Columbo: Grassy Knoll

by William Harrington

  “Not free exactly,” he said. “You’ll have a chance to help solve one of the really big crimes of the century.”

  “If I don’t have to be a witness,” she said.

  “Promise,” said Columbo.

  “Well, then?”

  He pulled from the manila envelope the computer-enhanced photo of the two men on the Grassy Knoll. He handed it to her, and she stared at it for a moment.

  “Take a break, Cecilia,” said Mrs. Williams.

  “And don’t worry. This guy’s not a bum. He’s a cop.

  The girl stepped down and pulled on a robe. The artist continued to frown over her canvas, making tiny changes. “I suppose the deal is, you want to know what those guys really look like,” she said to Columbo.

  “More than that,” he said. “I want to see what they really looked like when the picture was taken, yeah. But that was thirty years ago. I need to know what they might look like now.”

  “It’d be a guess,” she said.

  “It wasn’t when you did it for me before. You know all about people’s faces, including how they change as the years pass.”

  Mrs. Williams frowned over the picture. “This guy’s got a rifle. Who’d he shoot?”

  “Maybe John F. Kennedy,” said Columbo.

  “You serious?”

  He nodded.

  “God, I could even eat a bowl of your chili for a chance to talk about this. Cecilia! Let’s take a lunch break. See you a little after one, okay?”

  4

  “I appreciate your time, Mr. Bell,” said Columbo. “I got an idea I’m takin’ too much of it.” They were in the parking lot of the Topanga Beach Club. Columbo had telephoned there, on the chance Bell would be there, and he was. He had met Columbo in the parking lot, explaining that he was meeting with some business associates inside and that it would be a little embarrassing for them to realize he was still talking with the detective assigned to the Drury murder.

  “You can have my time whenever you want it. Lieutenant Columbo. I hope you understand our meeting out here. I’m trying to encourage some fellows to invest in a little project of mine, and I— Well, they’re sort of naive types and wouldn’t understand I’m not under suspicion or something.”

  “I understand perfectly, sir. I do. Hey, I don’t want you to be embarrassed. Uh… if anybody asks me, I’ll gladly tell ’em you’re not a suspect.”

  “Fine. Why don’t we sit in my car? It’s got a little more room in it.”

  “Right. My car’s very efficient. Just enough room in it for two people to be comfortable. But I don’t put the top down anymore. Too much risk of tearing it. If we sit in your car we can have the sunshine and the breeze.”

  They walked over to Bell’s custom-built silver-gray Cadillac.

  “Say, this is a nice car. Y’ know, I’ve got real leather upholstery, too. Mrs. Columbo uses saddle soap on it. You ever use saddle soap on yours, sir?”

  “I guess maybe they do, where they take care of it. They use some kind of leather cleaner and conditioner.”

  “Saddle soap is the very best thing, sir. Believe me. I’ve had my car a long time.”

  “I’ll remember that. Lieutenant. So, anyway, what can I do for you today?”

  They sat down in the front seat of the Cadillac. “Gee, I’d probably go to sleep drivin’ anything this comfortable. Uh— To get to the point directly, I remember your sayin’ you were on Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination. Just where was that, sir? Where were you standing?”

  “On Elm Street, the street where the motorcade went by. On the north side of the street.”

  “Did you see the President shot?”

  Bell shook his head. “It happened before the presidential limousine reached the place where I was standing. I wasn’t looking at the limousine when it happened. I must have been looking at one of the motorcycles or something. I heard the shots, but I didn’t realize what they were. You know… motorcycles backfire. When the limousine reached me, I understood with shock and horror that something was very wrong. The President was down. I couldn’t see him. Mrs. Kennedy was out on the back of the limousine. I know now what she was doing; she was reaching for a piece of the President’s skull. I mean, I was so horrified I couldn’t… lieutenant, I couldn’t make myself accept what I saw. Then the limousine speeded up and raced for the underpass and went under and out of sight.”

