For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

Chapter 15

"You must have thirty or so faces that I recognize." Henry noted that most of the photos were standard studio publicity shots and most of them had signatures and personal inscriptions to "Harrison".

"Oh, yes, there are a lot of famous people on that wall, I'm surprised you don't recognize all of them, but then maybe you are too young to remember some of these folks." She walked back over to the hallway and looked at the photos with Henry.

"Come into the living room and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?" She led the way into the living room that was packed with furniture that looked as though it was all bought at the same time in the mid-sixties. Henry had been in houses like this before; it looked as though Mrs. Icklebee had downsized her house, but not her furniture collection. There was no problem finding a place to sit, there were two sofas, four matching chairs and little tables taking up nearly every square foot of space in the living room. Even though everything was very dated, just as the outside of the house, it was very clean and neat.

"Do you have coffee? I take it black." Henry said, finally choosing to sit down on a blue velvet sofa with little white cotton doilies for headrest covers.

"Sure, I made a fresh pot a little while ago." Mrs. Icklebee walked into the kitchen and came back with two mugs filled with coffee. She carried the cups that were filled to the brim as though it was nothing and she did it every day. He guessed that she was over ninety, but she didn't move like it. "Where did you get all those pictures?" He asked setting the coffee mug on a little green crochet doily on the coffee table that had a number of doilies all different colors.

"How long have you been here in Palm Springs young man?" Mrs. Icklebee sat down in a Queen Anne chair that had obviously seen better days, but seemed to fit her like an old glove.

"I've been here just about three years or so." Henry wasn't used to being the interviewee and her eyes still made him uncomfortable.

"Then you wouldn't remember the Willow Springs restaurant, would you?" Mrs. Icklebee set her coffee down on a blue crocheted doily.

"I've heard of it, it was a fancy place on South Palm Canyon Drive wasn't it?" Henry could not get used to thinking of her as Janet. She was easily one of the oldest people he had ever interviewed in a murder case. But she didn't act as if she was that old and he knew she wasn't frail; he had been surprised at her strength when he shook her hand. "That's right; it was a beautiful building, designed by one of Palm Springs' well known modernist architects."

She had this look in her eyes as though she could remember the building in its heyday. "Sadly even the building is gone now, everyone wants Jack-in-the-Box style architecture and no one cares about a nice building and a great atmosphere to enjoy a meal anymore. Eating has been turned into a biological function, not an enjoyable event."

"Did you buy these pictures from the restaurant when it closed down?" Henry picked his coffee up; he was a lot more comfortable when he was the one asking the questions.

"Oh no, we didn't buy them, they were given to us by our customers. Harrison, that was my husband, that's him right there." She pointed at a large picture on the end table that showed a tall handsome man in a tuxedo and a much younger but still very tan Janet Icklebee in a formal gown. "Anyway, Harrison and I owned the Willow Springs for many years, and Harrison was the manager; all those people whose picture you see in the hallway were in our restaurant for dinner."

"So you've been collecting these for a long time then." Henry asked.

"Well, we stopped getting them when the restaurant closed down, so what we have there is all that we have left. We gave some away over the years." She waved her hand in the direction of the entry. "They actually looked a lot better in the old house; we had a lot more space there. When we moved here, the entry was the only place we could hang them. But I like the way it looks there, it reminds me of Willow Springs."