The Dining Car had a New Year's hangover: drooping crepe paper, "1958" signs losing spangles. Ed took his favorite booth: a view of the lounge, his image in a mirror. He marked the time-3:24 P.M., 1/2/58. Let Bob Gallaudet show up late-anything to stretch the moment.
In an hour, the ceremony: Captain E. J. Exley assumes a permanent duty station-Commander, Internal Affairs Division. Gallaudet was bringing the results of his outside agency validation-the D.A.'s Bureau had gone over his personal life with a magnifying glass. He'd pass-his personal life was squeaky clean, putting the Nite Owl boys in the ground outgunned his Bloody Christmas snitching-he'd known it for years.
Ed sipped coffee, eyes on the mirror. His reflection: a man a month from thirty-six who looked forty-five. Blond hair gone gray; crease lines in his forehead. Inez said his eyes were getting smaller and colder; his wire rims made him look harsh. He'd told her harsh was better than soft-boy captains needed help. She'd laughed-it was a few years ago, when they were still laughing.
He placed the conversation: late '54, Inez analytical-"You're a ghoul for watching that man Stensland die." A year and a half post-Nite Owl; today made four years and nine months. A look in the mirror, a claim on those years-and what he'd had with Inez.
His killings pushed Bud White out: four deaths eclipsed one death. Those first months she was all his: he'd proven himself to her specifications. He bought her a house down the block; she loved their gentle sex; she accepted Ray Dieterling's job offer. Dieterling fell in love with Inez and her story: a beautiful rape victim abandoned by her family dovetailed with his own losses- once divorced, once widowered, his son Paul dead in an avalanche, his son Billy a homosexual. Ray and Inez became father and daughter-colleagues, deep friends. Preston Exley and Art De Spain joined Dieterling in devotion-a circle of hardcase men and a woman who made them grateful for the chance to feel gentle.
Inez took friendships from a fantasy kingdom: the builders, the second generation-Billy Dieterling, Timmy Valburn. A chatty little clique: they talked up Hollywood gossip, poked fun at male foibles. The word "men" sent them into gales of laughter. They made fun of policemen and played charades in a house bought by Captain Ed Exley.
All claims came back to Inez.
After the killings, he had nightmares: were they innocent? Impotent rage made his finger jerk the trigger; the dramatic resolution made the Department look so good that little facts like "Unarmed" and "Not Dangerous" would never surface to crush him. Inez stilled his fears with a statement: the rapists drove her to Sylvester Fitch's house in the middle of the night and left her there-giving them time to take down the Nite Owl. She never told the police about it because she did not want to recount the especially ugly things that Fitch did to her. He was relieved: «guilty» dead men shored up the justice in his rage.
Inez.
Time passed, the glow wore off-her pain and his heroism couldn't sustain them. Inez knew he'd never marry her: a high-ranking cop, a Mexican wife-career suicide. His love held by threads; Inez grew remote-a sometime lover in practice. Two people molded by extraordinary events, a powerful supporting cast hovering: the Nite Owl dead, Bud White.
White's face in the green room: pure hatred while Dick Stensland sucked gas. A look at Dicky Stens dying, a look his way, no words necessary. Leave time called in so they wouldn't have to work together when he took over Homicide. He'd surpassed his brother, grown closer to his father. His major case record was astounding; in May he'd be an inspector, in a few years he'd compete with Dudley Smith for chief of detectives. Smith had always given him a wide berth and a wary respect couched in contempt-and Dudley was the most feared man in the LAPD. Did he know that his rival feared only one thing: revenge perpetrated by a thug/cop without the brains to be imaginative?
The bar was filling up: D.A.'s personnel, a few women. The last time with Inez was bad-she just serviced the man who paid the mortgage. Ed smiled at a tall woman-she turned away.
"Congratulations, Cap. You're Boy Scout clean."
Gallaudet sat down-strained, nervous.
"Then why do you look so grim? Come on, Bob, we're partners."
"«You're» clean, but Inez was put under loose surveillance for two weeks, just routine. Ed… oh shit, she's sleeping with Bud White."
The ceremony-one big blur.
Parker made a speech: policemen were subject to the same temptations as civilians, but needed to keep their baser urges in check to a greater degree in order to serve as moral exemplars for a society increasingly undercut by the pervasive influence of Communism, crime, liberalism and general moral turpitude. A morally upright exemplar was needed to command the division that served as a guarantor of police morality, and Captain Edmund J. Exley, war hero and hero of the Nite Owl murder case, was that man.
He made a speech himself: more pap on morality. Duane Fisk and Don Kleckner wished him luck; he read their minds through his blur: they wanted his chief assistant spots. Dudley Smith winked, easy to read: "I will be our next chief of detectives-not you." Excuses for leaving took forever-he made it to her place with the blur clearing hard.
6:00-Inez got home around 7:00. Ed let himself in, waited with the lights out.
Time dragged; Ed watched his watch hands move. 6:50-a key in the door.
"Exley, are you skulking? I saw your car outside."
"No lights. I don't want to see your face." Noises-keys rattling, a purse dropped to the floor. "And I don't want to see all that faggot Dreamland junk you've plastered on the walls."
"You mean the walls of the house you paid for?"
"You said it, not me."
Sounds: Inez resting herself against the door. "Who told you?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Are you going to ruin him for it?"
"«Him?» No, there's no way I could do it without making myself look even more foolish than I've been. And you can say his name."
No answer.
"Did you help him with the sergeant's exam? He didn't have the brains to pass it on his own."
No answer.
"How long? How many fucks behind my back?"
No answer.
"How long, «puta?»"
Inez sighed. "Maybe four years. On and off, when we each needed a friend."
"You mean when you didn't need me?"
"I mean when I got exhausted being treated like a rape victim. When I got terrified of how far you'd go to impress me."
Ed said, "I took you out of Boyle Heights and gave you a life." Inez said, "Exley, you started to scare me. I just wanted to be a girl seeing a guy, and Bud gave me that."
"Don't you say his name in this house."
"You mean in your house?"
"I gave you a decent life. You'd be pounding tortillas on a rock if it wasn't for me."
"«Querido», you turn ugly so well."
"How many other lies, Inez? How many other lies besides him?"
"Exley, let's break this off."
"No, give me a rundown."
No answer.
"How many other men? How many other lies?"
No answer.
"Tell me."
No answer.
"You fucking whore, after what I did for you. «Tell me»."
No answer.
"I let you be friends with my father. «Preston Exley is your friend because of me». How many other men have you fucked behind my back? How many other lies after what I did for you?"
Inez, a small voice. "You don't want to know."
"Yes I do, you fucking whore."
Inez pushed off the door. "Here's the only lie that counts, and it's all for you. Not even my sweetie pie Bud knows it, so I hope it makes you feel special."
Ed stood up. "Lies don't scare me."
Inez laughed. "«Everything» scares you."
No answer.
Inez, calm. "The «negritos» who hurt me couldn't have killed the people at the Nite Owl, because they were with me the whole night. They never left my sight. I lied because I didn't want you to feel bad that you'd killed four men for me. And you want to know what the «big» lie is? You and your precious absolute justice."
Ed pushed out the door, hands on his ears to kill the roar. Dark, cold outside-he saw Dick Stens strapped down dead.
Bud checked out his new badge: "Sergeant" where "Policeman" used to be. He put his feet up on his desk, said goodbye to Homicide.
His cubicle was a mess-five year's worth of paper. Dudley said the Hollywood squad transfer was just temporary-his sergeantcy shocked the brass, Thad Green was juking him for his window-punching number: Dick Stens green room bound, left/right hooks into glass. A fair trade: he never became a crackerjack case man because the only cases that mattered were case closed and case/cases shitcanned. Transfer blues: leaving Bureau HQ meant no early crack at dead-body reports-a good way to keep tabs on the Kathy Janeway case and the hooker snuff string he knew tied to it.
Stuff to take with him:
His new nameplate-"Sergeant Wendell White," a picture of Lynn: brunette, goodbye Veronica Lake.
