Pretty City Murder

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Do you know who made the call?” Dempsey snapped.

  “No, but it’s a credible warning that should be taken seriously.”

  “Request denied. I need more to go on than that.”

  “But, sir, I think...”

  “Denied. Talk to me tomorrow when I’m not busy and when you’ve got something more to go on.”

  Click.

  Larry searched for an alternative.

  It’s a bad moment, not a bad future.

  The phone beeped and vibrated a third time.

  “Leahy.”

  “Larry, Ortiz is at Central.”

  Another arrest will help my chances for the promotion.

  “Good. I wasn’t expecting three men in the garage. O’Hara said Smith was by himself.”

  “Did you ask O’Hara about that?” Hieu inquired.

  “He wasn’t in his office.”

  Without knowing why, Larry thought of a story in the Journal of the Police Officers Association. “Yesterday, I saw something about the murder rate. It’s doubled over the last year.”

  “Not the results we’ve been working for.”

  “Before you became an inspector, I investigated the murder of a Catholic priest by a religious fanatic who claimed the priest molested him. Some of these claims are bogus, and this one was.”

  Larry shifted on the front seat.

  “Notice how balmy it is? It never rains in summer.”

  “I know. It’s dark, very dark outside,” Hieu responded.

  Larry saw a crow feeding on some scraps.

  It flew off as his vehicle approached.

  Chapter 2

  Thursday, July 4

  “You look gorgeous.”

  A Gucci handbag with tiger-head clasp allowed one hand to rest on the braided chain stretching from one end of the purse to the other. Inside a lipstick-red, silk-georgette dress was the body of a former ballerina. The high collar couldn’t hide a neck that was long enough to reach the canopy of a rainforest.

  Clare O’Hara smiled delicately and glided over to the nineteenth- century French gilt mantle clock.

  “Good. It keeps time.” She turned to face her husband of twenty-seven years. “I have a luncheon date at the Olympic Club. Three ladies and me.”

  O’Hara squinted to see the hands on the dial. “Enjoy yourself. I’m having lunch with Larry Leahy.”

  “Good. I meant to ask you how he’s doing. Why don’t we see him more often?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He walked her to second set of doors, where they kissed, and she said, “I love your long eyelashes. I want to lick them.” She turned toward the elevators and was gone.

  O’Hara faced his busty blond secretary, Anita Keck. Her smile was bright white, her ocean-green eyes politely dopey.

  “Mr. Fletcher called.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He said he has a report.”

  “Get him in here.” O’Hara plopped down in his executive chair and swung around to get a look at the improving weather.

  Fletcher entered the office.

  “Well?” O’Hara said, still looking out his window.

  “Mr. O’Hara, I saw Maureen Daley enter the building about thirty minutes ago.”

  O’Hara swung around. “What!”

  “Sir, I’m just doing what you told me to do.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Twelfth floor.”

  “Forget you saw her.”

  O’Hara waited for Fletcher to exit before he got up.

  What is she doing in Cornelius’ apartment?

  He lifted the master key off a hook inside a deep drawer and squinted.

  Eleven thirty.

  “Keck, I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Call me on my cell phone if you need me.”

  At Cornelius’ door he pushed the key in quietly and stood motionless in the entry hall.

  Voices came from the kitchen.

  “Thank you for this and everything.”

  “The Solano Adop...Adoption Agency did everything. I think they’re great.”

  “And make sure you thank your sister for me. Her five children are growing up so fast,” Maureen added.

  O’Hara looked for a place to put his cigar and stuffed it inside his pants pocket.

  “I spend mornings with them, but not today, because a po...police officer visited me. The other children, you know, the three who aren’t adopted, they are...are gone already. I’m glad I made it out of parents’ house. I have Mr. O’Hara to thank for that.”

  Yes, you do.

  “No, you earned this apartment, Cornelius! Oh, you have a spot on your shirt. Let me get a sponge.”

  Water began running.

  “There. The spot came out.”

