Silent Murders (8 page)

“I’ll do my best,” I said, squeezing Myrna’s hand for reassurance.

“Where did you run off to after Mr. Fairbanks called?” she asked me.

I was hoping she wouldn’t pose that question in front of the policemen, but Myrna was the sort who had nothing to hide and so was incapable of thinking anyone else did, either.

“He wanted me to meet him to go over the party list. He’s eager to help in any way he can to solve this monstrous crime,” I said piously. Then it was my turn to tell the police who had attended the party, and I was able to add several that Myrna had overlooked. Douglas Fairbanks had given them my name and Myrna’s, and as soon as they received the go-ahead from on high, they would follow up with each person on the list, asking them to recall who else was there. Eventually they would re-create the entire guest list.

“And what time did you girls leave?” asked Officer Blackford, who seemed to be doing all the talking.

Myrna spoke up. “That’s easy. It was twelve-fifteen because we had to catch the last Red Car at twelve-thirty.”

“Who was there when you left?”

“Gosh, everybody, just about. We left pretty early.”

“The Fairbanks left before we did,” I added, “but Myrna is right. There were maybe two hundred people there at midnight and the party was going full swing. If you don’t mind me asking, were you the officers who were called to Heilmann’s home this morning?”

Both Blackford and Giles nodded. So these were the men who had checked the body and called the detectives but had not gone upstairs. They’d be sorry if they’d known what they missed. Blackford continued. “This isn’t for public consumption yet. Captain said we could question you since Mr. Fairbanks had already told you, but they want to keep this death quiet for a while. They think it will help flush out the killer if fewer people know.” He lifted his shoulders as if to ask,
Who knows where they got that dumb idea?

The number of people who knew about the murder was growing larger by the hour. Officers Giles and Blackford knew. So did the police doctor who had come to examine the body—was he the same one who had been at Esther’s? The guard out front knew. So did the valet who found the body. The two detectives who were probably still at Heilmann’s house knew. And Zukor, of course, and Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary and Lottie Pickford. And now Myrna. And me. A secret with that many people in on it wasn’t much of a secret.

When they finished their questions, Blackford said, “We need to call headquarters and the nearest call box is a couple blocks away. You got a telephone?” Myrna pointed him to the back of the hall and both men went to report in. We slipped into the kitchen.

“Isn’t it awful?” said Myrna softly, now that we were alone. “A famous man like Bruno Heilmann murdered! Who could have done such a thing? I guess they’ll figure it out pretty quick. As soon as they find out who left last, they’ll know who did it.”

“Not necessarily. Someone could have waited outside in the bushes until the last person had left and gone back inside to shoot him. Or one of the servants or cooks could have done it. Whoever it was knew how to shoot straight. He was killed with one bullet in the back of the head.”

“I told you so.”

I looked at her blankly.

“The bird hitting the window.”

“Oh, Myrna, that’s just coincidence.”

“It’s not. It happened before.” I sat motionless as she struggled to decide whether or not to tell me about it. Finally she took a deep, fortifying breath and plunged into her story. “It was in 1918 when the Spanish flu came. I was thirteen. Mother and David caught it first. You couldn’t get nurses. I mean, there weren’t enough. One would show up and then disappear into the night. Father and I nursed them. When they were half recovered, it struck me. Father made up the couch for me in the dining room. He used to come and wrap me in frozen sheets every night, trying to get my temperature down. He sat there—I can remember him sitting right over me—and he went through the agony with me, afraid I was going to die.”

She paused and shivered, although it wasn’t cold. Without meeting my eye, she swallowed hard and continued. “Finally I passed the crisis, and Mother and David recovered. Then one night, I heard terrible noises from upstairs. He was hemorrhaging. He had the flu probably a long time before it showed itself, not knowing it because he’d been so busy taking care of everybody else. And particularly of me. Well, I became hysterical, and to get me out of the way, they sent me to one of my mother’s friends. While I was wandering around the house, a bird hit a window. A minute later, the telephone rang and I knew what it meant. I took off up the stairs, running as far away as I could. They called me but I wouldn’t answer. When I finally went downstairs, my mother’s friend was crying. I knew my father was dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Myrna,” I said, giving her a hug.

