Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

“Do you have the phone bill and records somewhere here at the motor court?”

“In the tool shed out back with the rest of my junk. But I know what you’re thinking. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to dig through all that stuff. It’d take forever.”

A ten-dollar bill appeared in my hand.

“Well, maybe not that long,” she said as she reached out and snatched the sawbuck. “C’mon, you can help.”

She walked me to a corrugated tin shed standing behind bungalow number 6 at the back edge of her lot. After unlocking a rusty old padlock she yanked the door. It opened with a creak and a groan. She waved away the cobwebs and stepped in, inviting me to follow. It felt like a furnace inside, a dirty, dry oven with the only light spilling in from the open doorway.

Used cardboard cartons, which long ago had held canned goods and soaps, were stacked haphazardly, taking up most of the space. Someone, probably Dink, had built a half-assed workbench and lined it up along the west wall. Old and beat-up carpentry tools, a brace and bit, rusty saw, and a hammer with a broken handle littered the bench top.

Mrs. Hathaway plowed through the junk cluttering the area and went straight to a stack of cartons in the back. She took the top one down and handed it to me. “Put it aside, that’s not the one I’m looking for,” she said.

After moving several more she came to a carton that once held White King soap. “I think this is it,” she said, passing the box to me. “Put it on the workbench.”

She unfolded the carton flaps and pulled out one file after another. She gave each a brief glance while making a comment or two, something like, “Goddamn thieves. Should’ve sued them, too.”

I had no idea who she was referring to and didn’t care. I just wanted to get my hands on Vera’s telephone records.

Next she came to some dusty ledgers. “Hmm… old motel registers. They go way back,” she said in passing as she set them on the bench. She picked one out. “Hey look at this, 1945. That’s the year those two weirdoes stayed here, in July.” She flipped through the pages for a moment, stopping to look at an entry once or twice before she set it back on the bench.

Then she came across a big file trussed with rubber bands, crisscrossed every which way. “My insurance policy,” she said.

The file had to be six inches thick. “Big policy,” I said offhandedly.

“It’s big all right, real big.” She set the file aside and kept rummaging.

In a few minutes she found what she was looking for-a shoebox, Carl’s Shoe Stores, men’s wingtips, size 12. Dink must’ve been a big man.

“It’s all in here,” she said, moving toward the doorway with the box tucked under her arm. “Let’s go back to the office. Can’t let you take anything with you, though. Proof for my lawsuit, you know. But if you want, you can copy down the phone numbers.”

“Thanks.”

Back in the office, she opened the shoebox and unceremoniously dumped the contents on the countertop. A newspaper yellowed with age, a comb and makeup jars and cosmetic cases, and an old movie magazine spilled out. She shuffled through the junk and handed me a small bundle of receipts and bills tied with string.

While I examined the records looking for the telephone bill, she glanced at the magazine. Lauren Bacall’s young, beautiful face graced the cover, set it aside, and thumbed through the old newspaper.

“This is it,” I said, holding up the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph bill. It was dated August 1, 1945 and contained several pages. Certain phone numbers were circled in red. Just as Mrs. Hathaway had said, there were a large number of calls itemized, a dozen at least. The ones circled had been made from bungalow number 2 during the four-day period, July 10 thto the 13 th. Friday the 13 thhad been the last day of Vera’s short life.

Area codes and direct dialing didn’t exist in those days. Each phone call listed had a telephone exchange name followed by a five-digit number. Before converting to area codes in the late fifties, different areas of Los Angeles had different exchange names. For example, CRestview had been the exchange name for the Beverly Hills region. If you dialed CR and five numbers you were calling someone who lived or did business in or around Beverly Hills. And Vera-or Roberts-had made a number of calls to that exchange.

Phone calls made to the VErmont exchange also appeared a few times. VErmont was the exchange name used for Culver City, if memory served me. HOllywood, no problem figuring out that one, but I didn’t recall where MAdison, BRadshaw, POpular and several others were located. The bill listed each toll call and included the date, length, and time of day the call had been placed. Any local phone calls she may have made had not been listed.

Turning the page, I found out why the charges amounted to over a hundred dollars. Cross-country operator-assisted calls were very expensive back in the forties, and someone in bungalow 2 had made a phone call to a New Orleans exchange, CHestnut.

But one of the calls to the Culver City exchange had been placed at the approximate time of her death. Photos of Vera’s dead body taken at the scene had shown a telephone cord wrapped around her neck. Could she have been talking to someone in Culver City just before she died?

I hadn’t realized what wasabout to happen, I guess, because my mind was occupied with what I’d found at the motor court. After scribbling the phone numbers on a yellow pad, I jumped in the Corvette and took the I-5, heading back to my office in Downey. I set the yellow tablet with the phone numbers on the passenger seat and popped a Beatles 8-track cartridge into the deck built into the dash. McCartney’s up-tempo guitar riffs of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” filled the air. While I drove, I wondered how I could match thirty-year-old phone numbers with names, and I wondered if it would even do me any good. How could any of the phone calls Vera had made in 1945 prove that Roberts hadn’t murdered her? But the phone numbers were the only clue I had that might lead to Vera’s identity, and her identity might provide a motive. It’s strange that the police didn’t run a check on the phone calls back then. There was nothing in the arrest report about them. Maybe they did check the numbers and maybe they purposely didn’t include the results. Maybe they decided to play a little hide and seek with the evidence.

Maybe I was just being paranoid.

About a mile past the interchange in Boyle Heights where the I-5 and the San Bernardino Freeway came together, I tried to edge my car to the left. I needed to get in the far lane in order to transition to the Santa Ana Freeway. But a Buick with two guys in the front seat blocked my way. The bastards caused me to miss my turn and I ended up heading west on the Santa Monica Freeway.

Exiting the freeway at the 8 thStreet off-ramp dumped me in an industrial area of grey brick multi-story warehouses and antiquated manufacturing plants, probably built during the Harding administration. It was well after six p.m. Buildings obscured the sun, low in the western sky, and long shadows filled the deserted streets. I pulled to the curb and grabbed my Thomas Guide from under the seat. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” played loudly as I tried to figure how to double back to the freeway heading east. I fingered the map’s pages, flipping back and forth, trying to mentally follow the tangle of freeway off-ramps and on-ramps printed in red and black ink.

I heard a sickening crunch and felt a strong jolt. My head snapped back, then my chest slammed into the steering wheel. I took a deep breath and looked behind me. The same Buick I’d spotted on the freeway-at least I thought so-had bashed into the rear of my Vette. Two big guys jumped out and ran toward me. As I opened the door and started to get out, one of the thugs slammed a fist filled with brass knuckles into my face. I instinctively raised my forearm and blocked the next punch. The second guy whacked my shoulder with a tire iron. I feel back into the seat, dazed. The Beatles stopped singing and the tape automatically ejected.