Beneath a Bloodshot Moon Read online

  Beneath a Bloodshot Moon

  A Finch & Steinbeck Mystery

  by

  Sam Roskoe

  Dedication

  To Z, OMK3 and all the Mussels

  Lizards for all!

  Chapter 1

  I was tickling Steinbeck on his exposed belly and making goo-goo noises when five feet-and-five inches of most-wanted man walked into the Mermaid Café that morning.

  I stopped my scratching long enough for Steinbeck to give me one of those stern, ‘why have you stopped’ looks on his doggy face and for me to ask the obvious question.

  “Help you?”

  Tarquin Meriwether looked like he needed help. Looked like he’d spent the better part of a worse night using his tweed suit for a pillow. He blinked a few times in my direction.

  “Finch? Elliot Finch?”

  His voice had that slow drawl of a man who knew the bottle better than he knew himself.

  I stood and wiped down the stray dog hairs from my front.

  Steinbeck stayed on the floor, belly exposed, waiting for the tickling game to resume.

  “I’m Finch. Help you?”

  Tarquin Meriwether surveyed the interior of the Mermaid Café with a worried look on his face.

  “I was told you might…that it’s possible you might be able to…I think I might have the wrong place.”

  “Is there any place that’s right for you at the moment, Tarquin?”

  “You know my name?”

  I stepped over the prone body of Steinbeck and picked up yesterday’s news from one of the booth tables. A few pages in there was a picture of Tarquin Meriwether in better rested days. Days when he wasn’t wanted for the murder of Hollywood’s Belle, Marla Donovan. I showed him the past.

  “Everybody knows your name.”

  Fear crept across his already fearful face.

  “Jesus’ Holy Mother, I walked into a lion’s den, didn’t I?” Meriwether took a few hesitant steps backward.

  “Hold your horses,” I said, “there are no lions here, unless you count Steinbeck here, and he’d make a lousy lion.”

  Steinbeck shot me another glance, this time it was one of pity. Pity me for thinking that a Jack Russell of his stature wasn’t a match for any lion alive. He went back to waiting for his stomach tickling and left me to get on with business.

  “You’re safe here, Mr. Meriwether,” I said, “take a seat and I’ll tell you all about how you’re in the right place even if it looks like exactly the wrong place to be. You’ll be here to hire a private investigator and not for a cup of hot coffee, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Good, because you’d be surprised how many people stumble in here thinking that it might actually be what I thought it might be when I first bough the damned place. There is no coffee.”

  That threw him, but he wasn’t looking for a way out any more. Maybe a few more minutes of my talking would send him packing, but I was willing to take that risk.

  I slipped in on one side of a booth and gestured to the empty seat on the other side.

  “Please, sit, I don’t fancy getting a crick in my neck from looking up at you all morning.”

  Tarquin Meriwether took his seat like a man who was waiting for a jack-in-the-box to pop out on him at any moment. I didn’t blame him. The G-Men had him on their list and they always got their man, at least, they did in the movies.

  “So, did you kill Marla Donovan or not?” I asked.

  “No, I mean…” Tarquin Meriwether pinched the already pinched skin on the bridge of his nose. Looked like he’d spent quite a bit of time rubbing out his dilemma over that patch of skin. “What I mean is…I don’t remember. I was…I don’t think I did it.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “What? How could you possibly—“

  I held up a hand for silence.

  “You’re a hack, aren’t you, a typewriter-jockey?” I said.

  “I don’t see how that would swing your opinion one way or another.”

  “I’ve known writers, Mr. Meriwether, and I know what they can and can’t do.”

  “I could have…I mean it’s not like I wanted to or anything but…well it’s not out of the realm of possibility that I…how can you be so sure I’m not capable of murder?”

  I gave him one of my winning smiles, the kind of smile that had won me nothing at all in all the years past, but it seemed fitting.

  “Show me a writer and I’ll show you someone too busy thinking of what might be done and not doing a damn thing about it. Sure, you could come up with a murder, have every step down on paper, but that’s where it would stay.”

  “I don’t know if I’m getting this right, but are you calling me a coward, Mr. Finch?”

  “Cowards breathe a lot longer than heroes, but you’re neither. You’re a souse, Mr. Meriwether.”

  “A what?”

  “A drunk, a lush, off the wagon, Christ, I doubt you know what a wagon looks likke, Mr. Meriwether.”

  Tarquin Meriwether wiped at his mouth, then licked his lips.

  “I don’t know what you’re—“

  “You do, of course you do. You want a drink now, you can taste it on your lips. This will be the only time in your life that being a booze-hound is in your favor, at least, when it comes to me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t, but you will. See, Mr. Meriwether, I don’t believe you killed Marla Donovan any more than I believe the Golden Gate Bridge is made from spaghetti. A lush is never neat, not when he’s dressing, not when he’s talking, and certainly not when he’s in a killing mood. If you’d done it tipsy, you’d have left much more of a mess, you’d have made twice as much mess stumbling about when you realized what you’d done. What do you remember about the night she was killed?”

