Eureka

by William Diehl

  “I noticed this key when we came in that night,” he said. “I figured it was an extra key to the front door, but maybe the vacationers gave it to Verna in case she needed to get in the house while they were gone. Neighbors do that.” He handed the key to King and told him to check the door but not to go in the house if it worked. I left for the office.

  Louie was washing a radio car when I pulled into the garage. The cream puff looked like it belonged in a circus. It was rain- and mud-streaked, and the busted window gave it the appearance of something you’d find on the back row of a used-car lot. Louie looked at it, then at me, then back at the car. Then he saw the window and his eyes bulged out of his head.

  “What’s that?” he said, doing a little nervous jig and pointing at the window.

  “I had a little problem.”

  “What problem! Look at that window!” he said, and tears began to form. “Just look at that damn window!”

  “A bird flew into me,” I lied, handing him the keys.

  “A bird! What kind of bird did that, a friggin’ ostrich? A flying elephant? Did Dumbo fly into the car?”

  He was still raving when I headed upstairs to the squad room. Moriarity was on the phone scowling when I walked in. He wiggled a finger at me and hung up the phone as I entered his office. I sat down across from him.

  “Maybe you oughtta be in the hot seat,” he snapped, for openers. “Louie just called me. What’s this about a bird the size of Beverly Hills busting the window in the car?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Just give me the Reader’s Digest version. I only got six hours left on this watch.”

  I gave him a blow-by-blow, starting with the black Pontiac following me, including my chat with Howland and the tour of the Hill with Culhane, and ending with my run-in at the diner.

  “A couple of his cops tried to beat you up?” he said, his face storming up.

  “I’d say that was on their mind.”

  “I’ll call that son of a bitch and . . .”

  “Hold on a minute. There’s more . . .”

  “I don’t want you going back up there,” he said flatly. “And forget Verna Hicks or Wilensky or whatever her name is. Frankly, I don’t give a damn if she gets buried or not. I don’t care if they embalm her and hang her off the city hall flagpole. And if you got a thing for dead broads, go over to the morgue and pick out a different one.”

  He was standing when he finished, his brow furrowed like a freshly plowed field. Then he added, “I like the trick with the gun and badge. That was inspired, Bannon.” He started pacing, a bad sign. “Christ, I told you not to waste time and money going up there,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

  “As I was about to say, there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “Wilensky’s lungs were full of water.”

  He flat-mouthed me. “She drowned, fer crissakes. What’d you expect to be in there, hundred-proof Scotch?”

  “I just left Bones’s office. He completed the autopsy. Verna drowned alright—before the radio ever fell in the tub.”

  He stared at me, letting that sink in. While he was working on it, I explained how drowning and electrocution work.

  “Jesus. Aw, Jesus-fucking-Keerist!”

  “Bones has sent a team from forensics back to the house, and I dropped Ski off there. I got two uniforms casing the neighborhood but we really need at least two other teams. We got a homicide now, Lieutenant. I say Ski and I go back up to San Pietro and get serious with those people.”

  “Damn it. Damn it, damn it.” He paced the room again, this time for a full two minutes, running both hands through his meager hair. “The captain’s gonna have a baby right in his office over this.” He paced some more. “You know the politics involved here, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “It’s a murder one. Politics doesn’t have anything to do with it anymore.”

  “Oh, yeah. Tell that to McCurdy. He’s gonna be gettin’ it from Chief Holman, and he’s gonna be gettin’ it from the mayor, who got it from the governor, who got it from God-knows-who. I know what’s on your mind, Zeke. You’re gonna try and pin this on Culhane, who is about to announce his race for governor, and that, pal, is gonna reverberate all the way to Alaska.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You think whoever killed her was the payoff guy, right? The five-C’s-a-month guy through all these years?”

  “Or had her iced. Yeah. That’s a pretty good supposition.”

  “And you got your eye on Culhane for this, don’t you?”

  “It’s a pretty good supposition.”

