by Bruce Most
I took a drink of beer and said, “Homicide is convinced it was the Mexican, Hector Diaz, who killed Benedict. Wrong place, wrong time. Officially, the case will remain unsolved, but it was his knife that killed Benedict.”
“Then who killed this Diaz?”
I shrugged. “The man was three-time loser. He had a lot of enemies. I don’t believe it’s related to Benedict.”
“What about Camp Amache and the dead professor?” she said, her hands clutching a root beer she hadn’t sipped. “Those clippings of that girl’s murder? Did you find out why Benedict lied about being there?”
“Another dead end,” I said. “My guess is he kept the clippings out of curiosity. He was a guard there at the time she was killed. He almost certainly knew Raschke.”
“But why hide them from me? Why lie to us about fighting in the Battle of the Bulge?”
“As I said before, he was probably ashamed he’d spent the war guarding Japanese-American civilians. I didn’t find anything to suggest otherwise.”
I could do nothing to rectify the travesty of the Japanese internment camps, but I didn’t have to tell Ellen that Benedict was part of that travesty. He’d been caught up in the hysteria of the war like many people, and it was clear he’d come to regret it. I didn’t want his wife to regret it, too.
I drained the last can of Benedict’s beer. I sensed Ellen didn’t buy my lies any more than Perdue or Bock. Nothing I could say explained the bank loan Benedict secretly took out, or his moodiness in the weeks before his death, or the strange call from Detective Lancaster, or the apparent blackmail note. It didn’t explain the visit from Detective Bock with his unsettling questions.
Ellen would forever carry with her the suspicion that her beloved had harbored a dark secret from her which she would never know.
Ellen appeared relieved, nonetheless. Benedict’s life insurance would pay off the bank loan and they’d have his small pension. Hopefully, she’d find a job. Money would be tight, but she and her son could get on with their lives. I don’t care what the hell the philosophers say, living with lies can be a good thing, even when you know they’re lies.
Paula was another matter. She was not a woman to live with lies.
I’d called her at the motel moments after I read of the discovery of Fitch’s body, and told her it was safe to return home. I couldn’t tell her the truth why it was safe to return, so I explained that Wes Jackson—“Remember him, honey, the cop arrested along with Zingano?”—had admitted to investigators that he’d made the threatening call in order to scare me off talking to Lou Sheppard about dirty cops.
Her sigh in relief barely came through the weak phone connection.
To ensure that my lie ended there, I added that the prosecutors agreed to not file a criminal threat charge as part of a plea bargain for Jackson’s burglary charge. I told them I didn’t object. I didn’t want the attention the charge would bring, anyway. As long as Jackson was off the streets, that’s all that was important.
“Please, come home, honey,” I said. “I miss you and Olivia.”
The silence lasted forever at the other end of the line, until finally Paula agreed to come home—“at least for now.”
An hour later, a cab dropped them off. I met them at the curb. I joyously enveloped Olivia in my arms and swung her high into the sky to hear her giggle.
Paula gave me a hug and a smile, too, even if it was restrained.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I said.
I paid off the cabbie and carried the suitcases inside. I barbequed hamburgers on the grill for dinner. Paula was tired of eating out and we couldn’t afford it, anyway, after their stay at the motel. I’d have to hit up some shopkeepers and bar owners on Larimer Street to help pay for that.
After dinner, I played and read books with Olivia until she fell asleep in my arms and I carried her to bed. Paula and I sat in the living room, she drinking scotch, I my Old Taylor Kentucky bourbon. We usually listened to Paul Harvey and Ted Mack’s Family Hour on Sunday evenings, or maybe The $64 Question. Tonight, the radio remained off, the room heavy in silence except for the tinkle of ice in our glasses.
“I have some other good news,” I said when the silence became unbearable.
Paula looked up from her scotch. “What?”
“Homicide has ended their investigation into Benedict’s murder. They don’t need my help anymore. I’ll be back to regular hours. I thought you’d like that.”
