Jailbird Detective

by Helen Jacey

  Detective Randall Lauder lit a cigarette, writing and smoking at once.

  Not once looking up at me.

  ‘So I called him up. Made an appointment for today. When I got to the house, I was surprised it was so, you know, shabby. But Mr. Caziel was being real friendly. He gives me an old-fashioned ball gown to wear. A real big skirt, one of those with all the hoops. And a huge wig. Black, glossy with ringlets. Like old-fashioned times. So I laugh and say, I don’t wanna look like some Southern Belle. Don’t get me wrong, I dig Vivien Leigh but how is that gonna help? Anyways, then Mr. Caziel gets a little snappy with me, ordering me to put it on! Now I know something ain’t right. Then he pushes me into this real strange room.’

  ‘Strange? In what way?’ He was still scribbling.

  ‘In a this ain’t no portrait studio kinda way. Black velvet everywhere, some kind of table thing. I just know next moment he’s gonna be forcing me to strip and asking me to do things. So I made an excuse I needed the bathroom and got out through the little window. You caught me, here I am. Can I go now?’

  ‘You escaped, in the big dress?’ Now those eyes locked on mine. He’d caught me out.

  ‘No! Ripped it off, didn’t even have time to put my own clothes back on. Left ‘em inside. Guess they’re ashes now.’ I gestured dramatically.

  Lauder’s eyes moved too, observing my every move. I started to relax.

  ‘He must have dropped his cigarette or something, for that fire to start. Nothing to do with me. Can’t tell you nothing else, wish I could.’ I hoped he wouldn’t ask for my details. I couldn’t mention the Miracle Mile. Then where? Think, idiot! It came to me. Mrs. Loeb’s friend Pearl with her boarding house.

  I announced it, sure of myself. ‘If you need to find me, I’m staying at Jasmine Street,’ I bluffed. ‘Shoot! I don’t know the telephone number.’

  Slowly, Lauder got up, keeping his eyes on me the whole time he walked around the table. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-six. Why?’

  ‘How tall are you?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  I tutted. ‘About five feet and six.’

  He jotted this down, too.

  ‘Dark blue eyes.’ He barely looked up. ‘Blonde, out of a bottle. On the bony side.’

  I laughed. ‘You auditioning me, Officer?’

  ‘Any distinguishing features? Birthmarks, moles? I saw a scar on your arm earlier. How did you get it?’

  ‘A burn. Foolin’ around in the kitchen. Accident when I was fifteen.’

  ‘Nasty. Looks like cigarette burns to me.’

  I pulled a blank expression, hiding the new wave of tension. ‘What’s my scar got to do with anything?’

  ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Not much.’ This felt like a prison medical checkup. I stood up. ‘Can I go? I’m half starved. There ain’t nothing more I can tell you. Give me your card. I’ll call you if I remember anything else!’

  ‘Sit down, Miss Groader.’ That cold voice again. Lauder stood up. ‘We’ll get you something to eat.’

  ‘Thank you, much appreciated,’ I said. Then he left the room.

  Where the hell was this going? Ten minutes later, the same secretary came in with a black coffee and a bread roll. Her eyes glared with disapproval over my negligee, poking out from under Lauder’s mac, before leaving again. She could go to hell. I didn’t care about her opinion and devoured the roll. What I had thought was cheese turned out to be dried turkey. I spat it out. I ate the rest with its soggy slice of tomato.

  About twenty minutes later, Lauder returned, carrying a box. I couldn’t see inside. He put it on the table and sat down, leaning back.

  ‘You sure know how to treat a lady.’ I glowered.

  ‘Not up to your usual standards? May I apologize, Miss Groader, on behalf of the Los Angeles Police Department.’

  I picked at a painted nail, ignoring him.

  ‘Okay, so we found some items, but no ring.’

  I shrugged. ‘Finders keepers, I guess.’

  ‘Guess this is yours?’ My smile froze as he produced Violet’s purse from the box. I watched as his graceful fingers took out an item one by one.

