Seated in the Beachfront Cafe across from the blue-uniformed, heavyset chief, in the same booth I’d occupied Saturday night, I filled him in on what I’d discovered up Chatsworth way. He excused himself to pass the information along to a couple of D.A.’s investigators who would make the trip to the Trojan Powder Company.
When the chief returned, bearing a plate with a piece of pecan pie with whipped cream, he sat and ate and shared some information.
“Pretty clear your instincts were right about those kids,” he said gruffly but good-naturedly. “It’s just hard to believe-patricide and matricide. Only in California.”
“The late Walter Overell was supposedly worth around a million. And, like I told you, he was threatening to cut his daughter off, if she married her four-eyed romeo.”
“What made you think to go looking for that sales receipt, Mr. Heller?”
“I knew they’d gone ‘picnicking’ in the San Fernando Valley, and a college pal of Bud’s said the loving couple liked to hike up around Chatsworth. Plus, I knew if Bud had been a Radio Man 1st Class in the war, he had the technical knowhow to rig a bomb. Hell, Chief, Saturday night, you could smell the dynamite in the air-and the murder.”
He nodded his agreement. “It’s as cold-blooded a crime as I’ve ever come across. We found thirty-one sticks of unexploded dynamite in the galley, crude time bomb thing, rigged with wire and tape to an alarm clock-second of two charges. Bulkhead kept the larger one from goin’ off. Which was lucky.”
“Not for the Overells.”
“No, the smaller bundle of dynamite was enough to kill ’em plenty dead,” he said, chewing a bite of pecan pie. “But it wasn’t enough to cover up the rest of the evidence.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what the coroner discovered in his autopsies-before the explosion, both Mom and Dad had been beaten to death with a ball-peen hammer we found aboard the ship…. That there was no water in their lungs backs that theory up.”
“Jesus-that is cold.”
A young uniformed officer was approaching; he had a wide-eyed, poleaxed expression.
“Chief,” the young cop said, leaning in, “somebody’s here and wants to talk to you-and you won’t believe who it is.”
Within a minute, a somber yet bright-eyed Louise Overell-in a short-sleeved, cream-colored, well-filled sweater and snug-fitting blue jeans-was standing with her hands fig-leafed before her.
“Hello, Chief Hodgkinson,” she said, cheerfully. “How are you today?”
“Why, I’m just fine,” he said.
“I’m doing better…thanks,” the blue-eyed teenager said, answering a question Hodgkinson hadn’t asked. “The reason I’m here is, I wanted to ask about the car.”
“The car?”
“My parents’ car. I know it was left here in the lot, and I thought maybe I could drive it back up to Flintridge…I’ve been staying up there, since…the tragedy.”
“Excuse me,” I said, getting out, and I flashed the chief a look that I hoped he would understand as meaning he should stall the girl.
“Well,” the chief was saying, “I’m not sure. I think perhaps we need to talk to the District Attorney, and make sure the vehicle isn’t going to be impounded for…”
And I was gone, heading for the parking lot.
Wherever Louise went, so surely too went Bud-particularly since another driver would be needed to transport the family sedan back to the Flintridge estate.
Among the cars in the gravelled lot were my own rental job, several police cars, Bud’s Pontiac convertible, and a midnight blue ‘47 Caddy that I just knew had to have been Walter Overell’s.
This opinion was formed, in part, by the fact that Bud Gollum-in a red sportshirt and denim slacks-was trying to get into the car. I approached casually-the boy had something in his left hand, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a weapon.
Then I saw: a roll of electrical tape, and spool of wire. What the hell was he up to?
Then it came to me: while little Louise was keeping the chief busy, Bud was attempting to plant the tape and wire…which would no doubt match up with what had been used on the makeshift time bomb…in Overell’s car. When the chief turned the vehicle over to Louise, the “evidence” would be discovered.
But the Caddy was locked, and apparently Louise hadn’t been able to provide a key, because Bud was grunting in frustration as he tried every door.
I just stood there, hands on my hips, rocking on my heels on the gravel. “Is that your plan, Bud? To try to make this look like suicide-murder, planned by ol’ Walter?”
Bud whirled, the eyes wild in the boyish face. “What…who…?”
“It won’t play, kid. The dynamite didn’t do its job-the fractured skulls omb in the autopsy. You’re about two seconds away from being arrested.”
That was when he hurled the tape and the wire at me, and took off running, toward his parked convertible. I batted the stuff away, and ran after him, throwing a tackle that took us both roughly down onto the gravel.
“Shit!” I said, getting up off him, rubbing my scraped forearm.
Bud scrambled up, and threw a punch, which I ducked.
Then I creamed him with a right hand that damn near broke his jaw-I don’t remember ever enjoying throwing a punch more, though my hand hurt like hell afterward. He dropped prayerfully to his knees, not passing out, but whimpering like a little kid.
“Maybe you aren’t smart enough for pre-med, at that,” I told him.
Ambling up with two uniformed officers, the chief-who had already taken Louise into custody-personally snapped the cuffs on Bud Gollum, who was crying like a little girl-unlike Louise, whose stone face worked up a sneery pout, as she was helped into the backseat of a squad car.
All in all, Bud was pretty much a disappointment as a Boy Scout.
The case was huge in the California press, the first really big crime story since the Black Dahlia. A grand jury convicted the young lovers, and the state attorney general himself took charge of the prosecution.
My wife was delighted when we spent several weeks having a real summer’s vacation, at the expense of the state of California, thanks to me being a major witness for the prosecution.
I didn’t stay for the whole trial, which ran well into October, spiced up by steamy love letters that Louise and Bud exchanged, which were intercepted and fed to the newspapers and even submitted to the jury, after Bud’s “filth” (as the late Mrs. Overell would have put it) had been edited out.
The letters fell short of any confession, and the star-crossed couple presented themselves well in court, Louise coming off as intelligent, mature and self-composed, and Bud seeming boyishly innocent, a big, strangely likable puppy dog.
The trial took many dramatic twists and turns, including a trip to the charred hulk of the Mary E. in drydock, with Louise and Bud solemnly touring the wreckage in the company of watchful jurors.
Not unexpectedly, toward the end of the trial, the respective lawyers of each defendant began trying to place the blame on the other guy, ultimately requesting separate trials, which the judge denied.
After my wife and I had enjoyed our court-paid summer vacation, I kept up with the trial via the press and reports from Fred Rubinski. All along we had both agreed we had never seen such overwhelming, unquestionably incriminating evidence in a murder case-or such a lame defense, namely that Walter Overell had committed suicide, taking his wife along with him.
Confronted by the testimony of handwriting experts, Bud had even admitted buying the dynamite, claiming he had done so at Walter Overell’s request! Medical testimony established that the Overells had died of fractured skulls, and a receipt turned up showing that Bud had bought the alarm clock used in the makeshift time bomb-a clock d given Louise as a gift. Blood on Bud’s effects was shown to match that of the late Overells.