Eureka

by William Diehl

  “I hope this isn’t something serious,” he said. “My daughter . . .”

  “Nothing like that,” I interrupted. “It has to do with a customer of yours. Verna Wilensky.”

  He seemed relieved and then: “Is something wrong with Verna?”

  Obviously the news had not reached the bank yet.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this,” I said. “Mrs. Wilensky is dead. An accident at her home.”

  “Oh my God,” he said, sitting up even taller in his chair. “What happened?”

  I gave him as much information as was necessary without getting into bloated faces floating under bathwater and other lurid details. I could tell the news upset him.

  “She was one of our most dependable depositors, certainly the most loyal,” he said. “Came in once a month to go over her statement. Never complained. A lovely lady with more than her share of bad luck. I assume you heard about her husband.”

  I nodded. “Are you familiar with her account, Mr. Sutherland?”

  “Well, no more than for most of our depositors. The tellers and secretaries handled her everyday affairs. But she always stopped in to say hello. Used to come in with that big dog of hers.” He leaned forward and a smile played the corners of his mouth. “Big old stud named Rosebud, can you imagine?”

  “We’ve met,” I said with a smile.

  “Well, what can I do for you, sir?”

  I picked up my briefcase, sat it on a corner of the massive desk, and snapped it open.

  “We found these papers in her desk. Mostly banking things. She has quite a sum of money on deposit and we haven’t been able to locate a will.”

  “Oh my goodness,” he said. “Hard to believe she was intestate, she was meticulous in all her dealings.”

  “Apparently both she and Frank Wilensky were only children. I’d like to locate survivors if there are any, before the state gets its greedy hands on her estate: life savings, house, car, et cetera.”

  “That’s very considerate of you.”

  “I understand she came here from Texas.”

  “Well, I’m not real sure. It’s been a long time. My father was director at the time. That was back in the early twenties. He died several years ago and after that Millie . . . Miss Harrington . . . handled her affairs.”

  “The thing is this,” I said. “She accumulated a rather large amount of money, apparently from a five-hundred-dollar-a-month stipend. But we haven’t found anything to indicate where that money came from. I am hoping the bank might give us a lead. It could be a member of the family, a child, relative. Would it be possible for us to go over her accounts and see the checks that were deposited?”

  The request made him nervous. He stroked his chin and cleared his throat.

  “That is, of course, confidential. Do you have a court order . . . ?” He said it tentatively, as though unsure of himself.

  “I can get one but considering the nature of her sudden death and the very real prospect of the state stepping in to take over, I was hoping we could do this right away. Better than having the state boys trooping in here waving subpoenas in everybody’s face. They aren’t known for their manners.”

  “I see.”

  “All I want to do is go back through her records and see if there are any names, addresses, anything that we can follow up on. I’ll of course keep this all on the Q.T. An hour or two is all it should take.”

  He thought about all of that for a minute or two. He seemed a little nervous about circumventing the court. I took out my badge and ID and laid them in front of him to reassure him. He perused them, then looked up sharply.

  “Homicide division?” he said.

  I gave him my most reassuring smile. “Just routine, Mr. Sutherland. Anytime there’s an unwitnessed death, we have to investigate. She was dead for almost twenty-four hours before her neighbor found her.”

  “I see,” he said. He took off his glasses, folded them, and tapped them on his desk for a moment, then reached under the ridge of the desk and pressed a button.

  A moment later, a handsome woman came in through a side door. She was tall, five-seven probably, late twenties, with ebony-black hair down to her shoulders, severe black eyebrows over gray eyes, and million-dollar legs sheathed in sheer silk, at least from the knee down. She was wearing a tailored, double-breasted charcoal-gray suit with a small diamond-and-ruby pin in the shape of a dolphin on her lapel, and an oyster-white, high-necked silk-and-lace blouse. She stood as straight as a Marine topkick. Pure elegance. She also had a million-dollar tennis tan like the boss.

