City of Dark Corners

by Jon Talton

  “No,” she said, slipping back in bed.

  He hadn’t returned since I nearly caught him outside Victoria’s house.

  She said, “I took the note we received in Prescott, which matched the love letters, and went to headquarters while the detective pool was empty. I pulled one of the case files Frenchy worked on. The writing doesn’t match.”

  “Damn.”

  “Another man is involved,” she said. “Carrie got around. She was living a double life. And she was making a hell of a lot more money than I did when I was her age. Maybe more than now.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I was still itching to get off first base. Evidence was gone. I felt no nearer to closing the case than a month ago. My other private eye business was dead. It was time to start eliminating suspects. I started at the beginning with Tom Albert, Carrie’s former boyfriend.

  I caught him coming out of classes, flashed my badge, and walked him toward my car.

  He protested. “What’s this about? I’ve got practice in half an hour.”

  When we reached the Ford, I braced him against the fender and put his arms behind him. Then I slapped on the cuffs tight.

  He let out a yelp. “You can’t do that! I’m a student.”

  “Shut up.” I shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  Overlooking the shady campus to the north was Tempe Butte. Whitewashed rocks formed the letter T for the Tempe State Teachers College. Until 1925, it had been an N for the Normal School. Maybe soon they’d get around to an A for the latest name change.

  I drove in that direction up Mill Avenue, then pulled off a little south of the flour mill and railroad spur. Tom was so nervous that even my setting the brake made him jump. That was what I was after. His apprehension grew when I shed my suit coat, revealing my shoulder holster.

  “Let’s go.” I dragged him out and stood him up, then led him by the cuffs from behind toward the bare rocky prominence. His complaints were drowned out by the mill sounds until we were a hundred yards away and climbing.

  “What do you want, Pops?”

  I said nothing, pushing him on and up.

  We reached a primitive trail that led to the top of the butte. My hope was that no students were up here smoking and drinking, requiring an explanation that I didn’t want to give. A lie that could come back and bite me. So far, we were alone.

  “Carrie,” I said. “I want to know everything.”

  He briefly turned his head toward me and stumbled. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  His voice was choking back panic. “I don’t understand, Pops.” I repeated my demand and told him if he called me “Pops” one more time, I was going to kick him to death.

  That got his attention. “We dated for a few months, okay?” he said. “I met her when she modeled in art class. We went out, became steadies, then she broke up with me. That’s all, I swear.”

  “Why did she break up with you?”

  “I dunno. Who knows why girls do anything?”

  “Did it have anything to do with you selling cocaine?”

  “What? No! That was all a mistake.”

  I shoved him hard. “You’re no student, Tom. You’re a criminal. Where did you get the cocaine, and who did you sell it to?”

  He struggled to keep his footing.

  “Chinatown,” he said. “I bought it there and sold it to a few students. I needed the money. It didn’t hurt anybody. I don’t know why that’s a big deal. But after they suspended me, I stopped, and that’s the truth. Carrie never knew. She barely drank.”

  We were high enough up to see over the rooftops of the town center and soon the college campus. The smoke of a steam locomotive trailed south, hauling a freight train through Tempe and toward Tucson.

  I didn’t say anything more until we reached the summit. The view would have been great in normal circumstances. But the butte fell away from us, an unsettling drop. The whitewashed T was below us on the slope.

  “It’s a long way down, kid.” I turned him to see. “I can take off these bracelets and give you a good shove. Maybe you’ll break your leg. Maybe you’ll break your neck. ‘Climbing accident,’ they’ll say. Nobody will ever know. You snap some bones, still alive for now, but you won’t be found for days. With no water, you’ll be as good as dead. So close to civilization you can see the lights of town and so damned far. Nobody can hear your cries for help. And with this warmer weather, maybe some rattlesnakes will think it’s time to wake up. And there you are.”

