The Laughing Gorilla by Robert Graysmith Read Free Book Online Page B

shot in a blind pig 3 over at 110 Eddy Street, he died from a gunshot wound without telling who shot him. Dullea was confident that Leter had talked under anesthetic and named the shooter. “What I hope is that the doc will speak that name aloud at some point,” he told Ignatious McCarty, a surveillance expert, “and if we install a powerful microphone we can pick it up.”
    The night of July 1, McCarty packed his needle-nose pliers, two coils of telephone wire, a drill, and a knife and broke into Housman’s office on an upper story of the Flood Building, where he concealed a small Dictaphone in a seldom-used corner.
    So far, the wire tap had been disappointing. Either Housman didn’t have the information or he wasn’t discussing it. Inspectors Percy Keneally and George “Paddy” Wafer continued to monitor the line, while Dullea attempted to solve the strangling death of Rosetta Baker by a huge-handed killer in her California Street apartment. The wealthy widow had a fondness for younger men.
    July plodded by as the detectives hunkered down in their Monadnock Building hideaway at 385 Market Street, read the racing form, chewed the fat, and waited. Paddy studied the peeling paint and cigarette-littered floor with disgust. What a step down! Five years earlier, he and his partner, Detective Sergeant Louis De Mattei, had ended the murderous spree of the Terror Bandits, California’s first drive-by killers. And wasn’t he the one who had brought in a wounded Larry Weeks as bait and stationed then-Lieutenant Dullea by his hospital bed to capture the killers when they came to rescue their partner? In the sweltering room, Paddy scratched his stubble and adjusted his headset. From his earphones fine copper wires swooped up Market Street to Housman’s office.
    By July 30, the two sweating, smoking harness bulls were sick of the doctor, sick of his cronies, sick of their endless babble crackling over the insubstantial lines. There was no doubt Housman’s office was a hangout for the underworld. Abruptly they heard hollow laughter. “More lowlifes,” thought Wafer, but reached for his pad and adjusted his earpiece, as did Keneally.
    “Sure, Auntie could be killed easily,” said a laughing voice. “You know, she thinks so highly of me she calls me Nephew and Son.” Another laugh—snide, sarcastic, yet familiar—not the doctor’s high-pitched laugh because after all these months the two bulls heard that in their sleep. “If only I had that insurance of Josie Hughes,” the laughing voice continued.
    Wafer and Keneally looked at each other and pressed their earphones more tightly against their ears. They’d heard this voice before directed in derision at them as they testified on the witness stand. Yes! It was Frank Egan, who had represented the late, unlamented Pete Farrington at trial.
    “How much is involved?” asked Housman.
    “Nearly $20,000, a tidy sum,” continued Egan. “It would settle all my debts and leave me a little spare cash.”
    “Oh, well. She’ll probably die someday.”
    “Not soon enough. Hell, she’s only fifty-seven. Wouldn’t it be funny if she got run over? But she never will. She’s too cautious. I guess I’ll have to kill her myself!”
    “And you’d be the first man suspected. The police would find out she has got $20,000 of double indemnity insurance in your favor and they’d clap their hand right on your shoulder. For God’s sake, who else would want to kill her except you?”
    “Do you think I’m a dumbbell? I wouldn’t do it myself and I wouldn’t let it look like murder.”
    “Then what would you make it look like?”
    “A hit-and-run accident.”
    Wafer and Keneally drove to the HOJ to repeat what they had overheard. “Oh, come on, boys,” Dullea said with a wide grin. He leaned back in his swivel chair and put his hands behind his head. “Egan had to be joking. Imagine a man in his position planning such a thing. Whether you like him or not, he’s one of the