On her desk lay the chart from which she had listed the Group Five names. Only six left now, for two had been dropped. Six possibilities? The police must think so. But their list is longer than that, she reminded herself. All the patients. Everyone he knew. And I’m on it, too.
The sliding door opened, and the lieutenant looked in. Could she spare a couple of minutes? Adrian nodded, and he stepped in, closing the door behind him. Perching on the comer of her desk, he offered a cigarette pack. Adrian told him she didn’t smoke.
“What kind of a guy was this Myrick?” he asked casually after his cigarette was lit. “Easy to get along with, would you say?”
“Why—yes, I suppose so.”
He smiled slightly. “You don’t seem very sure, Miss Crewes.”
“Well, we worked closely together, after all. Any collaboration has its rough times.”
“Like a business partnership.” He nodded and said, “Plenty of give-and-take, I guess.” He waited as if he expected her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he said evenly, “Miss Crewes, what I’m after right now is anything you can tell me. Sometimes it matters in a case like this what the victim was like as a person.”
The victim. In her mind’s eye she saw the half-erased chalk outline on the entry-hall floor. A tall figure sprawled with one arm outstretched. As if, she thought, sickened, he had reached for something at the very last instant. Into eternity he would still be reaching beyond his grasp.
What he was talking about, the detective was explaining, was Myrick’s everyday life. Friends, activities, that sort of thing.
An insane urge to laugh possessed Adrian. The word “everyday” with its connotations of ordinariness was not one you could ever apply to Stephen Myrick. But explaining why was a trap of sorts, she realized. “As far as I know—” she began, then stopped. He waited impassively. “His everyday life was his work, of course. As for his nonworking life—well, he lived very privately. Anything I know is inadvertent. People calling here, that sort of thing. We never saw each other except when we were working.”
“All business, I see.” His glance was mild. “That arrangement suit you, Miss Crewes?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
He blew smoke at the ceiling. “Looks like he pretty well used this whole house for business, as a matter of fact. Except for those rooms upstairs. The bedrooms and—what would you call that setup of his—a suite?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen it.”
“You’ve never been upstairs at all?”
“No, never.” Adrian hesitated, oppressed by the certainty that he had already formed some opinion of her. “For obvious reasons, I don’t climb stairs unless I have to.”
Nodding, he shifted slightly. “So, unless Myrick or the housekeeper told you, for instance, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing who might’ve stayed up there. Like overnight, say.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“You happen to know if he saw any of his patients outside office hours?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“He didn’t, or you don’t know?”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. As I told you, I know nothing of his personal life.”
“Seems a funny kind of arrangement.” He kept looking at her quizzically. “I mean, two people working that closely, figures at least you’d have dinner or a sandwich together once in a while. But then, you just said it suited you not to.” He left it hanging as a question while he considered the next one. “Did he ever mention any trouble with anybody?”
“No, I don’t recall hearing anything like that.”
“But there was some trouble here, isn’t that right?”
“I’d be interested in knowing where you heard that, Lieutenant.”
“Never mind, Miss Crewes, let’s just stick to the question. The way we hear it, this trouble was with you. Don’t you think you’d better tell me what it was all about?”
EIGHT
From the long list they had divided with the rest of the squad, Casey and Krug chose four names at random—two adult patients and two from Group Five. They were unrewarding choices, as it turned out, since only one of the four was to be found at home, and this one they had to battle to see.
“Now, you listen to me, Officers,” the old man who answered their knock kept yelling through the screen door. “You listen to me, that boy’s as steady now as a boy’ll ever be. You can take my word for it, I’m his granddad, ain’t I? He’s—”
“That’s fine,” Krug said patiently. “Glad to hear it. Now if you’ll tell him we want to talk to him—”
“No siree!” And the old man was adamant until Casey persuaded him that it was to his grandson’s advantage to cooperate with the police. “Hell and damnation,” the old man grumbled, but he let them into the dingy frame house, which looked unchanged from the days when Santa Monica was half rural and this house probably sat in a patch of beans or field of corn. “My day a man’s house was his castle. Wasn’t nobody could come barging in. You just stay there; I’ll get him.” He shuffled off, cursing, slamming an inner door behind him.
