Felony File (21 page)

He didn't need to spell that out to the lab men Duke
and Parry. They'd seen a lot of homicides and rapes too. But at the
sight of the girl, Duke stopped and said gravely, "Whee!"

"
Yes, she's stacked, but she's also dead,"
said Schenke, slightly shocked.

"
I didn't mean that kind of whee," said
Duke. He looked at Parry. "Have we got everything we need?"

"
I'll go look. I expect so. You and Scarne have
been on the kick long enough."

"
You," said Duke to Schenke, "go back
and write the report. We'll call the morgue wagon—in about three
hours. They can't have this one for a long, long time."

"
You're going in for necrophilia?"

"
Oh, my, what long words you use, Grandma. No,
we're going to print the body. Such a nice naked body."

"
What the hell?" said Schenke, "You
can't get prints off—"

"
Oh, yes, we can," said Duke. "Now. A
smart lab cop in Florida figured out a way, just a little while back.
Pretty simple in a way. You have to use a fiberglass filament brush,
lifting tape naturally, and Kromekote cards—14O by 178
millimeter—it's kind of like photographic printing paper—"

"
I'll take your word for it," said Schenke
hastily.

"
I'll go and write
the report. After breaking the bad news."

* * *

The report was waiting for them on Saturday, with
Landers off, Lake off and Farrell sitting on the switchboard. "No
rest for the wicked," said Mendoza. The autopsy report on Leta
Reynolds was in, but didn't tell them anything they didn't know.

Palliser called the hospital. Linda Carr was still
unconscious, but they thought she was responding better. There was
nowhere to go on the female heister. The Bullock's job was tacitly
filed away.

Hackett had seen enough homicides to read between the
lines of Schenke's report; Mendoza passing it over to him, he passed
it on to Higgins. "Bob got hold of his wife, I see." Before
she had broken down, she had told Schenke that Sanford had stayed at
the store late to work on the books. He and his partner, Frank
Newton, owned two music stores; Newton ran the other one. Just a
coincidence Sanford was there when the rapist walked in on the girl.

Higgins laid the report down and swore roundly.

"
All the legwork, hunting the rapists out of
records! And try to pin one down legally!"

Farrell buzzed Mendoza. "Say," he said, "I
meant to say I saw that shot of you in the
Times
.
Evidently some other people did too. I've got a Dr. Adam Fuller on
the line who wants to talk to you. He's the editor of some magazine
called The Cat Fancy, which strikes me as sounding backward, and he
wants you to write an article about saving that cat in the fire."
 
"
No," said Mendoza. "I'm
not here. I'm investigating the murder of a
Times
reporter. I wish to God I was."

"
Well, all right," said Farrell. "But
if you want to know, I think it was sort of heroic at that. I like
cats myself." He sounded embarrassed, and rang off abruptly.

"
¡Por mi vida!
"
said Mendoza.

"
Look," said Hackett reasonably, "the
legwork's always to do, George. If it wasn't rapists, it'd be
heisters. We're waiting on the lab, on the Jackman thing. We might as
well start the damn routine on the new one."

The phone rang and Mendoza picked it up. "Mrs.
Robsen," said Farrell noncommittally.

"
I just wanted to let you know," said Cathy
Robsen, "that the funeral's set for Monday. The chapel at Rose
Hills. I—sort of got together with the lawyer on it."

"
Thanks for letting us know, Mrs. Robsen."

"
It doesn't matter," she said, "if
none of you can make it. They're not there. I just thought I'd let
you know."

"
Yes, thanks." Mendoza relayed that. "Damn
it, I'll have to go."

"
It's raining again," said Higgins, looking
out the window as drops began to hit the glass. "Damnation."

The phone rang. "Yes, Rory?" said Mendoza.

"
I've got your wife now."

