by Mary Miley
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“There’s a bush over there in the dark. I’ll keep my head turned.”
I stood up and held out my wrists. He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question. “I can’t do it with these on,” I said impatiently.
“You’ll manage.”
I sat down again. “I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself.”
I heard the motorcar coming up the road before I saw its headlights. I willed it to come our way, although I wasn’t sure how, exactly, it was going to help my situation. It finally came to the end of the road where Carl had left his police car. The motor stilled. A man got out. Here was my opportunity.
I was about to call out when I heard a dog bark. “Hey there, Carl,” the man shouted. He was in the dark and I was facing the lightbulbs, but I could sense movement behind the lighted sign.
My heart sank. “A friend of yours?”
“Caretaker,” he said, pointing up the hill. “You can’t see it from here with the lights in your eyes, but he lives in a cottage behind the H.”
“Somebody lives behind the sign?”
“Not all the time. His job is climbing up the letters to replace burned-out bulbs. Keeps vandals away, too.”
“How does he know it’s you?”
“I come up here sometimes. It’s a good place to sit and think. Calms me down.”
The idea of Carl needing calming flummoxed me. Here was a man whose highest level of agitation was manifested by a raised eyebrow, talking about nerves? I thought about that awhile, until he stood and walked back to the police car. The next thing I knew, he was settling a basket on the rock beside me. “I brought something to eat. How ’bout a sandwich? I made two kinds, not knowing your preference. A roast beef and a cheese. Take your pick. It makes no nevermind to me.”
I was starving. I hadn’t had much to eat at lunch and it was way past dinnertime. “I’m not hungry,” I snapped back as rudely as I could.
Carl bit into the roast beef. My eyes ignored him but my stomach, recognizing food just inches away, protested loudly at this injustice. Carl heard. Without a word—without even looking in my direction—he handed me the cheese. As I tore into it, he fished out a couple of apples and a Mason jar of cool water. When we’d finished, he creased the waxed paper and put it back into the basket.
“Enough is enough, Carl. You can’t keep me here forever.”
His nod acknowledged the truth in that. “But I can keep you here a good long while.”
“You don’t mean to stay here all night!”
“In France, I slept outside every night for months, until it seemed strange sleeping under a roof. I’ve got a warm coat. I’ll do fine. Kind of you to worry about me, though.”
“I wasn’t worried about you,” I snapped.
Every minute seemed like an hour. The rock had long since cooled and even with the blanket, I shivered in my thin blouse. My temper was decomposing rapidly.
“You are without a doubt the stubbornest man I ever knew.”
“You’re no piker yourself. What say we call a truce and start with something easy, like why you don’t like cops.”
“Not all cops. Just you. Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
He had started unfastening the brass buttons of his blue uniform. Calmly, he took off the coat, folded it over his arm, and walked to the car where he took a thick coat out of the trunk. Buttoning it up, he returned to my side and sat down. It was army issue, well worn and sturdy, something that had, quite literally, been through the war. “Thought you’d be more comfortable this way.”
“Uniform or not, you’re still a cop.”
“You got that right, lady. Over in France, I told myself if I got home in one piece, I wasn’t going to follow my father and take on the farm, I was going to be a cop.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “Why?”
“I saw what happens to decent people when law and order disappears, when the strongest man with the biggest gun gets away with doing whatever he wants to because there’s no police, no jails, no consequences.”
The damn rock was turning my fanny numb. I crossed my legs under me Indian style—an unladylike pose my mother would have deplored—and hunkered down with the blanket.
“I figure you being in vaudeville all your life and moving around the country all the time, you had some run-ins with the police that soured you on the whole lot. I can understand that. There are some pretty rotten apples in the police barrel.”
“You can say that again!”
“The way I see it, you got yourself mixed up in this mess and now you’re stuck. You can’t come clean about what you know or your own part will come out. That about sum it up?”
All too well. I twitched uncomfortably.
“And maybe you could tell me your real name?”
“There’s nothing suspicious about my name.”
“Didn’t say there was. Just wanted to know it.”
I turned the question every which way in my head but could find no harm in it. “My mother named me Leah. She was using the name Chloë Randall at that time, so I guess my last name was Randall, although I never saw a birth certificate. Don’t think I have one. No one ever called me Leah. Mother called me Baby. My name changed with my acts until last year when I learned who my father was, and took his name, Beckett. I had a cousin named Jessie. She’s dead but we were close once and she wanted me to have her name. What is a real name, anyway? It’s whatever fits. Jessie Beckett fits me. I’d hate to lose it.”
“Why would you lose it?”
“If I had to disappear.”
He considered what I’d said for a few minutes, then he came closer and tucked the blanket firmly around my knees. “You know how in court they make witnesses swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Well, you don’t need to do that. You can just tell me the parts you can tell me. We could start with that funny business at the train station Saturday.”
I began to thaw. “What do you mean?”
