But the letter had my attention.
I spent most of the day writing a first draft of an article on the murder of Griff Bauer. It seemed like things were changing quickly, but I could always make updates in future articles. Tom Butler wanted a preliminary one, just summarizing the case.
A few minutes before I was slated to get off work, Tom walked by. “Quint, can you come upstairs?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.”
The anonymous letter was still on my desk, so I stuffed it in a drawer, putting old mail on top of it so it wouldn’t be the first thing visible.
I then headed up the stairs, where Tom motioned me into his office.
“Have a seat, Quint.”
I did.
He looked at me quite seriously.
“What is it, Tom?” I asked.
“You haven’t had a proper murder case in a few years, have you?”
I tried to think back. “Probably that home invasion off of Ygnacio Valley Road. It’s been a long time.”
“Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I’ve heard some interesting news.”
I sat up in my chair.
“We’re a small-town paper, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have connections in law enforcement.”
It was true. Tom seemed to know everyone. Usually, it didn’t mean much because you couldn’t invent crime out of thin air, but when the big case did come up, he knew who to put me in touch with.
“I know you are friendly with a great many people,” I said.
“I am. And one of those people gave me some compelling information this morning.”
He paused for dramatic effect. Then continued.
“There was a double homicide in Oakland on Saturday night.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure where this was going.
“They just found the bodies this morning.”
“And you want me to look into it?”
“It’s possible you already are,” he said. “Griff Bauer was in a car crash on Saturday night. He was admitted to the hospital, but apparently left soon thereafter. The double homicide took place two blocks from where he crashed his car. And the authorities think he might have been involved. If not, it’s a pretty big coincidence to crash your car a few blocks from a double homicide and then be murdered a day later.”
Many thoughts churned in my mind. This had become way too complicated. I couldn't tell Tom I’d been in the same hospital room as Mr. Bauer on Saturday night. And I certainly couldn’t tell him I saw his dead body before the police did.
I was worried. Confused. And even a little excited.
“What makes them think he was involved with the murders?” I asked.
It was a dumb question he’d basically just answered, but my mind was racing, and I just needed to keep the conversation moving.
“One, crashing so close to the murders. Two, he winds up dead a day later. And three, the detective I know told me Mr. Bauer had a bad reputation. That he might have been involved in some illegal activities. Add those factors together, and I guess I can’t say I blame them.”
“Makes sense.”
“I’ve got the names and the address for the double homicide. But I just want to make sure you want to investigate this case. The only real affiliation to Walnut Creek is that Mr. Bauer was born here.”
“With respect, Tom, if it turns out Mr. Bauer was a killer, that would absolutely be of interest to our readers.”
He smiled coyly. “And you’d get to work an interesting case for once.”
He read me like a book.
“Well, there’s that too.”
“I don’t begrudge you that. I know your job can be boring most of the time.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy working here.”
“I know, Quint. Listen, we all think you’ve got a great talent you don’t always get to show off. Maybe this is the case.”
“I’ll be sure to give you a shout-out when I win the Pulitzer Prize,” I said.
“You better. Listen, don’t step on too many toes. Reporters don’t need jurisdiction like the police do, but people from Oakland might not be as willing to work with someone from Walnut Creek. So tread lightly.”
“You know me,” I said.
“I do. That’s why I’m worried.”
We shared a laugh.
He handed me a sheet of paper.
244 Oakland Ave. Deceased: Aubrey Durban, 23. James Neil, 26.
“Thanks, Tom. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Yes, you will. Traffic there and back would be terrible right now, so why don’t you head over early tomorrow morning? Get a read on the house. I don’t expect you to solve anything, but it can’t hurt to see the neighborhood and get the lay of the land.”
“Of course. I’ll drive there first thing in the morning.”
“This could be a big one for the Times, Quint.”
I nodded.
I always thought it was ridiculous to shorten our paper’s name to just the Times. It brought to mind the New York Times and we were never going to be confused with them. But now wasn’t the time to share that opinion with Tom. I was going to be working a real case for once.
Albeit one that I’d already gotten myself tangled up in.
I walked back down to the reporters’ floor and everyone wanted to talk to me. Greg lamented how he’d had to watch the recently concluded NBA finals without the Warriors in them. Crystal wanted a restaurant recommendation. And Travis asked what Tom wanted to see me about.
“NOT RIGHT NOW!” I wanted to scream, but couldn’t.
My mind was moving at 100 m.p.h. as I was being bombarded by questions from my co-workers. Not ideal timing.
I was able to give them enough monosyllabic answers that they realized I had work to do. I went back to my desk and looked at the two sheets of paper, the one from Tom Butler and the one from my secret admirer.
The investigation into Dennis McCarthy, whoever that was, would have to wait. My paycheck was signed by Tom. I would spend my working hours on the double murder in Oakland.
And if the letter was correct, these two cases would intersect at some point anyway.
5.
