by Will Rayner
“You’ve got quite a job ahead of you, buster,” T.J. said.
“I agree,” Atherton answered. “Already the volume of work and time required is so unusual and unexpectedly heavy that we are expending most of our resources on this so-called money trail.”
“Are you asking us to lend a hand with this … ah … analysis?” Sam asked warily. Not me, T.J. told himself. I’m not a paper-pusher.
“Most certainly not,” Atherton said. “You are much too useful in other pursuits. The discovery of that Alameda bank by young Thomas here is one example. Now we will endeavor to determine whether it is a repository for all of the Whelan gang’s funds, or just for himself. There is, however, another payoff-connected loose end, if I may use the term, that Flood and Flood can help with. I speak of Sergeant David B. Hockley. Sergeant Hockley was attached to the Harbor District for several years until he quietly applied for retirement two months ago. He is only 51. He had been on the force for 18 years. At the time of his retirement, we had been investigating a protection racket run by Harbor District personnel along the waterfront. Sergeant Hockley’s name was prominent.”
“But no charges have been laid? T.J. asked. “He was just fingered and nothing else.”
“We were just getting ready to recommend that Sergeant Hockley be brought before the grand jury on counts relating to prostitution mainly. Some gambling, a little drug pushing.”
“Horny sailors gotta have some recreation,” T.J. said.
“After Sergeant Hockley was granted his retirement, he dropped out of sight,” Atherton continued. “He has not been seen or heard from for two months. Meanwhile, we started looking into his financial affairs. What we discovered astonished us. Over the past ten years, the sergeant has accumulated more than $100,000. This cash is deposited at several financial institutions.”
Sam Flood whistled. “And these funds are just sitting there?” he asked.
“Most of it. We still haven’t received all the pertinent information. He did clean out the account at his neighborhood bank. Just over twenty $20,000. His wife’s savings account has $18,000 in it. I might add,” Atherton said, “that he purchased a home in the Western Addition three years ago and paid cash for it. He also drives a new-model Ford. That is missing, too.”
“Yeah, I can see why you and the D.A. really, really want to talk to this guy,” T.J. said.
“He certainly has some explaining to do,” Sam added. He knew what was coming next, but waited for Atherton to make the request.
“I would like you to find Sergeant David B. Hockley,” Atherton said. “The district attorney is most anxious to talk to him. And, of course, so am I. We have made preliminary inquiries – talked to his wife, his friends – but we haven’t the time to go any deeper. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.”
Sam looked at his son. T.J. shrugged. “Why not,” he said.
“I’ll look into it,” Sam said. “You can take it easy for a couple of days, Thomas, stick close to the office. Keep an eye out for that woman.”
****
Miss Jane Brown used a hairpin to scrape the dried blood off the joint between the handle and the blade. She wanted the cleaver to be virginal when next it buried itself in flesh. Human flesh. The specks of blood she picked off were animal. Foreign to her purpose, they might taint the human blood which was to come next.
The task done, she carefully wiped her weapon clean and tested the cutting edge with her thumb. Still sharp. The evil one, the old one and that woman. Three sinners waiting for her wrath. After wrapping her weapon and tucking it away under her cot, Miss Jane Brown counted her money. Still enough left to allow her to extract her revenge. After that, she did not care. Her fate would be in the hands of others.
Chapter 24
Sam Flood sat at his desk and reviewed the Hockley file. It contained a photograph of a bland, unsmiling police officer in uniform. Probably taken when he made sergeant, Sam thought. He checked the date. Ten years ago. Hockley would have aged, naturally, so there’d be a few more lines in his face. If Hockley was leading the good life, as suggested, there might be a few more pounds, too. He would be easily recognizable, however.
The jacket contained a commendation for Hockley’s actions during the riot of 1934. He had led a detachment against a mob trying to loot a saloon on Folsom Street near the Embarcadero. That will be one address to check out, Sam thought. The bartender might have a few insights into the good sergeant.
