[Celebrity Murder Case 04] - The Talking Pictures Murder Case

by George Baxt

  As the continuity girl scribbled in her pad she said under her breath, “Which is also to vomit.”

  Henry Turk was down on one knee, his hands clasped together, imploring the impossible of Alicia Leddy. “Please, please, Miss Leddy, when I go to my grave, let me go to my grave with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart “

  “If you're dead,” said the amiable Miss Leddy, “how can you have a song in your heart?”

  “I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her.” He was jumping up and down while Miss Leddy shook her head from side to side and contemplated returning to New York and settling into the pleasant oblivion of a rich and loveless marriage.

  Jack Darling strolled over to Alicia Leddy, who recognized him immediately. “Oh, it's Jack Darling!” she gushed. “Oh, it's really you! Oh, you've been my favorite ever since my mother held me in her arms when we saw! The Barefoot Boy.”

  Jack ignored the “held me in her arms” bit and smiled his famous smile, the one reserved only for young ladies he intended to take to bed: a clever combination of warmth, helpfulness, and seduction. It was an asset that paid handsome dividends “I think I can help. May I, Henry?” From a prone position on the soundstage floor, Henry Turk nodded approval, while Jack wondered why all directors named Henry seemed to be so untalented. Jack took Alicia by the hand and led her to her first position, which was marked in blue chalk on the floor.

  The second assistant whispered to the continuity girl, “You are now witnessing at first hand some fancy footwork by the notorious Jack the Zipper”

  Jack was asking the first assistant, “Where are the microphones placed?”

  The first assistant told him, 'There's one in the vase on the table next to Miss Leddy. There's one in the piano, and there's a third in the bowl of fruit on the table just to the left of Mr. Holt.” Holt, of course, was the wreckage of a hero.

  “Ready, Miss Leddy?”

  That rhymes,” said the heady Miss Leddy.

  Jack stifled a groan and favored her with a heart-melting smile “You speak your first line here by the vase with the microphone … go ahead.”

  “Ummm … She asked the continuity girl, “Line, please.”

  The continuity girl gave it to her. “'Irving, you've come home.'“

  “Oh yes,” said Miss Leddy, as she smoothed her dress with her hands. “Irving!” The soundstage trembled with the force that came out of her mouth.

  Mercifully, Jack stopped her. “Softer, dear. This is film, not the theater. Talk conversationally You don't have to reach the rear of the balcony when you make a talker” The vocal coach Mama Marie had assigned him had done his job well.

  Miss Leddy blinked her eyes, possibly to prove she was still alive, and spoke the line again “Irving . you've come home.”

  “Speak to Irving, not into the vase,” Jack cautioned her.

  “But that's where the microphone is.”

  “Irving is more important They're paying him a lot of money.”

  “Oh, no they're not,” corrected the actor sarcastically 'This is my last picture on the contract and I wish to hell we could get on with it so I could get back to bootlegging “

  Jack said to Alicia, “Let’s get on with it.”

  She clasped her hands together. “Irving, you've come home.” Jack guided her through the simple scene for over an hour before they were able to get it on film.

  Henry Turk was finally able to cry hoarsely, “Cut! That's a take! Print it! May God have mercy on my soul, print it!”

  The cameraman stepped out of the booth, which held only him and the noisy camera, enclosed in the booth so as not to ruin the soundtrack He was dripping perspiration and gasping for breath. His assistant hurried to him with a towel and a cold glass of wine “Dear God,” he gasped, “who is that no-talent bitch sleeping with?”

  “Mr. Roland,” cautioned his assistant.

  “Well, she’s brilliant! Positively glorious! She's going to be a big star! Give me that wine.”

  Alicia Leddy rewarded Jack Darling with a tongue-in-the-mouth kiss that left his front teeth aching. “You're wonderful,” she whispered.

  “What's your phone number?” he whispered.

  She whispered her phone number And then added, “If a man answers, hang up It's Mr Roland.”

  In the kitchen of Ezekiel Lovelace's bungalow, Herbert Villon said to the coroner, “I want an autopsy on this one. Daddy swallowing acid the way his daughter did is too much of a coincidence. “

  Hazel Dickson chimed in, “It could also show a depressing lack of originality.”

  A detective spoke up. “His prints are on the acid jar.”

  “Acid jar,” mused Villon “Not acid bottle “

  “Not bottle, jar,” said the detective, Jim Mallory.

  “Jar, not bottle,” said Villon.

  “Jar.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” said Hazel “You boys are almost as funny as Amos 'n' Andy “ She doted on the newly successful radio stars. “What about those empty picture frames in the living room?” she asked Villon.

  “The pictures are missing,” said Villon.

  “Now stop kidding around!”

  “They're missing, aren't they? So that means they're missing! Maybe there were never any pictures in them, ever. Maybe he had the frames around for an emergency.”

  “My guess is that the murderer took them.”

  “Who said Lovelace was murdered?”

  “I say Lovelace was murdered because I'm positive his daughter was murdered, and Lovelace was murdered to keep him from talking to me or anybody else.”

  Villon sat on a chair while studying the corpse. “What did you expect to find out from old Ezekiel?”

