by Dell Shannon
* * *
It was Gunn, of course, and not Hackett, who said all the things Hackett might say later; before outsiders, like this, Hackett paid lip service to rank. Gunn had once been Mendoza’s superior; he spoke up. By the same token, of course, Mendoza wouldn’t have talked so freely if Gunn hadn’t been a retired Homicide man.
“You’ve got your wires crossed, Luis. What you’ve got here is just damn-all, it doesn’t mean a thing. First off, how many people d’you suppose moved out of that section of town last September? There’s no narrowing it down to a couple of blocks, you have to take in at least a square mile—call it even half a mile—at a guess, seven-eight thousand families, because you’re taking in apartments, not just single houses. In that kind of neighborhood people aren’t settled, they move around more. And—”
“I know, I know,” said Mendoza. “And that’s the least of all the arguments against this meaning anything at all. But say it—it’s not even very significant that the move should be from the twenty-four-hundred block on Tappan to within two blocks of Commerce and Humboldt, because those are the same sort of neighborhoods, same rent levels, same class and color of people. All right. Evidence—!” He hunched his shoulders angrily, turning from staring at the view out Gunn’s office window. “Say it. Even if it is the same killer, no guarantee he lived anywhere near either of the girls. So all this is cuentos de hadas, just fairy tales.”
Hackett made a small doleful sound at his cigarette. “I guess you’re saying it for yourself, Lieutenant.”
“You’ve got no evidence,” Gunn said flatly. “You’d just like to think so, which isn’t like you, Luis. What the hell have you got? I—”
“I’ve got two dead girls,” said Mendoza, abrupt and harsh. “And they don’t matter one damn, you know. The kind of murders that happen in any big town, this week, next week, next year. No glamour, no excitement, no big names. Nothing to go in the books, the clever whimsy on Classic Cases51 or the clever fiction, ten wisecracks guaranteed to the page, a surprise ending to every chapter, where fifteen people had fifteen motives for the murder and fifteen faked alibis for the crucial minute, conveniently fixed by a prearranged long-distance phone call. They weren’t very important or interesting females, these two, and anybody at all might have killed them. You know,” he swung on Gunn, “this kind of thing, it doesn’t go like the books, the clues laid out neat like a paper trail in a game! You start where you can and you take a look everywhere, at everything—¿Qué más?52—and then you start all over again.”
“I know,” said Gunn heavily. “What I’m saying is, you’ve got nothing at all to link these two cases. The doll, that’s really out of bounds, boy, that one I don’t figure any way. The odds are that somebody found the girl, didn’t report it, but picked up the package—”
“You’re so right,” said Mendoza. “It was dark, and her handbag was half under her, almost hidden.”
“Well, there you are. They were killed the same general way, but it’s not a very unusual method—brute violence.”
“That eye,” said Hackett to his cigarette.
Gunn looked at him, back to Mendoza. “If it’s a real hunch, Luis, all I’ve got to say is, keep throwing cold water at it—if it just naturally drowns, let it go.”
“What else am I doing?” For they both knew that it wasn’t ever all pure cold logic, all on the facts: nothing that had to do with people ever could be wholly like that. You had a feeling, you had a hunch, and you couldn’t drop every other line to follow it up, but a real fourteen-karat hunch turned out to be worth something—sometimes. Say it was subconscious reasoning, out of experience and knowledge; it wasn’t, always. Just a feeling.
“All right,” said Hackett amiably, “cold water. I don’t like the doll much myself. I said I’d buy all that about the guy at the skating rink, but there’s nothing there to show it’s the same one. In fact, the little we have got on that one, it suggests he admired the girl, wanted to pick her up—like that, whether for murder or sex.”
“So it does,” said Mendoza. “And no hint of anything like that for Carol Brooks.”
Gunn opened his mouth, shut it, looked at Hackett’s bland expression, and said, “You saw both bodies, of course—you’re a better judge of what the similarity there is worth.”
“Oh, let’s be psychological,” said Mendoza. “Not even that. Art says to me before I looked at Ramirez, ‘It’s another Brooks’—maybe he put it in my mind.”
“Sure, lay it on me.”
