Hiding Place (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “What about a purse?” I asked Markham, standing beside me.

  “Over in that clearing.” He pointed. “She was killed over there.”

  Signaling for him to follow and for the lab crew and police photographers to continue their work, I began to pace slowly beside the tapes, my eyes on the ground. The murderer had made no effort to conceal his victim’s trail; two long, wobbling grooves had been clearly scratched in the ground by the expensive boots.

  Midway to the clearing I paused, pivoting, studying the terrain. The road was about fifty feet away, down a gentle, treeless slope. Assuming that she’d been murdered in the clearing just ahead and that she’d been dragged to the shelter of the laurel bushes, then the murderer and his victim would have been exposed to view from the road for approximately a hundred feet, the distance from the glade to the debris pile.

  Either he’d killed her after dark, or he’d been very lucky. Or both.

  I allowed my gaze to wander idly over the ground, surrendering myself to the whim of random thought, seeking some sense of how it could have happened. Sometime late yesterday the murderer had passed the spot where I now stood. He’d been dragging his victim toward the shelter of the laurel bushes. He’d had blood on his hands. Bending double over the body, panting, dragging her by the hair, he must have been terrified—looking wildly over his shoulder with each step.

  Was he a madman?

  Probably not. If he’d been a madman, he’d have raped her, or mutilated her, or arranged her body in some obscene pose, getting his kicks.

  Was he a mugger—a hood, prowling the park’s forest-like terrain, hunting a victim?

  “Who found her?” I asked.

  “A little guy named Lester Farley. Over there.” Markham pointed to a black-and-white car. A figure was seated in the back, alone.

  “Have you interrogated him?”

  “Not really.”

  I ordered Canelli to question Lester Farley, then turned back to Markham. “What about a weapon?”

  “No luck yet. But I haven’t started a real search.”

  “What kind of a weapon does the M.E. think it was?”

  “A pipe, probably. Or a heavy metal rod. Something about a half-inch in diameter, anyhow. Her skull’s dented in. It required a lot of force, according to the M.E.”

  As we passed between the huge pine and eucalyptus trees circling the grassy clearing, Markham pointed to traces of blood on the grass, then to a separately taped-off purse lying less than a yard from the gleaming black boots of a patrolman. “There’s her pocketbook. It’s been photographed and printed, so you can handle it.”

  “Thanks.” I deliberately flatted my voice. Markham was the man who would doubtless someday be my co-lieutenant. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  I nodded to the patrolman and stooped to pick up the purse, holding it carefully in full view of the three men. It was actually a small rattan satchel, made in Hong Kong. Even the two catches were fashioned of wooden pegs and rattan loops. The purse had been lying open, presumably just as it had been found. Inside was the usual jumble of keys, Kleenex, and cosmetics. A red plastic wallet had apparently been thrust hastily into the satchel. The wallet had been left open. Random bits of paper protruded from the red plastic at odd angles. The section designed for currency was empty.

  “Is this exactly the way you found it?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did the lab print the card folder?”

  “Yes.” In his voice was a hint of irritation that he didn’t bother to conceal. Markham didn’t like to be pressed.

  Withdrawing the fan of plastic folders, I found a driver’s license, a library card, a BankAmericard, a Macy’s charge card, and a student-body card from Alta High School—all made out to June Towers, age seventeen, a senior in Alta. In six months she’d have graduated.

  I replaced the identity folder and emptied the wallet of everything else. I found a small color snapshot of a good-looking teen-age boy, a receipt for three records totaling $13.64, an address book covered in red watered silk and three slips of paper, each with someone’s first name and phone number.

  After copying her address, I returned everything to the billfold, leaving it all for the lab men. Turning to Markham, I said, “I’ll talk to Lester Farley for a minute, then Canelli and I will start with her parents. You and Culligan stay here until you’re sure you’ve got everything. Try to find the weapon. He probably threw it as far as he could, into some bushes. Give it plenty of time—two, three hours; if you have to, more. Use all the men you need; right now we haven’t got anything else current. Make sure Ralston gets something for his paper, and take care of the radio and TV reporters. When the story’s out, the chances are you’ll have some witnesses showing up. I’ll see you downtown about five, and we can compare notes.”