“Those suitcases came from Heilmann’s house, didn’t they? I saw the H. And the dope, too, of course. It didn’t come from Mexico. At least, not that day. Others saw the H, too, but they don’t have such a suspicious mind as me. Not that it matters; there aren’t any detectives investigating anymore. The case is closed. The detectives are dead.”
He was already so close, it couldn’t be that risky for me to nudge him the rest of the way. In spite of his antics, I did trust Carl. He was the first honest cop I’d ever known. Maybe the only one in Los Angeles. “The detectives were crooks,” I said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You knew?”
“Everyone knew Hank Rios and Sam Tuttle took favors on the side. What more do you have?”
“They were the ones who stole the dope from Heilmann’s to begin with. They found it in the bedroom when they searched the house and put it in his suitcases and put them in the trunk of their car. A few days later, they set up a meeting to sell it to Johnnie Salazar.”
Carl whistled softly. “So Salazar double-crossed Tuttle and Rios, kept the money, and took the dope out of their trunk.” He didn’t ask how I knew, and I was relieved not to have to mention David’s temporary ownership of the suitcases or my own sneaking into Heilmann’s house. “Well, I see why you didn’t want to blab that around town. Who knows if those two were acting alone? There could be others involved, and you might have met with an accident.” He ruminated a while on what I’d said, then shifted gears to the first murder. “So Salazar didn’t kill Heilmann. And Lottie Pickford didn’t, either. Who did?”
What the heck. I had nothing to lose by sharing this part. I took a deep breath. “Sal Panetta, a hired gun from Chicago.” And scene by scene, I laid out the plot for him, from the moment Panetta stole the motorcar from La Grande until he stepped off the Chicagoan at Dearborn Station three days later. Carl bit his lip rather than demand to know how I came by my information, and nat
urally I didn’t volunteer David’s shady connections. It wasn’t ideal but it was working.
“You can check out everything I’ve told you,” I said. “Then it will be your information, and you can do what you like with it. Just leave my name out of the credits. And be careful you don’t get killed yourself.”
“So who murdered Lorna McCall and Paul Corrigan?”
“I have no idea.” That wasn’t strictly true, but I was not ready to share my thoughts on that subject with anyone.
“I have one. It was someone Lorna knew. Remember the broken lock on Esther’s door? Lorna McCall’s door was in fine shape. She let the killer in. Gave him coffee.”
“That doesn’t limit the suspects much. Lorna had a lot of Hollywood friends, men and women. What about the poisoning? Did the police find anyone suspicious in the drugstore poison books?”
“Nary a one. Only a few dozen purchases of mercury bichloride in Los Angeles in the past month, and all of them accounted for.”
“Did the police learn anything from Faye Gordon?”
“Not much. I wasn’t the one who talked to her, but according to the report, she arrived at the studio at nine. The makeup person did her face, the wardrobe mistress delivered her costume, someone told her Corrigan had come to see her, and she invited him into her dressing room. They talked maybe fifteen minutes and went for coffee. The studio had a coffeepot and some chairs in an empty dressing room so the cast and crew wouldn’t have to walk to the commissary every time they wanted some. Corrigan put cream and sugar in his. Miss Gordon drinks hers black. She noticed a funny taste but thought nothing of it. Corrigan drank fast and had a second cup. She drank less than half of hers. That was the difference between life and death.”
So far what he said tallied with my information from Faye earlier today. I didn’t tell him I’d just talked with her myself.
“Miss Gordon warned that it could have been something in the coffee, so they took the coffee away to test it. She was right. What I wonder is, did someone want to kill Paul Corrigan, or Faye Gordon, or both of them, or did he want to kill someone else and accidentally get the wrong people? If so, is he still after Faye Gordon or someone else?”
I started to throw my hands up in a “who knows” gesture, but it only served to remind me I was still handcuffed. I glared at Carl until he reached into his pants pocket and found the key.
“You aren’t going to wallop me if I take them off, are you?”
“I ought to.”
“You got a left-hand swing Ty Cobb would trade for. You ever play baseball?”
“Just take these off.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
38
“That’s it, boys and girls,” called Frank Richardson through his megaphone. “Mother Nature says class dismissed. We’ll hope this blows through by tomorrow.”
Nothing shuts down Hollywood quicker than a cloud bank. Filming couldn’t continue without the famous southern California sun lighting up sets all over town, so whenever the day turned gray, filming went indoors or ceased entirely. After all, it had been the lure of year-round sunshine that coaxed production companies away from the East Coast in the first place. That plus favorable temperatures allowed cameras to roll 325 days a year. Few in the audience realized that most of the moving pictures they watched in their local theaters were filmed outside—even the indoor scenes were often done on sets that opened to the sky. It was hard to get good shots indoors, even using the three- or four-point lighting techniques Mary Pickford had helped develop.
Before the grips started packing up the scenery and the actors disappeared into their dressing rooms, Pauline Cox and I scribbled notes about the placement of all the props and the condition of the costumes and makeup, so we could pick up tomorrow where we left off without a break in continuity.
