Murder Most Strange (14 page)

"Go and take a look, John," said Grace.
"There's a lab unit on the way to take pictures."

The uniformed man was brooding over the lone figure
on the bench up there beside the lake. Palliser took a look and
uttered a few swearwords. He went back to Grace.

". . . Civic duty," said Mrs. Ryder as he
came up, "of course we'll be glad to give you statements about
it. But as to identifying anybody, well, it was just a flash, and we
were both so startled—I couldn't say I'd know him again—young,
and he had light hair—"

"He was tall—"

"Not as tall as you," said Mrs. Ryder,
looking at Palliser. "I'd say about as tall. He had on a white
shirt—"

"Light blue."

"I'm sure, Edith-"

"So am I. And he could change his shirt, I
suppose."

Grace had their addresses; they finally went on their
way, the lab unit arrived, and Palliser and Grace went back to the
body. "And by God," said Palliser, "this is just too
long a coincidence, Jase! Look at him—just look—in a general way,
he's a ringer for Joe Kelly—and, by God, even that old wino on the
Row! A superficial resemblance, but the same type. They were all in
the sixties, middle-sized, ordinary-looking—all knifed—and I
don't buy the coincidence. And Kelly said the fellow who followed him
was young and had light hair— What the hell is this?"

"I thought you'd be interested," said
Grace.

"And who the hell is this one?" It was a
while before they could look; the lab men were always thorough.
Eventually Marx handed over a billfold. It contained seven dollars
and fifty-three cents, various credit cards, a membership card for a
local Elks club, and identification for Robert Barker, an address on
Park View Street two blocks away.

They walked up there; it was a neat little old
duplex. The woman who answered the door was comfortably round and
pink-faced and smiling, gray-haired, her hands floury. "I'm
sorry, I was in the middle of mixing up biscuits, what is it? What
kind of a thing is that?" She stared at Palliser's badge.

There weren't any right ways to break bad news. She
said at first, blankly, "Why, yes, Robert's up at the park, he's
just getting over the flu, hasn't gone back to work yet, he thought
the sun would be good for—" And then after silence she said,
"But Robert can't be dead! How could Robert be dead?"

The woman who lived on the other side of the duplex,
a widow named McNally, came over on appeal, saying she'd known the
Barkers for years, was a good friend. "Oh, Nellie!" sobbed
Mrs. Barker. "Oh, Nellie—got to call Rita and Bob Junior—I
don't understand it—he was feeling so much better this morning—"

"You leave everything to me, Dottie." She
could, of course, tell them this and that more sensibly.

"Coincidence I do not buy," said Palliser
angrily, back at  the office. "And I thought I was
woolgathering, saying there was a vague resemblance between the old
wino and Kelly, but now look at this!"

Mendoza was interested. "Yes, it's a pattern,
but for God's sake what kind?"

"How the hell can anybody guess? But look at it!
They all conform generally to the same description. On the wino,
anybody down there might knife anybody for the price of a bottle of
muscatel, but for what it's worth he had a buck or two on him. Kelly,
the inoffensive ordinary retired railroader. No enemies, no money, no
reason for anybody to kill him. And now here's Robert Barker, the
same damn kind. He worked for Greyhound, ticket seller at the Sixth
Street station, a year off retirement. Quiet family man, little
money, no enemies. He wasn't robbed—he had seven dollars on him."

"Mmh, yes," said Mendoza. "A pattern.
But it doesn't point in any direction. I suppose there wasn't any
connection between them?"

"Hell," said Palliser thoughtfully, "I
wonder if there could have been? That is a thought. Between Kelly and
Barker, it's possible. They lived in the same general area, had the
same sort of backgrounds. I'll have a look. But for God's sake, it's
senseless—knifing a man in the open, with witnesses—"

"Who don't sound like such reliable witnesses,"
said Mendoza dryly, and Grace laughed ruefully.

"How many ever are?"

