Felony File

by Dell Shannon

  The phone rang. "Yes, Rory?" said Mendoza.

  "I've got your wife now."

  "I'm sorry to call," said Alison, "but I thought I'd better ask. I've been rather an expense to you lately, mi marido favorite. Ken just called. He's found the sheep. He wants to get Eve, and they're sixty dollars each. They're Suffolks, and they're what he calls wethers, if that means anything to you."

  "Nada absolutamente. That's three hundred on top of the ponies. All right."

  "Think how pastoral they'll look on the hill," said Alison. "They're such gentle creatures, Luis. Meek and mild."

  Later on, Mendoza was to quote that to her bitterly. At the moment he said only, "Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. He'd better get the sheep."

  * * *

  Both the Landerses were off on Saturday. "I ought," said Phil, "to be getting at the laundry—changing the bed."

  "There's time. You been thinking about what I said, being a fulltime wife?"

  "We can't afford it," said Phil.

  "They give you a leave of absence for maternity."

  "And then we'd have to pay a babysitter. If we do, I'd rather make it permanent, Tom. Just quit and stay home. Only, could we make it?"

  "We'll take a look at the accounts later," said Landers.

  * * *

  "I hope," said Hackett, "you've polished up the crystal ball?"

  Mendoza stood in the hall of that colorless, faintly elegant house on Beachwood Drive. He said, "Damn it, she must have been something more than the correct, conventional, cardboard character we've heard about."

  "Some people are just like that, Luis."

  "On the surface. Most people have something underneath."

  "Where else can you look?" Hackett sighed. He had been following Mendoza around for an hour. It was four o'clock, and the rain was steadily drumming down.

  Mendoza had been wandering around the house, apparently sniffing for the essence of Marion Stromberg. He had looked through drawers in the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. At her meticulous files in the desk, receipts neatly boxed. He had contemplated her cosmetics in the bedroom and the bathroom: sniffed her colognes: Emeraude, Rive Gauche, Aphrodisia. Looked at the piles of neat nightgowns, lingerie. She'd been a fastidious woman. Mendoza said, "Where the hell is her car? It ought to have been spotted by now."

  "In somebody's garage," said Hackett.

  "I wonder." Mendoza wandered back to the living room and stared at the reproduction Renoir on the wall over the couch. And then suddenly he said, "Methodical—oh, my God, of course—"

  "What have you thought of now?"

  "Only the last few years she'd had really nice clothes," said Mendoza. He started down the hall. "Naturalmente. All the clothes in her closet are winter things. She'd put summer things away carefully." He went into the second, smaller, bedroom, opened the door of the walk-in closet. It was full of clothes—warm-weather clothes, dresses, sleeveless tops, light-colored slacks. "Ah."

  "What do you expect to find?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea." Mendoza started to go through the white handbag hanging on the door. It was empty except for some loose change. He started to go through the pockets of the clothes. Not even used handkerchiefs rewarded him, until he took down a loosely knit white cardigan. In the right-hand pocket was a slip of folded paper; he brought it out.

  "What have you got?"

  "A phone number," said Mendoza. "Just a phone number. Nothing to say whose."

  EIGHT

  "SO I'M WOOLGATHERING," said Mendoza. Ensconced back in his desk chair with the cards riffling through his hands, he had just requested the phone company to trace that number for him.

  "Not necessarily," said Hackett. "Looking under every stone." He shifted his bulk, that was not quite so bulky as it had been, and put out his cigarette. "I ought to go and do some honest work."

  The phone rang, and Farrell put Mendoza through to somebody at the morgue, who plaintively asked to know whom should be informed that the Stromberg body could be claimed. "Hell," said Mendoza thoughtfully. The lawyer was the only answer. He gave them the name and address, and then got Earnshaw at home. Earnshaw readily agreed to take care of the arrangements.

  Conway, Grace and Wanda came in, and Grace said, "We'll put a difference of opinion to you. The Reynolds case—a wild one. We've been looking back at the evidence, what there is, and Rich—"

  "I just say it's fairly obvious," said Conway. He sat down in the chair beside Mendoza's desk, his cynical gray eyes squinted against smoke from his cigarette.

