Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  “All right,” I said, leaning toward him, “but you aren’t going to believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “This is strictly between us, and I’m dead serious.”

  “Yeah, yeah, get on with it.”

  “I went to that club last night, Club Cabo.”

  Floyd’s eyes brightened. “Yeah?”

  “Well, I had had this hunch—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “—having thought about what you said about the cop, that Larry Walker guy, being in Donna’s little black book.”

  Floyd watched me like a dog waiting while his master ate a ham sandwich. If I kept teasing him with the information, taking small bites and chewing slowly, he would soon whine or growl or try to snatch it out of my hands. I had him, hook, line, and sinker. “Yeah?”

  “If it did turn out to be the cop, that prick from Headquarters, we’d probably better find out right away, you know, and figure out how we’re going to deal with that. Right?”

  “Out the bastard, is how we’d deal with him.”

  “Right. Well, anyway, I get to thinking, maybe a guy like that would be hanging out at the tranny club, you know? Just enjoying the show, maybe picking out a new girl or two since there seems to be a sudden shortage of drag queens.”

  “Thanks to Donna Edwards.”

  “So, I decided to stop by on my way home, maybe have a couple beers and mingle, and who do I see?”

  “Walker?” Floyd asked, his brows raised.

  “No. Your captain, Stover.”

  “Get outta here.”

  “Yeah, really, he was up on stage. I almost didn’t recognize him, the black dress with sequins, a slit up one side showing some leg.”

  “You asshole.”

  “You know,” I said, standing from my desk, “that asshole actually shaves his legs.”

  I headed for the kitchen with Floyd on my heels, passing several detectives in the hallway along the way.

  “You are such a dick. No wonder your mother named you Dickie.”

  “That was you who named me that.”

  “Oh yeah. But seriously, man, where’d you go last night?”

  I gestured pouring him a cup, after filling mine.

  He grabbed a fresh Styrofoam cup and held it out for me. “Come on dude, you’re killing me.”

  I chuckled. “Nothing exciting, really. I stopped at the V-room on the way home, thought maybe I’d run into Waters. Had a couple beers—H2O wasn’t there—and then I went home and had a couple more. Couldn’t sleep, so I pulled out my notebook and the case file, started reviewing the case, just going over shit. Next thing you know, I had switched to gin.”

  “Do we hate it when we switch to gin?”

  “Sometimes. Today being one of those times.”

  “So, in your pickled state of mind,” Floyd said, now leading the way back to the squad room, “did you come up with any brilliant conclusions?”

  “Yep.”

  He stopped to hear it.

  I sipped my coffee, making him wait for a minute before letting it go. He’d say I was nuts, say my theory sucked and tell me the problem was I spent too much time thinking about this shit. I’d argue my point for a while and sooner or later, he’d probably say all right, let’s see how your theory works out, Columbo. Or he’d tell me I needed to avoid gin, or maybe he’d suggest I should drink more of it.

  I said, “The doctor did it.”

  Floyd stood with a hand planted firmly on his hip, a coffee mug in the other, frowning. He watched me for a minute, apparently in thought, maybe questioning my sanity, maybe wondering if I was trying to put him on again, the second time this morning. Finally he said, “So we just forget the pictures, the ones putting Donna’s boyfriend and his homeboy at the crime scene?”

  “I haven’t worked that part out yet.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Dickie. You just come up with this shit while looking through a bottle of Bombay, and expect me to throw out the only real leads we’ve got? What the hell makes you think the doctor did it? What’s his motive? How’s he go to Lynwood and find these hookers, one in the motel and the other out on the street, whack ‘em, and get out of the neighborhood without being jacked for his Mercedes, or jammed by the cops because he’s in the wrong neighborhood? Have you lost your mind?”

  I wavered a little. Maybe he was right, I thought, staring at his squinted hazel eyes. Looking at my partner but seeing the crime scene in my head, picturing the pervert doctor there on Long Beach Boulevard strangling the well-dressed hooker. Watching him straddle Susie, maybe giving it a grin as he stepped away, the madman having completed his mission.

