Front Page Fatale: The First Ida Bly Thriller

by Daniel Fox

  “Yeah sure, they’re done examining them.”

  Hartman picked up one of the shoes with her fingertips, not touching the browned blood stains, holding it like it was made out of fine crystal that was ready to break if she breathed on it wrong. She looked inside, then at the bottom. “Holy shi- Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s just, these are Galliers. Or the best knock-offs I’ve ever seen.”

  “Galliers? That a designer?”

  “He’s the shoe designer for women. You see a woman’s foot at the Academy Awards, I call it at least fifty-fifty she’s wearing something by this guy.”

  “You got a pair of these?”

  “On a cop’s salary? You kidding? Makes me wonder...”

  George held the box out. Officer Hartman replaced the shoe. “Say it.”

  “What’s a pair of shoes like this doing on Skid Row?”

  George shot her a finger-pistol. “Exactly. Thanks for the help.” He turned and headed back for his desk. Finally a goddamned clue, one he’d picked up on all by his lonesome, sans Clemp.

  Hartman called out from behind him. “Hey detective?”

  He turned back. “Yeah?”

  “That was...” She was flushed, excited, eyes shining. “Is this what it feels like all the time to be a detective?”

  George smiled. “It does have its moments.”

  “Hot damn,” said Hartman. “It must be nice.”

  ***

  Bob got back to the office, working up stories about why he hadn’t brought in any new material. His visits to Veterans Affairs were his business, not something he wanted known or to be shared. He wasn’t coming up with anything plausible; he was getting to the point where he couldn’t even come up with stories to cover his ass never mind ones worthy of a front page slot.

  Pressure. Come on Tree, we need to make something happen. Or they’ll know.

  He passed Ida’s desk. She was copying something from a torn piece of notepad paper onto her desk memo sheet. She heard him passing, looked up, saw it was him, hid the paper and memo pad from him. She smirked and got back to work – they’d run a special edition to get the morgue picture out there. Ida’s solo byline with the accompanying story; she was going to be famous. The juice from the picture and story was enough to keep her on the front page for a couple of weeks even if she just handed in muffin recipes, never mind insider stuff on the murder.

  By the time he got to his desk she was up out of her chair, swinging on her jacket, shoving on her hat, and as he sat she was making a beeline for the elevator bank. All hustle. Something hot pulling her out of the office.

  He made it look like he was busy futzing with his typewriter, forced himself to wait until she was for sure on her way down in an elevator, for sure wasn’t about to double back.

  He moseyed over to her desk. Looked around. He caught one of the copy-girls watching him, all moon-eyed, he was pretty sure she was crushing on him. She jerked her eyes away and went back to sorting whatever papers she had in her hand, pretending that she hadn’t been watching him.

  He grabbed Ida’s memo pad. Continued on, grabbed some coffee from the small kitchen like that had been his goal all along, carried it back to his desk. Sat. Pulled the memo pad from his pocket. The same childhood trick he’d used at Detective Shuttmann’s desk – he held his pencil at a sideways angle and shaded in the top page of the memo pad.

  On the shadow page – three names, three addresses.

  He didn’t recognize the names. Chances were though that they had to be connected to the murder somehow. Ida Bly was rabid on the subject, saw it as her way to own the front page.

  He tore off the page, stuffed it in his pocket. Put Ida’s memo pad back on her desk just the way he had found it on his way out.

  ***

  Two of the tips from George Schuttman’s desk had no phone number, only an address. The third had both.

  The first address took Ida to J-town, just north of the Row. Or what used to be J-Town a.k.a. Little Tokyo before all the Jap immigrants were whisked off to the joy of internment camps for the duration of the U.S.’ involvement in the war. When the Japanese had been emptied out the apartments, stores, clubs, restaurants, you name it, were taken over by blacks, Indians, and Latinos.

