anybody was ever alone long in a hospital, and you usually need privacy to commit a murder.' They took Higgins' Pontiac and drove down to that fairly old hospital on Hope Street. In the main lobby, Higgins asked one of the receptionists for Dr. Rasmussen.
'That's me,' said a voice behind him. 'The other one doesn't look much like a cop, but I spotted you when you walked in.' Big craggy-faced Higgins might as well have COP tattooed on his forehead. Rasmussen was a young man with crisp light brown hair, a nearly handsome face with a long nose and bright eyes. 'This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of, but when I saw what it was I thought we'd better rope you in. Your business. The damnedest thing.' He yawned. 'Look, can we sit down to talk? I'm bushed. Had a hell of a day, and now this-and I'm not off till seven and I suppose you'll keep me hanging around. You'll want to talk to all the nurses-'
'Let's take one thing at a time,' said Higgins. They sat down in one corner of the lobby and he offered Rasmussen a cigarette. 'What's this all about?' Rasmussen was probably one of the interns here, about the right age.
'This patient, Carlo Alisio, cancer patient-man seventy-four and pretty far gone. He was riddled with it. He was in for radiation and therapy, and oddly enough-but it's unpredictable-he'd suddenly gone into remission. We thought he was going any time, about ten days ago, warned the family. But he'd perked up and was doing pretty well. Just a question of time, of course. He was due to be transferred to the V.A. hospital tomorrow. His Medicare had run out and he was eligible.' Rasmussen drew strongly on his cigarette. 'I saw him for just a minute this morning-no occasion to again, until the nurse called me. That was about five o'clock. She'd gone in for a routine check and found him dead.'
'Was he in a private room?' asked Palliser.
'You know what year it is? Hell, no, who can afford it, and we don't have any left. He was in a three-bed room, but the other two patients are fairly comatose-not up to noticing anything-and the curtain was up around Alisio's bed. I thought, of course, he'd just passed out naturally, and I was a little surprised, I must say. Then when I took a look at him-well, the nurse had seen it too- I was even more damned surprised. He was smothered with the pillow. All you have to do is look, it was still over his face. But I looked at it- I don't suppose even your smart lab men could get fingerprints off a pillowcase-'
'You'd be surprised at that, too,' said Higgins.
'- And there is the plain evidence. He'd struggled and bitten a piece out of the pillowcase. There's saliva and mucous stains, and a piece of cloth and thread still in his mouth. The damnedest thing.'
'Do you know if he had any visitors today?'
Rasmussen said, 'The nurse can tell you, but I'd have a bet on it. There was a big family-Italians after all-and all evidently pretty close. Somebody always coming to see him and calling in. Sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. He was a widower. But we chase the visitors away about four-thirty.
The nurses like to get dinner over with early.'
'How long do you think he'd been dead?' asked Palliser.
Rasmussen shrugged. 'He was still warm. I'd say not over an hour-possibly less. What do we do about the body? I thought you'd want to see it, told the nurses to stay out.'
Higgins looked at his watch and swore. 'We'd better have some pictures, at least. And unless somebody's working overtime in the lab-' He got up, went to call in.
Then Rasmussen took them up to the third floor and pointed out the room halfway along the hall. There was a little huddle of nurses gathered at the station at that end, whispering excitedly together. They eyed Higgins and Palliser with avid curiosity. 'He's in the bed by the window,' said Rasmussen, following them in.
The patients in the first two beds, two old men, seemed to be asleep or in comas; neither stirred. The white curtain was pulled across the side of the bed by the window. They stepped around it and looked at the dead man. Alisio had been a small old man, thin and bald with a big nose. The gray-stubbled face was contorted, his mouth and eyes open, the body twisted to one side, right arm up over his head-he had struggled for his ebbing life. The pillow was on one side of the body and they could see the little piece bitten out of the casing, the stains on the rest.
'I will be damned,' said Higgins. 'I left word at the lab. Somebody will be out as soon as the night watch comes in. I don't suppose it'd disturb the other patients in here, if you 1 just leave him a couple of hours.'
Rasmussen said, 'Unlikely.'
'Well, after our men have got some photographs, we'd like you to send the body down to the coroner's office for autopsy. The nurses on now don't go off shift until eleven, is that right?'
'Right.'
'What I'd like you to do,' said Higgins, massaging his jaw and thinking, 'is to notify the family that he's dead. Just that. They'd been expecting him to go-they won't be surprised.'
'They'll want the body,' said Rasmussen. 'What do we tell them?'
'Oh, we'll be around asking questions,' said Higgins. 'I guess we can leave it for the night watch, John. And I think I'll call Luis. He always likes the offbeat ones. He's going to love this one, in spades.'
MENDOZA HAD EXCHANGED the orderly peace at the office for the bedlam of an obstreperous family at home. 'They've been wild as hawks all day,' said Alison crossly.
The twins flung themselves at him and pummeled him.
'Daddy, Daddy! I galloped real fast on Star and Uncle Ken says I'm a tomboy, what's a tomboy.?' 'Daddy, Mama says we can't take the ponies to school, why couldn't we ride the ponies to school?'
'It wouldn't be good for them to walk on the street,' said Mendoza at random.
'Mairi's been fixing my uniform. Girls get to wear a uniform because they're more important than boys,' said Terry loudly.
'Are not! Girls aren't important to anybody! And I galloped faster on Diamond! Why wouldn't it be good for them, Daddy?'
'Nobody's more important than anybody else,' said Alison. 'For heaven's sake, go to your rooms and play quietly at something and give your father some peace. It's the school, of course. They'll settle down in a couple of days, I hope.'
Tomorrow was the opening day of the semester for both public and parochial schools. Having completed kindergarten, Johnny and Terry would be starting first grade at the Immaculate Heart Parochial School down the hill in Burbank. And as Alison said, her good Scots Presbyterian father was probably turning in his grave, but it couldn't be helped. At least they'd get a sounder education than most public schools offered these days.
'Why wouldn't it be good for them, Daddy?'
'It would hurt their feet,' said Alison. The cats, affronted at all the noise, had departed huffily. Cedric began to bark.
'But we want to ride the ponies to school! It'd be lots more fun than riding an old school bus. Why can't we-'
'We've told you why,' said Alison.
'And besides, if girls aren't more important than boys, how come I get to wear a uniform and Johnny doesn't? A uniform is special.'
'Because that's the way the school rules are,' said Alison. 'And we'll hear no more about it. You two go and see what Mairi's doing.'
'I know what she's doing, she's fixing my uniform because the skirt was too long.'
'And I don't see a uniform is so special, she's got to wear it, it's a rule, and I can wear anything I want. So-'
'No, you can't. You have to wear dark pants and a white shirt, so that's like a uniform too. And now we'll drop the subject. Why don't you go out and see the ponies again?'
'We want Daddy to play with us,' shouted Terry promptly. 'Play bears and lions!'
'Oh, Terry, you haven't played that since you were a baby. Daddy's too tired to play.'
'?Demonios, que relajo! ' said Mendoza. ' Basta, you two. Daddy's got too much to think about to play. You chase off and visit the ponies.'
'We already did. We just came back, and Uncle Ken said we was little devils.'
