by Bruce Most
Chapter 18
With my efforts to infiltrate Zingano’s burglary ring stalled, my only remaining line of investigation into Benedict’s murder was his mysterious link to the deceased Marcus Raschke. That meant finding his widow. Her bird-lady neighbor had pretty much ruled out local friends, which left motels and local bars the neighbor said she frequented.
Bars and motels. Now those were places I knew my way around.
I couldn’t check them out while on duty, however. Neither Perdue nor anyone else in the department could learn I was nosing into the professor’s death. Which left me combing local motels and bars before or after shifts. If Kim Raschke was a boozehound, noon was none too early to start, and after my shifts was none too late.
It took two days to find her—in a sad dark gin mill on Colorado Boulevard a few blocks from her house. It was early afternoon and the place was nearly deserted. Two older men played pool and an old woman drank at the bar. Mrs. Raschke leaned unsteadily against a jukebox, one hand holding a long-necked bottle of Coors, the other snapping time to Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On.” She looked as much barfly as beauty queen. Her neighbor hadn’t seen strange men sneak into Mrs. Raschke’s home, but a man was with her now. Tall, bearded, with a rough face and heavy black boots, standing opposite her by the jukebox, a Schlitz in his hand. Both were laughing over the sounds of a frantic fiddler.
Apparently she wasn’t overly grief-stricken that her husband was recently blown to smithereens.
The tall man saw me approach before she did. He straightened slightly and turned serious, as though he feared I might be her husband. She turned a moment later, tracking his eyes to mine. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but then she looked well on her way to getting snockered.
“This guy your brother, Mrs. Raschke?” I asked. “He’s not your husband, that’s for certain.”
She squinted and a vague recognition came into her eyes. “No, he’s—”
“Good, then we can talk alone.”
“Who the hell are you, bub?” demanded the man.
I flashed my badge. “You got any wants out on you—bub?”
The man put on a tough scowl for the lady, but slunk off to a far corner of the joint. I took his place beside the jukebox and rested one hand on the bubble tube that arched over the front of it. The tube felt warm. Bubbles rose from invisible sources at the base, dancing and gurgling to the top, while revolving fluorescent tubes turned Mrs. Raschke’s blond hair alternating shades of red, blue, and green.
“They want to jack these up to a dime,” I said, patting the big machine. She didn’t seem to care about the cost of a tune. Probably never needed to watch her nickels and dimes, unlike the rest of us.
Her eyes came into better focus and her brain engaged, though her mouth was a little slow. “You’re . . . you’re the detective who came to see Marcus a few days before he was killed.” I didn’t say anything. “The investigators are looking for you.”
“I cleared that up with them so they wouldn’t be chasing ghosts.”
“What is your name?”
I gave her the same fib I’d given her dead husband. “Detective Lancaster.”
I wasn’t sure how much longer that lie would work, but I figured if I couldn’t find the elusive Lancaster who’d called Benedict, neither could Kim Raschke or homicide.
“What do you want?” she asked in a voice thick with booze and uncertainty. And husky, like Lauren Bacall. She’d troweled on the makeup again, though her clothes were more casual than the first time we’d met: a brown crepe dress and tan open-toed heels. Still pretty classy for this joint, but probably as casual as she owned.
“I realize this is a difficult time for you, Mrs. Raschke,” I said, overlooking the fact she was hanging out with men in bars. “My condolences about your husband, and your home. But I need to ask you a few questions.”
Her eyes darted toward the bar entrance. I followed them but saw no one of particular interest. Her eyes refocused on me. “How did you find me?”
“A birdie told me.”
Confusion, then, “Ahh, the bird lady next door. Nosy bitch.” Another edgy glance at the entrance. “Go away.”
I glanced again but still nothing that grabbed my attention. “Are you all right, Mrs. Raschke? You look anxious.”
“If you can find me, they can find me.”
“They?”
“The people who murdered my husband,” she slurred. “I could have been killed, too, if I’d been home.”
Great, a paranoid drunk.
“Who are they, Mrs. Raschke?”
She downed another long drink. The jukebox lights turned half of her face a splotchy blue.
“If you’re worried people are coming after you, I can help,” I said.
“Why would you help the wife of a commie?”
“Like you, I believe your husband’s death was not an accident. I believe he was murdered.”
Not exactly true. I hadn’t dismissed the idea her husband accidentally blew himself up, though I also hadn’t dismissed his connections to Benedict. And for now, buying into her paranoia might put her trust in me.
My ploy widened her bloodshot eyes. Long false eyelashes blinked. “You’re the first person to believe me. Certainly the first police officer. I keep telling the investigators he was murdered but they don’t believe me.”
Her words stumbled out slurred, but her face softened.
“Got have any idea who might have killed him?” I asked.
She struggled to keep her focus. She must have consumed more booze than I realized.
“I have to go to the ladies room,” she said. She weaved over to a table anchored by a brown alligator-skin handbag that could double as a suitcase.
“You need someone to go with you, Mrs. Raschke?” I offered.
