Mark of Murder - Dell Shannon (14 page)

"My God, you had one hell of a nerve, didn't
you?" said Mendoza. "You went on taking the chance--to save
yourself. If that came out, you'd be tied into it tight. So, right
under the sergeant's nose, you went on hiding the evidence--and
planting false evidence. Talk about nerve --
eso
ya es llover sobre mojado
, adding insult to
injury! You knew the minute we saw those files, listing that slim
number of legitimate patients, we were going to start wondering like
hell where all Nestor's money came from. That worried you, didn't it,
that you couldn't do anything about the files? The sergeant was in
there, you couldn't walk off with them or start adding fictitious
file cards, to make them look. good. No. But you did what you could.
By God, you did. You made the excuse of calling the patients, and you
got hold of the appointment book. You sat there at your desk, the
innocent efficient nurse, with that and the phone book, leaning over
the phone so nobody could see you were holding down the tabs, talking
to dead air--and while you canceled non-existent appointments you
actually entered a lot of non-existent appointments in the book.
Because on the surface it had to look as if Nestor had a large
practice, to account for the income."

He laughed sharply. "Unfortunately, somebody had
already looked at the appointment book and is ready to swear it's
been extensively added to since."

"You can't prove that," she said. "You
can't make me out--"

"You don't think so?" said Mendoza. He
laughed again. "We'll prove it, Corliss! Check out every one of
those names in the book--and nine out of ten'll show up as
non-existent. What was a chiropractor doing with a bloodstained
smock? Some patient had a nosebleed? ¡
A otro
perro con ese hueso!
We'll prove it, and
you'll be spending the next few years in Tehachapi."

Scarne came in from the bedroom. "Nothing,"
he said. "Nothing even unusual."

"I didn't expect it," said Mendoza without
taking his eyes off the woman. "Corliss is a little too smart to
keep incriminating evidence around, isn't she? Or thinks she is. What
did you do with Doctor's records, Corliss? And all the rest of it?
You might have got rid of the tools, but I think you'd hang onto the
records. I think maybe you had the same bright little idea Doctor had
about that, didn't you? Did you stash them away in a safe-deposit box
maybe? If and when we charge you, I can get an order to open one of
those, you know .... Well, don't just stand there!" he added to
Scarne. "Go down and look at her car."

He picked up the bulging handbag lying on the table
near the door. "Keys probably in here."

"You leave my things alone! You--"

"Search warrant, Corliss," said Mendoza.
"All nice and legal!" He took a step and stood over her
close. "No, you couldn't do anything about those damning
files--files showing just the few legitimate patients he had. You
told the big sergeant one very damn silly story about that, but it
was really all you could say, wasn't it?--that a lot of file cards
were missing, had been taken out. You could point to the appointment
book, all righteous, and say that showed how many patients he
had--but it wasn't quite the same thing, was it?"

"You've certainly got a nasty imagination,"
she said shrilly. "Not one word of that--you can't prove--"

"Sooner or later somebody might have begun to
wonder," said Mendoza tautly. He bent a little closer to her.
"Look at me! You know something, Corliss? Somebody had begun to
wonder about it. That big tough sergeant, Corliss. He didn't like
you, he was wondering hard about you. He wanted to see you again,
rake you over the coals a little. Did he, Corliss?"

"I don't know what you--" Suddenly her eyes
showed a little fright, at his nakedly savage tone.

"Did he? Last Friday night-- And did you, maybe,
give yourself away somehow? So that you knew if the sergeant passed
that on you'd be in one hell of a mess anyway?

And was, maybe, your gentleman friend here to lend
you a hand at--"

"I don't know what you're talking about,"
she said rapidly, nervously. "What if Larry was here Friday
night? That cop never-- I don't know what you mean--"

But her dark expressionless eyes shifted at last,
once, and her tight mouth worked convulsively.

