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I was now technically prepared, but far from feeling reassured, I was just flat scared.
I spent Sunday morning typing up my notes. After lunch I drove over to the office and sorted through the mail that was piled on the floor. The mailman had stuck so many envelopes through the slot that they’d spread out across the carpet like a welcome mat. I sorted through the bills and then had no choice but to sit down and write checks. I listened to my messages, which were surprisingly few; none required my immediate attention. On the way home I went by the post office and dropped my paid bills in the box at the curb. I spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment-good therapy for those of us who cherish solitude. Scrubbing toilet bowls, you’re hardly ever troubled by others eager to pitch in.
Monday morning, I put my typewriter and all my notes in the car and drove into downtown Santa Teresa. I parked in the public lot across from the courthouse, put my handgun in the glove compartment, and locked my car. Everything I hoped to accomplish could be done in a two-block radius and none of it required me to be armed. My first stop was the title company on the corner. I was looking for information about Santa Maria property transactions in 1953. The original deeds are recorded and sent back to the new property owner, but photocopies are kept in the County Recorder’s office, quite possibly forever. The easiest way to get to them is to put in a request at the customer service counter at one of the local title companies. I do most of my business with Santa Teresa Title because their library is extensive and they’ll run a simple search without charge. Currently deeds are indexed according to the property address, but in the ‘50s, transactions were indexed by name. I asked the clerk for anything they could find for me under the names Jake Ottweiler, Chet Cramer, and/or Tom Padgett. She asked me to come back in an hour.
I crossed the street to the Hall of Records in the Santa Teresa County Courthouse. Since 1964 the estates of Santa Maria residents have been administered in the Santa Maria branch of the probate court, but in 1953 wills were filed at the courthouse here. I’d never thought of wills as hostile instruments, but I was in for a surprise. Cora Padgett’s will was straightforward. On her death on March 2, 1959, she’d left everything to Tom, making him a very rich man. The attached Exhibit A indicated that the real property, including a house and four funeral parlors, was valued at close to two million dollars. Her personal assets-cash, stocks, bonds, and jewelry-bumped the number up another three quarters of a mill. I paid the fee for a certified copy of her death certificate, which listed the cause of death as bilateral bronchopneumonia. Nothing iffy about that.
I moved to the wills of Calvin and Violet’s parents. Roscoe Wilcox died May 16, 1951, leaving a will that was signed and dated December 21, 1949. The will had been filed for probate on May 24, 1951, proved, the assets collected and identified, and the claims of the creditors paid. The terms were simple. Violet’s brother, Calvin Wilcox, was appointed executor. There were two specific bequests: the first, the sum of ten thousand dollars, which Roscoe left to his church, and a second, which read “To my daughter, Violet, in appreciation for the love and devotion she evidenced during our lifetime, the generous sum of one dollar, which is twice what she is worth.” All of his tangible personal property and the remainder of his estate he left “to my wife, Julia Faraday Wilcox, if she survives me, and if not, to my son, Calvin Edward Wilcox.”
Julia Wilcox, by the terms of her will, also signed and dated December 21, 1949, left everything to her husband or, in the event that he predeceased her, to her son, Calvin. The remaining provisions of both wills spelled out the attendant clerical details: inventory valuation, the payment of funeral expenses, debts, Federal and California taxes, and any claims made against the estate. Clearly Violet had been denied any expectation of money (save that one surly dollar) by reason of her indifference, lack of compassion, or abundant bad character. Chet Cramer had implied that Calvin stood to profit by her death, but since both wills predated her disappearance, Calvin was already in line to inherit everything and therefore had nothing to gain by killing her. He might have disliked her, but I couldn’t see why he’d risk his life or his freedom to get her out of his hair. Violet was a nuisance, but that was about it.
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While I was at the courthouse, I asked about DBAs, those being a record of applications for fictitious business names, hoping to pick up a tidbit or two about how they’d taken ownership. Unfortunately, an application expires five years from the date it’s filed and those files are purged after ten years; 1953 had long been relegated to the shredder. I tried the tax assessor’s office across the street, again hoping for information related to the Blue Moon, but the clerk told me the basement of the courthouse had flooded and any records prior to 1962 were lost. Some guys have all the luck. Here I was trying to pry into Jake’s business and I was having no success.
I left the courthouse and returned to the title company, where I picked up a manila envelope full of photocopied documents. I went back to my car and sat in the parking lot, leafing through my little pile of treasures. I started with the information related to Tom Padgett. There was an Affidavit-Death of Joint Tenant, in which Cora’s name was removed from the deed to the house. Over the next several years, Tom Padgett had bought numerous properties on money borrowed from a Santa Maria bank, but most had been paid off according to the Full Reconveyances on file.
I gave a cursory look at the grant deeds in the names of Calvin and Rachel Wilcox, all of which seemed unremarkable, and then moved on to Jake Ottweiler. He and BW McPhee had purchased the property on which the Blue Moon was situated on December 12, 1953, for the sum of twenty-two thousand dollars, a figure I calculated from the line of tax stamps pasted along the left margin. I remembered BW mentioning the “couple thousand dollars” he’d thrown into the pot, which meant that Jake had come up with roughly twenty thousand dollars. There had to have been a hefty additional sum to cover the liquor license, expansion, and remodeling they’d done.