Columbo: The Hoffa Connection

by William Harrington

  “I don’t know who he was. I know he was the boss man. At first, anyway. Regina belonged to him.”

  “Are you going to make a guess about who he was?”

  “Why do we say ‘was’? The old man’s gone, not dead. And, yes, I’ll make a guess about who he was. I think he was a Mafia don, retired. I’ll say that. I’ll say she slept with him. That ought to titillate the readers.”

  Fletcher nodded. “I haven’t suggested you to any television people. There might be a better offer for a TV appearance than for an article or a book.”

  “We’re talking about big money, right?”

  “We’re talking about a quarter of a million.”

  “With that I can get started again. You know, I can really get started. The latest thing is the nostalgia kick. I mean, Peter, Paul and Mary came back. The Beatles— what’s left of them—are back. I—”

  “You got a problem they don’t have,” said Fletcher. “I can lick it. If I’ve got money, I can go into a clinic.”

  “Well— Okay, Mick. You’re serious about this thing. When you’re going to see somebody, you gotta be clean.”

  “What am I now?”

  “Between hits,” Fletcher said dryly.

  “Give me twelve hours’ notice, and I’ll be like I am now. Man, I was functioning for Regina. The night when— I was working on plans to improve the show. I can function.”

  “I’ll be in touch, then. In a day or three.”

  “Great! Uh… look, Joe. I need a little money.”

  “You always need money.”

  “Everybody needs money. Don’t you? Look, I lost my meal ticket. Regina gave me— Anyway, you’re talking about a quarter of a million. Give me a thousand advance. That’s all I need. You’ll get it back. Plus your commission on a quarter of a million. That’s real money.”

  Fletcher sighed loudly. “All right. You’ll have to come to the bank with me. I don’t carry a thousand around. My car’s up there.”

  They walked toward the highway.

  “Identifying the old man would be a real coup,” Fletcher said. “If I could assure people that you will make a reasonable ID on him, we could maybe double the price. Somebody else is working on it, you know. Why don’t you talk to Lieutenant Columbo? Putting what he knows together with your observations, the two of you might come up with something. If we could bill you as the man who identified Regina’s ‘grandfather’ for the police, the sky’s the limit on what we might make out of the deal.”

  5

  His life was a series of fine adjustments. For a while after he shot up, he was good for nothing much. He didn’t deceive himself. When he was afloat in euphoria, he did not function. After he came down, he could have a good day. Until— Until the craving began, until the shakes began. He knew the good times were getting shorter. The shakes came sooner. And before they came this time he had to talk with Lieutenant Columbo.

  He was lucky. The lieutenant had returned his call promptly. He had told Columbo about his talk with Fletcher, and the lieutenant said he would stop by Mickey’s flat later in the afternoon. He could hold out that long. This evening he’d have to shoot what he had left of what he’d copped after he mugged the Hispanics. Tomorrow, in his good time, he’d have to go downtown and cop.

  He showered and shaved. He made a sandwich and ate. He drank a can of beer.

  He heard the knock on the door. Okay. He was ready. He opened the door.

  “Hi, Mick.” It was Johnny.

  “Uh… Come in, Johnny. Come on in.”

  “You’re looking prosperous. Inherit something? Or did you pull off another mugging?”

  “A man has to clean up sometime.”

  “Right. Clean up. You could mean that two ways.”

  “What can I do for you, Johnny?” Mickey did not want Johnny here when Lieutenant Columbo arrived.

  “I been thinking about our eyewitness. Never came out of the woodwork. I figured we’d get a blackmail demand, since obviously whoever it was didn’t talk to the cops.”

  “How could anybody blackmail us?” Mickey asked. “We don’t have any money. The old man walked away and left us high and dry.”

  “Right. Well… I tell ya what I’m thinking of doing. I’m thinking it might be a good idea if I left town. Y’know? They’re gonna close the house, then lease it to somebody else. So— You gonna be okay, Mick?” Mickey understood the implication behind the question. He grimaced. “I don’t know. What am I going to do for money?”