  “Millicent, this is Sergeant Bannion from the police department. Sergeant, this is our vice president, Millicent Harrington.”

  “It’s Bannon, no i,” I said, taking her hand. She had a sturdy tennisplayer’s grip and a smile most women would kill for. I hadn’t been as close to a woman this aristocratic since I brushed against Katharine Hepburn at a premiere at Grauman’s a year or so ago. She was the star of the picture. I was picking up some after-hours change spotting dips for the manager of the theater.

  Then my mind started working overtime. She had the same tan as Sutherland, her stockings cost more than my entire wardrobe, and the pin in her lapel spelled Tiffany. And a vice president. Sometimes I hate being a cop.

  “I have some bad news,” Sutherland said. “Verna Wilensky is dead.”

  Her reaction was immediate and profound. She gasped and pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips. Her eyes widened to the size of silver dollars and then began to tear up. She sat, keeping her knees locked together, and seemed to sag into her suit. Sutherland whipped the handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her.

  “Sorry to be so abrupt,” he muttered, and sat back in his chair.

  Her backbone stiffened again. “What happened?” she said after dabbing her eyes.

  “She slipped in the bathtub and drowned,” I explained. “I’m sure it was painless. She was kayoed . . . knocked out instantly.”

  “Poor Verna,” she said sorrowfully. “She had so much going for her. Then she loses Frank, now this.”

  “She died intestate,” Sutherland said. “Sergeant Bannion is hoping we can find something in her file that will lead him to a relative or some legitimate kin. Would you help him, please? Whatever he needs.”

  I didn’t bother to bring up the i he insisted on putting in my name.

  “Of course,” she said, and laid Sutherland’s handkerchief on the corner of the desk.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, shaking his hand, and followed Miss Harrington into her office.

  “You might want to open a window,” she said. “It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

  I slid the window up and looked down in the parking lot behind the building. There were two cars near the back door, a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith and a yellow Pierce-Arrow convertible with leather seats the color of the sky on a clear day.

  It completed the package, as did the office—right down to the pale yellow silk drapes and sky blue carpeting that tickled my ankles. Pretty cushy, I thought. A gorgeous woman, a million-dollar office, a Pierce-Arrow ragtop. Sutherland was keeping this lady in grand style.

  I looked around at the paintings on the wall, the antique furniture, the Mueller radio built into the wall. On her desk there was an eight-by-ten photo mounted in a sterling silver frame with its back to me and an elegant, hand-painted pencil holder that looked like it could have been a gift from the King of England.

  “This is very impressive,” I said.

  She was smart, too, to go along with everything else. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly and one corner of her mouth turned up in what was almost a sneer.

  You blew it, I thought. She knows you’re on to her. Get back to business.

  She picked up the handpiece of a white phone, dialed a couple of numbers, then, “Jane, bring me the Wilensky file, please . . . yes, everything.” She hung up.

  “So, Sergeant Bannon, what exactly are you looking for?”

  I
decided to play it straight up.

  “As you know, the state is going to get the estate if we can’t find a family member with a legitimate claim. Mrs. Wilensky had almost a hundred gra . . . a hundred thousand dollars in her savings account, most of which came from a, uh, stipend of some kind she got every month.”

  Jane, a mousy young woman with dirty-blond hair, came in with a large accordion folder, put it on the corner of her desk, and left without a word.

  “Five hundred dollars,” she said with a nod.

  “I was hoping we can get a lead off the cashier’s checks. You do keep a record of them, don’t you?”

  “No, bank checks go back to the issuing bank when they’re cashed. We do make photocopies, although I doubt it will be much help to you.”

  “How come?”

  “They were always cashier’s checks. No names, just the issuing bank.”

  My disappointment was palpable.

  “Can we look them over anyway?” I asked.

  “All of them?”

  “I’m sorry, I know you must be awfully busy, but sometimes the smallest thing . . .” I shrugged and let the sentence die.

