“Another interesting analogy from the National Geographic Channel,” Elliott says. “Now can we call Dean and fill him in?”
Gloria concedes and nods her head. “Let’s go,” she says, driving toward the twelfth precinct. Halfway there she turns to Elliott at a stop sign and says, “What if we stop at the Post Office first and find out who has that route? The more we know going in, the better equipped we’ll be later.”
“There isn’t going to be any ‘later’ for us,” Elliott says. “We’re not on this case and we’re not the police, either. This is where Dean takes over.” He flips open his cell phone and hits the speed dial button for Dean’s office at the twelfth precinct. Hollister picks up on the second ring.
“Hollister,” Dean says.
“Dean, it’s Elliott. I think we may be onto something. You want to meet us or are you stuck in your office?”
“I’ll meet you,” Dean says. “What are they going to do, fire me? I only have six or seven weeks left here. Where do you want to meet?”
“How about the Gold Cup downtown?” Elliott says. “Say fifteen minutes?”
Dean agrees and Elliott flips his phone shut. He turns to Gloria and says. “Dean said he’d meet us at the Gold Cup in fifteen minutes. We’re just two minutes from there. Would you like to spend five extra minutes at the Post Office?”
“So you do want to know who has that route,” Gloria says. “I knew your curiosity would get the better of you.”
“That’s not it,” Elliott says. “I just have one more question for one of the postal clerks, that’s all.”
Elliott pulls up in front of the Post Office and walks inside with Gloria following close behind him. He spots an open window with no on in line and steps up to it.
“Can I help you?” the clerk says as though he’s already said it a thousand times today.
“Yes,” Elliott says. “I just have a quick question. If a customer on one of the routes dies, what happens to their mail?”
Without having to refer to any manual, the clerk recites in a monotone voice, “Once we receive notification of a customer’s death, we stop delivering mail to that address and return it to the senders with a notice telling them that the recipient has died.”
“What about mail that’s already in their box when they die?” Elliott says.
“It is also retrieved, if it’s still in the box,” the clerk says. “And it is also returned to the senders. Will there be anything else I can help you with today?”
Elliott shakes his head and says, “Thanks, but that should do it for now.” He turns away from the window and starts to walk back toward the front door.
Gloria steps up to the clerk. “Can you tell me which mailman has the route from Van Ness to Gower and Sunset to Santa Monica?” she says.
“One moment, please,” the clerk tells her, and reaches for a clipboard on the wall that holds the route sheets. “And just in case you’re interested, they’re called letter carriers these days, what with political correctness and all. He flips two pages over the top of the clipboard and runs a finger down the list. “The letter carrier on that route would be Chet Wallens.” He flips the two pages back into place and hangs the clipboard back on the nail.
“Thank you very much,” Gloria says, turning and looking Elliott in the eye before walking past him and out the door.
“We’re still turning it over to Dean,” Elliott tells her.
“Fine,” she says. “But at least now he’ll know who to look for, won’t he?”
Elliott and Gloria slide back into the car and make it to the Gold Cup with three minutes to spare. Dean’s not here yet so Elliott grabs a booth by the front window so he can watch for the lieutenant’s arrival. He order’s a Diet Pepsi for himself and two cups of coffee for Gloria and Dean. The waitress brings the three drinks just as Dean walks in the front door. Elliott waves him over and he slides into the booth, on Gloria’s side, facing Elliott.
Dean pulls the hot coffee cup toward him. “Thanks for this,” he says, pouring cream into it and stirring with his spoon. “What do you have for me?”
Elliott explains everything that he and Gloria discussed concerning the possibility of what kind of person could be committing these murders. He finishes his theorizing by mentioning the mailman on that route. He lets Dean absorb the information and sips from his soda glass.
“And his name is Chet Wallens,” Gloria adds.
“Well,” Dean says, “You two certainly have given this thing a lot of thought, haven’t you? It all seems to fit once you lay it all out like this. I don’t suppose you’ve also come up with any ideas about his motives, have you?”
