Murder Most Strange Read Online Free PDF

O.D.," he told
them. "Maybe suicide. Hell of a thing, the little kid found her.
The daughter, kid about ten or eleven. She went to the neighbor, who
called us. Mrs. Werner, it's apartment fourteen—the corpse is next
door in sixteen. A Mrs. Marion Cooper."
    It was a shabby old building, the rents probably
middling low. Up the uncarpeted stair and down a narrow dark hall
they came to Patrolman Gomez, massive in navy uniform, being
noncommittally polite to a plump middle-aged woman. "I don't
understand what you mean by an O.D.—why, she was just a young
woman, I know young people can have heart attacks too but—heavens,
it's just terrible to think of Harriet finding her like that. What
could have happened? . . ."
    She'd had a shock, and the talk was compulsive, but
she looked like a normally sensible woman, plainly dressed, graying
dark hair.
    "Mrs. Wemer," said Gomez, looking relieved
at the advent of Mendoza and Higgins. "These are the detectives,
ma'am."
    "We'll want to talk to you shortly,"
Higgins told her.
    "All right. I've got—I brought Harriet into my
place. It seemed— She's only eleven. I suppose we ought to call her
father. I just don't understand—I didn't know Mrs. Cooper very
well, but she was just a young woman, couldn't be much over thirty—"
    "We'll get back to you," said Higgins. She
retreated into her own apartment, and Gomez edged the door of
apartment sixteen farther open with one toe.
    "It looks like an 0.D. There doesn't seem to be
any suicide note."
    Mendoza stopped inside the threshold and looked
around with distaste. Expectably, in an apartment of this vintage,
the walls needed painting, the furniture was old and dun-colored; but
the little living room hadn't been cleaned or straightened for some
time, there were clothes and dirty dishes on every surface in wild
disarray, and the place smelled stale and fusty. Past the living room
to the left was a glimpse of a small kitchen with just enough space
for a tiny square table and a couple of chairs at one end. In the
other direction a minute cross hall led directly to a small square
bathroom, a pair of equally small bedrooms to each side.
    The body was in the bedroom on the left, quite
peacefully reposing in the bed. "The covers were all pulled up,"
said Gomez apologetically. "We had to see if she might still be
breathing, but——"
    She looked to be about thirty, and no dead body is
beautiful but they could see that she'd been a pretty woman: a taffy
blonde, with a heart-shaped face, a small pouting mouth, and in the.
low-cut blue nylon nightgown her figure was curvaceous. She had died
easily and comfortably without struggle. One hand was curled up
around her head, a small plump hand with the nails painted dark red.
The bedroom was in disorder too, the top of the bureau and dressing
table heaped with miscellany, clothes on the one straight chair, the
foot of the double bed; the door to the little closet was open, and
that looked cluttered and untidy.
    There was a little two-drawer nightstand at one side
of the bed; it held a small ceramic lamp with a ruffled shade, an
ashtray, and a used glass with a few dregs at the bottom.
    Higgins bent over and took a sniff. "Scotch."
    "And maybe something else," said Mendoza.
He looked at Gomez. "Get on the mike and rustle up a lab unit,
will you?" He went out of the bedroom, across the living room,
to the kitchen.
    The sink was stacked with dirty dishes, but the
little table was oddly clean and empty. Standing at one edge of the
counter nearest the table was a pint bottle of a low-priced brand of
scotch; there was only about a jiggerful left in it.
    "So," said Mendoza.
    "Turn the lab loose on it. They'll give us all
we'll get on this."
    "Maybe," said Mendoza. When they came out
to the hall, Gomez was coming back. He said a mobile unit was on the
way.
    The door of the next apartment was ajar. Mendoza
tapped on it and went in. Mrs. Werner got up anxiously from a sagging
couch across the room. "Oh, have you found