Murder Most Strange

by Dell Shannon

  "All right, what about any boy friends?" asked Hackett.

  The two girls exchanged glances. The Hiller girl was a defiantly bright blonde, a little buxom. "Well, yeah," she said. "We double-dated a few times. But it wasn't anything serious with Marion, she didn't want to get married again. She just liked a good time, good company."

  "Some names, please," said Mendoza.

  "Just one lately," said Rena Hiller. "Jerry Wall. He's a nice guy, we all know him, he's in for lunch nearly every day, he works at a garage up on Vermont. That's how Marion met him."

  "Were they shacking up?" asked Hackett bluntly.

  Both girls looked a little shocked. "No, of course not," said Marge Colbert. "You cops. Talk about the way your minds work. No, Marion wasn't that kind—honestly—and besides, she didn't want to lose the support money. Her husband had tried to get the kid, see, and if he could show she wasn't living straight, maybe he could get custody even now, and she knew that."

  "We've heard," said Mendoza, "that she was out most evenings, at some place called Barney's, a bar somewhere. And you're telling us she was playing it all straight and virtuous? Had she been hitting the bottle at all?"

  "Cops!" said Rena. "Listen, I know about that, but it wasn't the way you think. Marion—she just couldn't stand to be alone, you see? She liked people around, and talk. She didn't have a TV at home, and of course the kid is old enough so Marion could leave her—"

  "Alone," said Hackett. "She's eleven, isn't she?"

  "I guess so, around there. Marion knew one of the girls at that Ace-High place—one of the waitresses. And she could walk up there, and to the other place—she didn't have a car, she never could pass the driver's test. She'd just go up there for the evening to watch TV, talk to people. And no, she didn't drink much. She'd gotten to know some of the regulars at both those places, they're not cheap bars, really sort of family places—it was just, what was she supposed to do alone at home most nights?"

  "What about her husband? Had he been bothering her any way?"

  They both shook their heads. "If you mean did he want her to come back to him, no," said Rena. "And as long as he came through with the alimony and support, that was the way she wanted it. It wasn't all that much—he just drives a bus for the city—she had to work besides, but it made a difference."

  "All right. Had she been worried or disturbed about anything recently?"

  "Marion?" said Marge. "I told you, she never was. Nothing ever got her down. She was just the same as always, last time we saw her on Thursday. When she didn't come in yesterday, I tried to get her on the phone even before Mr. Boatman told me to, but no luck. We thought maybe she was sick—she hardly ever was, but just after Christmas she had an abscessed tooth and was off three days, I thought maybe—"

  All that didn't give them much. They got down the statements, as preliminary information; they might or might not hear something from the lab today. And they'd want to talk to the ex-husband as well as the boy friend.

  "And I suppose," said Mendoza meditatively, "we ought to talk to Harriet again. And ask around at those nice family places about anybody she might have picked up there."

  "But, Luis—it's all the wrong shape," said Hackett. "If she'd been biffed on the head, something like that, it'd be easy to read—the good-time girl picking up with the wrong guy. But an O.D. of some kind?"

  "I know, I know. Arguing ahead of data again. Wait to see what the autopsy says—and the lab."

  * * *

  "You haven't had any luck yet?" Palliser slid the car into the curb and stepped on the brake. They both got out.

  "It is," said Jason Grace gloomily, "all these goddamned abortions. Aside from the fact that it's morally wrong, it's made it practically impossible to find a baby to adopt. It's not as if we're being fussy—it'd be nice to have a boy, but another girl would be just fine too." The Graces already had a much-loved little girl, Celia Anne, who'd be over two years old now.

  "We've had applications in all over for six months, damn it."

  "That's tough," said Palliser.

  "And you're just lucky you can produce your own," said Grace amiably.

  Palliser laughed. "I wouldn't have agreed with you when he was still waking us up at two A.M. every night." But young David was long past that stage now, starting to walk. "I hope this fellow's home."

  "What you tell me, it's a handful of nothing," said Grace.

  "If funny."

  "Oh, yes," said Palliser. "That all right."

