by Dell Shannon
He remembered the name vaguely; after a moment he said, "The woman who had a stroke."
"That’s right. She’s had that little shop a long while, and sometimes you find things there that’re, you know, unusual, different from the big stores. You mightn’t remember, no reason you should, but on the one side she’s got giftware as they call it-china figures and fancy ash trays and vases and such-and on the other she’s got babies’ and children’s things. Real nice things, with handwork on them, the clothes, and reasonable too. You’ll remember that your men asked around in all the shops if Carol had been in that night, to get some idea of the time and all. And that was the very night Mrs. Breen had a stroke, so you couldn’t ask her if Carol’d been in there, and it didn’t seem important because you found out that she’d been in the drugstore and a couple of other places."
"Yes-nothing unusual anywhere, no one speaking to her, and she didn’t mention anything out of the way to the clerks who waited on her."
"That’s so. It didn’t seem as if Mrs. Breen could’ve told any more. She was alone in her place, you know, and all right as could be when her daughter come at nine or a bit before, to help her close up and drive her home. It was while they were locking up she had her stroke, poor thing, and they took her off to hospital and she’s been a long while getting back on her feet. Well, Lieutenant-let me hot up your coffee-what I’m getting to is this. It went out of my mind at the time, and when I thought of it, I hadn’t the heart to bother about it, didn’t seem important somehow-and Mrs. Breen was still in the hospital and her daughter’d closed up the shop. It’d have meant asking her, Mrs. Robbins I mean, to go all through the accounts and so on, and with her so worried and living clear the other side of town too, I just let it go."
"You thought Carol had been in and bought something there?"
"It was for Linda Sue," she said, and the troubled look in her eyes faded momentarily. "My first great-grandchild, see, my granddaughter May-that’s Carol’s cousin, May White-Linda Sue’s her little girl. May and Carol were much of an age, and chummed together, and Carol was just crazy about Linda Sue. It was along in June, I remember, Carol saw this in Mrs. Breen’s, and she wanted to get it for Linda Sue’s birthday in October. She told me about it then, and if I thought it was foolish, that much money, I kept still on it-she wanted to get it, and it was her money. Twenty dollars it was, and she asked Mrs. Breen if she could pay a bit on it every week or so. Mrs. Breen’s obliging like that, and she said it was all right, but she left it in the window for people to see, case anybody wanted one like it she could order another."
The Duke, who had been drowsing between them, suddenly woke up and began to wash himself vigorously. Mrs. Demarest finished her coffee and sighed. "It was a doll, Lieutenant-and while that seems like an awful price for a doll, I must say it was a special one. It’d be nearly as big as Linda Sue herself, and it was made of some stuff, you know, that looked like real flesh-and it had real hair, gold hair it was, that you could curl different ways, and it had on a pink silk dress with hand smocking, and silk underwear with lace, and there was a little velvet cape and velvet slippers, rose color. Well, Carol was buying it like that. I wasn’t sure to a penny how much she still owed on it, up to that night. And of course Monday wasn’t a payday for her, I didn’t think it was likely she’d stopped in at Mrs. Breen’s that night, because she’d do that the day she got paid, you see. It was just that she had paid on it, but as say, way things were, I didn’t bother about going ahead with it. There was time to sort it out, Mrs. Breen and Mrs. Robbins are both honest. I got other things for Linda Sue’s birthday, and once in a while I just said to myself, some day I’d best ask about it, straighten it out with Mrs. Breen.
"Well, just last week Mrs. Breen came into her shop again. She was sick quite a while, and then up-and-down like at her daughter’s, and now she’s better, but not to be alone any more, and she’s selling off what stock she has and going out of business. So I went round, last Thursday it was, to ask about Carol’s doll.
