“My God,” Myrick groaned, “don’t they teach you fellows anything? Legally I’ve no right to that material. Unless she publishes, of course. That’s another thing.”
“Then your mention to Miss Crewes that you might start action—”
“Was hot air, naturally. A chance she might be stampeded into letting go of something incriminating enough to give you a shot at those kids.”
If he were Krug, Casey knew, he would have informed Mr. Myrick in no uncertain terms to leave the police work to policemen. Instead, he thanked him and hung up.
“Got a kind of a nibble on the Flesher kid,” Haynes reported when Casey rang the bureau. “Begins to look like she was pushing something. Wait, I’ll let you talk to Al.”
“No, switch me to the lab first, will you?”
“Keys,” McGregor repeated when the call had been put through to the laboratory. “A set of keys, you say. Let me see what we’ve got here.” He kept breathing heavily. “If she had ’em on her—”
“I know, Mac, Property will have them.”
“Right you are. No,” McGregor declared, “we got nothing like that on our list here. You want me to transfer you to Property?”
The only key Property possessed had been found on the body. The key for the girl’s apartment. So much for Judy as the vandal, Casey thought, and asked to be transferred upstairs to the bureau.
There was a mumbling, the ringing of phones in the background and behind all that, the thin howl of a siren. Then, shockingly loud, Krug’s voice boomed in his ear: “You sick of pounding the pavements?”
“That I am.”
“Well, don’t stop. Nothing’s happening here but the usual. Got a murder by person or persons out of the Myrick inquest. Then I ran down a couple of those kids at the hot dog stand. They claim the Flesher kid was talking money lately. Don’t mean anything as far as I can see. Maybe her mother hit it lucky on the tables and sent her some. I got Mama stashed at the Pelican Motel, by the way. She was pretty rocky last night. When it calms down here, I’ll slide on over there, see what else she has to say.”
Broiling in the sun, Casey returned to Palisades Avenue and continued canvassing, checking off the addresses one by one. The fifteenth house on his list was the rambling, old, two-story, brown shingle situated directly across the street from Myrick’s. An old, old man had once lived there, Casey remembered, one of those legendary-appearing figures who seem to a child to embody history. Summers and winters the old man had sat on the front porch, a spittoon by his side, a cane across his knees, his milky, blind-looking nonagenarian’s eyes fixed on the street as if he could see through time. Remembering foggy summer mornings, the sticky-gritty feel of bicycle pedals under his bare feet, Casey turned into the walk. The house was haunted, the kids had always said, the old man was a mummy. But whoever saw a mummy spit?
“Hi there, young fella!”
Startled out of his reverie, Casey glimpsed a postman standing on the shadowy porch—a gray-haired man he thought he also recalled from his bicycling days.
“You trying to sell anything here but the Fountain of Youth,” he was saying humorously, “you’re out of luck, son. Nobody home but the old lady during the day, and her nurse don’t let her talk to anybody.”
The old man’s wife?
When Casey asked, the postman laughed delightedly. “Be thankful you asked me, not her,” he crowed, “because sure as shooting you’d get yourself thrown out! She’s his daughter, young fella. Name’s Mrs. Sophie Foster. You must tell her you remember her old dad, you’ll do all right.”
The advice was sound, for it carried Casey past the white-starched nurse-companion into an old-fashioned sunroom at the back of the house where the frail old lady sat in a wicker chair swathed in two faded afghans. “So you remember seeing Daddy,” she marveled. “Just imagine. Why, you can’t be much more than twenty yourself, and he’s been gone since ’62! Sit down, do. I think it’s as sweet as can be, you dropping by like this.”
“Well, I’m afraid it’s not really a social call, Mrs. Foster.”
“What’d I tell you,” the nurse muttered. “He got all that about your dad from that fool mailman.”
“No, I really do remember seeing him. But what I’m here for”—Casey displayed his identification—“is police business.”
“Now, you look here, we been bothered enough with all that! Mrs. Foster’s not to answer any—”
“Oh, Nettie, hush,” the old lady cried thinly. “You know perfectly well I’m able to talk today.” She peered up at Casey, smiling. “Don’t they allow you to sit down? Oh, they do, that’s better. Now I don’t have to get a crick in my neck from looking up at you.”
