Clutching at Straws

by J. L. Abramo

  “I need a big favor, with no questions asked.”

  “You’re some piece of work, Diamond. What do I look like to you, Santa Claus?”

  Actually, Johnson looked more like Frosty the Snowman. “No,” I said.

  “Lucky for you, because I know who’s been naughty and nice.”

  “Please, Johnson, one time. I’m offering what could prove to be a big payoff for you. Satisfaction guaranteed, if you’re not one hundred percent satisfied, I’ll never ask again.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Knowing what a screw-up you are Diamond, I like the odds,” he said. “What do you need?”

  “I need to know the coroner’s official estimate of the time of Chancellor’s death.”

  “That’s public information, Diamond, what do you need me for?”

  “And I need to know what time Katt rolled out on duty that night.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me what this is about?”

  “That’s the deal. I’ll let you know if it pans out,” I said.

  “Call me back in a few hours.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me, Diamond, I’m betting against you.”

  On my way out the back exit of the Hall of Justice I ran into Hank Strode.

  “How you been, Jake?”

  “Up and down, Hank.”

  “That Chancellor thing turned into quite a complicated mess,” he said. “Does anyone have any idea at all about what really happened?”

  “I’m working on it, Hank. I’m working on it.”

  I was almost through the door when Hank stopped me. “Jake.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ll never guess who was in the building today. Came right through here and gave me a big hello.”

  I hated to spoil it for him, so I didn’t.

  “Who?”

  “Guess.”

  “I can’t, Hank. C’mon, the suspense is killing me.”

  “Bruce Willis,” he said.

  “How about that,” I said, turning back to the exit and smiling in spite of my mood.

  Sometimes I just can’t help it.

  Thirty Five

  I sat at the bar in Little Mike’s, working on my third bourbon, looking to kill a few hours before I called Sergeant Johnson, looking to kill the dull pain behind my eyes.

  Mike must have thought I was looking ragged because just as I ordered a fourth, Joey Russo walked in.

  “You all right, Jake?” he asked, taking the stool beside me.

  “I’m trying real hard to get there, Joey.”

  “Maybe a little too hard, buddy,” he said, waving off Mike before he placed the fresh drink in front of me. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m clutching at straws,” I said, remembering something Lefty Wright had accused me of.

  “There’s an empty table in back,” Joey said. “Let’s talk about it. Mike, do me a favor and send over a pot of espresso.” Joey gently took me by the arm and led me to the table. “So?” Joey said when we were seated.

  “There’s a couple of popular expressions I’m having real trouble with.”

  “Such as?”

  “Degree of guilt,” I said, “and just punishment.”

  “Good ones,” Joey said. “Lowell Ryder?”

  I filled Joey in on what I had learned and hadn’t learned from my earlier meeting with the new district attorney.

  “Guilt and punishment. That’s a tall order, pal. And, no disrespect, I’m pretty sure it’s beyond your job description as an investigator,” said Joey. “I would leave determinations like that to those at least more legally, if not more adequately, equipped. And in the end, to the big scorecard in the sky.”

  I knew he was right.

  “In the meantime, it’s not like you have nothing to hone your skills on, Jake. There remains the question of Judge Chancellor and Freddie Cash.”

  “That reminds me, I have a call to make,” I said.

  “Sergeant Johnson, it’s Jake Diamond.”

  “Call me Santa, and Christmas is coming early this year. The M.E. says that the judge was no more than two hours dead when he was examined that night. Since his body was discovered at ten, anytime between eight and ten would be a very accurate time frame. Officers Katt and Moss checked out their cruiser at three that afternoon and checked it back in after their shift at eleven.”

  “Are you sure about those times?”

  “Positive. I checked the log and asked Moss for extra measure.”

  “You asked Moss?”

  “Yes. I bumped into him at the end of his tour this afternoon and asked him. Any reason why I shouldn’t have?”

  “No,” I said, “no reason at all.”

  “Remember our deal, Diamond. Unless you have something to tell me that I’m dying to hear, cross my name off your phone list,” Johnson said, and hung up.

  “I need to get down to Sign Hill Park,” I said to Joey.

  “My car is right out front. Tell me about it on the way.”

  Joey Russo sat in the car; I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. The door opened and she stood there, much more serious than she had looked when I first met her two days before, the two young boys peeking out from behind her.

  “Mrs. Moss, Jake Diamond. Do you remember me?”

  “Sure, the lawn mower repair man,” she said, trying to sound calm.

  She didn’t do a very good job of it.

  “I need to speak with your husband,” I said.

  “He left.” She said it as if she weren’t sure he would ever come back.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m frightened. Phil came home very agitated; he wouldn’t even answer me when I asked him what was wrong. He went to the garage, grabbed the package, jumped into the car, and drove off.”

  “The package?”

  “I stumbled across it yesterday. I was afraid to say anything to Phil about it. It was a lot of money. It had to be thousands and thousands of dollars.”

  “You have no idea where he may have gone?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  The fear in her voice had the two boys grasping tightly to her skirt.

