The Body in Griffith Park

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  What then?”

  “They won’t. It’s him. I know it.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Anna discreetly ate the tart as she headed for the stairs leading up to the women’s department of the jail. She hurried, as her feelings were very likely on her sleeve, and she did not want the cops to think she had any feelings at all. They didn’t appear to have feelings, except maybe irritation and whatever feeling it was that made cops leer at police matrons. It certainly wasn’t love.

  She passed Detective Snow, who leered on cue.

  Anna slipped up into the little room used by the police matrons for sleeping when they worked overnight. She didn’t stop to check on the criminal ladies in the tanks or in the cow ring. She didn’t stop to talk to Matron Clemens. She locked the door and sobbed silently. She sobbed like a mute hyena. It made her throat ache. She tried to breathe deeply. She ran the faucet and splashed water on her hot face.

  Georges was innocent. He would be vindicated. And she didn’t want to marry Joe Singer anyway. It meant handing over the deed to her person and her things. Why would any woman want to marry any man, ever?

  But she did love Joe Singer.

  Still, she resolved to never speak to him again. Or at least as little as possible. She sobbed silently some more. Because without Georges and Joe, she would have no family at all, just like the old, bald woman who had escaped from the receiving hospital. No wonder she had taken up drink. Anna wouldn’t even be able to afford good whiskey.

  Matilda called to Anna through the door. She had been knocking, perhaps for a while.

  “Just a minute.” Anna splashed her face again. In the mirror, she could see that her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her irises a searing gray. She patted her face dry with a towel and opened the door. “Hello Matilda.”

  Matilda looked at Anna’s red-rimmed eyes and politely ignored them. “You have a letter. Detective Singer gave it to me to give to you.”

  Anna nodded and took the envelope. It wasn’t addressed to Anna, but to Joe, and had already been opened. “Thank you, Matilda. You’re a good girl. Now run along. Soon I’ll get you something nice to eat.”

  Anna wondered what Georges had left over in his picnic basket. Otherwise it was kippers, Cracker Jacks, or cold mush for Matilda. She had to remember to get donations from the Friday Morning Club. Which reminded her, she needed to help find jobs for prostitutes. Which further reminded her of the poor dead man in Griffith Park. She had a murder to solve. Because Joe had falsely accused Georges, she had forgotten all about it. Also, she had no leads.

  Except maybe she did now.

  The return address on the letter in her hands was from a Sergeant Tribble of the Oklahoma City Police Department. The reply had not come to her because she had signed the letter, “Detective Joe Singer.”

  Her broken heart beat in two pieces. Anna tore open the letter and read:

  Dear Detective Singer,

  Greetings. I’m writing regarding the photograph you sent to the Oklahoma City Police Department. We have identified the victim as one Samuel Grayson, aged nineteen, of Oklahoma City. He was identified by Edward Newton at Newton and Son’s Pharmacy who had supplied him with powder for a headache complaint. His father, Leonard Grayson, confirmed his identity. I questioned the father according to your request. Samuel Grayson left Oklahoma for Los Angeles. According to his father, he had no known enemies, and no one wished him harm. Leonard Grayson regrets that he cannot claim his son’s remains, for he is of modest means and cannot afford to ship them.

  Sincerely,

  Sergeant Garry Tribble

  Anna set down the letter. Why did Samuel Grayson come to Los Angeles and when? Didn’t Sergeant Tribble think to ask him that? It had been on the list of questions Anna had included with her missive. She would have to write the detective yet another letter and wait another eleven days for his reply. It was sad that telephone lines didn’t reach to Oklahoma City. She sat down and wrote a terse response in her elegant, feminine hand, including her list of questions once again and emphatic directions to ASK THEM. She signed the letter, “Detective Joe Singer,” spritzed it with perfume, and set it with the outgoing mail.

  There was nothing Anna could do for Georges at the moment, so she checked on the criminal ladies. With Clementine and Sue in residence, all the cots in the cow ring were full. The tanks in the ladies’ department were bursting. Add one more lady and someone would get knocked down into the men’s department, if there was space in a felony cell.

