“I have a hunch who she is. Or was.”
“Yeah? Who would that be?”
“Lila Parrish.”
Culhane looked stunned. “Lila Parrish?”
“The missing witness from the Thompson case.”
“I know who the hell Lila Parrish is. Where the hell did you come up with that notion?”
“She vanished before the appeal. Then Verna popped up a year later in L.A. with no pedigree. She had four grand in cash, used it to open a bank account. And then there was the five hundred a month. She saved almost all of it, bought a house and occasionally a new car, some antiques. She lived a simple life.”
He stared at me for a long minute, letting that sink in.
“So naturally you figure she was being paid off to drop out of sight.”
“You got a better idea?”
“I don’t think much of that one.”
“Maybe she was having an affair with somebody up here and took a powder, or was paid to,” I said. “Maybe there isn’t any connection with the Thompson case. But I have to find out. The money leads here, and I’ll be here until I arrest the man or woman who killed her or I’m convinced otherwise.”
He smoked the butt almost to his fingers. He flicked the end off it, split the butt down the middle, and dumped the remaining tobacco into the wind. Then he balled the paper into a fly speck and popped it in his mouth.
“That’s the way a Marine does it,” he said, and sat back down and poured us each a cup of coffee.
“How long were you in?” I asked.
“Two months short of sixteen years.” He stared into his cup for a long minute. “It was fine until we went over there. The Western Front was a stinking, bloody burial ground. I lost most of my company in two days. But we got across the river.” Then his lip curled and he repeated the line to himself, low with controlled rage and almost under his breath. “We got across that fucking river.”
In the time I knew Culhane, I rarely heard the sheriff use that word. When he did use it, it was when nothing else was appropriate.
The doorbell rang again and he left the table, returning a few seconds later with a tall, deeply tanned, angular man, over six feet, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a hawk nose, and the saddest eyes I had ever seen. He was wearing a pale gray silk sports jacket and dark gray flannels.
Culhane introduced us. “Sergeant Bannon, this is Ben Gorman.”
Gorman nodded at me and we shook hands.
“Want a drink? Cup of coffee?” Culhane asked.
“No thanks,” Gorman answered. “Isabel’s waiting on the patio. We’re having lunch.” He sat down at the table and looked across at me. “Sorry if I’ve been inhospitable, Sergeant,” he said. He took a folded 8^1?2-by-11 manila envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket, unfolded it, laid it on the table, and slid it in front of me.
I opened the envelope. There were three cashier’s checks inside, made out to Verna Hicks, one dated March the first, 1941. The other two were dated a year or so ago. The signatures on the checks were all the same: Marsha Whittaker.
“Is Miss Whittaker still with the bank?” I asked.
Gorman nodded. “She’ll be there until two.”
“May I talk to her?”
Gorman nodded. “She’s expecting you.”
“Benny, the woman the checks are made out to, Verna Hicks?” Culhane said. “She wasn’t killed in an accident. She was murdered.”
Gorman was stunned. He looked at me and then at Culhane, and said, almost in a whisper, “My God, Brodie, you told me she drowned in her tub.”
“She did, only it wasn’t an accident,” I said. “Somebody shoved her head underwater and held it there until she died.”
A minute passed and nobody said anything. Then Gorman, sounding genuinely upset, said, “You think someone in San Pietro had something to do with this?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Gorman,” I said. “I have a homicide on my hands. Somebody has been giving Verna Hicks five hundred a month for almost twenty years. That money trail leads here. That seems like more than a coincidence, and coincidence makes me nervous.”
“On the other hand, it could have nothing at all to do with her death,” said Culhane.
“Sure,” I agreed. “We have people working a lot of angles in L.A. But right now this is the angle I’m working on. If it’s a dead end, I’ll be the first to admit it.”
“Well,” Gorman said, “I don’t want to keep my wife waiting. Come say hello, Brodie.”
“Of course,” Culhane said. “We’re just wrapping things up.”
I followed the two men down the hall and through the lobby to the patio. Isabel Gorman was indeed the woman in the photo on Gorman’s rolltop. She was as dignified in life as in the photograph, except her black hair was streaked with gray, there were lines around her mouth, and she had the same sorrow reflecting in her brown eyes as in Gorman’s. She smiled sweetly when she saw Brodie.
“Hello, my dear,” Culhane said, with a softness in his voice I had not heard before. He kissed her hand. She ran it tenderly down his cheek. “Dear Brodie,” is all she said.
Gorman introduced her to me.
“What brings you up here, Sergeant?” she asked innocently.
“It’s a homicide investigation,” Gorman said gently. “Sergeant Bannon thinks the woman may have lived here at one time.”
“Oh?” she said. “What was her name?”
“Hicks,” I said. “Verna Hicks.”
The name made no impression at all. She looked off at the ocean for a minute with her brows bunched together and then she slowly shook her head. “I don’t recall that name,” she said.
“We have to be going,” Culhane said. “Just wanted to say hello.”
“Thank you,” she said, and patted Culhane’s hand, and to me, “Good luck, Sergeant.”
Gorman offered me his hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said.
“My pleasure, Mr. Gorman. Thanks for your help.”
I followed Culhane to the hotel entrance. When we got outside, Rusty was waiting and he offered me a ride to the bank.
“No thanks,” I said. “The walk’ll do me good.”
“Then I’ll walk with you,” Culhane said. We strolled down toward town. The ocean breeze rattled the palm fronds and cut the summer heat. As we entered the park we walked, in silence, toward the beach.
As we neared the far end of the park there was a small marble headstone at the edge of the sidewalk. Someone had put a bunch of wildflowers beside it and a withered apple. The inscription
etched into its smooth face said: cyclone 1897–1936 sorely missed by the people of san pietro.
“Who was Cyclone?” I asked.
“A horse,” he said.
“A horse?”
“Everybody in town knew him. He used to jump the fence at the stable and wander downtown looking for a handout. Apples mostly. He loved apples. When he died, the people in town chipped in and bought him the marker.”
We went to the end of the park. Rusty was waiting with the Packard.
“You got a lot of options,” Culhane said as we reached the car.
“Which one do you like?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Take your pick,” he said. He thought for a minute and added, “Just remember this: no matter how it comes out in the end, I’ll be able to look you in the eye and say, ‘I told you so.’ ”
“Now what the hell does that mean?” I asked.
He stared at me for a long time. I think he wanted me to figure it out.
Rusty opened the car door for him.
