Felony File (15 page)

There were inquests set for Dave Whalen and Alice
Engel tomorrow.

"
What've you got there?" asked Higgins.
Mendoza told him. "Funny." He yawned. "I could run
over there now. '

Mendoza hesitated. He was feeling a little stale; and
he wanted to think about Marion Stromberg. Better see her lawyer
tomorrow. He dropped the few items back in the bag, and Conway came
in towing a big black fellow and said, "Good, somebody's here.
Another possible suspect in that other bar heist, who'd like to sit
in?"
 
"
George can help
scare him better," said Mendoza. He dropped the bag into his
jacket pocket and started out again, and thereby changed a couple of
lives.

It was just threatening to rain again; hadn't
actually started. He bypassed the freeway and went up Sunset,
thinking absently about the various things they had on hand—actually
a lighter caseload than usual, but that was the natural curve after
the end of the summer heat, as tempers cooled with the temperature.
And all they knew so far about Marion  Stromberg—just what the
hell had happened to her? The sweet little woman? As for Leta
Reynolds, that was even wilder. Nick had been working that; talk to
him tomorrow, see if he'd come to any conclusions.

Portia Street wasn't very long. Even some time before
he got there he was aware of a column of black smoke rising off to
the right; and when he turned on Portia, there it was ahead—two
fire trucks, an ambulance, an excited crowd milling around. It was
the Whalen house. He angled in behind the ambulance and got out in a
hurry. The hoses were playing steadily; there were crackling flames
engulfing the whole right side of the house—the bedrooms and
kitchen there. He groped for the badge, running up to one of the
firemen standing by the first engine, hand on a valve.

"
What's happened here? I'm on police business
with the householder—" And as he said it, he saw the
canvas-covered mound in the street, between the two engines. The man
turned and he saw the legend Assistant Chief on the helmet-badge.

"
You're too late then." They had to raise
their voices over the play of hissing water, the shouts of the men to
each other, the excited voices of the crowd turned out to watch. "The
paramedics tried, but he was gone. Suicided with the kitchen gas—but
something sparked her off, probably the pilot light."

Mendoza stared at the angry bright flames. Seventeen
dollars and two men's lives, he thought. A hand caught his arm; he
turned. Mrs. Meeker, the Whalens' next-door neighbor, had recognized
him.

"
Oh, oh, isn't it terrible!" she cried.
"Poor Dan—he couldn't go on—"

A voice in Mendoza's mind said suddenly, Dave always
had to have a cat. Not Dan. Dan had been preoccupied with his own
troubles. "Mrs. Meeker," he said loudly, "is Merlin
out?"

Her shocked mouth gaped at him, and then she
shrieked. "He's always in—cold weather—doesn't like—"

The wicker basket was in the front room. That side of
the house hadn't caught yet, but there must be a good deal of smoke.
Mendoza was on the front porch in three seconds. He heard an outraged
shout behind him,

"Where the hell d'you think you're—"

He yanked off his jacket, balled it around his right
arm, and knocked the window in with three hard blows. Great billows
of smoke rolled out at him. Holding his breath, he clambered over the
broken edges of glass into the room. He couldn't see, but he
remembered the general location of the hearth and, remembering to
bend low under the smoke, he groped over there. Wickerwork under his
fingers, a furry inert body—

And his mind said, Not another innocent, for nothing.
He seized the cat Merlin in one arm and groped back to the window.
Outside, he ran back to the engine.

"
Oxygen—"

"
Well, for Cod's sake, a cat!" said the
assistant chief.

"
Hey, Dick! Com'ere with that tank!"

In two minutes, Merlin stirred and sneezed. He
struggled up groggily in Mendoza's arms and uttered an indignant
attempt at a serious feline cussword.

"
Oh!" sobbed Mrs. Meeker. "Oh, thank
God—poor Merlin, poor boy—oh, how brave of you, are you hurt? Oh,
give him to me, I'll love to have him, darling Merlin—I never saw
anything so brave—"

"
I'm quite all right," said Mendoza.
Except, of course, for his suit jacket; he'd paid two hundred and
fifty bucks for this suit three months ago.

