Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness

by Joel Goldman

  There was a sliding panel built into the wall, which Mason guessed would have been behind Pendergast’s desk, because that would have given him a straight-on view of each supplicant or sucker who crossed his threshold. A circular groove had been cut at one end of the panel into a finger hold with which to pull the panel open. A lock had been added directly above the groove. Mason tried it without success, not surprised when it didn’t yield.

  There were no lock picks or crowbars lying on the floor, so Mason used his shoulder to loosen the lock. It gave on the third try, splintering the wood. He shoved the panel back along its track and stepped into a walk-in closet lined with wooden file cabinets. Expecting the drawers to also be locked, Mason yanked on the nearest one, almost falling over when it spilled into his arms.

  The names on the files should have read Pay Dirt. Instead, they were labeled with the names of the rich and powerful, including Billy Sunshine, Ed Fiora, and Beth Harrell. He didn’t have time to read them before his career as a second-story man ended like a scene from a late-night rerun.

  “Police! Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them, and turn around real slow!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Mason left the drawer gaping open and did as he was told. A cop aimed his service revolver at Mason from the doorway. Mason could see Shirley Parker peering around the cop, her eyes drawn in beady satisfaction.

  “I’m unarmed.”

  There was no point in telling the cop that this was all a misunderstanding, that he hadn’t really done what he’d so clearly done. He expected to be arrested and was more interested in not getting shot.

  “Up against the wall, legs and arms spread wide.”

  Mason complied again, flinching as the cop ran one hand down his sides, up his legs to his crotch, under his jacket, and around his middle.

  “Okay. You can turn around now.”

  The cop was tall, square shouldered, and vaguely familiar until Mason read the name beneath his badge, James Toland. He was the cop Blues had decked when Toland had tried to put cuffs on him, Mason understanding the impulse. He waited for Toland to pull out his handcuffs, read him his rights, and end his career. None of which happened.

  Shirley Parker stepped past them and into the closet, conducting a quick inventory. Toland broke the silence.

  “Do you want to press charges, Miss Parker?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything missing. You can let Mr. Mason go.”

  Toland looked like a kid whose Christmas had been canceled. “Must be your lucky day, pal.”

  Mason felt his blood start circulating again as he realized why Shirley had granted him a reprieve. He might have been guilty of breaking and entering, but she was sitting on the mother lode of blackmail, which would make her the next front-page defendant. Whatever Shirley intended to do with the files, exposing their existence wasn’t an option.

  She stepped back into the room, her face bleak and ashen. She knew she was in over her head. She had gone through life doing what Jack Cullan had told her to do, maybe nursing a quiet love that was never noticed or returned, resigned to her life at his side, loyal and lonely. She’d been angry and afraid enough at Mason’s intrusion to call the cops, but she’d outsmarted herself and could only let him go.

  Mason had more questions for her that he was certain she wouldn’t answer, but he couldn’t resist the most obvious.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “There’s a motion detector on the stairs. Satisfied, Mr. Mason?”

  “Completely. I’ll be back in the morning with a subpoena for those files, so take very good care of them tonight. You’ve got enough problems without adding a charge for obstruction of justice.”

  Mason hurried back up the street to the Egg House Diner, checking over his shoulder to see when Shirley Parker and Toland left the building. He’d just slid into his booth when they emerged. Shirley locked the door, pulling a steel bar across it that he hadn’t noticed before.

  Toland watched her cross the street back to the People’s Savings & Loan Building before climbing into his squad car and driving away. Mason waved as Toland passed the diner, pleased with his escape and happy for Toland to know that he was still keeping his eye on the files.

  A second shift had come on duty during his absence. A waiter had replaced the waitress, and a homeless woman seated at the counter had taken the place of the homeless man. Though he couldn’t be certain, Mason suspected that the waitress and the homeless man had simply traded places. The waiter’s pale skin looked even paler against his two-day growth of beard when he shoved a glass of water across Mason’s table. Not wanting to push his luck, Mason ordered another turkey sandwich. The woman huddled inside her tattered overcoat and scarves as if she were in a cocoon for the winter.

