Rockabye County 4

by J. T. Edson

  ‘Thanks, Mrs. Mendoza,’ Alice replied. ‘Brad, arrange for a car to take Mrs. Mendoza to the office.’

  ‘Yo,’ Brad answered.

  Watching the big deputy walk away, Mrs. Mendoza grinned and nudged Alice with her elbow. ‘Now I see why you became a cop,’ she chuckled. ‘That’s quite a hunk of man.’

  Alice smiled. ‘I never thought of it like that—but you’ve a point.’

  Ten

  After seeing Mrs. Mendoza on her way, Alice and Brad asked Kajic to keep in touch with them and took to their car. During the drive to Tom Cord’s home, more, to take their minds off what lay ahead, they kicked around what they had learned at Jenner Street. Both agreed that the fire tied in with their case and their guessing came very close to the true reason for the arson—murder, and attempted destruction of the shotgun and car.

  At the Cord house Alice and Brad found a grief-stricken woman; forcing themselves to follow the routine course of questioning. Despite her grief, Mavis Cord realized the deputies had a job to do, and also that her help might give a clue to the reason for her husband’s death.

  Did Mavis know of any enemies, other than the usual kind gathered by a peace officer, who might have wanted Tom’s death? Had he quarreled with the neighbors? Who knew of his whereabouts on Sunday?

  Alice and Brad knew, or could guess, most of the answers.

  Off watch Tom had been an amiable, home-loving man; possibly because he saw so little of it when working on a case, or came across so many contrasts to his own matrimonial state in the line of duty. Apart from very rare domestic spats, he got on well enough with his neighbors and Mavis could not think of a single enemy, other than criminals, who could have hired the killing of her husband.

  ‘Nothing,’ Alice said as they left the house.

  ‘No,’ Brad agreed. ‘I’m pleased that Mrs. Tragg’s there with Mavis.’

  The sheriff’s capable wife had stayed on to take care of the grieving woman. Knowing Beryl Tragg, Alice and Brad felt Mavis could not be in better hands. With the welfare of Tom’s widow attended to, Alice and Brad could get on with their investigation.

  From the Cord house Alice and Brad ranged across the city, calling on men Tom had arrested, asking questions, checking alibis. They learned nothing and after lunch split up to make a round of their informers.

  Brad used his M.G., visiting the men who sold Tom Cord information. He spoke with English Herb and Joey Ortega in the Bad-Bit, visited a poolroom in Greevers where Stan Bauman could be found, called on Stan Weiss’ shoeshine stand and lastly went to Izzy Bergen’s junkyard.

  From none of the men did he learn anything useful, but all had started to dig information. Most of them believed Tom’s death to be a grudge-killing and acted accordingly. Only two things came of Brad’s inquiries. First, although he knew it already, that Tom had been genuinely liked and respected by his informers; second, and very important, the old deputy had planned against his retirement by arranging for the informers to adopt Brad as his successor for a market for news. All agreed to continue working for Brad; an important detail since every peace officer needed such unofficial sources of information to augment the scientific aids to his work.

  ‘Tom allus said I could rely on you like I did on him,’ Bergen said, echoing the other informers’ sentiments. ‘I’ll call you if I get a whisper.’

  ‘Thanks Izzy, I’ll see you around.’

  With that side of the investigation handled, Brad drove back to Headquarters Building and found, from the pile of reports on his desk, that other sections of the search had also gone on at full pace.

