Parks and Recreation Department. He was working for a big nursery back there so he was experienced at that kind of job, and we were so glad to find that house for them so close. It was a good deal for them, see, because they was getting it at a lower rent than usual. Jim was going to do all the yard work for part of the rent. Mrs. Ballard's been a widow a long time and she couldn't keep up the yard. It was all in a mess, and Jim had started to work on it, just since they got here. They drove in last Sunday night and moved in there Monday.'
Freeman was smoking nervously. His wife started to cry again. 'There's no sense to it because Jim and Paula didn't know a soul out here and nobody knew them. Not a soul. Unless it was some drunk, a crazy person, but to kill the poor baby too-'
'They hadn't even met any of our friends,' she said in a thick voice. 'They'd been so busy getting settled, and Jim had to start right in on that yard. He didn't need to do it all at once, but that was Jim for you-always had to be busy. And he never could stand anything in a mess, liked everything just so. We were going to have the Pattersons and the Greens over for dinner on Sunday-'
'That's so,' he said, 'I told Jim to leave it, I'd help him on my day off. That place had been let go, weeds a mile high and there was even one of those old incinerators there from before the city stopped people using them. Jim said he could make a real nice barbecue out of it. And I'd have been glad to help him but I'm not off until Saturday, he hired some fella to help him cut the weeds. That's a big yard. He'd been busy at it all yesterday. A fool for work. He was starting on the P. and R. job on Monday, see.'
'They didn't have any family or friends here, except you?' said Palliser.
'That's right. Look, even if there could have been any reason-only there couldn't be a reason for that-but you know what I mean, any reason for anybody to have a grudge on them-and Jim and Paula were both easygoing people, didn't get across anybody anytime-where was the time for it to happen? They just got here! They hadn't hardly been out of the house since Monday. Louise and Paula went to the market on Monday-'
'And the laundromat,' she said. 'That was all. We didn't talk to anybody.'
'And Jim was getting things put away in the house and then working in the yard. I don't suppose they'd talked to anybody since they got here, except us and Mrs. Ballard and, oh, that guy he hired to help in the yard.'
'Rawson hired him? It's not his yard,' said Palliser.
'No, but it was in a mess. Jim said one good cleanup and it'd be easier for him to keep up without so much work.'
'Where did he hire the man?'
'Drugstore down at the corner. There's a bulletin board, people put up ads. But it was a crazy man, or a drunk. I haven't taken it in yet-all of them gone-like that. Jim and Paula-they were the best-and such a cute baby. He was named for Jim.' Freeman was shaking his head blindly.
'Just no sense. Nobody here even knew them, to want to do such a thing-'
Landers looked at Palliser. Often there wasn't much sense in the violent crimes, but there seemed to be less in this one than most. They walked up the street and talked to Mrs. Ballard, but she knew even less to tell them, except to repeat that she'd seen the man running away. A tall, skinny man. She didn't know what color.
'There's nowhere to start looking,' said Landers. 'The house wasn't robbed. There was forty dollars in his wallet and thirty in her handbag.'
'The lunatic or the drunk,' said Palliser, rubbing his nose. 'There may be prints.'
'And even if there are, they might not be in Records.'
'Well, time will tell. I don't see that there's much we can do on it until we see the lab report, and the autopsies should tell us something about the knife.'
'For whatever it's worth,' said Landers pessimistically.
HACKETT WAS JUST starting out to lunch with Higgins on Saturday when a man came into the office past Rory Farrell at the switchboard. 'The desk man downstairs said to come up here.' He was a pudgy middle-aged man with thinning red hair and a bulldog jaw. 'With this. You're welcome to it.' He held out a small imitation leather case, the kind made to hold a man's shaving tackle.
'What's this?'
'Well, I wouldn't know,' said the man. 'But I thought the cops had better see it. Sure as hell I thought so. My name's O'Hara, and I drive a cab for Yellow.'
'Yes, Mr. O'Hara. Come in and sit down. What's this all about‘?'
In the communal office, O'Hara put the case down gingerly on Hackett's desk. 'I don't want one damn thing to do with it. So I tell you. I carried five fares since I come on duty at eight. This is the hell of a town for cabs. Everybody and his brother got cars, see. And when I dropped the latest fare it was an old lady and I got out to help her up on the curb and I see that thing. Somebody's left it in the back seat, and she says it's not hers. So I don't know who it belongs to. One of the other fares.'
'Yes.' Hackett offered him a cigarette.
'So naturally I looked to see if it's unlocked, if there's maybe some I.D. in it to say who left it, see, and it was. And, Jesus, then I didn't want to know who owns it. You open it and look, just look.'
Hackett pulled the case in front of him. It was the kind that had a zipper all around three sides and he ran it around and the case gaped open.
There were two things in it. The first was a bunched-up bath towel. It had originally been white, but it was now liberally stained with great rusty smears of long-dried blood. Something showed at the loose end of the bunch. Hackett lifted out the towel and from its folds a knife fell with a little clatter onto the desk. It was an ordinary kitchen knife with a blade about nine inches long and an inch wide, and it was deeply stained with the same rusty brown dried blood, both blade and handle.
'For God's sake,' said Higgins, looking over his shoulder.
The other thing in the case was a worn imitation leather billfold. Any experienced detective was trained to be careful about disturbing possible latent fingerprints, but there were times when you had to take the risk. Hackett upended the case, the billfold fell out and he eased it open to lie flat with his pen. The first little plastic slot held a driver's license and it had been issued to Mabel Carter, forty-six, brown hair and blue eyes, five two, one hundred and ten pounds. The address was Portland Street.
'Now I will be good and goddamned,' said Hackett in naked astonishment. He sat back and stared up at Higgins. 'That hooker who got cut up by a john. There was nothing on it. I shoved it in Pending myself.'
'That's damn funny all right. Do you have any idea which of those fares might have left this?' Higgins asked O'Hara.
'Well, I have. And if he did I don't want to lay eyes on him again. I got to thinking after I saw that damn thing. Two of the other fares were female and I got a sort of idea it's got to have been the one with the luggage. I think he had a little case like that in his hand when he got in the cab. That was the fare about ten o'clock. I picked him up at the Biltmore and took him to the Holiday Inn on Figueroa.'
'I will be goddamned,' said Hackett again. 'That was dead. Well, thanks very much, O'Hara.'
'You know who it is? He's done a murder by all that. Well, you're welcome to it,' said O'Hara. 'Me, I never could stand the sight of blood.'
There wasn't that much urgency about it, surprising and interesting as it might be. They went out and had lunch. They got to the Holiday Inn at about one-thirty and Hackett told the desk clerk they were looking for a man who had checked in about ten this morning. The clerk shied nervously at the badge.
'I hope there won't be any trouble, we run a quiet place here.' He looked at the registration book. 'We've only had one guest register this morning. Dr. Walter Thomas, from Indianapolis. He's in room eighteen.'
'Thanks very much,' said Hackett. They rode up in the elevator, walked down the carpeted hall. 'What the hell can this be, anyway?' He had the dressing case in one hand. The door of room 18 opened promptly to a knock and they faced a large round man in an elegant silk dressing gown. He looked about fifty. He had a dough-colored face with a small prissy mouth.
'Dr. Thomas?' said Hackett. 'By any chance does this belong to you?' Pending a look at this funny thing, they had restored the contents to the case.
The man seized the case, unzipped it, looked inside and said, 'Dear me, yes I am most obliged to you for