  “You wanta go with me?”

  “Where you going?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Say, Mexico.”

  Mickey shook his head. “I’ve got to start making a living again. I can’t just be a parasite on you.”

  Johnny nodded. “Well… I tell ya what, Mick. I said I’d do what I could for ya. So here’s some stuff. It’ll keep ya for a while. And here’s five hundred bucks. It’s the best I can do.”

  “I appreciate it,” Mickey said quietly.

  “Okay. If anybody asks about me, don’t tell them I said anything about Mexico. Uh— Somebody at the door.”

  Mickey opened the door. Columbo.

  “Mr. Newcastle. And, ha, Mr. Corleone, too.” He had a lighted cigar in his mouth. He took it out. “I remember you don’t mind my smokin’ in your apartment. Okay?”

  “Okay. Come in.”

  Johnny was on his feet. “I was just leaving,” he said. “Is there anything I can do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir. You’ve been very helpful already. I hope I’m not runnin’ you off.”

  “Not at all. I’d just stopped by to see how Mickey’s doin’.”

  “Well—”

  Johnny stepped outside. His red Ferrari was parked just ahead of Columbo’s Peugeot.

  “That’s a nice car,” Columbo said.

  “Right.”

  “Oh, say. There is one little thing I’d like to ask. I keep comparing things, y’ know, and trying to match fact with fact, tryin’ to make some kind of sense out of everything. There’s one point that bothers me, and maybe you can help me out.”

  “I hope I can, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, y’ see, you told me you didn’t go to bed until maybe half-past two. You also said that the last guests didn’t leave until about that time. But the medical examiner says that Regina drowned between one and one-thirty. If that’s so, she’d have been lying at the bottom of the pool for an hour or an hour and a half, while you were still up and there were still guests in the house. How can you explain that?”

  Johnny turned up the palms of his hands and shook his head. “When we wanted a party to end, wanted to suggest people leave, we started turning off lights. Usually the first ones turned off were the underwater lights in the pool. I went to the switch panel and turned them off. I don’t know what time that was, but after that the pool would have been dark. She could have been in the water, and nobody would have seen her—not unless somebody went out and looked down in the water.”

  “Ah. Well, I thank you very much,” said Columbo. “Ya see how I have to try to resolve certain anxieties.”

  Johnny nodded. “If you need anything more, give me a call,” he said as he unlocked the Ferrari.

  6

  Columbo sat down in Mickey’s living room, and Mickey explained why he had called him.

  “Even if I knew the answer, I couldn’t tell ya,” Columbo said.

  “If we put together what you know and what I know, we might come up with something,” Mickey suggested.

  “I know he was not Vittorio Savona and he was not Angelo Capelli,” Columbo began. “I know he had passports in both those names. I know he came to live in the Italian village of Marino di Bardineto, about 1986. That was Regina’s hometown. He bought her, so to speak, and eventually brought her to the States. I got a suspicion he was a drug dealer.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mickey said.

  “Why not?”

  “You know I’m a user. So was Regina, on a much smaller
scale. There was always stuff in the house. If the old man was a dealer, why’d she have to send Johnny and me downtown to cop for her? You always take a chance on stuff you get downtown. If he had a source, why didn’t we get it from him?”

  “He was retired.”

  “He’d never lose all his contacts. He could have got us stuff if he’d been able. I don’t think he was in that business.”

  “Then what?”

  Mickey shook his head. “He was not a lonely old man. Apart from what he had with Regina, he had friends. They came to see him.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Men his age. Men younger. I wasn't supposed to see them. But I did. They treated him with a certain deference. The old man was .”

  Columbo nodded. “D’ya mind if I use your bathroom?”

  “Uh— Go ahead. You’ll find some stuff in there. You already know about it, so what the hell?”

