Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 110, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 673 & 674, September/October 1997

The Deadly Samaritan by William Bankier

© 1997 by William Bankier

In St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, Marvin Lachman says, “Once, almost all Bankier stories were set in Canada... where Bankier was tom and grew up... With Bankier moving, first to London and then to L.A., those cities have become frequent settings for his stories. He is especially good, though devastatingly critical, of Los Angeles” — as in this latest tale.

This being Los Angeles, Zeke Millman was the only pedestrian on the block. He was a fast walker for a man sixty-five years old. Striding along in white athletic shoes, he swung his arms vigorously. The cars on Fountain Avenue raced by in both directions. One of them was bound to jump the curb some day and take him out from behind. This was Millman’s fear, but still he walked on Fountain.

A young man was approaching on foot, moving slowly. He was tall and thin, poorly dressed, a street person. Millman saw blue eyes in a sun-burned face, a determined mouth.

They were past each other. Millman glanced over his shoulder. The drifter turned and ran at him, grasping Millman’s right arm, twisting it behind his back in a hammerlock.

The pain and the pressure drove the older man to his knees. “Hey!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Helllllp!” His cries were drowned in the roar of speeding traffic. The drivers ignored what was happening on the sidewalk.

Now Millman was forced down onto his chest, the concrete warm against his cheek. He was afraid, yet the event seemed interesting. He was being mugged! He had only a few dollars in his pocket. Yolande had warned him against being caught short of cash. The guy might kill him out of frustration.

“Don’t fight me, I’ll break your arm.” Millman had not realized he was resisting. He went limp.

A motorcycle approached, slowed, stopped. It remained a few yards ahead, idling. Millman could see the rider, anonymous in a white helmet with a grey plastic visor. The rider turned the bike onto the sidewalk where he engaged the kickstand and got off.

The man on top of Millman yelled, “Don’t mess with me!”

The motorcyclist unlatched a briefcase strapped above the back wheel. He reached in with a deliberate motion and took out an automatic pistol. The drifter rolled off his victim and lay on the ground with his knees and hands raised. Millman was reminded of a dog wanting its belly scratched. “Okay,” the youth said. “Okay!”

The man in the helmet stood over him. He extended the gun at the end of a straight arm. It was like a TV interviewer getting an opinion from a man in the street. The gun went off, the drifter kicked as his head jerked sideways. He lay still. The motorcyclist fired a second bullet into the man’s head.

Traffic raced past on Fountain Avenue. Some drivers turned to glance at the action, others kept their eyes on the road ahead. All drove on without reducing speed.

The motorcyclist replaced the gun in the briefcase and snapped it shut. Then he climbed back onto the saddle, bumped across the curb, kicked the starter, twisted the accelerator, and raced away in the direction of La Brea.

Millman remained on hands and knees, trembling.

He called the police from his apartment a block away on Spaulding. Yolande was at the gallery in Beverly Hills. He thought of telephoning her first, then decided it would be better if everything got sorted out before he had to deal with her emotion.

The cops were calm. He met two of them back at the scene of the crime. Their black-and-white was pulling up by the body as he turned the comer. The sergeant in charge was a black woman with chestnut hair in tight curls. Her cap remained on the seat of the car. She was accompanied by a stocky constable with a blond crewcut and suspicious eyes.

As they examined the dead man, Zeke explained what had happened. They wanted a description of the killer. “I never saw his face. He had on one of those helmets that covers the entire head. The visor was grey plastic.”

“Boots?”

“Yeah, boots. No, maybe shoes.”

“How big was he?”

“I was on the ground looking up. I can’t be certain.”

“What about the bike? Was it a Harley? a Yamaha?”

“I don’t know much about motorcycles.”

“Did you see the license number?”

“I saw it but I don’t recall it.”

When the interview ended, Millman felt the police had more respect for the corpse than they had for him. He said this to Yolande after she arrived home at seven and he fitted her up with her dry sherry and then broke the news.

“I’m all right,” he said, trying to put out her fire before it got started. “See? I’m not hurt.” He described the entire event.

“We have to get out of this neighborhood.” Yolande was short, square-jawed, dark-haired. At forty-six, she looked fifteen years younger.