  I.C.R. in Austin could not trace the fingerprints from the Bestwick in their collection, but had Speedphoto’ed them and dispatched the result over the wire service to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Identification Division for further checking at national level. So far the F.B.I. had not kicked back a report. With Alice and Brad so busy, a G.C.P.D. detective visited the Newnes to question the staff. He reported that ‘Jackson’ had received no visitors, only one telephone call at around half past four on Sunday afternoon and that after receiving it had left the hotel for a few minutes. A preliminary report from the medical examiner’s office declared that the Jenner Street victim had been male and had died as a result of three bullet wounds; one bullet proved to be suitable for comparison tests should the deputies locate a .45-caliber revolver. F.I.L. had received the bullet and passed word that it came from a Smith & Wesson; they also said that Goole’s shotgun had not been fired for several days. In addition to Mrs. Mendoza, staff-members from the two hotels worked with police artists to build up a composite sketch of ‘Sloane’ and ‘Jackson’. S.I.B.’s investigations at the garage produced a set of license plates which were partially eaten away by acid, but which might yield to treatment and show the obliterated number. The lab crew decided to check on the electric razor found in Thurlow’s room, a fortunate decision as it proved to have three different types of hair in its cutter-blades. Following up the lead, the lab crew brought in the pillow from Thurlow’s bed and tested it for samples of hair-oil, bringing in the pillows from ‘Jackson’ and ‘Sloane’s’ hotel rooms for comparison. As a result of appeals on the radio and television newscasts, passengers from the nine-fifty train started reporting to their local station houses, but so far nobody who resembled Tom in height and appearance had turned up. The train’s crew had gone straight on to Arizona, but would be returning that evening, so could be questioned.

  ‘Short and sweet,’ Brad said, putting down the last report.

  ‘Aren’t they all?’ Alice replied. Having returned before Brad, she sat at the desk typing out a report of the case so far.

  ‘We’re further forward though,’ Brad remarked.

  ‘A little,’ agreed Alice, and reached out a hand as the telephone buzzed. ‘Sheriff’s office, Deputy Fayde.’

  ‘This’s Craddock, R. and I. We’ve just found a hot one.’

  ‘Shoot,’ she said, taking up her pencil.

  ‘Zachary Rosenthal. Tom put him away for fifteen years on a 1398. v That was eight years back, which’s why we’ve only just found it. Rosenthal made a lot of threats at the time.’

  ‘Is he out?’

  ‘Of this world, though I wouldn’t want to say up or down. He died in the Walls vi three weeks ago.’

  ‘That’s a reasonable alibi,’ Brad remarked, listening with his head close to his partner’s shoulder.

  ‘Yeah,’ Craddock replied. ‘Only he had a son. Boy figured he was some red-hot high-power. Took a couple of 1148 falls and one for armed robbery.’

  ‘Sounds like a clean-cut American boy,’ Alice said dryly. ‘Is he out?’

  ‘Out and in gainful employment. According to his parole report, he’s working as a chauffeur for an Upton Heights family.’

  ‘Do they know about him?’ Alice asked, for most people fought shy of hiring a young man who had been in jail on an Article 1148 charge—aggravated assault.

  ‘Sure. Reckon the man of the house figures he can handle a young punk like Rosenthal. It’s Stan Blumfeld.’

  From Craddock’s tone the name should mean something to the listening deputies. It struck no bell and Alice said so.

  ‘He’s a retired gambling biggie out of Las Vegas. Came to live here around eighteen month back,’ Craddock told them. ‘Jack went to see him when he arrived, told him we weren’t having any organized gambling in Rockabye County. V. and G. have had him under surveillance but he acts clean. Is an exec, in Cowland Footwear.’

  ‘Then we’ll run over and see Blumfeld,’ Alice remarked. If the young man’s employer had not been aware of his past, she would have suggested a meeting away from his place of employment. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for,’ replied Craddock and hung up.

  ‘What do you think, Brad?’ Alice asked, putting the receiver on its hooks.

  ‘Don’t like it. Sure Blumfeld had the motive, but would he have the means; enough money to hire
the professionals?’

  ‘He could have been one of the “professionals”,’ Alice pointed out. ‘He’d have the local knowledge and might still be in contact with his old crowd.’

  ‘Sure,’ Brad grunted. ‘I may have become a bit too set on that professional killer bit. We’d best check him out.’

  ‘We’ll have to go by the Chadwick Building on the way,’ Alice remarked as they left the office. ‘I’ll call in and pick up my car. I came by taxi last night and if I manage to get home tonight, it’ll be hell finding a cab at that hour.’

  ‘I could run you home if you like,’ suggested Brad.

  ‘You live on the other side of the Heights, it would take you well out of your way.’

  There the matter rested. Alice and Brad had never been close friends off watch. While they saw each other around town occasionally, each possessed a circle of friends who had little in common with the other’s.

