So we left it at 50-50 moving toward 75-25 against. Russ left to call in his report and dispatch an SID team over to Room 116 of the Havana Hotel to check for bloodstains; I went to sleep in the BOQ room Major Carroll assigned us. I dreamed of Betty Short and Fatty Arbuckle in black and white; when the alarm went off I reached for Madeleine.
Opening my eyes, I saw Russ, dressed in a clean suit. He handed me a newspaper and said, “Never underestimate Ellis Loew.”
It was a Newark tabloid job bearing the headline: “Fort Dix Soldier Culprit in Sinsational Los Angeles Murder!” Below the banner print were side-by-side photos of Frenchman Joe Dulange and Loew, posed theatrically behind his desk. The text read:
In a scoop to our sister publication the Los Angeles Mirror, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Ellis Loew, Chief Legal Officer on the mystifying “Black Dahlia” murder case, announced a major breakthrough last night. “I have just been informed by two of my closest colleagues, Lieutenant Russell Millard and Officer Dwight Bleichert, that Fort Dix, New Jersey Corporal Joseph Dulange has confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short, and that the confession has been validated by facts that only the killer would know. Corporal Dulange is a known degenerate, and I will be supplying the press with more facts on the confession as soon as my men return Dulange to Los Angeles for arraignment.”
The Elizabeth Short case has baffled authorities since the morning of January 15, when Miss Short’s nude, mutilated body, cut in half at the waist, was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. Deputy DA Loew would not reveal the details of Corporal Dulange’s confession, but he did say that Dulange was a known intimate of Miss Short. “Details will be forthcoming,” he said. “The important thing is that this fiend is in custody, where he will not kill again.”
I laughed. “What did you really tell Loew?”
“Nothing. When I talked to Captain Jack the first time, I told him Dulange was a strong possible. He bawled me out for not reporting before we left, and that was it. The second time I called I told him Dulange was starting to look like another crazy. He got very upset, and now I know why.”
I stood up and stretched. “Let’s just hope he really killed her.”
Russ shook his head. “SID said there’s no bloodstains in the hotel room, and no running water to drain the body. And Carroll had a ten-state bulletin out on Dulange’s whereabouts January tenth through the seventeenth—drunk tanks, hospitals, the works. We just got a kickback: Frenchy was in the jail ward of St. Patrick’s Hospital in Brooklyn January fourteenth to the seventeenth. Severe DTs. He was released that morning and picked up in Penn Station two hours later. The man is clean.”
I didn’t know who to be mad at. Loew and company wanted to clear the slate any way possible, Millard wanted justice, I was going home to headlines that made me look like a fool.
“What about Dulange? You want to brace him again?”
“And hear about more singing cockroaches? No. Carroll confronted him with the kickback. He said he made up the killing story to get publicity. He wants to reconcile with his first wife, and he thought the attention would get him some sympathy. I talked to him again, and it was nothing but DT stuff. There’s nothing more he can tell us.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“The savior indeed. Joe’s getting a quickie discharge and we’re getting a flight back to LA in forty-five minutes. So get dressed, partner.”
I put on my stale clothes, then Russ and I walked out to the sallypont to wait for the jeep that would take us to the airstrip. In the distance, I could see a tall uniformed figure approaching. I shivered against the cold; the tall man got closer. I saw that it was none other than Corporal Joseph Dulange.
Reaching the sallyport, he held out a morning tabloid and poked at his picture on the front page. “I got the whole hog, you’re small print where Krauts belong.”
I smelled Johnnie Red on his breath and sucker-punched him square in the chops. Dulange went down like a ton of bricks; my right hand throbbed. Russ Millard’s look reminded me of Jesus getting ready to rebuke the heathens. I said, “Don’t be so goddamn proper. Don’t be such a fucking saint.”
Chapter 21
Ellis Loew said, “I called this little meeting for several reasons, Bucky. One is to apologize for jumping the gun on Dulange. I was precipitious in talking to my newspaper people, and you got hurt. I apologize for that.” I looked at Loew, and at Fritz Vogel sitting beside him. The “little meeting” was in the living room of Fritzie’s house; the two days of Dulange headlines portrayed me as no worse than an overeager cop on a wild goose chase. “What do you want, Mr. Loew?”
Fritzie laughed; Loew said, “Call me Ellis.”
The setup hit a new bottom in the sublety department—way below the highballs and bowl of pretzels Fritzie’s hausfrau had served as amenities. I was supposed to meet Madeleine in an hour—and off-duty fraternizing with my boss was the last thing in the world I wanted. “Okay, Ellis.”
Loew bristled at my tone. “Bucky, we’ve clashed a number of times in the past. Maybe we’re even clashing now. But I think we agree on a few things. We’d both like to see the Short case closed out and get back to normal business. You want to go back to Warrants, and as much as I would like to prosecute the killer, my part in the investigation has gotten out of hand, and it’s time that I returned to the old cases on my docket.”
I felt like a bush league cardsharp holding a royal flush. “What do you want, Ellis?”
“I want to return you to Warrants tomorrow, and I want to give the Short case a last go before I return to my old caseload. We’re both comers, Bucky. Fritzie wants you for his partner when he gets his lieutenancy, and—”
“Russ Millard wants me when Harry Sears retires.”
Fritzie took a belt of his highball. “You’re too raw for him, boyo. He’s told people you can’t control your temper. Old Russ is a sob sister, and I’m much more your type.”
It was a good wild card; I thought of the disgusted look Russ gave me after I coldcocked Joe Dulange. “What do you want, Ellis?
“Very well, Dwight, I’ll tell you. There are four confessors still being held at City Jail. They’ve got no alibis for Betty Short’s missing days, they weren’t coherent when they were first questioned, and they are all violent, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics. I want them reinterrogated, with what you might call ‘appropriate props.’ It’s a muscle job, and Fritzie wanted Bill Koenig for it, but he’s a bit too enamored of violence, so I picked you. So, Dwight, yes or no. Back to Warrants or Homicide shitwork until Russ Millard gets tired of you? Millard is a patient, forbearing man, Dwight. That might be a long time.”
My royal flush collapsed. “Yes.”
Loew beamed. “Go to the city jail now. The night jailer has released waivers for the four men. There’s a drunk wagon in the nightwatch lot, keys under the mat. Drive the suspects to 1701 South Alameda, meet Fritzie. Welcome back to Warrants, Dwight.”
I stood up. Loew took a pretzel from the bowl and nibbled it daintily; Fritzie drained his glass, his hands shaking.
The loonies were waiting for me in a holding tank, wearing jail denims, chained together and manacled at the ankles. The waivers the jailer had given me came with mug shots and rap sheets carbons attached; when the cell door was racked electronically, I matched pictures to faces.
Paul David Orchard was short and burly, with a flat nose spread across half his face and long, pomade-lacquered blond hair; Cecil Thomas Durkin was a fiftyish mulatto, bald, freckled, close to six and a half feet tall. Charles Michael Issler had enormous sunken brown eyes, and Loren (NMI) Bidwell was a frail old man, shaking from palsy, liver spots covering his skin. He looked so pathetic that I double-checked his sheet to make sure I had the right man; child molesting beefs running back to 1911 told me I did. “Out in the catwalk,” I said. “Roll it up now.”