The Secrets of Harry Bright

by Joseph Wambaugh

  His hands trembled as he inserted it into his car cassette player. He started the engine, punched the play button, and while he drove away he listened to Harry Bright.

  O. A. Jones was wrong. Harry Bright didn’t sound like Rudy Vallee. His voice was reedier, more quivering, more of a tenor. But he sang in a similar style. And with the ukulele accompaniment, he sounded like an old-time singer. Harry Bright sang “Where or When.” After that he sang “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

  For his last number, Harry Bright cleared his throat and struck a false chord before beginning. Then he strummed until he found the correct one and sang “We’ll Be Together Again.”

  Sidney Blackpool thought of Trish Decker, née Patsy Bright, weeping in her bed. Harry Bright sang, “ ‘I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you.’ ”

  It was the end of the medley. He advanced the spool. He punched the play button again but there was nothing. He reversed the cassette. There was nothing at all on the other side. Harry Bright had not recorded “Make Believe.” Not on this cassette.

  He reversed it and replayed Harry Bright’s songs. Harry Bright had dedicated one number on that cassette. His speaking voice sounded an octave lower than his singing voice. Harry Bright said, “This song’s for Patsy.” Then he strummed an introduction and began “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

  While Harry Bright sang, Sidney Blackpool again thought of Patsy Bright. Until the chorus when Harry Bright sang,

  “A park across the way, the children’s carousel, “The chestnut tree, the wishing well.”

  Then Sidney Blackpool thought about the boy he’d never seen. He thought about Danny Bright. Then he thought of both Patsy Bright and Danny when Harry Bright sang the last chorus:

  “I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the

  night is new,

  “I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you.”

  Sidney Blackpool found himself searching for the rage. He wanted the fury. It was always so easy to find it. In fact, it was often impossible to avoid. Now where was it when he needed it? He found himself starting to cry and couldn’t say for whom. He got himself under control just prior to arriving at the hotel.

  CHAPTER 16

  ENCHANTED COTTAGE

  It was the most fitful night’s sleep yet. He didn’t think he’d dreamed because he didn’t think he’d been asleep long enough. Sidney Blackpool got up at dawn, exhausted. He was too nauseated to eat but managed three cups of coffee from room service. He called Mineral Springs P.D. and disguised his voice when Anemic Annie answered. He reached Officer O. A. Jones just before the surfer cop was to hit the bricks. The detective said: “This is Blackpool. Go to a music store or call a radio station. Listen to an old song called ‘Make Believe.’ Do it for me today. And don’t mention it to a soul. I’ll be in touch.”

  As usual, Otto slept until called. When he’d had his shower and shave he came into the sitting room and said, “Sidney, I don’t think I’m up to another day on the links. It’s too hard on my head. Except for where Fiona beat on me, my body feels okay, but my brain’s all bruised. I was picking fights yesterday. I ain’t country-club material.”

  “We aren’t playing golf today.”

  “I suppose we’re going to Mineral Springs.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We’ve run outta rope and nobody’s hanged himself. I figure today we have a private talk with Paco Pedroza and maybe with Coy Brickman.”

  “And also Palm Springs P.D. to let them in on our fun-filled week?”

  “Maybe we’ll even go visit Sergeant Harry Bright. Let’s see what shape he’s really in.”

  “How’d you do with his wife?”

  “His ex-wife. I got a cassette of Harry Bright playing a uke and singing old songs.”

  “And?”

  “ ‘Make Believe’ ’s not on it. There must be another one. Coy Brickman called her and asked to borrow it. We’re making him nervous. He’s starting to worry that O. A. Jones might get it right. We’re getting to him, Otto.”

  “And Harry Bright?”

  “He’s gotta be in on it somehow. One a those two sergeants returned to the burning car.”

  “In on what?”

  “I don’t know what. They killed him. Or one a them did and the other’s an accessory. Or the whole damn town’s in on it. I just don’t know.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe today we’ll find out.”

  “Can I have breakfast first?”

  “Eat a big one. This’s gotta be the last workday, one way or the other. We’re outta rope.”

