"For God’s sake! " said Galeano. He looked at Piggott and Shogart.
"The statement’s enough to go on." Shogart was grinning wryly. "This is his wife and daughter? Well, we’d better go get ’em, and make it all kosher with the warrants tomorrow, get the statement down. My God, what does go on."
They all went out to the Constance Street house, but ended up calling a wagon. The Dixons and Cecelia Chard were all on the way to being drunk, and the two women went berserk. Before it was all over Galeano and Shogart were well marked up by fingernails, Galeano’s shirt was torn and one sleeve out of his jacket, and Piggott had the beginning of a nice black eye from Elmer.
"I thought they were riffraff," said Galeano ruefully, "but I never got beyond that. My good God." They had to wake Dixon up again to tell him they were all in jail, and they would see he was driven home if that was where he wanted to go.
"Sure," he said, sitting up and yawning. "It’ll be damn good to have some peace and quiet in that house. I only hope some damn fool judge don’t let ’em out in a hurry. They’d sure as hell get me good, then."
Mendoza, who had a perverted sense of humor about these things, was still laughing over Dixon that next morning when Conway started out with Wanda to question the Dixons and Mrs. Chard, get statements and warrants.
" Mas vale que digan, Aqui corrie, y no, Aqui murio," he gasped to Hackett, shoving over Galeano’s note. "How right Nick is, if you don’t get rich at this job you get a look at human nature. Dios mio, the people we meet. And how are you and George doing on your private hunt?"
"We’re not. Nothing suggestive’s turned up at all. I’m beginning to think George is right, that cigarette pack could have been there for weeks, maybe she just didn’t notice it. We’ll go on to the bitter end, but I think it’s a waste of time."
"Which I understand," said Palliser, passing Hackett in the doorway, "Tom’s been saying about my brainwave on Sandra. What do you think?"
"You talked to the girl," said Mendoza consideringly. "From what I know of the case, Rank could be a hot suspect. Why don’t you think so?"
"For one thing, he was at work out in Van Nuys at that car-wash place up to three o’clock that Sunday. I don’t think he’d have had time to get to Hollywood and pick up those girls by five o’clock. He’s not the only man in Records with the right pedigree and possible access to a house near San Pedro.”
"And we aren’t even sure of that, are we? But the girl picked him, John."
"Along with a couple of others. Damn," said Palliser suddenly, "we never did locate that Steve Smith. Who she also picked. But she wasn’t at all certain, you know, and I think myself the fact that these mug-shots showed men wearing goatees had something to do with her picking ’em. At least I understand we’ve got those rapes cleaned up-Jase called to tell me about it last night. My God, what a thing."
Sergeant Lake buzzed Mendoza. "You’ve got a new one. Twenty-fourth Place, double homicide."
"?Diez millones de demonios! "' said Mendoza. "All right, I’m on it, Jimmy."
They went to look, and they looked sadly: just more of the mindless brutality stalking the streets of any big city. The daughter had come home from a night at a girl friend’s and found them: Mr. and Mrs. Paul Freeman, both in their fifties, beaten and dead on their livingroom floor and the house ransacked. A modest house, but between sobs Janice Freeman told them this and that. "Of c-course we were always careful about locking doors and all-there’s the chain on the front, you can see. Not that Daddy ever had much money himself, but there’s the church money-he keeps the books for our church, the Methodist chapel it is, and he always had the collection to take to the bank- Oh, if I’d only been here, if I’d just been here-"
If she’d been there she’d probably have ended up dead too. There were a few suggestive things to notice. Mendoza nodded at the phone book, lying open on a table against the wall, oddly undisturbed. "The door wasn’t forced, chain off. That could be why, John."
"Oh, yes," said Palliser, going closer to look at it. The book was open to the yellow pages, to the listing for service stations. "He rang the bell-or they did-said he was stalled and could he please use the phone. And the helpful Christian let him in."
" Tal vez. You’d better call up S.I.D." Looking at the corpses, Mendoza thought about statistics. They did enter the picture. Thoughtless people would quote the fact that the incidence of black crime was astronomically higher than white; what they forgot was that there was an astronomically higher number of black victims too.
"Oh, if I’d just been here. I can’t help feeling it wouldn’t have happened if I’d just been here-"
Galeano got up late, his day off, dropped his jacket at a tailor’s for repair, and drove down to the Globe Grill for breakfast. This time he sat where Marta had to wait on him. Her lips tightened when she saw him, but she came up correctly to take his order.
"Did you sell the car to Jim?" he asked.
"Yes," she said stiffly. "That is all right? There’s no reason I should not?"
"Not that I know of." He ordered almost at random, and she went away at once. She didn’t make any comment on his facial decorations; maybe she thought cops were always getting into fights. She didn’t come back until she brought his plate, and he watched her unobtrusively. Damn it, he thought, the girl was nothing to him; just, those damned cynics so ready to believe she was telling a tale, and he-halfway-believed her. He was sorry for her; look at it any way, she’d had a raw deal. And if she was telling the truth- But there were all the questions: her coming home earlier than she’d said she had that day, and the car, what that Frost woman said, what they’d said about Fleming-Damn it, why should she tell such a story unless it was true?
He wondered suddenly if Carey had thought of digging up that raw empty lot where the building had been torn down. That was woolgathering with a vengeance. For one thing, he thought suddenly, Mrs. Del Sardo was right-that place had thin walls, you couldn’t have a good argument without neighbors knowing it. It didn’t make much noise, say, to hit a man over the head, but a little girl like Marta couldn’t have got him out of the place, down the stairs, alone.
What about the wheelchair? It had rubber tires. Galeano had a sudden clear vision of Fleming, dead or dying, tied into the wheelchair while she manipulated it down the stairs quietly, so quietly, late at night. She’d taken him to the doctor-that had meant getting him down the stairs. She was a sturdy girl, and it was a question of leverage, keeping the thing straight. But he’d probably helped, those times, with the increased strength in his arms and shoulders.
That was nonsense too. She couldn’t have done it; there hadn’t been time. He’d been perfectly all right that morning when she left. And the boy said there’d been no answer to his ring at one o’clock. And the car was gone then.
Galeano gave it up. Only God knew what had happened to Edwin Fleming, and He was preserving inscrutable silence.
Jason Grace had three exposures left in the Instamatic, and used them up that morning taking pictures of cuddly brown Celia Ann, who was-impossible as it seemed-nearly eighteen months old now. She was pretty special to him and Virginia because they’d waited so long for her, deviling the County Adoption Agency.
"You want anything at the market, Ginny?" he asked after lunch. "It looks like rain again, and I think she’s coming down with a cold."
"She can’t be after all the shots. Jase, you’ve got that look again. You’re thinking about something, and you know I wanted to go see your mother this afternoon. Are you going out on something on your day off?"