Felony File (13 page)

There were two possibles, a Mrs. Burns, a Mrs. Polk.
Thirtieth Street and Brighton Avenue. Galeano drove back downtown and
tried Thirtieth Street first. Mrs. Burns was a tiny black woman,
highly indignant at being approached by police. When she finally
answered questions, she told him that on Monday morning at
eleven-thirty she had been at her daughter's apartment in Leimert
Park babysitting her grandchildren, and three people in the next
apartment could tell him so. And when it came to police coming down
on respectable decent people and nosing into private lives, all she
could say—Galeano thanked her hastily and got away.

Mrs. Polk, at a single house on Brighton Avenue, was
more cooperative, if indignant that the fair name of Avon had got
into a murder case. "I saw that in the paper—what an awful
thing! That poor young woman—and it said she had a little girl
too." She had, she said, been at home all Monday morning, doing
laundry and ironing. She was a tall, heavy woman, medium black, with
large hands and muscular arms. Of course the thing was ridiculous,
but it had to be cleared away. He called, and Melinda Corey was home.
Mrs. Polk put on a coat and they drove down to Twenty-seventh, and
Melinda said, "No, that's not the woman."

"
I should think not,"
said Mrs. Polk genially. "Walking in and shooting people."
She was quite grateful to Galeano for the chance of seeing the murder
house and meeting the victim's sister. Galeano drove her home again.

* * *

Mendoza and Higgins landed at Federico's on North
Broadway for lunch, and ran into Landers, Conway and Palliser. They
did a little talking about the Hoffmans, and then Mendoza heard about
the interesting discovery Landers and Conway had made at Bullock's.
Palliser was enthusiastic about it.

"
And that," said Mendoza, "is
interesting all right. With a little unobtrusive snooping and some
native intelligence, anybody could have acquired that supposed inside
information. Possibly. But—" he leaned back in his chair and
emitted twin streams of smoke from his nostrils— "it sounds a
little casual, for the cool professional way the job was done."
He grinned at Conway. "Sure, you might drop into any bar below
Fourth and pick up a few men ready to do a little hired strong-arm
work the wrong side of the law, but ten to one they'd be fairly
unintelligent louts. The boys who pulled this one were pros—quick,
cool, efficient, every move planned. I've got a hunch, Tom, that your
hunch is wrong. And ditto for Rich's. You might possibly have guessed
right as to how the information was collected, but for my money these
jokers are the same gang who pulled the jobs in Philly and
Pittsburgh. And there's no line on them at all." He swallowed
the last of his coffee and put out his cigarette. "Whereas I
hope some poking around on Marion Stromberg may yield some fruitful
ideas. Come on, George, let's do some productive work for a change."

Marion Stromberg's address book gave them places to
start asking questions. Mrs. Caldwell had recalled a Jean and a
Paula, said to be close friends; Mendoza and Higgins started out with
Mrs. Jean Grant at a handsome house on a quiet street in West
Hollywood. Mrs. Grant was very much the same type and age as Marion
Stromberg: well groomed, intelligent. She was startled and shocked to
hear about Marion. "My God," she said. "Oh, that's
dreadful, to think of her—" Mendoza hadn't gone into details.
"Why, she was a year younger than I am. It makes you think—"
But she was no fool, and when he began to ask questions she asked
some herself. "It wasn't natural, a heart attack or something,
when you're asking about— What's all this about, anyway?"

Higgins, who along with Hackett considered that the
boss had a tortuous mind and tended to complicate things
unnecessarily, said bluntly, "She was banged on the head and
died of it, Mrs. Grant. Last Friday night. We'd like to find out how
it happened."

"
Oh, my God. Marion. Marion of all people.
That's incredible."

"
Why?" asked Mendoza. "Why of all
people, Mrs. Grant?"

She made a helpless gesture. "Marion was
so—retiring. Quiet. She didn't go out much. She was careful. I
mean, if she was driving at night the doors were locked, and she'd
never have let a stranger in the house—anything I like that."

"
We don't know a great deal about her,"
said Mendoza. "We're trying to piece together what might have
happened."

"
Well, anything I can tell you, but the last
time I talked to her was last—I mean, a week ago last Monday."

"
How long had you known her? You considered
yourself a close friend?"

