the Hills Of Homicide (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  It was dark under the row of trees that lined the curb opposite the apartment house where Luretta Pace lived, and the dark, unmarked car was apparently empty. Only a walker along the park fence might have seen the three men who waited in the car.

  "You're sure this thing is set up, Joe? We can't slip up nowt"

  "It's set. Just sit tight and wait."

  Rain began to fall, whispering on the leaves and on the car top. It was almost 8:40 when Ragan suddenly touched Stigler on the sleeve. "Look!" he whispered.

  A man had come around the corner out of the side street near the apartment house. He wore a raincoat, and his hat brim was pulled down. He stepped quickly to the door.

  Mark Stigler sat straight up. "Man, that looked just like I- His voice faded as Ragan's hand closed on his arm.

  "It was!" Ragan replied grimly.

  A curtain in an apartment-house window went up and down rapidly, three times. "Let's go," Ragan said. "We've got to hurry!"

  An officer in uniform admitted them to the apartment next door to that of Luretta Pace. A recording was already being made, and through the hidden mike in the next apartment, they could hear the voices clearly.

  "I don't care who he is!" A man was speaking, a voice that stiffened Sam Blythe to the same realization that had come to Mark Stigler on the outside. "Keep him away from here!"

  "I don't intend to keep anybody away whom I like, but as a matter of fact, I don't care for him."

  "Then tell him so!"

  "Why don't you tell him?" Luretta's voice was taunting. "Are you afraid? Or won't he listen to you?"

  "Afraid? Of course not! Still, it wouldn't be a good idea. I'd rather he did not know we were acquainted."

  "You weren't always so hesitant."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Why, you never approved of Charlie, either. You knew I liked him, but you did not want me to like him." "That's right. I didn't."

  "One thing I'll say for Charlie: He was a good spender. I don't care whether a man spends money on me or not, but it helps. And Charlie did."

  "You mean that I don't? I think I've been pretty nice lately.''

  "Lately. Sometimes I wonder how you do it on your salary."

  "I manage."

  "As you managed a lot of other things? Like Charlie, for instance?"

  For a moment, there was no sound, and Joe Ragan's tongue touched dry lips. Nerve, that girl had nerve.

  The tone was lower, colder. lust what do you mean by that?"

  "Well, didn't you? You didn't really believe I thought Charlie was killed in some gang war, did you? Nobody wanted Charlie dead, nobody but you.

  He laughed. "I always did like a smart girl! Well, now you know the sort of man I am, and you know just how we stand and what I can do to you or anyone! The best of it is, they can't touch me."

  There was a sound like a glass being put down on a table. "Luretta, let's drop this nonsense and get married. I'm going places, and nothing can stop me.

  "I won't marry you. This has gone far enough as it is." Luretta's voice changed. "You'd better go now. I never knew just what sort of person you were, although I suspected. At first, I believed you were making things easy for me by not allowing too many questions. Now I realize you were protecting yourself."

  "Naturally. But I was protecting you, too."

  Joe Ragan got up and took his gun from its holster and slid it into his waistband. Blythe was already at the door. There was a hard set to his face.

  "I neither wanted nor expected protection." Luretta was speaking. "I cared for Charlie. I want you to understand that. No, I was not in love with him, but he was good to me, and I hadn't any idea that you killed him. If I had, I would never have spoken to you. Now, get out!" The man laughed. "Don't be silly! We're staying to- gether, especially now.'

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, I wouldn't dare let you go now. We'll either get along or you will get what Charlie got." There was a bump as of a chair knocked over, then a shout. "Stay away from that door!"

  Ragan was moving fast. He swung into the hall and gripped the knob, but it was locked. There was a crash inside, and in a sudden fury of fear for the girl inside, Ragan threw himself against the door. The lock broke, and he stumbled inside.

  Lieutenant Wells Ryerson threw the girl from him and grabbed for his gun. Ragan was moving too fast. He slapped the gun aside and hooked a wicked right to the chin, then a left. Ryerson fell hack, his gun going off as he fell. He scrambled to his feet, lifting his gun.

