Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir 2

When questioned about the revolver, she had stated that she remembered he had once owned a small-caliber pistol but she was almost sure it had been lost or stolen years ago.

A murdered husband…. And there was no mention in the piece about a missing daughter or a stolen rug. Considering how many of her friends knew about both, that was bound to come out.

When it did, I could be in deep trouble for withholding information about the rug and the girl. But so could she for the same reason. And spreading those stories to the media could alert and scare off any seasoned burglar who had been looking forward to a buy-back deal. That was the slim hope I tried to hang on to.

I put the record of my involvement in the case under the mattress in my bedroom. I showered and shaved and put on my most conservative suit after breakfast and sat in my office chair, waiting for the police to arrive.

They didn’t.

I thought back to all the people I had questioned in the past week. And then I realized there was one I hadn’t.

I went down the stairs and asked Uncle Vartan if he had heard the sad news.

He nodded and yawned. He had heard it on the tube last night, he told me. I had the feeling that he would not mourn the death of Whitney Bishop.

“You told me you went with Mrs. Bishop when she was between husbands. Who was her first?”

“A man named Duane Pressville, a former customer of mine.”

“Do you have his address?”

“Not anymore. It has been years since I’ve seen him. What is this all about, Pierre?”

“I was thinking that it was possible he still had the key to the house they shared and would know where the alarm turnoff switch was hidden.”

He stared at me. “And you think he stole the rug? That’s crazy, Pierre! He was a very sharp buyer but completely honest.” He paused. “And now you are thinking that he might be a murderer?”

“The murder and the rug might not be connected,” I pointed out. “Tell me, is he the man who bought the Kerman from you?”

“Yes,” he said irritably. “And that’s enough of this nonsense! I have work to do this morning, Pierre.”

“Sorry,” I said, and went up the stairs to look up Duane Pressville in the phone book. There were several Pressvilles in the book but only one Duane. His address was 332 Adonis Court.

I knew the street, a short dead-ender that led off San Vicente Boulevard. Into the Camaro, back on the hunt.

Adonis Court was an ancient neighborhood of small houses. It had resisted the influx of demolitions that had invaded the area when land prices soared. These were the older residents who had no serious economic pressures that would force them to sell out.

332 was a small frame house with a shingled roof and a small low porch in front of the door.

I went up to the porch and turned the old-fashioned crank that rang the bell inside the house.

The man who opened the door was tall and thin and haggard, the same man who had called himself Gerald Hopkins on the beach.

He smiled. “Mr. Apoyan! What brings you to my door?”

“I’m looking for a rug,” I said. “An antique Kerman.”

He frowned. “Did Victoria send you here?”

“Who is Victoria?”

“My former wife. What vindictive crusade is she on now? No matter what she might have told you, I bought that rug with my own money. It was my rug, until the divorce settlement.”

“Why,” I asked, “did you lie to me on the beach?”

He looked at me and past me. He sighed and said, “Come in.”

The door opened directly into the living room. It was a room about fourteen feet wide and eighteen feet long. It was almost completely covered by a dark red Oriental rug. It looked like a Bokhara to me.

The furniture was mostly dark mahogany, brightly polished, upholstered in well-worn velour.

“Sit down,” he said.

I sat in an armchair, he on the sofa.

“Have you ever heard of Maksoud of Kashan?” he asked.

“I think so. Wasn’t he a famous Oriental rug weaver?”

He nodded. “The finest in all of Persia, now called Iran. But in his entire career, with all the associates he had working under him, he wove his name into only two of his rugs. One of them is in the British Museum. The other is the small Kerman I bought from your uncle. I remember now—you worked in his store on Saturdays, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“You weren’t in the store that day this—this peddler brought in the Kerman. It was filthy! But far from being worn out. My eyes must be sharper than your uncle’s. I saw the signature in the corner. I made the mistake of overplaying my hand; I offered him a thousand dollars for it, much more than it appeared to be worth. That must have made him suspicious. We dickered. When I finally offered him three thousand dollars, he sold it to me.”

“And I suppose he has resented you ever since that day.”

He shrugged. “Probably. To tell you the truth, after he learned about the history of the rug I was ashamed to go back to the store.”

“To tell the truth once again,” I said, “where is your daughter? Where is Janice?”

“She is well and safe and far from here. She is back with her real parents, the parents who were too poor to keep her when she was born. I finally located them.”

“You wouldn’t want to tell me their name?”

“Not you, or anybody else. Not with the legal clout Victoria can afford. Do you want Janice to go back to that woman she complained to when her third father tried to molest her, that woman who called her a liar? I did some research on Bishop, too. He was fired by a Chicago brokerage firm for churning. He had one charge of child molestation dropped for insufficient evidence there. So he came out here and married money and started his own firm.”

“And was stabbed to death Saturday night not far from here.”

“I heard that on the radio this morning.” His smile was cynical. “Are you going to the funeral?”

I shook my head. “According to the morning paper he must have been carrying a gun. But he didn’t fire it.”

“The news report on this morning’s radio station explained that,” he told me. “The safety catch was on.”

“I didn’t hear it. What do you think that Kerman would bring today?”

“Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, whatever the buyer would pay.” He studied me. “Are you suggesting that the murder and the rug are connected?”

“You know I am. My theory is that Bishop got the call from the burglar on Friday and decided not to buy the rug, but to shoot the burglar.”

“An interesting theory. Is there more to it?”

“Yes. The burglar then stabbed him—and found another buyer. Bishop might have reason other than penuriousness. He might have known the burglar knew his history.”

He said wearily, “You’re zeroing in, aren’t you? You’re beginning to sound like a detective.”

“I am. A private investigator. I just opened my own office over Uncle Vartan’s store.”

“You should have told me that when you came.”

“You must have guessed that I was an investigator when we met on the beach. Why else would you have lied?”

He didn’t answer.

“If Janice’s real parents are still poor,” I said, “fifty or a hundred thousand dollars should help to alleviate it.”

He nodded. “If the burglar has found the right buyer. It should certainly help to send her to a first-rate college. And now I’m getting tired. It’s time for my nap. I have leukemia, Pierre. My doctor has told me he doesn’t know how many days I have before I sleep the big sleep. I know what you are thinking, and it could be true. I’m sure you are honor bound to take what I have told you to the police. I promise I will bear you no malice if you do. But you had better hurry.”