by Guy Bolton
He always had a headache. “No. I’m a little lightheaded, that’s all.” Craine was admiring the doctor’s stethoscope. He pictured himself in a white coat, rushing to the emergency room as an ambulance came in, saving lives, being a hero. He would have made a good doctor.
He watched as the doctor took a brass penlight out of his pocket and trailed it in front of Craine’s eyes. “Could you follow my pen please? Okay, thank you, that’s great.” The light went off, the penlight tucked back inside his pocket. “Well, there’s a slight bump on your head and your eyes are a little bloodshot, but you don’t seem to have any serious concussion. You may find heavy breathing a little painful for the next week or so. Try to avoid any strenuous physical exercise if you can.” The doctor reached inside his jacket pocket for a cigarette tin then placed one between his teeth. “Cigarette?” he said, patting his pants pockets before bringing out a Ronson lighter.
Craine shook his head. “Am I done here?”
“All done. Are you having trouble sleeping, Detective? You look tired.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
“I advise you get some rest in the next few days. Do you the world of good.”
When the doctor had left, Craine propped himself up. It hurt to move. In the glass of the windshield he could see his entire reflection. He wasn’t wearing his shirt and a ring of purple bruising was visible across his chest. His shoulder was a grayish purple, his lower ribs on his right side swollen and tender to the touch.
Craine shivered against the chill. He was cold, almost numb, and his vulnerable mind began to wander. He looked at his two pale, bruised forearms and thought of Celia’s body in the morgue. He washed the thought away with a swig from the bottle of Tennessee the first officer had given him. He was starting to think about Michael when Simms knocked on the open ambulance door and took a seat on the wooden bench opposite. He was dressed in an open shirt collar and thick winter coat.
“Craine, how are you?” he said, with a tenderness that had always seemed lacking.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Nothing broken?”
He shook his head.
“You should really be checked for hypothermia. We should get you down to the hospital.”
Craine attempted to talk coherently: “Doctor said there’s nothing wrong with me.” He recoiled against a sudden pain in his back as he shifted in his seat. “How’s O’Neill?” he asked before Simms could persuade him to go to hospital.
Simms took out a pack of cigarettes and shook one free. He lit it and squared his shoulders toward Craine. “We sent him home. He’s suffering from shock but he’ll be alright. Said the shooter was about to kill him too before a man and a woman came through the bathroom door. Shooter panicked and ran. Jack Rochelle is the victim. He’s dead, by the way, but you probably knew that already. Pronounced at the scene. No one’s spoken to his family.”
“He wasn’t married, no children. I think he had a brother somewhere.”
“You knew him?”
Craine nodded. “A little bit.” No need to mention Celia. No need at all. “He was a barber on the studio lot. He was also the go-to bootlegger. Most studios have one. I went to see him about James Campbell. I thought there was a connection.”
“Why?”
Craine shrugged his aching shoulders. “I had nothing substantial. Campbell and Rochelle did time together in Chicago on a narcotics charge. They knew each other.”
“That’s what Peterson and Mayer are already telling us. Peterson did some digging—Campbell and Rochelle knew each other, friends until they had an argument over a girl.”
“Florence Lloyd? The girl who was murdered?”
“Exactly. You were right to be suspicious. We’ve got a statement already from some guy Rochelle works with. He was at the party tonight.”
“Denny?”
“I didn’t get his name.”
Craine took a moment to digest, his mind slow, his memory sluggish. He’d asked Rochelle about Lloyd, was certain even at the time that he seemed reluctant to admit knowing her. It was beginning to make sense. The pieces started to fit together. He pictured Campbell shooting Florence in anger one night before going after her lover, his own best friend. Yet once again he had the feeling that something was missing. Stanley was somewhere hidden in this tragedy. But what role did he play?
He looked at Simms. “What’s next?”
“Mayer’s going to make a formal statement in the morning; we’ll release something to the press shortly beforehand. Nothing’s going to make the morning edition anyway, so we have a day.”
“So what’s the story? Are you making Campbell for Lloyd too?”