  Sam Blythe fired in the same instant, and the bullet slammed Ryerson against the wall. The gun dribbled from Ryerson's fingers, and he slid to the floor.

  His eyes opened, and for a moment they were sharp, clear, and intelligent. "I told you," he said hoarsely, "to close this one up fast, an airtight case."

  His voice faded, and then he struggled for breath. "It looked so . . . easy! The file, those ex-cons on the loose. I could make a record . . . the money, too."

  Mark Stigler shook his head. "Ryerson! Who would have believed it?" He glanced at Ragan. "What tipped you off?"

  "It had to be somebody with access to the files, and who could be out between three and five A. M. It couldn't be you, Mark, because you're at home with your family every chance you get and your wife would know. Sam, here, likes his sleep too much.

  "What really tipped me off was this." Ragan picked up a paper match split into a cross. "It was a nervous habit he had when thinking. Many of us do similar things.

  "Matches like that were found on the Smiley and Miller jobs and in the alley near Ambler's office."

  "Did Lew know his brother liked Luretta?"

  "I doubt it."

  "What about Ambler?"

  "I think he knew, and somehow he discovered it was Ryerson who cracked his safe. He must have called him. Ryerson did not dare return the call, for then there might be somebody else who knew his secret."

  When the body had been taken away, Stigler looked over at Ragan. "Coming with us, Joe? Or are you staying?" "Neither. We're going to drive over to see Ruth Smiley. I want that to be the first thing we do turn Jack Smiley loose so he can go back to his family."

  Later, in the car, Luretta said, "She'll be so happy! It must be wonderful to make somebody that happy!" "That's something," Joe Ragan said, "that we ought to talk about."

  *

  Author's Note:

  I HATE TO TELL HIS WIDOW

  One part of writing detective stories that I like very much is the different backgrounds and elements I get to work into the stories. I enjoy the "language" of detective writing especially .

  Each genre has its phrases that are particularly colorful, but detective stories of this period have more than their share--terms that appear in these pages such as "punch jobs," "torpedos," "shivs," and numerous others that almost make up a second criminal language .

  Some police officer friends of mine had helped arrange for me to be able to interview a whole group of men who were in the penitentiary at one point in my writing, as well as many others associated with crime who were out of prison . At one point I even interviewed a group of men who specialized in grand larceny when I was researching the subject of the "economics of crime." From these discussions and from many books I accumulated over the years, I became somewhat of an expert on criminal slang. You never know when that kind of knowledge can come in handy.

  Here is just one example, which also shows how nobody learns from history. In the late 1800s through 1910, cocaine was a very big thing in this country . It was used by nearly all of the criminals, and criminals who used it were called "snowbirds."

  *

  I HATE TO TELL HIS WIDOW

  Joe Ragan was drinking his ten o'clock coffee when Al Brooks came in with the news. "Ollie's dead." He spoke quietly. "Ollie Burns. Shot."

  Ragan said nothing.

  "He was shot twice," Al told him. "Right through the heart. The gun was close enough to leave powder burns on his coat."

&n
bsp; Ragan just sat there holding his cup in both hands. It was late and he was tired, and the information left him stunned and unbelieving. Ollie Burns was his oldest friend on the force. Ollie had helped break him in when he first joined up after the war. Ollie had been a good officer, a conscientious man who had a name for thoughtfulness and consideration. He never went in for the rough stuff, knowing the taxpayers paid his salary and understanding he was a public servant. He treated people with consideration and not as if they were enemies.

  "Where did they find him?" he said at last. "How did it happen?"

  "That's the joker. We just don't know. He was found on a phoned-in tip, lying on the edge of a vacant area near Dunsmuir. What he was doing out there in the dark is more than anybody can guess, but the doc figures he'd been dead more than an hour when we found him." Brooks hesitated. "They think it was a woman. He smelled of perfume and there was lipstick on his cheek and collar."

  Nuts!" Ragan rose. "Not Ollie. He was too much in love with his wife and he never played around. I knew the guy too well."

