Trouble in Rooster Paradise (8 page)

“
The charms of the withheld
charms.”

“
Exactly that.”

“
Well, she’s certainly in good
company in the looks department,” I said. “From what I’ve seen,
your entire sales staff seems to have stepped right out of
Vogue
.”

“
That’s Miss Anderson’s idea. Hire
pretty girls and dress them up to fit the image we’re projecting.
Make the personnel exemplify the product.

“
Listen, Gunnar, I want you to know
you’ve got our total cooperation. The sooner this matter can be put
to rest, the better.”

“
What matter is that, Len?” I
asked.

“
Why … Dirk Engstrom’s
innocence, of course. I understand he might have been involved. I
mean … his tie with Christine and all … well, Mr. Lundeen
said ….”

He had that look like he’d volunteered more
than he should.

“
Len, I’m just here to ask a few
questions.”

He blanched. “Of course. Yes, of course. Mr.
Lundeen speaks very highly of you.” Pearson was the tense sort who
needed to keep his gums moving. He talked of his friendship with
Rod Lundeen, his concerns for the company’s reputation and its
growing patronage. I let him yammer on.

“
It’s a shame that Dirk Engstrom is
involved even a little bit. It sort of complicates matters. I mean,
it would have been so much simpler if the police could just have
signed off on the whole thing. You
do
think it was a robber
that killed Christine, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer him. I just cocked my head and
watched as he flicked ash in the ashtray.

“
I … I just don’t think the
company can endure any bad publicity, is all. We’re still in a
fledgling state, you understand. But Mr. Lundeen is confident in
your abilities. I’m sure you’ll find out
something
that
will ….” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his
nose. “Damn. It better have been a robbery.”

Pearson snuffed out his cigarette and pulled
another from his pack. He looked at me hopefully. Old Rikard must
have told Len that I was brother to Mandrake the Magician. I popped
a clove in my mouth as he took a big drag on a freshly lit
Camel.

“
I knew that Dirk and Christine were
an item, of course. But I’m afraid I won’t be of much assistance to
you. I didn’t seem to be too much help to the police. I don’t pry
into the girls’ personal lives, and I leave their duties strictly
to Miss Anderson. Now
she
may be of some help. But you’ll
really want to talk with Meredith Lane. I understand she and
Christine were good friends.”

He stood up and made a rolling adjustment of
his upper arms to rejuvenate the padded shoulders of his suit.
“Come with me. I’ll have Miss Anderson arrange a brief
conference.”

He led me out of his office to a neighboring
door. He knocked and we were told to come in.

We entered a storage closet transformed into a
dwarfish version of Len’s office. Britt sat at her desk going
through some papers. She wore her pince-nez and resembled a very
classy schoolmistress. Dorothy Parker might have been right about
women’s glasses deterring men’s passes, but I’d discovered the
premier exception to her witticism.

Pearson seemed to stand an inch taller in
Britt’s presence. “Would you get Meredith in here, please? Mr.
Nilson would like to ask her a few questions,” he said with a
honeyed voice. Pearson’s manner was courtly and he displayed enamel
so bright you could read by it.

“
Certainly,” Britt replied. She used
the intercom and told Meredith to take an early break.

“
Poor Meredith,” Britt explained,
looking at me. “According to one of her neighbors she became
hysterical when she learned the news about Christine. Another
tenant gave her something to help her sleep. I told her to take
some time off, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I really fear she’s
overdoing it.”

In less than two minutes Meredith joined us
with purse in hand. Britt walked over and had her sit
down.

“
Meredith, you met Mr. Nilson out
front. What you don’t know is that he’s been hired by Mr. Lundeen
to investigate Christine’s murder.”

“
I see,” she said softly, giving a
feeble smile. Some of the confidence she’d shown me when we first
met had returned, but I could tell discovering my role flustered
her a little.

Britt stood by with a box of Kleenex, and I
noticed Pearson aping her, as he fumbled with his breast pocket in
search of his handkerchief. Meredith didn’t look like she was going
to cry to me. She seemed more uneasy than sorrowful.

“
How can I help?” Meredith
said.

“
Anyone you know who might want to
harm Christine?”

She looked at Britt and Pearson. “No ….
Christine was a sweet kid. I … I don’t know why anyone would
want to hurt her.”

Britt’s concern for Meredith was palpable, her
eyes portals of empathy and compassion. Pearson’s sympathies jumped
out at you too. He held his handkerchief at the ready with one hand
while the fingertips of his other lightly touched Britt’s shoulder
in solidarity. If he’d stood any closer to her they’d have been
Siamese twins.

Meredith plucked a couple of Kleenexes from the
box Britt offered, but I still didn’t see any tears. I turned to
Britt and Pearson. “Do you mind if I talk with Meredith alone? I
think she’ll be all right.”

Britt nodded and smiled, giving Meredith a
squeeze of the shoulder as she passed. Pearson seemed relieved at a
chance to go, and looked libidinously eager to follow his factotum
into a hurricane’s eye if necessary.

I figured Meredith might find it easier to say
some things about Christine to a stranger. Easier still, if Britt
and Pearson weren’t around.

I leaned against Britt’s desk and said, “This
is quite an establishment. A regular smorgasbord, especially for
the affluent gift hunter. How do you like working here?”

That gave her renewed focus. She started
talking about scents. Those she liked, loved and hated, and how she
preferred selling perfume over cosmetics. Next the shifts. Then the
work and the time spent on her feet.

Meredith opened her purse and took out a pack
of Pall Malls. “Britt won’t mind. Do you?” she asked.

