The Body in Griffith Park

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  “Good evening, father,” said Anna.

  Mr. Blanc’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Oh, mon Dieu.”

  Georges’s eyes hardened. “Pardon me, father, but don’t you mean, ‘Good evening, Anna. It’s so good to see you. I’ve been longing for the company of my lost daughter who I so cruelly cast aside?’”

  Her father turned an angry red. “You say that as if she wasn’t a whore. She’s not my daughter. My daughter is dead.”

  Anna looked to Georges and tears began pooling in her gray eyes. She started to shake.

  Georges’s face flooded with color. Suddenly, he looked very much like his father. “She’s not a whore! Even the papers acknowledge this. But not you! You should be proud of her. She’s an LAPD police matron. She’s like, she’s like Sherlock Holmes.”

  Christopher spit right on the Hotel Alexandria’s fine Persian carpet.

  Georges stomped near to his father, his arm flung out toward the door. “That is it. If you won’t acknowledge her, then you’re not welcome here. Get out!”

  Before he reached their father, Georges stopped and braced himself on a chair. He dropped to one knee, and then crumpled to the floor, convulsing. His eyes rolled back in his head and foam burbled on the edges of his lips.

  Anna flew to her fallen brother and crouched beside him, careless of her dress and the fact that her father knelt at her side.

  “Georges!” She took his face between her hands. Anna’s eyes cut to her father, her voice a desperate squawk. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Hold his head so he doesn’t strike it.” He sounded as shaken as Anna. He placed his hands beneath Anna’s, further cushioning Georges’s skull.

  Anna held his head, but Georges’s fit continued.

  “He’s not calming.” Christopher called to the manservant “Thomas! His medicine. Now!”

  Thomas returned with a syringe and vial. He stuck the needle into the vial and withdrew a liquid, clear and faint blue. Georges still pitched and jolted. Christopher barked, “Hold him still.” Anna pinned his arms with all her might. Her father unbuttoned his shirt and yanked his shirt and jacket down. Thomas plunged the needle into Georges’s shoulder.

  Christopher said, “You’ve upset him. You shouldn’t have upset him.”

  Anna returned to holding Georges’s head, her fingers cushioning his skull as it banged against the carpet. One horrid thought crowded out all others—he was going to die before she ever got to truly know him. “I’m so sorry dearest. I’m so sorry.”

  When he finally stilled, her eyes went to his chest, to the rising and falling of his breath. She let out a single, hollow sob and pressed her lips to his damp forehead. “He has epilepsy.”

  “What do you know about epilepsy?”

  “Enough. I read medical tomes. You may have tried to keep me away from books, but my friends have libraries.”

  He harrumphed.

  “It can be fatal. It can cause memory loss. A loss of willpower.” Her voice trailed off. “Insanity.” She sighed. “The more frequent the attacks, the more weakened the man.”

  “Excuse me, Miss Blanc.” Thomas knelt opposite Anna and, together with Mr. Blanc, lifted Georges—one man at his head, one at his feet. She followed as they carried him into a masculine bedroom that smelled of cologne. Anna pulled back the coverlet and top sheet on the bed, and the men lay Georges down. She undid his neck tie and collar and helped remove his jacket and shoes. She jogged to the bathroom and wet a towel.

  Anna sat by his side mopping his brow with the damp cloth, whether he needed it or not. She needed it.

  Christopher Blanc slumped in a chair across the room and cut the tip off a cigar. “Anna, you should go home.”

  “No father. I’m going to sleep here tonight. And don’t you dare light that thing. He needs fresh air.”

  Chastened, Mr. Blanc pocketed his cigar.

  Anna took her brother’s hand and held it. “How often does he have fits?”

  “That depends. He takes bromides to prevent them, but he says the pills make him feel dull. He doesn’t like to take them. I suspect he’s been skipping them. He’s supposed to take them three times a day.”

  “Dull? He’s not dull. He’s interesting. He’s such a fine man.” Anna made a hiccupping sound. Then, she began to sob. “I can hardly believe he came from you.”

  “He’s been a great comfort to me since you . . . broke my heart. He was living in France, but he came back.”