We had been filming Lottie’s scene, the one where, as Don Q’s servant Lola, she tells her master that the corrupt Don Fabrique is blackmailing Sebastian. Lottie was in rare good form today, making the weather delay doubly regrettable since no one knew how she’d feel tomorrow. Douglas was there in his dashing Don Q getup, toying with his whip. He motioned me over to where he and Lottie were standing.
“I’m glad Mary got you in to talk with Faye yesterday. Mary tells me her story was quite chilling. I hadn’t realized how close to death Faye was herself.”
I nodded, although privately I thought Faye guilty of some overacting in that regard. Hadn’t her doctor said she had swallowed too little bichloride of mercury to threaten her health? But it seemed a petty thing to say, and I had something else on my mind.
“I’m glad we got in to see her,” I said.
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Maybe. Enough to make me wonder about something. Exactly who knew about both Bruno Heilmann’s and Esther’s murders on Sunday? Not one of them, but both.”
He squinted into the distance and stroked his thin moustache as he contemplated my question. I peeked at Lottie’s face to see her reaction, but she had none. She didn’t seem to be listening.
“Let’s see,” Douglas began. “Zukor told me about Heilmann, but he didn’t know about Esther. You told me about Esther. I knew about both. You knew about both. I told Mary. Mary told you, right, Lottie?”
“What?”
“I said, Mary told you about Heilmann’s death and Esther’s. The waitress.”
“Oh, yes, she did, I think.”
“That’s when Lottie became concerned about her belongings left at Heilmann’s,” he said to me.
“Douglas! Don’t tell people about that!”
“Jessie already knows. She was responsible for getting your things out of Heilmann’s house, Lottie.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. Well,” she continued, turning to me, “you missed the cigarette case so it really didn’t help.”
You’re welcome. “Lottie,” I said, “did you tell anyone on Sunday about the murders?”
“Who, me? No! Douglas said not to.”
“Not even later?”
“Oh, well, later, sure. The next day, sure. But Sunday afternoon, no. Not a soul. Except for Paul Corrigan.”
“What?” Douglas and I exclaimed in unison.
“Well, don’t make a fuss. I couldn’t help it. We were going to meet friends later that night and I wasn’t feeling up to it, what with the shock and all, so I telephoned to let him know, and of course he asked why I wasn’t coming, so I had to explain. Anyway, what difference does it make now? He’s dead.”
I forced myself to sound calm. I didn’t need Lottie to get defensive and start lying to me. “Oh, it’s nothing, really. I just wondered … can you remember, by any chance, about what time it was when you talked with Paul?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A little after lunch maybe.”
“And do you remember the conversation?”
“Gee whillikers, let me think … I was upset. I told him Bruno had been shot dead. Paul had been at the party, too, you know, though he wasn’t a great friend of Bruno’s, but he was horrified. Very much. So we talked about that for a while. Who could have done it, and so forth and so on. Paul had lots of ideas—he was good at thinking.”
“Did you happen to mention the waitress who was killed? Esther.”
“Sure, I told him like Douglas told me, that the waitress must have seen the murderer at the party, and so he had to kill her or she’d have identified him to the police. We talked about that some, about wondering if we had seen the killer, too, and not even known it, and wondering if anyone else would get killed. And boy, did they ever!” She gave her shoulders a shake. “It’s enough to give a person the creeps. Oh geez, there’s Lily and I’m still in rags.” She waved to a smart young woman across the set and called, “I’ll be there in a jiffy, darling!” Then to us, “We’re going shopping in Lily’s new Packard Roadster, and I’m driving. It’s the top-of-the-line custom Packard, and if I like it, I might buy one myself. In a different color, of course. Ta-ta!”
Wi
th the usual frown he wore when his sister-in-law was around, Douglas watched her flit away. “I want to apologize for Lottie—”
I held up one hand. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary. That’s just the way Lottie is. I understand.”
“You understand a lot.”
“I’ve known plenty of vaudeville performers like Lottie. It’s part of show business.”
“Sit down a minute.” He indicated the canvas chair with LOTTIE PICKFORD stenciled on the back. “Where do we go from here?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. Just when the list of potential murderers was shrinking, it opens up wide. Paul Corrigan could have told anyone in Hollywood. In fact, he could have told several people and they could have spread the word further.”
“Someone was quick to grasp the possibilities. Someone knew that the waitress had been killed and why, and that person figured a subsequent murder would be construed the same way. If and when someone was apprehended for the murders of Heilmann and the waitress, he’d deny killing Lorna McCall and Paul Corrigan, but who would believe him?”
“Maybe we’re going about this backward. We’ll never know now who Paul Corrigan might have told, but if we knew the killer’s motive, we might figure out a likely suspect. Why would anyone want to kill Lorna?”
Douglas played with his moustache as he considered the possibilities. “Envy over her success. A romance gone sour. Something in her past we know nothing about.”
All reasonable possibilities, but no bells rang. “What about Paul Corrigan and Faye? Who’d want to poison them?”
“We don’t really know that anyone was trying to kill them both. The murderer may have intended to kill one of them, and the other was unavoidable.”