  “Where were you standing with respect to what they call the Grassy Knoll, sir?”

  “It was behind me.”

  “Did you hear any shots fired from there?”

  “No. Absolutely none. I was questioned by the police and the FBI and later by lawyers from the Warren Commission. Other people say they heard shots from back there. Maybe they did, but I didn’t hear any.”

  “I’d like to ask you to look at two pictures, sir,” said Columbo, taking another set of copies from their envelope. “Do you understand what those are, Mr. Bell? They’re what are called computer-enhanced photographs.”

  Bell glanced at the pictures. “I’ve seen these before,” he said. “Paul had the computer enhancement done. He felt sure the object the taller man was holding was a rifle. I don’t know. I wonder if it could have been an umbrella. Or something. Wouldn’t the people standing around have been all excited if somebody had a rifle?”

  “But you were standing right in front of where those two men were,” said Columbo, “and if that man had fired a shot, you’d have heard it.”

  “I couldn’t have been much more than fifty feet from him,” said Bell.

  “Yeah. Well, that’s interestin’. That’s very interesting, sir. Is it your understanding that Mr. Drury planned to use these photos on his November show?”

  “Yes. Yes, he was,” said Bell grimly.

  Columbo scratched his head. “They’d have caused some kind of sensation, wouldn’t they?”

  “For sure. Whether it would have solved the case is doubtful. Of course, I don’t think there’s any mystery to solve. I think Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy, plain and simple.”

  “Yes, sir… well. That’s why I called you. I appreciate your time.”

  “Uh— Let me ask a question, if I may. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why sure, sir. I been askin’ you plenty.”

  “Where’d you find these pictures? We’ve been looking all over for them. Tim and Alicia and I are thinking of doing some version of the show Paul planned for November. We wanted to use these pictures. Still do. Were they in the house?”

  “As a matter of fact, they weren’t, sir. As a matter of fact, Mr. Drury kept them in a safe-deposit vault, together with some other stuff.” Columbo opened the door and stepped out into the parking lot. “We found that vault. It took a little doing, but that’s police business: findin’ stuff.”

  “My congratulations to you. Lieutenant. That’s fine work. Here we were, Paul’s friends, trying to find these pictures; and you, who didn’t know him, found what we couldn’t.”

  “It’s just a matter of persistence,” said Columbo. “That and a little luck. Well, sir. I appreciate your time. You probably better get back to your friends.” Bell nodded and sat watching the detective, raincoat flapping in the breeze, walk off toward his car. Then suddenly he stopped and turned.

  “Oh, one other little question, sir, if you don’t mind,” said Columbo. He had put a cigar between his lips and held the envelope between his legs as he tried to light a match in the wind. “Little loose end. Uh— If you and Mrs. Drury and Mr. Edmonds were so interested in findin’ these pictures, why didn’t you tell us? We could have worked together on findin’ ’em.”

  Bell walked across the blacktop and handed Columbo a lighter. “I’m ashamed to tell you why. Lieutenant,” he said.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Columbo as he used the lighter.

  “You have to understand. Lieutenant, that those pictures are worth a fortune as a property for a television show. Now they’re in police custody, and you may fe
el obligated to release them to the news media. That will make them old stuff and of no particular advantage to us for our show. So we— I’m sorry to say it, but we hoped we would find them first. They’re not evidence in Paul’s murder, of course, so I guess I can confess that we would have continued to hold them in secret.”

  Columbo frowned over his cigar and handed the lighter back to Charles Bell. “I can understand that,” he said, nodding. “And that explains that. So… thanks once more. I hope I won’t have to bother you again.”

  Sixteen

  1

  Giuseppe Sclafani shoved his chair back from his powerful telescope. He spent hours at it every day, studying the girls around the swimming pool of his own hotel and around those of Caesars Palace and the Flamingo, which were visible from his penthouse.

  “You have no courage. That’s what’s wrong with you. No courage.”

