Hiding Place (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “All right. I’ll get Grant on his way. Then I want to spend a few minutes talking to Lester Farley, who’s downstairs.”

  “What’s Farley doing there?”

  “Canelli says he has some information for me.”

  “How did Culligan come out with Cross’s stepdaughter?”

  “She’s in Hawaii, with her grandmother. They won’t be back until tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Well, good luck with Farley.”

  “Thanks.”

  Eighteen

  “SIT DOWN, MR. FARLEY.” I gestured to my visitor’s chair.

  “Thank you.”

  He sat with knees together, hands clasped in his lap. He wore exactly the same clothing he’d worn yesterday. His hair was carefully combed, his glasses sparkled. His pale, narrow face seemed anxiously drawn. Watching him as he cleared his throat, settling himself in the chair with nervous little rump-twitches, I tried to imagine him as a child setting cats on fire.

  “Have you thought of anything else that might help us?” As I asked the question I glanced at my watch. At the most, I had ten minutes for Lester Farley.

  “But—” He frowned. “But I thought you’d already arrested someone. Tha—” He moistened his lips. “That’s what I wanted to tell you—that I remembered seeing the man and the boy on Sunday. The ones in the newspaper stories.”

  “Do you remember seeing anyone else?”

  “Besides the man and the boy, you mean?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, as a matter of fact,” he said slowly, “I spent a lot of time thinking about it yesterday. I talked with Mother about it, too. Mother’s very interested in psychic phenomena.”

  He paused, as if he expected some response. I murmured inarticulate encouragement, at the same time glancing pointedly at my watch.

  “Last night,” he continued, in the same slow, solemn voice, “we tried an experiment.”

  Counterfeiting an interest I didn’t feel, I leaned forward. “What kind of an experiment, Mr. Farley?”

  “Well, Mother had me lay down on the couch and close my eyes. She said she was going to guide me back to Sunday evening, so that I could remember everything I saw in the park. And it worked.” He nodded primly, his face puckered in an earnest frown. “It really worked. I went into a kind of a—a trance. And I could remember it all. Everything.”

  “Tell me about it. Tell me in sequence—just the way you remember it.”

  “Yes. Well—” As he drew a long, deep breath, his eyes lost focus. His voice changed to a softer, more remote pitch. “Well, I remember that I was walking along the sidewalk. I remember thinking that it would be dark soon. Dark and cold. And just about then I saw the popcorn wagon. I was walking from Kennedy Drive toward Fulton, going home. Because on Sundays, you see, we always have dinner earlier. We have a late breakfast and no lunch. Then we have an early dinner. So—” He frowned, hesitating. He’d lost the thread. I decided to remain silent, simply watching. And finally he nodded, brightening. He said, “So then, just as I got to the popcorn wagon, I saw the girl. She was in her car—her little green car. And I saw the man and the boy, too.”

  “What were the man and the boy doing?”

  “They were up toward the trees. They were just—” He frowned. “Just there.”

  “All right. What happened then?”

  “Well, the girl got out of her car and walked toward the popcorn wagon. And the woman was walking toward her.”

  “The woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the vic—did June Towers talk to this woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they know each other, would you say?”

  “I—I think so.” He hesitated. “But I don’t think they liked each other.”

  “Was the woman older than the victim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think you could identify this woman if you were to see her again?”

  He drew a deep breath, finally answering, “I’m not really sure, Lieutenant. She wore a scarf over her head, tied under her chin.”

  “How could you determine her age, then?”

  He smiled primly. “She was wearing slacks. And I could see that she was—broader in the beam than a young woman.”

  “How long did they talk?”

  “Just a minute. Maybe less. They’ve might’ve just said a word or two to each other. Then the woman went on walking.”

  “She could have been a stranger to the girl, then.”

  He raised his narrow shoulders. “I really couldn’t say.”

  “What happened next, Mr. Farley?”

  “Well, next—” As he paused, I saw his pale eyes quicken, lit by some strange, secret memory. “Next she walked up the slope to where they—they found her.”

  “Was she alone?”

  He nodded.

  “Were the man and the boy in the area?”

  “I—I didn’t see them.”

  “What about the woman? Was she there?”

  “No, she’d gone. Almost everyone had gone. Even the popcorn man was getting ready to go. His truck was all closed up, I remember. It was getting dark and cold.”

  “If almost everyone else had gone, Mr. Farley, then that leaves you. Have you thought about that? You were almost the last one to see her alive. You, and the murderer.”

  His tongue-tip circled his lips. His wide, innocent eyes didn’t falter. He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s what Mother said, too.”

  I lowered my voice to match his, saying, “Did your mother tell you to come down here, Mr. Farley?”

  “Yes. When I remembered it all, she said I should come down.”

  I allowed a long moment of silence to pass before I leaned toward him, almost intimately. “What did you do,” I asked softly, “when you saw June Towers going up the slope?”

  “I went on toward Fulton,” he answered promptly. “I was late for dinner, you see. And it was getting dark.”

  I rose to my feet, glancing a last time at my watch. “I’m afraid I’ve got to be going, Mr. Farley. But I want to thank you very much for volunteering this information.” I paused, then asked, “By the way, do you remember seeing a dark-haired, middle-aged man sitting in a white Ford?”

