Loew hissed, “Bleichert, shut up,” then turned his velvet rage on Lee: “Blanchard, I got you Warrants. You’re my man, and you made me look like a fool in front of the two most powerful men in the Department. This is no lesbian killing, those girls were on drugs and hated it. Now I covered for you with Horrall and Green, but I don’t know how much good that will do you in the long run. If you weren’t Mr. Fire, Big Lee Blanchard, you’d be suspended from duty already. You’ve gotten personally involved in the Short case, and that’s an unprofessionalism I will not tolerate. You’re back on Warrants duty as of tomorrow morning. Report to me at 0800, and bring in formal letters of apology to Chief Horrall and Chief Green. For the sake of your pension, I advise you to grovel.”
Lee, his body limp, said, “I want to go to TJ to look for the smut man.”
Loew shook his head. “Under the circumstances, I would call that request ridiculous. Vogel and Koenig are going to Tijuana, you’re back on Warrants, and Bleichert, you’re to remain on the Short case. Good day, Officers.”
Loew stormed over to his black-and-white; the patrolman driver hung a U-turn out into traffic. Lee said, “I have to talk to Kay.” I nodded, and a sheriff’s patrol car cruised by, the passenger cop blowing kisses to the lezzies in the doorway. Lee walked to his car murmuring, “Laurie. Laurie, oh babe.”
Chapter 13
I showed up at the Bureau at 8:00 the next morning, wanting to ease Lee through the ignominy of his return to Warrants and share the diet of crow Ellis Loew would undoubtedly be feeding him. Identical memo slips from Chief Green were on both of our desks: “Report to my office tomorrow, 1/22/47,6:00 P.M.” The handwritten words looked ominous.
Lee did not report in at 8:00; I sat at my desk for the next hour, picturing him fretting over Bobby De Witt’s release, a captive of his ghosts, his ghost chaser redemption gone now that he was off the Dahlia case. Across the partition in the DA’s office, I heard Loew barking and pleading on the phone to the city editors of the Mirror and Daily News—Republican rags rumored to be sympathetic to his political aspirations. The gist of his talk was that he would help them cutthroat the Times and Herald with inside Dahlia info on the proviso that they soft-pedal their coverage of Betty Short’s roundheeled ways and portray her as a sweet but misguided young girl. From the hotshot’s self-satisfied farewells, I could tell that the newsmen went for it, buying Loew’s line that “The more sympathy we attract for the girl, the more juice we get when I prosecute the killer.”
When Lee didn’t show up by 10:00, I went into the muster room and read through the bulging E. Short case file, wanting to satisfy myself that Madeleine’s name wasn’t in it. Two hours and two hundred form pages later I was satisfied—her name was not listed among the hundreds of people questioned, nor was she fingered by tipsters. The only mention of lesbians was obvious nut case stuff—religious crackpots calling in poison phone clues, informing on rival sect members as “Nun dykes sacrificing the girl to Pope Pius XII” and “Lezbos performing communistic anti-Christ rituals.”
By noon, Lee still hadn’t put in an appearance. I called the house, University squadroom and the El Nido Hotel, with no success. Wanting to look busy so that no one would put me to work, I prowled the bulletin boards reading summary reports.
Russ Millard had compiled a new update before leaving for San Diego and Tijuana last night. It stated that he and Harry Sears would be checking the R&I and Ad Vice files for convicted and suspected pornographers, and would be searching for the smut movie filming site down in TJ. Vogel and Koenig had been unable to locate Lorna Martilkova’s “Mexican man” in Gardena, and were also going to Tijuana to work on the stag film angle. The coroner’s inquest had been held yesterday; Elizabeth Short’s mother was present, and identified her remains. Marjorie Graham and Sheryl Saddon testified about Betty’s life in Hollywood, Red Manley as to how he drove Betty up from Dago and dropped her off in front of the Biltmore Hotel on January tenth. Intensive canvassing of the area around the Biltmore had thus far yielded no verified sightings, the records of convicted sex loonies and registered sex offenders were still being combed, the four drool case confessors were still being held at City Jail awaiting alibi checks, sanity hearings and further questioning. The circus was continuing, phone tips flooding in, resulting in third-, fourth- and fifth-hand questionings—officers talking to people who knew people who knew people who knew the exalted Dahlia. Needle in a haystack stuff straight down the line.
I was getting goldbrick looks from the men working at their desks, so I went back to my cubicle. Madeleine jumped into my head; I picked up the phone and called her.
She answered on the third ring: “Sprague residence.”
“It’s me. You want to get together?”
“When?”
“Now. I’ll pick you up in forty-five minutes.”
“Don’t come here, Daddy’s having a business soiree. Meet you at the Red Arrow?”
I sighed. “I’ve got an apartment, you know.”
“I only rut in motels. One of my rich girl idiosyncrasies. Room eleven at the Arrow in forty-five?”
I said, “I’ll be there,” and hung up. Ellis Loew tapped the partition. “Go to work, Bleichert. You’ve been skating all morning, and it’s getting on my nerves. And when you see your phantom partner, tell him his little no-show has cost him three days’ pay. Now check out a radio car and roll.”
I rolled straight to the Red Arrow Motel. Madeleine’s Packard was parked in the alley behind the bungalows; the door to room eleven was unlocked. I walked in, smelled her perfume and squinted into the darkness until I was rewarded with a giggle. Undressing, my eyes got accustomed to the lack of light; I saw Madeleine—a nude beacon on a tattered bedspread.
We joined so strongly that the bedsprings banged the floor. Madeleine kissed her way down to between my legs, made me hard, then did a quick turn onto her back. I went in her thinking of Betty and the snake shaft thing, then blotted it out by concentrating on the ripped wallpaper in front of my eyes. I wanted to go slow, but Madeleine gasped, “Don’t hold back, I’m ready.” I pushed hard, slamming the two of us together, my hands braced on the bed rail. Madeleine locked her legs around my back, grabbed the rail over her head and pushed, pulled and gyrated against me. We came seconds apart, moving in a stretching, slamming counterpoint; when my head hit the pillow, I bit at it to stanch my tremors.
Madeleine slid out from under me. “Sugar, are you all right?”
I was seeing the snake thing. Madeleine tickled me; I twisted around and looked at her to make it go away. “Smile at me. Look soft and sweet.”
Madeleine gave me a Pollyanna grin. Her smeared red lipstick reminded me of the Dahlia’s death smile; I shut my eyes and grabbed her hard. She stroked my back softly, murmuring, “Bucky, what is it?”
I stared at the curtains on the far wall. “We picked up Linda Martin yesterday. She had a print of a stag movie in her purse, her and Betty Short playing lez. They filmed it down in TJ, and there was all this spooky stuff in it. It spooked me, and it spooked my partner bad.”
Madeleine stopped her caresses. “Did Linda mention me?”
“No, and I checked through the case file. There’s no mention of that note-leaving number you pulled. But we’ve got a policewoman planted in the girl’s cell to pump her, and if she blabs, you’re sunk.”
“I’m not worried, sugar. Linda probably doesn’t even remember me.”
I slid over to where I could eyeball Madeleine up close. Her lipstick was a bloody disarray, and I daubed at it with the pillow. “Babe, I’m withholding evidence for you. It’s a fair trade for what I’m getting, but it still spooks me. So you be damn sure you come clean. I’ll ask you one time. Is there anything you haven’t told me about you and Betty and Linda?”