Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

“Hey, scumbag, you’re snooping around were you don’t belong!” the guy shouted.

I shook my head. Some asshole’s blurry face was inches from mine. “What the hell are you talking about-?” I managed to shout back before he backhanded me across my sore jaw.

“Let me give you some fucking good advice. Stick to defending pickpockets and drunks, or you’ll find out how serious we really are.”

I started to climb out of the car seat again. Though pissed and maybe a bit foolish, I wanted to get my hands on those sons-of-bitches. By the time I staggered out, they had already dashed back to the Buick. The sedan’s rear wheels spun rubber as it raced away. What was this all about? I wondered. But then, I thought, next time I’ll be ready.

The pain receptors in my shoulder were doing a fandango. I wiggled one of the loose molars inside of my mouth with my tongue and spat out a little blood. No real damage had been done, but for a while I’d have to lay off the .89-cent steaks I had in my freezer.

I suddenly realized that the two heavyweights were undoubtedly the same goons I’d seen parked at the In-N-Out burger stand in Chino. They drove the same car, a black Buick Century with no front license plate. Who were these guys? More important: who did they work for? The warning had to be about the Roberts case. I had nothing else working and the harassment started at about the same time that I’d agreed to take it on. But why was Roberts such a big deal?

I stumbled around to the back of my car. Christ, the fiberglass body had a nasty gash where the Buick had bumped it. But at least it was drivable. I wondered if my insurance would cough up for the repair job. I didn’t remember seeing a rider on the policy covering hoodlum harassment. And I wondered if Mabel had paid the premium.

An hour later I pulled into the parking lot at my office. Rita and Mabel were gone for the day, but Mabel had placed a pink phone message in the center of my desk. Call Deputy District Attorney Stephen Marshall first thing Monday morning. Wants to make an offer.

Wants to make an offer on what? I wondered. Marshall was the young Deputy DA at the parole hearing. How could the DA’s office make an offer regarding the Roberts case? They have nothing to do with the board’s decision. Marshall had no official position. He had been there only as a witness.

Even though my jaw throbbed and my tooth ached, I knew I had to eat something. I’d skipped lunch and was suddenly famished and now my dinner would have to be eaten through a straw. I had a few cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle stashed in my kitchen cupboard. Ugh.

I tucked Mabel’s message in my pocket and put the list of phone numbers in my top desk drawer, just as the phone rang.

“Jimmy, come on over to Rocco’s,” Sol said when I answered. “Silvia left for Hawaii with her sister this morning, a little vacation on Maui, so I’m baching it. Don’t want to eat alone and don’t want to eat with people who invited me to eat with them. So get over here and I’ll buy you a juicy steak. How’s that sound?”

I knew I couldn’t eat a steak with my tooth as loose as it was, but I did want to ask him about the possibility of the Haskell family having any involvement with the L.A. County DA’s office prior to 1945.

“Oh, man, that sounds good.” I wiggled my tooth again. “But I’ll just have a bowl of chicken soup.”

“Chicken soup? Are you nuts? We’re talking prime beef here, thick porterhouse steaks smothered in onions. What’s the matter, you sick?”

“Yeah, well, something like that,” I said. “Hey, I called you earlier. I want to talk to you about-”

“We’ll talk when you get here.”

I pulled the yellow tablet I used at the motel from the desk drawer. “I’ve also got a list of phone numbers that I need you to track down.”

“No sweat, bring it with you.” The phone clicked off.

“Oy vey! Jimmy, what happened to you? You look like hell,” Sol said as I slid into his private booth at Rocco’s. Laughter and music from the bar area swirled around us.

I rubbed the left side of my jaw. A bump had formed and it felt tender. “A couple of bruisers tried to persuade me to drop the Roberts case. Nothing serious. I’ll be fine, except my Vette needs a little work.”

“Hired muscle, but who do they work for?” Sol said quietly, almost to himself. His brain was engaged, mulling over the same question that played continually in my mind.

“Someone who obviously has something to hide.”

“Jimmy, I know you well enough to know that you’re not going to quit the case.”

“Of course not. I’d handle it for nothing, now.”

“You are handling it for nothing.”

“I got fifty bucks from the county.”

“Where’s my cut?” Sol said, his face easing into a smile.

“You have my company for dinner. You want more?”

Sol turned serious. “You think you’ll need protection?”

“Nah, I’ll just have to keep on my guard up.”

Jeanine appeared, and Sol ordered the porterhouse. Nothing more was said about my liquid diet when I requested a large bowl of chicken soup, heavy on the broth. Jeanine looked at me and nodded knowingly.

When the waitress left, I told Sol my hunch that the Haskell family may have had dealings with the DA’s office prior to the Roberts affair. “They were a powerful family even back then,” I said. “Just a guess, but maybe Charles Jr. and Raymond’s old man had been in bed with Byron before Roberts appeared on the scene. Maybe that’s why Byron jumped in later and took over the case personally.”

“Could be, Jimmy. I’ll put a couple of my men on it. Might be some records buried somewhere, or maybe there might be someone still around who worked in the DA’s office back then that would come clean. It’ll take a few days, but if Haskell and Byron had anything funny going on, we’ll find out.” Sol paused for a moment and lit up a cigar. Puffing while looking at the ceiling, he said, “Hey, my boy, not bad. It’s a good theory.”

“Think so?”

“Yeah, well, better than average.”

While Sol polished off his steak and I sipped my soup we avoided discussing the case and nothing more was said about the bad guys who asked me, in a less than polite manner, to quit the case. But after we finished our meal, I put the list of phone numbers on the table. I told Sol about Mrs. Hathaway and her lawsuit and how she’d saved the telephone bills along with a Photoplay movie magazine, a newspaper, Vera’s makeup paraphernalia, and other objects in the murder room that the cops hadn’t bagged.

“After almost thirty years, is there any way we can connect names with these numbers?” I asked.

“Aw, finding a link that Byron might’ve had with the Haskell family could be a little tough, but this one’s easy.” Sol glanced around the room until he caught Jeanine’s attention. “Sweetheart, bring me a phone, will you please?”

While the waitress ran to get a telephone, he studied the numbers and prefixes listed on the yellow tablet. “Lot of calls, but maybe we’ll get lucky with a few.”

“Didn’t they have cross directories back in those days?”

“Maybe they did, but the directories wouldn’t be in public hands. They’d be for the police department only. I doubt if any of them are still in existence.”

“Then back in 1945 it would’ve been easy for the cops to find out who Vera had called. Isn’t that right, Sol?”

“Easy to do, if they bothered to check. But after they arrested Roberts and he confessed, why muddy the waters with a few phone calls that probably didn’t have anything to do with the murder?”

Jeannie appeared with a phone. She plugged the cord into a socket hidden in an area behind the booth. Sol picked up the receiver, glanced once more at the list of phone numbers and began to dial.