“No, I’m . . . I’m a big girl.” She plopped down her beer, snatched her purse, and disappeared down a short hallway to a bathroom no one in the place would consider a ladies room.
I leaned against a post and waited. Waited longer than it should take for even a woman to go to the can.
“She skip out on you, bub?” came the voice of the dark bearded man I’d banished to a corner of the bar. He stood a few feet away, a beer bottle in his hand. He looked as drunk as Mrs. Raschke.
I glared at him. “Go find a hole to crawl into, fuckface, or I’ll handcuff you to the foot rail.”
His mouth started to move but he thought better of it and slunk off.
Impatient, I went down the hallway and rapped on the bathroom door. “Mrs. Raschke, you okay?”
No response.
I knocked louder. “Mrs. Raschke?”
She emerged from the bathroom and frowned. “I was hoping you’d be gone.”
“A lot of people tell me that.”
She returned to the table. Steadier than before she’d gone into the bathroom. She sat down. I joined her.
She reached for her beer, but I snatched it away. “You said the people who killed your husband are coming after you? Why? What do you know that you haven’t told us?”
Her eyes darted to the front door. But they no longer were boozy, droopy eyes. They were bright and restless.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
Her eyes settled back on me. “Why did you come to see my husband? He was very upset after you left.”
“I can’t divulge that Mrs. Raschke.”
“Did it concern the threats against his life?”
A new record dropped and Hank Williams began singing “Cold, Cold Heart.”
“No, a separate investigation,” I said.
“Into what?”
“An internal police matter.”
“Why would my husband have information concerning an internal police matter?”
“I can’t divulge that, ma’am. Which is why this conversation is strictly between us. You must not mention it to anyone else—including homicide.”
Pool balls clacked behind us. Breaking the
rack was my guess.
“Why should I trust you?” she said.
I pushed her beer back and she grabbed it as if it were a life preserver. “As you said, I’m the first cop to believe someone murdered your husband. I believe his death is related to my investigation. If it is, then I can find the people you believe are coming after you. Who do you believe killed your husband, Mrs. Raschke?”
She dug in her purse and pulled out an engraved silver and black enamel cigarette holder. She separated a gold-tipped brown cigarette from its partners, pulled out a silver lighter, and lit up, her hands shaking. Her whole body jittered. She blew out the smoke between us, as if it would shield her from my questions.
I grabbed her purse.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she demanded. She reached for the purse but it was beyond her grasp. I peered into a deep well of blackness—and spotted what I’d suspected. Benzedrine. Inhalers, not pills. Three of them. I pulled one out and held it up to her. “This how you get through the day, Mrs. Raschke? Booze and bennies?”
“Why should you care how I get through the day?” She reached for the inhaler but I held it away. She pouted.
Bennies were common on the street, but I’d first encountered uppers during the war. The military handed them out like candy to pilots and tank drivers and anyone else who needed to stay awake for long stretches. Those guys bootlegged them to us ground troops. Load up on bennies and you’d feel invincible in the middle of battle. Right up to the point a machine gun or shell blast proved you wrong.
I dropped the inhaler back into her purse and pushed the purse back to her.
“I need your help here, Mrs. Raschke.” I nodded toward her purse. “And you need mine. What can you tell me?”
Another long drag on her cigarette. Finally, she got around to business. “The briefcase they found, that was my husband’s. He always took it to class, when he was still allowed to teach. But I never saw any dynamite or any of that bomb-making stuff in the house. Or the gun.”
“I already know that.”
“Marcus didn’t make that bomb. My husband didn’t have the mechanical aptitude to wire a table lamp, let alone a bomb.”
“Someone could have brought it for him to carry,” I said. “A fellow agent. Dynamite can be damn temperamental, especially old dynamite.”
“Let me make this clear, detective,” she snarled. “My husband was no choirboy. He did a lot of things I didn’t include in his eulogy. But he was not a Communist agent and he never would harm school children. Or anyone.”
“Not true. Violence wasn’t new to your husband, was it, Mrs. Raschke?”
Her eyes darted away like frightened birds.
“He beat you, didn’t he?” I pressed.
Her head snapped back. “Where did you hear that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She gave up a tired laugh. “The bird lady again, wasn’t it? That old bitty’s nose is flat from pressing it against her windows all day. She’s like all the neighbors—jealous of me.”
“Jealous?”
“I was a runner-up in the 1935 Miss America Pageant, did you know that? Pennsylvania won, but if she’d gotten ill or couldn’t have continued, I would have assumed her position. I would have been Miss America.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“All right, my husband hit me a few times.” She took a drink. “I deserved it.”
“Why?”
Her eyes grew alive with hate. “For any damn reason he could find . . . Or for no reason at all. Supper wasn’t ready on time or it was ready early. Because I didn’t want to go to one of his political meetings. I didn’t make love often enough, or didn’t make it the right way. Because he was jealous. What does that have to do with your investigation? Do you suspect I put the bomb in his briefcase?”
I leaned across the table. “No, I don’t, Mrs. Raschke. I want to find who did. But I need your help.”
Her eyes softened. I pulled Benedict’s picture out of my shirt pocket. “Recognize this man?”
