JO01 - Guilty or Else, page 14
part #1 of Jimmy O'Brien Series
Nothing Sol did surprised me anymore. “Does that help your game?”
“I’m playing your old friend, Judge Johnson today. I’ll need all the help I can get. He’s good and he cheats on his handicap.”
“Yeah, he used to cheat a lot when we were on the job together. Mostly on his wife.”
“I gotta put this thing away before he sees it.” Sol said, indicating the aluminum rod. “Don’t want him stealing my secrets. C’mon, we’ll talk on the way to my car.”
As we walked back to the parking lot, I told Sol about my conversation with Barney. “So the Buick that shadowed me is related to Welch’s old company. That says a lot.”
“Not necessarily evidence of murder.”
“Yeah, but we know Welch and Karadimos are connected. Karadimos’s plane was flown down the day of the murder, and Karadimos is threatening me. Now it looks like Welch is the guy who had me followed. That means they’re both in on it together. I’ve got enough for reasonable doubt. It’s looking good.”
“Whoa, slow down, Jimmy. There’s an old Jewish saying. Don’t count your chickens—”
“I didn’t know that was a Jewish saying.”
“Yeah, we have sayings for everything. It means—”
“I know what it means, Sol.”
“Let me finish. It means, mach nit kain tsimmes fun
Dem.”
“Oh, that explains it.”
“See, before you start counting chickens—”
“I’m not counting chickens.”
“Forget about chickens. You have to think about what Welch and Karadimos are up to,” Sol said. “Think about this: Karadimos is a crook and we figure he’s working with Welch. Maybe Gloria found out something that she shouldn’t have.”
“I’ve been thinking about those calls Gloria had made that day.”
Gloria placed two long-distance phone calls on the day she died, the first one at around three in the afternoon to a Kansas number. The police didn’t investigate that call other than to report that it had been made to a friend. The second one about an hour later had been routed to the Sacramento Inn. It turned out to be a dead end. The hotel had no way to trace the call to any particular room.
“Didn’t we figure her Sacramento call was to Welch?” Sol asked as he opened the trunk of his Lincoln Continental Mark IV. He tossed in the rod and pulled out his golf bag. Leaning against the side of his car, he said, “It’d be good to know what they talked about on that last phone call.”
“What about the earlier call to her high school friend in Kansas? Wasn’t she the girl who told you Gloria and Welch were having an affair?”
“Yeah, Bonnie Munson. Lives in Manhattan, Kansas. She went to high school with Graham. That’s how we found her. We called the school and talked to a teacher. The teacher remembered Gloria, told us Bonnie had been her best friend.”
“Do you think Bonnie would talk to me if I called her?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. My investigators called her several times. She clammed up when they tried to get her to talk in depth about Gloria’s relationship with Welch. I felt there was more troubling Bonnie about Gloria than just the affair, but that’s just my thinking. I even called her myself, but could get nothing more out of her. She hung up on me.” Sol shook his head. “Nah, she won’t talk to you, Jimmy.”
“I think you’re right. She knows more than she’s telling. Might not even know it’s related to the murder.” I glanced off into the distance. Was that Big Jake’s Caddie about a quarter mile away, moving slowly along Old River School Road? I blinked, and didn’t see it again.
“Jimmy, I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to Kansas to see her, aren’t you?”
I turned back to Sol. “Yeah, I’ve gotta leave right away.
Today is Tuesday. It’ll be an overnight flight. I have to be back for the preliminary hearing Thursday morning.”
“Hold on, buddy boy. Even if she knows something, I doubt that she’ll see you, and if she does, she won’t talk.
Sounds like a long shot.”
“Sol, it’s the only shot I’ve got.”
“Maybe not the only shot.”
“You got something else?”
“You wanna talk to Welch, don’t you?”
“Hell, yes!”
“I’ve arranged for a sit-down, one on one. You’ll get ten minutes with Welch. Next Friday night at his fundraiser. It’s going to be held at Chasen’s restaurant in Beverly Hills.”
