Felony File (12 page)

"May I help you, sir?"

"
I—er—left an umbrella in the store
yesterday. In one of the rest rooms, I think—I was waiting for my
wife—-" A slander on Phil, who never kept anyone waiting.

The clerk was instantly helpful. "It may have
been turned into Lost and Found, sir. If you'1l go straight down this
aisle through Ladies' Lingerie, you'll find an elevator to take you
up—it's the ninth floor."

"
Oh, thank you," said Landers. He led
Conway back, found the dead-end aisle, and there was the elevator. It
was labeled, To 8TH AND 9TH FLOORS ONLY. LOST AND FOUND 9TH FLOOR.
They got in, and he pushed the button for 8. The elevator rose
smoothly and stopped; the door slid open. They were at the other end
of the hall from the Personnel offices. Facing them, just slightly
down to the left, was a double-doored elevator clearly marked 3; up
the other way were signs along the hall: To ACCOUNTING—TO
PERSONNEL.

They looked at each other, and Conway uttered a
wicked word. "So easy when you know."

Landers shoved him back into the elevator. "They
must, said everybody, have been hidden somewhere until just the right
minute." He sent the elevator up to the ninth floor. The door
opened on a rather dark corridor and a sign; LOST AND FOUND, with an
arrow pointing ahead. They went halfway down the corridor, past doors
with frosted glass tops labeled PURCHASING, MAIL, CATALOG. Across
from the last was a door which opened horizontally across its middle;
a man was in there with his back to them, whistling cheerfully. A
sign tacked up beside the door read LOST AND FOUNND OPEN Mon.-Fm.
10-5, SAT. 10-7.

The man turned. "Afternoon. You looking for
something?"

"
I think," said Landers, "we've found
it, thanks."

Grace called the office at five o'clock to ask the
result of the Hoffman hearing, and Lake told him. "I tried to
call you about two o'clock."

"
Oh. We were," said Grace, "at the
County Adoption Agency."

"
Any luck?" asked Lake. The Graces had one
much-loved adopted baby, little Celia Anne, twenty-one months old,
and were hoping to acquire another.

"
Not so far. All the
red tape."

* * *

Mendoza came home, ruminating gently about Marion
Stromberg. He garaged the car next to Alison's Facel-Vega (at least
the new place had a larger garage with room for Mairi's car) and went
in the back door. Cedric the sheepdog was slurping water from his
bowl on the service-porch and looked up happily, waggling his rump.
Nobody was in the kitchen, but various good smells indicated that
dinner was on the way.

In the living room, Alison was curled in her
arm-chair perusing House Beautiful with difficulty, almost completely
covered by all four cats in a complicated tangle. She sat up,
scattering cats, and said, "I never heard the car—you're late,
enamorado
—"

He just had time to kiss her before the twins came to
pounce on him. "Daddy, Daddy, I was so good in school today I
got a gole star from Miss Turtle—" Terry.

"
Thirkell," said Alison automatically.

"
That's nothin', Daddy, she's just teacher's
fav'rite, she could get a gole star for nothin'—" Johnny.

"
Anything," said Alison.

They had to tell him all about school, and demanded
promises to be read to before bed. They hadn't quite out-grown Grimm;
they could read for themselves now, but—Time! thought Mendoza.
Yesterday they had been crawling babies. Suddenly, they were
personalities. . . ."Now, my lambies," said Mairi from the
door, "let your father have his dinner in peace, and a dram
before."

They'd have finished their suppers an hour ago. "Will
you want to come see wee Luisa take her bottle? Time enough for
stories later."

"
Ooooh, yes-" They were fascinated with the
new one, and scrambled to follow her.

"
You can bring me some sherry," said
Alison. "It'll take six minutes to do the ham in the microwave,
and everything else is ready." Inevitably pursued by El Señor,
Mendoza poured him his half-ounce of rye, got his own drink and the
sherry, and went back to the living room.

