Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon

by Dell Shannon

  "Yes, yes, We'll be okay. They just roughed us up. Come on, Myrna."

  Schenke went back to the office and typed a report on it. That was about all there was to do.

  PALLISER WAS OFF on Monday, but they got Henry Glasser back. When Mendoza came in, Grace had already corralled him and was showing all the pictures, and sandy middle-sized Glasser was grinning amiably at them.

  "Welcome home, Henry," said Mendoza. "Good vacation?"

  "I went up to Big Bear," said Glasser. "But even up there it was too damned hot." He was looking over at Wanda Larsen at her desk in the corner and she was smiling back at him. There'd been a little speculation about those two, nobody knew if they were dating or not. ‘ `

  "I want to see the night report, and you'd all better hear what we've got on this so far." They were all in by then, Hackett and Higgins, Galeano, Grace, Landers. They dragged chairs into his office and heard about the new one from Higgins while Mendoza read Conway's report.

  "So, there's legwork to do," said Mendoza, passing it on to Hackett. "This Alisio had a big family and he'd been in the hospital nearly a month. The nurses knew them casually. He had eight or nine visitors yesterday, between about one and four-thirty or a little before four-thirty. They didn't all stay in his room all the time, there wouldn't be room for them, they went in and out. Sat in a little lounge down the hall. The hospital just had one brother's name as the responsible relative—Joseph Alisio—an address in Hollywood. He'll give us the names of the rest of the family."

  "You don't think it was one of the family?" asked Galeano.

  "Who knows? No, I don't. From what the nurses say it's a big loving family, concerned and attentive. But on a Sunday there were a lot of visitors coming and going, and they can probably give us a better idea than the nurses who was there, the nurses were busy. They'd all been visiting the hospital quite a bit and may have got acquainted with some other visitors."

  "Reaching," said Higgins. "And one of them suddenly had the urge to smother a patient—any patient?"

  "You know, Luis," said Hackett, " just off the top of my mind, there are always a lot of people wandering around a big hospital, and nurse's aides, orderlies, even nurses—they're just people—come all sorts. You know what I'm thinking about?—that case in Santa Monica last year, where that male nurse was giving the senile old patients the over-doses of morphine. Just out of kindness, they were better dead."

  "Yes," said Mendoza. "It's possible it could be something like that, and we want to question these nurses again in depth, and damnation, none of them is on until three PM. Though the ones there now can tell us something about the visitors starting at one o'clock. However you slice it, we've got a lot of people to talk to so—¡Sigan adelante!" He stabbed out his cigarette and stood up.

  But as he followed the twin looming bulks of Hackett and Higgins down the hall, Lieutenant Carey of Missing Persons came past the switchboard and said, "I'll take twenty minutes of your time, Mendoza."

  "What the hell do you want? Don't tell me you've turned up a body for us."

  "No, but we just might," said Carey seriously.

  Slightly annoyed, Mendoza took him back to his office, gave him a cigarette and asked, "What have you got?"

  "It's what we haven't got," said Carey. His snub-nosed bulldog face looked rather solemn. "It just shapes up as a probable abduction. Possible rape, possible homicide, after this long a time. I just thought I'd brief you about it in case the body shows up, because it's got to be the Central beat. The woman's been missing for thirty-six hours, and a rapist doesn't usually hold them that long. It's possible she's I dead."

  "Why, how, and who?"

  "Well, this Edna Holzer. I didn't see the report until an hour ago. I've just been talking to the girl—Frances Holzer. Edna Holzer's the mother. We've got a description I won't bother you with, but she sounds like an attractive woman. She left home, which is Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood, at about seven on Saturday night to visit a friend in the French Hospital. She didn't intend to stay long—should've been home by eight—thirty, but she wasn't. The daughter called Hollywood about eleven-thirty. They called Traffic and a squad looked around, but no show. She was driving a two-year-old Chrysler Newport, we've got the plate number and there's an A.P.B. out." Carey emitted a stream of blue smoke, put out his cigarette, and asked, "You know the French Hospital?"

  Mendoza was sitting back with eyes shut. "West College Street." Mendoza knew his town, from twenty-six years on the job.

