Murder Most Strange (18 page)

The only other objects in the room were a copy of
Playboy, a pamphlet about the aims and methods of the League of Women
Voters and a lot of campaign material from the Upchurch for Senate
Committee. Landers picked up one of the brochures and read it, shook
his head and passed it to Hackett. Upchurch was firmly outspoken, it
announced proudly, in support of the sanctity of the American family,
law and order, the protection of the American consumer, the necessity
to strengthen and broaden our economy, the improvement of education
for the younger generation, and the reaffirmation of the eternal
principles of democratic government.

"The usual vague hogwash. We're supposed to have
a republic, not a democracy. See B. Franklin."

Hackett laughed. "The language degenerating,
Tom, too many people don't know the difference. We'd better go back
to the office to do any phoning." And they'd only been in there
about forty minutes, but it was long enough; by the time they got
down to the lobby the press was just arriving. The desk clerk had
called in the scoop.

They were annoyed, and ran the gauntlet out to the
car. The press would be besieging the office and Mendoza would have a
lit.

Back at base, Hackett was stymied by Information, who
informed him that the number he desired was unlisted and could not be
given out. "This is the police," said Hackett. Information
was sorry, but she had no proof of that and was not allowed to give
out unlisted numbers. "Give me your supervisor," said
Hackett, and had a long argument with that one before he got her to
call him back, verify the claim and read him the number. He dialed
and let it ring twelve times; nobody answered.

"I suppose there might be somebody in his
office," said Landers. "Height of a political campaign,
likely there'll be an army of people there stuffing envelopes begging
for money."

Hackett got the Senate Office Building in Sacramento,
and the phone rang four times before an impatient voice answered. "Is
this Senator Upchurch's office?" asked Hackett.

"Yes, sir, what can we do for you, sir?"

"This is the police in Los Angeles. I'm—"

"Police? What's wrong? Is anything the matter
with the senator? I'm his secretary, Martin Unger, you can tell me
anything in perfect confidence, I assure you, I'm quite familiar
with—"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that the
senator's just been found dead." Hackett started to go on to ask
how to contact the family, explain about the handling of the body,
but Unger didn't let him.

He just said in a startled
wail, "Dead? Dead!" And then the line crashed down at the
other end, and hummed emptily.

* * *

Grace and Higgins had been wandering around all day
trying to find out who might have seen Edna Patterson last. An
autopsy wasn't going to pin down any exact time. She could have been
killed anytime on Tuesday, since the refuse truck came early and
nobody remembered seeing her take her can back to the garage. Linda
Gilman had told them where she usually shopped, given the names of
her closest friends; she'd kept her address book in a drawer of the
phone table and it was gone with everything else.

A market clerk at Von's remembered seeing her at
about four o'clock on Monday afternoon. She'd talked to a casual
friend on the phone at seven o'clock Monday night. For a while that
looked as if that was it; they tried six or seven other places and
people, but nobody remembered seeing her, talking to her, since the
week before.

Then they found a salesclerk at a drugstore who had
seen her on Tuesday morning. Mrs. Patterson didn't drive, and shopped
close to home, along Vernon, along Hoover. The clerk volunteered that
Mrs. Patterson hadn't looked so good. In the midst of all the
legwork, they were also wondering if that rapist would hit again,
with a new victim in mind for this nice April Sunday. And wondering
where Eileen Mooney's body was. When it was found—if it was
found—there might be some evidence on it to tie in Rudy Bartovic,
or there might not.

After they'd stopped for lunch they tried another
close friend, a woman named Agnes Sherman, who used to live around
here and had attended the same church, but had gone to live with her
son and his wife after she'd had a heart attack. They hadn't, said
Linda Gilman, seen each other often anymore, but used to talk on the
phone. Mrs. Sherman lived in Redondo Beach. "Pity to give her
another heart attack, breaking the news," said Grace. So when he
called, he just told her he was calling for Mrs. Gilman, who wanted
to know if she had talked to Mrs. Patterson lately, and when.

"Why, is she worse?" asked an anxious
voice. "Yes, I talked to her on Wednesday morning, and she had a
bad cold coming on, said she wasn't going to church that night. Is
she all right? What—who is this?"

What a tangled web, thought Grace: and just trying to
be diplomatic. He asked to talk to her son, and explained it to him.
Let him take it from there.

He'd been using a pay phone at the restaurant where
they'd had lunch; he went back to the table where Higgins was
finishing another cup of coffee, sat down and said, "I've just
had a brainwave." He told Higgins about Mrs. Sherman. “We said
nobody would murder the woman for her furniture, but how do you like
the idea that it was never meant to be a murder at all, just a nice
neat pro burglary? And whoever planned it knew enough about her to
think she'd be at church on Wednesday night? And then they walked in
and found her home?"

"Now you just may have something there,"
said Hackett. "The back door wasn't locked. She wasn't feeling
well, she could have overlooked a thing like that. And then, having
killed her to shut her up, they thought they might as well be hung
for a sheep as a lamb."

"It did look like a pro job," said Grace,
"so the lab may not give us anything."

They went back to the
office, and were surprised to find the press swarming around.

* * *

On this peaceful Sunday afternoon, Alison was sitting
in the living room brooding over brochures and estimated prices on
the concrete-block wall: she had seen two firms about it yesterday.
Ken Kearney had started energetically to erect his wire-and-post
fence, which looked like something out of a concentration camp, but
it was a large house and he still had a long way to go. The Five
Graces, meantime, were mournfully occupying the corral.

During lunch El Senor had proudly brought in a very
large, very dead field mouse, and Alison and Mairi had sent an SOS to
Ken, who had just gotten back to work after his own lunch. "A
dead bird, now, I can just do something with," confessed Mairi,
"but mice I canna abide."

