Murder Most Strange (13 page)

Mendoza went back to his office for his hat, and when
he came out, a messenger had just dropped off two manila folders.
Lake said good night and left.

One was the autopsy report on Gregory Parmenter, the
other, finally, the lab report on Marion Cooper's apartment. He took
them back to his desk to glance at quickly. Parmenter: he'd been well
beaten up, all right, but hadn't died of it directly; he'd had
chronic heart disease, and the fatal attack had probably been brought
on by the beating. Which was not much help, if interesting.

In the other report, there was just one detail which
caught his eye. He reached for the phone book, looked at the clock,
which told him it was five of six, reconsidered, and then said to
himself, “
¿Por qué no?
”

If the man wasn't there, he could reach him tomorrow.

But the man was there.
 

FIVE

Mendoza had called Hackett at home. He slid the
Ferrari into the curb under the streetlight at five minutes to eight,
and a couple of minutes later Hackett's Monte Carlo, its garish paint
job not too visible in the dark, pulled up on the other side of the
street. They both got out and met on the sidewalk.

"My God, Luis," said Hackett. In the
unnatural sodium light of the arc lamp he looked a little sick. "What
a thing."

"So. But once I'd heard that, as I told you,
almost the foregone conclusion,
¿como no?
"

They went up to the deep porch of the old-fashioned
bungalow together, and Mendoza pushed the bell. After a minute Cooper
opened the door. "Oh—you again," he said. "Hello.
Have you—found out anything more?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Cooper," said Mendoza
gently, and swept off his hat. "May we come in?"

They didn't say very much to the Coopers; there
wasn't much to say, and the Coopers were silent and stunned, just
staring dumbly at them.

"You understand, we'll have to talk to Harriet,"
said Mendoza.

Daniel Cooper looked at his mother. She said faintly,
"She's—in her—I'll—" and went out like a sleepwalker.
She was an attractive child, not pretty-pretty, but characterful: the
neat dark cap of hair, the clear hazel eyes, the small sober mouth.
"Oh," she said, looking from Mendoza to Hackett, "you're
the policemen."

"That's right, Harriet." Her grandmother
eased her gently into a chair, and Mendoza sat down on the big
ottoman opposite that. "You know we've been trying to find out
what happened to your mother. We've been talking to people who knew
her, and looking at that apartment. And we've just found out that she
had a bottle of capsules of something called phenobarbital. Some of
our men found the empty bottle in the wastepaper basket in the
kitchen." She was listening politely, head down—or perhaps she
wasn't listening. "There was a doctor's name on it, because it
was a prescription. Dr. Adam Guilfoyle. I talked to him a couple of
hours ago, and he told me some interesting things." She just sat
there, unmoving. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you,
Harriet? Your mother had an abscessed tooth a couple of months ago,
and Dr. Guilfoyle gave her the prescription in case she had any pain
after he'd taken the tooth out. But he told her to be careful. He
knew your mother—she'd been a patient of his for six or seven
years. And he told her to tell you to be careful. Because he knows
you too, doesn't he? He takes care of your teeth too. And in fact,
after your mother had gone to him then—in an emergency—you had an
appointment with him, to be checked for any new cavities, just a
couple of days later, didn't you? And Dr. Guilfoyle gave you a little
lecture about those capsules he knew your mother had at home, didn't
he'? He knows that sometimes people your age are tempted to
experiment with the pills, and he explained just how dangerous that
could be."

She just sat there, very still. "You know you'll
have to tell us about it," said Mendoza. "Or do you want us
to guess? You were the only one there, you see."

“
Harriet, honey—" said Cooper chokingly.

She raised her eyes slowly and looked at him. "Do
you—want me—to tell, Daddy?"

He could only nod silently. He got out, "You
have to—be honest, honey."

Harriet said drearily, draggingly, "Well, all
right. She didn't want me there or even like me much. It was just the
money from Daddy she wanted. And she never cleaned the apartment, all
the dishes were dirty all the time, all messy everywhere. And I
didn't like that school. I just—I just want to live with Daddy and
Grandma—they really want me. It got so I couldn't—hardly—stand
it—I wanted so bad—to get away—but I never could because of the
money from Daddy.  And—that week—I was so ashamed—no clean
clothes to put on, she forgot about the laundry, she was cross when
I—I—I—all of a sudden I thought, if she just wasn't there
anymore that would sort of fix everything. And I could stay with
Daddy and Grandma all the time."

