The Big Dive

by Bruce Most

  I was battling the Krauts when President Roosevelt signed the order to forcibly evacuate and intern more than 110,000 Japanese living along the West Coast. At the time, it seemed a reasonable precaution in the interest of national security. The Japs hit us hard at Pearl Harbor. How the hell could we tell the difference between a loyal Jap and a Nip spy? Since the war, what few times I thought about it, I’d come to have my doubts of its wisdom and rightness.

  “Yet you were an administrator there,” I pointed out.

  His eyes closed briefly in the shadows. “Better me than the racists who worked there or the racist xenophobia that infested the branches of our government, in particular the military. The hysterical claims of sabotage at Pearl Harbor by Japanese Americans and the planned armed uprising by Japanese in San Francisco. Alleged fifth columns. Nonsense, pure racist nonsense. Much of it instigated by that crazed General DeWitt. They never discovered any sabotage. They never uncovered any disloyalty among the Japanese Americans. Germany and Italy declared war against us four days after Pearl Harbor, yet we didn’t round up Germans and Italians en masse. It was racism. Aside from slavery and the genocide of native Indians, the Japanese were victims of one of the worst travesties of justice in our nation’s history. It was a time I’d just as soon forget.” He collapsed into his chair. “Please, I’m tired. If you have nothing else, detective . . . ”

  I left unescorted, Mrs. Raschke nowhere in sight. Probably off to join the others swells at one of her fundraisers. I blinked in the bright May sun, like coming out of a dark movie theater after a Saturday matinee.

  Chapter 12

  Hector “Jailbait” Diaz finally turned up, though not quite the way his parole officer or his mother wanted him found. At dusk Friday evening, an old man walking his dog stumbled across the Mexican face down in a field of freshly planted cabbage just off Highway 85 northeast of Commerce City.

  One shot in the back of the head at close range.

  His murder was splattered all over the news the next morning. I read Lou Sheppard’s account in the Rocky. A dead Mex rarely rated such attention, but this one was the prime suspect in my partner’s death. The Adams County coroner had not yet released the victim’s identification, but that didn’t stop Sheppard and the rest of the crime reporters from printing his name. They’d likely gotten it from sources inside Denver homicide, who’d made a quick visual ID at the scene.

  Two things caught my attention from the news report and the buzz flying around roll call: No mention of Diaz’s red Ford pickup and no suspects.

  “Are you gonna tell homicide?” Perdue asked shortly after we hit the streets to begin our Saturday swing shift.

  “Tell them what?”

  “That you talked to Diaz at that girl’s house.”

  “Hell, no.”

  “They’re gonna find out you were looking for him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. If they do, I’ll tell ’em what I told his PO. I didn’t find him.” My expression told Perdue I expected him to back me up if it came to that.

  “That girl you said he was banging could talk.”

  “I doubt it. Not voluntarily, anyway. She was fucking a three-time loser at her parents’ house. She’s not gonna want them to find out. Not at her age. Let alone mix herself up in a murder case.”

  Perdue didn’t appear convinced.

  “If she comes forward, it’s my worry, not yours,” I said. “She didn’t see you. Only me.”

  Pointing my gun at her boyfriend’s head!

  We rode in silence for the next two hours. Perdue didn’t even bring up little green aliens.

  We made a traffic stop, took a pass through the warehouse district looking for bums sleeping under loading docks, and did a routine check of several bars. The entire time, Perdue fidgeted like a little kid on a long car trip. He finally got the nerve to ask what was on his mind when we took a smoke break down by the river.

  “Did you kill him, Joe?”

  I jerked my head toward him. “No, I didn’t kill him. Why the hell would I have killed him?”

  “’Cuz of your partner. Revenge.”

  “Jesus, Moroni, you believe I’m that kind of guy? You believe I’d drive Diaz out to a fucking cabbage field and put a bullet in the back of his skull?”

  “No, I—”

  “Well, I fucking didn’t. And don’t go around telling people you think I did.”

  “Joe, I wouldn’t—”

  “I’m not even sure Diaz killed Benedict.”

