Mark of Murder - Dell Shannon (24 page)

"
No, honest--honest, mister, we did!" said
Lopez eagerly. "It was down on Main, we was all together--we saw
this guy drop something, just ahead of us, see, and Mike picked it
up-- I saw him--
honestamente
--"

"That's right," said Kellerman stolidly. "I
saw him too. It looked like a swell gun, not so old either--but I
told Mike, see, when I see the serial number's filed off, I said, get
shut of it, maybe it's hot."

"You've got all the answers," said Mendoza.
"Do you really think I'm going to buy that one?"

"It's the truth!" snarled Wills. "It's
all I can tell you. Jesus, I wish now I'd tossed it in the first
alley we passed, but I didn't. It was mostly loaded, too--eight slugs
in it. That's God's own truth, this guy dropped it and I picked it
up. Right in the street, see--on the sidewalk."
 
His tone was passionate. Mendoza looked at him. "So
now suppose you produce a nice tight alibi for all three of you for
last Tuesday night."

"Hell!" said Wills violently. "You
Goddamn cops--"

"
I ain't taking no murder rap either, Mike,”
said Kellerman. His broad forehead wrinkled painfully with thought.

"It ain't sense. So maybe we get hit a little
tougher if we tell them, it's still not murder. Gee, none of us'd do
a bad thing like a murder!" He looked at Mendoza earnestly. "We
couldn't've, because we was down in Boyle Heights last Tuesday night,
we cracked a TV store and got a lot of stuit. You can check it, I
guess--lessee, we was with them girls up to about nine, and then we
did the store, and we sold a lot of the stuff at a pawnshop on
Whittier Boulevard, that'd be about ten-thirty, wasn't it, Mike?
And--"

"
Oh hell!" said Wills sullenly. "Well,
all right. That's where we was, just like George says."

"That's right, mister,
honestamente
--"

Mendoza looked at Nesbitt and raised his eyebrows.
Nesbitt shrugged.

"We'd sold stuff there before--the old guy's
name is Behrens. Honest, he'd tell you we was in, about ten-thirty,
and--”

"All right, what's the address?" Mendoza
wrote it down. "I'll probably be seeing you again." He
turned on his heel. Walking down the corridor, he asked Nesbitt,
"What do you think?"

"
Finding a gun," said Nesbitt. "I ask
you."

"Down on Main," said Mendoza absently. He
thought suddenly, suppose you had a gun you wanted to get rid of? A
hot gun. Maybe one you had a license for, so the serial number could
be traced. You could sell it, but the transaction would be traceable
too. You could pawn it, but all pawnbrokers were supposed to keep
records of serial numbers. You could just dump it somewhere, in anzio
empty lot, but there was always the chance of someone seeing you, or
Ending it and reporting it. Really, a very excellent way of getting
rid of it would be to file away the serial number and then drop it
somewhere, casually, in a district like Skid Row, where the chances
were that whoever picked it up would keep it for his own nefarious
purposes or pawn it for drinking money.

He wished now he'd asked those punks if they
remembered anything about the hypothetical man who'd dropped the .22.
But it had almost certainly been after dark, and they wouldn't
remember any details. Hell. And no way to . . .

"
We'd better check," he said to Nesbitt.
"The pawnbroker, and his stock. Just in case."

"Sure," said Nesbitt sadly. "We have
to check everything."

Boyle Heights--Wl1ittier Boulevard. That would be the
Hollenbeck station, and Mendoza thought he'd get them to check it out
for him. He thanked Nesbitt for cooperation and drove back to
headquarters, thinking about the gun.

The Sheldon woman hadn't shown, though it was after
eleven. He called the Hollenbeck station, and the sergeant he talked
to groaned but said he knew they were keeping busy with this Slasher
down at headquarters, and they'd check out the pawnbroker for them.
"How's that sergeant of yours doing in the hospital?"

