Free Cold Shoulder by Lynda La Plante Page A

Should she call the LAPD in the morning, give them an anonymous tip-off? Describe the attacker? She yawned, maybe. Maybe she should just get some sleep, take it all day by day as Rosie said.
     
     
    Rosie pulled the cushions off the sofa, turned the TV set down low and, from her reasonably comfortable position on the floor, propped herself on her elbow to see if there were any more game shows scheduled. She used the remote control to move from channel to channel, paying only a moment’s attention to the local news item that showed the photograph of Norman Hastings, whose body had been discovered in the trunk of his dark blue Sedan. He had been beaten to death with some kind of hammer. His wallet was missing. Anyone with any information regarding the dead man was asked to contact the local police, and a number was flashed onto the screen. Fifteen minutes later, she switched off the TV and settled down, with a regretful sigh. Tomorrow was another day, another meeting when she would have to admit she had slipped. She began to recite the twelve AA traditions. She rarely got beyond the sixth or seventh and tonight was no exception, By the third she was soundly asleep. ‘The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.’
     
CHAPTER 2
     
    T HE NEWS bulletins about the discovery of Norman Hastings’s body were repeated on the early-morning television shows, but now included footage of the abandoned blue Sedan and a further request for anyone who had seen him or his vehicle to come forward. The officer heading the murder enquiry at the Pasadena Homicide Division was Captain William ‘Bill’ Rooney.
    Directly after the morning shows, Rooney’s department received a phone call from a Don Summers. He was not a hundred per cent certain, but he thought he had seen the blue Sedan in a Pasadena shopping mall car park the previous afternoon.
    Rooney did not get around to questioning Summers until the following day. He doubted if Summers’s evidence could help, since he could not be positive that he had seen the exact car, and had not made a note of the registration number. Neither had he had a clear view of the driver, only the woman who had been in the vehicle with him. Rooney was able to ascertain that at the time of Summers’s possible sighting of the blue Sedan, Hastings, according to the autopsy report, was already dead. Rooney also had details of the dead man’s missing wallet, and knew that it contained a few hundred dollars which Hastings had withdrawn from his bank on the morning of his death. He suspected that robbery was the murder motive as they had failed to come up with any other reason. Hastings appeared to be a happily married man, well liked at his work and without enemies or anyone with a grudge against him.
    Rooney did not review Summers’s call-in statement until he had further evidence from Forensic and the full autopsy report. Although the interior of the Sedan had been cleaned and no prints found — not even those of the dead man — Forensic had discovered two further blood samples, one on the driver’s seat, the other on the inside of the glove compartment. What prompted Rooney to question Summers personally was the woman’s shoe found rammed beneath the front seat. It did not belong to Hastings’s wife.
    Rooney sat with Mr and Mrs Summers, as Summers repeated his statement of how he had seen the blue Sedan parked, heard the man screaming and gone to investigate. He was now more sure that it was the one in the photographs shown to him by Rooney. His wife was convinced that if it was not the same car, it was the identical model and colour.
    ‘Okay, now, can you tell me about the woman? The one you stated was in the car?’
    Summers gave a good description. Tall and thin, she was wearing a bloodstained flower-print dress. She was injured, her mouth was bleeding, and he thought she had a head wound. She was also clutching a purse. She had told him the man had tried to rob her.