Silent Murders (18 page)

“You, on the other hand, are likely to get a visit soon from your favorite detectives.”

“Oh?”

“Your fingerprints were found all over Miss Frankel’s apartment, specifically her desk. After you told us you hadn’t touched anything.”

I had been ready for that one ever since I’d been arrested and fingerprinted. I had lied with confidence at the time because I knew my fingerprints weren’t on file, so there would be no match for the prints found on Esther’s desk. Once that comforting anonymity was lost, I figured someone would match me up eventually and notice the discrepancy between what I had said and what I had done.

“I guess I forgot about looking for a telephone. It was after I found Esther. I did a quick look around the apartment, thinking she might have a telephone—”

“You searched her desk?”

“Some people keep telephones in their desks.”

“Really?”

This wasn’t going the way I’d planned. “Yes, really.” It was quite adept as explanations went, and his skepticism offended me. Carl didn’t reply, he just gazed steadily at me with those big brown eyes that looked like they could see a long way into things, past the surface and into the underneath parts, letting me know he knew I was lying. Affronted, I excused myself and moved away without picking up anything useful.

Myrna cut her scene and joined me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Nothing to it. Look around. There are more reporters than mourners.”

“Well, we’re early…”

I spotted Lottie Pickford near the coffin. She had hidden her face behind a dramatic black veil, but her theatrical gestures gave her away, at least to those who knew her. Mary Pickford was beside her. She hadn’t come out of love for Heilmann, but for her sister. Like Lottie, she wore an ankle-length black dress and a hat with a net veil, and like Lottie, she wasn’t fooling anyone. Her size would always give her away.

A few men stood near the two women. One was David Carr, looking impossibly handsome in a severe black suit of excellent cut. On the other side of Miss Pickford stood a man as tall as David and every bit as handsome, but twice his age, with short, dark hair flecked with gray, thin lips, and steely eyes. With a jolt, I realized it had to be Adolph Zukor, Heilmann’s employer and the most powerful businessman in Hollywood. I had never seen him, but I had heard that Mary Pickford used to work for him when she first came to Hollywood, and, while they had their professional differences, they remained close personally. The third man hung back a little from the Pickfords, his eyes continually moving over the mourners and the larger group of reporters. The bodyguard.

My black dress had been too heavy for the warm day, so I wore a dark purple skirt with matching vest and jacket, a black hat, plain Mary Janes, and black gloves. Myrna and I moved a little to the side to take advantage of the shade of an old tree. The silence was such that we could hear the steady drone of bees attracted to the floral arrangements all around the gravesite. A young minister arrived in a black sedan and began shaking hands with the mourners. Probably looking for family members.

“The crowd looks very, very thin,” whispered Myrna.

“Douglas Fairbanks said Bruno Heilmann had no relatives in this country other than a stable of ex-wives, and not a lot of friends.”

“Hollywood friends,” she scoffed. “The sort who come to your parties but not your funeral.”

“To be fair, some of the people who were at his party Saturday have left town out of fear. They’re thinking some madman is on a killing spree, trying to eliminate anyone who saw him. After what happened yesterday morning at Paramount, I can’t say as I blame them.”

“You and I didn’t run away.”

“We aren’t in any danger. We left the party early.”

“Thank goodness for that! Hey, look. There’s my friend Coop.” She pointed as the tall young actor joined the group at the gravesite.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw David detach himself from the Pickfords and amble toward our shade. “Hello, ladies,” he said in a quiet voice, flashing his teeth at Myrna before turning to me for an introduction. After a polite exchange, he divulged his news. “The latest word on Faye Gordon is encouraging. She’s going to survive. One of the doctors from the hospital just told the Pickfords that Faye drank only a little of the poisoned coffee. He thought she’d be released soon.”

“I suppose she is swamped with flowers and well-wishers,” I said, trying to think of a way I could talk with her. But having attended the same dinner party didn’t make me a friend. “I wonder if she had any information for the police that would help their investigation.”

