Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  ‘Okay, tell me about him. Although this is killing me. What’s the deal with Harkness? You’ve always been sure he killed her.’

  ‘Yeah. I was sure. Until today. We have evidence, very firm, stand-up-in-court type evidence that would put him away for Eloise’s murder. And yet I don’t believe he did it. It’s like everything I thought is upside down. Now I’m not sure what to think or what to do.’

  ‘Jesus. And you thinking he didn’t do it is based on what?’

  She managed to look embarrassed. ‘Instinct. Experience. Something like that. The evidence being too good to be true and just turning up now when a certain location has probably been visited a number of times and nothing found.’

  ‘Okay . . . so this evidence . . .’

  ‘That I’m not going to talk about tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that. But this evidence. You think it’s been planted to frame Harkness?’

  ‘Maybe. It would explain it but there’s so much that I don’t know.’

  ‘So, you accept that planting evidence could happen?’

  ‘Well it always . . . wait. Whoa. Christ, you’re not going to start on that Keith Hardie stuff again, are you?’

  ‘It’s not stuff. It’s an investigation. It’s a miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘He was caught bang to rights.’

  ‘Most of that was circumstantial. You know that.’

  ‘Apart from the bloody evidence? Apart from the DNA that actually convicted him?’

  ‘Apart from one piece of evidence. One highly disputed piece of evidence. You take that away and there was precious little holding that case together. Sound familiar?’

  ‘Keith Hardie killed a fifty-six-year-old woman. He left her to bleed to death. Stevie Crichton might be a bit of a bellend, but he’s a solid detective. He made that case and the jury agreed with him. You really sure you want to spend so much of your time trying to prove this guy innocent? I can get you the scene of crime photos if you want. We both know you like that sort of thing.’

  It was a low blow and she regretted it immediately but there was no taking it back, not least because it was true. It was enough to send Winter into a rage.

  ‘Bullshit! The jury agreed with him. Aye, because judges and juries always get it right. Keith Hardie was at home with his partner. Two other people, with no motivation to lie, saw him go in. No one saw him leave. His neighbour, who was a nosey old cow, swears she’d have known if he’d left and come home again. He had no motive to kill Irene Dow. He had no knowledge of how to kill Irene Dow the way she was killed. He had no history of violence or any other criminal activity. The one bit of evidence was lapped up by the cops and the prosecution and the jury. But it was some bullshit plant. Take that away and there was fuck all. He didn’t do it.’

  She took a breath. It was a long-established working practice that if one of them got mad, the other had to stay calm. If they both lost it then the walls of the house might come tumbling down.

  ‘Tony, you can’t just discard the biggest piece of evidence in the case as if it never existed. It existed. It still exists. Hardie’s DNA was on her. A note written by him was in her coat pocket.’

  ‘Yet you can discard it when it suits you? You’re telling me you have evidence to put Harkness away and you’re going to ignore it?’

  ‘That’s different. I—’

  ‘No. I’m not seeing it as different at all. Listen, I was with Keith’s mother this morning and you want to go and tell her he’s bang to rights. Helen knows her son. She knows his partner and knows she’s telling the truth. That woman is in bits because of the injustice that’s been done. She’s going to keep at this whether the cops like it or not. And I’m with her. I’m writing stories on this until the truth is there for everyone to see.’

  She stared back at him, saying nothing but refusing to blink.

  ‘You’re pretty sexy when you go full-on All the President’s Men, you know that? The fearless reporter seeking truth, justice and the West Highland Way.’

  ‘Piss off, I’m serious.’

  ‘I know you are. Still sexy though.’

  ‘How sexy?’

  ‘Let’s go to bed and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m still serious. Keith Hardie is innocent and I’m not giving up on that.’

  ‘I know. I know. Keep talking.’

  CHAPTER 16

  O’Neill and Salgado watched the young man talking to himself, seeing his tongue loll out of his mouth like a dog in the middle of the afternoon. He was speaking too low and sat too far from the camera for them to hear what he was saying but they could guess.

