The syndicate, p.14
The Syndicate, page 14
“I’m sorry,” she said, touching her nose instinctively. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“You had an accident?”
“Corrective surgery,” she said, with emphasis on the first word. “Rhinoplasty.” She smiled but her dimples strained. “It’s nothing, really. Please. Come through. Can’t leave you out in the heat like that.”
Rhinoplasty, Conroy thought. Fancy word for a nose job.
Conroy looked around the hallway. A coffered ceiling and period appointments, the embodiment of old Hollywood glamor. Framed silent movie posters lined the walls. Awards statues were gathering dust on a dresser.
“You work in the industry?”
“My husband. He was an actor. He’s in the other room. Come through.”
Conroy was offered iced tea by a Mexican maid and brought into an antique living room with portraits of dogs and a sofa that looked like it was fluffed on the hour.
“My husband’s first wife’s tastes,” she said, noticing Conroy take in the place. “I’m redecorating the whole house.”
“It’s quite something.”
In the corner by the window was a man in a wheelchair. He had a slack arm and his head was tilted down on his chin. He looked to be sixty or so. Seeing him caught Conroy by surprise.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”
“My husband. He had a stroke last year,” the woman said, a little less sadly than you might expect.
“I hope I’m not bothering you? I really appreciate your time.”
Conroy made the effort to be polite, courteous and well presented. If you’re walking into people’s homes, good clothes and clean shoes always made people more relaxed about having you in their personal space.
“Please take a seat under the fan. I find it’s the coolest place in the house. My children are outside, but I can’t bear to be in the heat.”
She was gesturing a lot, between the fan, the seat and the back yard, anything to draw Conroy away from her nose.
“I’ll bring them in as soon as it’s dark. I’m sure you think I’m mad to worry, but the thought of something happening to them—”
“I understand.”
“You have children?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She seemed excessively surprised. “That must be awful for you.”
I have a career and friends and a life, Conroy wanted to say, but didn’t. The latter two weren’t necessarily true, either.
She held up her notepad. “You mind if I take notes? I wouldn’t want to misquote you.”
People were far more willing to let you quote them if you asked to take notes than if you brought out a Magnecord recorder the size of a suitcase and jammed a microphone under their chin.
“Okay, yes. I don’t see why not.”
“Would you mind telling me your full name, please?”
“Foster. Cay Foster. Cay with a ‘C.’ My mother chose it because—”
She stopped. She was staring at the odd shapes and lines on Conroy’s pad.
“What is that?”
Conroy held up her pad, to be transparent. “Shorthand. It’s a way of writing faster.”
Unlike cursive, shorthand relied on symbols to record words phonetically. Conroy could write almost two hundred words a minute. Plus, because it looked like hieroglyphics, people had no idea what she was writing.
“I should say my husband and I are very private people. I’d rather not be named.” She touched her nose. “Or described.”
“You won’t be, you don’t have to worry,” Conroy reassured her.
Cay Foster. 2 children. 20s. Nosejob, she wrote down.
“Can we talk about the night of the shooting? You said at the door you saw the whole thing. I was really hoping you could walk me through what happened that night.”
“Well, it was pretty late, at least for this neighborhood. Around ten thirty, I suppose. My husband was in bed and I was downstairs alone. I was about to go upstairs and then I heard people arriving at Mr. Siegel’s house.”
Conroy was nodding and smiling. There was always lots of nodding and smiling. It helped build rapport.
Cay Foster went on: “My children were asleep, you see, and their bedroom looks over the front lawn. Cars in the driveway can disturb them and I have a heck of a time getting them back to sleep again. My youngest really struggles—”
Conroy kept her on the subject in hand. “Mrs. Foster. Did you see who was in the car?”
“No, but there were a few of them, I remember that.”
“Did you see exactly how many?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But I could tell there were a few of them. They were drunk, I’m sure of it.” There was a lot of emphasis on the word drunk and she looked at Conroy’s pad as if to say that she should write that down. “Anyway, Mr. Siegel wasn’t there much but when he was it was awfully loud. Parties until four or five in the morning. I went over once to ask them to turn it down and that girlfriend of his came out. I forget her name.”
“Virginia Hill.”
She touched a lash at the edge of her eye. “Yes, her. Anyway, she more or less threw me off her porch. The language from that vile woman.”
Conroy steered her back to the night in question. “So, that night. Friday. You heard the cars and you went outside?”
“Not exactly. I opened the door to check on the noise. But that’s when I heard the shooting. It was so strange. The exact moment. Like me opening the door had set something off. I thought maybe it was fireworks. Early ones for Fourth of July.”
“There were several shots?”
With her pad on her knee, Conroy made detailed notes as she spoke.
“Yes. Ten, maybe. But I was inside by then. As soon as I figured what it was I ran right back inside and locked the door.”
She pointed to the window where her husband sat, as if he were on lookout. “There. I watched it from there. I wanted to go up to check on the children but it was all so fast. I wanted to be sure he wasn’t running this way.”
“Did you see the man firing?”