"And Mrs. Breen says that Carol came in that night and paid all the rest she owed, and took the doll away with her. She remembers it clear-the stroke didn’t affect her mind, she’s a bit slower but all there. She didn’t hear about Carol for quite awhile, naturally, being sick and all, and of course when she did, she naturally thought everyone knew about the doll. Because you remember-"
"Yes," he said. He remembered: in the glare of the spotlights, the stiffening disfigured corpse and the several small parcels scattered on the sidewalk. A card of bobby pins, two spools of thread from the dime store: a magazine, a bottle of aspirin, a candy bar from the drugstore: an anniversary card from the stationery store. He looked at Mrs. Demarest blankly. "That’s very odd," he said. "She had it-the woman’s sure?"
She nodded vigorously. "She showed me the accounts book, Lieutenant. There’s the date, and while there’s no time put down, it’s the next-to-last entry that night, and she says the last customer came in was a woman she knows, a Mrs. Ratchett, and it was just before nine. She thinks Carol came in about eight-thirty, a few minutes before maybe. Probably it was the last place Carol stopped, you see-nobody else remembers her with a big parcel. She paid Mrs. Breen seven dollars and forty-six cents, all she still owed, and she didn’t have the doll gift-wrapped because she wanted to show it to May and me first. And she took it with her." Mrs. Demarest held out her hands, measuring. "Like that it’d have been-a big stout cardboard box, white, a good yard or more long, and maybe eighteen inches wide and a foot deep. Heavy, too. And inside, along with the doll, three yards of pink silk ribbon and the tissue paper for wrapping it, and a birthday card. The whole thing was wrapped up in white paper and string, and Mrs. Breen made a little loop on top for her to carry it by."
They looked at each other. "But that’s very damned odd indeed," he said softly. "Not much time there, you know. She was dead by nine, at the latest. It’s possible that someone else came by and found her first, didn’t want to get involved, but picked up the biggest parcel, maybe the only one he noticed in the dark, on the chance that it was worth something. But you think, in that case, he-or she, of course-might have taken time to snatch up the handbag too, after cash
… and that hadn’t been touched, the strap was still on her arm."
"I guess you’d better hear how she came to get the money, not that it matters. One of the girls worked at the hotel with her came to see me, two-three days afterward-a nice girl she was, Nella Foss-to say how sorry they all were, and give me a little collection the hotel people’d taken up. They thought maybe I’d rather have the money, you know, instead of flowers for the funeral-it was real thoughtful of them. Well, Nella said that very afternoon there’d been a lady just checked out of the hotel came back after a valuable ring she’d left, and Carol’d already found it, doing out the room you know, and turned it in. And the lady gave her five dollars as a present. I expect Carol decided right off she’d finish paying for the doll with it. At the time, I thought of course what was in her purse, three-eighty-four it was, was what she’d had left out of the five."
"Yes… but so little time! Do we say it was the murderer took it away? Just that?-not a finger on her handbag after cash? And why?"
"Now, that I couldn’t say," said Mrs. Demarest, placidly. "It’s queer, certainly. I’d say the same as you-well, I guess detecting things is just a matter of using common sense and reasoning things out. I suppose somebody might think there was something valuable in a big parcel like that, and steal it just on the chance-but a thief who’d do that, it’s just not logical he wouldn’t take the handbag too, at least rummage through it." She cocked her head at him, and her brown eyes were bright as a sparrow’s. "Lieutenant, would you think I’m a woolgathering silly old woman-you’re too polite ever say it, if you did-if I said, Maybe whoever took it knew right well what was in that parcel?"
"You’d say whoever killed her? For a doll-"
"I don’t know that. Maybe somebody else, first-or afterwar
d. But I can tell you something else. I’ve studied about it, and I went back to ask Mrs. Breen a couple other things. I said she’d left the doll in the window, didn’t I? Well, I go past there three-four times a week, up to the market, and I do think I’d’ve noticed if that doll had been gone out of the window right after Carol was killed, and put two and two together, and asked then. But Mrs. Breen took it out of the window about a week before, so I didn’t expect it there, if you see what I mean. And she says now, reason she did is that she had notice from the factory or whatever that made them, that they weren’t making this particular doll any more-so she didn’t want to show it, and have to disappoint anybody wanted one. And, this is what I’m getting at, the morning of that day Carol was killed, there was a woman came into the store and wanted to buy that doll. She wanted it real bad, Mrs. Breen said she was almost crying that she couldn’t have that one or get Mrs. Breen to order another, and she stayed a long while trying to argue Mrs. Breen into selling her the one Carol was buying."
