“And would Claudia, who was so meticulous about money matters, have kept so many people waiting for payment?” Hawes said. “No, sir. That was Josie. And Josie was broke, Josie was waiting for that insurance policy to pay off so she could settle those debts and get the hell out of the country.”
“Well, I admit it adds up,” Meyer said.
Peter Byrnes never wasted words. “Who cashed that twenty-five-thousand-dollar check for Josie?” he said.
There was silence in the room.
“Who’s got that missing five grand?” he said.
There was another silence.
“Who killed Josie?” he said.
15
Jeremiah Dodd of the Security Insurance Corporation, Inc., did not call until two days later. He asked to speak to Detective Carella, and when he got him on the phone, he said, “Mr. Carella, I’ve just heard from San Francisco on that check.”
“What check?” Carella asked. He had been interrogating a witness to a knifing in a grocery store on Culver Avenue. The Claudia Davis or rather the Josie Thompson case was not quite yet in the Open File, but it was ready to be dumped there, and was truly the farthest thing from Carella’s mind at the moment.
“The check was paid to Claudia Davis,” Dodd said.
“Oh, yes. Who cashed it?”
“Well, there are two endorsements on the back. One was made by Claudia Davis, of course. The other was made by an outfit called Leslie Summers, Inc. It’s a regular company stamp marked ‘For Deposit Only’ and signed by one of the officers.”
“Have any idea what sort of a company that is?” Carella asked.
“Yes,” Dodd said. “They handle foreign exchange.”
“Thank you,” Carella said.
He went there with Bert Kling later that afternoon. He went with Kling completely by chance and only because Kling was heading downtown to buy his mother a birthday gift and offered Carella a ride. When they parked the car, Kling asked, “How long will this take, Steve?”
“Few minutes, I guess.”
“Want to meet me back here?”
“Well, I’ll be at 720 Hall, Leslie Summers, Inc. If you’re through before me, come on over.”
“Okay, I’ll see you,” Kling said.
They parted on Hall Avenue without shaking hands. Carella found the street-level office of Leslie Summers, Inc., and walked in. A counter ran the length of the room, and there were several girls behind it. One of the girls was speaking to a customer in French and another was talking Italian to a man who wanted lire in exchange for dollars. A board behind the desk quoted the current exchange rate for countries all over the world. Carella got in line and waited. When he reached the counter, the girl who’d been speaking French said, “Yes, sir?”
“I’m a detective,” Carella said. He opened his wallet to where his shield was pinned to the leather. “You cashed a check for Miss Claudia Davis sometime in July. An insurance-company check for twenty-five thousand dollars. Would you happen to remember it?”
“No, sir, I don’t think I handled it.”
“Would you check around and see who did, please?”
The girl held a brief consultation with the other girls, and then walked to a desk behind which sat a corpulent, balding man with a razor-thin mustache. They talked with each other for a full five minutes. The man kept waving his hands. The girl kept trying to explain about the insurance-company check. The bell over the front door sounded. Bert Kling came in, looked around, saw Carella, and joined him at the counter.
“All done?” Carella asked.
“Yeah, I bought her a charm for her bracelet. How about you?”
“They’re holding a summit meeting,” Carella said.
The fat man waddled over to the counter. “What is the trouble?” he asked Carella.
“No trouble. Did you cash a check for twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Yes. Is the check no good?”
“It’s a good check.”
“It looked like a good check. It was an insurance-company check. The young lady waited while we called the company. They said it was bona fide and we should accept it. Was it a bad check?”
“No, no, it was fine.”
“She had identification. It all seemed very proper.”
“What did she show you?”
“A driver’s license or a passport is what we usually require. But she had neither. We accepted her birth certificate. After all, we did call the company. Is the check no good?”
“It’s fine. But the check was for twenty-five thousand, and we’re trying to find out what happened to five thousand of...”
“Oh, yes. The francs.”
“What?”
“She bought five thousand dollars’ worth of French francs,” the fat man said. “She was going abroad?”
“Yes, she was going abroad,” Carella said. He sighed heavily. “Well, that’s that. I guess.”
“It all seemed very proper,” the fat man insisted.
“Oh, it was, it was. Thank you. Come on, Bert.”
They walked down Hall Avenue in silence.
“Beats me,” Carella said.
“What’s that, Steve?”
“This case.” He sighed again. “Oh, what the hell!”
“Yeah, let’s get some coffee. What was all that business about the francs?”
“She bought five thousand dollars’ worth of francs,” Carella said.
“The French are getting a big play lately, huh?” Kling said, smiling. “Here’s a place. This look okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” Carella pulled open the door of the luncheonette. “What do you mean, Bert?”
“With the francs.”
“What about them?”
“The exchange rate must be very good.”
“I don’t get you.”
“You know. All those francs kicking around.”
“Bert, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Weren’t you with me? Last Wednesday?”
“With you where?”
“The lineup. I thought you were with me.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Carella said tiredly.
“Oh, well, that’s why.”
“That’s why what? Bert, for the love of...”
“That’s why you don’t remember him.”
“Who?”
“The punk they brought in on that burglary pickup. They found five grand in French francs in his apartment.”
Carella felt as if he’d just been hit by a truck.
16
It had been crazy from the beginning. Some of them are like that. The girl had looked black, but she was really white. They thought she was Claudia Davis, but she was Josie Thompson. And they had been looking for a murderer when all there happened to be was a burglar.
They brought him up from his cell where he was awaiting trial for Burglary One. He came up in an elevator with a police escort. The police van had dropped him off at the side door of the Criminal Courts Building, and he had entered the corridor under guard and been marched down through the connecting tunnel and into the building that housed the district attorney’s office, and then taken into the elevator. The door of the elevator opened into a tiny room upstairs. The other door of the room was locked from the outside and a sign on it read NO ADMITTANCE. The patrolman who’d brought Ralph Reynolds up to the interrogation room stood with his back against the elevator door all the while the detectives talked to him, and his right hand was on the butt of his Police Special.
“I never heard of her,” Reynolds said.
“Claudia Davis,” Carella said. “Or Josie Thompson. Take your choice.”