“The police have questioned her, of course, but she isn’t seeing visitors. Even Mary Pickford was turned away at the hospital. Seems Faye doesn’t want anyone to see her without her hair arranged and her makeup fresh. You know what they say: no one in Hollywood has birthday parties.”

“Oh, that’s silly,” said Myrna.

“Not if you’re worried about the wrinkles showing. Mary understood,” continued David. “She sent her own maid over to the hospital with her own makeup kit so Faye could look her best when she is discharged tomorrow. You know there will be a crowd of photographers waiting for her, and one unglamorous picture can sink a career.”

“How thoughtful of Miss Pickford,” I said, wondering whether I had the effrontery to call on Faye at her home with some flowers or a casserole. I could always say I was there on behalf of Pickford-Fairbanks Studio. It was somewhat true.

“I hope the police are close to catching the killer,” said Myrna. “Who could do such monstrous things? It’s awful knowing that someone at that party—someone I might have talked to—is a murderer.” She punched her palm with her fist. “They’ve just
got
to catch him!”

“And quickly,” agreed David. “Before he gets to anyone else.”

“I’ve been thinking…” I began. “What if the killer isn’t someone we know? What if he wasn’t a guest at the party?”

David looked at me sharply. “What do you mean? You think it was someone hiding outside until everyone had gone home?”

“Possibly. But here’s what’s bothering me. No one heard the gunshot. The police asked the neighbors and no one heard a thing.”

“They were all probably asleep,” said Myrna.

“The Cisneros brothers weren’t asleep. They were outside behind the house, loading up the catering truck when Esther joined them. She had to have left the house just about when the killer fired the gun, yet she didn’t say anything to them about hearing a gunshot. Of course, she was hard of hearing, but when I asked the Cisneroses about it, they’d heard nothing, either.”

“Maybe they drove away and then the shot was fired,” said Myrna.

I shook my head. “Possible, but not likely. If the killer had waited until after the truck left to fire, he wouldn’t have had time to get to his car and follow them. And another thing. The killer shot Bruno once in the back of the head, and from a distance—I had this from Carl Delaney, that officer, over there. I keep thinking about that: one long-distance shot. That no one heard.” I looked pointedly at David.

He followed my thoughts. “You think the killer used a silencer.”

“And that he was a crack shot. Put those together and what do you have?”

“A torpedo.”

“A what?” asked Myrna.

“A hired killer,” explained David. “A paid professional. The sort who would carry a Maxim silencer. Those things don’t really silence, you know. There’s still a sharp noise, but it doesn’t carry very far.” The voice of experience.

“So some jilted girl or angry husband hired a killer?” asked Myrna.

“That’s possible,” I said. “Shhh. The service is starting.”

I put my hand on David’s arm to hold him back as Myrna moved toward the tent. “There’s something else,” I whispered, “but I don’t want to worry Myrna about it.”

“After the service,” he replied.

The minister opened his prayer book. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

22

Ministers are fine people to have at funerals. They can come up with nice things to say about anybody. The good reverend earned his pay that day, waxing eloquent on the noble life of a man he had never met, a man who, by all accounts, had done nothing more laudable than to create some first-quality pictures. A thin legacy, in my book. My gaze wandered from face to face, finding few that looked familiar. The majority of the mourners were the actors and cameramen who had been working with Heilmann on his last picture, a picture that was now stalled until Zukor could find a director with an undersized ego who would agree to finish another man’s work. A tall order.

After twenty minutes, a splendid coffin bearing the remains of Bruno Heilmann was lowered into the ground with ropes, and the minister threw in the first handful of earth. Some of the more publicity-hungry mourners went over to the reporters to offer quotations for tomorrow’s papers. The photographers fiddled with their flashes, waiting for the police to allow them access to the gravesite. Adolph Zukor escorted the Pickford ladies to their Rolls-Royce. When I saw Myrna engaged in conversation with her hometown friend, Gary Cooper, I seized the opportunity to pull David aside. I needed an expert.

“Look here, David. What if the motive wasn’t jealousy or revenge, like the police think, but dope? I saw some at his house. In an upstairs bedroom.”

“What sort?”

“I think it was mostly heroin and morphine, maybe some cocaine, too.”