  His body language shouted where he couldn’t. He was dying of thirst and the agony of it was tormenting both his physical being and his mind. His head shifted drunkenly from side to side like he was arguing with himself or the world. Occasionally he convulsed in a desperate kicking, lunging motion as if his body were shrivelling before them and rebelling against it.

  ‘I can’t bear to watch him,’ O’Neill admitted. ‘He’s dying in front of us. We can maybe track down Walker Wright but there’s no guarantee it’s going to bring us any closer to finding this guy.’

  ‘It’s all we can do, Cally. We do our job, we follow the case, we make progress, and we do get closer.’

  ‘I know it, I know it. It’s just . . .’ she waved a hand at the screen by way of unnecessary explanation.

  A knock on the outside of the open door interrupted their tortured viewing.

  ‘Detectives?’

  O’Neill looked up to see a tall, slim man approaching the desk alongside Charlie Randall. He was dressed in dark suit pants and a pale-blue open-neck shirt, his head dusted in fair hair.

  ‘Howie Kelsey!’ From behind her, Salgado was out of his seat and shaking the newcomer’s hand. ‘How you doing, man? Not seen you in a while.’

  ‘I’m good, I’m good. I hear you’re trying to steal one of my cases.’

  Salgado laughed dryly. ‘That’s the last thing we need. We’ve got plenty to do without taking on anything else. Howie, this is my partner, Cally O’Neill.’

  Kelsey smiled and they shook hands. ‘Good to meet you, Cally. I—’ He stopped mid-thought. ‘Shit, this is your guy?’

  He nodded at the screen that they’d been unable to tear themselves away from.

  O’Neill nodded, unwilling or unable to discuss it further. Kelsey took the hint.

  ‘Listen, from what I’ve heard, and what I can see, you guys have your hands full. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m looking into this purse that you guys got hold of that supposedly belonged to Elizabeth Short. I’m not intending to step on your toes or get in the way of the search for this kid, but it might happen. I promise I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t.’

  ‘Can’t ask for fairer than that,’ Salgado nodded. ‘We don’t know how Garland got hold of this purse or even if it’s what he says it is, but if you can find that out then we’ll be all ears. Right, Cally?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll take any help we can get. Not sure we can offer much back though. All we can concentrate on is finding our guy. You think the purse might be genuine?’

  Kelsey spread his arms wide. ‘Well, it might be. Here’s what I know. After the Short killing, a purse and a shoe were found on a trash can out back of a restaurant called Delmonico’s on Crenshaw – I think Charlie filled you in on that part. The cops were called but trash collectors beat them to it and took them to the dump. A detective named Ralph Asdel went to the dump, rescued several purses, several pairs of shoes and took them to the station. A lead’s a lead, right? He then talked a boyfriend of Elizabeth Short, guy named Red Manley, into coming down to try to identify them and Manley picked out a shoe and the purse.

  ‘But here’s where it gets complicated. Manley was a very stressed, mixed-up guy. He got sectioned by his wife just seven years later after suffering nervous breakdowns and hearing voices. So, you make your mind up on how reliable his memory was. I ch
ecked the archive and the purse that Manley ID’d is still there. It’s similar to the one in your guy’s collection but it’s not the same. Given that Manley was unreliable, maybe your guy had the real deal. But I’ve turned up a couple of things to make me think it might be.

  ‘Next thing, Asdel picks up on a witness statement from a guy in Leimert Park who says he’d driven to Norton about nine on the night before the body was found, to dump a load of shrub cuttings. As he drives past the spot where the body was later found, he sees a 1935 light-coloured sedan with its rear door open. Standing next to the car is a slim man, about five foot eight, with a dark hat pulled down low. This slim guy strains to look inside the shrub cuttings guy’s car. The witness drives off, circles and comes back. This time, the sedan’s door is closed and the slim man is behind the wheel. As soon as he sees the witness’s car, he drives off fast as he can.

