Murder Most Strange (17 page)

"That you found," said Hackett. "Vividly.
You may remember that that was how I met my wife."

“
Yes," said Mendoza. "A very ingenious
hiding place if it had worked. I saw a ladder somewhere, go and get
it, will you?"

The ladder was, in fact, leaning against the wall
just outside the back door; Hackett brought it in and set it up. The
little trapdoor in the ceiling was intended as access for
electricians and plumbers, to the wires and pipes above the ceiling;
it was about two feet by three. Mendoza mounted the ladder and pushed
at it. It was just resting on a frame, and moved obligingly aside.
Mendoza went up another step and shoved one arm inside.

"Let me guess," said Hackett. "Mice."

"
¡Anda!
"
said Mendoza. "Something. But what?” He reached in both arms,
and brought out a stack of paper; the ladder rocked on the uneven
floor, Hackett grabbed it, and a shower of leaflets and pamphlets
fluttered down, with a couple of heavier books.

"What the hell—"

Mendoza came down and dived for a handful. He looked
at it and said, "
¡Qué interesante es!
So that's what Mr. Parmenter was up to. Now we know."

All of the crudely printed leaflets emanated from
something called the Brotherhood of the Superior Race. Hackett looked
through the one Mendoza handed him. "One of these
white-supremacy outfits? I'll be damned—"

"A little more wholesale," said Mendoza,
scanning the thicker pamphlet he'd just picked up.

The Brotherhood of the Superior Race, by the contents
of all this printed material, didn't like anybody very much except
themselves. They had no use at all for Jews, Catholics, Negroes,
Orientals, foreigners of any kind or presumably any possible visitors
from outer space. There were stacks and stacks of the stuff up there,
and some privately printed books, all enlarging on the degeneracy of
the Jews, the Negroes, on the horrifying secret rituals of the
Catholic Church, on the dangers of miscegenation, on the
British-Israel theories.

"Now I will be damned," said Hackett. "The
things people fall for—"

Mendoza said with a short
laugh, "There was that folding table, you know. I'll bet you he
presided over meetings of this nasty little outfit in the back room
of that store. But I do wonder how Miss McLennan found out about it."

* * *

When Hackett got home he found Angel just taking a
casserole out of the oven. She kissed him briskly. "You've
really been very good about staying on the maintenance diet, darling.
But you're going to fall off it a little tonight because we're in a
hurry. And I hope to goodness I can get the children to bed early and
they don't get to fussing."

"Where are we going?" asked Hackett
amiably.

"No place. I just noticed it in the new TV
Guide, there's a movie on we want to see. We missed it when it was
playing in the theaters, because it was that time Sheila had
chickenpox and we couldn't leave her. And it got the rave reviews,
it's supposed to be awfully good—that one made on the old Christie
mystery, you know, the Orient Express."

"Oh, fine," said Hackett. "Just the
thing to take my mind off the dirty job, my Angel." He went to
strip off tie and jacket.

For a wonder, the children
went peaceably to bed, and at eight o'clock the Hacketts settled down
on the couch together to watch "Saturday Night at the Movies."

* * *

When Mendoza came in at ten o'clock on Sunday morning
the office was empty except for Sergeant Lake working a crossword
puzzle at the switchboard. "Where is everybody, Jimmy?"

"I think Jase and George went out on the
Patterson thing again, and there was a new one down, Art and Tom are
on that—body in a car at the County Courthouse parking lot."

"
¡No me diga!
Has somebody killed a judge at last?"

Lake grinned. "I couldn't say. Henry and John
are out looking for heisters."

"So you can put me through to the local feds."
Mendoza went on into his office and two minutes later was talking to
the FBI office in Hollywood.

One of the feds came over, a fellow named Grady, and
looked through the stacks of leaflets Mendoza had brought back
yesterday. He looked at it sadly; he was a young man, but like any
other cop he knew about human nature.

"This outfit," he said distastefully,
poking his finger at a pamphlet entitled "Race Purity or the End
of Civilization!"