  “Thank God,” Otto said. “I wanna lay by the pool just one afternoon and then I wanna go home. I’m getting so crazy I’m starting to miss all the Ewoks on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  “I really don’t see any reason why we can’t go for that today,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “Lay out by the pool? Soak in the spa?”

  “Let’s do it,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Tell you the truth, I gotta relax and think. I’ve been needing a drink in my hand every step a the way and that’s no good.”

  “Did you lay his wife, Sidney?” Otto asked. “Harry Bright’s wife?”

  “His ex-wife.”

  “That answers it.”

  “What difference does it make one way or the other?”

  “I dunno, Sidney,” Otto said. “This whole case stinks like a burnt corpse. I just wish you wouldn’t a laid Harry Bright’s wife.”

  “Ex-wife, goddamnit!”

  “Let’s go swimming,” Otto said.

  It wasn’t such a bad day. All in all, it was probably the best of their desert vacation. Sidney Blackpool slept on a poolside lounge chair, and when the sun got too hot he moved under an umbrella and slept some more. Otto got a mild sunburn but enjoyed himself enormously by doing belly flops and squeaking like a porpoise, which tickled a couple of divorced telephone operators from Van Nuys. He thought they were cute, and didn’t even care that they weren’t rich. In fact, he bought them drinks, and made a tentative date with both of them for 8:00 P.M. in the hotel dining room.

  Otto was starting to get his head straightened out. The mountains never looked more beautiful to him. The sky was dappled by hairy white clouds that seemed to skim the peak over the tram as they scudded by in the desert breeze. The Shadow Mountains shimmered in sparkling light. Against his better judgment, he introduced the telephone operators to piña coladas and mai tais, and bought them lunch at poolside. He was hoping that his partner might sleep away the entire afternoon.

  At 3:00 P.M. Sidney Blackpool awakened, swam a few lengths of the hotel pool, looked toward Otto and started for the room.

  “That’s my business partner, girls,” Otto said.

  “You won’t stand us up tonight, will ya, Otto?” the older one asked.

  “If I don’t show up tonight, it may be somebody’s murdered me,” said Otto, and the girls giggled like hell and sucked on the piña colada.

  At 4:00 P.M. they were halfway to Mineral Springs. “What’d Chief Pedroza say about this meeting?” Otto asked, breaking the silence.

  “Nothing. Just okay.”

  “What’d he say when you said it was confidential and private?”

  “Same answer.”

  “What’d you say when he said he’d like to meet us down in the oasis picnic ground? Did you ask if we should bring the potata salad?”

  “I said okay. Just okay. This is a small town. He knows we been nosing around. He might be getting a feeling that we’re onto something. He might even be getting a feeling that Coy Brickman’s acting nervous for some reason or other.”

  “He might even be getting nervous himself, Sidney,” Otto said. “Whatever’s going on he might be part of.”

  “I thought a that,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We’re all getting nervous.”

  “We’re a long way from Hollywood, Sidney. In lots a ways. We’
re gonna meet a desert cop out in a lonely picnic ground after dark which makes it only a little bit less risky than a picnic in Central Park. And maybe he knows a whole lot about Jack Watson’s death. And we ain’t so much as got a slingshot between us and nobody in the whole fucking world knows we’re there. We could be the next ones they find in a burned car in Solitaire Canyon. Tell me you thought a all that.”

  “I thought a all that.”

  “Tell me why we’re meeting him out there.”

  “He insisted. Said no one would see us.”

  “Tell me you ain’t a bit worried,” Otto said. “About Coy Brickman or somebody blowing your face off.”

  How could he tell Otto? He really wasn’t afraid anymore. Tommy did it. He could do it. How could he tell something like that to Otto? Sidney Blackpool was silent.

  “Shit,” Otto said, and didn’t speak for the remainder of the ride to Mineral Springs.

