Dark clouds blew in. They unzipped and leaked rain. Ashida drove to Griffith Park and trekked the golf course.
He was killing time. He needed privacy at the lab. The day-shift chemists clocked out at 6:00.
Gale winds hit. Cloudbursts followed. Fairways and sand traps flooded. It occurred just like that.
Ashida walked into it. He sketched brain pictures and transposed newspaper maps. He crafted a then-to-now terrain.
He noted incipient mud slides. Hillsides with thin turf planes and exposed roots. He employed Man Camera and assumed killer and victim perspectives.
It’s four-burner hot and dry. A Santa Ana wind fans flames. He set the fire/a cohort set the fire/the fire started itself. It’s deliberate arson or crime of opportunity. The box stands ready, either way.
He lures the probable Karl Tullock someplace secluded. He shoots him and stabs him and dumps him in the box. He buries the box. He chokes on thick smoke. Approaching flames singe his eyebrows. He runs. He gets away or burns to death.
The converse now.
He’s lured. He’s stabbed and shot. He’s the probable Karl Tullock. He’s dead in the box. He did or did not know Wayne Frank Jackson. Rest in peace. The two men die the same day.
Ashida walked back to the parking lot. The wind pushed him along. He saw a phone booth by the snack hut.
He ducked in and went through the Yellow Pages. He tore out all the storage-locker ads.
There was still time to kill. He had two hours to clock-out and assured privacy.
Ashida drove to Central Station. He went down to the cellblocks and watched the Werewolf sleep.
The jailer brought his son’s Scout troop down. They goofed on Fujio Shudo. They finger-poked him through the bars and squealed. A boy stared at Ashida. He read the kid’s mind. Hey, mister — aren’t you a Jap?
He walked up to 3. A crap game whooped and hollered. It was Alien Squad SRO.
The players rolled on rising-sun flags. Wendell Rice and George Kapek wore Wehrmacht helmets and green eyeshades. Lee Blanchard and Cal Lunceford rolled.
Chief Horrall stopped by. He chatted up the boys and dropped off pizza pies and beer. The boys whoop-whooped and cheered.
Call-Me-Jack winked at Ashida. He said, “Chin up, kid.”
Rice passed Ashida the dice. He told him to roll once, for grins. Ashida rolled a big six. The boys stomped and cheered.
He rolled again. He came up seven and crapped out. The boys stomped and booed.
6:05 p.m. The lab was off-shift dark. Ashida walked over and locked himself in. Miss Conville had left ballistics bulletins on his desk. He slugged cold coffee and got to it.
He worked the gold first. He got out the nugget and naked-eyed it. The mint marks went naked-eye unseen. The chunk was rough-cut. Buff swirls were present. The chunk felt talismanic. It was pure brag. Look what I’ve got, look what I did.
Ashida boiled an acid-phosphate solution. It would create faint abrasions and scrub the buff swirls.
He dropped the gold in the beaker. The solution fizzed and turned the liquid black. He timed the dunk at three minutes. He turned off the burner and scooped the gold out.
He’d preset his microscope. He put the chunk on a clamp slide and studied it. The swirls had abraded and sloughed off.
He studied the chunk. He moved it around on the slide. He hit four separate angles. A fifth angle gave him this:
The letters L.U.S.
It was scratched on. It was diamond-scratched. The scratcher scratched the letters below-the-surface deep. He bought a rough diamond and carved, assiduously. The abrasive dip raised the letters. It had to be that.
He had the gold chunk/the L.U.S./the key fob marked “648.” He had storage-locker listings. He’d pulled two pages’ worth.
The pages were half wet and crimped. Ashida smoothed them out on his desk. He started at A and eye-scanned.
A-1 Storage, Albright Storage, All-Nite Storage. He read subheads and caught the gist.
Store your belongings. Safety and privacy assured. Your key unlocks your locker. Front-door key provided. We’re open-all-nite. There’s no questions asked.
He knew these places. He’d read Burglary and Robbery reports. They were extra-legal stash holes. You had lockers rented short-term, long-term, and lifetime.
You had transient renters. You had come-and-go traffic. You rent 648 in ’31. You rent it lifetime. There’s no-questions-asked. It’s still your locker today.
Ashida scanned listings.
Bring-Your-Key Storage. Capitol Storage. Carthage Storage/open-all-nite. He jumped to page two. He quick-skimmed to the L’s. He hit Larry’s Lockers, Len’s Lockers, Lucky Lon’s Locker Vault. Wait, now—
Lock-Ur-Self Storage. 829 North Glendale Boulevard. “U Store, U Karry the Key.”
Lock-Ur-Self. L.U.S. Open-all-nite. Locker 648.
Ashida burned hot and cold. Sweat ran into his eyes. He flexed his hands and steadied them. He grabbed a lab towel and wiped his face.
It’s 8:06 p.m. It’s still too early. Folks are still out and about. Lock-Ur-Self might be packed.
The bullet now.
It was skull-smash/up-close flattened. He naked-eyed six impact crimps. He attached bullet forceps to both ends and pulled.
The clamps held. He got a half stretch. Four crimps flattened out. He naked-eyed very faint lands and grooves.
The microscope now.
He studied the bullet. He eyeball-measured millimeters between the stretched crimps. He slide-clamped the bullet and dialed his lens deep.
Magnification meets imagination. It’s forensically haphazard. Yes — but sound guesswork sometimes results.
He imagined his way to full lands and grooves. He memorized the fragmented patterns. He imposed a crimp-point differential.
The bulletins now.
Ignore the crime summaries. Go straight to the microscope pix. Juxtapose your imagination and extrapolate.
Miss Conville had arranged the stack chronologically. Ashida went to January ’32 and quick-skimmed.
He got through ’32. No full land-and-groove reads tweaked him. He skimmed into ’33. Winter, spring, summer—
Wait—
The bulletin was dated 8/12/33. It summarized four liquor-store heists. “UNSOLVED” was stamped on four bulletins. “STILL UNSOLVED” was stamped on 8/12/36. The summary brief detailed this:
Wilshire Division. Four near-southside locations. No gunshot wounds. Shots fired into wood-plank ceilings.
Flat, flatter, flattened. Like his skull-flattened spent.
Brainwork now.
Take your skull-flat spent. Compare it to your plank-flat-spent photos. Add your imagined differential.
Ashida did it. Ashida brainworked this:
Five spents. All time and sheer-impact degraded. Four from the liquor-store planks. One from Karl Tullock’s skull. Consider all angles. Stir it all up, you get this:
Almost three-to-one identical markings. Call it 72 %. It’s a possible, if not probable, match.
He knew the block. It was just north of Belmont High. He brought a celluloid shim. He possessed B and E skills. Dudley Smith taught him well.
It was 1:00 a.m. He parked a block down and walked over. The building was two-story stucco. The parking lot was empty. He heard thunder and felt light rain.
He approached the front door. It was glass-paneled and wood-jambed. The interior was full-lit. He peered inside. He clocked an entryway and bisecting hallway.
Open-all-nite. U-keep-the-key. Make-like-you-belong-here.
Ashida stood at the door. He patted his pockets. Where’s my key? I’m Mr. Flustered. I’m Mr. Jap in disguise.