"Well, it's on the subversive list, but we don't
do much about it—there's not much to do—at least they don't go
throwing bombs, and as far as we know they haven't started to
stockpile machine guns yet. Just distribute the hate literature and
hold secret meetings—get together to exchange passwords and tell
each other how superior they are."

"Yes," said Mendoza. "The bandar-log."

"How's that?"

"Mr. Kipling's bandar-log. ‘We are the
greatest people in the jungle, we know it is true because all of us
say it is true!' "

"Oh," said Grady. "It makes you tired
to see people being such fools. We all come all shapes and sizes,
good, bad and indifferent. You'd think a look at history would tell
anybody that. These people, the ones who fall for this junk, they're
usually little unimportant people, failures in life, and they need
something to prop themselves up, you know? They're a far cry from the
real terrorists and propagandists using the hate to create
dissension, spread confusion, aiming for the cold communist takeover.
They're kind of pathetic people really—but hate is hate."

"Isn't it the truth," said Mendoza. "Well,
I suppose this gives us an answer to our particular little puzzle.
Parmenter annoyed one of the local brotherhood—maybe he was Grand
High Panjandrum and somebody wanted the job—and the brother put him
out of the way."

"It's very possible. They don't tend to be very
well balanced people, of course. But I guess both of us have had
enough to do with the nuts to know how they react."

Mendoza settled back for a
desultory discussion of the vagaries of human nature, quite unaware
of the storm that was about to break over the office.

* * *

Hackett and Landers had gone out on yet another
routine call, a dead body: what Robbery-Homicide was there to deal
with. It was a rather queer place to find a body, but the civic
center with all its public buildings was surrounded by the inner
city, the oldest part of L.A. and some of the shabbiest, and many
things happen in the inner city on Saturday nights. They drove the
little way to the County Courthouse and found the squad in the
parking lot, which held just one car. Barrett was waiting for them.

"I noticed the car because, of course, it's the
only one in the lot. I thought it might be on the hot list, so I came
up to look, and there he is. And I'll tell you something funny, he
looks sort of familiar," said Barrett. "What you can see of
him."

"Oh?" Hackett went to take a look. The car
was a nearly new Chevrolet hard-top, bright silver. The body was on
the passenger side in front, but slumped over sideways. Hackett went
around to the driver's side to get a better look at its face. They'd
have to get the lab out before they could touch the car or examine
the corpse, so they put in a call and Scarne came out with Horder in
a mobile unit.

They dusted the right-hand door, lifted a few
latents, and got it open. The morgue wagon was standing by then. At
least, up here on a Sunday morning, there was nobody around to make
up a gawking crowd. They took some pictures and Scarne said, "He
looks familiar. Okay, that should do it. Let's see if there's any
I.D. on him," and he reached in and yanked the body more
upright. It flopped up, still a little rigid, and the head fell back
against the seat. The corpse had been a striking-looking man, a big
man with broad shoulders, thick black hair slightly waving in front,
strongly marked features—broad brow, jutting straight nose, a wide
mobile mouth. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties.

"My good God!" said Hackett. "It's
Upchurch. Senator Upchurch."

"I'll be damned if it isn't," said Landers.
"What the hell is he doing here?"

"Up—" said Scarne, and stared. "My
God. It is. I was going to vote for him. How'd he get down here, for
God's sake?"

Howard Upchurch was a very new figure in national
politics, and by all the signs he had been marked for success. He had
currently been serving a fourth term in the state senate, and was
campaigning for the nomination at the primaries in June to challenge
the senior senator for California. He had been, according to the
polls, the odds-on favorite to get that nomination.

"I saw him on a TV spot just last night,"
said Hackett. They had all seen the news stories, the campaign
publicity. Upchurch was running as a common-sensible moderate, with a
strong base of Family, Patriotism and Morality. He was described as a
solid family man himself, he had been a successful lawyer before
entering politics, and he was identified with agricultural interests;
he represented a constituency far north in the state where large
ranch holdings dominated the local scene. They had all seen the TV
spots, heard his well-modulated voice making the pitch. But it
wouldn't matter now how many votes he'd have gotten; he wasn't going
to Washington next January.

