Streets of Death llm-28

by Dell Shannon

  "You remember if the wheelchair was in the living room when you came home the first time? But you’d have noticed that-"

  "It was not. His coat is gone also," said Marta. "I think I have had too much brandy."

  "His coat. Regular topcoat-raincoat?"

  "A good thick wool coat, brown. He bought it in the east before we came here. And there is another queer thing. I am talking too much to you, but it does not matter."

  She laughed a little drearily. "What thought did I ever have for money, until Papa died! But now, it is always to think of money. So always, I have a little, what I can save, hidden away for the emergency. I had not looked at it, since Edwin was gone, until last week. And it is gone too."

  "I’ll be damned," said Galeano. "How much?"

  "Two hundred and eighteen dollars," she said, shutting her eyes again.

  "Where was it?"

  "In one of the kitchen jars-canisters, the one for sugar."

  "Be damned," said Galeano. "Did he know it was there?"

  "Of course. He was my husband."

  "Well-" Galeano looked at her. "You do feel better, don’t you? Do you good to get all that out of your system. I’m sorry I swore at you."

  "But I called you names too." She smiled a little.

  "And after you said you believed me, too. I think you’ve been kind. But right at this moment, nothing seems to matter to me so very much."

  "Never mind," said Galeano. "Part of that’s the brandy and part the cold, I expect. Things will matter again. And I’d better go-I’ve got a job too. You take care of yourself, is all. Listen, things are going to get better."

  "Do you think so? I wonder."

  "They’ve got to," said Galeano stoutly. "You just take care now."

  And he was of two minds, as he got into his car downstairs, whether to pass all that on to Mendoza.

  ***

  Palliser had been the first man in that Thursday morning and Sergeant Lake gave him the message relayed up from the desk last night about the assault-with-intent lodged in jail. "Something else," said Palliser. But it had to be followed up, so he went out again and over to the Alameda jail. The suspect had refused to give a name and was booked as John Doe. When one of the trusties brought him to an interrogation room, Palliser said, "Sit down. Have you decided to tell us who you are?".

  The man sat down opposite him and said reluctantly, "Steve Smith."

  "That’s a step further on," said Palliser mildly. And that was interesting. The Steve Smith they’d looked for last week? He was clean-shaven, looked younger than thirty-three, but the rest of him conformed to the description. Palliser had been thinking of this as just another routine errand, but now he looked at Smith with covert interest.

  "Why did you attack that girl last night?"

  "I never attacked nobody. She’s a liar."

  "Had you ever seen her before?"

  "No."

  "You just got talking to her in the restaurant, all casual?"

  "She made up to me," said Smith after some thought.

  "Oh, is that so? Did she ask you to drive her home?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, she did."

  "All right, what happened then?"

  Smith thought some more. Then he said, "Well, we got in the car and she said I should, you know, love her up a little. Then when I tried to she yelled and got out and a couple fellows grabbed me and called the pigs. I didn’t do nothing to her, that girl. She’s a liar."

  "She had a couple of bruises where she says you tried to strangle her," said Palliser.

  "I never. She’s a Goddamn liar."

  Palliser offered him a cigarette, lit it, sat back and lit one himself. He said conversationally, "I see you’ve shaved off your little beard."

  Smith was startled; he jumped in his chair and said, "How the hell did you-I never seen you before in my life!"

  "Oh, we have ways of knowing things about you," said Palliser vaguely. "Where were you a week ago Sunday, Smith, do you remember?"

  "A week ago-I don’t know. Somewhere around. I don’t remember."

  "Where have you been living?"

  "Room over in Ho1lywood."

  "Got a job?"

  "I been lookin’ for one. I been on unemployment. Some new rule they got, you got to come in ever’ day, wait for a job to show, or they don’t give you no pay. That’s where I been, days."

  "I’ll bet," said Palliser, "I could tell you when you shaved off that goatee. It was-"

  "I got a right to shave if I want."

  "Sure," said Palliser. "But you did it right after you killed that girl, didn’t you? When the other one got away and you were afraid she’d finger you?"