Edwin Atherton had also enclosed a summary of charges contemplated against Hockley. Included were names of potential witnesses: a couple of bartenders; some businessmen; and three females – madams, Sam surmised. Hockley did not appear to have many friends on the force, but Atherton had appended a short list. Would any of these contacts be privy to the sergeant’s plans, Sam asked himself? And would they be willing to talk? Only one way to find out. Shoe leather. The personal information contained a home address on Laguna Street, near Post in the Western Addition. The wife’s name was Thelma. No children.
Sam decided to visit Mrs. Hockley first – this afternoon – and follow up with the other contacts later on, and tomorrow. He put the file into his briefcase and shrugged into his suitcoat. Thomas had already gone for lunch and Agnes Wilkins was eating something out of a bowl at her desk when he asked her to alert the garage to have the Essex standing by. He adjusted his fedora and left, thinking about getting something to eat. There was a small luncheonette on Sansome near Market, just down the street. He stopped there and had a sandwich before continuing on to the garage.
The interview with Mrs. Thelma Hockley was brief and non-productive. Sam didn’t really expect much more. If not quite the grieving widow, she was still worried about her husband. After more than two months, the uncertainty about David’s whereabouts had etched lines in her face. Together, Sam Flood and Thelma Hockley went over the day her husband walked away.
“He just left one morning,” she said. “I’ve told the other policemen this. No special farewell kiss, just a peck on the cheek, like David always did. I thought he was going to work, as usual. I didn’t notice until later that he had packed a bag.”
“How was your relationship, Mrs. Hockley. Had you been having arguments or fights?”
“No, of course not. We were a loving couple. We were very comfortable together.”
Sam asked about any possible relatives that her husband might be visiting. There was only one, Mrs. Hockley said – a married niece living on the East Coast. It seemed unlikely that the sergeant would go all the way across the country to visit a niece. Mrs. Hockley couldn’t think of any friends or colleagues apart from those on the police force.
Thelma Hockley also couldn’t suggest why her husband disappeared, although the expensive furnishings in her front parlor, Sam thought, should have given her a clue about his income. Not many police sergeants could afford that elaborate RCA Victor cabinet radio, or the overstuffed sofa. Denial, Sam told himself as he drove away. He got the impression, also, that Mrs. Hockley was settling comfortably into her new circumstances.
At the saloon on Folsom, Sam told the bartender he was a special police board investigator trying to find Sergeant Hockley. “What can you tell me about him?” he asked
“Sergeant David ‘Pay-Up-Or-Else’ Hockley? Let me tell you, mister, sure, he and his boys rolled up two years ago, saved this joint from being torn apart. Good for him. But the only reason Freeloader Davie did it was to protect his income. If my place got shut down, he couldn’t collect his rake-off any more, not to mention free beer and bratwurst on rye every time he came in.”
“You last saw Sergeant Hockley about two months ago?” Sam asked. The bartender nodded. “Did he mention he was going to take a trip somewhere? Any hints of future plans?”
“Nope. Every now and then, he’d mention the great outdoors. For an egg who loved the great outdoors, he sure spent a lot of time indoors, sucking up my beer and my money.”
“Did he ever give any specifics?” Sam ask
ed. “Favorite hiking or fishing spots?”
“Just the wide open spaces in general,” the bartender said. “I might mention, though, that he was pretty quiet, pretty jumpy mebbe, just before he pulled his fade.”
“Would you say he was nervous or tense, perhaps?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, tense, like something big was coming down.”
Before leaving, Sam consulted his list of addresses. A few of them were close by, so he decided to leave the car parked and walk. At another saloon, the bartender said he never had much conversation with Hockley. “He’d come in, regular-like, pick up the envelope and leave,” the bartender said, “Have a free beer every once in a while.” The owner of a small housewares supply business said he paid his protection to one of the patrolmen, not to Hockley. A nondescript, three-story building on Stewart Street proclaimed itself to be the Pickwick Arms. The front door was locked. A hotel with a locked door? Strange, Sam thought. He found the doorbell and pushed it. After several seconds, the door was opened by a stout, middle-aged woman wearing heavy makeup and a kimono. “We don’t open until eight,” she snapped.
“Miss Wanderley?” Sam asked.
