L.A. Confidential (36 page)

  And now, two recent developments have blown the Nite Owl case wide open.

  Back in 1953, two men, brothers, came forward as material wimesses with information on the Nite Owl killings. Those men, Peter and Baxter Englekling, asserted that a pornography plot was at the base of the coffee shop massacre, per a scheme devised by one of the victims: ex-convict Delbert "Duke" Cathcart. The LAPD chose to ignore this information. Then, almost five years later, Peter and Baxter Englekling were viciously murdered in the small upstate town of Gaitsville. Those kiffings, which took place on February 25, are unsolved with a complete absence of clues. But a long-unanswered question was about to be answered.

  At San Quentin Penitentiary, a Negro prisoner named Otis John Shot-tell read a San Francisco newspaper account of the Englekling brothers' killings, an account which mentioned their tenuous connection to the Nite Owl case. The article got Otis John Shortell thinking. He requested an audience with the assistant warden and made a startling confession.

  Otis John Shortell, in prison on an accumulation of grand-theft auto convictions and franldy desiring a sentence reduction as a reward for his cooperation, confessed that he was one of the men Coates, Fontaine and Jones "sold" Inez Soto to. He was with Miss Soto and the three youths between the hours of 2:30 and 5:00 on the morning of the Nite Owl killings, _during the entire murder time frame_. He told the warden that he never came forward to exonerate the three for fear of rape charges being filed against him. He further stated that Coates had a large quantity of narcotics in his car and that that was the reason he never relinquished its location to the police. Shortell cited a recent conversion to Pentecostal Christianity as his reason for finally making his confession, but prison authorities were dubious. Shortell petitioned for an in-cell lie detector test to prove his veracity and was given a total of four polygraph examinations. He passed all four tests conclusively. Shortell's attorney, Morris Waxman, has sent notarized copies of the polygraph examiner's reports to the _Daily News_ and the LAPD. We have advanced this article. What will the LAPD do?

  We decry the injustice of shotgun justice. We decry the motives of triggerman Ed Exley. We openly challenge the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the Nite Owl Murder Case.

EXTRACT: L.A. _Times_, March 11:

NITE OWL HUE AND CRY BUILDING

  A welter of unrelated events and a fire fanned by a series of articles in the Los Angeles _Daily News_ are pressuring the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the 1953 Nite Owl murder case investigation.

  LAPD Chief William H. Parker called the controversy "a powder keg with a wet fuse. It's all a bunch of baloney. The testimony of a degenerate criminal and an unrelated double murder do not constitute a reason to reopen a case successfully solved five years ago. I stood by Captain Ed Exley's actions in 1953 and I stand by them now."

  Chief Parker's references allude to the February 25 murders of Peter and Baxter Englekling, material witnesses to the original Nite Owl investigation, and the recent testimony of San Quentin inmate Otis John Shortell, who claimed to be with the three formerly accused killers during the time frame of the Nite Owl murders. Citing Shot-tell's in-prison lie detector tests, his attorney Morris Waxman stated, "Polygraphs don't lie. Otis is a religious man who carries a great burden of guilt for not coming forth to exonerate innocent men five years ago, and now he wants to see justice done. He has given three dead victims a lie detector validated alibi and now he wants to see the real killers punished. I will not cease publicizing this matter until the LAPD agrees to do their duty and reopen the case."

  Richard Tunstell, city editor of the Los Angeles _Daily News_, echoed that sentiment. "We've got our teeth sunk into something important. We're not going to let go."

BANNERS

L.A. _Daily News_, March 14:

J'ACCUSE--LAPD IN NITE OWL COVER-UP

L.A. _Daily News_, March 15:

OPEN LETTER TO TRIGGERMAN EXLEY

L.A. _Times_, March 16:

CONVICT'S LAWYER PETITIONS

  STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL

    FOR NITE OWL CASE

REOPENING

L.A. _Herald-Express_, March 17:

PARKER TO THE PRESS: NITE OWL

A DEAD ISSUE

L.A. _Daily News_, March 19:

CITIZENS DEMAND JUSTICE--PICKETS

STALK THE LAPD

L.A. _Herald-Express_, March 20:

PARKER/LOEW IN HOT SEAT

GOVERNOR KNIGHT: NITE OWL

     A "POWDER KEG"

L.A. _Mirror-News_, March 20:

THE WAGES OF DEATH--

              EXCLUSIVE PICS OF EXLEY/SOTO

   LOVE NEST

L.A. _Examiner_, March 20:

POLICE SWITCHBOARDS

                FLOODED: CITIZENS VOICE

NITE OWL OPINIONS

L.A. _Times_, March 20:

            PARKER BACKS EXLEY AND HOLDS FIRM:

              "NO NITE OWL REOPENING"

L.A. _Daily News_, March 20:

JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL!