  “All the way back to the beginning?”

  I nodded. “Nineteen twenty-four, I think.” I leaned down to get my briefcase and my jacket flopped open. As I sat up, I saw her eyes fixed on the Luger under my arm.

  “Will it make you more comfortable if I put this in my pocket?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m well accustomed to firearms, I’m a member of the Bel Air Skeet Club. I’ve just never seen a hidden weapon except in gangster movies.”

  “It’s concealed.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s called a concealed weapon, not a hidden weapon.”

  “Oh. Well, don’t put it in your pocket on my account.”

  I opened the briefcase and showed her the contents. “These were in a lockbox at her house. Statements going back to the mid twenties. There was some other stuff, papers on the car and house, bill of sale for Frank Wilensky’s business. But no will and no birth certificate. Seems strange for someone that, uh . . .”

  “Meticulous?”

  “Yeah, meticulous.”

  “So, you want to see the copies of the original checks and deposit slips.”

  “Please.”

  For the next hour or so, we went through checks and deposit slips and I made notes. When we were through, I had a list of all the cashier’s checks going back to the original $4,000 cash deposit. At one point my Parker pen ran out of ink and she loaned me a gold fountain pen with no trade name on it. I felt guilty just leaving my fingerprints on it.

  “How about a break?” she said, finally. “Coffee?”

  “Sounds great.”

  She went to the wall behind her desk and slid back a panel. There was a small stove and refrigerator behind it. A French coffeemaker was sitting over a low flame. She poured coffee into two bone china cups and put them on matching saucers.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Two sugars, a splash of milk.”

  She dropped a couple of cubes of sugar into one cup and got a bottle of real cream out of the refrigerator.

  “Will cream be alright? I’ve never been much for milk.”

  “I’ll just take the cream, forget the coffee.”

  She laughed then, a genuine laugh that came from somewhere around her ankles.

  “This is quite a setup,” I said. “Do all VPs have offices this cushy?”

  She turned the framed photo around. It was a shot of Millicent and Sutherland in tennis togs. He had his arm around her waist.

  “Only if you play tennis with the boss,” she said.

  “Oh,” is all I could think to say.

  “Of course, it helps if the boss is your father.”

  I almost swallowed my tongue.

  “It’s been fun watching your deductive brain at work,” she said with a smile, and leaned back in her chair. “Are you usually this impulsive drawing conclusions?”

  I could feel my face turning color.

  “I hope not,” I said. “If I am, there are a lot of innocent men dancing to the piper.”

  She cocked her head slightly.

  “Dancing to the piper,” I repeated, “means doing time. Prison. Look, I’m sorry I misjudged things. I’ve never seen a woman executive with an office this impressive. Or one dressed like you are.”

  “Well, there aren’t too many of us around—yet. But that’ll change, so you may as well get accustomed to it.”

  “Suits me fine,” I said. I nodded toward the radio. “What kind of music do you like, classical?”

  “I like classical.”

  “Tchaikovsky?”

  She smiled, the kind of smile that made me feel I wasn’t in on the joke.

  “Is that the way I strike you? Tchaikovsky?”

  “Well, who then?”

  “Actually I prefer Tommy Dorsey although I think Miller’s easier to dance to. And Duke Ellington when I’m blue.”

  This time I didn’t even try to disguise my surprise? “Dorsey, huh? You must be a Sinatra fan.”

  “Buddy Rich.”

  “You’re a drum freak, then?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “Always have been.”

  “Then you know Krupa’s the man. He makes Rich sound like he’s using chicken bones for drumsticks.”

  She scowled. “Krupa’s all technique. Buddy has the speed and punch, and he’s far more inventive.”

  “I never argue with a woman, but you’re wrong.”

  “I never argue with a policeman, but you’re wrong.”

  I was dying for a cigarette but there wasn’t an ashtray in sight.