  Perdue stiffened. “Why not?”

  “If he did kill my partner, why would someone in turn kill him? Why not leave him for homicide boys? He was headed for the gas chamber.”

  “He worked a rough trade. Probably pissed off some other lowlife asshole.”

  I shook my head. “Too convenient. The night I talked to him, he denied killing Benedict and I kinda believe him. He was scared of someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Wouldn’t say.”

  I wasn’t about to reveal he was scared of cops. Dirty cops. Cops Benedict may have been mixed up with.

  “Then who killed your partner?” he asked, his voice suddenly edgy.

  “I have no idea.”

  But I did.

  Sunday morning, I went with Paula and Olivia for services at a nearby Presbyterian church. Church wasn’t my thing, but Paula had been shopping for a congregation ever since her return from her sister’s home in Lincoln. She hadn’t been a church goer before she’d left me—the horrors of the war burned out God for both of us. But her sister Eloise, like their mother, was sternly religious. Paula was in a fragile state then, pregnant with a child she may not have wanted and infuriated at me for my dangerous investigation in the notorious Rawlins case.

  Usually I stayed home with Olivia on Sunday mornings, but I wanted to stay in Paula’s good graces. At least as best as I could, considering I was trying to learn the truth behind Benedict’s murder and keep my ass out of jail. Every lurid news update on Benedict and Diaz’s murders was a cruel reminder of my past transgressions and the dangers of being a cop. I sensed Paula could barely hold her anger in check, anger that everything was repeating itself like a bad dream.

  When we returned from church, Ellen called. She’d read about Diaz’s murder and wondered if that meant homicide would close Benedict’s case now that their main suspect was dead.

  “I’m sure they’ll keep investigating,” I reassured her. “Even if it is Diaz, they’ll want to officially close the case.”

  Bock would see to that. He might be done with Diaz but he wasn’t done with me.

  When Ellen hung up, Paula asked, irritation in her voice, “Why did Ellen call you? Why not homicide?”

  “They won’t tell her anything. She thought I might know more than what’s in the papers.”

  “Do you?”

  “No, they don’t tell me anything, either.”

  Paula’s eyes narrowed. “But you’ve been working with them. Benedict was your partner.”

  “I’ve been running down leads and looking for sources for them, that’s all. They still keep the case to themselves. I haven’t even talked to them since they found Diaz.”

  “You think he killed Benedict?”

  I nodded. “Most likely.”

  But her eyes held the same question I had. If Hector “Jailbait” Diaz killed Benedict Greene, why did someone kill Diaz when he was homicide’s prime suspect?

  The rest of the afternoon I did yard work and played with Olivia. Paula and I took turns taking smoke breaks in our backyard. After our daughter came along, we stopped smoking in the house. Paula took up smoking during the war. She’d quit for a while after staying at her sister’s, but started again a few months ago, and seemed to smoke more than ever since Benedict’s death.

  After dinner, we caught Walter Winchell and Paul Harvey on the radio. But I’d grown antsy as the day wore on. The murder of Diaz was never far from my mind, nor my mounting suspicion of who killed him. After Olivia went t
o bed, I told Paula I was meeting some fellow cops for beers downtown.

  She frowned. “On a Sunday evening? When did this come up?”

  “This afternoon. One of them called when you were outside taking a smoke. He and a coupla other cops were getting together and invited me.”

  Her frown turned suspicious. “Why don’t I believe you, Joe?”

  My gut clenched. Was she on to me? Did she suspect I was investigating Benedict’s death? “What do you think I’m doing instead?”

  “Going out to drink alone,” she replied. “You’ve been restless all day. Here but not here. Like you always are.”

  “No, I’m really going out with—”

  “We’ve been through this before, Joe. Losing a partner. Now this business with the murder of that Mexican. I know what you’re like. Stay here. We’ll drink together.”

  I gave her a kiss. “I’m okay,” I said. “Having beers with these guys will do me good. Hell, they might even have scuttlebutt on the case.”