"
¡Perro negra!
"
said Mendoza violently--and Palliser moved. He saw Mendoza's eyes,
and he took one step, between them, to seize Mendoza's upraised arm.

For an instant they stood breast to breast, and
Palliser was the taller man but he wondered if he could hold him. He
said quietly, "You haven't been haled up to I.A. the last couple
of years, sir, you don't want to break your record."

Mendoza drew a long breath. "No. No. All right,
boy."

Palliser felt the violence of effort as he regained
control. He let go of him and stepped back.

"--sue you for slander!" she was saying
breathlessly. "That's right, try to hit a defenseless woman! Of
all things, I never heard of-- All lies! You'll never prove--"

"You're wasting breath and effort, Corliss,"
said Mendoza. "We'll prove it on you. Larry who?"

"I don't have to tell you that," she said
haughtily. "To drag him in. I never heard--”

"Are you a registered nurse? Where'd you train?"

"I don't have to tell you--"

Scarne came back, letting himself in with her key,
and said, "The car's clean, Lieutenant."

"Yes," said Mendoza. "Just don't try
to run, Corliss. We're watching you, and we'll get enough for a
warrant sooner or later."

She was still sitting there, stolid and defiant, when
they went out.

Dwyer dropped behind with Palliser. "Brother,"
he said
sotto voce
,
"you took a chance there. I've seen him like that a few times.
He might just as easy have knocked you into the middle of next week.
For all he's not outsize, when he's in the mood he can be a tough one
to take."

"Better me than a female citizen there's no
evidence on," said Palliser tersely.

In the street Mendoza stopped beside the long black
elegance of the Ferrari. He took off his hat and put a hand to his
head as if it ached, and summoned a smile for the three of them. He
said, "So we go the long way round. With the lab boys working
overtime. A tail on her twenty-four hours a day, from now on. She
knows we'll get there in the end. Somebody'll have to go through that
appointment book, check out all the names. Get that set up, one of
you, will you? Bert--you chase back to the office and start that. And
when you and Scarne have finished checking your bit of Nestor's
address book, I could bear to know the hell of a lot more about one
Cliff Elger. Go talk to people about him. I'1l see you back at the
office at six."

"O.K.," said Dwyer casually. He and Scarne
walked on toward Dwyer's car down the block.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," said Palliser. "It
was just--I mean, I know how you felt, that damn woman, but I
couldn't let you----”

Mendoza tossed his hat in the open window of the
Ferrari. He didn't say anything; he reached for a cigarette, lit it.

"
I mean, my God, you know--the headlines,"
said Palliser. "That juvenile thing last year--all blown up out
of nothing, but the chief is so damn scrupulous about that kind of
thing, and Internal Affairs----"

"I know," said Mendoza. "Thanks very
much, John. Make a fool of myself----that never accomplishes
anything. We'll drop on Corliss, with any luck. That doesn't say.
Let's talk this over a little." He got into the car.

Palliser got in after him. "Yes, sir."

"Build it for me," said Mendoza. "The
way you see it, on Art. How did it happen?"

"Well, I don't see that we can--"

"From what we know. Construe,” said Mendoza.

Palliser considered. "One thing did occur to me.
What was the last thing he wrote in his notebook?"

"You think, don't you?" Mendoza brought out
Hackett's notebook. "But it's not much help .... "
 

TEN

It wasn't much help because Hackett didn't keep
consecutive notes; he had used separate sections of the notebook for
separate inquiries and people. There wasn't any way to know what he'd
last written down. In the section on Andrea Nestor, the last thing
he'd written was, "Any overheard quarrels with husband? Ask
neighbors?" There wasn't anything about the Elgers at all.

"But of course," said Palliser, "wherever
he was attacked, whoever did it, if we're right he probably wouldn't
have had a chance to write any notes about that interview."

Mendoza agreed. It was always better not to produce a
notebook at the actual interview with a witness, if you could avoid
it, but to write your notes afterward; that would be what Hackett
would have done.

