The Original Alibi mk-1 Read online

  “You can tell from my gang colors, I’m a buddy of Ernie Podkin. A few nights ago I come by his place, late. I see you coming out his door. No lights are on inside and Poddy ain’t at the door seeing you off. I get suspicious and follow along behind you. From your license plate I learn your name. You’re that big shot general’s kid.”

  “Grandson.”

  “Pardon me, big shit. You’re the general’s grandkid. Anyways, I go back to Poddy’s and wake ‘im. He tells me some dude he couldn’t see had coughed up a grand with a promise of more to do a job. He claims he didn’t know the man, and I haven’t told Poddy how I found out. Later, I tailed Poddy and see him snatch this guy out behind Russell’s over on Atlantic. I made a note of the dude’s license plate. I see Poddy shove the guy into a building on 22nd Street in Pedro. By midnight they ain’t come out, neither one of ‘em.”

  Eddie tries to say something; I stopped him.

  “Shut up, Whittaker. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet. Later, I check the dude’s license plate and learn he’s some author by the name of Matthew Kile. To me, that adds up to some kind of ransom caper, but that don’t check. No one else goes in the building where Poddy took Kile. No one comes out and Poddy wouldn’t call for the ransom from the place he was holding the guy. The next day, I see a cop I know by reputation go in. Few minutes later, Poddy comes out, gets in his van and hauls ass. The cop comes out with this Kile guy who ain’t walking all that well. I use my glasses and see Kile had been worked over. Poddy’s pretty good at that. I figure that hooks you into a kidnapping and assault and battery. A little Google work tells me you had been arrested by that same cop a long time back about the murder of your fiancee. Now I figure all this ties. Okay. So, my silence will cost you fifty big ones. Now you can talk.”

  “You got nothing. You’re stringing a lot of unrelated stuff together.”

  “Then don’t pay me. I figure the papers will pay a nice fee for what I got. Complete with pictures. They’re always interested in stuff about the general. And I got a little hassle with the fuzz that I can bargain off with the part I don’t give the papers. I also read that your grandfather is close to croaking so he could get upset enough that it might mess up your inheritance. If he suspected you might have really offed your fiancee who the papers said was carrying the general’s great grandson. Well, that’s some nasty business, Mr. Whittaker, shame on you.”

  “You’ve got nothing that’s worth anything to me.”

  “Okay. I musta screwed up somewhere. I got no interest in your pocket change. You’re free to go. I’ll make my deals with the media and the cops. Go on. Get out of here.”

  Eddie turned and walked down to the sidewalk and halfway to his car. Then he stopped. After standing still for about a full minute, he turns and walks back to me.

  “I’d like to work out something. I don’t want this to upset my grandfather. I just don’t have fifty thousand. The general gives me an allowance. If you can wait until I get my inheritance, I can pay you then. The general won’t live another week, according to the doctors.”

  “That don’t help me now. What do you have on ya?”

  Eddie pulls out his wallet. “Maybe two hundred.” He takes out his bills and counts them. “For now, here take what I’ve got. Then you’ll wait?”

  “This here gives me some drinking and whoring money. But if I’m gonna wait, I want a hundred thou when your inheritance comes in.”

  “A hundred! No way. This is at best a nuisance item for me.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the walking around money. I’ll make my deal elsewhere.”

  I turn and walk away from him. Behind me I hear a car door close from about where Eddie had parked. I walk past Mackie’s van and keep on going. In the second block, Eddie pulls to the curb and leans toward his passenger window. I go over and squat down, keeping most of my face above where he could see. The world’s best salespeople say there is a point where the next person who speaks loses. We look at each other. I stay quiet. After a minute, I stand up and start to walk away.

  “Wait a minute,” he says.

  I go back to the car and lean on the sill again. “We got a deal or not, Eddie Whittaker?”

  “Deal.”

  “One hundred thousand dollars you will pay me when your inheritance comes in. Right?”

  “Right. Who else knows about me other than yourself?”

