THE ADDRESS on Hoover Street, a secondary main drag, was in the middle of half a dozen little shops, all in an old building stretching for half a block. There was a shoe-repair place, a women's dress shop, a little variety store, a photographer. Three of the shops were empty, with for rent signs, and there was a dingy independent drugstore on the corner. The squad and the uniformed patrolman were in front of the little variety store. Higgins slid the Pontiac into the curb behind the squad and they got out.
There was a woman with the patrolman, a stout middle-aged black woman. She looked neat and respectable in a dowdy blue cotton housedress, but her round face still wore a shocked expression.
'There are the detectives, ma'am. This is Mrs. Sadler, she found the body.'
'That's right,' she said. 'It's just awful, the poor soul lying there dead, it's terrible the things happen nowadays, all these criminals running around. Mrs. Coffey was such a nice woman, she wouldn't have hurt a fly. To think of a thing like that happening to her-'
The faded sign over the front door said VERNNS VARIETY.
'Mrs. Verna Coffey?' asked Palliser. She nodded. 'Just tell us what happened, Mrs. Sadler.'
'We1l, I'd run out of green thread. I'm making a dress for myself for my daughter's wedding next week, and I just stepped over here to get some thread. Mrs. Coffey's store is real handy for lots of little things. I just live up the block on Twenty-fourth, it's only a step, and she's always open by eight. The door was open and I went in, but she wasn't there and I waited a few minutes but I didn't hear her in the back. She lives in the back of the store, has a little apartment there, you see. And I called her name and then I went back and just looked in the door and-Oh!' She put her hands to her mouth. 'Oh, just terrible! The poor soul, her head all bloody and the place in a mess, I could see she was dead and I called the police on the phone there-'
So they'd have to get her prints for comparison with any others the lab might pick up. But the honest citizens didn't know much about scientific investigation.
There were a few curious bystanders out now, from the shoe-repair shop, the drugstore. Palliser and Higgins went into the little store, dim without lights on, past double counters stocked with the cheap cosmetics, shoelaces, sewing materials, plastic dishes, all the odds and ends of variety goods, to the door at the rear. It led into a small living room, crowded with old furniture-couch, two upholstered chairs, end tables, a T.V. on a metal stand. One of the tables had been knocked over, the drawer from the other one dumped on the floor, three pictures pulled off the wall and thrown facedown. The body was sprawled between the T.V. and the couch, the body of a fat black woman. There was a faded pink nylon housecoat rucked up around her legs. Under it she'd been wearing a pink nylon nightgown. There was dried blood on one temple and the white of the skull showed where one blow had landed on vulnerable thin bone. On the floor beside her was an ordinary hammer with black tape on the handle. On the other side of the body, in front of a side window, a big potted plant on a metal stand had been knocked over and spilled wet earth and leaves over the thin carpet.
'No sign of a break-in in front,' said Palliser.
'No. She was undressed for bed, she could've done that early in the evening, but it was after she'd closed the store,' said Higgins. 'Somebody knocked at the door-somebody she knew?'
They looked through the rest of the small shabby apartment. There was a tiny bedroom with a single bed neatly turned down for the night but showing no signs of having been occupied. The bedroom had been ransacked too. There was a tiny kitchen with a clean sink and counter tops. There was a back door giving on an alley that ran behind this block of shops, and that door was locked and bolted.
'Somebody she knew,' said Palliser. 'Which could be anybody around here. But she probably wouldn't have opened the door to a stranger. Living alone, she'd keep the doors locked after dark.' The dumped drawers, the pictures pulled off the wall, were the earmarks of the pro burglar.
They went back out to the street and Palliser used the radio in the squad to call the lab. Higgins asked Mrs. Sadler,
'Do you know anything about Mrs. Coffey's family?'
'Well, I know she had a married daughter in Pasadena. She had another daughter who died. Her husband, I guess he died quite awhile back.'
There had been an address book beside the phone. They would find out.
'Do you know if she kept much money here'?'
'I don't know at all. I don't suppose she got an awful lot from the store-enough to get by on-but I don't know.'
Higgins started to explain to her why they'd have to take her prints. She just nodded dumbly. This looked like the crude attack, and there might be prints. It might get unraveled rather easily, or never.
'She was such a nice woman,' said Mrs. Sadler. 'It's just awful, a thing like that happening.'
The mobile lab truck came and later the morgue wagon. Higgins and Palliser waited while Horder dusted the address book, and took it to look at. There was a phone number listed simply under JULIA at a Pasadena exchange and they tried it, but there wasn't any answer.
NICK GALEANO got to McClintock's Restaurant on Sunset at eleven o'clock. It was an old place, but good middle-class, middle-priced. He talked to the manager, Don Whitney, who was shocked to hear about Rose Eberhart.
He said, 'What a hell of a thing. I tried to call her when she didn't show up. Thought maybe she was sick. What the hell was it?- I don't think that she was more than in the forties. She was a good waitress-reliable. She'd worked here for nearly ten years. What the hell happened to her?'
'We're not sure yet, Mr. Whitney. She was here yesterday?'
'Sure, just as usual. She was on from ten to six. She'd been on the evening shift up to last month. All the girls would rather work that because you get better tips through the dinner hour, but we change around-give all of them a chance at it.'
'She left about six?' By the night report, Eberhart's car had been at its usual slot at the apartment, an old two-door Ford.
'That's right. My God, this shakes me. Like it says-in the midst of life.'
'Had she had any trouble with anybody lately, would you know?'
'My God, not that I know of. Rose was an easygoing girl, got along with everybody fine. I can't get over her being dead.'
'Well, I'd like to talk to some of the other waitresses, if you don't mind,' said Galeano.
'Sure, sure, anything we can do to help you find out about it. There's not much trade in until noon. You can use this booth, let me get you a cup of coffee. I'll send the girls over.'
There were four waitresses, only one of them under forty. They were all upset to hear about Rose. Apparently they'd all been friendly with her but not close, they were just surprised and sorry. The one who seemed to have known her best-the two of them had worked here longer than the others-was Marie Boyce. She was a plain-faced thin dark woman about forty.
'Was she a widow, divorced, or what?' asked Galeano. 'Did she have any family?'
'She was divorced. Second time about three years back. Yes, she had a daughter from her first husband, she lives back East somewhere-I think it's Cleveland.'
'Could you say if she was much of a drinker, I don't mean on the job, but just to relax at home?'
She looked indignant. 'She sure wasn't. Not that I do much of it, either, but I don't feel as strong as she did about it. Rose was just death on liquor. She wouldn't take a drink on a bet. She'd seen too much of that with her first husband, he was a lush.'
'Well,' said Galeano. 'Do you know any of her other friends? Did you see much of her aside from on the job?'
She shook her head. 'I only saw her at work, but Rose wasn't one to socialize much. She always said she was just glad to get home at the end of the day and put her feet up. This job can be tough on a person's feet, you know.'
So Eberhart hadn't been drunk and fallen down. Galeano came out and got into the car, automatically switching on the air-conditioning, and drove down to Rosemont Avenue.
