Streets of Death - Dell Shannon (26 page)

The Kings looked like birds of a feather. They were
in the early twenties, both with the long hair, both slightly scruffy
and unkempt. Gerald King was short and sandy, with the red-rimmed
eyes and persistent cough of the user; Nita was short and inclined to
be too fat. They sat behind the little table and looked at the police
fearfully, sullenly, defiantly.

"About Rodrigo Peralta," said Landers.
"We’ve heard several people say you were going to see him that
night, a week ago tonight. What about it, did you?"

They didn’t look at each other, and neither said
anything. "Come on, did you'?" repeated Landers.

"No," said the girl. "No, we didn’t
see Roddy that night, not for a long time."

"Then why did you pack up and run away?"

"We wasn’t running anywhere," said King.
"We just went off on a trip."

"With Roddy’s supply of marijuana?" said
Hackett. "It wasn’t his, it was mine."

"Where’d you get it?" asked Landers.

"None of your damn business, pig."

It went on like that for quite a while, and Hackett
and Landers were thinking it was a waste of time, until Landers
happened to mention that one of their informants from the disco was
Leona Petty. Nita turned on her husband and said, "I told you to
lay off that bitch! You hanging around her again that night,
sweet-talking hey just because I danced a couple times with Rusty--"

"Couple times! You were with him half the
afternoon," said King, "and I’ll talk to who I damn
please, and you can--"

"And you had to tell her we was going to see
Roddy, ask for the grass, so naturally she spills it to the damn pigs
and they--"

"Well, Jesus’ sake, how’d I know what was
going to happen when we got there, damn it? I never meant to kill
anybody, did I? But--oh," said King. "Oh." He looked
at Hackett and Landers. "Oh, hell."

"So why did you'?" asked Landers.

"Him!" she said with an angry sob. "The
big man! Roddy askin’ too much bread, and he has to think, pull the
knife and scare him, only Roddy tried to grab it--"

"Let’s go book them
in, Tom." In the corridor outside Hackett added, "I see
just what George means. It’s a wonder we retain any brains at all,
associating with these--these so-called homo sapiens. I swear my
five-year-o1d’s got better sense!"

* * *

It stopped raining on Tuesday, but only momentarily,
and on Wednesday the weather bureau made the front page: the most
rain in one continual fall since 1877, but clearing promised for
tomorrow and no more to come. Everybody made satiric remarks about
that: wait and see. Grace hadn’t found Isabel Hopper yet; she
hadn’t been home since Monday, and the neighbor left to baby-sit
the kids hadn’t an idea where she was.

Higgins was off, and the rest of them wandering
around looking for the possibles on the heist jobs. Hackett had come
back briefly just as they had a call from Traffic to a new body.
Swearing, he went out on that, passing Galeano on his way. It had
somehow got to be two-thirty. "Look," said Galeano, "we’ll
never get anywhere on this Schultz thing. Rich and I have been out on
it, and there’s nothing. Naturally S.I.D. didn’t pick up anything
at the scene, it was wet as hell. I vote we stick it in Pending now."

"Save time," murmured Mendoza, and Sergeant
Lake looked in.

"You’ve got a visitor, Nick."

Galeano turned, and she came in uninvited, a little
breathless, looking somehow different, more alive--Marta Fleming. She
had thrown the hood back from her thick waving tawny hair, and under
the coat she was wearing her waitress’s uniform from the Globe
Grill. She looked hopeful, uncertain, excited.

Mendoza stood up and said, "Mrs. Fleming."

"Marta--what is it?"

"I had to come at once," she said to
Galeano. "At once when I read it--I could not believe it, but it
is! It is! And, oh, if it should tell us--if he could tell us--what
happened, where he is! That has been the nightmare, not to know. But
I knew you must hear at once, I do not even change from my uniform, I
must bring it--"

"Hey now, slow down," said Galeano. "Bring
what?"