  “Only one other person and he don’t know who you are or what I have. Right now he has a rifle pointed at you. He’ll be there again when you pay up. I also left an envelope with my girl. If anything goes wrong she’ll take it to the cops and the newspapers.”

  “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I’m the guy with your balls in his fist.”

  Chapter 32

  After getting home from having braced Eddie Whittaker, I was met at the door by Axel. In the span of this case he had been promoted from houseman to houseman-case nanny.

  After I ran tonight’s events past him, Axel said, “Congratulations boss. It looks like Eddie’s the guy the general hired you to find. The no-good bastard rubbed out the Corrigan dame and his own baby.”

  “It sure looks that way, Axel, but it’s not conclusive. Eddie could have been offering to pay the bribe to keep the general from learning he was behind my being abducted and beaten. He wouldn’t want the general to know that. It doesn’t establish that he killed his fiancee or bribed Cory Jackson, Tommie Montoya, and threatened the Yarbroughs, but the general might be suspicious enough to change his will.”

  “Now wait a minute, boss. You got Eddie connected to Podkin who said the way he was paid was the same way the stiff Cory Jackson got paid and that gas station jockey. How ‘bout them apples?”

  “Eddie heard all those detail from his grandfather who heard it from me. They all know, even Cliff. No, it only means Eddie knew how Jackson and Montoya were bribed, not that he had bribed them. By doing it that same way, he made his using of Podkin look like the same guy who had arranged the shakedown alibi. And yeah, that could’ve been Eddie, but not necessarily.”

  Axel just shook his head.

  “Hey, we got any of that rocky road ice cream left?”

  “Nearly the whole carton, boss.” We headed for the kitchen. While he got out bowls, he said, “Who else you got in mind if not Eddie?”

  “A few days ago you and I brainstormed that it could have been Eddie, but also that it could have been Karen, or Charles, or even Cliff at Karen’s direction, maybe even the general himself. All of that’s still true. All we have is proof that Eddie hired Podkin to work me over. The rest of it is supposition, but not probative.”

  “You got Cory Jackson’s story.”

  “No. I got that explanation from Cory’s half brother, Quirt Brown, who heard it from Cory, and Cory’s dead. That’s all hearsay now, and it’d likely be ruled inadmissible. The only thing we have Eddie on is his having paid to have me beaten and even for that we’d be better off to have Podkin testify and he’s God knows where. May I remind you that the two-hundred grand fee you keep talking about will not be earned unless someone is arrested for the murder of Ileana Corrigan. No one could be arrested off what we have. Not even close.”

  “So what do we do now, boss?”

  “Rinse out our ice cream bowls.”

  “Boss. You know what I mean.”

  “I need to sleep on that. I’m not certain yet.”

  An hour after going to bed I woke up abruptly. The brain is a strange thing. How it makes decisions. The way unresolved things marinate on your mind until the simple core of complex things suddenly slap you across the face. The Corrigan killing was way short on facts, always had been. We all knew that. Over time memories had faded, one supposed witness had been killed, and even when the murder occurred eleven years ago there had been a dearth of clues. I would never find the answer the general wanted through a dogged pursuit of evidence that didn’t exist. It would take sneaky doings. And right then, sitting up in bed, the sneaky doings cam
e into focus. A plan rose from my mind mud. Not a guaranteed, slam dunk kind of plan, but one with a reasonable chance. I had to get these people to tell me what they hadn’t yet told me. I needed to crawl into the crevices where the things that frightened them hid from the light.

  Chapter 33

  I got up at first light, slowly, but up. With a cup of coffee in hand, I called Cliff Branch, the chauffeur.

  “Cliff, I need you to do something critical to help me solve this case and it must stay between you and me. I promise you I can square your doing it with the general.”

  “I’ve been told to cooperate with you fully, Matt. What do you want?”