  Things had turned to shit here in the last couple of years, all the nearby defence jobs had dried up, and the neighbourhood was being emptied again, this time voluntarily as the residents moved elsewhere for work.

  The situation seemed to suit the Japanese just fine. They were coming back, reclaiming the area, and putting the screws to landowners who had let their buildings go to rot during the war. It looked like every second building was getting itself a makeover, contractor crews working like ants over the faces of the buildings.

  The address took her to the south-east end of J-town, near the river. She was met at the apartment door by a neatly-dressed young man, maybe twenty, maybe less, in a sweater-vest and khakis. She couldn’t quite get a make on his race until he bowed her in and she saw a family picture – the kid’s dad was black, mom looked full-blown Japanese.

  “You’re...” she looked at her list of tips. “Zachariah Jones?”

  “No ma’am,” the voice came from down the hall. The black man from the photo, but now looking ancient, shuffled in. He was bent over, walked with a cane, rail-thin. “That would be me. That’s my boy, Akio. Means ‘Glorious Hero’. Isn’t that something?” He turned to his son. “How ‘bout some tea?”

  The kid gave a small bow from the waist and hurried off to the kitchen. Zachariah waved Ida to a chair. She winced watching him settle down into his own seat, it obviously cost him some pain.

  He laughed. “I’m a sight, I know. Worked up at Douglas Air in Inglewood. I didn’t quite manage to get out of the way of a falling engine on the winch and, well...” He waved a hand down his wrecked body.

  “I bet that hurt.”

  “Boy howdy.”

  “How’d they let you work on planes when you were married to a Jap- uh, Japanese lady? They didn’t send her off to a camp?”

  “Oh, they did. My boy too. I almost went with them but they were desperate for hands, and I’ve been working on car engines since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, so they kept me out. I did good work.”

  “Yes sir. Anyway, you called in as a witness.”

  “Yes I did young lady. To the police. And you’ll pardon me but you don’t look like police.”

  “No sir. My name is Ida Bly-”

  “What, the newspaper lady?”

  Ida sat back. “You know me?”

  “I know your work. I read three papers a day. It’s not like I’m able to get out much into the world under my own steam. But before you get too puffed up, I wasn’t praising you, I was questioning you. Why do I call the police and end up with a reporter?”

  The young man startled her. He wasn’t there, then he was, gliding in on slippers with an elegant Japanese-style tea set on a bamboo tray. He poured for her and then his father into small cups without handles, then nodded again to her and left the room.

  She picked up the cup, feeling the tea’s heat, also feeling like she might break the thing by squeezing just a little bit. Watching Zachariah take his sip, she started to feel impatient. Eating and drinking were how she got fuel into her. This felt almost like a ceremony. Ceremonies were always a waste of time.

  She put her cup down. “So did you see something or-”

  “Excuse me, but you didn’t answer my question. Why is a reporter here when I called asking to talk to someone from the police?”

  “Oh. We’re helping the police. I’m sure you can imagine that they’re just getting slammed over at City Hall, tips up to their ears. So we agreed to help them out with witness interviews.”

  “That smells suspiciously like bullshit to me. We’ve got a phone down the hall. If I call the police again-”

  “You’ll get nothing. They really are getting run off their feet. At least this
way someone is here, talking to you now. Someone that can do something with the information you have.”

  Zachariah tapped his finger against his cup. “If there’s a reward I expect it to come to me. I am putting that boy through college come hell or high water.”

  “If there’s any reward it’s all yours.” Ida got out her pad and pencil.

  “Very well. The police ran that big farce they charmingly referred to as a ‘blockade raid.’”

  Ida let her pencil sag. “Wait. Let me guess. You heard some gunfire.”

  “I did.”

  Ida nodded. Put away her pad and pencil. Stuck them in her bag and got up. “Thank you very much for your time sir-”

  “You don’t want to hear about this?”

  She got up. “I’ve heard it already. Somebody shot some unusual guns in the area.”

  She headed for the door.

