08 - Case Pending by Elizabeth Linington

In the grimy underbelly of the city, a girls lifeless body is discovered in a desolate lot, horrifyingly beaten and with an eye brutally gouged out. Across town, another young woman is found dead under similar circumstances. Lieutenant Mendoza is convinced theres a chilling connection. As he delves into this twisting mystery in this first riveting installment of the Lt. Mendoza series, he navigates a colorful landscape of intriguing characters, veiled secrets, and stark realism that resonates with the modern reader. (Summary by Ben Tucker)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eight of case Pending by del Shannon. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Chapter eight. All the
same that dawl intrieked him it was such an incongruous
thing When he unlocked the door of his apartment, automatically
reaching to the light switch as he came in, the

(00:21):
first thing that met his eyes was the elegant length
of the Abyssinian cat draped along the top of the
traverse rod housing across the front windows, a foot below
the ceiling, which meant that Bertha was here. Vast intensely
resented Bertha in her vigorous maneuvers with mop dustcloths and
vacuum cleaner, and took steps to keep out of her way.
He was unsurprised to find her there on a late

(00:42):
Sunday afternoon. The seven or eight people who shared Bertha's
excellent services were used to her ways if she felt
like doing a thorough job on the Carter's Venetian blinds
when she ought to be at the Elgin's, or got
behind because she decided to turn out all the Bryson's
kitchen cupboards. She was apt to turn up almost anywhere
at any time. No one ever complained, because miraculously Bertha

(01:02):
really did the work she was paid for, and had
even been known to dust the backs of pictures and
the tops of doors. She appeared now from the kitchen,
jemming an ancient felt hat over her tight sausage curls.
I was just leavin there, you go, switching on lots
all over the place. Your bill must be something sinful.
You found out yet who that dead man in the
yard was? He admitted they had not, And yes, the

(01:23):
forces of law were so unreasonable as to have arraigned
the society beauty for murder, even after hearing all the
excellent reasons she had for shooting her husband. He looked
at Bertha thoughtfully the average mind, and said, do me
a favor and pretend you're taking one of those word
association tests. You know, I throw a word at you
and you say the first thing that comes into your head.

(01:44):
I know it's psychological. She looked interested. So I say,
doll to you. What do you think of witches? Said Bertha.
I just saw a movie about it last night. The
witch takes and makes this doll and names it in
all and sticks this big pin right through. I get
the general idea said Mendoza, sadly, thanks very much. That'll do, witches.

(02:05):
That was all they needed. When Bertha had slammed the
door cheerfully after herself, he took off his coat, brought
in the kitchen stepstool, and spent five minutes persuading Bass
that it was safe to trust her to scent to him.
That was one puzzle he would never probably solve. She
had no trouble getting up there, but hadn't yet found
out how to get down. As usual, she emitted terrified

(02:25):
yells as he backed down the steps and released instantly
assumed the haughty song freud of the never out of
countenance sophisticate. She turned her back on him and studied
one black paw admiringly before beginning to wash it. There
were times Mendoza thought he liked cats, because, like himself,
they were all great egotists. Witches, he said again to himself,

(02:47):
and laughed. And you put that coat away, tidy, where
it belongs on a hanger, not just anyhow, clothes cost money.
How many times I got to tell you take care
what we got, no telling when we can get new?
Oh oh right, said Marty. He got out of bed
and picked up the corduroy jacket. He couldn't take down
a hanger and put the jacket on it and hang
it over the rod all with his eyes shut, but

(03:09):
he did it fast, and he tried not to look
down at the floor. She was fussing around the room
behind him, but he couldn't help seeing it, even if
he didn't look right at it. And anyway, he thought miserably,
even if he never opened the closet door, never had
to see it, it didn't change anything. The thing was
still there. He'd know about it, so did she, And