“Jesus, how’d you arrange that?”
“Remember I told you I was having lunch with a heavyweight when you called yesterday? By the way, did you call her yet?”
“Bobbi?”
“No, the Queen of Sheba, you schmuck.”
“She doesn’t want me to call. We’re on opposite sides— but anyway, who were you having lunch with?”
“Chuck Manatt.”
“The political guy.”
“Yeah, I complained about the way Rhodes took off after we went to all the trouble to show him a good time at Del Mar.”
“I treated him nice. I smiled when I called his client a crook.”
Sol laughed. “Anyway, I told Manatt the only way to square it would be to set up a face-to-face meeting between Welch and you.”
“What did Manatt say?” I asked.
“Done. It’s arranged.”
“He did? That’s what he said, just like that?”
“Well, just about. I had to buy ten tickets to the dinner.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
“Christ Almighty, you gave that asshole, Welch, five hundred bucks?”
“Each.”
“Whaddya mean—each?”
“Ten minutes, ten tickets, five thousand.”
“Holy Christ!” I gasped. “Sol, that’s a lot of money. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Jimmy, you’ll get food. Chasen’s makes great chili. And don’t forget, you get to have your picture taken with the Senator.”
“Yeah, I’ll hang it on the wall.”
“Look good if he’s the governor someday,” Sol said.
“Look better if he’s in jail,” I said.
C H A P T E R 26
From Los Angeles, I’d flown to the Kansas City Airport and stayed overnight at a Howard Johnson’s. I caught the early morning air taxi to Manhattan.
The six-passenger Beechcraft King Air made a sweeping turn and lined up for a straight-in approach to the Manhattan Regional Airport. This part of Kansas was wheat country, the breadbasket of the world. When I looked out the airplane window, I expected to see “amber waves of grain.” I didn’t. It was August and the farmers cut the wheat in June. From the airplane, I saw a sea of dirt and stubble that stretched to the horizon under a beautiful, spacious sky.
I’d stopped at the jail the day before on my way to LAX and explained to Rodriguez the purpose of Thursday’s hearing. His spirits seemed to be holding up, and I was relieved to find out he’d been removed from the psychopath section and placed in a normal cell, but at the same time I was nervous that he was now in the general population where someone could get to him. I told him to be careful and watch his back. I didn’t tell him what I’d discovered about Welch and Karadimos, though. I didn’t want to get his hopes up. I’d wait until after my meeting on Friday with the Senator.
At ten thirty-five Wednesday morning, the King Air finally touched down. Walking into the single airline passenger terminal, I noticed a sign welcoming visitors to the “Little Apple.” It said that Manhattan, Kansas was the birthplace of the writer Damon Runyon. I remembered a line immortalized by one of Runyon’s outrageous characters that roamed Broadway in the big Manhattan. “I long ago came to the conclusion that all of life is six to five against.”
At this point, I would be happy with those odds.
After I signed the forms and got the keys to the Ford Falcon that Rita had reserved for me, I found a pay phone.
With the time difference, it was early in L.A. I hoped I might be able to catch Bobbi in her office before she went to court. I charged the call to my home phone. The switchboard put me through.
“Allen speaking,” she said in a soft and pleasant voice.
“Hi, this is O’Brien. I’m calling from Manhattan.”
“Jimmy, what are you doing in New York?”
“Manhattan, Kansas. It’s just like New York only smaller,” I said.
“Great shows and all that?”
“Yeah, they’re terrific, the Quilting Bee was sold out, but I got a ticket to Maude Pricket’s recital on the pleasures of pea picking. Wish you were here.”
After a brief moment of silence, she said, “Me too.”
I became more serious. “You’d like to be in Kansas with me?”
“Well, perhaps not Kansas on our first date, but maybe dinner and a movie somewhere.” Her voice sounded light and slightly flirtatious.
