by Janet Dawson
“I need a copy of this picture,” I told Thelma. “I have a digital camera with me. May I take some shots?”
“Have at it,” she said. “From the look on your face I can tell it’s important.”
I pulled my digital camera from my purse. The photo was small to begin with. I focused on the figure of Byron Jasper and zoomed in, taking several shots. Then I read the letter that had contained the snapshot. Harry had heard Bob Hope was coming to the camp with a USO show later in the spring, and he hoped he’d still be there to see it. By the middle of March 1943, Harold had been at Camp Roberts for two months. He and his company were due to finish training in May, and then they’d get into the war, he wrote. There was much speculation about where they’d go. The bloody fighting on Guadalcanal had ended with the Japanese defeat but there was still a lot of war to be fought.
“There was a dance Saturday night at the USO in Paso Robles,” Harold wrote. “We hitched a ride into town with Sal and his buddy Tito, who is from Paso. His mom cooked us a great dinner. We went to a dance. Sal took this picture of me and the guys. He gave it to me soon as he got it developed at the PX. So now I’m sending it to you.”
I put the letter back in the envelope and returned the correspondence to the box, feeling the specter of Harold Corwin’s unfinished life looming over me. “So that’s all.”
“That’s all,” Thelma repeated. “Does it sound like my brother Harry deserted?”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. Unless something happened that night to make him feel he had to leave. But I’m inclined to agree with you. I think your brother died at Camp Roberts and someone took his identity. Proving that theory will be another matter.”
“Well, if you do, let me know,” she said. “It would mean a lot to me.”
* * *
When I left Thelma Darwell’s home I drove downtown and parked a block away from the Alameda Theatre. I strolled past Matinee, the movie memorabilia shop, and glanced inside, looking past a display featuring posters and lobby cards showing Bette Davis. Raina Makellar was behind the counter, which suited my purpose.
I walked to the Peet’s on the corner and bought a latte. Then I returned to the shop, opened the door and raised my cup in inquiry. “Okay if I bring this inside?” Then I echoed Raina’s earlier words, spoken when I’d eavesdropped on her and the other woman a few weeks earlier. “I really need my caffeine fix in the afternoon.”
“Oh, sure, come on in.” Raina looked happy at the prospect of some company. The shop probably didn’t get much foot traffic on a weekday afternoon. She pointed at a coffee cup near the computer. “I know what you mean about the caffeine fix. I’m Raina. Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“Hi, Raina. I’m Jeri. I’m not really looking for anything specific. I was walking past your shop and I saw the display of Bette Davis posters. I love her movies. My favorite is Dark Victory.”
She smiled. “I really like Now, Voyager. And then there’s All About Eve, which is wonderful. I met Bette Davis once, when I was just a kid.”
“Really? How did that come about?”
“My Aunt Dolores,” she said, leaning her elbows on the counter. “She was a bit player way back in the forties and fifties. Do you know what a bit player is?”
“Yes, I’ve heard the term.” I sipped my coffee.
“After she gave up acting, Aunt Dolores worked in publicity at Metro and Paramount. Sometimes I’d visit her at the studio, and that’s how I met Bette Davis.”
“Is that how you got into this business?” I waved my hand at the posters on the wall behind her. “Because of your aunt?”
“She certainly helped. My father collected movie memorabilia,” Raina said, “and Aunt Dolores would bring him posters and stills and all sorts of stuff. After awhile he had so much, he opened a shop in Los Angeles.”
I sipped my latte. “I walked past here a week or two ago, and saw an older man behind the counter. Was that your father?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, my father died last year. The man you saw was Henry Callan. He worked for my father, and now he works for me and my husband.”
Callan. She’d used the name Callan instead of Calhoun. I wondered why.
She stepped back from the counter, through the doorway that led to the back of the shop, picked up something from the desk and returned bearing a framed-eight-by-ten inch photograph. “This is my father.” Her voice was sad, as though she missed him still. The picture was a group shot and she pointed at the man in the middle, tall and lean, with white hair brushed back from a high forehead, with his left arm around a younger Raina and his right encircling the waist of an older woman who resembled him. Next to Raina was Chaz Makellar, raising a beer bottle to his lips.