Cooper made a strangled sound. "So, tell us what
you did that night," said Hackett.

She raised docile eyes. "I was thinking about it
ever since I got home from school. She went out after dinner, she'd
just brought a couple of hamburgers from McDonald's and mine was all
cold and too red, I didn't eat much. And I knew she'd fix herself a
drink before she went to bed, she always did lately. Lots of times I
woke up when she came home. I'd hear her. And there wasn't much left
in that bottle of scotch, I thought she'd prob'ly use it all. I
remembered what Dr. Guilfoyle said. She hadn't used hardly any of
those little capsules. So I took them all apart and put all the
powder stuff into the bottle. And then I just went to bed. I heard
her come in." Harriet was looking down at the floor again. "She
was singing a song about blue skies, and she knocked over a chair in
the kitchen."

Cooper put his hands over his face.

"Next morning I didn't—didn't look—it felt
all funny, like maybe I'd dreamed all that—but when I got home from
school—I was scared, but I had—to look, and then I didn't know
what to do, except just tell somebody." She looked squarely at
Mendoza. "Are you—going to put me in jail for it?"

"We'll have to tell the story to a judge,
Harriet,” said Mendoza seriously, "and right now we'll have to
take you to a place called Juvenile Hall, where you'll be staying
until you see the judge." He flicked a glance at Hackett, who
went to find the phone and call in.

Mrs. Cooper said in a thick voice, "She'll
need—I'd better—a bag—" Harriet began to cry, slowly and
tearlessly, and her grandmother went to her, led her out.

Cooper was standing with his back turned in front of
the empty blackened hearth. "What—what's going to happen?"
he asked in a dead tone.

"I don't know, Mr. Cooper. There'll be a hearing
before a Juvenile Court judge. She's pretty young. But it wasn't
exactly impulse, she'd planned it out—that'll be taken into
consideration. They'll want a psychiatric evaluation, and pending the
result of that—I can't tell you, but I'd rather doubt that she'll
be held in custody. It's possible she'll just be put on probation and
remanded to you—with a juvenile officer keeping a check on her
behavior."

"Oh, God," said Cooper wearily, "I
don't—know how to talk to her about it." He dragged a hand
down over his face, and then he said suddenly, "It's my fault.
Christ, it's all my fault. If I'd had the guts to fight Marion,
insist on getting custody . . . God, I knew she was a bad mother. It
was all my fault. My God, eleven—eleven years old—she
didn't—really know what she was doing, did she?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Cooper," said Mendoza
steadily, "she knew. That's the worst of it. Just remember
that."

A couple of policewomen from Juvenile Division came
up to take Harriet in. Both she and her grandmother were crying then.
Cooper hugged her, kissed her, told her they'd be coming to see her.
Then he and his mother went into the house and shut the door.

Mendoza and Hackett went
back to their cars without much exchange. There really wasn't much to
say about Harriet.

* * *

On Thursday morning there were inquests scheduled for
the Bussards, for Marion Cooper; Mendoza and Glasser would cover
those, offer the formal testimony. There wasn't anything in on
Bartovic at all. It was Higgins' day off.

Hackett and Palliser went back to the little quiet
dead-end street to ask the neighbors if they knew of anybody who'd
come to see Parmenter, about any relatives. After all, it was a
settled neighborhood, and he'd lived there a long time. Palliser went
to try the places across the street. Hackett tried the neighbors
immediately next to Parmenter.

Mrs. Klaber was a pleasant-faced, friendly
middle-aged woman; her husband was at work, of course: he was a clerk
at Bullocks' men's shop. "Well, she had a brother," she
told Hackett doubtfully. "Mrs. Parmenter, I mean, she seemed to
be a nice enough woman, what little I saw of her—but of course she
died, it was cancer, and I couldn't tell you the man's name, not that
he came to see them very often. Mr. Parmenter was a kind of recluse,
nobody ever knew him very well."

At the house on the other side of Parmenter's, the
rather attractive dark-haired Mrs. Hilbrand was on her knees weeding
a flower bed at one side of the sparse front lawn, with a toddler
about three riding a tricycle on the front walk. She recognized
Hackett, asked him to sit down on the porch, accepted a cigarette,
saying she was glad of an excuse to take a rest. "I don't
remember anybody ever coming to see him—them. The wife was still
alive when we bought this place, of course. They'd never had any
children, and I guess there weren't any relatives. He was a sort of
queer old man."

