“No, but she was movie-struck in general.”
“Did she ever show you a movie viewfinder? A lens gadget on a chain?”
“No.”
“What about Linda? Did she talk about being in a movie?”
“No, just her hicktown sweetheart.”
“Do you have any idea where she’d go if she was on the lam?”
“Yes. Hicktown, Nebraska.”
“Besides there.”
“No. Can I—”
I touched Madeleine’s shoulder, more of a caress than a pat. “Yeah, tell me your alibi. Where were you and what were you doing from last Monday, January thirteenth, through to Wednesday the fifteenth.”
Madeleine cupped her hands to her mouth and blew a horn fanfare, then rested them on the seat by my knee. “I was at our house in Laguna from Sunday night through Thursday morning. Daddy and Mommy and sister Martha were there with me, and so were our live-in servants. If you want verification, call Daddy. Our number is Webster 4391. But be discreet. Don’t tell him where you met me. Now, do you have any other questions?”
My private Dahlia lead was blown, but it gave me the green light in another direction. “Yeah. You ever do it with men?”
Madeleine touched my knee. “I haven’t met any lately, but I’ll do it with you to keep my name out of the papers.”
My legs were Jell-O. “Tomorrow night?”
“All right. Pick me up at eight, like a gentleman. The address is 482 South Muirfield.”
“I know the address.”
“I’m not surprised. What’s your name?”
“Bucky Bleichert.”
Madeleine said, “It goes with your teeth.”
I said, “Eight o’clock,” and got out of the Packard while my legs could still function.
Chapter 11
Lee said, “You want to catch the fight films at the Wiltern tonight? They’re showing oldies—Dempsey, Ketchel, Greb. What do you say?”
We were sitting at desks across from each other in the University squadroom, manning telephones. The clerical flunkies assigned to the Short case had been given Sunday off, so regular field dicks were doing the drudge work, taking down tips, then writing out slips assessing the tipsters and routing possible follow-ups to the nearest detective division. We’d been at it for an hour without interruption, Kay’s “gutless” remark hanging between us. Looking at Lee, I saw that his eyes were just starting to pin, a sign that he was coming on to a fresh Benzie jolt. I said, “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got a date.”
Lee grinned-twitched. “Yeah? Who with?”
I changed the subject. “Did you smooth it out with Kay?”
“Yeah, I rented a room for my stuff. The El Nido Hotel, Santa Monica and Wilcox. Nine scoots a week, chump change if it makes her feel good.”
“De Witt gets out tomorrow, Lee. I think I should lean on him, maybe get Vogel and Koenig to do it.”
Lee kicked at a wastebasket. Paper wads and empty coffee cups flew out; heads darted up from other desks. Then his phone rang.
Lee picked it up. “Homicide, Sergeant Blanchard speaking.” I stared at my routing slips; Lee listened to his caller. Wednesday, Dahlia kiss-off time, came into focus as an eternity away, and I wondered if he’d need weaning off the Benzedrine. Madeleine Sprague jumped into my mind—her nine millionth jump since she said, “I’ll do it with you to keep my name out of the papers.” Lee had been on his call for a long time without interjecting comments or questions; I started wishing that my phone would ring and make Madeleine jump away.
Lee put down the receiver. I said, “Anything interesting?”
“Another loony. Who’s your date tonight?”
“A neighbor girl.”
“Nice girl?”
“A honey. Partner, if I find you hopped-up after Tuesday, it’s the Bleichert-Blanchard rematch.”
Lee gave me an outer space grin. “It’s Blanchard-Bleichert, and you’d lose again. I’m getting coffee. You want some?”
“Black, no sugar.”
“Coming up.”
I logged in a total of forty-six phone tips, about half of them reasonably coherent. Lee took off in the early afternoon, and Ellis Loew stuck me with the job of typing up Russ Millard’s new summary report. It stated that Red Manley had been released to his wife after conclusively passing lie detector and Pentothal tests, and that Betty Short’s love letters had been thoroughly gone through. A number of her swains had been ID’d and cleared as suspects, as had most of the guys who appeared in her photographs. Efforts to identify the remaining men were continuing, and the Camp Cooke MPs had called in with the word that the soldier who beat up Betty in ‘43 was killed in the Normandy Invasion. As for Betty’s many marriages and engagements, a forty-eight-state capital record check revealed that no marriage licenses had ever been issued to her.
The report went downhill from there. The license numbers that Lee had glommed from the window of Junior Nash’s fuck pad had yielded zero; over three hundred Dahlia sightings a day were flooding LAPD and Sheriff’s Department switchboards. There had been ninety-three phony confessions so far, with four seriously cracked loonies without alibis held at the Hall of Justice Jail, awaiting sanity hearings and probable shipment to Camarillo. Field interrogations were still going full speed—190 full-time men now on the case. The only ray of hope was the result of my 1/17 FI questionings: Linda Martin/Lorna Martilkova was spotted in a couple of Encino cocktail lounges, and a big push to grab her was being centered in that area. I finished up the typing job gut certain that Elizabeth Short’s killer was never going to be found, and put money on it—a double sawbuck on “Unsolved-pay 2 to 1” in the squadroom pool.
I rang the doorbell of the Sprague mansion at exactly 8:00. I was dressed in my best outfit—blue blazer, white shirt and gray flannels—and put money on myself as a fool for kowtowing to the surroundings—I’d be taking the clothes off as soon as Madeleine and I got to my place. The ten hours of phone work stuck with me despite the shower I’d taken at the station, I felt even more out of place than I should have and my left ear still ached from the barrage of Dahlia talk.
Madeleine opened the door, a knockout in a skirt and a tight cashmere sweater. She once-overed me, took my hand and said, “Look, I hate to pull this, but Daddy has heard about you. He insisted you stay for dinner. I told him we met at that art exhibit at Stanley Rose’s Bookshop, so if you have to pump everybody for my alibi, try to be subtle about it. All right?”
I said, “Sure,” let Madeleine link her arm through mine and lead me inside. The entrance foyer was as Spanish as the outside of the mansion was Tudor: tapestries and crossed wrought-iron swords on the whitewashed walls, thick Persian carpets over a polished wood floor. The foyer opened into a giant living room with a men’s club atmosphere—green leather chairs arranged around low tables and settees; huge stone fireplace; small Oriental throw rugs, multicolored, placed together at different angles, so that just the right amount of oak floor bordered them. The walls were cherrywood, and featured framed sepias of the family and their ancestors.
I noticed a stuffed spaniel poised by the fireplace with a yellowed newspaper rolled into its mouth. Madeleine said, “That’s Balto. The paper is the LA Times for August 1, 1926. That’s the day Daddy learned he’d made his first million. Balto was our pet then. Daddy’s accountant called up and said, ‘Emmett, you’re a millionaire!’ Daddy was cleaning his pistols, and Balto came in with the paper. Daddy wanted to consecrate the moment, so he shot him. If you look closely, you can see the bullet hole in his chest. Hold your breath, lovey. Here’s the family.”