There was a short silence, and then Mendoza said as if continuing the argument, “Nobody’s interested in this kind of killing, no, except those of us who’re paid to be interested. But it’s the kind everybody ought to take passionate interest in—the most dangerous kind there is—just because it’s without motive. Or having the motive only of sudden, impulsive violence. The lunatic kill. So it might happen to anybody. Claro que sí,53 let one like that kill a dozen, twenty, leave his mark to show it’s the same killer, then he’s one for the books—the Classic Case. And don’t tell me I’ve got no evidence these were lunatic kills. It’s negative evidence, I grant you, but there it is—we looked, you know. Nobody above ground had any reason to murder the Brooks girl, and she wasn’t killed for what cash she had on her. The couple of little things we’ve got on Ramirez, nothing to lead to murder—and she wasn’t robbed either. Not to that murder. I don’t have to tell you that brute violence of that sort, it’s either very personal hate or lunacy.”
Morgan cleared his throat; he’d been waiting in silence, a little apart, his case book out ready, if and when they remembered him. “I don’t want to butt in, you know more about all this, but I can’t help feeling you’re on the wrong track here, just for that reason. These people—well, after all—I don’t suppose you’re thinking the woman did it, and a thirteen-year-old kid—”
Again a short silence. Hackett leaned back in his chair and said conversationally, “I picked up a thirteen-year-old kid a couple of months ago who’d shot his mother in the back while she was watching T.V. She’d told him he couldn’t go to the movies that night. You remember that Breckfield business last year?—three kids, the oldest one thirteen, tied up two little girls and set fire to them. One died, the other’s still in the hospital. I could take you places in this town where a lot of thirteen-year-old kids carry switch-knives and pull off organized gang raids on each other—and the neighborhood stores. And some of ’em aren’t little innocents any other way, either. Juvenile had a couple in last week—and not the first—with secondary stage V.D., and both on heroin.”
Morgan said helplessly, “But—this kid—he’s not like that! He’s just a kid, like any kid that age. You can tell, you know.”
“Something was said,” cut in Mendoza, “about his size, that he’d started to get his growth early. How big is he?—how strong?”
“Almost as tall as I am—five-eight-and-a-half, around there. Still—childish-looking, in the face. But he’s going to be a big man, he’s built that way—big bone structure.”
“Weight?”
“Hell, I can’t guess about all this,” said Morgan angrily. “As far as I can see you’ve got no reason at all to suspect the Lindstroms of anything. I don’t know what’s in your mind about this boy—you talk about lunatics and juvenile hoods, so O.K., which is he? You can’t have it both ways. The whole thing’s crazy.”
Mendoza came a few steps toward him, stood there hands in pockets looking down at him, a little cold, a little annoyed. “I’ve got nothing in my mind about him right now. I don’t know. This is the hell of a low card, but I’ve got the hell of a bad hand and it’s the best play I’ve got at the moment. Carol Brooks was killed on September twenty-first, and these people left that neighborhood—unexpectedly, and in a hurry—within twenty-four hours. The woman was working at night, so the boy was free to come and go as he pleased. Shortly before Brooks was killed, the woman
showed interest in an article Brooks was buying on time, and it now appears that the girl had this with her before she was killed and it subsequently disappeared. I’m no psychiatrist and I don’t know how much what any psychiatrist’d say might be worth, here—the boy just into adolescence, probably suffering some shock when his father abandoned them. Let that go. But he’s big enough and strong enough to have done—the damage that was done. If. And I may take a jaundiced view of the psychological doubletalk, the fact remains that sex can play some funny tricks with young adolescents sometimes. All right. These people are now living in the neighborhood where Elena Ramirez was killed. I don’t say they had anything to do with either death, or even the theft. I’d just like to know a little more about them.”
Morgan shrugged and flipped open his notebook. “You’re welcome to what I’ve got. Mrs. Lindstrom applied for county relief six weeks ago, and was interviewed by a case worker from that agency. She says her husband deserted her and the boy last August, she has no idea where he is now, hasn’t heard from him since. She took a job between then and a week or so before she applied, says she can’t go on working on account of her health. She was referred to a clinic, and there’s a medical report here—various troubles adding up to slight malnutrition and a general run-down condition. Approved for county relief, and the case shoved on to us to see if we can find Lindstrom, make him contribute support. He’s a carpenter, good record, age forty-four, description—and so on and so on—they both came from a place called Fayetteville in Minnesota, so she said,” and he glanced at Gunn.