  "That's right. And look, Mendoza. She wasn't five minutes from the Stack where all the freeways come in. In five minutes she'd have been on the Hollywood Freeway heading for home. The girl called the hospital on Sunday—well—so did my office after she filed a missing report—and Mrs. Holzer had been there, left about a quarter of height. Well, you can see how it shapes up. She must've run into trouble between the hospital and the Stack, within about five blocks."

  "Iess," said Mendoza, lighting another cigarette. "Her nearest route was the Pasadena Freeway down to the Stack and that's three blocks from the hospital."

  "Well, there's no sign of her or the car," said Carey. "She's a responsible woman. Legal secretary to a big firm. You can see it smells of abduction, robbery, possible rape, and possible homicide."

  "Es cierto," said Mendoza. He was sitting back smoking lazily. "So you think she's going to turn up as a corpse for us."

  "It's a possibility. I thought I'd tell you. Wherever she does turn up—whenever—it's got to be a hundred percent sure whatever happened to her, it happened on the Central beat."

  SIX

  BY THE MIDDLE of Monday morning, Hackett and Higgins were talking to Joseph Alisio and his wife in their home. It was an old house in a once very fashionable area of Hollywood and still a good residential area, Outpost Drive. Some of the furniture looked like valuable antiques. Alisio was in the main executive office of a big chain of markets. He looked like his brother, a small man with a big nose and a bald head. His wife was a fat motherly-looking woman. They had both reacted to the news about Carlo with more incredulity than grief.

  "There's just no sense to it at all," said Alisio, rubbing his naked bald head. "Of course we were upset when the hospital called last night. Carl had seemed to be a lot better the last week or so, but the doctor had told us it was just a temporary state of remission. But this—it doesn't seem possible. Anything that could happen in a hospital."

  His wife said, "With so many there—"

  "Just who had been to see him?" asked Higgins. "When did everybody leave?"

  Alisio said promptly, "We got there about two o'clock and I think it was just after four we left, wasn't it, Amy?"

  She nodded. "We were having some friends in for dinner. I'd left the roast on but there were still things to do. Ruby and Arthur came just after we got there. That's my nephew and his wife, and their daughter and her husband came just a while later. Then Randy and Rosa and Bill came—"

  "That's my sister Rosa, Randy's mother—the Nicollettis—and then I think about three o'clock my brother Dan and his wife, Selma, and their two girls dropped by. It's a little drive for them from Long Beach, but we're a pretty close family—we thought a lot of Carl." Alisio took off his glasses to polish them with a handkerchief. "My God. A thing like this. Some lunatic—and in the hospital—it's just senseless. Dan and Selma hadn't got up the Sunday before, Carl was so glad to see them—and Randy. Randy was his favorite nephew. That's our sister Rosa's son. She's our youngest sister—baby of the family—and later on some old friends of Carl's came by, Jeanette and Paul De Angelo."

  "You were all in and out of his room most of the afternoon?" asked Hackett.

  "Yes, that's right. Just as usual. There wasn't space for more than three of four visitors at once. We'd go down to sit in the little lounge and then take turns going in to Carl."

  "Did either of the other two patients ever have any visitors?"

  "No, they never seem to. I guess they're so far gone they wouldn't reali
ze if anyone was there or not. I don't know if they've got any families."

  "But the other patients in the wing had visitors," said J Higgins.

  "Oh, yes. There were people coming and going most of the time, but of course we didn't know any of them. There were people we'd seen there before, I suppose seeing patients who'd been there as long as Carl had, but we wouldn't know their names. But who in God's name would want to do a thing like that? I can't take it in. It's just insane. Just insane."

  There had been nurses going around, naturally, and a couple of doctors, all the nurses and aides at the station in the hall. But Alisio was firm that the family were the only ones who had been in Carlo Alisio's room until they left.

  "Who was the last to leave? Do you remember?" asked Hackett.