  I drove off, relieved. Better Paula believed I was drowning my struggles over Benedict’s death in booze than learning I was trying to solve his murder.

  After leaving my house, I swung by union hall. Dominic Zingano’s office was dark and no sign of his Hudson. My next option was the Jet X Laundromat where I’d tailed him to four nights before.

  I parked on Cherokee street with a clear view of the laundromat. I hoped he or Jackson might come by the laundromats to check on things and empty the coin drops. A frequent chore, I would imagine. If Haynes, their other partner, came by, I wouldn’t know unless he was carrying a money bag. I didn’t know what he looked like. Maybe none of them would come by and I’d sit a long time in the cool evening drinking from the six-pack of beer I’d bought at a liquor store. Couldn’t return home without smelling of beer. I even splashed some on my shirt.

  Half an hour later, Zingano pulled up in his Hudson. He got out, dressed like Tom Mix in a ten-gallon cream-colored cowboy hat, a fancy western-cut shirt, and cowboy boots. Quite the getup for checking up on his laundromats. Holding a draw-string bag, he disappeared into the laundromat. Minutes later he emerged, and in faltering evening light, I tailed the union boss to three more laundromats. The draw-string bag got heavier each time.

  After the fourth laundromat, he dropped the bag in the trunk and drove to a gin mill on Santa Fe two blocks south of union hall. I didn’t dare follow him into the bar. Thirty minutes later, he came out with a shapely brunette who came up to his navel, hanging on his arm, laughing.

  Mid-twenties, Caucasian, five-three, 115 pounds, no visible scars or tattoos. Admittedly, through binoculars half a block away in poor light that last part was a judgment call. The way they acted together, Zingano presumably was familiar with any tattoos I couldn’t see. Yet even at this distance, I could see the broad looked and walked pretty enough in a sassy red dress, like a dancer in one of the strip joints on Colfax. She might be his wife but I wouldn’t wager my mortgage on it. They looked too happy together. More likely a toy. Men like Zingano collected nice toys.

  He opened the passenger door for her and leaned his big body over to kiss her after she got in. Yeah, definitely not his wife. He straightened up, laughed at something, and shut the door. They drove several blocks to an apartment building on Galapago Street, the skirt squeezed next to him the whole way. I’d worried from the first laundromat that he’d spot me following him but now he was so preoccupied with his toy he wouldn’t notice an army division tailing him. They kissed, a long one, before she slid out of her side of the car and sashayed into the building, again clutching the big man’s arm.

  Another thirty minutes working on my beer before he came out, alone. This time, I followed him to a home near 11th Avenue and Oneida in the Montclair neighborhood, with its mix of architectural styles set on big lots. He pulled into a driveway next to a large two-story Spanish-looking home, with an ornate white facade, orange tiled roof, and a four-column portico on the ground level. The entire edifice was laced with sculpted bushes and fronted by a large lawn and two huge blue spruce trees. In my neighborhood, the house would have stuck out like the Lord’s manor. In this neighborhood, it fit in quite modestly, thank you.

  I drove by without stopping. My pre-war Studebaker with rust spots, a crimped rear fender, a bent radio antenna, and a motor that ran as rough as a three-legged horse with colic stuck out on the block.

  On the way home, I pondered how a thirteen-year veteran like Dominic Zingano managed to buy his toy castle on a $350 a month cop’s salary. I’d collected my share of under-the-table sawbucks over the years, but not enough to afford the guy’s shrubbery, let alone the house. The only way most cops stepped foot in a house like that was when they answered calls that the housekeeper ran off with the silverware.

  Several possibilities could explain the dough, of course.

  Zingano’s security business was doing better than I imagined.

  His laundromats were doing well.

  He’d married rich. Cops do marry rich now and then, but mostly then. And when they do marry rich, most take up less risky occupations, such as walking their old lady’s poodles.

  Maybe he inherited the place and his cop work paid the heating bills and property taxes. Rich folk sometimes lived beyond their means, like the rest of us. But inheritances were as rare as rich broads who love blue uniforms.