A Mobster Squad photo: him and Dud at the Victory Motel. Mobster Squad goodies-brass knuckles, a ball-bearing sap-he might leave them behind.
Lock and key stuff:
His FBI and forensics class diplomas; Dick Stensland's legacy: six grand from his robbery take. Dick's last words-a note a guard passed him.
Partner-
I regret the bad things I done. I especially regret the people I hurt when I was a policeman who just got in my way when I was feeling mean and the Christmas guys and the liquor store man and his son. It's too late to change it all. So all I can do is say I'm sorry, which don't mean anything worthwhile. I'll try to take my punishment like a man. I keep thinking it could be you instead of me who did what I did, that it was just the luck of the draw and I know maybe you've thought the same thing. I wish being sorry counted for more with guys like you and me. I payed the piper and called the tune and all that, but Exley kept the piper tune going when he didn't have to and if I got a last request it is that you get him for his share and don't be stupid and do something dumb like I would have did. Use your brains and that money I told you where to find and give it to him good, a good one in the keester from Sergeant Dick Stens. Good luck, partner. I can't hardly believe that when you read this I'll be dead.
Dick
Double-locked in the bottom drawer:
His file on the Janeway/hooker snuffs, his private Nite Owl file-textbook pure, like he learned in school.
Two cases that proved he was a real detective; Dick's shot at Ed Exley. He pulled them out, read them over-college boy stuff all the way.
The Janeway string.
When things sizzled down with Lynn, he started looking for stuff to jazz him. Prowling for women didn't cut it-ditto his on-and-off thing with Inez. He flunked the sergeant's exam twice, paid his way through school with Dick's stash, worked the Mobster Squad part-time: meeting trains, planes, buses, taking would-be racketeers to the Victory Motel, beating the shit out of them and escorting them back to planes, trains, buses. Dud called it "containment"; he called it too much to take and still like looking at yourself in the mirror. Good cases never came his way at Homicide: Thad Green bootjacked them, assigned different men. His classes taught him interesting stuff about forensics, criminal psychology and procedure-he decided to apply what he'd learned to an old case that still simmered with him: the Kathy Janeway job.
He read Joe DiCenzo's case file: no leads, no suspects, written off as a random sex kill. He read the autopsy reconstruction: Kathy beaten to death, face blows, a man with rings on both fists. B + secretor semen in the mouth, rectum, vagina-three separate ejaculations, the bastard took his time. He got a flash backed up by case histories: a sex fiend like that doesn't kill just once, then go back to twiddling his thumbs.
He started paper-prowling-the kind of thing he used to hate.
No similar solveds or unsolveds anywhere in the LAPD and Sheriff's Department files-the search took him eight months. He worked his way through other police agencies-Stens' money for a stake. Zero for Orange County, San Bernardino County; four months in and a match with the San Diego PD: Jane Mildred Hamsher, 19, hooker, DOD 3/8/51, the same handwork and three-way rape: no clues, no suspects, case closed.
He read LAPD and SDPD M.O. files and got nowhere; he remembered Dudley warning him off the Janeway case-ragging him for going crazy on woman basher jobs. He went ahead anyway; paydirt on a tn-state teletype: Sharon Susan Palwick, 20, hooker, DOD 8/29/53, Bakersfield, California. The same specs: no suspects, no leads, case closed. Dud never mentioned the teletype-if he knew it existed.
He went to Diego and Bakerfield-read files, pestered detectives who worked the cases. They were bored with the jobs-and gave him the brush. He tried reconstructing the time and place element: who was in those cities on the dates of the killings. He checked old train, bus and airplane records, got no crossover names, put out standing tri-state teletypes requesting information on the killer's M.O., asking for call-ins should his killer ply that M.O. again. Nothing came in on the info request; three dead-body reports trickled in oven the years: Sally NMI DeWayne, 17, hooker, Needles, Arizona, 11/2/55; Chrissie Virginia Renfro, 21, hooker, San Francisco, 7/14/56; Mania NMI Waldo, 20, hooker, Seattle two months ago: 11/28/57. The call-ins logged in late, the same results: goose egg. Every angle, every schoolboy approach tapped-for nothing. Kathy Janeway and five other prostitutes raped, beaten to death-open stuff only with him.
A 116-page dead-end file to take to the Hollywood squad-his own case, dead for now.
And his major case-pages and pages he kept checking oven. Dick Stens' case: nails in Ed Exley's coffin. He got goose bumps just saying the words.
The Nite Owl case.
Starting in on the Janeway job brought it back: the Duke Cathcart/smut connection, evidence withheld, insider stuff to fuck Exley. Timing was against him then: he didn't have the smarts to pursue it, the niggers escaped, Exley gunned them down. The Nite Owl case was closed-the weird side bits around it forgotten. Years passed; he went back to the Janeway snuff, discovered a string. And little Kathy made him think Nite Owl, Nite Owl, Nite Owl.
Brainwork.
Back in '53, Dwight Gilette and Cindy Benavides-Kathy Janeway K.A.'s-told him a guy who came on like Duke Cathcart was talking up muscling Cathcart's pimp business. What "pimp business"?-Duke had only two skags in his stable, but he had been talking up going into the smut biz-at first it sounded like a pipe dream coming from a major-league pipe dreamer-but it got validated when the Englekling brothers came forward and told their story of Cathcart approaching them with a deal: they'd print the smut, he'd distribute it, they'd approach Mickey Cohen for financing.
Cut to facts:
«He» was inside Duke's pad post-Nite Owl. It was tidied up and print-wiped; Duke's clothes had been gone through. The San Bernardino Yellow Pages were ruffled-the pages for printing shops especially. Pete and Bar Englekling owned a printshop in San Berdoo; Nite Owl victim Susan Nancy Lefferts was originally from San Berdoo.
Cut to the coroner's report:
The examining pathologist based his identification of Cathcart's body on two things: dental plate «fragments» cross-checked against Cathcart's prison dental records and the "D.C." monogrammed sports jacket the stiff was wearing. The plate fragments were standard California prison issue-any ex-con who'd done time in the state penal system could have plastic like that in his mouth.
Cut to his insider skinny:
Kathy Janeway mentioned a "cute" scar on Duke's chest. There was no mention of that scar anywhere in Doc Layman's autopsy report-and Cathcart's chest was not obliterated by shotgun pellets. A final kicker: the Nite Owl stiff was measured at 5 '8"; Cathcart's prison measurement chart listed him at 5 '9¼".
Conclusion:
A Cathcart impersonator was killed at the Nite Owl.
Cut to:
Smut.
Cindy Benavides said Duke was getting ready to push it; Ad Vice was investigating smut back then-he'd read through Squad 4's reports-all the men reported no leads, Russ Millard died, the fuck book gig fell by the wayside. The Englekling brothers told their story of Duke Cathcart's smut approach, how they visited Mickey Cohen in prison, how he refused to bankroll the deal. They thought Cohen ordered the Nite Owl snuffs Out of batshit moral convictions-a ridiculous idea-but what if some kind of Nite Owl plot got started with the Mick? Exley submitted a report that said he and Bob Gallaudet talked up that theory, but the jigs escaped around then-and the Nite Owl got pinned on them.
Cut to:
His theory.
What if Cohen told some prison punk about the Cathcart/Englekling plan-or his man Davey Goldman did? What if the punk got paroled, talked up crashing Duke's stable while he was really just shoring up juice for his Duke impersonation? What if he killed Duke, stole some of his clothes and ended up at the Nite Owl by chance-because Duke frequented the place, or more likely-»as part of some kind of criminal rendezvous that went bad, the killers leaving, coming back with shotguns, blasting the Cathcart impersonator and five innocent bystanders to make it look like a robbery?»
Flaw in his theory so far:
He'd checked McNeil parole records: only Negroes, Latins and white men too large or two small to be the Cathcart impersonator were released between the time of the Cohen- Englekling brothers meeting and the Nite Owl. But-Cohen could have talked up the Cathcart smut proposal, word could have leaked to the outside, the impersonation could have been four or five times fucking removed.