“I’m not sure—not exactly. I saw a man running down the lawn onto the sidewalk. He had a guitar or a trumpet case in his hand. And that’s when I knew for certain it wasn’t fireworks. Because you meet jazz players and musicians, sure. But not in Beverly Hills.”
“What happened next?”
“There was a car further down the road. He got right in and drove away.”
“There was a driver?”
“No, he got in the driver’s side.”
Conroy was fizzing with excitement. Her pen was furious on her pad.
“Did you get a look at him?”
“I guess.”
“Could you describe what he looked like?”
“He wasn’t a Negro. Pretty sure he was white.”
“How tall do you think he was?”
“Average, I guess. Not small.”
“Did you see his face at all? Or his hair color?”
Cay Foster leaned back, patting the cushion beside her. Like she was testing it. “It was so dark. He was wearing a coat. A hat.”
“What about the car?”
“Blue.” She hesitated. “Or dark green. I’m sorry. It was late.”
The details were so vague Conroy had stopped even writing them down.
“Could you tell me the make of the vehicle?”
“All these automobiles look the same to me.”
Conroy tried not to show her frustration. “Could you tell whether it was a new car? A new model?”
Production of new automobiles stopped entirely in 1942. Manufacturers made trucks, airplane engines, guns and tanks until the end of the war. It meant cars were usually brand new or rather worn. Few were in between.
The young woman puffed out her cheeks. “I couldn’t say. One of those cars you see around all the time. Maybe a Packard, I don’t know. Wait, a friend of mine has an old Nash. Ten years old. Looked similar, as it had one of those yellow number plates you don’t see much anymore.”
“The same?”
Mrs. Foster rubbed her fingernails against each other. “It was all so fast.”
There were over half a million cars in Los Angeles County. A blue or green Packard or Nash probably accounted for a quarter of those.
They went through the story a few more times but Conroy gathered nothing new. She went to wrap up the interview, but Mrs. Foster had a few questions of her own.
“Most of the newspapers are saying it was a gang thing. Was it because of his business?” That last word spoken quietly but pronounced with exaggerated mouth movements. “They’re saying it was an assassination. Or at least, that’s what the police told me.”
“And you spoke to the police the night of the shooting?”
“Of course. I spoke to them that night and then again the next day.”
Conroy was wondering who had hidden her statement and why. “The same men?” she asked.
“The first night it was men in uniform. They only asked if I was okay and if I’d seen the shooter. The second they wore regular clothes. Different men. Federal Bureau, they said. They asked more questions.”
“And you told them about the car?”
Mrs. Foster bit her lip. “I can’t remember. I think so. Maybe. They didn’t seem interested.” She finished her iced tea and glanced at the clock above the fireplace. “I suppose I better get the children in. Gabriela will have made them sandwiches, and I’ll need to supervise or the whole thing will be a mess. I guess that’s something you’ll never have to deal with. Maybe that’s a positive.”
Conroy held her tongue until they reached the door. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Foster.” Then, unable to help herself, she added, “I hope your nose gets better. Looks awfully swollen.”
Conroy waved at her from the driveway but Cay with a ‘C’ was already slamming the door shut.
If you’re building a case, you want a combination of different kinds of substantive evidence like fingerprints and ballistics. But the most efficient way to solve a murder investigation is to locate a witness. So why were the L.A.P.D. and F.B.I. ignoring the only person who claimed to have seen the shooter?
“We know the F.B.I. lied to us,” Conroy said to Alice in a hushed voice. “They knew there was a woman at that house who they’re denying was ever there.”
Alice arched an eyebrow over her coffee cup. “Assuming Craine and Smiley aren’t lying to you. Or plain wrong.”
“Assuming they aren’t.” Conroy nodded. “But even if they were, now we know the F.B.I. had a witness who could identify the getaway car.”
“Maybe they thought it was a blind alley.”
Conroy shook her head. “It didn’t look like a blind alley, there was enough detail there to pass as truth. Juries trust civilian witnesses. Why would they cut corners like this?”
Conroy had shared all her findings with Alice since she’d returned from Linden Drive. The City Room was factory-styled, an open floor in a regimented layout with editors’ offices on all sides. A private conversation was impossible by design, so they were huddled around the coffee station, whispering between themselves.
“We don’t know they’re not following up on it,” Alice said.
“Then what reason would they have not to tell the press? They could have put a bulletin out asking for the public to come forward. There’d be a deluge of tip-offs and anonymous calls. Even if they knew most of them would be a waste of time, why not put it out there?”
Alice sipped her coffee, nodding in thought. “So they’re hiding something.”
“I think so.”
“But even if they are, you’ve got no license tags,” Alice exclaimed. “Sure I could speak to the D.M.V., but all you have is a green-possibly-blue-possibly-Nash-possibly-some-other-car description. That’s every other car in Los Angeles. How you going to find the murderer with that?”
“Look, I think Craine’s right,” Conroy said. “I think the F.B.I. know who did it or are intentionally preventing anyone else from finding out who did it. I think they want the public to believe it was an unsolvable mob hit.”
