really interested in it and no fool, you know. I don't know how much it's worth to you, Sergeant, because I couldn't say whether it was so, but he told me once his family had had a lot of money, he'd always had everything, and been going to go to medical school and so on, but after his father died his mother got hooked by some con man and lost it all. He said he'd made up his mind to get his however he could-he was kind of bitter about it.'
'And that might figure too,' said Hackett. 'Could be. Now, you knew him pretty well, Mr. Clay. This could be what it looks like, the break-in after drugs or cash, and the impulsive assault. But not so many burglars carry guns. It could also be a private kill. And generally speaking, in a case of murder, the deceased has done something-or been something-to trigger it off. Could you make any guesses as to who might have wanted Nestor dead? Off the record-just between us.'
'Hell,' said Clay, 'that's a thing to ask me, Sergeant? He looked down at his scarred old desk there in the back room of his store, the untidy pile of invoices, business letters. 'I don't know about any-you know-specific person. Far as I know, everybody liked Frank just line. But I'll say this much. If it was like that, the private reason like you say, I'd make a guess that it was most likely over some woman. Some girl's husband or boy friend. He liked the girls-and they liked him.'
'Yes. What about his wife? Do you think she-felt anything about him any more? Enough to-'
'His wife? Hell, I don't know,' said Clay doubtfully. 'That's-well, I don't know, I never could read that woman.' That makes two of us, thought Hackett. He wanted to see Andrea Nestor again. 'You think a woman might have-Lord, what a hell of a thing, old Frank getting murdered… '
'Well, we'll see what turns up,' said Hackett. He thanked Clay and went out to his car. One of the new Traffic Maids, on her three-wheeled cycle, was righteously making out an overparking ticket for him. Without compunction Hackett pulled rank on her and got the ticket torn up. No millionaire indeed, with another one coming along he needed every dollar he earned.
What, he wondered again, had Nestor wanted with a sterilizer? Chiropractors weren't allowed to give shots or do anything they'd need surgical tools for, were they? Instruments that would have to be sterilized. There was just the glimmer of an idea in his mind about that, but resignedly he thought there'd be no way to prove it-now. That Corliss woman. He could kick himself for such stupid carelessness, leaving the place wide open… He wanted to see her again too. And he wanted another try at that desk clerk in the Third Street hotel, the man who'd been on the desk when the Slasher signed for a room. The man was hardly the world's greatest brain but he must have noticed more about the Slasher than he claimed to remember.
Hackett ruminated behind the wheel, uncertain where to go from here. There were a lot more places to look, on the Nestor thing, than there were on the Slasher. But that one was the one most urgent to catch up to. God, yes.
The prints in Nestor's office had been mostly his and Margaret Corliss'. It would be largely wasted effort, probably, to track down all his patients and get their prints to compare to the unknown ones in the office; probably X had worn gloves or wiped off anything he'd touched. If it had been the casual thief, why hadn't he taken Nestor's star-sapphire ring and jade tie clasp, along with the cash? Of course, it could have been juveniles after drugs; in the dark they wouldn't notice from the sign that Nestor had been a chiropractor and wouldn't have any drugs on the premises. But…
Margaret Corliss had said at first that she'd come to call and put off the patients because-how had she put it?-it would be awkward having them come in while the police were there. And then later on she'd said that there never were any patients on Wednesdays. Hackett got out his notebook, turned to the page where he'd written down the facts of that odd little encounter with Miss Corliss, and added that one.
That button. By the thread hanging from it, maybe already loose; so when Nestor saw the gun, made a grab for it, he got the button instead? Button from, probably, a man's jacket. Just an ordinary dark gray button.
He couldn't sit here the rest of the afternoon. Where now?
They had the bullet out of Nestor's skull, and not too much damaged: a. 22. When, as, and if they ever found a possible gun, Ballistics could probably say whether it was the right one.
Well, all right. Go and see Ruth Elger, whose husband had presumably given Nestor a black eye. Go and see everybody listed in his address book. See Mrs. Nestor again…
While the berserk killer roamed around loose. Hell. Hackett started the engine. It was Friday afternoon, getting on to five o'clock. He'd promised Angel he'd be home for dinner, but he thought he'd go out again afterward. See that desk clerk: he was on the night shift, wouldn't be on until nine o'clock. See Mrs. Nestor. See-
FIVE
Hackett went back to headquarters to report in, see if anything had turned up that looked interesting. Something had, and how much was it worth?
'I happened to be in,' said Palliser, 'so I talked to her.
A Mrs. Constance Brundage. About fifty, too fat, nice motherly soul but not much in the way of brains. She made a statement. Your guess is as good as mine whether it's worth anything. She said she was waiting for a bus at the corner of Western and San Marino, last night about eight o'clock, when a man came up to her. She was alone on the corner. She said he looked ‘sinister' because he had a hat pulled down over his eyes and his jacket collar turned up, which looked funny on a warm night. Said he had a sinister voice too, like a gangster, she said.'
'Yes,' said Hackett. 'Naturally.?Que mas? And how much of that is imagination?'
Palliser shrugged. 'What with all this press hysteria-Anyway, she said he came and stood ‘too close' to her, and she got nervous, and then he said he needed bus fare and she looked like a nice kind lady, would she give him a dollar? And she said no, and backed away, and he followed her-and goodness knows,' said Palliser in obvious quotation of Mrs. Brundage, 'what would have happened, except that the bus came just then and she got into it in a hurry, and the sinister stranger didn't. But on thinking it over, she was sure it must have been this terrible Slasher, and it was just the Lord's mercy she hadn't been his fifth victim. And-”
'?Basta!' said Hackett. 'Description?'
'Very vague-it was dark. Just one little thing made me think twice, and get a statement. She can't say anything about his features, and says vaguely he was about medium-sized. But she did say that his clothes didn't seem to fit, looked too big for him. And Miguel Garcia-who's a much better witness-said the same thing about the man Roberto stopped to talk to.'
'So he did,' said Hackett slowly. 'Food for thought. I'll be damned. On the other hand, John, a lot of bums around town are wearing hand-me-down clothes that don't fit.'
'True. I just mentioned it,' said Palliser.
'And asking for money. Of course we don't know the hell of a lot about him. It could be. Corner of Western and San Marino-if so, out of the territory where he's been operating. Nice.'
'You get anything new on Nestor?'
'This and that-maybe,' said Hackett. 'I don't know. I've got a funny little idea, but how the hell to prove anything? I want to see the wife again, and the people in his address book. And Ruth Elger's husband. I also want to have a heart-to-heart session with that desk clerk. He must have noticed something more than we've dragged out of him.'
'I don't know,' said Palliser. 'It's not the kind of hotel where they give guests the eagle eye to see if they're respectable. And it was about ten o'clock at night.'
'All the more reason for him to notice, damn it. Business'd be slow,' said Hackett. 'I want to talk to him again, anyway.'
'Wish you luck,' said Palliser, shrugging again. It had been a hot day, and he was tired. But he had a date with Roberta Silverman and was anxious to get away, to a cool shower and a shave and a clean shirt, and Roberta's dark eyes smiling at him across a table and a long cold drink. He didn't know then that this was an important conversation, that tomorrow he'd be racking his brains to remember just exactly what Hackett had said to him. 'The night shift was coming on. He told the night desk man where he'd be and went down to the lot for his car.