  My eyes were still on Floyd and his white cotton shirt loosened at the collar, a gray- and blue-checked tie with its fat knot hanging low. But in my head, I saw the escape, the doctor moving away from the body, looking over his shoulder and then hurrying toward the lot where his Mercedes sat waiting, stepping in the planter along the way.

  I thought about the gangsters on the balcony, outside the motel room, Fudd saying he followed them there after the argument in the front yard. And I thought, it could be a coincidence, and maybe when they left there she was alive and well. It was a stretch, but . . .

  So I said to my befuddled partner: “Stranger things have happened.”

  34

  THE GOOD DOCTOR, who apparently suffers from advanced stages of Sexual Deviance Disorder, an unrecognized medical condition I discovered during a silent analysis of my partner, had several strikes against him. That’s how I saw it, thinking about it on the way into the office this morning.

  No doubt the duo of Donna Edwards and Gilbert Regalado had snared the doc, getting explicit photos of his private moments with Susie. A Beverly Hills doctor would dread this type of bad publicity, and seven figures a year could afford to pay for silence. That’s probably the way they saw it, the good doctor gladly stuffing twenty large into an envelope to protect his dirty secret. Maybe fifty, who knows?

  However, we were surprised to learn that his forte was plastic surgery; neither of us had seen that coming. I had told Floyd it bolstered my theory, figuring he probably performed the gender reassignment surgery of Shane Wright, and the breast augmentation for Stephen Dubois, and maybe he had worked out a deal, something along the lines of ongoing companionship in lieu of payment. But when the pressure started, and the extortion began, maybe he saw them as disposable.

  Or maybe the doctor paid the extortion demand and then the two hookers decided they would get in on the big cash-out, make a demand of their own. That could have been enough to send him over, make him realize he had a substantial problem that needed a permanent solution.

  It was a huge stretch, and I knew it. But it intrigued me nonetheless. Though I had to admit I wasn’t even close to convinced of it myself, and the other theory was a far better one. But the shoe impression kept me there, the remark by Gentry saying it appeared to be a men’s casual dress shoe. Dress shoe. Not gangster shoe, or prison shoe. Dress shoe.

  The rain had brought traffic to a crawl this morning, but I preferred it over another unbearably hot day in early spring. It’d be a long day, I surmised, thinking of everything we needed to accomplish, which meant I probably wouldn’t have to contend with traffic during the drive home.

  I thought again about the doctor theory and began to gloat beneath the gray Dobbs, a snappy straw dress hat with a two-inch brim turned down in the front and back, suddenly realizing that if my theory proved true—against all odds—it would be Floyd eating crow.

  The physical evidence needed to bolster my theory would be a match of the shoe impression. “If the shoe fits, you must not acquit,” I said over the traffic report on my radio. Talking to myself, alone but surrounded by idiots. I smiled, saying it again, this time with some rhythm to it. “If the shoe fits, you must NOT acquit.” I laughed at myself, and thought, maybe I’d suggest the little ditty to the district attorney, something he could use during closing arguments. Johnnie Cochran pro
bably wouldn’t mind too much, I thought, the play on his famous courtroom declaration, God rest his soul.

  Then I thought about the doctor’s defense. What could he say? If the shoe impression matched, he’d never be able to explain being in that part of town, much less in that part of town afoot, and just a couple feet from the scene of the crime. The man with his big house in Bel Aire, his business in Beverly Hills. What could he say to justify being in South Los Angeles? He went to the store, wound up in the ghetto near that dead hooker? I don’t think so.

  Not even an L.A. jury would buy that. Not unless the doctor was a celebrity, a sports figure or rap star maybe.