Casey asked if Mrs. Foster was aware of Myrick’s murder, and received a highly indignant answer that of course she was. Did he imagine that she was deaf and blind? She read the papers like anyone else, and furthermore, she had been watching that house for weeks now, ever since those young ones had started coming there in the evening. “My room’s on the second floor,” she explained. “At the front of the house, facing on the street, you see. I go to bed early, but I don’t sleep very well. And the hours are long, so I watch the street. Not that anyone could sleep with the noise those young ones make with their horrible motorcycles.”
“Yes, I imagine it’s annoying.”
“Indeed it is. On the other hand,” the old lady admitted, smiling, “it’s entertaining, too. There’s a chubby one who seems to wait for the others now and then. Like one of those circus bears on bicycles. Did you ever see them? So droll, I remember, those great awkward creatures riding around in circles…”
Judy Flesher, Casey thought. Or could it be Hector Ramirez? Both fat, both with motorbikes. “What I’m particularly interested in, Mrs. Foster, is anyone you might have noticed Monday night. Anyone loitering on the street, anything like that.”
“Only that same one. The fatty on the cycle. Oh—and there was that man, too.”
Casey leaned forward. “What man, Mrs. Foster?”
“The one who’s been coming there lately. Several times a week, I’d say, usually quite late at night.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Dr. Myrick you saw?”
“No, it can’t have been, because I know his car. This man drives another kind. A car like my son-in-law’s.”
“What make is that, Mrs. Foster?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I don’t really know.” She glanced at the nurse. “Nettie?” But Nettie didn’t know either. “It’s one of those foreign ones. But then so many of them are these days, aren’t they? He usually parks it several doors up the street, I’ve noticed.” She beamed at Casey. “How am I doing so far?”
“Just fine, Mrs. Foster.” He hesitated, aware of the nurse hovering, ready to pounce again. “How long would you say you’ve been seeing this man, Mrs. Foster?”
“Oh, for several weeks now. At first I thought it must be his brother. Nettie’s heard he has one. But then I realized he wasn’t staying there, so that didn’t seem right.”
“Could be a friend,” Casey suggested. “Or one of his patients.”
“Well, I suppose so. But it does seem odd.”
“What, Mrs. Foster?”
“He always lets himself in. And the front door, too. But then, I suppose I’m old-fashioned. In my day everyone but family rang the bell. And heaven knows, help never used the front door. Now, I suppose he might be anybody, mightn’t he? Even someone who worked for Dr. Myrick. There’s a crippled woman, too. And what looks to be a housekeeper. But I usually only see them in the daytime.”
A sleepless old lady sitting at a darkened window…But Casey was afraid to trust his instincts. Mindful of Timms’s admonition, he asked Mrs. Foster if she had seen Judy Flesher leave Myrick’s house, and if anyone had left with her. However, the old lady seemed tired suddenly, and could only answer vaguely that she must have fallen asleep in her chair by the window because she couldn’t remember anything more about Monday. Aware of the nu
rse’s movement closer, Casey asked for and was given the son-in-law’s name. Thanking Mrs. Foster, he left in a hurry.
TWENTY-FIVE
“You remember me, I guess.” The voice was nasal, pitched too loud for the telephone. “Called you yesterday, but you hung up on me. Shouldn’t have done that, y’know, a person in your position.”
“Whatever that means,” Adrian said tartly. “Mr. Burns, I am not interested in any offers you might make, is that clear? And if you persist in harassing me—”
“Now, wait a minute! Don’t go throwing words like that around. Not when I’m trying to do what’s best for both of us. Listen,” he went on before she could speak, “you’ve got something I want, and I’ll pay you for it. That’s fair exchange, isn’t it?”
“Oh, this is useless. Really, if you don’t stop—”
“What d’you mean, useless? You don’t know what you’re talking about! Didn’t I just get through telling you I’m trying to do what’s best? Look,” he continued, quietly now, venomous, “I don’t want to have to do anything. God knows, I don’t. But I’ll have to if you don’t cooperate.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Let’s put it this way, I’m telling you for your own good.”