  He said at once, "I think it would be either Randy or Rosa and Bill. They were still there when Amy and I left. Everybody else had gone. But, my God—how such a thing could've happened—it must've been some lunatic, doing a thing like that, but in a hospital with so many people around like Amy says—" He supplied names readily. Randy Nicolletti and his parents. His niece Ruby and her husband, Arthur Overman. The De Angelos—his brother Dan and his daughter, Kathy Penner.

  "And we'll have to look at all the employees," said Higgins back in the car. "What a hell of a job, Art. We'll have to talk to all the family."

  When they got back to the office to parcel out the names and addresses, Grace and Galeano had gone over to the hospital to start talking to the staff. This was going to pose some legwork with a vengeance. They would have to get the names of all the patients on that floor, try to find out who in their visitors had been, when they'd been there, and talk to everybody on the hospital staff with any reason to be in that wing. And this looked like the irrational thing, but a good many people with some mental quirk were walking around looking as sane as anybody else. That kind of thing wasn't always plain to see.

  Landers looked at the list of names and addresses and sighed. "Have to talk to all the family. Somebody may have noticed something. The last ones to leave." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "The time seems a little tight. That doctor thought he'd probably been killed between four and four-thirty— "

  "And just about then," said Higgins, "all the visitors were leaving and the nurses getting the patients ready to have dinner in an hour or so. Hell, anybody could've wandered into that room without being noticed, and it wouldn't have taken two minutes to kill the old man—"

  "Well, you know, George," said Glasser ruminatively, "hospitals these days—there aren't the same standards there used to be. They hire a lot of their lower-echelon people from the immigrants coming in, people who don't know English—willing to take menial jobs at lower pay. Besides all the nurses and aides and orderlies, there'll be the cleanup people and kitchen staff—all sorts of people. I know the immigrants are supposed to be screened, but who knows what could slip through?"

  "Lunatics," said Hackett. "Well, we'll sort out who saw him last, if they noticed anything. Anybody coming into the room or just outside when they left."

  They divided up the names and started out. Hackett drew the Nicollettis and went down the hall to the men's room before he headed for the elevator. When he passed the door to Robbery-Homicide again, Sergeant Lake called his name and he turned in. "Iady asking to see you," said Lake.

  Alongside the switchboard was a girl about twenty-two, a very pretty blond girl with a beautiful figure. She was smartly dressed in a blue sundress and high-heeled white sandals, with a big white handbag. She said, "I wanted to talk to the officer who arrested my husband. Is that you? I'm Stella Davies."

  "That's right, Mrs. Davies. I'm Sergeant Hackett." He took her into the office and gave her the chair beside his desk.

  She said drearily, "I wanted to ask you, you'd know about it, I guess. What Ricky might get."

  "Well, it's a first count on him and he's got a good record. I don't know, but it's probable the D.A. would accept a plea bargain. He might get sent up for a year and get probation."

  "I see," she said. "Thanks for telling me. Of course he was an awful fool for doing that, but I've got a sort of feeling it was partly my fault, too. I should've been alot more careful about expenses. Neither of us had ever had to budget very tight, if you see what I mean. I'd been giving Mother forty a week to help pay for groceries, but she owns the house and I wasn't used to paying rent, and neither was Ricky. And I guess we just thought we could go out and get whatever we wanted. I didn't have any idea those credit cards had gone so high, but it's just too easy to say charge it and give the account number." She accepted a cigarette I and a light apathetically. "I really didn't have to pay forty dollars for this dress."

  "He told you how worried he'd been," said Hackett.

  "I let him keep track of everything. I just hadn't any idea."

  "Well, maybe it's been a lesson for both of you."

  She said, emphatically, "It sure has been, Sergeant. And I guess I'll feel guilty the rest of my life. It's partly my fault Ricky'll be getting a prison record—but maybe it won't be so bad at that. I talked to his boss this morning, Mr. Willard, and he's always liked Ricky and he said he'll let him have the job back afterward. We'll both just try to use more sense and do better." She stood up. "Thanks, Sergeant. I'll be moving back in with Mother and try to save up all I can so we'll have a little backlog when he gets out, and we'll both watch it. And I'm going to get rid of those credit cards," she added vigorously. "They just make it too easy."

