JO03 - Detour to Murder (8 page)

C H A P T E R 
11

I hadn’t realized what was
about to happen, I guess, because my mind was occupied with what I’d found at the motor court. After scribbling the phone numbers on a yellow pad, I jumped in the Corvette and took the I-5, heading back to my office in Downey. I set the yellow tablet with the phone numbers on the passenger seat and popped a Beatles 8-track cartridge into the deck built into the dash. McCartney’s up-tempo guitar riffs of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” filled the air. While I drove, I wondered how I could match thirty-year-old phone numbers with names, and I wondered if it would even do me any good. How could any of the phone calls Vera had made in 1945 prove that Roberts hadn’t murdered her? But the phone numbers were the only clue I had that might lead to Vera’s identity, and her identity might provide a motive. It’s strange that the police didn’t run a check on the phone calls back then. There was nothing in the arrest report about them. Maybe they
did
check the numbers and maybe they purposely didn’t include the results. Maybe they decided to play a little hide and seek with the evidence.

Maybe I was just being paranoid.

About a mile past the interchange in Boyle Heights where the I-5 and the San Bernardino Freeway came together, I tried to edge my car to the left. I needed to get in the far lane in order to transition to the Santa Ana Freeway. But a Buick with two guys in the front seat blocked my way. The bastards caused me to miss my turn and I ended up heading west on the Santa Monica Freeway.

Exiting the freeway at the 8
^th
Street off-ramp dumped me in an industrial area of grey brick multi-story warehouses and antiquated manufacturing plants, probably built during the Harding administration. It was well after six p.m. Buildings obscured the sun, low in the western sky, and long shadows filled the deserted streets. I pulled to the curb and grabbed my Thomas Guide from under the seat. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” played loudly as I tried to figure how to double back to the freeway heading east. I fingered the map’s pages, flipping back and forth, trying to mentally follow the tangle of freeway off-ramps and on-ramps printed in red and black ink.

I heard a sickening crunch and felt a strong jolt. My head snapped back, then my chest slammed into the steering wheel. I took a deep breath and looked behind me. The same Buick I’d spotted on the freeway—at least I thought so—had bashed into the rear of my Vette. Two big guys jumped out and ran toward me. As I opened the door and started to get out, one of the thugs slammed a fist filled with brass knuckles into my face. I instinctively raised my forearm and blocked the next punch. The second guy whacked my shoulder with a tire iron. I feel back into the seat, dazed. The Beatles stopped singing and the tape automatically ejected.

“Hey, scumbag, you’re snooping around were you don’t belong!” the guy shouted.

I shook my head. Some asshole’s blurry face was inches from mine. “What the hell are you talking about—?” I managed to shout back before he backhanded me across my sore jaw.

“Let me give you some fucking good advice. Stick to defending pickpockets and drunks, or you’ll find out how serious we really are.”

I started to climb out of the car seat again. Though pissed and maybe a bit foolish, I wanted to get my hands on those sons-of-bitches. By the time I staggered out, they had already dashed back to the Buick. The sedan’s rear wheels spun rubber as it raced away. What was this all about? I wondered. But then, I thought, next time I’ll be ready.

The pain receptors in my shoulder were doing a fandango. I wiggled one of the loose molars inside of my mouth with my tongue and spat out a little blood. No real damage had been done, but for a while I’d have to lay off the .89-cent steaks I had in my freezer.

I suddenly realized that the two heavyweights were undoubtedly the same goons I’d seen parked at the In-N-Out burger stand in Chino. They drove the same car, a black Buick Century with no front license plate. Who were these guys? More important: who did they work for? The warning had to be about the Roberts case. I had nothing else working and the harassment started at about the same time that I’d agreed to take it on. But why was Roberts such a big deal?

I stumbled around to the back of my car. Christ, the fiberglass body had a nasty gash where the Buick had bumped it. But at least it was drivable. I wondered if my insurance would cough up for the repair job. I didn’t remember seeing a rider on the policy covering hoodlum harassment. And I wondered if Mabel had paid the premium.

An hour later I pulled into the parking lot at my office. Rita and Mabel were gone for the day, but Mabel had placed a pink phone message in the center of my desk.
Call Deputy District Attorney Stephen Marshall first thing Monday morning. Wants to make an offer.

