Murder Most Strange (8 page)

"Oh, hell and damnation," said Hackett.
"Where?"

Palliser came in just as he was leaving, and tagged
along. It was a little street you'd never suspect was there, tucked
away off one side of a side street down from Echo Park Avenue. Its
name was Hope Lane. It was a dead-end street, with only six houses on
each side: little modest old houses, stucco and frame, on standard
city lots. The black-and-white was in front of the house last but one
on the right side. As Hackett pulled up behind it and they got out,
the street was very quiet; nothing stirred anywhere. Nobody seemed to
have noticed the presence of the squad, or to feel curious about it.

The patrolman was Ray Waring; he was waiting on the
sidewalk beside the squad, talking to a woman. "It's in the back
yard," he told Hackett and Palliser. "This is Mrs. Coffman,
she found him and called in."

She was, they saw instantly, ghoulishly and gleefully
pleased at her role in the affair. She was about fifty, neither fat
nor thin, round-faced, dowdily dressed in blouse and skirt and
run-over flat oxfords. Her pale-blue eyes glittered at them pleasedly
as Waring mentioned their names.

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure. The house was
unlocked so I just called from there. I never had such a shock in my
life."

If that was so, she'd gotten over it fast. "You
see, how it was, he owed me twenty dollars. I came in and cleaned for
him when he couldn't stand it any longer—how that man hated to part
with money. I'd been here on Wednesday afternoon doing the windows
and such, and when he got home he said he hadn't been to the bank,
he'd pay me later. I dropped into the store to remind him—"

"What store?" asked Palliser.

"He had a pharmacy on Alvarado. He was a
pharmacist. And yesterday he said if I dropped by today he'd pay me.
That man. The bank charges for checks, he didn't like to use them.
Just putting it off—a real miser he was—but he always paid in the
end. And when he didn't answer the bell, I naturally figured he was
in the back yard, he was quite a gardener, always working out there,
about his only interest—so I went down the drive and there he was.
Dead," she said enjoyably. "A11 bashed around—somebody
had it in for him good."

Hackett exchanged a glance with Waring. "All
right, Mrs. Coffman, if you wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes we
may want to ask you some questions."

“
I don't mind at all."

They went down the narrow drive. The house was an old
frame bungalow painted white with green trim, very neat. There was
about twelve feet between its side and, across the drive, the next
house, which was a stucco pseudo-Spanish crackerbox. There wasn't a
sound but their footsteps down the cracked-cement drive. The lot was
probably the usual fifty by a hundred and fifty. At the end of the
drive was a single frame garage, door open, with an old Ford sedan in
it. Between garage and the back of the house was a white picket fence
with a gate in it. The gate was open.
 
The
back yard, perhaps forty by ninety feet, had been laid out as a
garden of sorts, but not with flowers and shrubs; it consisted of
neat rows with labeled stakes here and there. There was already a
little stand of green corn, and Hackett recognized the lacy tops of
carrots, that was about all. The body was sprawled out just in front
of the rows of corn. They went closer and looked at it.

It was the body of a man somewhere in his fifties, a
thin stringy-necked man wearing ragged old trousers and a dirty white
shirt. He had a bald spot on top of his head. And he had obviously
sustained a savage beating, and died of it. His face was heavily
bruised and battered, his nose mashed to one side, and there were
darkening bruises on his bare arms, undoubtedly a lot more on the
body.

Hackett bent and felt him. "Cold. It didn't just
happen. Four or five hours maybe."

"Doesn't look as if there'll be anything for the
lab, but you never know."

"We do have to go by the rules." The man
had apparently been weeding the garden; there was a long-handled hoe
half under the body, nothing else around. But the encounter had, also
obviously, happened right here; there were a lot of scuff marks in
the loosened soil, several plants uprooted and wilting, some blood
spatters, what looked like a knocked-out tooth.