  “Are you sure you want me to spend a lot of time with a bunch of half-assed witnesses?” It was more than a question. It was a complaint—even a challenge.

  At age thirty, good-looking and arrogantly self-confident, Markham had always reminded me of a too-handsome, too-ambitious Hollywood actor playing a badman in a “B” Western. Maybe it was the way he moved: slowly, smoothly, deliberately—as if each movement was carefully rehearsed. Or maybe it was his eyes: calm and cold—killer’s eyes.

  “This is a percentage business,” I answered. “Talk to enough jerks and you’ll eventually get something you can use. I’ll see you about five.” I held his eye for a last long moment, then turned away. He hadn’t dropped his glance.

  As I approached the black-and-white car, Canelli got out of the back seat, moving several paces away from the car, waiting for me. Lester Farley remained inside.

  “Did you get anything from him?” I asked.

  “Well,” Canelli said slowly, “not much, I guess. But still—” He frowned thoughtfully, looking away, rubbing his chin. Watching him, I was thinking that Canelli would probably never master the rudiments of law-enforcement officialese. His reports read like high-school compositions laced with phrases from Official Detective.

  I waited. Finally, refocusing his gaze and clearing his throat, he said, “Farley spends a lot of time in the park here. He’s a walker, he says. He’s unemployed and he lives with his mother, just about four blocks from here. He’s been unemployed for three years, it turns out. But anyhow, the point is that he was here yesterday, too. Yesterday and today both. And he saw the victim yesterday. Right here.” Canelli waved his hand vaguely.

  I looked up at the secluded area where the body had been found, a hundred feet from the sidewalk. “He must be a crosscountry walker. He couldn’t have seen the body from either the sidewalk or the pathway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What else?”

  “Well, nothing else, really. Except that—” Again he frowned, struggling with the thought. “Except that he seems like kind of a kinky little guy. And you hear about these guys returning to the scene of the crime, and everything. So—” He shrugged.

  “Do you have his address?”

  “Yessir. And his mother’s name. He has identification, too.”

  “All right. Get him out here.”

  Canelli stepped to the car, opening the door, beckoning. A slight, anxious-looking man emerged, blinking, and hesitantly approached me. He looked to be in his early forties. Everything about him was pale and frail-looking: sallow complexion, faded blue eyes behind bookkeeper’s glasses, thinning blond hair, a pursed cupid’s mouth. He wore a tan jacket and dark brown slacks. His clothing was neat and clean, his shoes shined. He was a nondescript, harmless-looking little man.

  I introduced myself and asked him to repeat his account of finding the body. Telling the story, talking in a low, precise monotone, he seemed strangely unshaken by his recent encounter with violent death.

  “I was out for a morning walk,” he said primly, “and I saw her lying there. At first I just saw her feet. Then, when I got closer, I saw—all of her.” Involuntarily his glance strayed up the g
entle slope to the cluster of men surrounding the body. Two stretcher bearers were approaching the group. Soon the body would be moved.

  “What time was it that you discovered the body?”

  “It was about ten o’clock.”

  I gestured up the slope, saying, “To have seen her feet in that area where she was found, screened on three sides by bushes, you’d’ve had to’ve been walking across the grass.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked down at his shoes. They were actually high-laced hiking boots, moccasin-toed.

  “The grass would’ve been wet. It’s still a little wet.”

  He nodded. “Yes, it was wet. But I walk a lot. I don’t work. And I like to exercise. So I walk.”

  I eyed him silently for a moment, looking him over, taking my time. His reaction was a slightly puzzled, puckered frown. He didn’t squirm under my scrutiny.

  “You were here yesterday, too,” I said finally.

  “Yes.”

