by Guy Bolton
“Do you know him?”
“Not well. We’re acquainted. Through work matters.”
“Do you like him?”
“He’s very good at what he does.” I despise him, he could have said.
“How very fair of you, Detective,” Gale said, smiling. “For more time than I can remember, Russell Peterson has been telling me what to say, what to eat, what to wear, where to be seen. For my last picture he even gave me my own dietician and a dressmaker. Then he hired this girl to sign my photos for fan magazines, can you believe that?”
“Celia had the same, once.”
“It’s ridiculous, really; no one needs so much, not with so many people in need.” She spoke quickly, with an earnest intensity he found unexpected. “And he may call me three times a day about this and that but when it comes to actually being there when you want him to? No, he’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear but he’s never actually there when you need him most. And he’s such a creep around L.B. I mean really, the endless flattery. Herbert used to say, ‘Louis Mayer doesn’t use toilet paper, he just rings for Peterson.’ ”
They both laughed and Craine had to catch himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m being vile, aren’t I? But it’s nice to see you smile. It suits you.”
Craine suddenly felt self-conscious. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled.
Relieved that the mood had lifted, Gale said, “Herbert was so funny, he was always making me laugh. Most of the jokes in those early Busby Berkeley musicals were his, did you know that? He had a wicked sense of humor. Well, he used to. He lost it somewhere along the way.”
Neither of them spoke for some time. Gale turned and stared at him, taking a moment to work up the courage before asking, “What was she like—Celia, I mean? If you don’t mind me asking. I only met her a few times.”
Taken aback by her directness, Craine hesitated. He let the question linger before saying, “She was very kind. Most people know she was an actress, few people know anything else about her. But she was incredibly selfless; she always wanted to help people.”
“I remember going to a charity gala she hosted. For the homeless.”
“At St. Vibiana’s. Celia was a big part of the church.”
It was a long time since Craine had discussed Celia with anyone. As the investigator, he rarely felt the spotlight. Gale must have sensed his unease and didn’t probe him any further.
They slowed as the car approached the main gates to Crawford’s estate on Bristol Avenue. Craine steered into the driveway, moving between a tended row of cypress trees toward the front door of the Georgian-styled residence.
“Detective Craine, you’ve been very kind. You didn’t have to drive me home.”
“I felt obliged.”
“You shouldn’t have. But thank you. For your concern, I mean.”
He slowed to a stop beneath the pepper tree beside the front door. He left the engine running and stared at the backs of his hands. For a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he wanted to share something with her.
“A son.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You asked me if I have any children,” he said, looking at her. “I have a son.”
“Yes, I think I knew that. Does he live with you?”
“He stays at his school. A boarding school.”
“I always wanted children. Herbert had no interest. I don’t suppose I ever will now, but who knows, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I expect Celia was a wonderful mother.”
“She was, yes.”
“Do you mind talking about her?”
“I haven’t spoken about her in quite a while.”
“Your little boy must miss her immensely.”
“He does.”
“And how about you? Do you miss your wife? Do you think about her often?”
“All the time,” he muttered.
“I miss Herbert. I don’t know why but I do. I miss the old Herbert. Is it difficult, being alone? Being lonely?”
“Being alone and being lonely aren’t the same thing.”
Craine found himself blushing slightly and closed up. Why was he sharing such personal thoughts with a stranger? His eyes darted away and he found himself staring toward the front door.
“I trust someone is here to let you in,” he said a little too coldly.
“Yes,” Gale said, gathering herself. “Clara, the housekeeper, is here. I’m almost certain of it. Well, goodbye, Detective Craine.” She opened the car door but before she could step out Craine put a hand on her arm and turned toward her so that they were face to face.
“It’s Jonathan,” he said with a sense of propriety that almost seemed absurd. “You can call me Jonathan.”
“Goodbye, Jonathan.”
Gale Goodwin walked briskly to the front door. Craine put the car in gear and steered toward the gates.
As he met the crest of the hill he looked soberly down toward the urban sprawl that made up the ever-growing city basin. It was starting to rain again.
Chapter 11
“O’Neill. Is that an Irish name?” asked Dr. Collins, rolling on a pair of black rubber gloves.
“My parents are Irish. Were. They became American citizens.”
They were standing in the mortuary, or the examination office, as the pathologists preferred to call it. Herbert Stanley’s body was on a metal gurney between them.
“Why are there so many Irish in the department?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Every day another fresh-faced Paddy comes down to see me, throwing his little Irish guts up all over my shiny linoleum floor. Every day, always Irish. They put you on the same boat?”
“No. I mean, I hadn’t noticed.”
O’Neill hadn’t been with the homicide department long enough to develop a close working relationship with any of the pathologists, but he found Collins particularly intimidating. He was a large, imposing figure with hard features and close-cropped blond hair balding at the crown. Like most moneyed East Coast Anglo-Saxons he encountered, Collins had a deep, serious voice with a clearly defined, cut-glass accent that made O’Neill feel like a sham American.
“I must say,” said Collins, “I’m not quite sure why this is so urgent. Did the family request it?”
