Murder Most Strange (22 page)

"That's very good, Mr. Trotwood."

"Now you give me a session with one of your
artists, Sergeant, and I'll give you a composite like a photograph.
He was six feet even, a hundred and seventy, that streaky dark and
light blond hair, light eyes, a kind of pointed narrow chin, clean
shaven—tufty sort of eyebrows and thin lips; But the funniest
damned thing is," said Trotwood, "I've seen a picture of
that guy before. I know I have. It's clear in my mind—I've seen a
real photograph of him."

"That's not very likely, Mr. Trotwood,"
said Grace tactfully. "Maybe he just reminded you of somebody—"

"No, no," said
Trotwood obstinately, "I've seen a photograph of him—if I
could just remember where, damn it! But you give me a session with
your Identikit."

* * *

At the address on Russell Street in Hollywood, the
nice-looking brown-haired woman said blankly, before she broke down,
"He always goes to the library once a week—he's a greater
reader, he likes Westerns—and the car was on the fritz, he took the
bus today— What? Why, he's the night security guard at the
Universal Studio—you can't be telling me that Eric's dead—he's
only fifty-nine—"

There was a son in West
Hollywood to call, and a married daughter in La Habra.

* * *

Hackett and Landers had finally been able to get to
some legwork, covering those various restaurants suggested to
Upchurch by Seton, when the places began to open. They were all
high-class, expensive restaurants; Landers snorted at Upchurch and
his French cuisine. Upchurch so politically identified with those
simple ranchers up north. They had started out at La Bella Fontana at
the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, but everybody there shook their heads at
the picture and said he hadn't been in there.

"It's possible," said Hackett, looking at
the list, "that he stayed right where he was, Tom. At the
Beverly Hilton. The big restaurant there is French—L'Escoffier.
What the hell's that mean?"

"No idea," said Landers. "I took
German."

"It's one of the places Seton said he
recommended. And if Upchurch wasn't familiar with L.A. he might not
have been inclined to go hunting for addresses. He wasn't far from
his own hotel at the Hilton."

So they had come up here, to the dining room of
L'Escoffier, opening at four. They showed the picture around, and the
maitre d'
and all the
waitresses shook their heads at it. He hadn't been there. They had,
of course, seen the newspaper stories and pictures; they would have
remembered.

"We11, the next nearest," said Hackett, "is
this Jimmy's farther up in Beverly Hil1s."

But as they went through the lobby, they spotted
Seton striding toward the front entrance, and Hackett increased his
pace and caught up to him. "Afternoon, Mr. Seton. I should have
picked up the nuances—that copy of Playboy—and of course you
would have too. He had the roving eye, didn't he? He picked up a girl
at the hotel as soon as he landed here, or did he have a date already
set up? Was that just a call girl, or would you know?"

Seton met his eyes and gave a massive shrug. "So
you're onto him. My God, Sergeant, that is the kind of thing we're
paid to deal with—but if he was going to be that kind of a fool, I
couldn't play nursemaid to him twenty-four hours a day. Yeah, I found
out soon enough after we started dealing with him, he had quite an
eye for the chicks, and I'd warned him to be discreet, for God's
sake." Seton ran a hand over his smooth hair. "He was a
good property," he said. "He put up such a damned good
appearance, a slick actor, all those hicks up there eating out of his
hand, and it was such a damned good image, the city folk liked him
too." He looked reminiscent and thoughtful, his cold eyes
introspective. "Why, hell, he could really have gone places,
that one, it's a god-damned waste when you think of it—"

Hackett said, "It didn't cross your mind what
harm a man like that might do the nation—a lecher, a man of no
principle, susceptible to blackmail?"

Seton gave him a mirthless smile. "Sergeant, I'm
a P.R. man. We get paid to build the image. What the hell, it was no
skin off my nose."

Landers said very softly, "It will be, if we
fall into a dictatorship on account of the corrupt politicians."

Seton shrugged again. "So you're one of the
wild-eyed extremists. Common sense, boys. But Upchurch is a dead
issue anyway, no use to anybody now. Forget it. And I've got an
appointment with a client, excuse me." He turned to the door.