  “You saw the victim then, too.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What time was that, Mr. Farley?”

  “It was about four-thirty in the afternoon, I’d say.”

  “What was the victim doing when you saw her?”

  He shrugged. “She was just standing there.” He pointed to a point perhaps twenty feet beyond my car. “She was standing by the popcorn wagon.”

  “Was she buying popcorn?”

  “No. She was just standing there.”

  “How’d you happen to notice her? Had you ever seen her before?”

  He shook his head slowly. He stole another glance up at the murder scene. The official group was parting, making way for the stretcher bearers.

  “Did you see anyone else yesterday that you recognized?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “What about the popcorn man? Had you seen him before?”

  “Well, yes. But I thought you meant—” He fluttered a narrow, delicate hand, letting the sentence go unfinished.

  “If we were to collect a group of people—random people—do you think you could pick out one or two who’d been in this area yesterday?”

  He moistened his lips, frowning, blinking. “I—I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Well,” I said slowly, consciously projecting an air of deliberate patience, “you were able to identify the murder victim as having been here yesterday. I’d think you could do the same for others.” I paused, watching him carefully. “Or was there something special about the girl that made you remember her?”

  Startled, he looked at me quickly. “No,” he answered. “There was nothing—nothing at all. I just—just recognized her, that’s all.”

  I stared at him for a last long, silent moment, then extended my hand. His grip was limp. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Farley. You’ve been a big help. We’ll want to get a statement from you. So be sure and keep yourself available.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I will.” He nodded to both of us, smiled nervously, and began walking away.

  I gestured to Culligan, unobtrusively standing by. “Follow him,” I ordered. “Check him out.”

  “Right.”

  I watched them out of sight: the slim, skittish subject and the tall, gangling detective moving stolidly along the sidewalk.

  “I don’t think Culligan is much of a walker,” Canelli said.

  Shrugging, I turned to my car. “It was him or you, Canelli. Look at it that way. Come on. We’re going to the victim’s house.”

  Three

  “NICE PLACE,” CANELLI COMMENTED as we pulled to the curb in front of June Towers’ house. “Forty, forty-five thousand, at least.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I don’t live so far from here,” he volunteered. “But not in any forty-thousand-dollar house. Every block you get away from the park, the value goes down.”

  I hesitated, then decided to ask, “How is it you still live with your parents, Canelli?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, rubbing his chin. Finally: “I guess it’s because of Gracie. My girl friend. I guess you never met her.” He looked at me. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I waited. I realized that I was playing games with myself, deliberately delaying the moment when I’d have to tell the girl’s parents that their daughter was dead.

  “See,” Canelli was saying, “Gracie and me, we been going together for about six years—ever since I got out of the navy, almost, and joined the force. And it seems like every year we think we’re going to get married, but then we never do. So that’s why.”

  I smiled to myself, thinking of Friedman’s squad-room fun commenting on Canelli’s syntax.

  “That’s why you still live with your folks, you mean.”

  He nodded. Taking his cue from me, he was simply sitting behind the wheel, looking straight ahead. Then I saw him frown slightly. I recognized the expression. He was framing a difficult question.

  “How long has it been since you been, ah, not married, Lieutenant?”

  “Almost ten years,” I answered shortly. “Too long.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. That’s a long time, all right.” Again he hesitated before deciding to say, “I bet it must seem kind of, ah, funny, having your family back East. Your kids, I mean.”

  I put my hand on the door handle. “I don’t recommend divorce, Canelli. You’re doing the right thing. Long courtships might be out of fashion, but they’re a hell of a lot better than short marriages.” I swung the door open. “I’ll go talk to the parents. I want you to call in to Lieutenant Friedman. Tell him that I’d like to have him locate that popcorn vendor. And tell him that I’ll fill him in when I know a little more. After you’ve done that, come inside.” I jerked my chin toward the house. “Clear?”

  “Yessir.” He reached for the mike.

