Murder Most Strange

by Dell Shannon

  "He was shooting at them, oh, it was awful, he'd already shot Mrs. Flowers, she was on the ground—"

  "And then he just ran out of the lot."

  Robillard was one of the teachers. There were eight other teachers there, but they had all come out on hearing the shots, hadn't seen anything.

  One of the kids spoke up, a gangling black kid about sixteen. "I saw him pretty good, I was just behind them two"—he indicated the cafeteria workers—"and he looked a lot like Tommy."

  Another one said jeeringly, "Man, don't tell the fuzz nothing no time," and surprisingly another couple of kids, one black and one probably Mexican, rounded on him.

  "Bastard try to kill Mr. Robillard, I sure hope they get him—"

  "I tell the fuzz what I seen, that guy shoot Mr. Robillard—" Another four or five just stood watching, silent.

  "All right," said Mendoza to the first one. "What's your name?"

  "Derek Hornbuckle."

  "So what did you see?"

  "Lady from the cafeteria goin' up to her car—I was cuttin' through the lot on my way home after baseball practice. She put the money bag in the front seat, and then that guy came up from out back o' the car and point a gun at her. He looked an awful lot like that Tommy guy—he was a senior last year, I dint know him but he was a sorta big guy around account he was so good on the basketball team."

  "Tommy Hemandez?" said one of the teachers. "Oh, it wouldn't have been Tommy—never any discipline problems, and a good background—really, Officers—"

  "And then what‘?" asked Higgins.

  "Mr. Robillard, he was just gettin' in his car and he seen him too, he yelled and started to run over there, and the guy shot at him and then he run across the lot and into the street. He hadn't no call to shoot Mr. Robillard!" said Derek shrilly. "I bet he was gonna steal the cafeteria money."

  The teachers all said Robillard was one of the most popular teachers at the school; he taught shop and auto mechanics. Several of them said the Hornbuckle kid was imagining things, Tommy Hernandez had been one of their more docile pupils.

  "So," said Higgins to Derek, "just tell us what the fellow looked like—how tall, how old and so on."

  "I dunno," said Derek, inarticulate. "Kind of old—uh, maybe twenny. Kind of tall, like Tommy. He had on a red shirt and dark pants. He run across the lot into the street, he put the gun back in his pocket."

  Mendoza was talking to the two women, explaining that they would want statements. "A description," said Miss Medina. "Oh, dear, I couldn't—it was all so fast, I saw him running—oh, dear, it was so awful, poor Mrs. Flowers—all the blood—"

  "He was pretty tall, and thin, all I could say," said Mrs. Knight. "Oh, my heavens, I hope they're both all right! Oh, somebody ought to call Mr. Krepps, the principal. Where should we call to find out about them?"

  There probably wouldn't be a good description to get from any of them; it was just a senseless random thing. Mendoza and Higgins went back to the office; tomorrow would be soon enough to write the initial report. Mendoza phoned the hospital. Robillard had been D.O.A., a bullet through the heart. Mrs. Flowers had a superficial shoulder wound and was in mild shock. "Well, small favors," said Mendoza. "She may have gotten a closer look at him. Maybe the night watch can talk to her."

  He took the stodgy loaner back to the garage and picked up the Ferrari. When he turned up Hamlin Place, the last residential street in the city of Burbank, and on up the hill, he wondered about the gadget. When he came to the wrought-iron gates of La Casa de la Gente Feliz, he stopped and activated the gadget, and the gates obediently swung politely open and he drove through, watching the rear-view mirror; in thirty seconds they swung smartly closed with a little clang. Continuing on up the hill, he reflected that money was a useful commodity to possess, and it was also pleasant to live in an era where there were so many mechanical marvels available. At the garage, he pulled down the door on the Ferrari, Alison's Facel-Vega and Mairi's old Chevy. Kearney had installed a powerful floodlight on the garage roof, shining up the path to the back door. He came into the kitchen to find Mairi just taking a pot roast from the oven, Alison making a salad, and Cedric loudly slurping water from his bowl on the service porch.

