by Bruce Most
One number caught my eye: 10:45. No p.m. or a.m., and no date. But the number roughly matched the time we’d arrived in the alley behind the pawnshop. It also explained my partner’s incessant checking of his watch that night. He wanted to arrive at the pawnshop at a predetermined time.
Which reinforced my earlier sense that Benedict knew his killer. He entered that pawnshop expecting to meet someone. Just not expecting to die.
I continued through the notebook, pausing with a bowed head at a short grocery list.
One name I searched for but didn’t find was the mysterious Detective Lancaster. Had the caller given Ellen a false name? A code name to Benedict?
I re-examined the entire notebook. This time I stopped at one of the meaningless initials I’d seen before: M.R., a phone number next to it. The initials meant nothing to me, nor the phone number. Code for Detective Lancaster? A link to one of the mysterious “we”?
Only one way to find out.
“Yes?” answered a man with a wary, high-pitched voice.
“Who is this?”
A pause. “If you don’t know, you’ve called the wrong number. This number is unlisted.”
“Are your initials MR?”
Another pause, longer this time. “You’ve called the wrong number,” he repeated. The phone clicked silent.
Unlisted? Unlisted numbers were not common.
I called an employee at the phone company I knew. I’d given him a break on a solicitation charge the year before and probably saved his marriage. He owed me. But he wasn’t available.
I called Benedict’s wife. I didn’t like bothering Ellen the day after we buried her husband but I had an urgent question.
“I just wanted to check in, to see how you and Timothy are doing,” I said.
“Okay.” She sniffed, her voice verged on the edge of tears. “It’s tough, especially for Timothy.”
“I can understand. If there’s anything Paula and I can do for you . . . ”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if there is. Benedict’s family has given us a lot of support. We’ll get through this. How are you doing, Joe?”
“The same.” I paused, then asked, “You heard they released this Hector Diaz guy?”
“Yes,” her voice rose. “How could they let him go, Joe?”
“Not enough evidence at this stage, is my guess. Even on the stolen watches. They still like him for it, though. They’ll get him, Ellen.” I paused. “Did Benedict ever mention Diaz’s name?”
“That’s the same question that detective asked.”
My stomach clenched. “What detective?”
“Two of them, actually. They were here this morning.”
“What were their names?”
“One was, uh, Kaufman. A tall, thin man. Very nice. I can’t remember the other detective’s name. I was in such a daze. I should remember him. I didn’t like him.”
“Luther Bock?”
“Yes, that was him. He kept his hat on the whole time. Rude. The other detective took his hat off like a gentleman. This Bock was the one who asked whether Benedict ever mentioned Diaz to me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Benedict never mentioned his name. Why would he have?”
“Probably no reason. But maybe in passing—arrested him and something stuck in his mind about the guy.”
A strangled laugh came through the phone. “Benedict rarely discussed his work. Any more than he spoke of the war. There was always a wall of silence when it came to certain things.” Her tone was reproachful, as if she and Paula periodically swapped notes on their tight-lipped husbands. “Why are you asking, Joe?”
“Curious. I arrested Diaz a couple of times, but I never heard Benedict mention him. I wondered if he ran across him at some point before we partnered. A lot of cops have.”
“You arrested him? Do you think he was capable of . . . of killing Benedict?”
“Yes, it’s possible. Did the detectives explain why they released him?”
“No. They weren’t at liberty to say.”
They were, I thought. But they’re keeping something close to their chest. “What were they at liberty to say?”
“No much. General stuff about how they were exhausting all leads. Little more than what I’d already read in the papers. I kept asking questions but they said they couldn’t release information right now. Even to me. His widow.”
Again, she verged of tears.
“Did they bring up my name?”
“No.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. “What else did they ask?”
“Not much. They didn’t stay long. Mainly to update me on the investigation and ask about this Diaz. Detective Kaufman did much of the talking. Detective Bock seemed to barely listen. He kept looking around the living room, as if searching for something.”
