Free Streets of Death - Dell Shannon by Dell Shannon Page B

’Frisco,
how about that?"
    "I like it," said Landers. "It ties in
very neat. Let’s see what he has to say about it."
    They took him into an interrogation room and started
asking questions. Rank was sullen and belligerent in turns, the usual
attitude, and they didn’t get much out of him."Don’t you
remember where you were last Tuesday, Rank?"
    "Around. Just around." He was about thirty,
a pale-skinned black with a wispy little goatee, a thin mustache,
secretive eyes, a hard mouth. "I didn’t do anything."
    "We’ve got a witness who says maybe you did.
You picked up any juvenile females to sweet-talk lately, Earl?"
    He’d done that at least once, by his record; the
parents had reneged on letting her testify, and there’d been no
prosecution.
    "I never did no such thing. You can’t prove I
done nothing."
    They couldn’t. It might be interesting to hear what
Stephanie would say about his mother’s house on Ceres Street; but
they’d have to show cause and get a court order even to take
pictures, and she might not recognize pictures. It was just
suggestive, no real evidence at all. "And you know, Tom,"
said Palliser, scratching his nose, "that girl was so scared, by
her own admission, I wouldn’t like to take her description of the
man or the house as gospel truth. She couldn’t be certain. You stop
to think, she only saw the man three or four times--in a car at
night, and at the house. She spent some time at the house, but we
couldn’t get much of a description--al1 she could say was, two
bedrooms, no rugs, an old refrigerator, the TV was new. She also
picked this other mug-shot, Steven Smith. He’s got no sex counts,
just B. and E., but I suppose there’s always a first time. But I
wouldn’t bet on it."
    "They do train us to be thorough," said
Landers.
    "We’d better look for him too."
    They let Rank go, at least temporarily, and went
looking for Smith without any luck. He was off parole, he’d moved
from the latest address in his tile, and nobody admitted to knowing
where he was. There were no relatives listed for him. He could be
Stephanie’s Harry, but he needn’t be.
    And Palliser said, "I tell you, Tom, I wouldn’t
rely on that girl. If I felt surer she’d been sure about that
description, I’d like Rank for it a lot. As it is, she picked out
two other shots too. In a way, I think we’d be safer just going by
the general description and looking at mug-shots ourselves."
    "You do like to do it the hard way. You talked
to her," said Landers with a shrug. "So where do we go from
here?"
    "We go call on Earl Rank’s mother," said
Palliser. "She may be a perfectly honest woman--nothing says she
isn’t, though she didn’t like it much when I brought him in--and
if Earl is the X on Sandra, possibly Mrs. Rank noticed something when
she came home yesterday. Things missing from the refrigerator--or
that nice little greenstriped plane case he forgot to get rid of."
    "Well, we can ask,"
said Landers. He didn’t sound very hopeful.
    * * *
    Mendoza’s insatiable curiosity had fastened on the
strange case of Edwin Fleming. There wasn’t much to be done, in the
way of the usual routine, on the equally strange rape-assaults or the
merely brutal pretty boys, but questions could be asked about
Fleming. After a desultory glance at the night report, he went out to
ask some; and he’d be covering ground Carey had already been over,
but then Mendoza always preferred to ask the questions personally,
and he flattered himself he’d get more out of those other girls
than Carey had.
    He started out at the Globe Grill, where he was
resented because they were still busy with the late-breakfast trade.
Rappaport wasn’t there. He used the badge without compunction,
aware that Marta Fleming was watching him with smouldering eyes. The
first one he talked to was Betty Loring, a black-haired buxom female
of, he suspected, very medium intelligence.
    "I don’t know her very well, like I told the
other cop. I mean, she’s all