Silent Murders (9 page)

After what seemed like hours of questions about Esther, they turned to Bruno Heilmann and worked their way through the time I had spent at the party, accusing me of sleeping with Heilmann and every other man at the party, demanding to know who I’d spoken to, what I’d seen, whether I’d been upstairs, and when I had arrived and departed. I soon learned not to pause to think, or one of them would snarl, “Just answer the question, sister, don’t think up lies.” When we reached the end of the questions, they started over. Same questions. And then a third time. I figured they were trying to fluster me into giving different answers that they could twist into some semblance of guilt, but someone accustomed to repeating the same act on stage three, four, or five times a day is not going to get rattled by repetition. I got slapped several times by the standing detective—not much harder than a stage slap—and finally he said, “Okay, sister, we’ll see how smart-alecky you are after a night in jail.”

They led me out of the miserable little room and there, at the door that led to the cells, stood Carl Delaney. It felt wonderful to see a friendly face, even if it was a cop. “I’ll take her in,” he said. They handed me over with no comment and left.

We stood in the hall for a few minutes, saying nothing, waiting for I didn’t know what, until Carl opened the door to the main room and looked about. “They’re gone. Come on. Can’t let you go home, but you don’t have to spend the night in the pokey. Sit here.” He pointed to a beat-up leather chair in the corner by the main door.

“Who are those guys?” I asked him.

“Tuttle and Rios. Detectives assigned to the Heilmann case.”

Tuttle and Rios. I stored the names in my head, then dropped onto the chair like a marionette whose strings had been snipped. Carl brought me a cup of water that I drained so fast, he said, “Slow down, Miss Beckett. There’s a whole reservoir full waiting for you.”

He had just gone to refill the cup when the main door burst open and Don Q, Son of Zorro, strode into police headquarters. He was not in costume and he did not crack his rawhide bullwhip or brandish his rapier, but Douglas Fairbanks looked every inch the proud Spanish don on a rescue mission. I could almost hear the stirring music accompanying his entrance. He saw me at once and rushed to my side.

“Jessie! Thank God you’re all right!” He turned to two officers standing openmouthed behind the counter and commanded, “Get me Captain Marchetti at once!”

The entire room went silent. Secretaries stopped, their hands raised mid-stroke above typewriter keys. Clerks paused in the middle of their file drawers. Officers set down their telephones. All eyes were on Douglas Fairbanks. For him, it was no different than any other day.

He turned to me and spoke, projecting his voice to the far corners of the room. “I only just learned you were here. I called your house and Myrna said you had been arrested. I came directly here. Don’t worry; I’ll take all the blame.”

I saw the danger immediately.

“Mr. Fairbanks,” I interrupted. “Wait a minute, this isn’t about—”

“Where’s Captain Marchetti?” he snapped when he noticed neither officer had moved. Douglas Fairbanks was accustomed to people scurrying to obey his orders.

“Off duty, sir,” stammered one of the men. “Sergeant Yates is in charge—”

“Then get Marchetti at his home.”

I made another bid for his attention, standing up and pulling on his sleeve. “Mr. Fairbanks!”

He shook me off. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.” Then in a stage voice, he boomed to the room at large, “I demand this girl be released at once, do you hear me? I can explain everything.”

“Douglas!”

He plowed on without another glance in my direction. “I’m the one who told her what to do. She isn’t responsible for—”

“Duber!”

That stopped him cold. At last he turned to look at me, his face registering surprise and confusion at hearing his pet name from the lips of someone other than his beloved Mary.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Fairbanks, sir. I meant no offense but I had to get your attention.” I dropped my voice but privacy was impossible. I chose my words carefully. “I’m here to answer questions about the two murders.
That’s all
. As soon as I’m released, I’ll fill you in on that errand I was doing for you. You needn’t worry about me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Oh.” He seemed to shrink a couple inches. “I thought…”

I was absurdly touched. He thought I’d been arrested for breaking into Heilmann’s house and stealing Lottie’s things. His sense of honor did not permit underlings to take the blame for him, and he had come to set me free with a confession that could well ruin the Pickford-Fairbanks empire.