  Smith leaped up out of his chair. "You don’t know that! You can’t say that!"

  "I just did. That was when, wasn’t it?"

  "No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man."

  "We both know what I’m talking about, Steve. You picked those girls up at a lunch counter on the Boulevard, a week ago Sunday. You ended up raping and strangling one of them."

  "I never did no such thing!"

  "--But you made a mess of getting rid of the body," said Palliser. "It didn’t burn, you know. The fire went out."

  "Thass a Goddamn lie," said Smith, "I seen all the smoke it made, 1ike-" and stopped.

  "So, suppose you tell me where you took them," said Palliser gently. So many of the ones they had to deal with were stupid punks like Steve..

  "I’m not sayin’ anything else."

  "Oh, yes, you are. Just a little more. How did a bum like you happen to have a house to take them to?"

  "I ain’t no bum. I said I been lookin’ for a job. I still had a key to it," said Smith sullenly.

  "Where is it?" asked Palliser patiently.

  "Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt that girl none. She, just like this damn woman last night, she said I should love her up and then she yelled-I didn’t go to-"

  "Where, Steve? You might as well tell me, we’ll find out in the end," said Palliser.

  ***

  He came back to the office at noon. "And I hope to God S.I.D. comes up with some solid evidence," he said to Mendoza. "We haven’t been exactly brilliant on this one-I really didn’t think that Stephanie girl knew what she was talking about-but at least we got there in the end. It was a strictly spur of the moment deal-"

  "With the ones like Steve, they usually are," said Higgins, who had been sitting at the other side of Mendoza’s desk when Palliser came in.

  " Ya lo creo. So what did he tell you, John?"

  "He’d been down here visiting an old pal a couple of days before, and noticed the house was vacant-his mother used to live there, and he still had a key. When he picked up the girls it was the first place he thought of. He got some groceries on the way-there was a refrigerator there, the place was furnished. I’ll bet whoever owns the place will be surprised to get a power bill. It’s on Gladys Avenue."

  Mendoza grunted. "Three blocks from San Pedro. Very nice. Let’s hope S.I.D. turns something."

  "I just turned them loose on it."

  And Lake came in with a telex: the feedback from the FBI on the prints picked up in the Freeman house. Mendoza swore, looking at it. "Why can’t these hoods stay home, George? New to us-his record’s all in West Virginia. Neal Benoy, and he’s wanted for homicide, and that’s all they tell us. Well, we know he’s here, or was, but it’d be helpful to know something more about him. Jimmy, get me an outside line." After an interval, he got connected to a Lieutenant Devore of the Huntington force, and began taking notes. Devore gave him the gist of Benoy’s record. "He’s been just another no-good bum around town till he got together with a kindred spirit one night last August and murdered a harmless old black fellow. We picked them both up, but they made a break on the way to the courthouse for indictment. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still teamed up-they’re buddies from way back. You want Benoy for something out there? A long way from home-he’s never been out of the
state before, far as I know."

  "We’ve tied him to a double homicide," said Mendoza. "The lab thinks it was a pair. Who’s the other one?"

  "Tony Allesandro. Birds of a feather," said Devore succinctly. "You want his prints and particulars too?"

  "Anything you can give us."

  "I’ll shoot some stuff out."

  " Gracias. We’ll get an A.P.B. out on both of them, just in case." Mendoza put the phone down. Higgins and Palliser had gone out, and Galeano had just come in, looking thoughtful. He sat down in the chair beside the desk. "Have you recovered from your aberration, Nick?"

  "Damn you," said Galeano amiably, "it’s not. I said all along that girl is honest-if she wasn’t, she’d have thought up a hell of a lot better tale than that. I just want to put this in front of you-" and he plunged into the story of Marta’s revelations. Mendoza sat back, smoking.

  "From the viewpoint of human emotions, interesante, " he said sardonically at the end, "but as for giving us any clue to what happened to Edwin, damn all."