  *

  Two hours later, I called Charles. “How’s the general doing? I’d like to see him as soon as it works for him.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Kile. Let’s see, it’s eleven now, so he’s been awake about an hour reading the morning paper in his study. He should be ready to see you by noon. No. Make it half past. Is that okay for you?”

  “I’ll make it okay. And, Charles, don’t bring me an Irish if it’s going to encourage the general to have one as well.”

  “That’s no problem, sir. The general hasn’t had another drink since the last one he shared with you. He told me what you said and he agreed. I thank you for convincing him.”

  “See you at twelve-thirty.”

  *

  I got there on time and Charles led me upstairs to the general’s small study off his bedroom. The noon sun filled the room, having invited itself in through the hexagon-shaped window high on the opposite wall. A wheelchair sat to the side of the room facing the wall, equipped with a portable oxygen tank and a line that would feed the hyped air to his nose. He wasn’t using it, choosing instead to struggle a bit when taking breaths.

  “Good morning, General. Did you sleep well?”

  “Hello, Matt. As good as could be expected. Look, I know you don’t need pressure from me, but the truth is I want you to earn the fee I agreed to. That means you don’t have much time.”

  “I understand, sir. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Do you know who killed Ileana and my great grandson?”

  “I’m closing in, but, no, General. Not this morning, at least not as yet this morning.”

  “So?”

  The door opened after a light knock. As I expected, it was Charles bringing me an Irish on cracked ice with a lemon wedge. “It’s one o’clock, Mr. Kile, after lunch, so I thought you and the general would enjoy your having this.” He leaned down far enough for me to take it from the tray. He put a paper coaster on the side table.

  “Before we talk about why you came, Matt, let me give you this, there are two originals. I have signed them both. You will need to do the same.” Noticing my confusion, the general explained further. “When I hired you and we agreed to your success fee, well, to say it plainly, I didn’t expect I would die as soon as it now appears I will. Thus the terms of our agreement were not reasonable.”

  “General?”

  “We agreed your fee would be earned when someone was arrested for killing Ileana. You have worked diligently in that effort. And, make no mistake, I still expect results, but the arrest requirement, well, it now seems inappropriate. This new agreement stipulates you are to be paid upon either that arrest or my statement that I consider your services satisfactorily completed and your fee earned.”

  “Thank you, General. You are most generous.”

  “I can’t take it with me, and there’s plenty left for the others. If you solve this to my satisfaction you will have done me a great service.”

  I took a pen and signed both copies. The general then rang his bell and Charles came in to witness both copies of the document and to take one with him.

  “Now, Matt, why did you wish to see me this morning?”

  “General, did you mean what you said about my not holding back on what I do or how I do it because you might be listening?”

  “I mean everything I say, Matt, or I wouldn’t say it. Time is my enemy and it is gaining fast. Forget nicely. Get it done.”

  “Charles tells me Eddie is still at home and if he tries to leave, Charles will let him know I would like to meet with him in the study. You’ll want to keep listening until Charles tells you I’ve left.”

  “I see.” The general’s face went pale, even paler than from his ever-weakening circulation. “Is there anything else, Matt?”

  “Yes. Curiosity, I guess, but you told me that Charles was with you on your general staff. That was how you two first met. You also mentioned he left you for a few years to take another assignment with the army. Then he returned and was your adjutant, or whatever the correct title was during your years on the joint chiefs. What did he do during the years he left your staff?”

  “He always wanted to do intelligence work. I arranged for him to do some cloak-and-dagger stuff for the Department of Defense. After a few years he’d had enough.” The general chuckled, and then coughed. “Like so many young men, he had imagined that to be romantic and adventurous. He found it quite different fighting an enemy you got to see up close, in unfamiliar terrain that often ended in assignments that turn most men’s stomachs. It is not as clean and detached as eyeing a man through a sight and pulling the trigger.”

  Chapter 34

  Eddie walked into the study where I sat in one of the overstuffed leather chairs near the glass door out to the patio. Charles closed the door behind him.

