The Big Dive

by Bruce Most

  Bock took another drag. “Oh, I don’t think you killed Diaz out of revenge. You killed him ’cuz he had information you didn’t want us to discover.”

  I put on my best glower. “What the hell you talking about?”

  “I haven’t liked your story from the get-go. Greene’s fingerprints on the radio. The radio in the wrong place in the alley. His holstered gun. I believe you two were burglarizing the place.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Word is Diaz was fencing for dirty cops, and lo and behold he ends up dead after we drag him in. Maybe he was working with you and your partner. Maybe you made sure he kept his secrets—permanently.”

  I leaned forward even more to make my point. “While you’re at it, you like me for Benedict’s death, too?”

  “I ain’t ruled it out.”

  “My thirty-eight is sitting out there in the bullpen. Take it. Run a ballistics test on it. I have nothing to hide. And when you’re done testing, reload the gun, shove the barrel up your ass, and pull the trigger. Now you got any more fucking questions, Bock? ’Cause if you don’t, I need to join my partner and catch real criminals instead of this bullshit.”

  “Get outa here,” he snapped. “I still like you and your partner for burglary.”

  “You keep saying that, yet you never come up with any proof.”

  “I will, Stryker. Count on it.”

  “What did Bock want?” Perdue asked after my return to the division station and Sergeant Hawkins radioed him in to come get me.

  “He found out I was looking for Hector Diaz,” I said as we drove out to our precinct.

  “How—how did he find out?”

  I looked hard at Perdue. “That’s a good question, Moroni.”

  He caught my drift. “It wasn’t me. I said nothin’ to nobody.”

  “Somebody did.”

  At a stop light, he hastily lit a cigarette. “Maybe it was one of the people on the street you talked to.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “It wasn’t me, I swear. Bock know you found Diaz?”

  “If he did, he didn’t reveal it.”

  “Did my name come up?”

  “He knows you’re riding with me.”

  Perdue sucked in his breath.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I told him you didn’t know I was asking around about Diaz.”

  I painted you as not too bright, but that beats admitting you knew what I was up to.

  I didn’t divulge that the detective liked me for killing Hector Diaz to cover up crimes I and my dead partner allegedly committed.

  Or that now I was in the running for murdering my own partner.

  Chapter 15

  The next day I left early for work hoping to catch Marcus Raschke at home. I told Paula I was doing more work for homicide.

  “Aren’t you done with them? Benedict’s killer is dead, right?”

  I figured she might wonder that. “Well, yes, Hector Diaz remains their main suspect. But as I told Ellen on the phone the other day, they haven’t officially closed the case on him. They need more conclusive evidence before they do. Plus, they’re investigating whether his murder might be connected to Benedict’s.”

  “Connected in what way?”

  I shrugged. “That’s why homicide still wants me involved. To see if I can come up with any leads on the street.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me everything, Joe?”

  I paused. I needed to skate close to the truth without actually revealing it.

  “This is just between us, understand?” I said. She nodded, eyes still narrowed. “Homicide suspects there’s more than meets the eye to Benedict’s death. That it wasn’t random bad luck of stumbling into a burglary in progress like we thought.”

  Paula’s eyes widened.

  I was edging onto dangerous ground. Territory I was trying to investigate in secret. But to keep it a secret, I needed push my wife’s ever-present suspicions away from me onto homicide.

  “They believe this Diaz guy was looking to kill Benedict?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. They won’t give me details. They want me to keep working the streets. Tap into my sources and follow up on leads they generate. To see if there is a link.”

  She tilted her head. “You believe there was more to his death?”

  I firmly shook my head. “No, but they’re the investigators, not me.”

  She took a long pause, as if sifting through my story for footprints of deceit. “Does Ellen know this?”

  I threw out my hands. “God, no. And don’t tell her. It’ll only upset her. Don’t tell anyone. Nothing’s going to come of this, trust me.”

