Eureka

1941
CHAPTER 1

It was just another day in Los Angeles. A black Rolls-Royce hearse, glass sides draped with silk and lace, carrying a fifty-two-year-old movie star, has a flat and holds up traffic on Sunset Boulevard for forty-five minutes. As a crowd gathers, his wife rolls down the window of her limo and yells, “He got a heart attack screwing some seventeen-year-old slut,” over and over again.

Out in Los Feliz, a four-year-old girl has gone missing for most of the day before she is discovered next door, floating facedown in the backyard pool.

A twenty-two-year-old unemployed Mexican named Suarez Bailuz kills and robs the forty-two-year-old clerk of a greengrocery on Racine and then, for no apparent reason at all, shoots her dog, a toothless little pup, fourteen years old and blind in one eye. Then he steals her ’36 Ford, runs out of gas in Coldwater Canyon, and shoots himself. His nineteen-year-old wife, who does not have a radio, reports him missing when he doesn’t come home for dinner.

On the west side, a forty-one-year-old ex-Marine, who had lost a leg in the trenches in 1918, spends most of the day drinking in a bar, staggers out the door, loses his balance, and falls in front of the right front wheel of the Ventura bus. A woman standing nearby faints and somebody steals her purse.

Out in Westwood, the manager of a movie theater smacks his wife for spilling his dinner and she returns the favor by stabbing him in the back of the neck with an eight-inch boning knife. He runs out of the house and drops dead on the front lawn, in front of some kids playing stickball in the street. While they stand around laughing and pointing at the knife that is still sticking in his neck, the investigating officers go in the house and find the new widow sitting at the kitchen table, smoking an Old Gold and reading Look magazine. She offers them a beer.

On La Cienega, a forty-six-year-old bartender shaking a martini drops dead of a heart attack.

And in the press room at homicide central, the police reporter of an L.A. gossip sheet is griping because he has nothing to write about.

“Just another day at homicide central,” the desk sergeant, named Conlin, says as he closes out the log at the end of his shift and scribbles the time and date-7:00 p.m., May 26, 1941-at the bottom of the page.

My partner, Ski Agassi, and I were running late getting back to the station house when the call came in. A woman had drowned in the bathtub in a pleasant subdivision called Pacific Meadows.

“Ah hell, let’s take it,” I said, “we’re only two minutes away.” I U-turned and headed west on Santa Monica.

“Let the new shift catch it, Zeke,” he growled. “We don’t get overtime for these jaunts, y’know.”

“It’ll take a half hour,” I said, snatching up the radio mike and calling the desk, while Agassi shook his head. Regulations ruled that any unobserved or accidental death should be considered a homicide until the coroner said otherwise. It was a courtesy for two homicide detectives to take the call.

“I’m starving, Zeke,” groaned Agassi, who at forty-two weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred sixty pounds. The boys at Division called us Laurel and Hardy-but not when we were in earshot.

“You’re always starving,” I said. I was three inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter.

Pacific Meadows was a deceiving name. A low slope shielded the tiny community from the ocean so there was no view of the Pacific. And the neighborhood was built on the shoulder of the slope as it rose to form one of the many canyons that separate L.A. from the Valley, so it could hardly be called a meadow. But it lived up to the serene promise of its name. It was a pleasant oasis neighbored by a sprawling rundown section of L.A. that had not yet recovered from the Depression.

The houses of Pacific Meadows, mostly one-story stucco or brick bungalows, were built close together and, although inexpensive, always seemed freshly painted. The lawns were well kept, the streets clean of debris. The neighborhood was a mix of once-affluent families-who had lost everything in the Crash, survived hard times, and had begun to rebuild their lives on the low end of the scale-with civil servants, who had weathered the catastrophe with low-paying but regular jobs. Bus drivers, court clerks, secretaries, office workers, schoolteachers. Salt-of-the-earth types. Pride and perseverance was reflected in the pleasant, well-kept environs, the sounds of kids at play, an occasional dog barking, the clatter of lawn mowers. It was the kind of community where people kept their door keys under the welcome mat.

We passed a house I recognized. I had been here once, about five years earlier, just after I was promoted to the homicide division. A man, whose name I couldn’t put my finger on, had taken a leisurely bath, donned his best Sunday blue serge suit, stuffed towels under the cracks of his garage door, and then cranked up his used Studebaker and waited for carbon monoxide to end his misery.

