The manager, Peterson, wasn't home. His wife said the police had asked him to go down to headquarters to make a statement. Galeano went down the hall and looked at the door to Rose Eberhart's apartment. The lab men had put a seal on it when they finished work. She'd been right in the open doorway-the door was open-that's how the manager had spotted her when he came past with the trash. The door just opposite bore the name KOLHER the name slot beside the bell. He pushed the bell and faced an elderly little woman with gray hair and glasses. She looked at the. badge and started to talk without any questioning.
'Oh, about Mrs. Eberhart, it's an awful thing. The police were here when we got home and Mr. Peterson told us. Was it a heart attack? She wasn't all that old.'
'We don't know yet, Mrs. Kohler. You were out last night?'
'Yes, at our daughter's place in Glendale. It was my birthday, we had an early dinner about five-thirty and played bridge all evening, we didn't get home until eleven.'
Galeano reflected, so there had been nobody close enough to overhear any argument in the hall, with that apartment door open. He talked to her another few moments, but she hadn't any more to tell him. They hadn't known Rose Eberhart except casually, exchanged the occasional hellos and that was all.
Galeano came back to the car and decided it was time for lunch. He stopped at a cafe on Silver Lake Boulevard and after debate ordered the chef 's salad. Marta was too good a cook, he'd put on a few pounds lately and he'd better watch it. And this Eberhart thing now looked definitely like a homicide. See what the lab turned up, but before that, have a look through the apartment for addresses and phone numbers, talk to everybody she'd known. In fact, the usual legwork.
THE CAB DRIVERS had been trooping in most of Saturday afternoon, from two cab companies-Yellow and Checker. Among them, fourteen drivers had picked up fares at International Airport between noon and one o'clock last Saturday. They all had a look at the close-up photos. One of them said, 'In the usual way I wouldn't be sure. You're only looking at the fare for just a minute, but I think for damn sure I'd have remembered this girl. She's a real beaut.' And several of the other cabbies echoed that in different words.
Only one of them, who came in at about four o'clock, shook his head at the enlargement. 'I'm not sure. It could be, it couldn't be. The fare I picked up at International, as far as I recall, was a girl about this age, I guess.'
Cab drivers got around and saw a lot of people and he didn't remember where he'd taken her, but the dispatcher had the record. It was an address in West Hollywood, Norma Place. Mendoza could guess what the fare had been from Inglewood. Most people flying in here, to any airport in a big city, would be met by friends or relatives, or rent a car at the airport. Nobody took a cab here unless it was necessary.
When the last driver went out, he looked into the detective office and beckoned to Hackett. Higgins was on the phone, Palliser typing a report. Nobody else was there.
'A possible lead on Grandfather,' said Mendoza. By now all the various police forces had reported in, and nobody had received any missing report on Juliette Martin. They drove out to West Hollywood in the Ferrari. The address was a dignified old Spanish house with a red-tiled roof and neat green lawn, a well-tended rose bed in front. In a quiet way it said Money. Mendoza shoved the doorbell and after a moment the door opened and they faced a nice-looking middle-aged woman with dark brown hair, intelligent eyes; she was very smartly dressed in a beige sheath and high-heeled sandals, She looked at the badges in surprise.
'Police-what's it about? Not an accident! My husband?'I
'Nothing like that, no, ma'am,' said Hackett hastily.
'But then, what is it?'
'Someone took a cab to this address from International Airport last Saturday, Mrs.-' Mendoza waited, watching her.
'Lucas, I'm Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Timothy Lucas. Do you want to see Linda? What on earth about?'
'Linda who?' asked Hackett.
'Well, for heaven's sake, Linda Barlow, my niece, she's not here right now, she's at the college, and what the police want with her I can't imagine. Yes, she got in from Chicago last Saturday, and my car was in the garage and Tim had to drive up to San Francisco on business, so I told her to take a cab at the airport and I'd pay the fare.'
Mendoza asked, 'She's visiting you, or does she live here?'
'Well, you could say she lives here now. She's starting out at U.S. C, the semester begins on Monday. Her home is in Bloomington, Illinois, but she'll be staying with us during the college year.'
'She's at the college now?'
'Yes, she had to finish up registering for classes. My husband got her a good used car for transportation. But what on earth is this all about? Police asking about Linda?'
She was indignant now.
'Sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Lucas. It was just a little mistake in the name.'
She was still looking bewildered as they turned back down the front walk. ln the Ferrari, Mendoza automatically switched on the air-conditioning, but made no move to pull out into the street. The powerful engine purred in a low voice. He lit a cigarette.
'Dead end, Arturo. But, Grandfather, where the hell and who the hell is Grandfather? Damn it, Grandfather's got to be mixed in somehow.'
'I don't exactly see how you make that out,' said Hackett dubiously. 'The little she said, it sounds as if it was a, well, a friendly relationship, if she hadn't ever met the man before. She was coming to stay with him, presumably, and now we can assume that he or somebody met her at the airport with a car.'
'And took her where? To Grandfather's? And subsequently to the apartment. When? Monday? Tuesday? That place all stocked and set up to be the plausible background for the nonexistent Ruth Hoffman. I don't think Juliette ever saw it unti1 she was drugged far enough that she wouldn't care where she was. By the autopsy, it's a distinct possibility that she'd been kept under sedatives for several days, since Saturday.'
'Yes,' said Hackett. 'But it's so damn shapeless, Luis. No rhyme or reason.'
'And,' said Mendoza savagely, 'Grandfather knew all about it.'
'You're picking him for the arch-villain again?'
'Read it, for God's sake. He was expecting her. He knew which plane she'd be on. She was met at the airport by somebody. If she didn't reach Grandfather's and he doesn't know anything about all this, why hasn't he been making waves? Reported her unaccountably missing? Two plus two. But I'll tell you something else. There's more than one X. Somebody besides Grandfather. Because a woman applied for that library card in the Hoffman name.'
'Yes,' said Hackett. 'Yes, it seems to add up that way. But there's nowhere else to go on it, now. There's only one more thing I can see. The answers are in France and we'll have to wait for them. She told Alison she'd be here about three weeks. Well, somebody in France, the boyfriend, any girlfriends, her employer, knows when she'd be coming home. They wouldn't expect to hear from her while she's here and I think airmail takes about a week to get to Europe anyway. They'll be assuming she's all right for another couple of weeks, but when she doesn't turn up and they don't hear anything, somebody will report it to the French police and they'll ask us some questions, and they'll be able to tell us who Grandfather is.'
'That's a bunch of ifs, Arturo,' said Mendoza. 'Or am I being pessimistic? Yes, surely to God, her fiance, her best girlfriends knew where she'd be staying here. You're probably right, we'll have to wait for it. But whoever took her off, for whatever reason, they'd know that too. That it was only a question of time before we found out that Juliette was missing and could trace her to Grandfather and ferret out the substitution.'
'Well, I wonder,' said Hackett. He hunched his wide shoulders in the low bucket seat. 'Is there a Grandfather?'
Mendoza turned to stare at him. 'That's a new hare-brained notion. You're saying she told a tale, as an excuse to fly to Los Angeles, maybe? Por la gracia de Dios, that was a perfectly respectable honest girl. But more to the point, if the story was a lie, why should she come out with it voluntarily to a stranger in a plane?'
'True,' admitted Hackett. 'But so, somebody tells us about Grandfather and we go to ask and he says I thought she changed her mind about coming. What's to prove different? And as far as Hoffman goes, you said it