“So what? All the parties around here serve dope.”

“But there was a lot of it. Drawers full. Big bundles, wrapped in blue paper. More than you would need for a hundred parties. And Douglas mentioned once that he thought Bruno was supplying Wallace Reid. You remember him?”

“The actor? Sure, I saw a few of his flicks. He died a couple years ago. It was in all the papers. Morphine, wasn’t it? Everyone was shocked to learn handsome Wallace Reid was a hophead.”

“What if Bruno’s death involved dope? What if some hired gangster killed him for that?”

“Sounds likely. I’m sure the police are investigating all leads.”

I winced. “No they’re not. They don’t know about the blue packages in the guest room. I asked Carl Delaney yesterday and he said there was nothing in the report about packages of dope, just that there were some traces around the house.”

“So let me get this straight. You think a hired killer shot Heilmann with a silencer, searched the house, found the dope, took it, then followed the caterers to your friend’s house and killed her?”

“No, the killer didn’t take anything. He may have meant to, but he wouldn’t have had time to search once Esther had seen his face. He had to shoot and leave fast to follow her home.”

“Maybe he came back after he’d killed Esther.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. A neighbor saw him leave Esther’s, and it wasn’t until the next morning. And he went straight to the train station.”

“Then why didn’t the police find the dope the next morning when they found the body?”

“The policemen who came first to the house didn’t do a thorough search, you know, for fingerprints and traces of drugs and clues like that. Nowadays, they divide up the work and evidently that’s a detective’s job. I learned that from Esther’s death. Two detectives came by Heilmann’s later and searched the whole house, took fingerprints, that sort of thing. I think they found it—”

“And kept it for themselves. Happens all the time. That’s why it didn’t make the official police report. And so the investigators don’t know to look for a torpedo.”

“Right.”

“One thing I don’t get. What makes you so sure the stuff was found by the detectives and not by the policemen who got there first?”

I’ll say one thing for David—he isn’t slow-witted.

“That’s a little hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“I, well, I went into the house after the cops had left so I could … well, to get some things from upstairs that belonged to Lottie, so the police wouldn’t find them, so they wouldn’t link Bruno’s murder to Lottie. Because, really, Lottie didn’t do it. I’m certain of that. The detectives hadn’t arrived yet, and the body was still downstairs. I wasn’t looking for dope; I was checking quickly in each bedroom to make sure Lottie hadn’t left anything there, and that’s when I saw it. I have no idea how much. There were drawers full of the stuff, pounds and pounds of it.”

“You broke in?”

“Well, I didn’t actually
break
anything…”

“I can’t believe the cops left the house unlocked!”

“They didn’t. They just left the second-story windows open, and I climbed up a tree next to a rear window.”

“There were no guards?” he asked incredulously.

“One, but he stayed out front.”

“Jesus Christ! You did that for Lot— No, of course not. You did it for Doug and Mary.” He was quiet for a while and I waited. Suddenly he chuckled. “Sure would be fun to let the police chief know about this and watch a couple detectives twist in the wind, but…” He sighed. “Hell, for all you know, the chief’s in on it, too, and they’d cover it up. You’d get worse than they would. In fact, you’d be in serious danger, knowing what you know. Nope, there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut.”

Except find the killer myself. I was the only one who knew where to look.

“There’s more. On Sunday afternoon, outside Esther’s apartment, the police asked bystanders if they saw anything suspicious during the night. One old man said he saw a stranger with a droopy mouth come out of the building around six, when he let his dog out. The cops weren’t interested since Esther was killed in the middle of the night, not in the morning, and murderers don’t typically hang around after killing someone. But it struck me as odd that no one in the crowd commented on the old man’s remark.” David looked puzzled, so I explained. “There were quite a few people gathered around, maybe three dozen, and when the old man described a stranger with a droopy mouth, no one said, ‘Oh, that’s just Hank,’ or anything like that. It seems to me that a man with a droopy mouth is pretty memorable, and that someone living on the block would have known if a man with a droopy mouth lived around there and would have spoken up. But no one did.”