Mark of Murder llm-7

by Dell Shannon

  He laughed sharply. "Unfortunately, somebody had already looked at the appointment book and is ready to swear it's been extensively added to since."

  "You can't prove that," she said. "You can't make me out-"

  "You don't think so?" said Mendoza. He laughed again. "We'll prove it, Corliss! Check out every one of those names in the book-and nine out of ten'll show up as non-existent. What was a chiropractor doing with a bloodstained smock? Some patient had a nosebleed?? A otro perro con ese hueso! We'll prove it, and you'll be spending the next few years in Tehachapi."

  Scarne came in from the bedroom. "Nothing," he said. "Nothing even unusual."

  "I didn't expect it," said Mendoza without taking his eyes off the woman. "Corliss is a little too smart to keep incriminating evidence around, isn't she? Or thinks she is. What did you do with Doctor's records, Corliss? And all the rest of it? You might have got rid of the tools, but I think you'd hang onto the records. I think maybe you had the same bright little idea Doctor had about that, didn't you? Did you stash them away in a safe-deposit box maybe? If and when we charge you, I can get an order to open one of those, you know… Well, don't just stand there!" he added to Scarne. "Go down and look at her car."

  He picked up the bulging handbag lying on the table near the door. "Keys probably in here."

  "You leave my things alone! You-"

  "Search warrant, Corliss," said Mendoza. "All nice and legal!" He took a step and stood over her close. "No, you couldn't do anything about those damning files-files showing just the few legitimate patients he had. You told the big sergeant one very damn silly story about that, but it was really all you could say, wasn't it?-that a lot of file cards were missing, had been taken out. You could point to the appointment book, all righteous, and say that showed how many patients he had-but it wasn't quite the same thing, was it?"

  "You've certainly got a nasty imagination," she said shrilly. "Not one word of that-you can't prove-"

  "Sooner or later somebody might have begun to wonder," said Mendoza tautly. He bent a little closer to her. "Look at me! You know something, Corliss? Somebody had begun to wonder about it. That big tough sergeant, Corliss. He didn't like you, he was wondering hard about you. He wanted to see you again, rake you over the coals a little. Did he, Corliss?"

  "I don't know what you-" Suddenly her eyes showed a little fright, at his nakedly savage tone.

  "Did he? Last Friday night- And did you, maybe, give yourself away somehow? So that you knew if the sergeant passed that on you'd be in one hell of a mess anyway?

  And was, maybe, your gentleman friend here to lend you a hand at-"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she said rapidly, nervously. "What if Larry was here Friday night? That cop never- I don't know what you mean-"

  But her dark expressionless eyes shifted at last, once, and her tight mouth worked convulsively.

  "?Perro negra! " said Mendoza violently-and Palliser moved. He saw Mendoza's eyes, and he took one step, between them, to seize Mendoza's upraised arm.

  For an instant they stood breast to breast, and Palliser was the taller man but he wondered if he could hold him. He said quietly, "You haven't been haled up to I.A. the last couple of years, sir, you don't want to break your record."

  Mendoza drew a long breath. "No. No. All right, boy."

  Palliser felt the violence of effort as he regained control. He let go of him and stepped back.

  "-sue you for slander!" she was saying breathlessly. "That's right, try to hit a defenseless woman! Of all things, I never heard of- All lies! You'll never prove-"

  "You're wasting breath and effort, Corliss," said Mendoza. "We'll prove it on you. Larry who?"

  "I don't have to tell you that," she said haughtily. "To drag him in. I never heard-”

  "Are you a registered nurse? Where'd you train?"

  "I don't have to tell you-"

  Scarne came back, letting himself in with her key, and said, "The car's clean, Lieutenant."

  "Yes," said Mendoza. "Just don't try to run, Corliss. We're watching you, and we'll get enough for a warrant sooner or later."

  She was still sitting there, stolid and defiant, when they went out.