  Columbo went in the bathroom. Sure enough, lined up at the edge of the basin were—he counted—twenty-one vials. He picked one up and dropped it in his raincoat pocket.

  “Change the subject,” Columbo said when he returned to the living room. “When did you first meet Johnny?”

  “He was always around. When I met Regina, he was there. He was always where she and the old man were, never away from them. I never knew him to take a vacation.”

  “Was he always the houseboy?”

  “Lieutenant! He was never a houseboy. I don’t know what he was, exactly, but he was never a houseboy.”

  “What you gonna say about him when you do this article or television show?” Columbo asked.

  Mickey shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Why not? Isn’t the relationship between him and Regina interesting?”

  “Why do you figure?” Mickey asked.

  “You tell me.”

  “I’m afraid of him.”

  Part Four

  Sixteen

  1

  “Good news, Columbo.” Captain Sczciegel encountered Columbo between the parking garage and his desk on Tuesday morning. “You can close the Regina case. We’ve got the murderer in custody.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Ever hear of a fellow named Edgar Bell? He went to jail for ninety days last year under the stalker law. He’d stalked Regina for months, until we finally caught up with him. Last night he turned himself in. About four this morning he signed a confession. The chief calls the case closed.”

  “Has he released the story to the news guys and gals?” Columbo asked.

  “The chiefs calling a news conference for ten o’clock.”

  “Don’t y’ think it would have been polite to call me?”

  “Oh, I would have, but it came in on the midnight-to-eight watch, and they didn’t even call me. I found out about it when I came in. You got the information as fast as I could get it to you.”

  “Have you talked to the guy?”

  “Not yet. Waiting for you.”

  Columbo stared for a moment at the cigar in his hand. It had gone out, and he dropped it in his raincoat pocket. “If I were you. I’d call the chief and advise him to hold up that announcement for a little while. I mean, we wouldn’t want the chief to look bad, would we?”

  “Hope you’re right, Columbo. If we don’t close this case pretty damned soon, the chief may bounce us off it and put a new team on. But I’ll call.”

  2

  Edgar Bell sat quiet and disconsolate in an interrogation room. He wore a handcuff on his left wrist; the other cuff was locked to a steel ring set in the table.

  “Sure doesn’t look like a murderer, does he?” Captain Sczciegel said to Columbo as they looked at Bell through a window before they went in.

  “They never do. You been in this business as long as I have. You ever see one that looked like a murderer? Our job would be easy if murderers looked like murderers. All we’d have to do is go out on the street and pick up the guys that looked the part.”

  Edgar Bell was a slight man of late middle age. He’d been crying, and his eyes were damp and red.

  Sczciegel entered the room first. “Mr. Bell, I’m Captain Sczciegel of the homicide squad. This is Lieutenant Columbo, the detective in charge of the investigation into the death of Regina Savona.”

  Bell’s head was down. He stared at the handcuffs that bound him to the table, and he did not look up. “When I read that Lieutenant Columbo was on the case, I knew I might as well turn myself in,” he said. He looked up at Columbo. “I’ve heard of you, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s flatterin’, I guess,” said Columbo.

  Sczciegel sat down. “Why don’t you just tell us the story? You’ve been read your rights, and you’ve signed a confession, so you can’t hurt yourself by telling us exactly what happened.”

  “The thing of it is, I loved her,” said Bell. “She knew I did. She loved me a little, too. I know she did. I saw her every time I could. I went to every concert I could get a ticket for. I was there that night at the Hollywood Bowl. She was so beautiful, so marvelous. I loved her so much. She could sense it and kept looking for me in the audience. Finally she found me, and I caught her eye, and she winked at me! I could tell she—”

  “She didn’t want you following her,” said Captain Sczciegel. “You went to jail for that.”

  “I wasn’t a stalker!” Bell said indignantly. “I never meant to harm her.”

  “Go on, then.”

  “She didn’t invite me to her party. She never invited me to her any of her parties. But I went. I waited until late, when maybe most of the others would be gone. I came in over the fence. And there she was! She was sitting by the pool. And she was naked! She was a vision of loveliness.”

