[Celebrity Murder Case 05] - The Greta Garbo Murder Case

by George Baxt

  “Stop blubbering like an idiot, you idiot. Who is this ‘they’ who you think wants to kill all of you?”

  “The people up there. The people who give orders.” She was pointing at the ceiling.

  “You’re a fool, Agathe. I am the people up there, the people who give orders. Do you think I want to kill you?”

  Now she cowered. “I hope not. Oh please, can’t I go home?”

  “Shame on you, Agathe, shame on you. When you were being trained, they told me you had a great potential. Now look at you. Weeping, wringing your hands, afraid of your own shadow. You disgust me.” He left her cowering in the hallway, and wondering where indeed Kriegman had disappeared to.

  As Agathe hurried to her room, she thought back to her conversation with Kriegman in the library, which was always a safe haven for them to meet in when the others were at the studio.

  Kriegman had said, “One of them murdered Hannah. It had to be. I’m positive. And if they considered her a threat to them, then all of us who posed as Wolheims are in danger.”

  “But I think she was murdered because she wanted to go home, and they didn’t want her back there.”

  “Don’t you want to go home? I want to go home. I hate this rotten place with its palm trees and tennis courts. And look at me. He makes me play the butler. ‘Kriegman do this, Kriegman do that, Kriegman kiss my backside.’ Me! A graduate of Hamburg University with a degree in philosophy. And I let them draft me into espionage. What a fool I am, what a fool. Well let me tell you this, Agathe, I’m not going to wait around waiting for the axe to fall. One of them killed Hannah. Maybe Guiss himself.”

  Her eyes widened. “You think?”

  “It’s possible,” he insisted. “The man is a cold-hearted brute. He has no ethics, he has no morals, he’s a party-machine. Who is he anyway? Where does he come from? I think he was invented.”

  “What?” She was incredulous.

  “He’s not real. The man is not real. There is something about him that does not ring true. I always feel he is acting a role. And some day he’ll be unmasked. If I could only find out who it is that he answers to.”

  “You mean he’s not the big cheese?”

  “He’s a big cheese, all right, but of a very inferior brand. Be cautious, Agathe. Be careful. We are in danger. You, me, the boys. We are in terrible danger.”

  Now she was in her room, but she couldn’t lock the door. She jammed a chair under the doorknob and sat on the bed, palms wet again, hands in her lap and trembling, and wondering what to do. Try and run away, but where would she go? Turn herself in to the authorities and plead for mercy? They would put her in jail, but so what? Jail is preferable to death. She had seen those American pictures about women’s jails. It wouldn’t be so bad, not if kindly Jane Darwell was the warden.

  “What are you doing here so late?”

  Von Stroheim startled Lisa and Gruber. He had entered the set quietly and Lisa was surprised to see Alysia Hoffman was with him. They found Gruber in the act of photographing the Dauphin’s throne. Lisa was a good actress. “You’re still here?”

  “Obviously. I was just taking Alysia to dinner. What are you doing, Gruber?”

  “I’m taking snapshots of the set for Miss Garbo.” Quick thinking, thought Lisa.

  “And what does she want with snapshots of the set?”

  Lisa answered for Gruber. “For her scrapbooks. She keeps insisting this film is her swan song and she wants snapshots for the future to jog her memory of the good time she’s having now.”

  “She’s enjoying doing this film?”

  “Hell yes,” said Lisa, “it’s got her in a marvelous frame of mind. Can’t you see it in the rushes?”

  Alysia finally spoke. “Yes, it’s very evident. She even looks younger. Come on, Von, you see it, admit it.”

  Von, thought Lisa. The lady moves fast. She wants to be a star again. Good luck to you, dearie.

  Von Stroheim laughed. “Yes, she’s magical. All right, take your pictures and I’ll see you in the morning. Wait a minute. I’d like to have a look at that camera.” Gruber handed it to him. Von Stroheim held it up so that Alysia Hoffman could have a closer look at it. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s certainly not an American make, is it?”

  Lisa said, “I think Greta said it came from South America. Some friend or some fan sent it to her.”

