Murder Most Strange (31 page)

"How much did he take?"

"Nearly twenty thousand."

"My God. He had nine hundred left."

"Did he, now. I'd like, by God, to know all of
that story, and now we never will," said Lombard regretfully.

"Is there any relative back there who might be
due the money?"

"Nary a soul. You'd
better use it to bury him, Sergeant. And I'd kind of like a snapshot
of the grave as a souvenir."

* * *

Hackett came into Mendoza's office just after lunch
that Monday and said, "I don't think there's anything to this
Rush thing, Luis."

"Just the lady's imagination?"

"And she doesn't like Rush, thinks he treated
her niece badly. I still say it'd be a damned silly way to try to
kill somebody—you couldn't be sure. More to the point, Rush seems
to be all broken up, especially over the little girl, and he's not a
genius, I don't think he's putting it on."

"I'll trust you to know. Just the lady's
imagination." His phone rang and he picked it up. "Hey,"
said Lake, "I've got Nick on the line."

"Well, paisano," said Mendoza, "welcome
back. We've missed you."

"I can't say the same," said Galeano. "But
I see we got back ahead of a heat wave, at least. It was nice up in
Yosemite— Oh, I walked into that one, you needn't pull the punch
line. Anything exciting going on?"

"A few—mmh—peculiar excitements," said
Mendoza.

"When do we get you back?"

"Wel1, that's what I called about. I've got six
days saved up and Marta wants to spend them house hunting. We figure
we'd better buy a place now if we're ever going to, before prices go
up any higher. We thought maybe Glendale or Burbank."

"So we struggle along without you for another
week. Good luck on it, Nick, but the interest rates—"

"Little you know about interest rates. Oh, say,
I saw some of the stories about your politician. Now that girl—quite
a luscious piece—of course I only got a glimpse at the picture
before Marta took it away from me—" In the background she
could be heard denying that vigorously.

"Art's still thinking of taking up a collection
for the fellow who inadvertently got him off the June ballot."

"I'l1 buy that. Well, I'll be with you on
Saturday, and hold the good thoughts that we find a nice house."

"A nice big
house—you're only thirty-five, Nick." Mendoza put the phone
down, laughing. '

* * *

For once, the lab got on the ball, and a report on
the Eggers house came in on Tuesday at one o'clock. Hackett brought
it in to show Mendoza the rather horrifying pictures.

"They picked up a lot of latents, they're still
checking them."

"Yes," said Mendoza, looking at the glossy
eight-by-ten prints. "And I'll bet you they don't make any,
Art."

"What have you spotted?"

Mendoza grimaced. "The senseless violence. The
overkill. Who are the wildest ones around these days? The ones most
apt to create this sort of—of bloodbath?"

"Oh, yes," said Hackett, and shut his eyes.
"The vicious kids."

"
Exactamente
.
Whose prints we don't have on file.” The phone rang and he picked
it up.

"Somebody for Art," said Lake.

Hackett took the phone from Mendoza. "This is
Sergeant Hackett."

"Oh!" said a female voice. "Mrs.
Bickerstaff said you wanted to ask me some questions. This is Alice
McLennan."

"Oh, yes, Miss McLennan, I could come to see you
now if—

"Oh, I have to go right past the police building
on my way to work, I got a new job yesterday at a drugstore on Hill
Street. I'll be glad to stop by."

When she got there, Hackett and Palliser ushered her
into Mendoza's office. Alice McLennan was a large-framed woman with
brown hair, a pleasant rather pretty face, blue eyes behind crystal
glasses. She took the chair Mendoza offered her. She looked at them
and said, "I was never so surprised in my life when I heard
about Mr. Parmenter, when I got home on Saturday. And I'm sorry to
sound un-Christian, but he deserved murdering! But what did you want
to ask me? I wouldn't know a thing about it, I wasn't even here."

"Well, you see," said Mendoza, "we
were just a little curious, Miss McLennan. About why you quit your
job with him. You told Mrs. Bickerstaff it was because he was the
wickedest man in the world. Why?"

She sat up straight and her mouth drew tight. "It
was because of what I found out about him that day," she said,
and her voice was angry. "He was a queer man, he never talked
much, and he was mostly sitting in the stockroom writing, scribbling
away like mad, I never knew at what. He only waited on the
prescription counter, I did everything else." So Parmenter had
composed some of the hate literature. "But that day, it was
March nineteenth, he was mixing up something in the dispensing room,
and I went to ask him if it was Mrs. Alford's prescription because
she'd just called to ask whether it was ready—and he said no, it
wasn't—his eyes looked awfully glittery and queer—he said this
was for old Weekes'damned tomcat—he said he'd cleared most of the
damned animals out—everybody who lived around him was animal-crazy,
he said—and they came spoiling his garden, he hated them all, and
he'd gotten all of them except this damned cat, and there was enough
strychnine in this brew to kill a dozen. Oh, it was the most
horrible, horrible—he said it in an awful kind of gloating way—how
he'd poisoned the Hilbrands' yappy little mutt, and that big brute of
the Sadlers', and that mangy hound of the Andersons' and all the
damned cats came digging up his garden, there was just one left and
he was going to get it yet—Oh, I was absolutely horrified!"
Her eyes flashed fire. "Anyone who would poison an animal would
poison a child—a person—and the cruelty of it—I just couldn't
stand to be around such a man, and I quit on the spot right then—"

"I don't blame you," said Hackett. "I
agree with you, Miss McLennan."

