The Pictures

by Guy Bolton

  She stopped three steps from the bottom. He turned and she saw his face. There he was, Jonathan Craine. Jonathan the widower, Jonathan the investigator, Jonathan the keeper of secrets. He had changed since she’d last seen him; his face had grayed and there was a hardness in his eyes, a wounded gaze that made her feel unnerved. His very presence shook her.

  “Hello, Miss Goodwin, I’m here to talk to you about your husband,” he said. His low voice slid down her spine, clinging onto every nerve. She couldn’t speak, her throat was squeezed closed.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” was all she could manage. Good, her voice was steady and controlled. She tried to keep it that way. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone until tomorrow.”

  “There’s another detective investigating. I’ve been asked to oversee the file. Has Peterson spoken to you yet?”

  “He said someone from the police would be coming. He didn’t say any more than that.”

  “I’m afraid I need to take a statement.”

  “Right now?”

  He nodded. “The quicker we do this, the best chance we have of quelling any rumors about your husband’s death. It will also help us to avoid a deposition if for any reason this goes to court.”

  “Deposition?”

  “Further questioning. A court reporter would be present. We want to avoid that if we can.”

  “Should I call my lawyer?”

  “Consider me your lawyer in this situation, Miss Goodwin. This isn’t an interrogation. I just want to take a witness testimony.”

  “Do I have to go to the precinct?”

  “No, I can take a statement here.”

  “Then I suppose we should get on with it. Joan will be back shortly,” Gale said, turning her back to him as she crossed the hallway toward a dark-stained door in the far corner.

  The drawing room was dark, lit only by a single green desk lamp on a bureau against the wall. Queen Anne chairs and a Davenport sofa formed a half-circle around a broad fireplace but Gale didn’t take a seat. She made her way across the room toward a small circular side table holding a whiskey decanter and three lowballs. She pulled out the stopper and poured herself a glass.

  “When was the last time you saw your husband?” he asked with a formality that she hoped would make the questions that followed easier. She could act the part, pretend this was simply a scene in a picture.

  “Last night. We had an argument, no reason to deny it I suppose.” She avoided eye contact but her hand was shaking so she left the lowball on the table. She noticed a cigarette box on the piano.

  “Can you describe the confrontation?”

  “It was bitter. We’d been arguing a lot recently.”

  “What about?”

  “His mood swings were becoming unbearable. He was drinking too much. I told him I wanted a divorce.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said no. He wouldn’t grant me one.” She lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.

  “Did he become violent?”

  “He never touched me. Never had.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “In a way. He said that if I tried to divorce him he’d make sure my contract wasn’t renewed and that I’d get nothing.”

  “What happened after?”

  “After what?”

  “After the argument.”

  “I left the house. He must have gone into the study. I saw him at the window when I got in the car. We were supposed to go out for dinner so I was all dressed up. I went to the Lilac Club.” She smiled faintly, as best she could, as if the idea itself was ridiculous. She was dancing at the Lilac Club when her husband was taking his own life.

  Craine checked his pad for what looked like nothing in particular. “Around what time did you leave?”

  “I’m not sure. Ten. No, later—eleven maybe.”

  “Who drove you?”

  “I don’t usually drive but I drove myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Herbert had sent everyone home, told them to come back in the morning.” She saw Craine frown then write on his pad.

  “There was no one else in the house. The dailies may pick up on that. They’ll try to weave it into their headlines. When was this last night? At what point did he send them home?”

  “When we were arguing. Ask the maid if you don’t believe me. He said for once I wouldn’t get my audience.”

  “But at what time was this?”

  “That must have been a little after nine.”

  “So you argued for almost two hours before you left the house?”

  “Yes. He was drunk and there was no point talking to him; nothing was getting through so I left.”

  “Your husband left no note before he died. Certain areas of the press may try to use this to suggest foul play. As a countermeasure, the studio will release their own statement today saying that Herbert was a depressive homosexual with suicidal tendencies,” Craine said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Would you say that was accurate?”

  A long pause. She could feel the blood drain from her face. How could they turn their back on her husband so easily? She remained composed. She found a voice. “I suppose he was depressed,” she said at last.

  “Did you think he would hang himself?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “But you weren’t surprised?”

  She shook her head. “Herbert had threatened to before.” She turned away from him now, hands shaking as she tried to lift her drink to her mouth.

  “I would regard that as suicidal tendencies. Had he tried to kill himself before?”

  “No, not that I’m aware of.”

  “And was he a homosexual?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. In truth, she’d always been suspicious but never been sure. Herbert had never looked at her as a sexual being. Their relationship had always been more concerned with business than love. But despite this, idle gossip on the studio lot angered her. How dare they presume to know about Herbert? And so what if he was a homosexual—was it really so foul to have feelings for the same sex?

  Craine persisted. “Miss Goodwin, the studio will use your husband’s sexuality to limit the damage to your reputation. You’re more likely to be viewed sympathetically by the public.”