  "I know, I know. But it does show why she’d thought and done things to look suspicious. All perfectly natural," said Galeano.

  "Maybe."

  "And maybe you think she’s conned me!" said Galeano.

  "Not necessarily. But I would damn well like to know what did happen to him," said Mendoza. "The hell of it is, the pair of them were so damned isolated-no close friends, the other people in that place strangers, and she-"

  "Homesick," said Galeano. "Proud. Holding everybody at arm’s length. I hope she’ll learn better."

  "And I’ve reluctantly come round to admit, at least, that there isn’t any smell of a boyfriend," said Mendoza sadly. "It shakes my faith in the eternal venality of human nature."

  "They do say, it’s the exception that proves the rule. I just thought you’d like to think all that over," said Galeano, and went out.

  Mendoza sighed and swiveled his desk chair around to stare out the window toward the Hollywood hills, invisible today in heavy gray mist. Every now and then something a little more complicated than usual showed up. As a rule the things that bailed them were just the anonymous crimes (like that dairy-store heist) where no possible lead showed and there was nothing much to be done about it. But once in a blue moon, a real mystery came along, where there should be leads and weren’t; and the mystery of Edwin Fleming was the most ballling one that had come their way in some time. He missed Hackett, off today, to talk it over with.

  At five o’clock Palliser and Glasser came in with Scarne. "Well, we’ve got Sandra all tied up," said Glasser.

  "These stupid jerks-Smith trying to get rid of the body and he couldn’t even do that efficiently-you wouldn’t believe the stuff he overlooked at that house. It’s still empty, luckily, nobody in to mess up the evidence for us. The first thing we found was Sandra’s green plane case. There were prints all over the house-"

  "We had the Peacock girl’s and Sandra’s, we’ve sorted out quite a few of both," said Scarne. "Odds and ends of clothes the parents can probably identify, but the prints are solid evidence. He isn’t going to be able to claim that Sandra ran off and met up with some other X, the times are too tight. The other girl could say she was alive at seven, and the autopsy says she was dead between eight and ten."

  "Good-solid evidence I always 1ike," said Mendoza.

  "And something new just went down; we passed George and Jase going out in a hurry," said Palliser.

  ***

  Landers had heard what the mechanic had to say about the Corvair without much surprise. The damn thing had been on its last legs for months. "You’d do better to junk it," said the mechanic. "It’s not worth putting money into."

  Landers took a look at what they had on the used lot, but nothing looked like a good buy. He walked on down Hollywood Boulevard to the American agency, priced a couple of new models and winced, and went out to the used lot to browse around. Finally he settled on a little Sportabout, the pony-size station wagon, and made a deal for it. It was only three years old, had thirty thousand on it, which wasn’t bad.

  But at least the Corvair had been paid for. What with the new payments on top of the rent and everything else, he reflected, Phil would have to stop talking about a house for some time.

  ***

  Higgins and Grace looked at the new homicide and had the same thought at the same time.

  "The Freemans," said Grace, touching his mustache thoughtfully. "Same earmarks, George."

  "Such as there are," said Higgins. This was much the same kind of house as the Freemans’, in the same kind of neighborhood: modest middle-class. The householder had been Mrs. Myrtle Hopper, widow, who’d lived alone here since her youngest daughter got married. It was the daughter and her husband who had found her, coming to visit.

  The front door wasn’t forced; the back door was locked. Mrs. Hopper was knifed and dead on the livingroom floor, and the place had been ransacked. At the moment the daughter was having hysterics at a neighbor’s house, but eventually they’d ask her what was missing.

  "No phone book," said Grace. "Maybe they used another excuse this time. They didn’t get much at the Freemans’, and I don’t suppose they’d have got much here. What we’ve heard about this Benoy, maybe just mean by nature, doing what comes naturally."

  "Could be," agreed Higgins. "Could also be, careless about his prints as he seems to be, he’s left some here too."

  They’d thought at first the Freemans might have been killed by someone who thought he still had the church collection money, but now the prints had been identified as this Benoy’s, it looked like just the random thing, and this bore the same general appearance.

