The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 21

8:04 p.m. We held the special show-up in the auditorium. We picked three police officers of about Big Julie’s size to stand up with him, and three civilian employees of Harry Strife’s general height and build to stand with him. We had to settle for civilian employees because there weren’t three police officers as small as Strite available.

All eight were dressed in tan jackets, tan slacks, and brown hats, similar to what the bandits had worn. And each wore a false nose attached to glasses frames.

One by one the eight men were told to move forward from the height chart and stand in the yellow circle in the center of the stage. The sergeant at the control panel at the rear of the auditorium asked the standard questions over his microphone. These were questions of a general nature, designed not so much to obtain information as to allow witnesses to hear the suspects’ voices. They included such things as age, place of birth, and whether or not the suspect drove a car. The same routine questions are asked all suspects at all show-ups.

The suspects replied without the aid of an electronic amplifier. The acoustics of the auditorium were designed so that the normal speaking voice of anyone standing in the yellow circle can be heard clearly all over the room.

The show-up was a dud. The wounded clerk tentatively picked both Big Julie and Strite as the robbers, but wasn’t certain of either identification. The other clerk was unable to decide on anyone. Howard J. McQuary confidently picked one of the civilian employees as the smaller bandit. He pointed out the man he believed to be the larger one with equal lack of hesitation.

It was Sergeant Brady of Robbery Division.

Frank muttered to me disgustedly, “Shall we ask Brady for his alibi?”

We made one last try. After the show-up we had the suspects brought upstairs again and questioned them for an hour in separate rooms. This time Frank and I took Harry Strite and left Big Julie to Andy and LaMonica.

We got no admissions of any sort from either of them.

After returning the suspects to the Felony Section, we all met in the small coffee room downstairs to compare notes.

Andy said, “Kind of a bust, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Frank said, “Not much doubt from the performance this afternoon that they never saw that show.”

I said, “Not in my mind.”

“Only thing is, would it stand up in court?”

“No,” I said.

All three of them looked at me.

I said, “That was just to satisfy us. A good lawyer could knock it to pieces. All he’d have to do is keep them off the stand. And let the theater personnel testify. Martin and Strite couldn’t even be asked what they remembered about the show.”

Frank said, “The prosecution could call us. Our testimony that, on questioning, the suspects didn’t know the details of the show ought to carry some weight.”

I shook my head. “You know the standard defense tricks. ‘Did they seem to know the general story line, Officer? Yes? Well, now, Officer, do you recall all the details of every movie you ever saw?’”

LaMonica sighed. “Yeah. I’ve been in that spot. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s on trial. The defendant or the arresting officer.”

Andy said, “They’re gonna best us again, huh?”

“We’ll throw it in the chief’s lap tomorrow,” I said. “Ask him to talk it over with the D.A. But you know what the D.A. will say.”

“I’m afraid so,” Andy said. “But tell us anyway.”

“He’ll say, ‘turn ’em loose.’”

Thursday, April 24th, at 8:31 a.m., we met with Captain Peters and Chief Brown in the latter’s office. When we finished outlining the case — or rather, lack of case — Chief Brown’s mouth hardened into a straight line.

“You’re absolutely convinced these men committed the crime?” he asked.

I said, “Why else would they deliberately build an alibi?”

The chief said, “Seems incredible that they’d flaunt it in our faces this way. Is this Big Julie crazy?”

“It’s the way he gets his kicks,” I said. “He plays it like a game. He wouldn’t be happy just to pull a job and let us wonder who did it. He wants us to know he did it and dare us to prove it.”

“Strite has the same attitude?”

Frank said, “Strite just follows Big Julie’s lead, sir. He’s just a small-time punk who thinks Julie is the smartest man alive.”

It isn’t often that Chief Brown gets angry. And even when he does, it may not be apparent to anyone who doesn’t know him well. Now his face darkened ever so slightly and his voice turned frigid. A casual observer might have assumed he was mildly irked. We, who knew him, realized he was on the verge of rage.

“As I see it, the situation boils down to this, then,” he said coldly. “We’re relatively certain that Harry Strite was one of the bandits who murdered Officer Ferguson. We’re virtually sure that Martin and Strite pulled this last job, which involved another murder. And you’re telling me that we can’t do a thing about either case?”

Peters said uncomfortably, “Friday and Smith have done everything they can, sir. I can’t see that they’ve missed a trick.”

Chief Brown stared at the captain, then picked up his phone and called the district attorney. He spoke to him for several minutes, outlining the situation as Frank and I had explained it. His eyes were bleak behind their glasses when he hung up.

“He wouldn’t touch it,” he said. “We’ll have to release them.”

We started to rise, and the chief said, “One thing isn’t going to happen again.”

“What, sir?” I asked.

“The stakeouts getting shaken.”

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to. We all knew what he meant. The next stakeout who lost Big Julie or Harry Strite was going to be an ex-cop.

I said, “We’ve still got one outside chance on this.”

“What?”

“They had to change their clothes somewhere. Probably at the pad of some other member of the gang. Maybe Maury Wey’s. If we could locate the pad, maybe find the murder gun and some false noses—”

“Got a plan for locating it?”

“Well, Big Julie and Strite together make a pretty striking pair. Him being so big and Strite so little. We could run a check of rooming houses and hotels to see if a pair like that was spotted visiting somebody.”

The chief grunted. “Worth a try, I suppose. You’ll need a lot of help.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll check the various divisions and assign you as many plainclothes men as I can. Peters, can you spare anybody from Robbery?”

“Couple of teams, maybe. We’re up to our necks, as usual.” He turned to me. “Take Killeby and Perry, Lightner and McCaleb.”

“Thanks, skipper,” I said.

Chief Brown said, “I’ll have the others report to you within the next hour.”

9:02 a.m. As we walked back into the squad room, Frank went over to the map on the wall and stuck a colored pin in it at Beverly Boulevard and Alvarado. Then he stood back and examined the map sourly.

“See any directional trend yet?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a little west of the others,” I said.

“Yeah. And the second two were a little east of the first one. Know how I think they’re picking them?”

“How?”

“Opening the classified section of the phone book to ‘Grocers, Retail,’ closing their eyes, and jabbing with a pin.”

“Could be,” I said. “Well, let’s get it over with.”

“What?”

“Corner Pocket said to turn Martin and Strife loose.”

I picked up a phone and started the procedure for the suspects’ release.

9:34 a.m. Eight teams of officers in addition to the two from Robbery reported to us from other divisions, giving us a total of eleven, counting ourselves.

The Bunco-Fugitive Division maintains a mimeographed list of rooming houses and hotels, arranged geographically. We borrowed a copy of it and divided the list into eleven sections.

Frank glumly looked over our list.

“You know, Joe,” he said, “I like working with you except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You always do it, every case we get.”

“Do what?”

“Talk us into some leg work.”