He went back behind his desk and sat down and lit one of his sugar-coated cigars. Silence tiptoed around the room.
“Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, this don’t have anything to do with Culhane?” he said finally. “Maybe she was shacking up with some guy, and his wife came over and did her in. Maybe she was running dope across the border on weekends and her Chicano pals gave her the bath. See what I mean? There could be a lot of scenarios. You got some coincidences workin’ here and it looks like a closed case to you. Think about it, Bannon; you got to find the killer and tie him to Culhane and tie it all back to something that happened over twenty years ago.”
“It’s all we got for the present,” I said. “Bones is going to misplace the autopsy report long enough for me to go up there and lay the story on Culhane and see his reaction. That will tell me a lot. Then if the banks want to keep playing hide-and-seek, we’ll run over to Santa Maria and get Judge Wainwright to give us a search warrant. The money trail leads up there.”
“And if it peters out?”
“We lose nothing. We take it to McCurdy when the post is released and let him tell us how to deal with it.”
“I really don’t like it when you fast-talk me, Zeke.”
“It’s logical.”
“So was Custer’s Last Stand.”
“So what do we do? Shall I call Bones and tell him to send over the post? I’ll do a report and then take it to McCurdy before it goes on file for the press?”
His eyes brightened when I mentioned that idea. He puffed on his cigar and stared across the desk at me. “You got five minutes to convince me otherwise.” He looked at his watch.
I said: “When Culhane became sheriff he promised to clean the mobsters out of Eureka, which is what San Pietro was called then. That meant getting rid of Arnie Riker and his number two, Tony Fontonio. Riker was arrested and convicted of murdering a young girl named Wilma Thompson. It was a solid case because, among other things, they had an eyewitness named Lila Parrish. The case went to appeal, and Riker’s sentence was reduced from death to life-no-parole because Lila Parrish vamoosed right after the trial and nobody could find her. Then a year later, Eddie Woods knocked off Fontonio, Eureka turned into San Pietro, Culhane had the Fontonio case dead-docketed, and everybody lived happily ever after.
“Now get this: Woods was in charge of the Riker investigation and Woods burned Fontonio.”
“And you think you can get all that together in an airtight package? That’s what it’s going to have to be, Zeke. No holes, and right now all I see is Swiss cheese in that story. For one thing, you’re assuming that Lila Parrish was lying and the Riker case was a frame and Eddie Woods set it all up. How the hell do you plan to put that together? Your chief witness, if it is Lila Parrish, is probably the dame on the slab in the morgue.”
“All I need to do is find one person who can identify the person who sent the checks to Verna Hicks.”
“And prove it was a frame. And Hicks and Parrish are one and the same. And Woods did the number on her. And Culhane sanctioned it.”
I didn’t answer that.
He shook his head. “So far you haven’t broken a lot of ice on that pond,” he said.
“It wasn’t a homicide until this morning. That’s a pretty good icebreaker.”
More cigar smoke puffed out of his mouth. He spun his chair around and looked through the plate glass walls of his office into the squad room for a long minute, then swung back.
“You plan to take Ski this time?”
I nodded.
“I told you to take the National Guard the first time you went up there.”
“Ski’s better.”
He sighed joylessly.
“When do you want to go?”
“Is this Thursday?”
“It was when I got up this morning.”
“I got a date tonight. How’s tomorrow morning sound?”
CHAPTER 19
When I left Moriarity’s office, the switchboard operator called me over. “You got a call from a Millicent Harrington at the West L.A. National Bank,” he said. “Here’s the number. She says she has some info for you.”
“Thanks.”
I went back to my desk and dialed her number.
“Hi,” she said, “remember me?”
“If I forgot you, I’d need a brain transplant.”
“I’m flattered, I think,” she said with a light laugh.
“What’s up?”
“I may have a tip for you. I called a woman I know at the South View Bank and Trust. It’s on the list. Her name is Patty North. She remembers selling the cashier’s check for Verna Hicks two months ago.”