  "The husband. Who do we look at first, a husband or wife gets murdered?"

  "I thought the husband was supposed to be up in Ventura," said Mendoza.

  "What the hell is seventy miles?" Conway brushed the miles away with a gesture. "I think Nick slipped up a little. Look." He had a 510 report in his hand. "What did the sister say? Bright little Leta was always improving herself and learning things—the husband wasn't. We've been talking to her parents, they were dead set against the marriage because Reynolds wasn't very smart or ambitious. She was a big cut above him, and she probably let him know it. That was the reason for the divorce. Wouldn't he resent it, her patronizing him? You bet."

  "He might have then," said Grace. "But this is five years later, Rich. And who do you think the woman was?"

  "You're just thinking too complicated," said Wanda. She sat down in the other chair and crossed her neat legs below her uniform skirt. "What I say is that this Melinda couldn't possibly recognize the woman. She admits she only saw her for about two seconds, and hadn't any reason to notice her at the time. She couldn't possibly be positive about anyone. I think it's very possible Nick's right and it could be that Armstrong woman."

  "And I'll go along with that," said Grace. "At least I think we'd better talk to her. See what she looks like."

  "AllI say is—" began Conway.

  Mendoza shook his head at him. "I don't buy the husband either, Rich. If we can make any guess about Reynolds, it was an irrational motive. Nothing very realistic. Nick got that far."

  Farrell came in and said there was a Frank Newton to see him. Mendoza looked exasperated and put the cards away. Conway, Grace and Wanda drifted out, and Hackett said, "Preserve patience for the civilians, compadre."

  "Waste of time," complained Mendoza. Newton came in and looked around the office, at the two of them, with a faintly apologetic air. He was a big man with somewhat florid good looks, curly graying hair, a strong nose, a mobile mouth; he wore a natty sports outfit. He said, "I suppose I'm intruding on you, I don't know one damned thing about this damned— I couldn't believe it when Sylvia finally got me awhile ago—Dick murdered! Dick! And that cleaning woman—my God, Dick and I've been partners eleven years! I came to ask you, if it's not a secret—how the hell did it happen? Why?"

  At an invitation he sat down abruptly beside the desk.

  "It looks as if it was just a coincidence that Mr. Sanford was there when the girl was attacked," said Mendoza. "One of those things, Mr. Newton."

  "God," said Newton. His eyes were somber. "Of all the Goddamned bad luck. I couldn't believe it. Sylvia never got hold of me till an hour ago—I got in a hot poker game down in Gardena, never got home till two A.M., and today I've been down in Laguna with my ex-wife, we're sort of thinking of getting together again."

  He ran distracted fingers through his hair. "I suppose you know your business, but how in hell do you hunt a wild man like that? How d'you know where to look? Doesn't seem to me you'd have a chance in hell. I talked to him Thursday, just business, and if I'd known it was the last time— Good thing we can't know things, I suppose." He lighted a cigarette. "We ran two stores, you know—I manage the other one, over on Sunset. I can't get over the damned bad luck, him just happening to be there at night—"

  "We hope the lab may give us something concrete to point to somebody," said Hackett. "Fingerprints possibly. Were you in the Wilshire store much, Mr. Newton?"

  "What? Oh, maybe once
a week. We'd interchange merchandise, if somebody wanted something he didn't have and I did—why?"

  "You'd better let our lab have your fingerprints for comparison, if you don't mind."

  "Com— Oh, I get you. Sure," said Newton.

  "And any employees—did anyone else work in the Wilshire store?"

  "Yes, he has—had—a clerk, Susan Adams. She's been off sick with the flu all week. When I talked to him Thursday he was kicking about it, he was run off his feet there all alone. It's a damn good thing," said Newton suddenly, "she didn't walk in to open up this morning—Sylvia'd never have thought to call her. I don't know her address, but it ought to be somewhere in the files—I can look it up for you."

  "If you'd do that, please." Mendoza stood up. "It's about the end of our day, Mr. Newton, if you'll excuse us. We'll hope to come up with something on it."

  "Oh, sure, sure. God, I hope you do—I hope you get him." He was apologetic again. "I know I'm just wasting your time. Where do I go to get my prints taken? Anything I can do to help—"

  Hackett told him how to get down to S.I.D., and after he'd gone phoned down to tell them he was on the way. Farrell had already left. Mendoza picked up his hat and they went out together.

