The Case of the Courteous Killer

Chapter V

5:02 p.m. We left Chief Brown’s office and began our tour of local jewelry stores. At each store we visited, we showed the inscription on the watch and also the jeweler’s symbol written on the card. The proprietor of the eleventh place we visited said he believed the symbol was one used by a jeweler named Maurice Gavin, who had a store in North Hollywood.

At 7:10 p.m. we arrived at Gavin’s Jewelry Store. Maurice Gavin turned out to be a thin, round-shouldered man in his late sixties. When we showed him the watch, he recognized the engraving as his work at once, but could not recall whom he had done it for.

“Nineteen forty-four’s a long time back,” he said dubiously. “Be a record of it in my books, of course. But if it was a cash sale, I wouldn’t have anything but the date and amount. Don’t ask my customers’ names unless they buy on time.”

“Would you check, please?” I asked.

“Take a while,” he said. “This’d be in the dead-storage file. Only keep stuff in the active file for seven years. Might take an hour to find it.”

I said, “How late are you open?”

“Nine p.m.”

“Then my partner and I will grab something to eat and be back about eight.”

“Fine,” Maurice Gavin said. “Ought to have the dope for you by then.”

We went back to the car, called in a Code 7, and found a nearby coffee shop. We sat at the counter to order.

As we waited for our food, Frank said, “Pretty lucky, huh?”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Only about two hours since we left the office. My feet were just beginning to hurt.”

“Uh-huh.”

“About eighty,” Frank said.

“Huh?”

“The temperature. About eighty.”

“Oh?” I said, glancing around. “I didn’t notice any thermometer.”

“Neither did I,” Frank told me. “My feet are my thermometer. Begin to hurt after two hours, it’s about eighty. Start hurting fifteen minutes earlier, it’s five degrees higher. Fifteen minutes later, it’s five degrees cooler.”

“Yeah?”

“Never fails,” he said. “Prove it to you.”

When the waitress brought our orders, Frank asked, “Know what the temperature is, miss? Outside, I mean.”

The girl walked down the counter to where a double thermometer hung on the wall over the cash register in a spot beyond our range of vision. Apparently it was one of those gadgets that show interior temperature on one side and exterior temperature on the other. “Eighty and a half,” she called back to Frank.

8:03 p.m. We returned to Gavin’s Jewelry Store. Maurice Gavin had managed to locate his record on the watch.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Happened to be a time-payment deal. Woman over on Burbank Boulevard bought it. A Miss Minerva Warden.”

Frank wrote the name and address in his notebook; we thanked the jeweler and left. As the address on Burbank was only a few blocks from the jewelry store, we drove over there. The place was an old home that had been converted into a rooming house for women. A plump, matronly looking woman of about sixty came to the door.

“Police officers, ma’am,” I said, showing her my ID. “This is my partner, Frank Smith. My name’s Friday.”

“Oh, goodness!” she said. “What’s he done now?”

“Ma’am?” I asked.

“Freddie. Is it something about my son Freddie?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re looking for a Miss Minerva Warden. We were given this address.”

“Oh,” she said in a relieved tone. “I was afraid it was that hot rod again. If that boy doesn’t kill himself in that thing, he’ll drive me to my grave with worry.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Are you the landlady here?”

She nodded. “Mrs. Lefferts is my name. Minerva Warden, did you say?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked thoughtful, casting her memory backward in time. “Warden. Min Warden. I remember her. But, good lands, she hasn’t lived here in years.”

“Remember how many years?” Frank asked.

Mrs. Lefferts thought some more. “Somewhere in the mid-forties. She was only here one summer. She was on vacation from back East.”

I said, “Remember from where back East?”

The landlady shook her head. “I suppose I knew at the time, but I can’t recall after all these years. What is it you want with her?”

“Just like to talk to her,” I said. “Would you have a forwarding address somewhere?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t keep records like a hotel, young man. Just a ledger showing rent payments.”

Frank said, “Would you still have the one from 1944?”

“I still got them from 1920.”

“Could we see the 1944 one?”

“Sure,” Mrs. Lefferts said. “Come on in.”

She led us into an old-fashioned sitting room and left us there while she went off to another portion of the house. A few minutes later she returned with a small ledger.

The book covered a ten-year period, from 1940 to 1950. Each tenant had a separate page, on which was listed rent payments. Unfortunately nothing but the tenant’s name appeared at the top of the page. The entries on the page devoted to Minerva Warden indicated that she had paid ten dollars per week for a room during the months of July and August, 1944.

“Don’t you keep any other records at all?” I asked. “A sign-in book, for instance, showing roomers’ former addresses?”

“No. I told you this wasn’t a hotel, young man.”

“Do you remember anything about her?” Frank asked. “What she did for a living, for example?”

Mrs. Lefferts frowned in an effort to recall. “Think she was a schoolteacher,” she said finally. “Though I’m not sure. Been dozens of other women have come and gone since then, and I may be thinking of someone else.”

I said, “Recall what she looked like?”

“Vaguely. Around thirty, as I remember. Make her in her forties now. Short and kind of mousy-looking. Light-brown hair, I think.”

“She have any boyfriends?”

She shook her head decisively. “Never that came here. Don’t recall her ever having a visitor of any sort, male or female.”

I said, “The name Gig mean anything to you?”

Mrs. Lefferts corrugated her brow, then shook her head again. “Don’t recall ever hearing it.”

We left a card with the landlady and requested her to phone the office if she remembered anything further about her former tenant. By then it was past eight thirty, and time for us to return to headquarters and get the rolling stakeout underway for the night.

The rest of the evening, until 1 a.m., we cruised the suspect’s area of operations in an undercover car. He didn’t strike that night.

Wednesday morning, July 3rd, the newspapers gave full play to the story of the lovers’ lane bandit. A composite drawing of the suspect appeared on the front pages of all papers, and the public was warned that he was dangerous. Couples were advised not to park in secluded spots, and particularly to avoid the canyon roads in the Santa Monica Mountain district.

The result was as we had predicted. The bandit’s operations stopped completely. We continued the rolling stakeout for the rest of that week and all of the next without result. The newspaper publicity had the effect of making most couples stay away from the roads commonly used as lovers’ lanes. Even the few couples who had either missed the news announcements or decided to ignore the warnings, did not park long. We investigated every parked car we saw and advised the occupants to move on.

In response to our teletype to Sacramento, George Brereton at C.I.I. sent us a couple of dozen mug shots. We checked all of them out without result.

In the middle of July we abandoned the rolling stakeout.

Meantime Frank and I had exhausted every effort to locate Minerva Warden. Her former landlady could not remember what town, or even what state she had-been from. We managed to trace three other tenants who had been at the rooming house during the summer of 1944, but none could give us any information.

The case remained open.