What looked like the entire in-station contingent was crammed into a short corridor inset with interrogation cubicles, every man straining for a look through the one-way glass of the middle room on the left side. Russ Millard’s voice was coming out of a wall-mounted speaker: smooth, coaxing.
I nudged the officer nearest to me. “Has he confessed?”
The man shook his head. “No. Millard and his partner are giving him the Mutt and Jeff.”
“Did he admit knowing the girl?”
“Yeah. We got him from the DMV cross-checks, and he came along peacefully. Wanna make a little bet? Innocent or guilty, take your pick. I’m feelin’ lucky today.”
I ignored the offer, gently elbowed my way up to the glass and peered in. Millard was seated at a battered wooden table, a handsome young guy with a carrot-hued pompadour across from him fingering a pack of cigarettes. He looked scared shitless; Millard looked like the nice-guy priest in the movies—the one who’s seen it all and granted absolution for the whole enchilada.
Carrot top’s voice came over the speaker. “Please, I’ve told it three times now.”
Millard said, “Robert, we’re doing this because you didn’t come forward. Betty Short has been on the front page of every LA newspaper for three days now, and you knew we wanted to talk to you. But you hid out. How do you think that looks?”
Robert ‘Red’ Manley lit a cigarette, inhaled and coughed. “I didn’t want my wife to know I was chipping on her.”
“But you didn’t chip on her. Betty wouldn’t put out. She cock-teased you and didn’t come across. That’s no reason to hide from the police.”
“I dated her down in Dago. I danced slow dances with her. It’s the same thing as chipping.”
Millard put a hand on Manley’s arm. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Tell me how you met Betty, what you did, what you talked about. Take your time, nobody’s rushing you.”
Manley stubbed out his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, lit another one and wiped sweat from his brow. I looked around the corridor and saw Ellis Loew leaning against the opposite wall, Vogel and Koenig flanking him like twin dogs awaiting the command to attack. A static-filtered sigh came over the loudspeaker; I turned back and watched the suspect squirm in his chair. “And this is the last time I’ll have to tell it?”
Millard smiled. “That’s right. Go ahead, son.” Manley got up and stretched, then paced as he talked. “I met Betty the week before Christmas, at this bar in downtown Dago. We just started gabbing, and Betty let it slip that she was sort of on her uppers, staying with this woman Mrs. French and her daughter, sort of temporarily. I bought her dinner at an Italian joint in Old Town, then we went dancing at the Sky Room at the El Cortez Hotel. We—”
Millard interrupted. “Do you always chase tail when you’re out of town on business?”
Manley shouted, “I wasn’t chasing tail!”
“What were you doing, then?”
“I was infatuated, that’s all. I couldn’t tell if Betty was a gold digger or a nice girl, and I wanted to find out. I wanted to test my loyalty to my wife and I just…”
Manley’s voice died down; Millard said, “Son, for God’s sake tell the truth. You were looking for some pussy, right?”
Manley slumped into his chair. “Right.”
“Just like you always do on business trips, right?”
“No! Betty was different!”
“How was she different? Out-of-town stuff is out-of-town stuff, right?”
“No! I don’t chip on my wife when I’m on the road! Betty was just…”
Millard’s voice was so low that the loudspeaker barely picked it up. “Betty just set you off. Right?”
“Right.”
“Made you want to do things you’d never done before, made you mad, made you—”
“No! No! I wanted to fuck her, I didn’t want to hurt her!”
“Sssh. Sssh. Let’s go back to Christmastime. You had that first date with Betty. Did you kiss her good night?”
Manley gripped the ashtray with both hands; they shook, butts spilled onto the table. “On the cheek.”
“Come on, Red. No heavy pass?”
“No.”
“You had a second date with Betty two days before Christmas, right?”
“Right.”
“More dancing at the El Cortez, right?”
“Right.”
“Soft lights, drinks, soft music, then you made your move, right?”
“Goddamn you, quit saying ‘Right’! I tried to kiss Betty and she gave me this song and dance about how she couldn’t sleep with me because the father of her child had to be a war hero and I was only in the army band. She was goddamn nuts on the subject! All she did was talk about these horseshit war heros!”
Millard stood up. “Why do you say ‘horseshit,’ Red?”
“Because I knew they were lies. Betty said she was married to this guy and engaged to that guy, and I knew she was trying to make me look small because I never saw combat.”
“Did she mention any names?”
“No, just ranks. Major this and Captain that, like I should be ashamed of being a corporal.”
“Did you hate her for it?”
“No! Don’t put words in my mouth!”
Millard stretched and sat down. “After that second date, when was the next time you saw Betty?”
Manley sighed and rested his forehead on the table. “I’ve told you the whole story three times.”
“Son, the sooner you tell it again, the sooner you’ll be able to go home.”
Manley shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “After the second date I didn’t hear from Betty until January eighth, when I got this telegram at my office. The telegram said she’d like to see me when I made my next sales run down to Dago. I wired back, saying I had to be in Dago tomorrow afternoon, and I’d pick her up. Then I picked her up, and she begged me to drive her up to LA. I said—”
Millard held up a hand. “Did Betty say why she had to get to LA?”
“No.”
“Did she say she was meeting somebody?”
“No.”
“You agreed to do it because you thought she’d put out for you?”
Manley sighed. “Yes.”
“Go ahead, son.”
“I took Betty with me on my rounds that day. She stayed in the car while I called on customers. I had some calls in Oceanside the next morning, so we spent the night in a motel there, and—”
“Let’s have the name of the place again, son.”
“It was called the Cornucopia Motor Lodge.”
“And Betty CT’d you again that night?”
“She… she said she had her period.”
“And you fell for that old chestnut?”
“Yes.”
“Did it make you mad?”
“Goddamn it, I didn’t kill her!”
“Sssh. You slept in the chair and Betty slept on the bed, right?”
“Right.”
“And in the morning?”
“In the morning we drove up to LA. Betty went with me on my rounds and tried to float me for a five-spot, but I turned her down. Then she handed me a cock-and-bull story about meeting her sister in front of the Biltmore Hotel. I wanted to get rid of her, so I dropped her in front of the Biltmore that night, right around five o’clock. And I never saw her again, except for all that Dahlia stuff in the papers.”
Millard said, “That was five o’clock, Friday, January tenth when you last saw her?”
Manley nodded. Millard looked straight at the glass, adjusted the knot of his necktie, then stepped outside. In the corridor, officers swarmed him, hurling questions. Harry Sears slipped into the room; next to me a familiar voice rose above the commotion. “Now you’ll see why Russ keeps Harry around.”
It was Lee, grinning a shit-eating grin, looking like a million tax-free dollars. I cuffed him around the neck. “Welcome back to earth.”
Lee cuffed me back. “It’s your fault I look this good. Right after you left, Kay slipped me a Mickey Finn, some stuff she got at the drugstore. I slept seventeen hours, got up and ate like a horse.”
“Your own goddamn fault for bankrolling her chemistry classes. What do you think of Red?”
“A pussy hound at worst, a divorced pussy hound by the end of the week. You agree?”