Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon (13 page)

 
"For God's sake," said Higgins. "And
hell, the night watch won't be on for a couple of hours. We'd better
have a quick look and see what it is anyway. O.K. John? Jimmy, call
our wives and say we'll be late."

"Murder at a hospital," said Palliser as
they waited for the elevator. "Funny isn't the word. I didn't
think anybody was ever alone long in a hospital, and you usually need
privacy to commit a murder." They took Higgins' Pontiac and
drove down to that fairly old hospital on Hope
Street. In the main lobby, Higgins asked one of the receptionists for
Dr. Rasmussen.

"That's me," said a voice behind him. "The
other one doesn't look much like a cop, but I spotted you when you
walked in." Big craggy-faced Higgins might as well have COP
tattooed on his forehead. Rasmussen was a young man with crisp light
brown hair, a nearly handsome face with a long nose and bright eyes.
"This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of, but when I saw
what it was I thought we'd better rope you in. Your business. The
damnedest thing." He yawned. "Look, can we sit down to
talk? I'm bushed. Had a hell of a day, and now this—and I'm not off
till seven and I suppose you'll keep me hanging around. You'll want
to talk to all the nurses—"

"Let's take one thing at a time," said
Higgins. They sat down in one corner of the lobby and he offered
Rasmussen a cigarette. "What's this all about?" Rasmussen
was probably one of the interns here, about the right age.

"This patient, Carlo Alisio, cancer patient—man
seventy-four and pretty far gone. He was riddled with it. He was in
for radiation and therapy, and oddly enough—but it's
unpredictable—he'd suddenly gone into remission. We thought he was
going any time, about ten days ago, warned the family. But he'd
perked up and was doing pretty well. Just a question of time, of
course. He was due to be transferred to the V.A. hospital tomorrow.
His Medicare had run out and he was eligible." Rasmussen drew
strongly on his cigarette. "I saw him for just a minute this
morning—no occasion to again, until the nurse called me. That was
about five o'clock. She'd gone in for a routine check and found him
dead."

"Was he in a private room?" asked Palliser.

"You know what year it is? Hell, no, who can
afford it, and we don't have any left. He was in a three-bed room,
but the other two patients are fairly comatose—not up to noticing
anything—and the curtain was up around Alisio's bed. I thought, of
course, he'd just passed out naturally, and I was a little surprised,
I must say. Then when I took a look at him—well, the nurse had seen
it too— I was even more damned surprised. He was smothered with the
pillow. All  you have to do is look, it was still over his face.
But I looked at it— I don't suppose even your smart lab men could
get fingerprints off a pillowcase—"

"You'd be surprised at that, too," said
Higgins.

"— And there is the plain evidence. He'd
struggled and bitten a piece out of the pillowcase. There's saliva
and mucous stains, and a piece of cloth and thread still in his
mouth. The damnedest thing."

"Do you know if he had any visitors today?"

Rasmussen said, "The nurse can tell you, but I'd
have a bet on it. There was a big family—Italians after all—and
all evidently pretty close. Somebody always coming to see him and
calling in. Sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. He was a widower.
But we chase the visitors away about four-thirty.

The nurses like to get dinner over with early."

"How long do you think he'd been dead?"
asked Palliser.

Rasmussen shrugged. "He was still warm. I'd say
not over an hour—possibly less. What do we do about the body? I
thought you'd want to see it, told the nurses to stay out."

Higgins looked at his watch and swore. "We'd
better have some pictures, at least. And unless somebody's working
overtime in the lab—" He got up, went to call in.

Then Rasmussen took them up to the third floor and
pointed out the room halfway along the hall. There was a little
huddle of nurses gathered at the station at that end, whispering
excitedly together. They eyed Higgins and Palliser with avid
curiosity. "He's in the bed by the window," said Rasmussen,
following them in.

The patients in the first two beds, two old men,
seemed to be asleep or in comas; neither stirred. The white curtain
was pulled across the side of the bed by the window. They stepped
around it and looked at the dead man. Alisio had been a small old
man, thin and bald with a big nose. The gray-stubbled face was
contorted, his mouth and eyes open, the body twisted to one side,
right arm up over his head—he had struggled for his ebbing life.
The pillow was on one side of the body and they could see the little
piece bitten out of the casing, the stains on the rest.

"I will be damned," said Higgins. "I
left word at the lab. Somebody will be out as soon as the night watch
comes in. I don't suppose it'd disturb the other patients in here, if
you 1 just leave him a couple of hours."

Rasmussen said, "Unlikely."

"Well, after our men have got some photographs,
we'd like you to send the body down to the coroner's office for
autopsy. The nurses on now don't go off shift until eleven, is that
right?"

"Right."

"What I'd like you to do," said Higgins,
massaging his jaw and thinking, "is to notify the family that
he's dead. Just that. They'd been expecting him to go—they won't be
surprised."

"They'll want the body," said Rasmussen.
"What do we tell them?"

"Oh, we'll be around
asking questions," said Higgins. "I guess we can leave it
for the night watch, John. And I think I'll call Luis. He always
likes the offbeat ones. He's going to love this one, in spades."

* * *

MENDOZA HAD EXCHANGED the orderly peace at the office
for the bedlam of an obstreperous family at home. "They've been
wild as hawks all day," said Alison crossly.

The twins flung themselves at him and pummeled him.

"Daddy, Daddy! I galloped real fast on Star and
Uncle Ken says I'm a tomboy, what's a tomboy.?" "Daddy,
Mama says we can't take the ponies to school, why couldn't we ride
the ponies to school?"

"It wouldn't be good for them to walk on the
street," said Mendoza at random.

"Mairi's been fixing my uniform. Girls get to
wear a uniform because they're more important than boys," said
Terry loudly.