  My biggest lie of all.

  On my way to Raschke’s home, I stopped at a gas station and changed from my uniform into my “Detective Lancaster” suit.

  This time, Mrs. Raschke didn’t answer the door and give my suit a condescending once over. For a few long moments, I thought no one would answer the door, though the good professor had said he rarely ventured out, what with all the commie flak. Eventually he opened the door, dressed in something professorially tweedy, looking more gaunt and pale than the last time. At this rate, he’d wither away and die in weeks.

  “It’s you again,” he said.

  I held up the manila envelope of yellowed newspaper clippings Ellen gave me. “We need to talk.”

  He eyed the envelope and frowned. “About what?”

  “Camp Amache.”

  I pushed my way in before he got the chance to slam the door shut.

  We stared at each other for several beats before he heaved a sigh, shut the door, and lead me into his study. The room was as dark and gloomy as before. He settled behind his desk. He didn’t offer me a chair, but I didn’t want one. I spilled the clippings onto his immaculate desk.

  He stared at them. “What are these?”

  “Why would the murdered cop you claimed no knowledge of have this envelope of clippings about a murdered Jap woman at Amache? Clippings with your name underlined?”

  He stared at them but didn’t touch, as if he knew exactly what they contained. “Perhaps the officer hated me due to a misguided belief I’m a commie, like everyone else who doesn’t know me.”

  “But why Amache? Why this woman’s murder? A girl, really. She was only nineteen. Why keep seven year-old clippings? Why not current stories about you?”

  “I have no idea. This was nothing more than the tragic case of a murdered young Japanese woman. It’s what happens when we illegally incarcerate our citizens.”

  “You helped investigate her death, is that right?”

  “No, I didn’t. I was the camp’s liaison with local and military police. They did the investigating. My duty was to keep the detainees apprised as best as I could regarding the investigation, reassure them, and answer their questions. They were understandably distraught. Of course, the military and local police were not forthright.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why Officer Greene kept these clippings with your name prominently highlighted.”

  Raschke sat back and crossed his arms. “I don’t understand your interest in this. Since your previous visit, I have paid more attention to the news. The man suspected of killing the officer you referred to was himself found murdered. A Mexican named Diaz, I believe. I recall you asking whether I knew him, which I did not. I presumed the case was closed.”

  “It’s not. Diaz was never officially charged in the officer’s death, let alone convicted. We’re still looking into everything in Officer Greene’s life at the time of his murder that might provide clues.”

  “As I said before, I can’t help you. I have enough problems with Senator Kane spouting slander. I don’t care about a seven-year-old case, as tragic as it was. It’s time you left.”

  I pulled the likely blackmail note from the inside pocket of my suit jacket. The one with the individual letters snipped from newspaper headlines that read, I know about December 5 1944 and t
he Jap woman. I held it toward Raschke. “This was among the clippings. Mean anything to you?”

  He leaned forward. The remaining color in his face drained away.

  “Does it?” I pressed when he said nothing.

  “No. Other than that was when the young woman was murdered.”

  “I don’t believe you, professor. This is a blackmail note, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t have the faintest notion.”

  “You’re lying. What are you hiding? What do you know about Officer Greene’s death?”

  Raschke bolted to his feet. “I don’t need to listen to this, detective.” He pointed to the doorway. “Leave.”

  “This isn’t going away.” I tucked the note back in my pocket and shoveled the clippings back into the envelope. I headed for the door, stopped, and turned toward Raschke. He stood motionless behind his desk, most of his body shrouded in the gloom.

  “The clippings don’t indicate that they ever caught the woman’s killer,” I said. “Was anyone ever prosecuted for her murder?”

  “No,” he said in a voice as gloomy as the room.

  “Do you believe it was some of the young Japanese men? The so-called radicals?”

  “Yes. I’m positive it was them.”

  For the first time, I was less than sure it was.