“Not mine,” she said furiously. “And you can remind Mr. Myrick that if he continues this, I’m perfectly able to get an attorney of my own to put a stop to it.” Then she hung up on him again.
Immediately the phone began ringing. Seething, Adrian stared at the instrument, willing it to stop. Four rings. Five, the bell shrilled persecutingly. At last she snatched up the receiver, meaning to leave it lying on the table until Burns finally gave up.
“Miss Crewes?” she could hear a faint voice calling. “Miss Crewes, are you there?” She picked up the receiver. “This is Mr. Argyle. The manager. I’m calling from downstairs. Thought you’d want to know right away, we’ve located your cat. Some people on the second floor found him—”
“I’ll be right down!” She started to hang up, then added breathlessly, “Thank you so much, I can’t tell you how relieved—” With spirits soaring, she banged down the receiver.
“Foster…” Timms kept repeating the name as he shuffled through the file on his desk. “Fos—Here it is. For God’s sake, Kellog, you don’t mean that old lady across the street.”
“That’s the one, sir.”
“But it says here she’s senile, strictly non compos most of the time.”
“Today she wasn’t.”
“You’re a geriatric expert maybe?” Timms blew out his breath. “All right, check it out. Could be she dreamed him up. Or he’s a patient we’ve missed.” He looked disinterestedly in Casey’s report about the man named Burns who had called Adrian Crewes. “Probably some eager-beaver free-lancer. LA’s full of unemployed reporters. Can’t blame the guy for trying. Now, listen,” he warned as Casey moved off, “don’t waste a lot of time on the old lady’s mystery man till we recheck the list of Myrick regular patients. Those kids are due again—in shifts this time—and I want every one of ’em wrung out if it takes us till midnight.”
Local Department of Motor Vehicles records produced a Citroёn as the registered vehicle for Mrs. Foster’s son-in-law. A distinctive body design, Casey thought as he kept feeding names into the telephone, trying to ignore the irritation of the DMV clerk at the other end. No mistaking a Citroёn for any other make. The list which came back over the phone made a revealing study in comparative affluence, ranging from the Parsons household, which possessed no registered vehicles of any sort, to the Simmonses’, which owned three—a Chrysler (his), a Lincoln (hers) and a Winnebago camper bus. No one local who had even the remotest connection with Stephen Myrick owned a Citroёn.
His optimism wavering, Casey made a fast trip downstairs to Communications to query San Francisco and send a Telex to Sacramento. An old lady who couldn’t think straight most of the time. Probably couldn’t see straight, either. Well, it’s worth a chance, he decided. But he felt his confidence wavering. San Francisco would probably answer soon with make and model of any vehicle registered in the name of William Myrick. However, it would probably be hours before DMV headquarters in Sacramento responded to his request for a rundown of all Citroёns registered in the West District here, an enormous area which included West Los Angeles, Culver City, Beverly Hills and the beach towns from Malibu in the north to Redondo in the south.
Krug wasn’t back yet when Casey returned to the squad room, and taking advantage of the temporary lull, he began to check the list of names he had gathered from the locksmiths. Each of the dozen names he called turned out to be legitimate. And still there was no answer from the night-shift man who worked for the Marina del Rey Company.
Krug walked in, looking happier than usual. “Been out bird-dogging the joints that sell those motorbikes,” he reported. “Hit paydirt the second try, believe it or not. Seems the Flesher kid paid cash for her Yamaha a couple weeks ago. On the eighteenth. So if it wasn’t money from Mama, she was pushing something for sure.”
“Which would account for the freeze-out from the group?”
“Maybe.” Krug sighed gustily. “Anyway, no rest for the wicked, sport. Let’s go see what Mama Flesher has to say.”
She was younger than Casey had expected, and without make-up, her eyes swollen, frosted hair pulled back in a ponytail, she had a kind of gritty, alley-cat prettiness. She had not sent Judy any extra money, she told them, and if they wanted to play games, they could go someplace else, they knew better than she did where Judy got the bread to buy that—
“Hold on,” Krug stopped her, “let’s back up, okay? Before we talk about this money we’re supposed to know about, you better tell us when you last saw your daughter.”
