Murder Most Strange (7 page)

Mendoza came in about eleven, looked at the night
report. Nobody had brought in any suspects yet. "I want to talk
to Cooper," he said, depositing Piggott's report tidily in the
desk tray.

"I figured, which was the reason I stayed in,"
said Hackett.

"Damnation, Wanda's day off. I suppose we ought
to take a female along for form's sake, talking to the child—"

"Her father'll be there, and I take it the
grandmother."

"Yes." Mendoza swiveled around in the desk
chair, put out his cigarette, and picked up the phone. After an
interval he talked to the same calm-sounding woman he'd reached on
Friday, and was assured that Cooper was home and available. It was an
old California bungalow on a narrow residential street in South
Pasadena. The woman who let them in was also comfortable-looking, a
round gray-haired woman in the late fifties, with steady dark eyes
behind metal-framed glasses; she looked, in her plain cotton dress
and unfashionable old- lady shoes, like a good cook and housekeeper,
which she probably was.

The combination living-dining room was furnished with
a jumble of old comfortable pieces of furniture blending together
into hominess. Daniel Cooper had been sitting in a big armchair
opposite a modest TV on a stand, reading the
Times
;
he got up hastily to greet them.

"I wondered when you'd want to talk to me,"
he said. "Do you know yet what—what caused her death?"

"We haven't had an autopsy report, Mr. Cooper,
but it looks rather definite that it was an overdose of
phenobarbital."

“
Oh, no." He shook his head.
"That's—unbelievable. You mean—she meant to? No." There
wasn't any sign of Harriet. Mrs. Cooper sat down quietly on the
couch, watching and listening.

"Just what do you mean by that, Mr. Cooper?"
asked Mendoza.

Cooper said mechanically, "Sit down, won't you.
I'm sorry, but—" He was as nondescript and ordinary as the
house, about thirty-five, medium height, a little round-shouldered,
starting to lose his sandy hair; he looked like a solid stable
citizen, not very imaginative. He sat down in the armchair again and
looked at them, in the pair of chairs opposite. He said, "Marion?
I'll never believe she committed suicide. She wasn't the type. She
liked living too much—she was scared of death and dying, anything
connected. She was always, well, cheerful and happy—outgoing do
they say?—maybe that was the trouble. I suppose I should think
about making some funeral arrangements, but I don't know—"

Hackett told him he'd be informed when the body would
be released. "She didn't have any family?"

"No. No. Her mother and father were killed in an
accident when she was only sixteen, there was an aunt she lived with
after that, but she's dead now too. I'd be the only one to—"

"What do you mean, that was the trouble?"
asked Mendoza.

"Well, the way she was," said Cooper.
"Always wanting to go out, socialize, dances or movies,
anywhere. She was immature. She was only nineteen when we got
married, I thought she'd grow out of it, but . . . She just couldn't
take responsibility. She didn't like housework or cooking, she
didn't—well, do much of it. She thought—when the baby was on the
way—that'd be fun, but after Harriet was born she was always
complaining how much work it made. But—well, the eight years we
were married—it wasn't good, or very—very comfortable, you
know—but she was—" He hunted for words, came out with, "So
damned cheerful. Happy. Irresponsible. I'd—maybe criticize her a
little, she'd snap back or cry and three minutes later forget it.
She'd never in this world have killed herself." ·

"That's interesting," said Mendoza
noncommittally. "Which of you wanted the divorce?"

"Marion." He blinked and looked down at his
hands. "I sort of resisted the idea on account of Harriet, and
then I thought I might get custody—you see, it wasn't the usual
thing, a man alone, I could give her a nice solid home with
Mother—Dad finished paying off the house before he died eight years
ago—but, well, judges tend to be unrealistic, I guess."

"We understand she was getting both alimony and
child support," said Hackett.

"Yeah, that's right. It was a little piece out
of what I make, but there it was. And at least I had Harriet on
weekends, she was agreeable to that."