She thanked me with a weak smile. “So you see, it’s not an old wives’ tale. It’s true.”

I thought of poor Esther. “Yes, maybe it is.”

A noise from the hall drew my attention. The two policemen were standing in the doorway, both of them looking at me. I didn’t know how long they’d been there.

“You’ll be coming to the station with us, Miss Beckett.”

I stood up. No need to ask why. It had always been just a matter of time before someone at the police station connected me to the other murder, Esther’s murder.

I was the only person who had been at the scene of both crimes. It didn’t look good.

9

“Sit there.”

The police sergeant pointed at a wooden bench that looked as comfortable as a Baptist pew, and I sat with my hands clasped in my lap so no one would see my ink-stained fingertips, waiting to be questioned again about the two Hollywood murders.

Hollywood is not really its own town—it was at one time but nowadays it’s part of Los Angeles, so the cops were Los Angeles cops and the police station was one of that city’s network, Division Six on North Cahuenga next to the fire station. In my experience—and I have some experience—small-town cops are stupid and mean; city cops are every bit as mean but not nearly as stupid. So I sat still as a rock and tried not to look scared.

I knew what they were doing—letting me stew a while to lower my resistance—but knowing didn’t make the clock tick any faster. I tried to distract myself by watching the noisy symphony that played in front of me. Clerks banged file drawers, secretaries clattered away in triplicate on Remingtons, telephone bells jangled, sergeants barked orders, detectives argued, and the swinging gate that divided the public from the police added an unsteady percussion to the whole. Division Six was a crowded place, even on a Sunday. Crime doesn’t take a day off. One officer adjusted the western blinds to let in more of the bright daylight; another, standing on a desk to change a lightbulb, kicked over a full coffee cup and cursed it. A drunk was processed at the counter and hauled through the door marked
JAIL
; two sullen prostitutes were fingerprinted, just as I had been earlier, and taken in the same direction. It made me think of a vaudeville stage with a dozen acts rehearsing at the same time and no stage manager to impose order. Meanwhile, I waited in the wings for my cue, my stomach churning as it always did when I was unsure of my lines.

I had plenty of time to think.

Everyone in vaudeville steered clear of the police, and I was no exception. Itinerant performers were often accused of crimes they hadn’t committed, and just as often the evidence consisted of one sentence: “You ain’t from around here.” It was totally unfair, except when it wasn’t. In my younger years, after my mother died and left me orphaned on the circuit with a kiddie act, I became a pretty good thief, thanks to the sleight-of-hand skills I’d learned as a magician’s assistant. My targets were mostly large department stores and grocers, and I seldom got caught. On those rare occasions, I’d act younger than my years and get off with a scolding or a few slaps. Except when I ended up in jail for the night. That experience, plus getting a steady job with a reputable act, made stealing less appealing, and I mostly gave it up. I knew the police here had nothing on me from those years—those cities were too far away and it had been some time ago. And I was pretty sure they didn’t know about the role I’d played as a shill for a shady Indian mystic. But last fall, I’d been roped into a scheme to impersonate a dead heiress—a bit of acting that got tangled up in murder and came out a lot worse than I’d expected—and while the family dropped all charges against me, it had been a front-page story in several states. I’d changed my name before moving to Hollywood, but I couldn’t be certain that someone, somewhere, wouldn’t put the pieces together and decide that a girl who’d been involved in murders in Oregon might well be involved in murders in California.

I had already told the police everything I knew about Esther’s and Heilmann’s murders. Of course, they didn’t know about the items I’d taken from the two crime scenes, but those had nothing to do with finding the killer. And yes, I thought there was one killer.

I had never figured Esther’s death as random. It was too much of a coincidence, and coincidence always makes me suspicious. For one thing, there was no apparent motive—no robbery, no rape, no vandalism, nothing taken or disturbed. The break-ins that had occurred in her block, as reported by the neighbors, bore no resemblance to the break-in at Esther’s. In those, no one had been home or harmed, and robbery had been the motive. No, the person who killed Esther was out to kill Esther. The question was, why?

