“The five hundred a month,” I said. “I think it was blackmail.”
“Maybe it was. But maybe it was a gift. And maybe you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Where would you look?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I keep telling you, I never heard of this lady until you came along, and you’ve been in my hair ever since. You think I’ve been paying her five bills a month for all those years? I make six bills a month. I started at one-twenty-five. My raises come every three years and once in a while the council gives me a little Christmas bonus. I never take it unless my boys get the same. They provide me with this suite of rooms and the Packard, which belongs to the county.” He waved a hand toward the rooms. “And I don’t have a printing press in the back room cranking out C-notes.”
“What do you know about electricity?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I know they use it to kill people back East. A hangman’s knot is a hell of a lot easier. Even gas is kinder.”
“When you get electrocuted everything stops. You heart stops beating, your digestion stops, your brain fries, you stop breathing. Instantly.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”
“Well, maybe I’m wrong, it just seems like an ugly way to dispose of even the most serious felon.”
“Verna Hicks’s lungs were full of water.”
I said it casually, between bites. He looked at me as if to say, So what? Then I watched the sun rise behind his eyes, like dawn crawling over a mountaintop. He looked at his sandwich and then back at me. He put his fork down, got up, walked to the railing, and stared out at the ocean for a minute or so, then turned to face me.
“You sure know how to ruin a guy’s meal,” he said. A growl, almost a whisper.
“You suspect this? That why you been sniffing around up here?”
“It’s my business,” I said.
“It’s my county,” he roared. “If somebody up here killed that lady, whoever did it, they’ll answer to me.”
“It was done on my watch and my beat,” I said firmly. “If somebody up here’s responsible, I intend to send them across.”
His frigid eyes stayed on me.
“I don’t know who killed her,” I went on. “She’s been down five days. You know how that is, every day the trail gets colder. The only clues I’ve got are those checks and a vague description of a guy who was seen in the neighborhood about the time she was dusted.”
It got dead silent.
“Jesus, how I hate murder,” he said. Then after a long pause: “And you say this lady had a decent life?”
“She was happily married and doing great until her husband was ironed out by a hit-and-runner four years ago,” I said, rolling him the cigarette. “She was just getting back on her feet.”
Culhane got up, and walked back to the railing of the deck, and smoked another cigarette silently for a while. I finished my lunch.
“I’ll tell you this,” he said finally, looking me directly in the eyes. “Nobody I know personally is capable of such an act. Or having it done. Take that or leave it.”
“I have a hunch who she is. Or was.”
“Yeah? Who would that be?”
“Lila Parrish.”
Culhane looked stunned. “Lila Parrish?”
“The missing witness from the Thompson case.”
“I know who the hell Lila Parrish is. Where the hell did you come up with that notion?”
“She vanished before the appeal. Then Verna popped up a year later in L.A. with no pedigree. She had four grand in cash, used it to open a bank account. And then there was the five hundred a month. She saved almost all of it, bought a house and occasionally a new car, some antiques. She lived a simple life.”
He stared at me for a long minute, letting that sink in.
“So naturally you figure she was being paid off to drop out of sight.”
“You got a better idea?”
“I don’t think much of that one.”
“Maybe she was having an affair with somebody up here and took a powder, or was paid to,” I said. “Maybe there isn’t any connection with the Thompson case. But I have to find out. The money leads here, and I’ll be here until I arrest the man or woman who killed her or I’m convinced otherwise.”
He smoked the butt almost to his fingers. He flicked the end off it, split the butt down the middle, and dumped the remaining tobacco into the wind. Then he balled the paper into a fly speck and popped it in his mouth.
“That’s the way a Marine does it,” he said, and sat back down and poured us each a cup of coffee.
“How long were you in?” I asked.
“Two months short of sixteen years.” He stared into his cup for a long minute. “It was fine until we went over there. The Western Front was a stinking, bloody burial ground. I lost most of my company in two days. But we got across the river.” Then his lip curled and he repeated the line to himself, low with controlled rage and almost under his breath. “We got across that fucking river.”
In the time I knew Culhane, I rarely heard the sheriff use that word. When he did use it, it was when nothing else was appropriate.
The doorbell rang again and he left the table, returning a few seconds later with a tall, deeply tanned, angular man, over six feet, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a hawk nose, and the saddest eyes I had ever seen. He was wearing a pale gray silk sports jacket and dark gray flannels.
Culhane introduced us. “Sergeant Bannon, this is Ben Gorman.”
Gorman nodded at me and we shook hands.
“Want a drink? Cup of coffee?” Culhane asked.
“No thanks,” Gorman answered. “Isabel’s waiting on the patio. We’re having lunch.” He sat down at the table and looked across at me. “Sorry if I’ve been inhospitable, Sergeant,” he said. He took a folded 81⁄2-by-11 manila envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket, unfolded it, laid it on the table, and slid it in front of me.
I opened the envelope. There were three cashier’s checks inside, made out to Verna Hicks, one dated March the first, 1941. The other two were dated a year or so ago. The signatures on the checks were all the same: Marsha Whittaker.
