Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon Read Online Free PDF Page A

furnished
apartment. The lab men had left a handbag on the bureau, the only
handbag there, a big bone-colored plastic bag. There wasn't much in
it. Two keys on a ring, one to the door here, one to the mailbox in
the lobby. A couple of tissues, a soiled powder puff, a half-used
lipstick. There was a shabby suitcase, unlocked and empty, and a
meager wardrobe of clothes in the tiny closet, none new and no labels
in any of them. There were four pairs of shoes, the labels of three
of them indecipherable. The newest pair bore a logo from a local
chain, Kinney's. All the clothes were size fourteen. In the kitchen
cupboards was a modest stock of food—cereal, canned soups, canned
vegetables, instant coffee. In the little refrigerator was a
half-empty quart bottle of milk, an unopened package of hamburger, a
quarter-pound of margarine, a loaf of bread. There were no dirty
dishes.
    "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