Hollywood Assassin (5 page)
A black Mercedes came within inches of Olive’s bumper, engine roaring. I hit the brakes and downshifted into a four wheel skid. We hit a berm, saving us from flying off into a canyon. A one-finger L.A. salute followed and the car was gone, racing around a curve.
Natalie returned the gesture from the passenger seat, yelling, “You’re as mad as a bag of ferrets, you moron!” She turned to me. “He nearly killed us.”
I exhaled and released the white knuckle grip. “How come there’s never a cop around when you need one?”
Bernie had been tossed into the back of Natalie’s seat. He seemed none the worse for the experience.
We were on a narrow, winding lane in the Hollywood Hills. Great views if you lived. I had the morning off and we were on our way to see Pearl Kramer. I’d gotten the former detective’s address from the city’s retirement division.
After recovering from our near accident, we moved on. Bernie sniffed the morning air, his muzzle sticking through Olive’s new rear window that, of course, wasn’t covered by my insurance policy.
We found Pearl Kramer’s residence, a French country estate that crested on a hill. The compound was surrounded by stone walls and sculptured gardens scattered over several acres of land.
“Copper work must earn a pretty penny,” Natalie said, as I pressed the gate intercom.
“Yeah, just look at what
I’m
driving.”
After announcing ourselves, a baritone voice said, “Please stay to the right, off the main drive. Mr. Kramer’s residence is about a quarter mile up the lane.”
We followed the directions, stopping in front of a small stone cottage. The bungalow had probably been built for the caretaker of the estate. The little house had a view of the sprawling mansion in the distance.
We were knocking on the front door when an elderly woman with white hair and a flowing silver gown tapped on my shoulder. I turned at the same time Natalie saw the face floating up to us like a ghost.
“Flaming mother of God,” Natalie screamed, clutching my arm. Bernie, apparently also surprised, growled.
“Everyone’s dead,” the woman said.
“Who’s dead?” I asked.
“Gable, Lombard, Hepburn.” The woman’s head lowered. She wept. “Jean Claude murdered them all.”
“Excuse me.” The calling voice belonged to a man walking from the backyard of the cottage. Late sixties. Tall. Black skin against a full head of silver hair. Eyes like soft leather. He turned to the strange woman. “It’s all right, Olivia. They’re just here to visit.” He motioned to someone coming up the driveway in a golf cart. “Margaret will see that you get back to the house safely.”
The woman’s head bobbed about her neck and shoulders. “But what about Peter? We’ve got to help him.”
The man put his arm around her. “Peter is in God’s hands, Olivia. He’s safe and protected there.”
After the woman was gone, Pearl Kramer introduced himself. He walked us around the cottage to a patio shaded by an ancient oak tree and explained.
“Olivia Wesley Swanson owns these grounds. Her late husband, Peter, was murdered by his brother here in the eighties. Dispute over the family fortune. Maybe you heard about the case.”
“Sorry, before I was born,” I said.
“Wasn’t even a twinkle in the tinkle,” Natalie added.
“Peter Swanson was a well-known philanthropist—entertained many of the old stars of Hollywood at the estate. I helped out on the case. Mrs. Swanson was kind enough to allow me to live here when I retired. I do a little caretaking and security work. The years have taken their toll on her.”
Kramer poured us some iced tea, and set a bowl of water out for Bernie. After taking a seat in one of the wicker chairs, I motioned to the canvas and oil paints set up at the corner of the patio. The faint outline of something had been sketched.
“I see you’re an artist,” I said.
“More of a finder,” Kramer said, settling into a chair across from us. “I wait until an image finds me. Then I try to be true to it. It’s not unlike being a cop in some ways. You wait for a crime to find you and try to be true to the people involved.” Kramer looked across the rolling grounds, maybe reflecting on something.
“As I mentioned when I called,” I said after a beat, “Charlie Winkler thought you might remember something about the disappearance of a man named John Carmichael back in the 1980s.”
Kramer sipped his tea. “Tell me, how is Charlie?”
“Surviving. I worry about his health. Doesn’t eat right. He’s also trying to raise his teenage daughter by himself. A bit of a stress case.”
“Charlie’s a good man. Tries to do right by people.” Kramer took another sip of tea. “John Carmichael was murdered, if you want my opinion. Went missing back in 1984. I was a rookie cop at the time, but as I recall there was some speculation that foul play was involved. I think he had something to do with the movie industry.”
“A wannabe filmmaker,” Natalie chimed in. She turned to me. “Sorry, I’ve been like a horse with a bit since you asked for me help.”
“Our interest in this is confidential, not official,” I told Kramer. I nodded toward my friend. “Natalie’s done a little research.”