  Hackett grinned to himself, following her out. Maybe it had been the necessary lesson for both of them. Sometimes the stupid kids grew up a little and got some sense.

  * * *

  MENDOZA AND LANDERS had talked to the Overmans in Pasadena and Dan Alisio and his family in Long Beach, stopped for lunch on the way back and found Mrs. Rosa Nicolletti at home in West Hollywood. They had some idea now who had been at the hospital at what time. Mrs. Nicolletti said her husband was at work, he owned a sporting goods store in Santa Monica. Joe had called to tell her what the police said about Carl and she just couldn't believe it, it must have been a crazy person. She was better-looking then her brothers, with graying black hair and a figure slightly too plump.

  "What time did you leave the hospital?" asked Mendoza. "Was anyone else with your brother then?"

  "Well, as I recall we left together. Bill and I and Randy. Mary's expecting a baby and she hasn't been feeling too good, the doctor says she has to take it easy, that's Randy's wife—so she didn't come. It was about a quarter past four, and they like all the visitors to be out by around four-thirty, they bring the dinners around a little after five. I think we left together. No, I'm wrong, but it came to the same thing—Randy left his cigarettes in Carl's room and went back to get them, and we all went down to the elevator together. Randy's all broken up about Carl. He was Carl's favorite nephew. They thought a lot of each other."

  "Your brother didn't have any family of his own?"

  "No, he and Annie never had any children. They were sorry about it. It was a shame because Carl did a little better than the rest of us, in a money way I mean. Not that he was awfully rich, but he built that drugstore into a good business, he was a pharmacist, you know, and I guess he had a nice savings account. He was always a great one to save and watch the pennies. Oh, dear God," she said suddenly. "We knew he was dying—he was the oldest of the family—the first to go. But to have it happen such a way—"

  She told them where to find her son Randy. He worked at a big tax-accountant's office in Glendale. There they talked to him at his desk in a big communal office on the third floor of a new high-rise building. He was a good-looking dark young man about thirty, and he said wretchedly, "I feel terrible about Uncle Carl. I nearly didn't come to work. And when Dad called about noon—Oh, hell, I couldn't believe it—to think of—Well, that's right, I guess Mother and Dad and I were the last ones to leave. I went back after my cigarettes and came back out and—no, I didn't notice anybody in p
articular near the door. There were quite a few people in the hall, the elevator was crowded. Yes, Uncle Carl was alone in the room then, except for the other two patients."

  What with all the driving, they'd spent the whole day finding out that much and it still looked shapeless. Anybody could have gone into that hospital room between four-fifteen and five o'clock when Alisio was found dead. They drove back downtown to Parker Center nearly in silence. When they came into the office, only Hackett was there, and he was on the phone. He was looking amused, and when he put the phone down minutes later he said, "The things that happen. That was that Peabody woman from the Social Services Department. You'll be interested to hear that when the Health Department went to look at Ben Leach's house they found a hundred and four thousand dollars in cash hidden away at the back of a closet."

  "Maravilloso," said Mendoza. "So the county won't be paying for his board at a nursing home."

  "The court will appoint a conservator and it'll probably take care of him the rest of his life. It's funny," said Hackett, starting to laugh again. "People—those young Davies. There doesn't seem to be any happy medium between the ones who throw it away and the misers. What have you picked up?"

  "We've sorted out who saw him last," said Mendoza. "And damn it, it's still all up in the air. My next thought, we take a good look at the hospital staff—at backgrounds—something suggestive may show. Hell, there must be a couple of hundred people on that staff—more—and anybody in a uniform could saunter down that hall without anybody paying any attention—and we haven't talked to those nurses on this shift again. Damnation. We'll be doing some overtime tonight."

  * * *

  THE OFFBEAT 0NE at the hospital took up time. There were a lot of people to talk to, to question. Palliser was off on Monday, Grace on Tuesday. Even with Glasser back they were shorthanded. And with all the answers they got, it was still a shapeless thing. All the comings and goings—anybody at all could have gone in and smothered the old man. Nobody had seen anything, anybody out of the ordinary. It was just a lot of tiresome legwork for nothing.