  She spoke evenly. “Why he thought his daughter might have been murdered “

  Villon's eyes traded death for homeliness. “He told you that?”

  “When I phoned and asked him to speak to me. You weren't at Dolly's funeral; I was. And I almost got trampled to death for my sins. I saw the grand opera of Jack Darling passionately embracing Dolly's corpse Oh my dear, it just occurred to me. Supposing when they married she’d decided to adopt his name. Could you just see it on a marquee? 'Starring Dolly Darling!”

  He stared at her glumly. “This is no time for levity. Hazel. Get on with it.”

  Hazel began pacing as the meat wagon attendants arrived to remove the body. Hazel suggested to Villon they repair to the living room and avoid seeing the distasteful act of removal. Once there, she positioned herself in front of the pictureless frames, which she thought would dramatize her suspicions as to why the unloved Darlings were murdered.

  'To continue, he embraced her corpse with the kind of passion that makes me suspect he might be a necrophiliac Through his heartrending sobs—”

  “Spare me the salad dressing.”

  “Well, they were heartrending. In fact, they were damn sincere. That was no Pola Negri slice of ham when she plotzed herself over Valentino's coffin. This was a lover pleading to be forgiven I mean, run this over in your mind. Theirs was a whirlwind courtship, love at first sight or some such cornball thing. They marry fast, elope to San Francisco, and Jack hasn't told the ferocious Mama Marie. Christ, were he and his sister lucky their mama didn't eat her young. Then suddenly whammo, Jack dumps his darling without so much as a by-your-leave. Now, Herbert, being the movie buff you are, you certainly had to have heard the scuttlebutt that it was Mama Marie who made him unload the tragic beauty.”

  “So?”

  “So I think Mama Marie found out something about Dolly's past that could have been harmful to her darling offspring and, by association, harmful to Annamary.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what I think is missing from these frames “ She held up one of the frames for effect, and then saw something that made her cry “Aha?” triumphantly. “Look at this!” Hazel crossed to where Villon sat on the shabby sofa and held the frame under his eyes. “See? A little scrap of white? Down here in the corner
?”

  “I'm not blind.”

  “You dummy, that's the scrap left by a photograph hastily torn from the frame. Torn by the murderer after committing the foul deed.”

  “Oh, stop talking like one of your blood-and-guts stories. Mallory!”

  The detective came hurrying in from the kitchen, followed by the hearse attendants carrying the remains out on a stretcher. “Yeah, Herb?”

  “Did you dust this frame?”

  “Yes. No prints.”

  “Not even the old man's?”

  “It's absolutely clean.”

  Hazel wisely said nothing. She let Villon take center stage. He said, ‘That puts another picture on the case. All right, Hazel, all right Stop gloating like a whore at a stag smoker. Phone in your scoop and let's get back to town.”

  Hazel said, “We've got company.” She nodded toward the front door, where a small boy stood with his hands in his pockets

  “Hello, sonny,” said Villon “Something you want?”

  “Is old Zeke dead?”

  “If you mean Mr Lovelace, yes, he's dead “

  “Then I guess the sissy man killed him.”

  “Sissy man?” Villon and Hazel exchanged glances. “What's a sissy man?”

  The boy smiled shyly. “A man who walks like a lady. You know, like my uncle Melvyn. You know?”

  Villon didn't know his uncle Melvyn and didn't want to. “Why do you think he was killed?”

  “Because I heard the sissy man say, `I’ll kill you.'“

  “Those exact words?”

  “I think.”

  “You're sure it was the sissy man?”

  “I saw him come out of the house and go to his car. He walked like a sissy man, like this “ He waved his hips from side to side. Hazel found him charming despite his runny nose

  “What kind of car was it, do you know?”

  “It was a rich car.”

  “What's rich?”

  “A car I seen on Hollywood Boulevard. That was a rich car A movie star car.”

  “Did you recognize the sissy man? Have you see him before? Maybe in pictures?”

  “I don't go to the pictures much. But I didn't see his face. I was spying from the back of the house.”

  “Why were you spying?”

  “I always spy,” the boy said matter-of-factly. 'There's nothing else much to do around here.”

  “You were spying, but you didn't see his face.”

  “Well, old Zeke knows I spy.” He smiled again. “It's a game we play with each other. Except I’m not to spy when he has a lady in the house “ He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweater “I didn't think it would matter if I spied on the sissy man. I saw him go in the house. Then when I heard the argument I sort of thought I better go away because Zeke doesn't like me to hear secrets because I can't keep one and I tell everybody. “

  “When did you hear the sissy man say, 'I’ll kill you'?”

  “Just as I was sneaking away.”

  “You didn't stay away too long, did you?” interrupted Hazel.

  “I hid in the grass at the side of the house like I told you. the grass by the porch That's when the sissy man came running out and got into his car and drove away.”

  “After he left, did you go into the house?”

  “I was going to, but just then I heard my mom yelling for me so I went to see what she wanted. I had to go to the store. I just got back a little while ago and I saw the meat wagon pull up “ Hazel assumed in this derelict area he saw lots of meat wagons pull up. “So I hurried over. Is Zeke real dead?”