  “Hello, Mr. Kile. Charles told me you wished to see me.” He sat across from me.

  “You grandfather’s attorney, Reginald Franklin, has given me a copy of the general’s will.”

  “That fat fuck, excuse me, but he can’t even see his dick without a handheld mirror.”

  “You really are a little prick, you know. Your grandfather is dying and Mr. Franklin is doing more to help the general than you, who will receive the lion’s share of the general’s estate. Don’t you think it’s time for you to grow into the position and responsibility you are about to inherit?”

  “I don’t see that as any of your business, Kile.”

  “I think anyone who wastes talent and opportunity is everyone’s business, or maybe just everyone’s disappointment. I’m rather fond of your grandfather, and I’d like him, just once before he leaves us, to see you as a level-headed responsible adult.”

  “Oh, can the sob story. You don’t give a shit one way or the other.” He stood up. “Your only interest in any of us is to get somebody arrested so you can grab your fat fee.”

  I stood and reached out pushing him hard against his chest. The push hurt my rib area, but I liked doing it just the same. Eddie fell back into the leather chair across from where I had been sitting. He started to get back up. “Get up again and I’ll close my fist the next time.”

  He took his hands off the arms of the chair.

  “You’re an educated guy, Eddie. A smart guy, but you got no style.”

  “I have style.”

  “A smart mouth isn’t style. Treating everyone with disrespect may be consistent, but it’s not style. You’re a punk in rich man’s clothes and an empty suit isn’t style either.”

  “Is there a reason for this meeting, Kile, other than breaking my balls?”

  “What was your interest in the industrial building in San Pedro on 22nd Street? You drove by there twice the other day.”

  “How did you know I did that?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “It’s a family holding. I’m trying to get familiar with all of our assets.”

  “In a bit of a hurry, aren’t you?”

  “It seems like we are always at odds, Kile.”

  “It seems like you’re always more interested in the general’s assets than in the general.”

  “Are we through here?”

  “We haven’t even started. You stay where you are. I’ve got some things I want you to hear.” I took the tape recorder out of my satchel, put in the first tape and played it.
The tape being Quirt Brown telling the story of how his half brother Cory Jackson had been bribed to testify about watching Eddie Whittaker kill Ileana Corrigan.

  When it finished, Eddie said, “Old business, Kile. We all know Cory Jackson lied when he claimed he saw me.”

  “Old business? You knew about how Cory Jackson was bribed?”

  “Not that part. Just that he had to have been. The person who bribed him would have been the killer who wanted me convicted. That tape would be hearsay since Cory Jackson’s been murdered and the telling on your tape is second hand.”

  “Who do you figure bribed Cory Jackson?”

  “I have no clue,” Eddie said with a flip of a soft wrist. “I gave up trying to figure that mess out years ago. That’s your job.”

  “I have another tape for your listening enjoyment.” I put on the tape of Tommie Montoya telling his story of a flashlight being shined in his eyes when he opened the door to the ladies’ bathroom at the gas station where he worked. Where he had been bribed to tell the cops he sold you gasoline shortly after Ileana was murdered.

  When it finished, Eddie said the same thing. “Everyone has known that part of it too, except for the how. Same hearsay rule will likely make it inadmissible. This is all a waste, Kile. We all knew about that. You told the general. The general told us. All these tapes do is let us hear these claims first hand.”

  “I agree, the Quirt Brown tape would in all likelihood be inadmissible, but Montoya is still alive and I made this tape with his knowledge and consent. Still, we’ll leave the admissibility to be resolved by the legal people.”

  “Okay, but so what. All it proves is that Montoya admits he lied to the district attorney. Beyond that, it proves I wasn’t nearby. If you’re trying to pin the murder on me, that tape helps me, not you.”

  “No. This tape does not prove you weren’t nearby. It only proves that Montoya lied about seeing you nearby.”

  Eddie stood up, this time turning quickly to avoid my reach. “I’ve wasted enough time with your silly evidence of nothing. I’m leaving.”