(03:29):
for another reason he only half understood himself. That was
partly why he got the door shut again quick. She
might know, all right, but she was different. If she
didn't see it, she couldn't keep from thinking about it.
He felt like he was in two separate parts about that,
the way he felt about a lot of things lately.
Twin Marty's like looking in a mirror. He didn't see
how she could, but in a funny kind of way,

(03:50):
he didn't want to make her have to see it.
Long as she could do like that, He got back
in bed and pulled the covers up. It was just
like something was pulling him right in half, like two
big black monster shapes were using him for tug of war,
and he had to just lie there. He couldn't do
anything because she wouldn't. And even if she was wrong,
she was his ma. And and she said from the door,

(04:13):
you'd be real good now, no horsing around, you go
right to sleep. She sounded just like always. A funny
idea slid into his mind. Then the first minute of
lying there in the dark alone with a secret, he
wondered if she had forgot all about it, if maybe
now she could look right at it and never really
see it at all, like it was invisible because she
wanted it to be. But even in the dark with

(04:35):
the door shut, he could still see it. The box
had gone a long while ago, got stepped on, and
the big piece of thin, white, fancy paper and pink
shiny ribbon had got all crumpled and spoiled pretty soon
from handling. The doll wasn't new anymore either. It sat
there on the closet floor, leaning up against the wall.
Even when he shut his eyes tight, he could see it.

(04:56):
It had been awful pretty when it was new, Even
if it was just a silly girl's thing. It wasn't
pretty anymore. The spangly pink dress was all stained and torn,
and most of the lace was torn off the underwear,
and one of the arms was pulled loose. The gold
curls had got all tangled and some pulled right off,
and one of the blue eyes with real lashes had

(05:17):
been poked right in, so there was just a black
hole there, and you could hear the eye sort of
rattle around inside when you the other eye still shut
when the doll was laid down. Marty always had a
funny hollow feeling when he heard that eye rattling round inside.
You'd think sometime it'd fall out, but it never did.

(05:38):
He'd been lying here felt like hours still as he
could in the dark. This was the worst time of all,
and lately it had been getting harder and harder to
let go and pretty soon be asleep because in the
dark it seemed like the secret was somehow as big
as the whole room, so he couldn't breathe, so he
felt like he had to get out and run and

(05:59):
run and hell everybody yell it as loud as he could.
He lay flat, very still, but he could hear his
heart going DoD DoD very fast. You were supposed to
say a prayer when you went to bed. She'd made
him learn it when he was just a little kid,
and when they lived over on Tappan and he'd gone
to the method of Sunday school. He'd been up on
the wall there in the Sunday school room, the words

(06:20):
sewed onto cloth some fancy, old fashioned way, and flowers
around him in a gold frame. He could see that
now sort of in his mind, red and blue flowers
and the words and four lines. It was the only
real prayer he knew by heart, and he was afraid
to say it anymore, because if you said any of it,
you had to say it all, and it might be
worse than bad luck to say the end of it,

(06:42):
if I should die before I Most of the time,
like at school anyway, in daylight, he could stand it.
But this was a bad time alone with it. A
lot of feelings were churning around inside him, and they
didn't exactly go away. Other times they were still there,
but outside things to push them deeper inside, sort of school,

(07:03):
in baseball practice and being with other kids in all
but like this in the dark, they got on top
of him. A lot of bad feelings. But the biggest
and worst of all was being just plain scared. There
were times like yesterday when he thought she was too,
and then again seemed like she made up her mind
so hard that nothing so awful like that could be
so for her. It just wasn't. Maybe grown ups could

(07:25):
do that. You sure wish he could. Like Looking right
at that doll and never remembering, never thinking, Marty felt shameful,
tears pricking behind his eyes, but the fear receated a
little in him for the upsurge of resentment at her unfairness.
She told a lie, a lie. He knew it was
a lie. He wasn't crazy, was he? If Dad had

(07:48):
been there, She'd never dared say he was the one
telling lies. But what could you do when had grown
up your own ma? I bought it, she said, and
he thought he remembered. It was one of the times
she sounded afraid too. I did so buy it, Marty,
you just pretended not to remember. You got to remember
all that money. I saved it up in a body