The twins had been riding for a short while this
morning, and after lunch had wandered off, probably to watch Ken
digging postholes. Except for the monotonous sound of his vigorous
hammering, the house was peaceful, and Alison leaped up quivering as
he let out a roar just outside the open window.

"For God's sweet sake! Here, you, get out of
that! Damn it to hell- Johnny! Terry! You pair of young devils, I'll
scalp you—"

Alison rushed to the window. "What's happened?"

Kearney turned a flushed angry face to her, and just
pointed. "I told that pair to stay out of the corral, that latch
is damned stiff. If I hadn't run out of staples just now—"

"Oh, my Lord!"
said Alison. All the while he'd been busily building fence around the
other side of the house, the Five Graces had been enjoying the
expensive landscaping on this side. Another Italian cypress tree was
denuded, and several hibiscus shrubs. "I'll murder them!"
said Alison, making for the door. "Johnny! Terry!"

* * *

". . . And I couldn't get anybody to answer the
damn phone again," said Hackett, "and nobody answers
Upchurch's home phone, and we've been stymied. Evidently he was going
to make this speech on Tuesday, but—" Higgins, Grace, and
Mendoza were listening to the tale of frustration interestedly.

"We don't know who this Bernard Seton is or who
else Upchurch may have come here to see—"

"Why not ask the press?" said Mendoza.
"They ought to know. A politician would want advance publicity."

"It was the first thing we thought of, damn it,"
said Landers. Detective work could be boring and frustrating, but it
was even more frustrating to have it there to do and be unable to get
on with it. "He was going to make a speech to the League of
Women Voters on Tuesday, in San Diego, and we got hold of the
chairman or whatever, but she didn't know what his schedule was up
here." It was three o'clock and they hadn't got anywhere on this
all day; and Landers didn't much like politicians. "The only
damn thing we've found out is that he flew in from Sacramento on
Friday, and picked up a Hertz car at the airport. He already had a
reservation at the hotel."

"If we knew who this Seton is, he'd probably
know something. They don't know anything at the hotel. He was out all
day yesterday, came in about five and went out again a little later,
and that's the last they saw of him."

"
¡Ca!
"
said Mendoza, brushing his mustache.

Palliser looked in with Glasser behind him.
"Conference on your politician? We had to wade through the
press. You'll be glad to know we just cleared one—the big fat Negro
with the big gun. He was the last one out of Records, of course, but
he's scared of cops and came apart right away. We've just applied for
the warrant. What happened to the politician?"

"We don't know yet," said Mendoza. "I
can't raise anybody in Bainbridge's office."

"I can't resist quoting Hilaire Belloc,"
said Palliser. "You know the one. ‘Here richly, with
ridiculous display, The politician's corpse was laid away; While all
of his acquaintance sneered and slanged, I wept—for I had longed to
see him hanged.' "

"Oh, that's very nice," said Landers in the
general laughter. As it died, a man came rushing into the office like
a scalded cat. He was a young man in very natty brown sports clothes,
with a shock of wild blond hair and flashing blue eyes. Lake was
behind him looking outraged.

"I had to give a statement to the press
downstairs," said the young man rapidly, "and I hope to God
you won't foul me up by saying something different. I said he was
seriously ill and would cancel all engagements until— You don't
really mean he's dead? I came as soon as I could get a flight—"

"Mr. Unger‘?" said Hackett. "Good.
Yes, of course he's dead, as I told you. No, we don't know of what
yet. There'll be an autopsy. His wife ought to be informed, I
couldn't get any—”

"They're in Europe. The whole family. I sent a
cable," said Unger. "Oh, my God, gentlemen, you don't
understand what a goddamned awful thing this is!" He ignored the
chair Mendoza offered him; he ran a hand through his wild hair, and
there was a sudden sob in his voice. "You—who didn't know
him—don't realize what a terrible, terrible loss to our country
this is! Howard Upchurch was the finest man I ever knew, the most
honorable patriot I ever met. It was foregone he'd have won the
nomination, and become our new junior senator, and who knows,
gentlemen, after a few terms in the Senate he might have ended in the
White House. He was most certainly potential presidential timber. I
simply can't believe this terrible thing—"

"Now just calm down, Mr. Unger, you'll have to
answer some questions," said Hackett.

"Certainly, certainly, any way I can help you—
Oh, God, the problems this is going to make—poor darling Nora
Upchurch, such a dear woman and they were so devoted—"

Lake was gesturing wildly at Mendoza over the babble,
and Mendoza went out to the corridor. "It's Harbor," said
Lake in a dropped voice. "They've just pulled a body in, past
the Long Beach breakwater."

"And it's hardly the lesser of two evils,"
said Mendoza hardly. "But let Art deal with that-that—"

"Lackey," said Lake, unexpectedly.

"What did they say?"

"Well, they don't think anybody could identify
it," said Lake unhappily.

"
Dios
.
I probably won't be back," said Mendoza, and went to get his
hat.

* * *

He looked at the thing lying there in the morgue
tray, and it was a very ugly thing, but he had seen a lot of ugly
things like it. He said, "You'll have had some experience, what
do you think?"

"Well, God," said the Harbor precinct man,
and scratched his head. Harbor patrolled in boats, not squad cars.
"What happens in the ocean, it makes times damn difficult. The
fish, you know. This one, it could have been out there four-five days
or four-five weeks. But you wanted to know about any female corpses,
and I'd take an oath that's female, by the size and all."

Mendoza thought of that photograph of Eileen Mooney,
the pert red-blonde with the tip-tilted freckled nose. There wasn't
any hair left on this thing, there wasn't much but a skeleton and
withered flesh, and if it was Eileen there wasn't going to be any way
to nail Rudy Bartovic for it, and he felt coldly savage about that.

"Dental records," said the Harbor man.