              DEMAND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY!

              REOPEN THE NITE OWL CASE NOW!

PART FOUR

    Destination: Morgue

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The phone rang: odds on the press 20 to 1. Ed picked up anyway. "Yes?"

  "Bill Parker, Ed."

  "Sir, how are you? And thanks for that quote in the _Times_."

  "I meant it, son. We're going to tough this thing out and let it pass. How's Inez taking it? The publicity, I mean."

  "My father said she's staying at Ray Dieterling's place in Laguna. And we broke it off a few months ago. It just wasn't working."

  "I'm sorry. Inez is a plucky girl, though. Compared to what she's been through, this thing should be cake."

  Ed rubbed his eyes. "I'm not so sure it'll pass."

  "I think it will. The Gaitsville Police won't cooperate on the Englekling homicides and that Negro at Quentin has nil value as a witness. His polygraph seems valid, but his attorney is a grandstanding shyster only interested in getting his client out of--"

  "Sir, all that aside, I don't think the men I killed did the Nite Owl and--"

  "Don't interrupt me and don't tell me you're so suicidally naive as to think reopening the case will do one whit of good. Now, I'm waiting for it to pass and the attorney general up in Sacramento is waiting for it to pass. Bad publicity, petitions for justice and the like _always_ peak out and pass."

  "And if it doesn't?"

  Parker sighed. "If the A.G. orders a state-run special investigation, I'll file an LAPD injunction against him and preempt him with an investigation of our own. I have Ellis Loew's full support on that strategy--but it will pass."

  Ed said, "I'm not so sure I want it to."

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Mobster Squad duty: room 6, the Victory Motel. Bud, Mike Breuning, a Frisco boy cuffed to the hot seat--Joe Sifakis, three loanshark falls, snatched off a train at Union Station. Breuning worked the hose; Bud watched.

  Fourteen hundred on the dresser--a police charity donation. A get-out-of-town pitch in high gear--dental work coming up. Bud checked his watch--4:20--Dudley was late. Sifakis screamed.

  Bud walked into the bathroom. Four obscene walls: sex ditties, some dated. '53 entries--he thought Nite Owl straight off. Scary: the Nite Owl big-time news, Dud wanted to talk to him bad. He turned on the sink--cover the screams. He tested _his_ Nite Owl string, found it watertight.

  Nobody knew he leaked his story to _Whisper_--if the high brass knew he would have heard--and Cathcart's stiff was still under the house. Nobody knew he tipped the Gaitsville Sheriff's to the Englekling connection to the Nite Owl. Lucky breaks: the brothers dead, the spook up at Quentin--probably a legit alibi. He was clean on the evidence he suppressed in '53--if Dudley had an inkling he was holding stuff back it probably tied to his fix on the Kathy snuff. Dud was the Nite Owl supervisor, he'd want the brouhaha to pass--a reopening would make him look like a supporting player chump--second banana to hero chump Ed Exley. Parker was trying to keep a reopening kiboshed, call the odds against it 5 to 1, 5 to 1 that Exley would come out smelling--

  Sifakis screamed--the door shook.

  Bud doused his head in the sink. A scrawl by the mirror: Meg Greunwitz fucks good--AX-74022. Girls' names on the walls; last week the L.A. Sheriff's bagged a dead hooker, add it to his list: Lynette Ellen Kendrick, age 21, DOD 3/17/58. Beaten, ring lacerations, three-hole rape--the county cops wouldn't give him the time of--

  Sifakis started babbling. The bathroom got too hot to take.

  Bud walked out. Sifakis, snitch-frenzied. ". . . and I know things, I _hear_ things. Like, dig, with the Mick out it's open season. Things was on this weird slowdown while he was inside, but these shooter teams took out these guys that was running his franchises, then these maverick guys, three triggers bang bang bang, they 86'd Mickey's men and these guys trying to crash his loanouts. Everybody used to respect Dud S. as a trucemaker, but now he don't do a damn thing. You want a prostie roust? Huh? Huh? You want a good tip on a . -

  Breuning looked bored. Bud went out to the courtyard: crabgrass, barbed-wire fenced. Fourteen empty rooms--LAPD bought the property cheap.

  "Lad."

  Dudley on the sidewalk. Bud lit a cigarette, walked over.