  "Hello, querido. Reasonably good day?"

  And the twins came running. "Daddy, we been helpin' Uncle Ken build a fence—"

  "An' Terry almost got her finger nailed to the fence when she—"

  El Senor appeared as if by conjuration when the cupboard was opened on the bottle of rye.

  And Alison said, as they sat down to dinner, "They can't come to put up the block wall for nearly a month, and that wire-and-post thing looks absolutely horrible, but never mind—it'll get built eventually. And I just hope to goodness nothing else happens for a while!"

  * * *

  Schenke called the hospital, and was informed that Mrs. Flowers was still in shock and couldn't be talked to until tomorrow. The day men had left this list of possible suspects, and he and Piggott went out looking for a couple of those, leaving Conway to hold the fort. At nine-forty he got a call to a heist, a liquor store out at Sunset and Figueroa, and went out resignedly to listen to the same monotonous story: he had a gun, he said give me the money, I couldn't give you a description—

  It was in a little triangle of business there, just below where the Hollywood freeway crossed the Pasadena freeway. The owner was a stolid beefily built man named Dunne. He said, "They came in here about half an hour ago, both black, one short fat guy, one tall skinny guy. They was waving guns around, and the tall one said let's have all the money, man. Now I never keep more than fifty bucks in the register, and I'd guess they got a little under that. So out they go, and I called in—"

  "Them again," said Conway.

  "You know 'em?"

  "We do. Maybe sometime we'll drop on them."

  "Well, I figure you have," said Dunne. "Time I finished calling, I heard an old engine grinding away, like the battery's down, and wondered if it was them, thought I'd try for a look at the plate number if it was—so I went out and spotted them, I'm pretty sure it was them, in an old white heap across the street. Only before I could get a look at the plate, it came to life and they took off, screeching rubber." He jerked his head. "Up there. I saw it, couldn't do anything to stop it. They hit the exit ramp of the Hollywood freeway doing about forty-five—God, a dozen signs, wrong way, do not enter—and the next minute, God, you shoulda heard the crash. So I called the Highway Patrol and I guess they're still up there clearing it all up. I'1l bet it was a mess."

  "For God's sake," said Conway. It was one way of clearing a case. He went up there; there was a police barrier across the exit, and a lot of jammed traffic was piled up. He climbed over the barrier, found a couple of Highway Patrol men named Unkovitch and Twelvetrees, and explained.

  "Christ," said Unkovitch, "the damn fools we have to deal with! Look at it." The wreckage was impressive. The Ford, headed straight for oncoming traffic, had hit head on with a brand new Honda Civic, though you couldn't tell what it had been now; everybody in both those cars was dead. Behind the Honda, a Buick had plowed into the first two, and behind that five other cars had slewed around and barged into each other and the central divider, trying to avoid the tangled wreck. "Nine people in the hospital and four dead," said Unkoviteh. "The people in the Honda were just a young couple, John and Ruth Rudd, address in Bel Air. There was a number to call in emergency, I just got back from doing it. The guy went to pieces. She was expecting a baby."

  "God," said Conway. "What about the Ford? You get any I.D.?"

  "I don't know why the hell I picked this job," said Twelvetrees. "Poking around in blood and brain tissue. There was a driver's license issued in Missouri for a Roy Johnson, the car had Missouri plates. Also a traffic ticket, written up yesterday, for an illegal left downtown, and it's got an address on Sixty-second on it. We don't know who the other man was, and nobody's going to identify him by what's left of his face."

  "We can proba
bly find out," said Conway. "We'll take care of that one." He took down the address. He went back to the office and found Schenke there, and they went out together to Sixty-second Place.

  It was a crumbling old apartment building, and there was a handwritten slip saying Johnson in the mail slot of apartment twelve. There they found a couple of women, and broke the news. It seemed that the other one had been Elmer Johnson, and they were cousins.

  "Never wanted to come all the way out here, he was the one—say do better out here, down on our luck like we been—"

  "But it sure hasn't been no better out here, and what we gonna do now, Della?"

