Policeman's Lot

Book 0: An Ivor Maddox Mystery

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune The Wilcox Street precinct is as busy as ever. Sergeant Maddox and his team face three tricky murder cases, with motives that turn out to be as strange and bizarre as the crimes themselves. But it is not only murder that is occupying Maddox. When policewoman Carstairs, who has vainly adored him for so long, begins to show interest in newcomer Sergeant O'Neill, Maddox discovers to his astonishment that he is jealous and will have to balance his time between romance and murder.

Release date: July 14, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

Maddox got back to the office after lunch at a few minutes after two. He passed the desk in silence without a glance at its occupant or D’Arcy lounging beside it.

The man at the desk winked at D’Arcy. “Could it be the man’s just opposed to changes, period, I wonder.”

“I suppose,” said D’Arcy.

“It couldn’t be anything to do with me, could it?”

“What, for instance?” asked D’Arcy. Maddox’s footsteps faded away down the hall upstairs, and Johnny O’Neill sat back in his chair and laughed.

“I never knew a Welshman yet that wasn’t born two drinks under par. They need jiggering up.”

“Well, you do your best, Johnny.” D’Arcy grinned.

Changes had hit the Wilcox Street precinct station, but only in the normal course of events. They hadn’t had a replacement for O’Brien and probably wouldn’t now; the force was
as usual shorthanded. That promising young man Mark Chandos, who had just made Detective last year, had been transferred away to the Harbor division. And when Ed Carter had retired in April,
they’d got to replace him, transferred up from Central downtown, Johnny O’Neill. Redheaded Johnny O’Neill, Maddox’s own age, with his disarming slanted grin, had managed to
annoy Sergeant Maddox almost at once.

“Jiggering up,” he repeated now. “But it’s the hell of an uphill job, D’Arcy, and be damned if I know why I take the trouble.”

D’Arcy started to say he’d been wondering about that too, when O’Neill sat up, his eyes over D’Arcy’s shoulder, and said politely, “Yes, ma’am, can we
help you?” D’Arcy turned.

The woman hesitating just inside the door came in farther and said, “Yes. Yes. I—it’s about my son. I just can’t imagine what’s happened, and I’m
worried to death. I’ve called everybody—everybody I can think of—and nobody knows a thing and I just can’t imagine— It’s not like Harry, he’s always
considerate, and besides where would he go? At that time of night? He—”

“Just take it easy, ma’am,” said O’Neill. “Mrs.—”

“Arthur. Mrs. Floyd Arthur’s my name, my husband’s dead but I— Ruby Arthur.”

“And what seems to be your trouble, Mrs. Arthur?”

“I told you,” she said impatiently. She was an ordinary-looking woman in her forties, with short dark hair starting to turn gray; her one claim to looks her large dark eyes under
arched brows. She was neatly and drably dressed in a sleeveless cotton print dress. “It’s Harry. My son. I don’t know where he is. It’s not like him. And
I’ve—”

“You want to make an official report that he’s missing?” asked D’Arcy.

She turned to him. “Yes. Yes, I guess I’d better, if that’s the way to start you looking for him. Because I just can’t imagine—”

“Then you come upstairs to the office with me and we’ll get all the information down,” said D’Arcy. Something new. If it didn’t sound like much. He shepherded her
up the wooden stairs and down to the detectives’ office, and introduced her to Maddox, who was looking through some photostated record sheets. Maddox was not looking very jiggered up,
D’Arcy reflected, as yet: their thin dark pessimistic little Welshman. “Mrs. Arthur wants to make an official missing report.” D’Arcy gave her a chair and sat down at his
desk, and Maddox put down the photostats and picked up a pen.

“Who’s missing, Mrs. Arthur?”

“Harry. My son. Really, going all round Robin Hood’s barn like this. I just can’t understand it. It’s not like him. Harry—you can set your watch by him.
He’s exactly like his father—always was. And where he can have got to, because I’ve called everybody we know, and—”

“What’s the address?” asked Maddox.

She gave it to him absently. “Leland Way . . . Yes, we live together. My daughter Leila’s married, they live in Highland Park, but of course Harry and Ruth aren’t figuring on
getting married until next year, saving up for a down payment on a house. Harry makes good money—just like Floyd, all he ever has on his mind is work and save—not that he’s a
tightwad, I don’t mean, he always buys me nice presents, my birthday and Christmas, and—but, home and work, and that’s all. He—”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-one. Started out with a newspaper route when he was eight and he’s held some kind of job ever since, school and all. He’s reliable, Harry,
and—”

“When and where did you see him last, Mrs. Arthur?”

