Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon (16 page)

"You went. to see her about it again last Friday
night?" asked Higgins.

"I sure did. I'd already had a couple of
arguments with her. I'd looked up her address and found she lived
just a couple of blocks away. I could use that money—just moving
back here like I said—and I wasn't going to let her get away with
it. I don't know what she told you, but I went there and she wouldn't
let me in. She stood in the door and argued with me—said she wasn't
going to pay the money twice—and I just got mad. I saw there wasn't
one damn thing I could do about it, I couldn't prove she never paid
Bert, but I know she hadn't. And finally I just gave her a shove, I
was damn mad, and I guess I caught her off balance and she fell
down—and I can't say I'm sorry. I haven't been near her since. I
don't care what she told you."

"She didn't tell us anything, Mrs. Arvin,"
said Higgins.

"She's dead. She hit her head when she fell down
and fractured her skull."

She stared at him with mouth open, and her complexion
went muddy gray. "You mean when I pushed her—you mean—Oh, my
God—my God—I never meant to hurt her any way—Oh, my God."

Galeano said, "I'm afraid you'll have to come
downtown with us."

"You're arresting me for murder—for killing
her? I never meant—"

"Well, it won't amount to that," said
Higgins. The charge would probably be involuntary manslaughter and
she wouldn't serve much time.

"Oh, my God," she said dully. "Can I
go get dressed? I can't go anywhere like this." They didn't
think she'd try to cut her throat, alone in the bathroom; she wasn't
the type, so they let her go.

Galeano lit a cigarette. "The poor henpecked
husband," he said. "Seeing a chance to keep a little cash
for himself."

"I wonder what he did with it," said
Higgins.

"Maybe blew it on a more congenial female,"
said Galeano.

They were never to know
that two and a half years ago Mrs. Amelia Brown, moving into a
cheaper apartment on West Adams Street, had with surprise and
gratification discovered two twenties and a ten in an envelope at the
back of the closet shelf in the bedroom. She had decided not to
mention it to the manager. It was her business. It had meant a few
little extra luxuries that month, and a really nice birthday present
for her oldest granddaughter.

* * *

GALLEANO GOT Home to the little house in Studio City
at six-thirty. It had been murderously hot again today. He looked at
the house as he turned into the drive and thought again that it could
stand a coat of paint, but with the baby coming—maybe next year
they could afford it. Marta hadn't heard him drive in. She was in the
backyard, sitting on the grass playing with the little gray tabby
kitten she'd got from the people down the street. He stood for a
moment looking at her fondly, his darling Marta, with the tawny blond
hair and dark eyes. She wasn't showing the baby much; it was due in
March. She had on a green sundress and she was laughing down at the
kitten. It would be funny if the baby should arrive on their first
wedding anniversary. It was going to be Anthony for his father or
Christine for her mother.

"Nick, I did not hear you come in." She
scrambled up and came running to him and he kissed her soundly. "I
was just thinking, I wish I could afford a better
house
for us."

She laughed. "But you do not know how rich it
makes me feel to own a whole house, with a nice yard to make a
garden?" She'd never lose her little German accent. She'd had a
rough time for a while—her first husband killing himself, and
losing the baby. He hoped he could make it all up to her from now on.
"You look tired, Liebchen. Come in and sit down, I have dinner
nearly ready."

That night about
eight-thirty, Patrolman Manuel Gonzales was peacefully cruising on
his regular tour in Hollywood. He'd turned on to Vermont for the
second time and presently came to the L.A.C.C. campus. Several of the
buildings were lit up—for evening classes probably, he thought—and
there were cars in the parking lot. Just doing the routine, he turned
in and drove around there. He had nine A.P.B.'s posted on the squad's
dashboard, plate numbers to look for. He didn't know why the
front-office boys were after them, it could be anything from a stolen
car to a heist suspect to murder. But that wasn't his business. He
drove slowly around the lot, looking casually at plate numbers, and
suddenly, down at the end of the lot, he spotted one. He braked and
checked the number with the posted A.P.B. They matched. A
two-year-old Chrysler Newport, navy-blue, and