  “Look, I’m about to get the heebie-jeebies for a smoke. Mind if I step outside for a couple of minutes?”

  She opened a drawer and produced a china bowl that looked like it was on loan from a museum.

  “You really want me to put ashes in this?” I asked, taking out the makings.

  “It’s an ashtray,” she said. “Here, try one of mine.”

  They were Sherman Select, an inch longer than regular cigarettes and half as thick, with a gold filter on the end. The paper was light blue. Three bucks a carton if they cost a penny. The gold case they were in cost more than Verna Wilensky’s house.

  She got up, walked around the desk, produced a gold Dunhill lighter, and lit my cigarette. The tobacco was mild and sweet, not harsh like the Prince Albert pipe tobacco I used.

  “Thanks.”

  I took a couple of good drags and let the smoke hang around in my lungs before I blew it out.

  “It’ll take about three of these to get one good smoke,” I said.

  She chuckled. “My grandfather used to roll his own.”

  “I like to roll ’em. Sometimes it gives you a little time to think when you’re kicking wits around with some bohunk.” Her face went blank again. “Interrogating some hooligan. That’s before we take him to the back room and go to work on him with a rubber hose.”

  She laughed again, this time without taking her eyes off mine.

  “Let me get back to business for a minute,” I said, and took the safe deposit key from my vest pocket. “Can we make use of this?”

  She stared at the key for a long time. A safe deposit box is supposed to be sacred, except, of course, if the G-men want to take a peek.

  “I can get a court order to go into the box,” I explained, “but all I’m looking for is a lead. The state boys will come snooping around soon enough when they get a whiff of what’s involved here.”

  “I take it you and the state boys don’t get along.”

  “I’ve got nothing against them except where this kind of thing is concerned. Somebody’s got a right to that estate and for my money it isn’t the state of California.”

  “Maybe she left it to her dog,” she said, and then suddenly jerked straight up. “My God, what’s happened to Rosebud?”

  “He’s bunkin
g in with me temporarily, until I find some of Verna’s relatives who’ll take him on. It was that or the pound.”

  “You took Rosebud in?”

  “He wouldn’t have it any other way. I offered to get him a cabana at the Beverly Hills Hotel but he preferred slumming with me.”

  She crooked her finger. I followed her out onto the floor of the bank to the vault. A uniformed guard was sitting on a stool reading Argosy magazine. When he saw Millicent Harrington, he jumped up as if a bug had bitten his rear end.

  “George, my friend wants to visit his safe deposit box. Why don’t you just sit back down and read your book, I’ll take him back.”

  “Geez, Miss Harrington, I’m sorry. It’s been a real slow day and . . .”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t, George,” she said. She led me back to the stainless-steel box room, found the matching key on a hook, and went down the row of stainless steel drawers until we got to the right number. She put both keys in, opened the door, and took out the metal strongbox. It was small, the smallest size available.

  “Not much in here,” she said, after leading me to a private room where we could examine the contents.

  It was a bust. Just some love letters tied with red ribbon. I flipped slowly through them. All of them were from Frank, all to “Vernie my love”: birthday cards, Christmas cards, some just telling her how much he had missed her during the day. Frank was a real romantic. I could understand why Verna Wilensky had wanted to die when he was killed.

  The last one was different.

  The envelope was yellow with age and there was no writing on it. Inside was a yellowed sheet, the ink faded and almost illegible. All it said was “Two more days. I can hardly wait.” I looked at the back and checked the envelope once more. Nothing else.

  “What do you make of that?” she asked.

  “Who knows? Not the same handwriting as Frank’s. Pretty old, judging from the fading and all. Maybe she was seeing somebody before him.”

  “Loretta Clark might know.”

  “Her neighbor?”

  “She came in with Verna occasionally,” she said. “Nice lady. Verna called her ‘Sis.’ ”

  “She told me.”

  There was nothing else of consequence in the box.

  I put the note back in the envelope and returned the pile to the box and we put it back in the vault.