  “As dead as he can get,” Villon told him Thanks a lot, sonny. You've been a real help “

  “Are you a detective?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Oh. Well, when I grow up, I'm going to be a gangster.” He did a fair imitation of a machine gun as he ran away.

  “And there departs the future of this country,” said Hazel as she reached for the phone to relay her scoop.

  Hazel's story made the evening newspapers and the seven o'clock news on the radio It traveled through the Hollywood community like a fatal vims Bertha Graze, gnawing at a bar of chocolate, said to her cat, Mephistopheles, “Isn't it nice, darling, to hear something like that instead of the awful sounds of dreams shattering?”

  FIVE

  “For crying out loud, Annamary, save your histrionics for the camera.” Willis Loring was on the floor of their suite at Annawill doing the fifty-eighth of his projected one hundred push-ups.

  “You heard the radio. Dolly's father was killed the same way she was and—”

  “And the hell with it. The police don't say positively he was murdered, they suspect foul play, that's all—they only suspect”

  “When the police suspect, that means they know positively “

  “What are you worried about? You didn't kill them.” She didn't respond. Willis abandoned the exercise and sat up with his hands clasping his knees. “You couldn't kill, could you, Annamary? Soft, sweet, gentle Annamary Could you murder two people and then pour acid in their mouths to make it look like suicide? Could you do that, Annamary?”

  “Oh, shut up “ She was lighting a cigarette. She caught a glimpse of herself in a wall mirror. She didn't look like a killer. But then, what did a killer look like? She had seen photographs in the newspapers of women condemned to death for committing murder, and they all looked dull and dumpy.

  Willis was musing, “I think you're capable of plotting a murder, you're clever enough for that. But commit the actual killing? No, not you, Annamary. You're too squeamish “

  “I'm not all that squeamish. I married you.”

  He clutched his stomach, feigning agony “Oooh, that hurt”

  “I thought I hit lower than that. My aim was always shaky.”

  “I wish I had the talent to think like a detective. How do you suppose they go about figuring out that a supposed suicide is really a case of murder? I suppose it's because somehow the killer slipped up, a slip that is all too obvious to the clever detective. But if detectives are all that clever, why are they always shown as buffoons in the movies?”

  “Willis, why do we stay married?”

  “I guess because we’re buffoons “

  “We don't love each other anymore.”

  “Oh, I don't know I still get a bit of a twinge when you walk into a room.”

  'That's sciatica.”

  “Nonsense! I'm in the best physical condition!”

  “We haven't had sex in ages “

  'There's more to marriage than sex There's friendship “

  “Which reminds me. Madam Blanche phoned while you were out playing tennis or whatever it is you do when you say you were playing tennis. Your account's long overdue. My dear, over eight hundred dollars? Where do you find the energy?”

  He was on his feet and pacing “Listen to me. Seriously. Supposing we’re really finished in pictures. What do we do? How do we face the future?”

  “With the sound advice of Mama and our business manager. Mama says our contracts with Alex Roland are unbreakable. And you still have your offer from Joe Schenck.”

  “He's interested in you, too. I forgot to tell you.”

  “I don't want to produce my own pictures. Oh God, I've been acting since I was a kid of three. I deserve a rest I need a rest.”

  “You've been resting for almost a year now. How much longer can you go on resting?”

  “How much longer can we go on with this marriage?”

  He was headed out of the room “This is where I came in.”

  Jack Darling was walking Alicia Leddy to the studio commissary They were giggling with their heads together like school children until something caught Alicia's eye “Say, who's that battleship headed for the executive offices?”

  Jack followed her gaze. ‘That's no battleship. That's my mom.”

  “Oh.”

  Marie Darling was positively under full sail as she walked with an ominous-looking determination toward Alex
ander Roland's kingdom There were no drawbridges to cross, no sentries to challenge her, no crossed lances to bar her from entering. There were receptionists and secretaries, all of whom over the past decade had learned to dodge the slings and arrows that threatened to come whizzing out of Marie Darling's mouth at any provocation. Now Marie barreled into the building while Alicia expressed admiration and envy of the awesome exhibit.

  “She looks mad “

  “Are you always given to understatement?” Jack guided her into the commissary.

  Marie steered herself into Alexander Roland's office, past Roland's weakly remonstrating male assistant, a failed interior decorator named Jason Cutts. Roland looked up from a memo he was reading and his eyes narrowed into slits. “I don’t see your name in my appointment book, Marie “

  “That’s because you've been avoiding my calls.” She slammed the door shut behind her and marched to a chair opposite the Great One's desk. “Do you really think you can get away with it?”

  Roland was lighting a cigar “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  Marie held her handbag tightly clutched on her lap. “We’ve been associated for over ten years. We've had our ups and downs and disagreements and battles and lawsuits, but it's all been very profitable. My kids made you millions.”

  “Likewise, I'm sure “

  “I'm not going to let you lower the curtain on them I know what's going on with you and the other Jew big shots. I know about that meeting in Mayer's office.”

  His face reddened as he raged, “How in the hell—”

  “I also got friends in high places, Alex “