“That’s good,” she assured him, “but I’m more concerned about your wiping out her trail.”
“Her landlord is all but blind and a drunk,” Yates explained. “He obviously couldn’t identify her if he was two feet from the body, but we paid him off anyway. She didn’t have a roommate and hadn’t been here long enough to make friends.”
“What about people looking for her back home?” Rains asked as she pulled a compact from her purse and checked her makeup.
“Her dad took off when she was eight, and no one has heard from him in years. Her mother died right after Miss Sharp graduated from high school. She’s an only kid. After her mom died, she moved to St. Louis and lived with her grandmother until the old woman passed away. Agnes took the inheritance and came out here. So no one is looking for her.”
“We grabbed a break,” Rains noted. “Did you see the information I passed along on the identity of the second victim?”
“That part is just about finished filming,” Yates explained. “I watched the party scene yesterday. We borrowed a new gal from MGM to play the part. She did a nice job. I might try to buy her contract and use her down the road.”
“Jacob, I have enough faith in you and your team to believe you can figure this out before the police do, but . . .”
“I don’t like the way you stopped,” Yates cut in.
“OK, here is what is bugging me,” she added. “Last night after our meeting I got to thinking that we need to do some work on Flynn’s image so the cops can’t push the mayor and chief of police hard enough to have him arrested. And that could happen if Miss Sharp is identified.”
“What kind of work?” the mogul quizzed the woman. “I mean, I’ve been trying to put a muzzle on him but . . .”
“But look what happened last night,” she interrupted. “So that’s why you need to create a safe girlfriend for him. Somebody who is squeaky clean and can fend off his advances. Then you use your publicity department to make it appear like she is the love of his life . . . the woman who will tame him.”
“Most of the women on this lot,” Yates pointed out, “have problems just playing women of virtue. They’re not going to fool anyone.”
Rains reached down beside her chair and pulled out a photo. She tossed the eight by ten across the studio mogul’s desk. “Who is that girl? She was at the church with Sparks, and I’ve seen her with Andrews as well. She is beautiful but wholesome. I’ve gone through every studio’s actresses’ portfolios and even studied the headshots agents have sent me of hopefuls, and I can’t find her.”
He glanced at the picture, “That’s because she’s not an actress. I don’t know much about her other than she works for Betsy Minser.”
“In costumes?”
“Yeah, Betsy says she’s the best woman with a needle and thread she’s ever seen. She already does all the work for key costumes. Betsy has even requested we give the gal a big raise.”
Rains smiled and nodded. “Is the girl on the lot today?”
“It’s Saturday, so I doubt it.”
“What about Minser?”
“I saw her car as I drove up,” Yates said, “so she’s here. Beyond the studio, the woman doesn’t really have a life.”
“Then,” Rains suggested, “let’s go down to wardrobe. I need to know more about the only beautiful blonde in Los Angeles who doesn’t want to be the next Jean Harlow. I mean, this girl sounds fascinating.”
41
June 27, 1936
My goodness!” Betsy Minser exclaimed as Yates and Rains entered her private lair. “To what do I owe the pleasure of having Hollywood royalty come to visit my humble place of work?”
Yates looked around what Minser called her finishing room. They appeared to be alone. Still, he figured it would be smart to ask. “You by yourself today?”
The woman nodded, “I am now. I had my new girl here for a few hours earlier. She did some work on a costume Queen Victoria will be needing early next week.”
Rains smiled, “I seem to recall that Sally Glenn was cast in that role. I find that a rather interesting choice.”
Yates shrugged, “It was the only way I could get Locklee to direct it. Rudolph is getting picky in his old age, but he’s still the best! I’m sure he feels he can get Sally to drop her tomboy walk and fit into the role.”
“I’d be shocked,” Rains noted, “if he can just get to her quit smoking cigars on the set. That woman has the manners of a merchant marine.”
“Well,” Minser assured them, “at least Shelby will make her look the part.”
The wardrobe supervisor bent over, grabbed a large heavy wooden box filled with fashion accessories and placed it on the table. As an impressed Rains looked on, Minser began searching through the various colored beads.
“How did you manage to pick that up?” the columnist asked. “That must weigh a ton.”
“Probably about fifty pounds,” Minser explained. “And when you work through thick fabric with needles and have to lift huge bolts of material, your back, arms, and shoulders get really strong.”
“Wow,” Rains said with awe. “The two men who work for me couldn’t do that.”
“Betsy,” the studio mogul announced as he pulled himself up and sat on one of the wooden sewing tables and changed the course of the conversation. “I met Shelby yesterday. I was impressed. She’s got spunk.”
“And she’s talented,” Minser added. “But more than that, she has some other qualities that make her very rare in this town. In fact, I’d forgotten girls like her even existed.”
Rains chuckled, “I thought we either had everything or could make anything in Hollywood. So what does she have that I couldn’t find on any movie lot in the city?”