Theories on top of theories, theories that proved he had the brains to call himself a detective:
Say the Nite Owl snuffs came out of smut intrigue. That meant the niggers were innocent, the real killers planted the shotguns in Ray Coates' car-which meant that the purple Merc seen outside the Nite Owl was a coincidence-the killers couldn't have known that three spooks were recently seen discharging shotguns in Griffith Park and would rank as natural first suspects. Somehow the killers found Coates' car before the LAPD-and planted the shotguns, print-wiped. It could have happened a half dozen ways.
1. Coates, in jail, could have told his lawyer where the car was stashed; the killers or their front man could have approached him for the information-or could have coerced him into making Coates talk.
2. The jigs could have spilled the location to one of their fellow inmates-maybe a planted inmate in with the killers.
3. His favorite, because it was simplest: the killers were smarter than the LAPD, did their own garage search, checked out garages behind deserted houses first-while the police went at it in grids.
Or the spooks told other inmates, who got relcased and got approached by the killers; or-unlikely-a cop finger man told them how the block search was breaking down. Impossible to check it all out: the Hall of Justice Jail destroyed its 1935-55 records to make way for more storage space.
Or the jigs really were guilty.
Or it was some other bunch of boogies riding around, blasting the air in Griffith Park, killing six people at the Nite Owl. Their 1948-50 Ford/Chevy/Merc was never located because the purple paint job was homemade, never listed on a DMV form.
Brainwork from a guy who never thought he had much of a brain-and he didn't make a shine gang for the snuffs, because-
The Englekling brothers sold their printshop mid-'54, then dropped off the face of the earth. Two years ago, he issued a "Whereabouts" bulletin: no results, no positive results on the cadaver bulletins he'd been tracking statewide: zilch on the brothers, no stiffs that might be the real Duke Cathcart. And- six months ago, following up in San Berdoo, he got a hot lead.
He found a San Berdoo townie who'd seen Susan Nancy Lefferts with a man matching Duke Cathcart's description-two weeks before the Nite Owl killings. He showed him some Cathcart mugshots; the man said, "Close, but no cigar." The Nite Owl forensic had Susan Nancy "flailing" to touch the man sitting at the next table: Duke Cathcart, really the impersonator, supposedly unknown to her. Why were they sitting at «different tables?» The kicker: he tried to interview Sue Lefferts' mother, a chance to run the boyfriend by her. She refused to talk to him.
Why?
Bud packed up: mementoes, ten pounds of paper. Stalemates for now-no new whore leads, the Nite Owl dead until he braced Mickey Cohen. Out to the elevator-adios, Homicide.
Ed Exley walked by staring.
He knows about Inez and me.
Stakeout: Hank's Ranch Market, 52nd and Central. A sign above the door: "Welfare Checks Cashed." January 3, relief day-check-cashers shooting craps on the sidewalk. Surveillance Squad 5 got a tip-some anonymous ginch said her boyfriend and his buddy were going to take the market off, she was pissed at the boyfriend for porking her sister. Jack in the point car, watching the door, Sergeant John Petievich parked on 52-scowling like he wanted to kill something.
Lunch: Fritos, straight vodka. Jack yawned, stretched, cut odds: Aragon vs. Pimentel, what Ellis Loew wanted-he was supposed to meet him at a political soiree tonight. The vodka burned his stomach; he had to piss wicked bad.
Horn toots-his signal. Petievich pointed to the sidewalk. Two white men entered the market.
Jack walked across the street. Petievich walked over. A frame on the doorway, a look in. The robbers at the checkstand, backs to the door-guns out, spare hands full of money.
No proprietor. No customers. A squint down the far aisle- blood and brains on the wall. SILENCER. BACK DOOR MAN. Jack shot the heisters in the back.
Petievich screamed; back door footsteps; Jack fired blind, chased. Bottles broke over his head: blind shots, silencer rounds-no noise, muffled thwaps. Down the far aisle, two dead winos, a door closing. Petievich fired, blew the door off-a man sprinted across the alley. Jack emptied his piece; the man vaulted a fence. Shouts from the sidewalk; crapshooters cheering. Jack reloaded, jumped the fence, hit a backyard. A Doberman jumped at him, snarling, snapping teeth in his face-Jack shot him point-blank. The dog belched blood; Jack heard shots, saw the fence explode.
Two bluesuits hit the yard running. Jack dropped his gun; they fired anyway-wide-blowing out fence pickets. Jack put his hands up. "Police officer! Police officer! Policeman!"
They came up slow, frisked him-peach-fuzz rookies. The taller kid found his ID. "Hey, Vincennes. You used to be some kind of hotshot, didn't you?"
Jack cold-cocked him-a knee to the nuts. The kid went dqwn; the other kid gawked.
Jack went looking for a place to drink.
He found a juke joint, ordered a line of shots. Two drinks killed his shakes; two more made him a toastmaster.
To the men I just killed: sorry, I'm really better at shooting unarmed civilians. I'm being squeezed into retirement, so I thought I'd 86 a couple of real bad guys before I capped my twenty.
To my wife: you thought you married a hero, but you grew up and learned you were wrong. Now you want to go to law school and be a lawyer like Daddy and Ellis. No sweat on the money: Daddy bought the house, Daddy upgrades your marriage, Daddy will pay for tuition. When you read the paper and see that your husband drilled two evil robbers, you'll think they're the first notches on his gun. Wrong-in '47 dope crusader Jack blasted two innocent people, the big secret he almost wants to spill just to get some life kicking back into his marriage.
Jack downed three more shots. He went where he always went when with a certain amount of shit in his system-back to '53 and smut.
He felt safe on the blackmail: his depositions for insurance, the Hudgens snuff buried-»Hush-Hush» resurrected it, got nowhere. Patchett and Bracken never approached him-they had the carbon of Sid's Big V file, kept their end of the bargain. He heard Lynn and Bud White were still an item; call the brainy whore and Patchett memories-bad news from that bad bloody spring. What drove him was the smut.
He kept it in a safe-deposit box. He knew it was there, knew it excited him-knew that loving it would trash his marriage. He threw himself into the marriage, building walls to keep them safe from that spring. A string of sober days helped; the marriage helped. Nothing he did changed things-Karen just learned who he was.
She saw him muscle Deuce Perkins; he said "nigger" in front of her parents. She figured out his press exploits were lies. She saw him drunk, pissed off. He hated her friends; his one friend-Miller Stanton-dropped out of sight when he blew «Badge of Honor». He got bored with Karen, ran to the smut, went crazy with it.
He tried to ID the posers again-still no go. He went to Tijuana, bought other fuck books-no go. He went looking for Christine Bergeron, couldn't find her, put out teletypes that got him bupkis. No way to have the real thing-he decided to fake it.
He bought hookers, shook down call girls. He fixed them up to look like the girls in his books. He had them three and four at a pop, chains of bodies on quilts. He costumed them, choreographed them. He aped the pictures, took his own pictures, recaptured; sometimes he thought of the blood pix and got scared: perfect matches to murder mutilations.
Real women never thrilled him like the pictures did; fear kept him from going to Fleur-de-Lis-straight to the source. He couldn't figure out Karen's fear-why she didn't leave him.
A last drink-bad thoughts adieu.
Jack cleaned up, walked back to his car. No hubcaps, broken wiper blades. Crime scene tape around Hank's Ranch Market; two black-and-whites in the lot. No reprimand note on his windshield-the vandals probably stole it.
He hit the bash at full swing: Ellis Loew, a suite packed with Republican bigshots. Women in cocktail gowns; men in dark suits. The Big V: chinos, a sport shirt sprayed with dog blood.
Jack flagged a waiter, grabbed a martini off his tray. Framed pictures on the wall caught his eye.
Political progress: «Harvard Law Review», the '53 election, a howler shot: Loew telling the press the Nite Owl killers confessed before they escaped. Jack laughed, sprayed gin, almost choked on his olive. Behind him: "You used to dress a bit more nicely."
Jack turned around. "I used to be some kind of hotshot."
"Do you have an excuse for your appearance?"
"Yeah, I killed two men today."
"I see. Anything else?"