  “Wait!” Zachariah struggled to get up.

  “Don’t get up sir, I can see myself-”

  “It’s my home young lady, I’ll get up and down as I please.” He got to his feet, leaned against his cane. “What do you mean you’ve heard about it already? There were other reports?”

  “I’ve heard about it from someone else, sure.”

  “Have the police heard about it?”

  “I would think so. I know at least one guy called it in to them.”

  “And you’re the first to come.”

  “I thought you had information about the murder.”

  “No. Just a neighbourhood in danger. But it’s a coloured neighbourhood, so I guess that’s the end of that. Men running around, firing off shotguns and what-all else.”

  “You heard it, huh?”

  “Heard it?” He pointed a finger at the windows. “I saw them, moving from building to building, three men chasing one.”

  “Anyway, I’ve got to get back so...”

  “Yes yes. Of course.” He moved past her and opened the door. “Let me ask you something. If that poor girl had been black do you think there’d be all this effort?”

  “I couldn’t rightly say.”

  “Of course you could. You choose not to. Well off with you. And when someone around here ends up shot, you try and not remember we had this conversation.”

  CHAPTER 22

  George hadn’t known there were so many goddamned stores that sold women’s shoes in the city. He was trying to hit the top dog outlets, the ones with the snootiest looking broads heading in and out, and it still felt like it was taking all day. He should have sent that Officer Hartman out to do this, she had seemed like quite the eager little beaver. But he wanted this clue to have his name on it, and his name alone. A wet cloth to wipe away the humiliation from the blown interrogation.

  Seven stores down. Overly made-up women with pounds of make-up giving him the stink-eye for invading their holy places. No joy on any employees remembering the shoes getting bought in their stores.

  All these women, patting at their hair, constantly pulling out compacts to touch up their faces, they made George think of Ida. She seemed refreshing in comparison, less worried about useless shit. Maybe he should try asking her out again. She seemed shy about that big scar on her face; it was nasty-looking in and of itself, but it didn’t make her ugly.

  He was coming out of store number eight, bupkis again, when Los Angeles Clarion delivery trucks came rolling around, the wrong time of day. Special edition. Had to be.

  People flocked to the wrapped bundles of newspapers as they hit the curbs by the newsstands. He hadn’t seen that happen since Pearl Harbor.

  He pushed his way through a throng. Grabbed a Clarion. On the front – his morgue picture of his victim. Side-by-side with a sketch of what the young woman had probably looked like when she had been alive – big dark eyes, innocent, beautiful. Big and bold and in black and white. Ida Bly’s name on the story next to the image.

  Leaked.

  Someone had leaked his morgue picture.

  Blackness crowded in around the edges of his vision. He tore the whole folded newspaper in half, the thick way. People stepped back as he began to shake.

  He sprinted back to his car. Wheeled out into traffic, earning blaring horns, noticing absolutely none of them.

  He laid black rubber on the concrete as he screeched to a stop and parked crooked in his spot. Cops and civilians kept space between him and them in the elevator.

  Stomped to his desk. Unlocked his drawer, pulled out the M.E. file. His morgue picture of the victim was missing.

  She’d been right up at his desk, the only reporter that had dared to get close to him after the interrogation.

  She’d been left alone at his desk when he’d gone chasing other reporters away.

  She had her name next to the picture. She had the lead story. She had the Clarion’s front page all to herself.

  He cracked the back of his chair in his hands. Started to pick it up to hurl it when he heard his name being called.

  He whipped around, ready to yell, saw it was A.C. Pointe holding his own copy of the Clarion’s special edition.

  They didn’t talk until they got settled in Pointe’s office.

  “Tell me you didn’t leak it.”

  “No sir.”

  “Then how did they get the picture?”

  “The woman reporter-”

  “Ida Bly.”

  “Yes sir. She came by. We had reporters crawling all over the place, we really ought to lay down some rules-”

  Pointe held up a hand. “The picture?”