I woke up the next morning and quickly realized it was June 21st. I knew it had been approaching, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. The toughest night of my life had occurred exactly one year ago to the day.
My father, Arthur Adler, was killed in a robbery. Some reprehensible soul, who they never caught, mugged him in San Francisco and stole his wallet. Apparently that wasn’t enough for the bastard, as he had to stab him to death as well.
SFPD still listed the case as “unsolved.” I’d talked to some detectives about the case and they literally have zero leads.
If he’d been a police officer or a lawyer or a publicly elected official, I would have been suspicious of the death, fearing an ulterior motive. But my father had been a high school teacher with literally zero enemies in the world. And I mean that sincerely.
The only suspicious thing was his being in San Francisco at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday. And I guess suspicious wasn’t even the right word. “Unexplained” would be a better fit. There’re a million reasons he could have been there, we just didn’t know which one applied. And it had always bothered my mother and me.
He was seventy years old, but in perfect health. I’d been deprived of at least ten or fifteen more good years with my father.
He loved his job as much as anyone I’d ever known. While most teachers retired in their early sixties, or even late fifties, my father just kept on going. He probably would have taught forever, but due to my mother’s urging, he decided to retire once he turned seventy. So when the school year ended in May of last year, my father had taught his final class.
My mother hosted a huge retirement party and probably a hundred of his former students attended, no matter how far they had scattered around the country. He was that well liked. Even some old students from his time teaching in Seattle m
ade it. My father took that as a great compliment.
The only criticism ever leveled at him was that he was too nice a guy. Some people thought my mother wore the pants in the family. And while I’d seen him fired up at different points in my childhood, the characterization wasn’t all that far off. But if that’s the only accusation they can throw at you, you’ve lived a pretty honorable life.
He was well read and could talk about any subject you wanted. History (his primary teaching subject), the arts, sports, even pop culture. At his funeral, several of his students went up and told stories and said that Arthur Adler was their favorite teacher of all time.
Many of them had attended his retirement party less than a month earlier.
There weren’t many dry eyes in the house on the day they laid my father to rest. Certainly not mine.
He had been buried in a cemetery about twenty miles from where I lived. The morning of June 21st, I called my mother and asked if she wanted to go see him. I already knew the answer was yes. I told her I’d pick her up around seven.
My mind remained on my father as I made my way to the scene of the double murder in Oakland. It was a weird thought to have, but I knew my father would be happy. He and my mother were my greatest cheerleaders, and while they loved seeing my name in print, they thought I was meant for greatness. And to my father, greatness wasn’t the Walnut Creek Times.
He wasn’t wrong.
He’d also been extremely fond of Cara. More than any of my previous girlfriends. He was always disappointed when we broke up and ecstatic when we got back together a few months later.
So if there is an afterlife, of which I have my doubts, my father probably smiled down knowing I had a murder case to report on. While at the same time pleading for me to get back together with Cara.
I chose to concentrate on the positive and hoped he saw me working on something substantive.
My daydreaming about my father almost led me to drive past the house. But I pumped on the brakes when I suddenly saw 244 Oakland Avenue out of the corner of my eye.
It was a much more prosperous area than the one in which Griff Bauer was killed. The big houses all seemed to have yards. The paint jobs were generally new and not cracking. Also, this neighborhood lacked the chain-link fences that framed each yard in Bauer’s. The absence of them alone made a big difference.
To my surprise, I saw the crotchety detective Ray Kintner standing outside of the house. He saw me pulling up, so there was no denying it or speeding off.
“Jeez, Walnut Creek, you’re ubiquitous.”
“Maybe you should write my next article. That’s a big word.”
He snorted. “I guess I shouldn’t be all that shocked. Word has gotten around that we’re a little suspicious of Mr. Bauer. Might even suspect him for this,” he said, pointing toward the home.
“That’s the word around the campfire,” I said.
“I did a little research on the Walnut Creek Times. Tom Butler is a good guy to know if you’re trying to get leads.”
I started to wonder if Detective Ray Kintner was the connection that Tom Butler referred to.
“He’s got a lot more connections than I’ll ever have, Detective Kintner,” I said.
“I told you to call me Ray. And use those connections. You think I had snitches of my own when I first got on the force? It took me a long time.”
I didn’t mention that I’d worked at the paper for nine years. I’d already decided if he took pity on me because he thought I was new, I was fine with that.
“Thanks for the advice, Ray. It was his suggestion that I head over here. You got anything for me?” I smiled, once again overstepping my bounds.
“It makes the Bauer murder look like a picnic,” he said.
“You’re kidding me?” I was genuinely shocked.
“This is not fit to print, but they were tortured before they were killed. Bauer was defaced with a hammer, but it probably ended quickly for him. These two were meant to suffer.”
“Was the killer trying to get information from them?”
“I’d say that’s a fair guess,” he said.
“Any idea on what kind of information?”
“No and no.”
“That was only one question,” I said.