Krug eyed a scrawny, crisply neat woman standing by the rickety-looking stair. “You the boy’s mother, ma’am?”
“And what if I am? Listen, he’s a good boy, you hear me? Hasn’t done nothing wrong!”
“We’re not saying he has, ma’am.”
“Just like Pa told you, he’s as steady as steady can be now. We sent him to this doctor—”
“Aw, cool it, Ma,” a cracked young voice floated down the stair. Treads creaked somewhere out of sight. Then a long-haired, bearded boy in patchwork jeans appeared. “I’m Eddie Parsons,” he announced defiantly. “What’s the hassle this time?”
“Don’t you say a word, Eddie, till I get your granddad!” His mother rushed out after the old man.
“You want to wait?” Krug asked him.
“And listen to their shit? Hell, no.”
“You’re a patient of Dr. Stephen Myrick’s, is that right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Part of a group, is that right? You meet with this group three nights a week?”
“Come on, man, cool the law-and-order shit,” the kid sneered. “I’m clean, see. You know it, I know it, so what’s going down here?”
“A police investigation,” Casey replied. “Dr. Myrick was killed last night, Eddie.”
“No shit. How’d he get it?”
“Somebody hit him too hard,” Krug said dryly. “On the back of the head. What we call this is murder.”
“Oh, Jesus,” the boy whispered. “That mother really—” Then sick, scared, he swallowed the rest.
“What ‘mother’ you talking about?” Krug glared at him. “Mother Machree? Motherfucker? Come on, kid, give.”
But as swiftly as a gamefish, he had wriggled off the hook, and Casey knew he wouldn’t be caught again. “Fucking cops, you can’t pin nothing on me.”
“Okay, Eddie, you want to play games, we’ll do it the hard way.” Krug blew out his breath. “Start with where you were last night from six on. And just answer the question, don’t try any smart stuff.”
He had supper about six, the boy told them, watched the news on television, then went on to the meeting at seven o’clock.
“How did you get to Dr. Myrick’s house, Eddie?” Casey asked.
“Another guy picked me up.”
“Name.” This from Krug. “He part of the group?”
“Sure, Ramirez and me got busted together.”
“His first name Hector?”
Eddie agreed it was. The meeting was over—he replied to Krug’s next question—a little before nine. As usual, they had all left together—
“Eddie, your granddad’s gone again,” his mother called from somewhere at the back of the house. “You got to go after him right away!”<
br />
But the boy ignored the summons. “After we split, we went to the Pizza Palace.”
“How long were you there?”
“Maybe an hour, I guess. Then we watched this flick on the tube. Some shit,” he added scornfully, “about World War Two.”
“You wouldn’t think it was shit if you’d been in it,” Krug informed him. “Where did you watch this movie, Eddie?”
“Here.” He grinned slightly, relaxing now. “Ma was baby-sitting, and the old man’s always zonked on vino by nine.”
“That’s all the members of the group you’re talking about? You were all here?”
Hesitating, Eddie licked his lips. “Nah,” he admitted reluctantly, “just Ramirez and Lubov and me.”
“How about the others?”
“Went home, I guess.”
“But you were all at the Pizza Palace together. Nobody stayed behind after the meeting?”
“Come on, man, only chicks pull that stuff!”
“What chicks?” Krug waited. “The way we get it, they’re both dropouts.” He scowled as the kid hesitated again. “Okay, Eddie, you want to play hard to get, you can come on in with us.” He prodded him slightly. “Get going, sonny.”
