"Who've you got stationed here?" Mendoza asked Scarne. He knew there'd be somebody, to get whatever Hackett said when and if he regained consciousness.
"Fellow named Evans."
Mendoza knew Evans, a uniformed man bucking for rank. He nodded at him, installed in a chair beside the door not too far from the high bed. He stood over the bed and looked at Hackett. Hackett lay on his back, breathing slow and irregular. His face was drained of color; he looked gray. His head was bandaged, and one arm. A watchful nurse had a hand on his pulse, and they had an I.V. going.
"All I can tell you is we're doing everything we can," said the intern. "He's got a very sound constitution to help him fight. But we can't say one way or the other, not yet."
"Yes, Doctor. Will you please see that somebody calls in if there's any change? I know you've been briefed, but just remind the desk. You've got the headquarters number-ask them to call this number too, please." He scribbled their home number on the back of an envelope, handed it over. He looked at Hackett again and led Scarne out, to the little waiting room.
Angel was crying now. "I'm sorry, I don't mean- I c-couldn't, somehow, until you c-came in and I-"
"Yes, all right, darling." Alison looked at Mendoza and, seeing his expression, asked no questions.
"Angel said- I took the baby to your place, Mrs. Mendoza-your nurse-" Hackett's sister Elise Dunne looked at them helplessly.
"That's fine, Mrs. Dunne. Now, Angel-"
Mendoza came up and squatted down before Angel.
"You're doing no good sitting here, either of you. They're doing all they can, and they'll call when there's any change. I've asked them to call our number too, and"-he looked at Hackett's sister-"you can give them yours. Come on now." He urged Angel up. "Scarne, drive them to our place, will you? O.K. Alison, you look after her. God knows when you'll see me, but I'll be in touch."
"Yes, darling. Come on, Angel, it's only sensible-"
"And get back downtown as fast as you can," said Mendoza to Scarne. He kissed Alison, held her hard for a second, and went out and downstairs. He called a cab and waited for it impatiently. He had work to do.
SIX
He walked into the homicide office at seven-forty, and he didn't feel any particular joy at getting back home; he was intent on the job. Most of them were there-Palliser, Dwyer, Higgins, Landers, Glasser, Farrelclass="underline" on one like this they weren't punching any time clocks. And they didn't waste any time asking about the vacation, making welcoming noises at him. They all looked relieved to see him; Palliser said tiredly, "Thank God. You made time, didn't you?"
"I want a breakdown on it," said Mendoza without sitting down. "In detail. From one of you who knows the detail."
"Me," said Palliser. "We knew he was missing, from about twelve-forty. Mrs. Hackett called in. He'd left home about seven-thirty, and we're not sure where he was going. He said to me he wanted to see that desk clerk again, at that Third Street hotel. That was on the Slasher-" He gave Mendoza a terse briefing on that, enough to put him in the picture. "He meant to see Mrs. Nestor again, that's another business, and you'd better hear about that too-"
"I want the facts on Art, John.”
"It's relevant," said Palliser, and told him about Frank Nestor. "Higgins called me back in and we had everybody alerted, everywhere around any area he might've been, but he didn't turn up until about two o'clock. An Edward Charlton, on his way home up Canyon Drive, spotted the wheel marks going off the road, in his headlights, and looked. The Ford had rolled about two hundred feet down-it's not a sheer cliff, just a steep hill, with underbrush and so on-turned over at least once-it was lying on its side."
"Dios," said Mendoza softly. "Why wasn't he killed?"
"Coming to that. When we got the ident from Traffic, we converged up there in strength. Because Traffic said it wasn't an accident. Anybody could see that by the tire marks. The Ford was backed around to face the drop square-there's a two-yard soft shoulder either side, loose dirt that takes marks just dandy. And gunned over. Not a sign of any attempt to brake. Traffic's taking the car apart looking for anything, they're the experts on that. And we figure, with what the lab came up with, that the reason he wasn't killed is that he was already unconscious, lying across the front seat, face down."
"I did wonder why there weren't any facial cuts," said Mendoza. He sat down at his desk and lit a cigarette. The desk needed dusting, and somebody had overfilled his ashtray. He didn't do anything about it.
"So did the interns in the ambulance," said Palliser.
"And for a civilian, we might not have committed lese majeste, but as it was we hauled Dr. Erwin himself out of bed and shot him over to the hospital. He saw him before they did the surgery, and went over his clothes." They were all avoiding Hackett's name; maybe the impersonal pronoun would help to keep this on the objective level, if anything could. As cops, they had all seen other cops killed on the job, and that was always bad; but this was something worse. Something really bad. The deliberate thing.
Dwyer got up in silence and took the lid off the shoe box sitting on the desk. "Erwin said," said Palliser, "he'd been tied up. Wrists and ankles. For one or the other, his own belt had been used." Dwyer lifted out the belt and passed it over. It was a worn brown steerhide belt with a plain buckle, and it was twisted out of its normal flatness still, where it had been used as a rope would be used. The fifth hole in it was the most worn and frayed, but evidently more recently the fourth hole had been in use. Hackett and his diet… Mendoza's eyes stung suddenly. He put the belt down. He said, "Yes."
"He'd got the worst knock on the head at the back of the skull, a little to the side, not the front. The interns said he was half on the floor, head on the passenger's side of the car. Glass all over from the windshield but he hadn't a cut on him."
"Yes. I see. You've printed the car. Anything?"
"What do you think?" asked Higgins savagely. "His, that's all, and his wife's. Steering wheel and gear selector clean. Naturally."
"Naturally. All right. Why?"
Dwyer looked at Palliser, "It's your fairy story," he said. "Tell the detective man,"
"And it's no fairy story,” said Palliser equably. He sat smoking quietly; he looked relaxed, but his mouth was grim. "What else could it be, for God's sake? Nobody's got any private reason for murdering Art Hackett. I'll tell you what it has to be-something he spotted on one of those cases. He was out looking, and he found out something, something definite, a giveaway. And somebody knew he had, right then. So he got knocked on the head then and there, and tied up, and the faked accident was set up later."
Mendoza was watching him. "I'll take that, John. What was he working on? Where was he?"
"We don't know, damn it," exploded Dwyer. "We couldn't press Mrs. Hackett too much, and she didn't seem to know anything definite anyway-"
"All he said to me-that was before he went home," said Palliser, "was that he was going to see the desk clerk, and maybe Mrs. Nestor, and maybe a couple of the people in Nestor's address book. He didn't like the way the Nestor case smelled-he thought it was a private kill, not the outside thing. We've got his notebook, with a couple of interesting ideas on that jotted down. But there's also the desk clerk, and that was on the Slasher, and I don't like the way the desk clerk smells."