With shaking hands she set down her handbag on
Mendoza’s desk, a big worn brown leather bag, and unfastened the
straps. She took out of it a fat envelope with two big green foreign
stamps on it, the writing square, foreign-looking. She took the
letter out, held it. "You do not read German? No--then I must
tell you, explain what--how it is. I told you"----she was
talking to Galeano--"how that day I remembered my letter to
Elisa. How I came home to fetch it, to post it, and I was in such a
hurry because of getting to the shops--so I fold up the letter and
put it in the envelope and I rush off to post it."

"Yes. Take it easy, now. All right."

"Well! I told you also, we cannot afford to send
letters by air, it is so expensive, even if it takes so long by
sea--three weeks and more sometimes. But today--half an hour ago--I
came home, and there is mail, and this letter by air mail from Elisa.
She and Mama were so surprised--I had said nothing of all this,
somehow I could not bring myself--I kept thinking, we should find out
what happened and then I can tell them, he is dead. They could not
understand it, but they knew it was important, so Elisa writes and
sends it by air mail--"

"The letter? Why?" Galeano was slow on the
uptake, watching her excited bright eyes.

"And this! This! It was the only writing paper
in the apartment--I see just how it came about--my own tablet. Edwin
used it, and left the sheet on top of my letter, and in such a hurry
I must have gathered it all up together, put it in the envelope-- But
you see--you see! It is what I have said all the time, he meant to
kill himself!" She thrust the whole sheaf of paper at Galeano.

Four, five sheets written closely in German. And the
extra sheet--the same cheap stationery torn from a dime-store
tablet--in another hand.

"
¡Media vuelta!
"
said Mendoza, looking over his shoulder "
¡Ya
esta!
And how simple when you know. But what
a damned queer--"

It was Edwin Fleming’s suicide note, the scrawl of
a man ill-educated and also probably half drunk--see what the lab
experts said about that.

Dear Marta, I say good-bye and good luck.
Youve been good to me and Im no use to you or anyboddy so I better
get out of it Ill be glad to. Old Ojerdol is goin to help me. You
deserv better good girl I hope you find better life, Edwin.

"I will be Goddamned!" said Galeano. "I
will be--"

"Offerdahl!" said Mendoza, making it sound
like a curse. "That drunken old bum--but he barely knew the
man--
Porvida
, we’ll
hear what he has to say about this--"

"But I do not think so, immediately," said
Marta.

Suddenly she chuckled, a warm infectious chuckle that
did funny things to Galeano. "Mr. Offerdahl--there was a
terrible disturbance last night, he comes knocking at every door,
shouting that God is bringing a new flood and we must run for our
lives. And then he fell down in the hall, and I thought he was dead,
but Mr. Del Sardo called an ambulance and the attendant said it was
the D.T.’s. I do not know what--but he is in the hospital, and not
dead, and please God he will tell us--"

Mendoza burst out
laughing. "I only hope to God he isn’t right--I want to hear
about this!"

* * *

It was Thursday morning before Offerdahl was
sufficiently dried out to talk to them coherently. Flat in the
hospital bed, the first time they’d seen him sober and halfway
sensible, he was weak and wan and remorseful. He blinked up at
Mendoza, Galeano, Marta, and said, "Fleming. I was sorry for the
poor fellow. Haven’t--haven’t you found him yet?"

And he’d asked them that before, but they hadn’t
realized how he meant it. "No, Mr. Offerdahl," said
Mendoza. "We thought you could tell us where to look."

"Poor damned young fellow," said Offerdahl.
"Felt sorry for him. Don’t know what you think, but talk about
sin, seemed a sin and a shame t’ me he should have to go on
living--maybe fifty years. Damn shame. Nice young wife, have to
support him, take care of him. He said so. Said he wanted to die and
be out of it. That day, I forget just when it was, I went down to see
him--took a bottle along, cheer the poor fellow up. But he kept
saying, better be dead--he wanted to be dead. Better for everybody.
Like to go drown himself, he said. He asked me to help him and I said
I would. Reservoir in Griffith Park, he said, and his wife had some
money hid away, he’d give it to me if I helped him. So I did. He
had keys to the car, and I carried him out to it. Used to be strong
as a bear," said Offerdahl, weakly flexing his muscle. "He
left a note for his wife. Didn’t she find it?"