  Dwyer dropped behind with Palliser. "Brother," he said sotto voce , "you took a chance there. I've seen him like that a few times. He might just as easy have knocked you into the middle of next week. For all he's not outsize, when he's in the mood he can be a tough one to take."

  "Better me than a female citizen there's no evidence on," said Palliser tersely.

  In the street Mendoza stopped beside the long black elegance of the Ferrari. He took off his hat and put a hand to his head as if it ached, and summoned a smile for the three of them. He said, "So we go the long way round. With the lab boys working overtime. A tail on her twenty-four hours a day, from now on. She knows we'll get there in the end. Somebody'll have to go through that appointment book, check out all the names. Get that set up, one of you, will you? Bert-you chase back to the office and start that. And when you and Scarne have finished checking your bit of Nestor's address book, I could bear to know the hell of a lot more about one Cliff Elger. Go talk to people about him. I'1l see you back at the office at six."

  "O.K.," said Dwyer casually. He and Scarne walked on toward Dwyer's car down the block.

  "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," said Palliser. "It was just-I mean, I know how you felt, that damn woman, but I couldn't let you--”

  Mendoza tossed his hat in the open window of the Ferrari. He didn't say anything; he reached for a cigarette, lit it.

  "I mean, my God, you know-the headlines," said Palliser. "That juvenile thing last year-all blown up out of nothing, but the chief is so damn scrupulous about that kind of thing, and Internal Affairs--"

  "I know," said Mendoza. "Thanks very much, John. Make a fool of myself--that never accomplishes anything. We'll drop on Corliss, with any luck. That doesn't say. Let's talk this over a little." He got into the car.

  Palliser got in after him. "Yes, sir."

  "Build it for me," said Mendoza. "The way you see it, on Art. How did it happen?"

  "Well, I don't see that we can-"

  "From what we know. Construe,” said Mendoza.

  Palliser considered. "One thing did occur to me. What was the last thing he wrote in his notebook?"

  "You think, don't you?" Mendoza brought out Hackett's notebook. "But it's not much help… "

  TEN

  It wasn't much help because Hackett didn't keep consecutive notes; he had used separate sections of the notebook for separate inquiries and people. There wasn't any way to know what he'd last written down. In the section on Andrea Nestor, the last thing he'd written was, "Any overheard quarrels with husband? Ask neighbors?" There wasn't anything about the Elgers at all.

  "But of course," said Palliser, "wherever he was attacked, whoever did it, if we're right he probably wouldn't have had a chance to write any notes about that interview."

  Mendoza agreed. It was always better not to produce a notebook at the actual interview with a witness, if you could avoid it, but to write your notes afterward; that would be what Hackett would have done.

  "The only other thing that struck me," said Palliser, "is that it would have been a lot easier to set up that fake accident if there were two people involved. Because that canyon road's pretty long and winding. The site was about a mile up from where the road starts, above the end of Bronson. It's steep, too. When X had sent the car over, he'd be on foot, unless somebody had driven another car along to pick him up. And look, how would he know that the crash wouldn't be heard right away, bring people swarming around? How's he going to explain himself, there on foot? I think there must-"

  "You said the houses, and not many of them, are set back. And that there wasn't really any crash, the Ford didn't hit anything big. A mile's not really very far. Of course it'd be more than a mile, maybe a lot more, because we don't know where X lives, where it happened. It'd have been easier for two peo
ple, but it wasn't at all impossible for a single X. I think we can make a few deductions anyway." Mendoza produced a folded paper from his breast pocket. "This is what Erwin had to say-and the surgeon at the hospital. The most serious injury is the head wound-massive skull fracture. They don't think he was hit with a weapon of any kind, and they don't think the injury occurred during the fall over the cliff. They say it's too big an area, and on account of certain technicalities and measurements they come up with the opinion that he was knocked against some hard, broad, flat surface with great force. That's Erwin-‘with great force'. Thus adding his own weight to the force of the blow. Erwin suggests a cement wall, the side of a building, or a flat stone hearth. There's a slight bruise under the jaw too, which backs that up. They think that happened a little while before he incurred the other injuries-which was obviously when the car was sent over. Anything occur to you from that?"