  "I don't reckon we got the bread to get home on—"

  "Let alone pay for no funeral—-"

  When they got back to the office, Piggott told them that the man with the Doberman had been out again. "Couple named Kahn, they'd been to a big revue of some kind at the Shrine Auditorium. Came out to the parking lot late, and he walked up to them from the street. He got about forty dol1ars."

  "Oh, for God's sake," said Schenke. "That is about the craziest we've had in a while."

  "Let's hope the idea doesn't catch on," said Conway. "We'll have a committee getting under way to outlaw all Dobermans."

  * * *

  Hackett and Landers were doing the overtime, necessarily, covering those restaurants. They had started out at Chez Claude, gone on to Frangois's, and drawn a blank; they had tried Jimmy's. They had gone back to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to check a little bar they had missed there before. Everywhere people had looked at the picture and said no. And said, this was the guy in all the papers, wasn't it, and they'd have remembered.

  They stopped for dinner at a middle-class place in West Hollywood, and being technically off duty had a drink beforehand. Nine o'clock found them at the Century-Plaza Hotel in Century City.

  That particular enormous new hotel and shopping complex had several restaurants, banquet rooms, all sorts of shops in several directions off the main lobby, and there were three levels of halls and restaurants under the main lobby. The Granada was down on the lowest level; they took the escalator, Landers complaining that it made him nervous. "I don't mind the damn things going up, but coming down—"

  The maitre d' at the Granada and six waiters looked at the picture and said no. The gentleman had never been here. It was the gentleman in the papers, yes, well, they would have remembered.

  "Well, that's that," said Landers. "Where the hell did he go? Now we know it wasn't any of these Seton recommended, my God, there are a million restaurants in this town."

  They started out, past the big double doors, and Hackett said, "There's no way to know, damn it. But the press, Tom—don't you think, if any maitre d' or waiter anywhere had seen him somewhere Saturday night, they'd have come forward and said so? I don't know what that might say. Wait a minute. Wait a minute." He stopped. "But we are a couple of damned fools, Tom."

  "How come?"

  "The autopsy report, God damn it! A couple of scotch highballs. He didn't have dinner on Saturday night."

  "Good God, of course not. We should have—"

  "All right," said Hackett. "Think about it. Drinks. A bar. And here's a place where we haven't asked." It was the little separate bar attached to the Granada, just outside the entrance and angled off to one side.

  "Well, why not?" said Landers. "Last throw of the dice."

  They went in. It wasn't very big, perhaps forty by thirty feet, and unlike most of its kind it was fairly well lighted. There was a small bar at the far end, little octagonal tables and barrel chairs upholstered in red vinyl. At this hour there was only one couple there, intimate over drinks at a table near the door, and the bartender leaning meditatively on the bar.

  They went up and sat on a couple of backless stools. "Do for you?" asked the bartender.

  Hackett got out one of the leaflets, and showed him the badge. "Did you see this man in here on Saturday night?" The bartender took it and studied the photograph. He was a brawny big man somewhere in the forties, with a tough gangsterish face slightly scarred by old acne, and black hair.

  They thought he wasn't going to answer, but after a long time he said argumentatively, "Damn it, this was the guy. I said it was."

  "In here?" asked Hackett. "Saturday night?"

  "Said it to who‘?" asked Landers.

  "I said it to my wife, and she said don't be silly, Kev—excuse me, gents, I'm Kevin Houlihan—she says don't be silly, it couldn't be because the paper said he was such a steady family man and a churchgoer and all that, so I shut up. But damn it, now I see this, by God it was him. I'd swear to it."

  "Here, Saturday night? When?"

  "Well, I'll tell you all about it, you interested," said Houlihan. "God, I'll bet that dame had a fit when he dropped dead of the heart attack or whatever it was. Funny how things happen. But I'll take my oath it was that guy. It was about a quarter past six Saturday night, and there wasn't hardly any customers in. See, a lot of people go right in the restaurant and have drinks at the table, it's only when they got no reservations and have to wait, or want to kill some time, they come in here. There were only a couple of men in, seemed to be talking business. And the blonde. And then this guy comes in, and he orders a scotch highball, and he sits here and drinks some of it, and then he goes over and picks up the blonde."