(08:08):
yesterday About the money wasn't a lie she had, but
the rest wasn't. So he remembered. What he remembered made
terrible pictures in his mind. Now he put it all together,
the fear that was never very far away now even
at school outside came creeping over him again, like a
cold hand. Feeling the doll. It had been awful pretty

(08:30):
then he wished he could forget that picture. All it
said under it in the newspaper. She hadn't got it
this time. She wouldn't talk or listen about anything to
do with it. Now seemed like something just made him
get that paper. And it had cost ten cents too. Elena.
It was a pretty name. But he wished he could
stop seeing the picture because it was the same girl

(08:52):
he'd known it would be. But it was worse knowing
for real, sure the picture, and the very worst about
it was something silly, but something terrible too, the picture
that looked like that doll when it had been new,
before the eye had he thought he heard a noise
over by the closet door. It wasn't, really, he told himself.
It wasn't. In California, they didn't hang people for murder.

(09:15):
They had a gas chamber instead. It sounded even worse,
a thing maybe like a big iron safe and with
pipes that but other people they shouldn't get killed like that,
even if he didn't know, didn't mean. Even if Ma,
it wasn't right, Dad would say so too, whatever it meant,
even something awful like the gas, somebody ought to know

(09:37):
and right off too, before it ever happened again. But Ma,
and that was a noise by the closet door. Primitive
physical fear took him in what seemed like one leap
across the room and out to where it was light
in the parlor. She had an old shirt in her lap.
She'd been mending, the needle still stuck in it, but
she was just sitting there, not doing anything. What's the

(09:59):
matter with you now, she asked, dully. He tried to
stop shaking, stop his teeth chattering. Please mind, Can I
Can I sleep out here on the sofa? I don't
like the dark it. She looked at him a while
and said, you're a big boy, be scared of the dark. Please, Ma,
I guess if you won't, she said, in almost a whisper,

(10:21):
She went in and got the blanket off his bed.
He lay on the sofa, the blanket tucked around him,
and face turned to the arm, but still thankfully aware
of the comforting light. And after a while a kind
of idea started to come to him about a way
he might do because somebody ought to and she'd never
let She'd made him promise on the Bible. Something awful

(10:44):
would happen if you broke that kind of promise. But
if he didn't say anything, just it was a frightening, tempting,
awful idea. He didn't see how he could, He didn't
know if he'd dare and where. It had to be
a place where Danny said cops were all dumb, but
Marty didn't think that could be right, because his dad

(11:04):
must know more than Danny, and Dad had always said.
Policemen they're your friends. You go to them for help,
you're ever in trouble, trouble. He felt a slow, hot tear,
sliding down into the sofa cushion, fumbled, blind and furtive
for the handkerchief in his pajama pocket, the gas chamber.
I never meant nothing bad, but you had to do

(11:27):
what was right, no matter what Dad always said. And anyway,
it was a thing you just knew inside. Morgan had
got used to the oddly schizophrenic sensation that was the
word for it. Wouldn't it be for feeling split in halves.
More or less. He wondered if everybody who had ever
planned or done something criminal had the feeling. Probably not.
The visible Morgan, acting much as usual, at least, he

(11:50):
hoped so, going about his job, and the inside one,
the one with the secret that one, was still in
a detached way, feeling slightly surprised at this Morgan who
was showing such unexpected capacity for cool planning, the Morgan
who had been kicked around just once too often and
this time was fighting back. The original Morgan was still

(12:11):
uneasy about the whole thing, but quite frankly, he realized
not from any moral viewpoint, just about Morgan's personal safety,
the danger of being found out. He wrote down the
address as the man read it out to him. How's
that spelled? It's a new one to me, tapp a
n over past Washington Summers. I think, well, thanks very much,

