Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb (3 page)

Ryan had played in oaters for about five years before his death, working for two or three studios before he tied up with Abe Kolmar at Apex and starred in the
Lucky Larry
series. Although he didn’t sing, play the guitar or twirl a baton, his pictures were highly successful; particularly in the rural areas, where his protrusions of jaw and biceps were equated with manly cleancut heroism. He did not smoke, drink or indulge in amorous advances on the screen.

But when the cameras stopped grinding on the evening of April 2nd, Dick Ryan held a little party in his private trailer. He was on location at Abe Kolmar’s ranch out in the San Fernando Valley, and he might easily have chosen to drive into town or stay at Kolmar’s place. But Ryan preferred his trailer, a handsome, custom-built job that accompanied him whenever he was shooting away from the studio. It had a built-in bar and a number of other conveniences which made it ideal for parties.

This particular party started out in a small way, as a matter of fact with just Ryan and a bottle. But shortly after the dinner hour at the Kolmar ranch, the celebration grew. Polly Foster came in. This wasn’t unusual, because Polly Foster played opposite Dick Ryan on (and some said
off
) the screen. Tom Trent, who did the villain in the series, accompanied her. Both of them were staying at Kolmar’s place overnight, as were most of the principals in the cast.

According to their story, Ryan was already high when they arrived. He was cursing Joe Dean, and that wasn’t unusual either. Dean was his stooge, valet, chauffeur, masseur, and one-man audience. At the moment, Dean was driving Abe Kolmar into town for a preview. The visitors gathered that Ryan did not approve of this.

They partook of their host’s hospitality nonetheless, endured his curses, and waited for Dean’s return. He came back about nine, accompanied by Estrellita Juarez, a minor player in the film.

What happened during the next two hours came in four separate versions: Polly Foster’s story, Trent’s account, and the evidence of Joe Dean and Miss Juarez. Put them all together and it spelled something like this.

Ryan took a drink. Then he fired Joe Dean. Ryan took another drink. Then he called Estrellita Juarez a dirty greaser and told her to get the hell out of there. Ryan took another drink. He punched Tom Trent on the jaw. Ryan took another drink. He pitched Polly Foster bodily from the trailer and told her to take her goddam blubbering someplace else because he was expecting company.

Joe Dean said he left right away and he didn’t see any muggles being smoked. Estrellita Juarez said she left right away and she didn’t see any muggles being smoked. Tom Trent said he left right away and he didn’t see any muggles being smoked. Polly Foster said—

Anyway, they all left. None of them knew about marijuana. None of them came back. Dean took his car and drove Estrellita to a motel. Trent went home and let his doctor work on his black eye. Polly Foster drove back to town herself.

And that’s all there was to it. Employees on the ranch noted that Ryan’s trailer lights were out by eleven. Nobody woke up during the middle of the night to see or hear anything.

But in the morning, Ryan was dead. Dead as a doornail, if you can picture a six foot two doornail with one bullet in its head and another in its hips.

That’s the way it went, according to the newspaper reports of the testimony at the inquest. But there was a little bit more to it.

The reefer butts, for instance. There were four or five of them, lying on the floor and in the ashtrays. Homicide found them right away, and it seemed odd none of the guests knew anything about the matter.

Then there was the little business of Joe Dean getting fired. Did he or did he not threaten his employer? Nobody seemed to recall that he did, but the police wondered vaguely, inasmuch as their records disclosed that Joe Dean had once been a naughty boy back in Detroit. Some years ago he’d enjoyed a reputation as a strong-arm artist, and the authorities thought he might not have taken his dismissal so lightly.

And this incident of Ryan punching Tom Trent on the jaw. That was all right, as far as it went, but how could a mere punch on the jaw produce a black eye, plus a broken chair, two broken glasses, and a ripped shirt? The police wondered, not quite so vaguely, if there hadn’t been a bit more of a fight than was first mentioned. And if Tom Trent couldn’t have left the trailer in a rather unpleasant mood.

They also speculated on just how Miss Juarez might have reacted to being called a dirty greaser (the more so because dirty greasers are notoriously hot-tempered) and how Polly Foster felt about being tossed out of the trailer.

