“Did you and your gang actually go see her?” Rita asked.
“Yeah, afraid so. We went to her office in broad daylight and it got out of hand right from the get-go. We didn’t want to bang her around, nothing like that, just frighten her a little. But the lady went nuts. Started screaming, waving her hands, making a racket. People stood outside gawking. They thought we were robbing her. Someone called the cops. We heard the sirens coming and got the hell out of there.”
“Bless her heart,” I said in a quiet voice.
“That was the end of it?” Sol asked.
“No, not by a long shot. Next thing you know, we get a call from the LAPD chief of detectives, Joe Reed. Byron had him under control, but Reed warned us that the motel lady was adamant about pressing charges. So Byron hired a private attorney to settle the matter. At first she only wanted fifteen hundred for her loss of income. What the hell, petty cash. The lawyer paid her off. Then she wanted more.”
“More?” Sol asked. “How could she pull that off?”
“She had one of those newfangled wire recorders in her office, hidden under the counter. When we came through the door, she flipped it on. Secretly recorded the whole damn thing, all our threats, everything. I heard later that she’d blackmailed Byron. The recording would’ve killed his shot at the governor’s office. He set up a blind irrevocable trust at some bank to pay her a monthly stipend. Once the trust was set up, she turned over her copies of the recording.”
Sol and I looked at each other. We realized that Mel was talking about the funds deposited in Mrs. Hathaway’s bank account every month for the past twenty-nine years, the money her niece Gayle Goodrow had told me about.
“Byron jumped our asses over the affair,” Mel added.
“So the money Mrs. Hathaway received at the end of the month had nothing to do with Vera’s murder,” Rita said.
Mel shook his head. “Just in a roundabout way.”
“But that doesn’t mean Byron didn’t kill Vera back then and Mrs. Hathaway last week,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean he did,” Sol added.
Rita shrugged. “Then we’re back were we started.”
“Not quite,” I said. “The trust fund payments stopped last week, two days after Mrs. Hathaway was murdered. There was nothing in the papers about her death. Notices weren’t sent out. How did the people managing the trust fund know that she had died?”
“Byron must’ve told them,” Rita said. “If he killed her, then obviously he’d know she was dead.”
I raised an eyebrow. “We’re just speculating. We have no proof that Byron is the one who told the trust company about her death.”
“We could question employees of the trust company. Ask them if it was Byron who told them to stop the payments,” Sol said.
“To talk to them about the account we’d need her niece’s power of attorney. She’s the executrix of the estate.”
“Good idea. Give her a call. Get her to sign something.”
I pulled Gayle’s number from my wallet and phoned her. When she answered, I didn’t go into any details. I just told her that I needed her to sign a form, and I’d explain when I saw her. She agreed to meet me that afternoon at Ships, the coffee shop where we’d met before.
I borrowed Rita’s Datsun and drove to the coffee shop. Gayle sat alone in a booth by the front window. “I’m joining a friend,” I told the waitress.
Gayle looked up and smiled when I slid in across from her. But when she noticed the bandages on my face her expression changed. “Are you all right? What happened? Your face-”
“I’m okay. Ran into a door.”
“Oh, really.”
“Nah, got into a fight, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
The waitress brought us coffee. As soon as she left, I placed a standard power of attorney form on the table.
“Gayle, I need to get your signature on this document. We need to talk to the trust employees about an important matter regarding the account.” I didn’t want to mention Byron’s name at this stage, not wanting it to get out until we had more proof that we suspected him of being responsible for her aunt’s murder.
She read the paper carefully, then looked up at me. “I don’t want to sound uncooperative, but what does this mean?”
“I need your power of attorney to enable me to discuss your aunt’s trust account with the people at her bank. I need to know the source of the funds. Might help find the killer.”
She sighed. “Okay, if you think it’ll help.”
While she signed the paper, I asked her the name of the trust company that funded the account, the one from where the money originated.
“It’s the Los Angeles Bank and Trust,” she said.
My God, I thought, that’s the same bank that repo’ed my Corvette.
“Are you sure?” I asked
“Of course I’m sure. Why do you seem so surprised?”
The name, Los Angeles Bank and Trust, rattled around in my brain. Maybe it was just a coincidence about my car. Yeah, it was a big company, but…
“I don’t know. The name just sounds familiar. Anyway, thanks, Gayle.” I picked up the form and slipped it in my pocket.
There was something else I knew about the bank, something that tied it in with the goons. But what was it?
“I’m glad you came out here, Jimmy. Saved me a trip to Downey to see you.”
“See me, why?”
“I have something to give to you. Might help you with the Roberts case-but then again, maybe not. It’s really just a bunch of junk. I was about to throw it away, but then I thought you might find something useful.”
“Throw what away?” I asked, but my thoughts remained focused on the Los Angeles Bank and Trust, trying to place the connection.
She reached down and pulled up a shoebox that must’ve been on the seat next to her. She set it on the table.
“My aunt’s old shoebox. She gave it to me a few days before she died. Said to hide it. But there’s nothing important in it. I think it’s just personal effects that belonged to the woman who was murdered at the motel. Very macabre. A movie magazine, an old newspaper, some cosmetics. A few receipts, stuff like that. I don’t know why she kept it all these years. I guess she was kind of weird.”
“Wait a minute, Gayle, isn’t that the box the cops thought was stolen the night she was killed?”
“No, a big soap carton was missing.” She smiled. “Aunt Ida’s file cabinet.”
“You mean to tell me the thieves stole the soap carton, but the shoebox wasn’t in it?”
“She kept her records in a White King box: old tax returns, insurance policies, and God knows how many receipts. Remember I called you about her insurance?”
“Yeah, but didn’t she keep the shoebox inside the White King carton too?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She took it out of the carton and gave it to me for safekeeping. The robbers didn’t get it.”
She slid the shoebox across the table.
“Here, take it with you,” she said. “When you have time look through it. Maybe you’ll find something I missed. Maybe some reason why Aunt Ida wanted me to hide it.”
“Gayle, this could solve the case! I think the people who killed your aunt were looking for something in this box.” I took a deep breath and rummaged through it. To my disappointment nothing of use immediately popped out at me.
Gayle asked, “Do you see anything that helps?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Just a bunch of Vera’s odd and ends; the same things that were in the box when Mrs. Hathaway opened it to get the phone bills for me. I’ll take the box and go over the stuff more carefully when I have time.”