“You’d go out with me? Dinner and a movie?” The thought of being on a date with Bobbi had my mind reeling.
“I think you’re a nice guy. I’d enjoy going out with you occasionally—provided we could separate our professional lives from our personal. Erect a Chinese wall, so to speak.”
“We could do that.”
“It might not be that easy. I’ve been promoted. I’m now a member of the Serious Crimes Sector. The SCS handles capital murders and other major crimes. That means I’ll be the lead prosecutor on the Rodriguez case. We’d have to wait until the case is closed, of course.”
“Congratulations on the promotion. You deserve it. But hey, the case could go on for a long time, months, maybe.”
“Let me explain something. You have time?”
“Sure.”
“Being a woman and having a career in what some asinine people believe is solely a man’s profession, has had its difficulties. My new supervisor is also a woman and by promoting me, she’s going out on a limb.”
“I can imagine that it hasn’t been easy, and I think your boss has made an intelligent decision.” I didn’t want to be the cause of any setbacks in Bobbi’s career, but I wanted to see more of her. “We could build that Chinese wall, as you call it. We could keep work out of our social life.”
“Jimmy, it goes without saying that I trust you. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but it’s just the appearance that could cause trouble,” she said. “Not to mention, I’m working very hard to put your client away.”
“I’m working hard too, but I know we’ll be fair and honest with each other. You’re the only prosecutor that I know of who isn’t in it just to rack up convictions.”
“If we could keep our professional lives separate, I think we could work in a date or two after the trial without compromising our careers. That is, if you still want to take me out after I mangle you in court.”
“I’d love to go out with you,” I said with sincerity. I couldn’t think of a snappy comeback for the mangle comment, but perhaps this wasn’t the time for it anyway.
“Bye, Jimmy. Call me when you’re back in L.A.” She started to hang up.
“Wait! I have to talk some business with you. That’s why I called. Bobbi, are you there?”
There was a strained silence on the line, just the crackling static of the long distance wires. She answered at last: “You mean you didn’t call just to ask me out?” I could almost hear the smile on her face.
“Of course that’s why I called you from a hot, sweaty payphone in the middle of Kansas, but seeing as how you’re on the line, we may as well discuss the case. Then these outrageous toll charges will be tax deductible. Clever, huh?”
“And I just got through saying such nice things about your ethics. Go ahead; I’ll be your tax dodge.”
“Remember when you said if I could show that Welch was in town at the time as the murder, you’d reopen the case?”
“Yes, I remember,” she said with more than a little skepticism in her voice.
I told her about the extra flight time on the jet, exactly the number of hours needed for a round trip to Sacramento, the hidden Hobbs Meter, the failure to log the time, and the missing pilot. “So, Bobbi, someone came back Saturday and whoever it was tried to cover up the flight. What do you think?”
“Now that is something significant. Hold on a minute.”
While waiting for Bobbi to return, I glanced through the terminal plate-glass window overlooking the runway. A small twin-engine airplane had landed and two middle-aged guys dressed as cowboys got out and strode through the terminal, headed for the café.
I’d missed breakfast, and the thought of eggs and bacon sizzling in a pan made me hungrier than I already was. The only thing they’d served on the plane had been a small bag of stale peanuts. In first class they probably had a suckling pig roasting on a spit with dancing girls slicing off morsels and popping them in the passengers’ mouths between sips of their Dom Pérignon Champagne.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Jimmy. I had to make a call on the other line.”
“Did you think over what I said?”
“It’s not enough to re-open the case, but I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do. I’ve just talked to Detective Hodges, South Gate PD. I’ve asked him to follow up on the Hobbs Meter thing. If it pans out, we’ll make further inquiries. We’ll look for the pilot.”
I didn’t like getting the cops involved, especially after what Big Jake had said. Plus, I didn’t like the idea of tipping my hand to the other side. But I had to trust her. It was the only hope Rodriguez had. “Fischer is the key, Bobbi. He knows who murdered Graham.”