  * * *

  For once Mendoza got in early on Sunday. There had been two more heists overnight, one at a bar, one of a couple getting off a bus late on Olympic Boulevard. Everybody was out on the legwork, hunting for the heisters and the rapists from records.

  The phone company had come up with the trace on that phone number. It was registered to Ronald Truepenny at an address on Ardmore in Hollywood. "¿Y qué es esto?" said Mendoza to himself. Five minutes after he'd come in he went out again, and drove up to Hollywood in the very slight rain.

  It was a garden apartment built around a pool. He walked around the rectangle of front doors facing on the pool; halfway around he found TRUEPENNY in a name slot, and shoved the bell. He shoved it four times before a bleary-eyed young man with an unshaven face, clutching a bathrobe around him, opened the door. He looked at the badge in astonishment and said, yawning, that he'd never heard of Marion Stromberg. "Crack of dawn, cops coming," he said. "Sherry, you know a Marion Stromberg?"

  A pretty red-haired woman in a fleece robe came to join him. "I knew a Mary Stromberg in school. For heaven's sakes, a cop? You?"

  "Your phone number was among her effects."

  "Oh. Well, we only moved in here last month. Took over the phone. Couldn't tell you who was here before. Your girl could have known 'em, I suppose."

  The cardigan where he had found the memo slip was a summer-weight one. She might not have worn it since last June. Mendoza apologized and looked to see if there was a manageress on the premises.

  There was. She listened to his questions and said briefly, "The Beckwiths. They left because they were getting a divorce, and she's well rid of him. Last six months he was out of a job, and her supporting them sewing—she did a lot of expert alteration work for The Broadway and private clients."

  ¿Qué mono? said Mendoza to himself. Another little ride on the merry-go-round. The phone number of the obliging seamstress, probably lengthening a hem, altering a new summer dress for Marion.

  Her car still hadn't been located. He went back to the office and, as he came in, suddenly wondered if the lab had got anything from her clothes. There hadn't been any report. He called S.I.D. and got Marx. "Well, there wasn't anything to report," he said. "Nothing on the clothes but what you'd expect, flecks of her face powder, couple of her own hairs. And by the way, those prints from the Jackman house aren't in our records, we passed them on to the Feds." That, of course, was the little catch about fingerprints: if they weren't in anybody's records they were no use at all. "Just a minute, Duke's got something for you."

  Mendoza started to say he thought Duke was on night shift, but the phone hummed at him. Then Duke came on and said happily, "Oh, we've got something pretty for you, Lieutenant. Did you know there's a whole new process for lifting prints from a dead body? It's not quite foolproof yet—Scarne and I've been practicing every chance we get for a couple of months, and it's damned interesting. It's a matter of the pores contracting at death, and you've got to use special equipment—these Kromekote cards—"

  "Yes? So what have you got?"

  "Some lovely clear prints off that rape victim on Friday night. One from her upper left arm, three from her left thigh. I've been doing some overtime, processing all we got. The rest of 'em aren't clear enough to make much of, but these are beautiful."

  "Congratulations. If they show up in records—"

  "I'm just going down to look." Duke sounded pleased with himself.

  Mendoza swiveled around and stared at the gray sky out the window. It suddenly further occurred to him that he'd never looked up that parson, Whitlow, and his Good Samaritans. But, as per Miss Retzinger, he didn't suppose Marion Stromberg had spent any time that Thursday night chatting with a well—meaning minister. That was one thing they had all told him, all the people who had known her; she wasn't at all interested in religion; if she wasn't an atheist she was at least an agnostic. And if there was one thing he felt certain of, it was that Marion Stromberg hadn't lingered in the foyer of the Brown Derby to make a phone call to the Reverend Whitlow.

  * * *

  Linda Carr was still unconscious. Palliser and Landers, having spent the morning looking for rapists out of records, got to the Denny's on La Brea just after the two o'clock shift came on, to talk to the girls she had worked with.

