Murder Most Strange

by Dell Shannon

  "Did he, now. I'd like, by God, to know all of that story, and now we never will," said Lombard regretfully.

  "Is there any relative back there who might be due the money?"

  "Nary a soul. You'd better use it to bury him, Sergeant. And I'd kind of like a snapshot of the grave as a souvenir."

  * * *

  Hackett came into Mendoza's office just after lunch that Monday and said, "I don't think there's anything to this Rush thing, Luis."

  "Just the lady's imagination?"

  "And she doesn't like Rush, thinks he treated her niece badly. I still say it'd be a damned silly way to try to kill somebody—you couldn't be sure. More to the point, Rush seems to be all broken up, especially over the little girl, and he's not a genius, I don't think he's putting it on."

  "I'll trust you to know. Just the lady's imagination." His phone rang and he picked it up. "Hey," said Lake, "I've got Nick on the line."

  "Well, paisano," said Mendoza, "welcome back. We've missed you."

  "I can't say the same," said Galeano. "But I see we got back ahead of a heat wave, at least. It was nice up in Yosemite— Oh, I walked into that one, you needn't pull the punch line. Anything exciting going on?"

  "A few—mmh—peculiar excitements," said Mendoza.

  "When do we get you back?"

  "Wel1, that's what I called about. I've got six days saved up and Marta wants to spend them house hunting. We figure we'd better buy a place now if we're ever going to, before prices go up any higher. We thought maybe Glendale or Burbank."

  "So we struggle along without you for another week. Good luck on it, Nick, but the interest rates—"

  "Little you know about interest rates. Oh, say, I saw some of the stories about your politician. Now that girl—quite a luscious piece—of course I only got a glimpse at the picture before Marta took it away from me—" In the background she could be heard denying that vigorously.

  "Art's still thinking of taking up a collection for the fellow who inadvertently got him off the June ballot."

  "I'l1 buy that. Well, I'll be with you on Saturday, and hold the good thoughts that we find a nice house."

  "A nice big house—you're only thirty-five, Nick." Mendoza put the phone down, laughing. '

  * * *

  For once, the lab got on the ball, and a report on the Eggers house came in on Tuesday at one o'clock. Hackett brought it in to show Mendoza the rather horrifying pictures.

  "They picked up a lot of latents, they're still checking them."

  "Yes," said Mendoza, looking at the glossy eight-by-ten prints. "And I'll bet you they don't make any, Art."

  "What have you spotted?"

  Mendoza grimaced. "The senseless violence. The overkill. Who are the wildest ones around these days? The ones most apt to create this sort of—of bloodbath?"

  "Oh, yes," said Hackett, and shut his eyes. "The vicious kids."

  "Exactamente. Whose prints we don't have on file.” The phone rang and he picked it up.

  "Somebody for Art," said Lake.

  Hackett took the phone from Mendoza. "This is Sergeant Hackett."

  "Oh!" said a female voice. "Mrs. Bickerstaff said you wanted to ask me some questions. This is Alice McLennan."

  "Oh, yes, Miss McLennan, I could come to see you now if—

  "Oh, I have to go right past the police building on my way to work, I got a new job yesterday at a drugstore on Hill Street. I'll be glad to stop by."

  When she got there, Hackett and Palliser ushered her into Mendoza's office. Alice McLennan was a large-framed woman with brown hair, a pleasant rather pretty face, blue eyes behind crystal glasses. She took the chair Mendoza offered her. She looked at them and said, "I was never so surprised in my life when I heard about Mr. Parmenter, when I got home on Saturday. And I'm sorry to sound un-Christian, but he deserved murdering! But what did you want to ask me? I wouldn't know a thing about it, I wasn't even here."

  "Well, you see," said Mendoza, "we were just a little curious, Miss McLennan. About why you quit your job with him. You told Mrs. Bickerstaff it was because he was the wickedest man in the world. Why?"

  She sat up straight and her mouth drew tight. "It was because of what I found out about him that day," she said, and her voice was angry. "He was a queer man, he never talked much, and he was mostly sitting in the stockroom writing, scribbling away like mad, I never knew at what. He only waited on the prescription counter, I did everything else." So Parmenter had composed some of the hate literature. "But that day, it was March nineteenth, he was mixing up something in the dispensing room, and I went to ask him if it was Mrs. Alford's prescription because she'd just called to ask whether it was ready—and he said no, it wasn't—his eyes looked awfully glittery and queer—he said this was for old Weekes'damned tomcat—he said he'd cleared most of the damned animals out—everybody who lived around him was animal-crazy, he said—and they came spoiling his garden, he hated them all, and he'd gotten all of them except this damned cat, and there was enough strychnine in this brew to kill a dozen. Oh, it was the most horrible, horrible—he said it in an awful kind of gloating way—how he'd poisoned the Hilbrands' yappy little mutt, and that big brute of the Sadlers', and that mangy hound of the Andersons' and all the damned cats came digging up his garden, there was just one left and he was going to get it yet—Oh, I was absolutely horrified!" Her eyes flashed fire. "Anyone who would poison an animal would poison a child—a person—and the cruelty of it—I just couldn't stand to be around such a man, and I quit on the spot right then—"

  "I don't blame you," said Hackett. "I agree with you, Miss McLennan."