“There is no safe place,” Millman reminded her. “Down the street from your gallery on Rodeo Drive? They shot a man last month, for his Rolex.”

Millman got busy with supper. He made salmon patties and salad. Yolande said, “You can’t walk around anymore. Your grey head is a signal.”

“I was born here.” But the area where he’d grown up was now known as Koreatown; he never went there. “I’ve been walking around Los Angeles for sixty-five years and nothing happened to me until this afternoon. I taught school in what became a tough neighborhood. I had gang-bangers in my class, they all respected me.”

“I married you, I’m supposed to take care of you. You could have been the one dead on the street. Then what happens to me?”

“Some millionaire will walk into the gallery to buy a Hockney. You’ll be remarried within two years.”

She was not amused. “That shows me what you think of our relationship.”

“It was meant to be a compliment.” He left the table to change the audio cassette, replacing Vivaldi with Mancini.

She said, “We should call Jeffrey.” Their son was working for a newspaper in Montreal. Using the French he had learned at his mother’s knee, he had become bilingual within a year. He had gone on to adopt her maiden name as his byline. He was now Jeffrey Carpentier.

In letters, he praised the northern city. He could see why his grandparents had moved to Los Angeles. They wanted to escape winter and find lucrative work in the aircraft factories. But why did his mother and father stay in what was becoming a hellhole?

Zeke confronted his son about the political situation in Quebec. “Washington is Canada’s ally. We would never accept a separated Quebec. You guys will become Cuba North.”

Now he said to Yolande, “There’s no reason to upset the boy. I’m not hurt.”

The crew from Channel 7 showed up mid evening. Millman was encouraged to stand outside his front door beside a dwarf palm. Portable lights blazed, the video camera stared, and a pert girl with a clipboard asked questions. She was intrigued by the mysterious stranger on his motorcycle. “Zeke Millman is alive and well this evening,” she concluded, “safely at home with his loving wife. And he owes his life to the arrival of a Deadly Samaritan.”

They stayed up to watch the eleven o’clock news. Zeke slapped his knee when his image appeared. Yolande held him with both arms, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, her eyes frowning at the screen.

The television people had been busy. They not only had obtained the name and a photo of the deceased mugger, they had located his girlfriend and recorded a conversation with her.

“Holly Peterson knew Mickey Trull as well as anybody could know the troubled young man from a small Nevada town. It was a case of two lost souls. Holly grew up in Malibu. Three years ago, at age nineteen, she abandoned that bastion of privilege for the excitement of the street life in Hollywood. Here’s what she told our reporter.”

The girl’s appearance on the screen surprised Millman. It was as if a pedigreed animal had been left outdoors, running loose and starving. She had rich-girl’s fine blond hair, but it had not been washed in a while. Her face was weathered, skin the texture and color of a russet apple. Her eyes were cried out.

“Mickey never did anything like that before,” the girl said. “He must have been desperate. They didn’t have to kill him.”

The camera panned to the reporter who said, “Mickey Trull went out this afternoon to get some money. He’s dead now, and Holly Peterson must weep alone outside the liquor store at Santa Monica and Spaulding. As for the Deadly Samaritan, he may be watching this telecast somewhere in Los Angeles. If so, what is he thinking?”

When the anchorwoman went on to the next story, Yolande said, “I’d kill him myself if he was still alive.”

Millman’s thoughts were elsewhere. Even after he turned in, he could not stop thinking about the pain in Holly Peterson’s eyes.

She was easy to find. At one o’clock on the following afternoon, Millman walked down Spaulding to the corner of Santa Monica. Compared to his tree-lined neighborhood, this was another world. The retired schoolteacher found it stimulating. They were showing Bimbo Bowlers at the Pussycat Theater. Cars raced past pedestrians frozen between painted lines at a crosswalk. The kid who sold drugs slouched in baggy clothes against the stucco wall of the liquor store.

Holly came out of Beano’s Coffee Shop carrying a plastic cup. She hunkered down with her back against the wall. Millman came over to her and said, “I’m sorry about Mickey.”

“Who are you?”

He had encountered suspicion like this when he taught school. “My name is Millman.”

She squinted up at him. “I saw you on the news.”

“That guy stopping and killing your friend — it wasn’t right.”

“Can you lend me five dollars? I didn’t eat yet today.”

