Silent Murders (34 page)

“Lookahere, dearie.” The nurse breezed in again, bursting with importance. “Look who I brought.” Close behind her came Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, each carrying an armful of flowers. “My, my. Who’d’ve thought I’d be showing Mr. Fairbanks and Miss Pickford themselves in to visit one of my patients! What a day! What a day!” Douglas made her a courtly bow in acknowledgment, bringing a bright red patch to each round cheek.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our own Girl Detective,” said Douglas. “Looking swell, I’m glad to see. Now, Nurse, might you have something to put these in?”

“Oh, my, yes, Mr. Fairbanks. Right away. I’ll run find a vase. Or two … or maybe three…”

“My first thought was for roses. Pink, I said to myself. Jessie’s a pink sort of girl. But Mary here, Mary said asters suited Jessie better. Matched her pretty eyes. So rather than fight it out, we compromised and brought both.”

I smiled. How typical. The king and queen would both get what they wanted. As always.

“Oh, Douglas, you do go on,” Miss Pickford protested. “Jessie, dear, how are you?”

“I’m fine. Truly I am. I wanted to go home last night after the doctor set my hand, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted I spend the night. ‘Just to make sure,’ he said. And the police were there to back him up, so I had to give in.”

“I’ll send our driver to bring you home as soon as you’re released,” said Douglas.

David answered for me. “That’s good of you, but I can drive Jessie home. I’m staying until the doctor comes.”

Douglas laid a morning paper beside me. “There’s nothing in here about last night’s adventure, but I thought this might help you pass the time. The afternoon papers will have the story, or at least a version of it. Zukor and I talked last night and squared it with the police chief, so what went out to the press this morning is pretty tame.”

“What’s the story?”

“You don’t figure in it much,” he said. “Neither do I, thank God. Faye was insane—that’s indisputable. They’re saying she became despondent over some casting disappointments and Corrigan’s murder and drove up to the Hollywoodland sign to kill herself. The police were unable to prevent her death.”

“But she murdered Paul Corrigan and Lorna McCall!”

“The public already believes they were done in by Johnnie Salazar. He’s dead. Now Faye’s dead. There can’t be any trials, so what’s the point? Both of them were murderers—does it really matter who killed whom? No one’s getting off scot-free to kill again. Zukor convinced the chief that it was a tidy solution, one that’s fair yet does no harm to the film industry.”

“But all those policemen know I was up there at the sign with her.”

“If that comes out, you were a friend trying to talk her out of suicide.”

There were no other holes I could see in the story. It harmed no one and kept scandal away from the Pickfords. It wasn’t very satisfying, but I had to agree it was the best solution for all concerned, under the circumstances.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand … how did Faye catch on to my trip to Bakersfield yesterday?”

“Oh, my dear, that was all my fault,” said Miss Pickford, her smooth brow wrinkling with distress. “I’m so ashamed; I’ll never forgive myself.”

Douglas patted her hand. “Nonsense, the blame is all mine. When Faye reported to Paramount yesterday morning, one of the secretaries asked her whether she was being considered for a part in a Fairbanks picture. Of course, Faye didn’t know what the woman was talking about. The secretary told her I had just sent my red-haired assistant—you—over to pick up one of her publicity photos, so naturally she concluded that Faye was in the running for something. Faye knew better. She knew you and I were pursuing our own little investigation into these murders, and she must have felt us coming too close to the truth. She telephoned the studio and asked for you. No one knew where you were.”

“So Faye called me next,” said Miss Pickford. “She said it was important that she get in touch with you, something about the murders that you needed to know right away. And Douglas had mentioned to me that you were out of town on an errand for him in Bakersfield and wouldn’t be back until evening. When she heard that, she put two and two together and knew exactly what you were doing. Douglas hadn’t told me what your errand was, so I didn’t know not to tell Faye.”

“My mistake, darling. I didn’t want to upset you about Faye until we were certain.”

“You mustn’t be so protective of me, Duber,” she chided. He gave her a look more tender than any I’d seen on the silver screen.

“Faye was waiting for me in the depot when I got home. She couldn’t have known which train I would take, so she must have met every one from Bakersfield that afternoon. After she made her chocolate-covered cherries.”

