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Robin handed me the paper. It was a typed confession signed by Paolo DeSimone, given to Detective Navarre. Paolo said he was drunk and mad because Big Sam McNamara wouldn’t sell him liquor. Later that night he came back with a can of gasoline and set fire to trash at the back of the building. I could imagine Frenchy beating the confession out of him. But that would be letting my prejudices get the better of me.
“The arson investigator’s report.” Robin held up two pages. “It says a firebomb was thrown through the front window of the store. That jibes with the newspaper accounts.”
I looked it over and handed it back to her. The transcript was incomplete but raised questions, too. There was no public defender then. It appeared that DeSimone received legal counsel from a local lawyer either paid by the county or doing pro-bono work. He introduced several motions that were denied by the judge. One was to throw out the confession as coerced.
“You’re onto something, History Shamus.”
“Here’s Navarre on the stand. He’s asked why he arrested Paolo. Says he was given a tip by another man who had been in the drunk tank where Paolo spent the night on September 29th. Name of Eugene Costa. He told Frenchy that Paolo told him he burned down McNamara’s.”
I flipped through, trying to find if Costa had testified and what he had told Paolo’s lawyer on cross-examination. The pages were missing.
“The joys of historic research: more questions than answers. All the cops and lawyers are long dead. I can try some of my retired police buddies, but they were too young. I don’t see the hand of Harley Talbott in any of this. If he owned the judge and jury, we can’t prove it.”
“Don’t give up.” Robin went back to her half of the record.
***
We kept at it for three days. The police records betrayed a slipshod investigation. McNamara himself said he believed Talbott had ordered his store burned because he wouldn’t pay the extra “taxes” demanded for Talbott’s liquor. The cops never interviewed Talbott. The tip from Eugene Costa and the “confession” by Paolo kept them on a single, simple theory: one drunk Italian burned down the liquor store.
At the Arizona Room of the central library, we went through old city directories and phone books. Eugene Costa was listed from 1939 through 1948 and then he disappeared. Phoenix was a city of transients. I called around to the law firms to see if they had any information on the man who had defended Paolo—it was a long shot and came back empty. The fire department’s arson records from 1940 were long gone. I couldn’t find any manuscripts or diaries about Harley Talbott during this period. He had probably donated a fair amount to the library.
“So give me something else to do.” Robin gathered up the legal pad on which she had been making notes. The Arizona Room hours had been cut back again and we were being told it was time to leave.
I admired her passion and persistence, saw something of myself in her. So I let her go down to the county offices to research land transactions from the period involving any of the principals we were tracking: Paolo, Talbott, Costa, Frenchy, the judges and lawyers involved. I would go home to Cypress where I would start to write a very incomplete report for Judson Lee. I would feel bad about taking his money. She kissed me goodbye beneath the shade screens of the light-rail station. She took the train south and I waited for the one heading north. I realized it would be the first time she was out of my sight since that last week in December.
21
We worked together on the computer to finish the final report. We couldn’t exonerate Paolo DeSimone. We could give a history of the case, from the initial firebombing to Paolo receiving a ten-year sentence and then being paroled after five years. The report also had background on Paolo working for Talbott as a driver and the power that the big man wielded in the city, as well as some of the allegations that dogged him past the grave. Most critically, we listed the investigative errors and inconsistencies, including Paolo wanting to take back his confession—given under duress to one of the most famously nasty cops in Phoenix history. Robin had added an appendix that painstakingly listed properties that Talbott owned in 1940, and some land bought by the otherwise mysterious Eugene Costa a few years later.
Judson Lee read quickly through the report, lingering on a few pages, and pronounced himself pleased. I told him not to b
other with the money—I didn’t believe we had earned it. In my old job, I had actually cleared cases. Peralta wouldn’t have been satisfied with this. I handed the unsigned check back and said this was on the house.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Dr. Mapstone,” he said. “You know this city.”
I thought about our recent travels into gangland. “I’m not sure anyone knows this city.”
He scrawled his signature on the check with his small, sun-browned hand and passed it back. “Utter, ultimate, truth may be beyond the finest historian. This should be more than enough for my client to make a start to clear his grandfather’s name.”
I took the check. He shook my hand. Did his old-world kiss of Robin’s hand and she laughed. I continued to apologize as he left, wishing we had found more, giving Robin credit for the good stuff. He waved it off, moving with surprising spryness.
“Anyway.” He turned to face us on the front step. “Napoleon said, history was nothing but a fable agreed upon.” Then he drove away in a new cream-colored Cadillac.
“It’s five grand and nothing to sneeze at.” Robin was reading the look on my face. “Let’s go out and celebrate tonight.” The smile took over her face. “I’ll wear a skirt even.”
I relented and felt my shoulders relax.
“You get to choose the place.”
“Good. First, give me the keys to the Prelude.”
I handed them over and asked her where she was going. It was an innocent enough question.
“Girl stuff.” She walked out of the study laughing that wonderful, house-filling laugh.
***
A little after midnight Robin wanted to go outside and see the stars. We pulled on clothes and walked into the backyard, where the oleanders and citrus trees provided dark, sheltering masses around us. We sat in the old chairs by the chiminea that Grandfather had built so long ago. She lolled her head, sending her hair cascading down the chair back.