“Couple weeks ago. So what?”
“Here in Santa Monica?”
“Listen, cop, I work for a living and my job’s in Vegas, so where else would I see her?” Oh, she knew what they were thinking, she continued more quietly. Leaving a kid on her own like that. But Las Vegas would’ve been worse, and for God’s sake, she had a right to some life of her own, didn’t she? What the hell could she do with a great big mess of trouble like Judy on her hands? She couldn’t say exactly when she had last seen her daughter, one day was like another…“But anyway, she showed up at this club I work at. Like ten, eleven at night. One look at the kid, I know something’s fishy. I mean, she rides all that way on some crummy bike just to tell me hello? Like hell she does.”
“Need a date, Mrs. Flesher,” Krug insisted. “Get as close as you can; it might be important.”
“Look, all I can tell you is, it was the same day she bought that stupid thing. A Yamaha, for God’s sake. And riding it all the way across the desert alone? I mean, how flaky—”
“Mrs. Flesher,” Casey interrupted, “the bike was bought on Friday, August the eighteenth.”
“So Friday, okay. Anyway, I’m running my ass off hustling drinks, and for sure when I see her I know she’s in trouble again. I mean, what else? New wheels, and she’s nervous as a cat, what’s it figure but she’s got to be hustling something again? ‘Listen, you little bastard,’ I told her, ‘you get yourself busted again, for sure this time I’m putting you someplace you’re never gonna get out.’ But she swears up and down it’s legit this time. Some cop give her the money, she told me.”
“Did you believe her, Mrs. Flesher?”
“Damn right, I believed her! Listen, no matter what, that kid never lied to me. We’re always straight with each other, me with her, too. I mean really straight. Like when I told her flat I couldn’t mess up my life with her hanging around. Wasn’t any place for a kid, anyway, I told her. She was better off—”
“Okay, okay,” Krug said impatiently, “we get the picture. So she told you a cop gave her the money—and what else?”
“He was in everyday clothes, she said. Not a uniform. And he wanted some information—”
“About what, Mrs. Flesher?”
“For Chrissake, you know about what, why’re you bugging me?” And she began to sob. “Cops, for Chrissake. Lousy pigs. You think I can’t figure it out for myself? If you bastards hadn’t greased her, for sure that poor kid would still be alive!”
TWENTY-SIX
They were barking up the wrong tree, the senior Narcotics man told them. “As far as we know, the Flesher kid’s been clean for almost a year. And I checked all the other divisions; nothing there, either. Nothing going down with the feds, so figure it out for yourselves. That payoff story’s a phony.”
They stopped by the lab and found McGregor still there. “Got some goodies from our fingernail scrapings,” he reported. “Flesher girl’s, I mean. Leather, probably clawed from your killer’s gloves. Some light tweed fibers, too. Men’s suiting, maybe, but it could be from a woman’s coat. Help yourself,” he said cordially when Krug asked to hear the tape recording of the Monday meeting of Stephen Myrick’s group. “It’s still on the machine. All you have to do is press the button.”
They skipped through the tape until they heard a voice saying distantly, heavy stuff, then ran the tape backward a bit, turning up the volume. Pigsucker, the machine boomed at them, you real heavy stuff since you connected, hunh, baby?
“For sure, that’s the black kid,” Krug said. “What the hell’s his name?”
“Johnson.” Casey punched the OFF button on the recorder. “Al, it doesn’t make sense, her telling a peer group the same story she laid on her mother. Not with their prejudice against cops. But if she didn’t tell them, how did they get hold of it?”
“Good question, sport. Let’s try it on Johnson, he’s the big noise on that tape.”
Before they checked into the squad room, they paid a quick call on Juvenile to do a little research.
“Lotsa luck,” the juvey specialist, Abner Lilly, scoffed when they mentioned the name. “You really picked yourselves a lulu. Ellis Johnson’s superspade these days. Nothing reaches this kid.”
The Complete Krug & Kellog Page 49