"We never saw them, they came out from behind some cars-just grabbed us and held us while the rest of them tore off my necklace and earrings-"
"And got my billfold- I tried to get loose and put up a fight but they were all damn big bastards-"
Schenke got them calmed down a little and sorted things out. "Well, I don't know to a dime how much I had on me, but it must've been close to a hundred bucks, and damn it, that diamond necklace set me back seven thousand-"
"Could you give a description of any of them?"
"It was too damned dark and it happened too fast. But they were Latin," said Ferguson. "Just a couple of things the one said-just take it easy and you won't get the knife in your throat-he had a heavy Spanish accent. Hell, no, neither of us could recognize any pictures. I don't suppose there's much the police can do about it."
"Well, we'd like a description of the jewelry, sir, to put it on the hot list to pawnbrokers." That was just a gesture. None of the loot this bunch had got away with had shown up, which said they knew a tame fence. "Are you all right to drive home, Mr. Ferguson?" Their address was Pacific Palisades.
"Yes, yes, We'll be okay. They just roughed us up. Come on, Myrna."
Schenke went back to the office and typed a report on it. That was about all there was to do.
PALLISER WAS OFF on Monday, but they got Henry Glasser back. When Mendoza came in, Grace had already corralled him and was showing all the pictures, and sandy middle-sized Glasser was grinning amiably at them.
"Welcome home, Henry," said Mendoza. "Good vacation?"
"I went up to Big Bear," said Glasser. "But even up there it was too damned hot." He was looking over at Wanda Larsen at her desk in the corner and she was smiling back at him. There'd been a little speculation about those two, nobody knew if they were dating or not. ‘ `
"I want to see the night report, and you'd all better hear what we've got on this so far." They were all in by then, Hackett and Higgins, Galeano, Grace, Landers. They dragged chairs into his office and heard about the new one from Higgins while Mendoza read Conway's report.
"So, there's legwork to do," said Mendoza, passing it on to Hackett. "This Alisio had a big family and he'd been in the hospital nearly a month. The nurses knew them casually. He had eight or nine visitors yesterday, between about one and four-thirty or a little before four-thirty. They didn't all stay in his room all the time, there wouldn't be room for them, they went in and out. Sat in a little lounge down the hall. The hospital just had one brother's name as the responsible relative-Joseph Alisio-an address in Hollywood. He'll give us the names of the rest of the family."
"You don't think it was one of the family?" asked Galeano.
"Who knows? No, I don't. From what the nurses say it's a big loving family, concerned and attentive. But on a Sunday there were a lot of visitors coming and going, and they can probably give us a better idea than the nurses who was there, the nurses were busy. They'd all been visiting the hospital quite a bit and may have got acquainted with some other visitors."
"Reaching," said Higgins. "And one of them suddenly had the urge to smother a patient-any patient?"
"You know, Luis," said Hackett, " just off the top of my mind, there are always a lot of people wandering around a big hospital, and nurse's aides, orderlies, even nurses-they're just people-come all sorts. You know what I'm thinking about?-that case in Santa Monica last year, where that male nurse was giving the senile old patients the over-doses of morphine. Just out of kindness, they were better dead."
"Yes," said Mendoza. "It's possible it could be something like that, and we want to question these nurses again in depth, and damnation, none of them is on until three PM. Though the ones there now can tell us something about the visitors starting at one o'clock. However you slice it, we've got a lot of people to talk to so-?Sigan adelante! " He stabbed out his cigarette and stood up.
But as he followed the twin looming bulks of Hackett and Higgins down the hall, Lieutenant Carey of Missing Persons came past the switchboard and said, "I'll take twenty minutes of your time, Mendoza."
"What the hell do you want? Don't tell me you've turned up a body for us."
"No, but we just might," said Carey seriously.
Slightly annoyed, Mendoza took him back to his office, gave him a cigarette and asked, "What have you got?"
"It's what we haven't got," said Carey. His snub-nosed bulldog face looked rather solemn. "It just shapes up as a probable abduction. Possible rape, possible homicide, after this long a time. I just thought I'd brief you about it in case the body shows up, because it's got to be the Central beat. The woman's been missing for thirty-six hours, and a rapist doesn't usually hold them that long. It's possible she's I dead."
"Why, how, and who?"
"Well, this Edna Holzer. I didn't see the report until an hour ago. I've just been talking to the girl-Frances Holzer. Edna Holzer's the mother. We've got a description I won't bother you with, but she sounds like an attractive woman. She left home, which is Del Mar Avenue in Hollywood, at about seven on Saturday night to visit a friend in the French Hospital. She didn't intend to stay long-should've been home by eight-thirty, but she wasn't. The daughter called Hollywood about eleven-thirty. They called Traffic and a squad looked around, but no show. She was driving a two-year-old Chrysler Newport, we've got the plate number and there's an A.P.B. out." Carey emitted a stream of blue smoke, put out his cigarette, and asked, "You know the French Hospital?"
Mendoza was sitting back with eyes shut. "West College Street." Mendoza knew his town, from twenty-six years on the job.
"That's right. And look, Mendoza. She wasn't five minutes from the Stack where all the freeways come in. In five minutes she'd have been on the Hollywood Freeway heading for home. The girl called the hospital on Sunday-well-so did my office after she filed a missing report-and Mrs. Holzer had been there, left about a quarter of height. Well, you can see how it shapes up. She must've run into trouble between the hospital and the Stack, within about five blocks."
"Iess," said Mendoza, lighting another cigarette. "Her nearest route was the Pasadena Freeway down to the Stack and that's three blocks from the hospital."
"Well, there's no sign of her or the car," said Carey. "She's a responsible woman. Legal secretary to a big firm. You can see it smells of abduction, robbery, possible rape, and possible homicide."
" Es cierto," said Mendoza. He was sitting back smoking lazily. "So you think she's going to turn up as a corpse for us."
"It's a possibility. I thought I'd tell you. Wherever she does turn up-whenever-it's got to be a hundred percent sure whatever happened to her, it happened on the Central beat."
SIX
BY THE MIDDLE of Monday morning, Hackett and Higgins were talking to Joseph Alisio and his wife in their home. It was an old house in a once very fashionable area of Hollywood and still a good residential area, Outpost Drive. Some of the furniture looked like valuable antiques. Alisio was in the main executive office of a big chain of markets. He looked like his brother, a small man with a big nose and a bald head. His wife was a fat motherly-looking woman. They had both reacted to the news about Carlo with more incredulity than grief.
"There's just no sense to it at all," said Alisio, rubbing his naked bald head. "Of course we were upset when the hospital called last night. Carl had seemed to be a lot better the last week or so, but the doctor had told us it was just a temporary state of remission. But this-it doesn't seem possible. Anything that could happen in a hospital."
His wife said, "With so many there-"
"Just who had been to see him?" asked Higgins. "When did everybody leave?"