  I stood inside the back door of the office and collapsed my umbrella, a frown creeping onto my face as I noticed a crowd near my desk. There were a couple of guys in green raid jackets, SHERIFF printed across the back, most likely gang cops, and two others, a man and a woman wearing blue raid jackets, PROBATION on the front.

  Floyd sat center stage, telling his story as I walked up behind him: “. . . high-caliber rifle rounds tearing through the metal of our car, glass flying everywhere. Dickie comes flying out of the car, lands on me, I’m trying to see who the hell is shooting at us but now I have his big ass on top of me—oh, speak of the devil.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, giving the guy leaning against my desk a hint. I nodded as he moved, doing my best to be polite given my level of irritation. Floyd telling his war story rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Sitting back in his chair, arms folded, telling it like it was no big deal, another day at the office. The cool guy with his flowered tie. Never mentioning the terror, the moments wondering if we’d live through it, the sweat pouring off our foreheads, the fear we each saw in the other’s eyes.

  It occurred to me I was being a bit grumpy, that Floyd was only doing what he does, entertaining. Everyone seemed to like him and he easily drew a crowd. I had never been a fan of crowds, especially on my home ground. Like coming home and having someone parked in my driveway, it irritated me to come in and see people sitting at my desk, on my desk, or even standing around my desk.

  Maybe I was also a little bitchy that my partner still scoffed at my theory about Dr. Gladstone.

  He’d see soon enough about the doc . . .

  Floyd said, “Looks like my partner’s grumpy today, probably that time of the month again.”

  There were a few snickers as the newly founded fan club slowly dispersed.

  “You going to buy me a cup, asshole?” Floyd asked, entertainment hour now behind him.

  He followed as I silently rose and drifted toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said to my back.

  When we reached the kitchen, I finally spoke. “Who were those idiots?”

  “Florencia Gang Task Force,” Floyd said. “They’re assisting Team Six with search warrants. What’s your problem?”

  “Nothing.”

  He let it go.

  “I talked to Phil Gentry about the shoe impression. He said it’s definitely good enough for a comparison, but he wants every shoe the doctor owns to make sure he can get a definitive, if you’re still dead set on wasting our time with that theory.”

  I ignored the comment, instead thinking about an affidavit, wondering if we had enough probable cause for a search warrant of the doctor’s residence.

  “You think we have enough for a warrant?” he asked, maybe reading my mind.

  “I don’t know, maybe. Yeah, probably.”

  “We could always knock on his door, ask him real nice could we have a look around. Then swipe all of his shoes, tell him we’ll get back with him later.”

  “You think this guy doesn’t have a team of lawyers on his speed dial?”

  “Good point, Dickie. I guess you’d better get crackin’ on a warrant. After all, the doc is all yours, from start to finish. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time.”

  The thought went through my head that he was right, that I was way off track on this theory. But I ignored my gut on this one, the stubborn side showing its colors.

  Floyd poured us each a cup and we headed back to the floor, the squad room, a sea of desks with computers and fluorescent lighting where A-type personalities killed themselves trying to find out who killed someone else.

  Dr. Gladstone finished perusing the search warrant, a copy of the original Floyd told him was his to keep. He lowered it to reveal a smirk on his face. “You’re wasting your time here, Detectives.”

  Oh, is that right?

  It was just what I expected from the arrogant bastard, this man in his silk robe and house shoes smoking a cigarette at seven o’clock in the morning, the second straight day of rain in the southland. The rain being as rare and about as welcomed as our search warrant at the Bel Aire estate.

  Floyd said, “Why’s that, sir?”

  “I was traveling abroad when those pitiful youths were slain,” he said, in his English accent.

  Now I knew we hated him.

  But Floyd continued: “Where were you, Doctor?”

  I did a mental eye-roll, wanting to tell Floyd, Let him take the witness stand, say it there. It annoyed me that Floyd entertained the man’s alibi, even if he didn’t believe it. This doctor who no doubt would think he was smarter and more important than the two cops coming in from the rain. The way I saw it, he expected our visit, another sign he was our man. Why else would he have an alibi prepared? This doctor smoking his Virginia Slims, or some other girly cigarette, in his robe and slippers.

