Case Pending - Dell Shannon

by Dell Shannon

  "That’s a queer one," said Mendoza. "You think it’s anything for us?"

  Hackett considered. "It doesn’t smell that way to me, no. She struck me as an honest girl, and sensible too, which means it’s not likely she’s mixed into anything illegal. But they say everybody’s got something to hide. We might trace her back, sure, but I think all we’d find would be the kind of thing innocent people get all hot and bothered about hiding—an illegitimate baby or a relative in the nut house, or maybe she’s run away from an alcoholic husband. I think it’d be a waste of time myself, but you’re the boss."

  "It might be just as well to find out," said Mendoza slowly. "In a thing like this, any loose end sticking out of the tangle, take hold and pull—maybe it isn’t connected to the main knot, or maybe it is—you can’t know until you follow it in."

  "O.K., I got more for you." The brief flare of the match as he lit a new cigarette brought some looks his way again. The kids on the floor were more interested in them than skating, now—gathering in little groups, slow-moving, to whisper excitedly about it; some of them

  would have known Elena.

  Mendoza stared out at them absently, listening to Hackett. It was now just about thirty-three hours since the body had been found; a lot of routine spadework had kept a lot of men busy in that time. A dozen formal statements had been taken, from the Ramirez family, from three or four of the kids present here on Friday night, from Ehrlich and the two attendants, from the Wades and their visiting neighbor. A great many other people had been questioned, and of course written reports had been turned in on most of this and a new case-file started by the office staff. Again, as six months before, routine inquiry was being made into all recently released or escaped mental patients, and the present whereabouts of persons with records of similar violent assaults. The official machinery had ground elsewhere, arranging for the coroner’s inquest .... As inevitably happened, crime had touched the lives of many innocent people, had grouped together an incongruous assortment of individuals whose private lives had in some part been invaded, you could say—if incidentally and with benevolent motive.

  And—he finally stopped lingering the cigarette he’d got out five minutes ago, and lit it—he would offer odds that if, as, and when they caught up with this one, it would turn out to be one of the many homicides any police officer had seen, which need never have happened if someone had used a little common sense, or more self-control, or hadn’t been a little too greedy or vain or possessive or impatient.

  Like Mrs. Demarest, he sometimes felt it would be nice to believe there was a master plan, that some reason for all this existed. He disapproved on principle of anything so disorderly as blind fate.

  "After telling you you’re chasin’ rainbows," Hackett was saying, "I’ll give you a little more confirmation. I saw the Wade boy again, and he says maybe there was such a guy, Elena mentioned it to him. Twice. He thinks the first time was about a week ago, but they were out together two nights running and he won’t swear which it was—they came here both nights. Anyway, she asked him did he see the guy sitting there at the side staring at her all the time—"

  "Here," said Mendoza, sitting up. "Right here? So—"

  "Don’t run to get a warrant. The boy says he looked, and there was somebody sitting where she said, but he couldn’t see what he looked like in the dark, just that there was somebody there. He didn’t pay much attention, because he thought it was just one of the other kids, and Elena was imagining things—‘1ike girls do,’ he said—when she said it was the same guy she’d seen in here before, and that he never took his eyes off her. You’ll be happy to know that Ricky also came to this conclusion because he didn’t see how she could recognize a face that far off, in this light—he couldn’t. He wears glasses for driving and movies, and he didn’t have them on, never wears them in here on account of the danger of breakage."

  "¡Fuegos del infierno!" exclaimed Mendoza violently. "Of course, of course!"

  "Go on listening, it gets better. He says Elena told him she’d seen the guy here five or six times, always in about the same spot, but Ricky thought then she’d maybe seen a couple of different kids, different times, and imagined the rest. O.K. On Friday night, when they first got here, she looked, and he wasn’t there. But later on, all of a sudden she spotted him, and made Ricky look, and there he was—or there somebody was. Now, mind you, just like her sister, Ricky didn’t think she was afraid of this fellow, that there was anything like that to it. If he had, if she’d acted that way, all the people she mentioned it to would’ve thought of it right off, and I read it myself that she started out being kind of flattered and annoyed at once, which would be natural, and then just annoyed. Because there was something ‘funny’ about him. So, when she spotted him again Friday night, she acted so worried about it that Ricky decided to get a closer look, to watch for the guy again, if you follow me. Elena said he’d showed up so sudden it was like magic, one time she looked and no guy, and about three seconds later she happened to look again and there he was—"

  "Yes, of course. So?"

