Kurt DeGraw’s office was as large as his Culver City bedroom, furnished with similar apathy. A door with no visible lock was centered on the far wall. Milo gloved up, opened it, peeked in, and shut it.
“His crash pad. First things first.”
He scanned the office. An iMac on the desk brought a smile to his face. A keyboard tap brought up a demand for a password. He tried variants of Kurt and DeGraw, got nowhere and began searching elsewhere.
Landline on the desk, but no cellphone, not in any desk drawer, the compartments of a matching credenza, or a black metal three-drawer file cabinet whose doors swung open easily.
I said, “He wasn’t one for security, same as his house. Maybe he did leave the back door unlocked.”
“Wish there was something iffy here,” said Milo. “I like it when they think they’ve got something to hide.” He looked at the laptop.
I said, “Maybe try something with Aventura in it for the password?”
His sixth try worked. KD Aventura.
“Voilà,” he said. Then, “Shit,” when he encountered blank screen after blank screen. “Wiped clean. Maybe he was ready to rabbit. So where’s the damn passport?”
He reopened file drawers, inspected contents, squatted at the lowest section, finally stood up rubbing the small of his back. “Plenty of work stuff but nothing juicy.”
I examined the documents. Payment records and insurance info on surgical patients, nothing on guests who hadn’t gotten their faces rearranged.
Milo said, “Maybe it all goes to Dubai or wherever.” His smile was crooked, mischievous. “Hell, maybe he got careless about security because he’s Swiss. All those centuries of neutrality you don’t figure someone’s gonna declare war.”
Leaning against a wall, he phoned Assistant D.A. John Nguyen, caught him up, and asked for a warrant on DeGraw’s office, making it sound as if he hadn’t entered, yet.
After a lot of listening, he said, “There’s also a room behind the office where he sleeps and that’s clearly personal space, John, so let’s not exclude it—”
He frowned, listened some more, offered a couple of “reallys” and several “uh-huhs,” before clicking off.
I said, “John’s being lawyerly.”
“Per usual. The office is a no-go because it belongs to the hotel owners and contains business records not proven to be germane to my investigation. Ergo, I need to get the consent of someone able to grant it legally. Such contingencies are especially exigent because ‘we’re dealing with Mideast hotshots,’ no way we want that kind of trouble.”
I said, “Oops.”
He cracked up. Pointed to the rear door. “But that’s okay. Which is what I wanted in the first place.”
“Did John recommend the cooperative judge du jour?”
“Better than that, he’s making the call himself, I can assume a yes and go right ahead.”
“Crafty, Lieutenant.”
“One does what one can. Let’s see if it makes a damn bit of difference.”
—
He had me glove up, too, and we entered the back room.
Kurt DeGraw’s in-house quarters were a splurge compared with his rental house. Fully equipped marble bathroom set up with high-end shaving gear, lots of hotel soap and shampoo, fluffy white hotel towels.
A good four hundred square feet of space suggesting what the so-called hospitality industry terms a “superior room.”
This bed was king-sized with a brass headboard and matching footboard, skinned in sky-blue, high-thread-count cotton and covered by a peach-colored down-packed duvet with a Pratesi label.
In the uppermost drawer of a walnut-replica, deco-replica nightstand was a small, bright-red leather book embossed with a white cross.
At first glance, a mini-Bible with souped-up binding. Five lines of white lettering said otherwise.
Schweizer Pass
Passeport Suisse
Passaporto svizzero
Passapor svizzer
Swiss passport
The most recent visa stamps were dated four years ago. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai.
One European trip, a year before, requiring no visa: sixty-day stay in the homeland, entry at Zurich.
“Family probably lives there,” said Milo. “I’ll tell Gottlieb, he can try to find them.”
I checked all the dates. “No other trip lasted more than six days. Got to be work travel.”