Wants to make an offer on what? I wondered. Marshall was the young Deputy DA at the parole hearing. How could the DA’s office make an offer regarding the Roberts case? They have nothing to do with the board’s decision. Marshall had no official position. He had been there only as a witness.

Even though my jaw throbbed and my tooth ached, I knew I had to eat something. I’d skipped lunch and was suddenly famished and now my dinner would have to be eaten through a straw. I had a few cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle stashed in my kitchen cupboard. Ugh.

I tucked Mabel’s message in my pocket and put the list of phone numbers in my top desk drawer, just as the phone rang.

“Jimmy, come on over to Rocco’s,” Sol said when I answered. “Silvia left for Hawaii with her sister this morning, a little vacation on Maui, so I’m baching it. Don’t want to eat alone and don’t want to eat with people who invited me to eat with them. So get over here and I’ll buy you a juicy steak. How’s that sound?”

I knew I couldn’t eat a steak with my tooth as loose as it was, but I did want to ask him about the possibility of the Haskell family having any involvement with the L.A. County DA’s office prior to 1945.

“Oh, man, that sounds good.” I wiggled my tooth again. “But I’ll just have a bowl of chicken soup.”

“Chicken soup? Are you nuts? We’re talking prime beef here, thick porterhouse steaks smothered in onions. What’s the matter, you sick?”

“Yeah, well, something like that,” I said. “Hey, I called you earlier. I want to talk to you about—”

“We’ll talk when you get here.”

I pulled the yellow tablet I used at the motel from the desk drawer. “I’ve also got a list of phone numbers that I need you to track down.”

“No sweat, bring it with you.” The phone clicked off.

“Oy vey! Jimmy, what happened to you? You look like hell,” Sol said as I slid into his private booth at Rocco’s. Laughter and music from the bar area swirled around us.

I rubbed the left side of my jaw. A bump had formed and it felt tender. “A couple of bruisers tried to persuade me to drop the Roberts case. Nothing serious. I’ll be fine, except my Vette needs a little work.”

“Hired muscle, but who do they work for?” Sol said quietly, almost to himself. His brain was engaged, mulling over the same question that played continually in my mind.

“Someone who obviously has something to hide.”

“Jimmy, I know you well enough to know that you’re not going to quit the case.”

“Of course not. I’d handle it for nothing, now.”

“You are handling it for nothing.”

“I got fifty bucks from the county.”

“Where’s my cut?” Sol said, his face easing into a smile.

“You have my company for dinner. You want more?”

Sol turned serious. “You think you’ll need protection?”

“Nah, I’ll just have to keep on my guard up.”

Jeanine appeared, and Sol ordered the porterhouse. Nothing more was said about my liquid diet when I requested a large bowl of chicken soup, heavy on the broth. Jeanine looked at me and nodded knowingly.

When the waitress left, I told Sol my hunch that the Haskell family may have had dealings with the DA’s office prior to the Roberts affair. “They were a powerful family even back then,” I said. “Just a guess, but maybe Charles Jr. and Raymond’s old man had been in bed with Byron before Roberts appeared on the scene. Maybe that’s why Byron jumped in later and took over the case personally.”

“Could be, Jimmy. I’ll put a couple of my men on it. Might be some records buried somewhere, or maybe there might be someone still around who worked in the DA’s office back then that would come clean. It’ll take a few days, but if Haskell and Byron had anything funny going on, we’ll find out.” Sol paused for a moment and lit up a cigar. Puffing while looking at the ceiling, he said, “Hey, my boy, not bad. It’s a good theory.”

“Think so?”

“Yeah, well, better than average.”

While Sol polished off his steak and I sipped my soup we avoided discussing the case and nothing more was said about the bad guys who asked me, in a less than polite manner, to quit the case. But after we finished our meal, I put the list of phone numbers on the table. I told Sol about Mrs. Hathaway and her lawsuit and how she’d saved the telephone bills along with a Photoplay movie magazine, a newspaper, Vera’s makeup paraphernalia, and other objects in the murder room that the cops hadn’t bagged.

“After almost thirty years, is there any way we can connect names with these numbers?” I asked.

“Aw, finding a link that Byron might’ve had with the Haskell family could be a little tough, but this one’s easy.” Sol glanced around the room until he caught Jeanine’s attention. “Sweetheart, bring me a phone, will you please?”