  “You don’t have a heart.”

  “Oh, don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “You shamed me.”

  “I shamed you? I wasn’t the one keeping a French dancer. I don’t have illegitimate children. I’m not even ruined. But you. You’ve been ruined all along. And for no better reason than your own desires. I sacrificed my reputation to save parlor girls. That makes me a hero and you a hypocrite.”

  A vein stood out on Mr. Blanc’s red forehead. He shouted. “It’s different for men!”

  “What’s good for geese is good for ganders, even if they don’t lay eggs. And you did lay an egg. Georges!”

  “Are you calling me a goose?”

  “Goose, goose, double goose.” She turned her back on him and mopped Georges’s brow. “And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a father. I disown you.”

  Anna awoke with her face crushed against Georges’s mattress. She raised her head. Her father was gone. She looked at her patient. His eyes were bloodshot, but open and watching her.

  “Georges?”

  He smiled at her. “Anna.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Sunrise stained the sky pomegranate. Anna rode the trolley with the promise from Georges that they would dine together with Joe very soon. Even slightly wrinkled, she was the best-dressed woman on the car by a mile, though her eveningwear told tales on her. She had obviously been out all night. But she held her head up high and whistled joyfully if not tunefully. She had disowned her father and it made her feel powerful. Georges felt better, and she had a brother who was in her camp, never mind that he was defective, and she was late for work. She already felt keenly fond of her brother and could barely wait to get better acquainted.

  When Joe had quit Anna several months before because she refused to marry him, she had no one—no family and no lover. It had been a frightening feeling. Now she had both Joe and Georges. Sometime soon, perhaps that evening, Joe would dine with her at Georges’s hotel and they would come to know him better together. They could talk about the raid of the Jonquil.

  At her apartment, Anna raced to wash and change. She flew back out to the trolley stop, forgoing her elegant yak hairpiece, opting to hide her head beneath a large feather hat. By the time she arrived at the station, the criminal ladies had already finished their mush. Matilda sat on her cot in the cow ring sewing another pillowcase shut.

  When the girl saw Anna, she offered up a beatific smile. “Good morning Assistant Matron Blanc.”

  “Hello Matilda. How is our patient, Mrs. Michaelchek?”

  “The doctor removed her shackles and she escaped in the night.”

  Anna beamed. “That bodes well.”

  Matilda looked at her shoes. “I knew, but I didn’t stop her. I didn’t see the sense of keeping her in jail, and she couldn’t pay the fine.”

  Anna tut tutted. “Bad girl. That’s very wrong.” In fact, it’s what Anna would have done. Matilda, though crazy as a loon, would make an excellent police matron.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Anna inspected the sewn-up pillowcase distractedly. “Are you hungry? I could sneak you some mush.”

  Matilda’s eyes widened. “That would be lovely.”

  Anna felt a sudden sadness. Matilda couldn’t stay forever, as much as Anna would like her to. They would have to find something to do with her. Anna cringed at the idea of the Orphan’s Asylum, but it was that or a school for bad children. Unless the Friday Morning Club could find her a place. But who would hire a batty gir
l? She was resourceful and hardworking. Anna wondered if her friend Clara would take Matilda on as a scullery maid or something. Certainly not as a seamstress.

  The fact remained, if the cow ring got full, Matilda would have to go. Lodgers were given a two-night limit, and Matilda had overstayed. Anna could take her home to her own little apartment. There was room enough in her big canopy bed, and Matilda would probably clean the place. But where would she put Joe Singer? Food would be twice as expensive. Anna would be reduced to half rations. No matter. She couldn’t put Matilda out on the street. Anna could never be so cruel.

  It was settled then. Matron Clemens would have to take her.

  After securing Matilda’s illicit mush, Anna resolved to visit her desk. It had piles upon it—piles of things to do: delinquents to catch, wayward girls to reform, mothers to counsel on parenting said wayward girls. Everyone blamed bad children on their mothers and gave their fathers no responsibility whatsoever. If a man committed a crime, it was his mother’s fault. This made no sense to Anna, given that men had all the power.

