Exploit of Death

FIVE

ON SUNDAY Wanda Larsen was off. Higgins and Palliser might have taken her along to help break the news to Verna Coffey's daughter; a woman officer was helpful at that sort of thing. The address corresponding to the Pasadena listing was one side of a duplex, on a quiet middle-class street, but nobody had been home. Now this morning they tried there again and found the family just starting off for church, Robert and Julia Elmore and an eighteen-year-old daughter, Lila. There was the usual reaction to news of violent death. Palliser and Higgins gave them time. These were more honest solid citizens, as Verna Coffey had been. The husband worked at a Sears store here, the girl was a senior in high school. But Julia Elmore was a sensible woman and when her first grief subsided, she answered questions readily.

"I couldn't say exactly how much money might've been there. Mother only went to the bank once a week, on Wednesdays." She was a thin sharp-faced woman, not very 'black. "She didn't drive and her arthritis bothered her. She had to take the bus, she used to close the store for a couple of hours-same as when she went up to the market once a week."

"I don't suppose," said Elmore, "she made an awful lot out of the store, but more than you might think. It was a steady trade." He was a heavy-shouldered man, medium black. "I suppose she might've had a hundred bucks or so, in cash, maybe more."

"Where did she keep the money, do you know?" asked Palliser.

"She kept it all in an old handbag in the closet," said Julia Elmore. "But she was careful about keeping the doors locked, Sergeant, living alone like she did-and that's an old building and it was lonely at night there-you know, she was the only one lived there, all the rest of those stores were closed and empty at night. She was crying a little again. "Oh, we worried about it-"

Elmore said, "But there were good deadbolt locks on both doors, I'd seen to that, I don't see how anybody could break in, but you say it looked as if she'd opened the door to somebody." He shook his head. "She wouldn't have let anybody in after dark."

"Unless it was someone she knew," said Palliser.

"But nobody like that would've hurt her." They were incredulous.

"She knew a lot of people around that neighborhood," said Julia. "She'd lived there for more than forty years, but I don't think she'd have opened the door to anybody after the store was closed."

He said, "She'd had some trouble with kids. Some of the kids there-coming in and stealing candy bars. She was always having to chase them off. But no kid-"

"Oh, we did worry," she said. "I wanted her to close the store and come to live with us. She was sixty-nine and her arthritis was getting worse all the time, and she had Daddy's Social Security, but she'd had the store so long she didn't want to change. That isn't too good a neighborhood now, not like it used to be. Oh, I can't stand thinking how scared she must've been-the last time we saw her was a week ago today, she had a little birthday party for Toby-"

"Who's that?" asked Higgins.

"My sister Eva's boy, Toby Wells. Eva died last year. We were all there, she had a cake and ice cream and she gave Toby ten dollars for a birthday present. It was his twenty-fourth birthday. He's a nice boy, Toby. Got a good job at a Thrifty drugstore up in Hollywood." She wiped her eyes.

Higgins asked, "Was she hard of hearing at all, Mrs. Elmore? How was her sight?"

She was shrewd enough to catch his thought. "You mean she might've thought somebody she knew was at the door when it wasn't? Oh, no, I don't think so. She wasn't deaf and her eyes were good. It was just the arthritis bothered her. I just can't imagine her opening the door to anybody after dark."

"Do you know anyone in that area? Does anyone there know your name?" asked Palliser.

What had occurred to him, someone like that might have got her to open the door with a tale that the family had tried to call her-that the phone was out of order.

"Not for twenty-four years-since Bob and I were married," she said. "Of course, we didn't live in the store, then. We had a house on Twentieth. It was just since Dad died I that she lived in the back of the store. And the neighbor hood had changed, not the same kind of people around."

Higgins explained about the mandatory autopsy. That they'd be told when they could have the body. They just nodded quietly.

"Did she have any close friends around there?"

"Well, there's Mrs. Wiley. She lived next door on Twentieth Street and she's still there, she's a widow now. She came to see Mother now and then-and Mrs. Buford, but she's in a rest home on Vermont. Sometimes Mother went to see her."