He had been the vice president of a textile company in New Jersey, with two kids in private school and a small estate on the affluent side of the tracks, when the Crash wiped him out in ’29. For six years, he and his family moved from place to place, riding the rails, flopping in Hoovervilles, living off soup kitchens and handouts, struggling to keep the family together. His two children had grown into teenagers with little hope of overcoming the social stigma sudden poverty often carries with it. When they reached the coast and California became the Pacific Ocean, he lucked out and found a job as a stock clerk in a hardware store just off Melrose. Over the next two years, he worked his way up to assistant manager, making enough money to rent a house in the Meadows and buy a used car. Then he was passed over for the manager’s position.

It was his final humiliation; hope had betrayed him once too often.

I remembered his wife and kids staring mute and dry-eyed as a couple of cops carried the sheeted stretcher out of the garage, their dreams of a new life wiped out by the turn of an ignition key.

Agassi also was familiar with the place. He had once considered a house in Pacific Meadows before finding one more to his liking on Ogden Avenue in Hollywood. Agassi had the kind of pleasant face that big men often affect to offset their intimidating size, but now he wore a frown, a reaction to what he called my “eager-beaver attitude.”

“He doesn’t have a wife waiting dinner on him,” Agassi grumbled at the windshield, mostly under his breath.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Grab a left here,” Agassi replied.

The house was three blocks from the corner, a pleasant redbrick, one-story with a front porch and a white picket fence surrounding the front yard, split by the walkway to the front door. The left half of the yard was neatly mown and smelled of fresh grass. The other side hadn’t been touched. A spotless green ’39 DeSoto sat in the driveway.

People were standing in front yards, staring with morbid curiosity at the house and chatting in whispered tones. A cop was interrogating a man and woman in the yard of the house next door and taking notes. His partner was standing by the front gate with his hands clasped behind him, like a sentinel on the bank of the River Styx. He came out to meet us as we parked behind the patrol car. He was Officer Ward King, he told us, and his partner was Howell Garrett.

“What’ve we got?” I asked after the introductions. King ran the essentials as we headed toward the front door:

“Verna Wilensky. Mid to late forties. Lived alone-her husband was killed in a 126 four years ago. Lived here about sixteen years, owns the house. The woman next door found her. Garrett’s talking to her and her husband now.”

“Good enough,” I said. “Keep them on tap, we’ll want to talk to them, too. Any idea how long she’s been dead?”

“No, sir, but judging from conditions in there, my guess is since last night.” Agassi checked his watch. It was 7:18. He sighed with resignation.

The sickening, sweet smell of death tickled my nose as we entered the house. King took a small jar of Mentholatum from his pocket and handed it to me.

“You may need this,” he said. I dipped a dab from the jar with my index finger and spread it under my nose.

Ski did the same, saying, “Jesus, I hate this.”

“I know you do,” I said gently. After three years together, there wasn’t a lot we didn’t know about each other.

The house was neat as a Marine barracks, nicely appointed with expensive furniture. There were framed prints by the Masters on the walls. A leather sofa, with two easy chairs facing it, dominated the center of the room. A large etagere that looked like an antique commanded one wall and the floor was covered with a Turkish rug. In one corner was a large, cathedral-style, ebony Magnavox with a Stendhal turntable attached to it. I didn’t know much about furniture but I knew record players. The Stendhal was the best turntable made, with a price tag that would scare John Rockefeller.

Two windows were open, their chintz curtains fluttering in the breeze.

“I opened the windows to air the place out,” King explained. “It’s back this way.” He clicked on his flashlight and led the two of us through a bedroom with a large canopied bed to the bathroom.

I suddenly said, “Chester Weatherspoon.”

“Huh?” Agassi said.

“I just remembered the name of a guy who killed himself out here a few years ago,” I said.

“Terrific,” Agassi said, and rolled his eyes at King.

“You’ll need this, Sergeant,” King said, and handed me the torch. “The fuse is blown but I didn’t want to touch anything until you got here.”

“Good procedure,” I said. “How about Bones?”

“On his way.”

