by David Bishop
A long quiet minute passed before a guttural voice leached through the door. “Come in.”
While the sergeant reached for the door, I swiped at the sweat run gathering speed as it worked through my sideburn. We walked inside.
The Long Beach Chief of Detectives had a wooden desk, an upgrade from the soft gray-top in Fidge’s office. The room had one window. The blinds were drawn. The walls were crowded with pictures; the most prominently placed being one showing the ambitious man smiling and shaking hands with the chief of police. Another showed Dickson shaking hands with the mayor. In the next, Dickson stood before the U.S. flag, shaking hands with our local congressman. In it, Dickson was illustrating that he had political connections, while giving the congressman the opportunity to display a tough-on-crime image. On the side wall were a dozen or so photos of smiling Dickson standing with a gaggle of civic, religious, and business leaders. There was also a picture at some black tie gala in which I thought Clarice was standing a few feet behind Dickson, but the woman was far enough in the backdrop, that I couldn’t be certain it was she.
The last picture I glanced at had him holding a shiny shovel with a small dollop of dirt at a groundbreaking somewhere. Well, you get the idea. The walls were further adorned with plaques and awards—probably for coddling criminals. One thing conspicuously missing was family pictures. Even single men had families, but there were no pictures of Dickson’s parents or siblings, if he had any. Siblings, I mean. He had to have parents, or so I assumed.
I had to give credit where credit was due. The man was tall and fit and gussied up in a black pinstriped double-breasted suit with a matching blue tie and pocket hanky. He looked more politician than cop. While a detective, the man had solved crimes at an alarming rate, and quickly advanced through the ranks to become the city’s first ever unmarried chief of detectives. He was also known as a lady’s man, with his picture often featured on the society page escorting one or another of Long Beach’s wealthy young widows. No way could Dickson be confused with the overweight, rumpled detectives chewing on soggy cigar butts with whom the fictional Phillip Marlowe had regularly matched wits.
“That’s all, Sergeant,” Dickson said, looking up after having made us wait long enough to establish his importance. “Kile, stay.”
His order for me to stay sounded like the commands I had been trying with Asta, and I didn’t obey any better than Clarice’s chihuahua.
“Listen, Dickson, if you got something to say, be polite or you can go to hell.” After I said it, I heard the office door latch shut. I hadn’t planned for that, but, given how the rank and file felt about Dickson, the desk sergeant hearing it was more good than bad.
Perhaps that had been Asta’s meaning when she turned and walked out of the room after I had ordered the little thing to stay.
“Thank you, Mr. Kile,” Dickson snarled, before patting his neatly trimmed mustache as if it were a loose glue-on. “That segues into why I wanted to see you. Sit.”
No real cop said words like “segue,” so I now had one more reason to dislike the jerk.
“I hear just fine standing.” I shifted into a sarcastic parade rest stance, my hands together against the small of my back. I also decided that tonight I’d try a different tone with Asta. I had read somewhere that a relationship can be built on mutual understanding so maybe Dickson and I had a future. But for now and as far ahead as I cared to look, I didn’t like Two Dicks, never had, and I knew it cut both ways.
Color rose to Dickson’s cheeks and his eyebrows arched above his shit-brown eyes. “Citizen Kile, you’ve been washed up around here since you stopped catching murderers and became one. Except for that play-school badge you carry, you’re no longer a detective. You’re a writer and not a very good one at that. You’re a civilian.” His pointing finger hovered between us. “So stop thinking you can just waltz in here whenever you have a notion to talk to Sergeant Fidgery or any of my detectives.”
“Okay. I heard your message. Now hear mine.” I moved out of the imaginary line from Two Dick’s finger. “I used too much muscle for you and the other do-gooders so caught up in protecting the rights of the crud that you’ve forgotten about protecting the honest folks.”
“Get lost, citizen.” The pointy finger again.
“Not yet. Got one more thing to say.” I leaned my thighs against his desk.
“Spill it and then blow.”