"Not so good," said Mendoza. But a sudden
queer warmth spread through him, for the real concern in the man's
voice. That sergeant over at the Hollenbeck station had probably
never laid eyes on Art Hackett. This was a big police force, though
perennially undennanned for the population it served, and it took
pride in itself for being, for all that, the top force anywhere. He
realized suddenly that every man on this force who had read that
brief newspaper story--Veteran Homicide Officer in Near Fatal
Accident--was pulling for Hackett. Just because he was another cop.

Cops had to stick together.

He put the phone down. Palliser came in, looking
annoyed, and said that Miguel Garcia hadn't recognized any of the
three men with burn-scarred faces they'd held overnight. "I got
the Rollen girl to look at them too, she said definitely no. So we
let them go."

"Yes. It won't be as easy as that," said
Mendoza. "Have those search warrants come through yet?"

"A few. Your idea was that button? Well, if that
is a real clue," said Palliser, "and Nestor really did
snatch it off his killer, I should think X would have felt it go.
And--" He stopped.

"Yes," said Mendoza. "Belatedly, I saw
that too. If he realized that Nestor had snatched it, maybe in
reaching for the hand that held the gun, how easy simply to take it
back when Nestor was dead. So he doesn't know it's gone from his
jacket or whatever. Or didn't then. So maybe he's hung the jacket
away in his closet for us to find .... I thought for a little while
we'd cleaned up Nestor, but I'm having second thoughts." He told
Palliser about the young punks, about the gun.

Palliser said thoughtfully, "Well, I'm bound to
say, if I had a hot gun to get rid of, that might be a damn safe way
to do it. Down there, nobody'd be likely to hand it to the nearest
patrolman and say, ‘Look what I found-- Of course you're checking
with the pawnbroker."

"
Naturalmente
--or
rather, Hollenbeck is. You and Bert and whoever else is available had
better go out on these warrants. Of course, there's every chance that
since the murder X has noticed the missing button and, taking no
chances that he dropped it somewhere incriminating, has got rid of
the jacket or suit--or replaced the button. Anyway, have a good look
for that--a button that doesn't quite match the rest .... l want to
see Elger again--and this damn Sheldon woman--"

The outside phone rang, and Sergeant Lake looked in
and said, "It's your wife."

All Mendoza's muscles semed to tighten. If the
hospital . . . He said, "O.K.," and picked up the phone,
seeing his fears mirrored in Palliser's dark eyes .... "
Querida?
"

"Luis," she said. "Luis--we're at the
hospital. Angel's just got the doctor to tell her--how it really is."

"Oh," said Mendoza. Some of the tension
went out of him, and Palliser, seeing it, drew a breath and went out.

"I'm sorry about that."

"He kept looking so serious, and-- When we'd
thought-- And he tried--but Angel kept at him, and he finally told
us--how it might be. Luis, it can't happen, can it?"

"I don't know,
belleza
.
It's a thing, we wait and see."

"
I know--but--”

"How is she taking it?"

"All right," said Alison. "It's no
good fainting and having hysterics, but-- She's--all right, so far.
But I can't bear--"

"
Yes,” he said. "There's more to Art's
Angel than I'd thought. She's a good girl. But I'1n sorry she knows.
I'd hoped--"

"
Protecting
us!" said Alison with a little angry half sob. "Just not
running to meet trouble,
amante
."

"
No. I know. But--"

Neither of them said anything for a moment; there was
nothing more to say. The line hummed between them, a small comforting
contact.

"Alison," he said. "Alison."

"Yes."

"
How would you feel about it--if I resigned from
the force?"

There was another little silence. "You mean . .
. ? I--I don't know, darling," said Alison. "Would
you--want to? I mean--"

"I don't know," he said.

"What would--you do with yourself?"

"Something, I suppose. Find something.
Esa
es cuesti
ó
n aparte
.
I don't know."

"If you really wanted to--" she said. He
heard her draw a little breath. "Will you be home at all? I know
how you're working at it--"

"I don't know that either, my darling. I'll
call. You take care of Art's girl--and yourself."

