Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Defense records– both Albanese and the girlfriend had CD jobs during the war. I checked taxi logs around the time the body was dumped and the car abandoned, and nothing but couples leaving the after-hours clubs on the Strip were picked up.
Albanese’s story of going back to darktown to look for his car has been verified by cab records, which eliminates him as a suspect. I spent all day yesterday and most of the evening recanvassing Central Avenue, and I couldn’t find any other eyewitnesses who saw Goines with the tall, grayhaired man. I looked for the two eyewitnesses I talked to before, thinking I’d try to get some kind of composite drawing out of them, but they were gone–apparently these jazz types are mostly fly-by-nights.”
Dietrich stubbed out his cigarette. “What’s your next move?”
“Captain, this is a fag killing. The better of my two eyewitnesses pegged Goines as a deviant, and the mutilations back it up. Goines was killed with a heroin OD. I want to run mugshots of known homos by Otis Jackson and other local pushers. I want–”
Dietrich was already shaking his head. “No, you cannot go back to City territory and question the man you pistol-whipped, and LAPD Narco will never cooperate with a list of local pushers–thanks to your escapades.” He picked a copy of the _Herald_ off his desk, folded it over and pointed to a one-column piece: “Vagrant’s Body Found Dumped Off Sunset Strip New Year’s Eve.” “Let’s keep it at this–low-key, no name on the victim. We’ve got great duty here at this division, we thrive on tourism, and I don’t want it bollixed up because some queer slashed another queer hophead trombone player. Comprende?”
Danny twisted his fingers together behind his back, then shot his CO a Vollmer maxim. “Uniform codes of investigation are the moral foundation of criminology.”
Captain Al Dietrich said, “Human garbage is human garbage. Go to work, Deputy Upshaw.”
o
o
o
Danny went back to the squadroom and brainstormed in his cubicle, partition walls bracketing him, the station’s other three detectives–all at least ten years his senior–typing and jabbering into phones, the noise coming at him like gangbusters, then subsiding into a lull that was like no sound at all.
A mug blowup of Harlan “Buddy” Jastrow, Kern County axe murderer and the jolt that made him a cop, glared from the wall above his desk; some deputy who’d heard about his all-point want on the man had drawn a Hitler mustache on him, a speech balloon extending from his mouth: “Hi! I’m Deputy Upshaw’s nemesis! He wants to fry my ass, but he won’t tell anybody why! Watch out for Upshaw! He’s a college boy prima donna and he thinks his shit don’t stink!” Captain Dietrich had discovered the artwork; he suggested that Danny leave it there as a reminder to hold on to his temper and not high-hat the other men. Danny agreed; word got back to him that his fellow detectives liked the touch–it made them think he had a sense of humor that he didn’t have–and it made him angry and somehow able to brainstorm better.
So far, two and a half days in, he had the basics covered. The Central Avenue jazz strip had been canvassed around the clock; every bartender, bouncer, musician and general hepcat on the block had been braced–ditto the area where the body was dumped. Karen Hiltscher had called San Quentin and Lexington State Hospital for information on Goines and his buddies, if any, there; they were waiting the results of those queries. Rousting H pushers inside City confines was out for the time being, but he could put in a memo to Sheriff’s Narco for a list of dinks dealing in the County, press on that and see if he got any crossover leads back to LAPD turf. Goines’ musicians’ union would be reopening after the holiday this morning, and for now he had nothing but his instincts–what was true, what wasn’t true, what was too farfetched to be true and so horrible that it _had_ to be true. Going eyeball to eyeball with Buddy Jastrow, Danny reconstructed the crime.