Double Bluff

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times Lieutenant Mendoza seems to be beset on all sides: at home, his wife Alison is convinced she is having twins; at the office his worry is a man called Francis Ingram, prime suspect for a murder Mendoza does not think he has committed. Yet the fact remains that someone has murdered Mendoza's wife, Arabella, and the evidence points straight at him. But as the case progresses it becomes clear that everyone has a grudge against her and a consuming interest in her will . . .

Release date: May 21, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

“YOU’RE going to be late,” said Alison, pouring Mendoza’s coffee as he came into the kitchen. “I’ve finished the paper—you’re
all over the front page.” She plucked El Señor off the table for the fifth time, and he lashed his blond-tipped tail sulkily. Bast got up on Mendoza’s lap.

“Damn,” said Mendoza. “And Holmes will never believe I didn’t angle for it.” He looked at the front page resignedly. If he was not exactly all over it—space
was also devoted to the Russians, the newest satellite, and the arrival of some V.I.P. from Norway—he occupied a prominent spot in the upper left-hand column. KILLER CAPTURED
AFTER ASSAULT ON POLICE, said the headline; and the cut showed a somewhat disheveled but recognizable Mendoza in the foreground, with a couple of much bigger men behind him grimly handcuffed
together. “And if I didn’t know,” he added, “I wouldn’t like to guess which one was the honest man. Art looks much more the criminal type. Talk about a tempest in a
teapot. A very ordinary thug—only a question of time before we dropped on him. You’d think they’d have enough news without building it up like this. And it was Art who got
assaulted, not me.”

The story started out, “Lt. Luis Mendoza, star veteran of Headquarters Homicide, today arrested and charged Fred W. Myers, no fixed address, as the brutal mugger who for six weeks has
terrorized lone women and murdered two in the course of robbery.”

“I don’t know that I care for that ‘veteran.’ I’m not senile yet, am I? . . . Well?”

“What?” said Alison, looking up. “Oh, certainly not, amante. . . . Athelstane, now there’s a nice name, don’t you think? Athelstane Mendoza. It means
‘noble stone.’”

Mendoza looked at her, getting out a cigarette. “This low humor I don’t appreciate, especially at breakfast. And the doctor said you ought to have more than just toast and
coffee.”

“Pot calling the kettle black. I never want much breakfast. . . . And if it’s twins, which is quite likely, you know—twins on both sides of my family—”

“¡Ay de mi! Don’t hold the thought, damn it!”

“—we could call the other one Aspasia. Or Aubrey. Or,” said Alison, turning a page in the Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names, “Augustus.”

“In fact,” said Mendoza, lifting Sheba off the table, “a new low level of humor. Of course it’s my own fault for marrying a Scots-Irish girl, and a redheaded one at that.
When I think of what the combination might produce—”

“It would be rather funny,” agreed Alison, “if it—or they—got that. Redheaded Mendozas. You know what it comes down to, Luis—we’ll have to go all the
way in one direction or the other. The only thing to do. Of course I always thought I’d like to call a boy for my father.”

“I don’t think I remember—”

“Angus Andrew,” said Alison.

Mendoza set down his coffee cup and said, “¡Carape, que Dios te envie a otra parte! Over my dead body!”

“Well, of course it’d sound odd. But that’s just what I say, we’ll have to go one way or the other. Either Angus Andrew or something like—like Rodolfo Diego. Of
course we’ve still got seven and a half months to decide.”

“It should be obvious by now that it’s what’s called an impasse,” said Mendoza, pushing Nefertite’s nose out of his coffee. “And I thought we’d
agreed—”

“On Teresa, if it’s a girl, for your grandmother. Yes, that’s all right. But it is apt to be twins—”

“There you go again, just inviting trouble,” said Mendoza.

“Well, it’s past praying for now, idiot,” said Alison.

“There’s a properly respectful wife. And I will be late now.” Mendoza swallowed half of his second cup of coffee and went to get his jacket and hat. Shrugging into the
beautifully cut new silver-gray herringbone, he added, “It should also be obvious that there’s only one possible solution: John. Unless you want him to go through life explaining his
peculiar ancestry to every chance acquaintance.”

“Well—” said Alison.

He put a hand under her chin, bent to kiss her. “See you at six, querida, unless something comes up. And if you go out, not the high heels. The doctor
said—”

“Oh, bother the doctor!” said Alison. “I’m feeling fine, it’s a perfectly natural process after all. . . . Boniface, Botolf, Brendan—my grandmother’s
maiden name was Brendan—Yes, all right, good-by, amado.”

“¿Porvida, donde irá a parar todo esto—what will be the end of this indeed?” wondered Mendoza, kissed her again, patted all four cats, and went out to the
garage for his Ferrari.