"It's funny," said Palliser, "that
nobody found him before. Right out in the open." He looked at
the house next door. On that side of the driveway there was a low
cement-block wall marking the property line. They could see into a
neat back yard with a strip of lawn, flower beds, a garage at the
other side. In the other direction, there was another white picket
fence, and the next back yard was not nearly so neat: a half-hearted
attempt at a lawn, and children's toys scattered around, a bicycle.

The whole neighborhood was as silent as the tomb.
"Sunday," said Hackett. "People not home." They
went back down the drive. Waring had Mrs. Coffman ensconced in the
back of the squad. Hackett got in the front. At least he needn't be
tactful with this one. "Who was he?" he asked bluntly.

"His name's George Parmenter," she said
promptly. "He owns the Independent Pharmacy up on Alvarado. Ran
it for thirty years or more. His wife used to help him in the store,
but she died about three-four years ago. I just live over on Laveta,
go in the store all the time, and he knew I take on housework for
people sometimes. Just since she died, and he was here alone, he had
me come in to do the heavy work, every couple of months."

"Miser, was he?"

"Oh, my, say it twice, Sergeant."

“
Would you know if he had, well, any enemies?
People he'd cheated maybe, or—"

"Well, no, I wouldn't say that." She was
disappointed about it. "When I say miser I mean he just squeezed
every penny. I guess he was honest enough. I don't think he knew
anybody well enough to have any enemies, Sergeant. Not that I knew
him so good at that, but he never went anywhere but the store and
home, and all his spare time he worked in his vegetable garden."

"Well, thanks. We'll want you to come in and
make a statement. Tomorrow will do." She was reluctant to leave,
but finally got into the old Chevy parked ahead of the squad, and
drove off. Hackett put in a call for a lab truck and got out to join
Palliser in the street. "This is a funny little backwater, John.
Twelve houses. Hardly more than a couple of hundred feet long. And a
dead end. You'd think somebody along here would have seen or heard
something. Let's go ask while the lab takes pictures."

"It was probably this morning sometime.
Obviously nobody heard anything or we'd have been called before. But
for one thing," said Palliser, "I'd think the people along
here would notice a strange car, one that didn't belong here. No harm
in asking, anyway."

Hackett took the house to the right of Parmenter's,
the last house on the street this side. He had to push the doorbell
twice before the door opened. He produced the badge and explained
economically. She was a thirtyish, attractive woman, dark-haired,
casual in jeans and blouse. Her eyes widened on him, and she put a
hand to her mouth.

"For heaven's sake!" she exclaimed. "Mr.
Parmenter? Right next door— Oh, my goodness. That's awful."

"Have you been home all day? Do you live alone,
Mrs.—"

"Hilbrand. No, of course not, yes, I have, but I
haven't heard a thing. How awful. My husband took the children up to
the zoo in Griffith Park, but I had one of my sinus headaches and
didn't feel like going, I took a couple of codeine tablets— My
heavens. I can't get over it—right next door—"

"Did you know Mr. Parmenter well?"

"Oh, no. He wasn't very friendly with neighbors,
and besides he was away all day in his store, you know."

Frustrated, Hackett joined Palliser two doors down. A
couple of faces were peering out a front window there. Palliser said
briefly, "Middle-aged couple named Klaber. Didn't notice a
thing. She's been sewing all day in the den at the other side of the
house, and he's been watching TV."

Hackett massaged his jaw. "Damn it, you'd think,
on a street like this— It's so damned quiet."