  "So then, finish. Before Ricky gets over to take a close look, Papa comes in breathing righteous wrath and yanks him out."

  This time Mendoza didn’t swear, merely shut his eyes.

  "And if you’re still interested, Smith has tagged the Ramirez uncle visiting what is probably a cat-house on Third—at least the address rang a bell, and I checked with Prince in Vice—he pricked up his ears and said we’d closed it twice, and he was glad to know somebody had opened up again, they’ll look into it. After that Ramirez took a bus way across town to treat himself to a couple of drinks at a place called the Maison du Chat, on Wilshire. Which Smith thought was sort of funny because it’s a very fancy layout where you get nicked a dollar and a half for a Scotch highball, and six dollars for a steak because it’s in French on the menu."

  "I don’t give one damn about Ramirez’ taste in women, let Prince look into that. The other, yes, we’ll follow it up—find out what you can about it, it may be a drop for a wholesaler. If anything definite shows up, throw it at Narcotics then and let them take over."

  "I’m ahead of you. I got Higgins and Farnsworth on it. All they got so far is the owner’s name, which is Nicholas Dimitrios." Hackett dropped his cigarette and put a careful heel on it. "Just what’s your idea about all this, anyway?—dolls, yet! I don’t see you’ve got much to get hold of."

  "¡Me lo cuenta a mi!—you’re telling me! But I’ll tell you how I see it happening. Somewhere around here is our lunatic—and don’t ask me what kind he is—nor I won’t even guess why he finds a back way into this hellhole and gets a kick out of watching these kids on skates. It makes a better story if you say he was following Elena. Anyway, here he is, and nobody else seems to have noticed him particularly. Neither of the attendants has much occasion to come down to this end of the floor, and if any of the kids noticed him, they took him for one of themselves. And about that, de paso, I think we can deduce that he’s a fairly young man. Elena called him a boy, and the odds are an older man would have been noticed by others in here, would have stood out—as it is, I think he was seen, casually, by some of the kids, and accepted as one of them. On the other hand, he seems to have taken some care not to be noticed much, sitting back against the wall—" Mendoza shrugged. "It’s pretty even, maybe, but I think the balance goes to show he’s fairly young. All right. She had seen him at least once elsewhere, with another boy or several others, one of whom is named Danny—"

  "A1l of which is very secondhand evidence."

  "Don’t push me. He was here on Friday night, he saw her leave alone. Evidently he hadn’t made any attempt before to approach her, speak to her, and I think he did then because he saw her boy friend taken out and thought this was his chance. He followed her, using his private door, so Ehrlich and the attendants didn’t notice him leave. So he had to walk round the building, which put him just far enough behind her that he didn’t catch up for a block or so. Finish.
And I don’t know why he killed her, if that was in his mind from the start or a sudden impulse. I’m inclined to say impulse, because you couldn’t find two girls more different than Brooks and this one—so he doesn’t pick victims by any apparent system, though there’s holes in that reasoning, I grant you—he may have some peculiar logic of his own, of course."

  "I’ll buy all that, but there’s no evidence at all, a lot of hearsay and a lot of ifs. And how do you tie in Brooks and the doll?"

  "Oh, damn the doll," said Mendoza. "I can’t figure the odds on that, if it ties in or not—it’s just as possible that somebody stumbled on Brooks after the killer left her, and stole the thing—or that she was robbed of it before she ran into the killer. And I can say—claro está!—it’s a lunatic, and the same lunatic—and when we find him, we’ll find that last September he had some reason to frequent Tappan Street. There’s even less evidence on all that." He stood and took up his hat from the bench, flicked dust off it automatically. "Here’s Clawson. I’m going home."