  Anna was at a loss for counseling mothers, never having had one nor been one. She had been raised by the firm hand of Mrs. Morales, the Blanc housekeeper, and the iron fist of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Anna conjured advice based on columns in the newspaper. Of course no one would actually listen to advice from a mother of a wayward girl, thus none of the advice columnists had experience either.

  It seemed to Anna that mothers should be gentler than they were, and that kindness was more important than pretty dresses, though pretty dresses were extremely important. She would write that down. Also, mothers should warn their daughters against passion. Anna was all in favor of passion—passion was her favorite thing—but it wasn’t to be trusted. Marriage should be delayed at all costs, so that girls could become women and know their freedom. Also, daughters should be taught how much dressmakers charge before they make their order so as to avoid debt.

  While Anna sat at her desk practicing wisdom, she noticed that the corpses of Georges’s flowers had begun to wilt and smell. She carried the lovely, and undoubtedly expensive, vase to the bin and dumped the dead flowers into the trash. She poured the water down the bathroom sink and returned the vase to her desk. It looked beautiful with or without flowers.

  Sue and Clementine, the ruined twins, wandered in.

  “You’re wrong and you’re ugly,” said Clementine.

  Sue socked her.

  “Hello,” said Anna. “You slept in the cow ring last night. How was it?”

  Clementine smirked. “Not as nice as the Jonquil Apartments.”

  “You’re young. You’ll have plenty of time to be prostitutes.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Our beaus were looking for wives. They loved us.”

  “Your beaus were already married,” said Anna. “And besides, Clementine, could you really live with that scrawny mustache?”

  Sue laughed. Clementine frowned. “I . . . don’t know.”

  “You’re simply going to have to love each other.”

  The twins looked at each other dubiously.

  Joe appeared at the doorway.

  Anna’s face lit up. “You’re back. How was the raid?”

  “The raid was a bust. We got nothing. No drugs. All the young ladies were over eighteen or at least claimed to be. I think that lawyer warned them.”

  “Cock biscuits,” said Anna. “And no one’s come forward with information on the murder?”

  “Nope.”

  “And no word from Oklahoma City?”

  “Nope.”

  Anna’s shoulders sank. “So, we have nothing.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Anna began to despair of ever solving the case of the Griffith Park Executioner. During the following week, she barely saw Joe, who had been recruited back to Chinatown for another case. The only development was an angry letter from the postmaster returning Anna’s grizzly crime scene photo and admonishing that “Officer Singer use better judgment in the future.” Luckily, Anna saw it on Joe’s desk and intercepted it before he could read it.

  Anna did have plenty of matron’s work to do and was doing it when Joe knocked on the frame of her open storeroom door. He looked serious, but she thought he might be hiding a smile. He stepped through accompanied by a woman. “Good morning, Assistant Matron Blanc. Another witness has come forward. May I introduce Miss Allie Sutton, formerly of the Jonquil Apartments.” He raised his eyebrows.

  The young lady was nearly as fair as Matilda, with intelligent blue eyes, dark lashes, and glorious red hair. She was about Anna’s age. Anna stood and beamed. “Hello, Miss Sutton.” She turned to Joe. “Can she enlighten us about the man from Mars?”

  Joe weighed the question, tilting his head. “Maybe.”

  Miss Sutton whirled on Joe. “Are you two making fun of me?”

  “No, Miss Sutton, we’re deadly serious.” Now seeing the lady in profile, Anna wondered if she might have a bun in the oven. Though she went in at the sides, she popped out in the front. Another reason not to have children.

  “She heard about the raid on the grapevine and she’s come to bring charges against Mrs. Rosenberg and one Mr. King, a.k.a. The Black Pearl.”

  Anna indicated her own chair. “Do have a seat, Miss Sutton.”

  Miss Sutton perched nervously on the edge. “I’m not sure I should be here. In fact, I think I’ll go.” She rose from her seat, her gloved hands clasping each other. “I could use something to steady my nerves.”

