“I showed a photograph of Margaret Cadwallader to the window man. He told me that Eddie’s last name was Engels, and that Eddie had brought the woman to the track in June for the President’s Stakes. He positively identified her. I had mixed the photo in with several others, so I know he was certain.
“Next I called R&I and got some info on Engels’s record and car ownership. No record; two cars. I went to car dealers and got pictures of the models he owns, then colored them in the appropriate colors. Next I went to every nightclub on the Sunset Strip. Four people remembered seeing Eddie Engels with Margaret Cadwallader. I got their names and addresses. Then I drove to Hollywood. A high school kid remembered seeing Engels’s ’49 Ford convertible parked around the corner from the Cadwallader apartment on the night of the murder. He described it as having a foxtail on the radio antenna. Later that night I broke into Engeis’s bungalow. I found no evidence linking him to anything criminal, but I did see his ’49 Ford. It had a foxtail on the aerial. That’s it, Lieutenant.”
I expected Dudley Smith to fix me with a stern, probing look. He didn’t. He just smiled crookedly and lit another cigarette. He exhaled smoke and laughed heartily.
“Well, lad,” he said, “you’ve got us a killer. That’s for damn sure. The Cadwallader dame, a certainty. The other woman, what was her name?”
“Leona Jensen.”
“Ahhh, yes. Well, there I’m not so sure. What was the cause of death, do you know?”
“The M.E. at the scene said asphyxiation.”
“Ahhh, yes. Who handled it for Wilshire clicks?”
“Joe DiCenzo.”
“Ahhh, yes. I know DiCenzo. Freddy, lad, what are your feelings about this degenerate Engels?”
“I think he knocked off Cadwallader and Jensen and God knows who else.”
“God knows? Are you a religious man, lad?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“Well, you should be. Ahhh, yes. Divine Providence is certainly at work in this case.”
Captain Jurgensen came onto the porch holding a beer.
“Ahhh, John. Thank you,” the lieutenant said. “Give us ten more minutes, will you, lad?”
The captain muttered, “Sure, Dud,” and retreated again.
“I was about to say, lad,” Dudley Smith went on, “that I concur wholeheartedly with you. How old are you? Twenty-seven, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir, call me Dudley.”
“All right, Dudley.”
“Ahhh, grand. Well, lad, I’m forty-six, and I’ve been a cop for half my life. I was in the O.S.S. during the war. I was a major in Europe and I came back to my sergeancy in the department, expecting to rise very fast. I caught a lot of killers, and I killed a few myself. I made lieutenant, and I expect I’ll always be a lieutenant. I’m too tough and smart and valuable to be a captain and sit on my ass all day and read Shakespeare like our friend John.”
Dudley Smith leaned toward me and clamped his huge right hand over my knee. He lowered his tenor voice a good three octaves, and said, “In Ireland, the brothers taught me an abiding love and respect for women. I’ve been married to the same woman for twenty-eight years. I’ve got five daughters. There’s a lot of the beast in me, lad, God knows. What gentleness there is I owe to the brothers and the women I’ve known. I hate killers, and I hate woman-killers more than I hate Satan himself. Do you share my hatred, lad?”
It was his first test, and I wanted to pass it with honors. I tightened my whole face and whispered hoarsely, “With all my heart.”
Smith tightened his grip on my knee. He wanted me to show pain in acquiescence, so I winced. He released my knee, and I rubbed it gingerly. He smiled. “Ahhh, yes,” he said. “Grand. He’s ours, Freddy. Ours. He’s claimed his last victim, God mark my words.”
Smith leaned back and slouched bearlike into his chair. He picked up his bottle of beer and drained it. “Ahhh, yes. Grand. Detective Officer Underhill. Do you like the sound of that, lad?”
“I like it fine, Dudley.”