Clandestine

I parked the car, and was walking across the street toward 9619 when my eyes were riveted to a sign stuck into the front lawn of the house next to it. "For Sale. Contact Janet Valupeyk, Valupeyk Realty, 18369 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks."

Janet Valupeyk. Former lover of Eddie Engels. The woman Dudley Smith and I had questioned about Engels back in '51. I felt myself go prickly all over. I forgot all about 9619 Hibiscus Canyon and drove to Ventura Boulevard instead.

I remembered Janet Valupeyk well. She had been nearly comatose when Smith and I had interviewed her four years ago.

She had changed; I could tell that immediately as I looked at her through the plate glass window of her real estate office. She was seated at a metal desk near the window, shuffling papers and nervously smoking a cigarette. During the four years since I had last seen her she had aged ten. Her face had gone gaunt and her skin had turned a pasty white. One eyebrow twitched dramatically as she fumbled with her paperwork.

I could see no one else within the office. I walked through a glass door that set off little chimes as I entered. Janet Valupeyk nearly jumped out of her skin at the noise. She dropped her pen and fumbled her cigarette.

I pretended not to notice. "Miss Valupeyk?" I asked innocently.

"Yes. Oh, God, that goddamned chime! I don't know why I put it in. Can I help you?"

"I'm interested in the house on Hibiscus Canyon."

Janet Valupeyk smiled nervously, put out her cigarette and immediately lit another one. "That's a dandy property," she said. "Let me get you the statistics on it."

She moved from her desk to a bank of metal filing cabinets, opening the top drawer and rummaging through the manila folders. I joined her, watching her nervous fingers dig through files that were arranged by street name and subheaded by street address. She found Hibiscus Canyon and started muttering, "9621, 9621, where the hell is that little devil?"

My eyes were glued to the street numbers, and when 9619 came up I reached my hand into the cabinet and yanked out the file.

Janet Valupeyk said, "Hey, what the hell!"

I shouted at her, "Shut up! Or I'll have Narcotics detectives here within fifteen minutes!" It was a stab in the dark, but it worked: Janet Valupeyk collapsed in her chair, her face buried in her hands. I let her sob and tore through the file.

The tenants were listed in chronological order, along with the amount of rent they had paid. The tenant list went back to 1944, and as I thumbed through it the blood rushed to my head and the periphery of my vision blackened.

"Who are you?" Janet Valupeyk choked.

"Shut up!" I screamed again.

Finally I found it. Marcella Harris had rented apartment number 102 at 9619 Hibiscus Canyon from June, 1950, to September, 1951. She had been a resident there at the time of Maggie Cadwallader's murder. Next to the listing there were comments in a minute hand: "Mrs. Groberg's bro. to sublet 7/2/51—?" Next to that, a check mark in a different color ink and the letters "O.K.-J.V."

I put down the file and knelt beside the quaking Janet Valupeyk. Stabbing again, I asked, "Who told you to rent to Marcella Harris, Janet?" She shook her head violently. I raised my hand to hit her, then hesitated and shook her shoulders instead. "Tell me, goddamnit, or I'll get the heat!"

Janet Valupeyk began to tremble from head to toe. "Eddie," she said. "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie." Her voice was very soft.

So was mine as I said, "Eddie who?"

Janet looked at me carefully for the first time. "I . . . I know you," she said.

"Eddie who?" I screamed, shaking her by her shoulders again.

"Eddie Engels. I . . . I know you. You—"

"But you broke up with him."

"He still had me. Oh, God, he still had me!"

"Who's Mrs. Groberg?"

"I don't know. I don't remember—"

"Don't lie to me. Marcella Harris is dead! Who killed her?"

"I don't know! You killed Eddie!"

"Shut up! Who's Mrs. Groberg?"

"She lives at 9619. She's a good tenant. She wouldn't hurt any—"

I didn't hear her finish. I left her sobbing for her past as I ran to my car and rushed headlong back into mine.

Five minutes later I was parked crossways at the end of the Hibiscus Canyon cul-de-sac. I ran down the street to the Moorish apartment house, flung open the leaded glass door, and scanned the mailboxes in the foyer. Mrs. John Groberg lived in number 419. I took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. I listened through the door to a TV blasting out a game program. I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again, this time louder, and heard mild cursing and the volume on the TV diminished.

Through the door a cranky voice called out, "Who is it?"

"Police officer, ma'am," I called out, consciously imitating Jack Webb of "Dragnet" fame.

Giggles answered my announcement. The door was flung open a moment later, and I was confronted by the adoring gaze of a gasbag matron. I quickly sized her up as a crime buff and took my act from there.