by Kip Chase
The preliminary coroner’s report given over the phone told him nothing new. Hubert Goodall had died as a result of stab wounds, probably three, resulting in fatal damage to vital organs. There were more details, none of them striking Horowitz as significant. ‘Okay. Thanks a lot. Send me over a copy please’, was his final remark before hanging up.
The door opened and a ruddy-faced deputy stuck his head in. ‘Man to see you, Horowitz’, he said.
Horowitz ran his fingers through his cropped hair. ‘I’m busy.’
‘He says it’s about the Goodall case.’
Horowitz knew from years of frustrating experience that on a big case there would always be crackpots with inside information and even psychopaths confessing to a crime they didn’t commit. There was no choice but to see them all.
Horowitz stiffened with surprise when Jock Harrison walked into the room.
‘Got a bunch of new boys out in the hills, Horowitz’, Harrison smiled. ‘I don’t think one of them recognized me.’
The detective answered with a sardonic grin, ‘You’ll do well to see that it stays that way, Jock.’ He gestured toward a battered chair. ‘What’s on your mind?’
Harrison sat down and hitched forward confidentially, his broad face mirroring his ever-congenial expression. ‘Got a little information you might be interested in. Maybe you already know it. Maybe you don’t.’ He paused.
Horowitz said nothing.
‘Old man Goodall was playing hanky-panky with some real estate up on the Peninsula. Developed into quite a feud with him and another fellow. Pretty bitter as I understand it. You know who I’m talking about?’
Horowitz shook his head slightly.
Harrison smiled. ‘Thought maybe you didn’t. It’s Jack Christie. Now don’t bother to ask me how I know about it, because I’m not going to tell you. And I’m not saying Christie knocked off the old man. I’m just saying it might be worth looking into.’
Harrison leaned back with the look of a lawyer who has just told someone of an unexpected inheritance.
‘All right, Jock. Why tell us? You don’t exactly have a record of co-operation.’
Harrison’s smile broadened. ‘I got some deals going. Strictly legitimate. And if Christie does turn out to be involved in this thing – I’m not saying he is – but if it does turn out that way, it won’t hurt me a bit. Or maybe I’m wasting my time. Have you already pinned it on someone else?’ He shot a quick, shrewd glance at Horowitz.
‘Nope, it’s still wide open.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Well, see you around, Lieutenant.’ The racketeer left with a cheerful wave of his well-manicured hand.
Minutes later Horowitz stopped by the duty officer’s desk. ‘I’m heading home’, he told the sergeant behind the desk. ‘If anything breaks, call me.’
‘Okay, Lieutenant.’
But Horowitz did not go directly home. He nosed his ’fifty-seven grey Ford on to Torrance Boulevard, northbound. At the civic centre cloverleaf he turned off on to the Hollywood Freeway. Ten minutes later he drew up in front of a small, white frame house in North Hollywood. Surrounding the house and the freshly-mowed green lawn was a white picket fence. Covering half of the front steps of the house was a wooden ramp, laced with horizontally placed slats. It was the home of Justine Carmichael.
Horowitz pushed open the gate and made his way past a small yapping dachshund who made indecisive efforts to snap at the detective’s heels. The door was opened by Carmichael.
The old man shook hands with Horowitz, then turned to the dog, frowning fiercely. ‘Quiet, Hugo. Quiet, sir.’
The dachshund stopped barking, uttered a few intermittent half-volume yelps, then scooted past Carmichael’s wheel-chair into the house.
‘Any news, Carl?’ Carmichael asked, wheeling himself towards the kitchen.
‘No news. Just stopped by for a chat before I go home to hit the hay.’
In the kitchen Carmichael turned to the detective. ‘Say, Carl, on that second shelf up there, to the right of the refrigerator, there’s a bottle of Scotch. How about a little snort before we start talking?’
Horowitz reached for the bottle, then paused. ‘Say, I thought you were supposed to be off the booze.’