  “I can’t tell you what to do. You may have to just sit tight. Maybe your husband will come back. If you get to a point where you can’t wait any longer, you might want to call Lieutenant Lopez.”

  “Is Phil in a lot of trouble?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid he is,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Can you help him, Mr. Diamond?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I finally realized that it’s out of my hands.”

  “I have to feed my boys,” she said. “They shouldn’t miss dinner.”

  “No, they shouldn’t,” I said. “Good luck.”

  I turned and walked back to Joey’s car. I slid heavily into the passenger seat.

  “It’s what happens when people coexist, Jake. When people depend on one another, someone makes a mess of it and others suffer. We’re only humans.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to look for him or what to do if I found him,” I said.

  “There’s no reason for you to be part of it anymore, Jake. Just get out of it. When was the last time you had something to eat?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Let me take you home for dinner. Sonny and my daughter will be there with the baby, and Angela will be thrilled to feed you. We’ll have a few beers and complain about the 49ers. Maybe we can watch that Tom Hanks movie, decide if we’d all be better off living alone with a volleyball.”

  “Sounds like the perfect thing to do,” I said.

  And it was.

  Joey dropped me in front of my apartment building on Fillmore Street. I grabbed my mail from the box in the hall and climbed the one flight up to my place. I unlocked the door and had one foot in when I felt the gun against my ribs.

  “Be caref
ul with that thing,” I said.

  “Just get inside and be quiet,” said Officer Phil Moss.

  I guessed that when Joey said that there was no reason for me to be part of it anymore, he hadn’t considered this one.

  Thirty Six

  He had me seated in my reading chair; he sat opposite me on the sofa.

  “I wish you wouldn’t point that thing at me, Phil,” I said. The guy was a bundle of nerves.

  “Shut up and let me think.”

  I was tempted to say that some thinking on his part was long overdue.

  I controlled myself and kept my big mouth shut.

  “I need that watch back,” he finally said.

  “What good is that going to do, Phil?”

  I have no willpower.

  “Shut up, I told you. Give me the Rolex.”

  “Look, Phil, here’s the deal. You tell me what happened with Chancellor—the first time you and Katt arrived—and I’ll give you the watch. Or you can just shoot me.”

  Great line. Who the fuck ever thought that one up!

  “Katt got the watch from Ryder,” I said. “It was in the bedroom when Lefty Wright arrived. Katt had to have been there before Lefty. You were with Katt from three in the afternoon, so you had to have been there also. Just tell me what happened.”

  To my surprise he did just that.

  “We were cruising our usual rounds, I was driving, Tom took a call, said it was a reported disturbance at the Chancellor house. He told me to park down the street. We got out and walked to the house. Katt asked me to check the front door and he went around the side. I didn’t know it then, but he expected that Lefty Wright had been there and gone by then. Wright was supposed to be in at seven and out before eight.”

  He stopped. I thought I would die waiting.

  “Go on, Phil.”

  Please.

  “I was standing at the front door and Tom opened it from inside, told me to come in. I froze. He had to pull me in. He said that he heard some commotion from upstairs. I couldn’t hear a thing. He told me to wait while he went up to check it out. I watched him go up. I never felt so much like running out of a place. But I couldn’t move. When I heard the front door being unlocked from outside I nearly blacked out.”

  “Chancellor?”

  Moss looked at me as if he couldn’t remember where he was. “Chancellor, Phil?” I repeated.

  I had to keep him going.

  “Yeah. I ducked into the room off the entryway. I watched Chancellor move into the kitchen. He poured himself a drink of something. Then there was a loud sound from above, I almost screamed. Katt tells me later that he went up to grab some fucking envelope from the top of the bedroom dresser and it wasn’t there. Chancellor comes out of the kitchen heading straight for the stairs. And he’s got this big knife in his hand. And I feel like my feet are cemented to the floor. When he gets to the top I finally break loose and head up after him. I must have pulled my gun. When I got to the bedroom, the judge was down on the floor with the knife sticking up out of his chest. ‘The crazy bastard tried to kill me,’ Tom says. ‘You were in his fucking bedroom,’ I say. And then Tom pulls a bag out of his pocket, and spills this gold Rolex onto the floor next to the body. He picks up one of Chancellor’s hands and presses the judge’s prints onto the watch. Then he starts shoving the body under the bed. With the fucking knife still sticking out. Then Tom is literally pushing me ahead of him down the stairs and we’re running back to the car. He yells at me to get behind the wheel and drive. I’m sitting there in shock. I can’t even get the fucking car started. Tom yells at me again, and this time he’s pointing a gun at me. It’s not his service revolver. I’m sure he’s going to shoot me if I don’t get the car moving. Finally I manage to get the key to work and we’re out of there. Katt’s got me driving around the neighborhood in circles and he’s holding that fucking gun on me the whole time. Almost two hours later he takes another call. ‘There’s a disturbance at Judge Chancellor’s house,’ he says. I thought I was dreaming. I nearly laughed. We’re going back to the place. We pull up in front. He’s got the siren going and the lights flashing. He tells me to follow him, says it’s our only chance. I have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. I’m running up the stairs behind him. We get into the bedroom and the Wright kid is already down on the ground in the prone position. I already told you the rest.”