“Yes,” said Gunn thoughtfully, “and what does that mean, either? Sometimes these husbands head for home and mother, we usually query the home town first—and I have here a reply from the vital records office in Fayetteville saying that no such family has ever resided there.”
“You don’t tell me,” said Mendoza.
“This I’ll tell you,” said Morgan, “because we run into it a lot. Some of these women are ashamed to have the folks at home know about it, and they don’t realize we’re going to check on it—the same with former addresses here, and she gave me a false one on that too, sure. It doesn’t necessarily mean—”
“No. But it’s another little something. What have you got on the boy?”
“Nothing, why should I have? He exists, that’s all we have to know. He’s normal, thirteen years old, name Martin Eric Lindstrom, attends seventh grade at John C. Calhoun Junior High.” Morgan shut the book.
“That’s all? I’d like to know more about the boy. We’ll have a look round. No trace of the father yet?”
“It’s early, we’ve only been on this a few days. Routine enquiries out to every place in the area hiring carpenters—to vital records and so on in other counties—and so on.”
“Yes. Will you let me have a copy of all that you’ve got, please—to my office. We’ll keep an eye on them, see what shows up, if anything. Thanks very much.”
When the two men from Homicide had gone, Gunn said, “Get one of the girls to type up that report, send it over by hand.”
“O.K.,” said Morgan. “I suppose—” He was half-turned to the door, not looking at Gunn. “I suppose that means he’ll have men watching that apartment.”
“It’s one of the basic moves. What’s the matter, Dick?”
“Nothing,” said Morgan violently. “Nothing at all. Oh, hell, it’s just that—I guess Mendoza always rubs me the wrong way, that’s all. Always so damned sure of himself—and I think he’s way off the beam here.”
“It doesn’t look like much of anything,” agreed Gunn. “But on the other hand, well, you never can be sure until you check.”
50 “It can’t be!”
51 Mendoza may be referring here to the television show Lock Up (marketed later as Cops: Lock Up) starring Macdonald Carey as Herbert L. Maris, an attorney who devoted his life to pro bono criminal defense cases; the stories were referred to as “Classic Cases” and aired from 1959 to 1961.
52 “What else?”
53 “Of course.”
Ten
“I have the feeling,” said Mendoza—discreetly in Spanish, for the waiter who had seated them was still within earshot—“that I’d better apologize for the meal we’re about to have.”
“But why? Everything looks horribly impressive. Including the prices. In fact, after that automatic glance at the right-hand column,” said Alison, putting down the immense menu card, “I have the feeling I’ve been in the wrong business all my life.”
“I never can remember quite how it goes, about fooling some of the people, etcetera.” Mendoza glanced thoughtfully around the main dining room of the Maison du Chat, which was mostly magenta, underlighted, and decorated with would-be funny murals of lascivious felines. “It’s curious how many people are ready to believe that the highest prices guarantee the best value.” The waiter came back and insinuated under their noses liquor lists only slightly smaller than the menus. “What would you like to drink?”
“Sherry,” said Alison faintly, her eyes wandering down the right column.
“And straight rye,” he said to the waiter, who looked shaken and took back the cards with a disappointed murmur.
“Not in character. I’d expected to find you something of a gourmet.”
“My God, I thought I’d made a better impression. The less one thinks about one’s stomach, the less trouble it’s apt to cause. And I know just enough about wine to call your attention to those anonymous offerings you just looked at—port, muscatel, tokay, and so on. At three dollars the half-bottle, and they’ll be the domestic product available at the nearest supermarket for what—about one-eighty-nine the gallon.”
“They’re not losing money on the imported ones either.”
“About a one hundred percent markup.” He looked around again casually, focused on something past her shoulder, and began to smile slowly to himself. “Now isn’t that interesting…”
“I couldn’t agree more—I said I’ve always found the subject fascinating. You’re pleased about something, and it can’t be the prices.”