"Yeah, I shot them in the back, plugged a dog and took off before my superior officers showed up. And here's a news flash: I've been drinking. Ellis, this is getting stale, so let's get to it. Who do you want me to touch?"
"Jack, lower your voice."
"What is it, boss? The Senate or the statehouse?"
"Jack, it's not the time to discuss this."
"Sure it is. Tell true. You're gearing up for the '60 elections." Loew, on the QT. "All right, it's the Senate. I did have some favors to ask, but your current condition precludes my asking them. We'll talk when you're in better shape."
An audience now: the whole suite. "Come on, I'm dying to run bag for you. Who do I shake down first?"
"«Sergeant, lower your voice»."
Raise that voice. "Cocksucker, I shit where you breathe. I put Bill McPherson in the tank for you, I cold-cocked him and put him in bed with that colored girl, I fucking deserve to know who you want me to put the screws to next."
Loew, a hoarse whisper. "Vincennes, you're through."
Jack tossed gin in his face. "God, I fucking hope so."
"… and we're more than the moral exemplars that Chief Parker spoke of the other day. We are the dividing line between the old police work and the new, the old system of promotion through patronage and enforcement through intimidation and a new emerging system: the elite police corps that impartially asserts its authority in the name of a stern and unbiased justice, that punishes its own with a stern moral vigor should they prove duplicitous to the higher moral standards an elite corps demands of its members. And, finally, we are the protectors of the public image of the Los Angeles Police Department. Know that when you read interdepartmental complaints filed against your brother officers and feel the urge to be forgiving. Know that when I assign you to investigate a man you once worked with and liked. Know that our business is stern, absolute justice, whatever the price."
Ed paused, looked at his men: twenty-two sergeants, two lieutenants. "Nuts and bolts now, gentlemen. Under my predecessor, Lieutenant Phillips and Lieutenant Stinson supervised field investigations autonomously. As of now, I will assume direct field command, with Lieutenant Phillips and Lieutenant Stinson serving as my execs on an alternating basis. Incoming complaints and information requests will be routed through my office first, I'll read the material and make my assignments accordingly. Sergeant Kleckner and Sergeant Fisk will serve as my personal assistants and will meet with me every morning at 0730. Lieutenant Stinson and Lieutenant Phillips, please meet me in my office in one hour to discuss my assuming command of your ongoing investigations. Gentlemen, you're dismissed."
The meeting dispersed in silence; the muster room emptied. Ed replayed his speech, hitting key phrases. "Absolute justice" hit with Inez Soto's voice.
Dump ashtrays, straighten chairs, tidy the bulletin board. Unfurl the flags by the lectern, check them for dust. Back to his speech, his father's voice: "Duplicitous to the higher moral standards an elite corps demands of its members." Two days ago, his speech would have been the truth. Inez Soto's speech made it a lie.
Flags, gold-fringed. Gold-plated opportunism: he killed those men out of a weak man's rage. As the Nite Owl killers they gave the rage meaning: absolute justice boldly taken. He twisted the meaning to support what the public was telling him: you're L.A.'s greatest hero, you're going to the top and beyond. Bud White's revenge, the man too stupid to grasp it: a simple cuckold accompanied by a woman's few words had him treading lies at the top, thrashing for a way to make his stale glory real.
Ed walked into his office: clean, neat-no order to secure. Complaint forms on his desk-he sat down, worked.
Jack Vincennes in big trouble.
1/3/58: while on a Surveillance Detail stakeout, Vincennes shot and killed two armed robbers-gunmen who had murdered three people at a southside market. Vincennes gave chase to a third gunman/robber, lost him, was approached by two patrolmen who did not know he was a police officer. The patrolmen fired at Vincennes, assuming him to be a member of the robbery gang; Vincennes dropped his gun and allowed himself to be frisked-then assaulted one of the officers and vacated the crime scene before Homicide and the coroner arrived. The third suspect remained at large; Vincennes went to a political gathering honoring D.A. Ellis Loew, his brother-in-law by marriage. Presumed to be drunk, he verbally abused Loew and threw a drink in his face-in full view of the guests.
Ed skimmed Vincennes' personnel file. A 5/58 pension securement date-goodbye, Trashcan Jack-you were close. Stacks of his Narcotics Squad reports: thorough, detailed to the point of being padded. Between the lines: Vincennes had a hard-on for minor dope violators-especially Hollywood celebrities and jazz musicians-substantiating an old rumor: he called «Hush-Hush» Magazine to be in on his gravy rousts. Vincennes was transferred to Administrative Vice as part of the Bloody Christmas shake-up; another stack of reports: bookmaking and liquor infraction operations, no zeal, plenty of verbal padding. Ad Vice assignment into the spring of '53: Russ Millard commanding the division, a pornography investigation running concurrent with the Nite Owl. And a «big» anomaly: assigned to trace smut, Vincennes repeatedly reported no leads, commented that the other men on the assignment were coming up empty, twice offered the opinion that the investigation should be dropped.
Antithetical Jack V. behavior.
Smut brushed shoulders with the Nite Owl.
Ed thought back.
The Englekling brothers, Duke Cathcart, Mickey Cohen. Smut dismissed as a viable Nite Owl lead-three dead Negroes, case closed.
Ed read the file again. Years of padded reports, one assignment bereft of paper. Vincennes returned to Narco in July '53-he went back to his old ways, continued them straight through to the end of his duty with Surveillance.
Big-time anomaly.
Coinciding with the Nite Owl.
Spring '53, another connection: Sid Hudgens was murdered then-unsolved. Ed hit the intercom.
"Yes, Captain?"
"Susan, find out who besides Sergeant John Vincennes was assigned to the Fourth Squad at Administrative Vice in April of 1953. Do that, then locate them."
A half hour for results. Sergeant George Henderson, Officer Thomas Kifka retired; Sergeant Lewis Stathis working Bunco. Ed called his C.O.; Stathis walked in ten minutes later.
A burly man-tall, stooped. Nervous-an I.A. bracing out of nowhere was a spooker. Ed pointed him to a chair. Stathis said, "Sir, this is about…"
"Sergeant, this has nothing to do with you. This has to do with an officer you worked Ad Vice with."
"Captain, my Ad Vice tour was years ago."
"I know, late '51 through the summer of '53. You transferred out just as I rotated in on my floater assignment. Sergeant, how closely did you work with Jack Vincennes?"
Stathis smiled. Ed said, "Why are you grinning?"
"Well, I read in the paper that Vincennes juked these two heist guys, and talk around the Bureau has it that he bugged out on the scene unannounced. That's a big infraction, so I was smiling 'cause it figured he'd be the Ad Vice guy you'd be interested in."
"I see. And did you work closely with him?"
Stathis shook his head. "Jack was strictly the single-o type. You know, the beat of a different drummer. Sometimes we worked the same general assignments, but that was it."
"Your squad worked a pornography investigation in the spring of'53, do you recall that?"
"Yeah, it was a colossal waste of time. Dirty skin books, a waste of time."
"You yourself reported no leads."
"Yeah, and neither did Trashcan or the other guys. Russ Millard got co-opted to that Nite Owl thing, and the skin book caper fell through."
"Do you recall Vincennes acting strangely during that time?"
"Not really. I remember he only showed up at the squadroom at odd times and that him and Russ Millard didn't like each other. Like I said, Vincennes was a loner. He didn't pal around with the guys on the squad."
"Do you recall Millard making specific queries of the squad when two printshop operators came forward with smut information?"
Stathis nodded. "Yeah, something to do with the Nite Owl that didn't pan out. We all told old Russ that those skin books could not be traced hell or high water."
One hunch going dry. "Sergeant, the Department was running a fever with the Nite Owl back then. Can you recall how Vincennes reacted to it? Any little thing out of the ordinary?"
Stathis said, "Sir, can I be blunt?"
"Of course."
"Well, then I'll tell you that I always figured Vincennes was a cheap-shot cop on the take somehow. Put that aside, I remember he was sort of nervous around the time of the skin book job. On the Nite Owl, I'd say he was bored with it. He was in on the arrest of those colored guys, he was there when our guys found the car and the shotguns, and he still seemed bored by it."