  “I told you I don’t know. Maybe. I’d heard rumors but nothing I genuinely believed to be true.”

  Craine stood still for a long moment then put his pad in his jacket pocket. “We’ll be releasing your statement at a news conference later on today. Expect to see your name in the newspapers tomorrow.”

  She tried to stop herself from clenching her fists and balled her feet instead. “I was hoping that it might not make the news—”

  She searched Craine’s face but there was no sympathy there. Only emptiness. “Miss Goodwin, you’re in the public eye. I can assure you it will make the morning print. That can’t be helped. It’s better to get your side of the story across first, that way we have more control over the press.”

  “So everything I tell you now will be splashed across the headlines?”

  “No, only what we see fit to print.”

  “You’ll censor me.”

  “Something to that effect.”

  Gale looked at Craine for a long moment. She could read nothing in his face. How could he be so cold? She needed kindness, not cruelty. Why couldn’t they find fellow-feeling in the face of shared difficulties, two people whose husband and wife had lost their lives? “Did you know I was friendly with your wife?” she said. “We knew each other.”

  A moment of paralysis as Craine didn’t reply. Then: “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

  Gale hadn’t anticipated such a sharp reply. She turned so that he faced her back. “Is there anything else, Detective Craine? I’m not sure I’m ready for any more of your questions.”

  “There’s nothing else.”

  “Then please, would you mind leaving?”

&
nbsp; Craine stalled. For the first time he spoke to her as a human being. “You must understand my job is to protect you. Everything I say or do is directed with that in mind.”

  “I don’t need your help. Now get out, please.”

  “I’ll have someone collect you tomorrow and bring you to the Bureau. I’ll need you to identify your husband’s body.”

  “Fine.”

  Craine nodded, and turned on his heels. At the doorway he said quietly, “I’ve been where you’re standing. It gets better. You think it never will but it does. Slowly, day by day, it gets better.” He left the room without saying another word. Gale heard him stride out of the room and across the hallway.

  She waited for the front door to close before bursting into tears.

  Chapter 6

  “You finished?” asked Craine, making a show of checking his watch. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  O’Neill wriggled in his suit—a tweed suit. It was like he was dressed for a cold snap. “I’m sorry. I’ll just be a second. Do you mind if we run through it one more time? I mean, in case there are a few things that we haven’t covered yet.”

  Craine had provided a typed transcript of his conversation with Gale, edited as he had seen necessary. Together they were finalizing a statement to be read out to the press. O’Neill was making hard work of it, fingering at his typewriter with those chubby hands of his and questioning Craine’s notes line by line.

  He found O’Neill a strange boy. He looked about twelve but dressed like a sixty-year-old man. They’d never worked together but Craine vaguely remembered him from when he started. People said he used to have a big-shot father in San Francisco.

  Craine leaned over the typewriter and pointed at two lines above the ribbon. “Cut the part about Gale’s whereabouts,” he said. “It’ll only draw attention to her. If they want to know, they’ll ask. Add a sentence stating that there were no suspicious circumstances.”

  When O’Neill looked at him, clutching at words, Craine said, “What is it?”

  O’Neill took off his glasses and wiped them with the end of his necktie. “It’s just . . . all of this feels like . . .”

  “Like what?”

  “All I’m saying is . . . It doesn’t feel very objective. Gale Goodwin’s statement, for example.”

  “What about it?”

  O’Neill looked nervous under Craine’s stare. “I wondered whether we might consider writing out what she said . . . in its complete form.”

  “I took a statement myself.”

  “But Craine, with all due respect, this is not a transcript.”

  “It’s an edited account of our conversation. She’s going to sign it.”

  O’Neill shrank lower in his chair. He looked at his hands when he spoke. “In San Francisco, any statement we give to the press sticks strictly to the known facts. We don’t make conjecture.”

  “This isn’t San Francisco,” Craine snapped. “And we’re under a lot of pressure here to see this is done right.”

  O’Neill didn’t say anything but Craine could tell this was bothering him. He looked at the young detective with his palms held open. “O’Neill, what is it about this scenario makes you question that this isn’t suicide?”

  O’Neill swallowed. “I’ll admit it looked like a suicide. At first, anyway. But then I got to thinking. We don’t know that for sure. Have you thought maybe we could look at other options?”

  “Such as?”

  O’Neill took a deep breath. “What if he’d been drugged?”

  Craine closed his eyes. Patrick O’Neill’s endless questions were exhausting. “I don’t want that mentioned in the statement. We can wait for an autopsy.”

  O’Neill nodded slowly.

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s one last thing,” O’Neill said delicately. “I think the press will ask about the note. Who doesn’t leave a note?”

  Craine could feel his temper rise then fall again. He thought carefully about how he was going to respond before asking coolly, “Have you seen cases like this where there hasn’t been a note?”

  O’Neill was resolute. “No. Never.”

  “And how many have suicides have you seen?”

