I continued with the article by Vern Coughlin and brought up a different webpage to read about his death. I switched between the two, mesmerized.
In early 2005, Coughlin was leaving his home in the Sunset District when someone emerged from a car and shot him twice in the chest. The killer got back in his car and sped away. Two witnesses across the street said the license plate had been covered by duct tape.
Immediately, Dennis McCarthy became one of the suspects. Not for the actual killing, but ordering Coughlin’s death. The police had nothing concrete tying him to the crime, however. They assumed the car was immediately taken to a chop shop and disposed of. The gun and the bullets were fairly generic, and the investigation, although garnering a lot of interest, never really went anywhere.
And this is the guy I want to investigate? I thought to myself.
I went back to reading the article by Coughlin, while in the back of my mind imagining him getting shot to death outside of his house.
Dennis McCarthy started accumulating people to bet through him by time he was twenty-one years old. He knew this was an illegal business that would likely lead to shakedowns, breaking kneecaps, and other unpleasant business, so he tried to get as many degrees of separation between him and his subordinates as he could.
He treated his business as a pyramid scheme. He’d hire a few people he trusted implicitly to be his right-hand men. They would then hire people who would take in bettors. And on down the line. The genius of the plan was twofold: First, it kept Dennis McCarthy far removed from the day-to-day operations. The people below him dealt with their own clients, using any collection methods they felt necessary. Second, they all owed a percentage to the people above them on the pyramid scheme. So McCarthy would just sit at the top and collect money.
In his article, Coughlin hypothesized that over 80% of people placing a bet in San Francisco were betting through a subordinate of McCarthy’s.
And on the rare occasions the SFPD made an arrest for an illegal bookmaking operation, the chain of command always stopped before it reached McCarthy. People below him on the totem pole knew if they talked to the police there would be hell to pay.
And if, by some chance, it got near the top, McCarthy was protected by three people who would gladly take a pinch for him. There was no way the police could ever get to the top of the chain of command. Even though they all knew who sat there.
It appeared to be the same with the murder of Vern Coughlin. Even if they had been lucky enough to catch the perpetrator, he would have been so far removed from McCarthy that nothing would have ever gotten back to him.
And considering they never even found the man responsible, charging McCarthy was an impossibility to begin with.
I finished the article and leaned back, trying to take it all in.
I was a bit in awe of Dennis McCarthy, I had to admit. He’d enacted a business plan and made it virtually impossible to penetrate. Even if you somehow broke the small guy on the totem pole, it’s not like he’d ever worked with McCarthy. He had nothing to give to the police. And the further up the ladder you got, the less likely you were to get any cooperation.
Murders like that of Vern Coughlin would just make people all the more wary of Dennis McCarthy. For good reason.
I wondered if the murders I was currently enmeshed in were really his doing. As the letter said. And if they were, was investigating the guy really in my best interest?
I needed to do some soul-searching.
“Let’s get that coffee,” Cara said.
I was on a break when she called. Cara was old school and liked to talk on the phone whenever possible. Texts weren’t her style.
“When?”
“Tonight when you get off?”
“Sure. 6:00 p.m. at the Starbucks by my place.”
Cara worked as a fourth-grade teacher and did some Uber driving on the side to make extra money. It infuriated me that teachers had to have a secondary income to make ends meet. What could possibly be more important than teaching our country’s youth?
I’d told Cara many times I didn’t think she should drive for Uber at night. I told her she was too beautiful to have men alone in her car with her. You can imagine how that went over. Usually, I’d add that I didn’t want to have to write about her in the crime section. That’s when I’d get a dirty look and the conversation would cease.
She much preferred to talk about her students, anyway. It’s one of the factors that contributed to my father liking Cara so much. They could talk for hours about their love of teaching.
A few minutes before I left to meet Cara, Tom Butler returned to the office. I told him about my morning meeting with Detective Ray Kintner.
“Ray Kintner. The name rings a bell,” Tom said and smiled coyly.
“My lips are sealed.”
“We won’t mention him again. But maybe someday I’ll tell you how we became friends.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
That was how quickly we acknowledged and then intentionally forgot about our friend in the police department. I left a minute later and headed off to Starbucks.
Cara sat at a booth in the corner. I was a regular at this particular Starbucks, it being a stone’s throw from my apartment. When I needed to do some writing, and I wasn’t at work, I preferred to write outside of my apartment.
Since I got my morning coffee there every morning, I knew the majority of the staff fairly well. The baristas all knew my drink of choice. A half-caf Americano. With as many cups of coffee as I drank a day, if they were all fully caffeinated, I’d be bouncing off walls.
I said hello to Kevin, a barista I’d talk poker with from time to time. Hope and Leslie came out and said hi as well.