Coming on again-no facts, just instincts. "Sergeant, think. Vincennes' behavior around the time of the Nite Owl and the pornography investigation. Anything out of the ordinary with him. «Think»."
Stathis shrugged. "Maybe one thing, but I don't think it amounts to-"
"Tell me anyway."
"Well, back then Vincennes had the cubicle next to mine, and sometimes I could hear him pretty good. I was at my desk and heard part of a conversation, him and Dudley Smith."
"And?"
"And Smith asked Vincennes to put a tail on Bud White. He said White'd gotten personally involved in a hooker homicide and he didn't want him doing nothing rash."
Skin pricldes. "What else did you hear?"
"I heard Vincennes agree, and the rest of it was garbled."
"This was during the Nite Owl investigation?"
"Yes, sir. Right in the middle of it."
"Sergeant, do you remember Sid Hudgens, the scandal sheet man, being killed around that time?"
"Yeah, an unsolved."
"Do you recall Vincennes talking about it?"
"No, but the rumor was that him and Hudgens were buddies."
Ed smiled. "Sergeant, thank you. This was off the record, but I don't want you to repeat our conversation. Do you understand?"
Stathis got up. "I won't, but I feel bad about Vincennes. I heard he's topping out his twenty in a few months. Maybe he vamoosed 'cause shooting those heist guys got to him."
Ed said, "Good day, Sergeant."
Something old, wrong.
Ed sat with his door open. Gold-braided flags just outside- opportunities knocked.
Vmcennes might have dirt on Bud White.
Instincts: Trash running scared in the spring of '53.
Connect the "skin-book caper" to the Nite Owl.
Inez Soto's indictment-he killed three innocent men.
If he cut Vincennes a break on his l.A. investigation-
Ed hit the intercom. "Susan, get me District Attorney Loew."
Mickey Cohen said, "I got my own problems to worry about. The fershtunkener Nite Owl case and fershtunkener dirty books I don't know from the Bible, another book I never read. That rebop bored me five years ago, now it is an even further distance from hunger. I got my own problems, such as look at my poor baby."
Bud looked. A raggedy-assed bulldog by the Mickster's fireplace-wheezing, his tail in a splint. Cohen said, "That is Mickey Cohen, Jr., my heir who is not long for this canine world. A bomb attempt in November he survived, though a goodly number of my Sy Devore suits did not. His poor tail has remained steadily infected and his appetite is dyspeptic. Cops resurrecting old grief is not good for his health."
"Mr. Cohen-"
"I like a man who addresses me with proper decorum. What did you say your name was again?"
"Sergeant White."
"Sergeant White then, I will tell you there is no end to the grief in my life. I am like Jesus your goy savior carrying the weight of the world on his back. Back in prison these fershtunkener goons attack me and my man Davey Goldman, Davey gets his brains scrambled, gets paroled and starts walking around in public with his shlong hanging out, it's big, I don't blame him for advertising, but the Beverly Hills cops ain't so enlightened and now he's doing ninety days observation at the Camarillo nut bin. As if that is not enough grief for your yiddisher Jesus to undergo, then feature that while I was in prison some colleagues looking after my interests were bumped off by persons unknown. And now my old boys won't form back together with me. My God, Kikey T., Lee Vachss, Johnny Stompanato-"
Kill the tirade. "I know Johnny Stomp."
Cohen hit the roof. "Ferstunkener Johnny, Judas from the best-selling Bible is his middle name! Lana Turner is his Jezebel and not his Mary Magdalene, his cock leads him to grovel for her like a dowsing rod. Granted, he is even better hung than Davey G., but my blessed Jesus I took him away from being a two-bit extortionist and made him my bodyguard, and now he refuses to re-enlist, he'd rather nosh grease at Kikey's fucking deli and hobnob with Deuce Perkins, who I have it on good authority plays hide the salami with members of the canine persuasion. Did you say your name was White?"
"That's right, Mr. Cohen."
"Wendell White? «Bud» White?"
"That's me."
"Boychik, why didn't you tell me?"
Cohen Junior pissed in the fireplace. Bud said, "I didn't think you'd heard of me."
"Heard, shmeard, word gets out. Word is you're Dudley Smith's lad. Word is you and the Dudster and a couple of his other hard boys been keeping L.A. safe for democracy while this so-called crime drought's been going on. A motel in Gardena, a little blackjack work to the kidneys, va va va voom. Maybe now, maybe if I can get my old guys to quit noshing grease and associating with dog fuckers, I can get business going again. I should be nice to you so's you and the Dudster reciprocate. So what's with this Nite Owl rehash?"
His pitch-canned. "I heard how the Englekling brothers visited you up at McNeil, how they talked up Duke Cathcart's deal. I was thinking that you or Davey Goldman might have talked it up on the yard and word got out that way."
Mickey said, "Nix. Not possible, 'cause I never told Davey. True, I am well known for my cell business confabs, but not a soul on this earth did I tell. I told that guy Exley that when we sbmoozed on the topic years ago. And here's a bonus insight from the Mickster. It is my considered opinion that dirty books are a high-profit item worth killing innocent bystanders over only if an established high-profit market already exists. Give the fucking Nite Owl up, those shvartzes the hero kid bumped took the ticket and probably did the job anyway."
Bud said, "I don't think Duke Cathcart was killed at the Nite Owl. I think it was a guy impersonating him. I think the guy killed Cathcart, took over his identity and wound up at the Nite Owl. I was thinking the whole thing got started up at McNeil."
Cohen rolled his eyes. "Not with me it didn't, boychik, 'cause I told nobody, and I can't feature Pete and Bar stopping to spread the word out on the yard. Where'd this clown Cathcart live?"
"Silverlake."
"Then dig up the Silverlake Hills. Maybe you'll find a nice vintage stiff."
A flash-San Berdoo, Sue Lefferts' mother at her pad-eyes darting to a built-on room. "Thanks, Mr. Cohen."
Cohen said, "Forget the fershtunkener Nite Owl."
Cohen Junior took a bead on Bud's crotch.
San Bernardino, Hilda Leffertr. Last time she shoved him out pronto; this time he'd hit on the boyfriend: Susan Nancy was seen with a guy matching Duke Cathcart's description-press, intimidate.
A two-hour run. The San Berdoo Freeway would be working soon-cut the trip in half. Exley Senior to Junior: the coward knew about him and Inez, his look the other day spelled it plain. They were both biding their time. But if things fell his way he'd hit harder-Exley would «never» tag him for the brains to hit smart.
Hilda Lefferts lived in a dump: a shingle shack with a cinder block add-on. Bud walked up, checked out the mailbox. Good intimidation stuff: Lockheed pension check, Social Security check, County Relief check. He pushed the buzzer.
The door opened a crack. Hilda Lefferts looked over the chain. "Told you before, now I'll say it again. I'm not buying what you're selling, so let my poor daughter rest in peace."
Bud fanned out the checks. "County Relief told me to hold these back until you cooperate. No tickee, no washee."
Hilda squealed; Bud popped the chain, walked in. Hilda backed away. "Please. I need that money."
Susan Nancy smiled down from four walls: vamp poses on a nightclub floor. Bud said, "Come on, be nice, huh? You remember what I tried to ask you last time? Susan had a boyfriend here in San Berdoo right before she moved to L.A. You looked scared when I told you before, you look scared now. «Come on». Five minutes on that and I'm gone. And nobody's gonna know."
Hilda, eyeball circuits: the checks, the add-on room. "Nobody?"
Bud forked over Lockheed. "Nobody. Come on. I'll give you the other two after you tell me."
Hilda spoke straight to her daughter-the picture by the door. "Susie, you told me you met the man at a cocktail lounge and I told you I didn't approve. You said he was a nice man who'd paid his debt to society, but you wouldn't tell me his name. I saw you with him one day, and you called him Don or Dean or Dick or Dee, and he said, 'No, Duke. Get used to it.' Then I was out one day and old Mrs. Jensen next door saw you with the man here at the house and thought she heard a ruckus…"
Match it: "debt to society" equals "ex-con." "Did you ever learn the man's name?"
