Front Page Fatale: The First Ida Bly Thriller

by Daniel Fox

  He pulled out the rag.

  The lights went off. The room went dark.

  The girl moaned.

  Bob went stiff and his fear took over.

  The copy girl bumped herself up against his leg, trying to get him to do something, anything, and right now if you please.

  Every part of his body was screaming at him to stay stock still and listen. If he couldn’t see then neither could the other guy. The other guy might know the basement, but he couldn’t know where Bob was exactly because he had been hidden from view around the corner when his new friend switched off the lights.

  He ignored his body and paid attention to the copy girl, Darlene? Was Darlene her name? He paid attention to her, worked on getting her out of the sleeping bag entirely, the damn thing smelled awful, she was tied into it with twine or string wrapped around the outside like string around a roast, and her thrashing around was making it worse instead of better.

  He couldn’t hear anything but the girl’s strained frightened breathing and her moving around.

  He couldn’t see the hands in front of his face.

  He ran his hands over the sleeping bag. Did his best to find the strings holding her in.

  He smelled a body then. Body odor, sharp and strong and overwhelming and invasive. The girl-killer was here.

  He froze. The girl froze.

  The killer, not far from them now, said, “Oh,” moaning it, like he’d been presented a drink of water after coming in out of the desert. A moan, not a word, a feeling. Of excitement.

  Bob: “Hey fella, how’d you like to get your picture in the paper?”

  The voice in the black, loud and hideous and croaking and angry: “I’ve been here all my life! I want to go home!”

  Another string loosened. The girl slid her arms out, her hands joining Bob to work on her legs.

  Bob: “I’m a newspaper reporter.”

  The voice, coming closer: “I want to go home!”

  “I work at a great big newspaper.”

  Closer, just around the bend, screaming, promising violence: “I want to go home!”

  They freed Darlene’s legs. She kicked off the sleeping bag, wobbled to her feet. Took Bob’s sweaty hand in her own.

  “Where’s home, fella?”

  The shuffling came around the bend, but stopped at Bob’s question. The voice spoke again, but the violence was gone, and it was... crying. “I don’t know.”

  Bob spoke back to the black air. “You don’t know where you’re from?”

  “I was a good boy once.” More crying, then: “What have I become? He made me into-”

  The lights snapped back on and all hell broke loose.

  ***

  Ida knew this was a new low for her, skulking after another reporter to rip off their gig. The point was to be at the head of the pack, the alpha wolf or whatever they called it, not one of the weak ones at the back looking for scraps.

  This is the kind of crap Bob Tree had pulled on her, stealing her tips.

  She didn’t care. The useless war hero hadn’t written one word worth reading, but he had still managed to steal her front-page spot and get her suspended and had gotten her fired.

  She followed him north then west into J-town. Watched him talking with none other than the beautiful half-breed boy. Watched him go into a building that looked like it had been up for construction and then abandoned partway through as a lost cause.

  Unlike Bob Tree, she didn’t hesitate to go in. There were a lot of smells in the building, a lot of visual noise, she ignored it all, her ears tuned to Bob Tree’s frequency. She realized that the old black man and his son could have directed her to this building when she had met with them before, linking it to the mystery gun battle, but she guessed she hadn’t been important enough. Or man enough. Or maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention. Score another one for the returning war hero’s famous lying face.

  She knew she should be scared. This might be the hide-out for whoever had been in the running gunfight. She could be walking into a lonely room with Tree, the creep who had assaulted her and had looked like it had taken him a mighty effort to not do worse.

  Anger trumped her fear, she made the left through the lobby.

  A dingy hallway, all trash and abandonment. There was an open door to her left, apartment 101. She stepped towards it but heard voices, very faint, very frenetic, coming from further along. She found a door that opened outwards into the hall, looked in – stairs heading down. The voices were louder here – she still couldn’t make out the words but one male voice was keening, rushed, syllables spilling out one after the other. The other, make it Bob Tree, was soothing, calm, Tree playing someone’s daddy.

