Felony File (26 page)

"
Oh, ow, please," said Glasser. "Say
it isn't so."

"
I know, I know. But I still say it's got to be
that immediate neighborhood—he's somewhere around there. And if we
come across the persistent prowler, the Peeping Tom—clothesline
thefts—dog poisonings—it might point in some direction."

"
You can think up more damned things to do,"
said Galeano.

"
I'll put in a call to Traffic. Let them do the
photocopying for us," said Mendoza abruptly.

When Higgins got back from booking Newton in and
applying for the warrant, they were sitting around waiting for those
records. They would wait awhile. Talk about tedious jobs—that,
Landers was going to say, would take a month of Sundays. The Traffic
records weren't kept long, like the current information at NCIC.
They'd have filled Parker Center to the roof long ago. But they were
filed for three months before destruction. Those were the records
they'd be looking through, of the ongoing daily calls round the clock
that had come across the central desk in that time. The citizens
called in on a thousand and one things, little and big things,
serious complaints and silly ones. When a squad car was sent out to
investigate a prowler the driver never knew if he'd be meeting a
drunk with a gun, a nervous burglar, or a bunch of cats knocking off
garbage-can lids. Mendoza said, looking at the relevant pages in the
County Guide, "Say an arbitrary area—between North 
Broadway and Alvarado, between Sixth and Beverly. Anything inside
that, and you know the kind of thing we're looking for."

They weren't so sure of that. But Mendoza usually
knew what he was doing: if a higher curve than usual showed, of a
prowler right around that area, it might carry some significance. And
just occasionally the complaining citizen had some idea who was
bothering him. If they could turn up one small lead ....

But the very idea of the
job was mind-boggling. When the stack of Xerox copies came up from
down-stairs, they felt tired just looking at it.

* * *

Hackett spent his day off helping Angel sort out
accumulated possessions; there was no sense paying the movers to
transfer things that would be thrown away or given away. It was a
nice day, and at least they were finished with the hot weather for a
while. Mark was in school most of the day and Sheila was very good on
the whole, but it was an exhausting job, and when Angel went out to
start dinner he subsided thankfully into a chair with a
Scotch-and-water.

"
Calories," said Angel.

"
Calories be damned,
I need this," said Hackett. He felt more tired than he'd ever
been at the end of a working day. He wondered what had been going on.
He'd find out tomorrow.

* * *

On Thursday afternoon at one o'clock there occurred
the sort of meaningful coincidence that happens oftener than
fiction-writers would ever admit.

A very ordinary-looking middle-aged woman trudged
into a bank in Beverly Hills and quite by chance stood in line at the
teller's window presided over by Mrs. Thelma Wright. When, five
minutes later, she laid a check on the counter Mrs. Wright looked at
it with great, if immediately concealed, interest. The check had
originally been made out and signed by Lorene Taylor, who happened to
be a close personal friend of Mrs. Wright, and it was a check she
knew all about. It had been made out to Bullock's Department Store on
November fifth; Mrs. Wright even knew what it had been for—a new
camera for Mrs. Taylor's husband's birthday. The check was in the
amount of seventy-seven-twenty. It had Bullock's official stamp on
the back.

They had had a little discussion about it after the
robbery at Bullock's. Mrs. Wright had said she didn't think the
bandits would bother with checks, but Mrs. Taylor had decided to stop
payment on it just to be sure. Mrs. Wright looked at the woman
presenting it; she had never seen her before. She was about forty,
dowdy in a brown hat and brown coat; she had a homely non descript
face; she wore unbecoming glasses, and had a slight cast in one eye.

She said, "I've got plenty of identification?
She was laying it out on the counter: driver's license, Social
Security card, Master Charge card.

The check was endorsed, below the rubber stamp on the
back, in what appeared to be a man's writing, "John E.
Williamson for Bullock's." Under that it was endorsed
by
Grace Eberhart.