“This was taken about six years ago,” she said. “On the Fourth of July. We were in the backyard at Aunt Dolores’s apartment building. There’s me, next to Dad. And my aunt on the other side, and the rest of the people are my aunt’s tenants. There’s my husband Charles, though we weren’t married yet. We’d just started dating, as a matter of fact. And the man talking with him is Henry Calhoun, the man you saw here.”
It was indeed the man I’d encountered here in the shop, standing just to the right of Aunt Dolores, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, the light glinting off his cufflinks. Long sleeves in July? “I’m a little confused,” I said. “Just a moment ago you said his last name was Callan and now you say it’s Calhoun. Did I hear you wrong?”
Raina laughed. “I do that all the time. I keep mixing up the names. Henry worked for my father years ago, when I was a kid, and he lived in my aunt’s building. I guess I must have heard his last name as Callan and it just stuck in my head. I went off to college and then I was out on my own. I came back to help Dad run the shop. He was getting very elderly, forgetful, and Aunt Dolores had died. Henry was still living in her building. He and a friend of his lived in one of the apartments on the top floor. They were both scouts, looking for memorabilia for my father’s shop, working odd jobs. I don’t remember the roommate’s name, if I ever knew at all. He died, though. Tripped and fell down the stairs. I told Henry I’d always thought his name was Callan. He said it was Calhoun, but that was an easy mistake to make.”
Or maybe there had been a Henry Callan, I thought. It was worth investigating. I pointed at Henry’s image in the photo. “Odd for him to be wearing long sleeves in July. Now July can be cold here in the Bay Area, but I imagine it’s hot down in LA.”
“He wears long sleeves all the time,” Raina said. “I asked him about it once, but before he could answer my mother said that was rude. I figure he has a scar or something like that. Maybe it’s to show off his fancy cufflinks. He has a ring that matches, with a Celtic cross. I know several times when he’s been down and out, he’s had to pawn his gold ring and cufflinks. He told her that they were special to him, a gift from his sister.”
The sister who wound up dead on a beach in Santa Monica? If Henry was in fact Byron Jasper, I suspected he’d killed Sylvia.
“It sounds like you’re very fond of Henry,” I said.
“I guess I am. He’s a link to the old days, with Dad and Aunt Dolores.” She picked up the photograph and took it back to the desk.
When she returned to the counter I looked at my watch. “Oh, wow, I’ve really lost track of time. I have to go. Raina, it’s really been nice talking with you.”
And productive, I thought as I exited the shop. I tossed the coffee cup in a nearby trash receptacle and headed for my car. Before starting the engine, I took out my cell phone and called the number Thelma had given me, for Salvatore Bianchi. I got voice mail and left a message.
When I got back to my office I downloaded the photos I’d taken of the snapshot showing Harold Corwin and his buddies, including Byron Jasper. I wished I’d been able to take similar photos of the picture Raina had showed me, that showed an older Henry Calhoun. But this would have to suffice. I enlarged the image of Byron Jasper’s face and printed sev
eral copies, intending to show it to Salvatore Bianchi. I hoped to arrange a meeting with him when he returned my call.
I began searching online for any records I could find on a man named Henry Callan, who had lived and worked in Los Angeles a few years ago. I also called Liam Cleary and left a message on his cell phone, asking him to check the name Henry Callan as well as Hank Calvin. I did the same kind of search on Raina’s aunt, Dolores Simms, who had also been a bit player. Perhaps she’d married and was using a different name when she’d owned the apartment building where Henry Calhoun—or Callan—had lived.
Then I sat back in my chair and thought about something else I’d learned from my brief conversation with Raina. When she showed me the photograph taken at the Fourth of July party six years earlier, she’d said that she had just started dating Chaz Makellar, the man she married. Mike Strickland had purchased posters from Wallace Simms, Raina’s father, twice, nine years ago, and twelve years ago. So if Chaz wasn’t in Raina’s life when Mike bought that merchandise, maybe it wasn’t Chaz whom Mike recognized before he was murdered. Maybe it was Henry Calhoun.
