He took Paul camping in the Sierra Nevada. Preston Exley was waiting. They dosed the boy's food; Exley shot him in his sleep and buried him. The world thought Paul was lost in an avalanche-the world believed the lie. Dieterling thought he would hate the man. The price of justice on his face told him he was just another victim. They shared a bond now. Preston Exley gave up police work to build buildings with Dieterling seed money. When Thomas Exley was killed, Ray Dieterling was the first one he called. Together they built from the weight of their dead.
Dieterling ended it. 'And all of this is my rather pathetic happy ending.'
Mountains, rockets, rivers-they all seemed to smile. 'My father never knew about Douglas? He really thought Paul was guilty?'
'Yes. Will you forgive me? In your father's name.'
Ed took out a clasp. Gold oak-leafs-Preston Exley's inspector's insignia. A hand-me-down-Thomas got it first. 'No. I'm going to submit a report to the county grand jury requesting that you be indicted for the murder of your son.'
'A week to get my affairs in order? Where could I run to, someone as famous as I am.'
Ed said, 'Yes,' walked to his car.
The freeway model gone-replaced by campaign posters. Art De Spain unpacking leaflets, no arm bandage-a textbook bullet scar. 'Hello, Eddie.'
'Where's Father?'
'He'll be back soon. And congratulations on inspector. I should have called you, but things have been hectic around here.'
'Father hasn't called me either. You're all pretending everything's fine.'
'Eddie…'
A bulge on Art's left hip-he still carried a piece. 'I just spoke to Ray Dieterling.'
'We didn't think you would.'
'Give me your gun, Art.'
De Spain handed it over butt first. Silencer threads, S &W.38s.
'Why?'
'Eddie..
Ed dumped the shells. 'Dieterling told me everything. And you were Father's exec back then.'
The man looked proud. 'You know my M.O., Sunny Jim. It was for Preston. I've always been his loyal adjutant.'
'And you knew about Paul Dieterling.'
De Spain took his gun back. 'Yes, and I've known for years that he wasn't the real killer. I got a tip back in '48 or so. It placed the kid somewhere else at the time of the Wennerholm snatch. I didn't know if Ray gave Paul over legitimately or not, and I couldn't break Preston's heart by telling him he killed an innocent boy. I couldn't upset his friendship with Ray-it just would have hurt him too much. You know how the Atherton case has always driven me. I've always had to know who killed those kids.'
'And you never found out.'
De Spain shook his head. 'No.'
Ed said, 'Get to the Englekling brothers.'
Art picked up a poster: Preston backdropped by building grids. 'I was visiting the Bureau. I know it was '53, right in there. I saw these pictures on the Ad Vice board. Nice-looking kids, like a stag- shot daisy chain. The design reminded me of the pictures Loren Atherton took, and I knew that just Preston and I and a few other officers had seen them. I tried to track down the pictures and didn't get anywhere. A while later I heard how the Englekling brothers gave that smut testimony for the Nite Owl investigation, but you didn't follow up on it. I figured they were a lead, but I couldn't fmd them. Late last year I got a tip that they were working at this printshop up near Frisco. I went up to talk to them. All I wanted was to find out who made that smut.'
White's notes: God-awful torture. 'Just to talk to them? I know what happened there.'
Awful pride glaring. 'They took it for a shakedown. It went bad. They had some old smut negatives, and I tried to get them to ID the people. They had some heroin and some antipsychotic drugs. They said they knew a sugar daddy who was going to push some horse blend that would set the world on fire, but they could do better. They laughed at me, called me 'pops.' I got this notion that they had to know who made that smut. I don't know… I know I went crazy. I think I thought they killed all those children. I think I thought they'd hurt Preston somehow. Eddie, they «laughed» at me. I figured they were dope pushers, I figured next to Preston they were nothing. And this old man took them both out.'
He'd fretted the poster to shreds. 'You killed two men for nothing.'
'Not for nothing. For Preston. And I beg you not to tell him.'
'Just another victim'-maybe the victim that justice lets slide.
'Eddie, he can't know. And he can't know that Paul Dieterling was innocent. Eddie, please.'
Ed pushed him aside, walked through the house. His mother's tapestries made him think of Lynn. His old room made him think of Bud and Jack. The house felt filthy-bad money bought and paid for. He walked downstairs, saw his father in the doorway.
'Edmund?'
'I'm arresting you for the murder of Paul Dieterling. I'll be by in a few days to take you in.'
The man did not budge an inch. 'Paul Dieterling was a psychopathic killer who richly deserved the punishment I gave him.'
'He was innocent. And it's Murder One either way.' Not one flicker of remorse. Unbudging, unyielding, unflinching, intractable rectitude. 'Edmund, you're quite disturbed at this moment.'
Ed walked past him. His goodbye: 'Goddamn you for the bad things you made me.'
