He folded the piece of paper-the one with Ed’s and Erin’s wedding date-and put it in his wallet. He was tempted to call Cavanaugh, put the fear-if not of God-of man into him and see what he’d do.
But no. Build a case and blindside him. That was the way. Cavanaugh would have no idea that the noose was tightening. Especially after spending last night drinking with him (God, he was one confident man), he must think he was clear. He must also think his friend Hardy was a bit of a fool.
Well; he had always said he might be dumb but wasn’t a fool. Cavanaugh playing him for one made him unhappy. He was out of his chair and heading for the door when he stopped. He had three guns in his safe. But what, after all, was he planning to do with a gun? He was off to do a little research. He wasn’t planning to confront Cavanaugh. On the other hand…
He walked back toward the safe.
For a two-dollar fee anybody could go into the archives room of the San Francisco Chronicle and look up microfiche of newspapers from any date since the newspaper was founded in 1865.
Hardy was interested in the week of July 2, 1961. Driving downtown, his.38 Police Special now loaded and stowed in the glove box of his Seppuku, he spent a few minutes worrying about the what-ifs.
What if there was nothing in the newspaper? What if Glitsky wasn’t in? What if nobody at the Hall was willing to let him look up the past Incident Reports?
He turned on the radio. It was still broken, which wasn’t surprising since he’d done nothing to fix it. He wanted to listen to anything to get the other song out of his head. It was an old Conway Twitty tune called “This Time I Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me,” and it had been number one on the Hardy brain parade for two days now. Well, he thought, the hell with the radio. He went back to the what-ifs.
What if I get in a car wreck? What if a meteor plunges from deep in outer space and punches me half a mile into the ground? He had to laugh at himself.
In the Chronicle archives room he put the what-ifs out of his mind and now was glad he’d wasted no more time on them. He wouldn’t have to go see Glitsky about this, or wade through the hard copies of some faded and musty IRs. There it was, on page 8 of the first section for Monday, July 3, 1961.
It wasn’t a big article. Most other big-city newspapers might not even carry it, but it was one of the advantages of the Chronicle’s parochial view of what news was-they covered the city pretty well.
The article read:
CALL GIRL FOUND SLAIN IN NOB HILL APARTMENT
The body of a call girl who had been strangled was discovered late yesterday evening in her posh Taylor Street apartment after the woman failed to report back to the escort service for which she worked.
The victim, 22-year-old Traci Wagner, had been employed by the BabyDolls dating service for approximately six months.
Police are seeking for questioning a white male in his early to mid-twenties who picked up Miss Wagner in a dark, late-model car in the midafternoon. The suspect gave his name as John Crane, but this appears to have been fictitious. The investigation is continuing.
Hardy went to the desk with the spool of film and asked the clerk to copy the page for him. That cost him another five dollars, but it would be worth that to have for Glitsky.
John Crane, huh. Jim Cavanaugh. Funny about those initials, he thought. Same as Jesus Christ.
“You got squat.” Glitsky wasn’t feeling patient. “And I simply cannot take the risk.”
“You can’t listen to two tapes? Take you fifteen seconds.”
Abe leaned his chair back and put his head against the wall of the little cubicle. Hardy might be his friend, but he was getting on his nerves.
“Nope. I got four-no, now five-live ones out there and”-he consulted his watch-“I got about ten minutes before I mosey out to the Mo’ and talk some jive.”
Hardy sat down.
“Don’t get comfortable. I mean it.”
Hardy clucked at him. “Look, ten minutes you can hear this thing thirty times. I take off a little for rewinding.”
“It’s gonna take me ten minutes to find two recorders.”
Hardy looked outside of the cubicle into the main office, a wide-open expanse of green metal desks on linoleum. Guys were milling around, secretaries were talking on phones, occasionally typing. “I see at least four Walkmans from here,” he said.
Griffin had seen Hardy wandering through the office, trying to borrow a Walkman from a secretary. After he scored it, Griffin followed him up to Glitsky’s cubicle. “Still at it?” he asked Hardy. “Any luck?”
Glitsky knew that Carl was aware of the ninety-five or so suspects he’d suggested in the past day. He figured he’d imply some frustration with Diz, show that he was still a professional cop who realized the utter silliness of what his friend Hardy was doing. “Now it’s the priest at St. Elizabeth’s.” Griffin chuckled. “Well, you need any help, just call.” Smiling and helpful, he bowed out. Glitsky raised his blood red eyes at Hardy. “Prick,” he said.
Abe was still trying to be reasonable. “This is just plain old dog doo, Diz. I mean it. Nothing.”
Hardy shook his head. “He did it.”
“Look, even if it is his voice-and I’m not saying it is-so what?”
“So what? It means he was there and didn’t want us to know.”
“I’ve heard that song before. Wasn’t that why you thought Cruz killed him, when was it, yesterday?”
“He killed that hooker, too. He ran away from the seminary right after the Cochrans’ wedding. Was missing for almost a week. I tell you it fits-”
“Oh, Jesus, Diz, spare me.”
But Hardy pressed on. “We just saw the hooker’s still an unsolved case-twenty years later!”
“We got a thousand unsolved cases.”
“Listen. Cavanaugh got the gun from the gun drive. He knew about Frannie being pregnant, which means he saw Eddie after she told him, which was Monday, not Sunday. It all fits.”
Glitsky wagged his head back and forth. He looked again at his watch. “Well, I listened to the tapes.” He got up.
“You want to at least check the voice prints?”
Glitsky was putting on a jacket. “Nope,” he said. Hardy followed him out. “Abe, come on.”
Suddenly, his patience all gone, Glitsky wheeled around, his strained voice loud, very loud and pissed off, cutting through the office noise. “Where’s your fucking motive?”
The room went silent.
“Hey, easy, Abe.”
People were looking at them. Glitsky glared, first at Hardy, then back at the room in general.
Hardy, the voice of reason, said, “He’s always wanted Erin Cochran.”
Glitsky stared at his friend witheringly. “Do yourself a favor, Diz,” he said, showing Hardy his back, “don’t quit your day job.”
Chapter Thirty-three
AT FIRST it didn’t seem all that hard to figure out, but the only thing Steven came up with that made any sense didn’t make any sense. Father Jim had loved Eddie, probably more than anybody except maybe Mom. No way he could have killed him.
But how else did you figure it?
The day before, when Pop and Eddie had had that big fight about Hitler and doing the right thing, Steven remembered clearly enough-Eddie coming into his room afterward, really ticked off at Pop.
“He teaches you one thing, and then when it’s time to do something about it he says forget it.”
“So? What do you expect?” he’d said to Eddie.
And Eddie going, “I don’t know. Something.”