Glasser came back and said S.I.D. hadn’t picked up any latents or any other physical evidence at the scene. She’d probably been killed elsewhere and brought there just before the fire was set. "Well, we’ve probably got her identified, at least," said Palliser absently.
Galeano and Conway had been deflected onto the supposed hit-run, which everybody had comfortably supposed would get buried in Pending. Landers had gone to cover the inquest.
At least they had no sooner been informed that it wasn’t a hit-run than they got an I.D. for him. Traffic had come across the body about midnight on Monday, in the middle of Valencia Avenue up from Venice Boulevard; there hadn’t been any I.D. on it, so the lab had collected his prints next morning to run through. Ten minutes after Bainbridge had called Mendoza, the routine report came in. His prints were in their records; he had a small pedigree from a while back. He was Robert Chard, now thirty-nine. He’d been picked up for auto theft as a juvenile, for attempted assault just after he’d turned legally adult, and had one count of B. and E. after that. He’d never served any time at all, and apparently had never been in trouble since.
The latest address was sixteen years out of date, but it was a place to start. Longwood Avenue. You had to go by routine even when it looked unproductive. Not feeling very hopeful, Galeano tried that address, which was an old frame house in need of paint, and turned up a Mrs. Holly, a thirtyish slattern who said she was Robert Chard’s sister.
"Why you looking for Bob? He hasn’t been in any trouble for a long time, nor he won’t be either, under the thumb of that bitch he married. You cops tryin’ to make out he done something?"
"No, ma’am," said Galeano politely. "We’d like to get his body identified. He’s dead."
"Well, for God’s sake," she said mildly. "Bob? Is that so? Was it an accident?"
"We’re not sure," said Galeano. "When did you see him last?"
"Gee, I’d hafta think. The last years, since he got married, rest of the family hardly ever saw him at all. That bitch, she used to be scared he’d spend money on presents for Ma, and he kinda got out of the habit of coming-of course Ma died last year- Well, I could tell you where they were living, last I knew, but I don’t know if they still lived there. It was Constance Street. My God, think of Bob dead-damn, I s’pose I got to get in touch with her, I oughta go to the funeral."
If you didn’t get rich at a cop’s job, Galeano reflected, you had a box seat at the eternal spectacle of human nature in action.
Nobody was home at the address on Constance, an old cracker-box duplex. A nameplate next to the doorbell had a hand-printed slip in it that said CHARD, so at least this was the right place. Funny, maybe nobody had missed him yet. Or maybe nobody cared whether he came home or not. Galeano tried the neighbors, and found only one home, a deaf elderly man who told him that Mis’ Chard worked someplace uptown, and he didn’t take any notice when she usually came home.
Better leave a note for the night watch to contact her, thought Galeano.
He was still intrigued by the empty wheelchair in that tale Carey had spun them, and he wanted to talk to that blonde, start asking questions around on that; but what with all the legwork, it was the middle of the afternoon and he still had to type out a report on this.
He got home about six-thirty, to his neat small bachelor apartment on Edgemont up in Hollywood, rummaged in the freezer and put a TV dinner in the oven, and sat down with the Herald over a glass of the cheap red wine he liked. His mother and sisters had given up years ago deviling him to find a nice girl and get married; at thirty-six, Galeano had settled into comfortable bachelorhood.
That was a fishy little story of Carey’s, he thought idly. It would be interesting to know what really had happened there, just how Edwin Fleming had managed to melt into thin air, leaving his empty wheelchair behind. Galeano thought that blonde couldn’t be quite so dumb as Carey thought.
Mendoza was greeted exuberantly by the twins as he came in the back door, and Mrs. MacTaggart rescued him.
"Your father’ll come to see you in your baths, my lambs, right now you’l1 let him have some peace and quiet." She led them off firmly.
He found Alison, surrounded by the four cats Bast, Sheba, Nefertite and El Senor, stretched out on the sectional in the front room, with Cedric curled up on the floor beside them. "Hello, amado," said Alison. "I’m sorry I was cross this morning, but this is turning out to be quite a project. No, I don’t want any dinner-I had some bouillon a while ago, Mairi bullied it down me-but she’s getting something for you. And if you’re going to have a drink first, you can bring me just a little creme de menthe to settle my insides." She looked wan.
At his first touch on the cupboard door where the liquor was kept, El Senor appeared, his Siamese mask-in-reverse wearing a hopeful look. Mendoza poured him half an ounce of rye in a saucer and took his own drink and Alison’s back to the living room.
"You know, Luis," she said, half sitting up to take the glass, "we’ll have to think about a new house. Just as I was saying last night. Because there are only four bedrooms here, and with the baby we’ll need five. And besides-"
"One thing," said Mendoza, "leading to another. Pues que." The twins had been, not without protest, graduated to separate rooms.
"And it did seem like a lot of space at first, two lots," said Alison, sipping, "but it isn’t really enough room for Cedric-he needs more exercise. And I’ve been thinking, it’d be nice to be-you know-a little farther out, on an acre or even more-it isn’t as if you haven’t got the money."
"Delusions of grandeur," said Mendoza.
"Well, we might as well enjoy it while we can. I think I feel better," said Alison. "Give me a cigarette, darling. You might tell Mairi I could take some mushroom soup."
The phone rang down the hall and he went to answer it, passing E1 Senor thoughtfully licking his whiskers.
"Mendoza."
It was the main desk at headquarters; the night watch wasn’t on yet, upstairs. Central Receiving had just called in the information that Father O’Brien had died an hour ago. "Thanks so much," said Mendoza.
So the pretty boys had a homicide to their credit now. And still not a smell of a lead as to where to look for them.
Just before Palliser left the office, Fresno called back. Mrs. Moseley had been contacted and would come down to L.A. tomorrow to look at the body.
"The report we had, they thought there was another girl with the Moseley girl," said Almont. "You just found the one?"
"We think. Just her so far," said Palliser. "Thanks, we’ll be expecting her."
"No trouble. These kids. Poor woman sounded all broken up."
Palliser stopped at a big bookstore in Hollywood on his way home and asked for a copy of The Kennel Club Obedience Manual. He handed over seven bucks for it and had it under his arm when he unlocked the driveway gate and slid through it. A solid object weighing some seventy pounds immediately hit him amidships like a bomb, and he said breathlessly, "Down, girl!" But she impeded every step to the back door and into the kitchen, giving him to understand what a hard day she’d had guarding the family every alert minute, all for love of him. In the kitchen, she rose up lovingly at Roberta and nearly knocked her over. She was, no question, going to be a very large German shepherd; only nine months now and still growing.
"We’ll have to do something about training her, John," said Roberta severely.
"I know, I know. I’ve got a book," said Palliser, and then discovered that Trina had it instead, chewing the cover like a bone. He rescued it hastily and hoped that wasn’t a bad omen.