’d better track down Clark Gable and check his version of what happened her yesterday morning.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked. We were close enough together to exchange comments on our mouthwash, except I didn’t use any. I hoped my dental sample smile lingered till noon. Hers did.

“Yes, there is,” I said softly. “Find Hoff. Tell him that Cash was chummy with another midget, maybe even went into business with him. See if he can find out who it is. Wherthman is filling his time trying to come up with the name too. It may not be a lead, but it’s worth a try.”

She agreed and volunteered to do some checking on her own. She had worked on Oz for a short time and knew the names of a few of the midgets. I said thanks and lingered. She kissed me. It was a little more than motherly, but not enough to make anything out of.

“Be careful,” she said, and I promised I would be.

She went off to look for Hoff and I picked up the phone. I didn’t need to talk to Hoff right now, but I needed information and action. I called Andy Markopulis, the guy I knew who worked for M.G.M. security. He was at home building a patio with his kids. It was so wholesome I couldn’t even make a joke about it. I explained the whole set-up to him and asked him to assign a couple of people to take off their uniforms and keep an eye on Judy Garland for a while. He said he’d assign two good men named Woodman and Fearaven. I didn’t know them, but Andy knew his business.

Then I called my brother.

“Well?” he asked. “And if you ask me how Ruth and the kids are, I’ll find you and punch your heart out.”

“Someone tried to kill me and Judy Garland,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” I said. “I’ve got bullet holes in my car windows.”

“Bullshit,” he repeated.

“For Chrissake, Phil, why would I lie?”

“It’s an asshole stunt to get that little Nazi turd you’re working for off the hook. Someone’s trying to kill you and Garland. Wherthman’s in the can, so it can’t be him. That’s the picture.”

“So I shot bullet holes in my car windows?”

“Why not? That hunk of junk isn’t worth ten dollars. It’s about time you shot it and put it out of its misery. It reminds me of…”

“One of dad’s old heaps,” I finished. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”

He was quiet for a few seconds.

“How did they try to kill Garland?” he asked, but his voice showed he was humoring me.

“Poison,” I said. “Someone left a water pitcher full of poison in her dressing room at the studio this morning. Someone noticed that it smelled funny.”

“Where’s the poison now?” he asked.

“They poured it out.”

“That’s a hell of a story, Tobias. Even if there was a pitcher of poison, which I doubt, you could have put it there, made sure she didn’t drink it and then arranged for it to be conveniently dumped out before the police arrived. You’ve done worse.”

He was right. I had done worse and was kind of proud of it, but this wasn’t one of the times. I decided not to tell him about the phone calls to Garland and me from the unaccented man with the high voice. He wouldn’t believe me.

“You’re wrong, Phil.”

“I’ve got a wave of ax murders waiting and no time for you. Now hang up and get a job as a night watchman.”

“You’re a whale, Phil,” I sighed. “A goddamn whale with an eye on each side of your head. You try to juggle two separate images and miss what’s right in front of you. Someday you’re going to swim into an iceberg.”