“Yes. Love triangle is the angle. Rochelle, Campbell and Florence Lloyd. Blood turns bad, Campbell kills his girlfriend after she’s cheated on him. Then he goes after Rochelle. I don’t know why Campbell would choose such a public place but he must have really wanted Rochelle dead, that’s clear.”
“And my involvement? I don’t want to be mentioned by name.”
“Unavoidable, I suspect.” Simms tilted his head toward the cameras flashing further down the hill. The photographers were using magnesium flash powder to take pictures of Craine’s car: bright white lights illuminated the hillside, smoke creeping toward the sky. “They’re already asking after you. They know you’re here. Is there anything I’m missing?”
“It looks like Stanley had a drug habit. He bought off Rochelle. Might have bought off Campbell too. Could explain how they knew each other. At first I thought maybe it was a drug deal gone wrong somewhere—”
“O’Neill told me Stanley had taken sedatives.”
“Came up in the autopsy. I asked Collins to remove it.”
Simms tapped his fingers on his thighs and looked out through the back doors to check no one was within earshot. “Who else have you told about Campbell’s connection to Herbert Stanley?” he whispered.
“I spoke to Gale Goodwin.”
Simms sighed. “What did she say?”
“Nothing much.”
“Let’s keep that between ourselves. Peterson has Mayer in a panic and we don’t need to stir things any more than necessary. It isn’t relevant.”
Craine inhaled deeply. “If Campbell knew him, it could be. Maybe Stanley was involved in this. With Florence Lloyd, I mean.”
“It isn’t. We’ve been over this, Craine.” Simms said, sounding a little testy. “Stanley’s dead. He had a history of depression and he killed himself. Who cares if he knew Campbell, or Lloyd for that matter?”
Craine looked down, examining his sodden shoes. He felt overwhelmed by the burden of fatigue; he knew he couldn’t sleep but he was too tired to talk anymore. After a pause, when nothing was forthcoming Simms said softly, “Let’s call it a night. I’ll send someone round tomorrow with your deposition papers.”
He stepped out into the darkness and wandered down the hill toward the direction of the cars, his shoulders hunched, his hands buried deep in his pockets. “Celia would have been proud,” he called back when Craine could no longer see him. “You were a hero tonight.”
A hero, Craine repeated to himself. He felt anything but a hero.
Chapter 23
It took less than twenty-four hours for the D.M.V. to confirm that the Packard 120 recovered at the crash site off Mulholland Highway was registered to a James L. Campbell, born 1903, Chicago, Illinois; his current residence was listed as apartment 409, 112 West 6th Street, Los Angeles C.A. 90013. With no other apparent next of kin, and no fingerprints recoverable from the wreckage, the body was positively identified by his uncle, Conrad Frazer, a dockworker living in San Pedro. The body’s remains were incinerated almost immediately after the viewing.
The Loew House shootings were front-page news for three days running. Tabloid yellow press ran headlines such as “M.G.M. MANSION MURDERS,” “JAMES CAGNEY ALMOST KILLED IN M.G.M. PARTY SHOOTING,” and “KATHARINE HEPBURN SURVIVES BRUTAL SLAYING.” Broadsheet dailies made less of the
story but praised the police department for their swift apprehension of the killer. A photo of Craine’s Fleetwood on the side of the pool with the license plate blacked out made the third page of the Los Angeles Times. Craine was referred to as the husband of the late Celia Raymond, a former silver screen star who died at the end of last year. An old M.G.M. publicity picture of Celia was included. Someone had leaked Craine’s official police photo to the press and the tabloids had even managed to find a sepia photograph of Craine on the set of a Western fifteen years previous. He was labeled “hard-working, good police,” a “hero detective” who was “determined to clean up the streets of Los Angeles.”
Yellow press newspapers named the shooter as convicted drugs peddler and freelance photographer James Campbell, but no photograph was included. The victim was identified as Jack Rochelle, a studio barber with ties to the bootlegging trade. The slayings arose out of a dispute over Rochelle’s relationship with Campbell’s girlfriend, Florence Lloyd, who was also murdered in her home three nights previously.