  “Papa… we’ve been over all this a thousand times. Things are different. This is 1993, not 1933. Things aren’t the way they were in the old days.”

  “Old days! Old days! In what you call ‘the old days,’ you had courage. You had the courage to try that damned thing. You—”

  “Papa. It was a mistake!”

  “Mistake! My son… my proud son. Un albergalore! Yes, sir! At your service, sir! Un maledetto albergatore!”

  “Your son, who is nothing but a damned innkeeper, earns the living that makes it possible for you to live in this penthouse,” growled Philip Sclafani. “Your son, the maledetto albergatore, made the business possible!”

  The old man spat on the floor. “Penthouse! In a penitentiary I’d have men of honor for company.”

  “No you wouldn’t. They’re all dead. Every last one of them. Gambino. Anastasia. Profaci. Charlie Lucky. Frankie Shots. Even the chairman of the board, Meyer Lansky.”

  Giuseppe Sclafani spat again.

  “Courage… he did what we had to do. Papa. You want to tell me I didn’t have the courage to do what I had to do? How could you say that to me?”

  “Some big courage!”

  “It was good enough.”

  “This thing must be done,” growled Giuseppe Sclafani.

  “Another risk must be taken?”

  “You have to weigh the risks,” said the old man, holding out his hands and moving them up and down as if they were two pans in a scale. “Which is the greater risk? That is the question.”

  “The other two will dislike it. Edmonds might crack.”

  “Edmonds must believe it was an accident.”

  2

  “It’s something I thought you’d want to know, Lieutenant,” said Bill McCrory. “Can I offer you a drink? Smoking in the office is bad for the fish. Sipping a Scotch, unless it makes them jealous, seems to do no harm.”

  “Well, I’m on duty actually,” said Columbo. “Another time. Anyway, you were going to tell me about the will.”

  “At first I was a little annoyed,” said McCrory. “I’d been his lawyer and his friend for many years, and I supposed he’d trust me with writing his will. But, having looked at it, I can see why he had another lawyer do it.”

  “Why is that, sir?”

  “Because he left part of his estate to me. If I had written his will, and I inherited from it, it would be contestable. Conflict of interest. Bad ethics.”

  “I see. Well then… that’s in that will, sir, that I ought to know?”

  “He left me a quarter of a million dollars,” said McCrory. “He left a quarter of a million to Karen Bergman. He left a quarter of a million to Professor John Trabue. He left ten thousand dollars apiece to his housekeeper and his secretary. He left the rest of his estate to a Paul Drury Trust, appointing me and the professor and Karen as trustees. What may be interesting is who he didn’t leave anything to. Alicia. She’s not even mentioned—and she’s furious.”

  “I can understand that,” said Columbo.

  “What’s going to be difficult is what to do about the trust. The will instructs his trustees to use the several million dollars that will be in the trust to preserve the research information in his computer library, to make it available to scholars, and to encourage publication of papers based on what is in there. The problem, of course, is that the computer information was all lost.”

  “No, sir.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to speak in confidence, sir. Will you keep a secret for a little while?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The computer information was not lost,” said Columbo. “We have it in a vault in the police property warehouse: about two hundred and twenty microdiskettes. Copies of those diskettes have been loaded back into Mr. Drury’s two computers. They can be searched again, just like they were before Mr. Drury died.”

  “Then the murder was for nothing!”

  “If Mr. Drury was killed to prevent the disclosure of what’s on those disks, somebody made a big mistake,” said Columbo. “Mr. Drury kept copies. It looks like it might be copies of everything—not just the Kennedy stuff", but everything.”

  “I appreciate your taking me into your confidence, Lieutenant.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with killin’ Mr. Drury.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Columbo smiled. “If you’d killed him, you wouldn’t have given me that time-stamped telephone tape that was so obviously a fake.”

  “Fake?”

