Pale as Death

by Heather Graham

  She was serious and fluid when she spoke. Yes, they were sorry to report that a second victim—most probably attacked by the same killer—had been discovered. The public and the media were begged to understand that, in an active investigation, only so much information could be given out. The public should take extreme care under the circumstances. They should also allow the police and any law enforcement agency all cooperation in the investigation.

  “Black Dahlia!”

  He was out there again, of course. In his hat and 1940s suspenders and jacket. He had a pen and paper while others held cameras and recorders.

  She ignored him, and then another reporter—a real one, she assumed—spoke, “Detective, the rumor is that these victims have been butchered. That the murders are similar to the unsolved Black Dahlia case that occurred here decades ago.”

  “I’m not making any comparisons right now... Mr. Hampton, right, from the Herald? Please, this has just occurred.”

  “Yeah,” someone else shouted. “The police still had the old crime scene tape out when this guy dumped a new body, right?”

  There was derision in his tone.

  Sophie refused to be angered or swayed to any emotion by him—or by the ghost smirking at his side.

  “Our units had scoured this area for hours, sir. This body, we believe, was placed here in the very early hours of the morning. We will keep news coming to you with all possible speed—just as we will catch this killer, with all possible speed. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

  They had no intention of excusing her. A barrage of questions followed as she turned away from the line of reporters.

  She noticed that Bruce McFadden was watching her. He seemed pensive.

  She lifted her chin. She had done well that day, and she knew it. Maybe her imagination, or the real ghost—if there was such a thing as a real ghost—had been out there, active again.

  But she had managed to totally ignore it.

  She felt something at her side, a brush of chilly air.

  Crime scene tape apparently meant nothing to a ghost, created in her mind or otherwise. He was following her over to the body.

  Sophie watched as the spirit hunkered down by Vining. She thought that Vining shuddered—like a man who had felt a cold draft.

  But he didn’t turn or look at Michael Thoreau.

  “Poor girl,” Thoreau said.

  Bruce McFadden showed no sign of seeing or feeling anything.

  Just then, someone in the crowd lashed out furiously.

  “Two! Two damned corpses in the same damned place in two days. And what the hell has the LAPD done? Nothing, all they do is count the damned corpses.”

  Sophie froze, her back straight, staring at McFadden.

  “Go get ’em,” he mouthed. He wasn’t being sarcastic or mocking her.

  He believed that she could do it.

  First, control your temper, she thought to herself. Spiraling anger in any fight leads to carelessness and poorly aimed blows, be they verbal or physical.

  She strode back to the yellow tape of the police line.

  “The vicious brutality of these murders has touched every member of the LAPD, just as they have touched every one of you. We are not seers—we have no way of knowing when a sociopath is going to strike. Such a killer has now seized our city. The LAPD will not rest. We will search out this killer with everything available to us. We will work relentlessly, relying on science and medicine and hours and hours of police work. Rest assured, we will not stop.”

  “The Black Dahlia killer walked free!”

  She didn’t think that it was the same man speaking again. This time, the words sounded frightened—and uncertain. Looking out in the crowd, she couldn’t be certain who had spoken.

  “The Black Dahlia was at work in the 1940s,” she said. “Since then, science has advanced greatly. We have DNA profiling—a science no longer in its infancy. Science can match tiny skin cells to a suspect...something so minor as a tossed cigarette or a coffee cup can provide endless clues. Fingerprints can even be found on human flesh. We are no longer living in the 1940s. This killer will make a mistake. And when he does, trust me, the LAPD will be ready.”

  The crowd had gone silent. She turned and walked back. Dr. Thompson now had his assistants carefully picking up the pieces of the body.

  They were even taking chunks of the earth with them.

  They needed to know just how much blood—if any—had sunk into the ground. They needed everything.

  “Bravo,” her ghost—Michael Thoreau—said.

  Dr. Thompson and Grant Vining gave no heed.

  To Sophie’s surprise, Bruce McFadden spoke softly. “Bravo, indeed,” he said.

  She frowned.

  Was he agreeing with a ghost?

  Or was “Bravo” a word anyone might say?

  She didn’t have a chance to find out. There was a commotion at the police line. She heard a young woman crying out. “Please, please... I’m so afraid... I might know her!”

  * * *

  The young woman sitting in Vining’s small office was almost as white as snow. She’d cried for over an hour.

  They had not let her see the corpse.

  Henry Atkins wasn’t just a good crime scene photographer—he knew how to clean up a picture. Bruce admired his work.

  The man had taken a shot of their new victim’s face and used the magic of image editing software to bring her back to her appearance before she’d been so cruelly slashed.

  Her name was Brenda Sully. She had been an acting major at a nearby fine arts college.

  Her friend was Gwen Grayson. Gwen was not in good shape.

  “She was getting some work, even as a student,” Gwen said between bouts of sobbing. “She was good, she was really so good. She already got a national commercial. For soap. She did a great dance in the shower.”

  Her chest heaved.

  Brenda wasn’t a foster child, but she was an orphan. Her parents had died of separate natural causes soon after she’d gotten into college.