"Did you ever suspect that she was—mmh,
misbehaving with other men, drinking too much, using any kind of
dope?”

He looked astonished. "Marion? For God's sake,
no! Where'd you get that idea? She had the right to date other men if
she wanted—but Marion isn't—wasn't—the kind to go in for—"

His mother spoke up quietly. "No, to be fair
about it she was a perfectly good-hearted girl." But her eyes
held hidden anger. "Just irresponsible and lazy. She wasn't a
good mother to Harriet, but by the grace of God Harriet's a sensible
child, and at least we've had her a couple of days a week, give her a
better background in life. She's so much like Dan, just naturally
neat and clean and orderly."

"I still can't understand—how she died."

"Did she have trouble sleeping lately, would you
know? Been taking any medication?"

"I don't know. She never did—when we were
together. She didn't even like to take aspirin, it upset her
stomach," said Cooper. "I suppose," he added suddenly,
"it could have been an accident of some sort—some mistake. She
was damn careless about a lot of things, if she'd had something like
that around she could have mixed it up with something else, not
realized she was taking it."

"That's possible," agreed Mendoza. "Mr.
Cooper, do you mind if we ask Harriet a few questions? We'll try not
to upset her."

Cooper shrugged. His mother got up, said, "She's
in her room," and went out.

Cooper said miserably, "I can't believe she
meant—Oh, my God, if she'd been in any trouble of any kind she'd
have known I'd try to help her however I could—she could have come
to me—she was Harriet's mother, after all."

"When did you see her last, Mr. Cooper?"
asked Hackett.

"A week ago Friday night, when I went to pick up
Harriet after work. It was about seven-thirty. She—she seemed just
like her usual self."

Mrs. Cooper came back with Harriet. Harriet looked a
good deal happier today, an attractive, neat child in a pretty blue
Sunday dress, more color in her face. Mendoza took her gently through
it again, and it came out just the same. She'd gone to bed on
Thursday night before Mama came home, she hadn't awakened or heard
any noise, and she always got up and fixed her own breakfast, it
wasn't till she came home from school she noticed Mama was still in
bed.

Hackett asked her, "Do you know if she used to
have something to drink before she went to bed? Something to help her
fall asleep?"

Her grave eyes were thoughtful on him. "I guess
she did sometimes. I sort of remember she said about it to Jerry. How
it sort of helped settle her down when she was charged up."

"Jerry," said Mendoza. "Jerry Wall?
Did he come to see her often?"

"Just when they were going out someplace, like a
movie or something?

"Do you like him?"

"Oh, he's okay," said Harriet
indifferently.

Cooper came out to the front porch with them. He
said, "I suppose—I get custody automatically now? I hope so.
But I just don't understand at all how it happened."

Mendoza switched on the ignition and Hackett said,
"Well, that was a little exercise in futility. Why didn't you
ask him where he was on Thursday night?"

"
Obvio, amigo
.
He'd say, right here at home. Possibly his mother goes to bed early,
but if she knew he'd been out she wouldn't tell us."

"Well, he had a motive of sorts—now he can
keep his whole paycheck—but, Luis, how in hell could he have done
it? If he'd been at the apartment the kid would have known, have
heard him—"

"Not necessarily," said Mendoza. "He
could have been waiting for her to come home, and. gone upstairs with
her—no need to ring the bell. And suggested a drink—made some
excuse—she wouldn't have suspected anything—"

"So she stood and watched him spike hers with
the phenobarbital?"

"Now, Art. There are ways it could have been
done, if you stop and think. Just at random, he could have said he
needed her Social Security number for some insurance form—I'll bet
you he's got his insurance made out to Harriet—and she wasn't a
very smart girl, she'd swallow any story he gave her. And he fixed
the drinks while she went to get her handbag—"

"You had her just coming home, she'd have had it
right there handy. He seems like a perfectly straight citizen,
doesn't strike me as a killer."