  “Look, Mister, I never even made whoopee with her.” He was sweating. “She was straitlaced. At least I thought so. Way smarter than anybody else I knew. Beautiful. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to become a teacher somewhere. She had the train schedules out of town memorized.”

  “But she broke up with you, why?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “I heard she’d met an older man.”

  “That’s what I heard, too.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I dunno!”

  “Oh, bullshit. You had to have spied on her. It’s what I would have done.”

  He was turning green and starting to hyperventilate, so I pulled him back and spun him to face me.

  “If you get sick on my nice shoes, I’m going to toss you down the butte.”

  After a few minutes, his color improved and he was breathing normally.

  “I saw her with an older guy once. He picked her up. He was shorter than you, dark hair, wearing a suit. That’s all, I swear.”

  “So she left you for him. Big man on campus made small by an adult taking your pretty girl. You saw her draped to be painted in art class, imagined what it would be like to get her totally naked, but somebody else did that. Must have made you angry.”

  He looked toward the ground. “Sure, it did.”

  “Angry enough to kill her?”

  “What? Gosh, no! What happened to Carrie?”

  “She’s dead.”

  He looked sincerely gut-punched. I took off the handcuffs. Next I produced my sap.

  “You know what this is?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s a sap or a blackjack. Police carry them, but anybody can buy one.”

  He stared at it, stared at me. “I don’t…”

  “Take it.”

  He hesitantly wrapped his hand around the heavy end. That’s not the way someone conversant in a sap would take it. He’d take the small end and whack me upside the head and I’d be the one rolled down the mountainside. It could be an act. I took it back and slipped it inside my waistband.

  “Level with me, Tom. You got mad. You confronted her, things went bad, you hit her in the head with one of these. Teach the little bitch a lesson. You didn’t mean to kill her. But that’s how it went, right? What happened next?”

  He rubbed his wrists. “You’re all wrong.” Seeing his hands were free, he realized that might not have been a compassionate gesture, and I might be ready to give the big shove. He knelt down on the dirt. “I’m afraid of heights! You gotta believe me, Mister. If Carrie’s dead, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Not a thing? I don’t believe you. Maybe you had a buddy help…”

  “No!” He looked pleadingly at me.

  “You work at the slaughterhouse, right?”

  “Sure, so?”

  “So why do you have a job when so many adult men can’t find work to provide for their families?”

  “My uncle works at Tovrea.” That was the big feedlot and slaughterhouse operation. “He got me part-time work. Between that and my football scholarship, it’s the only way I can stay in school. My dad lost nearly everything in ’29. Stocks, you know. Then the building and loan where he was an officer closed. He hasn’t been able to find a steady job since then.�
�

  It was a good story, if true. I continued: “You know how to cut meat. That would come in handy if you hit Carrie in the head, accidentally killed her, and wanted to make it look like her body fell from a train…”

  “What? I don’t know what you’re saying. I never fought with her, never hit her. My mom taught me to never hit a girl.”

  I forced him all the way down on his butt. His eyes darted around, looking for snakes while I took in the view. From up here, even a slight breeze made a noise. So did Tom, continuing his denials.

  I demanded: “What kind of car do you own?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “Who has the money? I have to hitchhike to work.”

  If I were still a real cop, I could take my time with him in the interrogation room. But I didn’t have that luxury. I was hoping the stress of suddenly being kidnapped and frog-marched up Tempe Butte might have the same effect in less time.

  “I’ve got your parents’ address in Phoenix,” I said. “Are you telling me that if I get a search warrant and go there, I’m not going to find the place you cut her up? I’ll find the bloodstains. That’s evidence. I’ll find the butcher tools you used to hack her apart, and where you got the clothes to dress her again. That’s premeditation. Her breaking up with you is motive. Quick conviction, and you’ll hang, Tom. It’s not looking good. But if you level with me, maybe the jury will go easier. Crime of passion.”

  Now the husky football player was red-faced and bawling. “Is that what happened to her? Oh, my God. It wasn’t me. I haven’t seen her in months. You’ve gotta believe me, sir. I’m innocent.”

