Norfolk Confidential

During Prohibition, my father was the biggest bootlegger in Ocean View. As a boy, I helped him make his deliveries and made friends with the brothel owners. Dad purchased moonshine from Carolina to whet the whistle of thirsty sailors. For the well-heeled with more refined tastes, he made a rendezvous off the Virginia Capes with a Canadian freighter on its run to Cuba and obtained cases of Canadian whiskey and Cuban rum. My father’s success proved his undoing. Rocco Diangelo, a rival bootlegger, had my father shot dead in 1932. Diangelo controlled liquor distribution in Norfolk for the remainder of Prohibition and still made big money from illicit sales due to the strict state liquor laws. Some might find it odd that a bootlegger’s son would become a policeman. With Prohibition a fading memory, following in my father’s profession wasn’t an option. My father had always been friendly with the police, paying them handsomely in order to operate unhindered. When I applied to join the force, the boys remembered me and moved my application to the top of the stack. Becoming a policeman would enable me to one day settle the score with my father’s killer. *** Just before seven I pulled into the alley behind the Monticello Hotel. Jake Underwood blocked early morning rubberneckers from gaining access. Another patrolman sealed off the other end. “Morning, Johnny. “Congratulations on your promotion to lieutenant,” greeted Jake. “Thanks.” Captain Horton stood waiting near a row of tall trash cans in the center of the alley. A white sheet covered the corpse. “What took you so long?” asked Captain Horton. “I was waylaid.” “You’d better watch the oil in your crankcase.” I laughed. Captain Horton had known me since I joined the force. In his mid-forties with a wife and three children, he viewed with amusement my liaisons while I served on the vice squad. His head was beginning to go bald, and his once trim physique was showing signs of middle age. “Who found the body?” “A colored dishwasher discovered him behind the trash cans when he came out to empty the trash. He thought the victim was a drunk sleeping it off.” The stiff was next to the wall of the hotel. Surveying the alley, the cans would’ve screened the body from anyone passing by. A light over the kitchen door provided the alley’s only illumination. “Who moved the trash cans?” “I did sir,” responded Jake. I picked up the sheet. The victim wore a gray summer suit. Rigor mortis had already started indicating he’d been dead for several hours. Stabbed in the right side of his back, his blood had oozed down his coat and mixed with watery grime of the alley. He was in his mid-thirties, tall with curly brown hair and brown eyes. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles lay broken on the ground next to him. If you passed him on the street, he wouldn’t garner a second look. “It looks like a robbery to me.” “His wallet was on the ground next to the body when I got here. The rainstorm last night ruined any chance of getting fingerprints off the wallet.” “Had the wallet been emptied?” “Not so much as a sawbuck to be found You know the colored boys will kill you if you have as much as a plug nickel in your pocket.” I squatted down and looked at the victim’s right wrist. “Where’s his watch? From the mark around his wrist, he wore one.” “The killer probably took it.” “There’s something odd about the way he was stabbed,” I replied as I looked at the blood-soaked suit jacket. “What do you mean?” “The colored boys will flash a shiv and demand your wallet. Most pigeons just turn it over. No one has ever been stabbed in the back during a stickup.” “Two years ago, I knew every criminal in this burg and how they operated. All the war jobs are bringing newcomers from Carolina, West Virginia and God knows where else. Every grifter within five hundred miles has followed in their wake.” “Any ID in the wallet?” “His name is Karl Rothenberg according to his library card.” “At least he’s a local and not a guest in the hotel. That should make things easier.” “Yeah, it would be bad publicity to have a visitor murdered while passing through our fair city,” said Captain Horton. “Did he have a driver’s license?” “I didn’t find one in his wallet or any car keys.” “What about an address?” “None. I checked the phone book in the lobby. Our victim is not listed. However, Dr. Aaron Rothenberg lives on Fairfax Avenue. The doc has an office in the Medical Arts Building.” “Is the victim related to the good doctor?” “If the doc is his relative, we don’t want him getting the news over the phone.” “Find anything else in his pockets?” Captain Horton fished in his shirt pocket and handed me a ticket stub from Loew’s Theater. Desperate for a smoke, I asked, “Did the stiff have any cigarettes?” Captain Horton grinned and tossed me a pack of Camels “I already grabbed them.” I pulled one out and tossed the pack back. After lighting it, I took a puff and looked the ticket over. “He could’ve seen a movie last night.” “We’re at a dead end. If he was at Loew’s last night, we can establish a timeline for his whereabouts.” “The library should have his address and more. When I got my library card, I had to provide the names and addresses of three references that could vouch for my character.” Captain Horton laughed. “It must’ve been difficult to find three people to do that.” “The library doesn’t open until nine. I’m going to have breakfast and ask some questions around the hotel. After the library, I’ll visit Dr. Rothenberg.” “Any thoughts on a motive?” asked Captain Horton. “Our victim came downtown looking for trouble and found it.”