“We’ll see. Do you have anything else?”
Although I trusted her, I’d already told her enough. I didn’t tell her my office was tossed, and that the only thing stolen was the Rodriguez file, or about the threats. “That’s about it,” I said.
“You’re in Kansas. Are you going to be back in time for the hearing tomorrow?”
“Sure, I’m flying home tonight.”
“The hearing starts at ten-thirty. Let’s meet in the courtroom at nine-thirty. We can go over everything then. I won’t promise you anything, but if what you told me checks out, I’ll recommend bail and ask for a continuance on the hearing, and we’ll investigate further. Does that sound fair?”
I tried not to show my excitement. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay. And, Jimmy…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget, the Chinese wall.”
“Yeah, I understand.”
We said goodbye again. I hung up, and walked on clouds to the airport café.
While eating, I unfolded the map from Avis. Bonnie Munson lived on a farm somewhere twelve miles northeast of Manhattan.
I tried to plot my route but couldn’t figure it out, so I asked the waitress for help. She said something like: Take Highway 113 through town. Then turn off on a dirt road somewhere, go past a red manure-spreader and after a while, look for a mailbox with the Munson name painted on it.
What did a manure-spreader look like? I wondered.
C H A P T E R 27
I had second thoughts. Maybe it was actually being here in Kansas, the land of good manners and courtesy, that changed my mind. I decided I wouldn’t just barge in on Bonnie Munson. I’d call her first to let her know I was on my way to see her. If she said no, stay away, then I’d barge in on her.
I went back to the same payphone and dialed her number. When she answered, I told her who I was. At first, she said that she wouldn’t talk to me about Gloria. I explained that I wouldn’t take much of her time. I just wanted to go over a few details concerning the comments she’d made to Sol and his men. When she heard that I’d flown all the way from California just to meet with her, Bonnie’s Midwest hospitality kicked in. With a slight hesitation in her voice, she agreed to see me.
After missing a few turns and backtracking a bit, I spotted the remains of derelict piece of farm equipment leaning on the side of Highway 113.
“Is that a manure-spreader?” I asked the farmer standing near the rusty hulk.
He peered at me sideways through a squinted eye. “Nah, it’s an old combine. Why?”
“I need some help,” I said glancing at the note in my hand with the waitress’s directions scribbled on it. “I need to find a manure-spreader. You see, I’m a lawyer—”
“That so? Well, then I can see why you’d need one.”
Kansas humor, no doubt. “Uh, do you know how to get to the Munson farm?”
The old guy pointed to a farmhouse about a hundred yards down the road.
The house, a small, well-maintained white wooden structure with a cupola on top, stood far back from the road, nestled among some tall trees. A wood-rail fence enclosed the green lawn and flowerbeds that surrounded the home. Vegetables flourished off to the side in a small garden.
After parking the Falcon next to an olive green John Deere tractor, I climbed out of the car. Two Labrador retrievers bounded over and loped around me, their tails going a mile a minute. They threw a few barks my way. I jumped back, “Jesus,” I exclaimed.
“Johann. Sebastian. Leave the man alone. You know better, now go away.”
I shifted my attention from the dogs to the woman standing in the doorway of the house. She had on a sleeveless blouse and tight fitting jeans that flattered her impressive figure. By Los Angeles standards, she’d probably be considered overweight, but by Kansas standards, I imagined that she was just about perfect. If it were a contest, I’d vote for the Kansas standards.
“Don’t worry; their Bach is worse than their bite.” More Kansas humor. She walked over and stuck out her hand.
“You must be Bonnie Munson,” I said.
“Yes, and you must be Mr. O’Brien.”
She invited me into the house, where the yeasty aroma of fresh-baked bread enveloped me like a warm blanket. The cozy smell was in keeping with the unpretentious décor of the home. Being there gave me a sense of security and peacefulness that I never felt in the city. I followed Bonnie into the kitchen. The table was set for three.