“Innocence,” Minser explained, “charm, and compassion. She’s fresh and wholesome. She looks for ways to be kind to people rather than use them. But don’t confuse that for weakness. She has a strong backbone, and no one can walk on her.” The woman paused and chuckled, “And she’s about the only woman on this lot that doesn’t have the mirror illness.”
“Mirror illness?” Yates asked.
The wardrobe supervisor grinned, “Yes, half of the actresses can’t walk by one without staring at themselves as if they were expecting the glass to scream out how beautiful they were. Those women worship their image. The other half can’t help but look into every mirror they pass, because they see themselves aging and realize their days as a lead performer are numbered. So they are always putting on more makeup to try to cover what they really can’t . . . the passing of time. In this strange world, nothing is to be feared more than that . . . especially if you are a woman.”
“And this girl,” Rains said, “what did you say her name was?”
“Shelby Beckett.”
“She doesn’t have that?”
“No, she is comfortable with her beauty but doesn’t believe she should be judged by it. Mirrors don’t really interest her much. She walks by the ones in here a hundred times a day and only occasionally glances into that unforgiving glass.”
“She is a rarity,” Rains agreed.
Minser, her face filled with pride, continued to extol her employee’s virtues. “Today she came in talking about the church on our Western set. She wanted to know why it was so big. I explained that it was not just a façade, but was made so that the inside could be used for filming as well. So, for all practical purposes it was a real church. And do you know what she asked me then?”
Yates shrugged. To him the church was nothing more than a prop. What other purpose could it serve?
“Shelby wanted to know,” the wardrobe supervisor explained, “why the studio didn’t hold services there on Sundays. She thought maybe the actors, crew, and even some tourists might want to worship in the church on the Western set. Is that not the craziest thing? She told me it reminded her a bit of her church back in Oklahoma.”
“Does she live in an apartment with some other girls?” Rains quizzed.
“No,” Minser explained, “her parents moved out here to try to start over. She lives with them. In fact, her dad works building props over in the woodworking shop.”
Yates beamed, “It sounds like we have a winner. I’m so glad you have her, Betsy.” He pushed off the table and turned to the columnist. “Now, Ellen, I think you wanted me to show you the set where Dalton Andrews is working as a cop.”
“Yes,” Rains replied, “you lead the way.” As the two stepped out onto the road outside the building, she noted, “About half the traffic I’m used to seeing.”
“We don’t shoot that much stuff on Saturday,” he explained as the pair walked back toward his office.
“She’s perfect,” Rains announced as she sidled up beside him. “I mean, this girl is an answered prayer.”
“Who is?”
“The wardrobe girl—Shelby Beckett.”
“No argument there,” Yates agreed. “I wish I had a hundred like her. I might get more done around here.”
“You only need one,” Rains assured him. As they continued to walk, she put words to the ideas that were demanding to escape from her head. “Starting on Monday, you need to begin finding excuses to get photos of that girl and Sparks. Have her fixing his jacket or watching him as he films scenes. Get them eating together at the commissary and talking on the back lot. Use any excuse you can to get them together, and then get all the photographs you take to me. I’ll build this into the romance of the century. I can already hear my copy singing. The wholesome girl from the heartland tries to convert Hollywood’s number one playboy into a respected citizen.” She laughed, “Let’s see Barrister get the mayor or chief to allow him to go after Sparks with that kind of publicity working in the actor’s favor.”
Yates shrugged as he opened the door to the main building and casually noted, “It might buy us some time to pin the murders on someone else.”
Rains, her eyes sparkling like diamonds, added, “And that church idea is brilliant. Fans and stars worshipping together.”
“How’s that going to work?” he asked. “I mean, that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Excitement now dripping from her every word, Rains all but shouted, “You get a real preacher and assign actors and actresses to go to church. In other words, they have to be there. Have some of your talent sing a special each week. And then, have drawings so fans can win tickets to worship with their favorite stars. It’s not only a great public relations move, but it will keep the Hayes Commission off your back. And here’s the kicker, have Flynn co-chair this effort with the wardrobe girl. Thus, you have another reason to put them together for photo opportunities.”
Yates shook his head in disbelief, “You’re serious.”
“Jacob, I’ve never been more serious in my life. Now you need to get moving and moving fast. With all the bad stuff going on right now, we need to have services in that church a week from tomorrow.”
“Ellen, do you know what you’re asking?”
“Just what you do every day,” she replied with a smile, “making the impossible possible and making something that is not real appear real. Goodbye, Jacob.”
He stood in the doorway and watched the woman happily skip out to her car. He could have sworn someone had just informed her she’d won the Irish Sweepstakes. She was absolutely giddy.
Shaking his head, he stepped into the office building and walked slowly to the elevator. The idea of actually having services each Sunday was completely crazy, but, he had to admit, it was also the best one he’d heard in years. Every denomination in the country would likely give him an award for this, and that was the kind of publicity he needed.
42
June 29, 1936
Bill Barrister solemnly opened the door to the morgue and reluctantly ambled in. His sad eyes surveyed the surroundings before looking toward the medical examiner’s desk. Arnold Forrest was sitting in his chair eating a piece of chocolate cake. “It’s good,” he announced as icing dribbled from the corners of his mouth. “Would you like some?”