"We've gathered that," said Hackett.

"It was as if he didn't want any friends."
The toddler came staggering up the steps and solemnly showed Hackett
a black-and-white stuffed dog.

"Nice doggie," he said. Hackett smiled at
him and patted the dog obligingly. "Nice Pepper," crooned
the toddler. "Pepper die and go to heaven."

"Yes, darling," she said gently, "but
we're busy talking, you run and play. We're going to get a nice new
doggie pretty soon. Mr. Parmenter was really an old grouch, to be
plain about it. I was furious at him that time when Don fell down—it
was last summer, a Sunday afternoon, and I was out with my sister.
Oh, you don't know, of course, but Don—my husband—was in a
terrible car accident last year, he lost a leg and the sight of one
eye, and he was still getting used to the artificial leg. He fell in
the back yard and couldn't get up, and Mr. Parmenter was out in his
yard, Don called and asked for help and the old—well!—the old
bustard just pretended he couldn't hear. You see what kind he was."

"I can think of other names," said Hackett
sympathetically.

"It's just lucky, of course, that they held the
job for Don—he's a desk clerk at the Ambassador, so the leg doesn't
really bother him much. Haven't you found out anything about what
happened to Mr. Parmenter?"

"Not very much," said Hackett.

"Well"—she gave him a friendly smile—"I
suppose I'd better get back to the yard work."

He compared notes with Palliser, who had heard much
the same thing from the other neighbors. "I don't," said
Palliser, "see anywhere else to go on it."

Hackett agreed, rather bored with Gregory Parmenter.
They drove out to Federico's, separately, for lunch, and met Mendoza
and Glasser just going in. There hadn't yet been a smell of Bartovic,
and Mendoza was feeling annoyed. When they got back to the office,
Lake said, "Business picking up some, Lieutenant. There was a
new call ten minutes ago, body in MacArthur Park—Jase took it."
And just then a light flashed on the switchboard and he plugged in
automatically. "Robbery-Homicide, Sergeant Lake . . .

Oh. Oh? Yeah, he just came in. Palliser—it's Jase."

"Listen," said Grace, "I think you'd
better come and look at this, John. You'll see what I mean when you
get here."

Curious, Palliser went downstairs again and drove
over to MacArthur Park. There are a few privileges granted to police
officers, and one of them is parking in red-painted curb zones;
parking slots were always rare along here, but he left the car in
front of an office building across Wilshire and walked over into the
park. Just up by the little lake on this side were Grace, a uniformed
man, and two women; beyond them a man slumped on a park bench. They
were the only people in the park. It was rather queer, thought
Palliser, remembering Eileen, that people didn't seem to go and sit
in parks anymore, feeding the pigeons and enjoying the sunshine;
maybe these hectic days they just didn't have time. And MacArthur was
a nice city park, too, with its war memorial and green lawns, and
little lake, and the clean new bright skyline of all the high—rise
buildings along Wilshire, bisecting it.

He came up to Grace, who was brushing his hairline
mustache back and forth as a sign of irritation, and said, "What's
up?"

"This is Sergeant Palliser," said Grace.
"Mrs. Stubbs and Mrs. Ryder. Suppose you tell him the story over
again, Mrs. Stubbs."

"Why, all right." She was quite willing to
talk. They were both nondescript commonplace females, middle-aged, a
little dowdy; this one had brown hair fast turning gray and a round
face and tortoiseshell glasses, the other one was thinner with sandy
hair. "It was awful, just awful. We were just coming along here,
to get the bus up on Sixth, easier to cut across the park. We both
live up on San Marino, we're neighbors, and there wasn't a soul here
except the man on the bench. And we were talking, not paying much
attention to him, but when we were about right where we are now this
young fellow went up to him and said something, I don't know what,
and then, I couldn't believe my eyes, right here in the open in broad
daylight, he took a knife out of his pocket and stabbed him! Just
stabbed him two or three times, and Edith sort of screamed and I
guess I did too, and then he came running right past us, he didn't
take any notice of us at all—most terrible thing I ever saw—and
we went to look and the poor man was dead! All that blood—"