Chapter 31
I had a date with an old soldier the following morning. Salvatore Bianchi called me back, and when he heard why I wanted to talk with him, he invited me over for a chat. He lived in a high-rise complex for senior citizens, on a side street just off Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue. He greeted me in the lobby, a wiry old man with a gravelly voice and a few wisps of white hair. He was medium height, but stooped with age. He led the way to one of the common rooms, walking slowly, using a three-legged cane for balance. We sat at a corner table and I showed him the enlarged version of the snapshot Harold Corwin had sent to his mother, showing all four men.
“Yeah, I took that picture,” Sal said, positioning the photograph on the table surface. “I’m a pretty good photographer, been taking pictures all my life. Even won a couple of awards. Got my start back then. Mom and Dad gave me a Kodak for Christmas in ’forty-two. Had it with me most of the time. I was always taking pictures, right and left. Some pretty good shots, too. One of ’em was in the Camp Roberts Dispatch, right before I shipped out. I still have the picture, and the newspaper. I have a photo album, pictures I took at Camp Roberts. I sent it to my mother before I went overseas and she gave it back after the war.”
“This particular picture,” I said, pointing at the shot of Byron Jasper and his three companions.
“We were going to a USO dance in Paso Robles, with a guy in my company named Tito. He was a paisan, Italian American like me. His folks lived in Paso and his mom cooked us a feast. I took that picture in their living room. That Tito, he was a good kid. I heard later he got killed on Guam. Anyway, that’s Harry Corwin on that end.” He tapped the figure on the left side of the photo. “The other guys were Will Kravin and Vidal Castillo. And Byron Jasper, on the other end.” He said the last name as though it left a sour taste in his mouth.
“You didn’t like Byron? Why not?”
“Nope. Sure didn’t. He and Harry were both in my company, and Byron was in my platoon. Second Platoon, B Company, 78th Infantry Training Battalion. Byron had the bunk right across from me. Why didn’t I like him? I don’t know. I just didn’t. There was something off about that guy. You know how it is. You don’t have to like everybody. And you get a feeling.”
I nodded. I’d had those visceral feelings before, reacting to something in a person’s manner or behavior. “What do you remember about Byron?”
Sal laughed. “I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember those days, training at Camp Roberts. It was tough, hard training, being away from home, living in barracks, thrown together with all sorts of guys. But what came after makes it all seem like a picnic. The war. Yeah, I remember the war like it was yesterday. Got a piece of shrapnel in my hip that reminds me of Okinawa to this day.”
He rubbed gnarled fingers against his chin, which showed silver whiskers here and there, missed by that morning’s shave. “So... Byron... He was an odd bird. Claimed he was an actor who’d been working in Hollywood. Well, let me tell you, we had actors aplenty. Robert Mitchum, William Holden, Red Skelton, all of ’em went through basic training at Camp Roberts. Byron Jasper I never heard of. I figured if he was an actor, big if, he was low on the food chain.”
“He worked as an extra,” I said. “And something called a bit player, in a few scenes, with a few words of dialogue.”
“Bit player, is that what they call it? Well, he was too slick by half. Later I wondered if he was maybe homosexual. I got nothing against those folks, now anyway. Hell, I got a grandson that’s gay. But back then, me a cocky kid, just barely eighteen, trying to prove how tough I was. And people were prejudiced. It was the times we lived in, you see. There was a lot of feeling against the Japs, because of Pearl Harbor. And against the Negroes. The Army was segregated back in those days. People even had hard feelings against the Okies from the Central Valley. Mexican American kids like Vidal. And the Italian Americans like me. You know, they had Italian POWs at Camp Roberts. Some of ’em liked it so well they came back to the States after the war.”
“Yes, I read that on the Internet,” I said. “So if you were in the same company, you, Harry and Byron must have arrived at Camp Roberts at the same time.”
“Second week in January, nineteen forty-three. They had guys reporting for training every day, lots of recruits, so it’s funny that two guys from Oakland who went to the same high school wound up in the same company. After we’d been there a week or so, Harry hooked up with Will.” Sal tapped Will’s face in the photo. “Will was a hell of a Ping-Pong player. There was a Ping-Pong tournament going on and Will was right in the thick of it. And there was going to be a rodeo, with soldiers and local boys from the area around the camp. Will and Vidal were going to ride steers. They were both ranch kids from Colorado.”