"Maybe so," said
Mendoza, sounding dissatisfied. "But I'll have to agree with the
witnesses we've heard—an empty-headed, shallow little female like
that never turned into a suicide."

* * *

About a quarter of one, when Higgins and Glasser had
just got back from an early lunch, a rather surprising report had
just come up from R. and I. The routine query Mendoza had sent in on
the M.O., the man with the Doberman, had turned up one other
instance, last January out in the Sheriff's Department beat in West
Hollywood.

"Oh, hell," said Higgins. "There's
probably nothing at all to get, but somebody'll have to talk to these
people." They hadn't dropped on any of the four possibles they
were hunting, but had a lead to one now through his former P.A.
officer. Glasser went out on that alone, and Higgins, after calling
to find out if they were home, drove out to West Hollywood to see Mr.
and Mrs. Robert Albrecht.

They were ordinary solid citizens, just slightly more
affluent than average; he was a C.P.A. They remembered the occasion
vividly, and told Higgins about it at length. They'd been on their
way home from a visit to Albrecht's sister in Hollywood, it was about
eight-thirty one Saturday night, and they'd stopped at a drugstore to
get cigarettes, a few other odds and ends. Just by chance they'd
parked around on a side street, pretty dark, down from Santa Monica
Boulevard; and when they came back to the car, this man was walking
toward them. With the dog. "A great big thing, one of these
Doberman pinschers," said Albrecht. "I don't mind most dogs
but I'm always leery of them. I was just unlocking the car when he
came up, and all of a sudden he stopped, and looked at us, and then
he said, ‘Excuse me.' "

"What?" said Higgins.

"That's right, he said, ‘Excuse me, but this
is a trained attack dog and I'll set him at you unless you hand over
your money.' "

"And?"

"Well, Betty let out a scream and told me for
goodness' sake not to argue—"

"I've always been scared of big dogs," she
confessed. "And it was so sudden—"

"How much did you give him?"

"I didn't have much on me, lucky for us. About
twelve dollars. And he just took off, walking kind of fast, and we
got in the car. I couldn't give you much of an idea what he looked
like—it was damned dark on the side street. He was about five
eleven, just a shape, had a hat on—tell you the truth, Sergeant, I
was watching the dog more than I was him."

"A horrible big brute it was," she said
with a shiver. "It had a head just: like a snake. I was
petrified."

Just as Higgins had
foreseen, that presented no lead to the enterprising heister with the
Doberman.

* * *

Mendoza had gone home, and Hackett was alone in the
office at a little past two o'clock; Landers and Grace had brought in
a possible suspect and were closeted in an interrogation room. When
Lake buzzed him, it was a Sergeant Tolliver of the Bakersfield force.
"Sorry to have taken a while to get back to you, but we've been
a little busy. This Bussard."

"What?" said Hackett, and then made the
connection. "Oh, yes." Those bodies yesterday—Glasser had
been on it, but he wasn't around now. "What have you turned up?"

"Nothing. The address you had, nobody there
knows him. But there are a couple of Bussards listed in the city
directory. You like us to follow it up and ask them?"

"We'll return the favor some day. It just looks
like a straight murder-suicide, but we'd like to get it cleared up,
and not stick the taxpayers for a funeral unless it's necessary."

"Okay, we'll get to it as soon as we can and get
back to you."

"Thanks so much," said Hackett. And that
reminded him of something else; he asked Lake to get him SID and
asked if the morgue had sent over those slugs. It had, and the
ballistics man said they were .38s. Glasser had also, of course, sent
over the gun, and it was a match; the slugs were out of the old S.
and W. .38. "This other one," said the ballistics man,
"looks like another thirty-eight, probably a Colt of some kind.
We'll get to it."

"Which other— Oh." The hospital would
have sent in the bullet from Price.

"You'll get a report."

Lake buzzed him again and said, "You've got a
new corpse."