Free Carnival of Death by Day Keene Page B

the name he gave me for my records.”
    “Have you his address?”
    “Yes. He lives on Franklin Avenue, in North Hollywood.”
    “Describe him.”
    “Eighteen or nineteen. About my size. Light complexioned. Blond hair and wears it long. Thinks he’s hell with the high school girls and judging from the shadows under his eyes, he doesn’t do too badly.”
    “How long has he worked for you, Mickey?”
    “Not long. If he’d shown up yesterday morning, it would have been the fourth stand he’d played.”

Chapter Eleven
    T HE ADDRESS wasn’t difficult to find. The landlady was cooperative but not helpful. Yes, she had a lodger named Tommy Banks. No, he wasn’t home. Yes, she’d known for the last few weeks that he had been working for a small carnival, or group of rides, that played shopping center parking lots.
    No, she didn’t know when he would be home. She hadn’t seen him since late Friday afternoon. No, he hadn’t told her where he was going but, judging from the way he was dressed and the fact that he’d strapped his skis on the roof of his Volkswagen sedan, she imagined he’d gone to one of the mountain resorts, possibly Big Bear or Mammoth Mountain.
    No, there hadn’t been anyone with him, male or female. She didn’t allow her lodgers to entertain girls in their rooms. No, she didn’t know the license number of his car. No, she didn’t know the name of any of his friends. She had, however, heard him boast that he had a lady friend who had a cabin near Big Bear City. Yes, it was possible he’d gone there.
    Daly asked the woman for permission to use her phone and called Charlie Schaeffer and asked him to have one of his men check with the Bureau of License and get the license number of a 1960 or 1961 Volkswagen registered to Tommy or Thomas Banks.
    “Whatever you say, Tom,” Lieutenant Schaeffer said. “But you and Gene are wasting your time. We just ran a quick polygraph on Laredo and while our expert says it is inconclusive, we feel it’s at least indicative that he’s in this thing up to his neck. Every time the dead guard’s name was mentioned, the writing arms almost jumped off the graph.”
    “That was to be expected,” Daly said. “Mickey explained that to us. He hated Kelly for making a pass at his wife. Hated him enough to kill him. But that doesn’t prove he did, nor does it prove that he either planned the caper or in any way participated in the looting of the truck.”
    “No,” the homicide man admitted, “it doesn’t. But you and Gene do me a favor, will you, Tom?”
    “If we can.”
    “When you find some other way that Tim Kelly could have gotten that lethal dose of chloral hydrate except in the cup of pink lemonade that Mrs. Laredo served him, call back and let me know.”
    “I’ll do that,” Daly promised. “But right now Gene and I are going out to the shopping center and see if we can pick up anything there.”
    There was little about the new East Valley Shopping Plaza to distinguish it from any of the dozens of other shopping centers in the Greater Los Angeles area. Nor had the incident of the day before done anything to impede the swarms of Sunday bargain hunters.
    As Daly parked his car DuBoise asked, “Just what are we looking for?”
    Daly admitted, “I haven’t any idea. But, if possible, I want to talk to the public relations man who took that picture. I also want to ask around the neighborhood and try to find out if anyone knows anything about the mysterious Dr. Alveredo.”
    “You think he could have been in on this?”
    Daly shrugged. “It could be. Kelly died seconds before, or after, he gave him an injection. And you heard Schaeffer on the phone. If we hope to pry the Laredos out of this, we have to find some other way that Kelly could have been given that chloral hydrate.”
    “But can it be injected intravenously?”
    “I don’t know. Right now the only thing I’m certain of is that Kelly didn’t commit suicide.”
    They crossed the parking