  "Lad, I'm sorry I'm late."

  "It don't matter, you said it was serious."

  "Yes, it is all of that. How are you enjoying the Hollywood squad, lad? Is it to your liking?"

  "I liked Homicide better."

  "Grand, and I'll see to it that you return sometime soon. And have you been relishing the spectacle of friend Exley ridiculed by the fourth estate?"

  Smoke made him cough. "Yeah, sure. Too bad the case won't get reopened and really make him squirm. Not that I'd want to see you stand heat for it, though."

  Dudley laughed. "I see the conflicts inherent in your perspective. And I feel a certain ambivalence myself, especially since a little birdie in Sacramento has informed me that the attorney general will soon press to reopen the case. Ellis Loew has an injunction prepared should things get dicey, so I think it is safe to assume that the Nite Owl is regrettably our hot potato once again. Political infighting, lad. The pinko Democrats have taken the tack of jigaboos wrongly accused, intend to press the issue during the primary elections, and the Republican A.G. has sidestepped and counterpunched. Lad, do you possess any Nite Owl information that you haven't presented to me?"

  Ready, prepared. "No."

  "Ah, grand. That aside then, I have an assignment for you here at the Victory tonight. A very large and muscular man requires a bracing, and frankly Mike and Dick lack the presence to appropriately impress him. It's a small world, lad--I think this chap knew our friend Duke Cathcart back in '53. Maybe he can give you some information on your Kathy Janeway fixation. Does fair Kathy's fate still concern you, lad?"

  Bud swallowed--dry.

  "Lad, forget that I asked. Fixations like that are like prostitutes--they can reform, but their old ways still linger. Tonight at 10:00, lad. And be of good cheer. I have some extracurricular work for you soon, work that should rekindle your old fearsome habits."

  Bud blinked.

  Dudley smiled, walked to room 6.

  Prostitute equals Lynn. Janeway jibe equals just how much?

  Joe Sifakis screamed--through four walls, out to the edge of the courtyard.

CHAPTER FIFTY

  Gallaudet slipped him the news: the Attorney General's Office was set to press for a reopening: statefinanced, state-run. Ellis Loew was set to usurp their investigation-- the LAPD, Nite Owl redux. Time to call it all in.

  Ed in a coffee shop on La Brea. Jack Vincennes due, paperwork on the table: Nite Owl, notes on the Hudgens case.

  Check mark: was the man at San Quentin telling the truth? Most likely yes--whatever his motives.

  Check mark: did the Englekling killings tie in to the Nite Owl? No way to tell until the Mann Sheriff's shared their information.

  Check mark: the purple car by the Nite Owl. A hunch: it was an innocent vehicle, the real killers followed the publicity, located Ray Coates' car before the LAPD, planted the shotguns. This meant--astoundingly--that they planted the spent shells found in Griffith Park. Hall of Justice Jail records '35 to '55 had been destroyed--if the killers gleaned the information as part of a jail connection, finding that connection would most likely prove impossible. Have Kleckner and Fisk thoroughly investigate every logical possibility pertaining to the purple car/planted shotguns.

  Check mark: victim Malcolm Lunceford, ex--LAPD officer/wino security guard. Did he tie in to some kind of criminal conspiracy that resulted in the Nite Owl massacre? Answer: unlikely--he was a certified, long-term Nite Owl habitué, late nights always.

  Ed sipped coffee, thought POWER. Abused: IAD was autonomous inside and outside the Department; he'd had Fisk and Kleckner working toward a possible reopening--LAPD's or his own. Vincennes admitted his tail on Bud White and lied about White knowing his sporadic girlfriend--Lynn Bracken--during the spring of '53. Lynn Bracken was placed under loose surveillance; Fisk just submitted a report.

  The woman was rumored to be an ex-prostitute; she co-owned a dress shop in Santa Monica. Her partner: Pierce Morehouse Patchett, age fifty-six. Kleckner secured a fmancial report: Patchett emerged as a wealthy investor known to pimp call girls to business associates. The financial kicker:

  Patchett owned an apartment building in Hollywood. A weird shootout took place there--in the middle of the Nite Owl time frame. He caught the squeal himseffi no suspects apprehended, sadomasochist gear in a shot-riddled downstairs unit. The manager claimed not to know the building's owner--he was paid by mail, suspected a dummy corporation issued him his paycheck. He knew the first name of the apartment's tenant--"Lamar," a "big blond guy." The manager blamed Lamar for the shootout; a Hollywood Division follow-up report stated that Lamar had not been seen since the incident. Incident closed.