“We go see his parole officer. If he was sent up two years ago and is out now, he’s out on parole.” He looked at his watch. “Three-thirty, plenty of time for you to get down to Parole and Community Services Division in Oakland. It’s on Grove just off West Grand. And remember: you’re a repo man looking for a car you think Odum is driving.”
“Nothing about Bart getting whacked on the head or—”
“Absolutely not.” Kearny made a face. “Even the coffee is lousy here. A pure and simple repossession. Your lever is the fact that guys on parole are supposed to get prior permission from their PO before they even drive a motor vehicle, because of insurance problems. Come at him right, the PO ought to come up with Odum’s address.” He paused a second. “Anything strike you as interesting about this Odum character?”
“I was wondering if he could be the kinky cat who was trying to play games with Cheri in February — just before Griffin took off.”
“Or was taken off,” said Kearny. Ballard stopped dead in the act of snapping shut his attaché case. “February,” said Kearny. “It all happened in February. Better find out whether Odum had been released on parole before February eighth, the night Cheri had her bout with the flashlight kink.”
“What did you mean about Griffin maybe being taken off?”
“Look it over. Nobody’s seen him, that we’ve talked to, since February ninth.”
“He called Cheri in March,” Ballard pointed out.
“If she’s telling the truth, somebody called her. From a phone in a bar, sounding drunk, with music being played loudly in the background. So loudly that she says she had trouble understanding him.”
Ballard felt... cheated. As if somebody had taken his case and turned it upside down. He had been concentrating on Griffin so hard that if it turned out he wasn’t it after all...
“He sold off his furniture, rented the place in San Jose...”
“Neither of which makes sense, not for Griffin. A newspaper ad sold the furniture — and the buyers were instructed to pay Cheri with checks she couldn’t cash. The Midfield Road house was rented by phone, with a cashier’s check deposit against the rent which was mailed in.”
“He identified himself to the bank as Griffin—”
“Only verbally. Nobody checks ID when you buy a cashier’s check, why should they? You’re paying for it in cash. Which brings us right back to our ex-con, Howard Odum. He seems to be driving Griffin’s car; we know he’s diverting Griffin’s mail.”
Ballard thought about it for a while. Finally he said, “If Griffin wasn’t an embezzler, then why should Odum—”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t an embezzler. What was that figure Elkin gave you? Thirty thousand bucks might be missing? Let’s assume for a second that it is; what does Griffin do with it? Bank it? No way. Safe-deposit box? Risky. Probably bury it in the back yard in a bunch of fruit jars or something. In the middle of this, his old lady dies. He’s cut free, he starts buying, spending, boozing. Boozing heavy, according to the Concord cops — three HBD accidents in three months. He gets drunk one night with an ex-con named Odum, a hard-nose, maybe, just out of stir with a hard-on against humanity, lets something drop... You can take it from there.”
Ballard looked at his watch, stood up. “Four o’clock. I have to get going. Did you check with Giselle about how Bart is?”
“No change as of two hours ago. Call me as soon as you get back on this side of the hills. And if you do get an address on Odum, don’t go up against him alone. You got that?”
“Loud and clear,” said Ballard. He meant it. He didn’t want some son of a bitch putting him over a cliff. Not even in a Jaguar.
In the late afternoon wind, the plastic streamers over the tired old iron on the used-car lot whipped and danced. The place looked like an antique auto show. Ballard made his left turn from West Grand into Grove. It was 2229, an old tan-brick building, three stories, which stood alone among the razed weedy redevelopment lots.
“Let’s try the unit supervisor first,” suggested the switchboard operator behind the window inside the front door. She was a motherly sort, perhaps chosen for that quality. After working several keys and punching in and out of half a dozen sockets, she said, “Down the corridor to the right, far as it goes, then turn left and it will be the first door on the right at the bottom of the stairs. Mr. Savidge.”
The halls were big, friendly, creaking, painted an institutional pale yellow. The offices were high-ceilinged; the Venetian blinds badly needed restringing. He wondered if the atmosphere was deliberate or had just happened; it probably was soothing to just-paroled convicts.
Mr. Saul Savidge was waiting at the door of his office with a handshake and a grin; a vaguely pear-shaped black man who confounded current terminology by being decidedly brown. He had a narrow mustache and short straightened hair combed back so severely that it made his head look too small for his face.
“Better take the straight-back instead of that swivel,” he warned. “The shower upstairs leaks on the swivel.”
Shower? Then he remembered the sign by the front entrance about the Crittendon Home, a halfway house for cons. He took the uncomfortable straight-backed chair closest to the battered wooden desk. On the wall was a printed sign, WARNING — THIS ROOM IS OCCUPIED BY A SEX MANIAC, and a tapestry sampler of Martin Luther King succoring a black man in shackles.
“I’m lucky to be assistant unit supervisor,” said Savidge. “It gives me a one-man office. Tough to get a parolee to tell you his troubles when the cat at the next desk is hauling some poor bastard out in chains for parole violations.”
Ballard explained what he wanted.
Savidge nodded thoughtfully. “Howie hasn’t registered that T-Bird with me and he hasn’t asked permission to drive it. How long has he had it, do you know?”
Ballard saw his opening. “How long has he been out?”
“Just after the first of the year...” He consulted a file. “Uh-huh. January fifth.”
“This was just last week,” said Ballard quickly. “Our informant, who knew Odum before his arrest and knew he was out, saw someone in our T-Bird he thought was Odum. It might not have been him.”
Savidge nodded again, again thoughtfully. There was a disconcerting steel beneath the affable exterior that reminded Ballard that he was, after all, dealing with a law officer and not a social worker.
“All right, Mr. Ballard, I’m going to cooperate with you on this even though, as I’m sure you know, I’m under no legal compulsion to give you any information whatsoever.”
“I realize that, sir.”
“I’m cooperating because there is a possible parole violation involved here, and because if there is, it belongs in Odum’s file. I carry a case load of seventy-five men, it’s hell just trying to keep up with what each one is doing.” He got a rueful look on his face. “The rules say they must ‘maintain gainful employment’ — so what do you find for a sixty-five-year-old man with an eighty-five IQ who’s only good at exposing himself to little girls?”
Ballard didn’t try to answer. He was there only for Odum’s address. He got it.
“1684 Galindo Street, Concord. That’s a rooming house run by the widow of an ex-con, actually. Odum has room four.”
Ballard stood up and stuck out his hand. “You’ll hear from me about Odum in a day or two.”
“I’ll appreciate that.”
Outside, Ballard stopped under one of the sidewalk elms, drew a deep breath. He was damned happy he wasn’t an ex-con on parole.