  O’Neill scratched a beard he didn’t have. “Two.”

  It was the answer Craine was hoping for. “Only two? Are you trying to tell me that two suicides are enough to predict a definite trend? That all suicides must write their family a self-satisfied goodbye?”

  “No, but—”

  “But nothing. Haven’t you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. It looked like suicide because it was suicide.”

  O’Neill didn’t reply, and Craine could see that he was faltering. Craine was persuasive like that. Manipulative, even. Could make you change your mind about pretty much anything. He knew people sometimes found him intimidating. And he knew too he frequently took advantage of that fact.

  Craine pulled the statement from the platen as if to draw the matter to a close. “We have twenty minutes before we brief the press. Give a copy to my secretary and I’ll see you downstairs.”

  “Wait—who’s reading this?”

  “You are.”

  O’Neill blanched. “You mean, outside? I’m going to stand there and read all this to the press?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m not . . . I’m not a big fan of public speaking.”

  “Nothing to worry about. Just read the statement.”

  Craine reached for his coat and hat. He was already half-way out the door when O’Neill said: “And what if they don’t believe it?”

  Craine didn’t turn back. “That’s my problem,” he said.

  The Los Angeles Police Department news conference was held on the steps outside Central Headquarters, opposite City Hall.

  Detective Patrick O’Neill addressed a noisy and restless press corps shortly after 6 P.M., Craine’s secretary holding an umbrella high above his head to protect his typed statement from the rain. He shivered but despite the cold he could feel sweat on his forehead. Standing directly behind him were Captain Simms and, a little further behind him, Russell Peterson, the Publicity Chief at M.G.M. that he’d met briefly at Stanley’s house.

  O’Neill noticed Jonathan Craine standing discreetly at the back of the crowd but tried his best to avoid his gaze.

  “Good afternoon, good evening,” O’Neill began, leaning over the plinth. “My name is Detective Patrick O’Neill. As many of you—” He paused when he saw his hands start to tremble. He gripped the paper firmly between his fingers. “As many of you are now aware, this morning, at approximately ten o’clock, the body of M.G.M. producer Herbert Stanley was discovered by his maid at his home on Easton Drive. His death was promptly reported to the police by Russell Peterson, Head of Publicity at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and uniform officers and a paramedic team arrived on the scene shortly after 10:30 A.M. Mr. Stanley was pronounced dead at 10:40 A.M. The crime scene has now been examined by county police and I can confirm that Herbert Stanley hanged himself from a leather waist-belt tied to the ceiling fan in his study. Estimated time of death is between midnight and 2 A.M. At present there are no . . .” O’Neill took a deep breath. Was he really going to say it? He caught Craine staring at him. He didn’t have a choice. “At present,” he said again, “there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding Mr. Stanley’s death.”

  There was a furor of desperate pleas and waving hands as reporters shouted out their questions. O’Neill continued talking over the noise and the crowd fell silent, their pencils scratching furiously at their pads.

  “This is a very tragic case. Herbert Stanley, fifty-two years old, was a motion picture producer at M.G.M. studios, well liked and respected by his peers. He is survived by his wife, the actress Gale Goodwin, who has asked that the media respect her privacy during this difficult time. She will not be making a public statement to the press in the near future.

  “I can confirm
that—” O’Neill paused. His notes seemed strangely blurry and unclear. He blinked to correct his vision but instead all he saw were the faces of the men in the crowd staring at him.

  He swallowed drily and tried to continue: “I can confirm, however, that Miss Goodwin was interviewed this afternoon and that we do have a police statement that will be provided to the press. She indicated that her husband had been suffering from depression for some time and had made previous attempts on his own life. His suicide was not unexpected.”

  “Detective! Detective, over here!”

  Flashbulbs popped. O’Neill flinched as magnesium flash powder flared near his face. He coughed, the plumes of white smoke burning at his throat. He tried to distinguish the questions fired at him by reporters. A small man darted forward and took a picture. His face bobbed up from behind his camera.

  “Detective O’Neill,” he said, before others could jump in. “Are you certain it was Stanley’s body?”

  “There seems to be no doubt that the body was that of Herbert Stanley, but he will be formally identified by his wife tomorrow.”

  “. . . Was there a suicide note found at his house?”

  “. . . Do the L.A.P.D. believe there was a cover-up?”

  “. . . What about M.G.M.’s role in his death?”

  Another flashbulb popped. O’Neill couldn’t see. He squeezed his eyelids together. “There was no suicide note but there was no sign of foul play.”

  “. . . Did his wife say what made him kill himself?”

  “. . . Where was Gale Goodwin at the time?”

  “Miss Goodwin wasn’t present at their house on Easton Drive last night. She stated that she believed her husband’s death was the culmination of months of deep depression. We will be providing you with her full statement shortly.”

  “. . . Will you be conducting a full autopsy?”

  The reporters were pushing closer. O’Neill felt jostled by the encroaching crowd. His legs began to shudder with nerves.