That was when she broke into tears. I got a hanky out for her and she wept into it, and blew her nose a couple times, then offered the hanky back to me, which I declined.
Patsy Savarino had probably lived a tough life-I had no idea what her background was… Strippers came from everywhere, everywhere that was hard or abusive, that is. Good-looking girls with nice bodies like Patsy-who found themselves on burlesque stages with their talent hanging out, who ended up with guys who ran con games or gambled or did crimes-came from hardscrabble farms in West Virginia and Chicago slums and Podunk orphanages and even wealthy suburban homes where daddy liked to keep incest in the family.
But somewhere, at some point, Patsy had no doubt been a little girl with a doll, or anyway a little girl who wanted a doll, and maybe she had a dog or a fucking kitty, and played with blocks and jumped rope and, like all of us, started out as an innocent kid.
And while I knew that Patsy Savarino had initiated the murder of Elizabeth Short, I also knew that the horrendous depravity committed upon that girl by Arnold Wilson and Lloyd Watterson far exceeded Patsy’s worst wishes for the black-haired angel-faced woman in black-seamed stockings who’d been trying to steal away her husband.
“I never… I never meant… So savage, so cruel, so sick, so twisted… how could they… and make me part…?”
Then she was crying again. I went to the bathroom and got her a big wad of toilet paper and she used that for her tears and to blow her nose in. I put an arm around her. This went on for quite a while.
“I… I have terrible… nightmares… I see that girl… I see terrible things being done to her… Sometimes I’m standing there… in the dreams… watching myself do them. Cutting her… butchering her…”
“You can’t make a bargain with the devil,” I said, “and not get your ass burned.”
“What… what are you…?”
“Patsy, sweetheart, when you decided to have that girl murdered, all bets were off-all nicety, all morality, all decency, went out the window. You can’t commit a little murder just like you can’t be a little pregnant. When you let Arnold Wilson into your life-maybe the most evil son of a bitch I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few-when you invited him in, his sickness became your sickness.”
“What… are you saying? That I’ll… feel like this… fucking sick-in-my-gut-and-my-heart guilty like this… with these awful terrible nightmares… as long as I live?”
I patted her shoulder. “It’ll let up, some. I only dream about combat once or twice a week, now. But to some degree, yeah-you’re going to carry this with you. That guilt. ’Cause it’s yours.”
The lipstick had been rubbed off by the hanky and toilet paper, but the lips remained full, and sensual, trembling now. “How can I… how can I go on living?”
I put my hand on her swollen belly-gently. “Because you have to. You have to put this behind you, much as you can, and raise this kid better than you were raised.”
She studied me for a moment, searching my face, then asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“A wife who kills to keep her husband, there’s worse crimes.”
Those almond-shaped green eyes were wide with astonishment, and relief. “You’re not going to… no police?”
“No police. Not in this town.” I sighed deeply, shook my head. “I’m goddamn sorry Elizabeth Short is dead-she really was a nice girl, somewhat screwed-up, like most of us… but she didn’t deserve what she got, not that anybody would, except maybe Arnold and Lloyd. But sending you to jail, Patsy, to have your kid inside… what good would that do? Anyway, I have a friend who needs this kept quiet… He’s the one who’s taking Lloyd back to the Crazy House… and me, I don’t much care to be in the middle of this, anymore.”
“What about Wilson?”
I pointed a thumb at myself. “That’s the deal you’re going to strike with this devil-when you talk to your husband, if he knows where Wilson is, find out and let me know.”
The green eyes narrowed. “You’re going after Wilson?”
“If it takes me the rest of my life.”
“What… what are you going to do to him?”
“Don’t know yet. I’ll think of something… appropriate. And it sure as hell won’t involve any cops.”
She was shaking her head, the red mane shimmering. “Mr. Heller… how can I thank you?”
I grinned at her. “If your marriage breaks up, and my marriage breaks up, maybe I can think of something. Otherwise, let’s skip it.”