* * *

IT WAS SCHENKE'S night off. Piggott and Conway got
sent out once, early, to a heist at a pharmacy on Sixth. There wasn't
a decent description of the heister to be had, the owner was the only
witness and he was too shook to say what color the man had been. They
came back to the office and Piggott started to type the report. And
then Hollywood Division called to say that the A.P.B. had turned up a
car they wanted. Neither of them knew much about Edna Holzer, but
enough to know that it probably wouldn't be any use to stake out the
car and wait for somebody to come back, the car belonged to a missing
woman. Conway called  the police garage and asked for somebody
to go up there and tow it in for lab examination. He supposed there
wasn't any hurry about that and didn't bother to call the skeleton
night crew at the lab.

Piggott hadn't finished the report when they got
another call to another heist. There were five witnesses to this one
and all good witnesses. It was a liquor store and both owners had
been there with three old friends, just about to start a friendly
game of draw in the back office after the store was closed. They were
all older men who had seen military service and didn't scare easily.
They hadn't wanted anybody to get hurt so they hadn't put up a fight,
and the owners had only left enough cash in the register to start
with change tomorrow; he'd only got about twenty bucks. But they all
described him graphically. A Negro about twenty-five, six feet, small
mustache, dark pants and yellow shirt, no discernible accent. They
all agreed on the gun—a revolver, either a .38 or .45, probably a
Colt.

"This will give the day watch some legwork,"
said Piggott. On a lot of the recent heists, there wasn't much to do.
When there was a good description, there was. They looked in Records
for men who matched the description, went and looked for them,
brought them in for questioning. It could be tedious and largely
futile, but once in a while they hit a jackpot.

The phone rang and Conway picked it up. "Say,
where have you been? I've been trying to get you for an hour. This is
Slattery down at the garage."

"We've been on a call. Did that car get brought
in?"

"Well, that's what I'm calling about. I went up
to Hollywood to get it, and you might have warned me, for God's sake,
you gave me the hell of a shock. I mean, for God's sake, I've seen
bodies before—I was two years in 'Nam—but I wasn't expecting it."

"A body?" said Conway.

"Yeah, in the back seat of this Chrysler. It's a
woman."

"Well, surprise,
surprise," said Conway. "I suppose the Hollywood man just
checked the plate. Just leave it alone, I'll see if I can get the lab
out." He called and somebody named Steiner said through a yawn
that they'd get on it. "You want the works—pictures and all?
O.K. You boys do pick the goddamndest time to find corpses."

* * *

"I TOLD YOU so," said Carey. He and Mendoza
stood in the cold room down at the morgue looking at the body in its
tray. Edna Holzer had probably been an attractive woman, but you
wouldn't know it now. She'd been stripped and her clothes sent up to
the lab, and nothing had been done to the body pending the autopsy.
There were ugly cyanosed stains on her throat and shoulders and her
face was twisted into a grimace.

"And I don't need an autopsy to know she was
strangled," added Carey. "Knocked around a little first.
The doctors will say if she's been raped."

"And not very long after she left the hospital
on Saturday night," said Mendoza. "There wouldn't have been
much traffic at that hour along the couple of blocks before she'd hit
the freeway, but—"

"But," said Carey, "woman driving
alone at night, it would've been dark for about half an hour, she'd
automatically keep the car doors locked. Even if she caught a light,
how could anybody have jumped her'? I suppose he could've been
waiting in the parking lot—grabbed her when she came back to the
car. It's about the only way it could've happened. She wasn't
planning to stop anywhere between there and home."

"
¡Condenación!
" said Mendoza, brushing violently at his mustache. "We've
got a hell of a lot too much on hand already, with that damned
hospital staff to delve into, and another homicide, and that new
heist. All we need is something like this. Of course, the lab might
pick up something on the car. Well, no rest for the wicked, as Art
says. We'll have to work it."