  Ida grasped with her hand along the walls. Found the light-switch. Flipped it up.

  There was a scream from below, high and peeling and absolutely furious. That was followed immediately by Tree’s shouted, “No!” They were joined by a third voice, a girl’s, screaming in fear – what the hell was a girl doing here in this hellhole? What was Bob doing with her? Was the other male one of the people involved in the gunfi-

  A man ran to the bottom of the stairs and stopped Ida’s thoughts cold. His face was a mass of scars, one on top of the other, some old and white with age, some still seeping and angry red and new. Hair sprouting everywhere. Mouth open in a red wet O.

  He screamed in fury, pointed a filthy finger up at Ida. He took to the stairs, three at a time, pounding up at her.

  Fight or flight. Ida turned, bolted the wrong way. Further into blackness.

  A madman came screaming along on her heels.

  CHAPTER 31

  George skidded to a stop, uniformed officers pulled sawhorses out of his way as he entered the Row. He flapped carbon copies: “Pass these around to our guys here. Go!”

  “Georgie?”

  Fortier came over, looking around. “What are you doing here? I thought you were watching the Bly broad.”

  “I think she’s here. If she heard about it she couldn’t keep herself away.”

  “How would she have heard about it?”

  “The missing girl is from her paper.”

  “Say what?”

  George handed over a carbon copy. “Name’s Darlene Sterling. Eighteen. Works as a copy girl at the Clarion. Bolted from her shift. That was the last she was seen.” George walked further into Skid Row, handing out carbons to detectives and uniforms.

  Fortier followed, reading the carbon. “Okay. But how do we know this is our girl?”

  “Word is she worships Bly. Sees her as a hero of the working woman, and a kick-ass newshound to boot. She apparently really didn’t like it when Bly got shit-canned, kept raising a stink about it to the other girls, how Bly got railroaded-”

  “Bly railroaded herself.”

  “Either way, the kid was angry. She was seen snooping in around the stuff on Bly’s desk that Bly didn’t take with her.”

  “And Bly had a real hard-on or whatever for Skid Row.”

  “Exactly. Kid maybe sees some of Bly’s notes or research or whatever it is reporters leave lying around-”

  “And she decides to take up the torch. Beautiful. Gimme some of those.” Fortier took a stack of the carbons, split off from George to hand them out. “Oh! I saw your buddy.”

  “Who?”

  “Maddog.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Fortier shrugged. “I thought you had sent him for a scoop. He went north.”

  ***

  “Get me out get me out get me out!”

  “You’ve gotta keep quiet.” Bob looped an arm around the girl’s waist. Her legs were asleep from the bindings, she couldn’t walk properly, every step made her cry out a little in pain.

  She was crying, doing her best to hold back sobs that were still too loud. “He put his hands on me.”

  Bob got them to the bend, looked around the corner. The basement looked clear to the stairs, as much as he could see. But the guy, he could be any
where down here, behind the water heater, crouched down behind any one of the piles of junk. This was his world.

  “He... he... he tried to do it with me!” She wailed.

  Bob clapped a hand over her mouth. “He’s going to get another chance if we don’t get out of here. Do you understand?” He shook her. “Do you understand me?”

  She nodded.

  “Then shut up until we’re out of here.”

  He started her forward.

  ***

  Ida in the dark. She felt her way along the hall. She could hear him running behind her, catching up fast. She could see images of the dead girl’s open body in the blackness ahead of her.

  She found an apartment door. Shoved it in with her weight. It was noisy. She closed it partway behind her, couldn’t get it to close fully without the hinges squeaking all holy hell.

  She backed up. A kitchen. She felt around – a stove, a space where the refrigerator had probably been. She opened drawers, hoping for a knife. Nothing, they were all empty.

  Gibbering madness in the hallway outside. He gave off a tumble of words without a central subject. It was terrifying being so close to insanity, it felt like it was something that could be contagious.