“That another compliment?”
“I never saw anybody with better reverse-tassel action than you, Patsy.”
Her smile surprised me; her laugh was a shock to both of us.
Downstairs, as I was about to go out, she touched my arm and looked up at me. That pretty face-stripper hard but still alluring-softened, suddenly, and I could see the child she’d been. I hoped her child turned out better than she had-like I hoped mine turned out better than me.
The gorgeous pregnant redhead seemed almost embarrassed as she gazed up and said, “I was just… just trying to hold my marriage together.”
“Hey,” I said, tipping my hat, “I know the feeling.”
24
The following Monday I called Richardson and told him I was heading back to Chicago, midweek, and wouldn’t be available to work on the Dahlia story any longer. I did hope to get that puff-piece interview about the A-1, “Hollywood’s detective agency to the stars,” wrapped up before I left.
“Stop by tomorrow morning,” Richardson said on the phone, a twinkle in the eye of his voice. “Something may turn up to change your mind about goin’ home.”
There was nothing ominous about the way he said it, but considering I alone knew that the Dahlia case had been privately solved, and would remain (if I had any say in it) publicly unsolved, the city editor’s words made me uneasy.
I spent much of Sunday and Monday leading the L.A. A-1 staff of operatives (including Fred) in looking for Arnold Wilson, checking out the twilight world of the various skid rows of their city, of which there was no shortage.
The primary skid row was Main Street, with its low-end burlesque houses and stripper bars, and a platoon of B-girls who made Elizabeth Short seem innocent, in joints like the Follies Village, the Waldorf Cellar, and the Gay Way. Fred checked out the taxi-dance halls, Roseland (owned by Mark Lansom, incidentally) and Dreamland; and Teddy Hertel scoured the neighborhood around East 31st, where Lloyd had been living, and of course fine-tooth-combed Lloyd’s shabby flat.
Me, I worked Fifth Street from San Pedro to Main, where winos sold their blood to buy booze and slept it off in all-night movies, and where you could see more soldiers and sailors than on your average military base or aircraft carrier. Finally, late Monday morning, the guy behind the counter at the cigar store at 5th and Gladys-a corner where you could buy anything from a policy slip to a reefer to a chippie-recognized Wilson’s distinctive description (we didn’t have a photo). By Monday afternoon I found the flophouse on Main where Arnold Wilson had been living.
He had cleared out Saturday, around noon-leaving no forwarding address.
On Tuesday morning, I told Fred what I wanted done. We would contact agencies with whom we had reciprocal arrangements and have Wilson looked for in both San Diego and San Francisco, two prior known haunts of his (according to Patsy Savarino). Concentrate on skid rows, I said, and bars catering to sexual deviants. Fred thought that was a good plan-but what did I want done if somebody finds him?
“Sit on the son-of-a-bitch,” I said, “and call me. I’ll fly in from Chicago, immediately.”
Fred had a sick expression. “We’re kinda asking for them to… you know, abduct the bastard.”
“There’s a five-grand bonus for the man that finds him.”
“Five grand?”
“Not out of the business funds, Fred-my personal money.”
“… Okay.
But a slimeball like this-knowing somebody’s after him, as he’s gonna gather when he learns about Lloyd-is gonna make every effort to disappear.”
I knew Fred was right. A guy who moved in criminal circles, whose private life was down among the human dregs of big cities, could surely find some sewer to vanish into.
“You heading over to the Examiner?” Fred asked.
“Yeah-gonna see if I can finally shake that p.r. article out of ’em.”
“D’you see the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Better take a look.”
The Examiner ’s front page told quite a story. Seemed Jim Richardson had been working late, Sunday night, when he received a phone call at his desk.
“Is this the city editor?” said a voice that Richardson described as “silky.”
“This is Richardson.”
“Well, Mr. Richardson, congratulations on the excellent coverage the Examiner has given the Black Dahlia case.”