  “So how’d the lady get dead?” Columbo asked.

  “I walked toward her, smiling in a loving way. But she was afraid of me. She jumped up and backed away. I’m afraid she’d had more than a little to drink. She backed off the edge of the pool and fell in. She couldn’t swim! I couldn’t swim. She sank.”

  “Why didn’t you call for help?” Sczciegel asked.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was afraid somebody would think I’d pushed her in, or something. I… After all, I’d gone to jail for—” He shook his head and began to weep. “I didn’t hurt her! I couldn’t have. But I am the cause of her death. I’d rather it had been me.”

  “There’s somethin’ wrong with your story, Mr. Bell," said Columbo. “What about the bloody robe? How’d all that blood get on her robe if you just stood and watched her sink?”

  “It was already bloody,” he sobbed. “I don’t know where the blood came from. Maybe it wasn’t hers.”

  “And she just drowned, and never even screamed, huh?”

  Bell shook his head. “No. She didn’t scream. It was like I told you.”

  Columbo looked at Sczciegel. “Good thing the chief didn’t announce a news conference.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Bell. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “If it was up to me, you’d go to a psycho ward,” said Columbo. “What you confessed to is the way you got it out of the newspapers and off television, not the way it happened.”

  “What’s wrong with the way I told it?”

  “In the first place, there was no bloody robe,” Columbo said.

  “Well… well, maybe I didn’t remember that part of it right. Robe? No. In fact, I never said there was a bloody robe. You said it! You sucked me into saying that!”

  “I could suck you into sayin’ half a dozen other things that wouldn’t be right. You weren’t there, Mr. Bell. You just weren’t there.”

  3

  Lieutenant Billy Low was at his desk in the narcotics squadroom. He was a compact, balding man with a reputation for being humorless and unbending. “Where’d you get this stuff, Columbo?” he asked. “I’m not going to give you our analysis till you tell me.”

  “Gimme a break, Billy. That stuff’s got to do with the Regina murder. If you arrest th
e guy I got it from, it could foul up the investigation.” >

  “Has the guy got any more of it. do you know?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Columbo.

  “If he does, the first time he shoots up this stuff, he’s a dead man. What we’ve got here is speedball. You know: a mixture of cocaine and heroin. That’s heavy stuff. But it’s got worse in it. This stuff is laced with digitalis. Not just a little, either. Tell me he’s not a dealer. Tell me this mixture isn’t getting loose all over town.”

  “He’s a user. And excuse me, Billy, but I gotta get to him before he shoots the stuff—if he hasn’t already.” Columbo bolted into the hall. “Sarge!” he yelled at the first uniformed man he saw.'“Got a black-and-white handy? Gotta make an emergency run, siren and blinky lights!”

  “What’s the deal, Lieutenant?”

  “I’ll tell ya when we’re movin’. Let’s go! We may be too late already.”

  4

  The sergeant didn’t drive Columbo but sent him with two officers in a black-and-white, screaming across the Santa Monica Freeway. This was the kind of police work Columbo did not like. It was too dramatic, too nerve-racking. He sat in the backseat behind the prisoner screen, gnawing on an unlighted cigar.

  They came to a screeching halt on the street in front of the building housing Mickey Newcastle’s flat. An emergency squad wagon coming from the other direction arrived within half a minute. It pulled out, and the paramedics jumped out and followed Columbo to the door, carrying cases of equipment.

  Columbo puffed as he mounted the wooden steps to Newcastle’s door. “I’m gonna knock once. If he doesn’t answer, break down the door. Got it?”

  “Your responsibility, Lieutenant,” said the older of the two officers. “We got no warrant.”

  “Whose responsibility if the guy’s dead?”

  Mickey Newcastle wasn’t dead. He opened the door and stood blinking at the sunlight. “Wha’? Wha’? Lieutenant Columbo! What’s going on?”