  Paco wasn’t there. They parked back beneath the date palms, back where the oasis picnic ground settled in against the foothills and was protected from the wind. The night wind had arrived early. But the wind wasn’t moaning yet, only whispering. Somehow the whispering wind seemed more ominous than the moaning wind. They watched dust devils off in the canyon. The desert dervishes would run and twirl, and after a sudden gust, would suddenly change course or explode in a spray of sand when crosscurrents collided. The longer they sat looking for Paco, the longer the shadows became, and the worse this idea seemed: waiting out there for potentially murderous cops. Unarmed.

  “We shoulda stopped at a gun store and bought a fucking piece,” Otto said. “We shoulda borrowed a gun from Palm Springs P.D. This is like snorkeling in Australia with a pocketful a hamburger!”

  “Don’t turn your imagination loose,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Paco’s not a murderer.”

  “One a his good pals might be. Coy Brickman might just decide to blink for the first time this year. In order to sight down a gun barrel and blow us away.”

  “He might. But we gotta trust Paco. We gotta trust somebody.”

  “Why? You never did before.”

  “It’s the only chance to figure it out. This goddamn case! It’s our only chance.”

  “Do you want the job that bad, Sidney? The job with Watson? You wanna get out that bad?”

  “I want it more than anything,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “More than your life, it may turn out,” said Otto.

  He was thirty minutes late. Shadows advance perceptibly in the desert foothills. A last saber of light slashed across the mountains, and then darkness. He had to use his headlights when he entered the picnic ground. Sidney Blackpool turned his lights on and off again. Paco was driving a Mineral Springs patrol car. He parked beside them and waved them over.

  Sidney Blackpool got in the front seat beside Paco. Otto Stringer just stood next to the car on the passenger side, looking at the shotgun in the rack. He couldn’t see if Paco was wearing a handgun under his aloha shirt.

  “Since you wanted it private, how’s this?” Paco Pedroza said. He didn’t have the twinkle in his eye, nor the mischief in his voice. Not this time.

  “We been doing a lotta work on the Watson case,” Sidney Blackpool said. Otto scanned the ridge for a hint of twilight on a gun barrel, but there was almost no light at all.

  “This is a real small town,” Paco said. “I know you been around the Eleven Ninety-nine, and up in Solitaire Canyon, and over by Shaky Jim’s. I even got a rumor you had a little talk with O. A. Jones the other day.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “No, I didn’t ask him. I figured if I oughtta know, he’d tell me. See, I trust my men. All the way.”

  And this made Otto very nervous. Paco didn’t sound like the jovial small-town cop. Not at all.

  “We haven’t known who to trust,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I’m sorry if we overstepped our authority.”

  “You did,” Paco said. “If the situation was reversed, I’d a come to you and laid it out.”

  “But it might involve one a your men. Or more.”

  “All the more reason to come and tell me about it. I think you owed me that much professional courtesy. But that’s another story. Let’s hear it now, if you’re ready to spill it.”

  “I could take up a couple hours of your time, Chief,” Sidney Blackpool said. “But the bottom line is we traced a rare ukulele found in Solitaire Canyon. Back to Coy Brickman and Harry Bright. Brickman bought it, maybe as a gift for Harry Bright, and Harry Bright recorded songs on cassettes for his own amusement.”

  “I saw that uke,” Paco said. “It was used by Bernice Suggs to smack her old man on the gourd. It really got around, that old uke.”

  “Coy Brickman didn’t know about that, did he?” Otto interjected.

  “He wasn’t there that day. I never mentioned it.”

  “That’s a relief,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Then he doesn’t know we’re close.”

  “To what?”

  “To proving that Coy Brickman and/or Harry Bright had something to do with murdering Jack Watson.”

  “And why in the hell would Coy Brickman or Harry Bright wanna kill the Watson kid, can you tell me?” Paco Pedroza had an edge to his voice.

  “I don’t know, Chief,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I’d give a whole lot to work out that one. But I think one or both a your sergeants drove back to the scene of the burned car in Solitaire Canyon just before O. A. Jones was found that day last year. It was Harry Bright that O. A. Jones heard singing. Rather, it was Harry Bright’s voice on a car cassette player.”