  As she emerged from the kitchen, O’Hara stepped out of the entry hall.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “James!”

  “Outside.”

  Maureen followed James out the door.

  “James, I can explain.”

  “I don’t want to hear an explanation. You went behind my back. You’ve got to be more discreet. Clare was here minutes ago. What’s that?”

  In an open Gump’s box with a silver ribbon hanging off was a glittering female figurine, the color of hoar frost touched by blue sky.

  “Just something Cornelius gave me. Limoges. Don’t I get a kiss?”

  “I smell vermouth on your breath.”

  “Cornelius and I had a little drink. I feel bloated.”

  Her hand came out from a blue fox bomber jacket and massaged her stomach.

  “I’ll talk to you later. Larry Leahy and I are having lunch in the bar. You make sure you’re out of the hotel before he arrives.” O’Hara turned, trooped to the elevators, and didn’t look back.

  O’Hara found a bar stool next to a girl with long, wavy, yam-colored hair. From where he was sitting, he had a view of the door and a sign on the door window announcing the bar was open every day from ten in the morning to ten at night.

  When he saw Larry, he told the girl to scoot. Larry wore a black jacket, white shirt, and tie.

  O’Hara smiled and pointed at the hipster boxes lined up on one side of the bar beneath medicine-bottle blue stain glass, which kept the bar appropriately dim for a private seminar and liquid lunch. “Got a row of them. Apple computers impress the younger crowd. You wouldn’t know about that.”

  He signaled the bartender and then wrapped his big arms around Larry, whose arms hung at his side. “What would you like to drink?”

  Larry looked around O’Hara and said, “Just a coke, young lady.”

  O’Hara let go and said, “He’s on the clock, Doogan.”

  She said, “Whom do I have the pleasure of serving?”

  O’Hara spoke to Larry’s round face, “This is Inspector Leahy, illustrious member of the San Francisco Police Department. When he’s around, don’t say cops.”

  Larry stepped back as if he were assessing a criminal.

  “Have a seat, Larry.”

  He pointed his cigar at the stools. They stood there briefly, waiting for each other to make the first move.

  Doogan filled Larry’s glass with ice. A beverage dispensing gun and maraschino cherry finished it off. O’Hara noticed her eyes looking keenly at Larry. “She’s the only broad around here who can speak to me without peeing in her pants – surprising because she’s in here all day. Now get your eyes off Inspector Leahy. He’s happily married.”

  “I’m just being friendly, the way I am with all the cops who come in here.”

  “What?” Larry asked.

  O’Hara turned his big head back toward Larry and said, “Cops come in here all the time to relax...after work. Sometimes, I think you’ve got blinders on. Doogan, someone wants a drink down at the other end of the bar.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Doogan.”

  She headed for two three-piece suits.

  “We’ve got a few things to discuss,” Larry sai
d.

  He sat down on a bar stool, and O’Hara sat on his.

  “Do we? Let’s not get too detailed. I’ll order lunch.” O’Hara pulled out his cell phone and called the restaurant, which was behind the bar.

  “Two New York steaks.”

  “I found Smith in the garage and two others, one Morales and one Ortiz. Ortiz was arrested.”

  “What happened?”

  “What I want to know is why you forgot to mention Morales and Ortiz.”

  “Nobody said anything about the other two.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, believe it. It’s good to see you, Larry. Clare asked about you.”

  “How is she?”

  “Fine. Aren’t you going to ask about me?”

  “How are you, James?”

  “I’m getting enough. What about you?”

  “You’re so charming.”

  “I am, they say.”

  They sipped.

  O’Hara savored the smell of his cognac and picked up his Padrone Maduro cigar.

  “So, I’m hearing Harry Duncan is retiring,” Larry said.

  “Can you believe the balls on that guy? His father expands his dental practice just for Harry, only to lose him to Wall Street six months after the office remodel is complete. Smart move, though. Harry made more money in the week before retirement than his old man ever found in forty years of fitting his five fingers into some jerk’s mouth.”