They drove up to Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood in the
Ferrari. The Holzer house was a comfortable old Spanish place with a
manicured lawn in front. Frances Holzer was home and Carey broke the
news to her.

She was a pretty girl about twenty-five with brown
hair, a fair complexion, and hazel eyes. She had looked a little
haggard already, and she broke down and wept for quite a while. They
gave her time. Finally, she sat up and blew her nose and said in a
shaking voice, "I knew she was dead—I just knew it. I knew she
had to be when she didn't come home. I said to her when she left that
night, I wished she wouldn't go, I said she could go on Sunday—in
daylight. That's right downtown—that hospital. Not a good part of
town. But she said there was that deposition to do in the morning,
and she wanted to wash her hair in the afternoon. Maybe I had a
premonition. I just couldn't go to work all week, I called in sick. I
knew she'd never come home again."

"Would she have had much money with her, Miss
Holzer?" asked Mendoza.

"No, just a few dollars. But all her credit
cards—I did have enough sense to call and put a stop on those. Just
in case—in case—"

Mendoza made a mental note to find out which cards
they were, ask the central clearing office to notify them on the
outside chance that somebody might try to use those accounts.

"Oh, my God, I've got to call Mona—my sister.
They've been just frantic too, but they live in Bakersfield and
couldn't come—they'll have to now."

"Was she careful about keeping the car doors
locked?" asked Carey.

She gave them a wild look and began to cry again.
"But that's why I'd been so worried about her going out alone at
night—I begged her not to go—she said, the freeway nearly all the
way—"

They gave her another minute while she sobbed. "What
do you mean, Miss Holzer?" asked Mendoza.

"The l-l-lock on the right front door was
b-b-broken. They had to send for a part. It wasn't going to be fixed
until next week. Oh, my God, I'd better call Mona right away—"

Mendoza and Carey looked
at each other. Such a simple explanation when you knew.

* * *

ON WEDNESDAY, just before noon, the autopsy and lab
report on Verna Coffey arrived at about the same time. Palliser was
alone in the Robbery-Homicide office. He'd been delegated to write
the latest report on the Alisio case. It was Hackett's day off and
everybody else was over at the hospital.

There wasn't much in the autopsy report. She'd been
beaten to death and, from the lab report, apparently by the hammer
left beside her. There was blood, hair, and brain tissue on that.
There hadn't been any readable prints on the hammer, but they had
picked up quite a few around the little apartment. Most of them were
hers. There were nine others belonging to three different people,
probably, unknown to Records—very likely the rest of the Coffey
family. And somebody ought to get their prints for comparison. There
had also been two good prints identified as those of Toby
Wells—record appended. Palliser sat up in surprise, but when he had
read the attached Xerox copy, his interest faded a little. It wasn't
much of a pedigree—an arrest for theft from an expensive men's
clothing store a couple of years back. Disposition, goods paid for
and the court ordered a year's probation. The only reason he'd been
printed and got into Records was that it was a technical felony,
theft of goods valued at more than a hundred dollars. It was natural
enough that his prints should be there. He was Verna Coffey's
grandson. They had been picked up from the side of the washbowl in
the bathroom, and the family had all been there the Sunday before the
murder. They could easily have stayed there for six days without
getting smudged. But they'd talk to him and find out where he'd been
that Friday night.

The phone rang and he picked it up, still looking at
the report.

"Robbery—Homicide, Sergeant Palliser."

"Say," said Duke at the lab. "Did you
get that report yet? Good. I meant to put a note in with it. We've
been kind of busy and it slipped my mind. I'll tell you what,
Palliser, if you ever pick up a good solid suspect on this Coffey
homicide, you bring all his shoes along to us. We'll maybe give you
some beautiful scientific evidence."