  “I went to chase off other reporters and I... I guess I forgot that at the end of the day she’s just one more of them.”

  “So you gave her some inside information, maybe off the record.”

  “No sir. Nothing that direct.”

  “But?”

  “But I did leave her alone at my desk for a couple of minutes. I think my M.E. file was out. Not think, I know I had it out. I had been going over it when she came in.”

  “She stole police evidence.”

  “It looks that way. Yes sir. Are we going to do something about it?”

  “If by ‘we’ you mean the Los Angeles Police Department, we most certainly are. But that ‘we’ does not include you. I’ve been instructed to take you off the case.”

  “I didn’t deliberately give her the picture.”

  “I believe you. But this, coupled with the... unfortunate direction your interrogation took, my confidence in you is not enough to keep you active. I have superiors of my own to answer to. You’re to hand over all case evidence to me for redistribution and re-tasking.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “There will be other cases. You’ll show them what you’re made of son, just not today.”

  George nodded. Exited Pointe’s office.

  Ida Bly projected in widescreen in his mind.

  ***

  “Ma’am? You called in a tip to the police?”

  The second of Ida’s tips had brought her right back to the Row. It was an apartment building clinging to its last dregs of life. Ida had been past these buildings before and had thought they were deserted.

  The main entrance door hadn’t been locked, something rattled inside it as she had swung it open. She went in, up to the third floor, and found apartment 302.

  Multiple locks were rattled on the far side of the door, then it was swung open so an old lady with wild long grey hair could peek out and up at her.

  “You’re not police.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m better. I’m a reporter.”

  The lady started to shut the door.

  Ida stepped forward. “It’s my job to listen to people.”

  The lady stopped, thought, then opened the door for Ida to step in. “I’m Theresa.”

  “Ida Bly.”

  Theresa waved her in, locked the door behind them.

  The small apartment was stuffed with junk. Every surface had some piece of useless garbage on it – a tennis racket without strings, a porcelain
figurine of a ballerina missing her right foot, collector edition dishes buried under two years’ worth of Marie Claire magazines. The room smelled of old paper and dust.

  Ida was shown to a stuffed chair. She sat on its edge, sure that if she leaned back the back of her jacket would end up covered in dust or a colony of some kind of bug she had never heard of before. She went through the rigmarole of how the paper was actually helping the poor beleaguered police with their investigation. Ida wasn’t sure if Theresa actually bought the story or just forgot to be suspicious. The lady didn’t seem able to focus and shifted her attention from one gewgaw to another as Ida spoke.

  “So did you see something? Hear something?”

  “Hm? Oh. Saw. I saw something.” Theresa pooched out her lip, nodded.

  “At what time?”

  “What? Oh. Time.”

  Ida shifted. She was sensing another dead-end here.

  Theresa scratched her chin. “Before dawn. Yes. I saw him just before dawn.”

  “’Him.’ So you know for sure it was a man?”

  “Burned himself into my eyes. Into my mind. Open up my head and there he is.”

  “You were out at night in Skid Row by yourself.”

  “I collect bottles. For the returns. I’m the earliest early bird.”

  “And you saw a man. There are lots of men-”

  “He was putting her on the ground.”

  Ida looked up. Leaned forward. “You saw the man who dumped the body?”

  “He didn’t dump her. He took his time. He was arranging her. Posing her.”

  “Did you see his-”

  “Making her his art.”

  “I understand. But can you describe-”

  Theresa stood up, paced, agitated, knocking over miniature mountains of meaningless junk. “You’ll never catch him. You can’t catch what you don’t believe in.” She pointed a finger at Ida. It shook. “You want to find him you have to start believing.”

  The lady had nothing. Nothing real, anyway. “Yeah. Alright.” Ida pocketed her pad and pencil. Stood, brushed off the back of her pants. She threw it out, absentminded: “Believe in what, hon?”