Felony File (9 page)

"
So, coincidence," said Landers, pushing
the bell. In a minute the door opened and they faced a woman about
sixty, with gray hair becomingly waved, plain crystal glasses. She
was wearing a pink quilted housecoat and pink slippers. She looked
surprised to see them.

"
We're looking for a Mary Webster who used to
work at Bullock's," said Landers.

She stared up at him—tall, lanky Landers with his
youthful face didn't look like anybody's idea of a cop and said, "I'm
Mary's mother." And then the tears welled up and began to spill
down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she said. "Was it
something to do with the store? She had to leave without notice—and
she hadn't been there long, she used to work at the valley branch of
Robinsons' but when we moved here—it was nearer to drive. She'd
only been there since April, but they were very kind about it, they
paid her for the last two weeks. Was it a mistake?"

"
I—" Landers was taken aback.

"
Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me, but she—she was
only twenty-nine, and since her father died five years ago she was
all I had—such a good girl—and engaged to such a nice young man,
they were going to be married at Christmas—how I'd have loved
grandchildren, but she was an only child—hadn't been feeling well,
so tired for no reason, but we thought, just run-down—vitamins—"

"
Excuse me," said Landers, "I don't
think—"

"
And when she finally went to the doctor— It
was a brain tumor. She just—wasted away. She—she died last
Wednesday, the funeral was Saturday." Determinedly she gulped
back a sob. "I'm sorry. Something to do with the store? That
last check?"

"
No, Mrs. Webster," said Grace in his
gentle voice. "We thought there might have been a mistake, is
all. How much was the check for?"

"
A little over three hundred dollars." She
looked anxious.

"
Then there wasn't any mistake, everything's all
right, ma'am."

Back on the street Landers
said again, "Coincidence."

* * *

Hackett and Higgins had spent an annoying afternoon
chasing the heisters. Two of the witnesses looking at mug-shots had
made two identifications, and they went out looking for them: Hay
Reeves and Harry Fogarty, both with appropriate pedigrees. Reeves had
moved, but a neighbor obligingly told them where his girl friend
worked, at a drugstore on Vermont. They found her, and she told them
Ray had moved down to Compton on account of getting a job there, on
the maintenance crew at Compton College. He was going straight,
really, she said, he wouldn't have done anything. It was then four
o'clock and Compton was nearly twenty miles away even on the freeway,
so they went to look for Fogarty.

They found him at his last-listed address in Boyle
Heights, and he was belligerent. He admitted he'd just lost his job
but claimed he was absolutely clean. He couldn't, however, prove it.
He'd been home alone watching TV last night, he said.

They came out to the street; it was twenty past five.
They were using Hackett's new car, the custom Monte Carlo he'd got at
such a bargain, and in the dingy street in the gray light it looked
like a circus wagon, brilliant iridescent lime-green with a saffron
top.

Higgins said, "Hold a line-up tomorrow and see
what the witnesses say? He looks good for it."

"
He looks very good for it," said Hackett,
"but we can't do it tomorrow, George. The Hoffman hearing."

"
Oh, hell and damnation," said Higgins.

Hackett took him back to his car, said goodnight and
drove home. For once the children were quiet and peaceful, and Angel
told him the real estate woman would be coming tomorrow night with
all the papers to sign.

"
I want to do some sorting out—it's awful what
you acc1unulate—but I think we'd just better set a definite date
and go," she said. "It costs more but you can get the
moving people to do all the packing. Say the end of the month—it'll
be a thirty-day escrow. The only thing is, Mark will have further to
go to school—"

"
It will," said Hackett uncomplainingly,
"be further for me too, my Angel."

"But all the nice unpolluted air, up that high,"
said Angel bracingly. "And much lower taxes, darling."

