Death of a Busybody

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

It all started with the baby shower that friends gave Sergeant Hackett. There, Alice Mendoza, bride of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, met the insufferable Margaret Chadwick. But the next morning, Miss Chadwick's body was discovered in the Southern Pacific freight yards, neatly strangled and minus a single clue. That was when Mendoza was called in . . . 'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times

Release date: May 21, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

“Nice big lots,” said Alison, “two hundred by three hundred. And all the trees left. On Jovenita Canyon Road. No, Sheba!” She rescued her clean
stockings and began to put them on.

“I refuse,” said Mendoza from the bathroom, “to live on a street called Little Woman Canyon.”

“Well, I know, but— Get down, Nefertite, not my earrings. There were some on Appian Way too.” Silence from the bathroom, except for splashing, was not
encouraging. “I didn’t like the one on Elusive Drive,” she said hastily. “Too hilly. And Lulu Glen is too far up.”

“¡Por mi vida!” said Mendoza. “Who names these places?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Alison, removing Bast from her dress on the bed and starting to get into it. Emerging in the middle of a sentence, she added, “—On account
of the cats. Because almost anywhere else it’s illegal to keep more than three, of course. It wouldn’t be too much of a drive for you, would it, darling? There were two others at the
end of a street called Haslam Terrace—”

“Possible,” said Mendoza. He came out of the bathroom, shirtless, and surveyed her with approval. “I don’t know why we’re going to build a house. And don’t
say because I didn’t like any of those already built.”

“Because you can’t bring up children in an apartment.”

“All right, all right. Two. No more. If I had had any idea you harbored these medieval notions—”

“But you can afford more. Not like most people. Oh, damn. Come and fasten this, Luis.”

“As if that had anything to do with it.” He came and fastened it. They both looked at Alison in the mirror and were pleased, from their reflected expressions. Mendoza bent and kissed
the back of her neck. “So we’ll go and look at the lots on Haslam Terrace tomorrow.” He went to get a clean shirt.

“Yes, I thought so. Where are you taking Art?”

“As it happens, nowhere but the office. Something more showed up on a case.”

“Oh,” said Alison, spraying cologne. “Well, buy him a drink or something afterward—better not let him go until at least eleven. These hen-parties—Luis, you left the
closet door open.”

It was too late. El Señor had noticed before she had. Six ties lay in a heap on the floor while El Señor reached for the seventh, delicately.

“¡Señor Molestio!” said Mendoza. “¡Salga de acqui—bad cat!” He began to pick up the ties. El Señor stalked
across the room, floated lightly up to the bureau-top and fixed a cold stare on his mother Bast, who was industriously washing his sister Sheba. Mendoza put on shirt, tie, and jacket. Alison picked
up her short coat and bag; in the living room collected a large gift-wrapped box. The cats sat in a row across the living room floor and watched them.

“Did you latch the record-cabinet, novia?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Alison, “he’s found out how to unlatch it, I meant to tell you.”

“That cat. I tell you, it’s reincarnation. He was a sorcerer or a high priest in Egypt.”

El Señor slitted his green eyes and yawned at them. El Señor looked like the negative of a Siamese cat; he was mostly black with blond touches on face, ears, paws and tail-tip. He
stared at them and moved his tail once, contemptuously.

“No me tome el palo,” said Mendoza, “you know, but you won’t tell!” He shut the door behind them and they went out to the garage. “Be careful
now, querida. Lock both doors on your way home—”

“Don’t fuss. I’ve lived in a big city quite awhile and survived. You too . . . Here, wait a minute, you’re all over lipstick— Have a nice time with your murderer,
darling.”

He watched her back out the Facel-Vega Excellence before opening the driver’s door of the big black Ferrari. He thought, sliding under the wheel, the trouble was he didn’t think they
could get Benson on a murder charge. Quite likely only plain manslaughter. Moral certainty was not evidence; it was annoying.

Alison drove toward Highland Park sedately, on her way to a shower for Mrs. Arthur Hackett who was expecting a baby in September. She thought amusedly about Luis. Two only, he said in horror. Am
I merely a stud animal? Well, as to that— The fact was, of course, that many more than two (and of course she was thirty-three next November, a horrid thought) and people would think,
oh, well, Mendoza, naturally. Like that. When he hadn’t set foot in a church for twenty-five years. Men.

Indeed, men. This car—and that Ferrari. They said it could go a hundred and sixty-three miles an hour, and he never drove over sixty. Not often, anyway. Eighteen thousand dollars.
And insisting on getting her the Facel-Vega, when she’d preferred that nice little Mercedes sports-car. “Those little things are dangerous in traffic. No.” “Well, if you
like the Facel-Vega so much, why don’t you have one too, instead of that ridiculous Martian-looking racing car? After all—” “Unpleasant associations,” he’d said.
He’d smashed up a Facel-Vega last year, chasing after Alison and a murderer. Well, it was a nice car to handle . . .

