Case Pending - Dell Shannon (24 page)

"That's a dgmn good idea," said Joe. "Come
on now, Agnes, stop crying and come with me, you see they're not
going to do noffng to you, it's nobody's business but yours. . .
.Don't I care? Listen, honey, you're the nicest girl I ever knew
and the prettiest one too, and I couldn't care less if you're all
colors of the rainbow. And no, Rita won't care either, I'd like to
see her try— Besides, I read some place about a thing called
Mendelian law, it sa—"

"Take her away and explain that one thoroughly,"
advised Mendoza, shooing them out to the anteroom. "Yes, yes,
Miss Browne, you're very welcome, thank you for coming in. . . .
.Morgan, good morning, what kept you? Come in here, I've got a
job for you."

Morgan wasn't enthusiastic about the job, took it on
somewhat grudgingly, while taking Mendoza's point of view. "I've
got no real reason to ask questions about this boy, and the school
people would undoubtedly raise an uproar, want to know all about it
if a Homicide man walked in wanting to know all about one of their
seventh-graders. There may be nothing in it anyway, and in any case
not much to find out at the school, but it's obviously the first
place to go for information about him. They may be a little
surprised at your office wanting to know, but they won't be alarmed
about it, and everybody's so used these days to being asked
irrelevant questions by busybody government agencies, ten to one they
won't think twice about it. Try to see his teacher—or all his
teachers, if there are more than one—and his school records. I've
jotted down some questions you might ask."

All right." Morgan took the memo ungraciously.
"I'll get what I can for you, but I do have a job of my own, you
know things I've got to do today."

"I realize that." Mendoza also realized
that some of the reluctance was due to the fact that Morgan didn't
like him much personally; that was just one of those things. Morgan
being a reasonably intelligent man, Mendoza didn't put it down to any
irrational prejudice, though he wasn't much concerned with the reason
if there was one. Probably not, just a matter of personal
chemistries; and he never wasted time trying to ingratiate himself
with people who felt that way.  He'd had the same reasonless
reaction himself often enough to know that it was a waste of time. He
merely thanked Morgan politely, saw him out, and deciding he could
not decently call down to Prints, to see if they'd found anything
interesting, before eleven, sat down to look over the latest reports
on his other current cases.

Before he had read the first three lines of what
Sergeant Brice had to tell him, another disturbance commenced outside
his door. He said resignedly to himself, "
¡Me
doy por vencido!
" and went to
investigate.

As he might have expected, it was a delegation
representing the family Ramirez, consisting of Papa, Teresa, and
Father Monaghan. Ramirez was being impassioned in Spanish, and
Hackett was patting his shoulder and repeating, "
No
se sofoque Usted, amigo—es O.K., comprende?
"

"Lieutenant," Teresa clutched at his
arm. "Please, you got to believe none of us knew what my
uncle was up to—"

"Never, never, never!" Ramirez whirled to
state his case to higher authority. "This villain, this
bandit, to bring such disgrace on the family— I swear before God to
you, never would I have him in my house if I knew what he is guilty
of! And now you're thinking bad things for all of us, that we're
all criminals—I swear to you—"

"Calm yourself, my son, I've told you the police
will judge fairly, you must not sorry. Lieutenant, I do hope
there'll be no misunderstanding, I'm quite certain these people had
nothing to do—"

"Yes, yes, yes," said Mendoza.
"Ramirez—quiet! You've been in this country long enough
to know that we're not ogres! Listen now. Your brother has
broken the law and he will go to prison, but his crime isn't in my
jurisdiction, understand? He was arrested by my friend Lieutenant
Callaghan, and I have spoken with the lieutenant, who agrees with me
that you people very likely knew nothing of the crime, although
naturally he must investigate that. You understand that there
must be investigation when a crime is committed. But if you've
done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from the police."