Back in the car, Palliser rubbed a finger along his handsome straight nose and said, "Ways it could've happened-so she was a careful old lady. If somebody banged at the door and said the building was on fire-"

"She wasn't attacked in the store," said Higgins. "Not until they'd gone into the living room at the back." He hunched his bulky shoulders.

"Well, the women friends. Nothing likely there."

"I suppose they had families and she'd know them. But damn it!-that was a crude spur-of-the-minute attack-don't see any rudimentary planning to it. She was an old lady, John. She'd been familiar with that neighborhood for years-before the crime rate started to climb. Maybe she wasn't just as cautious as the family thinks. She might've opened the door for any reason. Wait and see what the lab report has to say. There just could be some prints on that hammer."

"Wait and see," agreed Palliser.

WHEN IT COULD BE EXPECTED that people would be up and dressed on Sunday morning, Galeano drove up to Beachwood Drive and at the little frame house found Cora Delaney at home. She looked at stocky dark Galeano-according to regulations in a whole business suit, white shirt and tie, when most men wore casual and sports clothes, and at the badge in his hand-with surprise and curiosity. She was somewhere around Rose Eberhart's age, short and plump and defiantly blond. She let him into a neat livingroom with a collection of old but good furniture, and Galeano told her about Rose Eberhart. She broke down and cried for five minutes and then sat up and blew her nose.

"We knew each other for forty-five years, since we were in kindergarten together. She was only forty-nine. But how could it have happened? You said it looked like she was attacked by somebody. I don't understand-a burglar-"

It hadn't been a burglar. The apartment had been intact, not ransacked, and there'd been thirty dollars in her wallet, a modest amount of good jewelry undisturbed.

"That's what it looks like, Mrs. Delaney. When did you see her last?"

"I talked to her on the phone Wednesday night. She sounded just her usual self, but of course she wouldn't know she was going to be attacked. She'd been feeling run-down lately, said she was taking extra vitamins." She blew her nose again. "Oh, and she was annoyed at some woman who'd been pestering her. Some woman named Arvin."

"What about?" asked Galeano.

"Oh, she was claiming Rose owed her some money and she didn't. It was some woman she used to work with. She hadn't seen her in a long time and ran into her at the corner market. She wasn't really worried about it, just annoyed. Have you talked to Alice-her daughter? Does she know?"

He told her about that, gave her the name of the funeral parlor. The body would probably be released tomorrow.

"Oh, I'd better call Alice, I'll be glad to make the arrangements. This is all the poor girl needed, a sick baby and her husband laid off. Yes, I've got her number, thanks." She began to cry again. "We were going out to lunch together today. It's her day off. I said I'd meet her at the Tick-Tock at twelve-thirty. It just doesn't seem possible she's dead."

Galeano drove up to McClintock's Restaurant. It was just open, no customers in yet. He ordered a cup of coffee from Marie Boyce, who said blankly, "I don't think I ever heard the name. Arvin? l can't recall anybody named that ever worked here. Since I've been here anyway."

Whitney came over and sat on the opposite side of the booth. "Arvin," he mused. "It seems to ring a faint bell. I've heard the name somewhere." He accepted a cigarette and brooded over it. "Somebody she used to work with. Well, she'd been here ten years. About as long as I've managed the place. I tell you, in that time there's been a little turnover in the staff. Most of our girls are pretty steady, but now and then we get one who isn't satisfactory and I let her go, or one doesn't stay for some reason. It could've been one like that-here for just a short while-sometime back. I just don't remember, Mr. Galeano."

Galeano went back to the office. Jason Grace had just come in, having taken the morning off. He had just bought himself a Polaroid camera, and he was passing around shots of the christening, a broad smile on his face. Galeano grinned at him over the snapshots. Grace's wife, Virginia, was a nice-looking woman, and the baby was a cute one, round and brown with solemn eyes and a little fuzz of hair. The little three-year-old girl was a honey, in a starched white dress and a red hair ribbon. "Nice family, Jase." Galeano had been a bachelor for a long time and he was looking forward to a family of his own.

