by Janet Dawson
Where did Grandma get the clipping? Why had she sent it to Grandpa? I quickly read the letter and answered the first question. Pearl, still working in Hollywood, had sent the article to Grandma. The answer to the second question was more elusive. Grandma wrote, “I guess this puts an end to it.”
An end to what?
If I was correct in reading between the lines of the earlier letters, Grandma hadn’t liked Sylvia Jasper. So why send the clipping about Sylvia’s death to Grandpa? Had Ted Howard ever met the blue-eyed blonde from Mobile? Had there been some sort of clash or an incident between Grandma and Sylvia? Something was missing. I had more questions than answers.
As I was putting away the letters I saw handwriting that didn’t look like Grandma’s. It wasn’t. The letter had a postmark dated April 12, 1947, and it had been mailed from Boulder, Colorado. The return address listed a last name only, Sanderson. I opened the envelope addressed to my grandmother and took out a folded letter. Inside was a black-and-white snapshot, showing a man and a woman. They were both tall. The woman had shoulder-length dark hair and her rounded belly indicated she was pregnant. The man had blond hair and a rugged frame. Mountains were visible in the background. I turned over the photograph and saw a penciled legend, ANNE AND LEMUEL SANDERSON, BOULDER, COLORADO, APRIL 1947. I examined the woman’s image. So this was Anne. She had a practical, no-nonsense face. I liked her looks. More important, I had a last name and location. Boulder was the site of the University of Colorado. I was betting Anne’s husband was going to college on the GI Bill, as had so many returning servicemen in the postwar years.
The letter Anne had written to Grandma confirmed my theory. Lemuel Sanderson, Anne’s husband, was working on his master’s degree in geology at the University of Colorado. They were living in married student housing, Quonset huts that had been converted into apartments, cold and drafty in the Colorado winter, and dust constantly blowing in with the Chinook winds. She was so glad that spring was finally coming to the Rockies. Lem was supposed to graduate the following year. She hoped that they’d be able to afford an apartment in a real building and move out of the Quonset hut by the time the baby, their first, arrived in August.
Mildred was fine, Anne wrote, and she, too, was pregnant, due later in the fall. So Anne had kept in touch with Mildred, the roommate who had moved back to Denver before Sylvia moved in, not surprising since Anne was also from Colorado.
Now that I had Anne’s married name, maybe I could trace her through her husband. I jotted the pertinent information in my notes. Maybe Dulcie’s letters would supply the information I sought. I said good-bye to Caro and Neil and went back to Graton, back to my great-aunt’s room where she napped in her rocking chair while I looked through letters. I started where I’d left off, in the fall of 1941, and soon learned why my grandmother and the other housemates parted company with Sylvia Jasper.
Chapter 11
Los Angeles, California, October 1941
“I want her out!” Anne sputtered, indignation written on her face. “This is absolutely the last straw. I did not expect to come home tonight and find a naked man wrapped in a towel, eating cake here in the kitchen. What’s more, it was my towel.”
“It was my cake. The one I baked to take to a birthday party,” Jerusha added, “with a note that clearly said, ‘Do Not Touch.’ It’s not just the cake. And it’s not just the man. It’s everything that’s happened since she moved in.”
Pearl looked glum as she refilled all three coffee cups and resumed her place at the kitchen table. “This isn’t the first time she’s had a man in here at night. Three weeks ago I was parking the Gasper in the driveway and I saw a fellow leaving by the back door.”
“You didn’t say anything to us,” Anne said.
“I should have, I know,” Pearl said. “I talked with Sylvia and reminded her it was against the house rules that she agreed to when she moved in. She said it wouldn’t happen again.”
“She lied.” Jerusha sipped her coffee. “She has to go. Since she moved in here in August she’s been late with the rent twice. And I think she’s been taking money out of the kitty.” The grocery kitty was an old coffee tin kept on the kitchen counter. All four of the housemates—in theory—contributed money each week for expenses, primarily groceries and gas for the Gasper.