While the waitress ran to get a telephone, he studied the numbers and prefixes listed on the yellow tablet. “Lot of calls, but maybe we’ll get lucky with a few.”

“Didn’t they have cross directories back in those days?”

“Maybe they did, but the directories wouldn’t be in public hands. They’d be for the police department only. I doubt if any of them are still in existence.”

“Then back in 1945 it would’ve been easy for the cops to find out who Vera had called. Isn’t that right, Sol?”

“Easy to do, if they bothered to check. But after they arrested Roberts and he confessed, why muddy the waters with a few phone calls that probably didn’t have anything to do with the murder?”

Jeannie appeared with a phone. She plugged the cord into a socket hidden in an area behind the booth. Sol picked up the receiver, glanced once more at the list of phone numbers and began to dial.

“Who you calling?” I asked.

“I’m calling your phone numbers, changing the exchange letters for their number.” He held up a finger. “Sorry, wrong number,” he said into the phone. He dialed again, listened for a moment and then hung up. He kept dialing, listening, and hanging up until he had called all the numbers on the list. Finally he looked up at me. “Most of the numbers are no longer in service. But some are still the same.”

“How could that be?” I pointed to one of the phone numbers on the paper, a Crestview exchange number. What about that one, CR 5-4211? There’s no area code or anything.”

“That’s easy. The Crestview exchange used to be in Beverly Hills. The area code for Beverly Hills is now 310, same as here, so I just dialed the number, substituting 27 for the corresponding letters, CR.”

“Who answered?”

“It’s Saks Fifth Avenue, on Wilshire. Vera must’ve have been planning to pick up a new wardrobe. There’s also another Crestview number on your list, CR 6-5723, but no one answered.”

“Wouldn’t the telephone company have changed the phone numbers after thirty years?”

“Nope, not for businesses. Why would they?” He thought for a moment. “Remember that Glenn Miller song, recorded in the forties, ‘Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand’?”

“Vaguely.”

“The title of the song was the actual phone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, PE 6-5000. Before the war, Miller and his band used to perform in their ballroom. But after all these years the hotel has the same number now as they had then, Pennsylvania 6-5000. Numbers instead of letters, of course.”

“No kidding?”

“Don’t believe me? Dial the number, 212 area code.”

“I believe you.”

“Dial it.”

“Sol, I said I believe you.”

But when he handed me the phone I dialed 212-736-5000. The hotel desk clerk answered. I asked him how long they had that number. “Forever,” the guy said and hung up.

After I put the receiver down, I asked Sol about the other numbers on the list. “Okay, you’re right. But who else had Vera called?”

“As I said, most of them are no longer in service, people move and stuff. With a couple of numbers, the phone rang but no one answered. One belonged to a Chinese takeout, Chung’s Chop Suey,” Sol said. “Hey, I haven’t had Chinese in a while, maybe we should try to find a good Chinese joint, but not chop suey, Peking duck—”

“Sol, the phone numbers.”

Oh, yeah. Here’s something interesting.” He pointed to a couple of numbers on my list.

I leaned forward. “What?”

“Three calls were made to a VErmont number, Culver City. Do you know what’s in Culver City, Jimmy?”

“I don’t know. Used car lots, restaurants? Christ, what kind of question is that?”

“Take a guess. It’s big.”

“Sol, damn it, just tell me who she called.”

“She called the MGM movie studio. In fact, two of the calls were made to the private line of their security department.”

C H A P T E R 
12

The next morning I woke
up early, unusual for a Saturday, and when I looked in the mirror I noticed that the bruise on my jaw had spread to my cheek. My shoulder was black and blue and still throbbed. I took three aspirins and washed them down with coffee. My tooth seemed okay, so I figured I’d head to Dolan’s Donuts for breakfast, have a couple of glazed and relax with the
Times
before driving to the LAPD to report the incident. I’d need the report for insurance purposes—though again I hoped that Mabel had paid the last premium.

But, I’d just file a simple hit and run report. The Buick had no license number, and with only a sketchy description of the goons the cops couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t do anything, anyway. They’d just file the report and that would be that. So why spend half the morning in the Newton Street station answering questions that I couldn’t answer?