  The blue dress.

  My lipstick.

  Dede’s gun.

  A pack of cigarettes.

  A lighter.

  Alberta’s hat.

  I hid my gulp. ‘Not mine. Sorry.’

  ‘So you don’t buy hats from Janine’s Millinery in Compton? And no frocks from Mayfair, London?’

  The bread roll did a somersault in my belly. ‘I never been to Compton. Or to London, for that matter. Never saw them before in my life.’

  ‘Dress looks your size, but I’m no expert. And a nice little gun. Bet that piece of metal cost more than I make in half a year.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. Ain’t mine.’

  ‘You know the thing about mother of pearl? Got a nice smooth surface. Ideal for prints. Lucky for us, we got a clear set off it.’ He leant over and carefully took the coffee cup from my grasp. ‘Good. Like I’m sure we’ll get a match from this cup, too. But that’s okay, isn’t it, Minnie? They won’t match because the gun isn’t yours.’ He leant back, grinning.

  ‘You can’t take my prints, just like that. I know my rights.’ Minnie squealed.

  He leant forward, menacing.

  ‘I’m sure you do, Jemima Day.’

  24

  Nine lives gone, nothing to lose.

  The English countryside would still be green now. There would be gentle downpours on muggy days. Block F would be empty now, save for a few of the hardcore cases. I wondered if Muriel had gone to the guillotine. The porridge would still be sludge and the bread still cardboard.

  I could see Doodlebag’s smug, fat face. Lucinda Seldon’s disappointment. She would be civil at my hanging, but frosty. The noose. Eleven seconds of restraint and tightening suffocation, then to dangle in space, choking to death. Could this asshole spare me that? A quick bullet, a quicker death. If it came to it, I would beg for that.

  I stood hatless and roasting under the afternoon sun. We were in the desert, seventy miles outside Palm Springs. Another place on my list when I entertained dreams of my glamorous new life.

  A bird of prey asserted itself as number one in the pecking order, hovering patiently on a dead tree. Another bird was circling above. Soon there would a quite a queue for desert-cured female.

  It was too bright to keep my eyes open. The asshole could just shoot me if he took it as insolence. Closing my eyes could get the whole thing over with.

  The journey to this no-woman’s-land had passed in silence. Questions had swirled around my head. Detective Randall Lauder from the LAPD must have called Scotland Yard as soon as he’d seen a dress from London and heard my weak attempt at the accent. He must have asked about missing female felons matching my description.

  Jemima Day must have been high up on the list.

  It was all down to the dress. The one I’d stupidly worn.

  The British had my fingerprints. But what else did they tell him? Had they made me for the slaughter above the pub? Had Betty grassed me up?

  Lauder only had to shove me on the first boat back to Blighty to face the music. But instead he’d dragged me to the back of beyond. He hadn’t even taken my picture against the yardstick.

  Why?

  Instead, he’d pushed my blue dress over the table to me and hissed, ‘Get changed.’ He turned away while I slipped the dress on and shoved Alberta’s hat on my messed-up hair.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut. Take your purse.’ Lauder had risen, without batting an eyelid.

  He had opened the door. ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Groader. I’ll run you home.’ And then, in plain sight of the other detectives at their desks, he’d led the way out of the stuffy office. A bunch of guys in shabby suits and loose neckties gawped at me. One was familiar – my drunken accuser at Mikey’s bar. I avoi
ded his eyes and lowered my head.

  I walked out exactly as I’d come in – Minnie Groader, a witness. No more, no less. Then Lauder led me down to the basement car park, avoiding the elevator. He nodded at the attendant and headed for a black car. He opened the passenger door. ‘Get in.’

  And now I was frying to death. He was cool as a cucumber, watching me shrivel up before his eyes. Was he a sadist? A pervert? This cop could be anyone if duping his work chums was such a piece of cake. Sleazier than his swanky veneer, playing the part of the Vice Squad dick whilst up to no good. Maybe he’d let Caziel escape, he hadn’t exactly been in a hurry to race after him. Maybe I was about to be reunited with the creep, the pair of them with some kind of sick plan. Or maybe he killed for thrills and the LAPD didn’t know they had a raving psycho in their midst. Someone who got his kicks from killing a desperate girl nobody would miss.

