by Dell Shannon
Now Galeano said, "We missed lunch, Jase."
"So we did. Let's stop somewhere?
* * *
Hackett and Higgins were in one interrogation room talking to a possible rapist, and Grace and Galeano in another talking to a possible heister, at three o'clock. It was still sprinkling. Mendoza was smoking and shuffling the cards, and Lake had just come in to say, "It slipped my mind—Jackman called to say his sister had a slight heart attack, she's in the hospital."
"Damn," said Mendoza. He wanted to talk to the woman.
"Oh, she's going to be all right in a day or two."
"I got to talk to somebody here!" said a loud desperate voice. "Isn't nobody here? The sergeant downstairs said Robbery—Homicide—"
Lake and Mendoza went out together. Standing beside the switchboard was a tall youngish Negro. Normally he'd have been rather handsome; he had sharp Semitic features, he was medium black, he had broad shoulders; but he looked to be in a state of shock. "It's about a murder!" he said. "I got to tell you!"
"Calm down," said Mendoza. "Come in here." He got him to sit down in Hackett's desk chair. "Now what's it all about? I'm Lieutenant Mendoza. And you?"
"L-L—L- She shot Leta!" he said. "Oh, my God, and I didn't believe it! But I had to come—I had to come and tell you—" He gave a great sigh suddenly, and sagged in the chair limply. "I suppose I should've got ten traffic tickets—gettin' down here. I left Ventura—I don't know what time. I had to come and tell you."
Mendoza snapped to attention. He said, "Jimmy, fetch us some coffee, will you? And rout out everybody. I have a little idea we're about to hear an interesting story."
The coffee seemed to revive Len Reynolds somewhat. He calmed down a little, but he was still excited and upset. He looked at them, grouped around Hackett's desk there, and it was easy to see why the pretty and personable Leta had fallen for him; he was good-looking and his brown eyes were gentle and honest. "Oh, my Lord," he said. He finished the coffee and asked if he could have another cup; Galeano went down the hall to the coffee machine.
"Take your time," said Mendoza, offering him a cigarette.
Reynolds took a long deep breath, held it and let it out. "Thanks," he said to Galeano, and sipped coffee, took a drag on the cigarette. "I've got to—tell you how it was. I don't know if you know I've been up in Ventura. I went to night school after Leta and m—I broke up, she always said I ought to, and I got my diploma, and I passed the post office test. I got a good job up there as a carrier. And I've got an apartment. I've been there a couple of years. Well, about four-five months ago this girl moved into the apartment next to me. Betty Simms her name is. We'd said hello and nice day and like that, but she's no looker and it never crossed my mind to ask her for a date, look twice at her. You got to believe that! I never did. I think she's got a job waiting on table somewhere. But she's an awful pushy girl and she's been trying to make up to me every which way, all the while she's been there. God knows I never did n—anything to make her think— I've been real rude to her a lot of times lately, I didn't like doing that because I don't like to be mean, but—" he drank more coffee- "she's been a real pest. Bringing me cakes and asking me to her place for dinner— I was going to move just to get away from her, only thing to do. My God—but I didn't think she was a real nut. Only she's got to be—she's got to be."
He finished the coffee and cigarette, and got out cigarettes of his own. His hands were shaking. "I was—I-I don't work Sundays, acourse. I was sitting in the living room-looking at TV—about noon it was, when she came over. She never seemed to notice when I wasn't polite, she said she'd baked a cake for me—she was all smiles, just pushed right in. I said I didn't want it, I was busy, and she tried—she tried to put her arms around me—and she said, after what she done for me I ought to be nicer to her—she said—oh, my God—she said she knew it was hard for me to pay that money to Leta all the time, so she'd come down here and killed her so I wouldn't have to pay her any more—"
"¡Santa Maria!" said Mendoza.
"I laughed at her! I thought she was crazy. I said how could she do that, and she got mad and said she had so. She got in my apartment and found Leta's address and— She went and got a gun and showed it to me." Reynolds' expression was part anger and part bewilderment. "A little bitty gun, it looked like a kid's play gun. But when she kept saying it—my God. I shoved her out and I bolted the door, and then I called Leta's folks-and they told me—told me about—" He put his head in his hands.