  I left the two of them standing in the marbled entryway with chairs and a bench seat covered in red velvet, a room bigger than my first apartment, and I proceeded up the spiral staircase to my right, the search warrant giving me unrestricted access to the home. I’d bring back a box full of shoes, interrupt Floyd saying, Really, sir, how impressive . . . Tell both of them, We’ll see about that alibi, doc, and walk out with the evidence. Send the perverted Englishman to the pokey, tell him his new name’s going to be Peaches in the California Department of Corrections. Maybe tell him in an English accent.

  Be able to say to Floyd, See? . . .

  Shortly after I began my search, the sounds of friendly chatter downstairs faded and soon thereafter I felt a presence in the master bedroom.

  “You can go ahead and take his shoes, if you’re set on it, Dickie, but I think he’s right, we’re wasting our time.”

  I was on my knees in the carpeted walk-in closet. A collection of dress shoes in a box soon to be labeled Evidence sat next to me. I glanced at Floyd over my shoulder, then returned to my search without a response.

  “I know you’re not going to like this, but the man has more than just a good alibi.”

  “He convinced you, huh?”

  “The problem is,” Floyd said, squatting down next to me now, “Doc wears an eight and a half. Look at them, those little shoes there, they damn near look like women’s shoes. Phil estimated tens or elevens, nothing near an eight or nine.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, Dickie, he did.”

  “I don’t remember that,” I said, doubting him.

  “And the doc’s got proof he was in Atlanta the night of our murder.”

  I lifted my hat and wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “You ask him how it is he knows what day they were killed? It’s not like this case made the papers.”

  “Donna told him the day after,” Floyd said. “She told him Susie and Stephanie had been killed, told him it happened the night before. He remembers she called after he got home from the airport Saturday afternoon. He’s looking for travel records as we speak, trying to find his itinerary, airline tickets, hotel receipts . . .”

  I sensed there was more. “Yeah, and?”

  “The call was an extortion demand.”

  I stopped and turned to face him.

  He continued: “Donna told Doc about the two girls being killed, then told him to check under his mat, said he’d find something of interest. Actual
ly, what he told me was, ‘of significant matter’”—Floyd giving it his best English accent—“but I don’t think that’s actually what Donna would have said.

  “She stayed on the phone while he checked under the mat and found an envelope. He opened it up, and there’s these photos, similar to what we took from her safe-deposit box, from what he described. She told him there’s another set, says it’ll cost him a hundred thou to get those and the negatives.”

  We both stood and faced one another in the walk-in closet, though I still had nothing to say.

  Floyd continued, “Doc tells Donna he’ll have her incarcerated—yeah, that’s what he said, incarcerated—and her response was basically that it would be his word against hers, as far as the phone call. Then she asked if he was really so stupid that he would go to the cops.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He told her they’d get her prints off the letter, compare her writing and she’d be done. That’s when she said Susie wrote the note, what did he think, she was stupid?”

  “He told you all this?”

  “Yeah,” Floyd said, “and there’s more. Donna told him if he went to the cops, her gangster friends would pay him a visit, maybe at his office. I mean, basically our sweet little Donna Edwards had Susie and her friend whacked and threatened the doctor with the same.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, struggling with the story, not wanting to let go of my theory. I said, “Well, at least according to this suspect.”

  “Come on, man, you can’t get around those pictures. Gilbert and the other thug at the hotel the night of these murders. Then cruising around like they were looking for someone. You have to admit, buddy, the doctor theory is thin, especially in light of his story on this, and his alibi.”

  I couldn’t believe it, Floyd believing every word the man said to him. This asshole doing Hugh Hefner in his pajamas on a rainy morning in Los Angeles, probably wishing we’d have a good fog roll in, the bloody arsehole.

  “So is he willing to testify to all of that?”