"Eventually," said Mendoza. "Then
what, Mr. Offerdahl?"

"I couldn’t find the damn reservoir up there.
Drove and drove, all round little winding roads, and it was raining
like hell. Then we came to this place--that big building up on top of
the hill." Griffith Park Observatory, the planetarium. "There
wasn’t anybody around, place all empty. He said, a cliff just as
good, fall off it, bang. I drove right up there, helped him
out--place where there’s a wall round the building, big drop off
the hill. He pulled himself up on the wall, and he said, just as
good, and he fell over. The poor fellow. I ’greed with him--best
for everybody. Sin and a shame--"

"And you drove the car back and put it in the
garage, and put the keys back in the apartment," said Mendoza.

"Of course,"
said Offerdahl with dignity. "Wasn’t my car. I’m an honest
man."

* * *

When they went to look, they had to call the Fire
Department with their ropes to get down there. But they found him
after a while, deep in the underbrush there at the foot of the sheer
drop from the wall around the observatory. It wasn’t such a long
drop at that to the first slope, maybe three hundred feet, and
springy thick undergrowth below, but he was dead, and had been since
that day. That was all wild growth in there, as through most of the
park, and he might not have been found for years, until only bones
were left.

"Of all the damned queer things!" said
Galeano. "If that silly old bastard hadn’t spent all Marta’s
hard-earned nest egg on whiskey-- Yes, and didn’t she and Mrs. Del
Sardo tell us he’d never been so bad before, we might have wondered
where he suddenly got the money--we’d have heard all about it as
soon as it happened. If Marta hadn’t grabbed up that note with her
1etter--"

"So simple when you know," said Mendoza.
"Coming right back to human nature, Nick. And that
girl--mmh--Alison said, prickly." He looked at Galeano with
veiled interest.

"What the hell do you mean, prickly? With all
she’s had to put up with--"

When the autopsy report came in, Mendoza was
sufficiently fascinated to carry it over to the other office to share
it with somebody. Only Hackett was there. "Fate," said
Mendoza. "By God, this is a funny one, Art-- Fleming.

He drowned, just the way he said he wanted to. The
drop didn’t kill him. He must have landed in a spot where the rain
had collected in a pond, and the fall knocked him out and he drowned.
Alla va
. Of all the
queer things, that is one for the books."

"Very funny," said Hackett inattentively.

"I must call Carey--he’ll be interested.
Little lesson for all of us,
tal vez
,
about the automatic cynicism."

"Yes," said Hackett. "There’s this
new thing, Luis--you haven’t heard about it yet--and it’s damned
funny too. This Hilda Gilbert. Divorcée, thirty-six, good job as a
legal secretary, and alimony coming in. Found dead in bed this
morning, strangled with a wire coat hanger. And she had quite a
collection of good jewelry, a fur coat, new color TV, and it’s all
there--no sign of burglary or forced entry. I got S.I.D. on it, but
it looks like an offbeat one--"

Isabel Hopper and her latest heart interest came back
from Las Vegas, and Grace and Conway picked them up for questioning.
And Galeano finally got up nerve to call Marta and ask her to go to
dinner with him on Sunday.

"It is not very proper, so soon after my
husband--If it was a quiet small place, perhaps--"

"We’ll find one. And I’ll buy you some
brandy, you seem to be a different girl with a drink or two."

"Now you are joking."
But she laughed. "Very well, I will be ready at seven o’clock."

* * *

"Fate," said Alison absently. "Yes, it
does make you wonder. That was one of the queerest you’ve had in
quite a whi1e." She was feeling fine, she said, and looked her
usual self, red hair neat, in her favorite topaz robe. The cats were
dispersed around her on the sectional, Cedric sound asleep at her
feet. She was looking at the brochure from the real-estate company.
"Luis, I’ve found a place I like. It sounds perfectly
fascinating, let’s go look at it on Sunday--
por
favor, mi amador
?"