"Shut the door and come here quick," said
Alison excitedly.

"
Mi corazón
, I'm
always willing, but wouldn't the bedroom be more—"

"
¡Imbécil!
"
said Alison with a giggle. "Listen, Luis—don't dare say a
word, but Ken thinks he's found some suitable ponies." She had
easily fallen into saying Ken and Kate; the twins had even begun to
say Uncle Ken. The Kearneys had grandchildren of their own and liked
the species. "It was in some ranchers' magazine, an ad. You know
he's looked all around here, what stables there are, and hasn't found
any for sale. But he called this afternoon and said these sound like
the very thing. A pair of Welsh ponies, seven years old, used to
children and gentle. It's a ranch up the other side of Santa Barbara,
and he said if we want him to he'd call the man to hold them until he
goes up to look at them. Of course I said yes. What we thought, they
could stay there until we're moved, and Ken can bring them down for
Christmas."

"
Mmh," said Mendoza, who by this time had
settled in his armchair and pulled her comfortably into his lap. "And
how much is the pair of ponies going to cost?"

"Well, six hundred for the two of them. With
saddles and bridles," added Alison hastily. "Ken said he'd
drive up tomorrow and if they're as good as he thinks, he can clinch
the deal."

"
Qué bien
,"
said Mendoza.

"
So," said Alison, "now tell me about
the Hoffman hearing?

He did, absently. "Hoffman looks like hell. What
his wife said—" He told her that, and she nodded soberly.

"
It must feel like—the most terrible kind of
betrayal, Luis. If one of your children does something very wrong,
it'd be on your shoulders too."

"
I hadn't thought of it like that, but maybe
that's so,
querida.
An
extension of oneself—hard to see them as separate personalities, is
that what you—"

"
No," said Alison. "Not exactly. Don't
you see, not just Sergeant Hoffman—all of them. How can they ever
possibly trust anyone again?"

"
Yes, I see,"
said Mendoza. "I hadn't thought of it that way either."

* * *

Jeff Dillman, sitting in the dispatcher's slot down
in Communications, automatically picked up the indicated phone and
said, "Police Department, may I help you?"

The clock on the wall clicked and the minute hand
jumped to mark exactly ten o'clock.

"
Will you please send a squad to—" Also
automatically Dillman scrawled down the address given, before his
mind registered something a little queer about that: "squad";
the ordinary citizen asked baldly for cops.

"Would you repeat that, sir? What's the
complaint?"

The address was repeated carefully. "The front
door is unlocked. You will also please inform the night watch at
Robbery-Homicide of this call. Immediately, please."

"
What?" said Dillman.

"Do you have that address? Please repeat it."

"
Yes, sir, I've got it. What's the c—"

"
Thank you," said the very calm male voice,
and broke the connection.

That, Dillman thought, was queer. He got on the
radio, consulting the big colored map of Central territory on the
wall in front of him. By time and area, Moss in X-19 was closest, and
he relayed the call crisply. Investigate unknown complaint.

But, Robbery-Homicide?

He thought about it, and a
minute later called up there.

* * *

It had been a quiet night so far for Piggott and
Schenke. Sometimes the day watch left them jobs to do, suspects to
hunt for; but tonight they'd just been holding down the desks.

When the call came up from Communications at
ten-five, Piggott took it, noted down the address. "O.K., but
what's it all about?" Communications didn't know. "What's
with this, Bob? Funny—a citizen calling in on a regular line asking
for us."

Schenke said, "Say that address again. Just
inside our territory, Silver Lake—most people would have called
Hollywood. That address rings a bell. Let's go see."

They got there at ten-twenty-five. Moss was just
pulling up to the curb in the squad; he'd got caught in a traffic jam
on Silver Lake Boulevard, an accident. There were lights on all over
the house, a nice house with a steep terrace in front. The porch
light was on, and the first thing they all noticed was the nameplate
on the door: HOFFMAN.

Everybody in LAPD knew that name.