He fully expected to take a little kidding about his publicity over the ordinary thug, and he was not disappointed. Sergeant Arthur Hackett, who had sustained a wrenched
shoulder and several bruises in the actual capture, said rude things to him. But Captain Edward Holmes really meant the rude things he said.

Inadvertently, Mendoza had managed to get his name in the papers on several occasions in the last year or so, and if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other, it did to his immediate
superior. Not that Holmes would ever admit it, but he’d have enjoyed being featured in the papers, and saved clippings secretly. Possibly what annoyed him more than the mere fact that Mendoza
received the attention was that he was indifferent to it. And that was to have certain unfortunate results.

But a more immediate result of this latest publicity came at a little after ten o’clock.

Mendoza had gone over the new cases that had turned up overnight—all routine; discussed the Hammersmith business with Hackett and agreed on what to do about it; and was now going over the
Shane case with Sergeant Palliser, and approving his handling of it. Palliser, who had made rank less than a year ago, was turning out to be a bright boy; Mendoza liked him.

“O.K., then, you go on handling it that way and we’ll see what—” He looked up as the office door opened.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” said Sergeant Lake, “but”—he shut the door behind him—“I can’t get rid of this nut. He says he’s got to see you.
Says it’s about a murder. I think he’s just a crank of some kind, but he won’t leave. He gave me a card.”

Mendoza took it. “Lawrence S. Winthrop III. Well, well, how impressive. All right, I’ll give him ten minutes, Jimmy. If I buzz you, come and help me toss him out. O.K., John, you
carry on and keep me up to date.” Palliser went out, and Sergeant Lake held the door open for Mr. Lawrence S. Winthrop III.

Mr. Winthrop was in his late fifties, tall, lean, and scraggly, with a hatchet profile, thin gray hair, and weak china-blue eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. He came in in a rush, hat in hand,
already talking.

“Lieutenant Mendoza? You are the same—yes, I see you are—the picture! It appears, sir, that you are an efficient police officer. I said to Janet at once, we must have
you, when I saw what this morning’s Times—You have my card, sir? It is a most urgent matter, Lieutenant, and I am quite put out at those fools of policemen! But an
experienced officer like yourself—”

“Sit down, Mr. Winthrop,” said Mendoza, “and tell me what this is all about, won’t you?”

“Thank you, thank you—yes, I must be calm and orderly, I must—But there, you see how inefficient they are, when they have not informed their own headquarters! This
is the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, is it not?” Mendoza admitted it. “You see! I must tell you—something must be done at once! It’s my
sister—my older sister Arabella—I tell you, Lieutenant, she has been made away with—murdered! Murdered in cold blood by her villain of a husband! On,” said Mr. Winthrop
anticlimactically, “last Tuesday evening. New Year’s Day, in fact.”

“Just a moment,” said Mendoza. “You said something about police, Mr. Winthrop. Which police? Where did this crime occur, if—mmh—it did occur?”

“I swear to you—this vulgar upstart from heaven knows where—Bella is dead in some terrible way, perhaps he has buried her, or even dismembered—one reads of such
things—Where? Of course you must ask for relevant facts. Yes. My own address is the Trevelyan Arms, 4766 Wilshire Boulevard. Bella’s name and address is—was, I
should say!—Mrs. Francis Ingram—and I always thought it was a made-up name, doubtless the fellow has a police record somewhere—Mrs. Francis Ingram, 296 Sycamore Terrace in
Hollywood. I—”

“Yes, thank you. But neither of these addresses is in the Headquarters jurisdiction, Mr. Winthrop. You should—”

“I am telling you, sir, I have gone to the—um, ah, the precinct is the correct term, is it not?—but had absolutely no satisfaction! The officer I spoke to has taken no action
in the matter at all—disgraceful—he appeared to believe the lies Ingram told him. He had the effrontery to say—But when I noticed the article in the paper this morning, I
said to Janet—that is my other sister, Lieutenant, my younger sister, Mrs. Janet Barron—I said, ‘We must go to higher authority for any result.’ I am
convinced—”

“But I’m afraid Headquarters can’t interfere,” said Mendoza, “unless we’re officially requested, you see. You went to which precinct station, Mr. Winthrop,
Wilcox Avenue or Pico Boulevard? Wilcox, yes. Who did you see? . . . Lieutenant Ames, yes. Well, we can’t take over unless Lieutenant Ames or his superior asks us—Yes, certainly
it’s all the same police force, but—The Headquarters jurisdiction takes in only—Yes, I understand, Mr. Winthrop, but—” After five minutes of
this he despaired of getting through to Winthrop, buzzed Sergeant Lake, and stood up. “I’m very sorry, but you must understand it’s outside my jurisdiction. And we’re rather
busy this morning, I’ll have to ask you to excuse me.”

