Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon (23 page)

"This is the damndest thing I ever remember,"
said Hackett. Somebody in the lab went out and took his prints and he
wasn't in their records, so they wired them to the Feds and NCIC.
Just before six o'clock they got a teletype back from NCIC. The
prints belonged to Richard Conroy who was an escapee from a state
mental asylum in New Jersey. He had been committed, further
information added later, for twenty-five years and was known to be
homicidal. Prior to the commitment, he had raped eleven women and
murdered five. He had escaped five months ago and New Jersey was
looking for him hard. There was evidence that since he had got out,
he had raped three more women and was thought to be responsible for
the murder of a prostitute in Newark. One of the rape victims had had
nearly ninety thousand dollars in cash hidden in the house and he had
walked away with it.

Palliser said, "Good God. The things we see."

Hackett fired off a teletype to the New Jersey State
Police. On Saturday morning, a Captain Runyon called him.

"Thank God you picked up that nut. We've had
visions of him leaving a trail of bodies all over the state. I wonder
how in hell he ended up in California, he's never been out of the
East as far as we know. But of course he had all that cash. I swear
to God, I sometimes wonder who is sane and who isn't. The idea of
keeping that much cash loose in a box on a closet shelf—my God in
heaven."

Hackett said, "People will do it. Well, he's
tucked away safe. I suppose you want him back?"

Runyon said, "It's a goddamn nuisance. But, yes,
we'll have to send somebody out to fetch him. How did you drop on
him, by the way?" When he heard, he laughed. "We do
sometimes get the breaks, don't we? Well, a lot of females can sleep
easier tonight. There's been a little wave of terror around the
southern part of the state where the asylum is. I'll get back to you
and let you know who'll be out to get him."

"Any time," said Hackett.

It was still hot but not as bad as the last few weeks
and by the middle of October it would probably slack off. The night
watch had left them another heist and everybody seemed to be out on
something except Palliser who was on the phone. After a minute he put
it down and said, "Just trying to prod the lab on this Rawson
thing. They didn't pick up any good latents in that place except the
victim's. That's got to be something else insane. Like your
fruitcake. The drunk running amuck, something like that."

"It sounds that way. And another one without a
handle, if there's no lab evidence. God, I'll be glad when we get
into fall and it cools off. This has been a rough summer. I wonder
how Luis is doing in Paris. Damn it, there must be some record of
that girl there, But just how to find it—"
 
Palliser said, "I just hope he's not getting
high blood pressure arguing with the Sûreté." Landers came in
with another heist suspect and he went to sit in on the questioning.

Higgins and Galeano had prodded at Vasquez some more
yesterday but he wasn't about to give them a confession and it didn't
matter.

There were no five possible heist suspects they were
looking for. The tedious legwork was always there to be done. When
Hackett came back from lunch, Lake greeted him with some relief. "I
was afraid I wouldn't see any of you the rest of the day. Something
new's gone down, half an hour ago. A couple of bodies on Allesandro
Street."

"Oh, hell," said Hackett. "More
paperwork." Galeano came in just then so they went to look at it
together. It was a small apartment in an old building on that narrow
street and there were two bodies—a rather pretty young blond woman
in the mid-twenties and a little girl about four. Patrolman Zimmerman
said, "Where the hell have you been? I called in forty minutes
ago when I got sent up here. I didn't know what to do with the woman.
She's sitting in the squad still crying. Well, the girl was her
daughter. She found them about an hour ago." Even Zimmerman,
taking a casual look at the scene, had read it as faked. "I had
to turn the gas off. There wasn't much built up in here, but I
figured it was safer. These old windows are so loose, there wasn't
much gas in here at all, just enough smell so you'd notice it. It was
the oven turned on and the pilot light off, but it could be there was
a clogged line."

Galeano said, "Hell, you touched the knob."

"Well, I tried to be careful, sir. I'm sorry
about any prints, but I thought it'd be safer."

