Murder Most Strange (23 page)

"For God's sake," said Conway. It was one
way of clearing a case. He went up there; there was a police barrier
across the exit, and a lot of jammed traffic was piled up. He climbed
over the barrier, found a couple of Highway Patrol men named
Unkovitch and Twelvetrees, and explained.

"Christ," said Unkovitch, "the damn
fools we have to deal with! Look at it." The wreckage was
impressive. The Ford, headed straight for oncoming traffic, had hit
head on with a brand new Honda Civic, though you couldn't tell what
it had been now; everybody in both those cars was dead. Behind the
Honda, a Buick had plowed into the first two, and behind that five
other cars had slewed around and barged into each other and the
central divider, trying to avoid the tangled wreck. "Nine people
in the hospital and four dead," said Unkoviteh. "The people
in the Honda were just a young couple, John and Ruth Rudd, address in
Bel Air. There was a number to call in emergency, I just got back
from doing it. The guy went to pieces. She was expecting a baby."

"God," said Conway. "What about the
Ford? You get any I.D.?"

"I don't know why the hell I picked this job,"
said Twelvetrees. "Poking around in blood and brain tissue.
There was a driver's license issued in Missouri for a Roy Johnson,
the car had Missouri plates. Also a traffic ticket, written up
yesterday, for an illegal left downtown, and it's got an address on
Sixty-second on it. We don't know who the other man was, and nobody's
going to identify him by what's left of his face."

"We can probably find out," said Conway.
"We'll take care of that one." He took down the address. He
went back to the office and found Schenke there, and they went out
together to Sixty-second Place.

It was a crumbling old apartment building, and there
was a handwritten slip saying Johnson in the mail slot of apartment
twelve. There they found a couple of women, and broke the news. It
seemed that the other one had been Elmer Johnson, and they were
cousins.

"Never wanted to come all the way out here, he
was the one—say do better out here, down on our luck like we been—"

"But it sure hasn't been no better out here, and
what we gonna do now, Della?"

"I don't reckon we got the bread to get home
on—"

"Let alone pay for no funeral—-"

When they got back to the office, Piggott told them
that the man with the Doberman had been out again. "Couple named
Kahn, they'd been to a big revue of some kind at the Shrine
Auditorium. Came out to the parking lot late, and he walked up to
them from the street. He got about forty dol1ars."

"Oh, for God's sake," said Schenke. "That
is about the craziest we've had in a while."

"Let's hope the idea
doesn't catch on," said Conway. "We'll have a committee
getting under way to outlaw all Dobermans."

* * *

Hackett and Landers were doing the overtime,
necessarily, covering those restaurants. They had started out at Chez
Claude, gone on to Frangois's, and drawn a blank; they had tried
Jimmy's. They had gone back to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to check a
little bar they had missed there before. Everywhere people had looked
at the picture and said no. And said, this was the guy in all the
papers, wasn't it, and they'd have remembered.

They stopped for dinner at a middle-class place in
West Hollywood, and being technically off duty had a drink
beforehand. Nine o'clock found them at the Century-Plaza Hotel in
Century City.

That particular enormous new hotel and shopping
complex had several restaurants, banquet rooms, all sorts of shops in
several directions off the main lobby, and there were three levels of
halls and restaurants under the main lobby. The Granada was down on
the lowest level; they took the escalator, Landers complaining that
it made him nervous. "I don't mind the damn things going up, but
coming down—"

The
maitre d'
at the Granada and six waiters looked at the picture and said no. The
gentleman had never been here. It was the gentleman in the papers,
yes, well, they would have remembered.

"Well, that's that," said Landers. "Where
the hell did he go? Now we know it wasn't any of these Seton
recommended, my God, there are a million restaurants in this town."

They started out, past the big double doors, and
Hackett said, "There's no way to know, damn it. But the press,
Tom—don't you think, if any
maitre d'
or waiter anywhere had seen him somewhere Saturday night, they'd have
come forward and said so? I don't know what that might say. Wait a
minute. Wait a minute." He stopped. "But we are a couple of
damned fools, Tom."

"How come?"

"The autopsy report, God damn it! A couple of
scotch highballs. He didn't have dinner on Saturday night."

"Good God, of course not. We should have—"

"All right," said Hackett. "Think
about it. Drinks. A bar. And here's a place where we haven't asked."
It was the little separate bar attached to the Granada, just outside
the entrance and angled off to one side.

"Well, why not?" said Landers. "Last
throw of the dice."

They went in. It wasn't very big, perhaps forty by
thirty feet, and unlike most of its kind it was fairly well lighted.
There was a small bar at the far end, little octagonal tables and
barrel chairs upholstered in red vinyl. At this hour there was only
one couple there, intimate over drinks at a table near the door, and
the bartender leaning meditatively on the bar.

They went up and sat on a couple of backless stools.
"Do for you?" asked the bartender.

Hackett got out one of the leaflets, and showed him
the badge. "Did you see this man in here on Saturday night?"
The bartender took it and studied the photograph. He was a brawny big
man somewhere in the forties, with a tough gangsterish face slightly
scarred by old acne, and black hair.

They thought he wasn't going to answer, but after a
long time he said argumentatively, "Damn it, this was the guy. I
said it was."

"In here?" asked Hackett. "Saturday
night?"

"Said it to who‘?" asked Landers.

"I said it to my wife, and she said don't be
silly, Kev—excuse me, gents, I'm Kevin Houlihan—she says don't be
silly, it couldn't be because the paper said he was such a steady
family man and a churchgoer and all that, so I shut up. But damn it,
now I see this, by God it was him. I'd swear to it."

"Here, Saturday night? When?"