They got rid of him with some difficulty. “Just a nut,” said Sergeant Lake, when Winthrop had finally stalked off down the hall in what he’d probably call a huff.

“Maybe,” said Mendoza. “Never knew anybody really talked like that.” He went back to his desk, picked up the outside phone, and requested the Wilcox Avenue station in
Hollywood. Was Lieutenant Ames there? He was; who wanted him? . . . Just a minute, sir.

Lieutenant Ames had a rough bass voice and sounded tired and elderly. “Winthrop?” he said. “Yeah?”

“I just had him here, telling me how inefficient you boys are. I thought you’d like to know, he’s hell-bent for making trouble, this kind or that. When he left he was muttering
something about seeing the editor of the Times to Demand Action.”

“Oh, fine,” said Ames. “That’s all we need.”

“I don’t want to butt in on your business, which is what I told him. We’ve got quite enough to keep us busy down here.”

“I bet,” said Ames. “I suppose it could be he’s right, but there’s nothing to go on. We went and looked, what else? We have to investigate complaints. But it looks
like just nothing, see? These Ingrams are Money. Big new house in an exclusive section, two Caddies, the works. Both in the sixties, married just a couple of years—she was a widow. Ingram,
he’s annoyed, and I don’t blame him. He says her family never did like him, resented her getting married at all, to anybody, you know? And now they’re telling nasty lies about him
and jumping to wild conclusions. He seems like a nice fellow, perfectly O.K.”

“Yes? What about Mrs. Ingram?”

“Well, she’s gone off somewhere, but what’s that say? Since last Tuesday, Ingram says. He’s perfectly frank about it, says she got a little miffed at him about something
and decided to go off alone for a few days. Says she’s done it before. She packed a bag and drove off in her own car. Well, I ask you, Mendoza. I’m not justified in sending out an
eight-state alarm, or digging up the damn yard for a body, on that. Chances are Ingram’s telling the exact truth and she’s in some classy motel down at La Jolla or up at Santa
Barbara.”

“How right you are. You told Winthrop if she didn’t show up after a reasonable time to go to Missing Persons.”

“Well, hell,” said Ames, “it’s not as if we’d found bloodstains all over, or something like that. The woman’s competent, she can do what she wants, and
Winthrop admitted he’s known her to go off for a weekend alone before. He’s just imagining things, because he doesn’t like the husband. But, my God, if he goes to the
newspapers—”

“Uses in publicity,” Mendoza consoled him. “It might turn up the miffed wife right away. Well, it’s none of my business, I just thought you ought to know.”

“Sure, thanks,” said Ames gloomily. “And talking about publicity, congratulations on Myers.”

“Oh, that. It wasn’t really me at all,” said Mendoza, as Hackett loomed in the doorway, “but my gallant senior sergeant. O.K., Ames, luck.” He put the phone
down.

“Soft soap,” said Hackett. “I should be taking the day off, with this shoulder. And no sleep, or none to speak of. I don’t understand it—Angel says it’s
perfectly natural, but she can stay home and sleep in the afternoon. Why the hell don’t babies sleep at night like normal human beings?”

“One subject I know nothing about.”

“You will, hermano—oh, brother, you will!” said Hackett, grimly pleased. “Like a time bomb. Two-forty on the dot every night, he goes off. And keeps it up steady
until five o’clock. I’m just looking forward to August, misery loving company like they say. I hear Alison might have twins. She told Angel—”

“¡Anda, Dios me libre! From you too? ¡Basta! I refuse to think about it. Any man’s a fool to get married and involved in these domesticities.”

“About two forty-five every morning,” said Hackett. “I agree with you, in spades. Who were you talking to, about what?”

“Nothing important,” said Mendoza. And there, unwittingly, he told a lie.

Apparently neither the Times, the Citizen-News, nor the Herald-Examiner thought much of Lawrence Winthrop’s suspicions as a news story, but (as might
have been expected) he was welcomed with open arms by the Telegraph. It was the kind of story the Telegraph loved; and the Telegraph knew exactly how to stop short of
libel—just short of it. The allegedly missing Mrs. Ingram occupied half of the second page of the Telegraph next morning; and the accompanying column bristled with
“alleged,” “implied,” “stated as personal opinion,” and all the other indicated circumlocutions.

Glancing over it, out of curiosity, when Sergeant Lake drew his attention to it, Mendoza thought that if Francis Ingram couldn’t sue the Telegraph he had a nice little case for
libel on Winthrop. Who, surprisingly, was identified as “formerly active on local political committees,” an occupation that ought to have taught him something about tact.

