by David Archer
For a moment Kashuba wondered how they were going to take them all on with only two people, then Ernie got an idea. He remembered that his friend Greg Martin—a good guy but a notorious cheapskate—had built up a lot of leave time, chiefly because he had realized that vacations ended up costing you money. It had been a while since he had spoken to Greg, not out of mutual hostility, but out of mutual forgetfulness, as friends sometimes will do. He got the go-ahead from the boss to call his friend up.
“Hey, Leroy, long time, no hear!” Greg enthused, reverting to an old nickname from their police academy days.
“Good to hear your voice again, Dr. Coon,” Ernie responded, using another. Although the L in Ernie’s middle name stood for Lawrence, Greg liked to goof on him by pretending it stood for Leroy, which would bring to mind a black man. In retaliation, Ernie had sometimes called Greg Martin Dr. Coon or the more formal Martin Luther Coon. True, Ernie had long since modified his views of the race question, but one should never pass up the opportunity to rag on a friend.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?” Greg asked Ernie.
“To the fact that you’re long overdue for a vacation,” Ernie replied.
“Somewhere exotic and expensive, I suppose.”
“Well, exotic anyway. I’m talking about the City of Brotherly Fratricide, my friend, Philadelphia P A. Ever heard of it?”
“Yeah, once or twice. Now if you’re done goofing around, what’s really on your mind?”
“How does a little moonlighting for half again your police pay sound?”
“Okay, keep talking…”
As you might expect, there were no happy faces at the funeral of Leon Porch. Betty and Luther were inconsolable and so was another elderly lady Ernie thought he remembered from somewhere. He decided to offer his condolences, as though he weren’t already busier than a one-armed paper hanger with the crabs.
“This is a very sad day,” he said in an effort to console her.
“You’re trying to remember who I am, aren’t you?” the lady responded. Whoever she was, Ernie quickly realized, she was smart as a whip.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. It’s all the more embarrassing because I feel we have met at some point.”
“I’ll spare you any further squirming. I’m Lucinda Porch, the boy’s grandmother.”
“Of course you are. Now why was I too dense to remember that? We met a coupla times at least.”
“Oh, don’t beat yourself up over it. After all, you are right, this is a very sad day indeed.”
“I thought Leon’s sister gave a nice eulogy—very touching.”
“Yes, as far as it went. Of course she could just talk about his social work, because I was the only one who knew about his crowning achievement.”
“What, his family doesn’t know?”
“No. You see, Leon had joined an organization that, if the word got out, it would have really upset his parents. Instead, he confided in me.”
“If I don’t miss my guess, you’d like to confide in someone yourself. I promise I either will or won’t let anyone know—your choice—if you want to spill a few beans my way.”
“Let’s go somewhere where we can have some privacy. You’re right, I do want someone else to know the truth about my grandson.”
Chapter 13
It had not been an easy week for Agent Louis Simmons, former titular head of the Fair Welfare Action Committee. As such he had been the bureau’s most visible manifestation of the scandal after the story broke. Congress had been riding the bureau chiefs hard and they, in turn, had been riding Agent Simmons even harder.
As if that had not been enough to deal with, his half-brother Otis Graham called him at his hotel room the night after his first day of interrogation in Washington. Otis had once again come up short on his child-support payments, for the past three months actually. The walls were starting to close in on him when he panicked and fled from the state.
His first instinct had been to try his half-brother in Philadelphia, but Yvonne Simmons told him her husband had gone down to headquarters in Washington. Where was he staying? Here, she told Otis, you can call him at this number.
Louis Simmons actually got along well with Otis, and while his relative’s many missteps and shortcomings saddened him, Louis always tried to have the guy’s back. So, although it could not have come at a worse time, he was willing to offer Otis temporary “sanctuary,” if he didn’t mind sleeping in the easy chair. Although it may not have had anything to do with their affection for one another, Louis and Otis looked more like twins than half-brothers. The both took strongly after their mother’s side of the family.
“Know what I could really use about now?” Louis asked his guest as they continued working on the bottle of scotch Otis had provided.
“I got everything I need, right here,” the guest volunteered as he hoisted his glass.
“No, I got this crazy desire for some KFC chicken. I know where there’s a place nearby. You know what, I’m gonna go and get some, right now. You want any? If you do, I’ll go ahead and get us a bucket..”
“Yeah,” Otis chuckled, “let’s do that. You want me to come along?”
“No, that’s alright. You been on the road enough for one day. I’ll be back in a flash wit’ the trash.”
Graham dimmed the lights and fell back in his chair for a few minutes of shut-eye. Two pops from the silenced pistol of the intruder turned it into shut-eye forever.
Subsequent to Otis Graham’s murder, the local New York police put his ex-wife Simone through the ringer, but she swore vehemently, in both senses of the word, she had never left her home in Long Island City, except to do a little grocery shopping, the day her former husband was killed. She insisted she could produce witnesses, if she had to, and, if she had lost her register tape, they probably had a copy at the A&P. The police could find no evidence whatsoever she had gone anywhere, but then she could have gotten a ride from an unknown confederate or an unknowing stranger, willing to pick up a female hitchhiker.