"And even if I turned him in to the police, it's
only a fine, he wouldn't go to jail—"

"It's a misdemeanor," said Mendoza, and his
eyes were very cold. "I don't know what the current fine is—and
the legal worth of the animal thrown in, which is damned nonsense."

"Oh, it upset me so dreadfully," she said,
getting out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. "I kept worrying
and worrying about it, I couldn't sleep—you see, I kept thinking,
suppose those people got other pets, not knowing there was such an
evil man right in their midst, and he did it again!—because he
would have—I thought about it a whole week, and I finally decided.
before Mickey and I went on vacation, I had to warn them. I knew
where he lived because of the emergency sign on the door. I'd never
been there before, such a funny little street—"

"Who did you talk to?" asked Hackett.

"I saw the Hilbrands next door to him, that
Saturday afternoon. And they thanked me over and over for coming—she
cried and said they'd lost the dearest little dog—dying in
convulsions, and the children saw it, oh, it's too dreadful to think
about—and there'd been the Branagans' old spaniel, and the
Andersons had just worshiped their Labrador—everyone on the street
had lost a pet—she said Miss Spooner had the most beautiful Siamese
cat— Oh, I can't bear to think of such wickedness! Well, that was
why I quit the job—if that's all you wanted to know. And"—looking
at her watch, wiping her eyes a last time—"if I'm going to
find a parking place I'd better get on. If that's all you wanted to
know." She went to the door, and turned to add a parting shot.
"I hope you never find out who killed him! Whoever did it
deserves a medal!"

They sat looking at each other, and suddenly Hackett
began to laugh. He bent over, laughing helplessly, and he gasped,
"Don't you—see it? Don't you see-it's-it's the Orient
Express!" And Palliser began to laugh too. "They all—knew
about it—everybody on that street—they were all in on it! That
day! Oh, my God, that day we were there, John—when I think— Oh,
my God! I'll bet you, I just bet you—they all got together, talked
it over and decided—oh, my God—on the vigorous action. The
necessary beating up. Oh, my dear God, when I think— They all had
such sweet reasonable excuses why they hadn't seen or heard a thing.
Not a thing, Officer."

He was rocking back and forth with deadly mirth. "The
Klabers watching TV—and the Kellers painting the back bedroom—"

Palliser wiped his eyes. "Those Andersons
refinishing furniture, and the people kept awake by the baby—"

"Mrs. Hilbrand and her sinus headache—"

"But it was him," said Palliser, ignoring
grammar in inspiration. "It was him—the cabdriver with all the
muscles—"

"Oh, no, no, John!" gasped Hackett. "No,
it was that simple innocent big Irishman Branagan! It had to be
Branagan—him bushed on a Sunday, dozing in front of the TV! And
I'll tell you something else, they got the children out of the way so
they wouldn't see it—Hilbrand took theirs to the zoo, and Mrs.
Branagan took hers to her mother's. And I'll bet Mrs. Hilbrand stayed
home to act as a lookout while Branagan administered the earned
beating— Oh, my God, I knew there was something funny about that
street that day!"

"
¡Qué bella—hermoso!
"
Mendoza was grinning like a happy wolf. "And you know something
else beautiful, boys? We'll never get anybody for it, because there's
no evidence at all."

"No, of course not," said Palliser, "and
nobody meant the man to be killed. I must say it isn't going to worry
me at all."

"Maybe," said Hackett, still giggling, "we
ought to get up an anonymous collection for Branagan—"

"All I can say is,"
said Mendoza, "they must be a bunch of natural actors, such a
beautiful job of covering up—and I'm not going to lose any sleep
over it either. Mr. Parmenter was distinctly no loss to the human
race."

* * *

He drove home that night ruminating on that and
various things—Alison would enjoy the story—on the Eggerses, and
on Rush—could he be another natural actor? When he came around the
last curve at the top of Hamlin Place, he braked sharply to avoid a
black-and-white Burbank squad car slewed across the street. There
were, all told, three squad cars, here in front of the half dozen
houses at the top of this highest street in Burbank—and all five of
the sheep, busily eating bushes and lawns. The uniformed men were
standing in the street, and there were householders out all over.

"Where the hell did any sheep come from in the
middle of town, Tom?"

"Oh, oh, it's eating my azaleas—oh, get it
out—"

"And what the hell are we going to do about it,
Barney?"

"Oh, they're ruining all my hibiscus—can't you
do something?"

Those damned young devils fooling with the gate
again, thought Mendoza. He got out, claimed the sheep, offered
reparations, said if they'd let him past he would send a man down to
round them up. He shot up the rest of the hill reflecting that that
pair of young hellions were too much like their mother, damn it, and
spoiled into the bargain, and something would have to be done about
it.

The gates, of course, were slightly ajar, as the
twins had left them. He pushed the gadget on the dashboard and the
gates swung open. He gunned the engine, and the gates swung smartly
forward and smashed in the radiator and front bumper of the Ferrari
with a resounding clang.

He was still sitting there swearing when everybody
came running down to investigate the crash.