AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER43
Gabe brought the key down to Lettie, wiping sweat and dust from his brow as he did. He felt as if he needed another shower.
“Did you know about this safe-deposit box?”
Lettie nodded. “I have power of attorney for my dad, and I know we make a monthly payment for a box, but I’ve never seen what’s in it or any key.”
“There’s a small note with it.” Gabe read her the note written on yellow, aged paper. “‘This box, #1728, is located at LaRosa Savings and Loan. If I have died, and the circumstances are suspicious, open at once and turn over the contents to the LA County Sheriff, not LaRosa PD.’” The note was dated twenty-seven years ago.
Lettie’s eyes went wide. “What do you think it means?”
“Can we try to ask your father?”
“I doubt he’ll be any help. The antianxiety medication has only made his dementia worse.”
“I want to see what’s in here,” Gabe said. “Will you open the box for me?”
Lettie rubbed her hands together, indecision on her face. Gabe was about to reassure her when she said, “Of course. I trust you, and you work for the prosecutor now, right?”
Relieved, Gabe nodded.
“I’ll have to see if my sister can sit with him, though.”
Gabe checked his watch. “I have to get to work. Maybe we can arrange something around lunchtime?”
“Yes, I’ll plan on meeting you at the bank at noon.”
“Do you want me to hang on to the key?”
“Sure. I don’t know what I’d do with it. I don’t like the sound of the note. I’m not like my sister. She likes mystery, intrigue, danger—I don’t.”
Gabe nodded. “I’ll see you at the bank at noon.”
+++
Gabe returned home to change before heading to work. Gerald Curtis was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading something on a laptop.
“Ah, Investigator Fox, I was wondering if I’d see you again. Do you ever read the LaRosa Post?”
“From time to time. But Marris is out of business now, isn’t he?”
“He’s still publishing online. A rough transition for an old-timer like me who enjoys the printed page. He has an interesting editorial today; you should take a look.” He turned the laptop toward Gabe.
“I’d like to, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“It’s not a long article. I’ve arranged for a hotel room. I’m waiting on an Uber. Probably by the time you finish the read, my ride will be here. I appreciate your kindness, and I’m sorry I mistrusted you.”
“I’m glad I could help you. Sorry you lost your home.”
Gabe checked the clock. He was going to be late no matter what. He sat down to read the article.
It was an editorial about Ira HoffmanSr. titled “Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence.” Intriguing.
The Barton Plaza Apartment complex very nearly burned to the ground yesterday. According to a police press release, a vicious thug threw a suspected Molotov cocktail into an apartment with no regard for the innocent souls residing at the complex. Despite his callous disregard, and thanks to the police, no lives were lost. The historic building was the victim of the violence and mayhem that has been allowed to go on in LaRosa virtually unchecked for nearly a month.
There’s been something rotten in LaRosa for years and it is not the police department. Oh, it might have started at the PD, but it has moved on. Even as the PD righted its course, pulled itself together, and became respectable, the other rot grew out of control. Scratch Ira HoffmanSr. and you scratch the rot and raise a stench. He spreads poison in the Tribune, slandering the good men and women of our police department, advocating for lawlessness. And he advocates with such a passion, it’s not hard to make the leap he has something to do with the lawlessness in this city. Historic Barton Plaza, which has been standing almost one hundred years, has already survived just about every natural disaster thrown at it. But it couldn’t survive Ira HoffmanSr. Why does he hate the police so much? My guess is because he wishes to hide and deflect from his own criminality.
LaRosa’s future will never be secure as long as its rotten past is never dealt with, and Ira HoffmanSr. is our rotten past. Maybe to get to the bottom of the Thomas Johnston murder and the frightening, destructive riots that have nothing to do with the LApolice shooting, the police need to shake the treesIra HoffmanSr. hides behind and see what fallsout.