Millman led her into the coffee shop where she ordered the turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy and a rounded scoop of stuffing. He drank coffee while the girl did most of the talking.

“Mickey came from a place outside Reno. His mother took off when he was four. His father couldn’t cope. He’d knock the kid around when he was drunk. Then he’d sober up and cry all over him. When Mickey was six, the old man killed himself. After that, Mickey went to live with his grandmother. He made trouble at school. Dropped out. Drugs and alcohol. He came to L.A. a couple of years ago, when he was twenty-one.”

“I taught school,” Millman said. “I saw a lot of troubled kids.”

Holly was slowing down, the plate nearly empty. “I haven’t said I’m sorry.” She looked at him, seeing him clearly for the first time. “You didn’t do anything except get jumped on. You know something, Mr...?”

“Call me Zeke.”

“Zeke, wow! If Mickey was alive, you know what he’d say? He’d say if he’d known what a decent person you are, he would never have tried to rob you.”

Millman went along with his companion on the cherry pie with ice cream. Memory can kick in at times and take your breath away. For a fleeting moment, he was dating in his teens, settled in at a diner in Balboa Beach. It was late at night after the concert, and they were intoxicated by the music of a young band led by somebody named Stan Kenton.

“Are you married, Zeke?”

“To a good woman named Yolande.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Feel safer?”

She looked mischievous. “I’ve had people out searching for me. My father sent a detective once. The guy wanted to keep me in a motel room for a few days.”

“Father in Malibu?”

“How do you know that?”

“They said last night on TV.”

“He writes screenplays. He does three a year. They never get produced, they’re all ‘in development.’ It has something to do with tax write-offs. It’s good money, but you should see his face.”

“Is the street better?”

“It has nothing to do with better,” Holly said. “My father has his way of having a miserable life. This is my way.”

A busboy filled their coffee mugs. Millman asked, “Is your mother alive?”

“Sort of. She’s alcoholic and anorexic. She mostly watches aerobics programs on TV.” The girl’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Mickey was neat. I understood where he was coming from.”

“He was coming from behind me.”

“He never really hurt you.”

“That’s true.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He didn’t.”

Millman went home and vacuumed the apartment. He did some thinking. What if the Trull murder had not been coincidental? What if the Samaritan was Mickey’s enemy, taking advantage of the situation? Maybe the killing was an act of revenge.

Holly Peterson had said she was going to sit in Plummer Park. Millman put away the Hoover and walked over to the green space with its tennis courts and crowded benches.

Not much English was spoken in the park. The benches were jammed with middle-aged people, recent arrivals from the former Soviet Union. They knew what real trouble was; America was just beginning to find out.

He found Holly sitting on the grass under a tree. Millman relaxed beside her. He was having a much nicer time since being mugged. “Tell me what you think,” he said. “Mickey getting shot — I suppose it could be a fluke. The guy rides by at that moment. He has a gun, he sees an old person being attacked, he decides to take care of it.”

“Flukey things happen.”

“But let’s say it was revenge. Some person who was Mickey’s enemy was looking for an opportunity. He spots him on Fountain, swings a U-turn down the block. When he rides back, Mickey has me down. He’s preoccupied. The guy comes over and shoots him.”

“This is interesting.”

“What a break for the killer. His motive is buried in what looks like a spontaneous shooting.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“Not yet. We have to see if there’s any person who fits what I just said.”

Holly thought about it. “There’s a guy named Sid Hecht. He goes back and forth to Santa Barbara where his parents live. They give him money to stay away. Mickey sold Sid a TV for fifty bucks. It only worked for a day.”

“Would he kill Mickey over fifty dollars?”

“Of course. But there was something else. Sid came on to me. Mickey beat him up.”

“More like it.”

“Know how Sid gets around? On a big old motorcycle.”

Millman was excited. “How can I get to see this man?”

“He’s in town.” The girl pushed herself erect. She seemed to vibrate against a background of leaves and sky. “Got money for the phone?”

He gave her a quarter and watched her drift across the lawn to a bank of telephones. She dropped the coin in the slot, talked for a couple of minutes, then walked back. “He’s coming over.”

“You didn’t tell him what I think?”

“I’m not retarded.”