"Are not! Girls aren't important to anybody! And
I galloped faster on Diamond! Why wouldn't it be good for them,
Daddy?"

"Nobody's more important than anybody else,"
said Alison. "For heaven's sake, go to your rooms and play
quietly at something and give your father some peace. It's the
school, of course. They'll settle down in a couple of days, I hope."

Tomorrow was the opening day of the semester for both
public and parochial schools. Having completed kindergarten, Johnny
and Terry would be starting first grade at the Immaculate Heart
Parochial School down the hill in Burbank. And as Alison said, her
good Scots Presbyterian father was probably turning in his grave, but
it couldn't be helped. At least they'd get a sounder education than
most public schools offered these days.

"Why wouldn't it be good for them, Daddy?"

"It would hurt their feet," said Alison.
The cats, affronted at all the noise, had departed huffily. Cedric
began to bark.

"But we want to ride the ponies to school! It'd
be lots more fun than riding an old school bus. Why can't we—"

"We've told you why," said Alison.

"And besides, if girls aren't more important
than boys, how come I get to wear a uniform and Johnny doesn't? A
uniform is special."

"Because that's the way the school rules are,"
said Alison. "And we'll hear no more about it. You two go and
see what Mairi's doing."

"I know what she's doing, she's fixing my
uniform because the skirt was too long."

"And I don't see a uniform is so special, she's
got to wear it, it's a rule, and I can wear anything I want. So—"

"No, you can't. You have to wear dark pants and
a white shirt, so that's like a uniform too. And now we'll drop the
subject. Why don't you go out and see the ponies again?"

"We want Daddy to play with us," shouted
Terry promptly. "Play bears and lions!"

"Oh, Terry, you haven't played that since you
were a baby. Daddy's too tired to play."

"
¡Demonios, qué
relajo!
" said Mendoza. "
Basta
,
you two. Daddy's got too much to think about to play. You chase off
and visit the ponies."

"We already did. We just came back, and Uncle
Ken said we was little devils."

"So you are," said Alison. She finally
persuaded them to begin practicing their reading for school, and they
made as much noise on the stairs as both the ponies. Alison sank down
on the couch. "What a day, and what a relief to have them in
school all day! I'll bet you in a week's time it'll be, why do we
have to go to school?"

Mendoza laughed. "I wouldn't doubt. They'll grow
out of it sometime,
cariña
."
He went out to the kitchen for a drink. El Señor heard the cupboard
open and was on the counter before he had the top off the bottle.
Mendoza said, "
Borracho
,"
and poured him half an ounce. Back in the living room he said, "The
Sûreté hasn't a damn thing to tell us. And you know we can't leave
her in the morgue. There ought to be some sort of funeral."

"Oh, dear," said Alison. She sat up and lit
a cigarette. "I know there was something else she said that just
escapes me—and you know it sounds silly, Luis, we didn't know the
girl at all, but I feel somehow that we ought to send flowers or
attend the funeral or something."

"Yes, I know."
Mendoza had the same queer feeling. He was still thinking about
Juliette, which was futile, because there wasn't anything else he
could do about it, when they settled down after dinner. For once
Kipling couldn't hold his interest. But at eight-thirty Higgins
called to tell him about the new offbeat one and that gave him
something else to think about.

* * *

“
WELL, OF ALL THE RIGMAROLES,"I said Conway,
scanning Higgins' note. "The day men have left us a little work.
On the other hand, we may meet some pretty nurses." He shoved
the note over to Piggott.

"Somebody's got to mind the store," said
Schenke. "I'll toss you for it."

"No, I want to go talk to the nurses. What a
hell of a funny thing," said Conway. "Why bother to murder
a man who's as good as dead already?"

"Could've been what they call a mercy killing,"
suggested Piggott. "Some people don't think so straight about
things like that."

"Or a homicidal maniac among the orderlies,"
said Conway. "O.K, Bob. You sit on the store and if you get
swamped, you know where we are. Come on, Matt. Let's see what we can
find out about the maniac."

Schenke sat and finished his historical novel in the
unnatural gloom and quiet of the big office, before the desk relayed
a call. It wasn't a heist this time, but a mugging, and it looked
like another in that series that was probably organized gang
activity. It was the parking lot at Madame Wu's in Little Tokyo, and
the couple were fighting mad.

They looked like money, a couple in the thirties, Mr;
and Mrs. James Ferguson, dressed to the nines. Her expensive evening
gown had one sleeve ripped nearly out. He had the start of a fine
shiner and his sport shirt was slashed. "God-damn it," he
was saying to the patrolman, probably for the tenth time, "I
tried to put up a fight, but there must've been six or eight of the
damn bastards—"

"We never saw them, they came out from behind
some cars—just grabbed us and held us while the rest of them tore
off my necklace and earrings—"

"And got my billfold— I tried to get loose and
put up a fight but they were all damn big bastards—"

Schenke got them calmed down a little and sorted
things out. "Well, I don't know to a dime how much I had on me,
but it must've been close to a hundred bucks, and damn it, that
diamond necklace set me back seven thousand—"

"Could you give a description of any of them?"

"It was too damned dark and it happened too
fast. But they were Latin," said Ferguson. "Just a couple
of things the one said—just take it easy and you won't get the
knife in your throat—he had a heavy Spanish accent. Hell, no,
neither of us could recognize any pictures. I don't suppose there's
much the police can do about it."

"Well, we'd like a description of the jewelry,
sir, to put it on the hot list to pawnbrokers." That was just a
gesture. None of the loot this bunch had got away with had shown up,
which said they knew a tame fence. "Are you all right to drive
home, Mr. Ferguson?" Their address was Pacific Palisades.

"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.