  She turned. Felt her way out the other side of the kitchen into a dining area. Down the way – the space where windows and maybe a sliding door had once been, now all boards instead of glass.

  She moved forward, feeling with her feet. A tiny bit of streetlight glow made it around the edges of the boards – just enough to play tricks on her eyes.

  She made it to the boards okay. Scrabbled around the edges with her fingers. The board in the right window space felt loose along its right side. But she couldn’t get her fingers in the gap so she could pull.

  She ducked down, felt along the floor. She needed something, anything, to slip into the crack so she could pull the board loose.

  She realized she no longer heard the madman’s wailing. She stood. Maybe he had moved along. Maybe she could slip out and head back the way she had come, head right outside.

  She realized she could smell him.

  He tackled her, a full body tackle, his shoulder into her gut, bending her double, slamming her backward onto the floor.

  His fingers in her mouth.

  His fingers across her face, scratching her skin.

  His throat humming hmmmmm in anticipation.

  Ida slammed a leg up, a solid shot to his balls.

  He yelled, curled up. She pushed him off. Crawled out from under him. Got to her feet kind of stumbled kind of slammed into the wall tumbled into the kitchen stood upright ran for the door his fingers grabbed her hair and pulled back hard. Her feet went forward like a cartoon probably looked ridiculous then she was on her back again and he was trying to crawl on her.

  He was crying. She was crying. It was all in darkness. Just smell and sounds and pain when his fingers wrapped around her throat and squeezed.

  She felt for his eyes. He bit at her fingers

  She felt like it was getting darker and realized, oh yes, right, I’m being strangled to death. Then he’s going to cut me open.

  She whipped her hands around. Felt the stove. Felt its door handle with her fingertips. Couldn’t reach it. Lunged up with her upper body. Grabbed the handle and used it to pull the door out and down. It smashed onto the back of his head.

  He yelled out wet thick syllables, let go of her throat. She rolled out from under him, gasping, crawling. Got out the door into the hallway.

  She turned for the front exit of the building. Made it a step before he was out on her again, swinging wild haymakers. A dervish. Most missed. One connected with her right temple and knocked her into the wall. She lost contact with her body. She told her legs to run, they didn’t obey. Instead they buckled and she started to slide down the wall.

  He kept hitting. She could see him a bit now, she almost found him funny, he looked like a small girl throwing a tantrum.

  The punches kept coming in but she found that she didn’t feel them so much anymore. She hoped she wouldn’t feel any of the rest of it either.

  Then there was a form that nearly filled the hall and it bellowed louder than the madman and barrelled forward, a solid plug of force, here and then past, carrying the madman with it.

  She turned her head. It was darker that way, the streetlight had trouble making a dent in the black. But she saw fists the size of frying pans slamming down on him.

  It took the ambulance twenty-two minutes to get there.

  Snipped from the front page of The Los Angeles Clarion: July 17, 1947

  My Dance With the Devil of Skid Row

  By IDA BLY

  Feature Writer

  LOS ANGELES – It started with a dead girl (still unidentified) in a lonely Skid Row lot, her body denigrated and destroyed. It ended with this reporter engaged in a literal life-or-death struggle with a madman running wild, escaped from the Camarillo State Mental Hospital.

  California’s mental health authorities know very little about the past of their patient, Brian Lagercrantz. They’re not even sure of his true age – to look at him one could guess at anything from a worn-out thirty right through to a man in his late fifties.

  What they do know is that Lagercrantz continually exhibited violent tendencies both before and during their care. And they also knew that he had escaped the hospital some time in early June of this year, perhaps a week before the girl that has become known as “Skid Row Sally” was found in that empty lot.

  How did a mentally deranged man, known to be exceptionally dangerous, bust free from the state’s asylum of choice? And why was the situation never made known to authorities and to the public at large?

  Was Brian Lagercrantz a symptom of a devastating disease that pervades throughout California’s mental health system?

