Nothing very much to support his conviction, on the surface evidence. And he must guard against holding it blind, if other evidence pointed another way. As it would-as it did. Nobody lived long without giving at least a few people reasons for dislike, sometimes reasons for murder. They might turn up several here. And that was the easy way to look for a murderer, among only a few, the immediate surroundings and routines of the girl who'd been killed.
If he was right, they'd need to spread a wider net. For someone quite outside, someone without logical motive. Someone, somewhere among the five million people in this teeming metropolitan place sprawling in all directions-someone who was dangerous a hundred times over because the danger from him was secret, unsuspected.
This time Mendoza would like to get that one. Because he had missed him six months ago, another girl was in a cold-storage tray at the city morgue now.
FOUR
They met for a not-too leisured lunch at Federico's, out on North Broadway. Hackett left him to mull over what meager information they had; his own next stop was obviously the skating rink. The waiter whisked away the relics of the meal, apologetically; they never hurried you at Federico's, you could sit as long as you pleased. "More coffee, sir?"
"Please." Mendoza brooded over his refilled cup; he should go back to his office and occupy himself at being a lieutenant; there were other cases on hand than this.
The girl who had found the body, nothing there immediately: nothing known against her, but little emerged of her background either. It was a very long chance that she had anything to do with it, but of course she had to be investigated. As did every aspect of the Ramirez girl's life. And after that, where to look?
He drank black coffee and dwelt for a moment on Mrs. Elvira Wade. In her appalingly cluttered, tasteless, middle-class-and-proud-of-it living room: a God-fearing upright citizen, Mrs. Wade, who had spread a little too much in the waist and hips, not at all in the mind.
"Of course we didn't like it, to say the least-a Mexican girl-and such a girl, all that cheap-looking bleached hair and perfectly dreadful clothes, but of course they're always so fond of garish colors, you know. And then of course there was the religious question. Really, boys have no sense, but it's beyond me how a son of mine could be so taken in, after all you'd think he'd have some finer instincts, the way I've tried to bring him up. Not that I'm not sorry for the poor thing, the girl I mean, and one shouldn't speak ill of the dead. I try to take a Christian view I'm sure and after all people can't help being born what they are, but when it comes to accepting them into one's family' It was something, however, to have embarrassed such a woman even momentedly: her belated furtive glance at his card, her ugly pink flush, almost ludicrous. "And of course," she had added hurriedly, "there's all the difference in the world between people like that and the real high-class old Spanish families, everyone knows that, I understand the peasant class is actually mostly Indian and the real Spaniards wouldn't have anything to do with them. But I'm sure you can see how we, my husband and I, felt'
Mendoza sighed into the dregs of his coffee. It did not, apparently, cross Mrs. Wade's mind that she had perhaps, in a sense, contributed to the girl's death. The boy had been strictly forbidden to see Elena again ("really such strong measures were necessary, though he is nineteen and ordinarily I don't believe in iron discipline"), and when it was discovered, through a garrulous acquaintance of Ricky's, that he had not borrowed the family car to go to the movies last night but to take Elena to that awful skating place-Well, I said to Mr. Wade, when it comes to lying to his own parents, something drastic must be done! You can see how she corrupted him, he'd never done such a thing before-I said to Mr. Wade, you'll go right down there and, So Mr. Wade (could one conjecture, breathing fire, or were the men married to such women capable of it?-at least he seemed to have acted effectively) had, by bus, sought out the Palace rink, publicly reprimanded the erring Ricky, and fetched him ignominiously away. After this soul-scaring experience, nineteen-year-old Ricky had probably been in no state to consider how Elena would get home, and if it had occurred to the Wades, presumably they had thought a girl like that would be used to going about alone at night.
As, Mendoza conceded, she had been: she had probably got home alone before. He pushed his coffee cup round in a little circle, aimlessly; and of course the girl would also have been angry, humiliated-quite possibly she might have let a stranger pick her up, a thing she wouldn't ordinarily do. Someone at the rink?
He wondered what Hackett would find out there. He paid the bill, redeemed the Ferrari from the lot attendant, and instead of turning back downtown for headquarters, negotiated his way through the bottleneck round the Union Station and turned up Sunset Boulevard. It had begun to rain steadily, after long threat.
The address Teresa had given him was close into town, along the less glamorous stretches of that street. It proved to be the upper half of a small office building, not new. A narrow door and a steep stair brought him to a landing and a sign: THE SUNSET SCHOOL OF CHARM. A mousy girl with a flat figure and harlequin glasses was scrabbling among papers at the receptionist's desk.
"Miss Weir?"
"Oh, dear me, no." She moved the glasses up to focus on him better. "No classes on Saturday, sir, and we don't enroll gentlemen anyway."
"Which is not what I am here for," said Mendoza, annoyed at the implication. "I want to see Miss Weir on private business."
"Not here on Saturdays…. Of course I have her home address, but I don't know-oh, well, I suppose it's all right."
New directions took him, tediously, several miles into Hollywood, to a street of solidly middle-aged apartment buildings, a little shabby, thirty years away from being fashionable addresses, but neatly kept up. The row of locked mailboxes in the foyer of the Blanchard Arms informed him that Miss Alison Weir lived on the fourth floor. A hand-lettered placard further informed him that the elevator was out of order.
Mendoza said mildly, "Damn," toiled up three flights of dark, dusty-carpeted stairs, pressed the bell of 406 and, regaining his breath, hoped his quarry was in.
When the door opened to him, he was gratified for more reasons than one. Miss Alison Weir was worth the drive through traffic, worth a wasted afternoon. A middling tall young woman, with an admirably rounded yet slender figure, less conventionally pretty than charmingly provocative-rather square chin, a nose too small, a mouth too large, alert gray-green-hazel eyes under feathery brows, a magnificent mattewhite complexion, and crisply cut and curled hair somewhere between copper and auburn, which was moreover nature's own choice for her. Her tailored dress was exactly the color of her hair, there were discreet gleams of topaz costume jewelry, her lipstick and nail polish were of the same burnt-orange shade. Twenty-nine, thirty, he said to himself: recovered, thank God, from the arch uncertainty of girlhood, and miraculously not bent on maintaining it: one might even suspect that great rarity in a woman, a sense of humor.
"Yes?" And her voice matched the rest of her, a warm contralto. As he produced his credentials, explained, he swore mentally at the destiny which involved the woman in a case. It was not a good idea to mix personal matters with the job, and he was scrupulous about it. Until this woman was proved definitely to be clear of any connection with the case-he would be extremely surprised if she had, but it had to be checked, of course-strictly business, Luis, he said to himself regretfully.