‘No, no’, Carmichael said eagerly. ‘It’s all right now. Why, just the other day the doctor said ...’ His voice trailed off in the face of the long, cold stare he was getting from Horowitz. Carmichael smiled sheepishly. ‘Well, hell, Carl. You know and I know one ounce – or maybe an ounce and a half – of ten-year-old Scotch never hurt anybody.’
The stern expression on Horowitz’s face softened. ‘Well’, he began. ‘Okay.’
Drinks in hand the two men retired to the living-room. ‘Where’s Martha?’ the detective asked. Martha was Carmichael’s matronly widowed daughter.
Carmichael took a quick, nervous gulp of his drink. ‘Downtown shopping. She won’t be back for a while, I hope. Now, what have you got?’
Horowitz expelled a long, pitiful sigh. ‘Damn little. We’re starting a check on the guard. No results so far, but that’s still our best bet. The drill turned out to be a dud. It was bought at the Sears store in the civic centre about three months ago. No record of who bought it. The store isn’t even sure which clerk sold it. No prints, of course.’
‘How about the autopsy?’ Carmichael asked.
‘We’re going to have to wait until tomorrow for that. The medical examiner has a couple of people on vacation and he’s got a double suicide we’re working on now.’
‘Where’s Goodall’s body?’
‘City morgue.’
Carmichael pursed his lips. ‘You’ll be going through the civic centre on your way home, won’t you? How about dropping me off?’
Horowitz raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘Sure. But maybe there’s a couple of things you ought to get straight.’
‘Like what, Carl?’
‘Well, your being around the other night was a lucky break for me. But I haven’t approached the boss yet on – ah – well, how we’re going to work things out.’
Carmichael gave a short hearty guffaw. ‘What you’re trying to say, Carl, is you don’t know if you can get me on the payroll. Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t keep me off this case now if you tried.’
Horowitz’s face broke into a smile of relief. ‘That’s swell, Carmichael. And I don’t think there’ll be any problem with the money. We’ve got special funding. It’s just a matter of screwing it out of them. I’ll pass the word to the boys that you’re with us on this one and you’ll get all the co-operation you need. I’m pretty worried. Sorta reminds me of the Mills case. You really swept that one out, remember?’
The men slipped into the easy conversation of remini-scence; the idiosyncracies of certain city and county officials were discussed; the councilman who got into trouble with a sixteen-year-old girl at the Tahoe Lodge and had managed to keep it off the record and out of the papers; the city planner who was a lush; and the municipal judge who possessed the largest collection of pornography in Southern California outside of Hollywood. Horowitz mellowed and was again persuaded that an ounce of good Scotch whisky never hurt anyone.
An hour later, in an atmosphere of camaraderie, Carmichael was bundled into the detective’s car and whisked off in the direction of the city morgue. During the short trip the old man became pensive.
Horowitz, noting the change in mood, remained silent.
Carmichael was thinking of his days of active duty on the Force. They had been good times. True, sometimes a job had been extremely distasteful, like the time he had to arrest a mother for giving her hopelessly retarded child an overdose of barbiturates. During her arrest and trial the mother retained her composure, but her husband went completely to pieces and had to be placed under the care of a psychiatrist. Other times he got a special pleasure from his job. This was when some thoroughly vicious killer was brought to justice. However, Carmichael reflected, his concept of justice had changed since he was a young cop on
the beat so many years ago. In those days his overriding motivation had been one of punishment for those who preyed on society. As he grew older this factor of punishment diminished in importance. He began to view the criminal more objectively, to regard him as a factor in society which should be eliminated, not so much by the age-old practice of maintaining law and order through fear of punishment, but rather to eliminate the conditions that created criminals. Not that Carmichael thought environment alone was responsible. He had seen too many men with ‘good’ backgrounds go wrong to believe this. There would always be a percentage of the population born sadistic, too lazy to work for a living, or just generally dangerously anti-social. But the vast majority of criminals were not born that way. The conditions that made them what they were could be eliminated. The old man sighed. But not in his lifetime. Not in his lifetime. And what, he wondered, of the man they were now looking for. Was the murderer of Hubert Goodall a born killer? The mutilation of the body would indicate perhaps if this were so. Or had the man only intended to steal the painting and been forced into the killing by Goodall’s resistance? Then, there was the overriding problem of how the murderer got in and out of the supposedly guarded room. There was an answer, of course, and it would be found. The way it looked now the solution to this problem would be the thing that would break the case.