  The apartment house on Miramar Street where Joe Kelly had lived was old but so1id-looking, and fairly well kept up, with some sketchy landscaping in front and an old-fashioned front porch. In the little lobby was a block of twelve mailboxes along one wall, but Palliser didn't glance at it, made for the stairs. The place was very quiet. Upstairs, he led Grace down to the middle of the hall and stopped, reaching for the bell beside the door marked nine.

  "Right here?" said Grace.

  "Yep." In the center of the worn carpet was an irregular dark stain, where Joe Kelly had fallen and died. The door opened. "Mr. Moreno?"

  "That's me." He was a tall thin old man with a little fringe of gray hair around his ears. "What can I do for you?" He peered at Palliser. "Oh, it's the sergeant again. I don't know what more I could tell you, but come in."

  "This is Detective Grace."

  "How do. Set down. The wife's out, but I could get us some coffee—"

  "Never mind, thanks. We heard something a little queer from Mr. Simms, and we just wondered whether Mr. Kelly had mentioned it to you. You knew him fairly well, I take it."

  "That's so. You don't mean what Joe thought about some fellow following him around?" Moreno slid a veined old hand up his jaw. "That's foolish. Yes, he did mention it to me. Sure I knew Joe—lived across the hall four-five years. It is hell to get old, can't do much no more, and everything so damned expensive, can't afford to go any place—nice weather, I'd go down and sit on the front porch most afternoons, and Joe'd stop to chew the fat now and then. I saw him Wednesday afternoon when he come home, he told me about that. I thought he was imagining things—foolishness."

  "What do you think about it now?" asked Palliser.

  Moreno said soberly, "I don't know, Sergeant."

  "What exactly did he say?" asked Grace.

  "Said he noticed this fellow first at the public library, and then he was at the market at the same time, and got on the same bus. Well, nothing in that—a lot of people live around here and go the same places. But Joe said the fellow kept staring at him."

  "And since Thursday, what do you think about it?" persisted Palliser.

  "Well, I was shook up all right, about that happening to Joe," said Moreno slowly. "Never so flabbergasted in my life. We hadn't heard a thing—I heard his door slam about an hour before, when he left, but this place is pretty well built. The wife asked me to go see if the mail had come, we was expecting a letter from our daughter in Oakland—and then when I opened the door, there's Joe bleeding like a stuck pig." He shook his head. "Crime rate up, and this isn't the best part of town. Well—somebody following Joe? Somebody with a reason to kill him? Excuse me, Sergeant, but it still sounds like foolishness. Joe was a nice guy, but he wasn't anybody special. He didn't have anything anybody wanted—where was any reason to kill him?"

  It was a reasonable question, considering that Kelly hadn't been robbed of the little he'd had on him.

  Downstairs, Grace said, "He was imagining things. And some punk followed him in to grab his wallet, Kelly fought back and got stabbed, and the punk lost his nerve and ran."

  "Off the top of your mind, Jase. The punk followed him all the way upstairs and Kelly didn't notice? The punk would have tackled him as soon as he got inside—and that's very unusual behavior for a punk, following somebody inside a building. The general rule is, the quick shove and grab for the wallet."

  “True," said Grace. "You're right, John, the setup is very funny. How do you read it?" ·

  "As f
ar as I can see," said Palliser, "there's only one way it can have happened, which makes it all the funnier. Kelly came in with his bag of groceries and got upstairs, nearly to his own door, before X stabbed him. Which says that X was up there waiting—down at the end of the hall, it's fairly dark up there—and rushed him, probably as he was getting out his keys."

  "But—" said Grace.

  "I know. Kelly? Inoffensive little pensioner, no family, few friends, no money, no apparent vices. Or enemies."

  "Well, whatever, there's just nothing to follow up. It's a dead end."

  "Oh, you don't have to tell me that," said Palliser.

  * * *

  Mendoza was on the phone to the lab, after talking to Dr. Bainbridge's office about expediting the autopsy, and Hackett idly listening in, when a new call went down at three o'c1ock. Sergeant Farrell, sitting on the switchboard on Lake's day off, buzzed Glasser and said, "New homicide call. Barrett just called in. It's Cortez Street."

