'So you are,' said Alison. She finally persuaded them to begin practicing their reading for school, and they made as much noise on the stairs as both the ponies. Alison sank down on the couch. 'What a day, and what a relief to have them in school all day! I'll bet you in a week's time it'll be, why do we have to go to school?'
Mendoza laughed. 'I wouldn't doubt. They'll grow out of it sometime, carina.' He went out to the kitchen for a drink. El Senor heard the cupboard open and was on the counter before he had the top off the bottle. Mendoza said, ' Borracho,' and poured him half an ounce. Back in the living room he said, 'The Surete hasn't a damn thing to tell us. And you know we can't leave her in the morgue. There ought to be some sort of funeral.'
'Oh, dear,' said Alison. She sat up and lit a cigarette. 'I know there was something else she said that just escapes me-and you know it sounds silly, Luis, we didn't know the girl at all, but I feel somehow that we ought to send flowers or attend the funeral or something.'
'Yes, I know.' Mendoza had the same queer feeling. He was still thinking about Juliette, which was futile, because there wasn't anything else he could do about it, when they settled down after dinner. For once Kipling couldn't hold his interest. But at eight-thirty Higgins called to tell him about the new offbeat one and that gave him something else to think about.
“WELL, OF ALL THE RIGMAROLES,'I said Conway, scanning Higgins' note. 'The day men have left us a little work. On the other hand, we may meet some pretty nurses.' He shoved the note over to Piggott.
'Somebody's got to mind the store,' said Schenke. 'I'll toss you for it.'
'No, I want to go talk to the nurses. What a hell of a funny thing,' said Conway. 'Why bother to murder a man who's as good as dead already?'
'Could've been what they call a mercy killing,' suggested Piggott. 'Some people don't think so straight about things like that.'
'Or a homicidal maniac among the orderlies,' said Conway. 'O. K, Bob. You sit on the store and if you get swamped, you know where we are. Come on, Matt. Let's see what we can find out about the maniac.'
Schenke sat and finished his historical novel in the unnatural gloom and quiet of the big office, before the desk relayed a call. It wasn't a heist this time, but a mugging, and it looked like another in that series that was probably organized gang activity. It was the parking lot at Madame Wu's in Little Tokyo, and the couple were fighting mad.
They looked like money, a couple in the thirties, Mr; and Mrs. James Ferguson, dressed to the nines. Her expensive evening gown had one sleeve ripped nearly out. He had the start of a fine shiner and his sport shirt was slashed. 'God-damn it,' he was saying to the patrolman, probably for the tenth time, 'I tried to put up a fight, but there must've been six or eight of the damn bastards-'
'We never saw them, they came out from behind some cars-just grabbed us and held us while the rest of them tore off my necklace and earrings-'
'And got my billfold- I tried to get loose and put up a fight but they were all damn big bastards-'
Schenke got them calmed down a little and sorted things out. 'Well, I don't know to a dime how much I had on me, but it must've been close to a hundred bucks, and damn it, that diamond necklace set me back seven thousand-'
'Could you give a description of any of them?'
'It was too damned dark and it happened too fast. But they were Latin,' said Ferguson. 'Just a couple of things the one said-just take it easy and you won't get the knife in your throat-he had a heavy Spanish accent. Hell, no, neither of us could recognize any pictures. I don't suppose there's much the police can do about it.'
'Well, we'd like a description of the jewelry, sir, to put it on the hot list to pawnbrokers.' That was just a gesture. None of the loot this bunch had got away with had shown up, which said they knew a tame fence. 'Are you all right to drive home, Mr. Ferguson?' Their address was Pacific Palisades.
'Yes, yes, We'll be okay. They just roughed us up. Come on, Myrna.'
Schenke went back to the office and typed a report on it. That was about all there was to do.
PALLISER WAS OFF on Monday, but they got Henry Glasser back. When Mendoza came in, Grace had already corralled him and was showing all the pictures, and sandy middle-sized Glasser was grinning amiably at them.