  I braced myself for anything.

  I was a goner and I deserved it. I’d had a good innings, considering the lousy start in life. Bowled out. I didn’t belong here or anywhere. Never had, never would. I’d never done anything of note for anybody. I’d made my own way in life. Every time I’d relied on somebody else, I’d quickly learnt that was a fool’s game. I didn’t even know if Violet, my mother, was dead or alive. If alive, she’d happily rid herself of me a long time ago, in a very sophisticated scam.

  Violet. She had saved all her pennies to take the first liner to America, but she couldn’t find her GI lover. After five years of searching for him, palm trees in paradise must have become a living hell. She earned our keep as a live-in housekeeper in various grand Hollywood homes, our home a series of attic rooms. Then, one day, she told me we were going back home. As soon as she’d saved up enough to bring us both back to Blighty, we would leave. Home? I was home.

  I remembered the cold deck and a gray sky. Where had my friends gone? Why was she doing this?

  And then, halfway across the Atlantic, Violet took ill. A nun who was on board took charge of me. They never let me see her. They said she had died. Even then, I didn’t believe her.

  I disembarked an orphan and was carted off to some convent. It was all a haze. I later found out that Violet’s relatives didn’t want me, preferring to remain scandalized about my existence. They knew what I’d always suspected. I was as bastard as they come.

  I prayed every night, down on my knees on cold stone floors, that someone kind would soon take me back to sunny America where I would find my old friends, the kids of the maids who worked in the houses. Fat lot of good that did me. I was done with praying by the time my seventh birthday came around. Done with asking anyone for anything. And as soon as I’d stolen enough pennies from the nuns, I’d be doing my very own disappearing act.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  Now my eyes strayed beyond Lauder’s silhouette to the dancing waves of heat blurring the line between the mountains and the sky. Violet’s face, or my hazy memory of it, appeared. Would I be reunited with her, finally? With Lena, and Billy? A good old knees-up at the Pearly Gates, with the few who passed as my family? Billy would be laughing. ‘See, sweetheart, you just can’t make it on your own. I made it all simple for you. You just had to lie low and keep your mouth shut. Pretending you’re a smart-aleck, now look where you ended up!’

  I let out an involuntary laugh.

  Lauder pushed the gun into my temple. ‘Something funny, huh?’

  I said nothing, closing my eyes. Everything went red, the sun penetrating my eyelids.

  Just do it, bastard.

  The gun was pushed harder, scorching hot against my skin, burning. My breathing was shallow, the cuff of his jacket brushing my cheek. What was he waiting for?

  Shoot, goddamn you!

  The pressure of the metal against my temple suddenly eased. Going for my heart? I braced myself for impact.

  No. The crunch of gravel. His feet, moving further back? My eyes flickered open, barely able to make out his silhouette against the raging sun.

  ‘Jemima Day. You’ve got a rap sheet as long as your arm. Born on the Lusitania in 1920, to Violet Turner, an English seamstress. Father Montague Day, a GI.’ He raised his brow. ‘So, could be a US citizen by rights. Back in England by six, dumped in an orphanage. You ran away and had quite a spree of juvenile misdemeanors. Known associates – The Forty Elephants. The law caught up and by eleven stuck you in a correctional facility, a reformatory school for girls. Then you were fostered. Now, this is where it gets interesting. Your foster mother died and her relatives suspect you of a major theft of the family valuables in 1936. Couldn’t pin a thing on you though, you had an alibi. Then Scotland Yard’s got no record for five whole years. Try to go straight? In ’41, you’re up to no good again, picked up with a cache of weapons. Gunrunning. You were banged up for quite a stretch, the rest of the war, right? You jump parole the same day the war in Europe ends. Now here you are, jumping out of Elmore Caziel’s window as the place goes up in flames. Looks to me like you’re up to your old tricks.’