“Is Miss Whittaker still with the bank?” I asked.
Gorman nodded. “She’ll be there until two.”
“May I talk to her?”
Gorman nodded. “She’s expecting you.”
“Benny, the woman the checks are made out to, Verna Hicks?” Culhane said. “She wasn’t killed in an accident. She was murdered.”
Gorman was stunned. He looked at me and then at Culhane, and said, almost in a whisper, “My God, Brodie, you told me she drowned in her tub.”
“She did, only it wasn’t an accident,” I said. “Somebody shoved her head underwater and held it there until she died.”
A minute passed and nobody said anything. Then Gorman, sounding genuinely upset, said, “You think someone in San Pietro had something to do with this?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Gorman,” I said. “I have a homicide on my hands. Somebody has been giving Verna Hicks five hundred a month for almost twenty years. That money trail leads here. That seems like more than a coincidence, and coincidence makes me nervous.”
“On the other hand, it could have nothing at all to do with her death,” said Culhane.
“Sure,” I agreed. “We have people working a lot of angles in L.A. But right now this is the angle I’m working on. If it’s a dead end, I’ll be the first to admit it.”
“Well,” Gorman said, “I don’t want to keep my wife waiting. Come say hello, Brodie.”
“Of course,” Culhane said. “We’re just wrapping things up.”
I followed the two men down the hall and through the lobby to the patio. Isabel Gorman was indeed the woman in the photo on Gorman’s rolltop. She was as dignified in life as in the photograph, except her black hair was streaked with gray, there were lines around her mouth, and she had the same sorrow reflecting in her br
own eyes as in Gorman’s. She smiled sweetly when she saw Brodie.
“Hello, my dear,” Culhane said, with a softness in his voice I had not heard before. He kissed her hand. She ran it tenderly down his cheek. “Dear Brodie,” is all she said.
Gorman introduced her to me.
“What brings you up here, Sergeant?” she asked innocently.
“It’s a homicide investigation,” Gorman said gently. “Sergeant Bannon thinks the woman may have lived here at one time.”
“Oh?” she said. “What was her name?”
“Hicks,” I said. “Verna Hicks.”
The name made no impression at all. She looked off at the ocean for a minute with her brows bunched together and then she slowly shook her head. “I don’t recall that name,” she said.
“We have to be going,” Culhane said. “Just wanted to say hello.”
“Thank you,” she said, and patted Culhane’s hand, and to me, “Good luck, Sergeant.”
Gorman offered me his hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said.
“My pleasure, Mr. Gorman. Thanks for your help.”
I followed Culhane to the hotel entrance. When we got outside, Rusty was waiting and he offered me a ride to the bank.
“No thanks,” I said. “The walk’ll do me good.”
“Then I’ll walk with you,” Culhane said. We strolled down toward town. The ocean breeze rattled the palm fronds and cut the summer heat. As we entered the park we walked, in silence, toward the beach.
As we neared the far end of the park there was a small marble headstone at the edge of the sidewalk. Someone had put a bunch of wildflowers beside it and a withered apple. The inscription etched into its smooth face said:
cyclone
1897–1936
sorely missed by the people of san pietro
“Who was Cyclone?” I asked.
“A horse,” he said.
“A horse?”
“Everybody in town knew him. He used to jump the fence at the stable and wander downtown looking for a handout. Apples mostly. He loved apples. When he died, the people in town chipped in and bought him the marker.”
We went to the end of the park. Rusty was waiting with the Packard.
“You got a lot of options,” Culhane said as we reached the car.
“Which one do you like?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Take your pick,” he said. He thought for a minute and added, “Just remember this: no matter how it comes out in the end, I’ll be able to look you in the eye and say, ‘I told you so.’ ”
“Now what the hell does that mean?” I asked.
He stared at me for a long time. I think he wanted me to figure it out.
Rusty opened the car door for him.
“It’s about choices, pal,” he said as he got in. “Every time you make one, you close a door and narrow your odds.”
CHAPTER 25
The Chevy was parked by the docks where we had left it. I drove around to the diner but Ski was nowhere to be seen, so I cruised down to the Pacific National.
Marsha Whittaker was a pleasant woman in her early thirties, her blond hair cut in a short bob that emphasized a round face and wide hazel eyes. She was dressed in a pale green sleeveless pinafore. I showed her my badge and mentioned that Mr. Gorman had probably told her about me.
“Oh yes,” she said. “You’re the gentleman interested in the cashier’s checks.”
“Yes, the ones made out to Verna Hicks.”
“Well,” she said, “I really can’t tell you much. My predecessor, Miss Hamilton, died two years ago. I only remember three of them. One was March of this year and the other two were last year.”
“Do you remember who purchased them?”
“I remember two of them. They were both purchased by young women. Very nicely dressed for San Pietro, that’s how come I remember them. The first one, that would have been March 1940, was very pretty. She was wearing a two-piece suit. Light-colored, I think. Maybe beige. She came in, handed me an envelope, and said ‘Will you please take care of this.’ There were five one-hundred-dollar bills and a note to make the check out to Verna Hicks. After I made it out, she put it in a business envelope that was already stamped and addressed, said ‘Thanks,’ and left.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
She hesitated for a minute, fell into deep thought again, then said, “No, I’m sorry.”