  "And even if I turned him in to the police, it's only a fine, he wouldn't go to jail—"

  "It's a misdemeanor," said Mendoza, and his eyes were very cold. "I don't know what the current fine is—and the legal worth of the animal thrown in, which is damned nonsense."

  "Oh, it upset me so dreadfully," she said, getting out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. "I kept worrying and worrying about it, I couldn't sleep—you see, I kept thinking, suppose those people got other pets, not knowing there was such an evil man right in their midst, and he did it again!—because he would have—I thought about it a whole week, and I finally decided. before Mickey and I went on vacation, I had to warn them. I knew where he lived because of the emergency sign on the door. I'd never been there before, such a funny little street—"

  "Who did you talk to?" asked Hackett.

  "I saw the Hilbrands next door to him, that Saturday afternoon. And they thanked me over and over for coming—she cried and said they'd lost the dearest little dog—dying in convulsions, and the children saw it, oh, it's too dreadful to think about—and there'd been the Branagans' old spaniel, and the Andersons had just worshiped their Labrador—everyone on the street had lost a pet—she said Miss Spooner had the most beautiful Siamese cat— Oh, I can't bear to think of such wickedness! Well, that was why I quit the job—if that's all you wanted to know. And"—looking at her watch, wiping her eyes a last time—"if I'm going to find a parking place I'd better get on. If that's all you wanted to know." She went to the door, and turned to add a parting shot. "I hope you never find out who killed him! Whoever did it deserves a medal!"

  They sat looking at each other, and suddenly Hackett began to laugh. He bent over, laughing helplessly, and he gasped, "Don't you—see it? Don't you see-it's-it's the Orient Express!" And Palliser began to laugh too. "They all—knew about it—everybody on that street—they were all in on it! That day! Oh, my God, that day we were there, John—when I think— Oh, my God! I'll bet you, I just bet you—they all got together, talked it over and decided—oh, my God—on the vigorous action. The necessary beating up. Oh, my dear God, when I think— They all had such sweet reasonable excuses why they hadn't seen or heard a thing. Not a thing, Officer."

  He was rocking back and forth with deadly mirth. "The Klabers watching TV—and the Kellers painting the back bedroom—"

  Palliser wiped his eyes. "Those An
dersons refinishing furniture, and the people kept awake by the baby—"

  "Mrs. Hilbrand and her sinus headache—"

  "But it was him," said Palliser, ignoring grammar in inspiration. "It was him—the cabdriver with all the muscles—"

  "Oh, no, no, John!" gasped Hackett. "No, it was that simple innocent big Irishman Branagan! It had to be Branagan—him bushed on a Sunday, dozing in front of the TV! And I'll tell you something else, they got the children out of the way so they wouldn't see it—Hilbrand took theirs to the zoo, and Mrs. Branagan took hers to her mother's. And I'll bet Mrs. Hilbrand stayed home to act as a lookout while Branagan administered the earned beating— Oh, my God, I knew there was something funny about that street that day!"

  "¡Qué bella—hermoso!" Mendoza was grinning like a happy wolf. "And you know something else beautiful, boys? We'll never get anybody for it, because there's no evidence at all."

  "No, of course not," said Palliser, "and nobody meant the man to be killed. I must say it isn't going to worry me at all."

  "Maybe," said Hackett, still giggling, "we ought to get up an anonymous collection for Branagan—"

  "All I can say is," said Mendoza, "they must be a bunch of natural actors, such a beautiful job of covering up—and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it either. Mr. Parmenter was distinctly no loss to the human race."

  * * *

  He drove home that night ruminating on that and various things—Alison would enjoy the story—on the Eggerses, and on Rush—could he be another natural actor? When he came around the last curve at the top of Hamlin Place, he braked sharply to avoid a black-and-white Burbank squad car slewed across the street. There were, all told, three squad cars, here in front of the half dozen houses at the top of this highest street in Burbank—and all five of the sheep, busily eating bushes and lawns. The uniformed men were standing in the street, and there were householders out all over.

  "Where the hell did any sheep come from in the middle of town, Tom?"

  "Oh, oh, it's eating my azaleas—oh, get it out—"

  "And what the hell are we going to do about it, Barney?"

  "Oh, they're ruining all my hibiscus—can't you do something?"

  Those damned young devils fooling with the gate again, thought Mendoza. He got out, claimed the sheep, offered reparations, said if they'd let him past he would send a man down to round them up. He shot up the rest of the hill reflecting that that pair of young hellions were too much like their mother, damn it, and spoiled into the bargain, and something would have to be done about it.

  The gates, of course, were slightly ajar, as the twins had left them. He pushed the gadget on the dashboard and the gates swung open. He gunned the engine, and the gates swung smartly forward and smashed in the radiator and front bumper of the Ferrari with a resounding clang.

  He was still sitting there swearing when everybody came running down to investigate the crash.