The Black Door by Collin Wilcox Page B

minutes later, Captain Larsen arrived with a couple of other detectives. They talked with Grinnel briefly, not more than ten minutes or so. Then Grinnel and his bodyguard left with the detectives. They went in two detective cruisers to the morgue, where Grinnel identified his daughter’s body. Apparently, Grinnel showed absolutely no emotion, either when he went in the viewing room, or when he came out. He was very pale, but that’s all.”
    “Who went in with him?”
    “The Captain.”
    “What happened then?”
    “They drove straight back to Grinnel’s suite, and Larsen went in again, with Grinnel. That was at quarter to seven, and he could still be there, for all I know. Larsen posted two patrolmen in the hallway outside Grinnel’s door.” The editor paused. “Do you think that’d indicate Larsen has some reason to suspect Grinnel might be harmed by the same person who murdered his daughter?” His voice sounded hopeful.
    “I doubt it. I think it’s more in the nature of a courtesy, probably more of a protection against reporters, in fact, than against murderers.”
    “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, there probably won’t be much stirring tonight. Why don’t you get some sleep and plan on making Grinnel’s news conference tomorrow morning? That guy’s a real spellbinder, whether you agree with his politics or not. Should be quite a show.”
    “Are you going to have someone do a feature on him?”
    “I thought I’d wait and see. In the meantime, I had some background material worked up. You can use it in your story. Why don’t you go to the press conference at ten, then come down here and do the story?”
    “Well, really, I’d like to have the background stuff before I go to the conference. Suppose I stop by tomorrow morning, before I go to the Fairmont?”
    “If you want to, that’s fine. I was trying to give you a little time off.” I thought I caught a faint note of approval in his voice. The city editor was a vintage type, lean, stringy and sixtyish—the type who never smiled on the job, or paid compliments, or believed in God or leisure time or press releases.
    “I don’t mind coming down,” I answered, underplaying it. “Anything new from headquarters?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Okay. I’ll be in about nine o’clock, then, for that background stuff. Good night.”
    “Right. Good night.”

7
    I NDULGING MYSELF IN THE gathering momentum of the Grinnel case, I decided to take a cab next morning from the Sentinel to the Fairmont, giving myself time to study Grinnel’s biography on the way.
    It was fascinating reading. Grinnel’s father, I learned, had been a modestly successful manufacturer and processor of livestock feed, with his plant in Los Angeles. Robert Grinnel took over the business at age twenty-three, when his father suffered a paralytic stroke during the depths of the Depression. In the years that followed, Robert held the business together by pure force of will. He put everything on the block: the family house, the jewels, the Packard, and a large farm. A bachelor at the time, he moved into a furnished room. To save one salary, he learned accounting at night school and worked on the company books in his spare time. And, finally, he moved his paralyzed father from a private nursing home to a county hospital, pleading virtual bankruptcy.
    In 1935 he went into food processing, and by 1945 had made a fortune. His plant was the largest frozen food facility west of the Mississippi, and at war’s end, convinced of an ever-larger peacetime demand for his product, Grinnel borrowed heavily to double his production facilities. His only major west coast competitor was equally convinced that a postwar recession was inevitable, and therefore lacked the modernized facilities necessary to meet Grinnel’s competition in the boom that followed.
    In 1942, Robert Grinnel married, when he was thirty-four, and in 1946 Roberta was born. The son, Robert, Jr., was born two years later. Grinnel’s