It was a large bathroom, about eight by eight. King’s torch picked out the details of the room. Facing us: a large old-fashioned tub with legs that looked like the paws of a gryphon, a window behind it with a dark shade pulled down. To our right: the sink, imbedded in a large counter covered with jars of creams, expensive brands, not the kind you find in Woolworth’s, a sterling silver comb and brush, a bottle of Chanel No. 5, a pair of clip-on earrings, a tube of toothpaste, a small hand-painted jar filled with bobby pins. Above the sink: the medicine cabinet, with a shelf between sink and chest. The side of the shelf near the tub was wrenched away from the wall and slanted toward the floor. To the left: the toilet, with a bathrobe carefully folded on it and a pair of slippers beside it, a door that I assumed led to a closet, and a full-length mirror. A small stool squatted beside the tub. On the stool: a candlestick holder almost obscured under the melted remains of a taper, a drinking glass with a half inch of clear fluid in the bottom, a pack of Chesterfields, a leather-and-chrome Ronson cigarette lighter, an ashtray. A couple of movie magazines lay on the floor beside the stool.

The stench was much stronger than in the foyer. Ski took out his handkerchief and held it over his nose.

“Why don’t you go in the living room, check out the desk,” I said. “Get a line on survivors. We’re going to have to notify somebody about this.”

“Thanks,” Agassi said, and hurriedly left the room.

Then to business.

Verna Wilensky looked to be about five-three or five-four and heavy for her size, one-fifty, maybe one-sixty pounds. Her dark hair was cut in a pageboy. Her eyes were open and her face was beginning to bloat. She was lying on her left side, her right arm bent at the elbow and trapped under her body, her left arm floating half submerged like a water-soaked tree branch. Both hands were tight-fisted. Her knees were doubled up as if she were sitting sideways in the tub. Her face was underwater. The radio lay against her left shoulder. There appeared to be scorch marks on her shoulder and a dark bruise on her right temple just above her ear.

“I hate it when they die alone,” King said.

“Everybody dies alone,” I answered. “Get used to it.”

We heard the siren of the meat wagon as we walked back outside, and a moment later it pulled into the driveway behind the DeSoto. The coroner, Jerry Wietz, fondly known as Bones, got out and stepped over the small fence as he walked across the lawn to the porch. He was about six feet tall and skinny as a scarecrow, with short-cropped white hair and jet-black eyebrows over brown eyes.

“Hi, Zeke,” he said, offering me a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. “What’ve we got?”

“Widow named Verna Wilensky. Mid forties. Dead in the bathtub. Her radio’s in the tub with her. Next-door neighbor tagged her about half an hour ago.”

I didn’t offer any more information or make any suppositions. I knew Bones liked to work from scratch.

“Well, let’s take a peek,” the coroner said. I led him and his photographer to the scene, offering him King’s torch.

“The radio’s still plugged in,” he said.

Bones turned to King and said, “The fuse box is probably in the kitchen, son. If you don’t find a spare thereabouts, use a penny. Got a penny?”

“Yes, sir.”

King left. Bones unplugged the radio and draped the cord over a corner of the sink counter. He turned his chin up an inch or two and sniffed the air, then aimed the light into the tub, slowly swept the length of the body with the light, reached in, and touched her throat.

“Happened last night,” he said.

A minute later, the lights came on. He gave me the flashlight, walked slowly around the entire inner periphery of the room, his eyes checking everything, and said to his cameraman: “Wide-shot from the door, close-up of the shelf where it’s pulled out from the wall there, full on the tub, two snaps of the body from feet and head, a full of her, and a tight on her head and shoulder. Also a close-up of the stool.”

He picked up the glass with his index and middle fingers, took a whiff.

“Gin drinker,” he said, and put it back.

“I’m gonna have a chat with the neighbor while you’re doing your work,” I said.

I gave King his flashlight and went next door.

Garrett, a beefy cop who talked in a half-whisper, filled me in on the details. According to the neighbors, Loretta and Jimmy Clark, Verna Wilensky was their best friend. She had come home, as usual, at 5:30 p.m. the night before. They had chatted for a minute or two, then Wilensky had decided to mow the lawn. When darkness crept up on her, she went inside. The DeSoto was in the driveway when Clark and her husband left for work that morning, which was normal. When they got home and the car was still in the same place and the yard still half-mown, Mrs. Clark had gone over to check on her. The front door was unlocked, as were most front doors in the neighborhood, and her nose led her the rest of the way.

“Good enough,” I said. “I’ll take it from here.”

