by Bill Bernico
It was the freestanding eight-by-ten photograph of a woman that caught my eye. I picked up the frame and studied the full-length picture of a woman that I’d seen earlier today. I pulled a similar picture from my pocket and held it up alongside this one. I called Hollister over to have a look.
“Where’d you find those two pictures?” Dan said.
I held the framed one out. “This was sitting on that table,” I said. I held the other one next to the framed shot and added, “And this one I got at a photo processing studio this morning.”
“What?” Hollister said. “How’s that possible? I’ve heard of coincidences but this is way too spooky.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And now some of this is starting to make sense.”
“Which part makes sense?” Dan said. “You lost me, Cooper.”
I laid the two pictures on the table and then withdrew the head shot I’d found in Chamberlain’s bed springs next to them. Dan looked at all three photos and pointed at the last one.
“This obviously came from this one,” he said, pointing to the full-length picture I’d gotten from Photogenesis. “Probably cropped and blown up but it’s the same woman, same pose.”
“Right,” I said. “Now look at this one.” I pulled Felix Chamberlain’s mug shot out—the one of him dressed as a woman—and laid it next to the others. Hollister’s eyes widened.
“What the hell?”
I held the mug shot next to the head shot of Thelma Horn and paused for effect. Hollister looked at me with a puzzled look on his face.
“I found this one,” I said, picking up Horn’s head shot, “wedged under Chamberlain’s bed springs, which led me to the photo shop, where I got this one.” I picked up the full-length shot. “From what I could tell, Chamberlain was using Horn’s picture as a model for when he made himself up as a woman. They could pass for twins except for the Adam’s apple and the surprise package that the killer found when he got in Chamberlain’s pants.”
“I see,” Hollister said. “But why kill Horn?”
I threw all the photos back down on the table. “The way I see it, the killer probably started with Chamberlain after his initial shock and may have moved on to your second victim, Carl Hastings.”
“We don’t know that the two are connected at this point,” Hollister said.
“And finally,” I said, continuing my theory, “He finds Thelma Horn and lets her have one in the chest. The only thing that’s not clear to me is the why. Maybe because when he saw Horn he thought he was seeing Chamberlain’s double and something snapped inside him again, I don’t know. But I do know that there are too many things that seem connected and a lot of other things that don’t make a lot of sense.”
The patrolman that was outside talking with the neighbor came into the house and found Hollister.
“Sir,” the cop said, “You might want to come outside and take a look.”
Hollister followed the cop out to the porch where two men from Walsh’s office were loading Thelma Horn’s body onto a stretcher. When they moved the body away, the patrolman stepped out onto the porch and pointed to a hole in the doorframe. Hollister took a closer look and fished around in his pants pocket for his jackknife.
Dan cut a few pieces of the frame away, revealing a large caliber bullet. When he’d shaved away enough wood, he gripped the slug and pulled it out of the frame. He held it up to get a better look at it.
“A .45,” he said, handing me the slug.
I looked at it closely and handed it back to Dan. “My guess is that when you run it through ballistics that it’ll match the one taken out of Carl Hastings and you’ll have your first solid connection. Now all we gotta do is find the slug that tore through Chamberlain and the gun it came from and…”
“And what,” Dan said. “We’re still missing one piece—the killer himself.” He looked at me. “Cooper, why don’t you drive me back to my office?” He turned to the cop he’d ridden here with and told him to stay put and secure the scene. The two of us got in my car and headed back downtown.
As we were walking into the station we could see a group of maybe five or six cops gathered outside of one of the doors at the end of the hall. As we got closer one of the cops turned and saw us coming. The men straightened up visibly when Sergeant Hollister stopped.
“What’s going on here?” he asked one of the cops.
The cop hiked his thumb at the closed door. “In there. They brought in Victor Hicks for assault. He hit a cop on the street and this could be the one that sends him back to San Quentin.”
“Come on, Matt,” Hollister said, leading me into the interrogation room. On one wall there was a glass panel looking into the inner room. It was a one-way mirror that allowed us a view in without letting the suspect see out. Dan held one finger up toward me. “Wait here. I’m going in.”