"No, I didn't. I…"
"Did Susan know two brothers named Englekling? They lived here in San Bernardino."
Hilda squinted at the picture. "Oh, Susie. No, I don't think I know that name."
"Did Susan's boyfriend ever mention the name 'Duke Cathcart' or mention a pornography business?"
"No! Cathcart was the name of one of the dead people where Susie died, and Susie was a good girl who would never associate with filth!"
Bud forked over County Relief. "Easy now. Tell me about the ruckus."
Hilda, tears coming on. "I came home the next day, and I thought I saw dried blood on the floor of the new den, I'd just had it built with the money from my husband's insurance policy. Susan and the man came back and acted nervous. The man crawled around under the house and called a Los Angeles phone number, then he and Susan Nancy left. A week later she was killed… and… I, well, I thought all that suspicious behavior meant the killings… I just thought of conspiracies and reprisals, and when that nice man who became such a hero came by a few days later with his background check, I just stayed quiet."
Goose bumps: Susie Lefferts' boyfriend the Cathcart impersonator. "The ruckus": the boyfriend kills Cathcart-probably in San Berdoo to talk to the Engleklings. Susie at the Nite Owl, scoping out some kind of meeting, the boyfriend playing Cathcart-which meant the killers never saw the real Cathcart face-to-face.
THE BOYFRIEND CRAWLING AROUND UNDER THE HOUSE.
Bud got the phone, the operator, an L.A. number: P.C. Bell police information. A clerk came on. "Yes, who's requesting?"
"Sergeant W. White, LAPD. I'm in San Bernardino at RAnchview 04617. I need a list of all calls to Los Angeles from that number, say from March 20 to April 12, 1953. Got that?"
The clerk said, "I copy." Seconds, two minutes plus, the clerk back on. "Three calls, Sergeant. April 2 and April 8, all to the same number, HO-21 118. That's a pay phone, the corner of Sunset and Las Palmas."
Bud hung up. Phone booth calls a half mile from the Nite Owl; the deal or the meet worked out-extra cautious.
Hilda fretted Kleenex. Bud saw a flashlight on an end table. He grabbed it, ran with it.
Outside to the add-on, a foundation crawispace-one tight fit. Down, under, in.
Dirt, wood pilings, a long burlap sack up ahead. Smells: mothballs, rot. An elbow crawl to the bag-mothballs and rot getting stronger. He poked the sack, saw a rat's nest explode.
All around him: rats blinded by light.
Bud ripped burlap. In with the flashlight, rats, a skull caked with gristle. Drop the flash, rip two-handed, rats and mothballs in his face. A huge rip, a bullet hole in the skull, a skeleton hand out a sleeve-"D.C." on flannel.
He crawled out gulping air. Hilda Lefferts was right there. Her eyes said, "Please God, not that."
Clean air; clean daylight almost blinding. White light gave him the idea-his shiv at Exley.
A scandal mag leak. A guy at «Whisper» owed him-a pinko rag, they bled for Commies and jigs and hated cops.
Hilda, about to shit her drawers. "Was… there… anything under there?"
"Nothing but some rats. I want you to stay put, though. I'm gonna bring back some mugshots for you to look at."
"May I have that last check?"
The envelope-flecked with rat droppings. "Here. Compliments of Captain Ed Exley."
A nice interrogation room- no bolted-down chairs, no piss smell. Jack looked at Ed Exley. "I knew I was in the shit, but I didn't think I rated the top dog."
Exley: "You're probably wondering why you haven't been suspended."
Jack stretched. His uniform chafed-he hadn't worn it since 1945. Exley looked creepy-skinny, gray-haired, rimless glasses that made his eyes come off brutal. "I was wondering. My guess is Ellis had seconds thoughts on the complaint he filed. Bad publicity and all that."
Exley shook his head. "Loew considers you a liability to his career and his marriage, and leaving that crime scene and assaulting that officer are enough in themselves to warrant a suspension and a dismissal."
"Yeah? Then why haven't I been suspended?"
"Because for the moment I've interceded with Loew and Chief Parker. Any other questions?"
"Yeah, where's the tape recorder and the steno?"
"I didn't want them here."
Jack pulled his chair up. "Captain, what «do» you want?"
"I'll throw that back at you. Do you want to flush your career down the toilet or would you like to skate for a few months and cash Out your twenty?"
Easy: Karen's face when he told her. "Okay, I'll play. Now what do you want?"
Exley leaned close. "In the spring of '53 your friend and business associate Sid Hudgens was murdered and two detectives who worked the case under Russ Millard told me you referred to Hudgens as 'scum' and were visibly agitated on the morning his body was discovered. During this time frame Dudley Smith asked you to tail Bud White, and you agreed. During this time frame the Nite Owl case was active and you worked a pornography investigation with Ad Vice and repeatedly submitted no-lead reports, when your long-standing procedure was to jam every report you wrote full of filler. During this time two men, Peter and Barter Englekling, came forward to offer state's evidence on an alleged pornography link to the Nite Owl. Russ Millard queried you on it, you went along with your 'no leads' routine. Throughout the smut investigation you repeatedly urged that the job be dropped. Those same two detectives, Sergeants Fisk and Kieckner, overheard you urging Ellis Loew to soft-pedal the Hudgens investigation, and one of your fellow Ad Vice officers recalls you as being atypically nervous throughout the smut job and absent from the squadroom for unusually long periods of time. Put it all together for me, would you, Jack?"
Ten counts guilty-he knew he was gawking, blinking, twitching. "How… the… fuck did you…"
"It doesn't matter. Now let's hear your interpretation of what I want."
Jack caught some breath. "Okay, so I tailed Bud White. Dud was afraid he'd go apeshit over some hooker snuff, 'cause White had that tendency where young stuff was concerned. Okay, so I tailed him and didn't pick up anything worth a damn. You and White hate each other, everyone knows it. You figure someday he'll try to get you for your job on Dick Stensland and you'll cut me slack with Loew and Parker in exchange for some dirt on him. «Is that what you want?»"
"Call that twenty percent of it and give me something you learned about White."
"Such as?"
"How about him and women?"
"White likes women, but that's no news flash."
"IAD ran a personal on White after he passed the sergeant's exam. The report had him seeing a woman named Lynn Bracken. Did White know her back in '53?"
Jack shrugged. "I don't know. I never heard that name."
"Vincennes, your face says you're a liar, but put the Bracken woman aside, she doesn't interest me. Was White seeing Inez Soto during the time you were tailing him?"
He almost laughed. "No, not while I had my tail on him. Is that what you're so worked up on? You think White and your-"
Exley raised a hand. "I'm not going to ask you if you killed Hudgens, I'm not going to make you put that spring together for me, not yet and maybe never. Just give me your opinion on something. You were up to your ears on the smut job «and» you worked the Nite Owl. Do you make the three Negroes for the killings?"
Jack inched back-get away from those eyes. "There's loose ends out there, I knew it then. If it wasn't the three you got, maybe it was some other spooks, maybe they knew where Coates hid his car and planted the shotguns. Maybe it's tied to the smut. Do you care? Those niggers raped your woman, so what you did was right. What's this about, Captain?"
Exley smiled. Jack pegged it: a man sticking one foot off a cliff, hopping on one leg. "Captain, what's this-"
"No, my motives are my business, and here's my first guess. Hudgens was connected to the smut somehow, and he had a file on you. That's why you were all over that mess."
Quicksand. "Yeah, I did something really bad once. You know… shit, sometimes I think… sometimes I think I don't care who finds out anymore."
Exley stood up. "I've already squared the complaints against you. There'll be no trial board, no charges. Part of the agreement I made with Chief Parker is a stipulation that you voluntarily retire in May. I told him you'd agree, and I convinced him that you deserve a full pension. He didn't question my motives, and I don't want you to question them either."
Jack stood up. "And the trade?"
"If the Nite Owl ever goes wide, you and everything you know belong to me."