"Remind me to ask John," said Landers, "for
a copy of that quote from Belloc."
 

EIGHT

Palliser and Grace were still out on the new call,
whatever that was, on Tuesday afternoon when the autopsy report on
Edna Patterson came in. Mendoza skimmed over it and said to Higgins,
"Nothing we couldn't have guessed." She had been manually
strangled. And she had been a medium-sized woman in reasonably good
health, but if a big man had got her by the throat she wouldn't have
had much chance to tight back.

When the new call came in at four-thirty, they both
went out on it. "Getting along toward summer," said
Higgins. "We'll be having a heat wave before long, and then see
business really pick up."

It was a public high school on Forty-second Place,
and as Higgins pulled into the parking lot the ambulance came out of
it screaming. In the middle of the parking lot were a lot of excited
adults and a handful of teen-agers and the two Traffic men, Faye and
Corbett. They had sorted out the main facts, and presented them in
capsule form.

"The supervisor of the cafeteria here, a Mrs.
Joan Flowers, and one of the teachers, Arthur Robillard—he looked
pretty bad. Two other cafeteria workers and a couple of kids saw it
happen, everybody else came out afterward. This guy accosted Flowers
as she was getting into her car, and Robillard evidently saw it and
came running over to grab him—good many people leaving at this
hour—and they were both shot. Senseless damned thing," said
Faye. "Evidently he was after the money bag."

"What money bag?" asked Higgins.

"She always took the money from the cafeteria to
deposit it at the bank. It's still in her car."

They talked to the two women, who also worked in the
cafeteria, who had seen it happen: Mrs. Mona Knight, Miss Frances
Medina. "We were just going along talking, coming to our cars,
when I heard Mr. Robillard shout—he'd been just ahead of us—and I
looked up, and he was running, and there were all of these loud bangs
like firecrackers and this man beside Mrs. Flowers' car—"

"He was shooting at them, oh, it was awful, he'd
already shot Mrs. Flowers, she was on the ground—"

"And then he just ran out of the lot."

Robillard was one of the teachers. There were eight
other teachers there, but they had all come out on hearing the shots,
hadn't seen anything.

One of the kids spoke up, a gangling black kid about
sixteen. "I saw him pretty good, I was just behind them two"—he
indicated the cafeteria workers—"and he looked a lot like
Tommy."

Another one said jeeringly, "Man, don't tell the
fuzz nothing no time," and surprisingly another couple of kids,
one black and one probably Mexican, rounded on him.

"Bastard try to kill Mr. Robillard, I sure hope
they get him—"

"I tell the fuzz what I seen, that guy shoot Mr.
Robillard—" Another four or five just stood watching, silent.

"All right," said Mendoza to the first one.
"What's your name?"

"Derek Hornbuckle."

"So what did you see?"

"Lady from the cafeteria goin' up to her car—I
was cuttin' through the lot on my way home after baseball practice.
She put the money bag in the front seat, and then that guy came up
from out back o' the car and point a gun at her. He looked an awful
lot like that Tommy guy—he was a senior last year, I dint know him
but he was a sorta big guy around account he was so good on the
basketball team."

"Tommy Hemandez?" said one of the teachers.
"Oh, it wouldn't have been Tommy—never any discipline
problems, and a good background—really, Officers—"

"And then what‘?" asked Higgins.

"Mr. Robillard, he was just gettin' in his car
and he seen him too, he yelled and started to run over there, and the
guy shot at him and then he run across the lot and into the street.
He hadn't no call to shoot Mr. Robillard!" said Derek shrilly.
"I bet he was gonna steal the cafeteria money."

The teachers all said Robillard was one of the most
popular teachers at the school; he taught shop and auto mechanics.
Several of them said the Hornbuckle kid was imagining things, Tommy
Hernandez had been one of their more docile pupils.

"So," said Higgins to Derek, "just
tell us what the fellow looked like—how tall, how old and so on."

"I dunno," said Derek, inarticulate. "Kind
of old—uh, maybe twenny. Kind of tall, like Tommy. He had on a red
shirt and dark pants. He run across the lot into the street, he put
the gun back in his pocket."