  He began to shake his head, then caught himself. “As a matter of fact,” he said slowly, “I think I do.” He thought about it, frowning, nibbling at his lip. Then, decisively, he bobbed his head. “Yes. I do remember a man in a white Ford. He was parked across from the popcorn wagon, on the opposite side of the street. He was just sitting there, though. He didn’t get out of his car.”

  I thanked him and promised to contact him tomorrow. The thought seemed to please him, and he left my office smiling.

  As he closed the door my phone rang.

  “Lieutenant Hastings,” I said.

  “I have a phone call for you, Lieutenant.” It was Manley in Communications, “It sounds—” He hesitated. “It sounds heavy. I know you’re interrogating, but I thought I ought to take a chance with this one.”

  Manley wore his hair borderline-long, and some considered his handlebar mustache subversive. But he had a good ear and he wasn’t afraid to think for himself.

  “All right, let’s have it. Then see if you can find Inspector Canelli for me, will you?”

  “Yessir.”

  The line clicked. Then I heard someone breathing unevenly.

  “This is Lieutenant Hastings,” I said.

  The breathing continued. There was no noise in the background—nothing identifiable.

  “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “It—” The caller cleared his throat. “It’s Kent, Lieutenant. Kent Miller.”

  “What can I do for you, Kent?”

  “Well, I—” Again he cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking. And I—I guess I better talk to you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m—at home.”

  “All right. We’ll be there in fifteen or twenty m
inutes. Three-fifteen, say.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. Thanks.”

  Nineteen

  I RANG THE MILLERS’ bell a third time.

  “I can hear the bell,” Canelli offered. “Plain as day.”

  I tried the door. The knob turned; the door swung open. I stepped into the quiet hallway.

  “Kent?”

  Behind me, I could hear Canelli sniffing. “Oh, oh,” he whispered.

  The odor was unmistakable: the excremental, blood-clotting stench of sudden death.

  Drawing my revolver, I whispered, “You cover the back.”

  I closed the front door behind me, using my heel. The latch-click was loud in the uneasy silence of the house. I stood perfectly still, listening. Nothing stirred.

  Just ahead was the open archway leading into the living room. Very slowly, gun held ready, I stepped forward.

  He lay face down, his torso on the couch, his thighs across a marble coffee table. He was dressed as I’d seen him earlier, in suntan trousers and a Levi jacket. His head was jammed against the couch-back at a cruel, neck-broken angle. The table had collapsed under the impact. His legs and arms were flung wide, spread-eagled. The blood-mess at the back of his tangled blond head was still a bright, oozing red.

  Only minutes before he’d been alive.

  Was the murderer running? Hiding?

  Could the murderer hear me—see me?

  Pivoting slowly away from the body, I cocked my gun. The two hammer-clicks were the only sounds in the stillness. Tiptoeing, I glanced behind the sofa, then scanned the room for another hiding place. A narrow door flanked the ornate Spanish-style fireplace. With my back to the wall, I slowly rotated the doorknob. It turned freely.

  Crouching, I flung the door wide.

  Fireplace logs were stacked neatly inside.

  I moved into the hallway. The dining room was crowded with gleaming, store-new mahogany furniture and a sparkling display of sideboard crystal. There was no closet—no place to hide. I stepped to the hallway window, offering a narrow view of the garden.

  Nothing stirred.

  Reentering the hallway, again I stood motionless, listening. From outside, I could hear the faint sound of laughing children. A motorcycle was passing. A truck rumbled by slowly.

  Ahead, on my left, three doors were closed. Walking softly, I carefully checked each door-crack. If he was hiding in one of the three rooms, and came out shooting, a latch-click could be our only warning.

  The kitchen was ahead, with only one inside door, doubtless leading to the basement.

  Picking a crumpled paper napkin from the food-cluttered table, I carefully opened the back door, gripping only the knob-stem.

  Canelli stood on the narrow back porch. He held his gun down along his leg, concealed from casual scrutiny.

  Forefinger to my lips, I motioned him inside. Using hand signals, we searched the two bedrooms and the bath. The basement-garage yielded nothing. There was no attic. We found nothing disturbed—no indication of forced entry or robbery. Yet the boy’s blood was still wet. He hadn’t been dead more than twenty minutes.

  Handling the phone carefully, I called Manley in Communications.

  “Is Lieutenant Friedman in?” I asked.

  “No, sir. He’s—just a moment, please.” I heard a flip of pages. “He’s on his way to the Grant residence. Do you want me to get him for you?”

  “No. I want you to give him a message. Tell him that Kent Miller has just been killed. Murdered. The address is 2417 Balboa. Ask Lieutenant Friedman to come here as soon as he can. Clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “All right. Is Insp—Sergeant Markham in?”

  “No. He’s with Lieutenant Friedman.”

  “Give me Culligan, then.”

  “Yessir.”

  A moment later Culligan’s dry, slightly nasal voice came on the line. Whatever he said, Culligan seemed to be complaining.

