He whirled, and jabbed a forefinger at me. “Okay, why now? Why pay off for all these years and then suddenly pull the plug on her?”
“You just said it, Culhane’s running for governor. The price of silence suddenly went up.”
“I suppose you already got a candidate for the guy who shoved her under, too?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“Well, ain’t that a surprise. It’s your idea got us into this mess in the first place.”
“You’re getting steamed up over nothing,” I said. “Maybe they all hate Culhane. Maybe they’ll promote you.”
“Yeah, and maybe the swallows will pass up Capistrano this year and fly into the garage downstairs and crap all over Louie’s goddamn cream-puff sedan.”
“It’s a murder one, Dan; what do you think they’re going to do, shove it under the carpet?” I shifted in my seat and that hot wire lashed across my ribs again. I winced. “Damn it!”
“Christ, you’re a wreck,” he said. “You seen a doc?”
“Bones checked my ribs. I’ll be okay in a day or two.”
“In answer to your question, no, they’re not gonna sweep it under the rug, they’re gonna look for a fall guy- which is you-which leads to me. I’ll end up mowing the grass at city hall until I retire; and you? You’ll be collecting garbage down in Tijuana. You’ll have to turn wetback just to get back across the border to get a decent meal.”
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