“No, I did. I wanted to be sure.”
“You have doubts?”
“Stanley didn’t leave a suicide note,” he answered. He wasn’t going to mention the phone call or the package. “It didn’t feel right.”
“It didn’t feel right? You had a feeling. I see.” Collins pulled over the dissection table and instrument tray. O’Neill caught a glimpse of the bone saw and chest shears used to remove the breastplate. He started to sweat. “Let’s get started. There’s a clipboard on the side there. Spell the big words as best you can.”
O’Neill took a clipboard and pencil hanging from a wall peg. From the corner of his eye he saw Collins pull back the sheet covering the body. He took long, deep breaths and tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see. His first few autopsies had ended in quick exits to the lavatory down the corridor and only over time had the process become familiar. O’Neill had to tell himself that it was a cadaver lying on a table, not a body, not a someone.
“Detective?”
“Sorry—yes, I’m ready, Dr. Collins.” After a few seconds he turned and looked at the naked body on the table. He felt relieved: Stanley’s corpse wasn’t difficult to look at. He had always found it easier to see men on the table. Women and children were the worst.
“White male, 164 pounds, seventy-three inches in length by my tape. Where was he found?”
“In his study, hanging from a ceiling fan.”
Collins moved slowly around the corpse, occasionally probing the body with a gloved hand. He spoke in the dull, monotonous voice of a man who has spent the best part of his life describing the deceased. “Hair color is brown, short, graying. Victim has small birthmark on right upper forearm,
two moles on lower abdominal, no other distinguishing features. No signs of bruising on face, limbs or torso, no other contortions or visible signs of trauma other than his neck.” Collins waited for O’Neill to finish writing. He smiled weakly, adding, “He wasn’t shot or stabbed, but I suppose you knew that.”
Collins continued with his view and grant, using a finger to raise each eyelid in turn. Stanley’s pupils were fixed and dilated. They betrayed nothing. “Green eyes. Note also both sclerae look hyperemic. You see the burst capillaries on his face and in the whites of his eyes? It indicates cause of death: cerebral ischemia, the blood flow was cut to his brain and he had a stroke. It wouldn’t be agonizing but it certainly wasn’t instant either. Does that satisfy your investigation? What homicide scenarios had you considered, Detective?”
“Either that he was forced to hang himself or that he was choked to death first and strung up afterward to make it look like suicide.”
“I don’t know if I’ve seen any examples of someone being forced to hang themselves. At least none that I’m aware of.”
“It’s difficult to make someone take their own life, not without a struggle. I didn’t notice any evidence of an attack at his home. Nothing on the body to show he was assaulted either.”
Collins used a pair of wide forceps to lift Stanley’s hands by the wrist. O’Neill bent down for a better look.
“Correct. No physical alterations on his hands. Fingernails undamaged, no bruising on either set of knuckles.”
“His palms?”
“No fingernail markings on his palms.”
“No signs of stress, you mean?”
“Exactly.” If Collins was impressed, he didn’t show it. “So you think he was choked?”
“I think it’s possible. Or that he was drugged.”
“Not a scenario I’ve seen before.”
“But it could explain why there’s no sign of struggle.”
Collins breathed deeply and leaned in closer to the victim’s neck. “Severe bruising and abrasive ligature marks circling the neckline. The abrasions on the side here match a belt strap. You can see where the buckle has cut into his skin.”
“Is there any indication that he could have been strangled by someone else? Is there any way you can tell?”
“We’ll need to take a closer look. Help me move him onto the slab, would you? There are some gloves by the sink.”
The wall nearest the door was lined with sinks and stainless steel benches used for dissecting organs. The smell of ammonium disinfectant was overwhelming. O’Neill gloved up and they lifted Stanley onto an autopsy table, O’Neill carrying Stanley by the shoulders. His skin was softer than he’d expected. He’d never actually touched a dead body himself before. O’Neill kept hold of Stanley as Collins slid the body block, a large rubber brick, under the center of Stanley’s back. His body arched, Stanley’s chest was pushed toward the ceiling and his long neck was stretched out for maximum exposure. Collins pulled a tray of surgical tools toward him. O’Neil started to feel lightheaded. He loosened his collar.
“Something wrong, Detective? Would you like a chair, a stool perhaps?”
“No. No, I’m okay.”
Collins picked out a scalpel and cut a deep incision across the top of Stanley’s neck, right above the Adam’s apple. Without the heart pumping, bleeding was minimal—small trickles ran down either side of Stanley’s neck and formed in shallow pools. O’Neill took a small step back. He couldn’t breathe.
“The way to tell if someone has been hanged or strangled is by looking at the hyoid bone.” Collins was leaning over the body and using his forceps to open the incision for examination. He was slow and precise, careful not to open the wound any more than necessary. “It’s a small horseshoe-shaped bone that isn’t connected to any other bones in the body. It’s right above the larynx here. In cases of strangulation, direct pressure from someone’s hands or from a belt or noose normally snaps it on either side. I’ve never seen it broken from a short suspension drop before.”