“And then blow? You been watching old gangster movies, Two Dicks? Okay, here it is in noir gangster speak, lemme give it ta ya straight, see, ‘cause this ain’t just about you and me, see. I came to talk with Sergeant Fidgery for good reason. I knew last night’s victim, Garson Talmadge, also the dame you’re trying to pin it on, his wife, Clarice Talmadge. And here’s a flash. She didn’t do it. They’re my neighbors, see. It’s Sergeant Fidgery’s job to talk to folks like me. I came down of my own volition to answer his questions about the two of ‘em. So don’t get your nose out of joint toward Fidge—Sergeant Fidgery.”
Dickson glared at me. His moment of silence gave me an opening and I took it. Often it is good strategy to say something you aren’t sure of as if you are. If you’re right, people will often not correct you. It works better than just asking a question to which yes or no is an equally correct answer. I framed the first part of what I said next in that spirit. “You know the accused, Clarice Talmadge. Certainly you agree she would not commit murder.”
“I’ve never met the woman.” Dickson had corrected my statement which strongly suggested he didn’t know Clarice. However, it could also mean he had something to hide and, as an accomplished interrogator, understood why I had phrased my question as a statement and so he had disagreed. I still figured he knew her. After all, he had a pecker and Clarice collected’em.
I took the picture down from his wall and dropped it on his desk. “There you are.” I pointed. “There she is.” I pointed again.
He picked up the picture. “If that’s the woman Sergeant Fidgery booked in, she wasn’t with me. She’s in the background like a lot of other people who were there that I didn’t know.”
“I understand that now you wouldn’t want to know her. Not with her being arrested for murdering her husband. It wouldn’t exactly be tidy for an ambitious chief of detectives.”
“Believe what you will, writer, I could care less.”
“I will, Two Dicks.”
“All right, you’ve had your say. Get lost. If I see you around this department again, I’ll have you arrested.”
We spend a full minute exchanging screw-you looks. Then I walked out.
Chapter 5
Like most attorneys, the litigators anyway, Brad Fisher had his office within an easy walk of the courthouse. Also nearby were several restaurants and a couple of Long Beach’s upscale watering holes where more pleas were bargained and settlements reached than in all their paneled conference rooms.
The lobby in Brad Fisher’s office included a photograph of four men in golf attire. The plaid pants and wide white belts told me this particular golf outing had occurred quite some years before. I recognized one of the four men, Dick Fisher. The receptionist said Dick was Brad’s brother. I had met Dick on the golf course a few years ago when I was still playing golf. I’m going to play again, you understand. I haven’t quit. I’ve just retreated. When I find the right set of clubs for my kind of swing, I’ll be back out there. Someday I plan to shoot my age. It’s one of those goals a man sets for himself to prevent fully abandoning the little boy that secretly lives inside. And, one day, I will shoot my age, if I live long enough.
Dick Fisher is an OB-GYN; which tells me Dick was smarter than his brother, Brad, who, as a criminal lawyer, spends his days dealing with assholes.
Brad Fisher came out to greet me. I liked that. It was less high hat than having me ushered in to first see him sitting behind some whale-sized, hand-rubbed desk. We got coffee, which Brad schlepped himself, another gesture that labeled him a down-to-earth guy. We got right to it.
Garson Talmadge’s children, born Sappho and Charaxus, but known as Susan and Charles, had given statements to the cops that their stepmother, Clarice, must have killed their father. The son, Charles, told Sergeant Fidgery his father had called the night of his death, around two in the morning and that his father had said he was going to change his will to leave nothing to his wife. This meant Clarice would only get the one million she was promised in their prenuptial. The daughter, Susan, said Charles had called her right afterwards to share the news from Daddy, or Papa as they called Garson.
Garson’s corporate attorney, Blackton, had confirmed to Brad Fisher that Garson had called to set an appointment to change his will. At the time, Blackton had been on the way to the courthouse, so they had not talked long.
