The building’s manager padded out in answer to my ringing his doorbell, his grotesque shape through the mosaic of glass resolving into a hairy-shouldered man chewing an unlit cigar. I waved Sylvia’s script pages and mouthed some nonsense about a Central Casting emergency. Somehow I convinced him to lead the way to Sylvia’s second-floor apartment.
The manager slowed as we reached her door. He pushed on it and it swung open, spilling light into the hallway.
Fingers instinctively smoothing his unruly hair, he ordered me in broken Slavic-accented English to wait. I nodded that I was happy to oblige.
The man’s wracked gagging came first, followed by a faint, almost ghastly hint of perfume, as if the fragrance had been used to mask more unspeakable aromas.
As the manager emerged from Sylvia’s rooms, I rushed forward. Pop-eyed, he waved me off. ‘Is not good for woman,’ he said with a thick tongue. Peering past him I glimpsed an overturned mule next to the sole of Sylvia’s bare foot as she lay on her bedroom floor, and I wondered which woman he was referring to. Both of us. Maybe all of us.
From somewhere in Sylvia’s apartment came the ringing of a telephone. No one made a move to answer it.
FIFTEEN
A police station close to midnight – complete with sporadic, jackal-like cries from the bowels of the building and coffee that tasted like it had been boiled in the can – made an improvement over my vigil outside Sylvia Ward’s apartment.
The building’s hirsute manager had a neighboring tenant alert the police while he guarded Sylvia’s door, arms folded and shoulder hairs at attention. He glowered at me as if informing him of Sylvia’s death were a greater crime than killing her, because my offense upset his night’s sleep.
I indicated I felt faint and needed water. He grumbled and stepped into Sylvia’s apartment, shielding her body from my view with grudging gallantry, and gestured toward the bathroom.
I took in the tiny front room’s décor, spare enough to suggest vacancy. I could almost convince myself that’s what had happened: Sylvia had packed a grip and lit out for parts unknown, an occurrence so commonplace in Los Angeles that one of the newspapers should have run a column tracking such hasty departures to spare people undue grief. She had made so little impression on her quarters I imagined even Clyde Fentress, newly sprung from San Quentin, would have found them austere.
Sylvia had trod equally lightly in the bathroom, like a secret boarder hoping not to be discovered. A lonely lipstick and a container of blush next to a sliver of soap, a bottle of shampoo in the shower stall. Relics that could have been left by anyone, anytime. A makeshift clothesline had been rigged between two exposed pipes, the still-drying personal items dangling from it the truest testimony Sylvia had, in fact, been here.
I splashed water on my face, using the single threadbare towel still smelling of detergent to blot it away. It would have made no difference if I’d read those script pages earlier or gotten here faster, I told myself. There was nothing I could have done to save her. Like all catechisms, I’d have to repeat it many times before it had any effect.
I averted my gaze as I left the bathroom, out of respect for Sylvia. I noticed something I had missed earlier, several shards of glass gathered by the baseboard, as if a bottle had shattered. Other odors now emanated from the bedroom, the last of the phantom perfume dissipating. The manager snapped his fingers and signaled me back into the hallway.
The first police officer on the scene had the manager – whose last name, I learned, was Bostic – and I stand next to each other like co-conspirators. A Mutt and Jeff detective duo arrived next. Obergfell, made up entirely of gristle and resentment, peppered Bostic with questions. Jeffries possessed the physique of the precinct’s Christmas party Santa Claus. He rested his bulk against the wall and grumbled about the climb upstairs. He grilled me, his approach growing more direct even though Bostic confirmed my account. When I suggested they call Detective Gene Morrow, the partners glanced at each other and shooed us downstairs.
At the station, I watched Obergfell unpack Sylvia’s purse. I’d never seen a woman travel so light: the barest quantities of make-up, some tissues, a single hard candy. The thought she’d never enjoy it now made me excuse myself to collect my wits at the water cooler.
When I returned to Obergfell’s desk, the detective had retreated to the chorus while another man took center stage, bending over the contents of Sylvia’s bag with his hands behind his back. I didn’t see his face. I didn’t need to. His tweed suit, this one a dazzling heather, gave him away.