Broadsheet editorials highlighted that one of the victims worked for M.G.M. studios but under the influence of William Randolph Hearst, most stopped short of mentioning Rochelle’s criminal ties or pointing the finger of blame at the motion picture industry or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer specifically. Rather, the shooting was seen as representative of the violent culture embedded in Los Angeles. In the Los Angeles Examiner, Mayer was quoted as saying, “We at M.G.M. are surprised and embarrassed by our association with illegal narcotics distribution. We believe that our wholesome pictures are made by wholesome means and consider this event an anomaly in an otherwise flourishing fifteen years.”
The publicity did little to damage M.G.M.’s success at the box office. The studio’s latest release, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, was an instant critical and commercial success, winning rave reviews and taking the number one spot at the box office. Peterson’s publicity team was already drumming up positive press for the imminent release of M.G.M.’s summer behemoth, The Wizard of Oz. The date of the premiere had already been announced nationwide: Saturday July 15th.
The Hollywood Enquirer covered only the basic essentials surrounding the Loew House shootings; there was one brief story hidden on page six but neither Rochelle nor Campbell were mentioned by name.
None of the papers attempted to make any connection between the shootings and the suicide of M.G.M. producer Herbert Stanley.
Later in the same week, City Hall-aligned newspapers reported that recorded crime indicated gun-related felonies had fallen by eight percent and drug offenses twelve percent compared to the same quarter in the previous year. According to provisional police figures, all core areas of crime were down, except robberies, which had marginally increased by two percent. Speaking on the steps of Central Headquarters in the Civic Center, Chief of Police D.A. Davidson said the figures gave “a strong indication that the police department are succeeding in making Los Angeles a safer place to live.”
On the Thursday, a week after he’d been found dead, Gale Goodwin buried her late husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Scores of policemen prevented over two hundred people from entering the funeral chapel where services were held. Only a handful of notable figures from M.G.M. studios and a few close friends were allowed inside. Among those in the chapel were Louis B. Mayer, Russell Peterson and producer Mervyn LeRoy. Gale Goodwin, dressed head-to-toe in black, arrived in a black limousine with close friend Joan Crawford.
Louis Mayer delivered a eulogy to the dead producer before a small cortège followed the casket outside to the cemetery. Stanley’s headstone read “Beloved Husband 1887—1939.” The press were relentless in their pursuit of pictures and two photographs of Gale Goodwin seen weeping on Crawford’s shoulder made the front pages. Mayer was seen beside Peterson, head forward and hands clasped together in mourning. He made a show of posing for photographers before driving away in a black limousine.
No one noticed Detective Jonathan Craine hovering at a distance.
One Month Later
Chapter 24
June 13th
It was a Tuesday evening in June, and Craine had taken Michael to the Los Angeles Theatre, a weekly excursion that had become something of a routine in the month that had passed since the incident at Loew House. Once or twice they had used their outings to go for dinner or a drive along the Malibu coast road, but mostly they went to the picture house, which allowed Craine an opportunity to spend time with his son without either party having to sit through long periods of uncomfortable silence. Afterward, they’d go to a diner and Craine would read the evening extra as Michael sipped at a milkshake. They never visited their house in Beverly Hills and Michael was always back at the schoolhouse by 10 P.M.
Tonight they watched a Mickey Rooney picture and then went out for a bite to eat. Craine found a diner a short walk from the picture house and they got a booth by the window. He ordered a burger and fries for Michael, grilled chicken and mash potatoes for himself and both of them ate in silence.
“Pretty good food for a diner,” Craine said when he was finished. “Apple pie looked good too. We should try some.”
Michael could only manage half of his fries. When he was done, he pushed his plate away and took a small book out of his knapsack. It was a pocket Bible. Craine recognized it as one Celia had given him years back.
“You like Bible studies?”
Michael shrugged but didn’t lift his eyes off the page.
“Your mother . . . she used to read you the stories when you were very little. You remember?”