“We talked about that, too,” Elliott says. “And I am aware that most killers have some sort of motive, even if it’s flimsy, but we’re thinking this guy is just picking off random victims as targets of opportunity. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to see if it can be done and if he can get away with it.”
“You’re right,” Dean says.
“I am?” Elliot says.
“Yes,” Dean says. “It is flimsy at best. There has to be a better reason than just that he’s bored and looking for a hobby. Maybe all these people stiffed him last Christmas when he handed out the calendars. Maybe he stepped in dog shit in one of their yards. Maybe someone called him a mailman when he preferred letter carrier. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“So what can you do with what we’ve given you?” Gloria says.
“Without hard proof or any evidence, there’s not much I can do, legally,” Dean says. “But…” He looks at Elliott and Gloria.
Elliott stops sipping his soda and sets the glass down. “Are you suggesting…?” he says to Dean.
Dean raises both hands, palms facing Elliott. “Whoa, I’m not suggesting anything,” he tells Elliott. “It wouldn’t be right for me to suggest to any citizen that they tail a mailman and watch what he does for the next day or so and report back to me. I couldn’t advise anyone to try to look in his mail pouch to see if he has a .45 in it. No, I’m afraid without proof or evidence, my hands are tied. Do I make myself clear?”
Elliott smiles. “Crystal,” he says, finishing his soda.
Dean slides out of the booth and lays his money on the table. “Drinks are on me,” he says and walks out of the coffee shop.
Gloria slides back to the middle of her side of the booth and looks at Elliott. “Did he just suggest what I think he suggested?” she says.
“Why, Gloria Campbell,” Elliott says, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Come on, let’s go see what we can find out about Mr. Wallens.”
The two investigators drive back to their office. Gloria switches on her computer and accesses the circuit court site while Elliott checks the phone book for Wallens’ listing. “Grammercy Place, near Franklin,” he tells Gloria.
Gloria enters Wallens’ name into the field on the screen and hits the return key. Two hits fill half of the screen. “Got him,” she says. “He’s listed once for small claims court for not paying for a hospital bill and once for divorce.”
“Try the L.A. Times site,” Elliott says. “See if he’s been in the paper recently.”
Gloria hits a few more keys and finds the newspaper archives. She enters Chester Wallens into their search engine and finds a story about Mr. Wallens being arrested for a domestic disturbance a little less than a year ago. It didn’t give the details about the reason for the disturbance, but just said that Wallens was hauled off to spend the night in the city jail while he cooled off. Gloria searched for the date listed on the circuit court site for Wallens’ divorce. She found three lines describing the divorce being granted to Sylvia Wallens from Chester Wallens. That was all the information it gave.
Gloria relayed this information to Elliott from across the room.
“Look up one more entry, if you will,” Elliott says. “As long as you’re on the computer, check on Sylvia Wallens and see if you can find an address for her. She’s not listed in the
phone book. She might have a listing in the new book, but that one won’t be out for another two months.”
Gloria went back to the circuit court site and entered Sylvia Wallens’ name into the search engine. It resulted in just one entry. It was the same entry as Chet Wallens, mentioning the divorce. “Just the divorce,” Gloria says.
“Does it give an address for her?” Elliott says.
Gloria looks back at the screen, sees the address and jots it down in her notepad. “Got it,” she tells Elliott. “You want to pay her a visit?”
“I think we should,” Elliott says.
They lock up the office and head back to their car. Elliott has Gloria read him the address from her notepad, gets his bearings and turns south on Vine Street. Two blocks south of Santa Monica he turns west on Romaine Street and checks the houses for their numbers. At the corner of Romaine and Wilcox he finds the house with the cyclone fence around the yard. Attached to the fence is a sign telling passers-by to beware of the dog. Whether or not she actually had a dog is anybody’s guess. Sometimes single women will buy just the sign, in hopes of keeping would-be intruders at bay. Some are even clever enough to buy a dog bowl and a few toys and leave them in the yard as convincers.