Millman went to buy cold drinks. A bulky Russian lady in a print dress said something to him. He searched his mind for Russian words. All he could come up with was a fragment from the song, “Oh Chi-Chornya.” He recited what he knew. “Kaag loob loo ya vaas. Kaag bah yoos ya vaas.”

The woman studied his face. Then she spread her arms like a symphony conductor, bowed from the waist, and said, “Thank you!”

Sid Hecht showed up after three-thirty. It was clear this was not the man. Helmetless and ponytailed, he rode aboard a mauve machine that was decorated with shiny fittings and cruised like a yacht.

“Definitely not him,” he told Holly as the newcomer swaggered across the lawn in cowboy boots.

“Don’t blame me. I tried to help.”

“I’m just wondering what to say, now he’s here.”

“You don’t have to hang around. He’s my friend.”

Millman crept back to the apartment like one of his students expelled from class. It was silly for him to feel hurt by Holly’s dismissive attitude. He was calm by the time he went inside and saw the red light flashing on the answering machine. He listened to the message. It was somebody from the TV station.

“Mr. Millman? The station has been getting calls. People want to do things for you. Central Dry Cleaning wants to take care of your clothes. Free dinner for two at the Lotus Restaurant. There are others. Of course they’re all getting on the bandwagon for the publicity. We’d like to tape a presentation on camera.”

Millman and Yolande got dressed up and drove to the studio that evening in her car. After the videotaping, they went to the Lotus to make use of their meal voucher. The staff recognized the famous mugging victim and made a fuss.

“You look the way I feel,” Yolande said when, at last, they were alone.

“I’m weary. It sounds like it would be fun, but it’s depressing.”

She drank some wine. “Are you sure nothing else is bothering you?”

“Of course.” He was thinking about Holly Peterson. Bad enough he was married to a woman nineteen years younger. But here he was mooning about a girl barely out of her teens. The retired teacher had always been able to see himself quite clearly. This was pathetic. Searching for a subject, he said, “I wonder if the Samaritan is a cop.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. Police forces produce vigilantes. It’s frustrating to arrest bad guys and see them back on the streets in no time. So they kill criminals and have done with it.”

“How could you ever prove such a thing?”

“I can’t!”

“Keep it down!” Yolande was glancing at other tables.

“Before this happened to me,” Millman whispered, “I would have said kill anybody who mugs me. But Mickey Trull is not just anybody.”

“You look tired. Can we go?”

Outside the restaurant, Yolande said, “You need to get some rest.”

“What I need is to discover who killed Mickey Trull.”

“Forget it, Zeke. It’s a mystery. You’ll never find that out.”

More merchants contacted the TV station with gifts to ease the victim’s pain. A market sent along a voucher for one hundred dollars’ worth of shopping. Fred & Ginger Studio offered dancing lessons. Zeke declined that one.

But the chance to have his and Yolande’s income-tax returns prepared free was an offer he did not refuse.

The accountant said, “I got your number from the station. My name is Herman Carrow, and I’m a CPA.” The voice was confident. “Maybe you’ve already done your taxes.”

“No, I’ve been putting it off.”

“If you’ll let me take care of it, I can probably save you some money.”

Carrow’s office was in Venice. “I won’t ask you to come all the way down here. Name a time that’s convenient. Get your papers together and I’ll drive over to your place.”

Millman arranged an evening when Yolande would be at home. Carrow drove up in a pale green vintage Buick. The couple watched from their front window as he climbed out, inspecting the building through tinted glasses. The CPA was a tall man in golf shirt and shorts, hairy legs rooted in black sandals. He hauled a briefcase from the backseat and trudged up the stairs to the door of apartment three.

Carrow shook Millman’s hand. He bowed graciously to Yolande. They got right to it, sitting at a round table in the dining alcove.

“Any other deductions?” The accountant kept sliding his glasses down his nose to peer at Millman. The discussion was brief; they were finished in twenty minutes. Carrow stashed the papers in his briefcase with a deliberate motion, then snapped the lock. As he lifted himself off the chair, Millman blinked.

Yolande was making coffee. She served it with slices of pound cake. Carrow said, “I’ll bring the completed forms around in a couple of days for you to sign.”

“Do you want us to come and get them at your office?”