  “Stop saying that. It’s giving me a stomachache.”

  I closed up again and sat there.

  He whirled, and jabbed a forefinger at me. “Okay, why now? Why pay off for all these years and then suddenly pull the plug on her?”

  “You just said it, Culhane’s running for governor. The price of silence suddenly went up.”

  “I suppose you already got a candidate for the guy who shoved her under, too?”

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Well, ain’t that a surprise. It’s your idea got us into this mess in the first place.”

  “You’re getting steamed up over nothing,” I said. “Maybe they all hate Culhane. Maybe they’ll promote you.”

  “Yeah, and maybe the swallows will pass up Capistrano this year and fly into the garage downstairs and crap all over Louie’s goddamn cream-puff sedan.”

  “It’s a murder one, Dan; what do you think they’re going to do, shove it under the carpet?” I shifted in my seat and that hot wire lashed across my ribs again. I winced. “Damn it!”

  “Christ, you’re a wreck,” he said. “You seen a doc?”

  “Bones checked my ribs. I’ll be okay in a day or two.”

  “In answer to your question, no, they’re not gonna sweep it under the rug, they’re gonna look for a fall guy—which is you—which leads to me. I’ll end up mowing the grass at city hall until I retire; and you? You’ll be collecting garbage down in Tijuana. You’ll have to turn wetback just to get back across the border to get a decent meal.”

  He went back behind his desk and sat down and lit one of his sugar-coated cigars. Silence tiptoed around the room.

  “Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, this don’t have anything to do with Culhane?” he said finally. “Maybe she was shacking up with some guy, and his wife came over and did her in. Maybe she was running dope across the border on weekends and her Chicano pals gave her the bath. See what I mean? There could be a lot of scenarios. You got some coincidences workin’ here and it looks like a closed case to you. Think about it, Bannon; you got to find the killer and tie him to Culhane and tie it all back to something that happened over twenty years ago.”

  “It’s all we got for the present,” I said. “Bones is going to misplace the autopsy report long enough for me to go up there and lay the story on Culhane and see his reaction. That will tell me a lot. Then if the banks want to keep playing hide-and-seek, we’ll run over to Santa Maria and get Judge Wainwright to give us a search warrant. The money trail leads up there.”

  “And if it peters out?”

  “We lose nothing. We take it to McCurdy when the post is released and let him tell us how to deal with it.”

  “I really don’t like it when you fast-talk me, Zeke.”

  “It’s logical.”

  “So was Custer’s Last Stand.”

  “So what do we do? Shall I call Bones and tell him to send over the post? I’ll do a report and then take it to McCurdy before it goes on file for the press?”

  His eyes brightened when I mentioned that idea. He puffed on his cigar and stared across the desk at me. “You got five minutes to convince me otherwise.” He looked at his watch.

  I said: “When Culhane became sheriff he promised to clean the mobsters out of Eureka, which is what San Pietro was called then. That meant getting rid of Arnie Riker and his number two
, Tony Fontonio. Riker was arrested and convicted of murdering a young girl named Wilma Thompson. It was a solid case because, among other things, they had an eyewitness named Lila Parrish. The case went to appeal, and Riker’s sentence was reduced from death to life-no-parole because Lila Parrish vamoosed right after the trial and nobody could find her. Then a year later, Eddie Woods knocked off Fontonio, Eureka turned into San Pietro, Culhane had the Fontonio case dead-docketed, and everybody lived happily ever after.

  “Now get this: Woods was in charge of the Riker investigation and Woods burned Fontonio.”

  “And you think you can get all that together in an airtight package? That’s what it’s going to have to be, Zeke. No holes, and right now all I see is Swiss cheese in that story. For one thing, you’re assuming that Lila Parrish was lying and the Riker case was a frame and Eddie Woods set it all up. How the hell do you plan to put that together? Your chief witness, if it is Lila Parrish, is probably the dame on the slab in the morgue.”

  “All I need to do is find one person who can identify the person who sent the checks to Verna Hicks.”