A smile tried to work its way into her face but came up short. “Why did they end it?”
“Dead end. No new evidence. They’re confident it was Hector Diaz, though they can’t prove it. They appreciated my extra work for them. They said they’d put in a good word to the brass. Maybe I’ll make detective yet.”
Paula made no response and took a drink. That wasn’t good news in her world. If being a cop, detective or otherwise, would continue to endanger myself and my family, she wanted no part of it.
I retreated to my bourbon. I wanted to ask her what she had meant on the phone when she’d said they’d come home, “at least for now,” but I was afraid to ask. Maybe if I didn’t ask, she’d forget she’d said it. We’d get back into our routine. I’d keep regular work hours, stay out of trouble, keep a low profile—stay alive. “At least for now” could become “forever.”
Maybe.
But then the bits and pieces to everything about the truth behind Benedict’s murder lay there for a sharp set of eyes to discover and connect. Today, tomorrow, maybe years from now. Like unexploded ordinance from the war, half buried in the ground, lying in wait for someone to accidentally step on it and set it off. Nothing I could do but destroy what evidence I could. I’d burned Benedict’s blood-stained brown notebook in my barbecue grill the night Paula and Olivia returned home, while I cooked burgers and Paula fixed a macaroni salad. Fitch’s handgun was next. After that, all I could hope for was silence from those who each knew part of the story but not the whole picture.
I peered at the darkness of the river. I wasn’t sure whether Paula and Olivia would be home when I returned tonight. I wondered that every night I came home from my shift. Just as Paula must wonder every night whether I would make it home alive.
It would not surprise me to discover—today, tomorrow, next week—they’d packed and moved back in with her friend until they found their own apartment. Or fled to Paula’s sister in Lincoln. Anywhere but where they might be caught in another crossfire.
I hefted Simon Fitch’s .38 in my gloved hand and thought of Benedict. Maybe he had agreed with “Detective Lancaster” to set me up at the pawnshop even as he’d pleaded that I was not a crooked cop. He was in a terrible place. Then again, Fitch might have lied about how he’d lured Benedict into the pawnshop that night.
What the hell. Whatever the sins of Saint Benedict, nothing would ever be the same again. The streetcars were long gone and I read in the newspaper yesterday that the price of a tune on the jukebox in Denver was going up to a dime.
I glanced around. Still no one in the darkness. I stepped to the edge of the river and hurled the gun as far as I could. The moonlight glinted off the nickeled .38 special as it arched toward the black waters of the South Platte.
I heard the splash, then silence.
THE END
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to Jake, Robin, Dan, Sharon, agent Sandra Bond, and the critique group from the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Mystery Writers of America who read drafts at various stages and whose insights helped me avoid making a complete a fool of myself in print. For those foolish errors that remain, I take full responsibility.
And of course, I must thank my wife Ruth, who puts up with me being “always up in your office.”
Story Notes
Like most authors, I draw inspiration for my novels from a variety of sources. It might come from what I’ve personally experienced, someone I know, something I’ve read, something I’ve seen with my own eyes. The Big Dive is no exception.
While the plot and characters are wholly my creations, inspiration came from two notable events in Denver and Colorado history.
The first was “burglars in blue”—or dark riders as I often refer to them in the book—a scandal that shocked the nation and ripped open the soul of the Denver Police Department in the early 1960s. The second notable event was Camp Amache, one of the ten “relocation camps” hastily constructed to house those of Japanese ancestry living in the United States during the early years of World War II.
Many Americans are at least dimly aware of the former relocation camps. References to the camps pop up periodically in contemporary political brouhahas over black reparations, homeland security issues focused on Muslims, or border issues. Most Americans (sadly, not all) view the relocation camps today as a black stain on our nation’s history.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the forcible removal and incarceration of over 110,000 Japanese “evacuees,” the majority of them American citizens living along the West Coast and Hawaii). They (including entire families) were carted off to inland camps in California, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Arkansas—and to the desolate corner of southeast Colorado in a camp formally designated the Granada War Relocation Center named after the nearby community of Granada. At the time, the policy drew widespread public support and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yet there were no similar large-scale roundups of German-Americans or Italian-Americans, even though we were also fighting Germany and Italy during the war.