“Does she have a name for us?”
“No, but she has a great description of the man who bought it.”
I looked at my watch. It was 10:50.
“How about I pick you up in thirty minutes. Maybe we can grab a bite of lunch after we talk to her.”
“I’ll call everybody on the list if that’s all it takes to get you to take me to lunch.”
I went down to the garage and told Louie to bring the cream puff around.
“Not you again,” he snarled. “I just put the window in.”
“Good. I’ll try not to drive into any flying elephants this time.”
Without another word, he disappeared with a swagger into the depths of the garage. A minute or two later I heard the Chevy crank up and then he came back, got out, and handed me the keys.
Millicent was waiting just inside the doors of the bank when I pulled up. She was so gorgeous I got a little numb when I saw her. She was dressed in a light taupe business suit with a pink scarf at her throat and a lime-green Robin Hood hat cocked jauntily over one eye. She never took her eyes off me as she walked toward the car.
“You look like you own the bank,” I cracked, holding the door for her.
“Not quite yet,” she said with a smirk. She sat on the seat, swung silk-sheathed legs in sideways, and crossed them at the knee.
“It’s the South View Bank and Trust on West Sixth and Fairfax,” she said as I got in the car. I slipped cautiously under the wheel but still got enough of a kickback from my sprained ribs to grimace a little.
“Is something wrong?” she asked with concern.
“Nothing serious. A confused cop tried to use me as a punching bag.”
I let it drop there, although I could see her look of anxiety and curiosity. She lit two of her gold-tipped butts and handed one to me. Then she kissed two fingers and laid them on my cheek.
“Thanks,” I said, and took a quick look her way. She was staring at me with obvious affection, her mouth slightly open.
“You can get in a lot of trouble with a look like that,” I said.
“I hope so,” she answered.
I drove down Western, grabbed a right on Sixth, and headed west to Fairfax. The bank was in the center of an upper-middle-class neighborhood. It was a one-story, yellow brick building boxed in by a women’s clothing store and a pet store. Patty North was a tiny, well-groomed strawberry blonde in her mid forties, with bright eyes and a perpetually cheery smile. She was head teller and had a little cubicle in the rear of the bank. After introductions, we sat facing her and she took out a file, placed it on her desk, and laid one hand on top of it.
“This isn’t quite kosher,” she said. “But Millicent assures me it’s for a good cause.”
I didn’t mention murder at this point. I didn’t have to. She started right in.
“The gentleman came in a little after noon on a Monday, which was the first,” she began. “He was five-eight or five-nine; about forty, give or take a year or two; trim, with a little tummy. Very tan, dark brown hair with some gray in it, and one of those skinny mustaches like William Powell’s. He wore a wedding ring on the usual finger and a Masonic ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. He had a kind of cocky smile and he dressed with flash. A cream jacket with a thin red check, tan slacks, two-tone brown and white shoes, a brown fedora, and he was wearing aviator sunglasses, which he did not remove. He didn’t say much. He put five one-hundred-dollar bills on the desk and spread them out like you would spread out a pinochle hand, and he put a twenty-five-cent piece on top. That’s what we charge for a bank check. He didn’t look at me straightaway but kind of kept his head down. He said, ‘I require,’-I remember because he said it that way, require — ’a five-hundred-dollar cashier’s check made out to this person.’ He had the name Verna Hicks written on a sheet of paper, which he slid across the desk to me. I said to him, ‘Who is the issuer?’ And he said, ‘Is that necessary?’ And I said, ‘No, but it’s customary.’ And he said, ‘Nix it, just give me a receipt.’ That’s the way he said it, Nix it. So I typed out the check and signed it, and he put it in a brown, letter-sized manila envelope. It was already addressed and stamped. He said thank you and left. The entire transaction took about five minutes. I did notice he had a jaunty kind of step to his walk.”