  “It has to be foreign,” agreed Von Stroheim, “it’s much too sophisticated to be one of our brands.” He handed the camera back to Gruber. “Lisa, remind me to ask Greta where she got it. I’d like to get one for my son. Come Alysia. How’s about Romanoffs? I feel in a festive mood tonight. Maybe Bogie will be there. I enjoy trading insults with him.”

  Lisa watched them leave as Gruber stood, seemingly immobilized. Lisa said, “Our Alysia is a smooth worker.”

  Gruber answered, “Very smooth. We have enough pictures. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Greta has to be primed about the camera and the snapshots.

  Let’s go to the office and phone her, then we can drop the film off at Schwab’s drugstore. Maybe some movie producer is there waiting to discover me like Lana Turner.”

  Guiss sat in his study, staring into the fireplace at the pyre of crackling wood which reminded him of Jeanne d’Arc’s fate. Between the palms of his hands he warmed a brandy snifter. He was preoccupied with the sudden defection of his comrades and annoyed at having been abandoned without warning. True, they frequently went about their private business without advising him of their plans, but the past month they had been almost inseparable and now he was feeling a mortal emotion, loneliness, and he didn’t like being alone. How does Garbo manage it? She relishes it, she treasures it, she husbands her loneliness like a miser, like the miser ZaSu Pitts so brilliantly limned in von Stroheim’s Greed. He sipped the brandy and was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not hear Henkel enter.

  “Drinking alone?” Guiss was startled and made a noise that sounded like a puppy’s yelp. “That’s very bad.”

  “You startled me.” Then sternly, “Where did you disappear to?”

  “I felt like some gefilte fish, so I drove to Cantor’s on Fairfax Avenue.”

  “I won’t put that in my daily report.”

  Henkel was lighting a cigar. “Who cares. You admit, there are a few things the Jews have given the world that are a worthwhile legacy. Gefilte fish, knishes, stuffed derma, bagels and lox. I think I’ll join you in a brandy.”

  “Kriegman has defected,” said Guiss.

  “Oh? Are you sure?”

  “I missed him at dinner, which I ate alone.” Henkel didn’t look guilty. “I went to his room. It was in complete disarray as though he had packed hastily. I looked for his passport but it was also gone. He has fled, the fool. And Agathe is frightened too. I had a talk with her. I hope she isn’t thinking of doing anything foolish.”

  “Why don’t we make sure she doesn’t?”

  “Gustav, would you want it to appear that the Hamburg monster has relocated to Hollywood?”

  Henkel shrugged as he crossed to a seat near Guiss while taking a sip of his brandy. “There’s only been one murder, Hannah’s. That hardly constitutes an epidemic. Did her murder cause you to take any flak?”

  “Strangely enough, no.”

  “Well then —”

  ‘I wonder where Werner has gone. He rarely goes off by himself,” said Guiss.

  “Perhaps he felt an urge to patronize Madam Frances tonight.” Madam Frances ran movieland’s favorite house of prostitution.

  “I wouldn’t mind a visit myself. Risa has been rather cold to me lately.” Guiss sounded petulant.

  “Well, you’re so obvious about Greta, can you blame her?”

  “Nothing will come of a relationship with Greta. I think the woman’s asexual.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard. I hear she possesses quite a scrapbook of sexual memories.” He contemplated his cigar and then said. “We have never discussed the
detectives, Albert.”

  “Villon and Lake? They’re a music hall act.”

  “I have taken the liberty to investigate Villon and Lake.”

  Guiss was surprised and pleased. “So? What have you found? Anything incriminating?”

  Henkel spoke slowly and deliberately. “Villon is a highly respected police officer. On some cases I find he was as ruthless in tracking down a killer as Javert was in his pursuit of Valjean.” He took a puff of cigar.

  “And Mr. Lake?”

  “He is not a member of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  “Perhaps he’s a reporter.”

  “Reporters can’t afford to live in the Garden of Allah. I think he’s a federal agent.”

  Guiss’s face hardened. “If he is, he’s no match for me.”

  “Still, if he is, then it means we are in danger.”

  “Why so? We’re producing a film. Lots of aliens have set up independent production here. So it stands to reason we have too.”

  “But if they investigate where our funds are coming from?”