  “Give her some dinner and put it on my check,” he told the waiter.

  The waiter returned to the counter, leaned over to the woman, and spoke too softly for Mason to hear. A moment later, the woman shuffled off the stool, gave Mason a poisonous glare, and disappeared down Main Street. The waiter shook his head as if cursing himself for not knowing any better. Mason had tried taking a page from his aunt Claire’s book, only to realize that it was now a different book, titled No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

  Mason didn’t trust Shirley Parker to leave Cullan’s files where they were until he showed up with a subpoena the next morning. He didn’t know whether there was another entrance to the barbershop, and he couldn’t watch both Shirley and the barbershop all night. Nor was Mason thrilled at the prospect of spending the night in the diner, pissing off homeless people. The simplest solution was to make a deal with the prosecutor. Mason would tell Ortiz about the files in return for Ortiz’s promise to share the contents with him. Ortiz would track down Judge Carter and get a search warrant before Shirley Parker had a chance to move the files.

  Mason’s deal with Ortiz would cancel the ones he’d made with Rachel Firestone and Amy White and more than disappoint Ed Fiora, but that couldn’t be helped. He called Ortiz, not surprised that he was still working long after most county employees had gone home.

  “Patrick Ortiz.”

  “Patrick, it’s Lou Mason. I’ve got a great deal for you.”

  “Too late. I told you the plea bargain was off the table if we went to the preliminary hearing.”

  “Forget the plea bargain. I’m going to make you the hero in this case. Jack Cullan was blackmailing Beth Harrell and a lot of other people, maybe including the mayor. I’ve found the files he kept on those people.”

  “So you’re calling to report a crime committed by a dead man?”

  “I’m calling to tell you to get a search warrant for those files so you can prevent them from disappearing. Those files are evidence in Cullan’s murder. The killer is probably someone Cullan was blackmailing.”

  “Your client is the killer. Did Cullan have a file on him?”

  “I don’t know. Listen to me. Cullan’s secretary has those files squirreled away in Tom Pendergast’s old office on Main Street. She’s an accessory to Cullan’s blackmail. She knows that I know about the files, and if you don’t get a search warrant for them tonight, they’ll be in a shredder before sunrise.”

  “Sorry, Lou. I’m not going to bother Judge Carter tonight on a bullshit story like that. You want to take it up with the judge tomorrow, give me a call. I’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Mason wanted to throw his phone across the room. Instead, he called the homicide division, hoping that Harry Ryman was working late. Carl Zimmerman answered instead.

  “Carl, it’s Lou Mason. Is Harry around?”

  “Nope. He had to go see a witness, a guy he’s been chasing for a couple of weeks. What’s up?”

  Mason hesitated. He intended to tell Harry the entire story and ask him to help babysit Cullan’s files until Mason could talk to the judge in the morning. He even hoped that Harry would send a couple of uniformed cops to sit outside the barb
ershop all night. Mason didn’t know Zimmerman well enough to ask for a favor like that, but he didn’t have another choice. He decided to keep his story simple to convince Zimmerman that there was a good reason to help him out.

  “Jack Cullan was blackmailing Beth Harrell. He kept secret files on her, the mayor, and Ed Fiora, plus a lot of other people. I’ve found Cullan’s files but I can’t get to them. The prosecutor won’t ask Judge Carter for a search warrant tonight. If we wait until tomorrow, the files could be gone. I know you’re convinced that my client killed Cullan, but there’s a good chance something in those files will prove he didn’t. I need your help to make sure nothing happens to them.”

  “Where are the files?”

  “In Tom Pendergast’s old office above the barbershop at Twentieth and Main.”

  “Anybody there now?”

  “No.”

  “Who else knows about the files?”