  My tongue was dry, and it was hard to speak. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to send me back to England? Cheaper on gas.’

  I didn’t see him dart forward, his hand strike. He was that fast. A stinging, searing pain threw me. I lost my balance, twisting my ankle as I fell. My ears rang. Then he grabbed my ear, twisting me up. I yelled in pain. He said, ‘Talk, smartass.’

  What did he want, my fucking life story? Where to start? Just tell him about June? Or going on the run? Surely Betty can’t have talked, as Lauder hadn’t mentioned three dead bodies in rooms above the Jack & Jill. Had nobody discovered the bodies yet? Impossible. Billy was dead and so was our pledge of secrecy. Should I tell Lauder about my life as Ida Boyd? Would this buy me time?

  Never give it all up.

  ‘You seem to have the whole story.’

  ‘No. Why did you run from England?’

  ‘I don’t know. Guess I should have done my time, the probation.’

  Slap! He struck me again. Harder, this time. Stars danced before my eyes, and in the blackness, I lost my footing again. This time he didn’t pull me up. I glared up at him. ‘Just fucking shoot me, goddamn you!’ I yelled, hoarse. No point in getting up again, just for another blow to the head.

  ‘Oh, like that is it? You want me to put you out of your misery? If dying’s a better deal, you must have done something real bad. What was it, Jemima? What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘A jailbird, five years, saying nothing the whole time. The well-behaved inmate. And then you run? Somebody owe you something? Or did you grab your chance to serve up a little vengeance? Hell hath no fury, right? Who made going on the lam worth it?’

  ‘My cat. I wanted to see him.’ I spat the words out. Beating me to death would be better than the noose. I waited for the blow. None came. Lauder was swaying in front of my eyes. Was he bending down? I couldn’t form words any more. I tried to meet his eyes but now there were two pairs. Four blurred saucers of vibrant turquoise.

  An intense wave of dark red rose up over my eyes. Comforting. Soothingly soft. A warm blanket under which I could sleep forever.

  If he meant to kill me, the sun got there first.

  25

  My head, or rather, the block of wood somebody was boring holes into with a red-hot drill, lolled forwards heavily. My mouth hung open, my lower jaw a dead weight.

  My neck was painfully stiff as I raised my head.

  Alberta’s dusty hat lay at my feet.

  I groaned, trying to see. It was dusk.

  I was in Lauder’s car, but we weren’t in the desert anymore. The car was stationary and I was alone. Cuffed. I twisted around. Outside, the only lights were neon, illuminating a hamburger drive-in walking distance from the car. In the distance, lights shone from a scattering of buildings. Were we closer to the city? Or another town?

  The thin silhouette of my captor approached the car, carrying two bottles of something and a paper bag. Somehow I managed t
o sit up. I could do nothing about the dribble from my chin before he got in. He nodded at the cuffs, indicating for me to turn around and he unlocked them. Then he dumped one of the bottles and a hamburger carton from the bag in my lap. The bottle was icy to the touch. Lemonade.

  No point in pride. I downed it in one.

  Lauder started tucking in. He noticed me holding the burger.

  ‘Eat.’

  ‘I don’t eat meat.’

  He stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

  ‘Eat the fucking roll, then.’

  I looked out of the window, picking at the bread with my fingers, nibbling it. To anyone else looking in, we’d look like a date gone wrong. I wondered if he had a wife to get back to. Maybe he’d called her up.

  ‘I’ll be late for dinner, honey. Just bumping off some Brit ex-con.’

  She’d be a bookish type, a dupe who pressed his shirts before she went off to her mundane job, unaware of his other life. He would like young women to be sweet, smiling and innocent. Anyone that fell outside of his narrow ideals of femininity would be scum. He’d even distrust Lucinda Seldon, despite her achievements. She’d be a ballbreaker to him. As a criminal, I was repellent…