  Unfortunately for my investigation, I did. He didn’t seem to have the ability, cool-headedness, and cruel imagination to plan and carry out something like Carrie’s murder. He also didn’t fit the profile of someone who had been following me, leaving threatening notes, and setting off the smoke bomb that allowed pilfering of Carrie’s love notes and diary.

  Still, I asked him where he was the day and night before her body was discovered. He claimed he was in classes during the day and working at the stockyards that night. If it checked out, he could be removed from the list of potential suspects.

  I drove him back to campus and let him out. He looked back at me several times as he walked away, no confidence in his movements, wishing I were a bad dream.

  * * *

  Tom was the easy mark. Things became more difficult with the others. Kemper Marley knew about Carrie—too damned much. And he was curious about the case, asking Navarre what was going on. He was worried that I might investigate it. Frenchy bought butcher tools, and he was certainly capable of the worst violence. Her diary mentioned him as her lover. If either he or Kemper or Big Cat got her pregnant and she demanded he leave his wife or else—things might have escalated from there. Means, opportunity, and motive.

  Unfortunately, bracing them like I had Tom Albert wouldn’t work. Both were too cool and connected. Nosing around their properties carried unacceptable risks. I didn’t even know who Big Cat was. Making progress would require other means. And every time I seemed close to catching a break, something kicked the solution further away, whether it was the office break-in that got Carrie’s writings or the murders of three men.

  This last pushed me into a fight with Victoria that night. I told her she needed to get out of town. However much she wanted to help me, however much she was confident with her .38 Special, she was a target. I didn’t want her to be the next Ezra Dell, Jack Hunter, or Zoogie Boogie. She knew everything I did, and this would make her especially vulnerable.

  Her response was clear and fierce. “There’s no way I’m leaving you alone to face this, Eugene! You wouldn’t leave it alone and now it’s too late, for both of us. We either catch this bastard or he kills us.”

  No games or manipulative tears from my lover. It was one of the many things that drew me to her. But I also knew I’d never forgive myself if she was hurt or killed. So I manipulated her and didn’t feel guilty about it.

  She said she needed to work on her portfolio, but only so many photographic opportunities could be had in little Phoenix, a burg people in New York would look down on. What if she took a month’s vacation to Los Angeles, a real city that was so much more photogenic? She could stay with her brother there. I would keep her up to speed on my investigation. Then she could come back.

  She steamed. “Maybe you want to make love to Pamela while I’m gone.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “What is true with you, Eugene? When Don pulled your business card out of Carrie’s purse, all you had to do was walk away.”

  “And let her murderer get away with it? Find a new way to frame me? Or kill somebody else?”

  “Well, too late for that, isn’t it?”

  I tried to touch her but she pulled away.

  Two nights later, I walked her to a dark green Pullman car on the westbound Sunset Limited. She tipped the redcap extra for lugging her equipment. I received a chilly kiss, the briefest embrace. Then the conductor called all aboard, the locomotive unleashed its bell and gave two long toots of the whistle, and the long train started rolling. Big wheels with body-cutting flanges rolling against steel rails. The last car, its Sunset drumhead lighted, disappeared into the darkness. And I was alone.

  Twenty-One

  As I walked back to my car on Fourth Avenue, I heard a ruckus on Madison Street. It was the unmistakable sound of a man on the losing end of a fight.

  At first they were shadows, four figures in the darkness kicking a man who lay in a fetal position against a boxcar beside a warehouse. As I got closer, I heard his moans as he received each kick. Then bones breaking.

  Drawing my .45, I walked closer, fired the pistol in the air, and shouted, “Police!”

  The beating stopped, and I was close enough to see four muscled-up white men assessing their fight-or-flight options. I wasn’t willing to offer that.