  He felt his belly shaking with laughter and patted Larry on his head. “Your head looks like a snowball.”

  Larry was silent.

  “Speaking of retiring rich, Quigley played doubles with a widow who was wealthy enough for him to quit his job as a tennis pro. Of course, that meant that he had to quit the first wife, too.”

  No reaction from Larry.

  Jazz music from a sound system installed when the bar was remodeled filled the silence. Eight micro ceiling speakers spread the sound evenly throughout the bar, and he was pleased. The voices of patrons mixed it up.

  O’Hara smelled his own husky scent, and he liked that, too.

  Behind them, small tables began filling up under a low ceiling that was lit with the same medicine-bottle blue color as the windows. He liked that even more.

  He grabbed Larry’s arm. Larry pulled away, lifting his coke in an automatic reaction. Some splashed out on his harlequin tie.

  Larry turned towards the door and asked, “What’s that for?”

  An opaque, plastic covering hung from the lobby ceiling to the floor.

  “That monstrosity. It’ll be down in a day or two. I think the workmen sip coffee all day long.”

  “I’m sure they’re working hard.”

  “Like city employees?”

  O’Hara could see Larry’s eyes quietly and carefully focused on him from above the rim of his glass. “You know, the Jesuits taught me one thing. Get to the top.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Larry, we’ve had different careers. Yours is to catch the guilty. Mine is to give them a place to hide or sleep it off.”

  “Your hotel isn’t that sort of place. I doubt there are any broken window shades or radiators or bathrooms with pink and green tile.”

  Although the Greenwich was built not long after the 1906 earthquake, it had been updated frequently and had a modern feel. To O’Hara, it was dark and comfortable.

  O’Hara grabbed a napkin and said, “Sign it.”

  “What?”

  “Put your signature on it.”

  Larry pulled a pen from his black jacket and signed the napkin as it slid around and began to tear.

  “Just as I remember it. Girlish penmanship.”

  But O’Hara had something important to discuss with his friend of fifty-three years.

  They had met in first grade of Star of the Sea Catholic School. Both had lived on Fifth Avenue, but O’Hara wasn’t about to point out that he had lived on the correct side of Lake Street, where hired gardeners maintained long-branched trees only found in the better neighborhoods.

  “Did you see the newspaper and the obituary?”

  “I did,” Larry answered.

  “Ever meet this guy?”

  “No. Every few years, I’d go to the police archives and read the report.

  “What did he look like?” O’Hara asked out of the corner of his eye as he lifted his glass.

  “The mugshot was taken by the FBI. Martin Flaherty was twenty-three years old and a high school drop-out. The record showed that my dad planned the bank robbery, and Flaherty and your dad went along. Flaherty was a big fellow, six feet five inches, brown hair, small forehead, blue-gray eyes, clean-shaven, single. They got to know each other at a bar way out in the avenues. Flaherty was no schoolboy.”

  “Say that again.”

  Larry raised his voice and said, “From the ears, he looked like he’d been in the ring more times than he should have.”

  “Did he work somewhere?”

  “Unemployed and died in prison.”

  “Well, dad stopped drinking after he got out of San Quentin.”

  “Mine, too”

  Larry raised his glass. Ms. Doogan was quick, and her sway from the other end of the bar made him chuckle. “Fifty-four years ago. A lot has happened since then.”

  O’Hara tapped the slick wood. “Count them as they ticked by?”

  O’Hara grabbed a glass and told Doogan to fill it with crushed ice and Gatorade. A swig chilled his throat like limey gin slush.

  “No, I didn’t count them out. I just know.”

  They looked at each other.

  “It wasn’t my dad or yours who killed the cop.”

  “I know that,” O’Hara said and looked away.

  “Ralph’s father, good old Henry, was good to us.”