Higgins drove home—he was getting used to the new
route now, up the Pasadena freeway—and found all his family there.
After too many years of not having any family, he appreciated the one
he'd acquired. It had been an upset and a muddle, moving to the new
house, and things weren't straight yet. Mary wanted to paint all the
bedrooms and panel the dining room, and Higgins wasn't very handy
with tools. But it was a nice house, bigger than the old one, and the
yard was fenced for the little black Scottie Brucie.

Steve Dwyer cornered him after dinner, while Mary and
Laura were doing the dishes. "I want to ask you something,
George."

Higgins put down his paper. "Well, what?"
Steve was looking more like Bert all the time, and growing; he was up
to Higgins' shoulder now, and Higgins was six-three.

"
Well, I mean, I don't want to—I mean it was
just something I want to know," said Steve, and his voice was
lowered, and he cast a glance toward the kitchen where the two
females were chattering.

"Well, what?" said Higgins again. Steve had
evinced a faint sort of interest in girls the last few months;
Higgins supposed he ought to have a belated man-to-man talk with him,
but the idea was embarrassing.

"Well, look," said Steve. His round young
freckled face looked rather desperate. "George, I know Mother
wants to fix the place up, and paint and so on costs money. It's
just, can't we sort of squeeze out enough to build a darkroom in the
garage like I had? Because—"

Higgins began to laugh. Photography had always been
Steve's first love, and evidently adolescence wasn't interfering with
it yet. "We'll do it," he promised. "We'll fix one,
Steve—running water, safety lights and all. Because one of these
days you're going to be an LAPD lab man, you've got to keep your hand
in."

A blinding grin rewarded
him. "I just wanted to know," said Steve.

* * *

Glasser and Wanda had landed at the Eagle Grill just
after it opened. Leon Fratelli was behind the bar. It wasn't a very
fancy place, but it looked reasonably clean. There were only two
customers in at that hour. He said to Glasser's question, "Yeah,
there were some guys come and said we hadda get out—an order of
some kind. Why the hell, I said, we got a dictatorship, tell people
where to go, get out, don't come back? Listen, I don't guess Rosie's
the best housekeeper in the world, but it was damn cheap rent and
what's it matter to anybody?"

"
All we want to know is," said Glasser,
"where have you moved? With Rosie? There are—um—some A.D.C.
papers for her to sign."

"Oh. The money for the kids. That's good,"
said Fratelli. "Well, hell, rents most anywhere sky high, it's
terrible. We ain't found a place. Acourse, it's easier not havin' the
kids, I got to say that. Right now we got a room in a hotel on
Temple, the Arcade. It's four bucks a night, we got to find some
place else."

"
Y0u know," said Wanda, outside in the
Gremlin, "what puzzles me, why does he stick to Rosie? He's not
any prize himself, Henry, but she's a lot farther down."

"
I don't think," said Glasser, "he'll
stick to her much longer. She's getting past picking up the johns and
rendering even token service."

"Those children," said Wanda. "My
God."

"
Yeah. Very unlikely that whoever fathered them
was much better than Rosie. It says somewhere, man He made a little
lower than the angels," said Glasser.

He went out helping on the legwork on the heists
later, and it was five-twenty when he landed back at the office.
Wanda was there, nobody else.

The autopsy report on Alice Engel had just come up.
As expected, she'd been beaten, raped and strangled. Pubic hairs from
the body had been sent to the lab. There was also a lab report which
had come in earlier. Numerous latent prints had been lifted in the
house. Five identifiable prints belonging to Leon Fratelli (record
appended) from headboard of bed, chest in bedroom, chairs in living
room; numerous prints belonging to Rose Engel (record appended) from
both bedrooms, kitchen. The lab said the pubic hair belonged to a
male Caucasian; if a specimen was obtained from any suspect, it could
be matched for comparison.

"
So what do you think?" asked Glasser. "You
bucking for detective."

"
Just what you're thinking, Henry," said
Wanda. "The whole dirty thing is obvious."

"
Yes," said Glasser. "Just for fun,
let's see if the boss thinks we can get a warrant."