“Stay out of that neighborhood. You could get mugged again.”

“I don’t like to take you out of your way.”

“I drive past here all the time.”

Millman walked Carrow to his car. “It’s a small thing, but I believe I’m right,” he said.

“About what?”

“It was the way you put the file in your briefcase and snapped the lock. Exactly the way the Samaritan did it when he put back his gun. And then you hoisted yourself off the chair, just like he got off his bike. You’re him.”

Carrow raised his eyebrows. “What an imagination!”

“You say you come by this way all the time. My guess is it’s not always in the car. Sometimes you’re on a motorcycle.”

“Fascinating.”

“Commuting all the way back and forth to Venice, the bike would be faster and more convenient. Easier to park.”

“And more fun. Passing between lanes of traffic — it’s freedom.”

“Why did you come here? Why take the chance of being identified?”

“If there has to be a reason, it’s so I could get to know you better. I was curious. But I’m not admitting anything.” He stowed his briefcase, got into the car, switched on the engine. Through the open window, he said, “Some people hold this belief: If you save a man’s life, you’re responsible for him forever.”

“Hey!” Millman called as the elegant sedan pulled away. “I’ve got other things to ask you!”

Inside, he reported to Yolande. It was more than a suspicion now, it was a certainty. “Carrow is the Samaritan,” he concluded. “He as good as admitted it.”

“What will you do?”

“He saved my life. I suppose I should be kissing the hem of his garment.” Millman had never experienced such ambivalence. “But Mickey Trull did not deserve to die. Maybe I’ll report him to the police.”

“They’ll prosecute him, if they can prove it.”

“Right is right,” Millman said.

He decided to ask the opinion of Holly Peterson. Two of them could decide better than one. It was important. Carrow would surely go to prison if they reported him to the police.

But first, the girl had to meet Carrow. Becoming acquainted could make a difference. Mickey Trull would forever be more than just a mugger because Holly had laid out his life story. Same went for the Deadly Samaritan. It would have been easy to label him a homicidal opportunist. But now, to Millman, he was a human being. The teacher wanted Holly to learn that fact.

Carrow telephoned two days later to announce the tax returns were completed. And what about Zeke’s suspicions?

The teacher played it down. “Relax. If you’re him, you saved my life.”

Carrow said he would drop off the forms whenever Millman would be home. Zeke made the arrangement for the following evening. It was ideal because Yolande would be working late at the gallery in Beverly Hills. They were launching a new artist.

Next afternoon, Millman walked down to Santa Monica Boulevard in search of Holly Peterson. She was not around the liquor store. She was not in Plummer Park. After an hour, he was ready to give up.

Then he spotted her hurrying out of the Alpha Beta market. Two employees were on her heels. They backed her against a wall. As Millman approached, he heard one of them saying, “You put them in your pocket.”

When Holly took out two packs of batteries and handed them over, Millman interceded. “She was buying them for me. I forgot to give her the money.”

“She’s done this before.”

“Can’t I pay and you let her go?” He produced a twenty-dollar bill.

“Will you promise to keep her out of the store?”

“Of course.”

“We’ll put back the merchandise, sir. You keep your money.”

As they walked away, Millman said, “What did you want with flashlight batteries?”

“I could sell them.”

“I can let you have money.” He handed her the twenty.

She said, “It’s starting to bug me, you being on my case all the time.” But she tucked the bill into her shirt pocket.

“I’ve been looking for you. I’d like you to come up to the apartment.”

“Forget it.”

“Not now. Tonight. My wife is about your size. She’s got a bunch of clothes you can have.”

“I have clothes back home in Malibu.”

“But you won’t go there. Come after eight.”

“You expect me to wear your wife’s clothes?”

“You can sell them.” He told her his address.

She was late. When Herman Carrow rolled up in the Buick at eight-fifteen, Holly had not appeared. The accountant flipped through the completed returns, which showed refunds of $700 from the IRS and $320 from the State. “Sign here and here,” he concluded, “put them in the mail, and wait for your checks.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Better than getting mugged on Fountain Avenue.” Carrow kept a straight face.

“Better than two shots in the head at close range.”

“I still don’t admit it was me.”

“How come you’re riding around with a loaded gun?”

