JO03 - Detour to Murder (25 page)

“Clifford Clinton knew.”

“He didn’t know much. Not the real stuff that went down. He’d heard rumors, tried to get evidence. A few photos and his suspicions, that’s about all he had—no proof of anything.”

“He was honest and tenacious, I’ll say that for him,” Sol said. “If he’d lived longer, he would’ve brought down the whole damn County Government.”

“Yeah, he tried his best and he rattled a few cages, sure, but Byron had the
Times
on his side. Clinton couldn’t make enough noise to overcome the newspaper’s editorials. The
Times
had backed Byron in the election. Labeled him as a reformer and they were sticking to their guns. There’s an old saying: never start an argument with an outfit that buys ink by the barrel.”

“How could you justify such blatant criminal activity? You were a member of the bar, for chrissakes,” I said, pushing my plate back.

“Well, here’s the simple answer. Byron only went after the bad guys. And—”

“You were an officer of the court. You’re rationalizing, Mel.”

“Okay… so I took the extra bonus money and kept my mouth shut.”

“You must have realized at some point how wrong it was,” Rita said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Why are you telling us about this now? After all these years?”

“After a while my conscience kicked in. The whole mess started to grate on me. I couldn’t sleep, constantly fought with my wife. I became a basket case, started drinking. Hell, I lost my family over it. Finally I had enough. I quit, tore up my bar card, and got an honest job. I never told a soul about the Gangster Squad’s real purpose until now. Byron’s still out there, but I’m not afraid anymore.”

What could I say? Drinking, fighting with his wife, quitting his job—except for the names, places, and a few other details, his story was mine.

“Was violence part of the equation?” Sol asked.

“It got a little rough at times.”

“How about murder?”

“We were dealing with a tough crowd. Some of our clients were directly involved with the mob.”

“Just for argument’s sake, Mel,” Sol said. “Suppose someone… a woman, perhaps, back in 1945 had documents or something, real strong evidence, proof that Byron was as crooked as the day is long. And suppose the woman tried to blackmail him. Maybe threaten to rat him out to the State Attorney General, or the Feds. Do you think it’s possible, just possible, that Byron would’ve had her eliminated?”

Sol was talking about Vera. Practically asking Mel straight out if Byron had murdered her at the motel back then. Or if, perhaps, he had the Bulldogs do it for him.

Mel lowered his head and said nothing. We kept silent, watching him. The moment of truth had arrived. Would he actually cop to a murder, a capital crime that had no statute of limitations? A few seconds later he ran his hand through his hair and looked at each of us one at a time. His eyes reflected the sadness in his soul.

“Mel,” Sol said softly. “You can talk to us. We’re not here to make judgments about you or your past. We’re only interested in Byron.”

Mel glanced around the kitchen and focused on a ceramic red rooster hanging on Rita’s wall next to a copper pot. “Are you talking about a certain murder that happened out in the valley in ’45?”

“Yes.”

He kept staring at the rooster. “About the dead woman they’d found at a sleazy motel, the woman with a telephone cord twisted around her neck?”

“Yes, Mel, I am. And if you know anything, now is the time to come clean.”

“Yeah, I know all about it.”

C H A P T E R 
41

“Tell us, Mel,” I said.
“Do you know if Byron murdered Vera, the woman with the cord around her neck?”

“I couldn’t swear he killed her. But if he did, he didn’t send us to do the job,” Mel replied. “Yet something wasn’t kosher. Right after the murder happened, Byron got real antsy. Wanted to get the case over with fast. When the cops picked up Roberts, Byron pounced on it. Took over the prosecution himself. The DA had nothing solid on the guy so he made up some cock-and-bull story. He railroaded the poor bastard right into a jail cell.” Mel hung his head. “Hell, I knew Roberts was innocent. I let it go.”

“Goddammit, that’s my client you’re talking about!” I snapped. “You should have done something.”

Mel said nothing, just looked at me.

“Go on, Mel. Then what happened?” Sol asked.

“Then the shrew who owned the motel started making waves. Threatening to sue everyone over the lousy fingerprint powder in the room, loss of income, cockamamie bullshit like that. She wrote letters to anyone who’d read them. Byron didn’t need the publicity. So he sent us out there to talk to her. You know, get her to dummy up. Imagine that, sending the Gangster Squad to hassle a lady like her. A private citizen, no less. I told Rinehart that Byron was making a big mistake.”

“Did you and your gang actually go see her?” Rita asked.

