Streets of Death - Dell Shannon (23 page)

"Anything you can give us."

"I’ll shoot some stuff out."

"
Gracias
.
We’ll get an A.P.B. out on both of them, just in case."
Mendoza put the phone down. Higgins and Palliser had gone out, and
Galeano had just come in, looking thoughtful. He sat down in the
chair beside the desk. "Have you recovered from your aberration,
Nick?"

"Damn you," said Galeano amiably, "it’s
not. I said all along that girl is honest--if she wasn’t, she’d
have thought up a hell of a lot better tale than that. I just want to
put this in front of you--" and he plunged into the story of
Marta’s revelations. Mendoza sat back, smoking.

"From the viewpoint of human emotions,
interesante,
" he
said sardonically at the end, "but as for giving us any clue to
what happened to Edwin, damn all."

"I know, I know. But it does show why she’d
thought and done things to look suspicious. All perfectly natural,"
said Galeano.

"Maybe."

"And maybe you think she’s conned me!"
said Galeano.

"Not necessarily. But I would damn well like to
know what did happen to him," said Mendoza. "The hell of it
is, the pair of them were so damned isolated--no close friends, the
other people in that place strangers, and she--"

"Homesick," said Galeano. "Proud.
Holding everybody at arm’s length. I hope she’ll learn better."

"And I’ve reluctantly come round to admit, at
least, that there isn’t any smell of a boyfriend," said
Mendoza
sadly. "It shakes my faith in
the eternal venality of human nature."

"They do say, it’s the exception that proves
the rule. I just thought you’d like to think all that over,"
said Galeano, and went out.

Mendoza sighed and swiveled his desk chair around to
stare out the window toward the Hollywood hills, invisible today in
heavy gray mist. Every now and then something a little more
complicated than usual showed up. As a rule the things that bailed
them were just the anonymous crimes (like that dairy-store heist)
where no possible lead showed and there was nothing much to be done
about it. But once in a blue moon, a real mystery came along, where
there should be leads and weren’t; and the mystery of Edwin Fleming
was the most ballling one that had come their way in some time. He
missed Hackett, off today, to talk it over with.

At five o’clock Palliser and Glasser came in with
Scarne. "Well, we’ve got Sandra all tied up," said
Glasser.

"These stupid jerks--Smith trying to get rid of
the body and he couldn’t even do that efficiently--you wouldn’t
believe the stuff he overlooked at that house. It’s still empty,
luckily, nobody in to mess up the evidence for us. The first thing we
found was Sandra’s green plane case. There were prints all over the
house--"

"We had the Peacock girl’s and Sandra’s,
we’ve sorted out quite a few of both," said Scarne. "Odds
and ends of clothes the parents can probably identify, but the prints
are solid evidence. He isn’t going to be able to claim that Sandra
ran off and met up with some other X, the times are too tight. The
other girl could say she was alive at seven, and the autopsy says she
was dead between eight and ten."

"Good--solid evidence I always 1ike," said
Mendoza.

"And something new
just went down; we passed George and Jase going out in a hurry,"
said Palliser.

* * *

Landers had heard what the mechanic had to say about
the Corvair without much surprise. The damn thing had been on its
last legs for months. "You’d do better to junk it," said
the mechanic. "It’s not worth putting money into."

Landers took a look at what they had on the used lot,
but nothing looked like a good buy. He walked on down Hollywood
Boulevard to the American agency, priced a couple of new models and
winced, and went out to the used lot to browse around. Finally he
settled on a little Sportabout, the pony-size station wagon, and made
a deal for it. It was only three years old, had thirty thousand on
it, which wasn’t bad.

But at least the Corvair
had been paid for. What with the new payments on top of the rent and
everything else, he reflected, Phil would have to stop talking about
a house for some time.

* * *

Higgins and Grace looked at the new homicide and had
the same thought at the same time.

"The Freemans," said Grace, touching his
mustache thoughtfully. "Same earmarks, George."