  "I might’ve expected that—walk off and leave me enough work so I can’t try to beat your time with that redhead."

  "That," said Mendoza, "to quote another classic tag line, would be sending a boy to do a man’s work. But you have my permission to try, Arturo—I never worry about competition."

  EIGHT

  All the same, that doll intrigued him; it was such an incongruous thing.

  When he unlocked the door of his apartment, automatically reaching to the light switch as he came in, the first thing that met his eyes was the elegant length of the Abyssinian cat draped along the top of the traverse-rod housing across the front windows, a foot below the ceiling.

  Which meant that Bertha was here. Bast intensely resented Bertha and her vigorous maneuvers with mop, dustcloths, and vacuum cleaner, and took steps to keep out of her way. He was unsurprised to find her there on a late Sunday afternoon; the seven or eight people who shared Bertha’s excellent services were used to her ways. If she felt like doing a thorough job on the Carters’ Venetian blinds when she ought to be at the Elgins’, or got behind because she’d decided to turn out all the Brysons’ kitchen cupboards, she was apt to turn up almost anywhere at any time, and no one ever complained because, miraculously, Bertha really did the work she was paid for, and had even been known to dust the backs of pictures and the tops of doors.

  She appeared now from the kitchen, jamming an ancient felt hat over her tight sausage curls. "I was just leavin’. There you go, switchin’ on lights allovera place—your bill must be somethin’ sinful! You found out yet who that dead man in the yards was?"

  He admitted they had not; and yes, the forces of law were so unreasonable as to have arraigned the society beauty for murder, even after hearing all the excellent reasons she had for shooting her husband. He looked at Bertha thoughtfully (the average mind?) and said, "Do me a favor, and pretend you’re taking one of those word-association tests, you know, I throw a word at you and you say the first thing that comes into your head—"

  "I know, it’s psychological? She looked interested.

  "So, I say doll to you—what do you think of?"

  "Witches," said Bertha. "I just saw a movie about it last night. The witch takes and makes this doll and names it and all, and sticks this big pin right through—"

  "I get the general idea," said Mendoza sadly. "Thanks very much, that’ll do." Witches: that was all they needed! When Bertha had slammed the door cheerfully after herself, he took off his coat, brought in the kitchen step-stool, and spent five minutes persuading Bast that it was safe to trust her descent to him. That was one puzzle he would never, probably, solve: she had no trouble getting up there, but hadn’t yet found out how to get down. As usual, she emitted terrified yells as he backed down the steps, and, released, instantly assumed the haughty sangfroid of the never-out-of-countenance sophisticate. She turned her back on him and studied one black paw admiringly before beginning to wash it. There were times Mendoza thought he liked cats because, like himself, they were all great egotists.

  "Witches," he said again to himself, and laughed.

  * * *

  "And you put that coat away tidy where it belongs! On a hanger, not just anyhow. Clothes cost money, how many times I got to tell you, take care of what we got, no tellin’ when we can get new."

  "All right," said Marty. He got out of bed and picked up the corduroy jacket. He couldn’t take down a hanger and put the jacket on it and hang it over the rod, all with his eyes shut, but he did it fast and he tried not to look down at the floor. She was fussing round the room behind him.

  But he couldn’t help seeing it, even if he didn’t look right at it, and anyway, he thought miserably, even if he never opened the closet door, never had to see it, it didn’t change anything—the thing was still there, he’d still know about it.

  So did she, and for another reason he only half-understood himself. That was partly why he got the door shut again quick. She might know, alright, but she was different—if she didn’t see it, she could keep from thinking about it. He felt like he was in two separate parts, about that, the way he felt about a lot of things lately—twin Martys, like looking in a mirror. He didn’t see how she could, but in a funny kind of way he didn’t want to make her have to see it—long as she could do like that.

  He got back in bed and pulled the covers up. It was just like something was pulling him right in half, like two big black monster-shapes were using him for tug of war. And he had to just lie there, he couldn’t do anything, because she wouldn’t. And even if she was wrong, she was his Ma, and—and—

  She said from the door, "You be real good now, no horsing round, you go right to sleep." She sounded just like always.