“Blackton and Garson Talmadge were going to meet next week,” Fisher had said. “Wishful thinking would say that Talmadge had decided to drop his kids from his will. They got wind of it, killed him and framed their stepmother. The prosecution will argue Garson wanted to cut out Clarice, and the D.A. has the son’s testimony supporting that claim. On top of that he has Garson’s attorney lined up to confirm that Garson had planned to change his will. I can get Susan’s testimony stricken. It’s hearsay because she heard it from her brother, not directly from her father. I should have a copy of Garson Talmadge’s will tomorrow. The big problem is the prosecution’s contention is the more credible: that an elderly man would be more likely to drop his nubile wife from his will than to cut off his children. This point will score big for the prosecution. And it keeps getting better for the D.A.’s office,” Fisher added. “Clarice was the only person in the locked condo with her dead husband. The scarf and pillow used in the shooting were hers, the gun her husband’s. A jury would figure any other shooter would have brought his own tools. It’s all circumstantial, but short of an eye witness, the D.A. has an effective game plan.”
“Hell, Brad,” I said, trying to put something on the other side of the scales of justice. “Garson’s kids have lots of reasons to lie. If Clarice is found guilty, the two kids will likely split the millions she would have gotten under the executed will.”
“Five million is the number that fits in your comment. The unchanged will, the only will at the time of his death, gives her five million with about ten more to be split between Susan and Charlie.”
“So,” I said, quickly doing the math, “the kids each get an extra 2.5 mil. Lots of murders have been done for less.”
“Not quite. The prenuptial guarantees her one million, so each of the kids would net an extra two mil. But, Matt, may I call you Matt?” I nodded. “We’re facing their testimony about the phone calls and for now, we have to assume the D.A. will produce phone records confirming Garson called his son who then called his sister. He’ll have Blackton for corroboration to the extent that Talmadge did plan to revise. Now, for the whipped cream and cherry: the jury, being mothers and fathers themselves, will want to accept any argument other than children kill their fathers for money. As for the greed of the two children, if Garson had planned to drop Clarice from his will, the kids could’ve done nothing and ended up splitting the other five mil, well, four, net of the prenup. So they don’t appear to have even a financial reason for killing their father.”
“Other than the more and sooner rule,” I offered in weak counter. “More money is better than less and getting it sooner is better than getting it later. They’d get more money and receive it sooner with Daddy dead and their pigeon convicted.”
“I need you to primarily focus on those two kids,” Fisher said. “Find me some dirt to sprinkle on ‘em, anything that might give them a motive to kill their father. If we can discredit them, even a little, I might knock a chunk out of the D.A.’s foundation. I also want you to find out where the kids were the night Garson was killed.”
“Maybe Garson killed himself to make it look like Clarice did it?” I asked without much enthusiasm.
“At this point, anything’s possible,” Brad said, with his reply matching my comment for lack of enthusiasm. “But we have no reason to believe he hated his wife enough to punch his own ticket to frame her. While you’re working the kids’ angle, I’ll check into his health and state of mind, but for now we’ve got no clothesline on which to hang suicide.”
“What have you learned about Garson’s business affairs?” I asked. “Around the building, he always changed the subject when talk swung toward how he’d made his dough.”
Brad stood up and moved out from behind his desk. After looking down, he pinched his left trouser pleat, raised the pant leg and then released it. The cuff had been hung up on the lace of his wingtip. Then, with his slacks shipshape, he continued.
“There’s no reason for secrecy now that Talmadge is dead. Blackton told me old man Talmadge was a dealer in weapons who primarily sold to Saddam Hussein, brokering for some unnamed French munitions manufacturers. Blackton doesn’t know specifics because he only represented Talmadge in his U.S. business and personal dealings. Blackton did, however, allege that Talmadge told him he had stopped selling weapons after he got U.S. citizenship.”
“We got ourselves a small contradiction,” I said. “The kids told Sergeant Fidgery that their father stopped dealing weapons fifteen years ago, five years before the three of them came to the States. Now Blackton told you that Talmadge said he stopped after he got his citizenship which was about ten years ago.”