Jack stuck out his hand. "Jesus, you turned into a cold son of a bitch."
CALENDAR
FEBRUARY-MARCH 1958
«Whisper» Magazine, February 1958 issue:
WRONG MAN KILLED IN
NITE OWL SLAUGHTER?
WEB OF MYSTERY SPREADS…
You remember the Nite Owl brouhaha, don't you? On April 14, 1953, three shotgun-toting killers entered the convivial Nite Owl Coffee Shop, just off Hollywood Boulevard in sunny Los Angeles, robbed and murdered three employees and three patrons and got away with an estimated three hundred scoots, which divided by six comes to about fifty bucks a life. The Los Angeles Police Department threw itself into the case with characteristic zeal, arrested three young Negro men on suspicion of committing the murders and also charged them with kidnapping and raping a young Mexican girl. The LAPD was not quite certain that the three Negroes-Raymond "Sugar Ray" Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine-committed the Nite Owl killings, but they were sure that the young men were the rapists of Inez Soto, 21, a college student. The Nite Owl investigation continued, with much attendant publicity and great pressure on the LAPD to solve L.A.'s "Crime of the Century."
The LAPD pursued fruitless leads for two weeks, then discovered the murder weapons inside Ray Coates' car, stored in an abandoned South Los Angeles garage. Shortly after that, Coates, Jones and Fontaine escaped from the Hall of Justice Jail..
Enter a young police detective: Sergeant Edmund J. Exley of the LAPD. World War II hero, UCLA grad, informant against his fellow cops in the 1951 "Bloody Christmas" police brutality scandal and the son of construction mogul Preston Exley, the builder of Raymond Dieterling's mammoth Dream-a-Dreamland and the massive Southern California freeway system. The plot thickens.
Item: Sergeant Ed Exley was in love with rape victim Inez Soto.
Item: Sergeant Ed Exley located, shot and killed Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, with-poetic justice-a shotgun.
Item: Sergeant Ed Exley was promoted (two whole ranks!!!) to captain a week later, a large reward for his justice-by-the-sword resolution of a case the LAPD needed to solve quicksville in order to ensure perpetuation of its (overblown?) reputation.
Item: «Captain» Ed Exley (a rich kid with a substantial private trust fund left to him by his late mother) soon became very cozy with Inez Soto and bought her a house down the block from his apartment.
Item: we at «Whisper» have it on very good authority that Raymond Coates, Leroy Fontaine, Tyrone Jones and the man who was sheltering them-Roland Navarette-were unarmed when hero Ed Exley gunned them down… and, now, nearly five years since the Nite Owl killings, the plot thickens again.
Now, «Whisper» is the underdog of what the squaresyule press calls "Scandal Sheet Journalism." We're not the mighty «Hush-Hush», we're based out of New York and our beat is primarily the East Coast. But we do have our L.A. sources, and among them is a crusading private eye who wishes to remain anonymous. This man has been obsessed with the Nite Owl case for years, has investigated it extensively and has come up with some startling revelations. This man, whom we shall call "Private Eye X," spoke to «Whisper» correspondents and revealed the following:
Private Eye eye-tem: during the Nite Owl investigation, two brothers, «Peter and Baxter Englekling», printshop operators from San Bernardino, California, came forth and told authorities an account of how «Nite Owl victim Delbert "Duke" Cathcart» approached them with a plan to print pornographic material, then theorized that the Nite Owl killings were the result of intrigue within the pornography underworld. The LAPD poohpoohed the brothers' theory in their haste to pin the crime on the Negroes, and now the Engleklings seem to have disappeared off the face of the globe.
Private Eye eye-tem: Mrs. Hilda Lefferts, mother of San Bernardino born and bred «Nite Owl victim Susan Nancy Lefferts», told Private Eye X that immediately before the killings her daughter had a mysterious, unnamed boyfriend who greatly resembled Duke Cathcart, and she even heard him tell Susan Nancy: "Call me 'Duke.' Get used to the idea."!!! Mrs. Lefferts could not identifyr the man from privately hoarded mugshots that Private Eye X showed her. X then developed what we consider an x-cellent and x-citing theory!
X theory eye-tem: we think that mystery boyfriend X killed Duke Cathcart in an attempt to take over his pornography business, impersonated Duke Cathcart and wound up at the Nite Owl Coffee Shop to do biz with the three men who perpetrated the slaughter. Susan Nancy sat nearby in order to watch her boyfriend wheel and deal. Private Eye X offers the following unimpeachable evidence as proof:
Mrs. Lefferts said boyfriend X looked just like Duke Cathcart.
The body identified as Cathcart's was too decimated to correctly ID. The coroner's final identification was based on a «partial» dental plate reconstruction crosschecked against Cathcart's prison dental records-yet other prison records listed Cathcart's height at 5'8", while the body discovered at the Nite Owl was 5' 9¼". All in all, unmistakable proof that an impersonator, not Duke Cathcart, was killed at the Nite Owl Coffee Shop..
X-citing x-trapolations that we believe will lead to some x-tremely interesting revelations, x-asperate the trigger-happy Los Angeles Police Department and perhaps x-onerate the three Negroes falsely accused of the Nite Owl killings. We at «Whisper» urge the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to x-hume the bodies of the Nite Owl victims; we x-coriate Captain Ed Exley for his cold-blooded murder of four societal victims and x-pressly petition the LAPD: redeem your old wrongs in the name of justice! Reopen the Nite Owl case!!!
EXTRACT: San Francisco «Chronicle», February 27:
GAITSVILLE SLAYINGS BAFFLE POLICE
Gaitsville, Calif., Feb. 27, 1958-A bizarre double murder has the citizens of Gaitsville, a small town sixty miles north of San Francisco, scared-and the Mann County Sheriff's baffled.
Two days ago, the bodies of Peter and Barter Englekling, 41 and 37, were discovered at their apartment next door to the printshop where they were employed as typesetters. The two brothers, in the words of Mann County Sheriff's Lieutenant Eugene Hatcher, were "shady characters with criminal connections." The lieutenant guardedly elaborated to Chronicle reporter George Woods.
"Both Engleklings had criminal records for narcotics offenses," Lieutenant Hatcher said. "Granted, they've been clean for a number of years, but they were still shady characters. For instance, they were working at the printing shop under assumed names. So far we have no clues, but we do think we're dealing with a torturefor-information scenario."
The Englekling brothers worked at Rapid Bob's Printing on East Verdugo Road in Gaitsville and lived in the apartment building next door. Their employer, Robert Dunkquist, 53, knew the pair as Pete and Bar Girard, and discovered their bodies on Tuesday morning. "Pete and Bar had worked for me for a year and they were as regular as clockwork. When they were late for work on Tuesday I knew something was up. Also, the shop had been ransacked and I wanted them to help me find the culprits."
The Englekling brothers, whose true identities were revealed by a fingerprint teletype check, were shot to death, and Lieutenant Hatcher is certain the killer used a.38 revolver equipped with a silencer. "Our baffistics man found iron shavings embedded in the rounds we took out of the victims. This indicates a silencer and also indicates why the neighbors never reported any shots."
Lieutenant Hatcher would not reveal the status of his investigation, but he did state that all the standard investigatory approaches are being utilized. He stated that both victims were tortured prior to being shot, but would not describe the crime scene. "We want to keep that knowledge private," he said. "Sometimes publicityseeking lunatics confess to crimes like this, even though they didn't commit them. Keeping your facts private helps eliminate the guilty from the innocent."
Peter and Barter Englekling have no known living relatives, and their bodies are being held at the Gaitsville city coroner's office. Lieutenant Hatcher urged all parties who might have information concerning the homicides to contact the Mann County Sheriff's Department.
EXTRACT: San Francisco «Examiner», March 1:
MURDER VICTIMS LINKED TO CELEBRATED
LOS ANGELES CRIME
Peter and Barter Englekling, murder victims killed in Gaitsville, California, on February 25, were material wimesses in the famous Nite Owl murder case that occurred in Los Angeles in April 1953, Mann County Sheriff's Lieutenant Eugene Hatcher revealed today.