  "Not much. Except that it's likelier, isn't it, that it happened inside somewhere, not on the street? I don't suppose X had thought it all out beforehand-he probably struck that blow on impulse, and probably just after Hackett had let him see he'd given himself away somehow."

  "I'll go along on that. We can deduce something else, John. Why did X have to take Art's own belt off to tie him up? Obviously, because he hadn't any rope or stout cord handy-or maybe only enough for either the wrists or ankles. What does that say? Possibly an apartment, instead of a house. A house can usually produce something of the sort-clothesline, et cetera-but people living in apartments, unless they habitually wrap a lot of parcels for mailing- Yes."

  "Well, practically all of them do live in apart1nents," said Palliser. "The people we've come across so far."

  "There'll be some of Nestor's friends living in houses, I suppose. All right. Say it was Corliss and her boy friend Larry-who I'd like to know more about too. We will. He was there. Suppose she somehow gave herself away to Art, or he spotted some evidence there while he was talking to her, and started to question her hard or even charge her-and the boy friend got mad and hit him, caught him off balance maybe and knocked him against that imitation marble hearth or even just the wall. I'll say this. I think we'll find that Larry is an amiable weak lout-Corliss' kind do pick up that type. Possibly he's had a few brushes with the law himself. So he'd be all too ready to help get rid of a cop."

  "Um," said Palliser.

  "And, if he is that type, it's a type that often comes apart fairly easily," said Mendoza. "I don't know but what I like the Elgers better, except that they look fairly normal -for their type-and there's nothing on them at all."

  He told Palliser about the Elgers.

  Palliser said, "You know-what Dr. Erwin said-that he was probably knocked against something. That sounds to me as if he was taken completely by surprise. Because, after all, it's second nature, isn't it?-you're questioning a suspect, a pretty hot suspect, even if you've just found that out-you're watching for any tricks. Aren't you? We've just had a reminder about that, last month-those two fellows stopped for speeding, who shot up the squadcar man. He never thought to check them for arms."

  "Yes?"

  "Well, what it might say," said Palliser, "is that it was somebody he'd never expect to attack him at all. Physically. Such as a woman or-or an eighty-year-old man, something like that. So he was off his guard entirely, and that was how he was caught off balance. And you know-"

  "I rather like that," said Mendoza, "because in the ordinary way he would be taking care. Not being a fool, and having some experience. What you were going on to say was that obviously, if he'd had any reason to be suspicious of Cliff Elger, he'd have been taking double pains to be careful, a gorilla like that-bigger than Art himself."

  "That's just what I was going to say."

  "And you'd be right. And come to think," said Mendoza, "am I right about that belt? People living in apartments wouldn't have any clothesline lying around, but a good many people do keep cord for wrapping packages. For-for tying up things to put away, like Christmas decorations and winter clothes. I don't know. Maybe it was just the first thing X thought of. But maybe not too. Because-it wasn't a very cunningly faked accident, was it?"

  Palliser shrugged. "The squad car first on the scene spotted it right away. By the tracks. No skid, no try at braking-the car was backed around deliberately to face the drop."

  "Yes. Not a brain, whoever set it up. So he might not have realized that we'd spot how the belt had been used either. On the other hand, it must have made him a little more trouble. When he got up there he had to take the time to put it back on Art-rather an awkward little job, rolling a big heavy man around getting his belt through all the little loops. I think we're safe in saying that he used the belt in the first place because he couldn't lay hands on anything else in a hurry. And why tie him up at all? Yes, why? Here was a badly injured man, unconscious-he wouldn't be getting up and walking away anywhere."

  "Well, so X didn't have any medical knowledge, to know that,"

  "Yes, but also that says maybe he stashed Art away somewhere awhile, before he set up the accident… Oh hell," said Mendoza, and started the engine. "There's not much in all that. I don't know. Let's go back to the office and see if anything's come in."

