Staring into the Darkness (Urban & Brazil Book 1)

by Tim Ellis

  When she arrived back at George Washington Heights and ascended the five flights of stairs, she was exhausted. She walked along to 5A and knocked on the door.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ Ruby said when she opened the door. ‘How was your shopping trip?’

  ‘Exhausting.’

  ‘Well, come on into the kitchen. Sit yourself down and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. How would that be?’

  ‘Thank you, Ruby.’ She followed the old woman into the kitchen and sat down at the table. ‘How’s Detective Urban?’

  ‘Detective Urban is just fine, Miss Brazil,’ a man’s voice came from behind her.

  She clutched her chest. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  ‘If I was, you’d be dead already.’ He sat down in another chair at the table. ‘I hear I have you to thank for saving my life?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. I’d like to know what you thought you were doing?’

  ‘My thought processes had stopped working, I’m afraid. Ruby said no one’s seen me in three months. The last thing I remember was around that time.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to see you’re getting better.’

  ‘I’m nearly ready to move back into my apartment, but apparently I no longer live there.’

  Katie laughed. ‘You still live there, but so do I now.’

  ‘I don’t recall inviting you to stay, or sub-letting a room to you.’

  ‘I’m shocked! It was during those three months you can’t recall.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘You need me.’

  ‘I have a partner.’

  ‘Not any more. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Detective Janik was shot and killed in a police raid three weeks ago. It was in the newspapers and the funeral was last week.’

  ‘Jan’s dead?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Why did nobody tell me?’

  ‘They probably sent someone round to inform you, but you didn’t answer the door.’

  ‘I suppose that’s likely. How did you know Jan Janik was my partner?’

  ‘I found the rope with the bell attached disappearing out of the window. There was the copy of another victim’s file in the basket on the end. It wasn’t hard to work out that someone at the police department was copying information for you. I searched the newspapers in the library and found that your partner was Detective Janik. That’s also when I discovered he’d been killed in the line of duty. A woman opened fire and hit him in the face. He died of his injuries at the hospital.’

  ‘The world carried on without me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you want from me, Katie Brazil?’

  ‘I want you to find my sister’s killer.’

  He spread his arms and looked down at himself. ‘As you can see, I’m not really up to the job anymore.’

  ‘A temporary condition,’ she said, taking a swallow of tea. ‘We’ll soon have you back at work again. Won’t we, Ruby?’

  ‘A couple more days of Mrs Lowenstein’s magical Cure-All Elixir will see you right as rain in no time, Detective Urban.’

  Tears welled in his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can do it anymore.’

  ‘You’re still weak. As Ruby said, a couple more days and you’ll be a different person.’

  ‘I failed once. What makes you think I can find the killer now?’

  ‘Because you have me, and I never give up.’

  ‘You should go to Police Headquarters on the South Side of First Street and see whoever is in charge of the investigation now.’

  ‘Detective O’Meara.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I went to see him and he called me a little lady.’

  Urban’s lip curled up. ‘Yeah! Mike’s view of the opposite sex is a bit dated.’

  ‘A bit! He should be extinct like the dinosaurs.’

  Urban pushed himself up. ‘I’m a bit tired. No doubt I’ll see you again before you go, Miss Brazil,’ he said as he shuffled out.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Detective,’ she threw after him. ‘So you’d better get used to the idea of seeing me around.’

  Katie finished her tea and stood up. ‘Well, I’d better go and see how the painters are getting on. Thanks for the tea, Ruby.’

  ‘My pleasure, dear.’

  She made her way back to 5F to find out what had been going on in her absence.

  Chapter Two

  Monday, January 19, 1948

  She was busy replacing all the details about the murders on the new pinboard, but in a way that made sense to her, and she didn’t hear Detective Urban enter the apartment.

  ‘Still here, I see.’

  She jumped. The clump of papers she was holding flew out of her hand and see-sawed to the floor. ‘Creeping up on people is not very nice, Detective.’

  Some colour had come back to his cheeks. He was still painfully thin – all sharp edges and hollows – but he’d begun to fill out a bit under Ruby Lowenstein’s ministrations. He was clean-shaven and Ruby had cut his hair as if he was an Army recruit.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ he said, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘It’s my apartment. My name’s on the agreement.’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The landlord came knocking. Wanted to throw you out on the street, because you hadn’t paid your rent for six months. I said I’d pay the arrears and give him another six months in advance if he put my name on the agreement instead of yours, changed the lock on the front door and got someone in to fix the elevator. He was happy to oblige, so if anyone’s leaving – it’s you.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Already done. This is my apartment now. However, I’m prepared to let you stay here if you’re willing to help me catch my sister’s killer.’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m helping you? If I recall correctly, you’d come here to help me?’

  ‘A minor point. Either we’re helping each other, or I’ll find the killer on my own and you can look for another place to live.’

  He hobbled round looking at what she’d done to the apartment. Went in the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedrooms . . . ‘Where’s my clothes?’ he asked when he re-appeared.

  She laughed. ‘Rags, you mean? I threw them out. If you’re staying, and when you’re up to it, I’m prepared to buy you new clothes.’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m a charity case? I have money.’