She went out Los Feliz, took the Golden State Freeway down to Figueroa and got onto the Pasadena Freeway. The quickest way, really. Followed that up into Highland Park, got off it and drove up
to Springvale Street where Sergeant Hackett and his Angel had lived in an almost-new house since January.

She didn’t anticipate enjoying the evening greatly. Angel, as involuntary hostess (it was a surprise shower) wouldn’t be able to chat with individuals much; the woman who had called
Alison had been a stranger, a Mrs. Larkin, and doubtless most of the guests would be too—people Angel had known before she knew Alison Weir Mendoza, people she knew from the job she’d
briefly held before she married Art.

There were people already there. Cars crowded along the curb, both sides; perhaps other people along here were having parties tonight. Alison parked the car halfway down the block and walked
back. Angel, looking pretty and flushed in a very smart navy maternity-smock, kissed her at the door; said all the expected things and in a whisper, “Thanks for letting me know!”
Because Alison, having some common sense, had: knowing how Angel would hate being “surprised” with a party the night she had planned to wash her hair or give herself a facial. These
hearty extroverts.

She filed her gift-parcel with the others, was introduced to eight or ten other women. She had met only one of them before, Roberta Silverman—an overtall, dark girl about twenty-eight,
with a careless drawl and lovely dark eyes, an interesting face. As a painter, Alison saw faces a little differently than other people. Most people wouldn’t call Roberta Silverman
goodlooking; Alison would. An interesting face, flat-planed, and that mobile wide mouth. And she remembered liking her, too. Unfortunately, she was at once shunted into a small group of strangers.
A Miss Chadwick, Margaret Chadwick. A Joy Chester or Chesterton. A Mrs. Larkin, the one who had called her.

Everyone was social and gay; ashtrays filled, were emptied. Margaret Chadwick, beside Alison on the couch, talked to her more than anyone else, in a thin discontented voice. Margaret Chadwick
hadn’t much to say of good cheer; the burden of her talk was largely complaints about rude salespeople, garage-mechanics who overcharged, and the awful weather. Tiring of Margaret rather
soon, Alison made several polite attempts to change her seat but was foiled each time; it was a smallish room, and crowded. Once she intercepted a sympathetic glance from Roberta Silverman; and
about ten minutes later, turning to stub out a cigarette, she saw Roberta Silverman’s eyes fixed on Miss Chadwick with something very like hatred. The next moment the dark eyes dropped, and
Alison wondered if she was imagining things. A dull person, yes, a dreary girl, but that was not enough for hate, merely dislike.

Angel’s bright little living room (those curtains had been a bargain, so right for the room, and wasn’t that a new lamp table?) was filled with unfortunately high-pitched female
chatter. Everyone was having a fine time. Presently there came the high moment of gift-unwrapping, and Angel was properly and prettily grateful and admiring over everything, from the inevitably
duplicated bootees to the eminently practical packages of diapers. And shortly after that Alison found herself in the kitchen helping Angel set out plates—open sandwiches, cake and
coffee.

“How I loathe these affairs, which is ungrateful,” said Angel. “But you know. It’s so nice of all of you, I appreciate it. But—” she glanced sideways
at Alison over a poised slice of cake—“in the middle of a hen-party, I really don’t like women very much at all.”

“How well I know what you mean,” said Alison. “I told Luis to keep Art busy until at least eleven, but that’s only another hour or so. Be bloody, bold and resolute, stick
it out and eventually we’ll be at peace alone with our men.”

“So much more restful,” said Angel, and having served the last piece of cake, licked frosting off the knife. “Thank God you warned me . . . You rather got stuck with Margaret
Chadwick, I’m sorry.”

Alison knew what she meant there too. “Where’s she date from, school or later?”

“Oh, school,” said Angel rather vaguely. Angel had had a childhood, a young-girlhood, she didn’t much enjoy looking back on. “You could say. We were at Merriam’s
Academy together. I expect it was Rose Larkin—included her tonight. She’s all right, but—”

And then someone came in eagerly offering to help serve. The serving was accomplished. The bright female chatter continued as everyone settled again, ate sandwiches and cake and drank
coffee.

Alison had ended up back in her original place, there being none other empty. She sat beside Margaret Chadwick, who had not offered to help serve plates. She longed to tell Margaret Chadwick
that that fussy powder-blue dress with its lace-trimmed collar was all wrong for her.

