Murder Most Strange (24 page)

"What you want, bust in here 1ike— Oh."
She looked at the badge.

"Come on, Mrs. Goodis. You're coming in to talk
to us."

"What about? We haven't done nothing. You damn
cops can't—"

"Oh, yes, we can. With you displaying Edna
Patterson's furniture all over your living room. But more important
than that, your husband left us some nice fingerprints in that
house."

"Oh, my God!" she said disgustedly. "Oh,
that damn stupid lousy nigger, if I told him once I told him a
million times—"

Most of the way back to the office she told Palliser,
in various colorful language, just how stupid that no-good Dwight was
and how stupid she'd been to marry him.

Ten minutes after Palliser brought her in, Grace came
back with Dwight Goodis. He was a great big burly black man in the
early twenties, still looking surprised and aggrieved to have been
dropped on. As soon as she saw him she screamed, "Goddamn stupid
bastard! Leavin' prints all over that damn place!"

An interrogation room was too small for them both;
they sat them down in the communal office and Mendoza came out to sit
in. "Now, now," said Grace benevolently, "let's not
have any of that. Now you know we've got the solid evidence on you,
Dwight, suppose you tell us all about the job."

"Damn fingerprints," he said.

"Oh, you make me sick, you dumb bastard. I told
you and told you—"

"Let's hear about it," said Palliser. "Just
why did you have to kill Mrs. Patterson?"

"Well, God damn it," said Goodis sullenly,
"she wasn't supposed to be there—how'd I know she was gonna be
there? Eddy said she always went to church Wednesday night, didn't
get home till late. I was gonna bring the van, load everything—"

"You were just after the furniture?" asked
Grace incredulously.

"Yeah, yeah, that's right. Nice furniture, Eddy
said. See, him an' Josie just moved into that place across the
street, an' he said he took a letter over to her once, got left their
place by mistake, an' saw she hadda lotta real nice stuff. We was
just talkin', see, because me and Lois didn't have no furniture
atall, and we hadda move outta that place on Fifty-sixth because it's
gonna be` torn down, that place was all furnished, and damn it, all
we could find for any kinda decent rent we could pay was the place on
Van Ness and there wasn't nothin' in it atall. And my God, any o'
that stuff so high now, nobody could hardly afford to buy it, and we
ain't got good credit . . ."

He was explaining earnestly just how justified the
job had been. "And Eddy said why don't I get the van and take
some of her stuff while she's at church, it'd be easy as pie—I got
the key of the company's garage and the van, see. I just parked it in
the drive while everybody along there'd prob'ly be havin' dinner—"

"My God," said Grace suddenly, "we
never asked the neighbors about Wednesday night—those upstanding
respectable neighbors—I'll bet a lot of them were at church too."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what Eddy said, people on
both sides be out too—and we went up to the back door and it wasn't
even locked—"

"We, who was with you?"

“
Well, Lois, acourse. And Eddy, help move the
stuff. Only, God damn it, the old lady was there! She come into the
kitchen in a bathrobe, she lets out a yip, and I could see she was
goin' to scream an' yell, and I just grabbed her to keep her quiet. I
never meant to kill her."

"And as long as you're stupid enough to let them
drop on you, take everybody else to the joint with you!" She
looked at the detectives. "There was a hell of a lot of nice
stuff there, when I seen how good it was I said, think about the
family, most of them needed a lot of things, the welfare only goes so
far, you know. And I called up Pete and Joey and Benny and
Gene—they're his cousins—and my brother Bill, and they all come
and helped load the van. We had a hell of a time, get everything on,
but we did it, and just about in time too. We was just comin' up to
the corner, starting away, when a car passed us and turned in the
drive right next to that place. The rest of 'em had just about got
back to their cars. We spent the rest o' the night delivering all the
stuff, but I took my pick first. Everybody needed things, better
mattresses an' chairs an' tables an' all."

"My God," said Grace, awed. And what a job
this was going to be, sorting out where all that had gotten to; and
they would all share in the charge; at least Eddy would share the
homicide charge, the job had evidently been largely his idea.