‘Miss Frost,’ Captain Frady said without turning, my shadow announcing my presence. ‘I’m disappointed you didn’t see fit to return my telephone message.’
Despite my trip to the water cooler, my throat went dry. ‘I, uh, I didn’t get home until late.’
‘Yet you then went gallivanting to Miss Ward’s.’ He faced me. Head on, his double-breasted suit was even more striking. His eyes made me think of that infernal machine clicking away at Central Casting. ‘I’d have taken your call no matter the hour. All I have is my work. Did you extend my regards to Detective Morrow?’
I nodded.
‘May I assume he responded with a litany of grievances?’
‘He said you don’t like him.’
‘An assessment both accurate and admirably brief.’ He flashed a newspaper-thin smile. ‘I will explain, so there will be no confusion. I have no ax to grind. I do have a great many questions about the death of Detective Lomax. A man whose career I stewarded personally. When I heard of a motion picture purporting to tell the true story of the incident, naturally I was interested.’
‘You can’t possibly believe that “true story”.’
The man bucking to become the next chief of police of Los Angeles paused, resenting my interruption. ‘I have made a study of the California Republic bank robbery. I am intimately familiar with the men involved. Borden Yates, who repeatedly took advantage of young women like yourself, Miss Frost, fathering a string of children out of wedlock and thus destroying those young women’s reputations. Leo Hoyer, who learned to drive at speed outrunning outraged fathers because of his predilection for school-age girls. As for Giuseppe Bianchi, I had the pleasure of apprehending him in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty-nine. When they hauled that brute off to prison I’d have sworn sunlight would never strike him as a free man again. But our penal system works in mysterious ways.’ He shrugged, helpless. ‘These men were more than capable of murdering officers of the law, each possessed of the low cunning of the habitual criminal. Did they have the audacity to plan the robbery that took place in 1936?’ Another shrug, this one less helpless. ‘I myself have always wondered. Hence my interest in Clyde Fentress’s film script, and his friendship with the late Nap Conlin. Now another person tied to Fentress has been killed, with you again the one informing us. Shall we discuss your evening in detail?’
He proceeded to interrogate me at length, Obergfell lurking like an unfunny jester before the king. Frady probed my story, pinpointing small inconsistencies and pressing for details. He was, I hated to admit, thorough.
‘This person in Sylvia’s apartment when you spoke with her on the telephone,’ Frady asked. ‘You never heard a voice?’
‘No, only Sylvia speaking to them. She’d cupped her hand over the receiver.’
‘You understand this person was likely her killer.’
The thought had arisen, but I’d shunted it from my mind. ‘What happened to Sylvia, exactly?’
‘She was strangled. With a length of the cord she used as a clothesline. We found several of them in her bedroom along with fragments of glass, some object broken amidst the struggle.’
Like a bottle of perfume, I thought.
We reviewed the events again, Frady stopping to appraise me across Obergfell’s desk. ‘You read these script pages and knew Sylvia had misrepresented someone else’s work as her own? From seeing the picture in question last July?’
Taki
ng my cues from him, I shrugged.
‘I commend you. A tidy piece of detective work.’ He didn’t sound particularly impressed, but as I expected no further hosannas I accepted the compliment gratefully.
After another round of questions, Frady extracted a gold pocket watch from his waistcoat. Even in the station’s scant light, it gleamed. ‘I believe we’ve covered this enough. I understand your chariot awaits. Permit me to escort you out.’
He made a show of scanning the scantily populated lobby. ‘Dear me. I hope I wasn’t misinformed. Shall we check outside?’
Gene’s car waited at the curb, Gene slumped behind the wheel. He’d forgotten his hat, revealing the furrows he’d plowed through his hair. He spotted us and emerged warily.
‘Eugene!’ Frady called. ‘Is this how you greet a young lady at this ungodly hour, one toiling on your behalf to boot?’
Gene opened the car’s passenger door. ‘I’m taking you home,’ he announced. I stepped forward. Frady threw out an arm, checking my progress.
