Mark of Murder llm-7 Page 9

  Mendoza produced his badge. "Hangover, Mr. Elger?"

  "God," said Elger.

  The woman came back from the kitchen with a cup of black coffee. She sat down and raised it to her mouth with both shaking hands.

  "Celebration," said Elger. "I landed the Stoner contract for Jeffie. Bless little Jeffie's heart. Little two-hundred-grand-a-year Jeffie. Seemed reasonable at the time, celebrate. We didn't go out any place, I couldn't have hit anything or got a ticket, or did I?"

  "About Frank Nestor," said Mendoza.

  "Oh, my God," said Ruth Elger. "That awful thing.”

  She put a hand to her head. "Poor Frank, getting shot by a burglar. Oh well, he was a bit of a bastard, but you couldn't help liking him."

  "You couldn't," said Elger a little sulkily.

  The room was-expectable, thought Mendoza. A lot of expensive modern furniture, everything wildly untidy, clothes flung over the backs of chairs, an empty gin bottle sitting on the color TV. "You gave him a black eye a couple of weeks ago," he said to Elger.

  "That I did," said Elger. He put the icebag down on the couch beside him, stood up, and stretched. And Mendoza watched him, fascinated. Art Hackett was the hell of a big one, and it would take quite a lot of man to handle him. Maybe this was the man. Elger, naked except for the shorts, was quite something to see. He must be almost six-five, and he had a torso like the ads in the back pages of True Detective: You too can build muscular power. He might tip the scales at two-fifty, and all of it bone and muscle. Thick mat of hair on his chest, hairy legs. He had a square-jawed, nondescript face, shrewd blue eyes that right now were bloodshot and not quite focusing. "That I did," he said, and yawned widely.

  "Oh, Cliff," she said, pouting. "I was mad at you about that idiotic Warren female. I didn't really think you'd- But when you got plastered at the Andersons' party you were pawing her like mad, and I- You know I wouldn't've-"

  "Damn right,” said Elger. "That Goddamned little would-be charmer, twisting his damn mustache at you-"

  He broke off, looked at Mendoza again. "Of course," he said seriously, "your type's always useful for villains. Funny thing, seventy-four per cent of all heavies always have mustaches. I made a graph on it once. It's damn funny, because a lot of females go for them. I'll bet you do right well with the females, cop or no cop."

  "So I used to," said Mendoza. "Some straight answers, please, Mr. Elger. You thought-or knew-your wife was, shall we say, dating Dr. Nestor on the side. You had a fight with him-"

  "I only met him twice," said Ruth Elger defensively, plaintively. "I wouldn't have- But Cliff-”

  "Suspected it," said Elger laconically. "Knew it was just to spite me. Didn't think it'd do any harm to teach him a lesson. Fight? Good God, man, him and me? I found 'em in Mike De Angelo's bar together, and sure I gave him a black eye. Pleasure. That's all. I hit him once and Ruthie and I left. What the hell? Ruthie said she was sorry, and I said I was sorry about the Warren girl-not that I'm admitting anything-and that was that. What the hell are the cops sniffing around for?" He eyed Mendoza interestedly and patted his crop of dark curly hair. "I'm feeling better, Ruthie."

  "Oh, God, I wish I was," she said.

  "Did a Sergeant Hackett of my office come to see you on Friday night?”

  Elger turned away and sat down again. Mendoza couldn't see his eyes, read his expression. "Never heard of him. Was he supposed to? What about?"

  "Where were you on Friday evening?"

  "Where were we?" ruminated Elger. "Friday. What happened to Thursday? Oh, I remember, I had lunch with that guy from New York-that won't come to anything- and we had dinner at Sardi's. Friday. Friday, I spent mostly with Jeffie, coaxing him to sign that Stoner contract. God, that man. Why do I stay in this business? Thinks he can ask half a million guarantee because he's made one picture and sends the teens. Maybe he can, eventually. I was beat. And we were meeting the studio lawyers yesterday-was yesterday Saturday? I've got a dim recollection- Yeah, so I came straight home. Didn't I, Ruthie?"

  "Friday," she said vaguely. "Yes, that's right. You said you needed a quiet night for once, on account of the lawyers next day. We had dinner here and didn't go anywhere."