Michael stirred, his concentration disturbed. After a few seconds he nodded.
“I was never very good in school. You’re smart. Like her,” Craine went on, conscious that he rarely held Michael’s attention. “You know, if you like stories, maybe in a few years I can get you something on the studio lot. A runner’s job. It’s about connections in the industry. That’s what’s important. I help them, they help you.”
Michael didn’t seem to show any interest. “Have you thought about what you want to be when you grow up?”
More silence. Michael sipped at his milkshake. “You have the opportunity I didn’t have. You can do something you want to do. Everyone has dreams, Michael. It doesn’t always work out, but it’s important you try.”
A waitress came over to clear their plates. “Can I get you anything else? How about another milkshake for you, young man?”
Michael looked up. He stared at her but didn’t say anything.
“No? Slice of apple pie?” She beamed buck teeth at him. “We got ice cream?”
But when Michael continued staring at her, the waitress stopped smiling.
“He’s fine,” said Craine, trying to reassure her. “He’s a little shy. Just the check, please.”
“Sure,” she said, unconvinced. “No problem.”
When she left, Michael went straight back to his Bible and Craine drank the last of his beer, wondering what went through that little head of his.
At a glance Michael seemed happy. Happier, at least. Despite occasional efforts to engage him in conversation, not a whisper passed between Michael’s lips. He had remained mute. Now at least they had developed a wordless form of speaking where, rather than trying to persuade Michael to talk to him, Craine would ask his son simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions and Michael would answer with nods and shakes of the head.
“Do you want to see Goodbye, Mr. Chips?” he’d asked when he picked him up from the school gates at six sharp. Shake. “Do you want to see Stagecoach?” Shake. “Huckleberry Finn?” Shake. “Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever?” Nod.
Craine made another attempt to engage his son in conversation. “You like Andy Hardy?”
Michael shrugged then nodded. He’d noticed Michael seemed to be in awe of Mickey Rooney. He had started to comb his hair the same way, dress the same and had even started to mimic Rooney’s swagger, almost laughable from a meek nine-year-old. “That’s the fourth picture o
f his we’ve seen, if you include the one we saw twice.”
The Andy Hardy pictures were family films, the M.G.M. specialty. Mostly they were about young Andy Hardy getting into trouble only for his father, the wise judge, to help him learn the error of his ways. He was the model father, and only made Craine feel worse about himself.
Craine had never been particularly close with his father. His own parents had passed away when he was quite young, and he couldn’t remember much about either one of them now. He knew his mother as a tintype photograph, his father as a box of medals. Little else about them was either asked or told. For some unknown reason, people assumed that orphans were brought up in Dickensian poverty, when for Craine the opposite was true. A trust fund child, he was raised in an assortment of Catholic boarding schools with wealthy peers he’d long forgotten.
“In that last picture, you remember how they move house? To a different city? Well, I know I talked about it a while ago. My situation has changed a little.” Nothing had changed. He’d simply lost the will to move away. “I’m thinking maybe I should stay here.”
Michael shifted in his seat. He looked up and frowned.
“I’m not sure about what you want to do over the summer,” Craine went on. “I spoke to Father Calloway recently and he said that you could stay there. That way you can spend time with your friends. I figured you wouldn’t want to be at home all that time.”
Michael looked away. He stared through the window and chewed on the inside of the cheek.
“You know,” he said sharply, “this conversation would be much easier if you actually answered my questions. It’s pretty frustrating.”
Michael’s response was to slide out of the booth and walk toward the restroom.
“Michael? Michael? Look, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
But if Michael heard him, he’d never know. Dammit, he said to himself.
There was a folded copy of the Los Angeles Times left on the side of the table and Craine scanned the headlines. Thank God. After almost five weeks, the newspapers had finally found other news to focus on than Stanley’s suicide or the Loew House shootings. At last there were other stories, more newsworthy scandals that could dominate the headlines. Most nationals were increasingly turning to events in Europe, where a peaceful solution to the Danzig Crisis between Germany and Poland looked increasingly unlikely.