“Thanks.”
“But things seem to be getting a little… bogged down.”
“Beginning to look that way.”
“Maybe I can be of assistance… Tell you what I’ll do. Watch the mail for some of the things the Dahlia had with her when she… disappeared.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things she had in her handbag.”
And the phone had clicked dead.
So Richardson said.
In the conference room at the Examiner, Bill Fowley and several other reporters were standing around an array of material spread out like a banquet before them. At the head of the long table, Richardson-in shirtsleeves and suspenders, his cigarette angling upward-cast his fish-eye on me as I entered. Oddly, a scent of gasoline was in the air, mingling with cigarette smoke.
“Heller! Nate!” Richardson gestured grandly from the head of the table. “Come right in, come right in, and see what the Postal Service brought us.”
Fowley, grinning, gestured at the table. “It’s goddamn Christmas!”
Yes, it was, and the presents (all of them reeking with gasoline) included:
Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate.
Her social security card.
A Greyhound Bus Station claim check for two suitcases and a hatbox.
A newspaper clipping about the marriage of an Army Air Force major named Matt Gordon with the name of the bride scratched out and “Elizabeth Short” written in, in ink.
Several photos of the beautiful black-haired girl with flowers in her hair and this serviceman or that one, on her arm.
A small leather item with the name “Mark Lansom” embossed on the cover-the fabled stolen address book.
Plus the oversize envelope these goodies had arrived in, a three-by-eight white number pasted with odd-sized letters cut from newspapers and magazines to form the following address and message:
To Los Angeles Examiner
Here is Dahlia’s belongings
Letter to follow.
“Do the cops know about this?” I asked Richardson.
My less than gleeful tone seemed to make the gaggle of reporters nervous-a few even had embarrassed expressions. But not Fowley, and certainly not the boss.
“Of course they do,” Richardson said. “Donahoe himself is on the way over, and so is Harry the Hat… This opens up whole new avenues. There’s seventy-five names in that address book.”
“You been handling this stuff?”
“Carefully, with a handkerchief… but there’s no prints.”
“How do you know?”
“The, uh, fiend who sent this apparently was well versed in contemporary police science, and knew soaking that stuff in gasoline would wipe out all traces of fingerprints.”
I nodded, and turned to head toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Fowley asked.
“I’m off this case. I’m tired of pretending I’m a newshound, and I don’t have any desire to get in the thick of it with the cops, either.”
Richardson hustled around the big conference table and cornered me at the door. His right eye stared at me while his left eye dogpaddled into position. “What about that interview?”
“Talk to Fred. You can call me at my office in Chicago. Glad to give you anything you need.”
“This story is heating back up.”
Very softly, I said, “You heated it back up, Jim.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I nodded toward the table. “That stuff is evidence you withheld from those suitcases at the bus station that you beat the cops to. Or did you find that Express office trunk?”
“Fuck you! That came in the mail-”
“You sent it to yourself, Jim, just like you imagined that phone call you got Sunday night-or did you have Fowley or somebody call you from a booth?”
The left eye had caught up in time for him to glare at me. “What’s got you so high and mighty all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know. Something about this town-it’s a turd dragged through glitter, all nice and shiny, but Jim, it’s still shit. I’m ready to go back to Chicago-it’s shit, too, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.”
The Examiner got several more front-page weeks out of the story, including a few fake letters, some of which Richardson may have sent to himself; but the cops didn’t make any headway with the new evidence, even the address book. Between dead ends and LAPD cover-ups, the investigation fizzled out.
On the gray morning of January 25, 1947, a graveside service was held for a murdered young woman, on a hillside in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery. Half a dozen family members were present, but her father, Cleo, did not attend. The stone was pink-Beth’s favorite color, her mother said, not black-and bore this inscription: DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH SHORT, JULY 29, 1924- JANUARY 15, 1947.
