unexpectedly picked out a photograph down in Records, identified it positively as one of the heisters. The pedigree on file backed him up.
Joseph Bauman, Caucasian, six one, black and brown, one-seventy, twenty-four two years ago. He'd been charged with one count of armed robbery and prior to that with assault and possession of controlled drugs. He'd got a one-to-three on the robbery count. Landers got a statement from the witness and called the Welfare and Rehab office to find out what they knew about Bauman. The address in Records was two years old. A sergeant at that office looked up their records and said Bauman was on parole since three months ago. He was living at an address on Madera Avenue in Atwater and he had a job at a chain fast-food place on Sixth Street.
Hackett went out with Landers to find him.
The manager at the fast-food store told him he hadn't laid eyes on Bauman in a week. 'And good riddance. That probation officer talked me into hiring him. I didn't like the idea so good, and that Bauman, he just doesn't want to work so hard-all the time goofing off.'
So they tried the place on Madera in Atwater, which was I a modest frame house, neatly maintained, on the narrow side street, and showed the badges to the fat, nondescript middle-aged woman who answered the doorbell. She looked at them, and first she looked alarmed and then resigned.
'He's in trouble again, is he? I just don't know why. I tried to bring him up right. It was hard without my husband. Joe's father got killed in an accident when Joe was only four, but I tried. Lord knows I didn't spoil him. Tried to teach him right from wrong.'
'Is he here?' asked Hackett.
'Yes, he's not up yet. He got in pretty late last night. He said he was out playing pool with some pals.' She stepped back, tacitly inviting them in.
Bauman was still in bed in the back bedroom, looking as if he had a hangover. He was dirty and unshaven. He snarled when he saw the badges, and he said exactly what they'd expected him to say. 'I haven't done nothing. The fuzz got no call to come picking on me.' It was automatic. Hackett told him to get dressed. The woman said she didn't mind their looking around, but they'd wait for a search warrant. He wasn't likely to get sent up for a long stretch within the courts in the state they were, but they'd take no chance on making the charge stick.
They took him in to the jail and applied for both warrants. Landers called the lab and talked to Scarne. 'Oh, I was just about to make a report on it,' said Scarne. 'Yeah, the coroner's office sent the slug over and I was just having a look at it. It's out of an old beat-up S. and W. thirty-two. Probably hasn't been cleaned in years, it's a miracle the damn thing fired at all. Yeah, we can match them if you ever pick it up.'
The search warrant came through after lunch. Hackett and Landers went back to Madera Street. At least Hackett's Monte Carlo was air-conditioned; it was up to ninety-four or so, humid and muggy. Madera Avenue was paved with blacktop and it looked as if it were ready to melt; it felt sticky to their feet. 'Why anybody lives in this climate-' said Landers.
They hadn't questioned Bauman yet, just stashed him in jail. The witness had been very positive on the identification. The woman let them in silently, looked at the warrant. They started to hunt around Bauman's bedroom and within five minutes Landers came across a beat-up old S. amp; W.. 32 under a pile of clean socks. It was unloaded. There was a box of ammunition for it in the next drawer down. Landers said sadly, 'And some people think it's a glamorous job, or that you've got to be big brains to do it.'
'And in all the brainy arch-villains,' rejoined Hackett.
'All I can say, Tom, is that I hope to God some soft-headed judge doesn't give him a slap on the wrist and six months in the joint.'
'I won't hold my breath,' said Landers.
They poked around some more but didn't come up with anything interesting. So they started back to the jail to talk to Bauman. When he knew they had the nice evidence, he might be inclined to tell them who the other heister had been on that job, and they were both aware, as certain as death and taxes, that Bauman would claim it was the other fellow who fired the gun and the other fellow-if they picked him up-would claim it was Bauman.
The job wasn't glamorous, but it was often discouraging.
'OH, DEAR ME, I couldn't say at all,' said Mrs. Marsh blankly. She stared at the glossy eight by ten enlargement.
'She looks sort of dead.'
'She is,' said Mendoza. 'You've never seen her?'
'I just don't know.' Mrs. Marsh was thin and sharpnosed, about forty, with pale blue eyes and over-large round glasses. She was one of the assistant librarians at the big main library on Sixth Street. She looked back at the library card and shook her head.
'Who would be the one to issue cards?' asked Mendoza,
'Any of us. Anyone on duty at the check-out desk.' She had laid the photograph down hastily, pushing it toward him. 'It would depend who was on duty when-when the person requested a card. I don't think anybody would remember. I mean I don't think anybody would recognize that-any photograph.'
'Why not?' asked Mendoza.
She wet her lips. 'Well, we have a lot of people in. It's a big library, and we issue a lot of new cards. Unless the person was a regular, who came in a lot-they're just faces. If you see what I mean. And at least I can tell you that the girl wasn't a regular. I don't think I ever saw her in my life.'
It was what he had expected, a slight gratification. 'But whoever took out the card, it's not so long ago. If we can locate the librarian who issued it-'
She was still shaking her head. 'You mean, maybe to tell you what she looked like. Oh, I shouldn't think so. You just don't realize, we're always pretty busy. We get a lot of students in, you know, and we're always issuing new cards. It's-it gets to be automatic. Like filing or checking books in and out. And it doesn't take five minutes-you know. You get the name and type it on the card and put in the date and that's that.'
Mendoza was aware that they didn't ask for identification. It was like a driver's license-anybody could apply for one under any name. In this big, busy place, very likely whichever librarian had issued the card had hardly glanced at the female who announced herself as Ruth Hoffman. In fact, the library card told them only one thing, that it had been a female who took it out. Young, old, fat or thin, whatever color. Mrs. Daggett? Mrs. Garvey? Or Anonyma?
It said, of course, something else. It said, for about ninety percent sure, that the pseudo suicide of Ruth Hoffman had been planned at least since the date on that card and probably before.
And he was no stranger to homicide of any kind. But at the thought a small cold finger touched his spine. He picked up the photograph and glanced at it before he slid it back into the manila envelope. The lovely face with its pert nose, wide mouth, tender skin, looked so very young. And death didn't reckon by age. But suddenly he saw again, as he had seen it only once, the rather shy, friendly smile of the pretty girl on the plane. Whatever was the reason, it was a sad thing that she was dead and cold down there in the morgue. Being thorough, he talked to every one of the librarians on duty. They all shook their heads at the card, except one, a Doreen Minor, who said brightly, 'Oh, I know the name. Ruth Hoffman. But now I see it can't be the same one. The same Hoffman. This is a new card-August sixth-and Ruth Hoffman's been coming in for years, She's a student at L.A.C.C., I know her pretty well. But she only got her card renewed last year. So it must be a different Hoffman. Of course, it's a common name.'
So it was, and that had been part of the plan, too. There wasn't anything to be got from the library card. Mendoza hadn't really expected there would be.
He had talked to the coroner's office and asked for the autopsy to get priority. The lab report on that apartment would be along sometime. It was never any use to prod the lab boys. They took their own time.
Patrolman Dave Turner was on swing shift, and at this time of year he was just as glad. The darkness after the sun finally went down gave a sort of illusion of coolness, and by the time he came on shift at four o'clock it must have gone up into the high nineties. Turner was only twenty-four, but he'd heard a lot of old folks claim that it never