  His bloodshot eyes narrowed as he tried to capture the recent past.

  “I was working on the studio lot then…we went for drinks, there was a wrap party and…I had some more drinks and…”

  “Then everything went black, right?”

  “Yes, but…I do remember the moon.”

  “The moon?”

  “It might sound crazy, Mr. Finch, in fact I know it sounds crazy, but the only thing I remember for sure is that the moon was blood red. I mean a shocking red, like the color of a beating heart.”

  “You’re a poet,” I said, “but you were also drunk enough to forget a murder, so whatever you think you saw, I’m putting a good chunk of money you didn’t see it at all.”

  He shook his head in defeat.

  “I wish I could unravel all this, but I just can’t. I wish I could forget that moon, but it’s just so…I mean I think I know but…it makes no sense and…” he said.

  “We’ll come back to that when you know what the hell it was you saw and if it’s important, for now, let’s talk enemies.”

  His mood lightened enough for a giggle to escape.

  “In Hollywood, are you joking with me, Mr. Finch?”

  “If I was telling a joke you wouldn’t be laughing, I never get the punch lines right.”

  “You said you knew writers, I assume that also means you know the world in which those writers live? You are familiar with Hollywood, are you not?”

  “Enough for me to settle here in San Francisco, yes.”

  “Then you know, surely, that there is only one truth in that town. Everyone is your oldest friend and willing to stab you in the back at the same time. If I have enemies then they are indistinguishable from my friends.”

  I raised both my eyebrows, which was warranted in the situation.

  “Doesn’t sound like a healthy way to live, always looking over your shoulder,” I said.

  “Bourbon he
lps.”

  “I’ve no doubt it does. Okay then if all your friends are enemies, let’s get a list of everyone you remember from the night Marla Donovan was killed.”

  “Do you think that will help?”

  “It’ll help me once I get to Hollywood.”

  Tarquin Meriwether’s face crumpled with a genuine surprise that hadn’t been there since he’d stepped into the Mermaid Café.

  “Are you saying you’ll take on my case?”

  “I said it the moment you walked in here and I didn’t pick up the phone to call the police.”

  Tarquin Meriwether reached across the table and took my hands in his. He squeezed them tight. A tear dropped from the corner of his eye.

  “Oh Holy Mother, praise you, Mr. Finch, praise you. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you. I thought I might spend the rest of my life running and hiding, but here you come, a savior for this poor, poor…”

  I’d had enough of the praise and his prose.

  I pulled my hands away from his.

  “You can thank me when someone else rides the lightning for the murder. The list, Mr. Meriwether, before we go any further.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  It wasn’t exactly like getting blood from a stone, nearer to ringing out water from a rock, but eventually Tarquin Meriwether cut through his drunken haze and picked out the names of all those he could remember from the night of the murder.

  A list of names that rang no bells for me, that might as well have been the credits at the end of one of his films.

  “This is how we’re going to play it, Mr. Meriwether,” I said, folding up the napkin with the list of names and placing it in my inside jacket pocket, “you’re going to stay here. There’s a cot upstairs in the back room, there’s food in the larder. I’m going to send a friend of mine over in a few days to check up on you and she’ll also get you anything you need above and beyond all that.”

  “You’re a kind man, Mr. Finch, doing all this for me when—“

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “Sorry, sorry, please, go ahead.”

  “Once I’ve cleared your name, you’re going to cut me a very big check, Mr. Meriwether, big enough so that I can finally open up this Café of mine as something more than a place where I spend the mornings reading the paper and tickling my dog’s belly.”

  Steinbeck moaned plaintively.

  “How big of a check? I mean I’m not exactly —“

  “You own a mansion in Beverly Hills. Your name is on the credits of three out of five of the number one films in the last five years. You’re golden on the lot, Mr. Meriwether, and don’t try to tell me you’re not. If you weren’t then we wouldn’t be sitting here right now talking about how much bad luck dropped on your head. Trust me, what I want won’t be enough to cause you any sleepless nights, but it will be enough for me to do what I promised myself I would do. Do we have an agreement?”

  Of course we did, he had nowhere else to go and everything to lose.

  “Yes, yes we have an agreement, Mr. Finch.”

  “That leaves only one thing to do,” I said.

  “And that would be?”

  I faced Steinbeck.

  “Fancy a trip to La-la Land, old friend?” I asked him.

  He squirmed, still waiting for his stomach to be tickled.

  “Is that yes or a no?”

  He kicked a little more, which meant this conversation would be one-sided until he got his way.

  I let out the same small sigh that I always let out when Steinbeck got his way, which was all the time.

  “Okay, okay, you win,” I said.

  Out of the booth I leaned over and tickled his stomach.

  “Satisfied?”

  Steinbeck flipped up onto his feet and looked me dead in the eye. He barked.

  It was good enough of an answer for me.

  Chapter 2

  The first name on the list was Charlie Jones, a writer who worked the pigpen at Omniverse Studios. He wasn’t much more than a ladder-climber who churned out dime-a-dozen B Melodramas and C Crime Pictures for the stable of actors climbing the ladder just ahead of him. I told him over the phone I was an agent from ASSOCIATED TALENT looking for new prospects.