(12:34):
said Morgan, putting his notebook away. I still can't hardly
believe it, said the clerk, worriedly. Lyndstrom doing a thing
like that, best man in the world, I'd have said, why,
he thought the world of his wife, and the boy
never missed a lodge meeting, you know, and I don't
ever remember talking with him. He didn't brag on what
good grades as boy got at school, all like that.
One of the steady kind that was Lindstrom. No world beater,

(12:57):
but you know, steady. That's so, said Morgan. He lit
a cigarette. He felt a kind of remote interest in
this Lindstrom thing no more, but it constituted his main lifeline.
And it must appear that he had been working hard
on it, been thinking of nothing else all day. Never
any complaints on him. He always did not in Stay's work.

(13:17):
I heard from a dozen fellows been on the job
with him. He was working for Stayin's contracting, Like I said,
he was a member here for three years, always paid
his dues regular We did figure it was sort of
funny way he quit his job and quit coming to
Meetin's all of a sudden when his dues didn't come in.
We sent a letter, but it come back. But things
come up in a hurry, sometimes sickness or something, you know,

(13:39):
last thing in the world I'd have expected a god
like Lyndstrom to do walk out on his family. He
shook his head. You haven't heard anything from him since.
No inquiries from other lodges, of your union. No, not
since last August when he stopped showing up. Well thanks.
The man was still shaking his head sadly when Morgan
came out to his car. If it hadn't been for

(13:59):
the this other thing, he'd have been interested in the
Lindstroms more than he was. Funny set up something behind it,
but hard to figure what. At the hell of a
time getting a definite answer out of the woman about
where they'd been living when the husband walked out. Sometimes
they let out something to one of the neighbors, a
local bartender. It was a place to start. Then when
he did, she gave what turned out to be a

(14:20):
false address. He hadn't tackled her about that yet. It
wasn't the first time such a thing happened, and there
were other ways to check. He'd found Lindstrom got this
last address for him through his affiliation with the Carpenter's Union.
The thing was concentrate on Lindstrom today, keep the nose
to the grindstone. Forget about tonight. What was going to
happen tonight. It would all work out fine, just as

(14:43):
the inside secret Morgan had planned it. There was only
one thing. Both Morgans were really worried about, and that
was whether and when about telling Sue, not of course
before she mustn't guess, or she'd be too nervous with
the police not easy to put over the story on her.
Sue knew him too well, but he thought he had

(15:03):
got away with it, that he was still stalling Smith,
trying to bring him to compromise. It was going to
be very tricky too afterward, when he had given the
police one story and had to meet Sue before them.
There was also the woman and the boy. But you
had to take a chance somewhere. It was very likely
that the woman, if indeed she was still living with
Smith at all and knew about this, would be too

(15:25):
afraid of getting in trouble herself to speak up, and
Sue was very far from being a fool. Sue he
could count on. It would go all right, always provided
that the man was there. Otherwise it could be awkward.
But Morgan figured that as Smith was renting a three
room flat instead of just a room, the chances were
that his wife or some woman was with him and

(15:46):
he'd be home sometime around the dinner hour, So that
was the first way it might go. The upright citizen
in Morgan visiting one of his cases on his lawful occasions.
If it was after hours, well it was a case
he had got interested in it, and there was no
law against zeal at one's job. The Lindstrom's flat was
on the second floor. Smith was on the third, so

(16:07):
the mail slots told him those landings would be damned
dark at night. Not light it anyway, wait for him
to come down on his way to collect the ransom.
Only word, wait on the second floor landing and get
up close to be sure. But no talk the first story.
Then this man put the gun on me at the
top of the stairs before I got to the Lindstrom's door.