Mendoza was talking to the two women, explaining that
they would want statements. "A description," said Miss
Medina. "Oh, dear, I couldn't—it was all so fast, I saw him
running—oh, dear, it was so awful, poor Mrs. Flowers—all the
blood—"

"He was pretty tall, and thin, all I could say,"
said Mrs. Knight. "Oh, my heavens, I hope they're both all
right! Oh, somebody ought to call Mr. Krepps, the principal. Where
should we call to find out about them?"

There probably wouldn't be a good description to get
from any of them; it was just a senseless random thing. Mendoza and
Higgins went back to the office; tomorrow would be soon enough to
write the initial report. Mendoza phoned the hospital. Robillard had
been D.O.A., a bullet through the heart. Mrs. Flowers had a
superficial shoulder wound and was in mild shock. "Well, small
favors," said Mendoza. "She may have gotten a closer look
at him. Maybe the night watch can talk to her."

He took the stodgy loaner back to the garage and
picked up the Ferrari. When he turned up Hamlin Place, the last
residential street in the city of Burbank, and on up the hill, he
wondered about the gadget. When he came to the wrought-iron gates of
La Casa de la Gente Feliz, he stopped and activated the gadget, and
the gates obediently swung politely open and he drove through,
watching the rear-view mirror; in thirty seconds they swung smartly
closed with a little clang. Continuing on up the hill, he reflected
that money was a useful commodity to possess, and it was also
pleasant to live in an era where there were so many mechanical
marvels available. At the garage, he pulled down the door on the
Ferrari, Alison's Facel-Vega and Mairi's old Chevy. Kearney had
installed a powerful floodlight on the garage roof, shining up the
path to the back door. He came into the kitchen to find Mairi just
taking a pot roast from the oven, Alison making a salad, and Cedric
loudly slurping water from his bowl on the service porch.

"Hello,
querido
.
Reasonably good day?"

And the twins came running. "Daddy, we been
helpin' Uncle Ken build a fence—"

"An' Terry almost got her finger nailed to the
fence when she—"

El Senor appeared as if by conjuration when the
cupboard was opened on the bottle of rye.

And Alison said, as they
sat down to dinner, "They can't come to put up the block wall
for nearly a month, and that wire-and-post thing looks absolutely
horrible, but never mind—it'll get built eventually. And I just
hope to goodness nothing else happens for a while!"

* * *

Schenke called the hospital, and was informed that
Mrs. Flowers was still in shock and couldn't be talked to until
tomorrow. The day men had left this list of possible suspects, and he
and Piggott went out looking for a couple of those, leaving Conway to
hold the fort. At nine-forty he got a call to a heist, a liquor store
out at Sunset and Figueroa, and went out resignedly to listen to the
same monotonous story: he had a gun, he said give me the money, I
couldn't give you a description—

It was in a little triangle of business there, just
below where the Hollywood freeway crossed the Pasadena freeway. The
owner was a stolid beefily built man named Dunne. He said, "They
came in here about half an hour ago, both black, one short fat guy,
one tall skinny guy. They was waving guns around, and the tall one
said let's have all the money, man. Now I never keep more than fifty
bucks in the register, and I'd guess they got a little under that. So
out they go, and I called in—"

"Them again," said Conway.

"You know 'em?"

"We do. Maybe sometime we'll drop on them."

"Well, I figure you have," said Dunne.
"Time I finished calling, I heard an old engine grinding away,
like the battery's down, and wondered if it was them, thought I'd try
for a look at the plate number if it was—so I went out and spotted
them, I'm pretty sure it was them, in an old white heap across the
street. Only before I could get a look at the plate, it came to life
and they took off, screeching rubber." He jerked his head. "Up
there. I saw it, couldn't do anything to stop it. They hit the exit
ramp of the Hollywood freeway doing about forty-five—God, a dozen
signs, wrong way, do not enter—and the next minute, God, you
shoulda heard the crash. So I called the Highway Patrol and I guess
they're still up there clearing it all up. I'1l bet it was a mess."