"Well, I'll tell you all about it, you
interested," said Houlihan. "God, I'll bet that dame had a
fit when he dropped dead of the heart attack or whatever it was.
Funny how things happen. But I'll take my oath it was that guy. It
was about a quarter past six Saturday night, and there wasn't hardly
any customers in. See, a lot of people go right in the restaurant and
have drinks at the table, it's only when they got no reservations and
have to wait, or want to kill some time, they come in here. There
were only a couple of men in, seemed to be talking business. And the
blonde. And then this guy comes in, and he orders a scotch highball,
and he sits here and drinks some of it, and then he goes over and
picks up the blonde."

Landers laughed. "That's our boy. We might have
known. As easy as that?"

"Well, I figure she was kind of ripe for the
picking," said Houlihan, with a meditative grin. "She'd
been sitting there getting madder and madder—she'd been here since
about five-fifteen, and she wasn't covering up either—it was pretty
damn obvious some guy had stood her up. She'd been lookin' at her
watch every three minutes, and tapping her fingers on the table, and
looking up at the door whenever anybody passed, you know the
routine."

"You ever see her before?" asked Landers.

"Not in here, but I'd seen her before. Just that
afternoon, upstairs in the Garden Room when I was coming on duty.

That was just before four, we open here at four. The
hotel puts on all sorts of fancy doings, you know, and there was some
kind of fashion show going on in there, dames parading around to show
off clothes, and she was one of them, she was down by the door to the
lobby when I came past. I noticed her because, gents, she'd stand out
in any crowd, silver-blond hair kind of long and wavy, and pretty
tall, and more figure than those skinny models usually have."

"You sure?" asked Hackett.

"I'm sure. I recognized her when she came in,
even if she had different clothes on. She'd sat here from about
five-fifteen on, getting madder and madder after it got past six
o'clock. She had two daiquiris, made them last, and I was just
wondering if she was going to order a third one when this guy walked
over and annexed her."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, they talked, and he had another highball
and bought her another daiquiri. She started looking a lot
happier—well, he was a good-lookin' guy, wasn't he?—looked as if
he was loaded, too—and about seven-fifteen they got up and went out
together. And that's the last I saw of 'em. But damn it, I'm positive
it was this guy."

"It was him," said Landers. "Running
true to form."

"And it should be fairly easy to locate the
girl," said Hackett. "That's all very helpful, Mr.
Houlihan, thanks very much."

"Can I quote you?" asked Houlihan.

"What?" .

"To my wife. You think it was him too, hah?
Good. It's not very often I can get the police to back me up in an
argument."
 
"I don't know
if you'll see it in the papers," said Landers, "but you can
quote us."

They went upstairs to the main desk. "Well, all
that sort of thing is arranged by our social activities director,"
explained the desk clerk. "I don't know whether she'd be on the
premises at this hour, but there is that crafts display being set up
in the Hawaiian Room, I can check—"

The social activities
director was Miss Suzanne Winter, sleek and dark, and she said at
once that all the models and clothes for the fashion show had come
from Genevieve Du Mond in Beverly Hills.

* * *

On Wednesday morning, with Higgins off, Mendoza
digested that and said, "However he died, I'm just as happy he
won't be on the June ballot."

"Yes, damn it, but all that doesn't suggest what
did happen to him," said Landers.

"He could have just gotten drunk and fallen
down," said Hackett. "Bainbridge said it could have
happened that way. And the blonde was scared and cleared out."

"They were sitting necking in the parking lot of
the County Courthouse?" said Mendoza.

Landers grinned. "Well, you've got to admit it's
a nice quiet private place at night."

"Well, you should locate her without much
trouble. It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say."

"And I suppose the fancy high-fashion place
doesn't open until ten o'clock or so. It's out on Sunset, I looked it
up."

Palliser, Grace and Glasser had been listening to
that. They had, of course, heard all about the Johnsons from Conway's
report overnight; one less to work, and good riddance. Palliser
started to say something about politicians, and Lake came in with a
manila folder and handed it to Grace. "Slow but sure," said
Grace. "At last, the lab report on the Patterson house."

"Anything in it?" asked Palliser.

"Let's see." Grace began to read, and two
minutes later said pleasedly, "Now isn't that nice. They picked
up quite a few good latents all over the place, which don't belong to
the family, and they've found some in our records, and they belong to
a burglar by the name of Dwight Goodis. Now where the hell have I
heard that name before? Where—My God, it's the name of that lowlife
couple who live right across the street—but I don't think the wife
called him Dwight.

And there's a different address here—he's on
parole, so they'll know downstairs." He picked up the phone and
asked Lake to get him the Welfare and Rehab office.

Goodis's parole officer was a fellow named Roth. He
said, "That's the right address, Van Ness. He's only been out
for four months, don't tell me he's been up to something else. Well,
I got him a pretty good job with a furniture company, Eagle Rattan
Imports, but he's fairly stupid, I don't know how long he'll keep
it."

"Did you say a furniture company?" asked
Grace.

"That's right. He's driving a delivery van for
them."

"Oh, thank you so much," said Grace. He
passed that on and Mendoza began to laugh.

"If they weren't so
stupid we wouldn't pick up as many as we do, Jase. Go get him and
we'll hear what he has to say."

* * *

Glasser and Wanda had gone to the hospital to talk to
Mrs. Flowers. Palliser drove down to the address on Van Ness, while
Grace looked up the furniture store to go and collar Goodis. The
place on Van Ness was another old apartment; the Goodises lived
upstairs at the back. When a sharp-featured medium-brown young woman
opened the door, he could see past her, just at one glance, several
items that looked like some on the list Linda Gilman had given them.