Bruno Heilmann’s murder had answered that, for me anyway. Someone shot him. Esther must have seen the killer, not actually doing the deed—if that had been the case, she’d have rushed outside and called for help or telephoned the cops or been murdered herself on the spot. Supposing the caterers had remained in the kitchen while she gathered up the dishes—a likely conclusion since they had stayed in the kitchen throughout the party—then she’d have been in place to see the killer, perhaps to speak to him while she picked up the last of the dirty glasses or wiped the water rings off the lacquered tabletops. She would have noticed who was last to leave the party and would have identified him the moment she heard about the murder. The killer couldn’t let that happen, so he shot Bruno Heilmann then somehow tracked Esther to her apartment. What begged for an explanation was how he’d found her, and why he’d used a gun the first time and a statue the second.

A curly-haired officer came through the main door. Carl Delaney. He caught sight of me, and his eyebrows arched with surprise. I thought he would come over and ask what I was doing here, but he pretended he hadn’t seen me and banged through the gate without a word. Well, who could blame him? At least my dinner-invitation problem was solved. He’d keep his distance now that I was a genuine suspect.

He didn’t, though. A few minutes later he was standing beside my bench, a neutral, watchful expression on his face.

“They think you had something to do with both murders,” he said carefully, dispensing with the polite preliminaries. I nodded glumly. “Did you?”

“Nope. It’s just a coincidence that I was at the scene of both. I left the party long before Bruno Heilmann was killed, and arrived at Esther’s long after her death. The only crime I committed involved champagne.”

“Don’t mention that. They’ll use it to charge you.”

I nodded. My stomach gave a fierce growl to remind me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was going on toward dinnertime.

“Some detectives want to talk to you,” he continued.

“When?”

“When they’re ready.”

That could be next week, but there wasn’t much either of us could do about that. Someone at the far end of the room shouted for Delaney. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

He threaded his way through the forest of oak desks until he reached the man in the corner. Their conversation was punctuated with many gestures. I assumed they were talking about me, but I could have been wrong. It was sixteen minutes before he came back. I know; I watched every tick go by.

“Here,” he said, dropping two Clark bars into my lap. “They used to give us these during the war. They’re pretty good.”

I was taken aback by the unexpected kindness. “Thanks,” I said, putting one in my purse and biting into the other. “I mean it, thanks a lot.” He reddened, so I changed the subject. “You were in France, huh?”

“Yeah. With the 28th Infantry Regiment of the First Division, the ‘Fighting First.’ We saw a lot of action—Cantigny, Soissons, the Argonne Forest. It was pretty bad. I hope we never see another war like that one. Anyhow, chocolate bars were one of the good things that happened to us.” He gave me half a smile, and I thought that he’d have been an attractive man if he’d been wearing something other than that intimidating blue uniform.

“What are some of the others?”

“A two-day pass to Paris.” A wistful note crept into his voice and he gazed out the nearest window as if hoping to see the fabled City of Light. “Me and some of the boys went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and could see the whole city. It felt so good I didn’t ever want to come down. And I remember once when—”

Two men in suits interrupted the travelogue. “Miss Beckett? Come with us.”

Carl Delaney ducked away as I rose from the bench. We made our way through the door marked
JAIL
, one man leading me and the other following, as if they thought to prevent the prisoner’s mad dash for freedom. We filed into an airless room that contained one bare table and two wooden chairs and was nasty with the smell of sweat and coffee. One of the plainclothesmen pointed his thumb at one chair and sat himself down across from me. The other leaned against the wall and glared as if he were mad I had interrupted his dinner. They wore no badges and did not volunteer their names.

They shot rapid-fire questions at me, alternating between them so there was no pause for me to rest or reflect. I was certain they already knew the answers, but they argued with me on nearly all of them as if everything I said was a lie. I made sure to throw in that I worked for Douglas Fairbanks. The name didn’t flicker an eyelid.