“I don’t understand how you can eat in the same room,” Barrister soberly replied while looking over to the dead body of a middle-aged woman resting on a table, “where you do this.”
“You mean you don’t eat at a crime scene?”
“No, Arnie, I don’t. I tend to smoke like a chimney, but I never eat.”
“Bill, we are just cut from a different piece of cloth.” The ME glanced at the cop’s bulging stomach and added, “You must make up for not eating at crime scenes somewhere. I think you’re twenty pounds heavier than you were in January.”
“Only fifteen,” the frowning homicide cop assured him. “Now, did you call about our most recent strangulation victim? Have you figured out who she is?”
Forrest put his cake on a piece of typing paper and stood. After wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, he brushed some crumbs from his shirt and walked over to a file sitting next to the dead woman, picked it up, crossed the room, and handed it to the captain.
“Here’s the deal,” Forrest explained, “I don’t know who the kid is you recently brought in, but I did identify the victim that we found recently. You know the one who’d been dead more than a year.”
“So you were able to figure out who a bag of bones is, but not a beautiful young woman who was still breathing last week.”
“It’s a strange business,” Forrest replied. “I have found that death moves at its own pace.”
As Barrister took the file he glanced back over to the ME’s current patient. “What about that woman?”
“She’s forty, her name’s Grace, she took her own life.”
“Any idea why?”
“Bill, her family said she was almost always happy, but in the last few months she had incredible mood swings. It wasn’t poverty as her husband is in advertising and owns a successful business. And it wasn’t her family as she has three kids, two in college and another an honor student in high school. It wasn’t her spiritual life, either. She was very active in church and sang with the choir two days before she took rat poison. In her note, she wrote of demons that haunted her dreams.”
The cop sadly shook his head, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“On the surface,” Forrest explained, “it doesn’t, but when you dig down to what you can’t see, it does. I have discovered she had a brain tumor. No one knew about it, and it would have killed her within a year. You see, the brain is a delicate piece of machinery, and something growing inside it can affect everything from motor skills to emotions. If you damage just a small part of the brain, everything from personality to judgment can change. A normal person can become a madman. A woman with everything to live for can be frightened into taking her own life. In Grace’s case, the damage to her brain caused her to see things that weren’t there.”
“Sad,” Barrister said.
“Maybe not,” the ME noted, “I mean, the family now understands why she did what she did. And what all of us want in life is for there to be a reason when something happens. If we know the why, it helps us accept the pain and move on. It is when we don’t find answers that it eats at us like a hidden cancer.”
“Guess you’re right.” The cop looked from the body back to his host. “What is this file going to tell me?”
“As best as I can tell, you might just have a new Victim #1 in your strangulation cases. This woman died before the others you have identified and has no connection to California, much less Hollywood. She left her eight-year-old son with a friend in Gary, Indiana, and came west. According to the missing persons report I read, the only thing she told a friend was that she’d be gone a couple of weeks and she’d be bringing lots of money back when she returned.”
“Got a name?”
“Wanda McMillan, she was twenty-six when she died. She never married, so I guess her kid is illegitimate. I don’t deserve too much credit on the ID. I was looking for a blonde, and she didn’t line up with any of the missing people with
that color hair. I did note that she had once had a broken right arm and leg. Missing persons brought me a report on a brunette with those injuries. I pulled the body back out and looked at the skull. Her hair had been dyed. The roots were brunette. I sent off for dental records and confirmed her identity this morning. Now, finding out why she was here and her life story is up to you.”
“Anything else?” Barrister asked.
“I can give you what I think is the likely time of her death . . . May 13, 1935.”
The cop’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t be too shocked,” Forrest replied, “I’m good, but not that good. Don’t forget the crime scene guys found a newspaper with the body. That was the date it was printed.”
43
June 29, 1936
Should I go?” Shelby asked her boss.
“Are you kidding?” Minser laughed. “Do you really have to ask that question? Of course you should go.”
Shelby crossed her arms as she leaned up against one of the alteration tables. She got a faraway look in her blue eyes as she whimsically said, “But, and I know how this sounds, I have nothing to wear.”
“Well,” Minser quipped, “that would certainly make you the center of attention, but I believe I can remedy that issue. As you and Betty Foster are the same size, we’ll just find you an evening gown from her old wardrobe. I remember making one in jade green that would be perfect on you.”
“It’s not just the dress,” Shelby explained, “it’s the fact I would be going to a party where the Who’s Who of Hollywood will be.”
“And you’ll do fine,” Minser assured her. “I have no doubt Dalton wouldn’t have asked you to go with him if he wasn’t sure you could handle yourself there. In fact, I believe the only one who has doubts about this is you. Now, we are ahead of schedule on everything, work can be put on hold, and we have got two hours until Dalton picks you up, so let’s get rolling.” She looked across the far side of the room where Mace was sorting clothes. “Willie, you know that green dress Betty Foster wore for the party scene in Don’t Take a Dive?”
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