  "Well," Brooks said, "don't blame me. You could be right. It wasn't my idea, but what Stigler's thinking." "Where's Mary? Has she been told?" Ragan's first thought was for her. Mark Stigler was not the type to break such news to anyone.

  "Uh-huh. Mark told her. Your girl, Angie Faherty, is with her. They were to meet Ollie at a movie at nine, so when he didn't show up she got worried, so they went home. Ollie had been anxious to see this show with Mary, and they arranged to go together. She called the station when he wasn't at home, and a couple of minutes after she called, somebody told us there was a body lying out there in the dark."

  "Who called?"

  "Nobody knows. The guy said he didn't want to get mixed up in anything and hung up."

  "Odd, somebody seeing the body so soon. Nobody walks around there much at night."

  Stigler was at his desk when Ragan came in. He looked up, unexpected sympathy in his eyes. "Do you want this case?"

  "You know I do. Ollie was the best friend I had in the world, and you can forget the woman angle. He was so much in love with Mary that it stuck out all over him. He wasn't the type to play around. If anything, he was overly conscientious."

  "Every man to his own view." Stigler tapped with a pencil. "This is the first man we've had killed in a year, and I want the killer brought in with evidence for a conviction. Understand?"

  "Will I work with the squad?"

  Stigler shook his head. "You've got a fresh viewpoint and you've worked with Ollie. You can have all the help you need, but we'll be working on it too."

  Joe Ragan was pleased. This was the way he wanted it but the last thing he expected from Mark Stigler. Stigler was a good homicide man but a stickler for the rulebook, and turning a man loose to work on his own was unheard of from him.

  "Mark, did Ollie say anything to you about a case he was working on? I mean, in his spare time?"

  "No, not a word." Stigler tapped with the pencil. "On his own time? I didn't know that ever happened around here. You mean he actually went out on his free time and worked on cases?"

  "He was a guy who hated loose ends. Ask Mary sometime. Every tool had a place, every magazine was put back in a neat pile on the shelf, every hook to its place. It wasn't an obsession, just that he liked things neat, with all the ends tied up. And I know he's had some bug in his bonnet for months now. What it was I have no idea."

  "That's something," Stigler agreed. "Maybe he was getting too close to the right answer for somebody's comfort." He lit a cigar, then put it down. "My wife's trying to get me to smoke a pipe," he explained.

  "You're right about him being overly conscientious. I recall that Towne suicide, about a year ago. He was always needling me to see if anything new had turned up.

  "Hell, there wasn't anything new. It was open-and-shut. Alice Towne killed herself and there was no other way it could have happened. But it seems Ollie knew her and it bothered him a good deal."

  "He was like that." Ragan got up. "What have you got so far?"

  "Nothing. We haven't found the gun. Ollie's own gun was still in its holster. He was off duty at the time and, like we said, was meeting his wife to go to a show."

  "Why didn't he go? I knew about that because my girl was going with them."

  "Somebody called him just before eight o'clock. He answered the phone himself and Mary heard him say, 'Where?' A moment later he said, 'Right away.' Then he hung up and asked them if he could meet them in front of the theater at nine. He had an appointment that wouldn't keep."

  "I see." Ragan rubbed his jaw. "I'll look into it. If you need me during the next hour, I'll be at Mary's."

  You aren't going to ask her about it now, are you?" "Yes, I am, Mark. After all, she's a cop's wife. It will be better to get her digging into her memory for facts than just sitting around moping.

  "I know Mary, and she won't be able to sleep. She's the kind of woman who starts doing something whenever she feels bad. If I don't talk to her, she'll be washing the dishes or something."

  Angie answered the door. "Oh, Joe! I'm so glad you've comet I just don't know what to do. Mary won't lie down and she won't rest. She "

  "I know." Joe squeezed her shoulder. "Mary's like that. We'll have some coffee and talk a little."

  Walking through the apartment, he thought about what Stigler had said. Lipstick and perfume. That didn't sound like Ollie. Stigler had never known Ollie the way Ragan had. Ollie had never been a chaser. If there had been lipstick and perfume on him when he was found, it had been put there to throw off the investigation.

