The Pastor’s Daughter: Episode XXIX

As I was driving back to my apartment, I suddenly realized that I still didn’t know the name of Revkin’s client who had hired him to watch Brittany. I told myself that this is something I need to know.

I wondered if I should go back to Revkin’s apartment and get councilman McCutchen Smith to squeeze the information out of him, but decided against it. There’s no sense in giving councilman McCutchen any more information than is necessary.

The good thing is that I was near the offices of the  Pinkerton’s Investigation Agency. I wondered if I should risk trying to get the information for myself from their office. This, of course, would mean breaking into their office. I was convinced that it should be fairly safe to do it at this hour of three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. I decided to take a chance and do it.

I parked my car down a side street. I opened the trunk and took out a tyre lever and screw driver, making sure to conceal them in the pocket of my rain coat. I then walked quickly to the block of offices where the Pinkerton’s Investigation Agency was housed.

I immediately noticed that the front entrance was shut and locked. I expected to see that, naturally. So, I went around to the back of the building, my plan being to enter through the janitor’s entrance, assuming that it was open. I was right: I found that the janitor’s entrance door was open. I  walked into a lobby full of trash containers filled with soda cans and empty milk bottles. I paused to listen, but I didn’t hear anything. I made my way quietly up the stairs to the first floor.

I found the Pinkerton’s Investigation Agency at the far end of a hallway. The agency’s section of the house consisted of just six rooms. I was glad that no light showed through the frosted panels of the doors. To make sure there was no one in the office, I went from door to door, knocking on each and waiting. No one answered my knock.

I decided to proceed with my plan immediately. With my heart beating very heavily, I took out my tyre lever and inserted it in between one of the doors and the door post. I counted one, two, three, and then put a little pressure on it. The lock broke without any alarming noise, and I pushed the door open. Entering the empty office, I closed the door and looked around.

I noticed that the office belonged to one of the agency’s executives. So, I went into the second office by walking the communicating door. It wasn’t until I reached the fourth office that I found a row of  filing cabinets along the wall, which was what I was actually looking for.  I selected the file marked ‘M’, and managed to force the lock and get it open with the aid of my screw driver and tyre lever.

I spent about ten minutes going through the mass of folders in the file, but I did not find one with Brittany’s name on it.  I stood back, confused. I knew it would be an impossible task for me to go through all the files in the drawers because there were many of them. It then occurred to me that there was a chance that Revkin had kept Brittany’s file away from the rest. I decided to go into the fifth office.

On entering the office, I found that it contained three desks and that one of them was Revkin’s. I knew this because I saw the notes on the ‘in-tray’ addressed to  him.

While sitting at the desk, I went through the drawers. One of them, the third one down on the right, was locked. Since I have my tyre lever with me, I was able to force it open and I was glad to do so because the only thing in it was the file I was looking for.

Taking this file from the drawer, I laid it on the desk and opened it. I examined it for a few minutes, then shoved back the chair, reached for my Marlboro cigarette and lit one stick. I knew now who had instructed Revkin to watch Brittany, and I was completely blown away by this discovery.

Revkin’s file began:

Acting on the instruction of my client Mrs. Susan Waters, I have today arranged with Luis and Nicholas to keep a twenty-four hour watch on Ms. Brittany Waters…

Susan Waters!

So she was behind all this time! I flicked through the pages of the report until I came to the one headed with the name “Harry Robertson”, which is my name. There were ten pages given up to my association with Brittany. At the top of the page was the following:

Copy of report sent to Mrs. Susan Waters, Waldorf Hilton Hotel, London, on 24^th of August.

The report contain all the details of Brittany’s plan to rent a vacation house in Atlantic City, of her suggestion to me that we should go there as Mr. and Mrs. Graham Reed, that she should arrive at Atlantic City on the 28^th and I would join her on the 29^th.

I sat back, and started sweating profusely. It was obvious that at some  time Revkin had planted some type of buy or listening device in Reverend Waters’ house at Victory Villa, which was where Brittany was staying at the time. This is the only was he could have learned all these details.  It was obvious too that Susan Waters had known I had gone to Atlantic City to be Brittany’s lover when I first met her at the Atlantic City International  Airport. Then why hadn’t she told her husband, Reverend Waters?

While thinking about this, I folded the file and put it away in my pocket. I told myself it is time to leave the office. I don’t want to take the chance of being seen by the janitor who might want to take a walk around the office.

I put my tyre lever and screw driver in my pocket, then after peering cautiously down the long hallway I made my way quickly down the stairs and out into the street.

I drove back to my apartment. As soon as I entered my sitting room, I took off my raincoat, sat down and again went through the file. I discovered that it was by far more detailed and complete than Revkin had led me to believe. I mean, not only were the telephone conversations recorded, but also my conversations with Brittany while I had been with her. There were conversations between her and other men also recorded that revealed shocking information about Brittany’s way of life. In fact, the file was bulging with evidence that proved beyond reasonable doubt the kind of rotten lifestyle Brittany had lived. Every one of these reports had been sent to Susan Waters, either to Trenton or to London.

