Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon (9 page)

Bernard Wolf came in about nine and made a brief
statement, and Wanda Larsen took him down to look at mug shots. But
there could be a thousand walking around who conformed to that
description.

And finally the coroner's office sent up the autopsy
report on the supposed Ruth Hoffman. Mendoza read it over rapidly,
one hip perched on a corner of Higgins' desk, and passed it over.
"So, a few possibly suggestive things," he said.

The report said that the girl had died of a massive
overdose of a common prescriptive sedative, a phenobarbitol base.
Interestingly, there were indications that it had been accumulative
over a brief period of time. There had been the equivalent of a
couple of strong drinks in the stomach contents. The percentage rate
was .010, and .014 was the rate for legal intoxication. The estimated
time of death was between eight and midnight last Tuesday night.
There were no bruises or other marks on the body. She had been a
virgin. She had had a meal about six hours prior to death, consisting
of some sort of fish, potatoes, green vegetables.

"This is your offbeat one," said Palliser.

"The wild blue yonder," said Higgins.

"Well, it says a little something.' ' Mendoza
lit a cigarette with a snap of his lighter. "But there's a gap
between Saturday and Tuesday. Where was she? That library card-this
was set up awhile ago. If they, whoever, had arranged the killing,
why not do it right away? Grandfather! Could she have been with
Grandfather? I can't see any pattern to it at all, damn it."

"Have you heard anything about the possible
missing reports?" asked Higgins.

Mendoza had sent out queries to every force in the
country about that.

"Nothing's come in yet. Where the hell was she
and why? We should be hearing something from the cab companies, if
there's anything to get."

"Those Daggetts could tell us something,"
said Higgins.

"I wonder," said Mendoza. "They know
something but maybe not that much. I haven't leaned on them because
we haven't a damn thing to go on, for God's sake. There's no smell of
legal proof that the girl was the Martin girl. And whoever primed the
Daggetts with the Hoffman story, all they have to do is stick by it,
we can't prove it's a lie. What the hell use would it be to lean on
them, George? They're not big brains, but they understand that much.
Grandfather, Grandfather! If only there was some way to find out
where she was going, or thought she was going—" He brushed his
mustache back and forth angrily.

"There's just no handle to any part of it,"
said Higgins.

Mendoza picked up the phone, asked Farrell to get
Communications, asked if there was anything in, from any force, on a
possible missing report on the girl. So far most of the police forces
in the country had responded and none had any record of such a
report.

"So what does that say?" Mendoza emitted a
long angry stream of smoke. "Grandfather! " The phone
buzzed at him and he picked it up.

"You've got a new body," said Farrell.
"Hoover Street."

"Hell," said Mendoza and took down the
address and passed it on to Higgins.

Palliser and Higgins went out on that and Mendoza
wandered back to his office and sat staring out the window at the
view of the Hollywood Hills, chain-smoking, until Farrell rang him
and said he had somebody from the Yellow Cab Company on the line.
"Put him through," said Mendoza.

The man on the line was a Mr. Meyers, sounding
efficient. "You wanted to know about any passengers picked up at
International Airport a week ago today. I've got a list for you from
the dispatcher. There were only nine."

"Fine," said Mendoza. "We can cut
corners here and save some time. I'd like all those drivers to come
in to headquarters to look at a photograph."

"Oh, my God,"
said Meyers. "What a hell of a nuisance, but we do have to
cooperate with the police. All right, where are they supposed to
come?"

* * *

THE ADDRESS on Hoover Street, a secondary main drag,
was in the middle of half a dozen little shops, all in an old
building stretching for half a block. There was a shoe-repair place,
a women's dress shop, a little variety store, a photographer. Three
of the shops were empty, with for rent signs, and there was a dingy
independent drugstore on the corner. The squad and the uniformed
patrolman were in front of the little variety store. Higgins slid the
Pontiac into the curb behind the squad and they got out.

There was a woman with the patrolman, a stout
middle-aged black woman. She looked neat and respectable in a dowdy
blue cotton housedress, but her round face still wore a shocked
expression.

"There are the detectives, ma'am. This is Mrs.
Sadler, she found the body."

"That's right," she said. "It's just
awful, the poor soul lying there dead, it's terrible the things
happen nowadays, all these criminals running around. Mrs. Coffey was
such a nice woman, she wouldn't have hurt a fly. To think of a thing
like that happening to her—"

The faded sign over the front door said VERNNS
VARIETY.

"Mrs. Verna Coffey?" asked Palliser. She
nodded. "Just tell us what happened, Mrs. Sadler."

"We1l, I'd run out of green thread. I'm making a
dress for myself for my daughter's wedding next week, and I just
stepped over here to get some thread. Mrs. Coffey's store is real
handy for lots of little things. I just live up the block on
Twenty-fourth, it's only a step, and she's always open by eight. The
door was open and I went in, but she wasn't there and I waited a few
minutes but I didn't hear her in the back. She lives in the back of
the store, has a little apartment there, you see. And I called her
name and then I went back and just looked in the door and—Oh!"
She put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, just terrible! The poor
soul, her head all bloody and the place in a mess, I could see she
was dead and I called the police on the phone there—"

So they'd have to get her prints for comparison with
any others the lab might pick up. But the honest citizens didn't know
much about scientific investigation.