Mrs. Wright thought swiftly. The adrenaline coursed
briskly through her veins, and her mind raced. She said as if just
noticing it, "Oh, this is endorsed twice. I'll have to get the
head teller to O.K. it before I cash it for you. I'll be right back."
Gripping the evidence firmly, she walked over to the New Accounts
desk and bent over to speak to Mrs. Hess there. In a breathless
whisper she told her to get Denny at once to come and collar the
woman.

So she hadn't seemed to go near Denny, who,
mountainous in his blue uniform, was right across the bank. The woman
wasn't alarmed, was waiting for her; but Mrs. Wright had just begun
to count out the cash when Denny's hamlike hand fastened on the
woman's arm. They took her into the manager's office and called the
police, and the woman—who really seemed to be Mrs. Grace
Eberhart—protested sullenly. "I didn't get the money,"
she said. "I thought it was worth a try, all you could say was
no. I know it wasn't right, but I haven't really stolen anything, you
don't have to bring the police in—"

The Beverly Hills police, of course, called
Robbery-Homicide downtown. Hackett and Mendoza, with Palliser
trailing along, got there at one-fifty. They found Mrs. Eberhart in
tears, and had to hear Mrs. Wright's tale which she had already told
twice.

"
All right," said Mendoza, "where did
you get the check, Mrs. Eberhart?"

"
It was thrown away," she said. She wiped
her eyes and her voice was plaintive. "I just thought I'd try if
the bank would cash it. It's hard to get by these days, and my
husband's been sick and can't work. I couldn't see just how to work
it at first, on account of it being made out to a store, but I
thought prob'ly it'd be signed first by somebody high up, one of the
store's managers, like it was made over to me for some cleaning job
or something. I got my husband to put down a man's name so it'd be
different writing."

They looked at her incredulously. "Mrs.
Eberhart," said Hackett, "didn't you know about the robbery
at Bullock's?"

"What robbery? No, I never."

"
Where did you get the check?" asked
Mendoza.

"
It was thrown away—it was in a wastebasket. I
just thought somebody'd made a mistake. I even thought, people like
that might not even miss it, know the money was gone. What do you
mean about a robbery?"

It seemed that Mrs. Eberhart didn't watch television
because it bothered her eyes, seldom read a newspaper because she
wasn't interested in murders or politicians' doings. Her husband read
the sports page but she never recalled his watching news on
television. He wasn't interested either. "Except when there's a
plane crash or something like that."

"
Where—" asked Mendoza, and she rounded
on him a little fiercely.

"
I'm telling you whatever you ask, ain't I? You
got me all flustered, think I'd committed a murder, all these cops
around."

It was in a wastebasket in one of the apartments I
clean. People can get maid service with the apartments if they want,
and people with the kind of money to live there, they mostly do. I'm
telling you— acourse I remember which one. It was number twelve on
the second floor. The Miramar Gardens, on Loma Vista."

The LAPD men breathed a collective sigh. "And
isn't that nice," said Mendoza. "Just by a fluke."

"
Fluke be damned," said Palliser. "I
don't care how we caught up, just that we did."

"
Don't be premature, John."

But as they came down the heavily carpeted hall of
that very plush new apartment building, the Beverly Hills men backing
them up, they heard faint voices and laughter past the door of number
twelve; it was unlatched. Mendoza regarded the name-slot beside the
door pleasedly. Mr. AND Mrs. NEIL WILMOT. He pointed it out silently
to Palliser, who grinned and nodded. The ghost had turned up.

The two inside were taken completely by surprise.
They were sitting lovingly close on the couch with a pair of martinis
when the police simply walked in, and they hadn't even got up before
they were informed they were under arrest. The Beverly Hills men kept
an eye on them while the rest of them went through the apartment.
There were a lot of expensive new clothes, jewelry, and eighty
thousand dollars in cash in a suitcase in the closet.