She squinted in the dim light. “Yes. He came to the house one evening to see Marcus.”
For a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath. “When was this?”
“The evening of that big storm in early March. It was late, snowing heavily. You remember it?”
A few weeks before Benedict was killed. “Yes. Go on.”
“Of course, we never just opened the door to anyone. Especially at that hour. Not with all those crazies out there. Marcus was in his study and I told him a man was at the door. He peered out the window and went as white as the snow. He opened the door and just stood there, stunned—as if the man were the last person on earth he expected to see. I’d never seen him so shaken.”
I struggled to control my outward composure. “What did the man want?”
“I don’t know. All he said to Marcus was that ‘We need to talk.’ The man was extremely agitated. He said nothing to me, barely even looked at me. They went into the study and closed the door and that’s the last I saw him. I asked Marcus the next day, but he wouldn’t say anything. He was upset, though.”
I pointed to the picture again. “You’re certain it was this man?”
“Yes.”
That confirmed it. Benedict and Marcus Raschke knew each other. From where? Why was Raschke stunned and Benedict agitated?
“Did you catch the man’s name?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you overhear their conversation, yelling, anything like that?”
“No. I went up to bed soon after that to read and fell asleep.”
Boozed, probably.
She glanced at the picture of Benedict again. “Where did you get that picture. Is—is he a suspect? Or is he one of Marcus’s alleged Communist cohorts?”
“We’re trying to determine that. Ever see this man before that night?”
“No—well, that’s the strange part. Not at the house, I’m sure of that. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place when or where. It might have been a few weeks before or a few years for all I know.”
Difficult to recall if the days are one long blur of booze and bennies.
I took a deep breath. “Did your husband ever mention the name Hector Diaz?”
Not that she could recall. “Is he the man in the picture? He doesn’t look like a Diaz.”
“No, it’s not him. You haven’t heard the name Diaz, say in the news?”
“Marcus and I quit reading the papers and listening to the news when all that crap about him began to appear. It was too upsetting.”
That would explain why she didn’t recognize Benedict’s picture, despite his mug being splashed in the local papers after his murder. Fortunate for me.
“Where was your husband the night of April twelfth? The day after General MacArthur was fired.”
“I don’t know. Marcus rarely went anywhere after McCarthy began spreading his lies. He’d write into the wee hours and sleep until ten. Often at his desk.”
Yet I couldn’t discount the woman boozing herself to sleep, or coming back late from a bar well oiled, having no idea whether her husband was home or not.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Raschke. Please, remember to keep this conversation between us.”
Eddy Arnold came on singing “Cattle Call.” I started to leave but Kim Raschke placed her hand on my arm. “My husband was not some commie bomber. You must believe that. Someone murdered him.”
“Who, Mrs. Raschke? You aren’t telling me who.”
“He received dozens of death threats, but I’d start with Crawford Kane and his goons.”
“State Senator Kane? Do you have any proof?”
The same Kane quoted years ago in Benedict’s clippings about the murdered Jap girl.
“Don’t you find it odd that Kane publicly claimed my husband planned to blow up school kids and then Marcus conveniently dies from a bomb?” she said.
“Why kill him? Kane got him kicked out of
teaching and he was in seclusion.”
She shook her head. “He was investigating and writing about the McCarthy movement. How corrupt they are. How they blackmail people into lying. Marcus had many supporters, sources all over the country. Feeding him information. He was a threat to McCarthy and Kane. He was working on exposing them for what they really are—lying demagogues who framed innocent people. That was why they killed him.”
Late the next morning, Ellen Greene called. Fortunately, Paula was out running errands while I took care of Olivia, who was sitting at the kitchen table with Silly Putty.
“That detective who’s been investigating Benedict’s case just left my house,” she said, clearly upset.
“Bock?”
“Yes. Creepy man. He left his hat on again the entire time. As if he needed to leave any minute. But he didn’t. He was here for a while.”
“Detective Kaufman with him?”
“No, he came alone.”
That wasn’t a good sign. Kaufman seemed to buy my story of what happened that night at the pawnshop, but not Bock. “What did he want?”
“At first, I assumed he stopped by to tell me they’d closed Benedict’s case. Concluded that the dead Mexican killed him. Or they’d exhausted all their leads and were putting the case on the shelf. Instead, he started asking me some odd questions.”
My pulse quickened. “What odd questions?”
“Well, he wanted to know if we’d been having financial problems before Benedict was killed. Debt problems or big bills. Did Benedict come into any money recently? Did he make any unusual or expensive purchases recently, like a new car? Was there anything unusual in his behavior? Some of the same questions you asked me, Joe.”
I half-watched Olivia stick her fingers into on a blob of yellow Silly Putty. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I said our personal finances weren’t any of his business.”
“Nothing about the mysterious bank loan? Or the call from that Detective Lancaster that upset him?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t like the tone of his questions. He acted as if Benedict was the bad guy and not the victim. I demanded to know what any of it had to do with my husband being murdered, but he wouldn’t say. Why would he ask those questions, Joe?”