And just then Sergeant Lake came trotting down the
hall.

"We've got Bartovic!
They just picked him up down in Santa Monica."

* * *

The squad car from Santa Monica delivered Rudy
Bartovic to the central jail twenty minutes later, and Mendoza,
Hackett, Palliser and Grace were waiting for him. His car, the old
T-bird, was being towed in for lab examination.

They started in to grill him then and there. Unless
they found some good solid evidence in his car, or broke him down to
confess that he'd attacked and abducted Eileen Mooney, they couldn't
hold him more than twenty-four hours without a warrant. And he was a
punk; he might be prone to violence, he might be a user, but he
didn't have a long or bad record, he wasn't a real tough, and he
might come apart right away. He wasn't an attractive specimen,
slouching at the little table in the interrogation room. He was a big
hulk, long unkempt dark hair, beetling eyebrows, a strong prow of a
nose. He wasn't long on brains, and he was naturally suspicious of
police.

"All right, Rudy, where's Eileen?" Higgins
began it, grim and professional, looming over him.

"What the hell you mean? I don't know why you
picked me up, I haven't done anything."

"Ei1een Mooney. Where is she? Where'd you take
her?"

"I didn't take her anywhere. What the hell?"

"You know what we're talking about. What did you
do to her?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talkin'
about. The last time I saw Eileen was last Friday night."

"And you gave her a rough time, didn't you,
Rudy?"

Mendoza cut in coldly. "You thought she'd be an
easy girl, you were mad when she fought you, weren't you? Maybe you'd
been thinking about that, wanted to get even. How about it, Rudy?"

"I—she hadn't no call to do that, I never
meant any harm. I don't know what you mean."

"Where is she, Rudy?"

"I don't know!" he snarled.

"Come on, come on," said Higgins roughly,
"we can read it plain enough, Rudy. You saw her pass on her way
to the park, you followed her and saw her sitting there—nobody else
around. You probably drove your car down to a handy spot alongside
the park—and you grabbed her there, and she fought you again,
didn't she?"

"What did you do to her to make her bleed that
much, Rudy?" asked Grace.

"I never did nothing to her."

"Then where is she?" Mendoza's voice cut
like a knife. "It's pretty damn obvious she was taken away from
the park by force, and you were the one right there on the spot—you
were the one who'd been pestering her for dates, took her out last
week and damn near raped her, and got mad at her when she resisted—"

"I don't know what the hell you're all talkin'
about. I don't know nothing about Eileen."

"Where've you been since last Tuesday?"
asked Higgins abruptly.

"Oh, for God's sake. Around. I been feeling
lousy, no job, everything gone to hell, Ma nag at me—I just didn't
feel like goin' home. I drove around—I—Tuesday? You got me
confused—I went to a couple movies somewhere, and then—since
then—I been with a girl friend down in Santa Monica, that's were I
got picked up."

"What's her name?"

"Doreen. Doreen Segura. Twenty-fourth Street."

They went all around it
again and again, and he kept saying the same things. It was after
six-thirty when Mendoza said, "Damn it, leave it overnight. We
can hold him until tomorrow afternoon. See what the lab turns on the
car." And those boys were finicky and thorough: it would take
time to vacuum that heap and examine everything under the microscope;
but some blood, a few of Ei1een's copper-penny hairs in a suggestive
place, when he knew the evidence was there he might change his tune.
See what the girl said. "And leave a note for the night watch,
as soon as they've chased her down, call me on it
immediatamente
!"

* * *

At ten-thirty when the phone rang Mendoza was dealing
himself crooked poker hands on the coffee table in the living room.
Alison was upstairs doing her nails, and the cats had gone to visit
Mairi's little downstairs suite, being fascinated with her knitting.

"Yes?"