  O’Hara faced Larry again. “Ralph’s family and the Tobin’s, even Angus, my grand uncle, wrote out affidavits of support for my parents. My adoption came just weeks before the robbery, and there was doubt about Mom and Dad keeping me. The affidavits, especially the one from Angus, the bank president, made the adoption stick.”

  “Good old Henry did a lot for us.”

  “You’re referring to my bachelor’s from USF and masters from Berkeley in the new field of computers. When my Dad got out, he said, ‘go into the computer business’, and you remember how good I was at math, so I switched majors.”

  “First, you went to IBM, then Xerox, then you opened your own copier company.”

  O’Hara interrupted, “Xerox had their technicians in the field day and night because their printers were breaking down all the time, but as you know, or maybe not, their name became synonymous with copiers.” He swallowed. “Fantastic bit of marketing. I wish I could get the Greenwich to be another Xerox...in the hotel industry.”

  “You sold the business and...“

  “No. Before that. The burger joints were springing up next door to each other, and it gave me an idea. Fight the big guys. So, I captured the rights to patents in the copying process. Bought them up and kept the raiders away. Henry’s lawyers came in handy. The rest is too complicated for you to understand.”

  “Your pride is deserved. I had to get a job to marry the wife.”

  “Well, never mind.” O’Hara gripped both sides of his glass. “You got a good wife.”

  O’Hara heard concealment in Larry’s laughter and said, “My dad redeemed himself.”

  “Sure. He got rich selling real estate.”

  “Nope. It’s true that Henry hired him, but it was dad who had the get up and go.” O’Hara looked into the dimmest corner of the room. “That’s our only family resemblance. He’s dead and not missed. Never mind. We were never in danger of losing the house when he went to prison. The Tobin money and the O’Shaughnessy money prevented that.”

  “Mm. I forgot your mom’s name was O’Shaughnessy. What an engineer her father was. City employee, too.” Larry beamed.

  “Uh-huh. When your dad went to the po
key, the Dolores Heights home was sold.”

  “So, what. Henry searched and finally found the house on Fifth Avenue.”

  “Your mom had to go to work.”

  Both sipped.

  “I saw Ralph at Mass this morning.”

  “You still go every day?”

  “Of course.”

  Larry thinks he’s a saint.

  “Father Ralph, now there’s a success story. Dean of Arts and Sciences at USF. Henry would have been proud of that.”

  “I don’t know. How’s Cornelius?”

  “He’s fine. One thing old Henry failed to do was get my dad into the Bohemian Club or the Olympic Club. He didn’t try very hard. My dad was back in the good graces of the Tobin’s and MacKenzie’s, so there was no reason for that failure. Right before dad died, I took him to dinner one last time at the Bohemian, and we ignored the Tobin’s.”

  “Back to Cornelius. Did you know he got a phone call saying his life was in danger?”

  “No,” said O’Hara, rolling the liquid at the bottom of his glass with unconcern. “But I’m not surprised.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You think you meet a lot of crazy people in your line of work? Try a couple of shifts at the Greenwich. Some guests come here to meet someone else, and they don’t want to be found out.” O’Hara leaned in a little closer. “Sometimes, they want to be somebody else, and the time spent here is their only chance to play pretend. Sheets tell the story. Language changes so fast now-a-days I can’t keep up, but you probably know what each letter of these sexual acronyms represents.”

  “Yes, I know most of that.”

  O’Hara continued. “I’ve trained my staff to be discreet and avoid conversations with these weirdos, but they probably end up as imaginary characters in some guy’s weird fantasies, and ‘baby’ isn’t what you think it is. Someone has to do this job.” O’Hara paused and gave Larry a grin that felt sly. “Don’t tell me that no one ever calls in threats to Central because they’re tired of sitting around in underwear and bored out of their minds.”

  “We still have to make sure the warning isn’t credible. And Ralph made it sound serious.”

  “Was Ralph on the line as well?” O’Hara asked. “How would he know?”

  “Cornelius told Ralph that he didn’t recognize the caller, but, whoever called, the warning may be real.”