City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

continued: “She was obviously murdered somewhere else and placed near the tracks. Now, maybe she fell in with the wrong people and this was a one-off. She and her family still deserve justice. You taught me that everybody matters. Or, we have a savage murderer on the loose, and he’ll kill again. He won’t give a damn what the chamber of commerce thinks.”

“It’s been more than two weeks since that happened,” he said.

“You know that doesn’t mean anything. The University Park Strangler only killed when new moons coincided with Catholic martyred saints’ dates. Thank God the chamber wasn’t so touchy then or we would have ignored that, too.”

He winced. “You know, crime has actually fallen during this Depression.”

I stayed on the subject. “Who knows what sets this monster off? We do know Carrie was killed by an expert blow to the head. Like from a sap or a blackjack. Like from a rogue cop. Maybe the same cop who got her pregnant.”

McGrath sighed. “You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. I’m not saying you should investigate this suspicious death…”

“Murder.”

“Murder. I’m not saying you should investigate it. You could let it go. That would be the smart thing. But I know you. So, my point is, if you’re determined to go off the reservation…”

He reached in his pocket and placed a folded handkerchief on the table. Inside was my old badge.

“Maybe that will open some doors,” he said. “But tread lightly, Gene. It doesn’t mean you’re back on the force.”

“I understand.” But I didn’t.

He reached across and touched my sleeve. “Don’t forget Haze Burch.”

“I never would.”

“This work can bite you when you least expect it.”

After he left, the phoenix bird on my gold detective shield stared at me for a long time before I slipped it in my pocket. Over at the round table, the lawmakers were sounding lubricated, laughing and joking.

I thought about the chief of D’s last words. Haze Burch was the first Phoenix Police officer killed in the line of duty. On February 5, 1925, he came upon two men siphoning gasoline from a car. They shot him at Eighth Street and Jefferson, then got away. I was on duty and was one of the responding officers. He was dead by the time we arrived. The pair were not petty thieves. They had previously murdered two cops, in Texas and Montana. Haze was killed by what he didn’t know.

I pushed away the half-eaten hamburger, feeling very alone.

* * *

Ten minutes later, I was back at the Monihon Building, where a postcard from Amelia Earhart was awaiting me: She was speaking before a group in Seattle. Signed, “Missing you” and her first name signed like an airplane’s loops across the sky. I missed her, too. Gladys also informed me that Harry Rosenzweig called and wanted me to come by.

I walked up First Avenue to the jewelry store and stepped inside. Barry Goldwater waved from the far end of the counter and went back to a hushed conversation with a well-dressed man. Del Webb was visiting with Harry, who waved me in.

“How’s the private eye business?” Webb asked. He was dressed in one shade of khaki: slacks, shirt, and zip-up coat. He even had a khaki hat.

“Murder,” I said.

“Mine, too,” he said. “Only twenty-six building permits issued in all of January. When I finish the mansion that I’m building in the Country Club neighborhood, I’m tapped out. But I have high hopes for FDR. Get federal money flowing into this town for roads, public buildings—I told Carl Hayden we need an underpass for Central at the railroad tracks—and I’m going places.” Hayden was one of our U.S. senators. Webb started singing, “Happy days are here again…” off-key.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “From your lips to God’s ears.”

Harry gestured me to the counter.

“I sent a query to Hamilton for the watch you brought in. With the serial number, they had a record of the original buyer. Don’t know if this helps, but…” He handed me a slip of note paper with I. Rosenzweig & Sons letterhead. Written neatly was “Ezra T. Dell” along with a purchase date of 1917 and a jewelry store in Prescott.

“Does it help?” Harry asked.

“I believe it does.” I slipped the paper in my pocket. He went to the back room and returned with a Rosenzweig’s box. It held the watch I had found in the dirt of the burned Okie camp, now polished and sitting on a bed of felt.

I added it to my pocket. “How much do I owe you, Harry?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Come over here, Gene.” Barry beckoned me to the far end of the store. He was clean-shaven now. I thanked Harry, wished Del good fortune, and they went back to gossiping.

Barry said, “Gene Hammons, meet Gus Greenbaum.”

I took in a sharp breath but kept my cop face as I shook the hand offered by a man with a tough face, wide-set eyes, big ears, and a flamboyant gold pocket square hanging like a tongue out of his front suit coat pocket. He had an iron grip, and I returned it. This was a long handshake as each of us took the measure of the other. He wore expensive gold cuff links. His nose looked like someone had inserted a lightbulb in the end of it.

“Your legend precedes you, Hammons,” he said, an expensive Cuban double corona in his mouth. “The homicide cop who was fired because he knew the truth about Winnie Ruth Judd, the trunk murderess.”

We let go at the same time. My hand ached, but I didn’t let it show.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Mr. Greenbaum,” I said. “What’s your line?”

He painted an image in the air with the cigar. “Sporting news. Everybody loves sports.”

“He’s a real-life gangster,” Barry blurted, impressed. Greenbaum smiled wider.

“Don’t pay any attention to him.” Greenbaum’s dark eyes were fixed on mine, trying to assay my reaction. “Goldwater here has a very vivid imagination.” He looked me up and down. “You’re a private dick