“Searching for what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He acted almost as if Benedict was the bad guy and not the victim.”
Searching as I did my previous visit, scouring for signs of stolen goods, of furniture or furnishings above a patrolman’s pay. If Benedict was as a dark rider, he certainly hadn’t spent his loot on anything visible.
“One other thing,” I asked. “Do the initials MR mean anything to you? Initials for a man’s name?”
“No. Why?”
“Just checking a lead. Did they ask about Detective Lancaster?”
“No.”
“Let’s still keep that between us, okay?”
We said our goodbyes and I hung up. Olivia was stirring. I returned the notebook to the shoebox.
With no leads on Lancaster or M.R., my next move was to find Diaz, learn what he knew about Benedict, if anything. I needed to find out before homicide dug up more evidence and brought him back inside, where he might rat on Benedict in exchange for a lighter sentence. Even if it were all lies.
The challenge was doing all this without assistance and without anyone the wiser. I couldn’t trust anyone, especially other cops. If Saint Benedict was a dirty cop, anyone could be a dirty cop.
Even if I confided in someone I could trust, the fact remained that good cops almost always cover for each other. As for command, I didn’t trust them in the best of times. Nobody in the department wanted dirty laundry hung out in public—especially laundry suggesting a fellow officer might have murdered Benedict. And they sure as hell didn’t want me nosing into it.
Yet I couldn’t let Benedict’s killer go. Not for the murder of my partner. Not with Bock on my ass. Not with the possibility the detective would come around to tagging me for Benedict’s death.
Chapter 6
Shortly before roll call, Sergeant Ray Hawkins summoned me into the duty sergeant’s office and broke the bad news.
“You’re joking?” I shouted. “You stuck me with Moroni Perdue?”
In the three days I’d worked since Benedict’s funeral, I’d been partnered with three different officers I barely knew. Which was fine by me, though I would have preferred patrolling alone.
But Moroni Perdue! Anyone but Perdue.
Perdue had dragged me into the infamous Seth Rawlins murder case two years ago with his pesky questions and rookie exuberance. He’d trailed me around like a lost puppy dog. He wanted to be the next Denver Kid, at a time I desperately wanted to bury that reputation.
“That’s the assignment,” Hawkins confirmed.
“This your bright idea, sarge? Or did command come up with this bullshit?”
Hawkins heaved his rangy body out of his chair. “Ease off, Joe.”
“Like hell I will. I got stuck with Perdue when he was a rookie fresh out of Academy. Once is enough. He’s an annoying motormouth who believes in flying saucers. He’s like a gnat. No, a swarm of gnats.”
Hawkins nodded. “You don’t need to tell me what he’s like.”
“And the LifeSavers,” I said, shaking my head. “Constantly gnawing on ’em until it drives you nuts.”
“He smo
kes these days. It’s quieter. And he drinks. A regular Jack Mormon.”
“Swell. Why are you doing this to me, sarge?”
“It’s nothing against you,” he said. “It’s a matter of manpower disbursement.”
“Manpower disbursement? What the hell does that mean?”
“We’re short staffed and I’m putting together the best shift assignments I can.”
“I’ve been on this force five years, Ray. That oughta carry a little weight.”
Hawkins leaned his arms on his desk. “How goddamn easy do you think it is, Joe, finding guys game enough to partner with you? They’re calling you ‘Typhoid Joe.’ Partnering with you is like partnering with a one-wing duck during hunting season.”
His words came as no surprise. “But why Perdue of all people?”
“He volunteered. You two worked together once. He helped you solve the Rawlins case, right? I figured you could work together again.” Hawkins looked down at the paperwork on his desk as if to dismiss me. “Live with it.”
I blinked. “What do you mean he volunteered? Why the hell did he do that?”
He kept his eyes on the paperwork. “Beats me. Ask him.”
