Dell Shannon - Mark of Murder

"Yes," said Palliser patiently.

"Anyway, he was taking pains at it. Some effort and time spent.? Conforme?"

"Yes, sure."

"And then," said Mendoza, "when he came to the actual faking of the accident, our clever, cautious X did it in the damnedest silliest way possible. As if he thought we'd take one casual look, and say, ‘Too bad, the poor fellow must have missed that bend in the road,' and never take a second look. As if he hadn't any idea that the Ford would leave tire marks for us to see, that we can take casts of-that we'd obviously look for skid marks and not find any. He'd used Art's own belt to tie him up, and he took a little trouble putting it back on him. It wouldn't have taken another thirty seconds to get Art's prints on the wheel and gear selector, but instead, he just wiped them both clean, and of course that told the story right there. He had heard of fingerprinting. But apart from that-"

"I don't see what you're getting at," said Palliser.

"Apart from that," said Mendoza, "either he didn't know that police forces are quite bright these days, with scientific labs and all the rest of it. Or he didn't care."

"I don't-"

"We built up a nice theory here," said Mendoza, and he was looking tired, a little sad, a little grim. "We said, wishful thinking maybe, it must have been that Art had found out something definite on one of these cases, and whoever he'd dropped on managed to jump him, put him out of action. And set up this fake accident so he couldn't pass on the information… You've been a cop long enough to know that the obvious thing is generally what happened. just look at the surface facts here and tell me whether we weren't reaching a little far out, toward the detective-story plot."

"Well, it's damned offbeat, sure, but-"

"He meant to see Telfer," said Mendoza. "We don't know whether he did. But that's not a very savory district around there. And didn't we say, not many men could put Art down and out just so easy. I'll tell you what's in my mind. just a little easier than I can see that offbeat, implausible plot, I can see him-maybe on the way back to his car-getting jumped by three or four or five louts. Juvenile louts, maybe riding high on liquor or H. And the louts, rolling him, finding out he's a cop, and saying, ‘Hey, let's have some fun with the cop.' And talking it over, forgetting about his wallet-I know he wasn't robbed-looking for his car, finding it. Tying him up in case he came to, while they argued about how to have fun with the big cop- Maybe riding around in both cars awhile, talking it over. And finally- And by that time so high they didn't take any special care about it. They'd have been disappointed the gas didn't explode. Can you see that?"

Palliser said, "Damnation. That's a story. Looking at it like that-just as a separate thing, I mean- Hell, I've got to say it'd be just a little more likely- I mean, well, expectable, if that's the word for it. But there's nothing to say-"

"We're like lawyers," said Mendoza. "We have to go by precedent. The obvious is usually just what happened… I'll just say, let's keep open minds. It could be the way we thought-but it could be something altogether different too." He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it carefully. "Let's get back and see if they've picked up Webster."

At about the same time, Sergeant Nesbitt of the Wilcox Street detective bureau was feeling pleased with himself. There'd been quite a spate of break-ins lately, with practically nothing to go looking on, and it was gratifying to have enough to make a charge on one of them. Three young punks just starting to accumulate records; a good many cops would be seeing a good deal of them from now on. He just thought about that in passing; he wasn't a particularly imaginative man, and crooks were just crooks to him. It was his job to deal with them. He dealt with them very efficiently.

These particular crooks had had a couple of weapons on them-tvvo guns and a switch-blade knife.

He finished writing up his notes on it and said casually on his way out to lunch, "Oh, Bill. You better send those cannisters down to headquarters Ballistics. They're so damn fussy about checking everything. just in case."

"O.K., will do," said Bill, and subsequently sent them, by way of an annoyed plainclothesman who had hoped to finish the Times crossword puzzle before anything came up.

The man full of hate was feeling something new and pleasant now.

He was important. He was the Goddamnedest most important guy in

He was in all the newspapers, by God.

It was exciting, it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

He couldn't make out why. Maybe it was different in a big town? Because there'd been others-he thought back, vaguely, to the others. He remembered a girl, a pretty girl, who had fought him and said, "Please." There had been that guy, Dago some kind, he'd been pretty high and hadn't fought him. And a while before that, another woman. He didn't remember where that had been, but in the country somewhere.

Not much fuss made about them. But of course he hadn't stayed around. Maybe there had been at that. He got out his knife and looked at it. He was proud of the knife. He had made it himself, back at Marlett's old farm workshop. Out of a piece of old iron he'd made it, in his spare time, and Jesus, he'd sweated blood over setting them teeth in it, like a saw. It was a good knife. It had made him somebody important.

He was in all the papers. When he'd heard some guys talking about it, in that bar last night, he'd gone out and bought a paper, and managed to spell out what it said. Some of the long words were hard, but he could read most of it. Right on the front page, it had been. Him! The Slasher, they called him. He liked that. He liked the new, exciting feeling of being important.

It was a thing he hadn't expected, hadn't reckoned on at all. He liked looking at the blood, but it was a personal, temporary thing. In a vague way he'd known that if they caught him they'd kill him-the law-just like he'd killed.

He didn't mind. No. His life hadn't been so good a thing to him that he minded. Ever since the fire in the school, back there when he was just a kid…

But now-now he was so important to millions of people!-he would mind. He thought back to the best one, the kid. Oh, Jesus God, he had liked that one, the feel of doing it. The kid, the damned little Mex kid, calling him sir. It had been all there ahead of him, the whole bit-his whole life, sex and fun and liquor and money-why the hell should he have it, when I never had nothing? I took it away from him, he thought. Like God or something.

Important. Hell, the whole state was talking about him, thinking about him. Just because…

He wouldn't have minded, a couple of days ago. Now, he thought furiously, delightedly, he'd like to do a lot more before that happened. Really show them-pay them all back, the whole world, for what they'd done to him. So he minded, now. He was thinking about that now. They'd be looking. Every man's hand against…

But it had always been that way.

He thought, and he made a plan. So they wouldn't find him.

He'd stayed in a lot worse places.

He hadn't much to pick up, in the room. He still had the money he'd saved on that job up north, a lot of money, nearly four hundred bucks. He put the bottle of bourbon into his pocket; and the cigarettes, the paper bag full of doughnuts, the extra shirt and sweater went into the little canvas bag.

He went out of his room, down the hall, and out the back door. Four houses up, along the little alley there, was Los Angeles Street. He walked up it to Temple, and on his way he passed the massive rectangular bulk of the Police Facilities Building, but he didn't know what it was.