The baristas weren’t the only ones who knew my order. I remembered that as I saw Cara sitting in the corner with two drinks. She looked as beautiful as ever, wearing a yellow sundress. It reminded me that summer was officially here. June 21st, the summer solstice.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said.
“You’re welcome. How have you been?”
“Busy. After the shenanigans of my birthday, I’ve been on the straight and narrow this week.”
“What made you think you could take Dugan in the first place? The guy’s a beast.”
“All the drinks I’d consumed.”
Cara laughed. “Liquid courage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she said.
“How do you think we met? If I was sober that night, you think I would have approached you? I would have thought you were out of my league.”
“You know I hate when you say that?”
“I do.”
“And that’s why you keep doing it?”
“Something like that.”
She smiled. We always kind of pushed each other’s buttons in a playful, flirting way. It’s probably why everyone thought we still belonged together. I’d be lying if it didn’t cross my mind occasionally. Okay, more than occasionally.
“What’s that movie with Jack Nicholson where he plays a cop and has that bandage on his nose?” she asked.
“Chinatown. But he’s actually a private eye.”
“That’s how I’ve imagined you lately. Going around town asking questions with those stitches visible to everyone.”
“Comparing me to one of the most famous actors of all time. I can live with that.”
“Not that you’re investigating the all-time biggest crimes, but you get what I’m saying.”
With the exception of my mother, Cara was probably the only person in the world I’d have said the next sentence to.
“What if I told you I might actually be working something big for once?”
“In Walnut Creek?”
“Not exactly. Took place in Oakland, but peripherally, it involves Walnut Creek.”
“I’d say it’s about time. You’re meant for bigger.”
“You sound like my dad.”
“You know he always liked me.”
�
��Oh, I know. ‘Where’s Cara? How’s Cara? When is Cara coming over again?’”
She smiled knowingly. “And I loved him too. And still love your mom.”
“Thanks. I’m going to pick her up after this.”
“Oh yeah, what for?”
I hadn’t planned on bringing it up, but couldn’t avoid it anymore. “It’s the one-year anniversary of Dad’s death.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Quint! I knew it was coming up, but didn’t realize it was today.”
“Thanks.”
She leaned over and gave me a long hug.
“You don’t talk about him as much anymore,” Cara said.
“It’s not for lack of thinking about him.”
“I know how much you cared.”
“Thanks, Cara. I’d rather not discuss it right now. Will be tough with my mother tonight.”
Cara tried to find something to change the subject. “So, anything you want to tell me about this new case?”
My mind suddenly returned to the image of Vern Coughlin being shot outside of his home. I didn’t want to involve Cara, even in the most roundabout way. “No, not right now.”
“You tease,” she said.
“Probably shouldn’t have told you in the first place.”
“You can’t undo it.”
“Reminds me of an old joke,” I said, dying to change the subject.
“I’m listening.”
“What’s the difference between a pregnant lady and a lightbulb?”
“You can unscrew a lightbulb,” Cara said.
“Can’t get anything past you.”
“We’ve dated off and on for nine years. I’ve heard all your jokes.”
I smiled. “I need some new material.”
“I’m here for it.”
“So did you want to talk about anything specific, or just hear my lame old jokes?”
“I never said they were lame.”
I looked at her.
“I could just tell you were a little down on Saturday,” she continued.
“That was the booze talking.”
“They say that’s sometimes when you speak the rawest truth.”
“There’s something to that. But I assure you, I’m fine.”
“I believe you. You don’t stay down for long.”
“I cried that night,” I blurted out.
“Really?”
I looked down at my coffee. “You put some truth serum in this thing?”
Cara laughed again. “No, but I would have if I’d known you’d be this forthcoming so soon.”
“It was just a couple of stray tears. I was sitting out on the deck and rehashing my life thus far. Got the best of me for a moment.”
“Forty years old is a big deal,” Cara said.
“What do you know about it, Ms. Early Thirties?”
“I’ll let you know in eight years.”
“Damn, I forget how young you were when I first approached you in that bar.”
“Twenty-three. Fresh out of college.”
“Eight years was a big age difference back then. The older you get the less it matters. Seventy and sixty-two? Who cares?”
“So you’re saying we’re going to grow old together?”
“If we do, it will be with twenty stops and starts in between.”
As we both laughed, Cara spat up a little of her coffee.
“Glad you’re enjoying my new material,” I said, and she spat up a little more.
“Stop!” she said playfully.
This was us at our best. If we could bottle this type of conversation, we’d have lasted forever.
We went our separate ways a few minutes later with a promise to meet up again within a week.
Next stop on the never-ending day was to pick up my mother, Linda, and head to my father’s gravesite. She lived in a two-bedroom house in the city of San Ramon at the end of a small cul-de-sac. San Ramon was only fifteen minutes from Walnut Creek, so I was able to see my mother a great deal.