They went in and looked and Moss said, "Oh,
Jesus Christ."

Hoffman had made a very precise job of it. The
fourteen-year-old boy had been shot, probably in his sleep; he was in
bed in a back bedroom. Muriel Hollman had also been shot in bed, in
the master bedroom. Bill Hoffman was sprawled across her body, and
his Police Positive was still in his right hand.

There wasn't any suicide note anywhere, but on the
coffee table in the living room was a brown manila envelope carefully
addressed by hand to Mrs. Catherine Robsen.

"
I think we'd better call the lieutenant,"
said Piggott.
 

FIVE

IT DISRUPTED THE ROUTINE SLIGHTLY.

Wednesday was Hackett's day off, but he came in. He
and Mendoza got to the Ptobsen house not much after nine o'clock;
they wanted to get to her before the press did, and the press would
be on this early today. Nobody at LAPD would have relayed the news,
but there had been neighbors out last night, people who had heard the
shots, looked out to see the squad.

Cathy Robsen listened to them numbly, only once
putting a hand to her eyes. "He was insane," she said. "It
drove him insane. He'd been so proud of Larry. I'd only seen Muriel
once since— And he wouldn't let her call me.

"
There was a bottle of sleeping tablets on the
bathroom counter, empty. It looked as if he'd got her to take
them—maybe in a bedtime drink—so she was knocked out when he shot
the boy first."

"
Yes," she said. "I suppose they'd
both—been needing sleeping tablets lately. Poor Mike." She
looked at the manila envelope on the coffee table.

Bill Hoffman had made a neat and careful holograph
will, leaving everything he owned to Cathy Robsen.

"
I don't want their things," she had said
to it sadly.

There wasn't much to say to her. "There'll be an
inquest—just the formality. You needn't appear. And we'd just as
soon you didn't talk to the press."

"
I've no intention of doing that. The sooner
everybody can forget all this the better."

Mendoza nodded at the envelope. "You'd better
take that to a lawyer—he's named one as executor. A holograph will
is legal in California?

She just nodded. "And, oh, God, the children,"
she said. "They'd hear, of course, even if I didn't tell them.
Better to tell them. They're fifteen and thirteen—old enough to
understand, don't you think`?"

"
Is there any relative at all?" asked
Hackett. "Somebody will have to make arrangements?

"
Neither of them had any family." She
looked at the will. "You said, a lawyer mentioned there. Could I
ask him to take care of that, I wonder." And after a silence,
"Bill was insane, you know. He might have wanted to die
himself—since it happened—but unless he'd been insane he'd never
have killed Muriel and Mike too."

On the doorstep, Hackett
said a little savagely, "And I wonder if this is going to help
Larry acquire any more maturity." Some helpful soul over at the
jail, where he was awaiting transport to Susanville, would be sure to
see he got a Times with the story—probably on the front page.

* * *

Galeano kicked that around with the other men some:
the hell of a thing, but they had cases on hand to work. This
Reynolds thing was wild; and the Avon connection, he realized after
what Wanda had told him, was doubly wild. But you had to clear the
extraneous out of the way, tie up loose ends as you went; and it had
entered in.

The address for Avon Sales Products was on Los Feliz
in Hollywood. He got there about nine-thirty; it was one of the
newer, violently modernistic apartment buildings. The woman who
answered the door was fortyish, fat, unexpectedly businesslike: Mrs.
Agnes Winniger. She was both horrified and highly amused at his
story. "I wouldn't think," she said, "it was really
one of our representatives, you know."

"
But the point came up, and I have to check, you
can see that."

"
Oh, I suppose so. Good heavens, the things that
happen—" She was, it appeared, the district supervisor for
Avon for the whole area. He was rather staggered to learn that there
were some hundreds of Avon ladies in Los Angeles alone. But, she
explained, they covered the areas close to their own homes. She could
check the nearest representatives to the Twenty-seventh Street
address.