I got out and unlocked the back door. The loonies stumbled into the street; Fritzie called, “This way, gentlemen.” The four scissor-walked in the direction of the voice; a light went on in back of Fritzie. I secured the van and walked over.
Fritzie ushered the last loony in and greeted me in the doorway. “County kickbacks, boyo. The man who owns this place owes Sheriff Biscailuz, and he’s got a plainclothes lieutenant who’s got a doctor brother who owes me. You’ll see what I’m talking about in a while.”
I shut the door and bolted it; Fritzie led me past the scissor-walkers and down a hall reeking of meat. At the end, it opened into a huge room–sawdust-covered cement floors, row after row of rusted meathooks hanging from the ceiling. Sides of beef dangled from over half of them, in the open at room temperature while horseflies feasted. My stomach looped; then, at the rear, I saw four chairs stationed directly beneath four unused hooks and got the picture for real.
Fritzie was unlocking the loonies’ manacles and cuffing their hands in front of them. I stood by and gauged reactions. Old Man Bidwell’s palsy was going into overdrive, Durkin was humming to himself, Orchard sneered, his head cocked to one side, like his butch-waxed pompadour was weighing it down. Only Charles Issler looked lucid enough to be concerned–he was fretting his hands and looking from Fritzie to me, his eyes constantly darting.
Fritzie took a roll of tape from his pocket and tossed it to me. “Tape the rap sheets to the wall next to the hooks. Alphabetically, straight across.”
I did it, noticing a sheet-draped table wedged diagonally into a connecting doorway a few feet away. Fritzie led the prisoners over and made them stand on the chairs, then dangle their handcuff chains loosely over the meathooks. I skimmed the rap sheets, hoping for facts that would make me hate the four enough to get me through the night and back to Warrants.
Loren Bidwell was a three-time Atascadero loser, the falls for aggravated sexual assault on minors. Between prison jolts, he confessed to all the big sex crimes, and was even a major suspect in the Hickman child snuff case back in the ’20s. Cecil Durkin was a hophead, a knife fighter and a jailhouse rape-o who played jazz drums with some good combos; he took two Quentin jolts for Arson and was caught masturbating at the scene of his last torch–the home of a bandleader who had allegedly stiffed him on payment for a nightclub gig. That fall cost him twelve years in stir; since his release he’d been working as a dishwasher, living at a Salvation Army domicile.
Charles Issler was a pimp and career confessor specializing in copping to hooker homicides. His three procuring beefs had netted him a year county jail time; his phony confessions two ninety-day observation stints at the Camarillo nut farm. Paul Orchard was a jack roller, a male prostitute, and a former San Bernardino County deputy sheriff. On top of his vice beefs, he had two convictions for grievous aggravated assault.
A little surge of hate juice entered me. It felt tenuous, like I was about to go into the ring against a guy I wasn’t sure I could take. Fritzie said, “A charming quartet, huh, boyo?”
“Real choirboys.”
Fritzie curled a come-hither finger at me; I walked over and faced the four suspects. My hate juice was holding as he said, “You all confessed to killing the Dahlia. We can’t prove you did, so it’s up to you to convince us. Bucky, you ask questions about the girlie’s missing days. I’ll listen in until I hear syphilitic lies.”
I braced Bidwell first. His palsy spasms had the chair rocking underneath him; I reached up and grabbed the meat hook to hold him steady. “Tell me about Betty Short, pops. Why’d you kill her?”
The old man beseeched me with his eyes; I looked away. Fritzie, perusing the rap sheets on the wall, picked up on the silence. “Don’t be timid, boyo. That bird made little boys suck his hog.”
My hand twitched and jerked the hook. “Come clean, pop. Why’d you snuff her?”