Horowitz was also deep in thought – so much so that he almost missed the Sixth Street turn-off into downtown Los Angeles. He pulled into the ‘City Employees Only’ parking lot and gently braked the car to a stop. He got Carmichael settled into his wheel-chair and started to push him towards the building. The old man waved him off with an impatient gesture. ‘I’m all right, Carl. You’re overdue for some sack time. Go on home.’
Horowitz did not press the point. ‘Okay. I’ll check with you tomorrow. And thanks.’
Carmichael wheeled himself into the building and down the familiar corridors. Coming to the door marked simply ‘Morgue’ he rapped on it sharply with his knuckles. The door was opened quickly by a tousled-headed young man wearing a white smock and canvas sneakers.
‘Yes?’ said the young man politely.
‘Well, let me in, boy, let me in’, said Carmichael irritably, starting to push his way through the door.
‘I don’t know ...’ the young man began.
By this time Carmichael was into the room. An older man in a grey uniform emerged from another door. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded. ‘Well, bless my soul, it’s Mr. Carmichael. How are you, Mr. Carmichael?’
With a warm smile Carmichael extended his hand. ‘I’m fine, Phil, just fine. How’s yourself?’
‘Well, my back’s been giving me a little trouble. Doctor says it’s my kidney. He says I must be drinking too much of the embalming fluid we have down here. Hee hee.’
Carmichael smiled indulgently.
‘Yes sir’, the old man continued, ‘last time I saw you was on the Steiner case. Oh, that poor chap was a mess. It’s just amazing what a twelve-gauge shotgun can do to a person’s head. Just left a little nubbin, so to speak. Or am I thinking about Whitlaw? I’m not very good on names, but I can sure remember a face. Of course, that time there wasn’t any face to remember. Hee hee.’
‘Ah, yes, Phil’, Carmichael broke in hurriedly. ‘Right now I wonder if you could do me a little favour?’
‘Certainly, Mr. Carmichael. Certainly.’
‘I’m working with the sheriffs on the Goodall case. Wonder if I could see the body?’
‘Oh, sure, sure. Yes, we have Mr. Goodall here. Not a pretty sight, Mr. Carmichael. Joe!’ he squeaked at the young man who had been hovering in the background, ‘open up A-Seven for Mr. Carmichael.’
Carmichael wheeled himself along the tile floors into the next room where the bodies were kept. The old place hasn’t changed much, he was thinking. The ever-present soft whirring of the air-conditioning machine, the battleship grey walls devoid of decoration, and unmistakably the faint cloying scent of death.
The boy in the white smock opened the cabinet containing the body of Hubert Goodall. The rubber-wheeled drawer slid back noiselessly on its metal tracks.
Carmichael had to raise himself in his chair to get a good look.
The body was naked except for an identifying tag wired to the right great toe. The eyes were opened but appeared to be covered with a light film of grey mucous. There were several superficial slash marks on the cheek and neck. Death had come from the knife wounds in the stomach. The blood had been washed away revealing that the wounds were punctures at their base, then extended upwards into a flesh-ripping cut. Carmichael noted that the flesh bordering the ripping wounds was jagged and uneven, as if cut by an enormous pair of pinking shears. Strangely, the expression on the face was not one of fright nor anger, nor even surprise – more a look of drugged stupefacation. Carmichael noticed the young attendant had averted his face from the body.
‘Been working here long, son?’ Carmichael asked gently.
‘No. I – ah – just a couple of weeks.’
‘It’s something you have to get used to’, Carmichael said.
The boy gulped. ‘I guess so.’
‘Okay. Back he goes.’
Hastily, the boy pushed the drawer back into place. It closed with a solid thud.
When Carmichael re-entered the outer room of the morgue he found a deputy sheriff lounging against one of the filing cabinets.