When they interviewed Yvonne Simmons, she emphatically told them she had not spoken to her former sister-in-law for the past several weeks. Again there were no phone records between her number in Philadelphia and the suspect’s in New York. This was getting nowhere.
Naturally, the police checked out the possibility that Otis Graham’s angry ex-wife could have hired a hit man, but there seemed to be no evidence of that either. It could have gone down that way, and probably did, the police figured, but they had nothing they could pin on the lady: no large withdrawals from her bank account (which was already far too small to afford anything so luxurious as a paid execution); no strange numbers on her phone records; no sighting of strange cars in the neighborhood; zip. Someone ventured the theory that it was awfully “convenient” that Graham’s half-brother had gone out for chicken just before the hit went down. How did he explain that? I was hungry for chicken, he insisted. Why the hell would he kill his own brother, he demanded to know. Me and Otis got along fine, he pointed out.
Louis Simmons could take that little bit of aggravation in stride, because he had recently finished going through much worse. The bureau had given him three days’ paid leave to do something about his half-brother’s dead body, but then it was right back onto the hot griddle. In the ensuing time, Simmons thought long and hard about Simone Graham—a hateful woman he had never liked in the first place—but was she a killer? He doubted it. Still, he thought, what is it they say about the Hell that hath no fury? She had been gladder than Otis about their separation, but that had been entirely based on the child-support payments she had been awarded coming, in-full and on time. Was it worth killing a man or hiring someone to kill him for a lousy 2400 bucks? Somehow, it didn’t add up, although the agent was baffled to think of any other scenario.
Still, even if he could consciously shed no further light on the murder, something in his subconscious began, ever so slightly, to lea
d him down a different path. Without really knowing why, he changed from a close-mouthed hard case to a cooperative witness once the questioning resumed. Within twenty minutes, he had given up Sean Higgins. It was then only a matter of time before the frigid plains of North Dakota would be beckoning the soon-to-be former assistant chief in Pennsylvania.
Simmons ended up with a suspension and a six-month flag on his records, which meant he would miss out on any chance for a raise when his salary review came up. He was glad to get off with only that. He could only imagine what would have happened if he had continued refusing to talk. Dismissal? Probably, or, at the very least, banishment to Bumfuck, Egypt.
Coupled with the relief Simmons felt over his own troubles, was a strong sense of frustration over how his brother’s case was being handled. Police in both Long Island City and Washington did little more than battle over jurisdiction, meaning who didn’t have it. Neither of them wanted any part of a case this thorny. Finally, Louis Simmons resolved to take the matter into his own hands. He was back on the payroll and he had some money saved up. He decided to hire a detective. After only a little nosing around, he got the word that he could get his biggest bang for the buck with an outfit called Steven J. Kashuba, Private Investigations.
Chapter 14
“Luther, Luther, you gotta believe, I am as sorry as I can be,” Frank tried to explain to the distraught cop, “but nothing has come up, and I mean nothing. Everywhere we been looking is a dead end.”
“We want this guy, bad as you do,” Biggie added.
“Goddammit, what’s the problem?” Luther raged. “One ‘a those…those people musta done it. Why the hell can’t you sort ‘em out?”
“This from a guy who thinks all niggers look alike,” a frustrated Hilton snorted.
“I don’t think no such thing!” Porch protested. “I can tell you apart, can’t I?”
“Guys, this kind of talk is getting us exactly nowhere,” Frank told them. “Luther, all I can tell you right now is we’re working our asses off on this, more than any other case we got, and we won’t stop ‘til we got someone behind bars.”
“You know what I wish?” Luther sulked, “I wish Ernie Campanella was still a cop. Guy could be a real prick sometimes, but I bet he was smarter than the three of us put together.”
You’re right, :Luther, right as rain,” Frank was quick to agree. “If Ernie were still on the force, I’da brought him in on this case for sure, but he isn’t.”
“Yeah, and it wasn’t us that fired him.” Biggie said. “Campanella’s got nobody to blame for that except Campanella. Am I right or wrong?”
“Hang in there, Luther. We’ll get this guy yet,” Frank added with a friendly pat on the cop’s shoulder. As the distraught father trudged out of the detectives’ office, Frank realized that, for all the guy’s ranting, Luther Porch had planted a bug in his ear.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Ernie explained to Kashuba. “All I’m saying is I don’t like the guy, and it’s got nothing to do with race.”
“What, then, you didn’t like his necktie?”
“All due respect, but wake up and snort the java, Boss.” Ernie always called Kashuba “boss” these days, partially out of respect, but mostly so that he would not slip up and call him Speve or, worse yet, Spanky. “You remember hearing about that bogus government operation where they set up a dummy organization to keep tabs on the people on their shit list? Well our illustrious client, Mr. Simmons was their so-called leader.”
“Okay, whatever that whole flap amounted to, it’s between Simmons and the government what happened to him.”
“Meaning a slap on the wrist with a wet noodle,”
“Meaning it’s none of our goddam business. Here is what is our business: the guy’s brother got shot to death in our client’s hotel room. None of the cops involved have done squat, so he wants us to find answers. Now here’s the thing. We took this guy’s money, so we will get him all the answers we can. Was there anything unclear or unspecific about what I said?”
