Dell Shannon - Exploit of Death

Piggott hadn't finished the report when they got another call to another heist. There were five witnesses to this one and all good witnesses. It was a liquor store and both owners had been there with three old friends, just about to start a friendly game of draw in the back office after the store was closed. They were all older men who had seen military service and didn't scare easily. They hadn't wanted anybody to get hurt so they hadn't put up a fight, and the owners had only left enough cash in the register to start with change tomorrow; he'd only got about twenty bucks. But they all described him graphically. A Negro about twenty-five, six feet, small mustache, dark pants and yellow shirt, no discernible accent. They all agreed on the gun-a revolver, either a. 38 or. 45, probably a Colt.

"This will give the day watch some legwork," said Piggott. On a lot of the recent heists, there wasn't much to do. When there was a good description, there was. They looked in Records for men who matched the description, went and looked for them, brought them in for questioning. It could be tedious and largely futile, but once in a while they hit a jackpot.

The phone rang and Conway picked it up. "Say, where have you been? I've been trying to get you for an hour. This is Slattery down at the garage."

"We've been on a call. Did that car get brought in?"

"Well, that's what I'm calling about. I went up to Hollywood to get it, and you might have warned me, for God's sake, you gave me the hell of a shock. I mean, for God's sake, I've seen bodies before-I was two years in 'Nam-but I wasn't expecting it."

"A body?" said Conway.

"Yeah, in the back seat of this Chrysler. It's a woman."

"Well, surprise, surprise," said Conway. "I suppose the Hollywood man just checked the plate. Just leave it alone, I'll see if I can get the lab out." He called and somebody named Steiner said through a yawn that they'd get on it. "You want the works-pictures and all? O.K. You boys do pick the goddamndest time to find corpses."

"I TOLD YOU so," said Carey. He and Mendoza stood in the cold room down at the morgue looking at the body in its tray. Edna Holzer had probably been an attractive woman, but you wouldn't know it now. She'd been stripped and her clothes sent up to the lab, and nothing had been done to the body pending the autopsy. There were ugly cyanosed stains on her throat and shoulders and her face was twisted into a grimace.

"And I don't need an autopsy to know she was strangled," added Carey. "Knocked around a little first. The doctors will say if she's been raped."

"And not very long after she left the hospital on Saturday night," said Mendoza. "There wouldn't have been much traffic at that hour along the couple of blocks before she'd hit the freeway, but-"

"But," said Carey, "woman driving alone at night, it would've been dark for about half an hour, she'd automatically keep the car doors locked. Even if she caught a light, how could anybody have jumped her'? I suppose he could've been waiting in the parking lot-grabbed her when she came back to the car. It's about the only way it could've happened. She wasn't planning to stop anywhere between there and home."

"?Condenacion! " said Mendoza, brushing violently at his mustache. "We've got a hell of a lot too much on hand already, with that damned hospital staff to delve into, and another homicide, and that new heist. All we need is something like this. Of course, the lab might pick up something on the car. Well, no rest for the wicked, as Art says. We'll have to work it."

They drove up to Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood in the Ferrari. The Holzer house was a comfortable old Spanish place with a manicured lawn in front. Frances Holzer was home and Carey broke the news to her.

She was a pretty girl about twenty-five with brown hair, a fair complexion, and hazel eyes. She had looked a little haggard already, and she broke down and wept for quite a while. They gave her time. Finally, she sat up and blew her nose and said in a shaking voice, "I knew she was dead-I just knew it. I knew she had to be when she didn't come home. I said to her when she left that night, I wished she wouldn't go, I said she could go on Sunday-in daylight. That's right downtown-that hospital. Not a good part of town. But she said there was that deposition to do in the morning, and she wanted to wash her hair in the afternoon. Maybe I had a premonition. I just couldn't go to work all week, I called in sick. I knew she'd never come home again."

"Would she have had much money with her, Miss Holzer?" asked Mendoza.

"No, just a few dollars. But all her credit cards-I did have enough sense to call and put a stop on those. Just in case-in case-"

Mendoza made a mental note to find out which cards they were, ask the central clearing office to notify them on the outside chance that somebody might try to use those accounts.

"Oh, my God, I've got to call Mona-my sister. They've been just frantic too, but they live in Bakersfield and couldn't come-they'll have to now."

"Was she careful about keeping the car doors locked?" asked Carey.

She gave them a wild look and began to cry again. "But that's why I'd been so worried about her going out alone at night-I begged her not to go-she said, the freeway nearly all the way-"

They gave her another minute while she sobbed. "What do you mean, Miss Holzer?" asked Mendoza.

"The l-l-lock on the right front door was b-b-broken. They had to send for a part. It wasn't going to be fixed until next week. Oh, my God, I'd better call Mona right away-"

Mendoza and Carey looked at each other. Such a simple explanation when you knew.

ON WEDNESDAY, just before noon, the autopsy and lab report on Verna Coffey arrived at about the same time. Palliser was alone in the Robbery-Homicide office. He'd been delegated to write the latest report on the Alisio case. It was Hackett's day off and everybody else was over at the hospital.

There wasn't much in the autopsy report. She'd been beaten to death and, from the lab report, apparently by the hammer left beside her. There was blood, hair, and brain tissue on that. There hadn't been any readable prints on the hammer, but they had picked up quite a few around the little apartment. Most of them were hers. There were nine others belonging to three different people, probably, unknown to Records-very likely the rest of the Coffey family. And somebody ought to get their prints for comparison. There had also been two good prints identified as those of Toby Wells-record appended. Palliser sat up in surprise, but when he had read the attached Xerox copy, his interest faded a little. It wasn't much of a pedigree-an arrest for theft from an expensive men's clothing store a couple of years back. Disposition, goods paid for and the court ordered a year's probation. The only reason he'd been printed and got into Records was that it was a technical felony, theft of goods valued at more than a hundred dollars. It was natural enough that his prints should be there. He was Verna Coffey's grandson. They had been picked up from the side of the washbowl in the bathroom, and the family had all been there the Sunday before the murder. They could easily have stayed there for six days without getting smudged. But they'd talk to him and find out where he'd been that Friday night.

The phone rang and he picked it up, still looking at the report.

"Robbery-Homicide, Sergeant Palliser."

"Say," said Duke at the lab. "Did you get that report yet? Good. I meant to put a note in with it. We've been kind of busy and it slipped my mind. I'll tell you what, Palliser, if you ever pick up a good solid suspect on this Coffey homicide, you bring all his shoes along to us. We'll maybe give you some beautiful scientific evidence."