In the closet were two blue and two white dress shirts, a navy suit, a pair of liver-red-jacket-gray-slack combos. On a top shelf, two pricey silver Rimowa suitcases turned out to be empty. On the floor, polished wingtips, brown and black, and two pairs of Nike runners. A convex dresser, also mimicking the twenties, held precisely folded cashmere sweaters, Sunspel underwear from England, dark-hued cashmere socks rolled and sorted by color.
At the bottom of the dresser were two half drawers. Another “here go my knees” squat for Milo. “Where’s the WD-40 when you need it?”
In the left drawer, he found a vibrator, two tubes of Good Clean Love lubricant, and a stack of Technicolor Scandinavian porn magazines dated thirty years ago. Too-bright photography, tan skin, yellow hair. Straight sex, nothing beyond the basics.
Painfully wholesome Nordic faces in situations that didn’t call for goofy glee made me laugh.
Milo said, “What?”
“Back in high school this was forbidden fruit. Now it seems kind of quaint.”
“Ah, youth. At least yours was predictable.” He paged through. “Go for it, Bjorn and Brigitta, afterward we celebrate with herring for all.”
Last stop: the right-hand drawer. “Here we go!”
A second iMac sat next to a charging cord. He removed both, found an outlet, and plugged in. Dead.
“Damn.” Placing the computer on the bed next to the passport and the porn, he contemplated, put the magazines back in the drawer, glared at the Mac. “Bastard machine. Maybe our geeks can get something out of it.”
My first thought was, not likely. The lack of charge suggested it hadn’t been important to DeGraw. Or even in working condition.
No cellphone on the premises said the premises didn’t matter much to DeGraw, anything of interest had been stashed at his off-site pad and taken by his killers.
Bad choice. He’d made a lot of them.
I kept all that to myself, and thought about the rumors of the hotel’s closure. The staff had picked up on it recently but DeGraw had likely known for a while.
I said so to Milo.
He said, “Guy’s job is ending so he’s got an additional motive to press for his share of the take.”
“That could also explain why he let them in. The meeting was expected. He thought they’d be paying him off.”
I pointed to the passport. “Everything he’d need for a smooth exit is here.”
Milo said, “Score the dough, come back here, pack your good duds, and split for Yodel-land. Yeah, makes sense. But their agreeing so readily wouldn’t make him suspicious?”
“Big money breeds optimism,” I said. “Think of the lottery.”
He paced a bit, rechecked drawers and the closet, shook his head. “Idiot’s banking on serious moolah and instead he gets burked. Nice verb, that. Has that hard-edged feel…okay if that’s what happened, why no sign of a struggle when they jumped him? Like Robaire said, there were no downers in DeGraw’s system, the normal reflex would be to fight for his life.”
“Maybe there was some kind of struggle and they smoothed it over. Not a brawl, just some mussed bedcovers. Two able-bodied men using the element of surprise could’ve overpowered him quickly. Especially if he was being distracted. As in a vamp by Ms. Cutie. The porn says he was pedestrian and hetero. She’d be an excellent lure. Maybe she came in alone to deliver the payment, DeGraw didn’t expect the others.”
“Waters and Bakstrom dangle her as bait, then crash the party.”
“Money and hot sex? It would’ve lowered his guard way
below rationality. He was probably thinking he’d died and gone to heaven. Unfortunately, he was only half correct.”
He paced some more. Tucked the computer under his arm, lifted the passport, wedged it between two fingers, and headed for the door.
As we passed through DeGraw’s office, he said, “She’s the appetizer, big money’s the entrée, you’re right, he’d open the door. Wide.”
CHAPTER
28
Back at the station we headed for the evidence room, where Milo filled out forms, registered the computer and the passport as evidence but didn’t deposit them.
The evidence clerk said, “You’re not leaving them here?”
“This you can have.” Handing her the passport.
She said, “Swiss? Kind of pretty.”
He said, “Be sure to ask for priority boarding.”
—
We climbed upstairs to the hallway leading to his office. A man walked a few yards ahead of us, past the interview rooms, carrying something blue. Nowhere to go except Milo’s office and a utility closet.
The man stopped at Milo’s door and knocked.
