Flatfeet!
1912
CAPTAIN TEEHEEZAL TURNED HIS HORSE down toward the station house just as the Pacific Electric streetcar clanged to a stop at the intersection of Sunset and Ivar.
It was just 7:00 A.M. so only three people got off at the stop. Unless they worked at one of the new moving-picture factories a little further out in the valley, there was no reason for someone from the city to be in the town of Wilcox before the stores opened.
The motorman twisted his handle, there were sparks from the overhead wire, and the streetcar belled off down the narrow tracks. Teeheezal watched it recede, with the official sign No Shooting Rabbits from the Rear Platform over the back door.
“G’hup, Pear,” he said to his horse. It paid no attention and walked at the same speed.
By and by he got to the police station. Patrolman Rube was out watering the zinnias that grew to each side of the porch. Teeheezal handed him the reins to his horse.
“What’s up, Rube?”
“Not much, Cap’n,” he said. “Shoulda been here yesterday. Sgt. Fatty brought by two steelhead and a Coho salmon he caught, right where Pye Creek empties into the L.A. River. Big as your leg, all three of ’em. Took up the whole back of his wagon.”
“I mean police business, Rube.”
“Oh.” The patrolman lifted his domed helmet and scratched. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, anybody in the cells?”
“Uh, lessee . . .”
“I’ll talk to the sergeant,” said Teeheezal. “Make sure my horse stays in his stall.”
“Sure thing, Captain.” He led it around back.
The captain looked around at the quiet streets. In the small park across from the station, with its few benches and small artesian fountain, was the big sign No Spooning by order of Wilcox P.D. Up toward the northeast the sun was coming full up over the hills.
* * *
Sgt. Hank wasn’t at his big high desk. Teeheezal heard him banging around in the squad room to the left. The captain spun the blotter book around.
There was one entry:
Sat. 11:20 P.M. Jimson H. Friendless, actor, of Los Angeles city, D&D. Slept off, cell 2. Released Sunday 3:00 P.M. Arr. off. Patrolmen Buster and Chester.
Sgt. Hank came in. “Oh, hello Chief.”
“Where’d this offense take place?” He tapped the book.
“The Blondeau Tavern . . . uh, Station,” said the sergeant.
“Oh.” That was just inside his jurisdiction, but since the Wilcox village council had passed a local ordinance against the consumption and sale of alcohol, there had been few arrests.
“He probably got tanked somewhere in L.A. and got lost on the way home,” said Sgt. Hank. “Say, you hear about them fish Sgt. Fatty brought in?”
“Yes, I did.” He glared at Sgt. Hank.
“Oh. Okay. Oh, there’s a postal card that came in the Saturday mail from Captain Angus for us all. I left it on your desk.”
“Tell me if any big trouble happens,” said Teeheezal. He went into the office and closed his door. Behind his desk was a big wicker rocking chair he’d had the village buy for him when he took the job early in the year. He sat down in it, took off his flat-billed cap, and put on his reading glasses.
Angus had been the captain before him for twenty-two years; he’d retired and left to see some of the world. (He’d been one of the two original constables when Colonel Wilcox laid out the planned residential village.) Teeheezal had never met the man.
He picked up the card—a view of Le Havre, France, from the docks. Teeheezal turned it over. It had a Canadian postmark, and one half had the address: The Boys in Blue, Police HQ, Wilcox, Calif. U.S.A. The message read:
Well, took a boat. You might have read about it. Had a snowball fight on deck while waiting to get into the lifeboats. The flares sure were pretty. We were much overloaded by the time we were picked up. (Last time I take a boat named for some of the minor Greek godlings.) Will write again soon.
—Angus
PS: Pretty good dance band.
Teeheezal looked through the rest of the mail; wanted posters for guys three thousand miles away, something from the attorney general of California, a couple of flyers for political races that had nothing to do with the village of Wilcox.
The captain put his feet up on his desk, made sure they were nowhere near the kerosene lamp or the big red bellpull wired to the squad room, placed his glasses in their cases, arranged his Farmer John tuft beard to one side, clasped his fingers across his chest, and began to snore.
