Streets of Death - Dell Shannon (8 page)

"And found your husband gone? Missing from his
wheelchair. Did you look for a suicide note?"

"Yes, yes, yes. I would have thought he would
leave such a note, if he meant to kill himself. There was nothing. I
looked all about the apartment building, I thought if he had jumped
out a window--"

"But he couldn’t have jumped," said
Conway.

"No, no, a figure of speech. I have said all
this before, it must be in reports. There was no one else in the
house except the old man, Offerdahl. He was drunk, he could not say
anything. I said, since we are living there, just a few times when I
came home Edwin had been drinking, and it is this Offerdahl who has
done it, brought him drink. I did not----"

"Did it make him less despondent'?" asked
Conway deadpan.

"No, it did not! It was very bad for him. All
this, it is all I can tell you. When I had looked, I called the
police and told them. Then this Carey came, and his men, and asked
questions and looked at the apartment, and they did not believe me.
Do you want to look at my apartment also?"

"Why, I think we would," said Mendoza
cheerfully.

"Thanks so much, Mrs. Fleming."

She stood up abruptly. "I will get you the key."

They watched her stalk past the curtain. "Now
that is some blonde," said Conway. "Different type than I
expected. And a very, very nice act. She’s smart not to try to ham
it up with my God what’s happened to poor darling Edwin, I don’t
think she’s that good an actress."

"You could be right," said Mendoza
meditatively, and Galeano exploded at them.

"My good God in heaven, a child in arms could
see that girl’s as innocent and honest as--as a nun!" he said
furiously. "Of course she’s not acting, she wouldn’t know
how--I know what the story sounds like, but I’ll be Goddamned if I
don’t believe it, that girl is as transparently honest as--as--"

"
¡Qué hombre!
"
said Mendoza, staring at him. "Don’t tell me our confirmed
bachelor has fallen for a suspect."

"You go to hell, of course I haven’t fallen
for her, if you want to be vulgar," said Galeano. "But I’d
think anybody could see--" He stopped as the curtains came apart
and she marched up to Mendoza, stiffly erect.

"
Here is the key. You will know the address. I
ask only that you return it before I must go home, I have no other.
There are no secrets there, you may look as you please."

"Thanks so much," said Mendoza. She marched
out again, her shoulders squared. "Saint Nicholas to the defense
of accused womanhood! We don’t need Carey to point out obvious
facts. Who had a motive to be rid of him?"

"You’re only inferring that, as the cheap
Goddamned cynics you both are," said Galeano hotly. "For
all we know, she was still mad in love with him--"

"Ha-ha," said Conway. "And you’ve
been on the force how long?"

"Peace,
niños
,"
said Mendoza. "Since the lady handed over the key so obligingly,
I’ll believe her that far, there aren’t any secrets there. But
I’d like to see the wheelchair, and the general terrain. Come on."

He and Conway went on discussing it on the way over
there in the Ferrari, while Galeano sat in silence in the little jump
seat behind. For the first time he realized that this job held a
built-in hazard, just as she’d said: too many cops, from too much
experience, automatically expected the lies, the hypocrisy, the
guilt. Conway was a cynic from the word go, but Galeano would have
expected more insight from the boss. That girl was so shiningly
honest--and when you thought what she’d been through-- And then to
have all the cops come poking around suspecting her,
Dio
,
it was a wonder she’d been as polite as she had.

But just what, inquired the remnant of his common
sense, had happened to Edwin Fleming? It was raining again. (Just why
had she minded that question about her shopping trip?) The narrow old
streets down from Wilshire were dispirited and drably gray in the
drizzle. The six-family apartment, when they went into it, was silent
as the grave. Everybody here out at work, except the bibulous Mr.
Offerdahl. There was a tiny square lobby with a single row of locked
mailboxes. They climbed uncarpeted stairs, steep and slanted old
stairs--no, a man in a wheelchair couldn’t have come down here, and
if he had somehow crawled down, where had he gone from there?--to the
second of three floors. There were two doors opposite each other in a
short hall. Galeano remembered Mrs. Del Sardo across the hall, who
had seen Fleming that morning as Marta said good-bye to him.