My parents met in the summer of 1975. Arthur Adler was twenty-five and Linda Murphy was twenty-three. He had just finished his first full year of teaching and she’d just graduated from college at the University of Washington. And they met at a library, of all places.
In this day of online dating, I always liked hearing old-school romantic tales. My parents’ was one of those.
My father saw a cute girl reading Moby Dick in the center of a library and was immediately enamored. Being a teacher, he gravitated toward smart women who liked to read. Not that reading Moby Dick ensured you were intelligent, but it was a good start.
So Arthur Adler walked over to Linda Murphy and said, “If you like stories about the sea, there’s this new movie out called Jaws. I’d love to take you sometime.”
Probably the quickest ever invitation for a date: literally the first words my father ever said to my mother.
She looked him over and said, “Does this usually work for you?”
“I don’t know. First time I’ve tried,” my father said.
“Why me?”
“Because I’m a teacher and I get captivated by women who read substantive novels. Plus, you’re cute.”
At that, my mother laughed. “Alright, I’ll go on that date with you. You better be normal!”
“I’m far above normal. But I’m not weird, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” my mother said.
They continued talking for an hour and agreed on a time to see Jaws. In the summer of 1975, the movie took the nation by storm. My parents often told me that they’d never seen an audience more invested in a movie than the time they saw Jaws.
Apparently, they loved it, because five years later, they decided to name their only child after one of its main characters.
I asked them why many times. Their stock answer had become something like, “We loved Quint’s intensity. How he was singularly preoccupied with the shark. He knew why he was alive and he reveled in his decision to be a man of the sea. Plus, Quint is just a cool-ass name!”
I’d tell them the story of how they met was far more entertaining. They’d always laugh.
Still, Jaws had kicked off their nearly forty-five-year romance, so I was just fine being named after a character from the legendary movie.
My parents had been in love from the moment their first date started. Maybe even that hour talking in the library. They told me they became inseparable.
They were married two years later and then my mother gave birth to me in 1980.
They’d planned on having more children, but her ovaries wouldn’t oblige. It was a subject we didn’t touch on much, but I know it had created sadness early in their marriage.
At some point, they accepted their fate, and were just happy to have a healthy, young boy to raise.
And they continued loving each other up until the very end. Truly a romance, if a tragic one.
After my father died, I worried how my mother would cope. But she seemed to be taking it as well as she could.
She was still prone to the occasional woe-is-me outburst, asking why it had to happen to her beloved Arthur, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I couldn’t blame her.
My parents had been in the Bay Area for the last ten years, moving from Seattle once I settled in California. They didn’t like living too far away from their only child.
Bay Area prices were a lot higher than in Seattle, so they’d settled on a cozy two-bedroom home. It was quaint and cute. The spare bedroom was small, but if someone came to visit, at least they had a place to sleep.
When my father passed, my mother decided to remain there. At this point, small size became an asset and she didn’t feel like the house was too much for her.
She stood outside waiting for me as I approached. She wore all black, for an obvious reason. My sixty-eight-year-old mother only started showing her age since my father passed, partly because she stopped dyeing her hair and had gone all gray.
&nb
sp; I parked the car, walked over, and gave my mother a kiss and a long hug.
“Thanks for this, Quint. I think it’s right that we go there today.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have missed it, Mom.”
She was holding a bouquet of flowers and a bag. I grabbed them both, putting the bag in the back seat and the flowers in the console cupholder.
“What’s that?” I asked as I set the bag down.
“Some of your father’s stuff. I figured I’d let you rummage through it and see if there’s anything you want to keep. If not, just toss it. It’s still too hard for me to look at it.”
“I’ll go through it. Thanks, Mom.”
We both got in the car.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
I started the car and we set off to pay our respects to my father.
We made it to the Sunset Cemetery in around fifteen minutes. It could take a half hour or more in prime traffic times, but after my coffee with Cara and my subsequent drive to pick up my mother, traffic was waning.
I’d been to my father’s gravesite three times since he was killed and knew where to park. I came around to the other side of the car and took my mother’s hand before we walked toward the gravesite.
The cemetery itself was well-kept, with beautiful trees and shrubs surrounding it. There was a nice view of the valley below. For what would always be a sad occasion, they did their best to make it peaceful.
We approached my father’s headstone and my mother removed her hand from my grasp. She took the flowers and set them in the vase that sat in front of the headstone. And got down on her knees to pray.
I stood back and let her mourn by herself.
She started to cry and I couldn’t stop myself from doing the same. Our father was so beloved and the way he died shocked us both. One year hadn’t taken away much of our grief.
His headstone was simple.
Arthur Adler. February 22nd, 1949 - June 21st, 2019. Loving husband of Linda. Proud father of Quint.
Revenge at Sea: (Quint Adler Book 1) Page 5