While I examined the records looking for the telephone bill, she glanced at the magazine. Lauren Bacall’s young, beautiful face graced the cover, set it aside, and thumbed through the old newspaper.
“This is it,” I said, holding up the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph bill. It was dated August 1, 1945 and contained several pages. Certain phone numbers were circled in red. Just as Mrs. Hathaway had said, there were a large number of calls itemized, a dozen at least. The ones circled had been made from bungalow number 2 during the four-day period, July 10th to the 13th. Friday the 13th had been the last day of Vera’s short life.
Area codes and direct dialing didn’t exist in those days. Each phone call listed had a telephone exchange name followed by a five-digit number. Before converting to area codes in the late fifties, different areas of Los Angeles had different exchange names. For example, CRestview had been the exchange name for the Beverly Hills region. If you dialed CR and five numbers you were calling someone who lived or did business in or around Beverly Hills. And Vera-or Roberts-had made a number of calls to that exchange.
Phone calls made to the VErmont exchange also appeared a few times. VErmont was the exchange name used for Culver City, if memory served me. HOllywood, no problem figuring out that one, but I didn’t recall where MAdison, BRadshaw, POpular and several others were located. The bill listed each toll call and included the date, length, and time of day the call had been placed. Any local phone calls she may have made had not been listed.
Turning the page, I found out why the charges amounted to over a hundred dollars. Cross-country operator-assisted calls were very expensive back in the forties, and someone in bungalow 2 had made a phone call to a New Orleans exchange, CHestnut.
But one of the calls to the Culver City exchange had been placed at the approximate time of her death. Photos of Vera’s dead body taken at the scene had shown a telephone cord wrapped around her neck. Could she have been talking to someone in Culver City just before she died?
CHAPTER 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 8th 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?”