  "By the way, you said to the Corliss woman you thought she'd had the same bright idea Nestor had had. What was that?"

  "Maybe something to check-if we had any way of knowing where to look." Mendoza smiled. "That scrapbook full of the doings of high society. When I looked at it, one thing struck me. Every single clipping, whatever it was about, included a photograph. And every single photograph included at least one young woman… I said I think Nestor was aiming at the moneyed women. He'd get others too, of course. Kinsey has alerted us to the fairly high incidence of abortion in unexpected places. And of course a lot of those customers would give false names. I think Nestor was keeping his scrapbook on the off-chance of recognizing former patients. I don't think he was above a little genteel blackmail."

  "Oh," said Palliser, enlightened. "I get you. He recognizes Jane Smith, who came to him last year for a job, as being really a socialite debutante, and puts the bite on her-but how could he? Without giving himself away?"

  "He couldn't, really, beyond threatening to tip off her parents, or boy friend, or husband for that matter, anonymously-but a lot of women in that position might not clearly realize that. I wonder if he'd found a victim yet, from all his diligent research? And, if he had, whether she'd paid up. Well, see what routine's turning up for us."

  ***

  Routine had turned up a couple of interesting things. Sergeant Lake said, only half kidding, "I might have known things would start to move, Lieutenant, soon as you got home and had a hunch."

  Landers, making the round of the bars in that downtown area asking whether silver dollars had been part of their take lately, had turned up two leads. A bartender at a hole-in-the-wall joint on Broadway remembered a fellow coming in several times who'd paid with silver dollars. He had made a statement, and if there wasn't much in it, there was something. He couldn't give any kind of description. "?Natuiralmente!" said Mendoza irritably. "They will keep bars so damn dark." All he remembered about the fellow was that he was very poorly dressed, in what looked like somebody else's clothes, and usually kept a hat pulled down low on his forehead. Maybe, oh, four, five times he'd been in. Always at night, and once or twice quite late, staying until the bar closed at 1 AM. He was, said the bartender vaguely, medium-sized and kind of thin. And he always ordered bourbon, straight.

  The other bartender worked at a place on Main. It wasn't quite down into Skid Row, but on the fringes; and he was a tough customer, who didn't much care for cops and was reluctant to open up with any information. Landers had persuaded him, finally, to come out with what he knew. And that wasn't much either, but again, something. There was this old bat, he said, kind of a regular-probably a setup, also a lush. He wasn't admitting that she was working out of his bar, naturally, because he didn't want to lose his license;
but that, said Landers, was what it sounded like. Anyway, her name was Rosie-that was all the bartender knew. And the last couple of times she'd been in, she'd paid him with a silver dollar. He gave a vague description of her; no, he'd never heard her last name, and of course he didn't know where she lived-he could do the hell of a lot better than that for himself.

  "Well-something, but what?" said Mendoza. "Put out a call on Rosie. Trace it down, and probably find the customer she got the silver dollars from just blew in from Vegas and has nothing to do with our Slasher. However-”

  Nothing had turned up on that search of hotel registers in the downtown area. Mendoza called the city editors of the Times, the Herald, the Hollywood Citizen, and the Glendale News-Press, and requested them to run cuts of that signature they had from the Liverpool Arms register: promised to send over prints. He sent a man down to get the prints and deliver them by hand. The first body had been found the day before he and Alison had left for New York; he hadn't heard many details on it. Now he settled down to reread all the reports on the five victims… He said to Lake, "That stuff we picked up in the hotel room-is it still around? Lab send it back?"

  "I seem to remember it did--probably be in Art's desk." Lake looked, and brought him a shoe box containing a few odds and ends. "No prints, nothing suggestive."

  Mendoza looked at it sadly. No guarantee either-the Liverpool Arms being what it was-that any of these things was connected with the Slasher, who had occupied that room such a short time. Found in the room with the body, but ten to one the rooms there weren't so thoroughly cleaned between tenants.