Both Winthrop and the Telegraph joined in baiting the stupid cops who refused to take action, and there was, of course, a dramatic appeal for Mrs. Ingram—if, after all, she was
alive—to return home.

Which she didn’t do.

That was the first indication that there might be something funny somewhere. Unless the woman had amnesia, she must have seen some paper (after a few days the others had carried the story too,
more discreetly) or heard a radio news broadcast. And if she did have amnesia she’d probably have ended in a hospital somewhere, and been identified.

After a week, with no Mrs. Ingram turning up dead or alive, the papers lost interest and relegated the topic to an occasional mention on the back pages. But presumably all the furor started
Lieutenant Ames doing his homework over.

Meanwhile, other less ephemeral cases came Mendoza’s way to be dealt with; he didn’t as a rule read any paper but the Times, which took a poor view of sensationalism, and he
didn’t follow the case of the missing widow.

Until, nearly three weeks after Winthrop had invaded his office, he had the widow handed to him.

On Wednesday morning, January eighth, Sylvia Glass had cleaned the hearth in the Ingram living room. And she found Mrs. Ingram’s upper denture plate among the ashes. No
attempt had been made to burn it; there hadn’t been a fire laid for several weeks. It was just there. She was, not unnaturally, very surprised; and, Winthrop arriving at the house just then,
she showed the plate to him. The discovery would have constituted a fairly good reason for his agitated charge of murder; but he’d been talking about murder the week before, to the police. .
. . Ingram had nothing at all to say about the plate. “But it shook him,” said Ames to Mendoza later, “anybody could see that.”

There were also Mrs. Ingram’s glasses, discovered on the first routine search of the house—lying on the dressing table in her bedroom. She was very shortsighted and wore glasses
every waking moment. Ingram said she had two pairs of glasses; everybody else said they had never seen her wear a different pair, and her optometrist said he had never made her a second pair. No
other optometrist, so far, had claimed her as a patient.

Which just sufficiently bore out Winthrop’s charges that the Hollywood boys thought now that it ought to be investigated more deeply. But after a couple of weeks’ vain work on it
they decided they wanted no part of such an ephemeral business, and handed it over to Headquarters with relief. “And I wish you joy of it,” said Ames.

Holmes didn’t think there was much in it, that was obvious. If he’d had any idea of the publicity in store, he’d have taken the case on himself. As it was, it was also obvious
that Ames was passing the buck. “And I can’t say I blame him,” said Holmes. “It’s one of those things where there’s nothing to get hold of. We could work on it
for a year and never get any more, and I don’t think, on what there is, we’ll ever get to a prosecution. But there’s just enough there so it’s got to be worked on, you
know.”

Mendoza said he knew. On the way back to his own office, with an armful of typed statements, he did a little swearing. He had enough unfinished work on his desk now; and a thing like this, all
up in the air, was always irritating.

He spent an hour digesting all the statements and transcribed notes, sent for Hackett, handed the pile over to him, picked up the phone, and called Ames to set up a meeting in his office.
Statements and notes were all very well as far as they went, but personal impressions were often more valuable.

“All this,” said Hackett, reading, “is just a handful of nothing. Mostly—What the hell is this about calling an inquest? You can’t have an inquest without a
body.”

“It’s been done,” said Mendoza. “There’s this and that—have you come to the maid’s statement yet? Well, it’s our baby now, we’ll have to do
what we can on it.”

“WELL, Ingram could have killed her,” said Ames. “But I don’t see why he’d want to. Not that that means much, I
know—”

“No. They might have had a fight—he might have lost his temper and gone for her, something like that. A cynic might say,” said Mendoza, “that the mere fact that they were
man and wife—How did he strike you, Ames?” He was getting all he could out of Ames before taking over officially.

Lieutenant Robert Ames chewed his cigar a moment before answering. He wouldn’t be far off retirement, Mendoza thought: maybe in his early sixties. He’d joined the force a long while
before it had demanded its present high requirements of I.Q., temperament, and education; but he was a long way from being a fool, and he’d had a lot of experience with human nature. He was a
big paunchy man, bald and red-faced.

“Ingram’s a nice guy, I liked him. Easy and friendly, you know. I tell you, in his place I’d have taken a punch at this Winthrop, but he just makes out he’s kind of
amused at Winthrop’s suspicions—”

“Yes, that’s one of the things that looks just a little funny to me,” said Mendoza.

“For a fact, it does,” said Ames. “I liked the guy, but I’ve been wondering if that doesn’t maybe say he’s trying to play down all the fuss.”

“Mmh,” said Mendoza, thinking of what all the statements and notes said about Francis James Ingram. In the last ten days a lot of routine work had been done on these people. Just in
case.

The reports listed Francis Ingram as sixty-two. T. . .