Front Page Fatale: The First Ida Bly Thriller

by Daniel Fox

  Back down, through the kitchen, a look out through the back door into the yard – patches of brown grass and dirt.

  She hurried out the front door and across the front yard to the next house down. An identical layout inside with just as much useful information to offer – none.

  The third house, the same.

  The sun was on its way out. She decided to keep going as long as there was any light left. She didn’t think she’d be able to work up the nerve to try this again.

  She wondered why there wasn’t anybody camping out in these rooms.

  The fourth house. The downstairs were empty. The upstairs – two pairs of women’s shoes in the closet. This room had been some woman’s home at some point.

  Shuffling footsteps made the wood creak downstairs.

  Ida stood still. Listened hard. Didn’t breathe.

  The footsteps ducked into the living room, back out. Down the hall towards the kitchen.

  Think – did she have time to bolt out of this room, down the stairs, and out the front door before the unknown person down there realized something was going on and sprinted back? Not likely.

  The footsteps didn’t go all the way down to the kitchen anyway. They stopped halfway or so down the hall, they returned to the front door. It didn’t sound like someone checking to see if they could roost here – it sounded like someone looking for someone – her.

  The steps started up the stairs. Heavy – a man.

  Ida pressed herself against the wall beside the door, quiet as she could.

  The steps made it to the top of the stairs. Shifted. Went to check in the bathroom.

  Ida bolted from the bedroom. There was a man shouting – she pushed past, ran down the stairs, the heavy footsteps behind her.

  Three steps left, two, she’d jump but she was in heels, one, down to the main floor, out the front door, the man right behind her.

  Out into the red-gold remains of the daylight.

  The man shouted from behind her: “I should have known!”

  Ida skidded to a stop on the sidewalk and dared to turn around, feeling braver out here. She almost laughed.

  It was the cop. The very same one she had pissed off with the ambulance stunt. He was red-faced, standing in the doorway.”You crazy bitch! Do you know what people will do to you around here?”

  Ida waved and set off for her car. No more searches in creepy old houses for her, thank you very much.

  She hadn’t held out much hope for finding anything anyway. She’d find her way back to the front page another way.

  CHAPTER 8

  A pretty Mexican woman answered his knocks at the door.

  “Mrs Clemp?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Bob Tree. I’m from the Los Angeles Clarion.”

  He’d been down to police H.Q. last evening. It was a crammed mess. He’d forgotten what it was like – no barriers for civilians or press, reporters walking willy-nilly between detectives’ desks, touching things they shouldn’t be touching, sniffing for stories, pestering cops for something to print. He figured the police would be pretty happy if the rumours of a new H.Q. being built came to fruition.

  He found Cliffy’s inside contact, a uniformed beat-cop veteran just coming in from his rounds. He’d been happy to spill for five bucks:

  Wally Clemp, respected homicide clearance guy, had been missing for the better part of a month now.

  Wally Clemp had some demons, everybody figured he was off on a toot.

  Rumour had it there might be an unofficial investigation into Clemp’s disappearance.

  If there was an investigation it was being conducted by Clemp’s ape partner George Schuttman. People had seen him looking through Clemp’s stuff.

  Schuttman was all goon, no brains.

  So if there was a case to solve gotta figure it would forever remain on the unsolved side of the ledger.

  Another two bucks bought Bob an introduction from the cop to a civilian personnel worker, and she took another five to cough up Clemp’s home address.

  “Mrs Clemp, I hope I’m not disturbing you at a bad time. It’s come to our attention that your husband might be A.W.O.L.”

  “A.W.O.L.?”

  “Absent Without Leave. Missing from work. From home. Just plain missing.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Are you worried about him?”

  “Yes. You are going to put this in the newspaper?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can help find him? Put his picture on the page so people see him, they call?”

  “We can try.”

  She held the door open. Bob stepped into the cool. The place was small, meticulously clean. She showed him to the couch.

  “You would like lemonade?”

  “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  She flapped a hand at him like the thought was ridiculous and walked out to the kitchen, chattering all the way.

  “Our friend George, he is looking too.”

  “That’s Sergeant George Schuttman?”

  “Yes. He’s a good man.”

  “Is he the only one looking?”

  “I think so.”

  “Mrs Clemp, don’t you find it a bit disappointing that only one person has been tasked with searching for a missing detective? Especially one that’s as well-regarded as your husband?”

  She returned from the kitchen and handed Bob a glass of lemonade. She took her own to the rocking chair across from him and sat. “I did not think about it before.”

  “So Sergeant Schuttman didn’t tell you why he was the only one tasked with finding your husband?”

  “’Tasked’?”

  “Given the job.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head. “No, he did not say. He came and looked in Wally’s study, took some files.”

  “Police files?”

  “I think yes.”

  “Did he ask you questions?”

  “Yes. Of course. He ask if Wally been acting funny. I say he been happy. More happy than in a long time. He buy me a dress. He take me out to dinner. At the Marmont.”