"So let's have some names and addresses,"
said Mendoza briskly."

She began to rattle them off, and Grace took notes.
Now they'd be busy the rest of the day bringing them all in, talking
to them, getting statements. And looking for the furniture and that
was going to clutter up a lot of evidence space downstairs until the
case was disposed of—at least until the statements were on file and
the D.A. had the case outlined, when the family could have it back.

Palliser had gone to apply
for the warrants.

* * *

Mrs. Joan Flowers looked up at them from her hospital
bed, and her eyes were filled with tears. She wasn't much hurt, and
would probably be released tomorrow. She was a fat, placid-faced
woman in her fifties. She said, "The most awful thing about it
is Mr. Robillard getting killed. They only told me last night. That's
just an awful thing. Everybody liked him so much, and he was so good
with the boys—I've heard more than one teacher say that he'd saved
a lot of boys from going to the bad, getting them interested in a
trade. I sort of feel like I'd killed him myself."

"We'd like to find out who did it," said
Glasser. "What do you remember? Can you give us a description of
him?"

"I only saw him for a flash—before he shot me,
you know. I'd just put the bag of money in the front of my car—"

"How much would there have been in it?"

"Well, it's a big school, and it's scandalous
how—even down there—the kids always seem to have money. A lot of
mothers too lazy to bother fixing a lunch. A lot of the kids eat at
the cafeteria. I suppose there'd be between four and five hundred
dollars."

"All right, he came from behind your car and
pointed the gun at you. Think back. What did he look like?"

"He was kind of tall," she said slowly.
"Kind of thin. He was a white fellow, but dark-skinned-not very
old, I guess."

"Somebody told us he thought it looked like a
kid named Tommy Hernandez. Do you know him? He was in school last
year."

She shook her head. "I don't know any of the
kids. They're just faces. I'm back in the kitchens mostly,
supervising the cooking."

They drove down to the
school and saw the principal, listened to a lot of platitudes and
asked about Hernandez. "Oh, yes, he was quite a star on the
basketball team last year. Mr. Wrangell was telling me that one of
the students there yesterday said the killer looked like him.
Ridiculous; What? Well, I haven't any idea where Hernandez is now. He
graduated in February, and his address won't be in our files now."

* * *

Hackett and Landers landed at Genevieve Du Mond in
Beverly Hills at its opening hour, ten-thirty. It could scarcely be
called a shop: the first room beyond the elegant black and gold front
door was furnished as a rather bare living room, with a white-velvet
couch and chairs, a gilt-framed mirror on one wall; an archway showed
them a larger room up a few steps, lined with plate-glass mirrors.
There was no sign of any female clothes at all.

Genevieve turned out to be, when she looked at the
badge in Hackett's hand, Mrs. Marlene Bloom. She was dark and rather
gaunt, with cynical shrewd eyes; and she looked nonplussed at two
detectives in her establishment—it could only be called that. But
she looked at Hackett's height and bulk with veiled admiration, at
Landers' lank dark boyishness with a quick smile.

"And just what's behind the questions about that
do at the hotel? Somebody lose a purse or a mink stole?"

"Nothing like that," said Hackett. "It's
nothing to do with you at all, I don't think. What about the models
you use? Where do they come from?"

"The girls? Well, when I'm putting on a show as
big as that, I have to hire extra. I always use Lowrie's agency. I
had five extra girls that day. I employ three of my own, to model for
clients.”

"We're interested in one who was there Saturday.
She's described as tall, with silver-blond hair and a very good
figure."

"Rosalie Packard," she said instantly.
"She's one of my girls—and a good girl, a nice girl. What do
you think Rosalie's done?"

"We have to talk to her," said Hackett. "Is
she here now‘?"

She was studying them. "I don't like this. She's
a nice girl."

"She may be, but we have to talk to her. Is
she?"

