"There’s a classic tag line you oughta remember: It’s wonderful anywhere."
"So maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Nevertheless, we’ll hang onto it, and I want a sketch of this place, showing that door and the exact spot this was found."
"O.K., will do." There was always a lot of labor expended on such jobs, in a thing like this, that turned out to have been unnecessary; but it couldn’t be helped. And in case something turned out to be relevant, they had to keep the D.A.’s office in mind, document the evidence.
"And what happened to you‘?" added Mendoza, turning on Dwyer, who was sporting a patch bandage taped across one eye.
Dwyer said aggrievedly he ought to’ve run the guy in for obstructing an officer. All he’d been doing was try to find out more about that Browne girl who’d found the body-as per orders. First he’d got the rough side of her landlady’s tongue-the girl wasn’t home-for asking a few ordinary little questions, like did the girl ever bring men home, or get behind in the rent, and so on-you’d have thought she was the girl’s ma, the way she jumped on him-if the police didn’t have anything better to do than come round insulting decent women-! She’s still yakking at him about that when this guy shows up, who turns out to be some friend of the girl’s, and before Dwyer can show his badge, the guy damns him up and down for a snooper and hauls off and-"Me, Lieutenant! It was a fluke punch, he caught me off balance-"
"That’s your story," said Hackett.
"I swear to-Me, walking into one off a guy I could give four inches and thirty pounds-and his name turns out to be Joe Carpaccio at that!"
"So now you’ve provided the comic relief, what did you get?"
"Not a damn thing but the shiner. Except she’s only lived there three months or so. But how could she be anything to do with it, Lieutenant?"
"I don’t think she is, but no harm getting her last address."
"Well, that was why-"
"Let me give him all the news," said Hackett. "You take the car and go on back, send Clawson over to do a sketch. And then go home and nurse that eye, you’ve had enough excitement for one day." Dwyer said gratefully he’d do that, he had the hell of a headache and he must be getting old, let anything like that happen. Hackett said, "Let’s sit down. I’ve got a couple of little things for you. First, Browne. I was bright enough to ask for her last address when we took her formal statement-let her think it was a regulation of some kind-thought it might be useful. And you might say it was. She gave one, but it turned out to be nonexistent. Which is why I sent Bert to sniff around some more."
"That’s a queer one," said Mendoza. "You think it’s anything for us?"
Hackett considered. "It doesn’t smell that way to me, no. She struck me as an honest girl, and sensible too, which means it’s not likely she’s mixed into anything illegal. But they say everybody’s got something to hide. We might trace her back, sure, but I think all we’d find would be the kind of thing innocent people get all hot and bothered about hiding-an illegitimate baby or a relative in the nut house, or maybe she’s run away from an alcoholic husband. I think it’d be a waste of time myself, but you’re the boss."
"It might be just as well to find out," said Mendoza slowly. "In a thing like this, any loose end sticking out of the tangle, take hold and pull-maybe it isn’t connected to the main knot, or maybe it is-you can’t know until you follow it in."
"O.K., I got more for you." The brief flare of the match as he lit a new cigarette brought some looks his way again. The kids on the floor were more interested in them than skating, now-gathering in little groups, slow-moving, to whisper excitedly about it; some of them would have known Elena.
Mendoza stared out at them absently, listening to Hackett. It was now just about thirty-three hours since the body had been found; a lot of routine spadework had kept a lot of men busy in that time. A dozen formal statements had been taken, from the Ramirez family, from three or four of the kids present here on Friday night, from Ehrlich and the two attendants, from the Wades and their visiting neighbor. A great many other people had been questioned, and of course written reports had been turned in on most of this and a new case-file started by the office staff. Again, as six months before, routine inquiry was being made into all recently released or escaped mental patients, and the present whereabouts of persons with records of similar violent assaults. The official machinery had ground elsewhere, arranging for the coroner’s inquest… As inevitably happened, crime had touched the lives of many innocent people, had grouped together an incongruous assortment of individuals whose private lives had in some part been invaded, you could say-if incidentally and with benevolent motive.
And-he finally stopped lingering the cigarette he’d got out five minutes ago, and lit it-he would offer odds that if, as, and when they caught up with this one, it would turn out to be one of the many homicides any police officer had seen, which need never have happened if someone had used a little common sense, or more self-control, or hadn’t been a little too greedy or vain or possessive or impatient.
Like Mrs. Demarest, he sometimes felt it would be nice to believe there was a master plan, that some reason for all this existed. He disapproved on principle of anything so disorderly as blind fate.
"After telling you you’re chasin’ rainbows," Hackett was saying, "I’ll give you a little more confirmation. I saw the Wade boy again, and he says maybe there was such a guy, Elena mentioned it to him. Twice. He thinks the first time was about a week ago, but they were out together two nights running and he won’t swear which it was-they came here both nights. Anyway, she asked him did he see the guy sitting there at the side staring at her all the time-"
"Here," said Mendoza, sitting up. "Right here? So-"
"Don’t run to get a warrant. The boy says he looked, and there was somebody sitting where she said, but he couldn’t see what he looked like in the dark, just that there was somebody there. He didn’t pay much attention, because he thought it was just one of the other kids, and Elena was imagining things-‘1ike girls do,’ he said-when she said it was the same guy she’d seen in here before, and that he never took his eyes off her. You’ll be happy to know that Ricky also came to this conclusion because he didn’t see how she could recognize a face that far off, in this light-he couldn’t. He wears glasses for driving and movies, and he didn’t have them on, never wears them in here on account of the danger of breakage."
"?Fuegos del infierno! " exclaimed Mendoza violently. "Of course, of course!"
"Go on listening, it gets better. He says Elena told him she’d seen the guy here five or six times, always in about the same spot, but Ricky thought then she’d maybe seen a couple of different kids, different times, and imagined the rest. O.K. On Friday night, when they first got here, she looked, and he wasn’t there. But later on, all of a sudden she spotted him, and made Ricky look, and there he was-or there somebody was. Now, mind you, just like her sister, Ricky didn’t think she was afraid of this fellow, that there was anything like that to it. If he had, if she’d acted that way, all the people she mentioned it to would’ve thought of it right off, and I read it myself that she started out being kind of flattered and annoyed at once, which would be natural, and then just annoyed. Because there was something ‘funny’ about him. So, when she spotted him again Friday night, she acted so worried about it that Ricky decided to get a closer look, to watch for the guy again, if you follow me. Elena said he’d showed up so sudden it was like magic, one time she looked and no guy, and about three seconds later she happened to look again and there he was-"
"Yes, of course. So?"
"So then, finish. Before Ricky gets over to take a close look, Papa comes in breathing righteous wrath and yanks him out."
This time Mendoza didn’t swear, merely shut his eyes.