"Isn't it?" said Palliser. "I think
the strange car's the best bet. It's not a transient neighborhood,
Art. The people along here would know each other's cars, casually
notice a strange one—no reason to turn in here unless you were
heading for one of these houses. There wouldn't be anything to worry
them, just a strange car stopping at old Parmenter's place—if
somebody was out working in the yard earlier today—-"

They had time to kill while the lab men were busy.
They split up again, across the street. On the narrow front porch of
another square crackerbox, Hackett waited, and a fussy voice inside
said, "I'm coming, I'm coming—yes?" The door was opened
halfway, suspiciously. She was a stout elderly woman with frizzy
white hair. He explained. She was alarmed, outraged, indignant. "Why,
that's just terrible! To think of that poor man— No, I just knew
him to speak to, but he'd lived here a long time, of course—such a
respectable man, too— But this has always been such a quiet street,
I don't recall we've ever had a burglary or even any vandalism along
here, but these days . . ." Her name was Helen Lewis, and she
was a widow who lived alone. “I haven't heard a thing all day, it's
been a very quiet day. I was in the kitchen a good part of the
morning, mixing up that casserole, and I always take a little nap
after lunch—"

Hackett joined Palliser. "Couple in the
seventies there— Mr. and Mrs. Sadler. They were doing yard work in
the back all morning. He's a little deaf."

"Helpful," said Hackett.

"Well, there's only seven more houses up to the
cross street." The lab truck had arrived, and Waring gone back
on tour.

They proceeded on. Hackett talked to a youngish
husband and wife named Anderson, who had been refinishing furniture
in their garage and hadn't heard or seen anything unusual. To a stout
spinster named Spooner who had been reading in her bedroom all day.
To another middle-aged couple named Trask who had been watching old
movies on TV. They were all horrified and alarmed at the news, asked
questions and exclaimed, but none of them had any scrap of
information to offer, and none of them had known Parmenter except by
sight; he hadn't been very neighborly, they said.

At the other end of the street he pushed the last
doorbell. The door opened suddenly and he faced a large man with a
cheerful Irish-looking bulldog face. Hackett recited the tale again.
"For God's sake!" said the man. "Old Parmenter? I'll
be damned!"

"If you happened to notice a strange car around,
anything unusual, Mr.—"

"Branagan, Terence. I haven't noticed a damned
thing, Sergeant," he said regretfully. "Fact is, I'm
usually bushed on Sunday. I walk a damned long mail route, and come
Sunday I just want to relax. My wife took the kids over to her
mother's, and I've been half asleep in front of the tube, tell the
truth. And all the time a thing like that going on." He went on
to ask eager questions, and Hackett cut him off, walked across to
join Palliser.

"One young couple named Jepson," said
Palliser, "who say the baby kept them awake all night and when
they got her settled down they went back to bed again, about ten A.M.
He's got enough muscles to beat anybody to death, he drives a cab for
Yellow and looks like a prizefighter, but I don't suppose he's our
boy. Another couple about thirty-five, the Kellers, who've been
painting a back bedroom all day. And a deaf widower named Weekes."

"Oh, for God's sake," said Hackett. A
deathly hush lay over the little street; it was so quiet that they
could hear a couple of mourning doves in the old elm tree in front of
Parmenter's house the length of the street away. The morgue wagon was
there now. "Well, the only answer is, he must have been knocked
unconscious right away, didn't have a chance to fight back or make
any noise."

"Yes," said Palliser. "I suppose we'd
better have a look through the house. There may be some lead to
whoever hated him enough for that."

There wasn't. Marx and Fisher were in the house now,
being thorough, but it was the barest house Hackett had ever seen.
There was a minimum of furniture, linen, dishes, a meagerly stocked
refrigerator: not a book in the place, no desk, no visible
correspondence. "He was a hermit," said Palliser.

"There may be something at the store," said
Hackett. "Some people must have known him, John."

"Somebody knew him well enough to want him
dead."

It was nearly the end of
shift. They had Parmenter's keys from his pants pocket, and told the
lab men to lock up after themselves.

* * *

Late Sunday afternoon, as Mendoza was reading in a
corner of the living room, he heard Alison come in with the twins and
chase them upstairs to Mairi for their baths. They departed noisily
comparing the virtues of the ponies, and Alison came wandering in
with Cedric and sat down opposite him. Cedric flopped down at her
feet, panting loudly. Her hair was a little disheveled and she was
looking meditative.

"They're getting to be quite good little
riders," she said.