  Later that evening, Perdue and I drove our prowl car out of our precinct and deep into Five Points headed for a place called Lili’s Candy Emporium.

  “What do you want at this candy store?” Perdue asked, plainly worried we would make yet another off-the-books stop that risked trouble for both of us.

  “To buy candy for Paula. Lili’s has the best candy in town.”

  Which was true, though I had an ulterior motive.

  As we drove, my mind doubled-back to my interrogation of Raschke. He’d lied about the newspaper clippings. He’d turned white when I’d shown him the note—a blackmail note, I now was convinced. Yet I was no closer to who the “I” was in I know about December 5 1944 and the Jap woman. Or what “I” knew. Or who was the blackmail victim.

  The professor’s reaction to the clippings and the note had forced me to reevaluate his possible role in Benedict’s death. He’d initially come across as a tweedy egghead shrinking in the dark of his study. Not the kind of guy who could coolly hide in a pawnshop with a British commando knife facing an unsuspecting cop, slash his throat, wait for that moment when Benedict desperately clutched at his torn, bleeding wound, and plunge the knife deep into his chest.

  On the other hand, if he was a trained commie agent, a tweedy professor was a good cover.

  For now, I could do little to get Raschke to talk. It was not as if I could drag him to an interview room and let Bock work him over. I needed to uncover more damaging evidence to squeeze him.

  We arrived at Lili’s Candy Emporium on Welton near 26th. Perdue waited in the car while I went into the small shop. The bell above the lace-curtained door jingled my arrival. Only two people were in the shop, on opposite sides of a shiny white-enamel and glass counter. They stopped talking the instant they saw my uniform. The customer, who looked as if he hadn’t eaten in days, turned from the sales clerk and scurried out, empty handed, eyes downcast. As he passed, I caught the movement of the clerk out of the corner of my eye as she snatched a piece of folded paper off the counter top and slipped it into the pocket of her frilly white apron draped over a rusty print dress.

  I moseyed over to the counter “Sorry to interrupt a sale, Lili. The guy seemed in an awful hurry to get outa here.”

  Lili Webb shrugged and shifted from one foot to the other, then back again, as if she couldn’t find the right balance for her thin, 130-pound frame. “People drool over the goodies these days but don’t buy, Officer Joe. Money’s tight.”

  She brushed at her jet-black hair done up in tight, intricate curls. Lili was one of the few Negro women who didn’t straighten her hair.

  I scanned the trays of chocolates, divinity, pralines, and marzipan. “Yeah, makes me wonder how a candy store like yours gets by. Don’t know of another candy store that stays open this late.”

  Lili looked her thirty-seven years and then some. I remember when her face was fuller and prettier. Before she’d married Rocky Webb, the biggest bookie in Five Points, before another woman gave her a crooked beak in a fight over Rocky. Despite Rocky’s wide-ranging sexual appetite, they married in the middle of City Park at midnight under a full moon. Lili professed to be a witch, so the bride and groom wore black. She carried black roses, and the ring bearer, a midget they hired for the occasion, carried the rings on a black satin pillow.

  At least that’s the story I heard. They hadn’t invited me to the wedding.

  Lili inherited the shop two years ago when someone took unkindly to Rocky defrauding the bigger bookies in town he used to lay off his action. Or it could have been a jealous husband whose wife Rocky was banging at the time. The story was never clear and Rocky’s murder was never solved.

  “What can I get ya, Officer Joe? How ’bout some chocolate-covered cherries for the missus? Or some peanut brittle.”

  She glanced out the door where Perdue sat in our vehicle. I’d left him reading a letter from a farmer in Arkansas who claimed aliens butchered and ate two of his cows.

  “Gimmie a quarter pound of peanut brittle,” I said, pointing to one of the trays. “My wife loves peanut brittle.”

  Lili peeled brittle off the wax paper into a white bag and handed it to me, not bothering to weigh it or charge me. The sack must have weighed a pound, if it weighed an ounce. She brushed her hands on her apron. “Anything else?”