In 1949 a Grand Jury investigation into a notorious call-girl scandal-the top madam in L.A. had been working hand-in-hand, so to speak, with LAPD vice-invoked the botched Dahlia investigation when its report spoke of “deplorable conditions indicating corrupt practices and misconduct by some members of the law enforcement agencies in the county.”
Thus ended the eight-year regime of Chief Horrall, and began a shake-up and reorganization in the department that would soon lead to the sixteen-year reign of Chief William Parker, who would bring a new attitude to the LAPD-Parker was, after all, the man who had invented that dreaded self-policing unit known as Internal Affairs.
The Dahlia case did result in one notable contribution to society: the California state legislature passed a Sex Case Registry. The murder of Elizabeth Short had led to the creation of the nation’s first required registration of convicted sex offenders.
I stopped in to see Harry the Hat before I left town, and told him about my having known Elizabeth Short, and apologized for having withheld the information.
“It was a coincidence,” I said, “and detectives don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Actually,” the Hat said, seated at his desk in his pearl-gray fedora and a loud green-and-red silk tie, “I do… If it wasn’t for coincidence, most murders wouldn’t get solved.”
“You mean, a guy runs a red light, gets pulled over, and suddenly Jack the Ripper’s been arrested.”
“That’s how it usually happens,” the LAPD’s top homicide expert said. “But don’t quote me.”
Harry the Hat continued to work the Dahlia case, off and on, until he retired to Palm Desert, California, in 1968. He became known as the detective obsessed with the Dahlia, and was frequently quoted in newspaper “nostalgia” pieces; he consulted on a TV movie about the case. He died at age eighty, a stroke mercifully ending a battle with lung cancer. His three cabinet files of Dahlia evidence shifted from detective to detective at the LAPD over the years, including the legendary “Jigsaw John”-John St. John.
Harry and Finis Brown had a falling out, during the call-girl fiasco; but Brown-with the blessing of his beloved brother, Thad, the Chi
ef of Detectives upon whom Raymond Burr based the Ironsides character-continued working the case on his own, and was said to be at least as obsessed with it as the Hat. He chased leads out of state-Florida, New York, and the Great Lakes region-before eventually retiring to Texas.
Brown did discover my connection to Elizabeth Short, and was heartbroken (I was told by an amused Hansen) when the Hat told Fat Ass that he already knew it, and had dismissed it. Brown, bookie or not, did have skills as a detective and on his Chicago trip tracked down the same Hammond, Indiana, abortion doctor that Lou Sapperstein had questioned for me.
In the months that became years following the discovery of Elizabeth Short’s body in that vacant lot, both Hansen and Brown and every other LAPD detective working the case was stymied by a succession of copycat kills, muddying the waters, naked dead women with “BD” carved in their thighs, killers hoping to pass the blame or perhaps claim it.
Robert “Red” Manley’s marriage did not last. Nor did his sanity-about a month after he was questioned, Manley suffered a nervous breakdown and received shock treatments at a private sanitarium. In 1954 his wife Harriet committed him to a state hospital, where he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. They were divorced shortly after, and once, in the early ’70s-between stays at various psychiatric hospitals-Manley, living in a trailer, used an ax to chase away a researcher inquiring about the Black Dahlia. Manley eventually committed suicide.
Two years after the murder of Elizabeth Short, Mark Lansom was shot, nearly fatally, by one of his dance-hall girls. Photographs of Beth Short were found in Lansom’s possession by the police, though the exact nature of those photos remains undisclosed. Actress Jean Spangler, a former Florentine Gardens dancer who resembled Beth Short, disappeared in the fall of 1949; Lansom was a
suspect in what appeared to be a murder, but was not prosecuted. He died of natural causes in 1964.
Which was more than could be said for Nils T. Granlund. Granny, who finally exited the Florentine Gardens in 1948, took his showgirl-saturated showmanship to Las Vegas, where in 1957 he was hit by a taxicab in the Riviera parking lot, dying hours later of a fractured skull and internal injuries.
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