  A funny idea slid into his mind then, the first minute of lying there in the dark—alone with the secret. He wondered if she’d forgot all about it, if maybe now she could look right at it and never really see it at all. Like it was invisible—because she wanted it to be.

  But even in the dark with the door shut, he could still see it.

  The box had gone a long while ago, got stepped on, and the big piece of thin white fancy paper and the pink shiny ribbon had got all crumpled and spoiled pretty soon, from handling .... The doll wasn’t new any more either. It sat in there on the closet floor, leaning up against the wall, even when he shut his eyes tight he could see it. It had been awful pretty when it was new, even if it was just a silly girl’s thing. It wasn’t pretty any more. The spangly pink dress was all stained and torn, and most of the lace was tom off the underwear, and one of the arms was pulled loose. The gold curls had got all tangled and some pulled right off, and one of the blue eyes with real lashes had been poked right in so there was just a black hole there and you could hear the eye sort of rattle around inside when you—The other eye still shut when the doll was laid down.

  Marty always had a funny hollow feeling when he heard that eye rattling round inside. You’d think sometime it’d fall out, but it never did. He’d been lying here, felt like hours, still as he could, in the dark. This was the worst time of all, and lately it had been getting harder and harder to let go, and pretty soon be asleep. Because in the dark, it seemed like the secret was somehow as big as the whole room, so he couldn’t breathe, so he felt he had to get out and run and run and tell everybody—yell it as loud as he could.

  He lay flat, very still, but he could hear his heart going thud-thud-thud, very fast. You were supposed to say a prayer when you went to bed, she’d made him learn it when he was just a little kid and when they lived over on Tappan and he’d gone to the Methodist Sunday school, it’d been up on the wall there in the Sunday school room, the words sewed onto cloth some fancy old-fashioned way and flowers around them, in a gold frame. He could see that now sort of in his mind, red and blue flowers and the words in four lines. It was the only real prayer he knew by heart and he was afraid to say it any more, because if you said any of it you had to say it all and it might be worse than bad luc
k to say the end of it. If I should die before I—

  Most of the time, like at school, anyway in daylight, he could stand it. But this was the bad time, alone with it. A lot of feelings were churning around inside him, and they didn’t exactly go away other times, they were still there but outside things helped to push them deeper inside, sort of—school and baseball practice and being with other kids and all. But like this in the dark, they got on top of him—a lot of bad feelings, but the biggest and worst of all was being just plain scared. There were times, like yesterday, when he thought she was too; and then again, seemed like, she made up her mind so hard that nothing so awful like that could be so, for her it just wasn’t. Maybe grownups could do that. He sure wished he could. Like looking right at that doll and never remembering, never thinking—

  Marty felt shameful tears pricking behind his eyes, but the fear receded a little in him for the upsurge of resentment at her unfairness .... She’d told a lie, a lie, he knew it was a lie, he wasn’t crazy, was he?—if Dad had been there she’d never have dared say he was the one telling lies, but—what could you do when a grown-up, your own Ma—

  "I bought it," she’d said, and he thought he remembered it was one of the times she sounded afraid too .... "I did so buy it, Marty, you’re just pretendin’ not to remember!—you got to remember, all that money—I saved it up, and I bought it yesterday—" About the money wasn’t a lie; she had, but the rest wasn’t so, he remembered.

  What he remembered made terrible pictures in his mind, now he put it all together.

  The fear that was never very far away now, even at school—outside—came creeping over him again like a cold hand feeling.

  The doll. It had been awful pretty—then.

  He wished he could forget that picture, all it said under it, in the newspaper. She hadn’t got it this time, she wouldn’t talk or listen about anything to do with it now—seemed like something just made him get that paper, and it had cost ten cents too. Elena. It was a pretty name. But he wished he could stop seeing the picture because it was the same girl, he’d known it would be but it was worse knowing for real sure—the picture—and the very worst about it was something silly, but somehow terrible too. The picture that looked like that doll when it’d been new. Before the eye had—