“I counted the money in the kitty a couple of days ago when I put in my share,” Jerusha said. “And I counted it again this morning. It’s short twenty bucks. That’s stealing! From all of us. I just can’t tolerate that. She’s messy. She helps herself to my clothes without asking. I don’t mind you girls borrowing my things but people should at least ask. Then she doesn’t return them, or when she does, things are dirty or torn. That blue silk blouse she took is ruined. The seam is ripped under the arm and something was spilled down the front. Liquor, from the smell of it.”
“Ditto,” Anne said. “She took my hound’s-tooth jacket. I had to ask for it back. Two buttons were gone, and there was a cigarette burn on the lapel.”
Pearl shook her head. “I’m really sorry, girls. You’ve got every reason to be in a lather. I’m the one who suggested that she move in. I didn’t know she was such a bimbo. She seemed okay when we worked together on that movie at Metro. I guess I was all wet.”
“She puts on a good act, I’ll give her that,” Anne said. “She had me fooled, too. I thought she’d be all right.”
“I was willing to give her a chance,” Jerusha said. “But no more. I’m tired of her Tallulah Bankhead routine.”
Sylvia didn’t come back until the following afternoon. She and the naked man had departed as soon as he’d put on some clothes, leaving Anne’s towel in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, and a mound of crumbs from the purloined cake in the middle of the kitchen table. When the housemates confronted her in the kitchen, a look of waspish annoyance crossed her face, quickly masked by the lashes fluttering over her blue eyes. She ruffled her left hand through her blond curls. “Y’all are just a bunch of prudes. What’s wrong with having a man around the place?”
“The house rules say no men staying overnight,” Anne said. “When you moved in, you agreed to abide by the house rules.”
“Oh, honey, don’t be such a wet smack. Rules are meant to be broken.” Sylvia reached for a pack of Luckies and shook out a cigarette. She struck a match, held it to the end and inhaled.
“Not here,” Jerusha said. “It’s a small house. It only works for four of us to live here if everyone plays by the rules. This isn’t working out, and we want you to move out as soon as possible.”
Sylvia shrugged. “Well, I was thinking about leaving anyway. You see, my kid brother Binky—his name’s really Byron but the whole family calls him Binky—he’s moving out here to Hollywood, gonna try his luck in the movies. He and I can get a place together. He said he’d be here by Halloween.” Her Southern drawl broadened and took on a cajoling tone. “Now it’s already the first week in October. So me moving out now, why that just doesn’t work. It would be much better if I could stay here till the end of the month. I really don’t have enough money to rent an apartment on my own, not right this minute. And I don’t want to go back to one of those boarding houses for such a short time until Binky gets here. I’ll start looking now, though, if I could just stay here till the end of the month. I promise I’ll behave myself, truly I will.”
The housemates traded looks, then they moved into the living room to confer. A moment later they returned, and Pearl told Sylvia, “All right. You can stay till the end of October. But no longer.”
Chapter 12
Monday afternoon I had an urgent phone call from a client, an attorney in an insurance fraud case. “Jeri, can you possibly go to LA to interview a witness?” she asked. “I’m really sorry, this is short notice, but tomorrow is the only time this guy is available. You’re the investigator who’s familiar with the case and I don’t want to have to find someone down there and explain it all over again.”
I looked at my ca
lendar. The next few days were relatively light. “Sure. I can move a few things around. What time and where?”
“One o’clock tomorrow afternoon, at a law firm in Century City. Here’s the address. Thanks, Jeri, I owe you.”
“Yes, and I’ll send you a bill.” I laughed and copied down the address she recited. Then I rescheduled several appointments, phone tucked under my chin as I checked the flight schedule on the Southwest Airlines website. I could leave Oakland Airport as early as six in the morning, and fly back from LAX as late as nine o’clock at night. It would make for a long day. Ordinarily I would have considered such a short-fused, drop-everything-and-go trip a pain but right now it was an opportunity. I made one more phone call, hoping the person I wanted to talk with was in his office. He was. Then I selected my flights, purchased my ticket and printed out my boarding pass.