She gave a long sigh and sat back in the straight chair. “I’ve never known him do such a thing,” she said thinly. “Never. I know a lot his age are wild, running
around and all, but Harry—just like his dad, steady as a rock. I guess you’d have to know him to really see how funny it is. He never came home last night at all. And he’s never
done such a thing.”

Maddox laid down his pen. “Well, it’s a little early to report him missing, Mrs. Arthur. Less than twenty-four hours? A young man—with money on him, I suppose—”

“Mr. Bell said you’d likely say that,” she said resignedly. “He agreed with me, but then he knows Harry, of course. He said he’d be glad to talk to you, you want.
He said anybody didn’t know Harry wouldn’t think it was awfully funny. And I don’t know how I can explain to you. Harry doesn’t run around any. Work and home. He works two
jobs—his regular one at building, he’s on a contractor’s crew, a new tract up in La Crescenta, and then he works nights at Mr. Bell’s gas station on Melrose. And aside from
work, well, he’ll be over to see Ruth—I told you they’re engaged—his free night, but like as not they won’t even go to a movie, just sometimes. Harry isn’t much
for going out, and neither is Ruthie—such a nice girl and just right for Harry.”

“Yes,” said Maddox. “When and where did you see him last, Mrs. Arthur?”

“Why, yesterday at supper, of course. He came home at the regular time, a few minutes after six, and I had supper all ready. It was hamburger and carrots and peas and mashed potatoes and
chocolate pudding. I get off at five, I work at Stella’s dress shop, it’s just a few blocks up on Sunset so I can walk. I got home about five thirty, like usual. And I fixed supper and
Harry came home and we ate and he helped me with the dishes, and then he took a shower and shaved again and went to the station. He’s on eight to eleven there every night but Sunday. And he
never came home at all. I never knew till this morning, I went to bed around ten thirty and it wasn’t till I got up this morning I found he’d never come home. His car not there or
anything. So I was scared and first thing I called Mr. Bell and he was scared there’d been a holdup or something—only likely we’d have heard—but he went right over to the
station and everything was all right, the register all closed out proper and the place locked up. Only no sign of Harry except his car.”

“His car?” said Maddox. “That is a little offbeat. It was left at the station?”

“That’s right. Just sitting there, Mr. Bell said. But all the money put away in the safe—he trusts Harry and lets him use it, see, and nothing wrong at all. Just like
Harry’d closed up as usual at eleven. Only why didn’t he come home? I’ve called everybody I can think of, all his friends, and nobody knows a thing. And
Ruthie—” Suddenly she looked ready to cry.

“Well, now,” said Maddox slowly, “I think it is a little early to begin to think there’s anything wrong, Mrs. Arthur. It could be that somebody he knows dropped by and
asked him to a party after the station was closed—something like that. It was Saturday night, after all. Maybe a friend of his you don’t know. And—”

“You don’t know how Harry is,” she said. “He’d have let me know—and a party wouldn’t go on this long. I—I’m awfully afraid
something’s happened—but what?”

“Well, if you want to file an official report, we will.” Maddox took down the statistics. Harry Arthur, twenty-one, five-eight, a hundred and fifty, dark hair and eyes, no marks.
Wearing tan twill trousers and shirt, brown moccasins. “But I think you’re worrying with no reason, Mrs. Arthur. Young men—”

“Not,” she said definitely, “Harry. You’d have to know him to see how funny it is.” She got up. “What are you going to do, look at the hospitals
and—”

“We’ll look around,” said Maddox. He stood up with her politely. “And you keep in touch. Call and let us know if he comes home tonight.”

“I certainly will—but I’m awfully afraid—it’s just not like him.” She looked at them uncertainly for a moment, added, “Thanks anyway,”
and went out.

“It could be something, Ivor,” said D’Arcy. “I know—twenty-one—but people do come all sorts, and she ought to know him. The steady, hard-working kid like
that—the two jobs—”

“There’s also the saying, All work and no play,” said Maddox. “So all right—steady. Conceivably he could have given somebody a message for her, I’m staying
over with Bill and going on a picnic tomorrow, and it never got delivered. We can check the hospitals and so on, but I think it’ll fizzle out. . . . I wonder if César’s found any
of those hoods.”

“I said I’d take half the list. I ought to be doing some work,” said D’Arcy lazily. They sat silent a moment, both thinking of the probable long hot summer ahead. The
first little heat wave this week, in late June, had brought a slight rise in the crime rate already; it would get worse as the summer wore on.