"My God," said Hackett.
"There was something wild about it all along," said Galeano. "A real nut you can say—"
Mendoza got up. "Jimmy, get me a line to the Ventura P.D."
Len Reynolds was suddenly crying. Unashamed, he brought out a handkerchief and mopped his eyes. "Leta dead," he said. "That crazy pushy girl. Not as if I'd ever—thought of her like that. Leta. I—I feel as if I'd killed her myself, you know? I never had anything against Leta—she was the nicest, sweetest girl I ever knew—I wasn't good enough for her, was all. And now—and now—" He blew his nose, got himself under a little control. "I'll never go back to that place again. That girl—"
Mendoza was talking to somebody at the Ventura police station.
About four o'clock Sanders called and talked to Palliser. He thought there was a chance that Linda Carr was about to regain consciousness. If she did, it might not be for long. Landers came in while they were on the phone, and he and Palliser left the suspect rapist waiting in an interrogation room and rushed over to the hospital.
She was moving restlessly in the high bed, and a nurse was standing by to see she didn't disturb the I.V. needle. She was moaning a little.
"Her pulse is better," said Sanders. He bent over the bed. "Lindal Linda, can you hear me?"
She stopped moaning and lay still for a few moments.
Then her eyes opened—blank eyes, wide and blue.
Palliser pushed Sanders aside and took his place. "Linda," he said quietly, "I'm a police officer. Can you tell us who hurt you?"
Slowly the eyes tried to focus on him. She said in a thick drowsy voice, "Didn't—kill self—after all."
"Linda. Who hurt you?"
She let out a little sigh. "Mike," she said. "Mike."
She turned her face on the pillow and fell asleep; but her breath was coming easily, regularly.
* * *
The Hoffman funeral was at ten o'clock on Monday morning. Out of a sense of duty, Mendoza went to it. The only other people there were the men from the Hollenbeck station, some of their wives. And Cathy Robsen, sitting in a back row. The three caskets were closed, and it was a brief formal ceremony, with no graveside service.
Mendoza got back to the office at eleven-thirty, and Lake said, "They waited for you to open the ball."
In his office Hackett and Higgins were talking with a stocky blond man in a rumpled-looking gray suit. He got up as Mendoza came in and offered a hand. "You'll be the boss. I'm Roy Dodd, I talked to you yesterday.
We picked her up just where you told us, and I drove her down this morning. This is the damndest thing I ever ran across. The damndest. I didn't question her. Your baby."
Betty Simms was standing looking out the window. She was a big girl, broad-shouldered and broad-hipped and heavy-bosomed. She was wearing a bright-red wool dress and black high-heeled shoes. "Oh, we checked her car as you asked. It's a white Nova about eight years old."
"De veras," said Mendoza, watching her. She turned around. She was black, with a round plain face, broad lips, round little eyes under a bulging forehead. "We also," said Dodd, "found the gun." He took it out of his pocket and laid it on Mendoza's desk: a tiny thing barely four inches long.
"Who're you?" she asked Mendoza.
He told her. "Sit down, Miss Simms. We've got some questions for you."
"All because he had to go and tell you," she said. "I never thought he'd do that. It was stupid, real stupid. I told him, he oughta be grateful to me, get him out of all that t
rouble—so he wouldn't have to pay her no more." She ran her tongue over her lips. "Nobody should tell the fuzz nothing, I thought anybody knows that. Then we could get married, see? Every girl wants to get married."
"Did you think Len wanted to marry you?"
"Well, I heard him bitch 'n' bitch to Mr. Chapman, he's the landlord, 'bout all the money he had to pay his wife. Len's a real nice fellow—at least I thought he was—and he's got a good steady job. Be nice to have regular money, if we got married and had some kids. That's what I always wanted, a nice fellow and some kids. But there was all that money he had to pay her. I thought, you know, if she was dead he wouldn't have to, and we could get married."
"Did he ever ask you to marry him?" asked Mendoza. She simpered a little. "Oh, not in so many words, but a girl can always tell."
"How did you know where to find Mrs. Reynolds?"