“Yeah, afraid so. We went to her office in broad daylight and it got out of hand right from the get-go. We didn’t want to bang her around, nothing like that, just frighten her a little. But the lady went nuts. Started screaming, waving her hands, making a racket. People stood outside gawking. They thought we were robbing her. Someone called the cops. We heard the sirens coming and got the hell out of there.”

“Bless her heart,” I said in a quiet voice.

“That was the end of it?” Sol asked.

“No, not by a long shot. Next thing you know, we get a call from the LAPD chief of detectives, Joe Reed. Byron had him under control, but Reed warned us that the motel lady was adamant about pressing charges. So Byron hired a private attorney to settle the matter. At first she only wanted fifteen hundred for her loss of income. What the hell, petty cash. The lawyer paid her off. Then she wanted more.”

“More?” Sol asked. “How could she pull that off?”

“She had one of those newfangled wire recorders in her office, hidden under the counter. When we came through the door, she flipped it on. Secretly recorded the whole damn thing, all our threats, everything. I heard later that she’d blackmailed Byron. The recording would’ve killed his shot at the governor’s office. He set up a blind irrevocable trust at some bank to pay her a monthly stipend.  Once the trust was set up, she turned over her copies of the recording.”

Sol and I looked at each other. We realized that Mel was talking about the funds deposited in Mrs. Hathaway’s bank account every month for the past twenty-nine years, the money her niece Gayle Goodrow had told me about.

“Byron jumped our asses over the affair,” Mel added.

“So the money Mrs. Hathaway received at the end of the month had nothing to do with Vera’s murder,” Rita said.

Mel shook his head. “Just in a roundabout way.”

“But that doesn’t mean Byron
didn’t
kill Vera back then and Mrs. Hathaway last week,” I said.

“Doesn’t mean he did,” Sol added.

Rita shrugged. “Then we’re back were we started.”

“Not quite,” I said. “The trust fund payments stopped last week, two days after Mrs. Hathaway was murdered. There was nothing in the papers about her death. Notices weren’t sent out. How did the people managing the trust fund know that she had died?”

“Byron must’ve told them,” Rita said. “If he killed her, then obviously he’d know she was dead.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We’re just speculating. We have no proof that Byron is the one who told the trust company about her death.”

“We could question employees of the trust company. Ask them if it was Byron who told them to stop the payments,” Sol said.

“To talk to them about the account we’d need her niece’s power of attorney. She’s the executrix of the estate.”

“Good idea. Give her a call. Get her to sign something.”

I pulled Gayle’s number from my wallet and phoned her. When she answered, I didn’t go into any details. I just told her that I needed her to sign a form, and I’d explain when I saw her. She agreed to meet me that afternoon at Ships, the coffee shop where we’d met before.

I borrowed Rita’s Datsun and drove to the coffee shop. Gayle sat alone in a booth by the front window. “I’m joining a friend,” I told the waitress.

Gayle looked up and smiled when I slid in across from her. But when she noticed the bandages on my face her expression changed. “Are you all right? What happened? Your face—”

“I’m okay. Ran into a door.”

“Oh,
really.”

“Nah, got into a fight, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

The waitress brought us coffee. As soon as she left, I placed a standard power of attorney form on the table.

“Gayle, I need to get your signature on this document. We need to talk to the trust employees about an important matter regarding the account.” I didn’t want to mention Byron’s name at this stage, not wanting it to get out until we had more proof that we suspected him of being responsible for her aunt’s murder.

She read the paper carefully, then looked up at me. “I don’t want to sound uncooperative, but what does this mean?”

“I need your power of attorney to enable me to discuss your aunt’s trust account with the people at her bank. I need to know the source of the funds. Might help find the killer.”

She sighed. “Okay, if you think it’ll help.”

While she signed the paper, I asked her the name of the trust company that funded the account, the one from where the money originated.

“It’s the Los Angeles Bank and Trust,” she said.

My God, I thought, that’s the same bank that repo’ed my Corvette.

“Are you sure?” I asked

“Of course I’m sure. Why do you seem so surprised?”

The name, Los Angeles Bank and Trust, rattled around in my brain. Maybe it was just a coincidence about my car. Yeah, it was a big company, but…

“I don’t know. The name just sounds familiar. Anyway, thanks, Gayle.” I picked up the form and slipped it in my pocket.

There was something else I knew about the bank, something that tied it in with the goons. But what was it?

“I’m glad you came out here, Jimmy. Saved me a trip to Downey to see you.”

“See me, why?”

“I have something to give to you. Might help you with the Roberts case—but then again, maybe not. It’s really just a bunch of junk. I was about to throw it away, but then I thought you might find something useful.”