  "You were both here alone all that evening. And Sergeant Hackett didn't come to see you?"

  "Nope, never heard the name. Why?" Elger cocked his head at Mendoza. "Now I look at you a second time-Knight Productions is doing a rehash of the Joaquin Murrieta thing, and you're just the type. You ever done any acting?"

  "Only," said Mendoza, "in the line of duty, Mr. Elger. You were both home alone all Friday evening and no one came to see you."

  "I said so," said Elger. He stood up again, towering over Mendoza, suddenly motionless, hands on hips. The only man Mendoza had run across in quite a while who would be capable of putting Art Hackett down and out.

  "What's it all about?" he asked.

  "Oh, God, I feel awful," said the woman.

  NINE

  When he got to Federico's out on North Broadway he called the hospital. He was passed around a little, until an annoyed nurse told him that the patient's condition was unchanged, and while they realized that people were concerned, it would be helpful if they'd refrain from calling in more than once an hour. There had been four calls in the last twenty minutes, she said crossly.

  Mendoza deduced with no difficulty men going off duty for lunch and taking the chance to call in. He didn't apologize, but thanked her. He went on into the restaurant, found Palliser at a table alone, and joined him.

  "Hospital says no change," said Palliser. "They still won't say yes or no."

  "I know. Who'd you get, the nurse?"

  "No," said Palliser. He looked very tired and grave; he spoke deliberately, looking at his cigarette. "I got a chatty young intern who's very interested in the case. He said that at this stage there's no way to be certain that even if he lives he won't have some permanent brain damage."

  Mendoza didn't say anything to that. There wasn't anything to say. The tall Jamaican waiter came up and he said, "Bring me a drink, Adam. A double rye.”

  "Scotch and water," said Palliser.

  Adam didn't remonstrate with Mendoza for drinking in the middle of the day; he said softly, "Yes, sir. We were all mighty sorry to hear about Sergeant Hackett's accident, Lieutenant. They know yet whether he'll get better?"

  "Not yet," said Mendoza.

  Adam shook his head. "I'll do some earnest praying for him, Lieutenant. I'll fetch your drinks."

  Mendoza took Nestor's appointment book out of his breast pocket and laid it on the table. "Last Wednesday morning," he said, "the call came in on Nestor, and you and Art went over to look at it. While Art talked to the wife you looked around the office, as the Prints boys finished with things. You looked at this appointment book. Carefully?"

  "Well, I looked at the last filled-in page to see if his Tuesday evening appointment was listed, to give us a lead. It wasn't. Then I just riffled through it."

  "Look at it again, please." Adam brought their drinks; Mendoza swallowed rye and lit a cigarette.

  After a minute Palliser said, "Somebody's added a good deal to this, I think. As I remember it, it hadn't much written in it-big gaps on the few pages that had anything on them.”

  " Soy del mismo parecer," said Mendoza, and swallowed more rye. "And right under Art's nose too. He had the glimmering of an idea about it, and once I'd thought over what he'd written down in his notebook, I had more than a glimmering… Small steak as usual, Adam. You'd better have a substantial lunch, John, we've got an afternoon's work ahead of us."

  "Same for me, medium. What are we going to do?"

  "Try to break down the Corliss woman. After I went through that office I thought any finesse would be wasted. I called Jimmy-Scarne and Bert will meet us at her place with a search warrant. I'm not gambling that we'll find anything, but you never know.”

  "And what did you see in your crystal ball about her?" asked Palliser.

  "Where the mone
y was coming from," said Mendoza.

  "And she's a very levelheaded, cool, shrewd female, is the Corliss woman, and something to tackle. The way she took that gamble-my God. And nearly brought it off too, because Art hadn't seen through it all the way… That, I'll lay you any money, was a very high-class abortion mill, and I'll bet Nestor was getting some fancy prices."

  "For God's sake," said Palliser. "How do you make that out? Any evidence?"

  "A little, maybe. Short way round if we can induce Corliss to talk, but on that I'm not taking any bets… Details later. What did you find out on the legacy?"

  "Nothing, because there's nothing to find out. Nestor never had a legacy in California. But I've been back into his bank records, and it makes a funny kind of picture. About the time he told his wife he had that legacy he paid in five thousand bucks in cash-"

  "It fell out of the sky on him, maybe?"