"I was goin' to be Mrs. Reynolds. That was easy.
I went in Len's apartment once and looked in the little book where he keeps people's addresses. Do you know he's got a picture of her in his apartment? I suppose it's to remind him how terrible it was bein' married to her."
"Like to tell us just how you did it?"
"I don't care," she said. "I had that little gun, I got it to protect myself when I was livin' in San Francisco, in the city. A girl's got to be careful, 'specially when she's pretty. I just phoned Mr. Shapiro, he's the boss where I work, I was sick and couldn't come in, and I drove down here and found the house. Twenty-seventh Street, and the number. I thought up the idea about the Avon lady on the way down. I used to know a girl sold Avon things. She didn't want to let me in, but I sort of went in anyway. And she said about not havin' time look at anything but I went all the way in and then I shot her with the gun."
"You know, Betty," said Mendoza—he was perched on the corner of his desk, gently swinging one ankle—"those payments Len was making weren't alimony. They were child support, for the little girl."
She turned up astonished eyes. "They was? You sure?" She looked disgusted. "And I saw the kid! She was right there! I coulda shot her too, just as easy, if I'd'a' known that!"
Dodd said something under his breath.
"It really wouldn't have made any difference," said Mendoza. "Len wasn't going to marry you, you know."
She looked sullen. "He might have. There've been lots 'n' lots of fellows wanted to marry me. There was another fellow I nearly married awhile back—but he wasn't as good-looking as Len." She reflected. "I wonder if I could find him again."
"You're not going to have the chance, Betty."
"Why not? Oh. Oh, I suppose you're going to put me in jail awhile for shooting her."
"That's just what. Have you ever been in jail before?"
All of a sudden she seemed to lose interest.
"I don't know," she said vaguely. "I don't remember."
"My God," said Higgins.
"Sergeant Hackett's going to take you over to the jail now. But we'll be seeing you again."
"O.K.," she said. She went out with Hackett quietly.
"My good God in heaven," said Dodd. Mendoza sat down at his desk.
"She's subnormal, of course. Arrested development? They've got so many new names for everything these days. Evidently she's been able to function, earn a living—but there may be progressive deterioration. Let the head doctors fight it out."
The phone rang and he picked it up. "Yes, Jimmy?"
"You've got a call from the director of the Humane Society. He wants to invite you to be the featured guest at their annual banquet. You're getting a lot of mileage out of that cat, Lieutenant?
"¡Válgame Dios!" said Mendoza.
* * *
Landers called the hospital about four o'clock. Sanders sounded worried. "I don't like this protracted unconsciousness," he said. "She went off into a natural sleep and then lapsed back again. I've got a hunch it's an involuntary retreat from reality, to avoid remembering the experience she's been through."
"But how long might that go on?"
"It might go on long enough," said Sanders, "to block it off from the conscious mind entirely. She might wake up with complete amnesia about what happened, simply because it's too terrible to remember."
"But you don't know that?"
"We'll have to wait and see."
* * *
Ken Kearney called about four o'clock on Monday afternoon. "Well, we're here," he told Alison. "I had the hell of a time getting hold of a U-Haul truck to bring 'em down. The sheep ranch was to hell and gone north of Los Alamos, and I had to go all the way to Lompoc to rent a U-Haul. Thought I'd never get 'em down here, but I did. They're up on the hill now, and Kate's feeling sentimental about our first spread when we had a few."
He chuckled. Kate Kearney had been starting to move their possessions into the new place for the last week. "Like to come up and take a look?"
Everybody was excited about the sheep, and it had stopped raining. Alison brought El Señor in, the other cats being in already, and bundled the twins in parkas; Mairi bundled the baby in a warm sleeper and a blanket. There wasn't room for Cedric too in the Facel-Vega, and he was left staring after them lonesomely behind the driveway gate.
Up in the hills above Burbank, they left the last streets behind and wended up the blacktop road, with the twins asking excited questions. Would the sheep be girls or boys? Did they have names? Would they play like Cedric? Would they come in the house?
"No, no, lambies, sheep stay out on the hills where they belong."
"What are wethers, Mairi?" asked Alison.
