Defending the Truth by Richard Parrish

Author:Richard Parrish
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Late in the afternoon, Roy Collins called. “Congratulations on the preliminary hearing. You did a great job.”

“Thanks. But I don’t think your boss Mr. Essert would agree.”

“Fuck him.”

Joshua chuckled. “Now all we have to do is find the real killer.”

“Well, I got some more on that. I found where the Hauser woman and her friend went after they left the hotel.”

“Where?”

“Palomino Bar, downtown on the corner of South Sixth Avenue and Pennington.”

“I know the place. Barbara and I have been there a couple of times. But it’s real dark inside.”

“Yeah, but the bartender is positive on the ID. He said the woman had been in there ten or twelve times over the last few months, but she’d always been alone and never got picked up. This was the first time she ever showed up with someone.”

“Gray-haired, skinny, fifty to fifty-five, wearing a snazzy gray silk suit?”

“That’s the guy.”

“Bingo!”

“There’s more. About nine o’clock or so, an Indian came in and sat down with them.”

“In the Palomino? I thought they didn’t let Indians in.”

“They don’t ordinarily. But this guy was average height, stocky, short hair neatly combed instead of the usual shoulder-length shag, white dress shirt and brown slacks and tan wing tips, and he joined the two white people. So the bartender left him alone.”

“Sounds like Julio Moraga.”

“Sure sounds like him to me.”

“The bartender see or hear anything.”

“No. He said they sat at a corner table talking quiet, businesslike for a half hour, forty-five minutes.”

“Was anyone around them, nearby? A waitress?”

“No, there weren’t any customers near them, and it was a real slow night anyway, so the waitress was off. Then they left together.”

“Did he know any of the other customers’ names?”

“Yeah, two. I got the names, I’ll check them out tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Why would Julio Moraga be meeting in a bar with the woman who got him onto the subversives list in the first place?”

“I guess when we find the gray-haired guy, we’ll ask him.”

Joshua thought for a moment. “I bet the guy was planning to murder both of them from the start, make it look like Julio killed her. He set it up by having her call him to talk about something important, maybe rolling over on Livinsky in return for leniency or immunity.”

“That’s possible. But if so, he would have to be someone in a position to make Julio think that he actually had that power.”

“Right. Maybe someone working for the government. Someone important. Had the bartender ever seen him before?”

“No.”

“Damn,” Joshua murmured. “He’s our boy. No doubt about it. We have to find him.”

“I’ll try to contact these two other customers first thing in the morning. Maybe it’ll lead somewhere.”

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