  “No rest for the wicked." Glasser took down the address. Wanda was already on her feet; she was bucking for detective rank and ever eager for more street experience. Following her down to the elevator, Glasser rather sadly admired her sleek blond hair and trim figure in the navy uniform; a little waste, he thought, but try to argue with a determined female. In the parking lot she slid into the Gremlin beside him and found the County Guide on the dashboard shelf.

  "It's down toward Temple, off Glendale Boulevard—"

  "Such a helpful girl. I know where it is," said Glasser. It was an old, old part of town. Everything had been there a long time, and hadn't seen much in the way of repair or remodeling. The black-and-white was sitting outside a ramshackle three-storey frame house once painted white. There was a sign in a front window, Rooms by week or month. On the narrow front porch, Patrolman Barrett was waiting for them with a woman. He looked at them with undisguised relief, a little warm admiration for Wanda in his eyes which annoyed Glasser. "This is Mrs. Hopkins." And welcome to her, said his tone.

  She was a lean little black-haired, black-eyed woman, ageless, with a hard mouth and a rasping voice, and she was in a repressed fury. "Fifteen dollars they owed me, and now where's it coming from? Nowhere, that's where! I know the police and their ways—take every scrap that's there and nobody'll ever see it again, and I can whistle for my money—and all that bloody mess for somebody to clean up, adding insult to injury—"

  "Let's look at what we've got, shall we?" said Glasser. "We can talk about it later."

  She shut her teeth with an actual click. "Left end room on the top floor," she said acidly. "Cheapest I've got, five bucks a day. I saw the color of his money before I let 'em in, and he paid for two weeks and then quit. One suitcase between 'em, and I'd be surprised if they was really married."

  "All right, all right, later," said Glasser. He and Wanda went in. The house had probably originally been a big family place with double parlors downstairs; now partitions had been put up to create many small rooms out of big ones. On the second floor, judging by the number of doors, the rooms were somewhat larger than closets; on the third, they looked like mere niches. The end door on the left was open, and they looked in.

  The room might be seven by nine. It held a single iron bed, an ancient three-drawer chest, and a straight chair with one leg broken. There was a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling; the floor was stained bare pine, minus any carpet. Beside the bed was an open battered suitcase with a few clothes in it. At first glance there were a half dozen bottles scattered around, all empty except an upright fifth of vodka on the chest, a quarter full. Two dime-store tumblers lay on their sides in front of the suitcase.

  The bodies were half on the bed, half on the floor. The girl had slid into a surprisingly graceful position, propped against the bed with her head thrown back; she had been a beautiful girl, with magnolia skin, long lustrous black hair, a model's figure. She was wearing a long white nylon nightgown, and the ugly dark stain on the left breast looked like an excrescence. The man was stretched out across the bed, legs sprawled down beside the girl: a good-looking man even in death, with plentiful curly gray hair, a square handsome face; he stared blindly up at the stained ceiling, and his right hand flung out on the dirty sheet was still clasped around the gun. He was fully dressed in slacks and sport shirt.

  "Um," said Glasser, and stepped delicately closer. "Old S. and W. thirty-eight. Not much reason for any elaborate lab work—let's see what shows." He looked through the suitcase: nothing but female underclothes. He heard Wanda opening drawers.

  "Nothing even put away," she said. "Henry—"

  “What?"

  "Nothing. Just, it's such a dreary place to die, isn't it?"

  Glasser grunted. He gave a tentative heave to the man's body and it lifted slightly, supine and limp. They were both long cold. Rigor would develop in about twelve hours and pass oil a little faster; he would have a guess they'd been dead about twenty-four hours.

  There was a billfold in the hip pocket. He opened it, and Wanda came to look over his shoulder. There wasn't much in it. Two single-dollar bills. An out-of-date driver's license for Gerald Bussard, an address in Bakersfield. A Social Security card in the same name.

  "Well, that's him all right," said Glasser with a glance at the corpse. "Five-eleven, a hundred and seventy, gray and blue, forty-six—that was six years back. See if there's any family in Bakersfield to pay for a funeral."

  "And I wonder—why?" said Wanda. "How did they come to it—and here?"

  "You want to delve into human nature and all the ramifications of it," said Glasser, "you turn into a lady novelist and exercise the imagination. All we deal in are facts."