  “And prove it was a frame. And Hicks and Parrish are one and the same. And Woods did the number on her. And Culhane sanctioned it.”

  I didn’t answer that.

  He shook his head. “So far you haven’t broken a lot of ice on that pond,” he said.

  “It wasn’t a homicide until this morning. That’s a pretty good icebreaker.”

  More cigar smoke puffed out of his mouth. He spun his chair around and looked through the plate glass walls of his office into the squad room for a long minute, then swung back.

  “You plan to take Ski this time?”

  I nodded.

  “I told you to take the National Guard the first time you went up there.”

  “Ski’s better.”

  He sighed joylessly.

  “When do you want to go?”

  “Is this Thursday?”

  “It was when I got up this morning.”

  “I got a date tonight. How’s tomorrow morning sound?”

  CHAPTER 19

  When I left Moriarity’s office, the switchboard operator called me over. “You got a call from a Millicent Harrington at the West L.A. National Bank,” he said. “Here’s the number. She says she has some info for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went back to my desk and dialed her number.

  “Hi,” she said, “remember me?”

  “If I forgot you, I’d need a brain transplant.”

  “I’m flattered, I think,” she said with a light laugh.

  “What’s up?”

  “I may have a tip for you. I called a woman I know at the South View Bank and Trust. It’s on the list. Her name is Patty North. She remembers selling the cashier’s check for Verna Hicks two months ago.”

  “Does she have a name for us?”

  “No, but she has a great description of the man who bought it.”

  I looked at my watch. It was 10:50.

  “How about I pick you up in thirty minutes. Maybe we can grab a bite of lunch after we talk to her.”

  “I’ll call everybody on the list if that’s all it takes to get you to take me to lunch.”

  I went down to the garage and told Louie to bring the cream puff around.

  “Not you again,” he snarled. “I just put the window in.”

  “Good. I’ll try not to drive into any flying elephants this time.”

  Without another word, he disappeared with a swagger into the depths of the garage. A minute or two later I heard the Chevy crank up and then he came back, got out, and handed me the keys.

  Millicent was waiting just inside the doors of the bank when I pulled up. She was so gorgeous I got a little numb when I saw her. She was dressed in a light taupe business suit with a pink scarf at her throat and a lime-green Robin Hood hat cocked jauntily over one eye. She never took her eyes off me as she walked toward the car.

  “You look like you own the bank,” I cracked, holding the door for her.

  “Not quite yet,” she said with a smirk. She sat on the seat, swung silk-sheathed legs in sideways, and crossed them at the knee.

  “It’s the South View Bank and Trust on West Sixth and Fairfax,” she said as I got in the car. I slipped cautiously under the wheel but still got enough of a kickback from my sprained ribs to grimace a little.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked with concern.

  “Nothing serious. A confused cop tried to use me as a punching bag.”

  I let it drop there, although I could see her look of anxiety and curiosity. She lit two of her gold-tipped butts and handed one to me. Then she kissed two fingers and laid them on my cheek.

  “Thanks,” I said, and took a quick look her way. She was staring at me with obvious affection, her mouth slightly open.

  “You can get in a lot of trouble with a look like that,” I said.

  “I hope so,” she answered.

  I drove down Western, grabbed a right on Sixth, and headed west to Fairfax. The bank was in the center of an upper-middle-class neighborhood. It was a one-story, yellow brick building boxed in by a women’s clothing store and a pet store. Patty North was a tiny, well-groomed strawberry blonde in her mid forties, with bright eyes and a perpetually cheery smile. She was head teller and had a little cubicle in the rear of the bank. After introductions, we sat facing her and she took out a file, placed it on her desk, and laid one hand on top of it.

  “This isn’t quite kosher,” she said. “But Millicent assures me it’s for a good cause.”

  I didn’t mention murder at this point. I didn’t have to. She started right in.