An extra ace to pad his hand, Mendoza had hoped: but could it be? Such a small thing-such a meaningless thing!
"Did she know this woman?"
"She’d seen her before. It was a white woman, Lieutenant, from over across Hunter Avenue. She couldn’t call the name to mind, but she thinks she’s got it written down somewhere because the woman made her copy down her name and address and promise to find out couldn’t she get a doll like that somewhere. You’d best see Mrs. Breen and ask, if you think it means anything at all… She thinks she remembers it was a middling-long sort of name, and started with an L."
SEVEN
Mendoza felt rather irritated at the cosmic powers; if they intended to direct a little luck his way, they might have been more explicit. Still, one never knew: it might lead to something.
The gift shop was closed, of course; he would come back tomorrow. And it was possible that this Breen woman had simply told a lie to avoid having to pay back twelve or thirteen dollars; but such a relatively small amount-and Mrs. Demarest was emphatic on assurance of her honesty. Judge for himself…
He drove tedious miles across the city, cursing the Sunday traffic, to Alison Weir’s apartment, and was late by some minutes. She opened the door promptly and told him so, taking up her bag, joining him in the hall. She was in green and tan today, plain dark-green wool dress, high-necked: coat, shoes, bag all warm beige, and copper earrings, a big copper brooch.
He settled her in the car and sliding under the wheel said, "Unsubtle, that dress. Every woman with red hair automatically fills her wardrobe with green."
"It’s only fair to tell you," said Alison amiably, "that like practically all women I detest men who know anything about women’s clothes."
"As intelligent people we should always try to overcome these illogical prejudices? He had not moved to start the engine; he smiled at her.
"You know, it would be regrettable if you were lying to me, Miss Weir."
The little amusement died from her green-hazel eyes meeting his. "Do you think I’ve lied to you? Why? I-"
"No, I don’t think so. But Teresa Ramirez says her sister meant to tell you about this ‘queer boy,’ and yet you don’t know quite as much as she told Teresa."
"I told you about that. She probably did mean to tell me a lot more, but I took up her consultation time with lecturing her. You can’t regret it any more than I do, Lieutenant! If I’d listened to her-"
"Yes," said Mendoza. He’d turned sideways to look at her, his right arm along the seat-back; he laughed abruptly and slid his hand down to brush her shoulder gently, reaching to the ignition. "I’ll tell you why I’m not just a hundred percent sure-I mustn’t be. Because I’m working this on a preconceived idea, and that’s dangerous. I find something that I doesn’t fit, I’m tempted to think, let it go, it’s not important-because I don’t want to prove my beautiful theory wrong. Just now and then I am wrong, and it’s not an experience I enjoy."
"I see. I also dislike egotistical men."
" Mi gatita roja, what you mean is that you dislike the ones honest enough to admit to vanity-nobody walking on two legs isn’t an egotist. And you should have more common sense than to talk so rudely to a rich man."
"Are you?"
"I am. None of my doing-in case you were thinking of bribes from gangsters-my grandfather was shrewd enough to buy up quite a lot of land which turned out to be just where the city was expanding-office buildings, you know, and hotels, and department stores-all crazy for land to build on. And fortunately I was his only grandson. It was a great shock to everybody, there he was for years in a thirty-dollar-a-month apartment, saying we couldn’t afford this and that, damning the gas company as robbers if the bill was over two dollars, and buying secondhand clothes-my God, he once got a hundred dollars out of me on the grounds of family duty, to pay a hospital bill-and me still in the rookie training school and in debt for my uniforms! And then when he died it all came out. My grandmother hasn’t recovered from the shock yet-she’s still furious at him, and that was nearly fifteen years ago."