But the boy hung back. Okay, so the girls were dropouts, he began, whining. He only meant to say none of the guys ever hung around after the meetings. But these two chicks, they really grooved on the doc. Like groupies, see? One was a turkey, but the other one was okay. A real cool little blonde chick. She used to make it with this chopper dude—
“Wait a minute,” Krug kept saying till the boy stopped babbling. “How about some names here? Which is the blonde you’re talking about—Simmons or Flesher?”
Eddie looked bewildered until Casey mentioned first names. The blonde was Sandra Simmons. The turkey was Judith Flesher—“A real weirdo,” Eddie declared. “Man, you just look at that chick and she freaks out.”
“She by any chance this ‘mother’ you were talking about?” Krug waited, but there was no reply. “Okay, let’s get back to last night. You see anybody in or around Myrick’s house? Like parked out in front, anything like that?”
The boy shook his head.
“Nothing different about anybody or anything there last night?”
“Nah, everything was, you know, like always.”
“How about his assistant? The crippled woman. Was she there?”
“I never—” Eddie stopped. “Oh, yeah, I know who you mean. Yeah, I seen her a couple times, but she wasn’t there last night. Wasn’t anybody around but the doc and us.”
“Meaning the group,” Casey pressed him. “All six of you?”
“That’s the story, Captain.” The boy grinned, fully restored to his cheeky adolescent self now. “Listen, I gotta go find my granddad or you’ll be busting him for peeing someplace public. He just walks off, see. Sometimes we don’t see him for a couple days.”
Knowing it was useless to try to continue, they let him go, and he bolted out through the back of the house.
“Christ,” Krug muttered as they let themselves out the front screen door, “if they’re all like that…” He made a check mark on the list. “Okay, so we miss on this one, we catch the next.” He glanced at his watch. “Your stomach feeling like your throat’s cut, sport? Mine is, so how about a pizza?”
The question was rhetorical, Casey knew, and required no answer. They headed next for the Pizza Palace.
NINE
By the time they got back to City Hall, the preliminary reports were already coming in: a post-mortem, and news from the lab that the murder weapon was clean of prints. “Not surprising,” Lieutenant Timms grunted. “What we’ve got here is a smart killer. Possible premeditation. You get a line on those kids yet?”
“Half a line maybe,” Krug replied. “Manager at this pizza joint is pretty sure they were all there till about ten o’clock. They ordered three large pizzas and six Cokes. Sounds kosher so far, and he’s got the ticket to prove it. We’ll see how it jibes with what the other guys come up with. Maybe they can get somebody to spring with the somebody the Parsons kid nearly tipped us to.”
Timms nodded. “You find out yet who or what Lila might be?”
Krug looked disgusted. “Hell, we should’ve asked Merry-what’s-his-name. Okay, so we find out from Allman when we get to her maybe.” He loosened his tie. “Christ, it’s hotter’n a pistol out there! You wouldn’t believe how many people in this town are doing without air conditioning.”
“The housekeeper might know about Lila,” Casey suggested.
“She’s at her sister’s,” Timms said. “House is sealed till tomorrow probably. Had a hell of a time getting that lame woman out. She kept talking about having to check the tapes in case there’s more damage.” He chewed his lower lip. “We’ll have to find a way to shake her loose from that ‘privileged material’ pitch of hers. Everything I asked her was a violation of professional confidence, she claimed.” He smiled slightly. “But she let loose of one little piece of information. And a real kicker it might just be. Seems their argument was over that gang of kids. Some hassle they got into with Myrick. She claims she doesn’t know what it was about—”
“Then maybe we’re one up on her,” Krug interrupted. “The way we get it, he had the two girls twirling. The dropouts. Want to bet we find a couple little pussies in the woodpile?”
“Nice going, Al.” Timms looked pleased. “If he was fooling around—well, you figure it. Everybody’s got to be unhappy. So keep bird-dogging that angle. Incidentally,” he added briskly, “our decedent’s brother is on the way from the airport. Phoned in about fifteen minutes ago. He ought to be here any time now.”
“Better tell ’em downstairs,” Krug instructed Casey. “And bring back some coffee. I’ll get started on the reports.”