  “The gentleman came in a little after noon on a Monday, which was the first,” she began. “He was five-eight or five-nine; about forty, give or take a year or two; trim, with a little tummy. Very tan, dark brown hair with some gray in it, and one of those skinny mustaches like William Powell’s. He wore a wedding ring on the usual finger and a Masonic ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. He had a kind of cocky smile and he dressed with flash. A cream jacket with a thin red check, tan slacks, two-tone brown and white shoes, a brown fedora, and he was wearing aviator sunglasses, which he did not remove. He didn’t say much. He put five one-hundred-dollar bills on the desk and spread them out like you would spread out a pinochle hand, and he put a twenty-five-cent piece on top. That’s what we charge for a bank check. He didn’t look at me straightaway but kind of kept his head down. He said, ‘I require,’—I remember because he said it that way, require—’a five-hundred-dollar cashier’s check made out to this person.’ He had the name Verna Hicks written on a sheet of paper, which he slid across the desk to me. I said to him, ‘Who is the issuer?’ And he said, ‘Is that necessary?’ And I said, ‘No, but it’s customary.’ And he said, ‘Nix it, just give me a receipt.’ That’s the way he said it, Nix it. So I typed out the check and signed it, and he put it in a brown, letter-sized manila envelope. It was already addressed and stamped. He said thank you and left. The entire transaction took about five minutes. I did notice he had a jaunty kind of step to his walk.”

  As she spoke, a face flashed in my memory; a face I had seen in Howland’s basement on one of the framed front pages. A flashy dresser, thin mustache.

  “You have an amazing memory for details,” I said.

  “Photography is my hobby, particularly portraiture,” she said. “There was just something about him. The flashy clothes, the little mustache, the sunglasses, and his voice. There was a harsh quality to it, kind of tough. He was distant but not unfriendly, just seemed to want to get the transaction done and get out of here. It was one of those faces you’d love to capture on film, although I could tell from his attitude that was the last thing he would have been interested in.”

  I thought for a minute or so and then asked Patty if she had a copy of the phone book. She reached in a large, lower drawer and got it. I flicked through it to the yellow pages and found what I was lookin
g for. A quarter-page ad listed under private investigations. The ad told me that Eddie Woods was an experienced private investigator with eighteen years know-how, was bonded, and had references. His office was on the mezzanine floor of the Olympic Tower, on West Olympic and Almont. I jotted the phone number down.

  I knew the place, a prestigious office building with a marble lobby only slightly smaller than the lobby of the city hall. It was known simply as the Olympic. Eddie Woods was in high cotton for a private eye. Jerry Geisert was a divorce lawyer for the stars, and probably one of Woods’s clients, since he was located in the same building and on the same floor.

  An idea was gnawing on my brain. There was a sprightly little restaurant across the street from the Olympic called Francine’s, which specialized in excellent home cooking. I closed the book and suggested all three of us go there for lunch.

  Millicent looked at me out of the side of her eye, obviously disappointed that I had asked a third party to join us.

  “I have an idea,” I said by way of explanation.

  It took fifteen minutes to drive to Francine’s. I parked on the side of the building, went in, and found a table in front, facing the Olympic Tower. The place was just beginning to fill up with the lunchtime trade. The decor was as simple as the bill of fare. White-and-red-checkered tablecloths, menus printed up that day, paper napkins.

  “Millie, order for me, will you? I want the turkey pancakes, and corn fritters with lots of maple syrup, and an iced tea. I’m going across the street. I shouldn’t be more than ten, fifteen minutes. Patty, watch for me to come out and pay special attention to the person who’s with me, if there is anybody with me.”

  “Is this detective work?” she asked, bright-eyed.

  “You betcha,” I answered.

  CHAPTER 20

  The lobby was all marble, bronze, and teak. Twin circular staircases curved up from each side of the room to the mezzanine where, the directory told me, Woods was located in rooms 106 and 107. I took the stairs up.

  There was a doctor’s office in the corner suite. Attorney Jerry Geisert’s suite of offices took up about half the floor and Woods was located in the two offices next to Geisert.