The Red Dahlia

by Lynda La Plante

“They’ll be checking everything; it might have fingerprints.”

  “Interesting; plus the postmark might be useful.”

  “I doubt he’ll leave anything we can trace, but that’s just my opinion.”

  He stared at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just, you seem a bit distant with me?”

  She smiled. Truth was, she felt slightly awkward. “Working,” she said.

  “You free for dinner this week?”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule; I may be on nights.”

  “Ah, I thought you meant your social calendar.”

  She laughed. “No, I’m not doing anything; maybe you’d like me to cook us dinner one night?”

  “That would be good; why don’t we say this weekend?”

  “I might have to work.”

  “Well, call me.”

  Langton came back and sat down. He too checked his watch.

  “While we’re here, we should check on the work they have been doing on her clothes,” he said, his foot tapping up and down.

  “What clothes?” Reynolds asked.

  Langton ignored him. Anna hesitated. “We took items belonging to the victim for analysis.”

  “Oh, right: DNA, stuff like that,” Reynolds said. He couldn’t think of anything to make conversation with, so he took out his mobile and began checking his messages.

  Langton glared at him, and then at Anna.

  They all turned to the double doors as they swung open and Professor Marshe hurried toward them. Anna was taken aback; the woman certainly loved making an entrance.

  “James, I’m sorry; I got here as soon as I could. I can’t stay too long: I am on my way to give a lecture.”

  Langton rose to his feet and greeted her with a kiss on her cheek; he then introduced her to Reynolds, who stood up to shake her hand. Anna remained seated as Professor Marshe smiled at her. “Nice to see you again, Hannah.”

  Anna smiled, not bothering to correct her. Professor Marshe was wearing another tailored suit and high-heeled shoes. Anna would have loved to be able to wear similarly chic and expensive clothes, but she was nowhere near as tall and slender as Professor Marshe. Anna wished she’d worn something less dowdy and folded her legs to disguise her low-heeled scuffed court shoes.

  The door to the lab opened, and Liz Hudson, the forensic scientist, gestured to them from the doorway.

  “We’re by no means through, but you can come in and see what we’ve got for you.”

  Hudson led them to a table at the end of the lab, covered with white paper tacked down at the sides. Spread out, already dusted for prints, and neatly numbered were the contents of the package. There was a black leather clutch bag, with a suede flower motif and a tasseled zip. Laid out beside the bag were a cheap powder compact, two lipsticks, a small mirror, a used tissue with lipstick marks, and a black leather address book.

  Anna noticed that Langton lightly touched Professor Marshe’s arm as she leaned closer and guessed that she had been the one calling his mobile earlier.

  “Can I just say,” said Hudson, “before we examine the purse etcetera, that everything here would have been carefully chosen by your suspect. If there was anything that could be of use to us, he would have discarded it. This is him playing out how clever he is.”

  Anna nodded, although she had already guessed that. She was impatient to get hold of the address book, but none of them touched anything.

  Hudson continued. “The bag is good quality, but old, perhaps bought from a charity shop. It’s got a residue of loose powder in one of the pockets. It also smells of an old-fashioned perfume called Chepre. My grandmother used to wear it; it’s no longer in production. Another thing that makes the bag old is that the label inside is Chanel and I doubt if your girl would have bought this new. The lining is very worn, as is the suede inlay.”

  They all moved a few inches down the table, staring intently at the items.

  “Next the powder compact, Boots Number Seven; there is no powder puff, perhaps because we might have been able to get a skin test. The lipstick is a pink gloss and has been wiped; you can see by the head of the lipstick it has scrape marks. We have no prints off either. The second lipstick is Helena Rubenstein; it is a very deep red, not a common choice for a young girl. Oddly enough, it has not been used. It’s also not sold anymore, like the perfume.”

  Anna made copious notes as she listened, then looked up as Hudson pointed to the address book.

  “You will be able to take this, as it’s been dusted. There are pages torn out, there’re numerous different inks and Biro, and the entries are in no specific order. Also, the pages are torn out in pairs. We had hoped that we might have been able to see an imprint of what had been written if the writer had pressed hard, but this means we will not be able to decipher anything.”

  “We’ll need that,” Langton said, and Hudson nodded.

  “Not a lot, but you do at least have your victim’s name printed in the front of the address book, so we are to presume that these items did belong to her.”

  They moved further along the table to the brown paper that had been used to wrap the parcel.

  “There is a smudged postmark; we are trying to get you something from it, but it is very faint, and we have so far found two sets of prints.”

  “They could be mine,” Reynolds said.

  “We’ll need to take yours so we can eliminate them.”

  “Plus there might be prints from the receptionist that brought it up to my desk.”

  Hudson nodded. “I would say whoever wrapped it used gloves, as there are no smudges. The adhesive tape is of a very common variety; we are going to see if, when we lift it off, there may be something beneath, but I doubt it. We have the time it was posted—six thirty—and we think it was from the main post office at Charing Cross. It’s a very busy central office, so I doubt if anyone saw the sender, or could remember him; there is also the possibility he used someone else to post it. Now we get to the note inside the package.”

  Like schoolkids at the Natural History Museum, they moved along to the end of the table.