"
I'm sorry to call," said Alison, "but
I thought I'd better ask. I've been rather an expense to you lately,
mi marido
favorite.
Ken just called. He's found the sheep. He wants to get Eve, and
they're sixty dollars each. They're Suffolks, and they're what he
calls wethers, if that means anything to you."

"
Nada absolutamente
.
That's three hundred on top of the ponies. All right."

"
Think how pastoral they'll look on the hill,"
said Alison. "They're such gentle creatures, Luis. Meek and
mild."

Later on, Mendoza was to
quote that to her bitterly. At the moment he said only, "Well,
in for a penny, in for a pound. He'd better get the sheep."

* * *

Both the Landerses were off on Saturday. "I
ought," said Phil, "to be getting at the laundry—changing
the bed."

"
There's time. You been thinking about what I
said, being a fulltime wife?"

"
We can't afford it," said Phil.

"They give you a leave of absence for
maternity."

"
And then we'd have to pay a babysitter. If we
do, I'd rather make it permanent, Tom. Just quit and stay home. Only,
could we make it?"

"
We'll take a look at
the accounts later," said Landers.

* * *

"
I hope," said Hackett, "you've
polished up the crystal ball?"

Mendoza stood in the hall of that colorless, faintly
elegant house on Beachwood Drive. He said, "Damn it, she must
have been something more than the correct, conventional, cardboard
character we've heard about."

"Some people are just like that, Luis."

"
On the surface. Most people have something
underneath."

"
Where else can you look?" Hackett sighed.
He had been following Mendoza around for an hour. It was four
o'clock, and the rain was steadily drumming down.

Mendoza had been wandering around the house,
apparently sniffing for the essence of Marion Stromberg. He had
looked through drawers in the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. At her
meticulous files in the desk, receipts neatly boxed. He had
contemplated her cosmetics in the bedroom and the bathroom: sniffed
her colognes: Emeraude, Rive Gauche, Aphrodisia. Looked at the piles
of neat nightgowns, lingerie. She'd been a fastidious woman. Mendoza
said, "Where the hell is her car? It ought to have been spotted
by now."

"
In somebody's garage," said Hackett.

"
I wonder." Mendoza wandered back to the
living room and stared at the reproduction Renoir on the wall over
the couch. And then suddenly he said, "Methodical—oh, my God,
of course—"

"
What have you thought of now?"

"
Only the last few years she'd had really nice
clothes," said Mendoza. He started down the hall. "Naturalmente.
All the clothes in her closet are winter things. She'd put summer
things away carefully." He went into the second, smaller,
bedroom, opened the door of the walk-in closet. It was full of
clothes—warm-weather clothes, dresses, sleeveless tops,
light-colored slacks. "Ah."
 

"
What do you expect to find?"

"
I haven't the slightest idea." Mendoza
started to go through the white handbag hanging on the door. It was
empty except for some loose change. He started to go through the
pockets of the clothes. Not even used handkerchiefs rewarded him,
until he took down a loosely knit white cardigan. In the right-hand
pocket was a slip of folded paper; he brought it out.

"
What have you got?"

"
A phone number," said Mendoza. "Just
a phone number. Nothing to say whose."
 

EIGHT

"
SO I'M WOOLGATHERING," said Mendoza.
Ensconced back in his desk chair with the cards riffling through his
hands, he had just requested the phone company to trace that number
for him.

"
Not necessarily," said Hackett. "Looking
under every stone." He shifted his bulk, that was not quite so
bulky as it had been, and put out his cigarette. "I ought to go
and do some honest work."

The phone rang, and Farrell put Mendoza through to
somebody at the morgue, who plaintively asked to know whom should be
informed that the Stromberg body could be claimed. "Hell,"
said Mendoza thoughtfully. The lawyer was the only answer. He gave
them the name and address, and then got Earnshaw at home. Earnshaw
readily agreed to take care of the arrangements.