  “Yes, sir. A sound engineer needed less than half an hour to figure that one out. I don’t know how he did it exactly. It has to do with slowin’ the tape down, looking at the patterns it makes on an oscilloscope, stuff like that. Somebody took a tape they already had of Mr. Drury’s voice—probably off their telephone recorder—and copied it onto a little player like a Sony Walkman. Then that somebody called your number and played that tape into your machine. It may have sounded okay to them, but under analysis it came out that the sound quality had deteriorated in the business of recordin’ from voice to recorder to recorder to recorder. The instruments proved that.”

  “Who did it. Lieutenant?”

  “That’s the tough question, sir. When we know that for sure, we’ll know for sure who murdered Mr. Drury.”

  3

  Karen Bergman was waiting for him when Columbo arrived at the offices of Paul Drury Productions.

  “Congratulations on your good fortune, ma’am,” he said. “I was at Mr. McCrory’s office, and he told me about the will.”

  “Besides that,” she said, “I’ve been offered a job. I’m going to be a squealer again, do what I did before I came to work on The Paul Drury Show. “

  “A what, ma’am?”

  “You know. On the morning game shows. The girl who squeals when the contestant wins something. Jumps up and down maybe. I think maybe this time I’ll jump up and down.”

  A week after Paul Drury’s death, she still wore what he had prescribed for her—the white blouse and tight black skirt—as if she held him in some kind of veneration. He had looked at her personnel file and knew she was twenty-seven years old. She looked like a girl of twenty-one.

  “I asked you to meet me because you know how to run the search programs on Mr. Drury’s computers,” he said.

  She shrugged. “If there was anything left to search,” she said.

  “Just between us, ma’am, there is something left to search. Mr. Drury kept copies of all his stuff. The computers have been reloaded, off diskettes—those two hundred and some diskettes you told me he’d bought.”

  “My God!”

  “Mrs. Drury and Mr. Edmonds are talking about doing the November show after all. I haven’t told them yet that the stuffs been saved. Please don’t you tell ’em. In the first place, we want to be sure everything’s really okay. Wouldn’t want to tell them it was all saved and then have to disappoint them if we find out it’s not so good.”

  “I understand you perfectly. Lieutenant,” she said, arching her eyebrows.

  “Yes, ma’am, you prob’ly do. Uh—L
et’s go in Mr. Drury’s office. Geraldo tells me everything’s workin’ first-class.”

  Columbo had not ceased to be awed by Drury’s office. This time he walked behind the desk, which he had never done before, and watched over Karen Bergman’s shoulder as she switched on the monitor on the first computer.

  Striking keys, the first thing she did was bring up a menu of what the main memory disk contained. The list meant nothing to Columbo, but she looked up and said, “If all of that is really in here and can be searched, nothing is different.”

  She pressed more keys, and a different sort of menu, more stylized, came up. “This is a program called Folio Views,” she explained. “The first thing I’m going to do is select what is called an infobase, and then I can search in it. For example—”

  A line on the screen read “urbangangs.nfo.” She moved the cursor to that line to select that infobase, and the screen filled with the text of a newspaper story from the Los Angeles Times.

  “This infobase has about a hundred newspaper and magazine articles in it,” she said. “Plus three or four academic papers and two or three book chapters. Let’s see if—”

  She typed the letters C-O-L-U-M-B-O. In a moment the screen filled with a new body of text. In the center of the screen the name appeared in yellow, to highlight it. The text was an excerpt from a newspaper story and read, in part—

  Lieutenant Columbo of the LAPD homicide squad said the killing appeared to be the work of an urban youth gang. He said such killings are becoming more and more frequent, and he confirmed that many of them, including this one, are committed by youths armed with highly sophisticated and expensive weapons.

  * * *

  Columbo shook his head. “That sure is fascinatin’,” he said. “It’s hard to believe a machine could do that.”

  She amended the search to use three words: columbo, assault, rifle. A screen of text from a different article appeared, including—

  Bates was killed by a shot from an assault rifle, probably of Chinese manufacture, according to Lieutenant Columbo.