"You've argued yourself into a corner there," said Hackett. "If he thought there was any danger Twelvetrees was going to try to clean them out-or already had-then he didn't know Twelvetrees was dead."
"Or it was a double play," said Mendoza. "And also-"
"Oh, the hell with it," said Hackett. "We've wasted half the morning talking about it-let's get busy and collect some more facts to fit into the picture."
“Those we can always use more of," agreed Mendoza. But when Hackett left he was still sitting there motionless, staring out the window… Doubtless still trying to fill in details on his idea about Joe Bartlett, thought Hackett.
And Mendoza knew Hackett didn't go along on that, thought it was a wild one. He also knew it might be, that he must keep an open mind on it himself. His besetting sin was that dislike for ragged edges, wanting everything neat, precisely dovetailed; and criminal cases, like a lot of other things in life, didn't always work out that way. Often there were ragged edges all round the truth-human nature and real life being what it was.
That was a satisfying, dramatic little picture he'd seen, on Walsh's thing-a murderer panicking, killing Bartlett in error. But it might not be the true picture: maybe those kids had killed Bartlett after all, and that had nothing to do with the Twelvetrees case. Maybe it had been Twelvetrees himself who opened the door when the squad car was sitting there and didn't think twice about it when he saw it was the alcoholic Johnstones again.
By the same token, he couldn't let himself get so sold on the Kingmans that he ignored evidence pointing away from them. But he fancied the Kingmans quite highly: if Pennsylvania could offer any suggestions as to what Twelvetrees might have had on them, their stock would go even higher.
He wanted to locate Marian Marner, find out what she'd had to do with Twelvetrees, and he wanted to find out from Twelvetrees' agents anything the man might have said about himself, and possibly contact in that way any friends Twelvetrees might have made among people in that circle, show business hopefuls. The paper had had this since the late extras on Saturday, and probably everyone who had known him had seen the news: if anyone had any information to volunteer, it should turn up today or tomorrow. And just for the record, they'd have a look at Whalen. But on the whole the Kingmans looked like the obvious bet…
He'd see the Kingmans himself.
Before he left his office, however, one of those things happened that a detective had to get used to-some new bit of evidence turning up that made a favored theory more doubtful.
Sergeant Lake, who was going through the amended list of model agencies looking for Marian Marner, came in and said there was a cab driver outside in answer to the official enquiry sent out to all the companies. "Oh?" said Mendoza, rather surprised. “Well, all right, I'd better see him." Because if it had been the Kingmans working together, there'd have been no need for whoever had disposed of the Porsche taking a cab backs to the apartment: one would have driven the Porsche, the other their own car.
The cab driver was tall, thin, elderly, a clerkish-looking fellow with rimless glasses and a diffident manner. He had a funny little story to tell, and Mendoza listened to it in growing annoyance that it couldn't be fitted into any theory he had.
"It was just after midnight that Friday night, the thirtieth," the driver said when his slight nervousness had been soothed and he was sitting back more at ease with a cigarette. "I'd just taken a couple to the Union Station, I guess to make the Owl for San Francisco-only passenger I know of leaving about then. Business is always slow that time of night, you know. I hung around waiting for the Lark down from the north, she was late-due in at ten-forty, but she didn't get in until eleven-fifty, some trouble on the line up at Santa Maria, I heard. Well, I guess you aren't interested in all that, it was just-not many came off her and none of 'em wanted a cab-all been met, you see-so I thought I'd go uptown where chances were better for strays. I went up Alameda and through the old Plaza, you see, and it was just as I came by the old Mission Church there, this woman hailed me. I guess maybe you'll know it's dark as hell along there, that time of night-all the shops in Olvera Street was shut then, and those old streets are so narrow, and all the trees in the old Plaza square-we1l, she had to step right off the curb almost into my headlights to hail me. And that was the only real good look I got at her, rest of the time it was all dark-"
"What did she look like‘?”
"She looked like the Witch of Endor," said the driver frankly. "And she acted about as queer. I wasn't surprised one bit to see your official query in our office last night-of course it didn't give any description, but the places nailed it for me, I says right off, that's my girl. This one look I got at her, in the head-beam, you see, well, I couldn't give you a real description, I mean how tall she was or what color eyes or hair or even. what sort of age, naturally. But there she was with this Mexican serape over her head like a shawl, see, and kind of wound around her neck, and what made it look so funny was that she'd put it on top of a hat-I guess maybe to protect her hat from the rain. And the hat had a veil, and she'd pulled that right down over her face. But what I could see of her face under the veil, well, she'd just plastered the make-up on-looked like a clown, or something-God knows what her natural face looked like under it."
" Fuera, la drama extravagante," muttered Mendoza. "Can it be? Yes, go on, what about the rest of her clothes?"
"She had on a long coat, that's all I could see. It was a lightish color and it had dark bands, like trimming of some sort, down the front. And when she talked, she had a funny kind of foreign accent. She said ‘ze' for ‘the,' you know, and ‘Please to take me,' and all that, but I couldn't say what kind of accent it was, French or German or what-and she didn't say much. She was just in the light like that a second, and I stopped, and she hopped around and got in the cab before I knew it, hardly, with her suitcase-”
"A suitcase. What kind?"
"I didn't get a look at that, couldn't say. I've got the impression she was carrying it when she stepped out to hail me, that is, she didn't go back to the curb to get it. And once she was out of the lights I could just see she had some kind of bag. Like she'd just come off a train, but I don't see how she could of. She wasn't on the Lark-I'd have spotted her-and anyway if she had been why didn't she take a cab down at the station, instead of wandering up the hill to the Plaza? Anyway, in she gets, and she says in this funny accent to take her to this address out on Polk Street. Well, it was to-hell-and-gone down toward the beach, fifteen miles easy, and I wanted to be sure she wasn't a nut or something without any money on her, so I said that was quite a ways, it'd cost her four-five bucks, as a kind of hint, if you get me. And right away she says, ‘That will be all right, my good man,' in this crazy accent, and she hands me a fivespot over the back of the seat. So I drove her. It'd mean an empty run back because it wasn't likely I'd pick up another stray way out there, but if she handed over the five so easy I thought maybe there'd be a good tip… It's a block of tract houses, one of those new subdivisions.”
"Let's look at a map." They looked, and Mendoza was more irritated. That block on Polk Street was a short block up and a short block across from Twelvetrees' apartment on 267th.
"-And no streetlights in yet, so I didn't get any better look at her there, and she hadn't done any talking at all on the way. You know, some people want to talk to the driver and some don't, I let them pick. I had a look in the mirror now and then, and she was just sitting kind of huddled up in one corner, holding that serape over her face like she was afraid of breathing germs or something. When we got there, quick as anything she hands me over another five, and before I can get out to open the door, give her her change, she's already out, with her suitcase, and says, ‘That's all right, my man, I don't want change,' and off she goes. I hadn't even killed the engine yet."