'Welcome home, Henry,' said Mendoza. 'Good vacation?'
'I went up to Big Bear,' said Glasser. 'But even up there it was too damned hot.' He was looking over at Wanda Larsen at her desk in the corner and she was smiling back at him. There'd been a little speculation about those two, nobody knew if they were dating or not. ‘ `
'I want to see the night report, and you'd all better hear what we've got on this so far.' They were all in by then, Hackett and Higgins, Galeano, Grace, Landers. They dragged chairs into his office and heard about the new one from Higgins while Mendoza read Conway's report.
'So, there's legwork to do,' said Mendoza, passing it on to Hackett. 'This Alisio had a big family and he'd been in the hospital nearly a month. The nurses knew them casually. He had eight or nine visitors yesterday, between about one and four-thirty or a little before four-thirty. They didn't all stay in his room all the time, there wouldn't be room for them, they went in and out. Sat in a little lounge down the hall. The hospital just had one brother's name as the responsible relative-Joseph Alisio-an address in Hollywood. He'll give us the names of the rest of the family.'
'You don't think it was one of the family?' asked Galeano.
'Who knows? No, I don't. From what the nurses say it's a big loving family, concerned and attentive. But on a Sunday there were a lot of visitors coming and going, and they can probably give us a better idea than the nurses who was there, the nurses were busy. They'd all been visiting the hospital quite a bit and may have got acquainted with some other visitors.'
'Reaching,' said Higgins. 'And one of them suddenly had the urge to smother a patient-any patient?'
'You know, Luis,' said Hackett, ' just off the top of my mind, there are always a lot of people wandering around a big hospital, and nurse's aides, orderlies, even nurses-they're just people-come all sorts. You know what I'm thinking about?-that case in Santa Monica last year, where that male nurse was giving the senile old patients the over-doses of morphine. Just out of kindness, they were better dead.'
'Yes,' said Mendoza. 'It's possible it could be something like that, and we want to question these nurses again in depth, and damnation, none of them is on until three PM. Though the ones there now can tell us something about the visitors starting at one o'clock. However you slice it, we've got a lot of people to talk to so-?Sigan adelante! ' He stabbed out his cigarette and stood up.
But as he followed the twin looming bulks of Hackett and Higgins down the hall, Lieutenant Carey of Missing Persons came past the switchboard and said, 'I'll take twenty minutes of your time, Mendoza.'
'What the hell do you want? Don't tell me you've turned up a body for us.'
'No, but we just might,' said Carey seriously.
Slightly annoyed, Mendoza took him back to his office, gave him a cigarette and asked, 'What have you got?'
'It's what we haven't got,' said Carey. His snub-nosed bulldog face looked rather solemn. 'It just shapes up as a probable abduction. Possible rape, possible homicide, after this long a time. I just thought I'd brief you about it in case the body shows up, because it's got to be the Central beat. The woman's been missing for thirty-six hours, and a rapist doesn't usually hold them that long. It's possible she's I dead.'
'Why, how, and who?'
'Well, this Edna Holzer. I didn't see the report until an hour ago. I've just been talking to the girl-Frances Holzer. Edna Holzer's the mother. We've got a description I won't bother you with, but she sounds like an attractive woman. She left home, which is Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood, at about seven on Saturday night to visit a friend in the French Hospital. She didn't intend to stay long-should've been home by eight-thirty, but she wasn't. The daughter called Hollywood about eleven-thirty. They called Traffic and a squad looked around, but no show. She was driving a two-year-old Chrysler Newport, we've got the plate number and there's an A.P.B. out.' Carey emitted a stream of blue smoke, put out his cigarette, and asked, 'You know the French Hospital?'
Mendoza was sitting back with eyes shut. 'West College Street.' Mendoza knew his town, from twenty-six years on the job.
'That's right. And look, Mendoza. She wasn't five minutes from the Stack where all the freeways come in. In