“Throw what away?” I asked, but my thoughts remained focused on the Los Angeles Bank and Trust, trying to place the connection.

She reached down and pulled up a shoebox that must’ve been on the seat next to her. She set it on the table.

“My aunt’s old shoebox. She gave it to me a few days before she died. Said to hide it. But there’s nothing important in it. I think it’s just personal effects that belonged to the woman who was murdered at the motel. Very macabre. A movie magazine, an old newspaper, some cosmetics. A few receipts, stuff like that. I don’t know why she kept it all these years. I guess she was kind of weird.”

“Wait a minute, Gayle, isn’t that the box the cops thought was stolen the night she was killed?”

“No, a big soap carton was missing.” She smiled. “Aunt Ida’s file cabinet.”

“You mean to tell me the thieves stole the soap carton, but the shoebox wasn’t in it?”

“She kept her records in a White King box: old tax returns, insurance policies, and God knows how many receipts. Remember I called you about her insurance?”

“Yeah, but didn’t she keep the shoebox inside the White King carton too?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She took it out of the carton and gave it to me for safekeeping. The robbers didn’t get it.”

She slid the shoebox across the table.

“Here, take it with you,” she said. “When you have time look through it. Maybe you’ll find something I missed. Maybe some reason why Aunt Ida wanted me to hide it.”

“Gayle, this could solve the case! I think the people who killed your aunt were looking for something in this box.” I took a deep breath and rummaged through it. To my disappointment nothing of use immediately popped out at me.

Gayle asked, “Do you see anything that helps?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Just a bunch of Vera’s odd and ends; the same things that were in the box when Mrs. Hathaway opened it to get the phone bills for me. I’ll take the box and go over the stuff more carefully when I have time.”

“Okay.”

I sat back. “Your aunt didn’t happen to give you anything else, did she? Maybe a safe-deposit box key, something like that?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“Gayle, you’ve been a great help.”

I laid a buck on the table for the coffee and started to get up.

Then it hit me.

“Goddamn!” I exclaimed.

“Jimmy!”

“I’m sorry, Gayle, gotta go.” I grabbed the shoebox and ran to the pay phone.

“Sol!” I said when he came on the line. “I know who hired Danny and Rollo.”

C H A P T E R 
42

I remembered that Raymond Haskell
owned the Los Angeles Bank and Trust. But that alone didn’t prove he was responsible for the murders, or was involved in my kidnapping and torture. The fact that he owned the bank didn’t in itself tie him in with Danny and Rollo. Only one thing did…

I drove as fast as I could heading back to Downey, hitting eighty in stretches where the traffic was light, sixty where it was heavy. I leaned on the horn, passed cars on both the left and right, and prayed that I wouldn’t be stopped. The shoebox rested on the seat next to me. I’d take one more look at the stuff inside when I was alone in a quiet place—a place where I could think.

By the time I arrived at the Silverman Building and took the elevator to Sol’s office on the top floor, Rita was already there. “Sol told me you’d called. He said to be here where you arrived. Said it might be important. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m great. I figured it all out.”

Sol sat behind his desk, looking a little skeptical. With the glowing tip of his cigar, he pointed to a burgundy leather armchair. “Sit. Tell us what you figured out.”

I sat in the leather chair and Rita sat in the other chair facing the desk. A glass coffee table bigger than Delaware separated us. I set Mrs. Hathaway’s shoebox on the table, and Rita picked it up. “What’s this?” she asked, removing the lid.

“A shoebox, but that’s not the important thing. Now, get this—”

“Get what?” Sol asked.

“The Tower,” I said.

“What Tower?”

“Remember when I had my car repo’ed?”

“Yeah, sure. The day you ate all my crumpets. But what’s that got to do with the murders?”

“When I called the bank to work out a plan to get my car back—the bank owned by Haskell, Los Angeles Bank and Trust—they said no.”

“Yeah, so? You didn’t make your pay—”

“The guy said the repossession order came directly from the Tower. That’s where the executive offices must be located. Where Haskell has his office suite.”

“Yeah, we know Haskell was on your ass. The way you spoke to him at the dinner—”

“Sol, listen,” I interrupted. “It finally came to me. I overheard Danny at the warehouse tell the driver to call the big boss. Tell him they’ve grabbed me. He told Morelli to call the boss at the Tower! That means the goons worked for Haskell!”

“Hmm…” Sol said.

“If the goons murdered Mrs. Hathaway, then they did it on his orders,” I added.

