"Save time," murmured Mendoza, and Sergeant Lake looked in.
"You’ve got a visitor, Nick."
Galeano turned, and she came in uninvited, a little breathless, looking somehow different, more alive-Marta Fleming. She had thrown the hood back from her thick waving tawny hair, and under the coat she was wearing her waitress’s uniform from the Globe Grill. She looked hopeful, uncertain, excited.
Mendoza stood up and said, "Mrs. Fleming."
"Marta-what is it?"
"I had to come at once," she said to Galeano. "At once when I read it-I could not believe it, but it is! It is! And, oh, if it should tell us-if he could tell us-what happened, where he is! That has been the nightmare, not to know. But I knew you must hear at once, I do not even change from my uniform, I must bring it-"
"Hey now, slow down," said Galeano. "Bring what?"
With shaking hands she set down her handbag on Mendoza’s desk, a big worn brown leather bag, and unfastened the straps. She took out of it a fat envelope with two big green foreign stamps on it, the writing square, foreign-looking. She took the letter out, held it. "You do not read German? No-then I must tell you, explain what-how it is. I told you"--she was talking to Galeano-"how that day I remembered my letter to Elisa. How I came home to fetch it, to post it, and I was in such a hurry because of getting to the shops-so I fold up the letter and put it in the envelope and I rush off to post it."
"Yes. Take it easy, now. All right."
"Well! I told you also, we cannot afford to send letters by air, it is so expensive, even if it takes so long by sea-three weeks and more sometimes. But today-half an hour ago-I came home, and there is mail, and this letter by air mail from Elisa. She and Mama were so surprised-I had said nothing of all this, somehow I could not bring myself-I kept thinking, we should find out what happened and then I can tell them, he is dead. They could not understand it, but they knew it was important, so Elisa writes and sends it by air mail-"
"The letter? Why?" Galeano was slow on the uptake, watching her excited bright eyes.
"And this! This! It was the only writing paper in the apartment-I see just how it came about-my own tablet. Edwin used it, and left the sheet on top of my letter, and in such a hurry I must have gathered it all up together, put it in the envelope- But you see-you see! It is what I have said all the time, he meant to kill himself!" She thrust the whole sheaf of paper at Galeano.
Four, five sheets written closely in German. And the extra sheet-the same cheap stationery torn from a dime-store tablet-in another hand.
"?Media vuelta! " said Mendoza, looking over his shoulder "?Ya esta! And how simple when you know. But what a damned queer-"
It was Edwin Fleming’s suicide note, the scrawl of a man ill-educated and also probably half drunk-see what the lab experts said about that. Dear Marta, I say good-bye and good luck. Youve been good to me and Im no use to you or anyboddy so I better get out of it Ill be glad to. Old Ojerdol is goin to help me. You deserv better good girl I hope you find better life, Edwin.
"I will be Goddamned!" said Galeano. "I will be-"
"Offerdahl!" said Mendoza, making it sound like a curse. "That drunken old bum-but he barely knew the man- Porvida, we’ll hear what he has to say about this-"
"But I do not think so, immediately," said Marta.
Suddenly she chuckled, a warm infectious chuckle that did funny things to Galeano. "Mr. Offerdahl-there was a terrible disturbance last night, he comes knocking at every door, shouting that God is bringing a new flood and we must run for our lives. And then he fell down in the hall, and I thought he was dead, but Mr. Del Sardo called an ambulance and the attendant said it was the D.T.’s. I do not know what-but he is in the hospital, and not dead, and please God he will tell us-"
Mendoza burst out laughing. "I only hope to God he isn’t right-I want to hear about this!"
It was Thursday morning before Offerdahl was sufficiently dried out to talk to them coherently. Flat in the hospital bed, the first time they’d seen him sober and halfway sensible, he was weak and wan and remorseful. He blinked up at Mendoza, Galeano, Marta, and said, "Fleming. I was sorry for the poor fellow. Haven’t-haven’t you found him yet?"
And he’d asked them that before, but they hadn’t realized how he meant it. "No, Mr. Offerdahl," said Mendoza. "We thought you could tell us where to look."
"Poor damned young fellow," said Offerdahl. "Felt sorry for him. Don’t know what you think, but talk about sin, seemed a sin and a shame t’ me he should have to go on living-maybe fifty years. Damn shame. Nice young wife, have to support him, take care of him. He said so. Said he wanted to die and be out of it. That day, I forget just when it was, I went down to see him-took a bottle along, cheer the poor fellow up. But he kept saying, better be dead-he wanted to be dead. Better for everybody. Like to go drown himself, he said. He asked me to help him and I said I would. Reservoir in Griffith Park, he said, and his wife had some money hid away, he’d give it to me if I helped him. So I did. He had keys to the car, and I carried him out to it. Used to be strong as a bear," said Offerdahl, weakly flexing his muscle. "He left a note for his wife. Didn’t she find it?"
"Eventually," said Mendoza. "Then what, Mr. Offerdahl?"
"I couldn’t find the damn reservoir up there. Drove and drove, all round little winding roads, and it was raining like hell. Then we came to this place-that big building up on top of the hill." Griffith Park Observatory, the planetarium. "There wasn’t anybody around, place all empty. He said, a cliff just as good, fall off it, bang. I drove right up there, helped him out-place where there’s a wall round the building, big drop off the hill. He pulled himself up on the wall, and he said, just as good, and he fell over. The poor fellow. I ’greed with him-best for everybody. Sin and a shame-"
"And you drove the car back and put it in the garage, and put the keys back in the apartment," said Mendoza.
"Of course," said Offerdahl with dignity. "Wasn’t my car. I’m an honest man."
When they went to look, they had to call the Fire Department with their ropes to get down there. But they found him after a while, deep in the underbrush there at the foot of the sheer drop from the wall around the observatory. It wasn’t such a long drop at that to the first slope, maybe three hundred feet, and springy thick undergrowth below, but he was dead, and had been since that day. That was all wild growth in there, as through most of the park, and he might not have been found for years, until only bones were left.
"Of all the damned queer things!" said Galeano. "If that silly old bastard hadn’t spent all Marta’s hard-earned nest egg on whiskey-Yes, and didn’t she and Mrs. Del Sardo tell us he’d never been so bad before, we might have wondered where he suddenly got the money-we’d have heard all about it as soon as it happened. If Marta hadn’t grabbed up that note with her 1etter-"
"So simple when you know," said Mendoza. "Coming right back to human nature, Nick. And that girl-mmh-Alison said, prickly." He looked at Galeano with veiled interest.
"What the hell do you mean, prickly? With all she’s had to put up with-"
When the autopsy report came in, Mendoza was sufficiently fascinated to carry it over to the other office to share it with somebody. Only Hackett was there. "Fate," said Mendoza. "By God, this is a funny one, Art- Fleming.
He drowned, just the way he said he wanted to. The drop didn’t kill him. He must have landed in a spot where the rain had collected in a pond, and the fall knocked him out and he drowned. Alla va. Of all the queer things, that is one for the books."
"Very funny," said Hackett inattentively.
"I must call Carey-he’ll be interested. Little lesson for all of us, tal vez, about the automatic cynicism."