  Landers laughed. "That's our boy. We might have known. As easy as that?"

  "Well, I figure she was kind of ripe for the picking," said Houlihan, with a meditative grin. "She'd been sitting there getting madder and madder—she'd been here since about five-fifteen, and she wasn't covering up either—it was pretty damn obvious some guy had stood her up. She'd been lookin' at her watch every three minutes, and tapping her fingers on the table, and looking up at the door whenever anybody passed, you know the routine."

  "You ever see her before?" asked Landers.

  "Not in here, but I'd seen her before. Just that afternoon, upstairs in the Garden Room when I was coming on duty.

  That was just before four, we open here at four. The hotel puts on all sorts of fancy doings, you know, and there was some kind of fashion show going on in there, dames parading around to show off clothes, and she was one of them, she was down by the door to the lobby when I came past. I noticed her because, gents, she'd stand out in any crowd, silver-blond hair kind of long and wavy, and pretty tall, and more figure than those skinny models usually have."

  "You sure?" asked Hackett.

  "I'm sure. I recognized her when she came in, even if she had different clothes on. She'd sat here from about five-fifteen on, getting madder and madder after it got past six o'clock. She had two daiquiris, made them last, and I was just wondering if she was going to order a third one when this guy walked over and annexed her."

  "And then what happened?"

  "Well, they talked, and he had another highball and bought her another daiquiri. She started looking a lot happier—well, he was a good-lookin' guy, wasn't he?—looked as if he was loaded, too—and about seven-fifteen they got up and went out together. And that's the last I saw of 'em. But damn it, I'm positive it was this guy."

  "It was him," said Landers. "Running true to form."

  "And it should be fairly easy to locate the girl," said Hackett. "That's all very helpful, Mr. Houlihan, thanks very much."

  "Can I quote you?" asked Houlihan.

  "What?" .

  "To my wife. You think it was him too, hah? Good. It's not very often I can get the police to back me up in an argument."

  "I don't know if you'll see it in the papers," said Landers, "but you can quote us."

  They went upstairs to the main desk. "Well, all that sort of thing is arranged by our social activities director," explained the desk clerk. "I don't know whether she'd be on the premises at this hour, but there is that crafts display being set up in the Hawaiian Room, I can check—"

  The social activities director was Miss Suzanne Winter, sleek and dark, and she said at once that all the
models and clothes for the fashion show had come from Genevieve Du Mond in Beverly Hills.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, with Higgins off, Mendoza digested that and said, "However he died, I'm just as happy he won't be on the June ballot."

  "Yes, damn it, but all that doesn't suggest what did happen to him," said Landers.

  "He could have just gotten drunk and fallen down," said Hackett. "Bainbridge said it could have happened that way. And the blonde was scared and cleared out."

  "They were sitting necking in the parking lot of the County Courthouse?" said Mendoza.

  Landers grinned. "Well, you've got to admit it's a nice quiet private place at night."

  "Well, you should locate her without much trouble. It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say."

  "And I suppose the fancy high-fashion place doesn't open until ten o'clock or so. It's out on Sunset, I looked it up."

  Palliser, Grace and Glasser had been listening to that. They had, of course, heard all about the Johnsons from Conway's report overnight; one less to work, and good riddance. Palliser started to say something about politicians, and Lake came in with a manila folder and handed it to Grace. "Slow but sure," said Grace. "At last, the lab report on the Patterson house."

  "Anything in it?" asked Palliser.

  "Let's see." Grace began to read, and two minutes later said pleasedly, "Now isn't that nice. They picked up quite a few good latents all over the place, which don't belong to the family, and they've found some in our records, and they belong to a burglar by the name of Dwight Goodis. Now where the hell have I heard that name before? Where—My God, it's the name of that lowlife couple who live right across the street—but I don't think the wife called him Dwight.

  And there's a different address here—he's on parole, so they'll know downstairs." He picked up the phone and asked Lake to get him the Welfare and Rehab office.