  "He said, all gratuitous, he'd had some lucky windfalls at Santa Anita. Now listen to this. For roughly the last two and a half years Nestor's been paying some nice round sums into his account every month. Paying some out too, but we know where that went-the Buick, the office, et cetera. It's run all the way between one and two thousand a month; lowest it ever fell was eight hundred. And about ninety per cent of it in cash."

  "Yes, naturally," said Mendoza. "He'd ask for cash. He'd spread it out over each month, not to pay in a suspiciously large sum all at once. There'll have been a few checks for small amounts--he had some genuine innocent patients, the ones still on file."

  "That's right," said Palliser. "And a couple of times when he did deposit a large amount told the teller-all very garrulous-he'd picked a lucky horse or had a lucky poker session. It does look as if you might have something. But what about this appointment book? When I looked at it before it didn't have a tenth of all those names in it-”

  "Can you swear to that?"

  "Yes, I can."

  "Good," said Mendoza. "Right under Art's nose, by God. The nerve of the woman-I tell you, I don't think we'll shake her. I think we'll have to go the long way round to prove it."

  "If Nestor was in that trade it'd be pretty certain she was in it with him, I see that."

  "Almost without question. Because the money was coming in hand over fist-he must have been doing a roaring trade-and it's not the kind of business you put box ads in the Times about. Some woman helped him build up that trade. You notice it took a little while-about six months-and then the profits started rolling in. I could tell you a little story about it."

  "You always tell interesting stories," said Palliser..

  Mendoza looked at his steak meditatively. "Well, Clay said Nestor was out to get his, however it came. Also said that he'd probably have been very competent at his profession. I can see him, when he started in practice, envisioning possibilities in a mill, a first-class one, absolutely safe and reliable. Everything guaranteed. Aiming to draw the high-class females who could afford to pay a stiff price for the super service. I don't know where he picked up Corliss-she's not in our records but I think she may be in somebody's, because on all the evidence she's tough and experienced. I'll tell you what I think. I think that, round about three years ago, word began to get round here and there in the suitable places, about what number a girl should call if she was in the market for the super service. Around all the places where there'd be innocent daughters of wealthy fathers, any kind of money in combination with the kind of girls and women apt to find themselves in the market-married or not. In other words, he was trying to corner the market in that field, and I'd say he made a pretty good stab at it, judging by his income."

  "That's quite a story," said Palliser. "Have we got anything to back it up?"

  "The bank account. Overpriced vitamins wouldn't quite account for that kind of income. And at that, I expect all was grist to his mill, apologies for the pun, and he'd do some cut-rate ones to keep in practice. We've got a smock with a bloodstain on it, a pair of rubber gloves, a small scrap of a label which was once, probably, on an ampoule of morphine. And-"

  "But listen," said Palliser, "if that was so we'd have found all sorts of evidence there! There'd be his instruments, and drugs, and hypos-"

  Mendoza sighed. "We all make mistakes. Art was ready to kick himself when he began to suspect, from his notes. You started the usual routine on it, the photographs and printing and so on, but didn't begin an official search-and then Art sent you on the other case. And didn't bother to put a man on guard there while he went and had lunch." He finished his coffee and picked up the bill.

  "Come on, let's go try to scare Corliss."

  "I'll be damned!" said Palliser. "You mean she- With him there? For God's sake. But-do you think she's the one shot Nestor?"

  "I do not," said Mendoza. "In a left-handed sort of way, you've got to admire the woman. She must have had the hell of a shock when Mrs. Nestor called and told her. And what a gamble to take- I tell you frankly, in her place I'd have packed a bag and bought a plane ticket to Japan. And the fact that she didn't-well, I don't think we'll get much change out of her."

  ***

  Margaret Corliss faced the four men unblinkingly, stolidly. "A search warrant?" she said. "Well, reely, I never was so insulted-as if I had anything to hide! What the world is coming to, with the police thinking they can accuse honest women-" And she looked like a very ordinary honest woman, plain and indignant, in the middle of her ordinary, rather shabby apartment living room.

  "I haven't accused you of anything yet," said Mendoza. "But we're going to take some short cuts, Corliss, because I'm not feeling very tactful or talkative. Go over there and sit down. All right, boys"-he nodded to Dwyer and Scarne-"take the place apart."