“You just have to watch these people like a hawk or something, you know. They’ll shortchange you every time if they think they can get away with it.” Margaret Chadwick was
about twenty-eight (Angel’s age). She hadn’t a bad figure, a rather good one for very plain, tailored things—which meant, face it, almost no figure. She was tall and thin, rather
bony; she had a narrow face with quite regular features, but she’d thinned her eyebrows too drastically and her lipstick was too pale—these newly fashionable “muted” shades;
she needed a good deep-toned pink lipstick, with her dark brown hair and fair skin. Her eyes were an unfortunately pale blue and she wore a perpetual expression of faint disapproval. Of,
apparently, everything.

“Such shoddy materials,” she was saying now, looking at the pile of presents on the coffee-table. “I said to the clerk, Is that the best you have? And such outrageous prices
too. People trying to do you out of money, any way at all . . . That’s a very pretty ring, Mrs.—Mendoza? Is it a real emerald, may I ask?”

“Well, yes,” said Alison, and thought she sounded apologetic for no good reason.

“And your earrings and bracelet. How nice. I’m afraid I’m terribly old-fashioned, I never feel quite respectable wearing rings when I have on colored polish. Of course,
I don’t wear it as a rule. It gets chipped so easily, doesn’t it? Have you known dear Angel long, Mrs. Mendoza?”

Alison said equably, “Just a couple of years.” The delicate implication there put over very nicely: I have had a socially better bringing-up—such vulgar display, jewels
and colored polish—and, faintly, the inevitable prejudice: Mexicans-and-people-like-that. “My husband and Angel’s husband work together—Lieutenant Mendoza.”

“Oh, yes. Such a—an unusual job, a police officer.” And then the phone rang, and Angel went into the little hall to answer it, came back and said it was someone who wanted Miss
Chadwick. And Margaret Chadwick went out, and after a short time came back, smiling. By then Alison had succeeded in finding a seat near Roberta Silverman.

Between ten-thirty and eleven the hen-party broke up. Margaret Chadwick was one of the first to leave. Others drifted off after her, saying all the indicated things. Alison murmured,
“Dishes?” to Angel.

“Don’t bother, it’s nothing. I’ll stack them and Art can help me in the morning . . . Thanks, Alison.”

Alison thought a little regretfully, no casual, Regards to Luis, etcetera. Luis and Angel didn’t appreciate each other. Funny, when I like Art, thought Alison vaguely. It was ten past
eleven when she left. Dutifully she locked both doors of the car. Drove down to the Pasadena Freeway, followed it back to the Golden State, turned right there. Scarcely any traffic at this hour.
She turned on Fletcher Drive, up to Rowena, and up past there to dead-end St. John Place. She slid the Facel-Vega into her garage-slot. The space next it was empty, though it was ten to twelve.
She’d expected him to be home before her.

Three of the cats were asleep in a neat huddle on the couch. El Señor sat before the record-cabinet, which was open, contemplating the photograph of Harry Belafonte on the album dragged
onto the floor.

“¡Señor Demonio!” said Alison, put the album back, shut the cabinet, went into the bedroom and did some worrying as she undressed.

They had gone out to arrest somebody, and he’d had a gun, and Luis was in the morgue and Art in the General Hospital. He’d got in the way of a drunk driver on his way home. There had
been—

When he came in she was sitting up in bed smoking, surrounded by cats. “You’re in the morgue and I’ve been shopping for black dresses,” she told him.

“¡Que atrocidad, mi corazon! Only more paper-work at the office . . . New nightgown. Very nice. Did you have fun at your hen-party?”

“No. Angel and I both agree, females en masse can be horribly boring . . . Look out, don’t sit on Sheba.”

Mendoza laughed. “But who wants them en masse? Much more fun in the singular . . .”

“Mmh,” said Alison presently, “and also, I suppose—I just thought of that—because of the red hair.”

“What because of what?”

“You. About children. Because it’s quite likely that at least half of them would have, isn’t it? And it would be rather funny at that—red-haired Mendozas.”

“Are you back to that again? ¡Frene—ay de hijos todos! Let go of me, let me get undressed. I’ve been up since six and working on this damned Benson thing, and then
when I do get home you nag at me—”

“Yes, dear. And not so young as you were either, I know—you need your sleep. Would you like some hot milk?” asked Alison solicitously.

“Impudente,” said Mendoza.

“Well, tomorrow is Sunday. Do you have to rush right downtown after the Benson thing, whatever it is? I want you to see those lots, so we can decide.”

“And then there’ll be an architect, and too much money paid out, and new furniture— Of course, one thing, it’ll keep you occupied and take your mind off this hypothetical
family awhile . . . All right, all right. You take me to see the lots tomorrow.” Mendoza lifted an armful of cats off the bed, deposited them in the nearest chair, and reached for the
lamp-switch.