"Join the force and see life," said Conway.
"This Segura female is a topless dancer at a third-rate club
down here. I don't know how honest she is, but, Christmas, chief, she
is stacked. I've been talking to her backstage. She says she hadn't
laid eyes on Bartovic in about six months until he landed at her
place around noon on Wednesday. She felt sorry for him, down on his
luck, and let him stay. He'd been there ever since—well, she was
out working last night—working, hah—but he was there when she got
home at four A.M.”

"
¡Condenación!
That's no damn use to us—he could have killed the girl Tuesday
morning and dropped the body somewhere by Tuesday afternoon."

"Yeah, I know, but that's what she says. She
also says he had some pretty good grass on him. If he'd been high on
the pot, he might be a little vague about times."

"And if he'd been smoking pot he might have been
sniffing coke or hitting the angel dust, which would make it all the
likelier he'd do a murder," said Mendoza irritably.

"Something might show up in the car," said
Conway.

Mendoza was annoyed. He
put the phone down and unprecedentedly went out to the kitchen to get
himself a drink. El Senor, who could hear that particular cupboard
door open the length of the house away, appeared as if by magic on
the countertop and demanded his share. "Ought to join A.A.,"
muttered Mendoza at him. "This is not good for cats. You had
your daily ration before dinner,
borrachón
!"

* * *

Before Conway got back, Schenke and Piggott were
called out to another heist, at a bar on Second. There were only four
witnesses. "It's been a slow night," said the bartender,
whose name was O'Toole. "I was going to close early, just these
three guys here, and then he walked in." They all gave the same
description: blond, big, husky, with a big gun. "And when he
says, hand it over and do it quick, I guess I was a little shook—it
was so sudden—and he got real ugly and says, I said move it, man,
and damned if he didn't shoot at me—I felt the damn bullet go past.
Oh, and he had a real broad southern accent." They all confirmed
that.

"Well, well," said Schenke. "Our
hair-trigger artist again, by all that. Where'd the slug hit?"
He spotted the hole in the wall over the bar, got out his knife and
prodded for it, got it out looking fairly intact.

They all offered to come
in and look at mug shots, but that would probably be a waste of time.
And he hadn't gotten much; the customers figured out that they'd lost
about fifteen dollars all told, and he'd only gotten thirty from the
register. Writing the report on that took them to the end of the
shift. Piggott drove home through the largely empty dark streets, the
traffic lights uncannily dark too. He was tired; maybe he was getting
spring fever. At the apartment, he climbed the stairs quietly,
fumbled with his key and went into the living room. He stood there
for a few minutes watching the big lighted aquarium in one corner,
with the beautiful tropical fish gliding around it smooth and lazy.
He felt himself relaxing just for the sight; and tomorrow was his day
off. He undressed in the dark and got into bed beside Prudence, and
she stirred and said drowsily, "Matt," before going to
sleep again.

* * *

On Friday morning Higgins looked at Piggott's report
and said, "So I was dragging my heels on it. The hair-trigger's
not a local. Definitely the southern accent. So let's ask NCIC if
they've got anybody similar listed." He went down to
Communications to send off a query.

Mendoza was already on the phone to SID, but it was
an hour before Duke and Fisher came into the office. They looked glum
and tired; Duke kept rubbing his eyes. "I know you've had the
hell of a job at short notice," said Mendoza.

"But we can't hold him past four P.M.—"

"I don't think you can hold him at all,"
said Duke. "We've got a few suggestive little things but not
really enough."

"Damnation. What have you got?”

The two SID men had been up all night going over
Bartovic's car. Wanda brought in coffee; everybody was there, waiting
to hear what they had. "There was some blood on the spare tire
in the trunk," said Duke. "Not much, just some. Three
red-blond hairs on the front seat, and a nearly new lip-stick that
looks like a color a redhead might use. Also a female handkerchief,
pretty clean, with the initial E on it, also in the front seat."

"
¡Diez millén
demonios!
" said Mendoza. "She could
have lost those in the car on Friday night. Which Bartovic would
realize.”