“Over here, friend.”
The visitor turned.
Early thirties, tall, dark wavy hair, a few days of beard stubble. He wore a long-sleeved black tee, blue jeans, and brown ventilated shoes with crepe soles, scuffed at the toes.
Good-looking despite old eyes. The vaguely dissolute air of one of those bruised artiste types you see hunching over laptops in coffee joints, pretending to write screenplays.
The badge and the holster on his belt said otherwise.
Detective badge, Level II.
He smiled but the effort seemed painful. “Lieutenant Sturgis?”
“That’s me.”
“Jacob Lev. I brought you the copy of the file you requested.”
“Door-to-door service?” said Milo, taking the blue binder. “Thought you were gonna fax it.”
“Fax machine broke down,” said Lev. Soft voice, boyish yet deep.
“Appreciate the effort, Detective.” Milo shook his hand.
Lev said, “Sorry I couldn’t come up with more. You know how it is.”
“Bad record keeping at the archives.”
“General attitude,” said Lev. “Contempt for the past.”
Forcing his smile a millimeter wider, he turned and left.
Milo said, “There’s a guy could use your services. D II landing in a crap job like that must’ve done something serious.”
He unlocked his office, sat down, inspected the binder.
Blue, hardback cloth boards blemished with mold spots and rodent nips. Despite the sturdy exterior, only two sheets of paper inside, each protected by a plastic sleeve that looked brand-new.
Jacob Lev going the extra mile. When stuck in a crap job, pleasing a superior isn’t a bad idea.
Milo removed both sheets and laid them on his desk. He never minds me reading over his shoulder so I hovered.
Legal-sized paper, once-white, had aged to caramel and grown shaggy at the edges. The uneven pressure points of a manual typewriter produced letters that protruded like Braille. Lots of typos, each one X’d out by the author.
His name at the top: LAPD Commander R. G. Demarest, no division cited.
The date: May 1939.
The title, off center:
The LaPlante Jewelers Jewelry Theft
of 1938: Possible Ramifications.
What followed were paragraphs of excessively worded cop prose. It’s a language of its own, taught by no one and serving no function, but enduring across generations.
The choice of topic puzzled me. Why had a Beverly Hills crime been documented by LAPD? As I read on, the reason became clear.
Commander R. G. Demarest’s concern wasn’t the year-old burglary, itself. The department was interested in “prime suspect Hoke in a general and optimally probative manner regarding, in particular, a prior and pending SI investigation undertaken in cooperation with and with implications for communication with Federal Entities.”
The tax evasion case had been set in motion well before the theft of the Oscar bling from Frederick LaPlante’s safe.
Demarest repeated himself a few times, let’s hear it for Roget and synonyms, but eventually, his emphasis became clear.
Theorizing about “what effect, positive or negative, would Prm. Susp. Hoke’s ultimately proven suspected complicity in this high-level jewelry covert burglarly [sic] replete with allegations of nocturnal tunneling and safe-cracking of a serious ‘yegg-type’ level, pertain to the aforementioned investigation?”
His conclusion at the bottom of page one: “A definitive answer is unavailable, thus risks are both high, serious, and unpredictable.”
His advice: “Minimize engagement in the collaboration and intelligence data requested by Beverly Hills Police Department in re: LaPlante, Hoke, etc, so as to avoid adding undue overt prosecutorial emphasis to the LaPlante case so that Prm. Susp. Hoke will not be unduly alarmed and flee to jurisdictions unknown id est Tia Juana where he has been known to frequent or parts south below.”
Milo looked up. “The department screwed B.H. in order to continue working with the feds on the tax case.”
I said, “Politics as usual and it succeeded. Who got the credit for putting Hoke away? Not B.H.”
He flipped the paper, found nothing on the back, turned to the second page.
A list, also poorly centered.
Prm. Sus.s Hoke’ sKnown Associates
or Individuals Suspected of
Such.’