Yeah, Moroni Perdue was a motormouth and an annoying gnat. But the deeper reason I didn’t want him again as a partner was that I’d put him through hell the first time. Despite my initial suspicions about him, he risked his new career and his life for me when I went hunting for the man who killed my partner—and he nearly lost his life doing it.
I wouldn’t risk doing that again. He didn’t deserve that.
Two dead partners were enough.
And frankly, I didn’t trust partners these days. Beyond my shock at Benedict’s heist of the radio, I still smarted from the disappointment he never mentioned working for Zingano’s security business. Several times he’d spouted off—before going all moody and barely speaking at all—his distrust of our union boss. He believed Big Z ran the police union to enrich himself and a few pals, not the rank-and-file. Ellen cited conflict as patrol partners, too. Yet he worked for Zingano’s private security firm. Why? If they needed extra cash for the bank loan, there were less stressful to make it.
Detective Bock was right. Too many unanswered questions and odd behaviors. Yet finding answers while concealing what really happened at the pawnshop would be all but impossible with a partner draped over me, especially a nosy partner like Perdue. A partner keenly aware of how prone I was to break departmental rules.
All of which left troubling questions. Lou Sheppard’s laudatory press stories two years ago kept the two of us from being fired on grounds of insubordination for meddling in the Rawlins homicide case. But command separated us to make certain we didn’t collude again. A smart move at the time. We both had endured a lot. Why allow us to team up again?
And why did Perdue volunteer?
“Is this going to be permanent?” I asked Hawkins.
“For now. I can’t keep running you through new partners, Joe. Losing Benedict was tough. We’re all living with that one. But the public needs us at our best.”
“Forget a partner. I’ll go it alone.”
“Ain’t happening, Joe. Orders.”
“Orders? Is Perdue my babysitter? Is that it? Command doesn’t trust me?”
Sergeant Hawkins remained silent on that question.
“You listen to MacArthur’s speech?” asked Moroni Perdue. He’d been jabbering nonstop since we’d left roll call and hit the streets in what I swear was the most decrepit prowl car in the department, which is saying something considering the extensive competition.
“What?” I said.
My attention had drifted. How was I going to inconspicuously track down Hector Diaz with Perdue hanging around my neck?
“Did you catch the general’s speech this morning?” he repeated.
“Didn’t everyone?”
I’d sat in my favorite chair by the radio, Olivia in my lap and Paula sitting nearby, listening to Douglas MacArthur speak before Congress. Every American in the country listened to him from what I gathered. Hell, they even let the school kids out for the day. The spectacle must have pissed off President Truman. He’d made the right move firing the insubordinate general, but I have to admit MacArthur gave one helluva speech. Toward the end, when his voice dropped and he spoke of old soldiers never dying, just fading away, shivers ran up my spine.
Perdue lit a Chesterfield and rambled on about the general’s speech. It was a mild evening, so I rolled down the window. Hawkins was right. The Moroni Perdue I knew never smoked. Didn’t drink. Not even coffee. He was a Mormon, for god’s sake. Now he puffed away like a wizened old cowboy.
Two years on the force had clearly changed him. His rookie baby face had aged dog years for a guy still in his twenties. His gym-built body looked soft. He moved like an old man. His eyes were darker, the exuberant rookie light gone out of them. The polished belt and shoes he’d proudly worn as a rookie was now a dull black.
Then it occurred to me as he babbled on that he was nervous. He’d always been a motormouth, but tonight he was above and beyond the call of duty.
Riding shotgun with “Typhoid Joe” will do that to a man. Perdue’s way of whistling in the dark of a cemetery.
Taking a break from MacArthur, Perdue stuck his head out the open window and scanned the sky with a pair of binoculars he’d brought along. I dreaded asking but did anyway.
“Let me guess, you’re looking for flying saucers?” I said, making no effort to disguise my scorn.
Assholes selling narcotics on the streets and drunks beating their wives, and my partner was scouring the skies for alien bogeymen.