"Yes," she said forlornly. "Yes,
Luis."

He put the phone down. He looked around the office.

He really didn't know. Twenty-two years. Riding a
squad car. In plain clothes, down in Vice--spotting the pro gamblers
mostly, because maybe he was half a pro gambler himself. And eleven
years in this office, sergeant and then lieutenant.

He'd sat at a desk up here for eleven years, working
the cases as they turned up. Always plenty of cases to work. He
wondered how it would feel, to be plain Mister instead of Lieutenant.
To have nowhere special to be at a specified time every morning. To
have no work to do at all. Just time to play.

The job wasn't necessary. All that nice money, in
giltedged securities, in real estate. No. But . . .

Sergeant Lake looked in and said, "That Sheldon
woman's here, Lieutenant."

Lieutenant. He had a place in life, as lieutenant.
But maybe not fair to Alison, to the twins--and if Art . . . But
meanwhile, thankfully, he had the job to do. He said, "O.K.,
Jimmy, shoot her in." He snapped his lighter, lit a cigarette.
 

SIXTEEN

Anita Sheldon was a vapid-looking little blonde with
china-blue eyes, and she was very frightened. She hadn't known Frank
Nestor very well, she didn't know anything about him really, it'd
just been like meeting him for cocktails somewhere, nothing bad, but
Bill had got so mad about that Youngman guy that time, there hadn't
been anything in it, but Bill--if he got to know about this--He
didn't understand, him away off on some job maybe four or five days,
and a girl liked a little fun . . .

Within five minutes Mendoza put her down as a shallow
little tramp; and when he heard that she'd been married to Bill for
five years he provisionally crossed off Bill, who must have found her
out in that time if he wasn't mentally deficient. Bill hadn't got mad
enough to shoot any of her other pickups; it wasn't likely he'd shot
Nestor. When he learned that Bill had been on his way up to Santa
Barbara with a truckload last Tuesday night he crossed him off
definitely.

Well, she had met Nestor in his office on two
occasions."But not to stay there, of course, we'd go on to some
nice restaurant, somewhere like that."

When Mendoza thanked her, told her she could go, she
shot off like a scalded cat. Evidently, he thought, Nestor had picked
up whatever came handy: and from all he knew of him, that ran true.
Ladies' man, not too particular. The ones like Anita Sheldon
flattered and caught by his charm--but Ruth Elger had been something
else again. Going out with him because she'd had a fight with her
husband. Using Nestor. And maybe the first time she'd strayed, and
Elger . . . But would Elger have shot him? Hair-trigger Elger more
likely to have beaten him up, maybe?

Mendoza took out the button and looked at it. Well,
see what turned up there. He felt harried; he was getting nothing on
all this at all, and time was catching up to him--he had the worried
feeling that there was something, some relevant fact, right under his
nose, if he wasn't too stupid to see it.

He forced himself to sit still, take a couple of deep
breaths. He was trying to go at it too fast, do everything at once.
Sit and think calmly over the evidence, take it easy.

Nestor's high-society scrapbook was lying on his desk
along with a few other things; he picked it up. It occurred to him
that possibly, if his guess as to its purpose was the right one, and
if Nestor had even once recognized a patient, he might have indicated
it in some way. Either in the scrapbook or on that list in Madge
Corliss' safety box. Idly he started leafing through the book.
 
The first item taped to the page was
short: Miss Susan Marlowe, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Marlowe,
spent a delightful Easter weekend cruising aboard the yacht of the J.
Haskin Treadwells. No pictures on that. Of course Nestor would have
been interested because of his slight connection with Marlowe. He
went on looking; the year-in, year-out social affairs, the races,
operas, first nights, teas and dinners and lectures. A lot of
pictures, but Nestor hadn't scribbled anything in the margins.
"
¡Nada!
"
said Mendoza, and shut the book.

And the outside phone rang on Sergeant Lake's desk. .
. . "It's another one, Lieutenant. Another Slasher job. Just
found."