I was at home the following Wednesday frying Night Train his morning hamburger when he brought me the news that was to change my life forever.
My landlady, Mrs. Gates, had been complaining about Train chewing up her plants, shrubs, garden chairs, newspapers, and magazines. She was a dog lover, but frequently told me that Night Train was more "voodoo beast" than dog, and that I should have him "fixed" to curb his rambunctiousness. So when I heard a shrill, "Mr. Underhill!" coming from the front lawn, I put on my widest smile and walked outside ready to do some placating.
Mrs. Gates was standing above Night Train, swatting him with a broom. He seemed to be enjoying it, rolling in the grass on his back with the morning paper wedged firmly between his salivating jaws.
"You give me my paper, voodoo dog!" the woman was shouting. "You can chew it up when I'm finished reading it. Give it to me!"
I laughed. I had come to love Night Train in the months since Wacky's death, and he never failed to amuse me.
"Mr. Underhill, you make that evil dog stop chewing my newspaper! Make him give it to me!"
I bent down and scratched Night Train's belly until he dropped the paper and started to nuzzle me. I flipped it open to show Mrs. Gates that no damage had been done, then caught the headlines and went numb.
"Woman Found Strangled in Hollywood Apartment" it read. Below the headline was a photograph of Maggie Cadwallader—the same Maggie with whom I had coupled in February, shortly before Wacky's death.
I pushed Train and the caterwauling Mrs. Gates away, then sat down and read:
A young woman was found strangled to death in her Hollywood apartment late Monday night by curious neighbors who heard sounds and went to investigate. The woman, Margaret Cadwallader, 36, of 2311 Harold Way, Hollywood, was employed as a bookkeeper at the Small World Import-Export Company on Virgil Street in Los Angeles. Police were summoned to the scene, and the woman's body was removed pending an autopsy. However, assistant L.A. County medical examiner David Beyless was quoted as saying, "It was a strangulation, pure and simple." Detectives from the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department have sealed the premises, and are looking at burglary as the motive.
"I think the woman was killed when she awakened to her apartment being ransacked. The state of the apartment confirms this. That will be the starting point of our investigation. We expect a break at any time," said Sgt. Arthur Holland, the officer in charge.
The victim, originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin, had been a resident of the Los Angeles area for two years. She is survived by her mother, Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader, of Waukesha. Friends from her place of employment are tending to the funeral arrangements.
I put the newspaper down and stared at the grass.
"Mr. Underhill? Mr. Underhill?" Mrs. Gates was saying. I ignored her and walked back to my apartment and sat on the couch, staring at the floor.
Maggie Cadwallader, a lonely woman, dead. My one-night conquest, dead. Her death was not unlike that of the woman whose body Wacky and I had discovered. Probably the deaths were unrelated, yet there was the slightest bit of physical evidence linking them: I had met Maggie at the Silver Star. Her first time, she told me. But she may well have returned, frequently. I wracked my brain for the name of the woman whose body Wacky and I had found, and came up with it: Leona Jensen. She had had matches from the Silver Star in an ashtray filled with matchbooks. It was slight, but enough.
I changed clothes, putting on my light blue gabardine summer suit, made coffee and mourned for Maggie—thinking more of her little boy in the orphanage back east who would never see his mother. Maggie, so lonely, so much in need of what I and probably no man could have given her. It was a sad night I had spent with her. My curiosity and her loneliness had been left unresolved, anger on her part and self-disgust the only resolution on mine. And now this, leaving me feeling somehow responsible.
I knew what I had to do. I had three quick cups of coffee and locked Night Train in the apartment with a half-dozen big soup bones, then got my car and drove to my old home, Wilshire Station.
I parked in the Sears lot a block away and telephoned the desk, asking for Detective Sergeant DiCenzo. He came on the line a minute later, sounding harried. "DiCenzo here, who's this?"
"Sergeant, this is Officer Underhill. Do you remember me?"
"Sure, kid, I remember you. You got famous right after I met you. What's up?"
"I'd like to talk to you briefly, as soon as possible."
"I'm gonna get lunch in about five minutes, across the street at the Shamrock. I'll be there for the better part of an hour."
"I'll be there," I said, then hung up.
The Shamrock was a bar-lunch joint specializing in corned beef sandwiches. I found DiCenzo at the back, wolfing a "special" and chasing it down with a beer. He greeted me warmly. "Sit down. You look good, college man. Too bad about your partner. Where you been? I ain't seen you around."
I filled him in as quickly as I could. He seemed satisfied, but surprised that I liked working in Watts.
"So what do you want, kid?" he asked finally.
I tried to sound interested, yet offhand. "You remember that dead woman my partner and I found on Twenty-eighth Street?"
"Yeah, a beautiful young dame. A real pity."
"Right. I was wondering what the upshot of your investigation was. Did you ever find the killer?"
DiCenzo looked at me curiously. "No, we never did. We rousted a lot of burglars, but no go. We checked out the dame's personal life, which was nothing hot—no enemies, all her friends and relatives had alibis. That print you circled on the wall belonged to the dame herself. We got a couple of dozen crazies who confessed, but they were just nuts. It's just one of those things, kid. You win some, you lose some. How come you're interested?"
"The woman looked like an old girlfriend of mine. Finding her dead got me, I guess." I lowered my head, feigning disbelief at the awesomeness of death.
DiCenzo bought it. "You'll get over these things," he said. Lowering his voice, he added, "You'll have to, if you wanna stay on the job."
I got up to go. "Thanks, Sergeant," I said.
"Anytime, kid. Be good. Take care of yourself." DiCenzo smiled heartily and went back to devouring his lunch.
I drove up to Hollywood Station on Wilcox just south of Sunset and lucked out, walking brazenly through the entrance hall, nodding at the desk sergeant and walking straight upstairs to the detective squad room, where a briefing on Maggie Cadwallader's murder had just begun.
The small room was packed with at least twenty dicks standing and sitting at desks, listening as a portly older cop explained what he wanted done. I stood in the doorway, trying to blend in like just another off-duty officer. No one seemed to notice me.
"I think we got burglary," the older cop was saying. "The woman's apartment was ransacked but good. No prints—the only prints we got belong to the victim and her landlady she used to play cards with. The man from downstairs who found the body left some, too. They've been questioned and are not suspects. We got no recent murders on the books that match this. Now here's what I want: I want every burglar known to use violence brought in and questioned. There was no rape, but I want all burglars with sex offenses on their rap sheets brought in anyway. I want all burglary reports in the Hollywood area for the past six months that resulted in arrest and dismissal checked out. Phone the D.A.'s office for disposition of all cases. I want to know how many of these shitheads we caught are back out on the street, then I want all of them brought in and questioned.
"I've got two men talking to neighbors. I want to know about what valuables this Cadwallader dame owned. From there we can lean on fences and check out the pawnshops. I want all the dope addicts on the boulevard brought in and leaned on hard. This is probably a panic killing, and a hophead looking for a fix might strangle a dame and then leave without taking anything. I've got two men questioning people in the neighborhood about that night. If anyone saw or heard anything, we'll know about it. That's it for now. Let's break it up."