“I just noticed an old friend. And what’s more, he noticed me. He isn’t nearly so pleased about it.” The waiter, doing his best with pseudo-Gallic murmurs and deft gestures with paper mats to invest these plebeian potions with glamour, served them. Mendoza picked up his rye and sniffed it cautiously. “¡Salud y pesetas!54 And if this costs them more than a dollar a fifth wholesale, they’re being cheated, which I doubt.”
“Why did we come here? I gather it’s new to you too.”
“We came because I’m interested in this place, not as a restaurant—professionally. Of course I also wanted to impress you.”
“You have.”
“And I’m gratified to find you see through these spurious trappings of the merely expensive. Next time I’ll take you to a hamburger stand.”
“You will not. I like an excuse to get really dressed up occasionally.” She had, after all, compromised with his dictation: pearls, and a very modest décolleté, but for the rest an oyster-silk sheath.
“I complimented you once, don’t fish for more so early,” said Mendoza placidly. “And what I expected to get by coming—besides rooked out of a little money—I don’t know. Mr. Torres-Domingo is an unexpected bonus. You see, the uncle of your late pupil went out of his way to visit this place last night, which seemed a little odd.”
“Oh! I should think so. Who is the other gentleman you mentioned?”
“I wouldn’t say gentleman. He just barely avoided an indictment for homicide about eighteen months ago—he was then the proprietor of a bar on Third Avenue. Another gentleman who later turned out to have been a small-time wholesaler of heroin got himself shot full of holes by a third gentleman who subsequently said that Mr.—the first gentleman—had offered him a substantial sum of money to do the job. We didn’t doubt his word—after what sho
wed up—but unfortunately there just wasn’t enough evidence. The first gentleman retired modestly across the Mexican border, though he is an American citizen, and it’s interesting to know he’s back home. I don’t want him for anything myself, but Lieutenant Patrick Callaghan will be very interested to hear that he’s now the headwaiter at a fashionable restaurant.”
“I deduce that the lieutenant is on the narcotics team, or whatever you call it.”
“And as you and I are not the only people in the world who speak Spanish, we will now cease to talk shop. What are we offered? All the standard Parisian concoctions. Women living alone subsist mostly on casseroles anyway, no treat to you—I suggest the one concession to Americanism, a steak.”
“Medium well,” she agreed meekly. And when the waiter had gone, “May I ask just one question? People make a lot of money in that—er—business you mentioned. Wholesaling you-know-what. Why should they go to all the trouble of holding down regular jobs too? I always thought of them as—as coming out at night, slinking furtively down alleys, you know—like that—not punching time clocks.”
“Oh, God!” he said. “Now you’ve taken my appetite away. Well, there’s a den of crafty bloodsucking robbers in Washington—you’ll have heard of them—”
“Which ones?”
“It says Bureau of Internal Revenue on the door. Now, the L.A.P.D. couldn’t get one useful piece of evidence against the gentleman I mentioned—as we can’t always against a lot of others in a lot of businesses, and I do mean big businesses, on the wrong side of the law. But we can’t poke our noses into some things those fellows can. A hundred-thousand-dollar apartment house—a new Cadillac—a mink coat for the girl friend—you are doing well, Mr. Smith, how come you never told your uncle about it? And if Mr. Smith can’t explain just where it all came from, he’s got a lot more grief than a mere city cop could ever hand him.”
“Oh, I see. I do indeed. Cover.”
“And then,” added Mendoza, not altogether humorously, “when uncle has stowed Mr. Smith away in jail for tax evasion, the indignant public points an accusing finger at us and says, Corrupt cops!—they must have known about him! Stupid cops!—if they didn’t find out! Why wasn’t he arrested for his real crimes? You try to tell them, just try, that it’s because we have to operate within laws about evidence designed to protect the public… I wonder whether I ought to call in and tell Pat’s office about this.” Mr. Torres-Domingo, who had made a precipitate exit on first catching sight of him, reappeared round the screen at the service doors, polishing his bald head with a handkerchief. He shot one furtive glance in Mendoza’s direction, pasted on a professional happy smile, and began to circulate among the tables, pausing for a bow, a word here and there with a favored patron. “Oh, well, there’s no hurry—he won’t run away, and for all I know he’s reformed and hasn’t any reason to anyway.”