“Didn’t I say already I’d do the work? Christ, how long you known me, Boss? You ever see me half-stepping on a case?”
“Never, but I wonder if a negative attitude toward this guy might not hamper you…you know, like unconsciously.”
“I get your point,” Ernie agreed. “Okay, I’ll try very hard to guard against anything like that.” The two of them sat in silence for a little over a minute.”
“You know what I need to do to kick-start this case?” Ernie broke the silence.
“Suppose you tell me.”
“I think I need to sit down for an in-depth conversation with Agent Louis Simmons. We didn’t cover nearly enough ground today.”
“Hey, now wait a minute. You don’t think he killed his own brother, do you?”
“No, although, at this point, I won’t rule anything out. I just think there is a lot more we can learn from this gentleman, and, yes, I will treat him entirely like a gentleman, okay?”
“Far be it for me to question my best P.I.”
“And your worst. Come on, Uncle Scrooge, when are you going to spring for another dick?” Kashuba had gone so far as to hire an efficient older woman named Marguerite Wallace as a secretary/receptionist, but Ernie was still his only investigator.
“Couple more messy divorces in Society Hill and I’ll expand the staff, I promise. I don’t really have a money bin, you know.”
“What, not even for your pinochle winnings?”
“Agent Simmons, I’m sure you understand, I’m not here because I suspect you of your brother’s murder,” Ernie began the interrogation, once the niceties had been dispensed with.
“I should hope not! I’ve heard enough of that from the knucklehead cops in D.C.”
They went through all of Otis Graham’s history that Simmons could remember. Who else had it in for him besides his ex-wife, Ernie wondered. Nobody Simmons could think of. Lot of people thought he was a jive turkey, but that was no reason to kill him. Did he have serious gambling debts he couldn’t repay? Not that the client knew of, and when he drank too much, he was never what you’d call a mean drunk. Man would just make a damn fool out of himself, but never in a way that insulted anybody too much.
About ten minutes into the interview, Louis Simmons stood up and stretched.
“I think I need a soda,” he told Ernie. “Can I get you one?”
“Yeah, a Coke’d be fine if you got one.”
“Sure; sit tight and I’ll be right with you.” As Louis went into the kitchen, Ernie turned his head toward some photographs on a nearby lowboy. He noticed one of a somewhat younger Louis Simmons standing in a backyard next to another young man who looked a lot like him. He went over and took the picture back to his seat for closer examination.
“Whatcha got?” Louis asked when he returned with the sodas.
“This fellow in the picture with you. That’s Otis Graham, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, back in a happier time. Look a lot alike, don’t we? Some people mistake us for twins.”
“I can see why,” Ernie said as he got up to put the picture back. Just as he set it down, the thought came to him.
“Mr. Simmons, I think that the tree we have been barking up is the wrong one.”
“Considering that no one’s gotten anywhere with this case, I’d be happy to have you point out the right tree.:
“It is my belief,” Ernie said as he closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose while he marshalled his next words, “that the bullets that went into your brother’s head were meant for you.”
“Now there’s a scary thought. I’m trying to think who would have the balls to take me out. I really can’t see any of those Fair Welfare hippies having the gumption. Why are you so sure I was the target?”
“Let me answer that with a question of my own. Besides you, who else knew your brother was coming to visit?”
“Um…let me think…Yvonne knew, ‘cause she gave him my number.”
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“Now, don’t get upset, but I have to ask. Your wife have any beef with Otis?”
“No, they got along fine.”
“You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?”
“Yeah, now I do. Far as anyone knew, I was the only one who was supposed to be in that room.”
“So what we have here is a whole nother kettle of fish.”
“I guess so. What now?”
“You know, the journey of a thousand miles and all that crap. Okay, so here’s my first step. Knowing as I do that you work out of Philadelphia, what were you even doing in Washington?”
“Getting my ass chewed. I thought you could have figured that part out.”
“Yeah, I already did, but I wanted to hear the actual words from you. I’ve already wasted too much time on groundless assumptions.”
“Before we go any further, let me explain something,” Simmons said. “I am very, very conflicted about what I did. First and foremost, I want to be a good agent. That means doing what you’re told. All right, I did what I was told and did it really well for a long time, if I do say so myself. Thing is, I knew it was a rotten trick to play on a lot of people who may have been misguided, but they weren’t criminals, for God sakes.”
“All right, here’s me stating the obvious again,” Ernie interrupted. “So the whole scheme was not your idea, is that right?”
“That’s right. I was the front man, but it was not my brainchild.”
“Okay, that checks out with what I figured. Now let me ask you this, because it may figure in who made the attempt on your life. Whose brainchild was it?”
“Our deputy chief of station, Sean Higgins.”
“You have got to be shitting me!”
Ernie did not get into the office until ten the next morning. Kashuba had let him come in a little late to comp him for the extra time he had put in with Simmons the night before. As soon as Ernie got through the door, he was surprised to see his old friend Frank Mueller smiling at him.