"
Yes—" she hesitated. "I suppose
Paula Ogden and I were about her closest friends. We'd known the
Strombergs for, oh, twenty-five years—my husband's an optometrist
too, we met first at some association dinners. When Fred was alive it
was a little different—they used to go out more, to the theater, to
restaurants—but they weren't ever awfully social. Of course she
missed him terribly, it left her so alone. He had a heart attack in
his office, died instantly. But you said, she was just found in the
street—I can't imagine what—"

Mendoza asked more questions, and a picture began to
emerge. Jean Grant, Paula Ogden (whose husband was a teacher at
U.C.L.A.), a couple of other women, had occasionally met for lunch,
shopping; visited each other's homes casually. In other days, the
couples had entertained each other, and other people, at dinner
parties now and then— "But nobody does entertain much now, the
way we used to—" And since Marion's husband had died, she
didn't have people in, except casually. All the other women had
families, grown children, concerns and interests in life to keep
their days full. "Oh, she did miss Fred. Never having children,
it either drives you apart or makes a marriage closer. But what I
can't understand is how she happened to be alone somewhere at night.
The only place she went at night was the Arcadia."

"
And what," asked Mendoza, "is the
Arcadia?"

She gave a sharp sigh. She was a dark woman, rather
too thin, and at the moment looked her full age. "I know it was
very noble and good of her—I expect more people ought to do
something like that—but those places give me the creeps. The
convalescent homes. Old people sitting around waiting to die. You
see, her mother was there—for a couple of years before she died. It
was then Marion got interested. She said so many of the old people in
places like that hadn't any families, or sometimes the families never
came to visit them, and they just waste away from lack of attention.
The nurses haven't time for anything but the necessities. I gather
there are a few people, from religious groups I suppose, go visiting
those homes like that—Marion had been doing it ever since her
mother was there. Going in a couple of nights a week, getting the old
people playing card games, or having a special little party if there
was a good rerun on TV, or just to talk to them—she said it was
pathetic, how so many of them just needed to talk, be listened to
sympathetically. She kept on going there even after her mother died."

"
I see. Where is it?"

"
Out on Vermont somewhere. It was good of her,"
said Jean Grant listlessly.

They saw Paula Ogden at an older house in Santa
Monica, and she was the same general type, if blonde and flightier.
She'd known Marion forever, they'd been in high school together, she
said. She couldn't believe it, about Marion. She asked a spate of
questions Mendoza parried, and was led on to elaborate the picture.
Of course Marion had been lost without Fred, but she'd seemed to have
settled down and been happy enough. Jean had always said Marion
should have done something with her life, she'd been smart at school,
and she'd had a job at Lockheed during the war, that was just after
she and Fred were married and he was overseas. But Fred didn't
approve of wives working, even when it turned out there wouldn't be
any children. They'd always lived a very quiet life; for one thing he
was what was called saving, they didn't spend much money, it was only
the last few years before he died, maybe when his investments were
doing well, that Marion had had really nice clothes, begun to buy
things for the house. And of course Paula wouldn't know what to do
without her two darling poodles, she always had dogs though she
couldn't abide cats. But Fred didn't like animals in the house; they
never had any pets.

She told them about the Arcadia and how really
unselfish and wonderful of Marion it was, to be so kind to the old
people, but after the times she'd gone to see her aunt in one of
those places she couldn't have borne it, but then she'd never been
good with sick people.

"
She must have been on her way home from there,
and somebody got into her car to rob her—or maybe somebody was
hiding in her car when she came out. That could happen, couldn't it?
To think of Marion getting killed like that—but the awful things
that happen every day—"

The last time she had talked to her was on the phone,
Friday morning. Just to chat. Marion had said she might go out to
dinner, even if it was raining. "She did pretty often, it's not
much fun alone, but she said it was such a nuisance cooking for just
herself, and she liked a nice restaurant?

"
Did she say where she might go?"

"
No, but probably the Brown Derby or the London
Grill, she liked those."

They came out to the Ferrari, and Mendoza lit a
cigarette—the Ogden house had been devoid of ashtrays—and stared
at the Santa Monica foothills dark against a gray sky. It was another
cold overcast day. "Do you pick up any nuances, George? Those
two women were about her closest friends. They're sorry, they're
incredulous at her getting murdered, but we don't get the floods of
tears."