In the book, Professor Marcus Raschke rails to Joe that these camps were “concentration” camps, not the euphemistic “relocation” camps. If “concentration camp” sounds too harsh, consider that American citizens were forced to leave behind their homes, businesses, and all their possessions (most of which they never recovered) except what they could carry by hand. They were put on trains and military buses (under armed guard) and plunked down on “godforsaken” land behind barbed wire under the shadow of gun towers. There they remained imprisoned for several years. Some died and were buried in those camps.
These were hardly “relocation centers.” Relocation implies people being relocated for their own good and protection, such as refugees or flood victims. The camps were not “prisons,” either, other than, like prisons, their residents could not leave. Their internees committed no crimes and were never charged or convicted of any crime—except for the crime of being of Japanese descent. (Over 5,000 Japanese community leaders were arrested and incarcerated immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor.)
All this was the result of unfounded paranoia and hysteria that Japanese living inside the United States planned to carry out attacks on behalf of their motherland. If Roosevelt’s policy and the existence of these camps carry uncomfortable echoes of Nazi concentration camps—or for that matter, paranoia and hysteria toward “others” in our nation today—so be it. Yes, it’s true the United States did not torture or exterminate its Japanese internees. They were released toward the end of the war. But beyond that, there was little difference.
Far less well known to Americans—unless you’re a long-time Colorado resident—is the police scandal of burglars in blue that rocked the Denver police department in 1961. The scandal broke open after a police officer witnessed a small safe topple out of the trunk of a patrol car—yes, the inspiration for my book cover. As the scandal unfolded, it turned out that dozens of Denver police officers were committing countless burglaries and other property crimes against the very citizens they were sworn to protect, often while in uniform. Near my desks lays a copy of the November 3, 1961, issue of Life magazine with an article titled “How Denver’s Cops Turned Burglar.” The scandal burst on the scene at the start of 1961, and by the end of the year 47 Denver policemen were arrested, along with a sheriff, deputies, private detectives, and civilians.
While I set my story a decade before the real scandal broke, investigators traced police burglaries back 15 years. I borrowed some excellent insights from the Life magazine article and other research, including the novel’s title, The Big Dive.
Bruce W. Most
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading The Big Dive, the sequel to my first Joe Stryker book, Murder on the Tracks. I hope you enjoyed the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please consider posting a short (and honest) review on Amazon and Goodreads, or anywhere else you find appropriate. Reviews are crucial for building a book’s audience. Tell your friends about Joe. Consider him for a book club. I’d be happy to talk with the club in person, by phone, or Skype.
For comments or questions, and to learn about my other murder mysteries, go to my website.
About the Author
Bruce W. Most grew up on a diet of Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Raymond Chandler, and his grandfather’s collection of Perry Mason novels. His first two mysteries, published by St. Martin’s Press, feature a feisty Denver bail bondswoman, Ruby Dark. The books have been reissued in ebook and print formats. In addition, two stand-alone mysteries are available. His award-winning Rope Burn involves a former big-city detective in over his head in cattle rustling and murder in contemporary Wyoming ranch country. The novel won a Colorado Authors’ League award for best genre novel. Murder on the Tracks, the prequel to The Big Dive, revolves around Joe Stryker in 1949, forced to delve into his past to stop a string of brutal murders. Joe finds that redemption comes at a high price. Published by Black Opal Books, it also won a Colorado Authors’ League award for best genre novel. A former freelance writer, Bruce published in such magazines as Parade, TV Guide, American Way, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Travel & Leisure. He ghost wrote a self-help book, The Power of Choice, and penned over 1,000 articles on financial planning topics for the Financial Planning Association. He and his wife live in Denver, Colorado.