  And the call. That was odd in itself. It might be that somebody had wanted the body found, and right away. But why? The man on the phone might have been the killer, or somebody working with him. If not, what would a man be doing in that area at that hour? For that matter, what was Ollie doing there? It was a dark, gloomy place, scattered with old lumber and bricks among a rank growth of weeds and grass. And right in the middle of town. "On that call, Angie? Did Ollie say anything else? Give you any idea of what it was all about?"

  "No, he seemed very excited and pleased, that was all. He told us he would not be long, but just to be sure to give him until nine. We went to dinner and then to the theater to meet him, but he never showed. He was driving his own car. Mary and I were driving yours."

  At the sound of a step in the hall, Ragan looked up. He had known Mary Burns even longer than Ollie. There had been a time when he liked her very much. That was before he had met Angie or she had net Ollie.

  She was a dark-eyed, pretty woman with a round figure and a pleasant face. If anyone in the world had been perfectly suited for Ollie, it was Mary.

  "Mary," Ragan said, "this may not seem the best time, but I need to ask you some questions. You know that every minute counts in these investigations, and you'll feel better with your mind occupied. I need your help, Mary." "I'd like that, Joe, I really would." Her eyes were red and swollen but her chin was firm. She sat down across the table, and Angie brought the coffeepot.

  "Mary, you're the only person who knew Ollie better than I did. He was never one to talk about his work. He just did what was necessary. But he had that funny little habit of popping up with odd comments that were related to whatever he was thinking or working on. Unless you knew him, those comments were incomprehensible."

  "I know." She smiled, but her lips trembled. "He often did that. It confused people who didn't know him."

  "All right. We know Ollie was working on something on his own time. I have a hunch it was some case the rest of us had forgotten about. Remember that Building & Loan robbery? He stewed over that for a month without saying anything to anybody, and then made an arrest and had all the evidence for a conviction. Nobody even knew he was thinking about the case.

  "Well, I think he was working something like that. I think he was so close on the trail of somebody that they got scared. I think, somehow, they led him into a trap tonight. We've got to figure out what it was h
e had on his mind."

  Mary shook her head. "I have no idea what it could be, Joe. He was working on something, I do know that. I could always tell when something was on his mind. He would sit staring across the top of his newspaper or would walk out in the yard and pull a weed or two. He never liked to leave anything until it was finished. What it was this time, I do not know."

  "Think, Mary! Think back over the past few weeks. Try to remember any of those absentminded little comments he used to make. One of them might be just the lead we need."

  Angie filled their cups again. Mary looked up doubtfully. "There was something just this morning, but it doesn't tell us a thing. He looked up while he was drinking his coffee and said, 'Honey, there's just two crimes worse than murder. "

  "Nothing more?"

  "That was all. He was stewing about something, and you know how he was at times like that. I understood and left him alone."

  "Two crimes worse than murder?" Ragan ran his fingers through his hair. "I know what one was. We'd talked about it often enough. He thought, as I do, that narcotics peddling was the lowest crime on earth. It's a foul racket. I wonder if that was it?"

  "What could the other crime be?"

  He shook his head, frowning. Slowly, carefully then, he led Mary over the past few days, searching for some clue. A week before, she had asked him to meet her and go shopping, and he had replied that he was in the Upshaw Building and would meet her on the corner by the drugstore.

  "The Upshaw Building?" Ragan shook his head. "I don't know anything about it. Well" he got up "I'm going to adopt Ollie's methods, Mary, and start doing legwork and asking questions. But believe me, I'll not leave this case until it's solved."

  Al Brooks was drinking coffee when Ragan walked into the cafT the next morning. He dropped on the stool beside the vice-squad man and ordered coffee and a side order of sausage.

  Al was a tall, wide-shouldered man with a sallow face. He had an excellent record with the force. He grinned at Ragan, but there was a question in his eyes. "I hear Stigler has you on the Burns case. What gives?"