  HeRe ArE tHe Red DaHLia’s belOnGingS. LettEr tO fOlloW.

  “The note is made up from letters cut from newspapers: no prints, so I am afraid it gives us nothing. The notepaper is very common and sells in bulk.”

  While Reynolds was taken to have his fingerprints done, the others moved to another table in a section of the lab where a young scientist with sprouting black hair and thick glasses was waiting. Before him lay Louise’s clothes and underwear taken from her wardrobe and laundry basket, divided into two sections: the very expensive lace thongs and matching bras in pale pinks and greens, and the well-worn, cheap underwear, grayish in color.

  “We split them up because it seems to us that the lady wore the more tasteful items on special occasions, so perhaps took better care of them. We have some body fluids on the thongs but no semen. However, the stains on the other selection are menstrual and identified as belonging to your victim, as are the pubic hairs. We have two different semen stains, but we are unable to ascertain when they were deposited. They can still be visible even after washing, but I doubt this section has been washed recently.”

  They moved along the table to see a few more items: a white blouse that was stained beneath the armpits and a petticoat and a nightdress. It was as depressing as seeing the tired contents of Louise’s handbag. Anna was relieved when Langton suggested they return to the station.

  Langton was impatient to get back to the incident room to begin checking over Louise’s address book. From the patrol car window, Anna watched him thank Professor Marshe, who had remained silent throughout, kissing her on the cheek and helping her into the chauffeur-driven Mercedes that was waiting for her in the lab’s car park. He slammed into the front passenger seat. “She’ll give us an update on what we looked at in the lab, either this evening or in the morning.”

  Anna would have liked to say something sarca
stic: to date, the glamorous Professor Marshe had given little or no insight into their killer that they hadn’t all pieced together themselves; however, she kept quiet. Langton flicked through the small address book in moody silence. Anna stared out of the window, thinking about a girl she had once shared a room with at training college who had always looked very respectable but was, in fact, far from it. Not only was she promiscuous, she had very distasteful habits. Whenever she was out of clean underwear, she just tipped her laundry upside down and wore whatever had been discarded first. Anna knew that for the past six months, when Louise had lived with Sharon, she had appeared to have only the one secret admirer: their one and only suspect so far. According to Sharon, Louise stayed in unless meeting the tall, dark stranger. Had Louise led a very different life before? Anna leaned forward in her seat.

  “Gov, was Lewis checking out any previous boyfriends?”

  “We’ve traced one: a student from the bed-and-breakfast hotel. He’s in the clear, as he now lives in Scotland; another boy from the hostel was interviewed, but he works at a pub in Putney and had not seen Louise for eighteen months, but we’ve a shedload of other names we are still checking out, so we’ll need another visit to the hostel and the B&B. The hotel is run by a Lebanese woman; she says Louise was hardly ever there. She wasn’t very helpful.”

  “Do you think the dentist or anyone from where she worked was seeing her?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “If we go on what we saw in the lab, maybe she had been putting it about more than we think.”

  Langton shrugged. “Two semen stains and grubby underwear does not give us much to go on.”

  Anna rested back in her seat and got out her notebook. She spent the rest of the journey flicking back and forth. She remembered that at her visit to Florence Pennel, the housekeeper had described Louise as looking scruffy with lank hair; she made a note to call Mrs. Hughes when she got to the station.

  Langton marched ahead of her as usual. She was expecting to have the door slammed in her face as usual, but he surprised her by waiting. “What is ticking in that little head, Travis?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You always chew your lip, and you were buried in your notebook for fifteen minutes. What? Well, spit it out; what’s got to you?”

  Anna sat opposite Langton in his office, stirring her coffee.

  “This suspect, the tall, dark man; I think he puts an advert into the paper for a PA, making it a very inviting job to any applicant.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ve been through that. You or anyone else had any joy tracing this advert?”

  “Not as yet, but we do have Louise, broke, working for a pittance at the dentist’s, hating her job; she was always late and, according to one of the nurses there, often hungover.”

  “Can you get to the point, Travis?” Langton snapped as he spooned sugar into his coffee. He then opened a drawer and took out a bottle of brandy, pouring a heavy measure into the cup.

  “If we have a man wanting to do a copycat kill of the Black Dahlia, he could have used the advert to find the right girl. Louise Pennel, desperate, bored, broke and sexually permissive, wants to make a big impression; she even goes to visit her grandmother, who she’s never met, to borrow money for some clothes to go to the appointment.”

  “This is just you surmising.”

  “I know, but hear me out; the point is—”

  “I am, Travis; can you get to it?”

  “The French underwear, the good clothes, she kept clean; so maybe this tall, dark stranger had become a sort of Svengali. He’s found the right victim: my God, she even chewed her nails like Elizabeth Short. He also had months to work on her; during that time she moves out of the hostel into a B&B and then Sharon’s rented flat. The cashmere sweaters, the suit, the shoes: all expensive. It’s like we have two women: one, the old Louise in her cheap and dirty used knickers, and the new model.”

  Langton sighed impatiently.