"
She doesn't seem to have been a very—intimate
kind of woman," said Higgins. "Sort of colorless.
Reserved?"

"
Mmh. Possibly kept at the level of the dutiful
meek
hausfrau
by the
masterful Fred. Well, let's go and see if she was cheering up the old
people on Friday night."

As they turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard, Higgins
said, "I can't say I buy the idea that anybody jumped into her
car. And on Vermont, heading for home, she'd be traveling on a
well-lighted main drag, until she turned on Franklin, and that's
pretty well traveled too. As for the other idea, anybody with any
sense locks a car, leaving it somewhere after dark."

"
Conforme
."
Mendoza stopped at the first public phone booth and consulted the
Hollywood book for the address. It wasn't very far down Vermont, just
below Sunset. It occupied almost an entire block: a low, tan, stucco
building with venetian blinds at every window.

In the long narrow lobby tiled in imitation white
brick, there was a counter with a frosted glass window closed across
it, a hall running away to the right. In a wheelchair near the door a
very old man sat slumped over the linen band binding him to the
chair; he was shaking with palsy. The place was silent as a tomb;
nobody seemed to be around. Mendoza rapped on the window; it
half—opened and a fat woman in a white uniform said, "Sorry,
the office is closed."

Mendoza displayed the badge and economically stated
their business. "Oh, my goodness!" said the woman—nurse,
aide, office girl?—and her red cheeks got redder. "Mrs.
Stromberg! For heaven's sake! Why, she was just here on Thursday! Oh,
wait till I get Miss Dowling—just a minute—" The window shut
with a bang.

A couple of minutes later she reappeared from the
corridor leading up to the right. "I just buzzed her—she'll be
right down. I can't believe it, poor Mrs. Stromberg, the police
coming—"

"
You knew her well?"

"
Well, she'd been coming two nights a week for
nearly seven years, most of us on this shift knew her, of course.
Like Miss Betzinger and the Good Samaritans, only they don't always
come on the same nights. Some of the R.N.'s didn't like it, thought
it was a nuisance, but— Oh, Miss Dowling! Would you believe it,
Mrs. Stromberg's dead—murdered!—and the police are here about
it!"

Miss Dowling was a big angular woman in a white
uniform with a cap perched low on her bulging forehead. Conspicuous
on her left breast was her little gold RN. badge. She had sandy-red
hair and a broad cheerful face. just now it looked astonished.
"Murdered!" she said.

"
Last Friday night," said Mendoza.

"
For the Lord's sweet sake! I will be eternally
damned," said Miss Dowling. "That sweet little woman. What
was it, a burglar?"

"
We don't know. Was she here on Friday night, do
you know?"

"No, she was not. To tell you the truth, we were
wondering what happened to her last night—she was always here
Tuesdays and Thursdays right on the dot, about six-thirty. And I'm
not one of the R.N.'s who didn't like these people coming," she
added good-humoredly. "Here, let's sit down—I'm on my feet
enough as it is."

There was a vinyl-upholstered banquette built on two
sides of the lobby; they sat down there and she brought out a package
of cigarettes from her breast pocket, bent to Higgins' lighter. "You
look like a cop all right," she observed briefly, "if he
doesn't." She might have been thirty or sixty, energetic and
self-confident. "You know, a good many of these poor old
souls—and ninety percent of the patients in any place like this are
the old people—are put down as senile because they've lost any
interest in life. I could tell you—people here whose families never
come near them, think they're half dead and won't know the
difference. Well, they do. It'd surprise you what a change it makes
in them when someone drops in to play a little card game with them,
bring a special treat, home-made cookies or fudge—just to talk to
them, listen to them. The L.V.N.'s are run off their feet, haven't
time to give them any personal attention. They perk right up, look
forward to these people coming in—and damned few people do come,
you know, realize the need is there. Write the old folk off, they're
no good to anybody anymore, shut 'em away and forget 'em. But a
patient's a patient as long as there's a heartbeat." She
twinkled at Mendoza. "Some of us appreciate the ones who care
and do take the trouble. But what in God's name is this about Mrs.
Stromberg?"