‘Really, now, not even the decency to wait inside and walk the lady to your car. I have to question how you were raised.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, avoiding Frady’s arm and trotting to the car.
Gene ignored me. He stared placidly at Frady, who in turn made with a vaudeville shudder.
‘What’s that sudden chill in the air? I do believe if I didn’t outrank you, Eugene, you’d take a swing at me.’
‘If you didn’t outrank me, Byron, you’d be laid out on the sidewalk.’
‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Only if you’re planning on demoting yourself, sir.’
An explosive laugh from Frady. ‘Good thing for you, my son, the only steps I take are up. Miss Frost. Do me the courtesy of responding promptly the next time I call. Thank you again for your assistance.’ He bowed to us both and returned to work.
His car pointed toward Mrs Quigley’s, Gene said, ‘Tell me what happened.’ I complied. I didn’t realize the interview had ended until he said, in the same quiet voice, ‘You were still trying to help me. After I told you not to only a few hours ago.’
‘I don’t regret it,’ I said. ‘I found out Sylvia concocted this elaborate lie about writing somebody else’s script pages and I wanted to know why. I still do.’
‘You could have waited until morning. You could have called me.’
‘After you’d told me not to help you?’
Using his own argument against him stung. ‘There’s a perfectly good reason for her to fob off those pages as her own.’
‘I’d like to hear it.’
‘If Sylvia wasn’t Fentress’s protégée, but his mistress. They’d need cover for their affair, so they concoct this jazz about her learning to write at the master’s feet. Fentress’s partner Dolan is the stickiest wicket, so she dummies up a few pages for appearances’ sake.’
‘I suppose that could be true. Is it?’
‘With a captain personally involved, people get woken up all over town. Even in Hancock Park. Fentress told a detective he and Miss Ward were romantically involved. He says she visited him at the studio until around six. He then stopped for several drinks and saw several pictures. He can’t recall their names and said it made no difference, because they were all terrible. I’ve heard better alibis.’
‘What did his wife say? Josie?’
‘Nothing. She wasn’t home. Before we start suspecting her, will you admit that explains those script pages?’
‘Yes. But those pages don’t explain why Sylvia was killed.’
‘That depends. How bad were they?’
‘You remember the picture. You took me to see it.’ I shifted closer to him on the seat. ‘Two people connected to Clyde Fentress have been murdered in the past week.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘But he wrote this dreadful movie about you! This has to help your cause somehow.’
‘All it does is warn people not to have anything to do with Clyde Fentress, which anyone paying attention would have known already. It doesn’t affect what’s happening to me. I told you that before, when I expressly said not to help.’
I nodded. The most eloquent response I could think of.
Gene kept mum, too, all the way to Mrs Quigley’s. He wished me goodnight and drove off into the darkness. Inside, I glimpsed Miss Sarah’s tail as she slinked out of sight. Even she wanted nothing to do with me.
Los Angeles Register March 30, 1939
LORNA WHITCOMB’S
EYES ON HOLLYWOOD
The Countess Dorothy Dentice di Frasso – Dottie to her friends (and that’s half of Who’s Who) – is planning a Friday night soirée that’s the talk of the town. Invitations are scarce, but we know one famous face who won’t be attending. It seems Kay Francis’s fiancé Baron Raven Erik Angus Barnekow (just call him Erik) failed this week in his bid to file a complaint of slander against the Countess. He claims she falsely called him a ‘Nazi spy’ but the Countess denied it and said she’s not interested in politics. That’s probably wise when your villa in Rome is leased to the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs … Not for yours truly the train to San Francisco for the premiere of The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. I’ll tour the Golden Gate Exposition in warmer weather, thanks. So what if the cars will carry the movie’s stars Don Ameche and Loretta Young, not to mention Sonja Henie, Preston Foster, Tyrone Power, and— Hey, conductor, is it too late for me to buy a ticket?
