Follow the Money

Follow the Money

In any instances of corruption and murder of a prominent family, they say to “follow the money.” I was just a green gumshoe in 1964 when the Morales family was discovered by the housekeeper that Monday morning before Christmas. The whole town was sinking under the heavy rain. The drainpipes can’t keep the water from coming in my back door. My family says every time there’s trouble at home I run off to work. Not planned, but that’s the nature of murder!

The Morales family was four generations of medical practitioners. Great Grandfather Morales built the original hospital in the roaring ’20s. The sons down to the youngest have been doctors and the daughters all nurses. When the market crashed in 1929, two businesses were booming… hospitals and undertakers! The hospital dispensed the prescriptions when the pharmacy folded under the weight of the crumbling corrupt government.

The rich people just watched as the world fell apart from its lack. Lack of an influx of new money. The old money stayed tucked deep within mattresses. Most people were at the lowest levels of everything. Lower class, lowest earnings, lower educational training and looked down upon by the upper class.

There was even a rumor that the alcohol listed as the antiseptic wasn’t just for rubbing; it was the hooch that couldn’t be found on the streets anymore. It was scarce to the general public and you needed a password to access the ward where it was dispensed, after the crackdown. How ingenious, a way to get around the law and do it right under the cop’s noses. People who have never been sick a day in their lives, now have a few uncurable ailments. In the middle of a depression, people still had their priorities.

I had just built my house before the floods started on the 18^th. I was a detective for only two years, still green enough to do things by the book; dotting all the “I’s” and crossing every “T”. Unlike my training supervisor who only looked straight ahead. Looking forward to retirement. A part of his training arsenal was the “exceptions to the rules speech” and according to his best advice:” keep your mouth shut and only one eye opened.” I guess I didn’t learn that lesson or the one about kickbacks, either. They foreclosed on our house in 1970, and my wife left me two months after. No matter how much overtime I put in, I still felt like I was sinking in quicksand.

Enough about my troubles…like I said money is at the root of all. It’s now 1993, the murders of the Morales family have been cold for twenty-nine years and I’ve been summoned to the bedside of Danny “the snake” Patruli. I was told by Father Flanagan that the Snake confessed to him about 4 people he killed back in ’64, three were family members, and one fool that wouldn’t shut up. Father Flanagan wasn’t sure if it was the morphine talking or if it was for real. Because Snake didn’t want to take it to the grave, he urged him to talk to me. After three grueling hours of trying to piece together the conversations between naps, I truly believed he was the enforcer for the Banyan family, the Morales’s competition in the hospital business in the mid-’60s. When medical specializing started cutting into the bottom line of general medicine. The board of Trustees at Community Hospital North was controlled by the last of the Morales and ran by the old mentality. Dr. Banyan wanted to extend their fellowship to a plastic surgeon that did “boobs”. The Morales family were old-world Catholics and didn’t believe in enhancing just for fun. They didn’t even want to recreate it after removing a tumor. I know this because my wife went under the knife three times at that hospital. Remember earlier I said everything’s about that almighty dollar, well what Patruli said next could bring down several “higher ups”.

Being new may be, I know sometimes the evidence points you towards a ‘red heron’ but usually, it quickly works its way out. I couldn’t figure out why the evidence kept circling back to someone that I had cleared. Patruli told me that Sgt. Taylor my training supervisor made lots of evidence disappear over the years. He went on to say that Taylor, the talking fool, and he got paid $10k each for the Morales job, all they needed to do was keep quiet. The talking fool started flapping and spending like there was no tomorrow. So, there was nothing about to come between Sgt. Taylor and his retirement and his money. He framed the talking fool for the killings and said we shouldn’t spend the money because it was from a bank heist two days before the murders. He then said the talking fool was the perfect patsy for it all. Patruli realizing he was marked for death decided to go straight and get out of town.

Now in the hospital where this story started 29 years ago, dying from lung cancer, Patruli feels the need for absolution. The restless soul, deliriously confessed to his daughter who now is a newly elected senator from our great state of California. Having campaigned on a platform of transparency; she urged her father to be forthright. Patruli continued by revealing that to protect his family he placed his share of the hush money, the murder weapon, and a confession letter in a safe deposit box in February of 65. After killing the talking fool and 1 more sanctioned kill, Sgt. Taylor. YES… until now everyone thought that brake failure on the way to a crime scene had been his demise. Looking back now it makes sense, how does a 45-year-old detective in first grade pay off a brand-new house in the middle of a depression?

The daughter got to save face and set up a press conference later that day, she waited until her father died to announce that the murderer of the Morales family from ’64, had confessed on his death bed. She swore during her campaign, to solve the two murders that none elected to the D.A.’s office in twenty-nine years hasn't been able to. How long has she known? Today or years? Hmmm!