  “A little information, Lili.”

  Her sharp face tensed. She shifted again on her feet. For a moment, I thought she’d break into a jig.

  “What kinda information?”

  “About dirty cops.”

  “I wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout that.”

  “You’re still taking bets, Lili. You hear things.”

  “I ain’t taking no bets, Officer Joe. I ain’t. I quit. You knows I quit.”

  She’d quit for a while after Rocky turned up dead in his spiffy new Lincoln in a car crusher. But she’d gotten back in months later. Not enough money in peanut brittle and marzipan.

  “Hand over the betting slip, Lili.”

  “What slip?”

  “The one you swept off the counter when I came in. The one stuffed in your apron pocket.”

  “Oh, that’s just trash.”

  “Hand it over, Lili, or I’ll climb right into your apron for it.”

  “Shit!” Long fingers with chipped red nails handed me the slip of paper. Written on it was a code and a $20 bet on the dogs. “It was a favor to someone, Officer Joe. That’s all.”

  I pocketed the slip. “So tell me what you’re hearing on the street about dirty cops.”

  “Nothin’, I tell you.”

  “You got cops coming in here placing bets, Lili. I know that for a fact.”

  “I ain’t taking no bets, Officer Joe. I told you I just done this one as a favor.”

  “Empty your apron pockets.”

  Lili emptied their contents on the counter: a small pad of paper, a dull pencil, a few small bills, loose change, and bobby pins.

  I beckoned with my hand. “The rest of the bets, Lili.”

  “I ain’t got no more bets.”

  “Strip.”

  Lili backed away a step, brown eyes wide.

  “I know where you stash your slips, Lili. Take it off.” I’d arrested Lili Webb a few times for making book when she worked out of my precinct. She hid her slips where men weren’t supposed to go unless invited.

  “This some kinda kinky sex thing? ’Cause if it—”

  “Off with it, Lili, or I call my partner in to help.”

  “You’re a bastard, Officer Joe.”

  “Hurry up, Lili, my partner’s waiting. As long as he’s parked there you won’t get any business in here.”

  “All rig
ht, all right.”

  She didn’t need to strip. She reached up under her dress, did a little wiggle, and came up with a khaki money belt. She flopped it on top of the counter. I unzipped it and pulled out dozens of small slips of paper, the day’s number play of shine boys, chauffeurs, housewives, construction workers, store clerks, even pinstripes from downtown office buildings.

  Lili wiggled again to adjust her dress and undergarments.

  “Now let’s talk, friend,” I said.

  “I ain’t got nothin’ to say. Take me in, you want. I’ll pull short time.”

  “You won’t pull any time if you talk. You can keep on operating.”

  “I ain’t spilling ’bout no dirty cops. No way. That gets you dead.”

  The same statement Jailbait made before he ended up face down in a cabbage field.

  The door jingled. Perdue stuck in his head. “You ’bout done, Joe? We got a call.”

  “I’m having a tough time deciding. Warm up the spaceship and I’ll be right there.”

  Perdue rolled his eyes and disappeared.

  I turned my head back toward Lili. “See that cop, Lili?”

  “Yeah?” Any remaining bravado was gone from her voice.

  “He’s a chatterbox. Worse than a booze-starved informant. Loves to swap street stories, things we hear and who said them. Tell him something on the qt and you can count on it arriving at both ends of District One before shift’s end. Speedier than Western Union. For example, if I told him that you’d ratted on dirty cops, he’d broadcast it to the rest of the—”

  “You bastard!”

  I leaned over the counter. “Let’s start with Hector Diaz, Lili. Was he fencing for cops?”

  “Hector? He’s dead.”

  “That he is. And dirty cops mighta killed him. You hear talk he was working for cops? This is just between us.”

  A long pause. “Yeah, I mighta heard sumthin’. That’s all. Talk. He don’t come in here.”