Happy to be free, however briefly, from his partner’s irascible presence, Casey pounded down the stairs to the busy police station below. Phones rang; somewhere a teletype clattered; from the Watch Commander’s office came a deep, booming dirty-joke laugh.
But in the morgue all was silence. Casey crossed the empty anteroom, pushing through a heavy door into the chill, dry antiseptic chamber where the bodies were kept. From somewhere a familiar voice said, “Will you dig the dude?” It was the morgue attendant, a fashion freak to whom even a new tie was sartorial excitement. He kept circling Casey admiringly. “Denim, stripes, flowers yet. Man, you’re a wide-screen full-color dreamboat!”
“Many thanks. I take it Dr. Deacon’s not here?”
“The forensic genius will not return until nine bells.”
“So all we get on Myrick till then is what we’ve got now?”
“Well, there’s a couple little items. For instance, he didn’t have any dinner last night. Also, he wore contact lenses. One got stuck in his eye. The lab boys probably vacuumed up the other one at the scene.” He grinned at Casey, whose weak stomach was well known. “Want another look at the body?”
“Once was enough. What I came to tell you, his brother’s due any minute.”
“I’ll get the smelling salts ready. Hey, wait a minute,” he called after Casey, “where’d you get that tie?”
“For fear of imitation, we do not choose to make our haberdasher known.” Followed by the attendant’s protest, Casey pushed through the heavy swinging door. Contact lenses. Making a mental note, he fished in his pockets, finding the coins he needed for the coffee vending machine. One black, one black with sugar. Since the advent of nondairy products, Krug had given up cream.
When he returned upstairs, Casey found Timms and Krug and a worn-looking, well-dressed man huddled around Timms’s corner desk. Obviously no interruptions would be welcome, so Krug’s coffee was wasted expense. “That the brother?” he asked one of the other detectives.
“Better believe it. And a lawyer yet. He’s already griping ho
w the case is being mishandled.”
“That’s nice.” Casey offered a Styrofoam cup. “Black with sugar?”
“Sure, if it’s free.”
As usual the coffee was vile. Settling down at the typewriter, Casey began a preliminary homicide report in triplicate. One of the outside lines rang, but somebody else grabbed it. From the corner came a rumble of voices—Timms’s mostly, with sharp resonant rebuttals from the lawyer. Krug’s face was deadpan, but getting redder and redder by the minute, Casey noticed. Nearly blowup time, he decided. With luck he’d be out of the line of fire when it happened.
A resounding sneeze echoing up the stairs announced Haynes’s arrival. His partner, Zwingler, preceded him into the squad room, flopping fatly at his desk. “Listen to that. Would you believe he’s been whooping like that for ten minutes straight without stopping? Claims it’s a new allergy his pills don’t work on. He’ll never admit he forgets to take ’em.”
“Lot you know about it.” Haynes mopped his streaming eyes. “My specialist says—”
“Oh, brother, not only do I have to listen to you whooping, now I got to listen to a lecture why?”
“I’m only trying to explain, Ralph.”
“Don’t bother. Just take your pills, Denny, okay? Take the pills. Because if you don’t, so help me—Ah, never mind,” Zwingler said disgustedly. “Let’s flip who does the report. Heads or tails?”
Haynes chose tails and lost. “My luck,” he sniffed morosely. “Ought to be used to it by now. This’s the lousiest two weeks…Listen, this must be the fiftieth dud follow-up we’ve been out on, right? Damn Taylor Case,” he explained to Casey. “Dead end all the way, believe me. We should’ve thrown it in Pending a week ago.”
Casey agreed, but didn’t say so, having been burned already by a rashly stated coffee-time opinion that the case was a bummer and probably insoluble because of lousy police work. So much for idle criticism. It travels, he discovered. He’d spent fifteen minutes on the carpet over that one.
Rouse the Demon: A Krug & Kellog Thriller (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 3) Page 4