  “Have you got a pencil?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Kent Miller has just been murdered. It had to’ve happened between three-ten and three-thirty. That’s important—the time. It’s now three forty-two.”

  “Right.”

  “How many men have we got available?”

  “Four. Including me.”

  “Well, I want you to stay inside, with the phone. Lieutenant Friedman is coming over here, to the scene. So you’re the only one catching. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Here’s what I want you to do: send teams—they’ll have to be an inspector and a uniformed man, I guess—to interrogate Lester Farley, the Fishers, and Walter Cross. I want to know where each one of them was between three and three-thirty.”

  “All the Fishers, you mean?”

  “Yes. But especially James. Naturally.”

  “All right. Anything else?”

  “No. But I want you to really move. It’s possible that the murderer is on his way home. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me Manley again, then.”

  Manley’s voice was tight as he asked me to hold. Then: “I’ve just got Lieutenant Friedman on the phone, Lieutenant. Just this second.”

  “Good. Let me talk to him.”

  “What is it?” Friedman asked. From the sound of his voice, I knew that he was phoning from the Grant house.

  “Kent Miller’s dead. Murdered less than a half-hour ago, probably. Can you come over?”

  “What’s the address?”

  “2417 Balboa. It’s two and a half blocks from you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Is Grant there?”

  “No.”

  In the momentary silence that followed, we both shared the other’s thoughts.

  “He’s a little late,” Friedman said dryly.

  “You’d better leave Markham there.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “We’re out of personnel, downtown. Culligan’s catching.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “Good.”

  I told Canelli to call the technicians, then I returned to the living room. As I walked down the hallway, I settled my revolver more comfortably on my hip, buttoning my jacket. During the next two or three minutes I would have my time alone with the corpse.

  I stood between his wide-spread legs, staring down at the head.

  In nine years as a policeman, I still couldn’t credit the incredible rag-doll limpness of a corpse. Violent death jerks the arms, legs, and neck into grotesque, bone-bent postures, so that a body seems no more than a discarded bundle of clothing, with limbs and head protruding at odd, awkward angles.

  Stepping around the smashed coffee table, involuntarily holding my breath against the odor, I stood at his right side. Eyes wide, he was staring at the sofa-arm. His nose and lips were flattened against the cushions. His teeth were tightly clenched. Between the teeth the tips of his tongue protruded, bleeding, half bitten through.

  I walked in back of the sofa, standing on his left side.

  His head had been badly battered. White bone-bits shone through the hair and blood; the paler pink of brain tissue mottled the darker scalp blood, now clotting. At the base of the neck, where it joined the shoulder, I saw the ragged edges of a two-inch puncture wound. A knife thrust had gone in at…

  A doorknob rattled. I twisted toward the sound, crouching involuntarily, hand on my gun.

  Friedman was moving leisurely into the archway, wrinkling his nose. “Whew. Just once I’d like to stumble across a corpse who’d voided before, not after.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Looks like the Towers M.O.”

  Turning with him toward the body, I pointed to the wound at the base of the neck. “Look at that, though.”

  “Stab wound,” he grunted. “Where’s the weapon?” He stooped for a closer look.

  “Haven’t found it.”

  “You didn’t look hard enough, Lieutenant.” Drawing a plastic evide
nce bag from his pocket, folding it between thumb and forefinger, he reached behind one of the sofa’s seat cushions. “Here you are.”

  He was holding a pair of blood-smeared pruning shears. With blades locked together, the shears would just fit the wound.

  “Shades of the potting shed,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “David and James Fisher use their potting shed as a clubhouse, or something. Remember? And I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that these shears come from that potting shed.”

  He rotated the pruning shears, silently pointing to an “F” scratched in the black enameled handle. We exchanged a long look before he turned away, tucking the weapon back behind the cushions. The plastic bag was slightly blood-smeared. He eyed the smear distastefully, then carefully turned the bag inside out and gingerly returned it to his pocket.

  “The Fishers are just around the corner,” I said.

  Twenty

  I PULLED UP IN front of the Fisher house and switched off the engine. “Think we should get reinforcements?” I asked.

  “You’re stalling,” Friedman answered dryly. “You hate to drop a bomb on your little friend. Admit it.”

  “He’s not my little friend.” I’d said it more vehemently than I’d intended.

  His broad face expressionless, eyes fixed on a far-distant vista, he said, “Many, many years ago I figured out that this job is exactly like wringing chickens’ necks. The longer you put it off, the worse it gets.”

  “Let’s go, then.” I reached for the door handle.

  “However,” he continued blandly, “there’s no point in not at least checking with Culligan. Circumspectly, of course.” He pointed to the microphone.

  Unaccountably irritated, I reached abruptly for the mike and asked for Culligan. The connection took less than fifteen seconds to complete. “I’m on the air,” I said immediately. “Anything to report on the Miller 607?”

  “Negative, Lieutenant.”

  “How many teams have reported in?”

  “Just one. Cross. It was inconclusive.”

  “Have you got someone on the way to the Fisher residence?”

  “Yessir.”

  I looked questioningly at Friedman, who first shrugged, then said, “Why don’t you divert them to the Millers’? Canelli could use some help.”