School was out, and the kids at loose ends—Satan finding work for idle hands, and they had a little wave of vandalism going, as well as the ordinary shoplifting and the occasional brawls
between the juvenile gangs. And a good deal more of the dope problem than last year, with all the attendant petty and not so petty crimes growing out of that.

On Friday night the newish hillside home of Mr. and Mrs. George Vedder had been broken into by at least two men—Mr. Vedder, aged sixty-eight, at home alone, had seen only two. They had,
after beating Mr. Vedder severely, ransacked the place and got away with an estimated five grand in jewelry, a mink coat, all Mrs. Vedder’s clothes, the color TV, a new Smith and Wesson .38
revolver, and a transistor radio. Mr. Vedder, from his hospital bed, had given rather vague descriptions of the two men, and the men at Wilcox Street were now looking at pedigrees for anybody who
was given to that kind of caper.

There had been a burglary on Thursday night at a jewelry store on Sunset; they hadn’t any lead at all on that. If the burglar was so foolish as to try to pawn the stuff, they’d
probably get him and the loot; a very vigilant eye was kept on the hockshops in L.A. County; but it had looked like a professional job, and the burglar probably had his own private fence.

Sergeant Ellis and Lieutenant Eden were helping the Feds track down a lavish amount of counterfeit twenty-dollar bills that were getting spread around town. So far the passers remained one step
ahead, and the outraged cries of the merchants getting stuck were growing in volume.

Yesterday morning a corpse had been found in the street on Fernwood Avenue, probably victim of a hit-and-run. Fernwood was a narrow old residential street below Sunset, dark as a pocket at
night; there wouldn’t be much traffic along it then. But there was no I.D. on the corpse—a man about fifty. They were waiting for the autopsy report and any speculation from Dr.
Bergner, about that.

On the whole this had been a quiet week, but with the heat wave getting started things could get less quiet any day.

Maddox stood up, yawning. “I’ve got a few more names from Central’s records. Hoods who’ve used that m.o. If you can say there is much m.o. about the break-in and beating
the householder. Do I have a premonition they’ll do it to somebody else before we catch up?”

“Borrowing trouble,” said D’Arcy; and Sergeant Daisy Hoffman put her blond head in the door and asked if they’d seen Sue.

“Carstairs? No idea where she is,” said D’Arcy. “Sorry.”

“Oh,” said Sergeant Daisy. “Oh, maybe she’s downstairs.”

Maddox scowled. “Being made up to by that damned Irishman. It’s not—it’s not dignified. It’s—”

They both looked at him with covert interest. “I expect she’s somewhere around,” said Sergeant Daisy vaguely. “These damn runaways—we’ve just picked up
another one. As soon as school’s out, I swear, they get the yen for Hollywood. I’ll ask Johnny if he’s—” Her head vanished.

“That damned Irishman,” said Maddox.

Rodriguez came in towing a sullen-looking big man behind him. “Sit down, Carl. Relax. Just a few questions.”

“Goddamn fuzz—I ain’t done a thing, not a thing, just on account I take a fall once, you damn guys—”

They had all heard that broken record so often, it scarcely penetrated. Joe Feinman came in and joined Rodriguez. They started asking questions. “Friday night? I gotta think. I ran into
this guy I know at a bar somewheres, that was maybe about five o’clock, I guess—”

The inside phone rang on Maddox’ desk. “Don’t tell me,” said D’Arcy, “something new.”

“Maddox.”

“You have a new homicide, Sergeant Maddox,” said O’Neill’s cheerful voice in his ear. “Never a dull moment is our motto. Over on Rosewood Avenue.”

“Damn,” said Maddox. “What is it?”

“I tell thee all, I can no more. The female citizen only told me, ‘You better send an ambulance, there’s a dead lady here.’ The ambulance I have dispatched. You can go
find out the details for yourself. And if Aunt Daisy’s still looking for Sue, she’s on her way up now. Have fun with the corpse.”

Maddox put the phone down with unnecessary violence. He said to D’Arcy, “Come on. We’ll have to look at it.”

In the hall outside, they met Policewoman Carstairs just hurrying up toward Sergeant Hoffman’s office across the hall. “Oh, hi,” she said casually.

“You joined the force,” said Maddox, “presumably to act like an upstanding peace officer, not to—to stand around flirting with the desk sergeant. You—”

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” said Sue crossly, “if I can’t take forty minutes for lunch on a Sunday—and a three-minute chat with Johnny is not what
I’d call—”

“Go, go. Your sergeant’s looking for you,” said Maddox. Sue marched past looking annoyed. “Demoralizing the whole damn— That girl used to be a good officer. Why the
hell we had to get that damned Irishman— Aunt Daisy, I ask you. Talk about insubordination.”

