Dell Shannon - Mark of Murder

The job wasn't necessary. All that nice money, in giltedged securities, in real estate. No. But…

Sergeant Lake looked in and said, "That Sheldon woman's here, Lieutenant."

Lieutenant. He had a place in life, as lieutenant. But maybe not fair to Alison, to the twins-and if Art… But meanwhile, thankfully, he had the job to do. He said, "O.K., Jimmy, shoot her in." He snapped his lighter, lit a cigarette.

Anita Sheldon was a vapid-looking little blonde with china-blue eyes, and she was very frightened. She hadn't known Frank Nestor very well, she didn't know anything about him really, it'd just been like meeting him for cocktails somewhere, nothing bad, but Bill had got so mad about that Youngman guy that time, there hadn't been anything in it, but Bill-if he got to know about this-He didn't understand, him away off on some job maybe four or five days, and a girl liked a little fun…

Within five minutes Mendoza put her down as a shallow little tramp; and when he heard that she'd been married to Bill for five years he provisionally crossed off Bill, who must have found her out in that time if he wasn't mentally deficient. Bill hadn't got mad enough to shoot any of her other pickups; it wasn't likely he'd shot Nestor. When he learned that Bill had been on his way up to Santa Barbara with a truckload last Tuesday night he crossed him off definitely.

Well, she had met Nestor in his office on two occasions."But not to stay there, of course, we'd go on to some nice restaurant, somewhere like that."

When Mendoza thanked her, told her she could go, she shot off like a scalded cat. Evidently, he thought, Nestor had picked up whatever came handy: and from all he knew of him, that ran true. Ladies' man, not too particular. The ones like Anita Sheldon flattered and caught by his charm-but Ruth Elger had been something else again. Going out with him because she'd had a fight with her husband. Using Nestor. And maybe the first time she'd strayed, and Elger… But would Elger have shot him? Hair-trigger Elger more likely to have beaten him up, maybe?

Mendoza took out the button and looked at it. Well, see what turned up there. He felt harried; he was getting nothing on all this at all, and time was catching up to him-he had the worried feeling that there was something, some relevant fact, right under his nose, if he wasn't too stupid to see it.

He forced himself to sit still, take a couple of deep breaths. He was trying to go at it too fast, do everything at once. Sit and think calmly over the evidence, take it easy.

Nestor's high-society scrapbook was lying on his desk along with a few other things; he picked it up. It occurred to him that possibly, if his guess as to its purpose was the right one, and if Nestor had even once recognized a patient, he might have indicated it in some way. Either in the scrapbook or on that list in Madge Corliss' safety box. Idly he started leafing through the book.

The first item taped to the page was short: Miss Susan Marlowe, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Marlowe, spent a delightful Easter weekend cruising aboard the yacht of the J. Haskin Treadwells. No pictures on that. Of course Nestor would have been interested because of his slight connection with Marlowe. He went on looking; the year-in, year-out social affairs, the races, operas, first nights, teas and dinners and lectures. A lot of pictures, but Nestor hadn't scribbled anything in the margins. "?Nada! " said Mendoza, and shut the book.

And the outside phone rang on Sergeant Lake's desk… "It's another one, Lieutenant. Another Slasher job. Just found."

"Hell!" said Mendoza. There was nobody else in the office. "Where?"

"San Pedro and Fifth. Squad car just got there."

"All right. Rout out Bainbridge?

There was quite a crowd around when he got there; a second car had arrived and two uniformed men were rather helplessly trying to move the crowd on. The press had also arrived; he saw the flash bulbs going off, and Wolfe of the Citizen gave him a tight-lipped humorless grin as he pushed into the crowd.

"They do say the population's rising too fast, Lieutenant. This is one way to cure it, I guess. But we always thought you boys were a little smarter."

"Like to change jobs?" said Mendoza curtly. "Let me through, please… What have you got on it so far, boys?”

They hadn't got much. The body-looking much the same as all the other bodies the Slasher had left behind him hadn't any identification on it. It was the body of a middle-aged man, and the only items on him were half of a Greyhound Bus ticket from San Diego to Los Angeles, three single dollar bills and some change, in an otherwise empty wallet, and a Hat pint bottle of scotch, nearly empty. His clothes were old and shabby, and he looked unkempt.

The body had been left where, probably, it had become a body, in the middle of a narrow alley between two buildings. It had been found by a couple of truck drivers backing in there to make deliveries.

Nothing much to be done on the spot. Quite impossible to say whether an item or so among the many dirty, miscellaneous items in the alley had been dropped by the Slasher.

"All right," said Mendoza. "You know the routine."

Lake would be chasing up somebody to come and take pictures. "When the surgeon's seen him and we've got some pictures, let the ambulance boys take him. Drivers' names?… O.K. We'll try to identify him through the bus ticket-I'll take that stuff now."

But as he pushed out through the crowd again a hand touched his arm timidly. "Please, you are one of the Polizei, sir? I-I-maybe I know something about this terrible man, sir. I-"

He looked down at her. The careful English was thick with German accent. She was a little plump blonde, a real blonde, about thirty-five; she looked like the illustration on bars of very good Dutch chocolate, pink cheeks and all. She was wearing a mightily starched white apron over a very neat blue house dress. "Please," she said anxiously, "I am Gertrud Flickschuster, sir."

The interested crowd surged nearer, and Mendoza said, "For God's sake, can't you get these ghouls to move on? Mrs.-Flickschuster?-come over here, please. What is it you think you know?"

"I hear the poor man is found, it is another from-by this terrible murderer, so I come. To find a-the word I don't know-Geheimpolizist -to tell. I think I have seen this man. In our delicatessen he comes"-she pointed up the street-"last night."

"You'd better come back to headquarters and make a statement," said Mendoza.

She hesitated. "You will-I may come out again? There is Rudi alone in the shop-"

"Yes, of course." He smiled at her; by the accent, she hadn't been in the theoretically free country long. He put her, starched apron and all, into the Ferrari, drove back to headquarters, and took her up to his office. "Take some notes on this, Jimmy. Now, Mrs. Flickschuster?"

It seemed that the Flickschusters, who had come here four years ago, kept a delicatessen. They stayed open until nine most evenings, and one or the other of them or both were always behind the counter. And just before they closed last night a man had come in and bought a half pound of sausage, a pound carton of potato salad, and a quart of milk. Gertrud had waited on him and remembered him well-"Because he is so ugly, sir, a terrible face. It has the hollow cheeks like a death's head, and this terrible mark on his face- vernarben – die narbe on his face, from the burn, it looks-all red, across the nose. But it is not until Rudi has been reading the newspaper that I have known-it is saying about this man-"

"Yes." And that might be a more interesting and significant little story than it looked at first glance. Mendoza got her signature to a statement, phoned for a car to drive her back to the delicatessen… The Slasher, buying precooked food at night. The man was staying somewhere, damn it, but with the press relaying his now known description to the public, he hadn't rented another room as yet-that they knew. Nobody was likely to rent him one when they'd had a look at him.