Miss Pickford shivered. “That was despicable. She truly was insane.”

“I’m so glad the warning came in time.”

“To be honest,” said Douglas, “we didn’t even know the chocolates were in the house. When Officer Jackson called, I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.”

“Thank goodness no one ate any,” I said. “When I asked the doctor last night if eating cocaine could kill you, he told me it could cause a heart attack and death, but he didn’t know how much it would take.”

“Well, I’m very glad we won’t be finding out.”

The nurse interrupted with some aspirin and another visitor.

“Hi, Jessie—oh, gosh, Mist—I mean, hello Mr. Fairbanks. Miss Pickford. Good morning. And Mr. Carr. Geez Louise, you don’t need any more visitors, I’ll just—”

“You’re Jessie’s friend, aren’t you?” asked Miss Pickford. “I remember you from the Heilmann party. What was your name, my dear?”

“Myrna Wi—Myrna Loy. That is, it’s really Williams, but I’ve changed it … just recently.”

“Very melodic. A wise choice, my dear. And now, Douglas, we should be going before we overtire Jessie.” And after insisting I not come back to work until thoroughly rested, they took their leave.

“Gosh, Mary Pickford liked my name! It really must be a very good choice, huh? Oh, by the way, Melva and Lillian sent you their love and said they’re coming by after work with Helen to see you.”

“With any luck, I’ll see them at home before that. The doctor is bound to release me shortly.”

“What happened?”

I shot David a look. No time like the present to try on the official story. In short order, I told Myrna that I had followed Faye into the hills to talk her out of suicide and failed. I explained my injuries as a fall. She would read something like that in the newspapers this afternoon and tomorrow morning.

“I’m so glad you aren’t badly hurt. And guess what? I have divine news!”

“You got a break?”

“They called me back for a part in
What Price Beauty?
” she said, jiggling with excitement. It was as if Saturday’s events at the train depot had been nothing more alarming than a stage play. “Natacha Rambova remembered me from the test I did with her husband—the one where Valentino said I was too young, remember? And she thought of me for this picture.”

“Congratulations!” said David warmly. “You’re on your way.”

“It isn’t a big part, mind you. Just one scene, actually. A dream sequence. Natacha says I’ll be an intellectual type of vamp without race or creed or country. Sounds thrilling, doesn’t it?”

David and I professed ourselves thrilled just as the nurse came in with a tray of chicken and mashed potatoes. As I forked through my food, Mildred Young arrived on the scene carrying a potted begonia. “Gracious, it looks like a florist shop in here,” she exclaimed. “And voilà, the gifts of the magi,” she said as Pauline Cox and two grips from the
Son of Zorro
production team came down the hall bearing large boxes of candy.

Just as long as there were no chocolate-covered cherries
.

44

From the
Los Angeles Times,
April 24, 1925

HOLLYWOOD KILLER

STRIKES FROM THE GRAVE!

Actress Faye Gordon leaps to her death

Couldn’t live without love

Miss Faye Gordon, an actress well known to Hollywood, took her own life on the night of April 22 in a dramatic leap off the highest point of the Hollywoodland sign on Mount Lee. Falling 50 feet to instant death, Miss Gordon was pronounced dead of a broken neck at the scene. Police were summoned to the site by a longtime friend of the actress, Miss Jessie Beckett, an employee of Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, who had tried unsuccessfully to dissuade her from senseless self-destruction.

Friends of the late actress attributed her acute despondency to last week’s death of her fiancé, Paul Corrigan, one of the victims of the Hollywood Killer, Johnnie Salazar. The ruthless gangster and drug smuggler poisoned both Corrigan and Miss Gordon while they were in the Paramount Studios, although the latter consumed too small an amount of the poison to harm her at that time.

Mr. Adolph Zukor of Paramount Studios expressed profound sadness at learning of Miss Gordon’s suicide and immediately announced a donation to the Immaculate Heart School in her name. “We all grieve for Faye. She was a fine actress and friend to many and will be sorely missed. In the final analysis, she could not face life without her beloved Paul, so in that sense, she was a posthumous victim of the Hollywood Killer.” Miss Beckett could not be reached for further comment.