He told Grace what meager information he had turned up and Grace said, "It doesn't sound like much, Nick, but we don't know one hell of a lot about this anyway."

MENOZA WASN'T supposed to come in on Sunday, but he usually did for a while, to keep track of what was going on. He drifted in about two o'clock and Lake said that Sergeant Donovan from Chicago had been asking for him. "So get him on the phone." Mendoza swept off the Homburg and went into his office.

"We've got damn all for you," said Donovan. "There are about a thousand and one Hoffmans in the greater Chicago area, but none of them seems to be missing a Ruth."

"I didn't expect so," said Mendoza. "That must've been a hell of a job. Thanks very much, Donovan."

"At least we could check by phone, didn't have to do the legwork in this damn heat. But thank God, it's beginning to cool off now, getting into fall."

"I wish I could say the same." He was just off the phone when an autopsy report came in from the coroner's office on Anthony Delucca. He had to think before he remembered-the teenager on the bus-stop bench. It had been an overdose of Quaaludes. He filed it and forgot it.

The office was humming along quietly, Higgins typing a report, Palliser on the phone, nobody else in. Hackett and Landers had gone over to the jail to talk to Gerber. Mendoza swiveled his desk chair around to the window and sat smoking, staring at the view over the Hollywood Hills, and tried to think if there was anything else to do on Juliette Martin. There wasn't. Wait for the French police. Hell, he thought. There must be a catch to that somewhere. X would know about that possibility, too. Wait and maybe never hear anything from France on Juliette. Why not? He didn't have any ideas about it at all.

Lake brought him a cable. It was from the Surete and said simply, PRINTS UNKNOWN OUR RECORDS. Mendoza snarled at it.

Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't the Surete's fault. Passports didn't carry a typed address, only one filled in by the holder. But the French passport bureau might, for God's sake, have noted down something about the girl. What the proof of citizenship had been, something.

And he reflected moodily, they'd have to bury the poor girl eventually. They couldn't leave her down in the cold tray at the morgue indefinitely.

Hackett looked in the door and said, "Gerber gave us a statement. He admitted he was on the heist with Bauman, but it was Bauman had the gun and fired it."

" Naturalmente."

"So it's up to the D.A.'s office what to call it. Want to bet it'll start murder two and get reduced? Tom's doing the final report on it. Anything new gone down?"

"I don't know. Everybody seems to be out somewhere on something." Sunday was just another day to the men at Robbery-Homicide.

HACKETT WENT DOWN the hall for a cup of coffee, but he hadn't taken more than three sips before Lake buzzed him.

"Attempted heist, it's a liquor store on Wilshire and the squad's got him."

"No rest for the wicked," said Hackett, annoyed. He abandoned the coffee and went back downstairs to the parking lot. The liquor store was a little way out on Wilshire.

The heister had picked a wrong target on this one. The store owner was a hefty ex-Marine by the name of Nolan who worked out at a gym regularly, and the gun hadn't scared him worth a damn. He said to Hackett disgustedly, "For Christ's sake, the damn punk didn't even have his finger in the trigger guard! Does he think I'm a goddamn idiot? I just took one swing at him and put him out cold, and called for cops, and I bet some goddamn fool judge sends him up for sixty days, poor guy not responsible because his mama spanked him too much."

The heister was sitting on the floor propped against the counter. The patrolman had put the cuffs on him, and he was feeling his bruised jaw with both cuffed hands. He raised his head to look at Hackett, and Hackett said pleasedly, "Well, I will be damned if it isn't Baby Face."

The various descriptions had been faithful. The man looked about twenty-five and he was fairly tall and husky F but he had a round, boyish face, a shock of white-blond hair. He was very neatly dressed in brown slacks and a clean white sports shirt. He looked as if he was ready to cry.