"Such as there are," said Higgins. This was
much the same kind of house as the Freemans’, in the same kind of
neighborhood: modest middle-class. The householder had been Mrs.
Myrtle Hopper, widow, who’d lived alone here since her youngest
daughter got married. It was the daughter and her husband who had
found her, coming to visit.

The front door wasn’t forced; the back door was
locked. Mrs. Hopper was knifed and dead on the livingroom floor, and
the place had been ransacked. At the moment the daughter was having
hysterics at a neighbor’s house, but eventually they’d ask her
what was missing.

"No phone book," said Grace. "Maybe
they used another excuse this time. They didn’t get much at the
Freemans’, and I don’t suppose they’d have got much here. What
we’ve heard about this Benoy, maybe just mean by nature, doing what
comes naturally."

"Could be," agreed Higgins. "Could
also be, careless about his prints as he seems to be, he’s left
some here too."

They’d thought at first the Freemans might have
been killed by someone who thought he still had the church collection
money, but now the prints had been identified as this Benoy’s, it
looked like just the random thing, and this bore the same general
appearance.

They called S.I.D. and imagined how the men would be
cussing, a new one to work turning up at this end of shift. Higgins
and Grace could go home, and hear what the lab had got tomorrow.

The wired prints of
Benoy’s sidekick came in from West Virginia; by then there was an
A.P.B. out on Benoy. It would be nice to know what he was driving,
but there wasn’t a clue about that.

* * *

Alison was, she said, definitely better. The doctor
had said it was just a question of time, and it didn’t usually last
beyond the third month. Cats twined under their feet at the dinner
table, and Cedric paced up and down looking for handouts.

Mairi came to summon them to the ceremonial good
nights, and for once Terry and Johnny looked and behaved like angels,
too tired from a full day for anything else.

"The darlings," said Alison. "I was
ready to murder them yesterday, but a settled stomach makes a great
difference. And by the way, I found out something very funny today,"
she added as they went back down the hall. "
¿Qué
ocurre?
"

"Well, I sent for this brochure," said
Alison rather guiltily. She picked it up from her armchair and sat
down, not offering to show it to him. "Houses. Bigger houses on,
well, some land. If you’re going to have a drink, I’ll have some
creme de menthe,
amado
."

"I wasn’t, but I’ll get it." In the
kitchen, he said to El Señor resignedly, "She’s going to move
us to a ranch now." El Señor uttered a raucous demand for rye,
and Mendoza poured him some in a saucer. When he got back to the
living room, the other three cats were all trying to settle in
Alison’s lap at once.

"You can’t all fit now, and just wait a couple
of months," she said, shooing Sheba and Nefertite off. "Thanks,
amado
. Well, it’s
very funny, you know I said  maybe an acre, but come to find
out, we’ve got nearly an acre here. It’s forty-five thousand
square feet, and I figured it out--we’ve got forty-two here. And we
really need more--"

"I didn’t know that," said Mendoza
absently.

"Neither did I. Luis, you’re not listening."

"I was wondering whether Carey had had a look at
that vacant lot. But of course he did.
¡Diez
millones de demonios desde el imferno!
"
said Mendoza to his rye. "It’s such a simple little mystery,
and yet so vague. What the hell could have happened to the man?"

"Who? Now, I think, it’s been some time since
you brought any homework from the office," said Alison. "You
haven’t been--mmh--in the exact mood to listen. But if you have any
bright ideas about Edwin Fleming, I’d like to hear some." He
sat down and told her about it, and she listened interestedly.

"Well, that’s the funniest thing you’ve had
in ages," she said when he’d finished with Galeano’s account
of today’s interview. "You can think of explanations, and then
you see it’s impossible because of his being in the wheelchair. And
she couldn’t have-- And if I know all you hardheaded cynics, you
turned every stone looking for a boyfriend, and there just isn’t
one."

"
En ninguna parte,
"
said Mendoza bitterly. "Nowhere."

