“Straight out of central casting,” I said.
“So what’s your interest in Mendosa?”
“One of the checks came from a bank up there.”
“If you think you had trouble with Culhane, I’d steer clear of Mendosa. Guilfoyle could get you two years for disturbing the peace if you sneezed in town.”
“Let me try something else on you. Supposing when Lila Parrish vanished she went down the road and hid out in Mendosa for a while. Then migrated down to L.A. and changed her name.”
“You think Verna Hicks was Lila Parrish?”
“Think about it. All these events happened within about eighteen months, starting with Riker’s trial in late 1922 and ending with the Fontonio hit in 1924, the same year Verna showed up in L.A., telling people she was from everyplace in Texas.”
“That’s another stretch, Zeke. Supposing Lila Parrish is living with her husband and family in Dubuque? Does the word slander mean anything to you? Do you have anything other than a hunch leading you there?”
I decided to play my hole card. “Can we go off the record a minute?” I said.
He pondered that. Reporters hate to go off-record for anything.
“Is it important, or one of your Canadian Club dreams?”
“It’s fact.”
“Okay, but I get it first when you’re ready to go public.”
“It’s your story all the way.”
“What a sweetheart. Okay, let’s hear it.”
“One of the more recent checks sent to Hicks was bought and mailed from here in town. The buyer was Eddie Woods.”
That perked him up a bit. “You can prove this?” he said.
I nodded. “The teller who sold him the check ID’d him to me over lunch.”
“It’s still a stretch.”
“Look, I’ve given you all the background we have on Hicks. You can point out that she showed up down here after Lila Parrish vamoosed. The dates are more than coincidental.”
“How about the checks. Can I get photos of them?”
I nodded. “I’ll list the number of checks and how many came from the San Pietro-Mendosa area. I can’t give you the stats of the original checks because there may be some question about how I got them without a search warrant. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble over this.”
“How about her checks?”
“Fair game, they were in her safety box at home. I can also make the deposit books available to you.”
“Exclusively?”
“Until the story breaks. Then anything in the report is fair game.”
He laughed. “You’ll be all over the papers again.”
“I won’t be here.”
“Where will you be?”
“Up north,” I said.
“Anything you get, I get first. That’s part of the deal.”
“Must be nice,” I said. “Having me do your work for you.”
“Works both ways, pal,” he said, and then with a leer added: “By the way, mind if I mention that pansy dog of yours in the story?”
“Where did you hear about the dog?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “It’s privileged.”
I had a different feeling going to the house in Pacific Meadows this time. Murder changes everything. Just knowing it happened is sobering. But inside the house, Ski was jubilant, as was Bones.
“Progress,” Bones said. “We’ve got enough fingerprints from this place and the empty house next door to keep the F.B.I. busy for a month.”
“I don’t have a month. I don’t have a week. Every day, this case slips further away.”
“We’ve made some progress,” Ski said casually.
“All talk and theories. I need some hard evidence.”
“Oh,” Ski said sardonically. “Well, how about this. The killer is about your size, maybe a little shorter, ten pounds heavier. He was wearing dark pants, a dark shirt, and a bowler. He cased the neighborhood for an hour or so the day before he killed her. At about 6:00 a.m. the day of the killing, the killer parked his car in the empty lot at the end of that strip of stores up on Main. He walked down six blocks to the house next door, after ascertaining that nobody was home from the papers gathering on the porch and possibly calling once or twice. He sat at a table near the front door for the whole day. Actually, he ate a sandwich, which he probably brought with him, and took the refuse with him when he left.”
I sat there entranced as Ski painted a verbal portrait of the killing. And he was almost as good at it as Bones.
“When Verna went inside, the killer went out the back door, went to the side of her house, and watched her until he heard her drawing a bath. He wouldn’t have used the front door, too chancy, but none of the windows were locked either. He went in, took off his gloves, went straight into the bathroom, and about 9:18 p.m. he shoved her underwater. He held her under for about five minutes. Then he noticed the radio, pulled down the shelf, and let it drop in the tub with her. He went out the same way he came in, walked back up to his car, and at about 9:50 he drove away.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“An old man two blocks over had a stroke six months ago. He sits on the front porch swing all day, every day. He saw the guy drive by four or five times. Tan-and-black ragtop. He thinks a Ford. A kid left his baseball mitt up at the ball diamond. He went up there on his bike to get it when he got up about 6:15 a.m. He was riding slow because he had a flashlight in one hand to see where he was going. When he passed the house, he saw the guy we described jimmy open the door. The guy had a small penlight in his mouth and the kid got a good shot of his hands. He was wearing black gloves. Gloves in May?”
Bones picked up the story: “He sat there all day, waiting for it to get dark. He sat by the front door so nothing would surprise him, even brought a sandwich, and ate it there. We know Verna never locked her windows. We found some threads under the bottom sill; he probably tore his jacket coming in. He went in the bedroom, saw her in the tub, took off the gloves so he wouldn’t have to carry them away wet, then he rushed her, shoved her head underwater, and you know the rest. He left the same way, walked back up to the stores, and drove off into the night. We know that because a druggist and his wife were doing inventory, and they saw a guy in a bowler come out of the Meadows about 9:50 and drive off in the brown-and-black ragtop that was parked at the end of the strip all day.”
“No facial description?” I asked Ski.
“No.”
“License number?”
“No.”
“Have you put out an APB on the car?”
“Yeah, but they can’t stop every black-and-brown Ford in the county.”
Bones said, “We got a fresh print off the shelf the radio was on. Another one off the commode trigger, like Ski suggested. We also picked up several prints off the table next door. Nobody eats with gloves on. We’ll isolate the prints in Wilensky’s bathroom and compare them to the ones on the table. If they match, and we can find the guy, we got our case.”
“How soon will you know whether they match?”
He pursed his lips and thought about the question for a minute. “Five days?”
“Five days!”
“It’s gotta go to Washington and then go through the F.B.I. process.”
“Three days.”
“I’ll push for four. And that’s fast.”
I nodded. Then Ski threw one in from the deep outfield.
“I think this bird’s an ex-con,” he said.
Bones looked at him with surprise. “How do you figure?” he asked.
“Who else would set up a job where he has to sit in one spot all day but a guy who’s spent a couple of years sitting in an eight-by-ten cell day in and day out.”
Bones smiled. “If he is, his prints could be on file here in the state.”
“It’s too easy,” Ski said. “We ain’t gonna get that lucky. This guy’s a pro. Casing the job, figuring out how to do it, noticing the papers on the porch so he knew there was nobody home. He had it all figured out.”