  Or someone would have to go.

  The jailbirds had eaten their lunch, and Matron Clemens had them sewing linens. Matilda lay on her cot with her eyes closed, lightly snoring. Anna kissed her on the forehead and left a box of Cracker Jacks by her pillow. She hoped none of the other ladies would steal it.

  Anna clipped downstairs to the main floor of the station to search the new Los Angeles City Directory for Samuel Grayson’s name. The Directory was published annually in February. The private census was taken each year between June and September. Then, typesetting began. People recently arrived or moved could submit their names late in hopes of making it into the back of the book—a hodgepodge of post-deadline entries. If Grayson had been in Los Angeles long enough—say at least four months—he might be in the book. If he’d arrived more recently, Anna was out of luck.

  Joe Singer was not on the station floor, which was just dandy as far as Anna was concerned. Wolf sat at his desk and kept sending Anna heavy looks, no doubt laden with meaning, but a meaning that escaped her.

  He sauntered over. “I released your brother, honeybun. He said he’d see you tonight.”

  “So, all charges have been dropped?”

  “No, I regret not. He’s going to be arraigned.”

  “Oh,” said Anna.

  “Assistant Matron Blanc, don’t be too hard on Joe Singer. He’s young and only sort of deserves it.”

  “You would never arrest my brother, would you?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Thank you, Detective Wolf. Perhaps I will marry you.”

  “I think you need to give young Joe a second chance.”

  Anna squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of murder. “I have a lot of work to do.”

  She said a silent prayer to Saint Anthony, patron saint of pigs and skin disease, that Joe Singer would get a fungus.

  CHAPTER 24

  Anna flipped through the hulking volume that contained Los Angeles—all of its citizens, all of its businesses, every government office. She waded through ads for everything under the sun: a Baptist church, a tamale factory, player pianos, detective agencies, and a moving company called “Big Green Vans.” She checked the G’s but found no Samuel Grayson. Then she checked the back of the book in the section for people who had missed the cut-off date and were added at the last minute. He was there—Samuel Grayson. Likely, he had moved to Los Angeles in October, after the census but before the final deadline. He’d been in the city five months.

  Samuel Grayson lived downtown on Hill Street near the Majestic Theater. Anna rode the trolley alone through streets that teemed with vehicles, animals, and busy strangers. She passed Hamburger’s Department Store where she and Joe had reconnoitered in the dressing room until the mirrors had steamed up. Anna wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that secret, crime-fighting encounter. She wouldn’t have realized that she loved Joe and she would be married to Edgar. She wouldn’t be an LAPD police matron. Really, the place should be a shrine. Anna bit her fist, lamenting that things weren’t different, wishing that Joe and Georges were with her, all fighting crime together. But that dream was over.

  Samuel Grayson had lived in a multi-story boarding house for single men. Anna entered the foyer where a sign read, “Women strictly prohibited.” She ignored it. No one was about, likely because all the men were still at work or dead. She knocked on the door that said, “Manager.”

  A man answered. He had black hair and a tiny head. Anna smiled. “I am Assistant Matro
n Blanc with the LAPD. I regret to inform you that your tenant, Samuel Grayson, has been killed dead. I’m investigating his murder.” She smiled again.

  The manager looked grave. “The detective said you’d be by. He’s already up there.”

  Anna frowned. “Oh.” Of course Joe Singer would be investigating, too, but it stung that he hadn’t included her. Then again, she wouldn’t have sat with him on the trolley and he knew it.

  Joe had left the door open a crack for Anna. She slipped in and found herself in a room both nicer and worse than her own. For one thing, the furniture fit. There were no leaks. It was clean. The furnishings looked brand new but were monumentally ugly. Anna had never seen a settee with such clashing colors, and the bed clothes made her gasp.

  “Hello,” Joe said. He looked subdued, full of regret, and very, very handsome.

  Anna doubled down on her resolve. “Apology not accepted.”