“I know Blackton,” Fisher said, “he’s as big a dove on defense as there is, so it figures Blackton wouldn’t have anything good to say about anyone in that business. I think he’s trying to help me as much as he can. That started when he referred Clarice to me. To be clear, though, Blackton didn’t say Talmadge was still running guns. That’s just me covering the possibilities. You know something, that old man must have had a real crust on him. I mean, selling death. Then again, I suppose everyone has some good points.”
“I suppose,” I said with a shrug. “But some folks keep them well hidden.”
Brad Fisher and I went on to discuss the more likely Plan B: French arms manufacturers and politicians as well as Middle East conduits were worried. Their concern: weapons found in Iraq would be traced back to Talmadge who, to protect his American citizenship, might be squeezed into talking. That seemed more likely than kids killing their papa, but any good investigator follows up more than one lead. Most don’t pan out, a few do. It’s a numbers game.
By the end of our meeting, Fisher had convinced me to become his investigator, part of his defense team. Truth was I had already made up my mind to look into Garson’s death. Working for the defense would legitimize my digging and grease my access to some information. The nasty part, Fidge and I would be on opposite sides. But I had realized that from the start.
Then again, maybe Clarice had been right, maybe I had gotten a PI license because I still liked to think of myself as a detective. That could also explain why I had taken on the investigation. In any event, I wasn’t altogether comfortable with my refresher course coming in a case which could jeopardize the woman’s freedom, maybe even her life. It would also be disingenuous if I did not admit I lusted to see a grateful Clarice in something more fetching than jailhouse orange. Clarice was now a widow which meant, under my code, she was back in play.
Chapter 6
Garson’s daughter lived on the second floor of an older, two-story stucco-and-wood building about a block from what the locals called Cherry Beach. Cherry was a little sandy inlet near Belmont Shore, a tired, but not an unattractive neighborhood populated with beach lovers who come in all ages and sizes. For decades, foxy chicks have loitered on the Cherry to attract stares before feigning indignation at being gawked. Nothing about that had changed much over the decades except for the shrinkage of women’s bathing suits—one of the very few ways the modern world had improved the good-old days.
The records in Brad Fisher’s office showed Susan Talmadge to be thirty-eight years old, the same age as her stepmother,
Clarice. No, I never asked Clarice her age. Once a man got to know the modern woman he could ask if she was wearing a bra, even panties, but it would always remain tacky to ask her age. Clarice had once told me she was exactly half her husband’s age, and I had attended Garson’s seventy-sixth birthday the month before.
I got to Susan Talmadge’s place around noon, a fourplex, two on the ground with two above. I walked up wooden stairs and after two rings separated by reasonable patience, I rang once more, but my heart wasn’t in the third attempt. No answer was the risk of coming without being expected, but I didn’t like people I planned to interrogate to have prior notice of my arrival.
On the way down the steps, my eyes stopped on one of the well-tanned feminine refugees from Cherry Beach crossing at the nearby intersection. She was a full grown woman, not one of the older teens or young twenties that were common in the area. She wore a yellow bikini, which except for not having the polka dots, could have been the itsy, bitsy, teeny, weenie, yellow-polka dot bikini made famous in a 60’s song.
Through a well-executed plan I got to the bottom of the stairs just as she arrived at that point on the sidewalk. I admit the plan was a bit adolescent, but most men from their teens to their final days remain adolescent about shapely women with abundant cleavage, so I felt a certain duty to maintain my good standing in the men-of-the-world club.
“May I help you?” Her hand rested on the railing, her little finger touching the side of my hand.
With the way she filled that bikini, she could definitely have helped me, but instead of going with that thought, I held firm to my manners. “Excuse me?”
“You just came down from my front door. And you’re blocking me from going up. So, how can I help you?”
“Are you Sappho Talmadge?”
“Sappho is the name on my birth certificate. But please call me, Susan. Not Sue. I hate that.”