The patrolman handed the gun to Hackett. It was an old. 32 Colt automatic and it wasn't loaded.

"All right, let's have your name," said Hackett.

The heister said in a thin voice, "Ricky Davies. I'm sorry. He didn't need to hit me that hard, I wouldn't have done anything to him. The gun's not loaded. I don't even know how to load a gun."

Nolan said, "Oh, for Christ's sake."

Hackett reached down and helped Davies onto his feet.

"Come on, I think we want a little talk with you." The uniformed man went out to go back on tour and Nolan said to nobody in particular, "These goddamn punks."

At least the air-conditioning was back on at the jail. While Davies was getting booked in, Hackett called the office and told Lake to start the machinery on the warrant. Davies had I.D. on him, a driver's license, a couple of credit cards and nineteen-sixty-four in cash. He sat hunched in the cramped little interrogation room, and asked in a subdued voice, "Can I call my wife? She's going to be upset as hell about this and I don't know how to tell her. She thinks I'm out with a buddy of mine. She's going to be mad as hell at me and I don't blame her."

Hackett offered him a cigarette and he said he didn't smoke. "You can call your wife whenever you like, and a lawyer. How did you get into this?" Davies was hardly the seasoned criminal by his looks and manner.

Davies said miserably, "It was on account of all the bills. I never did anything wrong before in my life-never wanted to. But it's just, everything costs so much. I've got a good job- I work at Desmond's men's store up on Western-and I thought Stella and I could get by O.K. on what we both make, we just got married six months ago-but we had to get an apartment, I'd been living at home with Mom and she'd been with her folks too, and the rent's three-fifty-you can't find anything much cheaper and it's not a high-class place at that, and Stella's used to nice things- I wanted her to have nice things-and we had to get furniture and a lot of things. She works too, she's a cocktail waitress at the Tail o' Cock, but even between us there's the payments on her car, and my car, and the rent, and all the groceries, I never realized how much groceries cost. And then she said she'd all ways wanted a diamond watch and I got her one for her birthday-and you got to dress pretty sharp in my job and I even when I get a discount it adds up." He took a breath.

"And Stella likes nice clothes-all pretty girls do. And the Visa account got up to the limit, a thousand bucks, and I missed one payment on the car, and then Stella got the flu and was off work a week, and she'd used up her vacation and sick leave when we went on the honeymoon. We went up to Tahoe and that was part of the Visa account. And I got so I just didn't know which way to turn," said Davies helplessly. "And Stella wanted to get me a nice birthday present, it's this gold ring with my initials, she put it on our account at Bullocks', it was ninety-four bucks-and I was feeling kind of desperate, if you get me. I got that gun at a pawn shop for thirty dollars. I don't know anything about guns, I never had any bullets for it-and people just handed over the money. I thought if I came right downtown here there wouldn't be the chance of anybody recognizing me from up in Hollywood. I felt pretty bad about it, it was all wrong, but I got the Visa account nearly cleared up. Stella never looks at the statement- I knew she wouldn't notice." He looked at Hackett, his face haggard. "She's going to be mad as hell at me, get into all this."

"Have you ever been in any trouble before?"

He shook his blond head. "I never even had a parking ticket."

Hackett stood up. "We1l, you can get bail and your wife can get you a lawyer." It was funny in a way, and he felt sorry for this stupid kid. It would probably end up as a reduced charge. Call it a year in and probation. "You'd better call your wife and break the news."

"Thanks," said Davies meaninglessly. Hackett turned him over to the jailer and started back to the office to write the final report on this.

MENDOZA HAD GONE home and nobody else was left in the office at five-fifty, except Higgins and Palliser. They were on their way out past the switchboard when Lake beckoned, put down the earphone and said, "Something funny, boys. It's the California Community Hospital and they say they've got a murder. The desk downstairs relayed the call. It's a Dr. Rasmussen. Says one of the patients has been murdered."

"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, que 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, carina." He went out to the kitchen for a drink. El Senor 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 Surete 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.

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."