Downtown to the Dining Car: a bright place full of nice people. Gallaudet at the bar, sipping a martini. 'Bad news on Dudley. You don't want to hear this.'
'It can't be any worse than some other things I've heard today.'
'Yeah? Well, Dudley's scot-free. Lana Turner's daughter just knifed Johnny Stompanato. D.O. fucking A. Fisk was staked out across the street and saw the meat wagon and the Beverly Hills P.D. take Johnny away. No Dudley witness, no Dudley evidence. Grand, lad.'
Ed grabbed the martini, killed it. 'Fuck Dudley sideways. I've got a shitload of Patchett's money for a bankroll, and I'll burn down that Irish cocksucker if it's the last fucking thing I ever do. Lad.'
Gallaudet laughed. 'May I make an observation, Inspector?'
'Sure.'
'You sound more like Bud White every day.'
CALENDAR
APRIL 1958
EXTRACT: L.A. «Times», April 12:
GRAND JURY REVIEWS NITE OWL
EVIDENCE; DECLARES CASE CLOSED
Almost five years to the day after the crime, the City and County of Los Angeles bid official farewell to the Southland's 'Crime of the Century,' the infamous Nite Owl murder case.
On April 16, 1953, three gunmen entered the Nite Owl Coffee Shop on Hollywood Boulevard and shotgunned three employees and three patrons to death. Robbery was the assumed motive, and suspicion soon fell on three Negro youths, who were arrested on suspicion of the crime. The three: Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, escaped from jail and were killed resisting arrest. The three allegedly confessed to District Attorney Ellis Loew prior to their escape, and the case was assumed to have been solved.
Four years and ten months later, a San Quentin inmate, Otis John Shortell, came forward with information that led many to believe that the three youths were innocent of the Nite Owl killings. Shortell said that he was in the presence of Coates, Jones and Fontaine while they were engaged in the gang rape of a young woman, at the exact time of the coffee shop slaughter. Shortell's testimony, verified by lie detector tests, created a public clamor to reopen the case.
The clamor was fanned by the February 25 murders of Peter and Baxter Englekling. The brothers, convicted narcotics traffickers, were material witnesses to the 1953 Nite Owl investigation and asserted at that time that the killings originated from a web of intrigue involving pornography. The Englekling killings remain unsolved. In the words of Mann County Sheriff's Lieutenant Eugene Hatcher, 'No leads at all. But we're still trying.'
The Nite Owl case was reopened, and an involved pornography link was revealed. On March 27, wealthy investor Pierce Morehouse Patchett was shot and killed at his Brentwood home, and two days later police shot and killed Abraham Teitlebaum, 49, and Lee Peter Vachss, 44, his assumed slayers. Later that day the infamous 'Blue Denim Massacre' occurred. Among the criminal dead: Burt Arthur 'Deuce' Perkins, a nightclub singer with underworld ties. Teitlebaum, Vachss and Perkins were assumed to be the Nite Owl killers. LAPD Captain Dudley Smith elaborated.
'The Nite Owl killings derived from a grandly realized scheme to distribute heinous and souldestroying pornographic filth. Teitlebaum, Vachss and Perkins were attempting to kill Nite Owl patron Delbert 'Duke' Cathcart, an independent smut merchant, and take over Pierce Patchett's smut racket in the process. Alas, it was really one Dean Van Gelder, a criminal impersonating Cathcart, who was there in Cathcart's place. The Nite Owl murder case will go down as a testimony to the cruel caprices of fate, and I am glad that it has finally been resolved.'
Then Captain, now Inspector Edmund Exley, credited with solving the Nite Owl reopening case, said that it has finally been resolved, despite rumors that a fourth conspirator died abruptly, just as he was about to be arrested. 'That's nonsense,' Exley said. 'I gave the county grand jury a detailed brief on the case and testified extensively myself They accepted my findings. It's over.'
At some great cost. LAPD Chief of Detectives Thad Green, soon to retire and assume command of the U.S. Border Patrol, said, 'For sheer expense and the number of accumulated investigatory man-hours, the Nite Owl case has no equal. It was a once-in-a-lifetime case and the price for clearing it was very, very high.'
EXTRACT: L.A. «Mirror-News», April 15:
LOEW RESIGNATION A SHOCKER;
LEGAL CROWD BUZZES
Speculation in Southland legal circles rages: why did Los Angeles District Attorney Ellis Loew resign from office yesterday and scotch a brilliant political career? Loew, 49, announced his resignation at his regular weekly press conference, citing nervous exhaustion and a desire to return to private practice. Aides close to the man described the abrupt retirement as stupefyingly atypical. The D.A.'s Office is stunned: Ellis Loew appeared happy, fit and in perfect health.
Chief Criminal Prosecutor Robert Gallaudet told this reporter: 'Look, I'm stunned, and I don't stun easily. What's Ellis' underlying motive? I don't know, ask him. And when the City Council appoints
