It took all my change to get what I wanted.
I told the answering service operators it was a police emergency; they put me through to the doctors at home. They had their secretaries drive to the office to check their back records, then call me at the El Nido. The whole process took two hours. At the end of it I had this:
On the early evening of January 11, 1947, a “Mrs. Fickling” and a “Mrs. Gordon” called a total of four different obstetricians’ offices in Beverly Hills, requesting appointments for pregnancy testing. The after-hours service operators made appointments for the mornings of January 14 and 15. Lieutenant Joseph Fickling and Major Matt Gordon were two of the war heros Betty dated and pretended to be married to; the appointments were never kept because on the fourteenth she was getting tortured to death; on the fifteenth she was a mutilated pile of flesh at 39th and Norton.
I called Russ Millard at the Bureau; a vaguely familiar voice answered: “Homicide.”
“Lieutenant Millard, please.”
“He’s in Tucson extraditing a prisoner.”
“Harry Sears, too?”
“Yeah. How are you, Bucky? It’s Dick Cavanaugh.”
“I’m surprised you could place my voice.”
“Harry Sears told me you’d be calling. He left a list of doctors for you, but I can’t find it. That what you want?”
“Yeah, and I need to talk to Russ. When’s he coming back?”
“Late tomorrow, I think. Is there someplace I can call you if I find the list?”
“I’m rolling. I’ll call you.”
The other phone numbers had to be tried, but the obstetrician lead was too potent to sit on. I headed back downtown to look for Dulange’s doctor buddy, my exhaustion dropped like a hot rock.
I kept at it until midnight, concentrating on the bars around 6th and Hill, talking up barflies, buying them drinks, racking up booze rebop and a couple of tips on abortion mills that almost sounded legit.
Another sleepless day ended; I took to driving from bar to bar, playing the radio to keep from dozing off. The news kept droning on about the “milestone refurbishing” of the Hollywoodland sign–playing up the lopping off of L-A-N-D as the biggest thing since Jesus. Mack Sennett and his Hollywoodland tract got a lot of air time, and a theater in Hollywood was reviving a bunch of his old Keystone Kops pictures.
Toward bar-closing time, I felt like a Keystone Kop and looked like a bum–scraggly beard, soiled clothes, fevered attention that kept wandering off. When drunks eager for more booze and camaraderie began giving me the brush, I took it as a strong hint, drove to a deserted parking lot, pulled in and slept.
o o o
Leg cramps woke me up at dawn. I stumbled out of the car looking for a phone; a black-and-white cruised by, the driver giving me a long fisheye. I found a booth at the corner and dialed the padre’s number.
“Homicide Bureau. Sergeant Cavanaugh.”
“Dick, it’s Bucky Bleichert.”
“Just the man I wanted to talk to. I’ve got the list. You got the pencil?”
I dug out a pocket notebook. “Shoot.”
“Okay. These are licensed-revoked doctors. Harry said they were practicing downtown in ’47. One, Gerald Constanzo, 1841½ Breakwater, Long Beach. Two, Melvin Praeger, 9661 North Verdugo, Glendale. Three, Willis Roach. That’s Roach like in the bug, in custody at Wayside Honor Rancho, convicted of selling morph in . . .”
Dulange.
The DTs.
“So I take Dahlia down the street to see the _roach doctor_. I slip him a tensky, and he gives her a fake examination . . .”
Breathing shallowly, I said, “Dick, did Harry write down the address where Roach was practicing?”
“Yeah. 614 South Olive.”
The Havana Hotel was two blocks away. “Dick, call Wayside and tell the warden that I’ll be driving up immediately to question Roach on the Elizabeth Short homicide.”
“Mother dog.”
“Motherfucking dog.”
o o o
A shower, shave and change of clothes at the El Nido had me looking like a homicide detective; Dick Cavanaugh’s call to Wayside would give me the rest of the juice I needed. I took the Angeles Crest Highway north, laying 50–50 odds that Dr. Willis Roach was Elizabeth Short’s murderer.