‘Mr. Carmichael?’ the man asked respectfully.
‘Yes.’
‘Lieutenant Horowitz sent me by to take you home when you’re finished down here, sir.’
‘Oh. Thank you very much. Let’s go. So long, Phil. And thanks.’
The older attendant waved his hand in a half-salute. ‘Any time, Mr. Carmichael. Any time.’
Nine
JOCK HARRISON sat in one of the dimly-lit rear booths of the ‘Swinging Times’, sipping a pony of Irish whisky, the only liquor he ever touched. At three o’clock on Friday afternoon the bar was a dreary place. The dance floor and band area were vacant. The glittering monograms on the musicians’ music racks looked cheap and tawdry as they reflected the few slivers of sunlight that found their way through the heavily curtained windows. The smell of stale cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air.
Harrison’s well-kept finger-nails nervously drummed on the black formica tabletop.
Presently the owner of the ‘Swinging Times’ appeared. He was greeted with an affable smile from Harrison. ‘Sit down, Willie boy. Let me buy you some of your own poison.’
Willie Delaney smiled sourly. ‘No thanks, Jock, not before six. What’s on your mind?’
Willie tried to appear at ease, but his foot tapping lightiy against the centre table support betrayed him. He had nothing to fear from Jock Harrison, he was thinking. He was clean. But Jock was on the inside. He could make it mighty rough for any man in the South Bay area if he put his mind to it, particularly if that man dealt in whisky, girls, or narcotics. Willie had a great deal of respect for Jock Harrison. Jock had made it where he, Willie, hadn’t. Oh, Willie hadn’t done too badly, since his early days when he had drifted from job to job, not making any money and not liking any of them. He got his break during the Second World War, when he went into partnership with a junk dealer. The man probably wouldn’t have taken him on, but he was desperate for help and Willie was 4-F. The junk business, as did almost every business during that grim period, prospered, and Willie, it developed, had a flair for business. It took him a little less than a year to learn how to cheat his partner out of most of the profits. During the postwar recession of the late forties Willie got out of the junk business and bought a small run-down bar in the beach area. Until then he had known Jock Harrison only by reputation. He was soon to be formally introduced.
About a week after Willie opened, a salesman dropped by and tried to get him to change some of his brands. Willie said he wasn’t interested. The salesman went into the usual pitch, but didn’t really seem to be trying too hard. They par
ted on a congenial note. A couple of days later Willie was surprised to see Harrison stroll into his place early in the evening. Jock introduced himself and congratulated Willie on his new venture. ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Mr. Delaney’, Jock had said, ‘except your bar whisky isn’t so hot. What brand is it?’ Then Willie understood. He had been buying Harrison’s whisky ever since.
Willie sold the bar after a year and bought into a bigger place down the street. Four years later he owned that. That too, had been unloaded when liquor licences were tight, and he got too good an offer to resist. He took it easy for a while then, working as a bartender around town so that he wouldn’t have to cut into his bank account. When the ‘Swinging Times’ went up for sale, Willie was there, cheque-book in hand.
In the ‘Swinging Times’, Willie felt he had reached the climax of his career. He was tired of scrambling. While he still would not allow himself the luxury of a manager, he hired competent bartenders, paid them well, and really didn’t have a great deal of work to do. He considered himself a success. Yet, matched against the accomplishments and influence of Jock Harrison, Willie knew he was still a very minor leaguer, and although his tone was light and his manner casual, he could not keep the deference from his voice when he said, ‘What’s on your mind, Jock?’
Harrison’s broad face creased into a smile. ‘Not much, Willie. Not much. Couple of little things I’d like to straighten out with you.’
Willie, his chin sunk low on his chest, did not answer.
‘I was talking to Jeanie the other night about a little job she was doing for me’, Harrison went on. ‘She, ah, got a little plastered and mentioned she’d blabbed about it to you.’ Harrison laughed. ‘These broads. Never found one yet I could trust. Now, some men I can trust. Like you, Willie. I can trust you, Willie, can’t I.’