"You see, Papa, I kept telling you it was all
right, they'll find out we didn't have nothing to do with it, and
Uncle will say too, he's not that bad, try to pull us into
it! Thanks, Lieutenant, that was real nice of you, say that to
this other cop—now don't take on so, Papa—"

They got Ramirez calmed down a little. Mendoza,
suddenly struck with a not very hopeful idea, but you never knew and
no harm to try, took Teresa down to Prints to look at the doll.

"No, I never seen nothing like that before. .
.Why? Is it something to do with—? But how could it be?"

"Now there you've asked me something," he
sighed. "Yes, it is something to do with it—that I can tell
you now, at least I'm ninety-eight percent sure. But what,
that's another question."

"It's— I don't like it," said Teresa,
shuddering. "All pulled apart like that."

"Yes. . . .I suppose you haven't got anything
for me yet," he said to Carter.

"We've got a lot of dandy prints,
Lieutenant—whether they'll tell us anything—" and Carter
shrugged.  "Let's see, you gave us the names of five of our
own men handled it, well, I've got a couple of the boys checking
records now, to eliminate those.  At a guess, we've got two or
three different people besides—I think. Tell you more when I
know which to eliminate. We'll see if the strangers match anything in
the other records, and have a look at the psychos on file first, way
you suggested.You can have her back any time, by the way—we've
finished with her."

"Thanks very much." Mendoza folded the
paper round the doll and carried it back upstairs with him. He
spent another five minutes on additional reassurances to Ramirez and
the priest, got rid of them, unwrapped the doll on his desk, and
said, "Now we'll just see if we can match up that little clue
you were so superior about."

"What? Oh,
that," as Mendoza tenderly slid the dainty strip of pink lace
from its envelope. "Today's great thought, I'd forgotten—my
God," said Hackett suddenly, "look at the time, I'll be
late for that damned inquest, and it's old Curly too, he'll give me
hell—have fun, amigo," and he snatched up his hat and ran.

* * *

The two women looked at it in silence for a minute
and came out with twin reactions.

"Well!" said Mrs.  Demarest. "What
kind of a mother would go and let a child treat an expensive doll
that way! Breaking things up just out of mischief, it's a thing
I always saw my children got a good spanking for—just leads to
trouble later on."

"A sinful waste—wicked," agreed
Mrs. Breen, looking horrified.  "A downright
destructive youngster, must be, whoever's had it. I never saw
anythin' like—"

"I've begun to think that might be an
understatement—about who's had it," said Mendoza. "But
is it the doll Carol bought?"

"Yes, suh, it is," said Mrs. Breen
promptly, "or one just like it, because if I got to swear, well,
of course I couldn't do no such thing. I just had the one in stock,
not figurin' I could sell more'n that, you know, an' I couldn't guess
how many of 'em the factory might of made, an' they'd be all just
alike, except some was dressed in blue and some in pink like this
here. But it's just exactly like the one Carol bought—or 'twas when
it was new."

"Would there be some kind of a serial number on
it, I wonder?" suggested Mrs.  Demarest.  "The
factory maybe could tell what store they'd sold it to. Little cheap
things, there wouldn't be, but a thing that was going to sell for
twenty doll—"

"Yes, it's possible. I haven't looked, the
thing's in such a state I don't want to handle it more than
necessary, and if there is a number the factory'll know where to look
for it. That we'll find out.  Now look at this."

He brought out the three-inch strip of lace. "I'll
swear to you this came off some part of the clothes, but it's not
possible to fit it on anywhere."

They bent over it, over the doll, looking. "It's
just like the lace on the underwear," agreed Mrs. 
Breen. "Same exact color. I reckon the factory could tell
you for sure, 'bout that—but there's not an awful lot o' the lace
left on, an' if it got torn off different times, well, there wouldn't
be no fitting this piece where it was."

"I can't get over the way it's been—"
Mrs. Demarest raised troubled eyes to him. "Can you
tell us about it, Lieutenant, how you came to find it?"

