Landers said to Palliser, "For God's sake, are you starting to have hunches like the boss? My God. And of course it's not an admissible confession, but-"
"Three people dead, like that," said Palliser. "It never crossed my mind, Tom. I just wanted to ask if Rawson had talked to anybody else that day." They looked at the long limp body on the dirty floor and they felt a little tired. This gave them that much more to do. "Get the lab out here looking for the knife. Get a warrant. Talk to him when he's sobered up. Talk to the mother." And he'd probably be certified as unsuitable for trial and wind up in the asylum at Atascadero. They were always glad to clear one away, but they couldn't claim any credit for this one. And whatever happened to Len Williams, it wasn't going to bring three people back to life.
HACKETT WAS TYPING the initial report on Gloria Pratt when his phone rang and he picked it up. "Robbery-Homicide, Sergeant Hackett."
"Oh, Art," said Alison's voice at the other end. "You aren't hypnotizing people now, are you?"
Hackett had never hypnotized anybody in his life, in any sense of the word, but he answered the sense of the question equably. "Not since the court threw it out as admissible evidence. Why? We never used it here as far as I remember. It can be useful in getting people to recall plate numbers and so on, but I suppose the court figured it's a little too close to black magic."
"Well, l thought maybe somebody down there could put me in touch with a good hypnotist-one the police had used. Luis called last night and he's hit another dead end. This French detective who's been helping him still thinks they can find something, but Luis doesn't-and I know that girl said something else, and I just can't remember, and I thought maybe a hypnotist might get it out of me."
Hackett massaged his jaw. "We1l, somebody at the lab will probably know. I can find out for you."
"Find out now, Art, will you? If there's anything buried in my subconscious mind I'd like to get it for Luis."
"I'll call around and get back to you," said Hackett.
MAIRI MAC TAGGART said in a cross voice, "I'm not liking this at all, my girl. It's a verra dangerous thing to do, letting a doctor or anybody at all go poking around at your brain."
"Don't be silly," said Alison. "Thousands of people are hypnotized every day. I just hope I'm a good subject."
"And suppose you come home all changed around like in your brain, what would I say to the man?-him finding maybe you've forgot who you are at all."
Alison said briskly, "Don't fuss, Mairi. Nothing like that's going to happen. But I don't know how long it might take, and this Dr. Cargill's way out in Westwood. I'll be home as soon as I can."
Mairi said gloomily, "And I only hope it'll be with your brain in one piece, achara."
HACKETT GOT HOME late. It was starting to cool off the last couple of days, had only gone to eighty today, and please God they had seen nearly the last of this summer. The ridiculous huge mongrel Laddie was chasing around the backyard with Mark and Sheila. They all came running to greet him and Laddie nearly knocked him over. He went into the kitchen and kissed Angel. "I suppose the freeway was murder," she said.
"I stayed overtime to finish a report. Alison went to be hypnotized this afternoon, did she tell you about it?"
"For heaven's sake, what for?"
"Try to trigger her memory about that girl." Hackett yawned. "I am bushed. I think I'll have a drink. But at least we've cleaned up those two homicides."
HE AND GALEANO had gone over to the jail to talk to Neil Pratt when it could be presumed that he was sobered up. Unless they got anything definite out of him they couldn't hold him any longer.
But Pratt was another stupid lout, which they could have deduced from that clumsily faked suicide. He was surprised and aggrieved that they'd seen through it. When they explained how they knew, it passed straight over his head.
"I thought everybody'd think she did it herself," he said naively. "It was the way I set it up to look." After he had been seen by that sharp-eyed manager, who would probably recognize him, and batted them on the head with some weapon before turning on the gas-and leaving the bedroom window wide open.
"Why did you want to set it up?" asked Galeano.
"Goddamn it," said Pratt, still annoyed. "Everybody should've thought she'd done it herself. Well, goddamn it, I couldn't afford to give her all that money! That goddamn judge said a hundred and fifty a month and I couldn't afford it no ways. I don't know why she had to have that damn kid in the first place. I need all the money I make to live on. Goddamn it, I still don't see how anybody knew she didn't do it herself! "
MENDOZA WAS IN THE MIDST of a graphic dream. He dreamed that Laurent Rambeau had found Grandfather for him and they were questioning him in the first interrogation room down the hall at the Robbery-Homicide office at Parker Center, which seemed quite logical to the dreaming mind. Grandfather looked exactly like the picture of Fagin in the illustrated Dickens Mendoza had read in high school. He was small and hunched, with a scraggly white beard and beady little crafty eyes. Rambeau was thundering at him, "You villain, what have you done to the little Juliette?"
And Grandfather leered at them and said solemnly, "You will never prove it. We have buried her in a filing case at the main library." This struck Mendoza as the most fiendish method of homicide he had ever heard of and he was recoiling from Grandfather in loathing and disgust when he became aware that there was some intrusive extraneous sound.
He swam up from the depths of sleep and heard the telehone ringing. After a moment he was enough awake to sit and grope for the switch on the bedside lamp. The phone ent on ringing. He picked it up and answered it.
"Oh, Luis, thank goodness you're there, I thought you were out, they've been ringing you for ages-"
" Que es esta? What's wrong?-the twins, the baby-"
"Nothing's wrong, why should there be? I knew you'd want to hear-"
"It's the middle of the night here, carina, and I was sound asleep."
Alison laughed. "Good Lord, I am sorry, Luis, the time difference went right out of my mind-and I suppose Mairi would say it's all the poking around. But listen, I saw this Dr. Cargill, and he hypnotized me, he says I'm a pretty good subject, I went under right away. And he had a tape going and he got it out of me-what the Martin girl said that I couldn't remember. It was there in my subconscious mind."
" Maravilloso. And what was it?" He groped for cigarettes on the table.
"Well, it was just after I'd asked her if she lived in Paris that I went to sleep. But my mind took in what she said. She said she had lived in Paris for five years since she worked for Mr. Fournier. But before that, they had always lived at Evreux because her father was attached to the museum there. That was all I came out with. But, Luis, it could help, couldn't it? If you can trace her parents, there'll be other people-"
"It could help one hell of a lot, mi vida, " said Mendoza. "It was a brainstorm. Muchas gracias. Everything all right there?"
"The twins have discovered that first grade isn't as much fun as they'd expected. That old Sister Grace is awful strict. And El Senor caught a toad and was sick. Everything else is fine."
"Muy Bien. Keep your fingers crossed, querida. This might mean a big break."
"Evreux!" said Rambeau. "The museum!" He smote himself on the forehead. "Ie Musee de l'Archeologie et de l'Histoire Naturelle. And Maman and Papa died only six months ago. Now, indeed we will march! Allons! "