“That’s very good,” I said.
“Well, you know, she was . . . different.”
“How about the other one?”
“I remember her a little better, that was only a couple of months ago. She was small like the other girl but very . . . uh . . .”
“Voluptuous?” I tried.
“Thank you,” she said, blushing again. “I think she was probably staying at the Breakers.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She just looked like a tourist, the way she dressed and all, had a very heavy tan so I figured she’d probably been down on the beach. She was very friendly, you know, she smiled the whole time, but she didn’t say anything but ‘Please’ when she handed me the envelope and ‘Thanks’ when I was finished. Oh, and she was wearing sunglasses . . . and she did have a kind of accent, a foreign accent it sounded like. But she didn’t say enough to really tell. And the sunglasses she was wearing had white frames with little red hearts where the earpieces connect to the glasses. And she was wearing mascara. She really didn’t need mascara, she was quite striking. She did the same thing as the other girl. Gave me the envelope and after I made out the check she put it in an addressed envelope. She walked very straight, like a model.”
“Did you ever see either of them again?”
She shook her head. “Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“You’ve been a great deal of help. Thank you very much, Miss Whittaker.”
“Welcome,” she said, and I got up and left.
A Mrs. Higarty at the little Scotsman’s bank added a new dimension. She remembered that one of the checks had been purchased by an Oriental gentleman in workman’s clothes, who had presented her with five hundred dollars and a note to make the check out to Verna Hicks. He had simply nodded when she gave it to him. He, too, had a self-addressed envelope into which he deposited the check as he left. Her office was near the front of the bank and he walked away toward the post office.
I decided it was time to head up the Hill.
I drove around North End Park and past the guard at the entrance to the Hill, hoping he would be on a break, but no such luck. I could see his silhouette through the guardhouse window. There was no way I was going to get by him so I drove to the end of the street, took a left down a tree-lined avenue, and did a double-back to see if I was being followed. The street was empty. I drove around the curvy road until I reached the bottom of Cliffside Road. I sat there for a full five minutes trying to erase that trip down the steep, crumbling road from my mind. Then I got out, moved the sawhorse out of the way, pulled into the road, and put the sawhorse back.
I stayed in first gear and crept up the narrow strip. Rocks and dirt spat from under my rear wheels. I didn’t look sideways at the beautiful view or left to the sheer wall a foot away; my gaze was frozen on the piddling excuse for a road. As I swung slowly around a curve, I saw, maybe ten feet ahead of me, a washout. An eroded arc in the road the size of half a hubcap faced me. I stopped and stared at it, hoping for a miracle. Hoping it would go away. I decided to chance it. There was no way I was going to back down to the bottom of the cliff.
I was two feet from the bite out of the road when I stopped the second time. I set the hand brake and leaned out, judging that the road at that point was a foot narrower. If I hugged the cliff it gave me a one-foot clearance. I released the brake and crawled up to the hole. As I started past it, I felt the car tremble. As the back wheels passed the defective spot, the car began to lurch. My mouth went dry. My throat closed. I turned the wheel inward and stepped on the gas.
I moved the sawhorse, drove through, and put it back. I needed a cigarette. I drove up the road until I could see the gate to Grand View, stopped, and rolled one. My heart was still doing triple time. I counted to twenty as slowly as I could and brought my pulse closer to normal. I finished one butt, rolled another, and as I finished it a grocery truck pulled up to the gate. The driver got out and swung one half of the gate open and drove through. He left it open, so I cranked up and followed him, drove down the long driveway, and pulled around into the parking lot south of the big house.
I checked the car. The side of Louie’s cream puff was going to need some work and the car would need a new paint job.
The wind coming up from the sea rattled the high hedge that bordered the side facing the cliffs. I walked down to the house. On the south side was another hedge, which hid a side door.
Nobody took a shot at me so I went to the front door and rang the bell. Somewhere inside I heard chimes playing the opening bars of “Anything Goes.” I waited and rang again. Nothing.
I stepped back from the door and checked the house. There were no sounds of life. The place was like a sleeping cat. Then the silence was broken by a girl giggling on the north side of the place. I followed the laughter around the corner. A row of rose bushes flanked the north side of the house, the grass was manicured, several palm trees provided pools of shade. On the back side of the house, at the bottom of a low terrace, was an Olympic-size pool with several cabanas on the far side. Tables with gaily colored umbrellas were scattered here and there, and striped canvas beach chairs were lined up facing the sun.
Two of them were occupied.
I strolled down toward them. Two women were sunning themselves on the beach chairs by the pool, whispering to each other and snickering like high-school girls. One was tallish, with a pouty mouth, deep-set eyes, and auburn hair that matched her tan. She was wearing a pair of dark blue cotton shorts. Nothing else. The other one, shorter, slimmer, with perfect breasts, a mischievous grin, and jet-black hair, was wearing a nice tan, period.
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