  Cooking the books of the Policeman’s Union. Now there was a possibility. But I doubted such a new union was bringing in that much money. Maybe in big cities like New York or Philly, but not Denver.

  His combined policeman’s salary, security business income, and union graft might be enough to cover the house payments, but not likely his a string of high-end laundromats, a fancy new car, and a mistress.

  No, the explanation I liked best was burglary. Burglary matched Zingano’s temperament and brains. Who better to steal from the public than the public’s own guardians? His security business could serve as the perfect front to deploy cops to scout out targets and commit burglaries.

  Burglary also was the theory I liked least. I’d witnessed enough of greedy politicians, vicious assholes, and young hooligans since the war. I didn’t need dirty cops, too. Especially if one of them was my dead partner.

  All of which reinforced a far more chilling scenario been brewing in my mind the last few days.

  If Benedict committed burglaries with Zingano and his crew, then had a falling out, did the union boss kill him to hide their criminal activity? Staged it to appear as if killed by a random burglar in the line of duty?

  Zingano arrived in civilian clothes shortly after my “officer down” call that night. Not much time to slice up my partner under my nose, escape, change out of bloody clothes, and return to the scene of the crime. If he had an alibi, it was too dangerous for me to try to pin it down.

  On the hand, he could have ordered one of his crew to murder Benedict. If so, why show his ass at all at the pawnshop? Checking to see if everything turned out as planned and deflecting any potential problems? Because as union boss he needed to make a showing? He certainly hadn’t displayed much concern for me or my dead partner. Instead, he’d focused on the radio and the jimmied door. Probing to learn what I knew, worried Benedict had confided in me the existence of a ring of dark riders?

  Yet if he’d staged Benedict’s murder, why make it appear the result of a burglary gone wrong? Cops got killed in all sorts of circumstances. Why suggest that Benedict and I broke into the pawnshop? That kind of talk only raised the “rumors” of dark riders. Especially when someone like Detective Bock raised that very issue.

  My brain swirled with too many questions and too few answers.

  To say nothing of the murder of Hector Diaz. The news reported that the Mex had been shot with a .38. A cop’s gun. Maybe Zingano hired Diaz to kill Benedict after my partner bailed on them, and then killed Diaz when he became a liability after homicide pegged him for Benedict’s death.

  God, I’d rather Zingano was
getting rich stealing from our union.

  Chapter 13

  The kitchen telephone rang and Paula answered. A moment later, she handed me the receiver, eyes curious. “It’s Ellen.”

  “’Lo,” I said.

  “Joe, I—” Ellen Greene paused for so long I thought she was going to hang up.

  “What’s wrong?” I prodded.

  Her voice dropped depressingly low. “I discovered some papers Benedict hid. I can’t make sense of them. Would you look at them?”

  “What papers?”

  “It’s best if you see them in person.”

  I said I could come over now if that was okay, and she agreed.

  “What does Ellen want?” Paula asked.

  “To look at some papers of Benedict’s. Probably old paperwork from the job. I shouldn’t be gone long but I’ll dress for work in case I don’t have time to get back.”

  I dressed, kissed Paula, gave Olivia a hug, and left.

  When I arrived at Ellen’s, she led me into her kitchen. Timothy was at school. Yellowed newspaper clippings lay strewn over the table, dumped from a large manila envelope.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. Her eyes were puffy and red, her face strained and tired.

  “No, nothing. Thanks. You hear anything new from homicide about the case since Hector Diaz’s murder?” I asked, wondering whether Bock had returned with more questions.

  “No.” She appeared more troubled with what lay on her kitchen table.

  I sat down while she remained standing by the sink, hands clasping and unclasping against her pin-money dress. I pawed through the clippings, which smelled of mothballs, before picking up one. Two pieces taped together, the lower piece from where the article had jumped to the inside of the newspaper. Scribbled in ink along the edge of the clipping was the date December 14, 1944, and Lamar Daily News. I’d never been to Lamar, a desolate small town in the southeast corner of Colorado.