“Then I guess I’ll have to locate the judge and seek a subpoena,” I said. “What’s his name again?”
Culhane said, “I wouldn’t bother. Gus Wainwright’s got bad breath, a bad heart, the gout, and his brain’s missing about half its gray matter.”
“Actually,” Merrill said, “the banks are federal now. You need a United States judge.”
“All for a dog and a coffin,” Culhane said, shaking his head.
“I guess the nearest judge would be Homer Jennings over in Santa Maria,” I said. “He’s usually cooperative with the police.”
Culhane’s face changed an iota. The eyes, which had softened up a bit, went dead again. The muscles in his jaw tightened and loosened.
“There’s nothing you can learn in San Pietro,” he said sharply.
“I’ve got a job to do, Captain. I’m going to keep at it.”
“You do what you have to do, Sergeant Bannon,” he said. “I’ve got constituents to talk to. Have a nice trip back to Los Angeles.”
He turned and went about his business.
I looked at my feet as if expecting to see the gauntlet he had just thrown down, but there was nothing underfoot except the emerald grass.
CHAPTER 14
I watched him stroll away, working the crowd, then I walked around the corner to Wendy’s Diner and had a grilled-cheese-and-bacon sandwich and an egg cream. My two friends appeared out of nowhere and parked across the street.
While I was eating, I pondered the discussion with Culhane. He knew who I was, knew I’d been to see the little Scot, probably had talked to Gorman. Now he knew why I was there and he didn’t believe the funeral story for a minute. He was a hard-boiled egg covered with sweet chocolate and he had just given me my walking papers.
I was also thinking about the events that coincided with Verna Hicks’s departure from San Pietro, if indeed she had ever been here. I didn’t have a thing. All I really knew was that Buck Tallman had been killed two or three years before Verna Hicks had shown up in L.A. Hard to make a connection there. Maybe Moriarity was right. Maybe I was spinning my wheels.
I decided to take one more shot. I walked down Ocean Boulevard and found the office of the San Pietro Sentinel, a narrow little building painted a pale yellow, with a gabled roof. There was a counter inside the front door and behind it a hot-metal typesetter, trays of fonts, and two desks littered with copy and notes, some of which had blown to the floor, prompted by a desktop Diehl fan that revolved in a half-circle aimed at the business end of the room.
A man in his late thirties, wearing gray work pants, a red-striped shirt, and a solid-blue bow tie, was working at the keyboard of the typesetter. He had a boyish face betrayed by thinning, light brown hair that grew to a widow’s peak over watery eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses. He lowered his jaw and peered at me over the rims as I entered the office.
“Yes?” he said.
“You the editor?”
He nodded. “Charlie Goodshorn; what’s your pleasure?” He had a friendly but high-pitched voice that sounded like it had never changed.
I showed him my badge. “I’m doing a little background work,” I said. “I was wondering if I might check your morgue for a span of two years or so, back in the mid twenties.”
He went back to work on his typesetting and said, “Sorry, sir, that wouldn’t be possible. I’d be glad to help you but I can’t.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “See that scorch mark down the wall?”
There was a jagged streak down the wall the color of hot chocolate, with arteries spreading out to the left and right of it.
“Lightning hit us hard four years ago. We saved this side of the office, but the building next door took a beating. What wasn’t burned was so waterlogged we had to throw everything away. All our files and back issues were lost.”
He finished what he was working on and spun around on his stool and leaned forward, hands on his knees.
“Was it something in particular?” he asked.
“How long have you been editor?” I asked.
“Since my dad died in 1933. I was working for the Denver Post. Really liked Denver but somebody had to take over the business.”
“You a weekly?”
“We went to five days a week two years ago.”
“Is it working for you?”
“Doing okay.”
“Glad to hear it. I was interested in the Buck Tallman shooting. You weren’t working here then, were you?”
He chuckled. “I was delivering papers back then. I know about the event but what I remember you could put in a thimble.”
Another bust. I thanked him and started out the door.
“Tell you somebody who might give you a hand on that.”
“Who would that be?”
“Barney Howland. He wrote for the paper for years and also shot pictures. He likes a taste every now and then, but when he’s sober he has quite a memory. Likes to talk, too.”
“How would I find him?”
“He’s on Third Avenue just off February.”
“February’s a street?”
Goodshorn laughed. “The streets are named for the months of the year,” he said. “Twelve streets, twelve months. Easy to remember.”
“Thanks, Mr. Goodshorn.”
“Want me to give him a call, see if he’s in and willing to stand for an interview?”
“That would be a help.”
He had an old-fashioned stand-up phone and he pulled it over, lifted the receiver and dialed a number, and waited for a moment or two. “Gladys? It’s Charlie down at the Sentinel… Just fine, thank you, and you?… That’s just wonderful. Is Barney about? Would you please tell him there’s a gentleman here from the Los Angeles police who would like a word with him? Uh-huh. Alright, I’ll send him on over. His name is…” He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Zeke Bannon.”
“Mr. Bannon. Thanks, dear.” He hung up and said, “He’s waiting for you.”
“I appreciate that, Charlie.”
“My pleasure,” he said with a smile.
For a newspaperman, he had a remarkable lack of curiosity.
I left the news office, walked half a block to a drugstore, and invested six bits in a pint of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. Then I crossed the street, walked down to the bank, and retrieved my car. There was no profit to be made trying to dodge my two shadows, so I started the car and waited until they drifted down past the bank. Then I pulled away and circled the block and pulled in behind them. I tailed them for ten or fifteen minutes as they tried to figure out how to get behind me again. Finally they pulled over and stopped. I pulled over and stopped. We sat for a while. I rolled a cigarette and lit up. I watched them, through their rear window, discussing the situation.
They decided to make their move. The Pontiac suddenly lurched ahead past the library and screamed around the corner to the right. I pulled up to the edge of the library and watched them through the trees. They drove up