"Oh. Why?"
"For fifty-eight years she’d been nagging at him to stop his gambling-she’d been telling him for fifty-eight years that gamblers are all wastrels, stealing the food out of their families’ mouths to throw away, and they always die without a penny to bless themselves. And that’s where he got his capital-his winnings. And to add insult to injury-because if she’d known about it, she’d have found some way to save face and also, being a woman, something else to nag him about-he managed to get the last word by dying before she found it out. Frankly, I think myself it wasn’t all luck, the old boy wasn’t above keeping a few high cards up his sleeve, but you know the one about the gift horse. And unfortunately," added Mendoza, sliding neatly ahead of an indignant bus to get in the right-turn lane, "by then I’d got into the habit of earning an honest living, and I’ve never cured myself."
"Well, it’s an original approach to a girl," said Alison thoughtfully. "Such a fascinating subject too-I’ve always been so interested in money, if only I’d had the chance to study it oftener I might have developed real talent for it. But I must say, I should think you’d bolster up your ego more by doing the King Cophetua business, instead of practically offering a bribe. Not at all subtle."
"I’m always loved for myself alone. And why? Es claro -a woman of high principle like you, she’s afraid to be taken for a gold digger, so she starts out being very stand-offish. She’s so busy convincing me she’s not interested in my money, vaya, she’s never on guard against my charm."
"Ah, the double play. I keep forgetting you’re an egotist. But what about the stupid ones?-the ones like Elena, all bleached curls and giggles and gold ankle chains? The ones those tired middle-aged businessmen-"
"?Vaya por Dios! I never go near such females, except in the way of work. There’s no credit to the marksman in an easy target."
"Or to the wolf who catches the smallest lamb? I see what you mean."
"So I’ll let you have the last word. You’ll do me a favor tomorrow-"
"What?" She regarded him warily.
Mendoza grinned at her. "Don’t sound so suspicious, I don’t operate so crude and sudden as that! Look, I want you to ask all your girls if Elena said anything at all to them about this staring man. Don’t tell them much, don’t lead them-a couple of them might make up this or that to be important-but you’ll be more apt to get something helpful out of them if anything’s there to be got. Official questioning might encourage them to romanticize."
"Oh, well, certainly I’ll do that, I meant to anyway. Yes, I think you’re right about that."
At headquarters he piloted her upstairs to his office. She looked around curiously. "What exactly is the procedure? I’ve never done this before."
"I’ve made a rough draft, here, of the substance of what you told me. Just look it over and see if you want to change or add anything, and then we’ll get it typed for you to sign. And what do you want?" he added as
Hackett wandered in after them. "I thought you were safely occupied for the afternoon."
" Una espectativa vana," said Hackett, spreading his hands. "Kids! It’s the damnedest thing, they’ll be budding Einsteins at twelve, but the minute they hit their teens I swear to God they all turn into morons. You’d think they were blind and deaf." His eyes were busy on Alison.
"It’s a phenomenon known as puberty," said Mendoza. "Nothing?"
"Nada. You goin’ to remember your manners, or do I count as the hired help around here?"
"Miss Weir-the cross I am given to bear, Sergeant Hackett."
"The brawn," said Alison wisely, nodding at him. "I knew you must have somebody to do the real work."
"And she has brains too," said Hackett admiringly. "You got a visitor, Luis, before I forget. That Ramirez girl." He jerked a thumb.
"Oh?" Mendoza got up. "You’ll excuse me, Miss Weir-if this caveman type gets obstreperous, you’ve only to scream."
Standing there by the clerk’s empty desk in the anteroom, before she spoke, she wasn’t this century at all. Black cotton dress too long, the shabby brown coat over her arm, and a black woolen shawl held around her, both hands clasping it at her breast. No make-up: she’d come straight from church, from late mass, probably. This large official place had somewhat subdued her.