Dell Shannon - Exploit of Death

"She's at the college now?"

"Yes, she had to finish up registering for classes. My husband got her a good used car for transportation. But what on earth is this all about? Police asking about Linda?"

She was indignant now.

"Sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Lucas. It was just a little mistake in the name."

She was still looking bewildered as they turned back down the front walk. ln the Ferrari, Mendoza automatically switched on the air-conditioning, but made no move to pull out into the street. The powerful engine purred in a low voice. He lit a cigarette.

"Dead end, Arturo. But, Grandfather, where the hell and who the hell is Grandfather? Damn it, Grandfather's got to be mixed in somehow."

"I don't exactly see how you make that out," said Hackett dubiously. "The little she said, it sounds as if it was a, well, a friendly relationship, if she hadn't ever met the man before. She was coming to stay with him, presumably, and now we can assume that he or somebody met her at the airport with a car."

"And took her where? To Grandfather's? And subsequently to the apartment. When? Monday? Tuesday? That place all stocked and set up to be the plausible background for the nonexistent Ruth Hoffman. I don't think Juliette ever saw it unti1 she was drugged far enough that she wouldn't care where she was. By the autopsy, it's a distinct possibility that she'd been kept under sedatives for several days, since Saturday."

"Yes," said Hackett. "But it's so damn shapeless, Luis. No rhyme or reason."

"And," said Mendoza savagely, "Grandfather knew all about it."

"You're picking him for the arch-villain again?"

"Read it, for God's sake. He was expecting her. He knew which plane she'd be on. She was met at the airport by somebody. If she didn't reach Grandfather's and he doesn't know anything about all this, why hasn't he been making waves? Reported her unaccountably missing? Two plus two. But I'll tell you something else. There's more than one X. Somebody besides Grandfather. Because a woman applied for that library card in the Hoffman name."

"Yes," said Hackett. "Yes, it seems to add up that way. But there's nowhere else to go on it, now. There's only one more thing I can see. The answers are in France and we'll have to wait for them. She told Alison she'd be here about three weeks. Well, somebody in France, the boyfriend, any girlfriends, her employer, knows when she'd be coming home. They wouldn't expect to hear from her while she's here and I think airmail takes about a week to get to Europe anyway. They'll be assuming she's all right for another couple of weeks, but when she doesn't turn up and they don't hear anything, somebody will report it to the French police and they'll ask us some questions, and they'll be able to tell us who Grandfather is."

"That's a bunch of ifs, Arturo," said Mendoza. "Or am I being pessimistic? Yes, surely to God, her fiance, her best girlfriends knew where she'd be staying here. You're probably right, we'll have to wait for it. But whoever took her off, for whatever reason, they'd know that too. That it was only a question of time before we found out that Juliette was missing and could trace her to Grandfather and ferret out the substitution."

"Well, I wonder," said Hackett. He hunched his wide shoulders in the low bucket seat. "Is there a Grandfather?"

Mendoza turned to stare at him. "That's a new hare-brained notion. You're saying she told a tale, as an excuse to fly to Los Angeles, maybe? Por la gracia de Dios, that was a perfectly respectable honest girl. But more to the point, if the story was a lie, why should she come out with it voluntarily to a stranger in a plane?"

"True," admitted Hackett. "But so, somebody tells us about Grandfather and we go to ask and he says I thought she changed her mind about coming. What's to prove different? And as far as Hoffman goes, you said it yourself, if you hadn't been the one to look at the corpse, it's on the cards we'd have bought that suicide at face value and written it off. Asked Chicago to do a little checking for a family, but with such a common name we wouldn't have been surprised when they couldn't find any. There was enough money left on her to pay for a funeral-and adidos. A month, two months later, what's to connect her with a Juliette Martin reported missing from France? Even if they wired photos, how many bodies per week do we see?"

"More than most divisions," said Mendoza.

"I still think we ought to bring the Daggetts in and grill them, hot and heavy."

Mendoza laughed sharply. "And on two counts I don't think it'd be any use, Art. In the first place, unless we could show them proof that we know they're lying, they'll stick to their story. But more important, I don't think they know much to tell. That was such a-what's the word I want-a very crafty little operation."

"How do you mean?"

"So simple, so plausible, but showing the ultimate cunning. I think all X wanted of the Daggetts was that convenient apartment, the key to it, the nice rent receipts, and the story. Somehow I don't think this particular X would lay himself open to possible blackmail from the Daggetts."

"There is that. All I say is we'll have to wait for any answers. Eventually, somebody will miss her and ask questions."

Mendoza stabbed out his cigarette and at last released the parking brake and pulled the Ferrari out to the street.

GALEANO HAD ROPED Jason Grace into helping on the legwork. They had broken the seal on the door and gone through the Eberhart apartment. There was an address book with not many names in it, but among them was an Alice Bickerstaff, an address and phone number in Cleveland, Ohio. Galeano let Grace do the calling. Grace's soft voice was always reassuring to witnesses.

It was the daughter. And of course she reacted expectably. When Grace got her talking coherently, she couldn't tell him anything useful. She hadn't heard from her mother since last week, and the letter hadn't said anything about any trouble, any worry, just how hot it was and how tired the job made her. Her mother hadn't had any really close friends. She didn't go out much. About her best friend was a Mrs. Cora Delaney. "But, of course, it must have been a burglar. The crime rate is so high and that wasn't a very nice part of town, only it's anywhere these days-and it's awful to say, but we couldn't afford anything for a funeral, my husband's been out of work-"

Grace assured her that there seemed to be nearly a thousand dollars in her mother's checking account. They had found the bankbook. He told her about the mandatory autopsy. "Would you like an undertaker here to arrange a funeral, Mrs. Bickerstaff? We can give you a couple of names."

"Oh, it's just awful to say-" But she sounded relieved. "Oh would you'? I guess that'd be the easiest thing to do, thank you."

There were still a couple of hours till the end of shift. They drove up to Hollywood to locate the only man who figured in the address book-a Pete Openshaw, at an address on Kingsley. It was an apartment house very much like the one Rose Eberhart had lived in, and Openshaw was sitting in a shabby living room with the door and all the windows open and an electric fan going three feet away. He'd been reading a paperback western. He was a nondescript fellow, about fifty, partly bald, with a snub nose and friendly blue eyes. He was astonished and grieved to hear the news. ‘

"Say, that's a hell of a terrible thing, Rose dead. An attack of some kind? My God, I'm sorry to hear it."

They asked questions and he answered quite openly.

"Well, she always brought her car into the station where I work down on Alvarado. That's how we got to know each other. And since I lost my wife, I didn't fancy getting hooked up again and neither did Rose, she'd had two marriages go sour on her-but sometimes it's nice to have somebody to go out with, know what I mean? Neither of us had the money to go to fancy restaurants or shows, but we went to a movie now and then or to some place for Sunday breakfast. You know, like that." The last time he had seen her was last Sunday. They had gone to a movie in Hollywood.