  ‘Asdel plugged away trying to trace the light-coloured sedan, traced down all the 1935s he could, solid spadework stuff. He traces one that belongs to a guy named Tony Giordano. Now Giordano is a waiter and guess where he works? Delmonico’s.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘Nope. Asdel interviews the guy but can’t pin anything on him. He’s clean. Solid alibi for the night of the murder. Plus, he’s six foot tall and not particularly slim. But Asdel sees that this guy’s car was recently painted black. Asks him why. Giordano says he just wanted a change. Asdel files the report but no one is particularly interested.’

  ‘But you’re interested, right?’

  ‘Oh, you bet. And there’s more. The Frankie Wynn character who confessed gave his place of employment. Want to take a guess where?’

  ‘Delmonico’s – Charlie mentioned that part too.’

  ‘Right. So, yeah, there’s reason to think the purse your guy had is the genuine article. And plenty of reason for me to wade back into the Dahlia file and see if there’s anything that’s been missed, anything that can tie this together. If there’s something I think might be of use to you, maybe give you an idea how your guy got hold of the purse, then I’ll come back and let you know. If there’s not, then I’ll stay clear and wish you guys luck. That work for you?’

  ‘Thanks, Howie. We’ll take whatever you got. The Black Dahlia, man? It’s like the Holy Grail. You should go ahead and order yourself a silver bar because you’ll make lieutenant if you can crack that.’

  Kelsey grinned. ‘Thought never crossed my mind.’

  ‘Of course it didn’t. But seriously, man, anything you turn up here could help. And God knows we need something. And fast.’

  *

  They’d requested all the available data they could get on Garland. The information turned up shortly after Kelsey left, and they jumped into it. Some of it came in a thick sheaf of printouts, the rest was delivered on screen.

  After around twenty minutes of searching, O’Neill waved to Salgado and the urgency of the movement had him on his feet.

  ‘What you got?’

  ‘Garland’s bank records, going back five years.’

  He pulled up a chair, seeing scrolls of numbers and dates on the screen, immediately drawn in.

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Very. There’s so much of it and it’s going to take days to go through it all. But I’ve concentrated on one day.’

  ‘The day that Walker Wright went missing.’

  ‘Yes. June twenty-first, 2019. These are his transactions from that day.’ The screen changed and highlighted a dozen or so items. ‘A couple of them are monthly debits and don’t mean much, certainly not to that day. But these,’ she tapped the screen with a pen, ‘these are the ones I’m interested in.’

  ‘Talk numbers to me, O’Neill.’

  ‘Okay, $49.75. Cost of filling his car at a Shell gas station just north of Barstow on the 15.’

  ‘Mojave Freeway? He buy anything else?’

  ‘He bought the gas at 8.24 in the evening. The next time he used his card was at 6.46 the following morning when he ate breakfast at Peggy Sue’s, a retro diner also on the 15. Just four miles from the Shell station.’

  ‘So, what did he do in between? Drive to Vegas and play the tables?’

  ‘With a body in the trunk? Without taking out cash or using his credit card? Doesn’t seem very likely. Also, he didn’t buy gas again until two days later in LA. He’d need to have filled up way before then if he’d driven all the way to Vegas. I don’t think he left the area, but he didn’t pay for a hotel or motel unless he paid cash.’

  ‘Okay, so what are we thinking?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, Salgado. But I’m thinking we need to go to Peggy Sue’s.’

  ‘What about Marr? That’s a five-hour round trip if we’re lucky. You think we can spare that time when we still don’t know where the kid is?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Geisler. He’s at Garland’s computer. He’ll talk to Marr if he comes online. So far, he’s been quiet, but Geisler is going to feed anything to us soon as it happens. I say we’ve nothing to gain by sitting here waiting.’

  ‘Okay. I guess we’re going on a road trip.’

  *

  Peggy Sue’s was in the Mojave Desert, a jukebox-shaped mirage in the shadow of the Calico Mountains. Its rainbow livery was a surreal interruption to the myriad shades of desert brown that had accompanied them since before Hesperia.

  They rolled into the car park and drank in the sight. What it lacked in subtlety it made up for in joyful tackiness, resplendent in candy pinks, blues and greens, its entrance fashioned like a giant 1950s Wurlitzer.

  ‘I like it,’ Salgado announced. O’Neill just blew out air and said nothing.