"We got an anonymous tip on it yesterday," Lieutenant Hatcher told the «Examiner». "A man just called in the information, then hung up. We verified it with the D.A.'s Bureau down in L.A., and they said it was true. I don't think it has anything to do with our case, but I called the Los Angeles Police Department anyway and ran it by them. They gave me the brush-off, so I say the heck with them."
EXTRACT: L.A. «Daily News», March 6:
NITE OWL REDIVIVUS-SHOCKING NEW
REVELATIONS POINT TO INNOCENT MEN
KILLED
This is an ugly story. The «Daily News», frankly Los Angeles' only exposé-oriented newspaper and the only Southland paper proud to call itself "muckraking," does not shy away from such stories. This story punctures the hero image of a man considered by many to be a perfect exemplar of law-and-order righteousness, and when heroes possess feet of clay, we at the «Daily News» believe that it is our duty to expose their shortcomings to public scrutiny. The issues here are great, as notable as the crime that spawned them, so we are frankly sending up a muckraking hue and cry. That hue and cry: the infamous Nite Owl murder case-six people brutally robbed and shotgunned to death at a Hollywood coffee shop in April 1953-was solved incorrectly, at a great cost to justice. We want to see the case reopened and true justice achieved.
Raymond Coates, Leroy Fontaine and Tyrone Jones-do you recall those names? They were the three Negro youths, criminals and sex offenders to be sure, who were railroaded by the Los Angeles Police Department. Arrested shortly after the Nite Owl murders, they offered a heffish alibi: they could not have committed the killings because they were engaged in the kidnap and gang rape of a young woman named Inez Soto. They abused Miss Soto at a deserted building in South Los Angeles, then confessed that they drove her around and "sold her out" to their friends for more sexual abuse. They left Miss Soto with a man named Sylvester Fitch, and an LAPD officer shot and killed him while effecting the brave young woman's escape.
Miss Soto refused to cooperate with the police investigation, which at the time centered on the imperative of establishing where Coates, Jones and Fontaine were at the time of the Nite Owl killings. Were they with her and the other alleged rapists (none of whom, besides Fitch, were ever identified)? Did they have time to drive from South Los Angeles to Hollywood, commit the Nite Owl killings, then return to heap more abuse upon her? Was she conscious throughout the total sum of her degradation?
Unanswered questions-until now.
The police investigation spread into two forks: searching for evidence to corroborate Jones, Coates and Fontaine as the killers; searching for general evidence, standard police work based on the supposition that the three youths were guilty only of kidnap and rape, but not murder. Miss Soto still refused to cooperate. Both investigatory forks proved moot when Coates, Jones and Fontaine escaped from jail and were gunned down by our aforementioned hero: LAPD Sergeant Edmund Exley.
College man, World War II hero, son of the illustrious Preston Exley, Ed Exley used the Nite Owl case as a springboard for his ruthless personal ambition. He was promoted to captain at age 31 and as of this writing will soon become an inspector-at 36, the youngest in LAPD history. He is mentioned as a potential Republican office-seeker almost as often as his construction-king father. A few persistent rumors surround him: that the men killed were unarmed, that D.A. Ellis Loew dreamed up the Nite Owl confession that Coates, Jones and Fontaine allegedly made before they escaped. What is not generally known is that Ed Exley was in love with Inez Soto and condoned her lack of cooperation during the investigation, later bought her a house and has been intimately involved with her for close to five years.
And now, two recent developments have blown the Nite Owl case wide open.
Back in 1953, two men, brothers, came forward as material wimesses with information on the Nite Owl killings. Those men, Peter and Baxter Englekling, asserted that a pornography plot was at the base of the coffee shop massacre, per a scheme devised by one of the victims: ex-convict Delbert "Duke" Cathcart. The LAPD chose to ignore this information. Then, almost five years later, Peter and Baxter Englekling were viciously murdered in the small upstate town of Gaitsville. Those kiffings, which took place on February 25, are unsolved with a complete absence of clues. But a long-unanswered question was about to be answered.
At San Quentin Penitentiary, a Negro prisoner named Otis John Shot-tell read a San Francisco newspaper account of the Englekling brothers' killings, an account which mentioned their tenuous connection to the Nite Owl case. The article got Otis John Shortell thinking. He requested an audience with the assistant warden and made a startling confession.
Otis John Shortell, in prison on an accumulation of grand-theft auto convictions and franldy desiring a sentence reduction as a reward for his cooperation, confessed that he was one of the men Coates, Fontaine and Jones "sold" Inez Soto to. He was with Miss Soto and the three youths between the hours of 2:30 and 5:00 on the morning of the Nite Owl killings, «during the entire murder time frame». He told the warden that he never came forward to exonerate the three for fear of rape charges being filed against him. He further stated that Coates had a large quantity of narcotics in his car and that that was the reason he never relinquished its location to the police. Shortell cited a recent conversion to Pentecostal Christianity as his reason for finally making his confession, but prison authorities were dubious. Shortell petitioned for an in-cell lie detector test to prove his veracity and was given a total of four polygraph examinations. He passed all four tests conclusively. Shortell's attorney, Morris Waxman, has sent notarized copies of the polygraph examiner's reports to the «Daily News» and the LAPD. We have advanced this article. What will the LAPD do?
We decry the injustice of shotgun justice. We decry the motives of triggerman Ed Exley. We openly challenge the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the Nite Owl Murder Case.
EXTRACT: L.A. «Times», March 11:
NITE OWL HUE AND CRY BUILDING
A welter of unrelated events and a fire fanned by a series of articles in the Los Angeles «Daily News» are pressuring the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the 1953 Nite Owl murder case investigation.
LAPD Chief William H. Parker called the controversy "a powder keg with a wet fuse. It's all a bunch of baloney. The testimony of a degenerate criminal and an unrelated double murder do not constitute a reason to reopen a case successfully solved five years ago. I stood by Captain Ed Exley's actions in 1953 and I stand by them now."
Chief Parker's references allude to the February 25 murders of Peter and Baxter Englekling, material witnesses to the original Nite Owl investigation, and the recent testimony of San Quentin inmate Otis John Shortell, who claimed to be with the three formerly accused killers during the time frame of the Nite Owl murders. Citing Shot-tell's in-prison lie detector tests, his attorney Morris Waxman stated, "Polygraphs don't lie. Otis is a religious man who carries a great burden of guilt for not coming forth to exonerate innocent men five years ago, and now he wants to see justice done. He has given three dead victims a lie detector validated alibi and now he wants to see the real killers punished. I will not cease publicizing this matter until the LAPD agrees to do their duty and reopen the case."
Richard Tunstell, city editor of the Los Angeles «Daily News», echoed that sentiment. "We've got our teeth sunk into something important. We're not going to let go."
BANNERS
L.A. «Daily News», March 14:
J'ACCUSE-LAPD IN NITE OWL COVER-UP
L.A. «Daily News», March 15:
OPEN LETTER TO TRIGGERMAN EXLEY
L.A. «Times», March 16:
CONVICT'S LAWYER PETITIONS
STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL
FOR NITE OWL CASE
REOPENING
L.A. «Herald-Express», March 17:
PARKER TO THE PRESS: NITE OWL
A DEAD ISSUE
L.A. «Daily News», March 19:
CITIZENS DEMAND JUSTICE-PICKETS
STALK THE LAPD
L.A. «Herald-Express», March 20:
PARKER/LOEW IN HOT SEAT
GOVERNOR KNIGHT: NITE OWL
A "POWDER KEG"
L.A. «Mirror-News», March 20:
THE WAGES OF DEATH
EXCLUSIVE PICS OF EXLEY/SOTO
LOVE NEST
L.A. «Examiner», March 20:
POLICE SWITCHBOARDS
FLOODED: CITIZENS VOICE
NITE OWL OPINIONS
L.A. «Times», March 20:
PARKER BACKS EXLEY AND HOLDS FIRM:
"NO NITE OWL REOPENING"
L.A. «Daily News», March 20:
JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL!
DEMAND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY!
REOPEN THE NITE OWL CASE NOW!