The house was a light blue duplex with darker blue trim around the windows. The gate in front of the double doors wasn’t locked. It simply required you to lift the latch and let yourself in. Elliott and Gloria did just that.
Elliott turned to Gloria. “We’ve got the address, but which half is hers?” he says.
“It didn’t say,” Gloria tells him. “You have a fifty-fifty chance on the first try. Shall we?”
Elliott went with his instincts and knocked on the left door. A woman opened the inner door, staring out at Elliott through the screen door. “What do you want?” she says.
“Mrs. Wallens?” Elliott says.
The woman hikes her thumb at the next door. “Other door,” she says and quickly closes her door, without so much as a ‘have a nice day’.
Gloria knocks on the other door and waits. She hears footsteps on the other side of the door. A second later a curtain gets pulled back on the front window and a small face peers out. The curtain falls away again and the front door opens.
A smaller woman, perhaps forty looks through the screen door at Gloria. “Yes?” she says. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Sylvia Wallens?” Gloria says.
The woman doesn’t answer right away. She looks at Gloria suspiciously and then glances at Elliott.
Gloria adds, “My name is Gloria Campbell and this is Elliott Cooper. We like to ask you just a couple of questions about your ex-husband, Chet, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Why do you want to know about Chet?” she says.
“Mrs. Wallens,” Gloria says, “Elliott and I are private investigators and we’re looking into the death of someone over on Gordon Street. Do you think we could come in for a minute?”
“Can I see some identification?” the woman says.
Gloria and Elliott hold out their badges and I.D. cards so the woman can get a good look at them. She studies the photos and then compares them to the faces looking back at her. She opens the screen door and steps aside.
“All right,” she says. “But just for a minute. What did you want to know?”
“You are Sylvia Wallens?” Gloria says.
Sylvia nods. “I was,” she says. “I took my maiden name back when I divorced Chet. It’s Sylvia Powers now.”
“Well, Sylvia,” Elliott says, “We’d just like to ask you a few questions about Chet, it you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Sylvia says. “What can I tell you?”
“Did Chet own a gun?” Elliott says.
Sylvia is taken by surprise. “What?” she says. “Why would you ask a question like that?”
“It’s just routine,” Elliott assures her. “These are just standard questions we ask when we look into someone’s background. Did he own a gun?”
Sylvia thinks for a moment and then offers, “I seem to remember that he used to have one years ago. I haven’t seen it in a long time.”
“Do you remember what kind of gun it was?” Elliott says.
“What do you mean?” Sylvia says.
Elliott pulls his .38 revolver from under his arm and shows it to Sylvia. “Do you recall if it was a revolver with a rotating cylinder, like this one, or could it have been an automatic, which looks a bit square and boxy?” He slips the .38 back under his arm.
“The other kind,” Sylvia says. “The boxy kind. I remember because I’d seen the other kind on those police shows on TV. Once I asked Chet where the bullets went in and he pressed a button somewhere on the gun and a pack of some sort slipped out of the bottom of the handle. It had the bullets in there.”
“That would have been a clip,” Elliott explains, “that slips into the butt of the gun. Let me ask you, did Chet have a temper?”
“You mean a short fuse?” Sylvia says. “Oh, yes. That was one of the main reasons I divorced him. Sometimes it didn’t take much to set him off and before you knew it, we’d be arguing over nothing at all. He always had to be right, at least in his own mind. Whether he was or not, it didn’t matter. He thought everything that went wrong was somebody else’s fault.”
Gloria leaned forward and looked at Sylvia. “Have you heard from him lately?” she says.
Sylvia shifter her gaze from Gloria to me and then back to Gloria. “Why do you ask?” Sylvia says,
“Again,” Gloria says, “Just routine. We’re just trying to get some background on Chet.”