But it was five to six, and Mendoza had gone home a
little early.
 

FOUR

WHEN MENDOZA CAME IN on Tuesday morning there was a
manila envelope from the coroner's office on his desk with the night
report. He slit it open: the autopsy report on David Whalen. There
wasn't much in it: the weapon had been a long narrow knife with a
serrated edge, and no special skill had been exhibited; he had been
stabbed four times, and two of the blows would have been fatal alone.

He glanced at the night report; a nice quiet night
for Matt and Bob, only a hit-run out on Alvarado. He heard Hackett
and Higgins coming in, and took the autopsy report out to the hall
with him.

"
Damn it, Art, it's a Murder One charge. Even
Fletcher can't hand him much less than— Morning, Luis, what've you
got?" Higgins took the report without interest.

"
I'll take no bets," said Hackett glumly,
and Scarne came in behind Landers and Conway. It was Grace's day off.

"
Morning," said Scarne. "I knew you
were chafing at the bit on this one, Lieutenant, so I brought it up
myself.

It just came through." He handed Mendoza the
yellow teletype; it was the kickback from the Feds on the prints of
the lady in the park.

"Ah," said Mendoza.

"
Of course it may not help you much, it's a
little out of date," said Scarne with a grin, and departed.

The prints were those, said the F.B.I., of Marion
Barry Stromberg, and the reason they were on file with the F.B.I. was
that back in 1943 Marion Stromberg was working for Lockheed Aircraft.
"
¡Ca!
" said
Mendoza. He passed the sheet to Hackett.

"Now that's helpful," said Hackett.
"Thirty-seven years back."

"
Well, it gives us a name," said Mendoza.
He marched back into his office, the two of them on his heels, and
got out the phone books.

"
Oh, for God's sake," said Hackett. "There
must be four pages of Strombergs, Luis, and in thirty-seven years
some people get divorced and remarried—"

"
Not everybody," said Mendoza. The F.B.I.
computer had just turned up the name and the connection; no doubt on
microfilm somewhere was a record of where Marion Stromberg had been
living at the time, her marital status, her age and even description:
the standard application form at Lockheed would have accompanied her
prints. They might have to ask the Feds to dig for that, and how long
it might take to unearth it God knew.

"
Use a little imagination, Arturo," said
Mendoza briskly. "Barry sounds like a surname—her maiden name?
Could be. So she was married then. A surprising number of people do
stay married to the same husbands and wives."

He riffled through the Hollywood book to the S's.
There were a good many Strombergs, all right.

"
What's your idea, set Jimmy to calling every
one in the book?"

"
Sarcastic," said Mendoza. "The little
gray cells, amigo. If the lady in the park had been living in the
midst of a loving family, she'd have been missed and reported by now.
¿Cómo no?
So the
probability is that she was living alone, which would probably mean
that she wouldn't be listed under a former husband's first name in
the phone book. Come on—" he shoved the Valley book over to
Hackett. "Many hands make light work. Forget Central for now—
I'll swear she didn't come from anywhere down here."

In the end, astonishingly, they collected only eight
which Mendoza chose as probable-possibles. Out of a welter of
Strombergs from the five county books, they rejected all those in
Watts, Lynwood and Lennox; those were rather solidly black areas. Out
of all the Strombergs listed only by initials, there were five M.B.'s
and three  M's, in Glendale, Hollywood, Studio City, Beverly
Hills, West Hollywood, Huntington Park. "First cast," said
Mendoza, looking at the list. "And don't tell me these are all
male householders. A lot of single women use initials only to avoid
the possible obscene calls."

"
A lot of women living alone," said
Hackett, "have unlisted numbers."

"
And the phone company's bound to answer
questions from the police," said Mendoza.

There wasn't much point in starting work on any of
the cases on hand; the Hoffman hearing was scheduled for ten o'clock,
at one of the smaller courtrooms in the Hall of Justice.