  “We need to check where that underwear came from; in fact, check every expensive item Louise Pennel had in her wardrobe. Most important, we need to put more energy into tracking down that advert.” He was drumming his fingers on the desktop; however, she continued defiantly. “We do have a bit more to go on.”

  “You mean that we now know he wore a ring on his pinky finger? That’s a very big lead, Travis!”

  He was beginning to really annoy her. “Add it to the drawing, which got the result from the landlady. We have a tall, dark-haired man; the ring might help us.”

  “To do what exactly? If we put it in print, it might also tip him off to remove it!” Langton leaned back and lit a cigarette; he squinted at her as the smoke trailed from his lips. “If we are to go with the copycat theory, then the next person our killer will contact will be me! After sending the package to the LA journalist, he then wrote to what they called the Examiner. In our case it will be me as I am heading up the inquiry, and the letter should be here tomorrow.”

  Langton always surprised her. She hadn’t realized that he was paying that much attention to the Black Dahlia copycat theory. There was a long pause as he inhaled deeply, and then wafted his hand to get rid of the cigarette smoke. She hesitated for a moment; he looked up and stared at her. “What?”

  “Do you think we should put out more press? Keeping silent has not really worked, has it? I mean, I know you are being guided by Professor Marshe, but this is not LA in 1947. We have far more chance of him entrapping himself if we give him enough rope. There’s been nothing in the papers for days.”

  Langton stubbed out his cigarette. “You don’t rate her, is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just mean that the risk we are taking is that he might be forced into proving himself by killing again, simply because he has not been able to read about how clever he is.”

  Lewis tapped and poked his head around the door.

  “The address book; you want to come in and give us a rap on what you want us to do? We maybe need some more help if you want every address checked out.”

  Lewis left the door open. As Langton left his desk and passed Anna, he swung it open wider. “After you.”

  Anna collected her briefcase and notebook. “Thank you. Professor Marshe is obviously working on your social skills.”

  “What?”

  Anna scooted out ahead of him, pretending that she hadn’t heard.

  Pasted up along a board were the pages blown up from Louise Pennel’s address book. The first page had her name in looped writing, like a child’s. As they had been told at the lab, different pens had been used—sometimes a Biro, sometimes a felt-tip pen—other names and addresses were written in pencil and some even in a red crayon. They were not in alphabetical order, but jotted haphazardly. Some had been crossed out; others were scribbled over. They had also blown up the jagged edges where pages had been torn out from the back of the book; these would have been the most recent, and more than likely had the killer’s name and address.

  Questioning all those people listed would mean hours of leg-work, tracing them and taking statements. A number of names and addresses would turn out to be obsolete, people having moved on elsewhere. Everyone would have their work cut out; it would be tedious and painstaking. Anna moved along the board, doubtful they would gain anything: she was certain the most relevant pages were the ones missing. After they had discussed who was doing what, a tetchy Langton drew up further instructions on how they should go about tracing the advert they believed their killer had placed. They had asked Sharon what papers Louise had read, but she couldn’t recall ever having seen her with one. Langton suggested they check out the waiting room at the dental surgery where Louise had worked.

  It felt like the killer was looking over their shoulders and laughing at their lack of results; however, by the end of the day they knew that Louise would often sit in the reception area of the dentist’s and read the newspapers. The surgery only had The Times delivered, as the dentist read it himself. They had trac
ked down twenty-five percent of the people whose names and addresses were in Louise Pennel’s book, and the phones were hopping as the detectives prepared to meet every single one of them. Anna had also contacted Mrs. Hughes, who agreed without hesitation that the clutch bag with the suede flower motif was the one she had given to Louise Pennel.

  DAY FIFTEEN

  Anna arrived at her desk the following morning to a flurry of excitement. It was obvious something was going down: the commander was in with Langton.

  He had received a postcard, sent care of the station. It was bagged immediately and sent over to the lab for them to check out. It was a mixture of handwriting and cutout newspaper letters.

  18 days. I Was haVinG My fuN witH the MeTroPoliTan PoliCe, but noW GettinG very Bored. Signed, the Red DAhliA AvEnger.

  Barolli copied it out on the board in thick red letters; everyone knew there was pressure coming down on Langton. After ten minutes, the “big noise’ departed and Langton came out of his office. His five-o’clock shadow looked as dark as a beard; his tie was hanging loose and he had a cigarette stuck in the side of his mouth.

  He didn’t have to ask for quiet as he stood in front of the killer’s message. He took a deep drag of the cigarette and stubbed it out in an old ashtray on the side of Lewis’s desk.

  “I have been instructed by the big shots to respond to this message. Professor Marshe also agrees that, as this maniac is attempting to copycat the killer of Elizabeth Short, we should now feed his ego and play his game. The killer of the Black Dahlia sent a virtually identical message to the LA Examiner. Against my own gut feeling, I am to give the following message in a press release.” Langton dug his hands deep into his pockets and recited without emotion, “If you want to surrender, as indicated by your postcard, I will meet you at any public location at any time; please give details to the incident room at Richmond police station.”

  Langton nodded to indicate the briefing was over and headed back into his office. He passed Anna and gave her a cold, dismissive look. She stood up.

  “What are you looking at me like that for?”