Loretta Clark was a wisp of a woman, her hair cut in a bob. Her blue eyes were red from crying and she clutched a lace handkerchief in her hand like she was afraid it would fly away. Jimmy Clark was a slab of a man, with stooped shoulders, very little hair, a bulge for a stomach, and eyes fading with age. She did most of the talking.

“How long has Mrs. Wilensky lived here?” I asked, after expressing my condolences.

“We moved here in ’27,” she said.

“It was the day Lindy flew the Atlantic,” Jimmy interrupted. “She invited us over to listen on her radio. That’s how we met.”

“She had been here about three years at the time,” Loretta continued. “I guess 1924, maybe.”

“How about family? Kids, parents?”

She shook her head. “They were both only children, parents were dead. They never had kids.”

“They?”

“Verna and Frank, her husband. He was killed by a hit-and-run four years ago. A truck went through a red light and ran him over.”

“He was on his motorcycle,” Jimmy added.

“I don’t know what we’ll do without her. Losing Frank was bad enough but…”

She let the rest of the sentence dwindle out and started sobbing.

“Would you like a drink of water or something?” I asked.

She turned to Jimmy and said, “Get me a highball, would you, Jimmy?” And then turned quickly to me. “Will that be alright?” she asked, as if taking a drink of liquor violated some unwritten rule of the dead.

“I’m sure Verna won’t be offended,” I answered, and Jimmy left on his chore.

“She was the most generous person I ever knew,” Loretta Clark went on. “We went to the movies once or twice a week and she always bought the tickets. And she had wonderful taste, nothing but the best for Verna. She called me ‘Sis,’ that’s how close we were.”

“Where was she before she moved here?”

“Texas. But she never talked about it. She was shy in so many ways. Hated to have her picture taken. It even embarrassed her for us to say thanks, that’s just how she was.”

“How’d they meet?” I asked.

“He owned an auto repair shop. Something broke in her car and she took it there to get fixed. He brought her home on his motorcycle. We were astounded. She wasn’t the adventurous type at all. After he left, she was absolutely giddy. They clicked right from the start. Six months later they were married and they were perfect together. She was gaga over him and he absolutely adored her. It took her three years to get over the accident.”

Jimmy returned with a highball the color of battery acid and she knocked down half of it without taking a breath.

“What was her maiden name?” I asked.

“Hicks,” Jimmy offered. “Verna Hicks.”

They talked a little longer but I learned nothing new, excused myself, and headed back to the Wilensky bathroom.

Bones had finished his work and he began a ritual I had watched dozens of times over the years. He lit a Lucky Strike and paced slowly back and forth in front of the tub while he verbalized his initial reaction:

“Last night the widow Wilensky starts to mow the lawn, runs out of light, decides to finish in the morning. Comes in, mixes herself a gin and tonic, fills the tub, lights a candle, turns on the radio, and settles in for a smoke and a drink with her favorite movie magazines. At this point, her life is suddenly being measured in seconds. When the water gets tepid, she starts out of the tub. Her foot slips. She reaches out to keep from falling, grabs the shelf with the radio on it. The shelf pulls loose, she falls back in the tub. The radio is right behind her. In an instant, it turns from an instrument of pleasure to a deadly weapon. It hits the side of her head and falls into the water. There’s a loud pop, about as loud as a. 22 going off, maybe a spark or two, but the widow Wilensky doesn’t hear it. If she had put a toe in the tub, it would have given her a nasty shock, like sticking your finger in a lamp socket. If she’d put her foot in, it would have knocked her across the room, maybe killed her if she had a bad heart. But fully immersed? A hundred and twenty volts hits every pore in her body, every orifice. Everything stops at once-heart, lungs, liver, brain, the works. She’s dead instantly.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that, she’s the late widow Wilensky.”

“Very poetic,” I said with a smile.

Bones stopped pacing and took one last look at the cadaver. “Of course, that’s off the cuff, but I think an autopsy and the pictures will bear me out.”

“Usually do,” I said.

“Thanks, m’boy,” the coroner said with a fleeting grin. “Okay, let’s get the cleanup squad in here and take what’s left of the lady downtown. I’m pretty backed up. Maybe day after tomorrow before I finish the post.”

“Fine. I’ll sit on my report until then.” I shrugged. “What’s the hurry, right?”

Bones nodded. “Wherever she was going,” he said, “she’s there now.”

Bones left and the cleanup boys moved in. King and I walked out on the porch, and I rolled a cigarette and lit it with my Zippo.