The girl was on the livingroom floor, on her side in
front I of the couch. She was wearing a white sundress and thong T
sandals. Hackett squatted down and looked at her. There was a dark
bruise on one side of her jaw. She'd been alive when she got that or
it wouldn't have showed. He felt carefully through the disheveled
blond hair and said to Galeano, "She's had the hell of a crack
on the skull here—just back of the temple. Feels as if the bone's
caved in."

Galeano said, "Anyway, neither of them died of
the gas."

The bodies were the wrong color for that. Victims of
gas poisoning showed bright pink skin. The little girl was in a chair
in the living room, lying across one arm of the chair, her head
twisted at an odd angle to her shoulders. She had on a skimpy
playsuit and thong sandals.

"I'd have an educated guess her neck is broken,"
said Galeano.

"Yes," said Hackett. "Somebody trying
to set up the fake suicide, Nick, and a damned crude one. You'd think
any fool would know the autopsies would show it up. We'd better talk
to this woman, find out who they were."

She was sitting in the back of the squad and she had
stopped crying now. Galeano got into the backseat with her and
Hackett into the front. She was a woman probably in the forties,
plain-faced with greying brown hair. Her name was Ena Schwartz. She
said the bodies were her daughter Gloria and Gloria's little girl,
Joan. Gloria Pratt. She said, "Gloria'd never kill herself.
That's just impossible. And I besides, there wasn't hardly any gas—
I'd never believe that, and she'd sure never want to kill Joan.
They'd just moved in here, got settled, and had everything arranged
and it was going to work out good— I was so glad when she left that
man, he's a no-good drunken bum. I tried to tell her when she married
him, but she was only eighteen and you can't talk to a girl in love.
She found out—she put up with him too long, but she finally had the
sense to leave him, and the divorce just got final. She was going to
get alimony and support for Joan—not much, but with the job she
could make it all right. She'd just got the job, going to start
Monday, at a drugstore up on Vermont, and this place was handy to me.
I'm just over on Rowena. She was going to drive Joan over to me every
morning—"

"What's her husband's name?" asked Galeano.

"Neil Pratt. He's a no-good bum. He never
supported her and he was mad when she had the baby."

"Do you know where he lives?" asked
Hackett.

"They had an apartment on Fountain, I don't know
if he still lives there. Why? Please, can I go home now? This has
been an awful shock to me, I want to call my sister. Oh, I'm thankful
my husband's dead, and that's a terrible thing to say, but this would
have broke his heart, he loved Gloria so much. We tried to stop her
marrying that guy—but Gloria'd never kill herself and the baby,
she'd got over that ‘ man. She was going to have a better life.
Everything was all arranged—"

"Are you all right to drive yourself home, Mrs.
Schwartz?" asked Galeano.

"Yes, I'm all right. Thank you." She got
out of the squad and walked down to an old Chevy at the curb.

Hackett said, "Let's hope there'll be some lab
evidence. But it looks open and shut, Nick. Unless people have got
more complicated since the last time I noticed."

"We can poke around here a little," said
Galeano. "See who's home."

The apartment was on the second floor and there was a
manager on the premises, in a downstairs front apartment. There were
four apartments down and four up. And on a hot Sunday, only five
people were at home. Four of them said they'd been watching T.V. or
reading, didn't know if anybody had come visiting other tenants. But
the manager, a sharp-eyed elderly woman named Potts, said, "Why,
yes. I noticed a man come in about nine this morning, I'd just
stepped out to get the paper—the boy comes by about then. What's
this about that girl killing herself? I never had any police here
before, any trouble like this. No, he was a stranger to me."

"Could you describe him, Mrs. Potts?" asked
Galeano.

She considered. "I guess he was about thirty,
dark hair, I didn't take much notice. Well, I might know him again."

They'd let Zimmerman go back on tour. Hackett had
called the lab and a man was busy in the apartment. "You want to
bet?" asked Galeano sleepily.

