One for the Books : Case of Returning Scene of Crime Attracts Gumshoe

A lot of guys in my business have said it, that a criminal often returns to the scene of the crime. Here’s a new one for them: I call this the case of the returning Scene of the Crime.

It began like they all begin. I was staying out of the smog and minding my own business, wondering if the Dodgers would hold on or if it was rainy enough to get out my trench coat, when a shadow fell over my desk and I looked up to see the boss giving me her look--like I was the fly and she was the swatter.

She told me to hit the bricks, to check out a tip. Word was that the once-popular San Fernando Valley book shop called Scene of the Crime was coming back.

Yeah, that’s right, the shop that left the Valley two years ago when the developer who owned its Ventura Boulevard storefront decided to turn the whole block into a three-story office and retail complex. There were the usual cries of protest from the usual suspects--residents and politicians. But that didn’t stop the evictions of the shops in the way. This was progress.

Ruth Windfeldt, owner of Scene of the Crime, took her world-famous collection of 20,000 mystery books over the hill, out of the Valley, and lined them up on shelves in a store in the classy Wiltern Theater building.

The Art Deco style of the restored Wilshire Boulevard theater gave the place a hard-boiled 1930s atmosphere where even Philip Marlowe wouldn’t mind hanging his hat. It wasn’t the Valley by a long shot.

I pulled the old clips and found my first clue in a story dated March 23, 1989. “I’ll miss the Valley,” Windfeldt had said.

How much, I wondered. Enough to come back? You could strike a match on my resolve now. I dropped a dime and dialed 981-CLUE but got no answer at Scene of the Crime, much less clues. A late Tuesday morning and no answer. This tip was beginning to look better all the time.

I drove out of the Valley to Wilshire and Western Avenue. There, beneath the blood red neon sign, I found the Scene of the Crime. Or what was left of it.

The shop was darker than a loan shark’s heart. Through the window I saw row after row of empty shelves. The books were packed into stacks of cardboard boxes like stiffs headed for the cooler. The door was locked but I saw movement. Back in the shadows. I rapped on the glass and saw her move into the light.

She threw me a stare you could use to carve a tombstone. But she came to the door anyway. They all do. That’s the way they are. They want to know who’s there.

It was Windfeldt but she wasn’t having any of me. She said she had no time to talk. She was too busy packing and moving. She just nodded at the small notice posted on the glass and then ushered me through the door.

The notice announced that Scene of the Crime was returning to the Valley. On Sept. 15 the shop will reopen at 14450 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. That’s about eight blocks west of the old location where someday that three-story glass and steel complex may still rise.

I felt like saying something. Maybe something like “welcome back, old friend.” But I was standing out there in the nastiness all alone.