Mendoza leaned back and lit a cigarette. "I'll
tell you what I know—you tell me what it means!  Carol bought
this thing the night she was killed. That morning, a Mrs. Marion
Lindstrom tried to persuade you," stabbing the cigarette at
Mrs. Breen, "to sell it to her, and, when you refused, was
insistent that you find out whether you could get her one like it,
and left her name and addresss—"

"Real uppity she was," nodded Mrs. Breen,
"as if I could, if I wanted."

"So. Carol was killed and the doll
stolen. No evidence either way, as to whether the killer or
someone else took it. Now, Mrs. Lindstrom lived just two
blocks up from here, across Hunter Avenue—and the next day, though
it lacked a week to the end of the month and her rent was paid to
then, she moved—unexpectedly and hurriedly. We can conjecture
it was pure chance she ended up where she did, in a place called
Graham Court, down the wrong side of Main. She'd have to take
what was available right that day, if she was anxious to move at once
and what was available, of course, within the limits of what she
could pay. All right. Time goes on, and last Friday night
another girl is lulled, within two blocks of this Graham
Court. Killed the same way, and as was the case with Carol,
there is absolutely nothing in her private life which gave anyone
reason to kill her. She wasn't as bright a girl as Carol, she had
very bad taste and not too much education, but she was an honest girl
and well enough liked—and I don't suppose she wanted to die, you
know."

"Ah, poor thing," said Mrs. Demarest.

"She was on her way home from a roller-skating
rink, alone because her boy friend's father, who disapproved of her,
had come and hauled the boy home with him. Fortunately they're out of
it on evidence. This time the handbag was taken, found a couple
of blocks away, but as far as we can tell nothing was stolen. 
Now, take a look at
me
,"
said Mendoza, sitting up. "I'm visited by a hunch—it's
the same killer—and I've got no evidence whatever, that means
anything, to back me up— Not until you told me about this doll.
Then I've got Mrs. Lindstrom's name, and then I find out she's
living in the same neighborhood this time too, and where that does
get me? If I checked back on all the people living around there,
I might find half a dozen others who'd moved there from this general
neighborhood in the last six months. One of those things.
. .But, where d'you think I found this little piece of lace? On
the floor of that skating rink. There's some vague evidence
about a boy or a young man who's been in the habit of sneaking into
the rink by an unused door, and who—so the dead girl complained to
several people—stared at her in a 'funny way.' I think he's the
one, but that's mostly another hunch and I know nothing else about
him, I've got no line on him at all. Except that maybe he
dropped this little strip there one time—and that doesn't say it
came from the don. I say to myself, I'm woolgathering, all this
doesn't mean one damned thing. And then this morning somebody leaves
that doll carefully propped against the door of the precinct station
down there-three blocks away from Graham Court."

"Well, that is queer," said Mrs. Demarest
interestedly. "But this Mrs. Lindstrom, she wouldn't be the
on—"

"There's not much to go on there either—yet. Her
husband deserted her about a month before Carol was killed. There's
a thirteen-year-old boy. All I know about him right now is that he's
a big, strong boy—shot up early—big as a man, and probably strong
enough to have done—what was done. I don't know if he did, or
why he might have. I'm getting what I can about him, but—he
shrugged—"you can see I've got no real evidence to warrant a
full-scale investigation."

"I don't know 'bout your rules for that kind o'
thing," said Mrs. Breen, "but it shorely is queer, all
that. Don't seem hardly possible, though, that a boy
thirteen—and why'd she want a doll so bad, her with only a boy?"

Mendoza sighed and stood up. "I haven't
even got an excuse to go and ask her that—and she'd only tell me it
was for her favorite niece back east, anyway. I'm hoping the
factory can identify this definitely, and in that case I'll want you
both to make formal statements about it. . . . . Thanks very much,
I'll let you know as soon as I can."
 

THIRTEEN

The phone call had come through, Sue said when she
eventually got Morgan at the office after lunch, about eleven
o'clock. It was the woman again, again sounding as if she were
reading the message, refusing to answer questions, say anything else.