Why hadn’t she used this information? Why hadn’t she given me away to Reverend Waters? Why hadn’t she warned him of the life Brittany was living? I was  completely confused, and had no answer to these questions. My head started hurting, so I locked the file away in my desk.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was now after five o’clock. I put a call through to Tim Jenkins.

“Is that you, Harry?” Tim asked when he came on the line. “Jesus! Who’s paying for this call?”

“Never mind who’s paying, Tim. What have you got for me? Have you managed to dig up anything on McCutchen Smith yet?”

“You won’t believe this, Harry,” he began. “McCutchen Smith, who’s supposed to be a ‘Mr. Integrity” as a city councilman, has a dark side that nobody knows about.”

“I know that already, Tim,” I said. “What else do you know about him?”

“Well, I guess you also know he’s now in your territory, as a councilman in Baltimore City. Now, listen to this: McCutchen Smith left with Vito Roselli when they ran Vito out of this city.”

“O yeah?” I said.

“That’s right. McCutchen Smith is  Vito Roselli’s son – he got him from one of his mistress, who’s an African-American. Nobody knows where she is at the moment. Anyway, I discovered that he is not only his son, but he is also his gunman and lieutenant.”

Vito Roselli’s gunman! This is a dynamite. I already knew that he is Vito Roselli’s son. But, his gunman and lieutenant? That part was news to me. At last, some of the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle were falling into place.

Tim began speaking again, “Look Harry, but for you, I would have gone public with this information. I could win a Pulitzer price if I publish…”

“Oh no, Tim,” I cut him off. “Don’t go to the press or to the police yet. There’s an ongoing investigation on this now. As you know, Reverend Waters suspects that his daughter was murdered, and I think McCutchen Smith is somehow connected to it. So I’m investigating this on the orders of Reverend Waters. Also Lieutenant Jim Ludlum of Middle River Homicide Department and the guys at Atlantic City Police are investigating this too. They don’t know about McCutchen Smith’s connection to the case yet. That’s why I don’t want you or me to go to the press or to go public with this until I gather all the pieces. So, hold your horses, you hear?”

“Sure, you got it,” he said. “Have you run into him in Middle River?”

“Yes,” I said. “And I also found out that he’s hooked up in heroin-smuggling racket. I wanted to get a check on him.”

“His father, Vito Roselli, ran heroin business here before he’s kicked out. He’s in Baltimore area too, isn’t he?”

“So I hear,” I replied. “Look Tim, I can prove that councilman McCutchen Smith rode a train from Baltimore to Trenton two days before Aquiles Gomez was knocked off, and he returned to Baltimore the day after.”

“Phew!,” he exclaimed. “That’s something, Harry. I’ll pass the information to Captain Purser. He may be able to use it. That may be the link he’s been looking for. He was so sure either Vito or McCutchen knocked off Aquiles Gomez, but both of them had cast-iron alibis at the time Aquiles Gomez died. They had a flock of witnesses that put them in a gambling joint in Atlantic City.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “But I’m surprised he didn’t alert Baltimore Police of Baltimore City Government about McCutchen Smith’s background when he was campaigning to be a city councilman. Don’t we do background checks any more in this country?”

“Don’t be naïve, Harry,” he said. “Everything about McCutchen Smith’s background was hushed because Reverend Waters endorsed him. His endorsement basically washed away McCutchen Smith’s sins.  I can’t blame the Reverend though. He was just trying to give a young fellow black man a second chance.”

“Well,” I said. “Before  you talk to Captain Purser, be sure to convince him not to go public with the information yet. If you can’t get him to do that, then don’t talk to him. And, thanks for the information you gave me, even though I knew some of them already.”

“The pleasure is mine, Harry,” he said.

I hung up and began to pace the room while I turned over this new information. It looked as if my theory that McCutchen Smith had killed Aquiles Gomez and that Brittany had tried to blackmail him was right. But the evidence I have so far on this will not convince a jury. However, even though it was all theory, I was convinced that I was moving in the right direction.

I was tempted to go to Lieutenant Ludlum and tell him the whole story. There was a chance that he might get at the truth with this theory as a lead, given his organization. But, I resisted the temptation, and was glad that I did. The moment councilman McCutchen Smith  learned that I had been to Lieutenant Ludlum, he would produce his mass of evidence against me and that would fry me for good. So I concluded it wasn’t the time yet to tell Lieutenant Ludlum the truth. I had to have some real concrete evidence first before going to him.

I spent the rest of the evening going through Revkin’s report again and brainstorming for angles. My hope now, I decided, was to concentrate on councilman McCutchen Smith. When I got to Atlantic City, I would go out to the vacation house built in the hill face, which, I am now convinced, belonged to either Grace Roselli or her dad Vito Roselli, and see if I could turn up anything there.

END OF EPISODE XXIX

P.S. Episode Thirty  will be published here next Monday.