But, looking at Merlin
slowly recovering catly dignity in Mrs. Meeker's arms, he felt a warm
satisfaction.

* * *

Piggott was holding down the night watch alone; it
was Schenke's night off. Middle of the week, it was a quiet night.
Piggott, sitting there alone, was thinking about the Hoffmans. He
was, he hoped, a good practicing Christian, and alone there in the
big office, he did a little praying for Bill Hoffman, who had once
been a good man and a good cop.

He didn't get a call until ten o'clock, and then it
wasn't anything to go out on. It was a Sergeant Costello of the
Glendale force, and he sounded tired. He said, "I'm going home
to bed now, but you pass this on to your day watch, hah? That
Bullock's job—we just had a real carbon copy here, at Probinsons'.
We'll want to get together with whoever worked your job, see what got
turned. You know if they got any leads?"

"
We're nowhere on it," said Piggott.

Costello just said, "Hell," in a
discouraged voice, and rang off.

At the end of shift, in the chill night, Piggott
drove home to the apartment on Sycamore Avenue. He came in quietly,
not to wake Prudence, and for just a minute stood in the living room
looking at the lighted tank of beautiful tropical fish. And a very
queer thought took hold of him, that God must love most other
creatures much more than man, they were so much more beautiful. That
it wasn't the animal creatures who had thought up racial and
religious hatred, wars, political persecution, terrorism, the sordid
and random and mindlessly violent crime.

But that wasn't anywhere in the Bible. He undressed
quietly in the dark and got into bed beside Prudence; she stirred,
muttered, "Matt," and went to sleep again.
 

SIX

NEARLY ALL THE MEN came in about the same time on
Thursday morning, bunched in the same elevator: Palliser, Landers,
Grace, Conway, Glasser, Galeano. Sergeant Lake was just settling in
for the day, plugging in the switchboard for direct calls where,
overnight, the desk downstairs had relayed. "Morning," he
said, and there was a small grin on his sober mouth. "Did you
notice the boss made the
Times
?"
Hackett and Wanda came in together; it was Higgins' day off.

"What?" said Palliser.

"
I don't think he's going to appreciate it
much," said Lake seriously. He offered them the morning
Times
.
In the lower left corner of the front page was a very candid close-up
shot of Mendoza holding Merlin while a fireman administered oxygen.
He looked very sternly noble, and the billows of smoke rising behind
him made an effectively dramatic background. VETERAN P.D. OFFICER
RESCUES CAT, said the headline. The story started out, "Lt. Luis
Mendoza of the Robbery-Homicide office forgot official duties today
to save the life of a pet cat, forgotten in a fire which all but
gutted a modest home on Portia Street. This tragic and heartwarming
story came to light—"

"
Oh, my God, he'll have a fit," said
Hackett. "We didn't hear about the cat. He'll be fit to be tied.
I wonder where the hell they got the picture."

There were a couple of lab reports in; Lake handed
them over. "And some of you'll be heading for Glendale."

He gave Piggott's note to Palliser.

"
I knew it!" said Palliser. "By God, I
had the feeling they were going to make another hit! Of all the
gall—no details, but it's got to be the same gang. Hell's fire, and
we've got just nothing at all—" He huddled with Landers and
Grace.

Even in this usually monotonous job, surprises came
along; Hackett read the first lab report with some astonishment. He'd
nearly forgotten that two-week-old corpse found in the derelict house
last Friday; it had looked like an O.D., and he seemed to recall that
there'd been an autopsy report confirming that, heroin overdose. Now
here was a kickback from the Feds on his prints, and it seemed he'd
been one William Wilfrid Edgard, with a homicide warrant out on him
in Indianapolis. Everybody got to California sooner or later, thought
Hackett. There was also that pawnbroker to see, about the little loot
from the Whalen house; but first he put through a call to
Indianapolis to tell the force there they could stop looking for
Edgard.

