After Horace finished giving me the information he had gathered and making sure I would keep my promise about sharing my byline with him, he left to find Ricky and do whatever they do together.
I paid the bill and walked to the back to make a phone call to Detective Sergeant Harry Marshall to see if he had some new information on our headless ladies.
He said he wanted to talk to me and wanted to talk to me now.
It took me about thirty minutes to drive to the precinct. I walked through the bullpen area and looked to see if any reporters were sitting at the desk homicide has set up for their favorite news reporters. There were none.
I entered Harry’s office and he had his head buried in papers that were scattered all over his desk. How he could work like that is beyond me.
Without looking up, he lifted his hand holding his pencil and pointed to the chairs in front of his desk, motioning me to sit down.
Continuing doing whatever it was he was doing, Harry said, “We brought in Bob Chimilewski, Chief Meier’s chief of staff, and Meier’s pansy son, Barry yesterday. We grilled ‘em for a good four hours each. Seems they go to this place in Cudahy near the meat packing plant called the Castaways. I guess it’s a heavy make out place as well as a favorite of the S&M crowd.”
“Never been there, but sounds like fun,” I replied, not revealing the fact that Horace Greenberg already filled me in on the workings of the place.
“Yeah, I figured it would be your kinda place, Max. They both mentioned this really big, I mean really big muscle bound guy who comes in there with this blond bombshell of a woman who has a body that is outta this world. It seems this guy has a reputation for liking to hurt the women and seems to be heavy into the sadistic-masochistic and bondage scene.
Apparently he was beating this one girl pretty badly and it took three bouncers to subdue him and throw him out. The Cudahy police had him as a guest at their Hotel of Sexual Desire until the morning when that blond bombshell came to bail him out.
What really has our interest is that we have witnesses that report seeing a large man lurking near Sally Hammond’s house the night before she was murdered.
There is a good possibility that this is our man.
By the way, does the name Thelma Thieland mean anything to you?”
Harry asked.
“Ray Palermo’s woman,” I replied.
“That’s right Max and apparently she knows you.”
I just stared at Harry and didn’t say a word.
After a minute Harry said, “Aren’t you curious how we know that?”
“Not really,” I answered.
“Well, I’m going to tell you. E.J. had her in the interrogation room for three hours yesterday. We kept looking for one of Palermo’s mouth pieces to show up, but they never did; couldn’t figure that one out. Anyway, she said she knows you and in fact, she thinks you are nice. I don’t know if she thought that would win her brownie points with E.J. or what.”
“Did it?” I asked.
Harry snorted and said; “Hell Max, the only time anyone would score brownie points with E.J. is if they said they shot you.
So, beside her confessing to knowing you, she admitted she liked being tied up while having sex and this Castaway’s place has rooms already set up for an evening of that sort of pleasure.
I came up with an idea and I ran it past the captain yesterday to see what he thought of it and he gave me the okay to go ahead with it.
The hard part was convincing E.J. to go along with it. Finally, I convinced her it might work.”
“I suppose you are going to tell me what that idea is Harry or you wouldn’t have called me in here to share this great coffee and your precious time with me. By the way, who makes this shit? You must get the water straight from the Milwaukee River.”
“If you don’t like it, next time bring your own.”
I ignored his sarcasm and asked, “So what is this great idea you came up with that didn’t sit well with your partner?”
“We are going to put an undercover team into The Castaways to see if we can get close to this Jimmy The Peanut Booth to see what he is all about. There is something about that Peanut that has our interest up. We have a witness who saw a huge guy lurking around Kathryn Reilly’s place the night before she was murdered and this Peanut is huge, if he is anything.”
“Sounds like a pretty good idea. So what does it have to do with me?” I asked as I was beginning to get nervous as to what he had in mind and how it might affect me.
“I thought you were smarter than that, Max. It should be pretty obvious. You already know The Peanut so an introduction from you to an undercover officer would be easy for you to do. Once we have an officer alone with The Peanut we can monitor the action and bust in and get him in the act of a felonious assault.”
Immediately I shook my head no and said, “There is absolutely no way you are going to get me in that dive. Harry, you know what they do in there. I could get hurt.”
“Yes Max, I know what they do in there and you won’t get hurt.
“And this officer I am going to introduce to The Peanut is…?” I asked.
“This should make you happy Max, its EJ.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me, I said. EJ? And she agreed to this?”
“Reluctantly, very reluctantly; it wasn’t the assignment but who was going to be on the assignment with her that she was uncomfortable with. But we, or I, convinced her that due to your friendship with the suspect this was the best and most expeditious way to collar the perp.
Actually, she was concerned about your well being, that you being a civilian and inexperienced in undercover work and all that we would be putting your life in jeopardy; but I convinced her that it just might work to her advantage and she had nothing to lose. I also reminded her that undercover work was your specialty.”
“What do you mean my specialty?” I asked.
“Wasn’t it you who caught that Green Bay Packer cheating on his wife? Anyway, I reminded her if we made a successful collar it would be great for her career and if it went south; well, how can I say this delicately, she wouldn’t have Max around to bother her anymore.”
“Thanks Harry. You are getting more like a politician every day.
Before you know it you will be the next chief of police.
Now please tell me, why would I want to do this again?”
“It should be pretty obvious to you Max. First, it will make you a famous private investigator after it is known that you helped the Milwaukee Police Department capture Wisconsin’s most notorious murderer. Second, you will have the exclusive story which, when sold, will make you a wealthy man who will then be able to buy me many steaks and manhattans at Rocco’s Pub; and, last, but not least, you will get to be alone with in a dark bar and have a few free drinks with EJ and, if you are careful, you could even sneak a few peeks at her cleavage, but don’t tell her I told you that.”
“You’re a coward, aren’t you Harry?”
“Yep, I am. Now, can you be ready to pull this off by next Thursday?
We want you and EJ to arrive at The Castaways around 4:00 p.m. at the start of their Happy Hour. We will have the place staked out starting around noon. We will have a team in the alley as well as one across the street in a parking lot. Then around 5:00 p.m. another team will enter the bar. That will be me and Detective Chet George.
We will be sitting at the bar; you in?”
“You really think I will see some cleavage?” I asked.
“Max, damn it, this is serious. Are you in or not?”
“Yeah, Harry, I’ll do it for you and for the opportunity to buy you more drinks and steaks at Rocco’s with the fortune I will make from writing a book; but I gotta tell you, it’s the cleavage that sealed the deal.”
“Good bye Max. I got work to do.”
I rose from the chair and walked back into the bull pen area of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Homicide Division, glancing around to see if Detective Williams was working so I could congratulate her on her upcoming assignment where she would be working closely with me in an effort to apprehend a serial killer who is creating mayhem on the streets of Milwaukee. She wasn’t in.