SIXTEEN
Nix on my usual morning debate about lingering in bed a few extra minutes. I didn’t want to risk outtakes from the bad dreams that punctuated a fitful night’s sleep. Awake if not alert, I managed to attire myself in what the saleslady had called a ‘hug-me-tight’ jacket. Sister, she wasn’t kidding. I may have bruised a rib buttoning the form-fitting top of my suit. But it looked smart with a flared skirt of matching Juliet blue and mid-heel ribbon-tied oxfords.
First stop at Addison’s: the kitchen, for a large cup of coffee liberally doctored with sugar. In my little office I angled the chair toward the French doors so I’d have an excuse to leave on my sunglasses. Despite my best cosmetic efforts, the strain showed on my face. Even a pilgrimage to Westmore’s Salon of Beauty wouldn’t have helped.
I had my back to Addison, his correspondence receiving my attention, when he entered. ‘Lillian! Meet my acting teacher!’
‘Just a moment.’ I finished addressing an envelope, pivoted in my seat, then nearly fell out of it. Next to a beaming Addison stood Bette Davis, eyeing me with a hefty dose of skepticism. The concentrated New England variety.
‘Is this woman your social secretary?’ Davis said, her inflection planting flags in syllables and transforming the question into an accusation. ‘I thought perhaps she was some highly touted starlet unknown to me.’
I didn’t comprehend her comment. Then it hit me: sunglasses. I whipped them off, the sight of my haggard face only hardening the actress’s judgment. Clearly, I was some addle-brained late-night reveler taking advantage of her friend. She’d probably pull Addison aside and advise him to proofread the letters I’d typed.
‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Davis,’ I said brightly, determined to revise her impression of me – and remind her we’d met before, at one of Addison’s parties. Her smile in response indicated she had no recollection of that historic encounter. Davis had won her second Academy Award a month earlier for Jezebel, a film in which her character almost starts the Civil War prematurely by wearing a red gown to a formal ball, the scene so powerful I could still envision the dress’s scandalous shade of scarlet even though the movie’s black-and-white photography never showed it. Davis was not garbed so elaborately now, in a straight gray skirt and tan brushed mohair cardigan with wooden buttons. She moved to light a cigarette and I saw that, as usual, she had opted not to wear a brassiere.
Davis fired a stream of smoke into the room like an arrow. I told myself I wasn’t the target. ‘As I was saying, Addy,’
she declared, ‘I’m just back from Philadelphia. Sam Harris’s wedding, you know. What fun!’ Her delivery of the two words made me question how much enjoyment was had. ‘Then I went right into my next picture, so this little break you’re providing is a treat.’
‘We can’t thank you enough for helping Addison,’ I said. I was going to participate in this conversation, by God. Davis cocked her head at me, then pointedly glanced down. The force of her gaze compelled me to do likewise, and I saw one of my shoelaces had come undone. Worse, I could hardly stoop to tie it now. I had cemented my status as a rank incompetent, the battle lost. Her opinion of me couldn’t sink much lower, so only my respect for Addison prevented me from inquiring if her alleged affair with world-famous flyboy filmmaker Howard Hughes had prompted her recent divorce.
She turned to Addison. ‘You’re going to tread the boards, so to speak. How wonderful.’
‘I won’t be attempting anything like you do, Bette,’ Addison said, one toe bashfully circling the floor. ‘Basically I’m going to stand around.’
‘Stand around?’ The words echoed so loudly the chandelier rattled. ‘That is not how the work is done. Now. What kind of character will you be playing?’
Addison worked his jowls several times before committing to an answer. ‘I must admit I don’t really know.’
‘You don’t know?’ She laughed, a great raucous bark.
Addison looked imploringly at me. You’re on your own, fella, I thought, before rolling up my mental sleeves and diving in, Davis’s scorn be damned. ‘Addison will be playing a man about town enjoying himself at a nightclub.’
Approval registered in the actress’s features for the first time that morning. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere! So. What do we know of this man about town? Is he celebrating? Has he closed the deal of a lifetime? Or is he putting on a brave face because his marriage is ending?’ Another loud guffaw made me step out from under the chandelier. ‘Is he cavorting with the young chippie who will cost him his wedded bliss?’
Script for Scandal Page 13