But nobody could help them there, it seems. Everybody stuck to the story, everybody had an alibi, everybody suggested hopefully that since Ryan said he was “expecting somebody later” he was,
ergo,
murdered by “somebody later.”

“Somebody later” smoked the reefers, of course. “Somebody later” smashed the furniture. It all added up. Added up to the “death at the hands of a person or persons unknown” verdict which was reluctantly delivered and even more reluctantly received.

There the matter rested. But not for long. The follow-up stories began to appear: stories about Ryan and his previous escapades; stories about the reefer parties he’d held with other well-known cinematic celebrities, where everybody got stark, staring stoned.

A couple of columnists sniffed pay dirt and began to excavate for golden nuggets of gossip. They came up with a series of
exposés
on life in the film capital. Up in the editorial department they decided to lay off Russia for a day and consider the matter of Hollywood hi-jinks, from Arbuckle to Zukor (though what they had on Zukor nobody could possibly imagine).

And the authorities, chasing down lead after lead, let a few hints slip about a narcotics ring. That was enough. The press took up the “Ryan murder scandal” all over the nation.

Took it up, and then dropped it with a dull thud.

Seven full columns in three papers on April 24th. Not a line on April 25th. Or thereafter. Three full weeks of sound and fury, and then the nothingness.
Dig
that crazy, mixed-up case! Yes,
dig!
And I dug, but there was nothing more to read. Ryan was cool. Ryan was gone.

And, a few minutes after I satisfied myself about the newspapers, so was I. I stopped in at Clifton’s for a bite to eat and a chance to chew over what I’d learned. There was no time at present to digest it.

Still indulging in mental mastication, I stopped back at the office long enough to check the mail. Two letters. Tilden took a story and Browne bounced one. I made a note to call my clients later. Right now I had a thousand dollars’ retainer on a case and ten thousand riding. Right now I’d better go to the bank and make a deposit before two o’clock closing. Right now—

The phone rang.

I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Clayburn?” I didn’t recognize the voice, but it recognized me.

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“You can lay off.”

“What’s that?”

“Lay off, Clayburn. Lay off the Ryan case.”

“Who is this?”

“A friend, Clayburn. But you’d better lay off if you want to keep me friendly.”

“But—”

He hung up.

I held the phone in my hand for a moment, then dropped it in its cradle.

There it was. This morning I’d been feeling sorry for myself. I thought I didn’t have a friend in the world. But I’d been wrong.

I had a friend, after all. A friend who seemed to have my best interests at heart. Somebody who would rather see me dead than get into trouble.

It was something to think about. I thought about it all the way downtown. And by the time I walked into Al Thompson’s office, my mind was made up.

Al Thompson used to be on the Vice Squad until he lost his hair. In his younger days he looked a good deal like Stewart Granger and specialized in jobs around Pershing Square. When he started to get bald, they transferred him to Homicide, and he’s been there ever since.

I once asked him how he liked the change. “Just fine,” he told me. “You meet a much better class of people in Homicide.”

If I remember rightly, I quoted the remark in one of the true-detective articles I worked on with a client. That’s how I met Thompson originally: I went to him for material. Since that time I’d got into the habit of calling on him whenever I needed help along the article line.

And now...

Thompson was sitting at his desk, going over some post office pinups when I came in. He looked up and nodded, thus acknowledging my presence and indicating that I should sit down. I took a chair and waited. After a minute or so he pushed the stack of pictures aside.

“Hi, Clayburn. What can I do for you? Another yarn?”

I smiled. I didn’t really want to smile. I didn’t really want him to think it was another yarn. But that was the way to play it.

“That’s right. I was thinking of doing a piece on the Ryan murder.”

“Dick Ryan?”

“Seems like a good idea,” I told him. “Unsolved mystery angle.”

“But we’re still working on it.” Thompson hesitated. “A story like that doesn’t do the Department any good.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to use the police-are-baffled approach,” I assured him. “That’s why I came to you. I wanted to check my facts and clear them, seeing as you were on the case.”

Thompson sat back. “You know the regulations. I’m not supposed to talk. And I haven’t got the authority to okay anything. Maybe if you went in and saw Captain—”

“Never mind.” I lit a cigarette. “This visit is off the record. Just thought you’d be interested.”

“All right. What’ve you got?”