  “I didn’t apologize.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Even if he wasn’t sorry, she felt glad he was there. The fact that Joe hunted Samuel Grayson’s killer meant that he was not gathering evidence against Anna’s brother, which would be a futile waste of time because there was no evidence against him.

  “I’ll search the bed area, you stay over there. I can’t bear to be near a bed with you.”

  Joe’s eyelids lowered to an angry half-mast. “All right.”

  Anna checked under the bed. No dust bunnies. She ran her hand along the mattress under the sheets and lifted the mattress. No slits or tears. She found a little money. “Five dollars,” she said.

  “Take it. We’ll send it to his father. It seems like he needs it.”

  At one time, Anna had needed it. But now there was Georges. He said she never need work again, which implied he would pay her frock bills. She would try to make time to go shopping.

  Joe tossed the wardrobe, checking through the pockets of coats and trousers. There were several expensive, yet ugly suits that looked new. Joe held one up against himself for Anna to see. It was a ghastly rust-color—nearly orange—and busy with checks. He waggled his eyebrows.

  She wrinkled her nose, and, despite everything, she smiled. Then she kicked herself and turned away.

  She searched a writing desk where a metal spike speared a stack of receipts. She sorted through them. There were receipts for suits, ties, shirt collars, garters, handkerchiefs, and cufflinks—all purchased in quick succession. She found three bank receipts for deposits into the Farmers and Merchants Bank, each for one thousand dollars, and pondered whether to share the fact with Joe. It could be an important clue. But clues made her smile. She didn’t want to smile at him.

  Instead, she glared at him and tried to push past him, but he caught her in his arms. They were strong, hot, muscular arms. He held her carefully, and when she looked up into his face to scowl at him, he kissed her. His kiss was melting fiery, and burned with all the intensity of their situation, all the passion required to overcome it—Anna’s despair, his anger and guilt, a brother facing indictment, and a dead man’s tasteless apartment.

  Anna pulled away. “Apology not—”

  He kissed her again.

  She pulled away. “Accepted,” she said.

  He gave her an irresistible half-smile. “I knew you’d forgive me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  He kissed her again. Anna couldn’t help it. She had only doubled down on her resolve and he had kissed her three times. Had she tripled down, she would not be kissing him back. But she was. And his hands were holding her cheeks, and he was whispering, “Sherlock, you’ve got to forgive me.” And her hands were pulling at his jacket, and he was lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the atrocious settee. And his hands were caressing her through four blessed layers of fabric, then three, then two. And she was letting him. And he was letting her.

  And the doorbell rang, an obnoxious DING DONG.

  It broke the spell.

  Anna’s mind grabbed the reins to her body and she shoved Joe off the settee. He landed with a thunk on the carpet. “Answer the door,” she said coolly, though she burned like hot lava. “It could be a witness.” She sat up and smoothed her skirt down over her legs.

  He stood. “I can’t answer that. I’ve got an enormous cock stand.”

  “Cock stand?” Anna followed Joe’s gaze down to his drawers. “Oh.”

  There was no way a visitor would miss that. It was like a giant redwood towering on the plains. “It’s because of you,” he stated.

  Anna lifted her chin. “Then, I’ll fix it.” She reached out and pressed down on it. It popped back up. “Jupiter.” She pushed down again and held it down this time with both hands.

  She rather liked helping in this way. She helped some more.

  “Oh God, that’s not helping.” He scrambled away and slipped into his pants.

  The doorbell rang again. DING DONG. Joe snatched up his hat and held it over his lap. “Anna get the door.”

  Anna, who did not have a cock stand, but whose mussed appearance was equally damning, donned a hideous plaid overcoat pinched from a rack and answered the door. She put on her most charming hostess smile, her bun sagging to the left. “Yes?”

  The visitor looked to be about Anna’s age, maybe slightly older, wearing an off-the-rack suit and no hat. He needed a haircut. “I heard, um, noises. I thought Sam was back.”

  “Regrettably, Samuel Grayson has been executed,” said Anna, tactfully.

  “What?” He looked stunned.

  “He’s dead.”

  The young man stumbled back as if physically struck by her words. “He can’t be. Not old Sam?”