“Do you think he’s involved in that death you mention over on Gordon Street?” Sylvia says.
“We don’t know,” Elliott says. “It’s on Chet’s mail route and we’re just trying to cover all the bases. We’ll eventually get around to talking to everyone on that route and maybe we’ll even talk to Chet before this is all done.”
“Well all I can say is try to stay on his good side, if you can,” Sylvia says. “You don’t want to set him off.”
“Sylvia,” Elliott says, “I know this sounds a bit cliché, Chet being a postal worker and all, but I have to ask. Do you recall if he ever, oh, how should I put this?”
“I believe the phrase is ‘going postal, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Sylvia says. “Chet didn’t go all out postal, you know, shooting up the place or anything, but he did have a big argument with the Postmaster shortly before our divorce.”
Elliott exchanges glances with Gloria and then turns to Sylvia. “Do you recall what that was all about?” he says.
“How could I forget?” Sylvia says. “It was about Chet’s transfer from his old route to the one near Gordon Street. He didn’t like that one bit. His original route was our old neighborhood near Grammercy Place. Chet could always stop back home in the middle of his route if he felt like it. Sometimes he’d stop in for a quick drink or a sandwich or just to use the bathroom. He couldn’t do that anymore after they transferred him to that other route. He looked at the transfer almost as a punishment for whatever they thought he did.”
“One last question, if I may,” Gloria says. “Would you have a photo of Chet that we could have?”
“Hell no,” Sylvia says. “Why would I want to be reminded of him?” Then she pauses and thinks about the question for a moment. She snaps her fingers. “Hold on, I just might have one after all.” She gets up and goes into another room and comes back out after a minute holding a medium-size photo of herself and another man sitting at a picnic table. She hands the photo over to Gloria. “You can have this one,” Sylvia says. “I don’t even know why I saved it.”
“Are you sure?” Gloria says.
Sylvia takes the photo back from Gloria, rips it down the middle and keeps the half with her picture on it, handing the half with Chet on it to Gloria. “There,” she says. “Now you can keep it.”
Gloria and Elliott rise from the sofa and extend their hands out to Sylvia. “Thank you
so much for your cooperation,” Gloria says before she and Elliott get back into their car and drive back toward Chet Wallens’ new route.
“Wallens is probably still on his route,” Gloria says. “You don’t think he’d be stupid enough to kill two people in one day on the same route, do you? They’d have his number for sure and he’d be picked up before the day was out.”
“No,” Elliott says. “I figured that if he’s still on his route, he won’t be in his house.”
Gloria’s eyes get large. “You’re not really thinking about breaking into his house are you?” she says. “What happened to this being Dean’s case and that we should stay out of it?”
“You were there,” Elliott says. “You heard Dean and his veiled inference meant for our benefit. As long as we don’t involve him, we can do whatever we want to stop this madman, and I say we go have a look. Would you like me to let you out at the corner? I understand busses run every fifteen minutes.”
Gloria sighs. “All right,” she says. “But if it doesn’t feel right, we scram, okay?”
“Sure,” Elliott says. “Whatever you say.” He looks at his watch. “I figure we have maybe forty-five minutes on the outside, so how about if we’re in and out in twenty?”
“No longer than that,” Gloria says, “or you’re on your own.”
Elliott drives north to Hollywood Boulevard and then east to Grammercy Place. Franklin Avenue is north at the next corner. Elliott parks around the corner on Franklin and he and Gloria get out and casually walk back around the corner, like a couple out for a stroll. Wallens’ house is near the corner and Elliott quickly looks around the neighborhood before he and Gloria slip between the houses and around to the back door of Chet Wallens’ house.
Gloria checks behind them while Elliott works the lock with to thin pieces of steel more aptly suited to a dentist’s hands. With a quick twist the knob yields and the two of them enter the Wallens house, closing the door behind them. Elliott points to the living room and Gloria softly steps toward that room while Elliott lightly pads down the hall in search of the bedroom.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 213