In our prior incarnation as partners, he’d claimed seeing a banana-shaped flying saucer near Provo, Utah. Now he launched into a long story of spotting a disk-shaped saucer while he and his wife were up in the mountains, at dusk, near Berthoud Pass. A silvery craft, with rows of lights on the underbelly.
From what I’d read in the papers, and calls the department received daily, everybody was seeing saucers these days. Either we’re under invasion or there’s a lot of heavy drinking going on.
Perdue elaborated on the nuances of alien aircraft sightings. Disk-shaped saucers were the most common, along with cigar shapes. But they also came triangular, bat-wing, conical, pencil, Saturn-ring like, and teardrop shaped. Even one resembling an upside-down toy top. To say nothing of the countless sightings of blurred lights moving at unearthly speeds. Apparently, aliens bought their saucers in a variety of makes and models produced on assembly lines at some sort of intergalactic Detroit.
I drifted in and out of his commentary, brainstorming how to track down Diaz with an alien-watcher at my side. Perdue prattled on. Turned out he collected and evaluated “sightings” in his spare time from observers all over the country. He published the reports in a mimeographed bimonthly six-page bulletin called SAUCER—Sightings of Aliens and Unknown Craft Evaluation and Research.
He set down his binoculars and looked my way. “I think they’re signs from heaven, don’t you?”
During his speech, MacArthur cautioned the nation on many things, but flying saucers were not among them. Good enough for me.
“I’ve received over two hundred bona fides in the last year,” said Perdue.
“Bona fides?”
“Sightings that can’t be explained by the Air Force, weather, or recognizable celestial phenomenon.”
“And you believe these are real space ships flown by little green men?”
“Not green, Joe. That’s a silly cliché. But you don’t believe we’re alone in the universe, do you?”
Only when I’m on duty with you.
“Some sightings could be the Russkies,” he said, lighting another cig. “Some kind of new weapon. Or worse, the commies could be in cahoots with the aliens. Whoever they are, we have to be vigilant. That’s what my readers are—the first line of defense.”
God, I thought I was paranoid these days.
&n
bsp; Calls picked up. Not aliens, but real people with real problems. We checked out reports of a loud radio and a fight in the projects, both of which proved elusive. We caught a fender bender and a break-in at a dry cleaners, dropped in on the trouble bars and pool halls, and rattled a few doorknobs. We responded to a beer brawl at a pool hall on Curtis, where the loser sat slumped against a table nursing broken ribs, the winner long gone. We took down conflicting witness descriptions, conflicting names, and conflicting stories.
With no address for Hector Diaz, everywhere we went I tapped snitches, barflies, barkeeps, hookers, and anyone else who might have an idea where to find the Mex. I tried keeping my inquiries out of Perdue’s earshot, but eventually he caught wind.
“Why are you looking for that spic?” he asked.
I hesitated. I carried the same concerns I carried the last time we’d partnered, when our discovery of a headless body on the railroad tracks sucked us into the swamp of Seth Rawlins and nearly got both of us killed. Back then, I suspected Perdue was reporting my extra-curricular investigatory work to command. He proved me wrong. He never once betrayed me. But could I trust him this time around? He was a changed man. Could I count on anyone after the betrayal by Saint Benedict?
I sucked in the evening air and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. The problem remained—hunting for Diaz with Perdue at my side would be impossible unless I took him into my confidence. Well, at least a little into my confidence.
“I want to chat with him,” I said.
“Why?”
“I have a few questions.”
“You don’t believe he killed your partner?”
“No, I think he probably did. It’s why I want to talk to him.”
That, and could Diaz confirm whether my dead partner was a dark rider.
“That’s not a wise idea, Joe. Homicide won’t like that. You remember what that’s like.”
Yeah, I remember all too well. It’s why I didn’t ask them for Jailbait’s address. Not that they would have provided it. Why the hell did I want his address? they would have asked. Was I seeking revenge? Stay out of it, they would have warned.