  “Don’t make me kill you,” I said. “Hands in the air, now. Face the boxcar and put your palms on it, keep ’em up. I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

  They shuffled to the AT&SF freight car, which proclaimed “The Scout: For Economy Travel West” on the side, and put their hands against it. Their knuckles were raw and bloody.

  The victim was on his knees, spitting up blood and picking a tooth from the street. His suit was a mess from where they had pulled the coat down halfway to immobilize his arms as they assaulted him. Keeping the .45 on the thugs, I reached out my other hand and hefted him up. A grateful, if bruised and bloody, face caught the light.

  “Thanks, Geno, you saved my life.”

  Frenchy Navarre.

  I left him to put himself together as best he could and searched the crew. Thug One carried a .25 caliber Baby Browning and a switchblade. Thug Two was armed with a “broomhandle” Mauser—I hadn’t seen one of these since the war. The third goon was underdressed—only a pair of brass knuckles. Thug Four had a snubnosed Colt Detective .38 in a shoulder rig. It was amazing they hadn’t decided to turn all this firepower on me. I might have been able to put them all down, but who knows? I slid the guns into my waistband and the knife and knucks in my pocket.

  “Keep your damned hands up and faces forward,” I commanded. “At this range, I’ll blow your guts all over the pavement.” That was true, but I took two steps back. I didn’t want one of these toughs to get the idea he could make a clever move behind him and disarm me.

  I said, “Guess what, smart guys. You assaulted a police officer. You’re going to Florence for a nice, long bit.”

  Frenchy touched my elbow. “Let ’em go, Geno. It’s a long story, but I don’t want ’em arrested.”

  I whispered out of the side of my mouth, “Frenchy, these guys almost killed you.”

  “I know,” he wheezed. “But let ’em go. I’ll explain later.”

  That would be interest
ing to hear, but I already knew the truth. This was payback from Greenbaum for Zoogie Boogie, or maybe from Cyrus Cleveland, and I couldn’t say I was sorry he was getting it.

  I holstered my pistol and ordered them to turn around. “Get lost.”

  “What about my gun?” This came from the first one, who was about my height, swarthy complexion, eyes that showed an intellect somewhere around that of a mule.

  I patted his cheek. “You’re lucky to not be going to jail, sweetheart. Don’t push it.”

  They walked east on Madison, looking back. I expected the worst, that they would make a run at me, but soon all four were gone. Frenchy was bent over, spitting up more blood.

  “I need a drink,” he said. “I need to get my car…” He collapsed again, and I lifted him upright, grabbing his mangled fedora.

  “First you’re going to the hospital. No argument.”

  I folded him into the Ford and drove to St. Joseph’s at Fourth and Polk streets, the closest hospital. Before they ushered me into the waiting area, I assessed his injuries: One eye already turning purple, scrapes on his face, nasty hit to the jaw, bruised ribs. He gave me his badge, gun, sap, handcuffs, and wallet. I explained that he was a police officer.

  “Geno.” He grabbed my sleeve. “Please keep this between us. If McGrath finds out, I’ll be writing parking tickets and directing traffic in uniform for the rest of my career.”

  Considering this was the man who slit Zoogie Boogie’s throat, I felt surprisingly compassionate. “It stays between us,” I said. “But who were those goons?”

  “Gambling debt…”

  And a nun pushed me out of the room.

  While the doctors were working on Frenchy, I went outside for a cigarette and unburdened my confiscated weapons into the car. Bing Crosby was singing “Shadow Waltz” from a phonograph playing in a house across the street. Victoria would be well on her way to Yuma by now, with a morning arrival in Los Angeles. I wish I’d offered to go with her.

  Hefting Frenchy’s blackjack, I wondered if it was what killed Carrie. I dug through his wallet. He was carrying two C-notes in addition to ones and fives. Not bad for an honest public servant—or somebody who got busted up over unpaid gambling debts. Among notes and cards, I found one from Summer Tours. On the back side, Carrie’s handwriting said, “Leonce, Big Cat scares me. C.”