Mendoza fitted the key in the lock and opened the
door.

It was a small, old, inconvenient apartment: what she
could afford. But it was all as shiningly clean as the restaurant
where she worked, furniture polished, stove and kitchen counter-top
immaculate; that was a German girl for you, thought Galeano. There
was the wheelchair, pushed to one side of the little living room, a
steel and gray-green canvas affair. A few pieces of solid dark
furniture, probably chosen with care at secondhand stores, possibly
several pieces bought before his accident, when he was still earning
and they were planning a home of their own. Just the one bedroom,
sparsely furnished: a small square bathroom, a minimum of cosmetics
in the medicine cabinet. She had wonderful skin, milk-white,
evidently didn’t use much on it.

"There is," said Mendoza, "only one
little thing in my mind, boys." He looked out the rear window in
the bedroom. "Yes, even as Carey said--who was to see anything
there was to see?" This was a square building on a short lot.
There was a single driveway to a row of six connected single garages
across the back; and on the lot behind a building had recently been
torn down. The old house across from the driveway was vacant, with a
FOR RENT sign in front of it. "Just one thing," said
Mendoza. "When did she have time?"

"Time for what?" said Conway. "She
took care to have an alibi. We said--"

"Time to acquire the boyfriend. She’s working
eight hours a day, and Edwin must have taken up some more. On the
other hand, there is Rappaport. Quite a handsome fellow. Right at the
restaurant."

"Oh, for God’s sake," said Galeano.

"And then again, a restaurant. Sometimes these
things don’t take all that long. Quite probably there are regular
customers. And she could be out shopping on Sunday, on her afternoon
break, without the neighbors noticing--there is that. But how in hell
to locate him, if it isn’t Rappaport--there won’t be any
letters--"

"Woolgathering!" said Galeano. "And
you’re supposed to be such a hot detective! If you can’t see that
that girl is honest as day--"

Mendoza shook his head at him. "You do surprise
me, Nick. Let’s see if Mr. Offerdahl is home." Carey had said
he was down the hall; actually Offerdahl lived on the next floor.
They climbed more steep stairs, knocked. There were fumbling sounds
beyond the door; presently it opened and Offerdahl gazed blearily out
at them.

He was the wreck of a once big man: still tall and
broad-shouldered, but cadaverously thin, a few wisps of white hair on
a round skull, his skin gray and flabby. He was not quite
falling-down drunk, and a rich aroma of Scotch enfolded him.

"About Mr. Fleming," said Mendoza
conversationally.

Offerdahl blinked. "You used to go see Mr.
Fleming? The fellow in the wheelchair? Take him a little drink now
and then to cheer him up?"

"Tha’s right," said Offerdahl after a
dragging moment. "Poor fella. Poor fella. Jus’ young fella.
Para-paraparalyzed."

"Did you see him a week ago last Friday?"

"Oh, don’t be silly," muttered Galeano.
"He doesn’t know March from December."

"Haven’t you found the poor fella yet?"
asked Offerdahl. "Strange. ’S very strange. Poor, poor fella."
He leaned on the door jamb looking thoughtful, and suddenly added,
"Good-bye," and shut the door.

"And what you think that was worth," said
Galeano sourly, "I don’t damn well know."

"
Neither do I," said Mendoza. "Here--you
take the key back to her, amigo. And for God’s sake preserve your
common sense."

Cunningly, Galeano waited until just before two
o’c1ock to take the key back, and offered to drive Mrs. Fleming
home through the rain. She thanked him formally, and emerged in a
practical hooded gray coat over a subdued navy dress.

"I am sorry if I have offended your chief,"
she said in the car. "But it is so silly to ask the questions
over and over."