  She shrugged. ‘Please yourself, but I haven’t seen any evidence of you having any money so far.’

  ‘Where’d you get all your money from anyway, Miss Brazil?’

  ‘The Sherriff came to inform us that my sister had been murdered in Los Angeles, which killed off my father within a week. We lived on a big farm in Kettle River, Minnesota. I was a history teacher at the local elementary school, not a farmer. So, I sold the farm to the highest bidder, put the money in the bank with my savings and caught a Greyhound bus here.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘Died of brain cancer when I was ten years old.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. And call me Katie.’

  ‘If we’re living here together, you know what people will say, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never been one for taking any notice of what people say.’

  ‘You’ve made a better job of this place than I ever did.’

  ‘Women make a home, men make a mess.’

  ‘I guess that’s true. What about the cooking and cleaning?’

  ‘I said I’d pay Martha and Ruby to come in and clean for us turn-about, except Sunday. They seem to be happy to do that and earn some money. As for the cooking, I’ll be doing that. I enjoy cooking and I’m a good cook. You can do the washing up.’

  ‘I haven’t made up my mind whether I’m staying yet.’

  ‘You won’t get any pressure from me. As I said, I’ll be doing what I’m doing with yo
u or without you. Of course, it’ll be a lot easier with you, but I’m used to overcoming obstacles, so take your time, Detective.’

  He sat down on the new sofa, put the walking stick between his legs and said, ‘Call me Erik.’

  She smiled, picked up the papers she’d dropped and continued putting them up on the pinboard. When she turned round again, Erik had fallen asleep.

  ***

  Her sister – Annie Brazil – was the killer’s seventh victim. There were six before her, and one after her. They’d all travelled to Hollywood as aspiring actresses, but they were just eight of the hundreds who had followed their dreams only to discover the reality of an America still struggling out of a decade-long depression.

  The naked bodies were all found by members of the public disposed of in municipal parks, but they’d been murdered elsewhere:

  Hildegard Zinn: Cypress Park, 2630 Pepper Avenue, Sunday, February 10, 1946;

  Paula Simpson: McArthur Park, 2230 W 6th Street, Wednesday, August 7, 1946;

  Isabella Brunet: Lincoln Park, 3501 Valley Boulevard, Friday, October 11, 1946;

  Vivienne Turner; Veteran’s Barrington Park, 333 South Barrington Avenue, Monday, January 13, 1947;

  Dawn Morrison: Elysian Park, 835 Academy Road, Saturday, May 3, 1947;

  Sally Wells: Ascot Hills Park, 4371 Multnomah Street, Thursday, July 17, 1947;

  Annie Brazil: Echo Park, 1632 Bellevue Avenue, Thursday, October 2, 1947;

  Lola Coburn: Holmby Park, 601 Clubview Drive, Sunday, December 14, 1947.

  Each woman had been brutally raped and strangled, which was evidenced by the dark bruising to the neck, abdomen, upper arms, inner thighs and genital area. Afterward, the killer washed and made the victims look beautiful. Their hair had been neatly coiffured in various styles, make-up had been applied, fingers and toes manicured and a single item placed between their breasts:

  Hildegard Zinn – a dead rattlesnake;

  Paula Simpson – a car key;

  Isabella Brunet – a bottle of perfume;

  Vivienne Turner – a needle and syringe;

  Dawn Morrison – a new red shoe;

  Sally Wells – a Chinese hair stick;

  Annie Brazil – a black velvet wrist bow;

  Lola Coburn – a red and blue striped scarf.

  Urban cried out and woke himself up.

  Katie stopped what she was doing and turned round.

  His face was covered in sweat, tears filled his eyes and his hands were trembling.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine. Did you serve in the war?’

  ‘After working foot beat in Harbour Division for seven years, I joined the Marines in 1941. Left in 1945 as a Sergeant. In those four years I crossed the River Styx and went on a sightseeing tour of Hell. Fought at Guadalcanal; Tarawa; Guam; Peleliu; Iwo Jima; and Okinawa. Don’t ask me how I got out alive when so many didn’t, because I don’t know.’

  ‘And then you joined the Homicide Division?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-seven, but I feel a hundred and thirty-seven.’

  ‘You look how you feel.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Birthday?’

  ‘Born February 12, 1910 in a little place called Borrego Springs in San Diego County. I have the same birth date as Abe Lincoln, so I expect to be elected President anytime soon.’

  ‘Good luck with your nomination.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Parents?’

  ‘Long gone.’

  ‘Siblings?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, it’s you and me against the world?’

  ‘No, Katie. If you’re determined to stay here and help, then it’s you and me against the demons of Hell. I saw some things in the war that I can’t get out of my head, but in a way there was a rhyme and reason to what happened.’ He pointed at the photographs on the pinboard. ‘There ain’t no rhyme or reason to any of those.’

  ‘I guess the killer has a rhyme and reason, we just don’t know what it is yet. There are patterns here.’