Alice tilted her chin toward the City Editor’s office. “You told me we weren’t to follow the investigation.”
“Yes, but I need the type of access Craine can get us. And to do that I have to have something I can offer in return. Besides, either way this is proof that the mob are embedded in government. There’s a chance they’re paying off the F.B.I.”
Conroy went to pour Alice more coffee. Alice demurred, pulling her coffee cup back. She picked up the coffee pot labeled “COLORED” instead.
“Oh, Jesus, Alice. Drink from this one. I don’t care.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Alice checked no one was watching, then let Conroy fill up her coffee cup. When she sipped it, her face looked disappointed. “Tastes the same,” she muttered.
“Whether Craine’s right or wrong,” Conroy mused, “we’re on to something with this car. And yes, the description is vague, but what if we assumed that the shooter was using a stolen vehicle? We could talk to the D.M.V., track down the list of stolen vehicles this last week.”
“Too many assumptions. Everyone’s making assumptions. First Craine, now you.”
A subeditor walked past and they both stood still. When he’d passed Alice looked at her squarely. “You need to be careful with Craine,” she warned. “Man like that will get us both into trouble.”
Alice turned to walk back to her desk and Conroy noticed a few people were watching. More concerned about sharing their coffee jug with Alice than whatever they were talking about.
“Alice, can you try our friends at the D.M.V., see if they can get back to us tomorrow morning?”
“Where do you think I’m going?” Alice called back.
Chapter 19
A self-proclaimed “veteran of this kind of business,” Abe petitioned that they go to the Bradbury Building in the middle of the night when no one was around. Craine disagreed, adamant that every hour counted. He couldn’t handle another day with no progress. Eight o’clock was the compromise, so they decided to drive back to their hotel for a few hours before heading back out.
Craine was disheartened, trying to untangle the knot of what happened the night Siegel died. The F.B.I. had hidden the identity of the missing girl. Virginia Hill had been stealing money but was in Europe. Charlie Hill had disappeared off the face of the earth. Friday’s deadline was fast approaching, and he had no tangible leads other than the location of Siegel’s old office. He was reminded of Sisyphus and his rock. Every step forward was three steps back.
He knew that trying to deconstruct and dissect all the different variables wasn’t helpful. He needed to let his mind relax. Step back from the problem in front of him. There was an expression Michael liked: “The harder you cup your hands, the easier the water spills.”
But of course, thinking about that only made him miss his son. He wanted to know that he was okay. That someone had taken Michael to see a doctor. But he knew that wasn’t possible. Even if Abe let him, they didn’t have a telephone at his farm. He had to trust that what Lansky told him was true. That he would be looked after. He had to have faith and concentrate on Siegel’s murder.
They returned to the hotel to find the staff setting up for an evening function. A stage was being constructed in the Rodeo Ballroom, and round, white-covered tables were being laid with silverware and crystal glasses.
Wanting to check in with Lansky, Abe crossed the lobby to the telephone booths. Craine approached the reception desk and asked the manager if there had been any messages, hoping that Conroy might have an update for him.
“As a matter of fact, I believe there’s a package for you, Mr. Craine. If you’ll give me a minute.”
Craine idled at the desk but when he turned around Abe was waving him over, holding out the phone.
“This is Craine,” he said when he was sure no one was in earshot.
The voice belonged to Kastel and Craine could feel his mood sour. “Answer all questions with yes or no answers, nothing more. Answer truthfully but do not mention anyone by name. Do you understand?”
A pause as he digested, then, “Yes.”
The voice went quiet and there was static until another voice came on the line. Lansky.
“You know who this is?”
“Yes.”
“Are you any closer to understanding what happened?”
“No.” Craine exhaled.
“Time is ticking. Do you have any leads?”
He didn’t have the missing witness. He didn’t have Charlie Hill. He only had an office building. He was shaking his head but he managed to say, “Yes.”
“Are the right people helping you to get what you need?”
His eyes involuntarily looked to Abe. “Yes.”
“And you’ve not involved anyone we asked you not to?”
Craine was hoping that Abe couldn’t hear the question. He knew he was wary of Tilda Conroy’s involvement but without police resources, they had no choice.
“No.”
The questions were beginning to frustrate him. Craine felt a sense of urgency Lansky didn’t share. “What about my son? Please. I want to know he’s okay.”
The phone went quiet. Kastel came back on the line.
“I told you, yes or no answers only.”
“No more games. You tell me he’s alright.”
“Hand me over to Abe. Now.”
Craine moved his head away from the receiver and Abe took it from him. He heard him muttering into the phone with his back turned. “Yes. Everything is good,” he muttered. And then a look at Craine, “No, no one.”
He knew Kastel was asking him if anyone else was involved. He wondered why Abe was protecting him. But before he could dwell on it, Abe frowned. “What package?” he asked, his eyes widening. There was something unsettling in the force of his reaction.
The package.
Abe called after him but Craine had entered a trance. He went back over to the desk, where the girl at reception was already expecting him.
“Mr. Craine.” She smiled courteously. “Your package—it arrived this afternoon.”