"Well, achara, ah, mmh," said Mairi with an eye on the twins, "they'll be gentlemen sheep that can't have lambs."
"Oh," said Alison amusedly. "Very sensible of Ken. We wouldn't want lambs running all around every spring."
"We could then," said Mairi. "Two or three nice lambs would butcher verra well, and home—bred lamb is far and away tastier than what you get at the market."
"Eat your own lambs? After seeing them running around? I couldn't."
"Mamacita, are we gonna eat the sheepses?" asked Terry uneasily.
"No, no, darling. The sheep are just for fun."
At that moment the gate came into view, their own iron gate of the entrance to La Casa de la Genie Feliz, and just beyond them in the new blacktop drive was Ken Kearney's car attached to a U-Haul trailer. He was standing beside it, tall and loose-limbed, and his little plump robin of a wife was standing beside him. Up on the hillside—the house was beyond the crest of the hill—were five white creatures loosely bunched together.
He came and opened the gate, shut it after the car.
"Oh, they're pretty!" said Alison, surprised. The sheep she'd remembered vaguely were the thin, grayish, dingy sheep in Mexico, hopelessly foraging on thin pasture. These creatures were white and plump and woolly, and at her voice a couple of them baaaed at her and started down the hill toward the humans. They had black faces and ears, and they looked absurdly as if they were wearing black silk stockings and high-heeled black shoes.
Their dainty slender legs looked too frail to support their bodies.
"They don't butt things, do they?" she asked.
"No, no. This must be the two were bottle-raised, the mother couldn't feed all four. They're tame as dogs."
They came up baaaing, and Alison felt the smooth black heads, the curled matted wool.
"Oh, they're darling. Look, Terry, Johnny—feel how soft!"
"Och, they do put me in mind of my own Highlands!" said Mairi sentimentally. "The dear wee black faces! Our Scottish sheep are nae sa' big, o' course. These are grand beasts, Mr. Kearney." `
"What are their names?" he was repeating to Terry's insistent query. "Well, now, I don't know as they've got any names, Terry."
"But they got to have names. Everything's got names."
"They're graceful sort o' beasts in spite of their shapes," said Mairi. "To see a sheep houplin' over a hill is a fine graceful sight. Ooh, it does put me in mind�
��"
"They're the Five Graces," said Alison with a laugh.
"That's what we'll call them, Terry." The other three sheep were grazing contentedly a little way up the hill; she patted the silky smooth head so close against her knee. "They must have had very good care to be so tame." There was a sharp tearing sound and she staggered at a sudden pull.
"I should've warned you," said Kearney. "Now get away, you!"
The sheep so confidentially responding to Alison's patting had eaten a large piece out of her tweed skirt. She looked at it in dismay and then laughed. "I suppose it was attracted to the wool."
"That's a shame," said Kate Kearney, "a good skirt like that. It's not only wool. It's queer the things they will eat."
Kearney was explaining about the wool to the twins.
"These were just born in February—they'll be due for a first shearing in April. Their nice wool coats are cut off, you see, and they'll be all clean and cool for the summer."
Terry said, "No. They gonna keep their fur coats."
She was very decisive about it.
* * *
The A.P.B. had still not turned up Marion Stromberg's car in a full week.
The warrant came through on Betty Simms; but in all probability the psychiatric examination would take some time, and in the end she'd be committed to Camarillo.
The prints Duke and Scarne had so painstakingly lifted from the body of Consuela Rivera weren't in L.A.'s records. They had been sent to the F.B.I.
The autopsy report on the Jackmans had come in late Monday. All it told them was that the knife used had a blade about nine inches long, tapering from an inch to one-eighth of an inch. He had been stabbed forty-eight times, she fifty-three. There was more detail, but it didn't mean a great deal.
The P.R. man with the idea for a TV commercial had called back several times. When Mendoza went out to lunch on Tuesday with Hackett and Higgins, he was waiting to waylay Mendoza on the top step of the front entrance. He was a fat little man with an eager face and boundless energy. He pressed his card on Mendoza insistently. His name was Norman Yadkin, and he was with the Slocum-Traskins Advertising Agency.