I became aware of Carl Delaney standing at the edge of our little drama, holding a cup of water, taking it all in with bright eyes.

Douglas regained his composure. “That means nothing,” he blustered theatrically. “I demand this girl’s immediate release. Get Captain Marchetti in here and we’ll settle this between us, man to man. I’m not leaving unless she comes with me.”

An officer picked up the telephone to call his boss.

“Do you know the captain?” I asked hopefully.

“I should say I do. I play tennis with him on Wednesdays.”

Ten minutes later, Douglas and I left police headquarters in the backseat of his Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, the most gorgeous car I’d ever seen in my whole life. The chauffeur saluted like we were generals, closed the door behind us, climbed in front, and eased away from the station in the direction of Beverly Hills. I heaved a sigh of relief. Douglas had promised Captain Marchetti I would be available again if anyone had more questions, but I doubted that would be necessary now that the Fairbanks spotlight was shining warmly on me. I persuaded Douglas that I would be fine at my own house, and the driver turned left at the next corner.

“You can pick up your belongings when you drop me off,” I hinted carefully, uncertain of the driver.

He pulled on his thin moustache. “Good idea. So everything went smoothly? I imagined the worst when I heard you’d been arrested.”

“It was a breeze.”

He waited in the Silver Ghost as I ran into the house to gather up Lottie’s belongings. I wrapped them hastily in old newspaper before handing them through the car window.

Douglas’s dark eyes looked straight into mine. “Thank you for this, Jessie. You’ll have to tell me the details tomorrow morning. See you on the set.”

It’s not every girl who gets rescued from prison by the dashing Son of Zorro.

10

“Jessie? There you are, run get some aspirin from my office for Lottie.”

“Oh, Jessie, find DuCrow’s bandana. He says he left it in his dressing room.”

“Quick, Jessie, get another camellia for Miss Astor—this one’s wilted. And we aren’t using the dog in this scene after all—get rid of him.”

It was Monday morning, business as usual for the
Son of Zorro
assistant script girl. No camellias left in Costume and a rose wouldn’t do—the fair Dolores had worn a camellia in her hair yesterday and we could no more change flowers mid-scene than we could actresses—so I grabbed the dog’s leash, deposited him with his handler, hopped into one of the studio’s Ford flivvers, dashed to the florist, and picked up two camellias just in case Frank demanded multiple takes into tomorrow. That was a critical part of a script girl’s job, maintaining continuity of clothing, props, and makeup from scene to scene.

As long as I was out, I stopped at a drugstore for a newspaper to see if Heilmann’s death was mentioned—it was not, but Esther’s was, page two, brief, upper right-hand corner—and I had just pulled onto the road when a small truck passed me, going in the opposite direction. Painted on its side were the words
CISNEROS BROTHERS CATERING
.

“That’s it!” I cried aloud to no one.

Those two charmers at the police station had grilled me mercilessly about Esther’s employer, certain that I was withholding their identity, but I honestly couldn’t remember the name that had been stenciled on the caterers’ aprons. And none of the other guests had been crass enough to enter the kitchen during the party, so I was the only person still alive who had come into contact with the Cisneros brothers.

A sharp
U
-turn put me a block behind their truck. I chased it half a dozen blocks until it turned onto a side street and pulled up alongside a one-story stucco building with a couple of spindly palms out front. A sign over the door proclaimed
CISNEROS BROTHERS KITCHENS
.

I halted abruptly, my hand on the doorknob. There were three possibilities for the killer: he could have been a guest, a random person off the street, or a caterer. If these caterers had been the last to see Esther alive, mightn’t one of them be her killer? And by extension, Heilmann’s? It was possible, but it made no sense. Why would caterers kill their employer and then their employee? If they had, surely they’d have fled across the border rather than go meekly about their work the next day.

There was no way to answer these questions from the front step, so I told myself to be careful, took a deep breath, and went in.