"And thanks so much
for the backup," said Mendoza to the Beverly Hills men.

* * *

They talked to them together in Mendoza's office,
with Wanda taking brisk shorthand. Marcia Wilmot was a rather
sharp-featured handsome woman who didn't look her age by live years.
Neil Wilmot—apparently his real name—was also good-looking, tall
and dark with a one-sided lazy smile.

Marcia did some understandable fuming about Grace
Eberhart. "Just on account of a stupid greedy maid! It was
foolproof—there was no way the cops could ever get a line—and
then just one stupid little slip, and that damned maid!" She had
missed just the one check when they dumped all the rest into the
apartment incinerator, down the chute in the hall. They'd been
cautious there too: afraid the seals on the bags wouldn't burn,
they'd cut the bags up and buried them on the beach down at Santa
Monica.

"
Well, we had a damn good run," said Neil.
"Worth it, baby?"

She laughed, looking defiantly at the cops. "I
thought it was just terrible at first, when Neil went up for
embezzlement at that auto agency, just after we were married. My
husband a crook! And then I got to thinking, what the hell, you only
live once, and what's the sense in slaving away at some dreary job
just so you can say you're honest? What's the point? You might as
well take what you can get and enjoy it."

"
You certainly did," murmured Palliser.

"When Neil got out, I'd had this idea.
Foolproof," she said wistfully. "It was super beautiful.
Listen, I've worked in department stores all my life, I know how they
operate. They mostly do things pretty much the same way. All you have
to know is which elevator they use for the collection, where the
Accounting office is, how they take it to the bank. And there's not
that much difference in the set-up, most department stores. I got a
job in that one in Philly, just long enough to get the dope, but I
didn't have to, the one in Pittsburgh—I just took the wrong
elevator once, landed up in the business office, apologized all over
the place, and I had the setup plain as a map."

"She's a smart girl," said Neil cheerfully.

"
So damn smart I have to miss that one check,"
she said mournfully.

"
So," said Mendoza, "now the ride on
the merry-go-round is over, tell us who the other three men are."

They looked at each other and laughed. "End of
story," said Neil. "Just say they're good pals of mine.
They're lucky and we aren't. I'm a believer in the Golden Rule,
Lieutenant. You don't get any names from us."

And they didn't. The Wilmots stood firm; it was one
of the few instances of honor among thieves Mendoza ever remembered.
When Hackett took Wilmot by the arm and Mendoza held the door for
Marcia, to take them over to jail, they looked at each other again
and Neil said, "Worth it, baby?"

"
It was lots and lots of fun, darling."

He bent and kissed her lightly. "We'll be out in
three or four years, sweetheart."

"
I'll be seeing you."

"
And you can't win 'em all."

"
But you can't keep a good pair down either."
They laughed and went out together.

Palliser started to call
Bill Costello.

* * *

Higgins had spent part of his day off with a
carpenter, figuring what that darkroom was going to cost. However
they tried to cut corners, it wasn't going to be cheap; but he'd
promised Steve. Higgins sighed and thought they'd just have to add a
bit to the bank loan. If you were doing a thing, might as well do it
right. He said that to Mary, who was wasting a lot of paper trying to
figure out the cost of paneling. "We don't have to do everything
at once, George."

"
Steve's going to have his darkroom," said
Higgins.

Margaret Emily came
staggering toward him and he swung her up in his arms. She laughed,
patting his face; she had her mother's gray eyes. And a good thing,
thought Higgins, that she hadn't taken after him.

* * *

The dogged and tedious search through all the Traffic
calls was not paying off. Even in the first stacks they had already
gone through, no recognizable pattern showed; it was the same routine
jumble all of them remembered from their days riding squads, the
family disturbances, prowlers, complaints about neighbors, about
noisy parties, about barking dogs: the drimks, the trespassers, the
petty thefts. There were just the occasional felonies that got passed
upstairs: burglaries chiefly.