Victor Hicks sat at a table, his hands folded in front of him like some innocent choirboy. He had a cocky smirk on his face and kept staring straight ahead. I knew he couldn’t see me, but it was unnerving just the same to look into his eyes from my angle. There was a detective talking to Hicks while Dan stood near the door observing. When there was a break in the interrogation, Dan motioned the detective over and they huddled in the corner. When the huddle broke, the detective left the room and Dan took up a position opposite Hicks.
“Looks like your playmates will have to do without you for a while,” Dan said.
Hicks kept staring straight ahead, still silent.
“Yes, sir,” Dan went on. “By the time you get out again you’ll be able to join your buddies for an action-packed game of Canasta while the nurses change your diapers. That is IF you ever get out again.”
Still the silent treatment from Hicks.
Dan came around the table a stood at Hicks’ side and leaned down to whisper in his ear. We couldn’t hear what he told Hick from where we stood, but whatever it was, it hit a nerve. Hicks slammed both palms down on the table with enough force to crack walnuts.
“You can’t do it,” Hicks insisted.
“Can’t I?” Dan said. “Just watch me.” He headed for the exit and had his hand on the knob when Hicks relented.
“All right, you win. Whaddya wanna know?”
Dan turned back to Hicks. “Just hold on.” He came back into the outer room and whispered something to the detective, who immediately returned to the interrogation room.
Dan turned to me and winked.
“What’d you say to Hicks to get to him?” I said.
Dan smiled. “I told him we were bringing his mother in as an accomplice for harboring a criminal. After he hit that cop he ran home to his mother’s house like some scared little boy. They took him out of there by force this morning and left mom behind. I just used her for leverage. You just gotta know which buttons to push.”
We watched the detective through the glass for a few minutes before he exited the room again. He looked over at Dan and crooked a finger.
“Hang on a minute,” Dan said, joining the detective.
The two of them returned to the interrogation room and stood across from Hicks. The detective looked at Hicks and said, “Tell the sergeant what you told me.”
Hicks looked up at Dan, hesitated and looked over at the detective, who gave him a nod. Hicks took a deep breath.
“Look,” Hicks began, “You leave ma out of this and I’ll give you what you need to crack that Griffith Park killing.”
Dan straightened up, turned around and motioned me into the interrogation room. I joined him and the detective, closing the door behind me.
Dan turned back to Hicks. “Go on. You were talking about the Griffith Park killing. What do you have?”
Hicks leaned back in his chair, his confidence back now. “You want the shooter, don’t you? Well, I can give him to you on a platter.”
“And what do you want for this information?” Dan said.
“You drop that Mickey Mouse assault charge and I walk.”
“Now w
ait a minute,” Dan started to say.
“Take it or leave it,” Hicks said and looked away.
Dan and I exchanged glances. Dan turned back to Hicks. “Deal. Now spill it. Who shot the woman in the park?”
“Woman?” Hicks said, laughing. “That’s a good one.”
“Okay,” agreed, “Who shot the victim?”
“Mario Currey, “Hicks said. “He thinks none of us heard about his little surprise package, but we knew. We didn’t let on we knew ‘cause Mario would have shot us all if we’ve have even snickered one little bit, but we knew. What a putz. How can you not know the broad’s not a broad?”
“You sure about this?” Dan said. “What’s Mario carrying these days?”
“He still carries that cannon he brought home from the war, his Army .45 and that’s a lot of firepower even for him.”
I stepped forward and leaned in toward Hicks. “And where’s Mario now?”
Hicks looked toward Hollister. “Who’s this schmuck?”
I grabbed Mario’s collar and pulled him toward me. “I’m the schmuck who’s gonna smash your face in if you don’t talk. See?” I released his collar and he bounced off the back of his chair.
Dan held an arm across my chest. “Come on, Matt, he co-operating with us, See? Now lay off him and let him finish his story.”