  “Never fear. We are the police, and we’ve come to find his killer,” Anna said, aware that beneath the coat, her shirtwaist was unbuttoned, her corset cover ripped, her corset unhooked, and her uniform tie lay on the floor. She kicked it to the side.

  Joe pushed through the door and grabbed the man’s arm as he seemed to be tottering. It was good to keep witnesses off balance. Anna congratulated herself.

  “Steady now. I’m Detective Singer with the LAPD. Why don’t you come in and sit down?”

  Anna noted Joe’s cock stand was now less a giant redwood and more of a sort of . . . Joe caught her looking and frowned. She stopped mentally describing his man parts but tucked the image away in her mind for later.

  Joe’s tie and jacket were back on. He looked every bit the detective. Except that bit.

  He ushered in the witness.

  The man, one Lester Shepherd, sat on the edge of the settee, shaking his head. Over and over, he kept repeating, “Poor, poor Sam.”

  Anna didn’t know if his shock was genuine, but she poured him water from a pitcher by the bed, never mind it had been sitting there for over two weeks.

  Joe’s tree had finally fallen, and he looked subdued—because of Anna or this Lester fellow, she didn’t know. Joe asked, “How did you know Mr. Grayson?”

  “I live next door,” Mr. Shepherd said.

  “You were good friends?” asked Joe.

  He shrugged. “New friends. We ate our meals together in the dining room.”

  “You must have been worried. He’s been gone for weeks.” Anna stared him down. “Why didn’t you report him missing?”

  “Honestly, I thought he’d run off with Flossie. He never planned to stay here. He didn’t like LA. He had talked about going down to Mexico.”

  This puzzled Anna. How could anyone not like Los Angeles? Especially a person from Oklahoma.

  “Who’s Flossie?” asked Joe.

  “She was his fiancée. They eloped against her family’s wishes, except they never got around to getting married.”

  Anna looked at Joe. “That’s a motive. Her father is likely irate. Mine would kill for much less.”

  “As Sam told it, they left the state to escape her father’s wrath. They couldn’t tell anyone back home where they were living. Flossie’s dad used to get violent with her. He’d
been in the war, fought in the Philippines—”

  “She didn’t live here?”

  “No, they lived separate. Like I said, they weren’t married yet.”

  “What’s Flossie’s full name?”

  “Edmands.”

  “Do you know where Miss Edmands is now?”

  “I didn’t keep track of her. They had a fight and she quit him. He got banned from her apartment building. She never returned his letters. He said her apartment manager was holding her captive, but I thought he just went a little crazy, you see? Couldn’t accept her leaving him.”

  Anna squinted at Joe. “She lived at the Jonquil.”

  Joe’s eyes flashed understanding. It was just like in the jilted man’s letter to the police.

  “How did you know? Sam used to work in the café there, but they fired him. I don’t know what he did, but it must have been pretty bad. They wouldn’t let him back on the premises. He hasn’t heard from Flossie since. He was worried about her. Thought the Jonquil people were bad apples. Even thought about writing to her family, which surprised me given her father’s violent nature.”

  “So, if he didn’t have a job, where did he get his . . . um . . . nice clothes?” asked Joe.

  “He inherited some money and he was investing it playing poker.”

  “Investing it?” Joe’s manly, skeptical eyebrows arched up.

  “He usually won,” said Lester.

  “Where did he play, do you know?” asked Anna.

  “Nope.” He cocked his head. “Why are you wearing Sam’s coat?”

  When Lester Shepherd had gone, Anna made Joe turn his back so she could dress, never mind he’d been the one to undress her. With his teeth. She had lost her head for a moment, but she’d found it again. Regrettably, it was full of images of his cock stand.

  “I doubt he got an inheritance. The Oklahoma police said the family didn’t have any money,” Joe said, facing the wall.

  Anna stared at his backside. “Three payments of one thousand dollars each? That’s no inheritance. He’s our blackmailer.” She stopped. Her fingers froze midbutton. Her mouth opened wide, lips parted by invisible words too horrible to utter.