I told her I didn’t mind.

“
Join me?”

I shook my head as I lit her cigarette for her.
A glass ashtray sat on Britt’s desk. I handed it to her.

After drawing deeply, she turned her head aside
and exhaled a gray column.

I asked about Britt and Pearson.

She characterized Pearson as a phantom. The
girls saw little of him. She made a joke about Britt being the
power behind Pearson’s throne, but gave no indication that anything
romantic was going on between them. It was plain Meredith respected
Britt Anderson. As she told it, Britt was fair to all the girls and
acted as sort of a big sister to some of them.

“
But she ain’t …
isn’t
nosy.”

According to Meredith, Britt saw to their
clothes and she even had them regularly groomed by a drama coach—an
older woman who lived over in Laurelhurst.

“
Mrs. Arnot helps us with things
like grammar and poise. Britt wants us to come across polished for
the customers,” she explained.

When she seemed more comfortable talking with
me, I asked, “Do you think Dirk Engstrom killed
Christine?”

She hesitated. “Do the police think he did
it?”

“
They’re questioning him. Do
you
think he killed your friend?”

“
He … he might have. He’s a
jealous one, that’s for sure. Christine complained about it all the
time. A real jerk in my opinion. But I don’t know … Dirk had
it for Christine in a bad way. It’s hard to see him as her
killer.”

“
Jealousy and homicide are frequent
bedfellows.”

“
Sure. I know. Like I said, he might
have done it.”

“
But you have another theory,” I
said.

My suggestion surprised her.

“
Do you think it was a customer?” I
asked.

She gave the closed door a quick glance before
slowly dipping her chin once.

“
This customer got a name?” I
asked.

“
No. I mean I wouldn’t know who it
might be. It could be any number of the repeat
customers.”

“
You monitor them?”

“
Uh-huh. It was Britt’s idea. You
know, a list of who referred who, and who waits on them. That kind
of thing. A way to keep track.”

“
Track of the repeat
customers.”

“
Uh-huh.
Men
customers. You
know how it is. They flirt with you or you flirt a bit with them to
make a sale. The next thing you know, some of them come in the
store just to see you, but then feel a need to buy something.” She
laughed nervously. “Before you know it some of them think they own
you.”

She stopped suddenly, hearing herself talk too
much.

“
Own
you?”

“
Well, not really, I
guess.”

She took a last drag on her cigarette, held her
breath and then exhaled a mouthful of smoke and then inhaled it
through her nose. Teenagers called it the French-inhale. Only they
would believe it was chic.

“
So you think Christine may have
gotten a little too involved with a particular customer—one who
thought he owned her? Is that it?”

“
Something like that. Listen, I’m
not accusing anyone of anything. All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t
hurt to check in that direction.”

“
Meredith, why do I think you’re
working with more than just a feeling?”

She looked down and away from me and then stole
a quick glance at the door. “At the end of the day yesterday,” she
said, “Christine made a phone call. I overheard her say something
about meeting later in Ballard.”

“
Over where she was
killed.”

“
Yes.” She was looking at me
again.

“
Did she say whom she was speaking
to? Or where they were to meet?”

She shook her head. “But I’m pretty sure it
wasn’t Dirk.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because I’ve overheard her talking
to Dirk plenty of times to know. She didn’t sound yesterday like
she does with him.”

“
How did she sound?”

She thought for a moment. “She was a little bit
nervous. Maybe scared. But the funny thing was, she was also angry.
Like she’d been cheated or something.”

Meredith said she couldn’t make out what the
conversation was about. We talked a little more about Christine and
their friendship. I could see she’d told me all she was going to,
but I got the impression that she had more to say.

I thanked her and gave her my card. She tore
off a page from one of Britt’s notepads and wrote something on it.
As she opened the door to leave she handed the note to
me.

“
That’s my address and telephone
number,” she said. “I’d appreciate knowing anything you might
learn.”

Outside the door I could hear Meredith and
Britt whispering, but their words were an unintelligible buzz. When
it ended Britt came back in. Her glasses were hanging around her
neck again.

“
Where’s the boss man?” I’d almost
said
your devoted follower
.

“
Len received a long distance
telephone call. It sounded urgent.”

“
It must have pained him to tear
himself away from you.”

She loyally ignored my sarcasm, but didn’t
offer excuses for her boss like an unquestioning employee might.
She merely smiled. I didn’t see Pearson as her type—in this venue
or in any other. He was just a hopeful base-stealer a long, long
way from home plate.

“
May I offer you some refreshments?
Some coffee or tea, perhaps?”

I told her coffee black would be great. I
watched her at her task.

Walter Pangborn owned a book on medieval
architecture. One phrase had gotten forever burned into my brain:
Seldom has splendor of form been so well harmonized with
subtlety of detail.
Britt Anderson was a Gothic edifice in the
Nordic style. She was well conceived and skillfully made—every
element a slice of pure perfection. She looked over at me through
lovely ornate windows as she poured our coffee. Britt definitely
had unity of design and harmony of substance and line. I found her
well-proportioned buttresses breathtaking. I was extremely moved by
her elegant curving vault, and I shamelessly surveyed her jutting
pinnacles of natural grandeur.

She brought me my cup. I plopped in the chair
Meredith had warmed. Britt leaned against a corner of her desk, one
ankle crossed over the other. She made a casual pose look like
enticing pageantry.

I almost told her that I envied the coffee cup
she held to her lips. But I let it go. She’d probably heard all the
lines in triplicate. And that one stunk. For the moment I stuck
with chasing facts instead of skirts.