“How about the dog?” King asked.

“Dog?” I said. “What dog?”

“There’s a dog in the backyard. Should I call the pound?”

“The pound?”

“That’s the routine when there’s an animal involved and nobody to take care of it.”

“That’s okay, I’ll take a look. You and Garrett can go along, we’ll finish up here.”

“It was a real honor working with you, Sergeant Bannon,” King said. “I read all about you dropping those four bozos on that western set over at Columbia last year.”

I smiled. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” I said.

“I read the reports.”

I laughed and said, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”

“I got two more years before I can take the exam for third-grade detective,” King said. “I’m studying.”

“Well, I got lucky that time,” I said. “Thanks, King. You did a nice job here.”

“Maybe I could put you down as a reference when I make the application?” He said it as a question, as if he were talking to someone else.

“Sure. Ward King. I can remember that,” I said.

“Thank you, sir,” the cop said, and flipped his forefinger off the bill of his cap. He had a ramrod kind of walk. A stiff ass, I thought, but he did good work.

Agassi was avidly reading through the papers from a hefty strongbox he had found in the large bottom drawer of the desk. There were stacks of bound checks and several papers lying on the desk. Ski Agassi loved research, loved going through papers and files and piecing together the everyday lives of victims. I loved visual details.

“Boy, this lady was really organized,” Agassi said. “Got bank records dating back to 1924. No will so far. No letters, nothing to connect her to anyone.”

“Keep digging,” I told him. I went into the kitchen and dropped the cigarette butt down the drain, then flipped the light switch by the door. The backyard lit up like Christmas.

I opened the door and stared down at a hulking mix of German shepherd, Irish setter, and God knew what else. Red with streaks of black in thick fur. Gold-flecked, inquisitive eyes. Paws the size of salad plates. His tail whisked the back porch.

Sitting down, he came up to my chest.

He growled at me, and I stared back at him but stood very still.

“It’s alright, he’s friendly,” Loretta’s voice said from next door.

“He’s growling at me.”

“He wants a bone,” she said. “When he wags his tail and growls that way, he wants a bone.”

I looked down at him, then cautiously reached out and scratched the top of the dog’s head. “Sorry, pal,” I said, “I’m fresh out of bones.”

“Try the icebox. Verna gets them from the butcher. Dog food’s in the pantry.”

I left the door open and checked the refrigerator, found three shank bones wrapped in red butcher paper, and took one back to the dog, who clamped teeth the size of railroad spikes on it, turned and started out to the yard, then stopped. He looked back over his shoulder at me, then he went down the steps, loped out into the yard, found a suitable dinner spot, circled it a couple of times, lay down, and chomped on his treasure.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Rosebud.”

“Rosebud!” I gasped. “ He’s a male, for God’s sake! That’s an awful name for a big mutt like that.”

“I know. She named him after a character in a movie she saw. She just loved the movies.”

“It wasn’t a character, it was a sled.”

“You mean like a kid’s snow sled?”

“Yeah, a snow sled.”

“She never told me that. Just like Verna. She had a screwy sense of humor.” She paused for a moment and said, “What’s going to happen to him now?”

“Couldn’t you take him?” I suggested.

“We have two cats. He hates them and they hate him.”

“Then I guess he’ll go to the pound.”

“They’ll put him to sleep!” she said with alarm.

“Maybe somebody will adopt him.”

“That’s where she got him,” Mrs. Clark said. I could hear a new sob coming. “They were about to put him to sleep and she just couldn’t bear the thought. Actually, she went to get a smaller dog.”

“He must weigh seventy, eighty pounds,” I said, watching the big dog tearing up the bone.

“He’s such a sweetheart. She lets him in at night. He’s trained.”

“Swell,” I said.

“How terribly sad,” she said. “First he loses Verna, now they’re going to give him the gas. He deserves better.”

I closed the door and went back to the living room.

“I hate a day like this,” I said. “It’s depressing. The great American love story.” I sat on the arm of one of the sofas and started rolling another cigarette. “Two lonely people meet, fall in love, work hard, weather the Depression, buy a little love nest in a nice neighborhood. What happens? He gets ironed out by a hit-and-run and she fries herself in the tub. Simple but sad.”

“Maybe not quite,” Ski said, still rifling through the papers in the strongbox.

“Maybe not quite what?” I asked.

“Maybe not quite so simple,” the big man answered.