Even the Butler Was Poor by Ron Goulart Page B

recording session, too?"
    "Nope, she was hurrying out of the agency as I was arriving. We bumped into each other. She didn't seem to recognize me—but I'm near certain she's the masked woman who shot at me and tried to swipe Buggsy."
    "Golly," remarked Sankowitz, "this is getting better than I dared hope. Gun toting models, hairbreadth escapes, all the—"
    "Hush," H.J. interrupted.
    Ben said, "Here's probably what happened—some night within the past week or so. Kathkart, who is known far and wide for not being the calmest and most even-tempered of men, got into a situation that produced this elderly corpse. We don't know why yet, since we don't know who the dead man is. Let's see, Trinity was probably at Kathkart's for some—"
    "Definitely was," cut in H.J. "She's been dating My Man Chumley, remember?"
    "Alright, so probably Trinity was with him. The victim shows up for some reason, there's a fracas, Kathkart kills him—"
    "Allegedly kills him," amended Sankowitz.
    "Allegedly my ass," said H.J.
    "Kathkart realizes he's in big trouble. But—and this has to be the key to what happened—he also realizes that he's damn important to the ad agency. If he's arrested for murder—or even manslaughter—it screws up the whole and entire My Man Chumley account. He and the agency stand to lose millions of dollars, The Chumley image goes flooey and the client is—"
    "They're very conservative, too," said H.J.
    "Who?"
    "The Walden Food Corporation, the folks who own My Man Chumley. Mom and the flag sort of people," she said. "If word got out that Chumley was slaughtering kindly old codgers, it would annoy them no end."
    "Exactly. So Kathkart says to Beaujack, and possibly Moon as well—'Gee, I seem to have this corpse on my hands, fellas. Suppose you come over and help me get rid of it. Otherwise we all lose millions.'"
    "A loyal ad man like Les Beaujack," said H.J., "would hop into his Mercedes and whiz over there with a shovel and a sack of quicklime."
    "Could be you're a mite too cynical," suggested Sankowitz. "Not all advertising folks are crass and mercenary."
    "Kathkart sure is, though," said Ben. "Les Beaujack, too. I don't think he'd have much of an ethical struggle over something like this. Not with all the money involved."
    Sankowitz asked, "How'd Rick Dell fit into all this?"
    H.J. answered, "He'd been dating Trinity off and on and he. . . Well, he had a habit of tailing his ladyfriends sometimes and snapping photos. Unbeknownst to them."
    "That might indicate he tried blackmail before this," said Ben. "Did he ever try photographing you?"
    "Not to my knowledge, no. But he did confide in me that he'd done it with other ladies," she said. "There was jealousy involved, whether or not he also had blackmail in mind. I'd guess that he was out on one of his patrols, tailing Trinity and snapping pictures from a safe distance. Then all of a sudden a murder took place and he was close enough to get photographs of the mopping up operation. He may also have seen the victim going in to Kathkart's home and recognized him."
    "Another thing I've been wondering," said Sankowitz. "How come Dell didn't develop these shots himself instead of hiding the undeveloped roll in the dummy?"
    "That's another side effect of his lousy economic situation."
    "How so, Helen?"
    "Rick did a lot of amateur and semi-professional photography, but he never had a darkroom of his own. He usually shared the set up of a photographer friend of his over in Norwalk," she explained. "But when it got to the point where he was into this friend for around $2500 worth of supplies and equipment, the guy locked him out. That happened about two weeks ago and I imagine Rick didn't have access to another darkroom, not one he could trust with pictures like these. But since he'd been on the scene, he knew what he had seen and he obviously made his blackmail pitch without bothering to develop the stuff."
    Sankowitz said, "You realize the