  The three girls who had just come in, Joan Tenney, Sandra Moore, and Ruth Hobbs, were excited and upset over what had happened to Linda. They were nice, ordinary girls, and they told Palliser and Landers this and that. The former boy friend wouldn't have done any thing like that, they said. His name was Marvin King, he worked for a Ford agency up the block, and there hadn't been anything serious between them.

  "But we've been thinking about something else," said Ruth, her eyes big and serious and admiring on Palliser, who was a good-looking man. "There are always guys coming in, try to make up to you—mostly it doesn't mean much, they're just kidding. Once in awhile you get one gives you a hard time, but Mr. Sorenson won't put up with anything real annoying. It's not as if we got the drunks coming in, not having a liquor license. But there was a fellow really got across Linda—she could put a guy down without any trouble usually, you know, just pass it off, but that one really bugged her. I'd have been a little scared of him myself."

  "Who was he?"

  "Who knows?" said Joan. "We've been talking about it. He used to come in around one or one-thirty, three or four times a week. He's a great big guy, with dark hair and funny eyes—kind of intense—looking. He acted like he really went for Linda, kept asking her for a date. He gave her a hard time, and she finally said if he bothered her again she'd get Mr. Sorenson to kick him out. Only he hadn't done anything really, you know, and you can't just throw customers out—I suppose Mr. Sorenson'd just have talked to him."

  "He just came in off the street as a customer?" asked Palliser.

  Sandra said, "I'm pretty sure I saw him once in one of those big Arrowhead trucks. A lot of places around here buy the Arrowhead water. One of their delivery trucks—it was parked down the street and I saw him get into it."

  They didn't know anything more, and of course there was no reason to follow that up. But it was interesting. They went back to the office to collect another handful of names from records, and came in just in time to take a call from Sergeant Bill Costello.

  "Well, you told us," he said bitterly. "We've been round and round on it, Palliser. Even went through all Robinsons' employment records, turned the security guards inside out, and it's all a great big blank. In and out they went, just like at Bullock's, and how they got the inside dope doesn't matter—there are just no loose ends to take hold of. And incidentally, harking back to your ghost, nobody with the M.W. initials, up to six months ago anyway."

  "We run up against thes
e things," said Palliser. "File it and forget it. Nothing else to do."

  * * *

  "Well, it was an idea," said Galeano philosophically.

  "In theory, quite a good idea," said Grace. Galeano was driving; Grace sat back and lighted a cigarette, and his lean regular-featured chocolate-brown face wore slight amusement. "When you come down to it, Nick, most people are ordinary, reasonably honest and sane people—maybe because we see so many of the other kind, we expect to find them where they aren't." '

  Galeano just hunched his shoulders.

  They had found the Armstrong house empty and were debating whether to wait or come back, when the woman drove up in a Chevy sedan and went into the house. They waited three minutes and rang the bell, introduced themselves, and she asked them in.

  "What can I do for the police?" she asked, smiling.

  "Sit down, won't you?" She was a big woman with a warm smile.

  "It's about Leta Reynolds," said Grace in his soft voice.

  The smile vanished. "Oh, dear, that's a dreadful thing. Such a nice girl, Herbert said, and a good retoucher too. A pretty girl too, I'd seen her several times at the store. But I couldn't tell you anything about what happened." She was puzzled at their coming; she looked from Grace to Galeano. "Did you want to see Herbert?"

  He stayed on at the chruch to discuss something with the Reverend Farley."

  "We were wondering," said Grace disarmingly, "if you minded your husband working with such a pretty young woman, Mrs. Armstrong."

  "If I—" She stared at him. It dawned on her slowly what was in their minds and, at first, indignation hardened her expression and then she began to laugh. "You don't mean you're thinking that I—"

  "When Mrs. Reynolds was first working for your husband," said Galeano, "she thought she might have a little trouble with him, she'd said. Being a little too friendly."

  "Now that is too much!" she said. "You two listen to me and use some sense. Naturally Herbert appreciates a pretty girl as much as any man. But he's a good Christian. For the Lord's sake, we've got four grown children and Herbert's a deacon in our church! just when was this girl killed?—last Monday morning—well, I was out shopping with my daughter Maureen from about ten till three in the afternoon, and if you think I've ever touched a gun in my life—"