  “No kidding?”

  “We saw Vincent Price.”

  Bob gave her a smile. “Sounds like a good time. Did you go to fancy joints like that often?”

  “Oh no. It is so very expensive.”

  “Not even for your birthday or maybe a wedding anniversary?”

  “No. I...” She clasped her hands around her glass of lemonade, unclasped them, gave Bob a sad smile. “I argue with him so many times about money. We never have enough even though he worked all the time.”

  “So this kind of spending was brand new for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you talk with Sergeant Schuttman about anything else?”

  She looked down. Her body told Bob yes, but she shook her head no. She was scared of something – of him, of the mystery money, of the circumstances in general, he couldn’t tell. He should press her on it, he knew this. A reporter would press.

  He finished off his lemonade instead and then stood. He knew fear. He couldn’t bring himself to make this woman’s any worse than it already was. He wrote the Clarion’s number down on a piece of paper, tore it from his pad, put it on the coffee table.

  He gave her a gentle smile. “In case you want to talk about anything else.”

  CHAPTER 9

  George skipped the Homicide desks, made for the Robbery division. He carried Wally’s bag of files under his arm.

  He’d poured over them the previous night after he got home from eating dinner with Magdalena. Nothing stood out. If Wally had found a connection between them George just wasn’t seeing it. At three in the morning he had been angry enough to burn the goddamned things; instead he stuffed his face with whatever he had left over in the cold-box and then had gone to bed.

  He found Herbert Fortier at his desk, elbow-deep in paperwork.

  “Any blow-back from your run-and-gun guy?”

  Fortier looked u
p. “You kidding? Pipsqueak is terrified of ever having to see you again. Claims all that damage came from his fall from the window.” He turned, leaned in, lowered his voice. “Just wanted to say, I appreciate you not telling anyone about how I... you know. How I froze up, I guess. I’ve never been shot at before.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No really. I mean it’s one thing seeing it in the movies, you think you’re the kind of guy that’s going to be a hero but-”

  “Repay the favour, we’ll call it square. Between us.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Wally ever come to you asking about big heists from the past five or so years?”

  “Nah. I mean, we’d get together, play poker, shoot stories at each other.”

  “You guys had poker games?”

  “Yeah, bunch of us. Nothing formal, we’d just get together. You didn’t know? I thought you knew.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I mean if you want to come-”

  “Nah. No poker face. I take it Wally didn’t ever formally ask you for copies of files then.”

  “Nope. Wally was looking into robbery gigs huh? I mean, there’s crossover sometimes of course; bank guard decides to play hero, gets popped. Honestly I wouldn’t mind if we had some more crossover between the divisions.” Fortier pointed at the bag under George’s arm. “Those the files? I can take a look if you want.”

  “Sergeant!”

  George looked over. A.C. Pointe was down again from his perch, beckoning George to follow.

  “Look at you, all buddy-buddy with the brass.”

  “Yeah,” said George, moving off, “they love me.”

  Pointe led the way to his office, talking quietly in the halls. “Any progress on our missing compatriot?”

  “Maybe sir. I’m not sure. Did you assign Wally to look into bank robberies?”

  “I did not.”

  “No special assignments?”

  “I would have told you at the outset if he had been on assignment.”

  George winced. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

  “You were speaking with Detective Fortier regarding your bank questions?”

  “Yes sir.” George opened the bag, showed the A.C. the files. “I found these in Wally’s study. Five bank jobs, all big, oldest five years ago, the most recent earlier this year.”

  Pointe stopped, looked in the bag. “Those look like official files.”

  “Yes sir. Copies.”

  “Did he make any notations on them?”

  “No sir.”

  “Any notes of any kind aside from the official information?”

  “No sir.”

  “A connection between the teams that took the banks down?”

  “Not that I could see. I was about to ask Fortier to take a look, see if he could make a connection between them.”

  “Good. Good. I’ll take a look.” Pointe held out his hand for the bag.

  “I don’t mind following up. Sir.”

  “Of course not. But as I stated in our previous conversation, I don’t want to bring anybody else into Wally’s activities.”

  George rolled the top of the bag up. Handed it over.

  “Good. Back to catching for now, eh?” Pointe turned, headed for his office.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you let me know if there’s something there?”

  “Of course.”

  Pointe walked off, carrying George’s investigation away under his arm.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Bly!”

  Ida went into Cliff’s office. “Is this a closed door kind of conversation? You have the face of a man who’d very much like a closed door.”

  “Close the door!”

  “Good idea. So, what are today’s bellows to be about? The weather? ‘Cause I’m with you chief, I have had it up to here with all this sunshine and blue skies.”

  Cliff planted his fists on his desk, leaned across. “Yeah, make jokes, it sends me. You know who I just got an earful from? The police. And not just the police, Assistant Chief Theodore Pointe.”

  Ida stepped forward, jokes gone. “Really? What he say? Did he give an official comment or was he trying to wave you off?”

  “Comment? What would he be giving me a comment on?”