  They called S.I.D. and imagined how the men would be cussing, a new one to work turning up at this end of shift. Higgins and Grace could go home, and hear what the lab had got tomorrow.

  The wired prints of Benoy’s sidekick came in from West Virginia; by then there was an A.P.B. out on Benoy. It would be nice to know what he was driving, but there wasn’t a clue about that.

  ***

  Alison was, she said, definitely better. The doctor had said it was just a question of time, and it didn’t usually last beyond the third month. Cats twined under their feet at the dinner table, and Cedric paced up and down looking for handouts.

  Mairi came to summon them to the ceremonial good nights, and for once Terry and Johnny looked and behaved like angels, too tired from a full day for anything else.

  "The darlings," said Alison. "I was ready to murder them yesterday, but a settled stomach makes a great difference. And by the way, I found out something very funny today," she added as they went back down the hall. "?Que ocurre? "

  "Well, I sent for this brochure," said Alison rather guiltily. She picked it up from her armchair and sat down, not offering to show it to him. "Houses. Bigger houses on, well, some land. If you’re going to have a drink, I’ll have some creme de menthe, amado."

  "I wasn’t, but I’ll get it." In the kitchen, he said to El Senor resignedly, "She’s going to move us to a ranch now." El Senor uttered a raucous demand for rye, and Mendoza poured him some in a saucer. When he got back to the living room, the other three cats were all trying to settle in Alison’s lap at once.

  "You can’t all fit now, and just wait a couple of months," she said, shooing Sheba and Nefertite off. "Thanks, amado. Well, it’s very funny, you know I said maybe an acre, but come to find out, we’ve got nearly an acre here. It’s forty-five thousand square feet, and I figured it out-we’ve got forty-two here. And we really need more-"

  "I didn’t know that," said Mendoza absently.

  "Neither did I. Luis, you’re not listening."

  "I was wondering whether Carey had had a look at that vacant lot. But of course he did.?Diez millones de demonios desde el imferno! " said Mendoza to his rye. "It’s such a simple little mystery, and yet so vague. What the hell could have happened to the man?"

  "Who? Now, I think, it’s been some time since you brought any
homework from the office," said Alison. "You haven’t been-mmh-in the exact mood to listen. But if you have any bright ideas about Edwin Fleming, I’d like to hear some." He sat down and told her about it, and she listened interestedly.

  "Well, that’s the funniest thing you’ve had in ages," she said when he’d finished with Galeano’s account of today’s interview. "You can think of explanations, and then you see it’s impossible because of his being in the wheelchair. And she couldn’t have- And if I know all you hardheaded cynics, you turned every stone looking for a boyfriend, and there just isn’t one."

  " En ninguna parte, " said Mendoza bitterly. "Nowhere."

  "Well, all I can say is, I’m sorry for Detective Galeano," said Alison. "She sounds like a very prickly sort of girl. And speaking of sex, by the way, I’ve also been sitting up taking enough notice to think about some names-"

  Mendoza uttered a groan. "I haven’t dared ask about that."

  "Well, I haven’t decided anything yet."

  ***

  Conway had wandered around all day Thursday on the Peralta thing, and got nowhere. He and Glasser were off on Friday, and Peralta fell to Landers, Grace and Higgins being busy on the new one, Palliser cleaning up Sandra Moseley and on the phone to Fresno, and Hackett in court: Roy Titus was being arraigned this morning. Wanda, Larsen said she’d like some street experience, and if they came across any of Peralta’s girl friends she might be helpful, so Landers let her come along.

  They had turned up some known acquaintances of Peralta, three men he’d been picked up with at various times, all users: Ford Robinson, Joe Ryan, Bob Wooley. That kind tended to drift, and none of them was still at the addresses they’d given on arrest. But Conway had talked to a fellow at one of those places who said Robinson had a pad over a disco on Vermont, The Aquarian. Landers looked up the address and he and Wanda started out in the new-to-him car. It was a nice little job, handled very sweetly; Phil had admired it.