Free Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon by Dell Shannon

an
anxious-looking gray-haired woman was visible in there listening.
    "I don't know what happened, Officer, but it's
Mrs. Eberhart. Maybe a stroke or something, only she's not that old.
Why, she could've laid there hours before anybody found her—a
terrible thing—the Kohlers are off on vacation, they've got the
apartment across the hall, they've gone to visit their daughter—you
see Mrs. Eberhart's apartment is on the rear right. Why, she could've
laid there all night, except that I took the trash out and naturally
went out the back door and passed her apartment."
    "So, let's have a look," said Conway.
    Down the dim hall the door of the rear apartment on
the right was open. With Peterson dithering in the background, Conway
took a quick experienced look. The woman was dead. A big, buxom blond
woman, the blond courtesy of peroxide, wearing a flowered cotton
house robe. She was sprawled just inside the door and there was dried
blood on one temple—just a trace. There was a table beside the
door, standing sideways out from the wall. You could read it. She'd
been knocked down, hit the table. The autopsy report would probably
say, fractured skull. He thought resignedly, better get out the lab.
It could, of course, have been accidental: Maybe she'd been drunk and
fallen down, but also it could be something else.
    He asked questions. Peterson said, "Well, her
name's Rose Eberhart. I don't know about any relations. She's lived
here about six years. Well, yes, I do know where she worked. It was
McClintock's Restatuant on Sunset. She was a nice quiet tenant,
Officer, never any trouble and always on time with the rent. I
suppose it could've been a heart attack. That can happen to anybody,
age doesn't seem to matter. Oh, for goodness' sake, no, I'd never
seen her under the influence of alcohol."
    A couple of men from the night watch at the lab
showed up in a mobile truck. Conway said, "You better give it
the full treatment, boys."
    Just in case. And leave it to the day watch to look
at further.
 
 
    FOUR
    SATURDAY WAS Sergeant Lake's day off and Rory Farrell
was sitting on the switchboard. Mendoza glanced over the night report
and passed it on to Hackett. "So we'd better find out something
about this Eberhart woman, in case it is a homicide. Wolf's coming in
sometime today to make a statement, but there's damn all on that, we
can file it and forget it."
    Hackett said, "I wonder if they've got the
air-conditioning back on at the jail. “We've still got to talk to
Gerber. Of course, Bauman had the gun, it's likelier he did the
shooting. Which reminds me—" He called the lab and talked to
Horder.
    He had dropped the gun off at the lab on Thursday.
    Horder said, "Oh, yeah, that's the equalizer,
O.K. Matched the slug out of the body."
    So they could write a report after they got the
statement from Gerber, if he'd say anything, and send in the evidence
to the D.A.'s office and forget it. This time, Bauman might go up for
a sizable stretch.
    It was Landers' day off.
    On the other heist last night, the pharmacist had
given a fairly good description, volunteered to look at mug shots.
He'd be in this morning. Hackett went over to the jail to talk to
Gerber. Palliser said, looking over the night report, "I suppose
this restaurant won't be open until ten or so. Has the warrant come
through on Aguilar?" It hadn't, but would be showing up sometime
today.
    Bernard Wolf came in about nine and made a brief
statement, and Wanda Larsen took him down to look at mug shots. But
there could be a thousand walking around who conformed to that
description.
    And finally the coroner's office sent up the autopsy
report on the supposed Ruth Hoffman. Mendoza read it over rapidly,
one hip perched on a corner of Higgins' desk, and passed it over.
"So, a few possibly suggestive things," he said.
    The report said that the girl had died of a massive
overdose of a common prescriptive sedative, a phenobarbitol base.
Interestingly, there were indications that it had