There were a few curious bystanders out now, from the
shoe-repair shop, the drugstore. Palliser and Higgins went into the
little store, dim without lights on, past double counters stocked
with the cheap cosmetics, shoelaces, sewing materials, plastic
dishes, all the odds and ends of variety goods, to the door at the
rear. It led into a small living room, crowded with old
furniture—couch, two upholstered chairs, end tables, a T.V. on a
metal stand. One of the tables had been knocked over, the drawer from
the other one dumped on the floor, three pictures pulled off the wall
and thrown facedown. The body was sprawled between the T.V. and the
couch, the body of a fat black woman. There was a faded pink nylon
housecoat rucked up around her legs. Under it she'd been wearing a
pink nylon nightgown. There was dried blood on one temple and the
white of the skull showed where one blow had landed on vulnerable
thin bone. On the floor beside her was an ordinary hammer with black
tape on the handle. On the other side of the body, in front of a side
window, a big potted plant on a metal stand had been knocked over and
spilled wet earth and leaves over the thin carpet.

"No sign of a break-in in front," said
Palliser.

"No. She was undressed for bed, she could've
done that early in the evening, but it was after she'd closed the
store," said Higgins. "Somebody knocked at the
door—somebody she knew?"

They looked through the rest of the small shabby
apartment. There was a tiny bedroom with a single bed neatly turned
down for the night but showing no signs of having been occupied. The
bedroom had been ransacked too. There was a tiny kitchen with a clean
sink and counter tops. There was a back door giving on an alley that
ran behind this block of shops, and that door was locked and bolted.

"Somebody she knew," said Palliser. "Which
could be anybody around here. But she probably wouldn't have opened
the door to a stranger. Living alone, she'd keep the doors locked
after dark." The dumped drawers, the pictures pulled off the
wall, were the earmarks of the pro burglar.

They went back out to the street and Palliser used
the radio in the squad to call the lab. Higgins asked Mrs. Sadler,

"Do you know anything about Mrs. Coffey's
family?"

"Well, I know she had a married daughter in
Pasadena. She had another daughter who died. Her husband, I guess he
died quite awhile back."

There had been an address book beside the phone. They
would find out.

"Do you know if she kept much money here'?"

"I don't know at all. I don't suppose she got an
awful lot from the store—enough to get by on—but I don't know."

Higgins started to explain to her why they'd have to
take her prints. She just nodded dumbly. This looked like the crude
attack, and there might be prints. It might get unraveled rather
easily, or never.

"She was such a nice woman," said Mrs.
Sadler. "It's just awful, a thing like that happening."

The mobile lab truck came
and later the morgue wagon. Higgins and Palliser waited while Horder
dusted the address book, and took it to look at. There was a phone
number listed simply under JULIA at a Pasadena exchange and they
tried it, but there wasn't any answer.

* * *

NICK GALEANO got to McClintock's Restaurant on Sunset
at eleven o'clock. It was an old place, but good middle-class,
middle-priced. He talked to the manager, Don Whitney, who was shocked
to hear about Rose Eberhart.

He said, "What a hell of a thing. I tried to
call her when she didn't show up. Thought maybe she was sick. What
the hell was it?— I don't think that she was more than in the
forties. She was a good waitress—reliable. She'd worked here for
nearly ten years. What the hell happened to her?"

"We're not sure yet, Mr. Whitney. She was here
yesterday?"

"Sure, just as usual. She was on from ten to
six. She'd been on the evening shift up to last month. All the girls
would rather work that because you get better tips through the dinner
hour, but we change around—give all of them a chance at it."

"She left about six?" By the night report,
Eberhart's car had been at its usual slot at the apartment, an old
two-door Ford.

"That's right. My God, this shakes me. Like it
says—in the midst of life."

"Had she had any trouble with anybody lately,
would you know?"

"My God, not that I know of. Rose was an
easygoing girl, got along with everybody fine. I can't get over her
being dead."

"Well, I'd like to talk to some of the other
waitresses, if you don't mind," said Galeano.

"Sure, sure, anything we can do to help you find
out about it. There's not much trade in until noon. You can use this
booth, let me get you a cup of coffee. I'll send the girls over."

There were four waitresses, only one of them under
forty. They were all upset to hear about Rose. Apparently they'd all
been friendly with her but not close, they were just surprised and
sorry. The one who seemed to have known her best—the two of them
had worked here longer than the others—was Marie Boyce. She was a
plain-faced thin dark woman about forty.

"Was she a widow, divorced, or what?" asked
Galeano. "Did she have any family?"

"She was divorced. Second time about three years
back. Yes, she had a daughter from her first husband, she lives back
East somewhere—I think it's Cleveland."

"Could you say if she was much of a drinker, I
don't mean on the job, but just to relax at home?"

She looked indignant. "She sure wasn't. Not that
I do much of it, either, but I don't feel as strong as she did about
it. Rose was just death on liquor. She wouldn't take a drink on a
bet. She'd seen too much of that with her first husband, he was a
lush."

"Well," said Galeano. "Do you know any
of her other friends? Did you see much of her aside from on the job?"

She shook her head. "I only saw her at work, but
Rose wasn't one to socialize much. She always said she was just glad
to get home at the end of the day and put her feet up. This job can
be tough on a person's feet, you know."

So Eberhart hadn't been drunk and fallen down.
Galeano came out and got into the car, automatically switching on the
air-conditioning, and drove down to Rosemont Avenue.

The manager, Peterson, wasn't home. His wife said the
police had asked him to go down to headquarters to make a statement.
Galeano went down the hall and looked at the door to Rose Eberhart's
apartment. The lab men had put a seal on it when they finished work.
She'd been right in the open doorway—the door was open—that's how
the manager had spotted her when he came past with the trash. The
door just opposite bore the name KOLHER the name slot beside the
bell. He pushed the bell and faced an elderly little woman with gray
hair and glasses. She looked at the . badge and started to talk
without any questioning.

"Oh, about Mrs. Eberhart, it's an awful thing.
The police were here when we got home and Mr. Peterson told us. Was
it a heart attack? She wasn't all that old."