  While Bruce might still have been only grudgingly impressed with Sophie, he understood completely how she had come to be so very close to Marnie. Sophie had surely treated Marnie, who had seen a dear friend killed in front of her, with the same empathy she was showing Gwen. She had a way about her.

  She managed to soothe Gwen somewhat, and Bruce was certain that Sophie might well be able to get more answers from her than anyone else might.

  Sophie encouraged her to talk even when it just had to do with her own life—and with friendship. She was kind. She also managed to get all her questions in.

  To the best of Gwen’s knowledge, Brenda had never worked with the Hollywood Hooligans—but then, she couldn’t be sure.

  Gwen was a music major, and while they combined their talents for many projects, she still didn’t know every time an acting friend took on a job. The school did not mind if they accepted paying assignments—real work experience meant a hell of a lot more on a résumé than a school play. “Maybe all schools don’t feel that way—ours does. Or...mine. Mine does. Brenda can’t have anything anymore, can she? She’s dead. Oh, God, who would do this to...to anyone?”

  Sophie gently brushed back Gwen’s hair, telling her again that they were all so, so sorry.

  Then she asked if she had any idea if Brenda had known Jace Brown, Kenneth Trent or Ian Sanders. Again, to the best of Gwen’s knowledge, she had not. Brenda lived alone, and Gwen wasn’t sure who might have seen her last.

  Gwen had last met Brenda for breakfast on Monday morning.

  Hours after Lili’s death, hours before Brenda’s own.

  “Did she say where she was going or what she was doing that day?” Sophie asked.

  “Oh, yes, she said that she was working on her craft. I remember that she winked at me. She t
old me that she was going to get places.”

  “Did she seem excited, as if she had plans to see someone?”

  “Maybe. All she said was that if she got a good gig really soon, she’d take a quick break back to Atlanta.”

  “She seemed to think she was going to land a role?”

  “Yes, actually... I think so.”

  “Did anyone approach you when you were together? Did she say anything about anyone approaching her?”

  “No, not specifically.”

  Sophie gently led the questions in the direction of relationships: Had Brenda been seeing anyone?

  Gwen reveled that, no, she definitely had not. At least, no one out here in LA. She’d been with the same boy back in Atlanta since high school. They were still true to one another, deeply in love, despite living on opposite coasts. And, yes, Gwen was sure that Mark was in Atlanta at that moment; she had talked to him because he had called her when Brenda hadn’t answered.

  “Oh, God, now I have to call Mark,” Gwen wailed, her eyes wide.

  “Her fiancé?”

  Bruce knew that someone in the department would contact the fiancé—and make sure that his alibi was as tight as Gwen believed.

  But it wasn’t the fiancé in this case. Not unless the man had also somehow known Lili Montana—and all the details of the Black Dahlia case.

  Of course, anything was possible.

  “You’re absolutely sure he has been in Atlanta all this time?”

  “Yes, he’s a stage manager there. He was working his play. I have to call him, oh, God, he’s going to be—devastated.”

  “We can do it for you,” Sophie told her. “In fact, we really need to have someone here for you, a friend, a relative. You really shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

  It was determined that Gwen’s aunt, who lived close by in Pasadena, would come. And while they waited for her to arrive, Sophie kept Gwen talking about her friend. No, Brenda was not a fool. She didn’t take rides with strangers. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t drink a lot. She was focused. If anything, pride might be her downfall.

  “She was kind of the way you have to be,” Gwen said. “Passionate—and, like I said, focused. She was going to be a star. She worked on all kinds of things—webisodes, theater. Ensemble stuff. But she did want to be in film. And she said that she was happy to start small to go big. She was all into indie films. A friend of ours did a weird student film a few years ago—for just a share of profit if there was a profit—and it was picked up by one of the big companies and now she’s on that new sitcom. Brenda was willing to go that route.”

  “Can you think of anyone else who might have seen her later in the day? She did have classes? Anything?”

  “No, she was... I didn’t even realize it, but she was kind of secretive. She was excited, vibrant, so alive. But could be a bit private. Oh, I’m not putting her on a pedestal. She was real, flesh and blood real. And, of course, she hated rejection. I know I’d told her that wasn’t a good thing—not if she wanted a career in acting,” Gwen said. Her eyes started to well up again. “I said that rejection was a lesson she was going to have to learn in Hollywood. Now she’ll never get to learn anything else at all!”

  She broke into tears. Bruce listened, wanting to do something to ease the girl’s pain. Sophie was doing better than he could, he was certain. He kept quiet and kept listening.

  And observed.

  The ghost plaguing Sophie hadn’t come to the station.

  Bruce wondered who the man was.

  A long-ago detective? Or had he done something else in life?

  The day was not going to go as planned; more people were coming into the station. Other detectives were added to the case. Bruce wasn’t going to be the one out questioning Kenneth Trent, not unless he headed out right now.

  He excused himself while Sophie was greeting Gwen’s aunt, who had finally arrived.

  Bruce decided it was time to go. They’d had a plan that day; they’d been going to interview people close to their first victim, Lili Montana.