* * *
The murder happened at the house of one of the curators, across the street from the museum.
Patrolman Buster woke the captain up at his home at 4:00 A.M. The Los Angeles County coroner was already there when Teeheezal arrived on his horse.
The door of the house had been broken down. The man had been strangled and then thrown back behind the bed where it lay twisted with one foot out the open windowsill.
“Found him just like that, the neighbors did,” said Patrolman Buster. “Heard the ruckus, but by the time they got dressed and got here, whoever did it was gone.”
Teeheezal glanced out the broken door. The front of the museum across the way was lit with electric lighting.
“Hmmm,” said the coroner, around the smoke from his El Cubano cigar. “They’s dust all over this guy’s py-jamas.” He looked around. “Part of a print on the bedroom doorjamb, and a spot on the floor.”
Patrolman Buster said, “Hey! One on the front door. Looks like somebody popped it with a dirty towel.”
The captain went back out on the front porch. He knelt down on the lawn, feeling with his hands.
He spoke to the crowd that had gathered out front. “Who’s a neighbor here?” A man stepped out, waved. “He water his yard last night?”
“Yeah, just after he got off work.”
Teeheezal went to the street and lay down.
“Buster, look here.” The patrolman flopped down beside him. “There’s some lighter dust on the gravel, see it?” Buster nodded his thin face. “Look over there, see?”
“Looks like mud, Chief.” They crawled to the right to get another angle, jumped up, looking at the doorway of the museum.
“Let’s get this place open,” said the chief.
* * *
“I was just coming over; they called me about Fielding’s death, when your ruffians came barging in,” said the museum director, whose name was Carter Lord. “There was no need to rush me so.” He had on suit pants but a pajama top and a dressing gown.
“Shake a leg, pops,” said Patrolman Buster.
There was a sign on the wall near the entrance: The Treasures of Pharaoh Rut-en-tut-en, April 20–June 13.
The doors were steel; there were two locks Lord had to open. On the inside was a long push bar that operated them both.
“Don’t touch anything, but tell me if something’s out o’ place,” said Teeheezal.
Lord used a handkerchief to turn on the light switches.
He told them the layout of the place and the patrolmen took off in all directions.
There were display cases everywhere, and ostrich-looking fans, a bunch of gaudy boxes, things that looked like coffins. On the walls were paintings of people wearing diapers, standing sideways. At one end of the hall was a big upright wooden case. Patrolman Buster pointed out two dabs of mud just inside the door, a couple of feet apart. Then another a little further on, leading toward the back, then nothing.
Teeheezal looked around at all the shiny jewelry. “Rich guy?” he asked.
“Priceless,” said Carter Lord. “Tomb goods, buried with him for the afterlife. The richest find yet in Egypt. We were very lucky to acquire it.”
“How come you gettin’ it?”
“We’re a small, but a growing museum. It was our expedition—the best untampered tomb. Though there were skeletons in the outer corridors, and the outside seal had been broken, I’m told. Grave robbers had broken in but evidently got no further.”
“How come?”
“Who knows?” asked Lord. “We’re dealing with four thousand five hundred years.”
Patrolman Buster whistled.
Teeheezal walked to the back. Inside the upright case was the gray swaddled shape of a man, twisted, his arms across his chest, one eye closed, a deep open hole where the other had been. Miles of gray curling bandages went round and round and round him, making him look like a cartoon patient in a lost hospital.
“This the guy?”
“Oh, heavens no,” said Carter Lord. “The Pharaoh Rut-en-tut-en’s mummy is on loan to the Field Museum in Chicago for study. This is probably some priest or minor noble who was buried for some reason with him. There were no markings on this case,” he said, knocking on the plain wooden case. “The pharaoh was in that nested three-box sarcophagus over there.”
Teeheezal leaned closer. He reached down and touched the left foot of the thing. “Please don’t touch that,” said Carter Lord.
The patrolmen returned from their search of the building. “Nobody here but us gendarmerie,” said Patrolman Rube.
“C’mere, Rube,” said Teeheezal. “Reach down and touch this foot.”
Rube looked into the box, jerked back. “Cripes! What an ugly! Which foot?”
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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