  "Reely, I-"

  "Sit down, I said! I know all about it," said Mendoza, standing over her where she flounced into a sagging armchair. "And if you don't come apart and admit it, we'll go the long way round to collect the nice legal evidence to prove it. So one way or another you're due for a little holiday at the taxpayers' expense. I'd guess a one-to-three, it you've never been inside before. Now, Frank Nestor was operating an abortion mill and you were in on it. He-"

  "I don't have to listen to your insults-dirty Mex-"

  "Sit still and pay attention!" he said coldly. "You'd done some leg work on it, passing the discreet publicity. Between you, you'd built up a nice business, profitable as all hell because you were charging what the traffic would bear."

  Both he and Palliser were watching her for any betraying gesture or expression; she just sat, a plump plain fortyish woman, and stared back with cold eyes. But Palliser thought the eyes were watchful.

  "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you," said Mendoza hardly. "This I know. I know the hell of a lot. Everything had been running smooth as silk-you'd been doing a land-office business. Dios, at the prices you probably got, two or three a month would make a damn nice living for both of you. And as word got round by satisfied customers-everything guaranteed safe, a real doctor-business picked up, didn't it?"

  "Talk all you please," she said stolidly. "I don't have to listen.”

  "You'll listen. You had one hell of a shock when you heard that Nestor had been shot-"

  "Oh, I thought you were going to say I shot him. Reely, blackening Doctor's name like this-wherever you got a nasty idea like that-"

  "Weren't you at all surprised when his wife told you first that he wasn't feeling well, was at home, and then called to say he was lying murdered in his office? Did you know anything about Nestor's private life, or was it purely a business arrangement?" He looked her up and down, contemptuously. "Obviously he wouldn't be interested in you that way-probably nobody-"

  She reddened indignantly: the one slur a woman might rise to. "Of course there wasn't anything between Doctor and me! I've got my own gentleman friend, he-"

  "Oh, have you?" said Mendoza. "That's interesting. Was he here with you last Friday evening? What's his name?"

  "I don't have to tell you anything! Coming here
and-You've got me all confused-what's Friday got-"

  "Never mind. When you heard Nestor had been murdered you knew you'd be in one sweet mess unless you could clear the evidence out of that office. You were taking the hell of a chance, but you moved fast and you had luck. You found the office open, and you found the evidence where it had been left, so you knew probably we hadn't searched the place thoroughly yet. You bundled it into your car trunk-and don't think I can't tell you what it consisted of." He gave her a wolfish smile. "There'd have been a few surgical tools, probably in the sterilizer-and whatever supply was on hand of the morphine he used for anesthetic-and we'll find where he was acquiring that too, probably from some local pusher-and I really do think Doctor had kept a record of all his under-the-counter patients, and while he never let you lay hands on it, you knew where it was and you took that too. Once we had made any kind of search, the whole thing would have been obvious-and how obvious that you'd known all about it! As it was, there were a few more details you had to take care of, but just as you started back to the office your luck ran out. A big tough sergeant of cops drove up." Mendoza stopped; her silent tight-lipped watchfulness was raising wrath in him, Palliser thought. He'd heard that Mendoza was one of those, a drink or so turned him belligerent; and he'd had that double rye, and hadn't eaten much of his steak.

  "My God, you had one hell of a nerve, didn't you?" said Mendoza. "You went on taking the chance-to save yourself. If that came out, you'd be tied into it tight. So, right under the sergeant's nose, you went on hiding the evidence-and planting false evidence. Talk about nerve – eso ya es llover sobre mojado, adding insult to injury! You knew the minute we saw those files, listing that slim number of legitimate patients, we were going to start wondering like hell where all Nestor's money came from. That worried you, didn't it, that you couldn't do anything about the files? The sergeant was in there, you couldn't walk off with them or start adding fictitious file cards, to make them look. good. No. But you did what you could. By God, you did. You made the excuse of calling the patients, and you got hold of the appointment book. You sat there at your desk, the innocent efficient nurse, with that and the phone book, leaning over the phone so nobody could see you were holding down the tabs, talking to dead air-and while you canceled non-existent appointments you actually entered a lot of non-existent appointments in the book. Because on the surface it had to look as if Nestor had a large practice, to account for the income."