  “Katt talked you into believing that you were already in too deep to save yourself. He asked you to hold on to the watch. Told you that he could make everything okay and make you a little wealthier in the process.”

  “More or less. But I never really believed it for a minute.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “When I heard that he had killed Lefty Wright, I was afraid he would turn the whole thing around on me somehow, since I had the Rolex. I went over to his place to stash the watch in his apartment. I had a key, because I sometimes took care of his dog when he was away. I ran into Tom at the door, and he immediately went for his service revolver. I had my weapon drawn already and I shot him without a moment’s thought. I was about to drop the watch into his pocket when I heard someone inside the apartment and I ran. Was it you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s the dog?”

  “The dog is fine, Phil. Focus. We’re almost there. You’re doing great. Tell me about the gun.”

  “The gun?”

  “Yes, Phil. The gun. The gun Katt had pointed at you the night Chancellor died. The gun Katt had lifted from evidence holding. Charlie Mancuso’s gun. The gun he gave you to hold along with the Rolex.”

  “Oh, that gun,” he said.

  “Yes, that gun. The gun that killed Freddie Cash.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Fine, Phil. Just tell me about it.”

  “I went to Freddie for the money. Tom had told me that there was another fifty grand coming and that we could split it. I wanted something for my family in case I went down. I told the Cash kid that if he gave up the money, then no one would ever know the truth about the kidnapping. The stupid kid tried to rush me and the gun went off.”

  “And you tried to frame Charlie Bones.”

  “Katt had told me enough about Ryder and the fucking envelope everyone was after. They were already looking for Mancuso. I stole his car, drove it to the airport, and left the gun on the seat.”

  “Did you ever think of blackmailing Ryder with the Rolex? I’m pretty sure Katt had that in mind.”

  “No. I know Ryder. I didn’t think he would cave in. I figured I’d do better with the Cash kid. I had this ridiculous idea that at least one thing might go right.”

  “What now, Phil?” I asked.

  “How the fuck should I know? You tell me?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I just want to see my wife and my boys,” he said.

  “We can do that, Phil. Just give me the gun.”

  It was as if he had forgotten about the gun in his hand, and good old Jake had been nice enough to remind him. He looked at the weapon, then back at me, and then pointed the thing directly at my head. His hand was shaking, and tightening at the same time. At the risk of being melodramatic, I really believed it was curtains. Then there was a rap at the door that made us both jump.

  It’s hard to believe that the gun didn’t go off.

  “Who is it?” I called, once I could breathe again.

  “Lopez.”

  I looked over at Moss. He placed the gun down on the coffee table and folded his arms across his lap. The expression on his face was very close to a smile. I may have been wearing the same one.

  A shared look that seemed to say we were both glad that it might finally be over.

  “Come right in, Lieutenant,” I called, “I think we’re just about done.”

  Thirty Seven

  Phil Moss was arraigned the following morning on charges of second-degree murder in the case of Officer Thomas Katt, SFPD, and for the involuntary manslaughter of Freddie Cas
h. Assistant District Attorney Stephen Kincaid, who had lost the election to Lowell Ryder, would be prosecuting.

  On Wednesday, a day later, Lowell Ryder resigned his newly acquired office. He gave no reasons. He apparently decided to wait for the chips to fall. Steve Kincaid was appointed acting DA.

  Charlie Mancuso was cleared of all charges in any of the deaths related to the Chancellor homicide, and was able to return to his family. No one, including the acting district attorney, was certain if Mancuso would ultimately face charges for the killing of his brother-in-law, Mike Flanagan. The case had been dropped when the murder weapon disappeared from evidence holding and would have to be reopened if Mancuso were to be tried. However, the weapon was also important evidence in the Moss trial. Mancuso would remain free until the DA’s office ironed out the details, and Mancuso’s lawyers continued to feel confident Charlie “Bones” would fare well in any eventual trial in the Flanagan case.

  I had called Jeremy Cash after Moss’s arrest and tried to explain to the best of my ability the circumstances of Freddie Cash’s death. I related that the ransom money was partly involved, but that the police were unaware of its existence and it would be best if that remained the case. I told him I had no idea where the money had ended up, that I would be willing to look into it if he were interested. Cash assured me that the ransom money had been meant to save his son and had no other purpose for him.

  Cash did ask if I would allow him to buy me a drink. On Wednesday evening I met him in a bar downtown.

  I thought Cash wanted to thank me for bringing his son’s killer to justice and I wasn’t very sure about how I would accept that particular show of appreciation. As is often the case, I was way off the mark. What Jeremy Cash wanted from me was an entirely different matter.

  “Why do you think Freddie rushed that officer? Why not just give up the money. It couldn’t have been that important to him. He had to have known that I would always see that he was well taken care of.”

  Sometimes I really prefer mundane chatter.