“No, I don’t know what kind of information. And no, I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew.”
“Ahh, that kind of no and no.”
“Get used to it,” he said, half smirking.
“We’ve got a lot in common. People don’t want to help the police and the police don’t want to help the media.”
“Lot of truth to that, Quint.”
“Every time I want to think poorly of you, you remember my name and show you care.”
“Like I said a few days ago, don’t tell anyone.”
“So what brings you back to this crime scene? I’m assuming you’ve already been here,” I asked.
“I have. Probably the same thing that brings you here. The potential of seeing something that stands out. A clue that I missed. Or the unlikely event that I find evidence that links the two murders together.”
“Wouldn’t DNA help do that?”
“DNA is indispensable, but it’s not always on the same clock as me. It runs at a slightly slower speed.”
“Understood,” I said. “Would you ever give me a quote for my upcoming article? Obviously, I wouldn’t mention your name.”
“You want me to be ‘a source in the Oakland Police Department’?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
“A few ground rules, first,” Ray said.
I tried to withhold my excitement.
“First, you can never use my name in print. If you do, I’ll never speak to you again. About anything. Second, you can’t say something like ‘a senior police detective.’ I’m old. There are only so many senior detectives.”
I laughed. “Anything else?”
“You have to give me any information you come across. I can tell you’re going to be a fly buzzing around this investigation, so if you see or find anything, you have to come to me first. Police detectives aren’t infallible. I’m not above receiving a tip from a journalist. Even one from the Walnut Creek Times.”
“Low blow,” I said.
“So we have an understanding?”
“We do.”
And while I would never use his name in print, it was going to be impossible to tell him everything I already knew. He’d be putting my hands behind my back and slapping on the cuffs.
“Alright, here’s your first quote. A source in the Oakland Police Department has said that it appears the two murder locations might be related.”
It was a valuable quote. Obviously I wanted more, but I had to tread lightly. I couldn’t risk losing the only inside information I had.
“Thanks, Detective Kintner.”
“For the last time, call me Ray. If we’re going to be doing business together.”
“Ray and Quint. Much simpler than Detective Kintner and Walnut Creek.”
That got the gruff old guy to smile. “You might be asking yourself why I’m helping a small-town newspaper man.”
“It crossed my mind,” I said.
“I’ve known your boss for a long, long time. I throw him a bone now and then.”
“I began to suspect that when you brought him up out of the blue. Is that why you helped me out at Griff Bauer’s murder scene?”
“Do you think I usually help out the media?”
The question was rhetorical.
“I should have realized it then. You were a little adamant in your denial of having heard of the Walnut Creek Times,” I said.
“I was a little over the top, wasn’t I? Well, there were other officers around and we all have our own private connections. Don’t need them knowing all of mine. Anyway, as long as you don’t fuck me over, I’ll keep you abreast of the investigation.”
“Thank you, Ray. It means a lot.”
“You’re welcom
e. We’ll talk soon.”
I started heading toward my car but turned around.
“Just how bad was the crime scene?” I asked.
“I wasn’t able to sleep last night. Pliers. A blowtorch.”
“Jesus!”
“With a crime like this, it makes you wonder if he really exists.”
Even though I was just using Jesus as an exclamation, his point was taken.
I drove back to the office. Tom wasn’t in, so I decided to do a deep dive into Dennis McCarthy, the man the letter pointed to. I had to be subtle, and I turned my computer screen to where none of my co-workers could see it.
It wasn’t easy to find much information on him. Most of the talk online was hearsay, three times removed. But one very useful article had been published in 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle. The writer’s name was Vern Coughlin and he claimed to have grown up with Dennis McCarthy.
It lent some credence to his story.
Vern Coughlin was shot and killed outside of his San Francisco home less than a year after the publication of the article. The murder lent further credence.
Apparently, you didn’t want Dennis McCarthy on your bad side.
He was born in 1952 in the Sunset District, an almost exclusively Irish section of San Francisco back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. His father was a part-time bartender and a full-time gambler. It landed Millard McCarthy in trouble with the wrong type of guys. And indirectly, it put a young Dennis McCarthy in touch with them.
In 1967, most people in San Francisco were embracing the Summer of Love, but a fifteen-year-old Dennis McCarthy embraced gambling, loan sharking, and other non-love-related things.
It was basically the story of A Bronx Tale, where the son of a hardworking but flawed man began looking up to the local crime boss, in this case the local bookie. Dennis McCarthy didn’t want to be the one placing bets like his schmuck of a father, he wanted to be the one taking them. As a very young man he understood intrinsically just how big an advantage the house had.
A bettor could win for a week or two, maybe even a few months, but in the end, the bookies always won. You could grow rich by basically doing nothing but taking a lot of bets. The more bets you took, the more money you would make. And Dennis McCarthy knew this better than most bookies three times his age.
Revenge at Sea: (Quint Adler Book 1) Page 4