"No. She's not due in until one. Well, I suppose
I can't hold out on the police, and you'd find her anyway." She
plucked one of her cards from the pretty gilt container on a table
and held out her hand; Hackett gave her a ballpoint pen and she
scribbled on the card. "I hope you're not going to arrest her.
She's going to be a very good model—still getting experience, but
she's quick to learn."

"And thanks so much," said Hackett. "Now
tell us something else. That fashion show on Saturday. How did the
girls get there?"

"Wel1, the Lowrie girls provide their own
transportation, but I took my girls, and all the models to be
displayed. I've got a station wagon."

"So Rosalie rode out to the Century-Plaza with
you. But she didn't come back with you, did she?"

"Well, well, aren't you the smart detective,
Sergeant. How did you know that? No, she had a date later, she said
her boy friend was picking her up there after the show."

Outside, Hackett looked at the card. "Selma
Avenue, that's just above the Strip. I think Luis'd like to sit in on
this, let's pick him up on the way."

When they dropped into the office, everything was
humming at top speed; everybody was going to be busy on the Patterson
thing for a while to come, with so many people involved. They
collected Mendoza and went out to Hackett's Monte Carlo again and
started for Hollywood.

The Sunset Strip, these days, was looking a little
tawdry and tired, in spite of a couple of newish high-rise office
buildings. The residential areas above Sunset, once fashionable
addresses, had aged into middle-class dreariness. Rosalie Packard
lived in an upstairs apartment in an eight-unit building at the top
of Selma Avenue; its square stucco design made it look stodgy and
respectable.

They climbed steep stairs, found the door; Landers
pushed the bell. In thirty seconds the door opened, and there she
was. They could see why the bartender had remembered her. She was a
very striking-looking piece of goods indeed; long wavy silver-gilt
hair, a lovely oval face with arched brows, a beautifully cut mouth,
very large blue eyes, and a figure to draw whistles a block away. She
was wrapped in a limegreen terry robe, and she stared at the three
men on her doorstep and went deathly pale.

"Police, Miss Packard," said Mendoza
briskly. "I don't think we need to tell you what it's about."

She was scared to death; she stepped back as she
might have from a snake in the path, and she began to cry a little,
the tears welling up and rolling down slowly. "Oh—oh—oh!"
she said. "Oh, it was all so silly—I never meant anything and
Stan never meant anything, it just happcned—it wasn't anybody's
fault but you're not going to believe it—oh—oh—oh!"

"Suppose you try us," said Landers.

She just sat down on the couch and looked at them as
if she expected them to produce the handcuffs any minute. "I
was—just so mad—at Stan"—her mouth was trembling and her
voice shook—"and he flies into such a temper at
anything—and-it-all-just-happened—"

The apartment was brightly and smartly furnished, and
looked unexpectedly homey; it was very neat and clean. There were,
unexpectedly, family photographs scattered around: a couple of
younger girls enough like her to be sisters, a handsome middle-aged
couple, even what looked like a possible grandmother.

"And—oh oh—it was bad enough, it was awful,
what happened, but when it was in all the papers—who he was—and
all the fuss on TV—0h, my heavens, I've never been so scared in my
life! I told Stan you'd find out—oh, oh, oh—and he said no way,
don't worry—but I did, and now you have, and you'll say it was
murder and put us both in jail and I'll just die of shame—never
could look Mother in the face again, she was so dead set against my
coming to Hollywood in the first place—she'll say—she'll say—I
was tempted of the devil—and it was all just an accident, but I
knew you'd find out—oh, oh, oh—"

"Stan who?" asked Mendoza.

She gulped. "Stan P-P-Powell."

"And where do we find him?"

She was weeping in earnest
now, "Wh-Whaley and Dunlop Architects. Sh-Sherman Oaks."

* * *

Stan Powell was big and burly, with shoulders like a
prizefighter's and sandy-red hair. He sat in the chair beside
Mendoza's desk and said candidly, "Hell, hell, hell. My God, I'm
just sorry Rosalie's involved in this damned thing, but then it
wouldn't have happened without Rosalie. I know I've got hell's own
temper, it goes off like a bomb."