  On the first peal of the chimes the door opened. A woman in her late thirties stood in the doorway. Seeing me, her eyes instantly glazed with the disbelief of someone facing certain disaster. Her body was rigid, braced against my first words. She was a glossy blonde, beauty-shop-beautiful.

  Her eyes first searched my face, then fled to the car behind me. “Are you fr—fr—” Momentarily she stuttered. “From the police?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Towers. I’m Lieutenant Hastings.” I took off my hat. “May I come in?”

  Her painfully arched body suddenly went slack. She sagged against the doorframe, her hands clasped knuckle-white at her waist. Her lips began to twitch.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s happened? Is June—” She began to shake her carefully coiffed head in a dull, defeated arc. Finally, with great effort, she looked at me directly, mutely imploring me not to tell her what she knew I’d come to say.

  “I’m afraid June is dead, Mrs. Towers. She—they found her in the park about an hour ago. Just a few blocks from here.”

  She was still shaking her head slowly from side to side. Somehow she reminded me of a dazed, stubborn child refusing to eat her dinner. Her hands were clasped cruelly, pressed tightly into the pale-beige cashmere of her sweater just below her breasts.

  Through stiffened lips she said, “My name isn’t Towers. It’s Grant—Ellen Grant.”

  “Why don’t we go inside, Mrs. Grant? We can sit down. You can…”

  A man stood behind her. His dark, thick hair was finger-combed, his jowls unshaven. In his early forties, broad and beefy, he was glaring at me with the suspicious, belligerent look of a barroom stud who suspects that someone has insulted his wife.

  As the man was about to speak, Ellen Grant suddenly wheeled, blindly striking his shoulder with hers as she blundered past him into the house.

  I introduced myself to Randall Grant and briefly explained what had happened. As I was talking, Canelli joined us, nodding to me, signifying that he’d gotten through to Friedman. Then the three of us silently entered the ornate living room, already touched by the hush of violent death.


  Ellen Grant sat hunched against the arm of a silk-brocaded easy chair. She was sobbing painfully, her body racked with dry, gasping spasms. Her eye make-up had dissolved into dark, grotesque smears, distorting the contours of her face, suggesting a surrealistic caricature of gross, ugly grief. Her hands hung limply across the silken arm of the chair. Some of her mascara-stained tears had fallen on the off-white brocade. Silently Canelli put a handkerchief in her hand, then sat down on a sofa that matched the chair. In his rumpled blue suit, with his misshapen hat beside him on the sofa, Canelli looked as incongruous as ever. His broad face was lightly glazed with perspiration. Whenever Canelli was forced to endure someone else’s grief, he perspired.

  Grant’s expression was still faintly belligerent as he stood before a black onyx fireplace, looking down at his wife. He made no move to touch her; he hadn’t spoken to her directly. He was dressed casually in a knit shirt, wide-striped trousers, and soft leather shoes. Except for his dark, unshaven jowls, he looked as if he were ready for a round of country-club golf. His face was handsome but heavily cast: humorless, stolid, sullen. The muscles of his arms were thick and firm, but his neck was beginning to sag. The knit shirt revealed a bulge at the waist.

  Blowing her nose in Canelli’s handkerchief, the woman choked, then gasped, “I knew it. I knew she’d been killed. It—it’s the only thing it could’ve been. The only thing.” Suddenly she twisted toward her husband. “I told you she wouldn’t stay out all night.”

  Deliberately pitching my voice to a quiet note, I said, “Do you have a picture of your daughter, Mrs. Grant? We’d like to borrow it.”

  The man swung abruptly away from the fireplace. “I’ll get you one.”

  “Don’t take the one on my dresser,” she said petulantly. “Take her yearbook picture.”

  “I know which one to take.” His voice was abrupt, his dark brows gathered in an irritable frown. He was already halfway across the room, plainly anxious to be free from the sight of his sobbing wife. I caught Canelli’s eye, moving my head toward the departing man. Nodding, Canelli rose. He would detain Randall Grant in another part of the house and question him separately.