  On arriving at the Chadwick Building, a white stone structure in the middle-rent district, Alice left the Oldsmobile and collected her cobalt blue ’64 Ford Mustang hardtop from the roofed-over parking lot. She drove from the lot, waved to Brad and led the way across town, making for Upton Street, boundary of the snob Upton Heights Division.

  The quality, appearance and value of the property they passed had been gradually increasing as they drove north from Alice’s place. Once across Upton Street, which encircled the small hill range known as Upton Heights, they would be in the richest area of the town. Before leaving the office Alice had checked on Blumfeld’s address, finding it to be on Buenavista Avenue. Streets wound around the Heights like the contour lines of a map and the higher one went, the more select and expensive grew the section. Buenavista Avenue lay second from the top.

  Although all of Upton Heights, and indeed most of Gusher City, had risen since the big oil-boom in 1940, the houses on Buenavista Avenue had been built to give an impression of antiquity. The Blumfeld residence proved to be a three-storey pseudo Spanish-colonial design. High walls surrounded it and almost a hundred yards of well-tended lawns and flowerbeds separated the building from the street. From the ornate wrought-iron gates two paths curved off across the lawns to join again in an oblong of concrete almost as large as the Chadwick Building’s parking lot and facing the main doors of the building.

  Alice swung her Ford through the gate and, with Brad following in SO 15, cruised along the right-hand path. A powder blue Cadillac Sedan de Ville and a matching Lotus

  Elite Gran Turismo coupé stood side by side on the square. There would probably be at least two more cars in the garages at the rear of the building. Possibly the pair out front belonged to the lady of the house; the little imported coupé for casual use and driven by herself, but the Cadillac called for the services of a chauffeur. A cleaning cloth hung over the door of the Lotus, but there was no sign of the chauffeur.

  ‘I feel we should be using the tradesmen’s entrance,’ Alice said, looking around her.

  She was conscious of the fact that her two-piece and blouse did not look at their neatest after several hours of riding in the Oldsmobile and visiting a variety of unsavory places around town. Woman-like, Alice did not wish to appear before the female occupants of such a place while not looking at her best.

  Having been reared in similar surroundings, Brad showed no concern. He grinned at his partner and answered, ‘Let’s make a stand for equality and rights of the individual, and use the front door.’

  ‘We can’t. Rights of the individual only apply to members of minority groups. Don’t you watch television?’

  ‘Not since the westerns all stopped shooting and went psycho. Let’s go.’

  A tall, frozen-faced man with the appearance of a butler in a ‘B’ movie opened the main doors in answer to Brad’s tug on the bell-pull. After giving Alice a quick look, the man asked whom they wished to see.

  ‘Your chauffeur,’ Alice replied, face deadpan.

  ‘Whom may I say is …’ began the butler.

  ‘Knock it off, Weems,’ Alice interrupted and reached for her ID wallet. ‘Or don’t you remember me?’

  ‘Miss Fayde, isn’t it?’ answered the man in his aloof tones.

  ‘They said you never forgot a face,’ she commented with a smile.

  ‘There are some one would wish to forget, miss. No offence meant, of course, I found no complaint in your attention. By the by, miss, the master is fully cognizant with my previous lapse from grace. In other words, to use the vernacular, I’m going straight now.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you, it happens to the best of us in the end.’

  ‘Regrettable, but true,’ sighed the butler. ‘And the younger generation leave so much to be desired.’

  ‘Talking of the younger generation …’ Alice said.

  ‘You wish to speak with Rosenthal?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘He’s with the mistress. I’ll inform him.’

  With that the butler waved the deputies inside and padded off along the hall to a door.

  ‘Man’d say you know that jasper, Alice,’ Brad remarked.

  ‘Who, Weems? I met him while I was a patrolwoman out of Upton Heights’s House. An informer blew the whistle on a big-time fence and I went along on the raid. We hit the fence just as Weems was selling him a mink wrap lifted from a guest at his employer’s place. The fence sang like a bird, trying to lighten his load, and made poor old Weems. There’d been a lot of thefts in the Heights at that time and Weems was the guilty party. He went down for three; and six months later I met his employer’s wife. She said she wished she’d never signed the complaint as she hadn’t seen a butler to touch him.’