Blond, vivacious, and intelligent, Miss Gordon had played a variety of roles, including most recently:
Right to Love, Enchantment, The Last Payment, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, Java Head, A Sainted Devil,
and
Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall.
At the time of her demise, she was acting in Paramount’s
Cobra,
staring Rudolph Valentino and Nita Naldi, directed by Joseph Henabery.

Miss Gordon will be interred at the Hollywood Cemetery on Wednesday. She is survived by her mother, Mrs. Josephine Schlect of Bakersfield; her brother, Arnold Schlect, of Chicago; and two nephews. Miss Gordon was 36.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My special thanks to Dr. Mark Pugh, a pharmacist who helps me figure out historically appropriate ways to poison people; Donna Sheppard who, more than any teacher, taught me to write; Mike Shupe, the world’s best librarian and book sleuth, who can lay his hands on any obscure tome I request; Mark Young, an L.A. producer who reviewed the manuscript and improved my local references; John Hollis, for gun terminology and advice; Brooks Wachtel, a prolific Hollywood writer, producer, and director, for his advice on period filming techniques; and everyone in my very excellent writing critique groups: Vivian Lawry, Marilyn Mattys, Linda Thornburg, Susan Campbell, Kathy Mix, Sandie Warwick, Heather Weidner, Susan Edwards, Josh Cane, Tom Fuhrman, and Libby Hall.

I hope you enjoyed reading
Silent Murders
as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’d like to see what Jessie’s world of silent movies and Hollywood looks like, visit her Pinterest page at
www.pinterest.com/mmtheobald/jessies-world-silent-murders/
.

If you have any questions or comments on
Silent Murders
or any thoughts for future books, you can contact me through my Web site
www.marymileytheobald.com
, my Facebook page, or my Roaring Twenties blog
www.marymiley.wordpress.com
. I’ll be glad to let you know when the next in the series comes out.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Although this is clearly a work of fiction, I find that I, like most historians, am incapable of riding roughshod over historical fact. Fortunately, the detective work involved in research is as much fun as writing the story, so I don’t begrudge the amount of time I spend making sure the details and descriptions are as accurate as possible. To readers who wonder about such things, several of the main characters are real: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin were the foremost stars of their era. There are many excellent biographies written about them, as well as Mary Pickford’s autobiography,
Sunshine and Shadow
. Myrna Loy broke into pictures during this time, and all the details about her early life, including the story about the bird against the window and her posing for the statue in front of her high school, come from her autobiography,
Being and Becoming
. Her brief stint as Io in the mythology film is the only part of her story that is fictional, but pressuring young, inexperienced actresses into appearing in such films was standard fare for Hollywood. Mary Pickford’s brother, Jack, and his second wife, Marilyn Miller, were genuine stars, as was Lottie Pickford. While not as talented as their megastar sister, Jack, Lottie, and Marilyn were film personalities who partied hard and died young, probably from an excess of alcohol and drugs, and in Jack’s case, syphilis. Chaplin’s sixteen-year-old wife, Lita, also a budding actress, gave birth to sons in 1925 and 1926; the couple divorced the next year.

As often as I could, I used real characters, including Adolph Zukor, Ernst Lubitsch and his wife, Helene, Frank Richardson, Joseph Henabery, Zeppo Marx, Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, Rudolph Valentino, and the actual casts of the two silent movies being filmed in the spring of 1925:
Don Q, Son of Zorro
and
Little Annie Rooney
. Both are highly entertaining and available on DVD. All theaters, train stations, drugstores, restaurants (except Lucky’s), and hotels (except the Riordin) mentioned are real, and a few are still in existence today.

The early 1920s saw four sensational scandals erupt from Hollywood onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, three of which I mention in my story: the poisoning of Olive Thomas, Jack Pickford’s first wife, in Paris; Fatty Arbuckle’s trial and eventual acquittal for the rape and murder of a would-be actress; and leading man Wallace Reid’s death from drug addiction. These scandals ruined actors and studios alike and convinced an idealistic American public of Hollywood’s immorality. The threat of government censorship brought the motion picture industry to adopt self-censorship through the Hays Code, which prohibited a variety of topics, certain language, and anything sexual, until it was replaced in 1968 by a ratings system similar to the one we have today.