D’Arcy followed him down the stairs and on the way to the door exchanged a glance with O’Neill, who winked at him. O’Neill was leaning back in his chair humming “The Rose
of Tralee” in his soft tenor. It occurred to D’Arcy, not for the first time, that Johnny O’Neill was a good-looking fellow.

He hoped the new one wouldn’t turn out to be much of anything. He had a date with Sheila Fitzpatrick tonight.

Rosewood Avenue had been a middling good residential section once, thirty years back. Today it was a depressed-looking street of 1925-vintage stucco houses, with the Hollywood
freeway roaring past its four-block length.

They identified the place they wanted by the ambulance in front. One intern was leaning on it, smoking. He eyed the racy-looking blue Maserati with admiration as Maddox pulled up behind the
ambulance. “That’s a hot-looking heap. Import?”

“Yes. So what’s the word?” asked Maddox impatiently. “Stroke, heart attack?”

The intern grinned. “More like a bullet. We know how fussy you boys are about messing up the scene, we just left it. Little mystery for you. Two women live together—one walks in and
finds the other dead. She says. But you needn’t worry, Sergeant—she’ll probably look in her crystal ball and find all the answers for you. They’re fortunetellers or
something.”

“Fortunetelling is illegal within city limits,” said Maddox.

“Not when you call it a religion,” said the intern.

There were curious neighbors standing around in little groups, staring at the ambulance, at the house. It was an old place, somewhat larger than most along here, and it needed a coat of paint;
the front lawn had been neglected and was brown and patchy. Maddox and D’Arcy went up to the small square cement porch, eyes on them. The front door was open; a neatly lettered,
professional-looking sign hung on a small bracket above the mailbox. THE COMMUNITY CIRCLE OF LIGHT,
it announced, MEETINGS WEEKLY 8 P.M. WEDNESDAYS, SITTINGS BY APPOINTMENT.

In the front room, which was dark and smelled musty, they found the other intern with a big, gaunt, dark woman who was talking steadily in a high-pitched voice. She sat on an old couch
upholstered in faded green velvet, clutching her outsized black leather handbag on her lap, and talked compulsively.

“But nearly twenty years together—and never a cross word. Sylvia and I understood each other through and through, such an advanced soul, dear Sylvia, we complemented each other so
well— But I simply could not believe it, because for one thing dear Mr. Clemens came through so very clearly at the sitting last night and he’s been so helpful and kind, I would have
expected he would have warned us, because surely he would have known if Sylvia was in any danger of passing over suddenly—and he never said a word, it was all about what a lovely time he was
having with all his old friends—and I’d surely have expected— And when I left, dear Sylvia was just sitting there quietly reading—she hadn’t an appointment until
four—she’d only taken half a glass of milk for lunch, preparing for the sitting with Mrs. Nestor, of course—and she reminded me about the chops, for after a really successful
sitting she would be quite famished—the power coming through, you know. And really when I came in and found her—found her—I’m afraid I quite lost my head for a moment.
Sylvia— But it was most kind of Mrs. Miller to call the authorities for me—seeing as she has been quite unsympathetic in the past, and some unkind words passed—but I must
remember, as our friends beyond are always urging us, I must harbor no base thoughts, but only dwell on Love and Good. But one would surely think that some one of the friendly souls beyond
would have warned Sylvia—not that death is anything to fear, but some preparation for the transition— Such a shock, just coming in to find her like that—”

The intern gestured silently, and Maddox and D’Arcy went through the shabby living room to a cross-hall, uncarpeted, with a glimpse into a large square kitchen at one end and, at this end,
three doors. Two square ordinary bedrooms, reasonably tidy, an old-fashioned bathroom with black and white tile, and another room at the very end of the hall, a third bedroom, larger, but not
furnished as a bedroom.

There was a square, plain wooden table in the middle of the room, with four rattan chairs around it; three were upright, the fourth overturned on its side. An old, worn wall-to-wall carpet,
beige. In one corner was an inexpensive portable phonograph on a little coffee table, and a record rack beside it. The album at the head of the rack was Inspirational Hymns. The curtains
at the one window were of blue velvet, looking dusty. A religious picture hung on one wall, an old steel engraving of “The Return from the Tomb.” And sprawled on the other side of the
table, as if she had fallen from the overturned chair, was the body of a woman.

They looked at her in silence for a moment. She lay on her back, legs twisted sideways, and there were two small black holes in her foreh. . .