Sol stubbed out his cigar and stood. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain that Danny said to call the Tower?”

“Yes, I am. He said ‘
the boss at the Tower
.’ Not only that, Los Angeles Bank and Trust is the bank that handled old Mrs. Hathaway’s trust account. We know that Haskell and Byron are as thick as thieves.”

“As thick as murderers,” Rita said. “But what about Vera? Did Haskell kill her too?”

“Of course. Vera had something, some kind of paper that she tried to blackmail him with. He killed her in ’45. Mrs. Hathaway just recently discovered whatever it was that she had. She probably found it while she was rooting around looking for the phone numbers she gave me. So naturally, she tried to blackmail him as well, and she met the same fate. She had been successfully blackmailing Byron, so why not tap Haskell, too?”

Sol listened intently, paused for a moment then grabbed the phone. “Get the Los Angeles Bank and Trust headquarters on the line.” He put his hand over the receiver. “Got an idea,” he told Rita and me. Then back to the phone: “Connect me with the Executive Tower, please, Raymond Haskell.”

“You’re calling Haskell?” I asked.

Sol held up his hand. “Yeah, I want to see if he even has an office there.” He tapped a button on a small black box sitting next to the phone. “Here, I’ll put the call on the speaker.”

“Hey, that’s pretty nifty,” Rita said. “We ought to get one of those things.”

“I’d like to speak with Raymond Haskell,” he said, after a succession of operators finally connected him to one of Haskell’s secretaries.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Haskell is not in his office today. Can I tell him what this is regarding?”

“No, I’ll call him back. But he does have an office there, in the Tower, correct?”

“Yes, but as I said, he’s not in today.”

Sol disconnected the speaker. “Yeah, he has an office there, all right. But what does that prove?”

“What do you mean?” I said. “It all fits. He has an office at the—”

“Doesn’t prove a thing. He’d deny everything you said. The only witnesses are Danny and Rollo and they’re dead. You killed them.”

“What about Morelli? I didn’t kill him.”

“Do you know where he is? Plus, does he know anything? You said he only drove Danny around for a couple of days. And even if he does know something, would he talk? No, Jimmy, we need more.”

“What about Hathaway’s blackmail payments? They stopped when she died.”

“Byron could’ve told him. Byron could have heard about the murder from Rinehart. The DA would automatically get the police report. Now that I think about it, it’d be a waste of time to even question the bank’s employees.”

“What about the warehouse in the middle of an oil field? Haskell’s in the oil business, too. Maybe—”

“I checked, ran a title search. Gannett Air Research, successor to Signal Oil, owns the property. What do you think—those engineers went to the motel and beat her up with slide rules? Bored her to death waxing poetically about the quadratic equation?”

I sat back in the chair and exhaled. Sol was right. We had nothing to prove that Haskell had murdered anybody.

“Look, Jimmy, he’s a
putz
, but he’s not a foolish putz. He’d have his tracks covered every which way. And you just can’t run around and accuse a big
macher
like Haskell of murder without dead-on proof. For chrissakes, he’s giving a speech tomorrow evening at the Coolidge League banquet. They’re honoring him for his service to our country. Gonna present him with a
Calvin.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Kind of like the Academy Awards ceremony, but for businessmen. A bunch of billionaires giving each other attaboys.”

“I don’t give a damn how big he is. He’s the reason Al Roberts rotted in his cell for twenty-nine years. He killed those two women. I just know he did.”

“What about his motive? Blackmail? We have no evidence, just speculation that Vera and Mrs. Hathaway had anything on him. Without that, there’s no motive.”

Rita set the shoebox back on the coffee table. “I guess we really are back where we started from. No motive, no case.”

We sat back in silence, thinking. What would we do now? We were so close. But close could be a million miles from the facts, and without facts and a motive we’d never get there.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Sol said. “But we’ll keep looking.”

Just then my eye caught the corner of the yellowing newspaper sticking out of Mrs. Hathaway’s shoebox. I fished it out and looked it over for a moment. Then I frantically dug through the box.

“What are you doing?” Rita asked.

I pulled out a torn sheet from the motel’s guest register and glanced at it. Then I took out some old newspaper clippings, including obituaries, buried under Vera’s make-up jars and creams and studied them. A minute later, the light bulb went off.

“Why hadn’t I noticed this stuff before?” I said out loud. “Because, damn it! I hadn’t really looked.”

“Looked at what?” Rita asked.

Sol leaned forward. “What’d you find?”

“Oh, he had a motive, all right.” I held up the papers. “Haskell had a real dandy motive. A big reason to kill them both.”