"All very plausible," said Mendoza. "All very ordinary. Easy to read. Somebody went to a little trouble to set up the picture."
Palliser said doubtfully, "Wel1, it looks plausible all right. You are sure about the girl?"
"How often do I have to say it? Yes, it's a very pretty effort, and if I hadn't recognized the girl there'd be one stereotyped report getting filed away right now." Mendoza brushed at his mustache. He was looking exasperated.
"Would you have thought twice about the missing envelopes, on those letters?"
Higgins massaged his craggy jaw. "Probably not," he admitted. "Nothing in the wastepaper basket, but the place is fairly neat. She could've emptied the trash last thing."
"We can guess those letters never went through the mail, and there'd be a chute to an incinerator in the basement, a place this old." Mendoza flipped through the billfold again and said, " Asi, how nice." There was something else in the last plastic slot of the billfold. A library card made out to Ruth Hoffman, from the Los Angeles Public Library on Sixth Street. The date of issue was the sixth of August just past. "So that much we know."
"What?" asked Palliser.
"That this caper, whatever the hell it's all about, was set up that long ago, at least. I'll be damned, I will be damned," said Mendoza.
"But the witnesses-" Higgins still sounded doubtful.
"Oh, yes," said Mendoza gently. "Those witnesses."
HE HADN'T TAKEN formal statements from them yet. They brought them into the office that late afternoon and heard what they had to say again, Palliser taking notes. They told the plain, plausible story, and they looked like ordinary, honest people. The Hoffman girl had rented the apartment from Daggett just over four weeks ago, paying cash by the week, forty dollars. Daggett was less nervous now, and he showed the carbons of the receipts he'd given her, all correctly dated. That was the only time the Daggetts had seen her, when she paid the rent. "I don't think she'd got a job," said Daggett. "The only thing I remember her saying about herself, she came from Chicago." His wife nodded placid affirmation.
"That's right. She seemed like a nice, quiet girl."The other woman, her garish makeup in the strip lighting revealing more wrinkles than it covered, was garrulous and confidential. Her name was Helen Garvey. She was a widow and worked part-time at a dress shop on Pico Boulevard. She had lived in the apartment house for nearly six years, and it would be hard to find another place at the same rent when the building was torn down. She'd met the Hoffman girl over the borrowed coffee. They'd got talking and the girl had told her how she'd followed her boyfriend out here and then found he didn't want to marry her after all, and she was all broken up about it.
Mendoza listened to them at length, leaning back in his desk chair, smoking quietly, giving them time. When Mrs. Garvey finally stopped talking, he sat up and said sharply, "Now that is all a damned pack of lies, isn't it? When did you first lay eyes on the girl? She hadn't been there that long, that we know."
Daggett's prominent Adam's apple jerked once, but his lantern jaw thrust forward and he said with just the right tone of indignation, "You've got no call to say I'm a liar. It was all just like we told you. Why'd we want to tell lies about it? None of us really knew the girl at all. It was just like I said, I went up to get the rent and found her like that. Poisoned herself, she had. Why'd we want to lie about it?"
"She'd been here a month," contributed his wife insistently. "I'm sure I don't know why you'd call us liars. We ought to know."
"She told me," said Mrs. Garvey emotionally, "how downright miserable she'd been about her boyfriend. His name was Jim. That was all she ever said. She thought he wanted to marry her-"
"Who primed you with the pretty story?" Mendoza's voice was sharp.
"I don't know what you mean. We just told you the plain truth." Daggett was defiant. They weren't showing any overt signs of nervousness, and when Higgins brought in the typed statements they signed them without a tremor. Mendoza let them go. It was nearly five-thirty.
"You're absolutely sure-"
"For God's sake, don't say it again, George."
"Well," said Palliser, "it's just your word, but if we're working it by the book, there are obvious things to do."
"So go and do them," said Mendoza. `
Palliser got waylaid in the hall by Jason Grace. Grace had been wasting everybody's time enthusing about the new addition to the family. They were planning a formal christening next week and Celia couldn't wait to meet her new baby brother. They would probably bring him home on Sunday. It had all been worth the long wait-
Palliser said yes and fine and just before the end of shift he got down to Communications. He sent off a teletype to the Chicago force asking for any information they could dig up about a Ruth Hoffman, description appended. Just on the very long chance he got hold of Duke in the lab and asked him to wire the girl's prints to Chicago. Mendoza sounded damn sure about the French girl, but on the face of it, it was an unlikely story. Mendoza had on occasion been known to be wrong. Palliser ruminated about it on the way home to Hollywood, but when he got there it slid to the back of his mind as he kissed Roberta.
"You feeling better?" She'd been having a bout of morning sickness.
She smiled up at him as two-year-old Davy came running. "I'm fine, the doctor said it's nothing to worry about. Don't fuss, John."
HIGGINS WAS WONDERING about Ruth Hoffman, too-a very offbeat thing, if Luis was right. But it was all up in the air and Luis wasn't infallible; and it was likely to stay up in the air because there was nothing to get hold of on it. Unless the French police came up with something definite. But a lot of queer things had shown up in Higgins' long years on this job, and he put it out of his mind as he pulled into the drive of the rambling old house in Eagle Rock.
Mary was just setting the table. The little Scottie, Brucie, was underfoot demanding his dinner. Laura Dwyer was busy over homework, Steve not yet home from basketball practice. Their own Margaret Emily was cuddling a stuffed toy on the living-room couch. Higgins built himself a drink and sat down to relax before dinner. Thank God tomorrow was his day off.
THE NIGHT WATCH didn't leave them anything new, and there were still a few statements to get on the pharmacy heist. Hackett was fascinated with the Hoffman-Martin thing. "But what the hell could be behind it, Luis?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Mendoza. "And don't ask me if I'm sure it's the same girl. Not a girl you'd forget. A good-looker in a distinctive way-"
"And you're just the boy to notice. I'll take your word for it."
" Ya paso aquello -I'm a respectable married man."
"Well, we can try to pin it down. Wire photos and prints to Chicago and the French police."
"It's done," said Mendoza, "but damn it, Art, it's a long chance her prints would be in French records. The girl a perfectly respectable girl, what used to be called a lady, and they don't print all the citizens any more than we do."