I nodded. Harold Corwin had mentioned the rodeo in one of his letters to his mother. “Any idea how Harold became friends with Byron?”
“Playing cards, I think,” Sal said. “I remember the four of us playing poker in the recreation hall one weekend and Byron won a big hand drawing to an inside straight. It seemed strange to me that that Harry would hook up with Byron. They didn’t have much in common. But Harry really liked the guy. Basic training had a way of throwing all sorts of people together. Camp Roberts was huge. They kept us busy with training but we had all kinds of activities. Two USOs, in San Miguel and Paso Robles. The camp had recreation halls, sports teams, clubs for all sorts of hobbies, and four movie theaters. We had dances and touring shows, with big bands, or even plays and musicals.”
I steered the nostalgia train back toward Byron Jasper. “So Byron had the bunk across from you. That meant you saw him every day.”
“Sure as hell did. First thing in the morning, all through the day, and last thing at night. Saw him dressed and buck-naked in the shower.”
“Did he have any distinguishing marks, like a birthmark, a mole, a scar?”
“Funny you should mention that. He did have a scar, a really bad one.” Sal held his hands apart. “Maybe six, seven inches.” Then he moved his left hand and traced a line down the inside of his right arm. “Right here, on the underside of the right arm between the elbow and the wrist.”
“Was it like a cut, or a surgical incision?”
Sal shook his head. “Looked more like a burn. It was maybe half an inch to an inch wide in places. He was really sensitive about the way it looked. First time I saw that scar we were in the shower. Byron saw me looking at it and he draped his towel over his arm to hide that scar. I was going to ask him how he got it but then I figured he’d had an accident of some sort. And it really wasn’t any of my business.”
A scar on Binky’s arm. I thought of the photograph I’d shown Sal, with the four young soldiers, and Byron wearing long sleeves. Then the photograph I’d seen of Henry Callan—or Calhoun—taken six years ago with Raina Makellar and her father. A Fourth of July backyard
barbecue, and he’d been wearing long sleeves. And more recently, on that hot June afternoon when I’d seen him helping Chaz Makellar unload the SUV at the shop. Long sleeves again. To hide a scar?
“How was Byron doing, as an Army recruit?”
Sal shook his head. “He wasn’t cut out for it, being a ground-pounding infantry man. Of course, he’d been drafted, like so many other guys. So what choice did he have? Though he was the kind of guy that it wouldn’t have surprised me if he didn’t report for training. He was trying, I’ll say that for him. He was never going to make it out in the field. He was company clerk material, or supply, something like that. But give that guy a rifle and send him into battle? Not a good idea. Now if you’d told me Byron had gone AWOL instead of Harry...”
“Maybe he did,” I said. “You know, Thelma Darwell says her brother Harry never would have deserted. She thinks he died in that fire at Camp Roberts and Bryon went AWOL.”
“I wondered the same thing myself. I knew Harry Corwin. He was a good kid. I never thought he would have gone over the hill. But they found Byron’s dog tags on the dead man,” Sal added, talking about the metal identity tags issued to military personnel. “I suppose that’s how they identified the body.”
“No other kinds of testing?”
“Not that I know of, but I wasn’t part of the investigation. Now that I think about it, I guess when the MPs found those dog tags, they took ’em at face value.”
“The night of the fire, were Harry and Byron missing at lights out?”
“Harry’s bunk was in a different part of the barracks,” Sal said. “I didn’t see him. But Byron was in his bunk. He must have sneaked out later. He wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last.”
“So what were those two doing in that tool shed after hours?”
“That’s a good question,” Sal said. “I never heard an answer. I did hear lots of rumors. Any Army camp I was at, all those guys together in one place, you got all kinds of things going on and all sorts of stories, most of ’em bushwa. One story making the rounds was that Harry and Byron had a still in that tool shed, making hooch, and somehow they set the place on fire. Another story going around was that they were playing craps or poker for big money, smoking and joking, and that’s how the fire started. But both of those theories are assuming the fire was an accident. The official version was arson, deliberate. But why would anybody torch that shed, with people inside? That’s murder. I have a hard time getting my mind around that.”