(16:28):
I never saw him before, No, sir. He was after
my wallet when he reached for it, and I tackled him,
tried to get the gun. We struggled and it went off, remember,
and not much time to see to it after the shot,
to get his prints on the gun. They were so
very damn careful and clever these days about details. And
if he missed Smith there, it would have to be

(16:50):
in the street if he was at that corner, or
if again he redirected Morgan to a bar stall him
off in there and follow a chance again that the
bartend would be honest, would remember them together. But in
most of these places, down here holding the wall joints,
the chance probably on Morgan's side. The second story, I
was on my way back to my car when this

(17:10):
man tried to hold me up. They would never trace
the gun, never prove it didn't belong to Smith. Nobody could.
Morgan had taken it off a dead German in nineteen
forty four, the sort of ghoulish souvenir young soldiers brought home,
and he'd nearly forgotten he had it. He had, being
a careful man, taken the remaining three cartridges out of
the cliff, but they'd been put with the luger in

(17:32):
the old cash box his father had kept for odds
and INDs, locked away in a trunk in the basement.
Morgan had gone down there at three this morning, when
he was sure Sue was asleep, and got the gun
in the cartridges. It was an unaccustomed weight in his
breast pocket. Right now, he ought to be somewhere around
where this street came in. He began to watch the signs.
The third was tapping. He turned into it and began

(17:54):
to look for street numbers. At that precise moment, Mendoza
was having an odd and irritating experience. He was discovering
the first thing remotely resembling a link between these two cases.
If you discounted that gouged out eye and it offered
him no help whatsoever, if it wasn't merely his vivid
and erratic imagination. I'm real glad I forgot to throw

(18:16):
that old thing now, said missus Brien, soft and southern.
If it's any help do you find in that bad man? Sir?
Everybody knew Carrollton the world, all her nice goal as ever,
was terrible thing, just terrible. Mendoza went on looking at
the thing, fascinated. It was a good sharp commercial cut
three by five inches or so, one of a dozen

(18:37):
in this dog eared brochure three years old from a
local toy factory. Missus Breen, maddeningly slow, determinedly helpful, had
insisted on hunting it up for him, and as he
hadn't yet penetrated her constant trickle of inconsequential talk to
ask any questions, he'd been forced to let her find
it first. You can see twas a real extra special doll.

(18:58):
Tell the truth. I was two minds about putting it
in stock. Not many folks, it's been that much money.
Was it imagination that this thing had looked a little
like Eleanor Ramirez? After all, he told himself, the conventional
doll would the gold curls, the eyelashes, the neatly rouged cheeks,
the rosebud pout, the magenta finger nails. The irrational thought

(19:20):
occurred to him that even the costume was exactly the
kind of thing Eleanor would have admired. He said to himself,
I'm seeing ghosts or catching its straws. What the hell
if the thing did look like her or the other
way around? Dolls? The whole thing was a mare's nest.
Overnight he had begun to suspect uneasily that he was wrong,
dead wrong about this thing. He hadn't taken a good

(19:42):
long look at all the dissimilarities. He had wanted to
think this was the Brooks killer again, without any real
solid evidence for it, wasting time look at the rest
of the facts. Brooks, the handbag not touched Ramirez, the
bag found several blocks away. True, apparently nothing taken for
Teresa said she wouldn't have been carrying more than a

(20:02):
little silver to the rink, where she'd leave her bag
and coat on a chair at the side. Brooks colored
not pretty, not noticeable, Ramirez very much the opposite. Brooks
attacked on a fairly well frequented street in a fairly
good neighborhood, just lucked that there hadn't been a number
of people with an ear shot. Ramirez attacked in that lot,

(20:23):
away from houses, and in a street and neighborhood where
a scream wouldn't necessarily bring help. The chances were just
on the facts that there were two different killers, say
irrational ones, all right, because there didn't seem to be
any good logical reason for any one in either of
the private lives wanting those girls dead. But two, and
the first could be in Timbuctu. By now he was

(20:46):
annoyed at himself. He said, may I have this? Thank you?
Let Hackett laugh at him for an imaginingve fool now
about this woman, the one who came in and wanted
to buy the doll. Surely, Lieutenant, I had a good
rummage first thing this morning when Missusdumeris called me about it,
and I found that bitty piece of paper with the
name and address end of Chapter eight