On the way back to Downey from the police station, I thought of something. I pulled off the freeway and called Rita’s apartment from a payphone.

“Hey, Rita, did you find anything out about Sue Harvey? She came to L.A. to break into the movies. Maybe she had something going at MGM.” I’d been thinking about Vera’s call to the studio.

“No, Jimmy, there’s no record of her ever being in a movie, but I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. I want to show you something important I found out about Sue.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the office in twenty minutes.”

“It’s almost lunchtime. Want me to bring you a snack? I can whip up a veggie plate.”

That’s all I needed, on top of everything else, a veggie plate. “Not hungry, Rita, but thanks anyway. Hey, I’d love a cup of your coffee, though.”

Rita stood fussing at the coffee bar when I walked in. She turned and her eyes grew large. Before she could comment about the bruise on my face I said, “It’s a long story. Don’t ask.”

She kept staring at me angrily, and I knew she wouldn’t drop it. So I told her how some hothead had rear-ended my Vette. Then when I got out of the car to talk it over he became angry and took a punch at me. The lie was so weak even I wouldn’t have bought it. But, I figured, if I told Rita the truth about the thugs she’d just worry, and what good would that do?

Finally, she shook her head slowly and turned back to Mr. Coffee. She filled a cup and handed it to me. “Let go sit at your desk. I have something to show you. Might help us find Sue Harvey.”

She picked up her briefcase and we walked into my office. I sat behind my desk and she sat in the client chair. She produced several sheets of papers, stapled at the corner.

“I spent most of yesterday at the Central Library downtown. I checked the 1945 Los Angeles phonebooks, of course, looking for a Sue Harvey. Lots of Harveys but no one named Sue. Then I went through a motion picture directory that listed everyone who had a cast member credit for movies made in 1945 and ’46; nothing there either.”

“Not even a bit part in a movie made by MGM?” I asked, thinking of the phone call again.

“Not that I could find. But L.A. is a movie town, so they have a large collection of motion picture memorabilia, including fan magazines that go way back to the twenties. I figured if Sue got her foot in the door at a studio, maybe the promotion department planted a story about her. It was a long shot but I thought I’d give it a try. They did that for starlets back in those days, even before the girls were actually in a film.”

I took a sip of coffee. “They still do it today. Testing the waters, I guess.”

“That’s right, and I looked through a dozen or so movie magazines from 1945,
Silver Screen, Motion Picture
,
Movie Star Parade
, and so on. But look what I found in the July issue of
Photoplay.”

Rita leaned forward and handed me what appeared to a Xerox copy of a magazine article. A black and white photo took up a quarter of the first page.

As I glanced at the document, she said, “They wouldn’t let me take the magazine out of the library, but they have a copy center. The article’s not important. But take a look at the picture and read the caption.”

I stared at the photo of a man and a woman all decked out in evening clothes sitting at a table in Ciro’s, a high-end nightclub located on the Sunset Strip. Several glasses of partially consumed drinks, a small lamp with the nightclub’s logo on the shade, and two ashtrays rested on the linen-draped cocktail table.

The man pinched a cigarette holder between his two fingers, the smoke from the cigarette wafting in front of his long face. He had dark wavy hair plastered back with a razor sharp crease on the left side of his head, and he had long slender hands, almost effeminate. Though rather small, he had the look of a distinguished gentleman. I guessed his age to be in the mid-forties. Other than the cigarette holder, he didn’t look like a movie star. He looked more like a guy who made a movie star’s funeral arrangements. The woman sitting next to him had her hands folded politely on the table. The picture was taken in 1945 and the couple’s clothes reflected the period. The man wore a formal tux and the woman, in her twenties, had on a dark evening gown, low cut with spaghetti straps. Some kind of big flower was pinned in her long blonde hair.

I focused on the woman—beautiful face, full lips, and pencil-line eyelashes arching over her bright eyes. With her blonde hair, I imagined her eyes must have been blue.

The caption under the photograph said the woman’s name was Sue Harvey. She was out on the town with the A-list movie star, Francis Q. Jerome, her fiancé.

No wonder Roberts spent all that time hitching rides across the country to be with her. Sue Harvey was stunning.

I looked up at Rita. “Did this magazine happen to have Lauren Bacall’s face on the cover?”

“Yeah, it did. How’d you know?”