"The only other thing that struck me," said
Palliser, "is that it would have been a lot easier to set up
that fake accident if there were two people involved. Because that
canyon road's pretty long and winding. The site was about a mile up
from where the road starts, above the end of Bronson. It's steep,
too. When X had sent the car over, he'd be on foot, unless somebody
had driven another car along to pick him up. And look, how would he
know that the crash wouldn't be heard right away, bring people
swarming around? How's he going to explain himself, there on foot? I
think there must--"

"You said the houses, and not many of them, are
set back. And that there wasn't really any crash, the Ford didn't hit
anything big. A mile's not really very far. Of course it'd be more
than a mile, maybe a lot more, because we don't know where X lives,
where it happened. It'd have been easier for two people, but it
wasn't at all impossible for a single X. I think we can make a few
deductions anyway." Mendoza produced a folded paper from his
breast pocket. "This is what Erwin had to say--and the surgeon
at the hospital. The most serious injury is the head wound--massive
skull fracture. They don't think he was hit with a weapon of any
kind, and they don't think the injury occurred during the fall over
the cliff. They say it's too big an area, and on account of certain
technicalities and measurements they come up with the opinion that he
was knocked against some hard, broad, flat surface with great force.
That's Erwin--‘with great force'. Thus adding his own weight to the
force of the blow. Erwin suggests a cement wall, the side of a
building, or a flat stone hearth. There's a slight bruise under the
jaw too, which backs that up. They think that happened a little while
before he incurred the other injuries--which was obviously when the
car was sent over. Anything occur to you from that?"

"Not much. Except that it's likelier, isn't it,
that it happened inside somewhere, not on the street? I don't suppose
X had thought it all out beforehand--he probably struck that blow on
impulse, and probably just after Hackett had let him see he'd given
himself away somehow."

"I'll go along on that. We can deduce something
else, John. Why did X have to take Art's own belt off to tie him up?
Obviously, because he hadn't any rope or stout cord handy--or maybe
only enough for either the wrists or ankles. What does that say?
Possibly an apartment, instead of a house. A house can usually
produce something of the sort--clothesline, et cetera--but people
living in apartments, unless they habitually wrap a lot of parcels
for mailing-- Yes."

"Well, practically all of them do live in
apart1nents," said Palliser. "The people we've come across
so far."

"There'll be some of Nestor's friends living in
houses, I suppose. All right. Say it was Corliss and her boy friend
Larry--who I'd like to know more about too. We will. He was there.
Suppose she somehow gave herself away to Art, or he spotted some
evidence there while he was talking to her, and started to question
her hard or even charge her--and the boy friend got mad and hit him,
caught him off balance maybe and knocked him against that imitation
marble hearth or even just the wall. I'll say this. I think we'll
find that Larry is an amiable weak lout--Corliss' kind do pick up
that type. Possibly he's had a few brushes with the law himself. So
he'd be all too ready to help get rid of a cop."

"Um," said Palliser.

"And, if he is that type, it's a type that often
comes apart fairly easily," said Mendoza. "I don't know but
what I like the Elgers better, except that they look fairly normal
--for their type--and there's nothing on them at all."

He told Palliser about the Elgers.

Palliser said, "You know--what Dr. Erwin
said--that he was probably knocked against something. That sounds to
me as if he was taken completely by surprise. Because, after all,
it's second nature, isn't it?--you're questioning a suspect, a pretty
hot suspect, even if you've just found that out--you're watching for
any tricks. Aren't you? We've just had a reminder about that, last
month--those two fellows stopped for speeding, who shot up the
squadcar man. He never thought to check them for arms."

"Yes?"

"Well, what it might say," said Palliser,
"is that it was somebody he'd never expect to attack him at all.
Physically. Such as a woman or--or an eighty-year-old man, something
like that. So he was off his guard entirely, and that was how he was
caught off balance. And you know--"