Hicks straightened his lapels and shrugged. When he spoke, it was to Dan. “He’s over at Hiram’s Bar right now.”
“And is he still carrying,” Dan said.
Hicks laughed. “He sleeps with that cannon. He’s not gonna come quiet-like, if that’s what you’re askin’.”
“And what’s he driving,” I said.
Hicks ignored me and spoke to Dan again. “He’s drivin’ a blue Olds sedan, last year’s model. Don’t ask me the plate number, ‘cause I don’t know it. But you can recognize it by the dual exhaust with chrome extenders. Only one like it in town.”
“What’s he look like?” I asked but still got no response from Hicks.
“Never mind,” Dan said. “He’s been in here so often I’d recognize him on sight.”
Dan straightened up and slapped me on the arm. “Let’s go, Matt.” He turned to the detective. “Keep an eye on our boy until I get back. Don’t let him go nowhere.”
Dan and I hurried back to the front desk where he told the desk sergeant to radio for backup and to have them meet us at Hiram’s Bar in ten minutes. We walked back out to my Chrysler and hurried off to catch a killer. A few minutes later I eased the Chrysler to the curb and we stepped out into the street. Two cars ahead of us we spotted a blue ‘46 Oldsmobile sedan and checked the exhaust pipes. They were chrome and there were two of them sticking out from under the car. Dan motioned me toward Hiram’s front door. We both drew our guns and held then concealed at our sides.
The bar was poorly lit and it took our eyes a moment to adjust. We walked the length of the bar, checking the patrons. At the far end of the bar Dan spotted Mario Currey nursing a beer and looking bored. When he looked up and saw Dan, he bolted for the back door.
“Halt,” Dan said, raising his gun. “Police.”
Mario hadn’t even made it to the back door when his hand reached into his coat just as he turned toward us. His fist was wrapped around a huge .45 and it was pointed at us.
“Drop it, Currey,” Dan yelled, firing almost simultaneously with Currey.
Currey’s shot nicked Dan’s jacket, tearing the fabric but missing flesh altogether. Dan’s .38 slug found center mass in Currey’s chest and the big man went down in a pile on the floor. I hurried over and stepped on Currey’s wrist. His fingers opened and the .45 fell out of his grip. I kicked the gun away.
Dan knelt next to Currey, who was having trouble breathing. “Why?” Dan asked.
Even with death looming over him, Mario Currey seemed embarrassed to face the fact that he’d been duped by a phony woman. He looked away from Dan’s gaze and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. I looked at Dan and he just shrugged. Mario’s fingers relaxed and his eyes stared off into space. His labored breathing ceased and that was that.
Dan stood and turned back toward the bar. There was a bald bartender leaning over the bar, trying to see what was going on in the back room. Half a dozen patrons had gathered at the end of the bar, staring at Mario’s body. Dan asked the bartender where his phone was and the bartender pointed to a wall phone on the opposite side of the room. Dan called the station and asked for a supervisor to meet us as the scene. He also asked for the crime lab and the medical examiner. Dan hung up the phone and looked at the bartender.
“No one goes back there before the other cops get here, got it?”
The bartender nodded and came out from behind the bad to stand guard over the back room while Dan and I went back out to the street to take a closer look at Currey’s Olds. He went around to the driver’s side and pulled the door open. I opened the passenger’s door.
“Don’t touch anything inside,” Dan warned. “We need to have the lab go over this car with a fine tooth comb.”
I turned my head toward the passenger’s seat and noticed a small smear near the crease of the seat. It looked like blood that someone had tried to clean up. They hadn’t done a very good job of it. Down where the seat back met the seat cushion, I saw the tip of something winking out at me. I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and pulled. It was a fake fingernail. I handed it to Dan without comment.
I also saw a hole in the leather seat back. I opened the back door and looked at the back of the seat. There was no hole. I peered over the seat.
“It’s a safe bet that the slug that tore through Chamberlain is still in there,” I said to Dan.
He looked back at me. “Come on, Cooper, close it up and wait for the lab boys.”