O’Neill caught sight of Collins cutting away the sinew around the small bone and looked away. He waited for the sound of the scalpel to stop before clearing his throat. “Does it look damaged, Doctor?”
“No, it’s not broken,” said Collins with finality, straightening his back and wiping his brow with the back of his arm. “It looks absolutely fine. As far as I can tell, the victim’s cause of death was hanging by a short drop from a belt ligature. He wasn’t choked or strangled. As for whether he was drugged first, only blood tests and the internal exam will tell.”
O’Neill felt somewhat defeated, wondering whether he’d truly let his imagination get the better of him. Worse, he was beginning to feel nauseous. He stepped away from the table but had to steady himself with his hands. His legs felt heavy. Beads of sweat ran down his back. He could feel himself buckling at the knee.
“Is everything alright, Detective?”
“Yes, absolutely. Everything’s fine.” O’Neill held his breath, a knot forming in his stomach.
“I’ll need to complete a full internal autopsy. Let’s examine his organs, shall we?”
“Yes, go ahead.” The room was starting to look fuzzy. He could hear a high-pitched humming in his ears. He took two long, deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the procedure. He watched Collins pick out another scalpel and make a deep Y-shaped incision from the top of each shoulder, down across the chest, meeting at the lower sternum and continuing to the navel. He felt the vomit rise in his throat, held it there as Collins picked up a pair of steel shears and prepared to cut open Stanley’s chest cavity. In a moment he would remove Stanley’s entire breastplate and take out his organs one by one.
He felt his chest swell. He could taste the gastric acid filling his mouth. He couldn’t stop it.
Patrick O’Neill made it half-way to the sinks before he heaved the contents of his little Irish guts all over Dr. Collins’ shiny linoleum floor.
Although he’d lived in New York for most of his life, Kamona was born in rural Ontario and still held his Canadian passport. So when the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, Kamona took a train to Toronto, lied about his age and volunteered himself for military service.
Kamona was one of the few soldiers he knew who actually enjoyed the war. He relished the opportunity to fire his rifle; he loved tossing grenades and fixing bayonets. He was living out his childhood fantasies, where killing was not only encouraged, it was actively rewarded. Kamona flourished. Over the course of the war, he became the most decorated soldier in his unit and was given consecutive battlefield promotions until he reached the appointment of Sergeant Major, the highest rank available to a non-commissioned officer.
Sitting in downtown traffic not far from James Campbell’s apartment building, Kamona wondered what was different about what he did then to what he did now. All that had changed was that he worked privately rather than for the government; he was a self-employed contract worker, a mercenary, rather than an enlisted soldier. His approach to killing remained the same and he never felt guilty when the job was done. Once, a few years ago, the target had been a woman who reminded him of his mother. He’d hesitated briefly but still had no moral qualms about finishing the task at hand. She, like all the others, was solely a victim of circumstance. He was only a messenger. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else.
Kamona drove up Broadway and headed north toward the jewelry district on 6th Street. It was raining again and the wind was growing stronger. Campbell’s apartment building was opposite the Los Angeles Theatre but he’d park a few blocks away, as he always did, in case there were witnesses. He was driving a rental car but the plates could be traced and he rarely took unnecessary risks.
He wound down the window and let the air cool his brow. If he was efficient, he could make the evening train back to New York. He rippled his fingers on the steering wheel and let out a long sigh. Not much longer now. In twenty minutes he’d be in the apartment building. In less t
han an hour, Campbell would be telling him everything he needed and begging to die. In two hours, Kamona would oblige him.
He wished he’d packed more clean shirts.
Chapter 12
Craine had lunch at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove, ordering a salmon loaf with a potato salad followed by French peach pie and several cups of coffee. With the studio money coming in, he could afford to treat himself.
“Good to have you back, Detective Craine,” the waiter said as he left. Everyone knows me, Craine thought. And for all the wrong reasons.
Sitting across the room were the actors Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart. He thought of the time he’d helped Gable avoid scrutiny from the press when he’d crashed his car leaving Joan Crawford’s house during one of their late-night flings; the time a year ago when he’d pacified Bogart’s drunk wife after she’d tried to stab her husband with a kitchen knife and burn their house down with a can of gasoline. I’ve spent too much of my life playing moral gatekeeper to the stars, he said to himself. All of it so I can eat in fancy restaurants and go to exclusive clubs.
Craine asked to use the telephone and a waiter brought him over to a private booth. He dialed his own office and had Elaine patch him down to Dr. Collins’ office.
“Pathology,” a man’s voice said woodenly.
“Collins?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Craine. Have you completed an autopsy on Stanley?”
“Finished a few minutes ago. As expected, cause of death was hanging from a belt ligature.”
“And O’Neill?”
“Was there with me until he passed out. Vomit everywhere. Whole place stinks to high heaven and this is coming from a man who’s spent the past twenty years opening up the dead.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“There’s something you should know,” Collins said, his voice lowering. “While it looked like suicide, I noticed some powdery residue in Stanley’s stomach lining. Could be Demerol, but from the residue in his liver and throat looks to be more likely oxycodone.”