  “Well, that’s real interesting,” Paco said. “But you got a couple problems. For one, Harry Bright was off duty at home that afternoon so he wasn’t driving around Solitaire Canyon when that chopper found Jones.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I personally went over to his mobile home to borrow his four-wheel-drive pickup. We needed every off-road vehicle we could locate when we were trying to find that frigging surfer cop.”

  “Did the pickup have a cassette player in it?”

  “I think so,” Paco said. “Harry liked music. I knew he sang a little. I didn’t know Coy bought him a uke, but it don’t surprise me.”

  “What’d you do with Harry Bright’s pickup?”

  “I had one a my guys use it to drive around the desert and search for the dummy’s patrol car.”

  “Who used the truck?”

  Paco lost a little of his impatience and started rubbing his mouth. Then, with his hand still touching his lip, he said, “It could a been Coy Brickman. I can’t say for sure. I was sending guys all over the frigging place that day. But what’s that prove?”

  “Now I know it was Coy Brickman!” Sidney Blackpool said. “It proves he drove right to the place where the Rolls was buried in the tamarisk trees. He came back and he didn’t report a thing about the Rolls.”

  “Maybe he didn’t see it.”

  “He had to’ve been parked right there. I believe O. A. Jones is gonna hear Harry Bright’s cassette and say that’s the voice he heard that day.”

  “This is evidence of murder?” Paco said. “Don’t need too much evidence in L.A. these days.”

  “There’s more,” Sidney Blackpool said. “The Cobra boss, Billy Hightower, he personally told Harry Bright that he saw Jack Watson’s good pal, a guy named Terry Kinsale, up in Solitaire Canyon in Watson’s Porsche. He was trying to buy some crank the night a the murder. Did Harry Bright ever mention that to you?” No.

  “He didn’t mention it to Palm Springs P.D. either. He didn’t mention it to anybody. A mental lapse maybe?”

  “There has to be an explanation,” Paco said. “Maybe he did notify somebody at Palm Springs P.D. and they lost the information. We could clear it up if we could talk to Harry Bright.” Then Paco chewed on it for a second and said, “Did you run it down? That particular lead?”

  “Yeah,” Sidney Blackpool said. “It didn’t pan out. Terry knows n
othing. But the point is, Harry Bright didn’t pass on the tip. I think Harry Bright wanted them to keep thinking Watson was killed by kidnappers, or bikers, or your everyday opportunist thugs. I don’t think Coy Brickman or Harry Bright wanted Palm Springs P.D. to run out of hoodlums and start looking for …”

  “For what?”

  “For your sergeants.”

  “Why? Why would Coy Brickman or Harry Bright ice that kid? Gimme some motive!”

  “I don’t know.”

  Paco Pedroza sighed in exasperation and said, “This ain’t getting nowhere. So whaddaya want from me now?”

  “I wanna play a cassette for O. A. Jones. If it’s the singing voice he heard that day, I wanna call Palm Springs P.D. and see how they care to handle the next move.”

  “Which is?”

  “A ballistics test on Coy Brickman’s gun. And Harry Bright’s. The slug they got from the Watson kid’s head wasn’t as smashed as it might’ve been. There’s a chance. Just a chance of a make.”

  “Let’s go to the station,” Paco said.

  “Where’s Coy Brickman today?” Otto asked.

  “He’s working swing shift. He’ll be on duty in about forty-five minutes. You can have O. A. Jones right now.”

  “Let’s do it,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  Anemic Annie knew something was up when Paco came storming in the front door and said, “Annie, call O. A. Jones in here. Code two.”

  A few minutes later she saw the Hollywood detectives enter, looking every bit as grim as Paco Pedroza. When they entered Paco’s office he slammed the door, which was something he did only when he was about to give one of his cops a royal ass chewing. Anemic Annie knew that something was up, all right.

  After she reached O. A. Jones on the radio, the telephone rang. She answered it and told the caller that Sergeant Coy Brickman wouldn’t be in for half an hour at least. The caller left a message that she jotted down and tossed in the sergeant’s incoming basket. The call was from a pawnbroker.