The other report was from S.I.D. ballistics, on the
gun in the Reynolds case. There ought to be an autopsy report
sometime today. Galeano read it, and got on the phone. "Listen,
this ballistics report. I never heard of this damn gun—a Bernadelli
automatic? What the hell is it?"

"
They're not as common as some others,"
admitted Scarne, "but I've seen a couple of others. We found the
ejected shells, by the way, but there aren't any prints on them. It's
an import, Italian made. Takes .22 short ammo. It's a little bit of a
thing, about four inches long—useless sort of gun, but of course at
short range—"

It had been very short range. "I'll be damned,"
said Galeano.

"
But it's not a rarity—there are some around?"

"Sure. Couple of big East Coast importers deal a
lot in Italian stuff. This one's been made for twenty years or so.

About then Mendoza called in to say that he was going
directly to see that lawyer, would be in later. The inquests on Dave
Whalen and Alice Engel were set for ten o'clock, in different courts.
Palliser, Landers and Grace had taken off for Glendale.

Galeano went to catch Melinda Corey before she left
the house. She agreed to try for a look at Mrs. Armstrong this
afternoon. "But it seems awfully far-fetched."

"
Are you sure you would know the woman?" he
asked "For sure?"

She pressed her lips together. "I know I said I
only saw her for about two seconds, Mr. Galeano. But I'm sure.
There's a sort of picture frozen in my mind—her at one end of the
couch and Leta standing facing her. I can't describe her, but I'm
sure I'd know her if I saw her."

Galeano wondered. A waste
of time—could she really be sure? It was nine-thirty; he headed
back downtown for the Hall of justice to sit in on the Whalen
inquest. Glasser would cover Engel: the evidence on Fratelli would
have been passed on and all the evidence would be offered on that
one, which would take longer. On Whalen, the jury expectably returned
an open verdict, persons unknown.

* * *

Hackett went down to the pawnshop on Second Street,
on the track of the pitiful little loot from the Whalen house. The
pawnbroker was a thin dark young man with very steady shrewd dark
eyes in a narrowly handsome face; Hackett thought he'd hate to try to
put a lie over on him. His name was Weingard. He said, "No
offense, Sergeant, but in this neighborhood it doesn't help the
business image much, police dropping in often—reason I brought the
stuff over. Sure, I can tell you who brought it in. Kid by the name
of Pete Jackson. They live in the neighborhood, up on Boylston. His
mother gets rid of the welfare money a little faster than usual,
she's got a good old Longines watch she hocks now and then—saves up
to get it back for next time."

"Know anything about the kid? He ever been in
trouble?"

Weingard shrugged. "He is now, isn't he? He
tried to offer me some merchandise I saw right away was
shop-lifted—cheap costume jewelry, and he didn't even have the
sense to take the tags off. That was a couple of weeks ago."

"
Well, thanks very much," said Hackett.
Against all the odds, were they going to drop on Whalen's killers
after all? The mother's name was Marie, Weingard said; he had the
address from the times she had pawned things with him.

It was a ramshackle old apartment building, and she
had one of the back apartments giving on an alley. She wasn't
particularly distressed at a police sergeant asking questions; there
was a subtle aura of muscatel about her even at this hour. She looked
pure African, thick lips and woolly hair and glistening black skin.
"Pete?" she said. "I don' know where he'd be. Not at
school—he don' like school much. He usually comes home at night."

Hackett went back to the
office and told Lake to put out the word to their street informants
that they wanted Pete Jackson. He'd also ask Piggott and Schenke to
try to pick him up, if he came home tonight.

* * *

"
Well, there you are," said Palliser. "It's
the same pros, and there just isn't anywhere to go on it."

"
Except," said Landers, "that the same
thing holds true for this set-up—anybody wandering around the store
could have found out enough to make the intelligent guess."

"
Only did they?" wondered Grace. "It's
six of one, half dozen of the other. Could also have been the inside
dope."