“John Carmichael owned a small studio,” Natalie said. “As far as I can determine, he worked on some advertisements for the telly but wanted to eventually make flicks. He made the rent by doing some fighting work.”
“Fighting?”
“You know those big guys that wear undies and prance around.”
I drew a blank.
“You mean wrestling?” Kramer asked.
“That’s it. Throw each other around and scream. It’s mostly actin’ if you want me two cents.”
“All the world’s a stage,” Kramer said.
I had the impression the retired detective already liked Natalie. But who doesn’t?
Natalie went on, “Carmichael was the guy behind the fighters who set up the shows.”
“A promoter,” I said.
“Yes, but strictly small time. I spoke to a lad who knew him back then. Said Carmichael was a lager boy, always looking for a good time. Looks like he musta poked the privates, but there’s no record of a marriage to Cassie’s mother or that he even paid child support.”
“Any idea if her mother’s still alive?” I asked.
Natalie shook her head. “Her birth mum was a lady named Gloria Stallings. I’m doing some more snoopin’, trying to find out if she’s around. Not gettin’ anywhere on the wires.”
“The Internet,” I explained for Kramer’s benefit.
“That’s a good start,” I said. “Thanks Nat.” I turned to Kramer. “So you remember the Carmichael case. I’m surprised.”
“Before I made detective, I made it a point to keep up on things. A guy in my shoes had to prove himself.”
“Charlie told me that I’d be talking to a living legend.”
Kramer waved a hand. “Just a survivor, lucky enough to have gotten a few promotions in between the riots, assassinations, homicides, and the general pillaging and plundering that goes on in society.”
During the next few minutes, Natalie and I were enthralled by the story of Pearl Kramer’s thirty years with the LAPD, how he’d worked his way up from a beat cop in the early eighties to chief of the Hollywood Division Detective Bureau where he retired.
“Lots of history in the city, even before I became a cop,” Pearl said. “Worked with some old-timers who had stories about the Marilyn Monroe suicide, the Watts riots, the Bobby Kennedy assassination, even a guy named Charlie Manson. It was never boring.”
“Blimey,” Natalie said. “I’d like to hear about Marilyn sometime. I heard the president once did the wick dip with the old girl.”
I said to Kramer, “Do you have any idea whatever came of the investigation into John Carmichael’s death?”
Kramer set his drink down. “The detectives working the case closed it a few weeks after his disappearance. I made a point of asking about it and was told to butt out.”
“You think there was some kind of cover up?”
“I think that, without a body, it made it easy to close a case that was only a missing person investigation.” He stroked his chin. “There was also a different standard in those days.”
“You said earlier that you think Carmichael was murdered.”
“Guy disappears under suspicious circumstances. Case gets closed without much of an investigation. Thirty years later his daughter calls a cop, says she knows what happened. She ends up dead. Cop she called gets framed.” The retired detective looked from me to Natalie. “What do you ladies think?”
Natalie clapped her hands. “I think we’ve gotta mega-mystery.”
Kramer somehow knew all about our case. “You must have talked to Charlie.”
He exposed a gap in his front teeth when he smiled. “Jack. He called a few minutes after you did. Said he doesn’t want you involved.”
“Jack and Charlie are a royal pain.” I removed a photograph from my purse and handed it to Kramer. “This isn’t just about Jack Bautista, Mr. Kramer.”
“Pearl,” he said, taking the photograph of Cassie Reynolds.
“It’s from one of those websites that offers classmate photographs. It was taken during Cassie’s senior year in high school.”
Natalie stood up and examined the photograph over Pearl’s shoulder. There was something sad and haunting in the image. Cassie’s smile seemed posed, in the manner of a child who turns up her lips without the smile ever reaching her eyes.
“It’s about what you told us earlier,” I said. “Sometimes a crime finds you and you try to be true to the people involved.”
Pearl handed back the photograph. “Cassie Reynolds was a beautiful young girl.” He checked his watch. “Afraid I have to be somewhere twenty minutes ago.”
We followed him back to my car. After I let Bernie into the backseat, Pearl opened the doors for us. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Detective.”
He turned to Natalie who was still beaming with enthusiasm. “This crime has waited thirty years to find all of us. Now, it’s our turn to be true to the people left behind.”
“Brilliant,” Natalie said. “I’m ready to go Miss Marple on the maggot who murdered Cassie Reynolds.”
Nathan Kane sits in a chair across from the psychiatrist. The blue-and-white office furnishings compliment the red border on the wall in Marsha Wentworth’s office.
It looks like the state hired an interior decorator. Everything matches. Maybe he’s supposed to appreciate the patriotic décor, join the fucking army when he gets out and fight for the country that locked him up.
