I circled the air with my index finger pointing at my face.
“Poddy did that? I mean, he’s tough but …” He left the rest unsaid.
“Are you two tight?”
“We know each other. He rides with the gang I once did. We always got along, but never close. It was a big gang. I can’t imagine him doing that to you.”
“Like I said, my arms were tied. So tell me about Mr. Podkin.”
“Lifetime biker. Petty criminal. Hauls drugs up and down the coast. Strong arm work. Not a killer. Least not as I know. If he did this, he was hired by someone who wanted you worked over.”
“That’s right. Podkin told me so before I left him on a concrete floor down by the docks. He said he didn’t know who. I believed him. The way he was set up to do it, well, it was the same way as some others.”
“You say you left him on the floor in a place down in Pedro?” I nodded. “Tell me about the place. Describe it.” I did, including the conveying belt of hooks running along the ceiling. “I know the place,” Cliff said. “I don’t know what those hooks were ever used for. The general had me drive him there after he bought it. He had me go in with him. I asked him what he was going to do with it. He said it was an investment. He liked the location and that eventually somebody would need the space and he’d turn a profit.”
“How long ago was that?”
“More than a year, less than two.” Then Cliff offered to help me find Podkin.
“Nothing would be gained. Podkin doesn’t know anything further and I’ve evened the score for what he did. If I’m going to wrap this up for the general, I need to avoid being sidetracked by things that won’t move the first down marker.”
Cliff nodded. He understood. Everyone there did. The general was the only one who longed for this case to be solved. After eleven plus years the rest of them were willing to let it go. That would be particularly true for the one who killed Ileana Corrigan. That person had tried to slow me down until the general died, figuring I would then be paid something for my troubles and dismissed. What they didn’t know is even if the general died, I wouldn’t stop. I had the bit in my teeth and, since spending time with Podkin, I had skin in the game.
“What do you think of the general? Give it to me straight, Cliff. No party line.”
“He’s aces. I like the old dude. Apparently he was some top kick in the army. But I never knew him that way. My pa did and he swore by him. As for me, the general’s my employer. That’s it. But I like him. He’s honest with you. He don’t pull his punches when he’s got something to say. Treats you like you’re as good as him, which damn few of us are. Yeah. I’d cover his back.”
“What’s your read on Charles?”
“He’s a bit harder to peg. I mean he’s square. Honest. Hard working. Really cares about the general and his daughter. I’m not so sure he gives a hoot about Eddie.”
“Have you heard that you’re in the general’s will?”
“I’ve heard.”
“Where from?”
“I’d rather not say, Matt.”
“Karen?”
Cliff looked at me for a minute with no expression. Then he nodded.
“One more thing, Cliff, what do you know about the bribing of Cory Jackson who was found dead in the surf a few nights ago?”
Cliff went on to tell me pretty much how it happened. The flashlight, the two grand on the front end with the promise of eight more. I had told the general about all that when we met and the general demanded a full battle report, as he called it. Cliff said the general told Charles and Karen and Eddie in a family meeting. That Karen had told him.
I left the Whittaker estate having learned that Karen’s father was Charles, not the general. Actually, after Chunky’s report I knew the general wasn’t her poppy, but Chunky’s report couldn’t identify whose sperm had swum the channel. The DNA from facial tissue was not the general’s. I figured Charles was a good candidate, because in part it explained his staying all these years. Then again, he saw the general as family and that might have been the only reason he needed. Karen’s mother could have had one or a series of affairs during those years, such that she might not be certain of the identity of Karen’s father. If Charles hadn’t known, I would have gone to Karen’s mother.
Everyone liked and respected the old man, but then they were all in his will. That also spoke to why Charles had not revealed himself to his daughter Karen, also perhaps why some of them were still hanging around.
Charlie Chan once said, “When money talks, no one is deaf.”
Chapter 28
When I got home, Axel was there. “Buddha said he could handle covering Eddie the rest of the night. That I should come back and see what I could do for you. How ‘bout something to eat? I’m hungry myself.”
Axel offered me a choice of soups, but I held out for something to chew. He made some spaghetti with meat sauce, refusing to add meatballs or sausage. He also reminded me we still had half of Clara Birnbaum’s apple pie in the fridge. While he cooked and while we ate, we talked through the various members of the general’s family and what made each of them suspects.
“Charles could have a strong motive,” I said. “With Eddie out of the way, his daughter would get the lion’s share rather than the vulture scraps from the general’s will.”
“Two million plus would sure be enough to lay in winter groceries, boss.”
His comment brought a smile since we had just heard that line in some old movie we had watched last weekend. Axel was right, most folks would be tickled to get two-and-a-half million. At least pleased enough to not murder to get more.
“So, you figure, in the end Charles couldn’t let the general watch his grandson go to the chair. That led to a plan to save Eddie and pick up an extra two million through the shakedown of the general, for a total between Charles and his daughter of around six-and-a-half million.”
“That sure ain’t chump change, boss.”
“I hear ya, Ax, but all this is a stack of hash with no real facts for bones.”
I could only figure a few reasons why the real killer would not want Eddie convicted of the murder. In a complex plan, Eddie murdered his fiancee and arranged for his own arrest and release. Charles did it as a gesture to the general. Someone else killed Ileana, likely a jilted lover, who decided to take the risk of the case remaining open in order to extort two million from the general. That would add a payday to a murder of passion.
Axel ended up betting his chips on Clifford Branch, the chauffeur. “Boss, Cliff was a biker. He knew Podkin, so he could easily arrange to have you snatched. I’ll bet there’s plenty of guys in Cliff’s old biker gang that would have murdered Eddie’s lady for money. The shakedown of the general could have been about getting the dough to pay for the hit. And the alibi for Eddie was necessary to get the shakedown money from the general.”
Axel had just presented what could be another reason why a killer would have needed to alibi Eddie. He needed to sell the alibi to the general to get the money to hire the killing of Ileana Corrigan and the bribing of Cory Jackson and Tommie Montoya.
Axel brought me back from my thoughts. “Cliff’s in the will for a half a million. The shakedown was tide-him-over money while he waited for the general to croak. Those biker guys are always into some kind of crime so it fits. They’re like the renegade gangs that rode in the old west.”
In my mind, Cliff was incapable of putting together the complex plan of murder, a frame and an alibi. But Axel wasn’t through nominating Cliff for the role of the murderer.
“Didn’t you tell me that this Karen, the daughter, manipulated Cliff into attacking you down on the beach? If he’s twisted around her finger, she could have got Cliff to arrange the murder through the bikers so that Eddie would take the fall and she’d get the big bucks. She could have promised him a chance to move into the mansion and live the fat life with her.”