  Ida’s mouth dropped open. “What would he be commenting on? Are you serious? Skid Row! The bullshit blockade raid.”

  “As a matter of fact he did mention the Row. You know what he said? That there was a crazy-woman walking around there all on her own. That this stupid broad was waving dollar bills in the air like a matador’s cape. Flapping cash around in a place where they slice each other open for a nickel. That this woman was walking into deserted houses, making the local cops search for her to protect her instead of helping, oh, I don’t know, maybe the people that have to live in that swamp.”

  Ida stood back, quiet for a moment, thinking. “It was one cop. I only saw the one officer.”

  “One officer you forced off of his beat to come drag your stupid ass out of-”

  “Why would the Assistant Chief call you about this? That’s a hell of a ways up the ladder to find someone to wag a finger at you. Don’t you find that strange? I find that strange.”

  “You’re doing it. Again.”

  “I mean, you get a detective to make that kind of call, don’t you?”

  “What do we do here, Bly? We report the news.”

  “A sergeant maybe.”

  “We don’t make the news.”

  “A captain, tops.”

  “Bly.”

  “I don’t think this is just about my ambulance thing. Not anymore.”

  “Bly!”

  Ida looked up at Cliff. “What?”

  “You’re making it about you. It’s not about you! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” Ida held her arms out, modelling herself. “This is what a real reporter looks like. You probably forgot, what with fondling yourself every time that useless tit Bob Tree prances into-”

  “Shut. Your. Mouth. I mean it Bly, not one more word about Bobby. The man is a goddamned war hero.”

  A moment of silence.

  And then Ida: “Maybe. But he’s half the goddamned reporter that I am.”

  Cliff stood up straight. Held his arms out, modelling himself. “This is what an editor suspending a reporter looks like.”

  “Oh come on!”

  “I mean it Bly, you wanna get out of my office, right now. Because it is taking everything I got to not take a phone book to your ribs.”

  “Boss, look-”

  “GET OUT!”

  She got.

  She walked through the maze of desks, the typewriter chatter gone silent at the yelling, at the look on Ida’s face as she went to her desk, grabbed her things, and made for the elevator. Her face burned red, everywhere but the white streak of her scar.

  Down the elevator to the ground floor.

  A burning walk to her car.

  Driving home.

  The traffic was slow. Ida laid on the horn. She got caught behind some bald geezer in a jalopy from the twenties making a left turn. By the time he was through the light was red. Ida banged on her steering wheel with both hands. Stomped her foot on the floor.

  She realized the driver in the car to her right was looking over at her, his dumb mouth hanging open in his fool hick face. Ida, furious, leaned across, tried to reach the window crank to lower the window so she could yell at him.

  A block further down a police car, siren screaming, blazed perpendicular to her street, left to right then out of sight.

  The light turned green. Ida crawled her car forward, waiting for a space to make her left turn.

  Two blocks down a second police car, siren also screaming, zipped past left to right and out of sight.

  A third police car raced after the second, fast fast fast, maybe setting land speed records.

  A space opened up.

  But another
siren blipped by behind her. She spun around in her seat. Just caught sight of a fourth police vehicle before it dipped out of sight behind a building.

  Four cop cars tearing ass like their tail-feathers were on fire.

  All heading in the same direction.

  Something big.

  Ida Bly big.

  Had to be.

  She cranked her wheel hard right. Civilians screeched their cars to a halt as she made the right, cutting her way across two very unimportant lines of traffic.

  Gunned it. Blasted her way back along East Temple. Now south on San Pedro.

  Back to Skid Row.

  Into a scene sent up fresh from Hell.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bob had not been looking forward to this – talking to Sergeant Schuttman. He might not like that his maybe-secret investigation into Wally Clemp was rumbled.

  He might not like a reporter talking to his buddy’s wife.

  He might get violent. He was a big bruiser of a goon by all accounts, not the type of person Bob wanted angry at him.

  He stood outside police H.Q. for some time, his guts tying themselves into painful knots. Hating himself. Before the war, he’d have marched right in without even thinking about it, no sweat, no shakes, no fear.

  It took a lot to get his feet moving. But he made it inside.

  He made it upstairs. He made it to the Homicide desks.

  It was easy to pick out Schuttman. The man was just this side of being a giant – boulder shoulders, big gut rolling over his waistline, hands so large that they looked like they had been drawn out of proportion to the rest of his body.

  Deep breath. He started forward.

  Five steps to a possibly really bad time. Four. Stop for a couple of uniformed guys crossing his path.

  Three.

  Schuttman had a call directed to his desk. Answered. Bolted up from his desk, hard enough to knock his chair backwards onto the floor.

  He wrote something on a pad, tore off the top page, and then he was running, fast for such a big man, gone down the stairs, yelling at uniforms to get cars and follow him.

  More people followed Schuttman’s shouts down the stairs – more uniforms, even detectives from other divisions.

  Something big, correct that, something huge was going down. A homicide call.