Conway, Grace and Wanda came in, and Grace said,
"We'll put a difference of opinion to you. The Reynolds case—a
wild one. We've been looking back at the evidence, what there is, and
Rich—"

"
I just say it's fairly obvious," said
Conway. He sat down in the chair beside Mendoza's desk, his cynical
gray eyes squinted against smoke from his cigarette.

"
The husband. Who do we look at first, a husband
or wife gets murdered?"

"
I thought the husband was supposed to be up in
Ventura," said Mendoza.

"
What the hell is seventy miles?" Conway
brushed the miles away with a gesture. "I think Nick slipped up
a little. Look." He had a 510 report in his hand. "What did
the sister say? Bright little Leta was always improving herself and
learning things—the husband wasn't. We've been talking to her
parents, they were dead set against the marriage because Reynolds
wasn't very smart or ambitious. She was a big cut above him, and she
probably let him know it. That was the reason for the divorce.
Wouldn't he resent it, her patronizing him? You bet."

"
He might have then," said Grace. "But
this is five years later, Rich. And who do you think the woman was?"

"
You're just thinking too complicated,"
said Wanda. She sat down in the other chair and crossed her neat legs
below her uniform skirt. "What I say is that this Melinda
couldn't possibly recognize the woman. She admits she only saw her
for about two seconds, and hadn't any reason to notice her at the
time. She couldn't possibly be positive about anyone. I think it's
very possible Nick's right and it could be that Armstrong woman."

"
And I'll go along with that," said Grace.
"At least I think we'd better talk to her. See what she looks
like."

"AllI say is—" began Conway.

Mendoza shook his head at him. "I don't buy the
husband either, Rich. If we can make any guess about Reynolds, it was
an irrational motive. Nothing very realistic. Nick got that far."

Farrell came in and said there was a Frank Newton to
see him. Mendoza looked exasperated and put the cards away. Conway,
Grace and Wanda drifted out, and Hackett said, "Preserve
patience for the civilians,
compadre
."

"Waste of time," complained Mendoza. Newton
came in and looked around the office, at the two of them, with a
faintly apologetic air. He was a big man with somewhat florid good
looks, curly graying hair, a strong nose, a mobile mouth; he wore a
natty sports outfit. He said, "I suppose I'm intruding on you, I
don't know one damned thing about this damned— I couldn't believe
it when Sylvia finally got me awhile ago—Dick murdered! Dick! And
that cleaning woman—my God, Dick and I've been partners eleven
years! I came to ask you, if it's not a secret—how the hell did it
happen? Why?"

At an invitation he sat down abruptly beside the
desk.

"
It looks as if it was just a coincidence that
Mr. Sanford was there when the girl was attacked," said Mendoza.
"One of those things, Mr. Newton."

"
God," said Newton. His eyes were somber.
"Of all the Goddamned bad luck. I couldn't believe it. Sylvia
never got hold of me till an hour ago—I got in a hot poker game
down in Gardena, never got home till two A.M., and today I've been
down in Laguna with my ex-wife, we're sort of thinking of getting
together again."

He ran distracted fingers through his hair. "I
suppose you know your business, but how in hell do you hunt a wild
man like that? How d'you know where to look? Doesn't seem to me you'd
have a chance in hell. I talked to him Thursday, just business, and
if I'd known it was the last time— Good thing we can't know things,
I suppose." He lighted a cigarette. "We ran two stores, you
know—I manage the other one, over on Sunset. I can't get over the
damned bad luck, him just happening to be there at night—"

"
We hope the lab may give us something concrete
to point to somebody," said Hackett. "Fingerprints
possibly. Were you in the Wilshire store much, Mr. Newton?"

"What? Oh, maybe once a week. We'd interchange
merchandise, if somebody wanted something he didn't have and I
did—why?"

"
You'd better let our lab have your fingerprints
for comparison, if you don't mind."

"
Com— Oh, I get you. Sure," said Newton.

"
And any employees—did anyone else work in the
Wilshire store?"