He nodded at the screen that they’d been unable to tear themselves away from.
O’Neill nodded, unwilling or unable to discuss it further. Kelsey took the hint.
‘Listen, from what I’ve heard, and what I can see, you guys have your hands full. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m looking into this purse that you guys got hold of that supposedly belonged to Elizabeth Short. I’m not intending to step on your toes or get in the way of the search for this kid, but it might happen. I promise I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t.’
‘Can’t ask for fairer than that,’ Salgado nodded. ‘We don’t know how Garland got hold of this purse or even if it’s what he says it is, but if you can find that out then we’ll be all ears. Right, Cally?’
‘Of course. We’ll take any help we can get. Not sure we can offer much back though. All we can concentrate on is finding our guy. You think the purse might be genuine?’
Kelsey spread his arms wide. ‘Well, it might be. Here’s what I know. After the Short killing, a purse and a shoe were found on a trash can out back of a restaurant called Delmonico’s on Crenshaw – I think Charlie filled you in on that part. The cops were called but trash collectors beat them to it and took them to the dump. A detective named Ralph Asdel went to the dump, rescued several purses, several pairs of shoes and took them to the station. A lead’s a lead, right? He then talked a boyfriend of Elizabeth Short, guy named Red Manley, into coming down to try to identify them and Manley picked out a shoe and the purse.
‘But here’s where it gets complicated. Manley was a very stressed, mixed-up guy. He got sectioned by his wife just seven years later after suffering nervous breakdowns and hearing voices. So, you make your mind up on how reliable his memory was. I checked the archive and the purse that Manley ID’d is still there. It’s similar to the one in your guy’s collection but it’s not the same. Given that Manley was unreliable, maybe your guy had the real deal. But I’ve turned up a couple of things to make me think it might be.
‘Next thing, Asdel picks up on a witness statement from a guy in Leimert Park who says he’d driven to Norton about nine on the night before the body was found, to dump a load of shrub cuttings. As he drives past the spot where the body was later found, he sees a 1935 light-coloured sedan with its rear door open. Standing next to the car is a slim man, about five foot eight, with a dark hat pulled down low. This slim guy strains to look inside the shrub cuttings guy’s car. The witness drives off, circles and comes back. This time, the sedan’s door is closed and the slim man is behind the wheel. As soon as he sees the witness’s car, he drives off fast as he can.
‘Asdel plugged away trying to trace the light-coloured sedan, traced down all the 1935s he could, solid spadework stuff. He traces one that belongs to a guy named Tony Giordano. Now Giordano is a waiter and guess where he works? Delmonico’s.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Nope. Asdel interviews the guy but can’t pin anything on him. He’s clean. Solid alibi for the night of the murder. Plus, he’s six foot tall and not particularly slim. But Asdel sees that this guy’s car was recently painted black. Asks him why. Giordano says he just wanted a change. Asdel files the report but no one is particularly interested.’
‘But you’re interested, right?’
‘Oh, you bet. And there’s more. The Frankie Wynn character who confessed gave his place of employment. Want to take a guess where?’
‘Delmonico’s – Charlie mentioned that part too.’
‘Right. So, yeah, there’s reason to think the purse your guy had is the genuine article. And plenty of reason for me to wade back into the Dahlia file and see if there’s anything that’s been missed, anything that can tie this together. If there’s something I think might be of use to you, maybe give you an idea how your guy got hold of the purse, then I’ll come back and let you know. If there’s not, then I’ll stay clear and wish you guys luck. That work for you?’
‘Thanks, Howie. We’ll take whatever you got. The Black Dahlia, man? It’s like the Holy Grail. You should go ahead and order yourself a silver bar because you’ll make lieutenant if you can crack that.’
Kelsey grinned. ‘Thought never crossed my mind.’
‘Of course it didn’t. But seriously, man, anything you turn up here could help. And God knows we need something. And fast.’
*
They’d requested all the available data they could get on Garland. The information turned up shortly after Kelsey left, and they jumped into it. Some of it came in a thick sheaf of printouts, the rest was delivered on screen.
After around twenty minutes of searching, O’Neill waved to Salgado and the urgency of the movement had him on his feet.
‘What you got?’
‘Garland’s bank records, going back five years.’
He pulled up a chair, seeing scrolls of numbers and dates on the screen, immediately drawn in.
‘Interesting?’
‘Very. There’s so much of it and it’s going to take days to go through it all. But I’ve concentrated on one day.’
‘The day that Walker Wright went missing.’
‘Yes. June twenty-first, 2019. These are his transactions from that day.’ The screen changed and highlighted a dozen or so items. ‘A couple of them are monthly debits and don’t mean much, certainly not to that day. But these,’ she tapped the screen with a pen, ‘these are the ones I’m interested in.’
‘Talk numbers to me, O’Neill.’
‘Okay, $49.75. Cost of filling his car at a Shell gas station just north of Barstow on the 15.’
‘Mojave Freeway? He buy anything else?’
‘He bought the gas at 8.24 in the evening. The next time he used his card was at 6.46 the following morning when he ate breakfast at Peggy Sue’s, a retro diner also on the 15. Just four miles from the Shell station.’
‘So, what did he do in between? Drive to Vegas and play the tables?’
‘With a body in the trunk? Without taking out cash or using his credit card? Doesn’t seem very likely. Also, he didn’t buy gas again until two days later in LA. He’d need to have filled up way before then if he’d driven all the way to Vegas. I don’t think he left the area, but he didn’t pay for a hotel or motel unless he paid cash.’
‘Okay, so what are we thinking?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, Salgado. But I’m thinking we need to go to Peggy Sue’s.’
‘What about Marr? That’s a five-hour round trip if we’re lucky. You think we can spare that time when we still don’t know where the kid is?’
‘I’ve spoken to Geisler. He’s at Garland’s computer. He’ll talk to Marr if he comes online. So far, he’s been quiet, but Geisler is going to feed anything to us soon as it happens. I say we’ve nothing to gain by sitting here waiting.’
‘Okay. I guess we’re going on a road trip.’
*
Peggy Sue’s was in the Mojave Desert, a jukebox-shaped mirage in the shadow of the Calico Mountains. Its rainbow livery was a surreal interruption to the myriad shades of desert brown that had accompanied them since before Hesperia.