Wentworth has been careful. No photographs of her husband or daughter are on the shelves. There isn’t anything that reveals a hobby or interest on her desk. Nothing shows that the psychiatrist has a life outside the prison walls. Kane knows that isn’t true. He’s seen her diamond ring, knows she’s married and has a daughter.
It’s been forty-eight hours since he last received an update on Jack Bautista. The wanted detective is still on the run. If Cassie Reynolds talked to the cop, things could begin to unravel. When he gets out of prison, there will be no choice but to take matters into his own hands—if the detective is still alive.
There’s also the matter of the female cop who’s been interfering. He knows Bautista called her. Sexton has to be watched closely; kept out of the way.
There’s no way he’s going to let a thirty-year-old secret put his freedom in jeopardy. But first there’s another issue on his agenda.
Kane shifts in his chair. The psychiatrist looks up, observing his symptoms: constant impaired swallowing, choking on excess saliva, uncontrolled sweating, tremors in his hands and feet. There’s also his soft whispery voice that sometimes answers her questions in a confused, incoherent manner.
After observing twenty minutes of the charade, Dr. Wentworth runs a hand through her long brown hair and shakes her head.
“I’m afraid I’m just not convinced, Mr. Kane.” She pauses and then turns a page in the thick file next to his medical records. “And there’s also the matter of your criminal record. The law requires that I balance the risk of your release against your medical incapacitation.” She closes the file. “It isn’t your adult record that bothers me so much, although your crime was serious and violent. It’s your delinquency record as a child that I’m concerned about.”
Kane almost laughs out loud. He’s in his late fifties and the shrink is concerned about something that happened when he was a kid? How much do they pay these idiots?
“When you were thirteen,” Wentworth continues, “your parents were killed by an intruder. You went to live with your aunt and uncle. They had a dog.”
Something inside the convicted killer stirs—a memory almost forgotten. He suppresses a smile.
“According to the reports, you were involved in some cruelty resulting in the dog’s death.”
Fucking animal lover. That’s all he needs.
“Your aunt and uncle informed the police that they came home one evening and found that their golden retriever’s fur had been shaved off.”
The suggestion of a smile forms on the patient’s lips. His dark features are dim, his breath coming in short hard gasps as the memory surfaces.
“When they found the dog, they realized that you had also removed the animal’s skin.” The psychiatrist pitches forward, tries to make eye contact. “You skinned the dog while he was alive and then removed his sexual organs.”
Kane’s eyes sweep over her, glimpsing the horror in her eyes.
“That act was followed by several others over the years, just as inhumane and deviant.”
He considers this with detached amusement, remembering what had begun with animals until he graduated to neighborhood kids and a couple of strangers. He feels himself getting hard.
“It’s been my experience, Mr. Kane, that acts involving sexual violence are never easily treated. They require years of professional help. Your files show that you received only minimal interventions and incarceration for your actions.”
The psychiatrist studies him again. “In my professional opinion, given your history, you may still be a threat to the community if you are not incarcerated. I’m also not convinced your medical symptoms are consistent with a severe enough incapacitation to merit release. I’m going to recommend your parole be denied.”
What has been only a hint of a smile widens. It begins to spread to Kane’s dark features. His granite eyes blink, the pupils narrowing as his gaze comes up to hers. When he speaks, his husky, labored voice is barely audible.
“In the drawer…behind you.”
The psychiatrist is startled by his sudden statement. “I’m afraid I don’t understand?”
He loves the confusion, the dawning realization that she’s been right about him. Would it later be any consolation? Probably not.
Kane raises his voice a notch, the heavy, labored tone that he’s practiced for months now clearing. “In the cabinet, Dr. Wentworth. Bottom drawer on the right.”
He sees the anxiety rising behind her eyes. Will she go for the panic alarm around her neck? No. He sees that she has the need to know.
The psychiatrist swivels in her chair and opens the filing cabinet. A horrified gasp follows as she pushes her chair away and moves her hand up to set off the alarm.
It’s too late.
“Finally,” Kane says, rising and grabbing her arm, twisting it away from the alarm button. “I think we’re beginning to make some progress, Doctor.”
Behind the attractive psychiatrist, the drawer in the blue lacquered filing cabinet is still open. Kane knows she recognizes the dress and lacy white panties. The good doctor probably made the purchases as part of her daughter’s school clothes wardrobe.
Dr. Wentworth looks into her patient’s eyes as he pins her to the wall, her voice now shrill and pleading, “Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”
He takes the panic alarm from around her neck and places it on the desk. He pulls her over to the cabinet, reaches down and removes the child’s clothing, turning the blue-and-white checkered dress over.
The killer puts a hand up, covering Marsha Wentworth’s mouth and stifling a scream. Her daughter’s dress is covered with blood.