“Mrs. Wanderley.” She looked at Sam appraisingly. “You don’t look like a john,” she said. “You’re either a cop or Packy Shannon sent you to jack up my rent.”
“I’m with the district attorney’s office,” Sam said. “It’s in connection with Sergeant David B. Hockley.”
“Hockley! That rat!” she snorted. “Well, you better come on in. Park your carcass. I’m just making myself a pot of tea. Want some? What’s your name, by the way?”
“Flood. Samuel Flood. No tea, thank you.” He sat down on a plush sofa in the rather ornate waiting room. The woman disappeared through a doorway and returned almost immediately.
“I turned the kettle off,” she said, sitting down in an armchair and adjusting her kimono. “Hockley, eh? They want me to blow the whistle on him, if they ever find the creep?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do – find him,” Sam said.
“Well, I hope you find him face down in a creek somewhere. Not a nice man, even for a flatfoot. Came in regularly in person to collect his payoff, then had himself a freebie with one of my girls. Used to push them around a little bit, now and then, too.”
“Did he ever mention he was … ah … contemplating a change in his lifestyle?”
“You mean, did he ever mention he was going to skip out? Not a peep … except he did suggest around about the last time I saw him that everybody needed a change of scenery now and then. Come to think of it, he seemed a little distracted at the time.”
Sam Flood and Mrs. Wanderley bade each other a pleasant goodbye. “Drop in anytime, Sam dear,” she said, and gave him an elaborate wink.
There was one other madam close by, but she could offer no help. Hockley would meet her at a café on the corner, she said, to do their business. They hardly exchanged a word.
Sam walked back to the Essex, making a few notes. “Wide open spaces.” He thought. Change of scenery. It appeared that Hockley had put some considerable thought into his ‘retirement’.
****
The next morning, Sam discussed the case with T.J. “Mrs. Hockley seemed quite calm about … ah … her bereavement,” he said. “Appears to be adjusting well.”
“Sure she is,” T.J. said. “I’d be kinda calm, too, if I had all those shekels in the bank, like she has. It’s like an insurance policy.”
The elder Flood gave his shoulders a non-committal twitch. “I bet he’s got a mistress somewhere,” T.J. added.
“Could be. One of his victims in his protection racket – a madam – says the sergeant availed himself of her girls on a regular basis.” Sam paused. “She also said he talked about a change of scenery. And a bartender told me Mr. Hockley once mentioned the ‘wide open spaces’.”
“Wide open spaces,” T.J. mused. “That could mean anything. The middle of a cornfield in Kansas. Or out on the briny, with no land around. Maybe he took an ocean voyage. Are the cops looking for his car? It might be parked in front of the P&O pier.”
“That’s a good point, Thomas. I’m not sure whether Atherton ever mentioned that. Call him. And start thinking about your ocean cruise angle. I’m going over to the Harbor District’s precinct house. See if the sergeant’s colleagues have anything to say. They probably won’t talk, but we have to touch all the bases.”
Sam was right. The staff at the precinct house was surly, suspicious and uncooperative. The desk sergeant demanded some identification and insisted on calling to confirm that Mr. Sam Flood was indeed an operative attached to the district attorney’s office. The others responded to his questions with shrugs, monosyllabic answers or mute shakes of their heads.
On his way out, however, Sam was detained by a young patrolman. “Sergeant Hockley liked camping,” he said quietly. “We talked about going together. He liked camping in the foothills. The Sierra foothills. Sometimes along the coast, but mostly the foothills.”
Sam Flood felt a lift. A tingle of accomplishment. This was a serious, positive clue. Something that could be confirmed or substantiated. Thelma Hockley would know exactly where her husband liked to camp. He strode briskly to the Essex and headed for the Western Addition.
Mrs. Hockley, however, was not at home. Nobody answered Sam’s knocks or the ringing of her door bell. The narrow, two-story house felt abandoned. Sam tried to peer into the bay window on the lower floor, but could see nothing.
He sighed. Neighbors. Every investigator worth his salt checked the neighbors. Sam caught the twitch of a window curtain in the home on his right. He walked over. This time, the door was opened promptly. “I need to talk to Mrs. David Hockley,” Sam said.