Her profile was enchanting, with its little tilted
nose and the wisp of tawny hair under the hood. Galeano nearly ran a
light. "Wel1, we have certain routines to go through," he
said. "Look, nobody suspects you, Mrs. Fleming. I mean, we can
see you’ve had a bad time. What with everything."

She was silent. When he stopped in front of the
apartment, went round and opened the door, she said, "Thank
you--you are kind. I am sorry, your name--"

"Galeano. Nick Galeano."

"Mr. Galeano. Thank
you." She ran into the apartment quickly and he stared after
her, for a moment forgetting to put on his hat.

* * *

By five o’clock Stephanie had pored over a lot of
mug-shots, and pointed out three though her responses were laced with
doubt. "I mean, all of these look something like him. Not just
exactly, but they could be."

Wanda shepherded her back to the Peacocks at the
Holiday Inn. If this came to court, she’d be asked to identify X
positively; as it was, Palliser and Glasser looked at the possibles
she’d picked out with mixed feelings as well. Steven Edward Smith:
pedigree of B. and E. Richard Lamont: indecent exposure, assault with
intent. Earl Rank: rape, B. and E.

"Two possibles, by their records," said
Glasser. But the addresses were nowhere near downtown L.A., and they
were fairly recent addresses; Lamont was just out of jail. "People
move around," said Palliser. "We can have a look at them,
Henry."
 

FOUR

AFTER A COUPLE of quiet shifts, the night watch was
busy. They had E. M. Shogart back, that stolid plodder who’d put in
twenty years in the old Robbery office before it got merged with
Homicide, and was still a little unreconciled to the change. He would
be up for retirement next year if he wanted to take it, and probably
would.

A rather bored Schenke was listening to Piggott talk
about his tropical fish, an unlikely hobby which had seized him a
while ago, when they got the first call, to a heist up on Seventh.
Early, but time meant nothing to the punks. They both went out on it.

It was, expectably, a liquor store, and the owner had
been there alone, just about to close. "I got this place up for
sale," he told them, "and not before it’s time. I been
heisted four times the last nine months."

"Can you give us any description of him?"
asked Schenke.

"Description? I could draw you a picture."
The owner was a little fat man about sixty, named Wensink. "Talk
about adding insult to injury, they not only walked off with the cash
from the register, about a hundred and forty, they loaded up a
station wagon with a thousand bucks’ retail of my best stuff! There
was three of them. One with the gun. The one I saw best was that one.
A guy maybe forty, medium-size, not much hair and he had one walleye.
And what looked like a forty-five. All business, he was. The other
two were younger, one with a mustache, the long hair."

"Well, that’s a switch," said Schenke.
"Taking the stock. A station wagon? You got a look at it?"

"I sure did," said Wensink. "They
parked right in front, come in just at closing time. Anybody noticed
them carrying stuff out, I suppose thought they were just customers.
I didn’t get a look at the license plate but it was a Ford
nine-passenger wagon, white over brown, about five years old."

He thought the one with the gun might have touched
the register, so they called out a man from S.I.D. to dust for
prints. Wensink said he’d recognize a mug-shot and would come in
tomorrow to look.

When they got back to the office, Shogart had gone
out on another call; also a heist, he reported when he came in. An
all-night movie-house on Fourth, and the girl in the ticket box was a
nitwit, couldn’t say anything except that he’d had a gun. "I
wouldn’t even take a bet on that. And God knows they deserve to
lose some of their ill-gotten gains, it’s a porno house."

"Amen to that," said Piggott, "but two
wrongs, E. M.--" He was interrupted by the phone, and the
Traffic man on the other end said he and his partner had just come
across a body.

Schenke went out to look at it while Piggott typed up
a report on the liquor-store heist. It didn’t, said Schenke when he
came back, look like any mysterious homicide to occupy the day watch:
an old bum dead in a doorway over on Skid Row; but a report had to be
written, an I.D. made if possible.

Piggott had just finished the first report and
Schenke was swearing at the typewriter when the phone buzzed and
Piggott picked it up. "Robbery-Homicide, Detective Piggott."