  “Yes, there’s a danger there. But still, that’s part of our job, no? Danger is always with professionals like us. Come Gustav, I’m still hungry. Let’s go raid the refrigerator.”

  “You think?”

  “I positively think,” said Arnold.

  They were in Villon’s office. After leaving Garbo, they’d decided to do some work and picked up sandwiches and coffee for their dinner. Now it was three hours later and they had put on paper everything they knew about the Joan the Magnificent production. They listed the cast of characters involved: not just the actors, but also those who were participating behind the scenes. Arnold was waiting to hear from Washington as to the true identities of the Wolheim family. Surely one of their operatives in Europe, and there were a brilliant assortment risking their lives in Germany, would soon provide them with that information.

  Now Arnold had posited the theory that Guiss wasn’t the head of this operation. He had a hunch Guiss was taking his orders from someone superior. “And that someone had Mrs. Wolheim murdered. And murder can be infectious. It can spread. I think we’re in for a few more killings.”

  “How tiresome, dahling,” said Villon archly and then stretched his arms. “What about von Stroheim and Alysia Hoffman?” Lisa Schmidt had phoned them and told them of hers and Gruber’s encounter with the director and the actress, after which she phoned Garbo and advised her to back up the lie that she had requested photos of the set and that the camera was her property.

  “Von Stroheim, who knows? Alysia, an unknown quantity. Obviously she’s on the make with von Stroheim. She was once a big star, she wants to be a big star again. She ain’t the kid she was twenty years ago, but then, in the movie business, who can make a safe guess?”

  “I must admit,” began Villon, “I was quite impressed by her having worked all over Europe. I suppose in the silent days it didn’t matter. She must have piled up a big list of contacts."

  “Indeed. It got her to Mexico and then into the States.”

  “Do you suppose she might have known Guiss or any of his bunch back there in Germany?”

  Lake rubbed his nose. “We could ask her. But I’m sure she’ll say she didn’t. Lisa says she’s not at all chummy with them at the studio. In fact, the only one she relates to is Greta.”

  (My Greta, thought Villon, with a silly grin.)

  “There’s that dumb look on your face again.”

  “Hmmm? What? Oh, sorry. You were saying?”

  “I said the only one she relates to is Greta, who got her the job.” He wondered if Herb was suffering a touch of indigestion. “Now she’s working on relating to von Stroheim. Well, he spent a lot of time abroad before the war began.”

  “He made some good pictures in France,” said Villon. “Grand Illusion is a knockout. And very anti-war. The Nazis didn’t make anti-war propaganda films.”

  ‘They only made a lot of anti-semitic crap and infantile operettas with Zarah Leander. She’s a Swede but she works exclusively for the Nazis. Real weird, them Europeans.” Arnold scratched the back of his hand. “Could von Stroheim be a part of this gang? Nobody would touch him for years. Not since 1933 when he was kicked off Walking Down Broadway by Fox. After that it was hard times for him. Quickies on Poverty Row. Then all of a sudden he turns up in France and he’s a star above the tide again.”

  Villon nodded. “They’re much more faithful to the old timers over there. Here we throw them on the ash heap and make believe they never existed. Why is it in this country that aging is an embarrassment?” He picked a crumb from his desk and licked it off his finger. “I don’t think von Stroheim’s tainted. He just got lucky all of a sudden, and I hope he’s prepared to sec this whole damn thing blow up in his face. Arnold?”

  “What?”

  “Couldn't you get Greta a special G-man’s badge?”

  “Come on. Herb. Grow up!”

  “Okay, now as to Alysia Hoffman…”

  The lady in question was reading her director's palm. The lighting at Mike Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills was subdued and flattering and there was no Humphrey Bogart for von Stroheim to trade barbs with. In fact the restaurant was suffering a paucity of celebrities, which it usually did on a midweek night. Working actors were at home learning their lines or grabbing some much needed sleep; non-working actors couldn't afford to eat out, let alone at Mike Romanoffs. Mike being a fraud from Brooklyn who chimed to be a scion of Russian royalty. Hollywood was amused by him and the restaurant’s food was good.