  He’d been assigned Kenneth Trent.

  And he was doing no good at the station.

  He nodded to Grant Vining through the window of an office where he was taking a statement from another student from the arts school, though it looked like Vining didn’t think he was going to get anything useful. Vining nodded in return, and Bruce headed on out.

  He knew damned well that Sophie’s ghost was in his car, in the back seat, when he slid into the driver’s position. He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Okay. Who are you? Why are you haunting Sophie?”

  “Hey, you see me!”

  “I do. Yep.”

  “Wow. Amazing.” The ghost leaned forward, resting his elbows on the seat back—hands dangling down. “All these years... I’ve seen the world change so much. I cruise the streets. I go to concerts and shows whenever I feel like it. That part is pretty cool. Hell, I’ve crashed a few séances, and no one has ever seen me. And now—you. And Sophie, of course. Poor Sophie. She just doesn’t really get it yet.”

  “Maybe you’re her first.”

  “Maybe. Doubtful, though. I think she’s maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She should have seen a ghost before me, don’t you think?”

  “I have no clue how it works. My brothers and I weren’t kids when it started for us. Anyway—who the hell are you?”

  “Oh, sorry. Michael Thoreau. And you’re Bruce McFadden. I know that, because I listened to the gossip about you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. So, your folks were big-time stars, huh?”

  “That seems to have been the consensus.”

  “Hmm. How was that growing up?”

  “It was fine. Thoreau—why are you haunting Sophie? You know something about this case?”

  “Tons!”

  “Really?”

  “Well, no. Not about this case. But the one the killer is copying.”

  Bruce sighed. “Black Dahlia.”

  The ghost nodded gravely.

  “You know who did it?”

  “I had my suspicions.”

  “So...you had suspicions about an old case, and don’t know anything about this case—or now, these cases.”

  “I can help, and I know it.”

  “Help? So what were you doing in Sophie Manning’s apartment this morning?”

  “I wasn’t in her apartment this morning,” the ghost of Michael Thoreau protested. “I wasn’t—I swear it. I saw her last night, but...well, she wanted to shoot me, and I realized I had to let her get used to me being around. I think she’s getting there. She ignored me while we were at the second crime scene. Lord, can you believe that? Some psychopath has managed to do this twice?”

  It was hard to figure. Did that mean the killer was a social pariah—someone who crept in dark alleys and seized victims from the shadows? Or was it someone who was capable of hiding a complete lack of empathy and emotion behind a façade of pleasantries and charm?

  Bruce felt his phone buzzing; his brother Bryan was on the line.

  “Saw the news,” Bryan said. “Second murder.”

  “Yep.”

  “I should just forget this academy thing for the moment and head out—”

  “Bryan, I’m good. Grant Vining is fully accepting of my help. Sophie Manning is—a good cop. I’ve met our ghost. He’s in the car with me right now. Michael Thoreau. Good guy,” Bruce said, lightly, offering the ghost a quick and wry smile.

  “Well, the FBI is coming. Jackson is making arrangements to get out there. He’ll be there soon.”

  “Great,” Bruce said, and then hesitated. “Hold your course, Bryan. You and Marnie have a good thing going... Everything here will be looked after.”

  “Watch out for Sophie.”

  “I’ll guard her with my l
ife. I swear.”

  He found that he meant it—even if she fought him.

  Bruce broke the connection.

  “Got a brother, huh?” Thoreau asked.

  “Two of them.”

  “Lucky man.”

  Bruce nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I am. Okay, so I have to drive now. Try not to do anything too startling and cause me to veer into oncoming traffic, huh?”

  “Hey, I’m here to help, not get you killed.”

  Bruce pulled out onto the street.

  It had been a while since he’d been in LA. He followed the directions on his GPS and arrived at an office building on Vine. He circled to find parking, and then headed in to Suite 109 in the old thirties-style bungalow where Hollywood Hooligans had their office.

  The door to the suite was open; there was a young man sitting behind the desk, maybe about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, slim, with shaggy blond hair and an easy manner. He was wearing a suit that didn’t quite seem to fit his personality.

  He stood as Bruce entered. “Hello. Welcome to the offices of Hollywood Hooligans. How can I help you?”

  Michael Thoreau had followed Bruce in.

  He perched near the door, arms crossed over his chest. He leaned against the wall, ready to just listen. Bruce ignored him.

  “My name is Bruce McFadden. I’m working on—”

  The young man’s face paled. He looked as if he was about to burst into tears. Actually, Bruce realized, he’d clearly been crying before at some point that day.

  “Lili,” the man said, a catch in his voice. “Lili Montana.”

  Bruce nodded. “You’re Kenneth Trent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Director of the Hollywood Hooligans?”

  Kenneth Trent shrugged. “I’m the head. The company was my idea. Director is a title that is shared among us at various times, depending on the event or the project. But...”

  “Lili was one of you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about her. And her relationship with you—and the Hollywood Hooligans.”

  Trent was still standing. Bruce slid easily into the chair before his desk. Trent awkwardly took his chair again.

  “You’re a cop?”