Before we could go back inside, another squad car and an unmarked detective’s car pulled up in front, their red lights flashing. Captain Rogers stepped out of one of the cars and walked over to where we stood.
“Sergeant,” the captain said. “What did you find?”
Hollister pointed to the Oldsmobile sedan. “We believe this is the car that the first victim was killed in at the park. There’s a hole in the passenger’s seat and there’ll probably pull a .45 slug out of it. Chances are it’ll match the slugs from the Carl Hastings and Thelma Horn killings. The killer is inside…dead.”
The captain followed us inside and we relayed the story to him ending with the shootout in the back room.
“Good work, sergeant,” the captain said.
I cleared my throat, prompting Hollister to respond, “Matt helped with the investigation, too, captain.”
The captain nodded and turned his attentions to the body lying on the floor in the bar. He told the bartender to clear the place out and make room for the rest of the cops and lab personnel who were coming shortly.
I looked at a hole in the wall that lined up directly with where Dan had been standing during the shootout. It was a hole big enough for a .45 slug to hide. I motioned to Dan to come have a look.
“Leave it for the lab boys,” Dan said. “It’ll confirm what we already know about Currey being the one who shot those other three with his .45 these past few days.”
The captain walked over to where Dan and I stood. “Dan,” he began. “I checked with records and it turns out the second shooting was not a random act. Turns out Carl Hastings was also dating Chamberlain. We think that Currey was afraid that Chamberlain and Hastings might eventually compare stories about some of their dates and he didn’t want anyone knowing that he’d kissed a man who was dressed like a woman.”
“Now it makes sense,” Dan said.
I stepped up. “All this makes sense? What sense does killing three people make to anyone?”
“Well not sense in the manner of speaking,” Dan explained. “What I meant to say was that it now ties everything together. No, none of these killing make sense. I mean is a little embarrassment worth blowing someone’s head off?”
“Oh Dan,” I said. “The whole world’s going to hell in a hand basket. Imagine what it’ll be like fifty or sixty years from now. They’ll probably let two men or two women get married legally.”
“That’ll never happen,” Dan said. “I mean even that’s taking things too far. Society has better sense than that, don’t you think?”
“Who knows?” I said. “I’m just glad I won’t be around to see it.”
“You and me both,” Dan said. “You and me both.”
20 - The Big Sweep
I’d just parked my Olds and was walking toward my office on the boulevard. It was a crisp fall day and the temperature was still in the high seventies. My office was on the third floor of the Schuessler Building and had been since I’d left the police department several years earlier. I was still a block from my building when my stomach reminded me that I’d neglected to eat before I’d left the house this morning. I decided to fill it before I started my day.
Otis’s Cafe’ faced Hollywood Boulevard near the corner of Cahuenga. I found a seat at the counter and grabbed a menu from behind the napkin holder. Otis peeked out from over the order window.
“Matt,” he said, smiling. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What’s going on?”
“Morning, Otis,” I said, setting the menu down. “Just on my way to work. Hey, I heard you’re going to open a send cafe’ soon. Movin’ up in the world, eh?”
Otis beamed with pride. “Yeah, who knows? It could lead to a chain someday. But for now I’m just going to worry about two of them. What are you having this morning, Matt?”
I picked up the menu again and found what I wanted. “Just a couple of eggs, over easy, toast, bacon and coffee.”
“You got it,” Otis said, jotting down my order and sticking it on the spinning slip holder.
As I waited for my food, I found a copy of this morning’s paper lying on the counter and picked it up. I turned to the second section, hoping to see an article about the renovation of my building that I’d heard about second hand from another tenant. It was there below the fold but didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t already heard through the grapevine. Above that article I found an interesting piece about a hit and run accident that had occurred several days earlier on Western Avenue, just a block south of Sunset. A twenty-seven year-old man had been run down by a dark sedan. Passersby couldn’t give a reliable description of the car, most of them saying that it happened so fast and that the car had sped away immediately after hitting the man. It went on to say that the man had been taken to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition.