"Well, all I can say is, I’m sorry for
Detective Galeano," said Alison. "She sounds like a very
prickly sort of girl. And speaking of sex, by the way, I’ve also
been sitting up taking enough notice to think about some names--"

Mendoza uttered a groan. "I haven’t dared ask
about that."

"Well, I haven’t
decided anything yet."

* * *

Conway had wandered around all day Thursday on the
Peralta thing, and got nowhere. He and Glasser were off on Friday,
and Peralta fell to Landers, Grace and Higgins being busy on the new
one, Palliser cleaning up Sandra Moseley and on the phone to Fresno,
and Hackett in court: Roy Titus was being arraigned this morning.
Wanda , Larsen said she’d like some street experience, and if they
came across any of Peralta’s girl friends she might be helpful, so
Landers let her come along.

They had turned up some known acquaintances of
Peralta, three men he’d been picked up with at various times, all
users: Ford Robinson, Joe Ryan, Bob Wooley. That kind tended to
drift, and none of them was still at the addresses they’d given on
arrest. But Conway had talked to a fellow at one of those places who
said Robinson had a pad over a disco on Vermont, The Aquarian.
Landers looked up the address and he and Wanda started out in the
new-to-him car. It was a nice little job, handled very sweetly; Phil
had admired it.

The disco wasn’t open, of course, but there was a
rickety stair going up one side of the old stucco building, and they
climbed it. At the top was a door painted a violent royal blue, and
Landers knocked on it.

"You can’t expect the free spirits to be up at
this hour," said Wanda when he’d knocked five times.

"I can hear somebody in there." At the
seventh knock the door was fumbled open.

"What the hell? What you want?"

"Mr. Robinson? Ford Robinson?"

"Yeah?"

"We’d like to ask you some questions about
Rodrigo Peralta." Landers showed him the badge.

"Cops!" said Robinson disgustedly. "Cops,
in the middle o’ the night. A lady cop yet. What’s with Roddy?"
He yawned and scratched his chest. He was covered with so much hair
that it was hard to tell what he looked like; he had a mane of wiry
curly chestnut hair to his shoulders, he was only wearing shorts and
his entire torso was covered with more, like his arms and naked legs.

Landers regarded him for a moment, considering the
best approach to use. Wanda spoke up sweetly. "We’re looking
for any friends of his who saw him last Monday night. To, you know,
say where he was."

"Oh," said Robinson. "Like an alibi. I
didn’t see him Monday--more like last Saturday, maybe." He
thought. "But I tell you who might of. Yeah, sure. The Kings."

"The Kings?" said Landers, not looking at
Wanda.

"Yeah--Nita and Gerald. I run into them on
Monday night, downstairs at the disco, they said they were going to
see Roddy, see if he had--well, going to see him."

"I see," said Wanda, making businesslike
notes. "What time was that?"

"Uh--seven, seven-fifteen like."

"Do you know where the Kings live?"

"Sure, they got a pad right back of here, on
Thirty-first." He added the address. "They could prob’ly
say Roddy wasn’t wherever you thought he was. Damn cops coming--"

"Thank you very much," said Wanda prettily.

"Listen," said Landers on the sidewalk,
"you’re just supposed to be tagging along."

"Men," said
Wanda. "You notice we got what we were after. I always believed
the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with
vinegar."

* * *

Mendoza was sitting at his desk staring out at the
Hollywood hills at three o’clock that Friday, the cards scattered
on the desk behind him; he had spent an unproductive couple of hours
brooding over Fleming. At least the rain had departed definitely; as
usual in southern California after a rain, it had turned very cold,
and it was brilliantly clear, the back mountains glistening with
snow, the nearer hills sharply defined.
 
The
office was quiet; everybody was out on something. The A.P.B. hadn’t
brought Benoy in yet. There ought to be a report from S.I.D. on the
Hopper killing sometime today. A couple of autopsy reports were in;
nothing much in them.