"No bets," said
Hackett. Mrs. Schwartz had given them the address on Fountain. They
drove up there and found Neil Pratt blearily watching T.V. and
drinking straight Scotch. He was more than half drunk and they
couldn't question him like that, so they took him down to the jail
and left him there. They could hold him twenty-four hours I without a
warrant.

* * *

RAMBEAU CALLED MENDOZA at the hotel just as he was
finishing breakfast. "It marches, my friend. On Juliette, no—the
number of Martins in the Paris directory is formidable. But we have
found the employer. His name is Trennard, M. Pierre Trennard. And you
and I are now going to talk to him. I will call for you in fifteen
minutes."

"My God, I'd begun to think you'd never come up
with anything. I'll be waiting."

"Some of my men have the little imagination.
They looked for similar names and M. Trennard was turned up ten
minutes ago. It is an address on the Boul'St. Germain."

Mendoza collected his hat and was waiting in front of
the hotel when Rambeau drove up in a middle-aged Renault.

"Do you know what the business is?"

"We will discover." When Rambeau located
the address he said, "There," and pointed. It was an old
four-story building with a modest sign over the entrance, BEAUMONT
FOURNIER ET CIE. "This is a district for publishers. This will
be one of them if I guess right." He parked the car in a public
lot across the street and in the small lobby of the building, a blond
receptionist answered his questions, regarding them incuriously.
There was an elevator and Rambeau pressed the button for the top
floor. There, in a carpeted hallway, three doors faced them. The one
opposite the elevator bore the lettered name PIERRE TRENNARD and
Rambeau opened it on a square little office with windows facing the
street, a desk, a covered typewriter on a lower typing desk, a desk
chair, another upholstered chair. A man came out of an inner office
and asked questions in staccato French, and Rambeau answered him. The
man looked at Mendoza with faint interest. He was a tall dark man
foppishly dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt, and rather
flamboyant tie. He said in English, "Yes, I speak the English
very well. You are police? The man who telephoned to ask if I know
Juliette Martin?"

"This is an American police officer, monsieur,
Mr. Mendoza, and he has no French so I ask you to speak in English.
Juliette Martin, she is in your employ? I will ask you to look at
these photographs."

Trennard looked and said, "This is Juliette, my
secretary, yes. But these, they do not look— Why do you ask?"

"She is dead, M. Trennard. Murdered."

He was startled. "But this is a tragedy you tell
me! She is only a young woman. In America? She was going to
America—it was most inconvenient to me. No doubt she was due to
take a holiday, but it was impossible to find a temporary replacement
meanwhile. She was to return on the first of the month. This is very
sad news, gentlemen. You had better come into my office." It was
an expensively furnished office with upholstered chairs, a large
mahogany desk. He sat at the desk and indicated chairs. He said
formally, "I am very desolated to hear this. Mlle. Martin had
been with us for five years and was a most excellent secretary. She
was useful to me, you understand, because she spoke English and
German and we have branch offices in both countries. But I can tell
you very little about her personally. You see, I have been in the
Paris office only eight months. My uncle, M. Fournier, was the head
of the firm until then and Miss Martin was his secretary. It put
everything wrong when he died suddenly last February," and he
gestured. "There are  no other partners. All the staff here
is experienced and capable, the business runs itself in a way, but
since I am now in sole charge—I was in our London office— I mean
to strike out on new lines. My uncle was an old man and had not
changed his business methods in many years. You understand me, I do
not criticize—" he gave a vast, Gallic shrug "—We have
a very profitable business, we publish the textbooks, art works,
reprints of the classics, all very well no doubt—the learned,
scientific works on the archaeology, history, travel—but one must
modernize any business, and I intend to try a line of fiction."

Rambeau said, "Come back to Miss Martin,
monsieur."

"But I am telling you I know nothing about the
girl personally! Very likely my uncle did, I believe he had known her
family, had taken her on here for some such reason. That is only an
impression, I really do not know. He was a bachelor, there is no
family left. Miss Martin was merely my secretary, I do not know her
friends or her interests outside the office. I am very sorry to hear
that she is dead, but—"