  Inside, they were greeted by a massive ice cream sundae, a life-size statue of a dinner-suited butler and a fortune teller machine containing Elvis Presley in his late Vegas period. Salgado grinned and O’Neill raised her eyebrows. They followed the highly polished black and white check-board floor and took a seat in a booth as far from the maddening crowd as they could.

  Their waitress was Patty. With her retro uniform and thick layer of ghostly make-up, she might have worked in the joint since Buddy Holly was in the charts.

  ‘Hey, folks. Welcome to Peggy Sue’s. What can I get you?’

  ‘Just coffee, thanks.’

  ‘No breakfast?’ Patty looked slightly disappointed under the cake.

  ‘Yeah, maybe we should,’ O’Neillrelented.‘What’s good?’

  Patty brightened. ‘I like the Rita Hayworth Cheese Omelette. It’s got cheddar and American. Or if you’re ready for lunch then the Buddy Holly Bacon Cheeseburger is always good.’

  ‘I’ll have the Rita Hayworth.’

  ‘You got it. Curly fries with that?’

  ‘No, just the omelette and coffee.’

  ‘You got it. What about you, cutie?’

  Salgado looked up from the menu and smiled. ‘I’ll take a bowl of the Jailhouse Rock then a King Kong Monster Burger.’

  ‘Curly fries?’

  ‘They’re famous, right?’

  Patty smiled right back at him. ‘Says so right there, honey. And I’d never lie to you.’

  ‘I’m counting on it.’

  The waitress lost ten years on the spot and whirled away in a swish of uniform to fetch their coffees.

  ‘You just can’t help yourself, can you?’

  ‘I just like making people happy. Do you know this place was built in 1954 from railroad ties and mortar from the nearby Union Pacific Railyard? The owners took it over in 1987 and worked to restore it to its original state, filling it with their extensive collection of TV and movie memorabilia. Says so right here, just like Patty said.’

  ‘Great.’

  *

  The coffee arrived steaming hot, placed carefully between them by a contented waitress.

  ‘Breakfast will be coming right up. Can I get you guys anything else right now?’

  ‘Patty, we were wondering if you could help us.’ O’Neill showed
her badge. ‘We’re passing through from LA and we’re trying to find someone who’s missing. Would you mind taking a look at this photograph?’

  Patty’s contentment faded visibly.

  ‘Do you know how many folks we get in here of a day? Darling, I’m not sure I’d remember Buddy Holly himself if he’d sat where you’re sitting and ordered a Rock Around the Clock with curly fries. Although,’ she smiled sweetly at Salgado, ‘him I’d remember. He’s cute.’

  ‘It’s important. Could you at least look?’

  Patty took the edge of the photograph as if it were contaminated but deigned to study it. They saw a wrinkle of surprise crease her face. She let the thought simmer.

  ‘You know . . . actually maybe. Yeah, this guy. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, he was real mean to Elly. He cussed at her, said there’d be no tip, just cos his breakfast took two minutes longer than he’d thought it should. Let me get her.’

  Elly was of a similar vintage to Patty, another ghost of diners past. She picked up the photograph of Garland and jabbed a finger at it accusingly.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. This guy. I remember him.’ She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. ‘A real son of a bitch. Pardon my French.’

  ‘What do you remember about him, Elly?’

  ‘Well, we open at six and this guy barged in right on the dot as if he’d been waiting all night for us to open the doors.’

  ‘He was definitely alone?’

  ‘Yes. Made out as if he’d never want to be around people. I remember thinking he looked like he hadn’t slept. Five o’clock shadow and kinda grimy. Not like a hobo or nothing, just like he’d been working.’

  ‘Did he say anything? Maybe about where he’d been?’ Salgado asked.

  ‘Nothing like that,’ Elly shook her head. ‘He wasn’t one for small talk. I wouldn’t have remembered him at all except he cussed me out when his food wasn’t on the table as quick as he’d have liked. He shouted at me. In front of other customers too.’

  ‘You say you thought he’d been working. Did he maybe have dirt under his fingernails? Dirt on his face, anything like that?’