Hackett called Mr. Wensink and told him most of the liquor had been recovered, but it would be impounded as evidence; he’d get it back eventually.
"Maybe not me," said Wensink. "I think I got a buyer for this place, and I’m getting out. I’m getting too old to worry about heisters all the time I’m open for business. I’m going to retire and move to the country somewhere."
Higgins went home, and after kissing Mary and going in to see Margaret Emily peacefully asleep in her crib, went back to the garage to call Steve Dwyer in to dinner. "He’s been out in that darkroom ever since he got home from school, and I know he’s got homework," said Mary.
"I don’t know why in hell," Higgins said to Steve, "you’re set on being a cop. Most boring job there is a lot of the time."
"Not on the lab end," said Steve. "Gee, isn’t the place peaceful without Laura at the piano all the time!" Laura had permission to stay overnight with a girl friend. But dinner wasn’t exactly restful, the Scottie Brucie bouncing under their feet, and Steve anxious to get back to his photographic experiments.
"Just until nine o’clock," said Mary firmly. "I’ll call you."
"Oh, Mother! It’s Friday night!"
"Well, nine-thirty."
"He may invent a new camera or something and make us millionaires," said Higgins. "I don’t know why I didn’t go in for the lab end. No brains, I guess. Sometimes I think it rubs off on us, the stupid people we have to deal with."
"Now, George," said Mary.
Mendoza went home, still thinking about that snake, and Mrs. MacTaggart greeted him at the door with relief.
"If you’d take them off my hands while I get at the dinner, then-Alison’s better, she’s had a good long nap, but I want to get that souffle in."
"Daddy, come on-" Johnny pulling his arm urgently-"I want to show you what we learned in school today-"
"Listen to me first, Daddy, I can say a new poem-" Terry clinging to the other arm. The twins had been in nursery school for three months and on the whole the effect was good; they were speaking English-most of the time, at least. Mendoza kept them occupied in the living room until Alison came in, looking more like her usual self, when they erupted at her.
" Mamacita, you listen to my new poem-" "It’s a silly poem, Mama, I can do the Pledge of ’Legiance real good now-"
"The darlings," said Alison fondly when Mairi had taken them off to their baths. "Yes, I’m better-knock wood. And I’ve got something to show you, Luis. House plans. Well, you can’t deny it, this will be too small when the baby comes. And we ought to have more yard. Later on we might want a pool-"
"?Despacia!" said Mendoza. "I can see you’re feeling better, plotting to spend more money."
There was fish for dinner, and the cats sat on their feet under the table reminding them that cats liked fish too. Cedric, who didn’t, went away in disgust and brought in a dead bird from the backyard.
On Saturday morning Mendoza had just come in and said good morning to Sergeant Farrell, who sat in for Lake on days off, when an agitated voice said, "Oh, Sergeant Hackett!" Mendoza turned to see Hackett behind him. "I had to come, I got to make you listen-I tell you, they’re gonna kill that lady! Honest to God they are! They were talkin’ about it again, I heard ’em!"
Hackett looked down at Mr. Yeager and wondered if the man was slightly nuts. Hearing voices. "Now, look, Mr. Yeager-"
"No, you gotta listen to me, you gotta do something! They’re goin' to murder her!" Yeager yanked at his sleeve in excitement. "I heard ’em say so!"
"Where were you this time?" asked Hackett. "Fixing the faucet in the kitchen? I’m sorry, Mr. Yeager, but I just can’t believe-"
"You gotta listen to me!" Yeager looked ready to cry. "I tell you, I heard ’em say so!"
"How?"
Yeager took a step back. "Well, I did. I did so. I-the door was open, and him and his girl friend-"
Hackett had met his share of the nuts, and Yeager was not unlike some he’d met, the ones with fixed ideas, mild delusions. He wasn’t wasting time on figuring out this one, and caught Farrell’s eye. He said gently, "Now look, Mr. Yeager, I looked at this and there’s nothing to it. Suppose you go on home and stop worrying about it." He brushed past as Farrell took Yeager’s arm and started ushering him out. Grace and Conway had just come in.
"What’s that about?" asked Mendoza.
"Nothing," said Hackett. "Makes you wonder about Freud. He said he didn’t like these people, and I suppose a confirmed Freudian would say he just wants to get them in trouble. These Lamperts. I went and looked around a little, but there’s nothing to it. Well, one like that Roy Titus might go discussing a projected murder with the door open, but this Lampert doesn’t seem to be working regular but seems to be on perfectly good terms with his mother- looks like a weak sister to me. I just can’t see-I hope Yeager isn’t going to be a nuisance."
Mendoza went on into his office. Hackett collected Higgins when he came in and they went up to the jail to follow up on Titus. Palliser roped Conway in with Landers to get back at the legwork on Sandra. Galeano, Grace and Glasser were still there when Scarne came in with some S.I.D. reports, and the autopsies came up from Bainbridge’s office at the same time.
"So let’s see what we’ve got, boys," said Mendoza. He glanced over the autopsies first. "There you are, the girl was raped and strangled. Short and sweet. Not, obviously, where she was found." He handed the report to Palliser, who’d just been leaving when Scarne came in. "What did the lab get on her clothes and so on??Condenacion! Those prints on the suitcase belong to Stephanie Peacock. Very helpful. And that is that. Nada absolutamente… Buford. Well, that gives us a little, not much. He died of a skull fracture. The lab found blood and hair on the leg of a chair in the house, hair his, blood his type. Inference, there was a scuffle with somebody and he was knocked down and cracked his skull."
"The door wasn’t forced," said Grace. "He must have let the somebody in."
"So it was somebody he knew."
"Somebody he’d just had a run-in with at that bar, and the bartender knew it, but why the hell shouldn’t he tell us? Unless-" Grace paused, looking thoughtful. "Well, I’d like to know more about him, that’s all."
"Not even any surprises about the time of death. Both Tuesday night. Sandra between seven and ten, Buford between ten and midnight." Mendoza slapped the reports down. "Are you sure enough about that Rank to ask for a search warrant on the house, John?"
"No," said Palliser. "It’s fifty-fifty. He could be X, but we’d never pin it down. If that plane case was there, it isn’t now. But I get the impression-just the impression-that his mother’s an honest woman, and she says he doesn’t have a key to the house. It’s a double deadbolt. We can’t really rely on Stephanie’s identification, anyway. I think we do it from scratch, look at men with the right records and weed ’em out by the general description. The right one might fall apart."
Mendoza shrugged. "There’s not much routine to do on Buford, when the lab didn’t turn anything else. And nothing says it had anything to do with that bar, Jase."
"No," admitted Grace. "But I’d like to talk to some of the people there that night, hang around and meet some of the regulars there. Only of course the owner knows me as a cop. It’s a pity Tom was with me-he could wander in all innocent, nobody ever takes him for a cop."
"Well-?vamos! " said Mendoza. "I’ve got a little idea myself. Oh, that Chard-the anonymous call. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it, but somebody might ask his wife if he’d had any trouble with anyone lately. He was no loss, however he got taken off."