  He had an office way back of the lot with a commanding view of tumbleweeds, an oil stain and the bleached remnants of a coyote skull.

  “Nice view,” I said, turning from the window.

  Charlie had a tray out with Bourbon, ice and two glasses at the ready. He’d combed his hair, put on his best sports jacket with leather elbows and wore a pair of pants so neatly ironed you could cut glass on the pleat. Despite his best efforts, he looked like a kid playing dress up.

  “They put all us monkeys back here until we earn our stripes,” he said, “here.”

  He offered me a drink and I took it.

  “How long you been back here, Charlie?” I said, taking a gulp.

  “Two years.”

  “Before that you were in kindergarten, right?”

  A nervous smile brought out the dimples in his rosy cheeks.

  “I’m a lot older than I look Mr. Grayson.”

  Todd Grayson that was the name I’d given him. The real Todd Grayson chased ambulances in Southern California, and anything else that might lead to quick money. Lawyers and talent agents, all that separated them was…nothing at all.

  “Smarter than you look too, right, Charlie?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kid like you working his way up. They put your ass out on the lot in a room you’d have trouble getting a cat to sit in, let alone swing the damn thing. Yet you’re palling it up with movie stars at wrap parties. Writers usually get that kind of access, do they?”

  He gained about a year in age as suspicion robbed him of his dimples and the baby-bright look in his eyes.

  “What’s your game, Mr. Grayson? I thought you wanted to take me on your books not discuss my—“

  “Don’t worry, Charlie, I’m not here to bust your chops, just want a little information is all.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Writers,” I said and rolled my eyes for good measure. “I walk in here in a ten dollar suit wearing two dollar shoes and a tie that can tell you what I had for the fifty cent breakfast I ate a week ago and you don’t think anything is strange about that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—“

  “I’m not a talent agent, Charlie, my name isn’t Todd Grayson.”

  Both of Charlie Jones’ fists clenched at his side. His cheeks flushed red.

  “Who in hell are you, who sent you here?”

  “I’m filling in for the tooth fairy while she’s away on business. Who do you think I am, Charlie?”

  “A guy who doesn’t know what he’s dealing with, that’s who. A guy who’s messing around with the wrong guy, that’s who.”

  I leaned against the windowsill and crossed my arms.

  “And just who would that guy be who I’m not supposed to mess with? From where I’m standing, Charlie, looks like there’s only me and a pissed-off kid in this room, nobody else who I should worry about.”

  “Get out,” he said, his voice trembling.

  “If I don’t, Charlie? If I stay here and keep asking questions? What then?”

  There wasn’t much more than a desk and two chairs in the office and not more than a hop and skip from where he was standing to the phone on that desk.

  He eyed it.

  I eyed him.

  I wagged a finger like a chastising schoolmarm.

  “Don’t, Charlie. Don’t even think about it.”

  He bit at the edge of his lip. “About what?”

  “About picking that thing up and calling in a couple of those fancy-dress cops that stand outside the gates. I know you want to, but I’ve got to tell you it would be a big mistake.”

  “Yeah, well…” His voice trailed off into nothing. His eyes darted back and forth from me to the phone.

 
; “Let’s make this simple, Charlie, shall we? I want to know what you know about the night Marla Donovan was murdered. We’ll start with the big party you were at and then move on from there, how about that?”

  “Marla Donovan?”

  “At least you’re listening.”

  Charlie shrugged. “That drunken hack killed her, whatshisname, Meriwether. Everyone knows that.”

  “Seems like Tarquin Meriwether doesn’t share everyone’s idea about what happened.”

  “What? Are you working for that lush or something?”

  “I might be.”

  “And you think somehow I know what went on that night?”

  “You or someone else who was there.”

  “But you decided to pick on me first, right? Take out the small fish in the big pond, is that how you get your kicks?”

  There were no kicks in this job. All I could think about most of the time was scraping enough dough together to get the Mermaid Café up and running. But there was never enough dough and never enough time to make that dough.

  Except now.

  If I could wrap up this mess for Tarquin Meriwether I’d have what I wanted and I could stop it with the interrogations of unimportant squirts in tiny offices.

  “I go alphabetically. C comes before D in my book. And you come before the rest.”

  He huffed out a breath that might have indicated disgust or maybe he’d scoffed a breakfast burrito and it was repeating on him.

  I guessed it was disgust.

  “Tarquin Meriwether is a lush and a pain in the ass to anybody who ever met him. I’m surprised you can look yourself in the mirror in the morning, working for that pond scum.”

  “I broke my mirror a long time ago, and I never said I worked for him, did I? Maybe I’m doing all this out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “Sure, and I’m the Queen of Sheba. You’re working for him, just like that other fella, only you put a bit more effort with the fake phone call and the false name. That other Gumshoe barged in here and tried to strangle me before he asked a question. At least you made some effort.”

  I pushed away from the window and unfolded my arms.