  “Please stay.” Anna gently pushed down on her shoulder, guiding her back into the chair. “I’d offer you a medicinal whiskey, but matrons don’t ever drink whiskey.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Miss Sutton.

  “But cops can drink whiskey. Officer Singer, why don’t you offer her a drink?”

  Joe shook his head. “I’m sorry Miss Sutton, I regret I don’t have any—”

  Anna opened her drawer and retrieved a bottle of Georges’s fine Canadian whiskey. There was no reason not to share it. Georges was a bottomless jar. She handed it to Joe. “Here’s your whiskey. Right here in this desk.”

  He cleared his throat. “Miss Sutton, would you like some of, uh, my whiskey?”

  “If you please.”

  Anna handed Joe a glass and he filled it. Miss Sutton tossed it back like water.

  “Better?” Anna moved Joe’s hand to the bottle. He got the hint and refilled Miss Sutton’s glass.

  Miss Sutton sipped this time, savoring it. “Mm. My lover drank good whiskey. I got used to it.”

  “Oh, it’s terrible to have the good stuff, and then to only have the bad stuff. So, I would guess,” said Anna.

  Miss Sutton nodded. “It isn’t his whiskey I miss most. It’s him. But I hate him too, you understand?”

  Anna looked at Joe and nodded her head. “No. Matrons can’t have lovers.”

  “Miss Sutton. The Jonquil Apartments . . .” Joe said gently.

  “Oh yes. I lived there, and nefarious things were afoot. I was seventeen and acting in movies. I still do. That is, I did.”

  “How interesting,” said Anna. “I love the movies.”

  “Mrs. Rosenberg owns the resort, the café, and the apartments. She introduced me to Mr. King. She introduced all the girls to someone. They took us to the resort. There are baths and a massage parlor. I don’t need to tell you what happened.”

  “You don’t need to, but I would appreciate it,” said Anna. “You can’t be too detailed.”

  Joe suppressed a smile. “Did Mrs. Rosenberg or Mr. King ever drug you?”

  “Heavens no. You don’t understand. If a girl didn’t like the arrangement, she left. And Lori Tice even married her man.”

  “The Black Pearl’s new lover had a bruise on her hand. I wonder if he ever hurt you.”

  Miss Sutton flinched at the mention of another lover. “He never hit me. It wasn’t sordid. And, I’m not a prostitute. Mr. King gave me gifts, of course, but I was in
love with him and he was in love with me. I’m sure of it. He was handsome and amusing. I only ever left him because he said he could never marry me.”

  Joe and Anna exchanged a look. Anna said, “Why?”

  “Why can’t a man marry the woman he loves? Because he’s already married, clearly. I don’t know where she is or who she is. I just know she is.” She pressed her eyes with her fingertips, then looked up and cleared her throat. “So, I quit him. That was five months ago.”

  “When did you last see Mr. King?”

  “Once more after that. He came to the Jonquil and begged to have me back. When I refused, he got angry and broke a lamp.” She laughed joylessly. “He came another time when I was out. So, I left the Jonquil. I had to leave anyway or take another lover.”

  “Does Mr. King know you’re carrying his child?” said Joe.

  It was a rude question, but it had to be asked. Anna was glad Joe had done it so that she didn’t have to.

  “He’ll find out when I testify. But I want nothing to do with a married man.”

  “How will you support yourself.”

  “I write scenarios for the movies now. I’m quite good.”

  “And you knew other girls at the Jonquil who were seduced by rich men?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Mr. King brought men to the Jonquil?”

  “Yes. He procures things for wealthy men. Whatever they need. Nothing too awful. Just makes introductions. Connects people. Sometimes he loans them money.”

  “So where do we find your Mr. King?”

  “That’s not his real name,” said Miss Sutton. “He wouldn’t give me his real name.”

  Joe and Anna exchanged another look.

  “I’m not stupid. Deep down I knew. I suppose I didn’t want to know.” She wiped a tear.

  “What did you call him?” asked Anna.

  “Bear. I called him my Bear.”

  Anna turned to Joe. “How are we going to find Miss Sutton’s bear? Lie in wait at the Jonquil for someone burly and covered in hair?”