  They went downstairs and asked questions. Mrs. Hopkins couldn't tell them much they wanted to know. "Paid up until Wednesday, and I tackled him when he come back that night —didn't like the looks of 'em to start with. He said he had a job, short-order cook at a greasy spoon over on Temple—no, they didn't have a car, showed up out of the blue two weeks ago Wednesday—I don't take people in out of charity, you know, and we all got to live—said he'd pay me next day, but he never, I never laid eyes on 'em that day, and I was watching—them laying low— And he musta done it yesterday afternoon when I was up there askin' about him—everybody else in the house at work, so nobody heard the shots—and they told me he got fired for bein' drunk on the job—stick me with all this mess, and I'll never see that fifteen dollars—"

  "I'll toss you for who writes the report," said Glasser in the car. The lab truck had just pulled up; the morgue wagon would be coming.

  "I don't mind," said Wanda. She sounded subdued. "You know, I think you're wrong, Henry. It's us who deal in the human nature. Ramifications of."

  * * *

  There wasn't much point in it, since Barth had queried the computers on it so recently, but Mendoza had sent the routine request to R. and I. on Dapper Dan's M.O. Nobody expected anything to turn up on that.

  The lab, of course, always took its own sweet time; give the devil his due, they were always busy. But when Mendoza finally talked to Scarne about five o'clock, he got a little information, if unofficial.

  "Well, we're not quite as rushed as usual, Lieutenant. You'll get a report sometime. We haven't gotten around to measuring quantities yet, just done the analysis—but off the record I can make a guess on what the autopsy'll say on the Cooper woman."

  "¿Qué?”

  "Phenobarb—either all by itself or combined with booze. Both the glass and that bottle of scotch were laced pretty heavy. We'll get around to actual amounts for you, and the exact. prescription."

  “And thank you so much," said Mendoza. He passed that on to Hackett.

  "So what does it say, Luis? The kid was there. She'd have heard if anybody had come back with the woman—if there'd been an argument, a fight. And if you're still thinking about the casual pickup, it's ridiculous to say anybody like that would—"

  "What I'm thinking about," said Mendoza, brooding over his long hands steepl
ed together, "is salaries."

  "Come again."

  "The salaries the city pays its bus drivers, chico. It can't be a very magnificent sum. The alimony and child support would cut into it. Maybe pretty deep."

  "But there's not a thing to say—"

  "Not yet," said Mendoza.

  * * *

  Saturday night in inner-city L.A. can get a little hairy, but most of the problem belongs to the patrolmen riding the squads: the brawls, traffic accidents, drunks, family fights. The night watch at Robbery-Homicide came on to wait for the calls. Matt Piggott and Bob Schenke had been sitting on night watch for quite a while and were used to it, but Rich Conway was still griping about getting transferred. For one thing, Conway was a man who liked the girls, and they liked him, and it cut into his dating time. Schenke was a settled bachelor and Piggott the earnest fundamentalist was married, but night watch was discommoding Conway.

  For once it started out as a quiet Saturday night, and then within five minutes, just before ten o'clock, they got three calls at once, to three separate heists.

  The one Piggott took was routine, and it was the Mutt-and-Jeff comic team again; this time one of them had dropped his gun on the way out. It was a drugstore down on Third; they hadn't gotten much.

  The one Schenke took was a bar on First, and there was a good description from a lot of witnesses: a big fat Negro with a big gun.

  The one Conway went out on was probably going to be more important. It was an all-night pharmacy on Sixth Street, and there had been a clerk and a pharmacist on duty.

  "I never saw him come in," said the pharmacist shakily. His name was Clyde Burroughs. "All of a sudden he was there—with the gun—he said to Ken, don't you make a move, back against the wall—and he said to me, I want all your pills, man, all the uppers and downers you got, and the cash from the register—and Ken—he just stepped back against that shelf of vitamins, the way the guy told him, he wouldn't have tried anything—but he made a noise, and it was just like a damn snake striking, the guy fired at him point-blank. Well, I don't know exactly, you'll have to look at the tab from the register—but Ken—we weren't putting up any fight—"