  “Cullan’s secretary, Shirley Parker. That cop, Toland, who was with you when you arrested Blues, knows that there’s something in that office, but I don’t think he knows what it is.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In a diner up the street from the barbershop.”

  “Sit tight, Lou. I just caught a case on a dead body in Swope Park. I’ll meet you when I’m done with that. It may take me a couple of hours, but it’s the best I can do.”

  “Thanks.”

  A couple of hours passed, and then another. Mason tried Harry’s number again without any luck. He called the dispatcher, asking her to contact Harry and tell him to call Mason. When Harry didn’t call, he left the same message for Zimmerman. He called his aunt Claire, who told him that she hadn’t spoken to Harry all day. The waiter was eyeing Mason like he should start charging him rent for the booth when Mason’s phone rang.

  “Harry?”

  “It’s Zimmerman. What’s going on?”

  “I’m growing old in this diner. I think the waiter is about to add me to the menu.”

  “Leave him a big tip. I’m stuck in the park. Stay where you are and wait for me.”

  “Right,” Mason said, having decided in the same instant that he couldn’t wait any longer.

  Mason left a ten-dollar tip for a five-dollar meal and went to his car. His ex-wife had once given him a tool kit to keep in the trunk. It was one of the first indications that they didn’t know each other as well as their glands would have liked. Mason’s tool of choice to fix anything was a hammer he could use to beat whatever was broken into submission. The rest of the tools were for guys who knew the difference between a flat head, a Phillips head and a blackhead. He found a small flashlight, grabbed the hammer, and got ready to commit his second felony of the night.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Mason made his way to the alley that ran behind the barbershop, looking for a back door or a window, knowing that he had to be faster than the cops if he tripped the motion detector again. Clinging to the shadows in the alley, he hoped that Shirley Parker hadn’t already taken Cullan’s files out the back door, sticking him with a great case of he said, she said.

  The possibility left Mason with a thin sweat and a twisted gut by the time he reached the rear of the barbershop. Sweeping the flashlight across the wall, he heaved a deep breath mixed with relief and frustration when he discovered there was no rear door or rear window on the first floor. There was, however, a second-story window next to a fire escape with a ladder that ended well beyond his reach.

  There was a Dumpster in the alley a few yards away. Mason shoved it across the uneven pavement until it was beneath the ladder. Climbing on top, he reached for the ladder, finding himself still a foot shy of the bottom rung. He stuffed the flashlight and the hammer into his belt and backed up to the edge of the Dumpster. Measuring the short step to the wall, he took a running step and launched himself at the ladder.

  The cold iron froze against Mason’s hands as he held on to the bottom rung, gaining purchase with his feet against the brick wall. He pulled himself up, his breath coming in sharp gasps, until his feet found the bottom rung. A moment later he was on the catwalk beneath the window, certain that he was about to be caught in a cross fire of searchlights while some cop demanded that he throw down his hammer before they opened up on him.

  The window was locked or nailed shut. He shined his flashlight through the glass and could make out the top of the stairs. He hoped the motion detector was at the bottom and not at the top.

  He pulled off his sweater, using it to muffle the hammer, broke the window, and climbed inside, broken glass crunching under his shoes, assuming that he had set off the motion detector. He had no more than a couple of minutes to grab the files, get out, and make up an alibi.

  He left the light in Pendergast’s office off, feeling less exposed in the darkness. The flashlight beam glanced off something shiny in the center of the floor that Mason didn’t remember seeing a few hours earlier. Dropping to one knee, he picked up a white, quarter-sized campaign button with the words Truman for Senator in blue. Tom Pendergast had been Harry Truman’s political godfather.

  He aimed his flashlight at the walk-in closet, certain that someone had dropped the button on the floor while removing other more current political souvenirs. He traced the flashlight beam up to the lock he had broken, when he was flattened by a blast that shattered the panel door, opened the floor like an earthquake, and dropped him into the barbershop.