Passing through an unoccupied office, I came to a large kitchen where two familiar-looking men were squeezing sugar icing onto a tiered cake as tall as they were. Absorbed in the detail of their work, neither noticed me watching from the doorway. From an adjacent room, a thin young woman I hadn’t seen before wheeled in an empty cart and began loading trays of canapés, ready for tonight’s affair. Every night was a party night in Hollywood.

Nothing looked suspicious.

“Excuse me,” I said. The men looked up from their pink icing squiggles. “Could I interrupt a moment? I’m Jessie Beckett, Esther Frankel’s friend from the Heilmann party Saturday night.”

The younger of the two nodded and gave an eager smile, probably imagining he had a prospective customer. His manner reassured me—it was not the suspicious behavior of a guilty man. Wiping his hands on his apron as I approached his table, he said, “I am Raoul Cisneros. This is my brother, Miguel.”

“I guess you haven’t heard about Esther?”

Their blank looks answered that question. As gently as possible, I told them that she was dead, showing them the newspaper as proof. Esther had worked for them for several years, and they were clearly stunned by the news. The older man, Miguel, crossed himself and, kissing the crucifix around his neck, sank heavily onto a nearby stool. When I went on to tell them about Heilmann’s murder, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped in disbelief.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? What happened when you left the Heilmann house? Did Esther send for a cab?”

Miguel Cisneros pulled his bushy moustache. “No, we thought it was safer to take her home ourselves, and it saved money, too. It was after two o’clock. We were headed in her direction anyway.”

“I think she was killed because she saw the man who killed Heilmann. Did she say anything when she got in the truck? Anything about seeing a last guest or a suspicious person?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving the gray strands streaked with pink. He exchanged a few words in Spanish with his younger brother, as if to check his memory before saying something to a stranger he might later regret. “No, Miss Beckett. Nothing of importance. She was tired. We all were tired. Her back ached. She looked forward to Sunday off and would be ready to work tonight.” He shook his head, dazed at the realization that she was gone.

Raoul spoke up. “She said the last guest had left. I remember her saying that.”

“Whether he was the last guest to leave or the second-to-last,” I said, “someone stepped back into the house and shot Bruno Heilmann when he was alone, and that person was afraid Esther could identify him. Otherwise he would not have needed to follow her and kill her, too. Did you hear anything that sounded like a gunshot as you were cleaning up? A backfire? Fireworks?”

“No. But packing up the truck is noisy work. And the motor was running. Maybe we missed it.”

A gunshot on a quiet night would be hard to miss. I wondered whether the police had found any of Heilmann’s neighbors who had heard anything. An idea was forming in my head.

“You say she saw the killer?” asked Raoul.

“I think so. I think the killer waited until all the guests were gone, and came back to shoot Bruno Heilmann, and he thought the caterers were gone or outside packing up. He didn’t expect to run across Esther. She probably smiled at him and finished wiping the tables, and joined you in the truck.” The two men nodded soberly. “He must have followed you to her house. How else would he know where she lived?”

“I was driving,” Raoul said. “It was late and the streets were empty. I remember another car behind our truck, because I was surprised when it turned into Esther’s small street with us. But when I pulled over to the curb, it passed us, so I didn’t think anything more about it. Do you think that was the killer?”

“I think it’s very likely. You didn’t see anyone outside at her apartment building?”

“No one.”

I know enough Spanish to recognize a few words but not enough to catch the sense of what the men were saying to each other. I could understand gestures, though, and their rapid-fire exchange and hushed tones added to a sense of mounting alarm. I thought I knew the reason for their fear.

“The police … they have no idea who did this?” asked Miguel.

“Not yet,” I said. “They’ll probably be along soon, to question you.”

“You told them—”

“No, I only remembered your name a few moments ago when I saw the truck, and I followed it here, but they asked me about you yesterday at the police station. I imagine they will be contacting every caterer in Los Angeles until they find the one who worked the Heilmann party.”

“We would be suspects?”

I had to admit they would.

“Or the murderer, he could think we saw something, too. He killed Esther. He could think that we saw him or that Esther told us something about him.”

More Spanish. I didn’t have to understand the words to figure out they were considering leaving town. Frankly, I thought it was a good idea.