1. John J. ‘Jack’ McCandless, attorney at law and so-called mob mouthpiece.
2. William P. Wojik, CPA, certified public accountant and so-called mob ‘money man.’
3. Thalia Mars nee Thelma Meyer, reputed girlfriend of Prm. Sus. Hoke( ‘moll’ ) and additionally, reputed mob courier and bookkeeper, the latter supposition being evidenced by a regiment of comprehensive accounting classes enrolled in by said subject at Los Angeles City College, 855 North Vermont Avenue Campus. Furthermore, subsequent taking of the Certified Public Accountancy exam and passed.
4. Fred Drancy aka Count Frederick LaPlante, jeweler and consignor of expensive jewelry and suspected co-conspirator in rather than innocent victim of aforementioned ‘heist.’
5. Possible and potential collaborators in prior crimes with Prm. Sus. Hoke reputed to have possibly been involved or to possess knowledge of Prm. Sus. Hoke’ s prior criminal activities including but not limited to aforementioned ‘heist.’ All such individuals to remain un-named.
No phone numbers or addresses on anyone. Listing the college’s street address was an odd divergence and I said so.
Milo said, “Pencil pushers are addicted to extraneous details, Demarest couldn’t go cold turkey.”
“Maybe, but I think this was more. By tossing in one bit of specifics, he’s saying the department has the facts but is choosing not to divulge most of them.”
“Saying it to who?”
“Anyone who might come across the report.”
“Ass Covering One-Oh-One.”
“Why would it be different back then?” I said.
I took another slog through Demarest’s verbiage. “The message is clear: Don’t mess with the robbery. In fact do what you can to retard the investigation. The goal had been set well before the robbery: Nab Hoke for tax evasion because that had worked with Capone and other mobsters and allowed confiscation of illegally obtained assets. Recovered jewels wouldn’t fit that strategy. They could be identified and open to claims by the consignors. But once the jewels were converted to cash, no way they could be accounted for. That’s why the department waited until the goods had been sold. That’s why the IRS let Drancy move to New York even though they knew he was dirty. He got his freedom and the government got its money. And maybe they knew Drancy was dirty because he was their informant.”
“They turned him and he ratted out Hoke,” he said.
“He and
/or one of the unnamed associates in item five. The IRS fills its coffers with a nice bunch of cash, the department rids itself of an annoyingly elusive major criminal; who cares if an incorrigible con man becomes New York’s problem?”
He flipped the second page over. Another blank.
I’d turned away when he said, “Hold on.”
Lowering his head close to the paper, he pointed to the bottom right-hand corner.
A swirl of faint cursive in pencil, barely visible.
He squinted, shook his head, held the sheet directly under a desk light. The writing clarified a bit, the barest gray suggesting itself on old paper.
Win Ni 57
He read it out loud. “Ring any bells?”
“Maybe a scheduled raid?” I said. “A winter night, someplace with fifty-seven in the address?”
“I guess—hell, it could be Chinese takeout. Okay, back to the Drancy-as-rat scenario. You realized what that means: Official agencies fenced stolen goods and robbed legal owners of serious money.”
“It’s called eminent domain.”
He laughed, turned serious. “Dangerous game for Drancy.”
I said, “The alternative was going to prison and ending up even more vulnerable. Be interesting to know if he was convicted of the art swindle.” I punched a preset on my phone.
—
Maxine Driver said, “Oh, hi. I was planning to call you but not with good news, I’m afraid. Janet couldn’t find anything about Hoke and all she got on Drancy was an obituary.”
“When did he die?”
“Hold on…February 1942, but there are no details.”
“Could you email it to me?”
“It’s important?”
“Who knows?”
“How’s the case going?”
“Getting closer.”
“And…”
I said nothing.
“That’s all you can tell me.”
“The promise remains, Maxine.”
“Right, I’ll be the first to know…okay, here it is.”
—
The attachment came through seconds later.
A single, small-print, paid-for line in the Daily News.
Drancy, F. B., 57, mourned by family. ‘You were a gem. May you shine forever.’
Heartbreak Hotel Page 20