  ‘There’s a moral in that somewhere,’ grinned Brad. ‘Say, though. Weems and Rosenthal are both ex-cons, and Blumfeld hired them.’

  ‘Maybe he has a social conscience,’ Alice suggested. ‘Or finds ex-cons other folks wouldn’t hire come cheaper than honest help.’

  Before they could discuss the matter further, Weems reappeared. ‘Mrs. Blumfeld says come this way, please.’

  The room into which Weems showed the deputies had the same air of wealth and elegance which filled the rest of the house. At the far wall stood a divan almost as large as a double bed and at its side was a small table bearing a crystal glass whiskey decanter, two partly-filled glasses and an onyx ashtray with several cigarette butts in it; not all the butts bore traces of lipstick.

  A young man and a slightly older woman stood by the divan and studied the deputies as Alice and Brad crossed the room.

  The man was almost as tall as Brad, tanned and handsome, with broad shoulders set off by a chauffeur’s tunic. From all appearances, he was not in the room on official business. The cadet-gray jacket hung open, showing a white T-shirt. A cigarette trailed from lips which bore a street-punk’s tough sneer. Just a trace of the same shade of lipstick that marked some of the cigarette butts in the ashtray stained the comer of his mouth.

  Standing at Rosenthal’s side, the woman’s eyes narrowed slightly as she gave Alice a long, hard stare.

  Although not quite as tall as Alice, the woman's gold-colored, sling back court shoes gave the impression that they were the same height. She had blonde hair elegantly coiffured in a bouffant style and framing a beautiful face with slightly pouting lips. A white sheath dress clung like it had been molded to her magnificent figure, the neck-line cut low enough over her rich full bosom to start Brad wondering if she wore any underclothes. Full breasted, with a slender waist, curving hips and legs which would turn heads against any competition, the woman looked more like a Hollywood sex-queen than an Upton Heights housewife interviewing her chauffeur. She wore pendant diamond earrings, a wide silver bracelet on her right wrist. A broad wedding band and a second ring with a large diamond cluster rising like a pyramid graced the third finger of her left hand.

  Recognition came to both women at the same moment.

  ‘Hello, Alice,’ said the blonde in a voice which dripped sex like a melting candl
e sheds wax.

  ‘Hello, Marla,’ Alice replied.

  Something in the two voices drew Brad’s attention to the woman. He studied the way they stood and felt that the attitude should be familiar to him. The tense, watchful, somehow predatory way the women eyed each other struck a chord in Brad’s memory, but he could not quite place it.

  Then he remembered.

  It had been up on the family’s ranch in the Panhandle when he was out hunting. While stalking through the woods in search of a big whitetail buck, he came upon a rare sight. A log bridged a small, swift stream and two bobcats stood upon it facing each other. Neither cat showed any signs of backing down and letting the other pass.

  The way Alice faced Marla Blumfeld reminded Brad of how the bobcats stood bristling and eyeing each other before the fight started and fur began to fly.

  Eleven

  ‘We’d like to see Mr. Rosenthal,’ Brad said, for Alice made no attempt to open the interview.

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Marla answered.

  ‘Could we speak with him in private, please?’

  ‘There’s nothing you can say to me that Mar—Mrs. Blumfeld can’t hear,’ Rosenthal put in. ‘Make with the talk, cop.’

  ‘We’d rather see you alone,’ Brad replied.

  ‘And I’d rather you didn’t,’ Marla put in. ‘I know Ben has been in trouble with the law—which only means he didn’t have the right connections.’

  ‘Or that he was guilty,’ Alice said.

  Once again the sparks flew between the women. Brad felt surprised at Alice's reaction, for normally no amount of needling would bring such a comment from her. Yet she stood bristling like an alley cat—and so did Marla.

  ‘You may as well question him here, I have no intention of leaving him,’ Marla announced.

  Alice writhed under the blonde’s faintly mocking scrutiny of her clothes. Of all the people in the world, the woman who called herself Marla Blumfeld would have been the last Alice chose to meet when not dressed at her best.

  ‘Where were you yesterday evening at nine-fifty, Mr. Rosenthal?’ Brad asked when Alice did not start the questioning.