I recited what I’d learned from reading the newspapers. He listened shifting around in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. When I finished he grunted and said, “Is that all?”

“Sure. That’s all the papers carried. Why? Is there more?”

Thompson smiled, and despite the bald head I could see why he’d been the fair-haired boy of the Vice Squad. “You hope there is, don’t you? That’s why you came to me now, right?”

“Well...” I paused. “Since this is all off the record...”

“Just how long do you think it would stay off the record if you broke a story containing facts known only to this office? They’d come running in here for my scalp.”

“Little late for that,” I said. “Come on, give a guy a break. We’ve worked together before.”

“Not on something like this.”

“Well, can’t you tell me anything?”

Thompson hesitated. “Let’s see, there’s a few things you missed in the papers which might not sound out of line. That gun, for instance. It was a .38 revolver. The same gun Ryan used in the picture. Ordinarily it was loaded with blanks, but that afternoon Ryan had loaned it to Trent. He was doing a little target practice out there on the ranch, and that’s why it had real bullets in it. He claims he was called to the set in the middle of his shooting—just after reloading—and gave the gun back to Ryan, forgetting to tell him it was loaded. Anyway, Ryan must have taken it to his trailer and left it there without examining it. So right there you have an interesting question. Did the killer know the loaded gun was there, or did he just happen to come on it by accident? In other words, was the murder premeditated?”

I made a note, just for effect. “What about fingerprints?”

“There weren’t any. Not on the gun. Whoever did the job saw to that. Lots of other prints around, all over. Polly Foster’s, and Trent’s and Joe Dean’s, Estrellita Juarez, even Kolmar himself. But nothing that helps us establish anything.”

I made another note. “About the killing,” I said. “The paper said all six shots were fired. One in the head, the rest in the hips.”

Thompson shook his head. “I can tell you that much, too, I suppose. The newspapers had to say hips. On account of the family audience. But the murderer didn’t shoot Ryan in the hips, Clayburn. Between them, that’s where.”

“You mean?”

“Jealous husband, boyfriend, lover? Homicidal maniac, sex pervert? We’ve thought about all the angles.”

“How about someone who’d flipped? Loaded on reefers or—”

“The reefer angle’s out.”

“But they found those butts. And the whole things points to some kind of narcotics tie-up.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Don’t know or won’t tell?”

“Suit yourself. Either way, I got nothing to say about the reefer situation. Ryan didn’t go in for that sort of thing. He got his kicks in a different way.”

“And the alibis all hold up? Dean, Juarez, Foster, Kolmar, Trent?”

“If they didn’t, we’d have made an arrest.”

“Why haven’t you made any since then?”

“We’re still working on the case.”

“There hasn’t been a line in the papers. Did the drug angle scare you off?”

Thompson stood up. “Sorry, that’s all I know. If you want to talk to the captain, now, maybe—”

“Never mind.” I rose. “I guess I’ve got enough for my story. But I hate to leave it hanging in the air like this. I hate to let the readers think that maybe everything isn’t exactly on the up-and-up.”

The detective put a fatherly hand on my shoulder, and squeezed it in a most unfatherly way. “You write anything like that and I’ll kick your teeth down your throat,” he muttered. The grip relaxed. “No, I didn’t mean it. Forget it. It’s a free country. Write what you please. But I can’t tell you any more. Except one thing.” He paused.

“What’s that?”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t write the story. I wouldn’t write anything at all. I’d just forget it.”

“Forget it?”

“If it’s a yarn you’re after, I can give you a dozen better ones. Complete with solutions and pictures of the guilty parties. How about a nice, juicy torso murder? We got one where the guy burned this dame’s arms and legs off with a blowtorch, and then he got to work on her head with—”

“You really don’t want me to write this, eh?”

“I really don’t.”

“And you can’t give me a good reason?”

“That’s it.” Thompson walked me over to the door. “But you’re a smart guy, Clayburn. You’re a writer, you’ve got an imagination. Maybe you can dream up a reason. Like say, if there was something like a narcotics ring mixed up in the case. And they didn’t want anyone nosing around, trying to uncover clues that could lead to them or to their very important customers. Figure a reason like that, if you like. And then, like a smart guy, forget the whole thing. Including the fact that you talked to me.”