Tuesday morning I stepped off my early-morning flight at LAX, made my way through the terminal and went outside to catch the shuttle to the off-site rental car lot. Once the paperwork-and-credit-card drill was over, I received the keys to a sedan and drove off the lot. I headed for the freeway, driving north on the 405. It was just after eight in the morning, but rush hour is never over in LA. Still the traffic flowed, so a short time later I took the exit for eastbound Santa Monica Boulevard.
LAPD’s Hollywood Division is located on North Wilcox. I found a parking space a block or so away and fed quarters into the meter. Then I detoured to a nearby espresso joint, where I ordered a latte for myself and a mocha for Sergeant Liam Cleary, the homicide detective I was meeting at the station.
Liam looked great for a guy in his late fifties. He was Tyrone Power-handsome, packaged in a rugged frame over six feet tall with thick black hair going gray at the temples. He greeted me with a broad smile, his twinkling blue eyes focused on the coffee. “Is that for me?”
“I’ve got a coffee jones, but not so much I’d drink two at once.” I handed him one of the containers. “Double mocha, extra whipped cream, chocolate sprinkled on top.”
“Oh, you’re a darlin’ girl.” He grinned at me and took a sip, then licked the residue of whipped cream from his upper lip. “Is this by way of a bribe?”
“It’s by way of thanks, for letting me look at the Tarrant file,” I said.
He opened the security door and beckoned me to follow him down a corridor. “This is quasi-official. Had to dance the dance with the chief’s office and the currently assigned detective, Nacio Lopez. I told them what a wonderful and reliable investigator you are and implied that you might—emphasize might—have a lead. Old as the case is, Lopez would love to clear it. Even though there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that, realistically speaking. Do you have a lead?”
Just hearsay, I thought, recalling Henry Calhoun’s hint that my grandmother had something to do with the Tarrant murder. “I caught a whiff of a rumor, that’s all.”
“On a case this ancient?” Liam cut his sharp blue eyes in my direction. “Must be a ripe old whiff of a rumor to bring you down to LA to poke around in a murder that happened before either of us were born.”
“I’m actually here on another case and I have to be in Century City at one o’clock, so I’m multi-tasking. Thanks for arranging this, Liam. I really appreciate it. What about the other file, on Sylvia Jasper?”
“I called a buddy of mine on the Santa Monica force,” Liam said, handing me a slip of paper. “Here’s his name and number. He says you can take a look at the Jasper file this afternoon. Now that’s two old murders from the forties. I’m sure there’s a story behind all of this. I hope you’ll tell me what it’s about.”
“I will, as soon as I figure it out.” I followed Liam into a small conference room, with a rectangular table in the middle and shelves on the far wall. There was a thick folder in the center of the table, exuding an aged, musty aroma. Or maybe that was just my imagination.
A wiry, dark man stood on the other side of the table. Liam made the introductions. “Detective Nacio Lopez, this is Jeri Howard, licensed private investigator out of Oakland, and a friend of mine.”
Lopez and I exchanged handshakes. He gestured at the folder on the table. “There’s the file. I have to be present while you review it.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Some questions may come up while I look at it.”
Liam left us alone with the file on Ralph Tarrant’s murder. It looked much as I had imagined, a folder thick with paper that was old, yellowed, crisp with age around the edges. Dust, too. I hadn’t imagined the musty smell.
I carefully opened the file. Stuck in the middle were two manila envelopes, one labeled CRIME SCENE PHOTOS and the other PRESS CLIPS. I set these aside and peered at the stack of papers affixed to the right side of the file. The first document was a typewritten report. At the bottom I saw a scrawled signature, so faded with time that I had trouble spelling out the name.
“Who were the initial investigators?” I asked Lopez.
“Sergeant Dick Mulvany was the lead man. His partner was Detective Frank Partin.” Lopez cracked a smile. “After that... Well, that file’s been passed to a lot of detectives over the years. I got it two years ago, when another guy retired. I read through the file then, and again when Liam told me you wanted to review it. There hasn’t been a decent lead on the Tarrant murder since nineteen forty-two, the year it happened. No one’s even written much about it. Every now and then some writer decides to do a piece on famous unsolved Hollywood murders. William Desmond Taylor, back in ’twenty-two, that one got a lot of ink. There’s the Black Dahlia case from ’forty-seven and the Jean Spangler case from ’forty-nine. This case, not much interest. Tarrant was British, not well known to start with. These days I doubt most people have even heard of him.”
