I closed the drawer, gave the janitor an extra ten-spot to keep him quiet, packed up the evidence kit and walked outside. I pinpointed the moment: 8:10 P.M., Wednesday, June 29, 1949, the night a flunky harness bull cracked the most famous unsolved homicide in California history. I touched the grass to see if it felt different, waved at office workers passing by, pictured myself breaking the news to the padre and Thad Green and Chief Horrall. I saw myself back at the Bureau, a lieutenant inside of a year, Mr. Ice exceeding the wildest Fire and Ice expectations. I saw my name in the headlines, Kay coming back to me. I saw the Spragues squeezed dry, disgraced by their complicity in the killing, all their money useless. And that was what kiboshed my reverie: there was no way for me to make the arrest without admitting I suppressed evidence on Madeleine and Linda Martin back in ‘47. It was either anonymous glory or public disaster.
Or back-door justice.
I drove to Hancock Park. Ramona’s Cadillac and Martha’s Lincoln were gone from the circular driveway; Emmett’s Chrysler and Madeleine’s Packard remained. I parked my lackluster Chevy crossways next to them, the rear tires sunk into the gardener’s rose bush border. The front door looked impregnable, but a side window was open. I hoisted myself up and into the living room.
Balto the stuffed dog was there by the fireplace, guarding a score of packing crates lined up on the floor. I checked them out; they were filled to the top with clothes, silverware and ritzy bone china. A cardbox box at the end of the row was overflowing with cheap cocktail dresses—a weird anomaly. A sketch pad, the top sheet covered with drawings of women’s faces, was wedged into one corner. I thought of commerical artist Martha, then heard voices upstairs.
I went to them, my .45 out, the silencer screwed on tight. They were coming from the master bedroom: Emmett’s burr, Madeleine’s pout. I pressed myself to the hallway wall, eased down to the doorway and listened.
“… besides, one of my foremen said the goddamn pipes are spewing gas. There’ll be hell to pay, lassie. Health and safety code violations at the very least. It’s time for me to show the three of you Scotland, and let our Jew friend Mickey C. utilize his talent for public relations. He’ll put the onus on old Mack or the pinkos or some convenient stiff, trust me he will. And when things are kosher again, we’ll come home.”
“But I don’t want to go to Europe, Daddy. Oh God, Scotland. You’ve never been able to talk about it without saying how dreadful and provincial it is.”
“Is it your toothy chum you think you’ll be missing? Ahh, I suspect it is. Well, let me put your heart to rest. Aberdeen’s got strapping plowboys who’ll put that piss-poor excuse for a man to shame. Less inquisitive, lads who know their place. You’ll not lack for sturdy cocksmen, let me assure you. Bleichert served his purpose to us a long time ago, and it’s just the danger-loving part of you that took him back in. An injudicious part, I might add.”
“Oh Daddy, I don’t—”
I wheeled and stepped into the bedroom. Emmett and Madeleine were lying on the big canopied bed, clothed, her head on his lap, his rough carpenter’s hands massaging her shoulders. The father-lover noticed me first; Madeleine pouted when Daddy’s caresses stopped. My shadow hit the bed; she screamed.
Emmett silenced her, a whip-fast hand glinting with gemstones over her mouth. He said, “This isn’t a cuckold, lad. It’s just affection, and we’ve a dispensation for it.”
The man’s reflexes and dinner table tone were pure style. I aped his calm: “Georgie Tilden killed Elizabeth Short. She called here on January twelfth, and one of you fixed her up with Georgie. She took the Wilshire bus out here to meet him. Now you fill the rest of it in.”
Madeleine, eyes wide, trembled under her father’s hand. Emmett looked at the none too steady gun aimed at him. “I don’t dispute that statement and I don’t dispute your somewhat belated desire to see justice done. Shall I tell you where George can be found?”
“No. First you tell me about you two, then you tell me about your dispensation.”
“It’s not germane, lad. I’ll congratulate you on your detective work and tell you where Georgie can be found, and we’ll leave it at that. Neither of us wants to see Maddy hurt, and discussing dour old family matters would affect her adversely.”
As if to underline paternal concern, Emmett released his hand. Madeleine wiped smeared lipstick off her cheeks and murmured, “Daddy, make him stop.”
I said, “Did Daddy tell you to fuck me? Did Daddy tell you to invite me to dinner so I wouldn’t check your alibi? Did you all figure that a little hospitality and some cunt would brazen things out for you? Did you—”
“Daddy make him stop!”
Emmett’s whip hand flashed again; Madeleine buried her face in it. The Scotchman made the next logical move. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, lad. Put the Sprague family history out of your mind. What do you want?”
I looked around the bedroom, picking out objects—and the price tags that Madeleine had bragged to me. There was the Picasso oil on the back wall—a hundred and twenty grand. Two Ming vases resting on the dresser—seventeen big ones. The Dutch Master above the headboard cost two hundred odd thou; the ugly Pre-Columbian gargoyle on the nightstand a cool twelve and a half. Emmett, smiling now, said, “You appreciate nice things. I appreciate that, and nice things like those can be yours. Just tell me what you want.”
I shot the Picasso first. The silencer went “Pffft” and the .45 hollow point blew the canvas in half. The two Mings were next, crockery fragments exploding all over the room. I missed the gargoyle with my first shot—a gold-bordered mirror the consolation prize. Daddy and darling daughter huddled on the bed; I took sight on Rembrandt or Titian or whoever the fuck it was. My bull’s-eye blew a dandy hole out of it, along with a chunk of the wall. The frame toppled and hit Emmett’s shoulder; the heat of the weapon singed my hand. I held on to it anyway, one round still in the chamber to get me my story.
Cordite, muzzle smoke and plaster haze making the air almost unbreathable. Four hundred grand in bits and pieces. The two Spragues a tangle of limbs on the bed, Emmett coming out of it first, stroking Madeleine, rubbing his eyes and squinting.
I placed the silencer to the back of his head. “You, Georgie, Betty. Make me believe it or I’ll take your whole fucking house down.”
Emmett coughed and patted Madeleine’s stray curls; I said, “You and your own daughter.”
My old brass girl looked up then, tears drying, dust and lipstick mottling her face. “Daddy’s not my real daddy and we’ve never really… so it’s not wrong.”
I said, “Then who is?”
Emmett turned, gently pushing my gun hand out of the way. He didn’t look broken or angry. He looked like a businessman warming to the task of negotiating a tough new contract. “Dreamer Georgie is Maddy’s father, Ramona is her mother. Do you want the details, or will that fact suffice?”
I sat down in a silk brocade chair a few feet from the bed. “All of it. And don’t lie, because I’ll know.”
Emmett stood up and tidied his person, giving the room damage a weather eye. Madeleine went into the bathroom; a few seconds later I heard water running. Emmett sat on the edge of the bed, hands firm on his knees, like it was man-to-man confessional time. I knew he thought he could get away with telling me only what he wanted to; I knew I was going to make him spill it all, whatever it took.
“Back in the mid-20’s Ramona wanted a child,” he said. “I didn’t, and I got damn sick and tired of being nagged about fatherhood. One night I got drunk and thought, ‘Mother, you want a child I’ll give you a lad just like me.’ I did her without wearing a skin, sobered up and put it out of my mind. I didn’t know it, but she took up with Georgie then, just to get that foal she craved so dearly. Madeleine was born, and I thought she was from that one mean time. I took to her—my little girl. Two years later I decided to go for a matched set, and we made Martha.