I laughed. I had come to love Night Train in the months since Wacky’s death, and he never failed to amuse me.
“Mr. Underhill, you make that evil dog stop chewing my newspaper! Make him give it to me!”
I bent down and scratched Night Train’s belly until he dropped the paper and started to nuzzle me. I flipped it open to show Mrs. Gates that no damage had been done, then caught the headlines and went numb.
“Woman Found Strangled in Hollywood Apartment” it read. Below the headline was a photograph of Maggie Cadwallader–the same Maggie with whom I had coupled in February, shortly before Wacky’s death.
I pushed Train and the caterwauling Mrs. Gates away, then sat down and read:
A young woman was found strangled to death in her Hollywood apartment late Monday night by curious neighbors who heard sounds and went to investigate. The woman, Margaret Cadwallader, 36, of 2311 Harold Way, Hollywood, was employed as a bookkeeper at the Small World Import-Export Company on Virgil Street in Los Angeles. Police were summoned to the scene, and the woman’s body was removed pending an autopsy. However, assistant L.A. County medical examiner David Beyless was quoted as saying, “It was a strangulation, pure and simple.” Detectives from the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department have sealed the premises, and are looking at burglary as the motive.
“I think the woman was killed when she awakened to her apartment being ransacked. The state of the apartment confirms this. That will be the starting point of our investigation. We expect a break at any time,” said Sgt. Arthur Holland, the officer in charge.
The victim, originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin, had been a resident of the Los Angeles area for two years. She is survived by her mother, Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader, of Waukesha. Friends from her place of employment are tending to the funeral arrangements.
I put the newspaper down and stared at the grass.
“Mr. Underhill? Mr. Underhill?” Mrs. Gates was saying. I ignored her and walked back to my apartment and sat on the couch, staring at the floor.
Maggie Cadwallader, a lonely woman, dead. My one-night conquest, dead. Her death was not unlike that of the woman whose body Wacky and I had discovered. Probably the deaths were unrelated, yet there was the slightest bit of physical evidence linking them: I had met Maggie at the Silver Star. Her first time, she told me. But she may well have returned, frequently. I wracked my brain for the name of the woman whose body Wacky and I had found, and came up with it: Leona Jensen. She had had matches from the Silver Star in an ashtray filled with matchbooks. It was slight, but enough.
I changed clothes, putting on my light blue gabardine summer suit, made coffee and mourned for Maggie–thinking more of her little boy in the orphanage back east who would never see his mother. Maggie, so lonely, so much in need of what I and probably no man could have given her. It was a sad night I had spent with her. My curiosity and her loneliness had been left unresolved, anger on her part and self-disgust the only resolution on mine. And now this, leaving me feeling somehow responsible.
I knew what I had to do. I had three quick cups of coffee and locked Night Train in the apartment with a half-dozen big soup bones, then got my car and drove to my old home, Wilshire Station.
I parked in the Sears lot a block away and telephoned the desk, asking for Detective Sergeant DiCenzo. He came on the line a minute later, sounding harried. “DiCenzo here, who’s this?”
“Sergeant, this is Officer Underhill. Do you remember me?”
“Sure, kid, I remember you. You got famous right after I met you. What’s up?”
“I’d like to talk to you briefly, as soon as possible.”
“I’m gonna get lunch in about five minutes, across the street at the Shamrock. I’ll be there for the better part of an hour.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, then hung up.
The Shamrock was a bar-lunch joint specializing in corned beef sandwiches. I found DiCenzo at the back, wolfing a “special” and chasing it down with a beer. He greeted me warmly. “Sit down. You look good, college man. Too bad about your partner. Where you been? I ain’t seen you around.”