“I know what you mean.” I hadn’t heard of Tarrant either, until that day in the memorabilia shop when Henry Calhoun had mentioned his name and implied my grandmother knew something about his murder.
I leafed through the documents, identifying crime reports, lab analysis, autopsy report, handwritten notes on lined paper, and lots of yellowing pages that had been typed on a manual typewriter. I began reading the preliminary crime report written by Sergeant Mulvany and Detective Partin.
It had been raining that Saturday night in February 1942, the kind of downpour that beat a steady rhythm on the roof. Maybe that’s why Ralph Tarrant’s next-door neighbor didn’t hear any shots. Besides, he’d been listening to the radio, focused on a musical program and the war news. At some point—he thought it was around seven-thirty or a quarter to eight—he got up to go to the kitchen for a snack. On the way back to his easy chair, he looked out his front window. Someone in a raincoat and hat—the witness thought it was a woman—rushed from Tarrant’s house and ran to a car parked at the curb. The figure got in on the passenger side and the car drove away. It wasn’t Tarrant’s car, a blue 1941 Packard Clipper that was still parked in the detached garage in back of his house. The car on the street was older, the witness said. It was under a streetlight so he got a good look at it. He was sure it was a Model A Ford.
That wasn’t much help, I thought. In the forties Model A Fords must have been positively ubiquitous on the streets of Los Angeles, and everywhere else in the country.
The neighbor didn’t give much thought to the car at the curb or the figure in the raincoat until a short time later, when he went back to his kitchen, glanced out that window and saw flames devouring the curtains of the house next door. He called the fire department. Whoever started the blaze must have hoped to make the actor’s death look like an accident. But the firemen got to the house quickly. After they put out the fire, they looked at the body in the living room and saw bullet holes and blood. It was abundantly clear that Tarrant had been murdered. Enter Detectives Mulvany and Partin.
I read the autopsy report and the lab analysis. Ralph Tarrant was shot five times, at a range close enough to leave powder burns on the front of his shirt. The first two bullets entered Tarrant’s heart w
hile he was standing. The remaining three bullets were fired into his heart and abdomen after Tarrant collapsed onto the Oriental carpet.
The first two shots probably killed him. Both the medical examiner and I agreed on that point. It took a killing rage to keep pumping bullets into a man who was already mortally wounded. Whoever shot Tarrant must have been angry, furious. I pictured a shadowy figure in a raincoat and hat, a revolver in a gloved hand, spitting lead into the man who lay bleeding to death before...him? Her? Who?
Could I see my grandmother, Hollywood bit player, then in her early twenties, shooting a man at close range and leaving him to die?
I pictured the elderly white-haired woman I’d known. Jerusha Layne Howard, a woman who read a stack of library books every week, who crocheted, baked chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles, loved cats, grew roses and tulips, a dear companion who took me with her to movies and horse races.
Murder? Grandma? My imagination couldn’t stretch far enough to connect those two dots. But who had killed Ralph Tarrant, and why?
I turned my attention back to the dry, utilitarian prose in front of me. Tarrant had died quickly—shock, trauma, massive loss of blood. The bullets recovered from the body came from a .32-caliber handgun, but the preliminary report said the weapon wasn’t found at the scene.
I reached for the envelope that held the crime scene photographs, opened the flap and carefully removed a stack of black-and-white shots. I held the first picture lightly, my fingertips at the edges, and examined the image.
Ralph Tarrant was a handsome man, with somewhat wolfish looks, judging from the publicity photos I’d found on the Internet. But death offers no touch-ups or air brushes, no gauze filters, no soft lighting. The photographer’s lights and flash were bright and harsh, revealing the corpse of a man lying flat on his back, eyes open and staring, sprawled in a pool of something that looked inky black in the old photo and had probably been deep red in real life.