  A History of Violence

  Camarillo’s records show that Lagercrantz was picked up for vagrancy by the L.A.P.D. on September 12, 1939. Multiple complaints proceeded the arrest – citizens calling in for months about a public nuisance that made lewd suggestions to passing women and girls, was caught twice peeping through bedroom windows, and was a constant presence on the corners of W 8th Street and Broadway where he tried to force propaganda flyers from the German American Bund into the hands of passers-by...

  Snipped from the society page of The Los Angeles Clarion: July 22, 1947

  Big Screen Beauties Make a Buzz for Our Returning Boys

  By BOB TREE

  Social Writer

  While the war may be over, the work is just beginning for those employed by the venerable offices of Veterans Affairs. VA outlets across the nation have a steep job ahead of them – finding jobs and dispensing medical care for the tens of thousands of American boys (and girls!) returning from overseas.

  The beautiful ladies of Hollywood, patriots one and all, wanted to do their part in raising both funds and awareness for the VA’s heroic efforts. Famous film faces and other celebrities turned out by the dozens for a dance auction at the famed Alexandria Ballrooms – win your bid and find yourself dancing with the likes of Kathryn Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, or Gene Tierney.

  Actresses weren’t the only ones to make a grand entrance. Mayor Bowron, Doctor Vincent Bader, and more than one sports star attended the scene. Pictured right is Detective Sergeant George Schuttman of the L.A.P.D. dancing with Hedy Lamarr. Sergeant Schuttman rose to fame of his own just last month after tracking down and single-handedly capturing the Skid Row Murderer Brian Lagercrantz.

  The Sergeant took a minute away from the dance floor to speak with us. “While I feel much better with Lagercrantz off the streets I won’t consider the case fully closed until his victim has been identified. She deserves to have her name back. So I’d just like to remind your readers that if they think they have any information on her identity that they should give us a call.”

  When asked if he had any current cases that were causing him concern the Sergeant laughed and replied, “My b
iggest worry at the moment is trying not to step on Ms Lamarr’s feet.”

  Anyone that would like to make a donation or volunteer their time to the VA are urged to call...

  The following individuals are present in this interview transcript:

  Doctor Stefan Nabozny MA, PsyD

  Clinical Psychologist

  Robert Tree

  Patient

  Date: July 30, 1947

  Time of interview commencement: 11:00

  Interview Duration: 30 minutes

  Location: Veterans Administration, Dr. Nabozny’s officers

  Mode of Transcription: Audio tape (permission granted by patient, see file for signature) to Typed

  Transcription Date: August 8, 1947

  Doctor Stefan Nabozny: You look happy.

  Robert Tree: I feel happy. How about that, huh?

  SN: No more shakes?

  RT: No.

  SN: Anger attacks?

  RT: Nope.

  SN: Bad dreams?

  RT: If there are I’m not remembering them. I’m telling you man, I didn’t know I was capable of feeling this... this light anymore.

  SN: No repercussions from your confrontation with Brian Lagercrantz?

  RT: No. Well, guilt. The girl he had, Darlene. She was a copy girl in our newsroom.

  SN: I know that part, it was in Miss Bly’s story. What I don’t know is where the guilt comes in.

  RT: So I told you how I stole one of Bly’s tips.

  SN: You scribbled on her pad to read the impression.

  RT: Right. Well Darlene, all the girls at the paper really, they worship Bly. Women supporting women, that kind of thing. Bly had been getting heaps of grief from Cliffy-

  SN: Your editor, yes?

  RT: Right. And all the girls at the shop thought Bly was getting a real rough deal. Well, Darlene sees me lifting Bly’s tips and decides to do the same. She told me her thinking was she was going to get the tip info for Bly to help her combat all us awful ogre men teaming up against her. So she did what I did with Bly’s pad. Thing is, Bly had left me a little present of a fake tip leading right to the middle of Skid Row, but the poor kid is the one that ended up unwrapping it. She followed the tip address to the Row and ended up getting herself snatched by Lagercrantz.