The little brown eyes had never left my own, and they remained on target while Dudley Smith fished in his trouser pockets for cigarettes and matches, then lit up and blew smoke at me.
I cleared my throat. 'Thank you, sir. In February, I was working Wilshire Patrol. My partner and I were summoned by a distraught woman to a murder scene. The victim was a young woman named Leona Jensen. She had been strangled and stabbed to death in her apartment; the place had been ransacked. I called the dicks. They came and said it looked as if the woman had interrupted a burglar. I noticed a book of matches from the Silver Star bar on a table, but didn't think anything about it.
'Last week another woman was strangled in her apartment in Hollywood; I read about it in the papers. Her name was Margaret Cadwallader. I started thinking about the similarities between the two murders. The Hollywood dicks put this one off as a burglary killing, too, and they were basing their entire investigation on that thesis. I had an intuition about it, though. It wouldn't let me sleep. I trust my intuitions, sir, which is why my record of felony arrests is so good.
'Somehow I knew the two deaths were connected. I broke into the Cadwallader woman's apartment'—I slowed down as I got ready to drop my first outright lie—'and found a book of matches for the selfsame bar under the corner of the living room carpet.' I paused for effect.
'Go on, Officer,' Dudley Smith said.
'All right. Now I knew that the Cadwallader dame had gone to the Silver Star, at least once. I wangled my way onto day watch so I could go there at night, too. I had a hunch that the Jensen woman and Margaret Cadwallader had been picked up there by a loverboy type. I enlisted the aid of the bartender, who told me about 'Eddie,' a real smooth operator who picked up a lot of women at the joint. Eddie came in the following night. The barman pointed him out to me. He tried putting the make on several women, who turned him down. He left, and I tailed him to a queer bar in West Hollywood, where he had an argument with a guy. Then I followed him to his apartment off the Strip. He stayed there all night. The next morning, I tailed him to Santa Anita racetrack. From his conversation with the man at the fifty-dollar window, I determined he was a heavy gambler who frequently brought women to the track.
'I showed a photograph of Margaret Cadwallader to the window man. He told me that Eddie's last name was Engels, and that Eddie had brought the woman to the track in June for the President's Stakes. He positively identified her. I had mixed the photo in with several others, so I know he was certain.
'Next I called R&I and got some info on Engels's record and car ownership. No record; two cars. I went to car dealers and got pictures of the models he owns, then colored them in the appropriate colors. Next I went to every nightclub on the Sunset Strip. Four people remembered seeing Eddie Engels with Margaret Cadwallader. I got their names and addresses. Then I drove to Hollywood. A high school kid remembered seeing Engels's '49 Ford convertible parked around the corner from the Cadwallader apartment on the night of the murder. He described it as having a foxtail on the radio antenna. Later that night I broke into Engels's bungalow. I found no evidence linking him to anything criminal, but I did see his '49 Ford. It had a foxtail on the aerial. That's it, Lieutenant.'
I expected Dudley Smith to fix me with a stern, probing look. He didn't. He just smiled crookedly and lit another cigarette. He exhaled smoke and laughed heartily.
'Well, lad,' he said, 'you've got us a killer. That's for damn sure. The Cadwallader dame, a certainty. The other woman, what was her name?'
'Leona Jensen.'
'Ahhh, yes. Well, there I'm not so sure. What was the cause of death, do you know?'
'The M.E. at the scene said asphyxiation.'
'Ahhh, yes. Who handled it for Wilshire dicks?'
'Joe DiCenzo.'
'Ahhh, yes. I know DiCenzo. Freddy, lad, what are your feelings about this degenerate Engels?'
'I think he knocked off Cadwallader and Jensen and God knows who else.'
'God knows? Are you a religious man, lad?'
'No, sir, I'm not.'
'Well, you should be. Ahhh, yes. Divine Providence is certainly at work in this case.'
Captain Jurgensen came onto the porch holding a beer.
'Ahhh, John. Thank you,' the lieutenant said. 'Give us ten more minutes, will you, lad?'
The captain muttered, 'Sure, Dud,' and retreated again.
'I was about to say, lad,' Dudley Smith went on, 'that I concur wholeheartedly with you. How old are you? Twenty-seven, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Don't call me sir, call me Dudley.'
'All right, Dudley.'
'Ahhh, grand. Well, lad, I'm forty-six, and I've been a cop for half my life. I was in the O.S.S. during the war. I was a major in Europe and I came back to my sergeancy in the department, expecting to rise very fast. I caught a lot of killers, and I killed a few myself. I made lieutenant, and I expect I'll always be a lieutenant. I'm too tough and smart and valuable to be a captain and sit on my ass all day and read Shakespeare like our friend John.'
Dudley Smith leaned toward me and clamped his huge right hand over my knee. He lowered his tenor voice a good three octaves, and said, 'In Ireland, the brothers taught me an abiding love and respect for women. I've been married to the same woman for twenty-eight years. I've got five daughters. There's a lot of the beast in me, lad, God knows. What gentleness there is I owe to the brothers and the women I've known. I hate killers, and I hate woman-killers more than I hate Satan himself. Do you share my hatred, lad?'
It was his first test, and I wanted to pass it with honors. I tightened my whole face and whispered hoarsely, 'With all my heart.'
Smith tightened his grip on my knee. He wanted me to show pain in acquiescence, so I winced. He released my knee, and I rubbed it gingerly. He smiled. 'Ahhh, yes,' he said. 'Grand. He's ours, Freddy. Ours. He's claimed his last victim, God mark my words.'
Smith leaned back and slouched bearlike into his chair. He picked up his bottle of beer and drained it. 'Ahhh, yes. Grand. Detective Officer Underhill. Do you like the sound of that, lad?'
'I like it fine, Dudley.'
'Grand. Tell me, lad, how did you feel after you gunned down those two pachucos who killed your partner?'
'I felt angry.'
'Did you weep, later?'
'No.'
'Ahhh, grand.'
'When do we start, Dudley?'
'Tomorrow, lad. There'll be four of us. Two fine young proteges of mine from the bureau, and us. As of now, John is out. As of now, I am your commanding officer. During the war, we in the O.S.S. had a word we used to describe our activities: clandestine. Isn't that a grand word? It means 'in secret.' That's what our investigation is going to be—in secret. Just the four of us. I can get hold of anything, any file we need from within the department or any other police agency. The case is all ours, the glory all ours, the plaudits all ours, the commendations and advancements to be earned, all ours—once we get an airtight case and a confession from this monster Eddie Engels.'
'And then?'
'Then we go to the grand jury, lad, and let the people of our grand Republic of California decide the fate of handsome Eddie, which, of course, will be to send the dirty son-of-a-whore to the gas chamber.'
'He's as good as in the little green room right now, Dudley.'
'Indeed he is, lad. Now you listen. Our command post will be at the Havana Hotel, downtown at Eighth and Olive. I've already rented us a room, number sixteen. You be there tomorrow morning at eight sharp. Wear civvies. Get a good night's sleep. Say your prayers. Thank God that you're free, white, twenty-one and a splendid young copper. You go home now. John will be miffed at not being in on this, and I want to soft-pedal his pride. Now, shoo.'
I got up and stretched my legs. I stuck out my hand to Dudley Smith. 'Thanks, Dudley,' I said. 'This means a lot to me.'