“She’s gone to Reno,” the slim, elderly lady replied. “It’s all so exciting. Come in and I’ll tell you all about it.” A talker, Sam thought. Detectives loved talkers. He took a seat in the front parlor and listened.
“I am Mrs. Chauncey Kilbride,” the woman said. “Call me Betty. You are …?|
“Mr. Samuel Flood. I am an investigator for the district attorney’s office.”
“My goodness! Even more exciting,” Betty said. “I saw you visit yesterday and I know why. Her husband. Anyway, Thelma – Mrs. Hockley – got a telegram. It was about five o’clock. ‘Meet me at the chapel tomorrow at noon,’ it said. She showed it to me. It was from Reno. Her husband is in Reno! Thelma said the chapel was a wedding chapel. She and her husband were witnesses at his niece’s wedding about five years ago. My goodness, did we rush! I helped her pack – two bags, lovely expensive bags – and we phoned to reserve a berth on the train and she called a taxi and she was gone!”
Bad timing, Sam thought. I could easily have been here when that telegram arrived.
“Did Mrs. Hockley mention the name of the chapel?” he asked.
“No, she didn’t. Why?” Mrs. Chauncey Kilbride’s face fell. “You’re still going after him, aren’t you? I heard Mr. Hockley might have done some bad things, but …” Her voice trailed away.
Sam said goodbye to a slightly deflated neighbor and hurried to his car. He had a little rushing to do himself, if he wanted to catch No. 28 tonight. The Southern Pacific ferry left at 8:20 p.m. Go to the office, go home, eat, pack, reserve a lower berth, catch the ferry to the Oakland Mole.
Chapter 25
Dawn was a sliver of promise in the eastern Nevada sky when Sam Flood got off No. 28 in Reno. He took a cab to the Riverside Hotel. With no lower berth available, he had to suffer through the night in an upper, so a shower and a shave helped to restore him to operational status. Downstairs in the dining room, he had breakfast amidst several lone women taking advantage of the state’s lenient divorce laws. Sam noted a few speculative glances cast his way, but knew the No. 2 traveling suit he was wearing marked him as a gentleman of modest means and therefore not prime husband material.
Breakfast finished, it was time to visit the Washoe County sheriff’s office
. Sam announced himself to a clerk, which led to a grizzled head popping out of an open door. “Sammy Flood!” proclaimed Sheriff Douglas Blaine. “Get your skinny butt in here!” They pumped hands enthusiastically. The two had been good friends for several years, dating back to Sam’s career with the Southern Pacific.
“It’s been a while, Sam,” Blaine remarked after they had seated themselves. “Private eye dodge agrees with you, from the looks of it. What brought you back to my neck of the woods? Business, I suppose.”
“Monkey business,” Sam said. He gave his old friend a brief summary of the corruption investigation in San Francisco and said he was looking for a patrol sergeant named David B. Hockley. “He started feeling the heat a couple of months ago and skipped town. Then, two days ago, he wires his wife to meet him ‘at the chapel’ in Reno.”
“Chapel as in wedding chapel?” Blaine said.
“Apparently, Hockley and his wife were witnesses at his niece’s wedding here about five years ago. So—”
“So you want some help finding the right wedding chapel,” the sheriff said. “Well, we don’t get as many marriages as quickie divorces these days, but there are a few of them downtown.”
He swiveled around and selected the city’s commercial register from a bookcase. “Okay, wedding chapels,” he mumbled, flipping the pages. “Here we are.”
“They’ve got to be at least five years old,” Sam said.
“Right.” Blaine slowly wrote four names and addresses on a notepad, thinking about each one beforehand. “These are the established ones downtown,” he said, handing the sheet to Sam. “There are a few more, but you can get started with these. You’ll want a taxicab, I suppose.”
He walked Sam out to the reception area. “Shelley, call a cab for Mr. Flood,” he said. “Now, Sammy, you come back to me, you hear, whether you need more help or not. We’ve got to have a good chin-wag. Supper with me and the missus, maybe.”
****