  ‘Yeah, Jan and I explored all those patterns, but they didn’t lead us anywhere. We went back and re-examined the murder of twenty year-old Georgette Bauerdorf who was found dead in her apartment in an overflowing bathtub in October, 1944 – only two months after she’d arrived here to become an actress. She suffered head trauma, a crushed hand, bruised inner thighs from being raped and she was finally strangled. It was two years prior to Hildegard Zinn’s death and like Dawn Morrison, she also worked at the Hollywood Canteen.’

  ‘It sounds similar.’

  ‘But not similar enough. We decided it wasn’t connected. You heard of Elizabeth Short – the woman they called the Black Dahlia?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She was found on January 15, 1947, in a disused lot in the Leimert Park neighbourhood with her body cut in half at the waist amongst other things. Worse thing we ever saw. We thought she was victim number five, but in the end we discarded the idea. She called herself a would-be actress like the others, but she had no known acting credits to her name and rumour had it that she worked as a whore to get by, that’s really where the similarity to the other victims ended. Detective Sergeant Harry Hansen and Detective Finnis Brown were assigned to the Black Dahlia case, but they had the same luck as Jan and me, which was no luck at all. At least Hansen and Brown only had one dead body to contend with, ours just kept piling up.’

  ‘You need to go into the police department and let them know you’re getting better, Erik.’

  ‘I ain’t ready for that yet. And anyway, what makes you think they ain’t fired my butt already?’

  ‘You’ve been sick.’

  ‘I’m still sick.’

  ‘But instead of getting worse, you’re getting better. You need to let them know to keep your job open and that you’ll be back as soon as you’re up to it.’

  ‘I thought we were working the case from here?’

  ‘We are, but now that Jan’s dead, you don’t know what’s going on. You’ve lost your inside man. They could be sitting on a dozen leads and we wouldn’t know about it.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s not about my wellbeing? It’s about you keeping your pinboard up-to-date?’

  ‘It’s about both, Erik. One thing you ought to know about me is that I never give up. If it takes a thousand years to find my sister’s killer, then that’s how long I’ll be here. You can either hold on tight, or jump out now while we’re still going slow.’

  ‘You got yourself a man, Katie Brazil?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ He struggled to stand up. ‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll catch a cab to the police station and say hello to the guys. For now, I gotta lie down again.’

  ‘You could stay here?’

  ‘You finish your pinboard off. Ruby’s doing just fine looking after me for now. Next time I come back in here, I’ll talk you through the case. I expect you’ll have everything up on the board by then and a thousand questions that need answers.’

  She watched him shuffle out and turned back to the pinboard. There was still a lot of information to go up. She’d started off with a street map of Los Angeles, identified the location where each woman had been found; and used pins and cotton to connect them to the photograph and details of each victim. After that, she worked in concentric circles by first putting the photographs of the items found between the breasts of each woman; and then the crime scene photographs. While she was locating everything like pieces of a jigsaw; thoughts, questions and observations jumped into her head, so she made a list on a piece of paper at the far right of the pinboard.

  Why did the killer pick these particular women? As far as she could see, they weren’t alike. Erik said that they were all similar to Elizabeth Short in that they were aspiring actresses with no acting credi
ts. How had they been making ends meet? Did they have jobs? Or were they harlots like Elizabeth Short? She made a list of the work each woman did before they were murdered. It seemed that most had jobs, but after a day’s work they needed to mix with the people who had contacts in the movie business. How could you be an actress if nobody saw you? she reasoned. Or, if nobody knew you were available for that part they were trying to fill? And to be considered for the part, you had to do certain things. It was expected. Everybody was doing it. If you weren’t prepared to sleep with the people who could get you that part you always dreamed of . . . Well, you should just pack your bags and go back to the hick town you came from.

  It was clear to Katie that men had the power in Hollywood. The question was: How far was a woman willing to go to make their dreams come true?

  Hildegard Zinn didn’t work;

  Paula Simpson worked as an ice cream girl in the cinema;

  Isabella Brunet had a cashier’s job in a drug store;

  Vivienne Turner was a clerical assistant at a firm of attorneys;

  Dawn Morrison was a waitress at a diner;

  Sally Wells was a bank teller;

  Annie Brazil didn’t work;

  Lola Coburn was a shoe salesperson.

  She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop the tears streaming from her eyes and down her cheeks. Poor Annie! How quickly the dream had become a nightmare. She was glad that her father had never known the whole truth about his youngest daughter. Once she realised that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, all she had to do was write them to come and get her. Katie would have jumped on the first plane, train or bus to bring her sister back home, but no letter had come. Annie was always too proud, too stubborn, too self-willed. In a way, they shared similar traits, but Annie never knew when to stop. There was a big difference in never giving up, and never knowing when to give up. It was that difference that had got Annie killed.

  Why had the killer brutally raped and strangled these women? And then washed and made them up? It was as if a terrible anger had turned to regret and sadness. Where had he murdered them? Where were their clothes? Why had they been left naked? What did the items left between each woman’s breasts mean? Why were they disposed of in municipal parks for anybody to find? So many questions, but no answers. She could imagine how the many unanswered questions had possessed Erik to the point of exhaustion. Well, things would be different this time round.