Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

“We’ve got it fixed up with a pal of ours in Frisco. He owns a small hotel. You say you were with us all day at the hotel until midnight. Stick to that story and we can beat the rap.”

“Okay. I’ll stick to it. You can bet on it.”

“Good girl. We’ll give you five bills for your trouble and pay all your expenses. Here’s half of it now.” He handed her two hundred and fifty dollars.

It was a big mistake for her. The cops in Frisco were a lot smarter than she gave them credit for being. They checked her out thoroughly, juvenile record, home record, marriages, and the fact that she was in Chicago on the day she testified that she was in Frisco. The district attorney ripped her to the bone when he took over the cross-examination. She was charged with perjury, sentenced to eight months in jail and placed on five years’ probation.

Probation was a millstone around her neck. She had to have a legitimate job, stay in town, and report to her probation officer every week. She had divorced Aloyce Pueschel, so was free to marry again. She felt that if she married a man who traveled she would be able to leave town on the excuse that she wanted to travel with her husband in order to be near him.

The man she chose was a traveling salesman named Charles Newman. Shortly after their marriage she divorced him and was free to do her thing, go where she wanted. And now she met John Brick, a big, good-looking guy, smooth as silk who carried a lot of money although he worked as a chauffeur for the very rich Dr. Malcolm Hoffman.

Brick put her up in a cozy apartment and they lived in style. It was too good to be true, as most things so far in her life turned out to be. Some time later, Dr. Hoffman was arrested and charged with performing illegal operations. John Brick was arrested with him and charged as an accomplice in procuring clients for Hoffman’s abortions.

Barbara knew that she wouldn’t have a chance in court if she were picked up in Brick’s apartment, not with her record and that five years hanging over her head for violation of probation.

She lammed. Her whole life style was leading her to the inevitable and final experience that would deliver her to the state’s executioner.

Instead of leaving the state, as she should have, she chose to go to Los Angeles instead. It is often this one choice, the single decision, the step taken without calculation that leads one to total disaster or to fame and fortune. The latter was not in the cards for Barbara Graham. Sheer circumstance formed the events that brought her into contact with Emmett Perkins and Jack Santo. First, however, she met the last of her four husbands, Hank Graham, a gentle little guy with a quick smile and an engaging grin which bespoke a sense of humor. It was the most unforgettable milestone along the path that led her to a cell in death row in San Quentin Prison.

It was now the summer of 1950. Barbara was in a restaurant on Broadway, a spot where a lot of sharpies hung out — horse players, small-time bookies, short-con artists looking to make a fast buck. Someone introduced her to Hank Graham. There was nothing about Hank Graham that should have evoked a spark of romance in Barbara unless it was that infectious grin. For the first time in her life she found someone she could truly love.

She said later, “Here at last, I figured, was my chance to go really legitimate and settle down to a sane life. For a time there was nothing or no one that interested me except Hank. We were in a hurry to get married. When we did I was happier than I had ever been in my life, and I thought back to my days at St. Mary’s orphanage when I was five years old. It was wonderful. I thought of trying to get Billy and Darryl, my two little boys, back from Seattle where they were living with Min Kielhammer, their father’s mother.

“I learned quickly that this would be impossible because my beloved mother had informed Mrs. Kielhammer that I had served a year in the penitentiary on a perjury rap. She couldn’t even tell the truth about me on that. Actually it was only eight months, and in a jail, not a penitentiary.

“Things went along well for Hank and me and then I made a terrible discovery. Hank, my little guy with that lovable grin, was a junkie!

“The junk, the Big H, heroin, began to interfere with Hank’s work. He never had enough money left from his pay to take care of the rent, food bills, or other household expenses. We had some violent arguments. I’d get all puffed up and walk out on him. And where would I go? To the spots where the sharp guys hung out, the boys from the so-called underworld.”

One night, after an argument with Hank, Barbara walked out and went to the restaurant where she first met him. She was introduced by a bookie friend to a dapper, sporty little guy with sunken features. He was Emmett Perkins.

Perkins and his partner, Jack Santo, had been involved in at least a half-dozen murders, including the Chester, California massacre of Gard Young and three small children.