But he did not get taken to see the lots next morning. Because at six o’clock next morning an employee of the Southern Pacific on his way to work noticed something lying up against the
high fence which separates North Broadway from the S. P. main freight-yards, and stopped to investigate. After which he called the police. It was, of course, in the headquarters area, so some men
came straight out from headquarters.

It was a dead woman lying there; she had been dead some time; she had been strangled. The police didn’t have any trouble finding out who she was: her handbag was lying right there beside
her. All the bills (if there had been any) had been taken out of her wallet, but apparently nothing else, and the I.D. card and driver’s license identified her as a Miss Margaret Chadwick of
6704 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood.

Mendoza contemplated the array of objects on his desk. It was an old subject for jokes to a lot of people: the junk in a female’s handbag. To a homicide officer, it was
more apt to have the connotation, possessions of deceased.

There was the handbag, a smart black patent-leather one. It had a rough abrasion on one side; otherwise it looked brand-new, and the lining was not stained with powder. There was a gold
loose-powder compact, a clean powder puff, and two lipsticks. One was “Coral Pastel,” and the other “Pink Pastel.” There was a used handkerchief, white with an embroidered M
in one corner, and a clean folded handkerchief, blue-and-rose printed. There was a wallet, feminine version, of tan ostrichskin. In the wallet’s coin-pocket was ninety-seven cents in change;
in the wallet’s little plastic slots were a filled-out identity card, a driver’s license recently renewed, a candid snapshot of a youngish man, a library-card, a membership-card of a
West Hollywood women’s club for the present year, and that was all. No Social Security card. After the wallet came a checkbook in a leather folder stamped with her name. It held seven blank
checks, which were also printed with her name. There was a small address-book of red leather. An automatic pencil, silver and black: a famous brand. A fountain pen ditto. A little folder of
tear-off memo-notes. A leather key-case with three keys in it. A pair of glasses in a silk case. The glasses were of exaggerated Harlequin shape, blue set with rhinestones; the silk case was blue,
embroidered in white. There was a small ingenious gadget, a pocket calculator for doing quick sums. There was a green leather case containing a pair of manicure scissors and a nail-file. There was
a crayon-like object which, by its label, when moistened halted runs in stockings. There was a dollar-bill which had been tucked, folded small, out of sight in an inner pocket of the handbag. There
was a little gold box studded with blue stones, which contained three aspirins. There was a long, flat, polished gold cigarette-case, made to hold a full pack; left in it were four Marlboros. There
was a gold lighter. There was one full book of matches, and one half-used. There was an unopened pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

“Ver y creer,” said Mendoza, “seeing is believing. Wasn’t she careful and foresighted, though! Very unfeminine—or is it?”

“What?” Hackett looked up from the map spread out before him.

“Everything she might need. Several things she’d need only in various kinds of emergency. A second handkerchief. A second lipstick. Just going out on an evening party, her address
book. None of these keys are car-keys—I’d say two house-keys and a key to a safety-vault. So she kept her car-keys in a separate case. So careful. A handy little calculator—to
check up on salesclerks? A manicure set in case she broke a fingernail. This thing to stop a run in her stocking if one got started. A dollar tucked away in case she lost her wallet. Aspirin in
case she had a headache. A fresh pack of cigarettes in case she finished all those in the case. A lighter—which works,” and he snapped it, “but also matches—just in case. A
pen and also a pencil, and a memo-pad, in case she needed to write somebody a note. Her checkbook, in case she needed to write a check. She didn’t need glasses for driving, so her license
says—so, just for reading, maybe. Yet she brings them along to the party.”

“So?”

“So, wasn’t she the careful, efficient one, our Margaret, looking ahead? No Social Security card—the set-up looks like money, yes. What a waste—she’d have made
somebody an inhumanly good secretary.” Mendoza went on staring at the array.

Hackett looked at him. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t, Luis, try to turn it all complicated just for a hunch. It’s run of the mill. She was driving home alone from
a party, about eleven o’clock. Her best way was down the Pasadena Freeway to the Golden State, and then up Rowena or one of the through streets there to reach Franklin. O.K. Somewhere on the
Pasadena Freeway or at the exchange-point, she ran into trouble. Stopped for some reason, and somebody jumped into the car. Or something. Anyway, she picked up a passenger. Who forced her into some
dark side-street down there, killed her, robbed her, tossed the body and the bag out, and drove off in the car. The place where Riverside—the Golden State—joins the Pasadena Freeway is
about ten blocks away from the freight yards. North Broadway’s deserted and dark as hell, that hour. He wouldn’t even have to stop. Slow down, shove her out. No sidewalks, so she rolled
up against the fence. That’s all.”

“No,” said Mendoza, shaking his head. “Don’t try to cover it up, Arturo. You did it. She’d been inciting Angel to leave you, telling. . .