“Have you been down around Venice lately? Have you seen the gang-bangers? You watch the television news. You must be aware of the drive-by shootings, the car-jackings.”

“Aren’t you adding to the violence?”

The CPA closed his briefcase. He moved to a settee, sat down, and placed the case between his feet. “Last winter, I left my office and was walking to where I keep my bike. Two kids cornered me. They were teenagers. One of them was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. He put the muzzle under my chin. They took my watch and my wallet. I went back to the office to report the robbery. It took me an hour at my desk before my hands stopped shaking so I could drive home.”

“I’m not saying we don’t have crime.”

“I’m lucky to be alive. If I’d ticked that kid off one little bit, he would have sprayed my brains across that brick wall.”

“I’m glad you intervened. Everybody else was passing by on the other side. But Trull was not armed. You could have ordered him off me and sent him on his way.”

“To rob somebody else.”

“To get on with his life.”

The doorbell rang. Millman opened it and let in Holly Peterson. She looked different. Her face was scrubbed and her hair was brushed, parted in the middle, and braided in two neat pigtails that stuck out above her ears.

Millman performed the introductions, first names only. Then he went into the kitchen and got three beers which he poured into pilsner glasses. Carrow’s voice rumbled in the other room. Holly laughed. He brought in the glasses on a tray. She said, “I like this tavern.”

Millman said, “Holly’s from Malibu. Her father writes screenplays. She’s a freelance.”

“When she starts writing screenplays,” Carrow said, “I’ll do her taxes.”

As they drank the beer, a nice feeling developed between the three of them. It was exactly what the former schoolteacher had hoped would happen. Carrow was going to be shown the error of his ways. When the time seemed right, Millman announced, “By the way, Holly is Mickey Trull’s girlfriend. And although Herman is not ready to admit it, he is the man the media calls the Deadly Samaritan.”

Carrow’s face went red. “You set this up.”

“He killed Mickey?”

“What are you doing, Zeke? What’s the point?”

Millman gathered the empty glasses on the tray. He headed back to the kitchen. “Let’s have a refill. Let’s talk.”

Carrow was on his heels. “You had no right to do this. What are you, some kind of evangelist?”

“I want you to understand what you did. The implications. This girl loved that guy. She was walking a narrow line, and all of a sudden her friend is dead.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Only consider it. I don’t intend to report you to the police. At first I thought I would. But all I want now is for you to leave your gun at home. Stop going around looking for somebody to kill. Just because those kids robbed you.” Millman, deciding against more beer, headed back to the living room. “Revenge will eat you alive.”

“There’s an angry girl in there!”

“Talk to her. She’s human.”

Holly had moved to the settee where she was sitting bolt upright with her arms folded across her chest. Carrow said, “I’m out of here.” As he bent to pick up his briefcase, it looked wrong. He opened it and peered down into the aperture.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” The girl lifted an automatic pistol from behind a cushion and aimed it at Carrow. He took a step backwards.

Millman said, “Don’t do that, Holly.”

She fired, hitting Carrow in the chest. He fell across a chair. She went to him and shot him once more in the head.

Millman had his hands over his ears. He yelled, “You weren’t supposed to kill him!”

“You are such an absentee. Boy, do you ever belong in front of a high-school class.”

He was looking at the telephone.

“You know what I have to do, don’t you,” she told him. “I have to kill you, too. Fast, before somebody reports gunfire. That way, I’ll have a chance.”

“My wife knows you’re here,” he said. “She’ll be along any minute.”

“You’re lying. You set this up without telling anybody. Your own little project to make it a better world.” As she raised the gun and took aim, she said, “Well, it isn’t.”

Holly Peterson died late that night in Malibu. She was killed accidentally by her mother. The neurotic woman, alone in the house while her husband was out playing cards, crept down a dark stairway to investigate noises in the room where the undeclared cash was kept between the pages of many books. Mrs. Peterson shot her daughter with one of the bedroom guns.

This was an easy case for the police to close. They never did figure out who came in and murdered the retired schoolteacher and his tax accountant in West Hollywood while they were sitting around drinking beer. The third empty glass was a clue. It suggested the killer was a friend. But the wife had an alibi, and everybody else checked out.

So the trail went cold very quickly and, in the end, that file was tossed on a shelf along with all the others.