  “What else do you see?” asked vac Stroheim, as he signaled the waiter for more champagne. He did not believe in palmistry or astrology or black magic or in an afterlife, but he decided it was politic to humor the woman, who was obviously eager to resume her former station in films as a star.

  “I see a very confusing future.’'

  “With a war on, that’s inevitable.*’ He moved his hand from hers to his champagne glass. “Tell me. Alysia, when it ends. will you star here or go back to Germany?"

  “Will the war ever end? And Germany. Germany will be in ruins. It will take the film industry a long time to renew itself. By then I’ll be forgotten."

  “Here they hardly got to know you, your films were rarely exported. But there, you’re still a big star.”

  “You think so? You remember Lil Dagover and Dorothea Wieck?” He did. “Well, they were brought here in the thirties with big hoopla and big fanfare. They were brought as threats to Greta and Marlene. A big laugh. They failed miserably, so back they went to Germans And back to what? Character roles, small supporting parts, and early retirement.”

  “Your face changes when you’re bitter."

  She smiled lavishly. “Is this an improvement?"

  “A vast one. Alysta, did you know Guiss or any of the others back in the homeland?"

  “Not at all. why do you ask? You sound like the detectives."

  "Guiss disturbs me. There’s something not right with him."

  “How so?"

  “I find him terribly unreal. I feel he’s an actor who reads his lines well but with no emotion. It's as though someone out of sight is directing his even move, his every intonation."

  “You make him sound like he’s a robot"

  “That’s what I think he is. A robot Now then, my dear, this has been terribly charming, but it’s getting late and we have to be on the set bright and early. So, your place or mine?”

  “But Miss Garbo, you mustn’t go out walking by yourself. It’s not safe.”

  Garbo waved away Lottie’s apprehension. “I can look after myself. I have to think. I can’t think in the house. The walls are closing in on me. The private guards are all over the beach since the murder, I’ll be all right.”

  “At least carry a blunt instrument! Take this butcher knife."

  Garbo laughed. “I wouldn't know how to use it. I’d cut myself and wouldn't that be foolish?”

  A few minutes bre
r she was trudging along the beach. She heard an argument between Hearst and Manon Davies as she passed their house, Hearst tweeting away like a cornered canary. Manon shouting epithets that made Garbo cringe. Then a man emerged from out of nowhere, out of the night’s blackness and she stood still waiting for him to identify himself. He said nothing, so she spoke. “Who are you? What do you want?"

  “Oh it’s you. Miss Garbo." Tom Toth recognized that familiar husky voice. “It’s me. Tom Toth."

  “Oh good, Thomas. You’re on the job. You’re protecting us.”

  “I wouldn't wander too far. Miss Garbo. It's a very cloudy night."

  “I see that. I just need a little walk. I'll be all right." She continued on her way. He decided to follow her at a safe distance. Soon he was wondering, what’s so fascinating to her about the murder house?

  What fascinated Garbo was that the front door was slightly ajar. And she could see the faint reflection of dim light, not enough to spill out into the blackout and cause an alarm. It wasn’t a matter of overcoming fear or a display of false bravery, it was just her incurable curiosity. She widened the door enough for her slender body to enter the room.

  Now why the hell is she going in there, wondered Toth. The murderer returning to the scene of the crime? Murderer? Garbo?

  Crazy.

  Garbo was appalled by the ugliness of the furnishings. There was just enough light for her to regard the room with a look of distaste. The light was coming from the room beyond. She heard no movement there. She was unaware that Toth was at the front door watching her. He saw her push open the door to the next room. It was the kitchen.

  Garbo sniffed. Someone had cooked something here. She saw an opened can on the kitchen sink. She crossed the room to investigate. It was a popular brand of corned beef hash, cheap but tasty. She had Lottie prepare it for her every so often. The light came from a small lamp above the stove. It was shaded. Terrible room. Who had come here to eat corned beef hash? she wondered.

  And then she knew.

  He was seated in the breakfast nook, a terrible look of agony on his face. On the table in front of him were the remnants of what she suspected had been corned beef hash. He still clutched a fork in his right hand. His left was clasped in a fist. He looked like a judge presiding over a courtroom, but the condemned was himself.