4/28/84
To: Chief of Detectives From: Det. Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, Rob/Hom. Div.
Sir:
Four days ago I was contacted by my friend, Captain Arthur Peltz, the commander of Hollywood Division. He told me that Officer Jacob Herzog, a Personnel Records clerk at Parker Center who was working on a sub-rosa loan-out to Hollywood Vice, had been missing for nearly a month. Captain Peltz asked me to investigate, and in doing so I discovered that Herzog's (intact) apartment had been professionally wiped of fingerprints. I questioned Herzog's best friend, former L.A.P.D. Sergeant Martin Bergen, who told me that he hadn't seen Herzog in over a month and that Herzog had been "moody" at the time of their last meeting. An interview with Herzog's girlfriend confirms his month long absence and "moody" behavior. My opinion is that Herzog is the victim of a well-planned homicide and that his disappearance should be immediately and fully investigated. I realize that I should have reported this earlier, but my sole purpose in not reporting was to first establish evidence (however circumstantial) of wrongdoing. Captain Peltz ordered me to report to you immediately, but I violated that order.
Respectfully, Lloyd Hopkins, #1114
Lloyd read over his words, strangely satisfied at having taken the bulk of the risk in incurring high brass wrath. He ripped the page out of the notebook and put it in his inside jacket pocket, then clipped on his.38 and handcuffs and made for the front door. He had his hand on the doorknob when the phone rang.
He let it ring ten times before answering-only Penny pursued a phone call that persistently.
"Speak, it's your dime."
Penny's giggle came over the wire. "No, it's not, Daddy! It's my dollarforty."
Lloyd laughed. "Excuse me. I forgot inflation. What's the scoop, Penguin?"
"The same old same old. What about you? Are you getting any?"
Lloyd feigned shock. "Penny Hopkins, I'm surprised at you!"
"No, you're not. You told me I was jaded in my crib. You didn't answer my question, Daddy."
"Very well, in answer to your question, I am not getting any."
Penny's giggle went up an octave. "Good. Mom read me that first letter of yours, you know. We were talking about it the other night. She said it was excessive, that you were excessive, and even when you were admitting to being a sleazy womanizer your admissions were excessive. But I could tell she was impressed."
"I'm glad. Is Roger still staying with you?"
"Yes. Mom sleeps with Roger, but she talks about you. One of these nights I'm going to get her stoned and get her to admit you're her main love. I'll report her words to you verbatim."
Lloyd felt a little piece of his heart work itself loose and drift up to San Francisco. "I want all of you back, Penguin."
"I know. I want to come back, and so does Anne. That's two votes for you. Mom and Caroline want to stay in Frisco. Dead heat."
"Annie and Caroline are okay?"
"Anne is big into vegetarianism and Eastern thought and Caroline is in love with this punk rock fool next door. He's a high school dropout. Gross."
Lloyd laughed. "Par for the teenage course. Let me hit you with something. Doctor John the Night Tripper. Ring any bells?"
"Ancient ones, Daddy. The sixties. He was this wild rock and roller. Caroline has one of his records-Bad Boogaloo."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"A case I'm on. Dutch is on it, too. It's probably nothing."
Penny's voice went low and shrewd. "Daddy, when are you going to tell me about what happened right after the breakup? I'm no dummy, I know you were shot. Uncle Dutch practically admitted it to Mom."
Lloyd sighed as their conversation came to its usual conclusion. "Give it another couple of years, babe. When you're a world-weary fifteen I'll spill my guts. Right now all it means is that I owe a lot of people."
"Owe what, Daddy?"
"I don't know, babe. That's the tricky part."
"Will you tell me when you figure it out?"
"You'll be the first to know. I love you, Penny."
"I love you, too."
"I've got to go."
"So do I. Love love love."
"Likewise."
With "Owe what, Daddy?" trailing in his mind, Lloyd drove downtown to Parker Center. His memo to the chief of detectives rested like a hot coal in his jacket pocket. Deciding to check his incoming basket before dropping it with the chief's secretary, he took the elevator to the sixth floor and strode down the hall to his cubicle, seeing the note affixed to his door immediately: "Hopkins-call Det. Dentinger, B.H.P.D., re: gun query."
Lloyd grabbed his phone and dialed the seven familiar digits of the Beverly Hills Police Department, saying, "Detective Dentinger," when the switchboard operator came on the line. There was the sound of the call being transferred, then a man's perfunctory voice: "Dentinger. Talk."
Lloyd was brusque. "Detective Sergeant Hopkins, L.A.P.D. What have you got on my gun query?"
Dentinger muttered "shit" to himself, then said into the mouthpiece, "We got a burglary from two weeks ago. Unsolved, no prints. A forty-onecaliber revolver was listed on the report of missing items. The reason you didn't get a quicker response on this is because the burglary dicks who originally investigated think that the report was padded, you know, for insurance purposes. A bunch of shit was reported stolen, but the burglar's access was this little basement window. He couldn't have hauled all the shit out- it wouldn't have fit. I've been assigned to investigate the deal, see if we should file on this joker for submitting a false crime report. I'll give you the sp-"
Lloyd cut in. "Do you think there was a burglary?"
Dentinger sighed. "I'll give you my scenario. Yes, there was a burglary. Small items were stolen, like the jewelry on the report, the gun, and probably some shit the victim didn't report, like cocaine-I've got him figured for a stone snowbird, really whacked out. You know the clincher? The guy owns two of these antique guns, mounted in presentation cases, with original ammo from the Civil War, but he only reports one stolen. I don't doubt that the fucker was stolen, but any intelligent insurance padder would stash the other gun and report it stolen too, am I right?"
Lloyd said, "Right. Give me the information on the victim."
"Okay," Dentinger said. "Morris Epstein, age forty-four, eight-one-sixseven Elevado. He calls himself a literary agent, but he's got that Hollywood big bucks fly-by-night look. You know, live high on credit and bullshit, never know where your next buck is coming from. Personally, I think these-"
Lloyd didn't wait for Dentinger to finish his spiel. He hung up the phone and ran for the elevator.
8167 Elevado was a salmon pink Spanish-style house in the Beverly Hills residential district. Lloyd sat in his car at the curb and saw Dentinger's "big bucks fly-by-night" label confirmed: The lawn needed mowing, the hedges needed trimming, and the chocolate brown Mercedes in the driveway needed a bath.
He walked up and knocked on the door. Moments later a small middleaged man with finely sculpted salt-and-pepper hair threw the door open. When he saw Lloyd, he reached for the zipper at the front of his jumpsuit and zipped up his chest. "You're not from Roll Your Own Productions, are you?" he asked.
Lloyd flashed his badge and I.D. card. "I'm from the L.A.P.D. Are you Morris Epstein?"
The man shuffled back into his entrance foyer. Lloyd followed him. "Isn't this out of your jurisdiction?" the man said.
Lloyd closed the door behind them. "I'll make it easy on you, Epstein. I have reason to believe that the forty-one revolver you reported stolen might have been used in a triple homicide. I want to borrow your other forty-one for comparison tests. Cooperate, and I'll tell the Beverly Hills cops that your insurance report was exaggerated, not padded. You dig?"