There wasn't any visible mark to say how he had died.

"I'l1 be damned," said Scarne in sole
comment, and rather gingerly began to feel in the pockets. Upchurch
was wearing a well-tailored gray suit, white shirt, a discreet dark
tie. There was a gold seal ring on his right hand, and a Masonic tie
pin fastened to the tie. "Well, he wasn't rolled," said
Scarne, handing the billfold to Hackett. There was a hundred and
seventy dollars in it, and the plastic slots were crammed with I.D.:
credit cards, membership cards for the Elks, Kiwanis, Rotary. Scarne
was into other pockets now. He came up with a florists' card, the
kind attached to a formal arrangement. In green ink was printed on it
To welcome you to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Compliments of the
manager. Next came a note crumpled hastily into the left jacket
pocket.

It was a sheet torn from an interoffice memo pad, and
it was headed in scarlet block print, From the office of Bernard
Seton. In an overlarge scrawl below that was, Dear Howie, suggest we
get together for a confab re the campaign and Tuesday speech, my
hotel room, this afternoon—sorry can't join for dinner, will take
rain check. Bernie. That seemed to be all that was in the pockets,
except for a bunch of keys.

"Well, this is going to make some headlines,"
said Hackett.

"We'll have the press around."

Landers sniffed and said, "One politician less."

"It's a Hertz car, did you notice?" said
Scarne. The keys were in the ignition.

"He was evidently staying at the Beverly Hills
Hotel," said Hackett. "I suppose we start there. And, hell,
it's Sunday, I don't suppose there'd be anybody at his Sacramento
office."

The lab would tow in the car and Upchurch would be
delivered to the morgue. There wasn't any obvious injury, and he
could have died of a heart attack, only what was he doing at the
County Courthouse? But whatever, they had to work it.

Hackett and Landers drove out to the Beverly Hills
Hotel. It was an old and still very good hotel, not as large or as
classy as the newer Hilton, the Century-Plaza. And of course there
wasn't going to be any way to avoid the publicity on this. Hackett
asked the desk clerk whether Senator Upchurch was registered. The
desk clerk beamed at him cordially and agreed that he was. He was a
thin dark man with obsequious eyes and an anxious smile. "I'm
sorry to tell you," said Hackett, bringing out the badge, "that
he's just been found dead, and we'll have to make some inquiries."

The smile vanished. "D-dead!" said the
clerk. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

"We'd like to see his room," said Hackett.
"And do you have a Bernard Seton registered?" The clerk
shook his head dumbly. "All right, let's see the register."

"Really, there's no Seton—"

"I don't doubt it," said Hackett, "but
I don't recall where Upchurch comes from, and I want his home
address."

"It's S-San S-S-Sallitas," said the clerk.
"Oh, my God. What—what did he die of?"

"We don't know yet. Will you take us to his
room, please. Would you know what time he went out, when he was last
seen here?"

Dumbly the clerk took down some keys from behind the
desk. "I go—off duty at six. Bob Logan's on—up to midnight.
I saw the senator come in—yesterday—about five o'clock. That's
all I know."

"Al1 right, thanks."

They rode up to the top floor, and the clerk let them
into a room at the end of the corridor. Hackett shut the door on him
and they looked around. In ten minutes Landers said, "I'll bet
you he was just down here to make a speech, he wasn't intending to
stay long." There was only one suitcase, and it held four clean
shirts, two folded ties and four sets of clean underwear, four pairs
of socks. There was a dark navy suit hanging in the closet, his razor
in the bathroom, a few toilet articles on the shelf there. The
register said he had checked in on Friday. And a laundry bag in the
closet held a little pile of dirty clothes, two shirts, two sets of
underwear, two pairs of socks.