  He slammed into the outstretched barber chair, bounced off onto the floor, and crawled beneath the chair while fire and debris rained from overhead. The explosion was loud enough to scramble the eggs at the Egg House Diner, but Mason was deafened by the blast before his brain could register the sound. Though he was stunned, he understood how life turned on such small moments as bending down to pick up a button. Had he been standing, the panel door would have cut him in two when it blew out from the wall.

  Mason ran his hands over his scalp and face, checking for wounds too fresh to hurt, finding a trickle of blood from a cut above one ear. He pulled off his shirt to cover his mouth and nose against the acrid smoke that had enveloped him.

  The initial wave of debris had settled into fiery heaps feeding flames racing up the walls. He staggered to his feet, giving a quick and futile pull to the steel bars covering the barbershop window. The glass had blown out into the street and the cold air tasted sweet even as it fueled the fire.

  Cars stopped on Main Street, and passersby stood in front of the People’s Savings & Loan Building, pointing and screaming at him to get out in voices that he imagined more than heard. He agreed with their advice even if he couldn’t find a way to take it.

  The flames were engulfing the outer walls of the building. Mason glanced up through the hole in the floor above and saw that the fire had eaten through the roof, obliterating the stars with billowing smoke. He could feel his clothes heating up as if they were about to ignite.

  Gagging into his shirt, he made his way to the front door, cursing Shirley Parker and the bar that she had locked into place like a coffin nail. Any thought of escaping out the window the way he had come in vanished with the stairs that were crackling like seasoned kindling as the fire roared down on him.

  Ducking to stay as close to the ground as possible, he stumbled down the hallway to the basement door. Covering the door handle with his shirt, he pulled the door open, yanked it closed behind him, and bolted down the stairs, grateful for the pocket of cool air in the basement. He leaned against the rough cement wall and slid down to the floor, gasping and wondering how long it would take the fire to burn through the first floor and bury him.

  His question was answered a moment later. The stairs to the second floor collapsed into the basement, carrying the fire with them.

  Mason jumped to his feet, looking around at blank walls that now glowed with a deadly orange like one of Dante’s chambers. Smoke rolled across the ceiling, shrinking the basement. In the far corner, he saw a half-open chest-high door and raced over to it.


  Shirley Parker lay on the floor, propping the door open. Mason knelt alongside her, feeling for a pulse in her neck and wrist. Her eyes were open, unseeing and untroubled by the smoke. A dark stain above her left breast was still damp with blood. Mason now understood Norma Hawkins’s certainty that Jack Cullan had been shot.

  The door led to a tunnel. Ducking inside and crouching under the low ceiling, Mason felt his way, counting his steps to gauge the distance. Fifty paces later, the tunnel ended against a locked door. Bracing his arms against the walls of the narrow shaft, Mason kicked at the door until its hinges surrendered, letting him into another basement.

  He took a few deep breaths and went back into the tunnel, bent over and trotting until he reached Shirley’s body. The heat and smoke from the fire rolled through the tunnel. Mason hoped the flames wouldn’t follow. He pulled Shirley’s body back to the other basement, closing her eyes and laying her down against the floor. There was no peace in her soft features.

  The basement was filled with framed and unframed paintings, stacked against the walls. There were two stairways, one that led to the first floor and another that led to a door with a small window in its center. Mason trudged up the second stairway and opened the door into the alley behind the barbershop. It took him a moment to realize that the tunnel had passed beneath the alley.

  He saw firemen running up the alley carrying a hose. A fire engine blocked the entrance to the alley, its red and white lights cascading across the pavement. Two paramedics raced toward him from the south end of the alley, waving and calling to him. Reaching him, one put her arms around him to hold him up while another peered into his eyes.

  “Hey, buddy!” one of the paramedics mouthed. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” wondering whether the paramedic could hear him if he couldn’t hear the paramedic. “There’s a woman’s body down there,” he added, not certain whether he was whispering or shouting.