“Sometimes it’s hard to see that kind of thing. God knows I’ve missed plenty of obvious things.”
“Guess so. But I can’t help feeling stupid. I mean, here I’ve been going on and on about independence and establishing my identity, resentful of you for being strong and dominating, and all along I’ve wanted to be taken care of, wanted to be daddied…. God, I miss him so much, Alex, and I miss you, too, and it’s all meshing into one big hurt.”
“Come back home,” I said. “We can work it out.”
“I want to but I don’t. I’m afraid everything will go back to being just like it was before.”
“We’ll make it different.”
She didn’t answer.
A week ago I would have pushed. Now, with ghosts tugging at my heels, I said, “I want you back right now, but you’ve got to do what’s right for yourself. Take your time.”
“I really appreciate your saying that, Alex. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I heard a creak, turned and saw Milo. He saluted and retreated hastily from the kitchen.
“Alex?” she said. “Are you still there?”
“Someone just walked in.”
“Little Miss Buckteeth?”
“Big Mr. Sturgis.”
“Give him my love. And tell him to keep you out of trouble.”
“Will do. Be well.”
“You too, Alex. I mean it. I’ll call soon. ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye.”
He was in the library, thumbing through my psych books, pretending to be interested.
“Hello, Sergeant.”
“Major league oops,” he said. “Sorry, but the goddamned door was open. How-many-times-have-I-told-you-about-that.”
He resembled an old sheepdog that had wet the rug. Suddenly all I wanted to do was alleviate his embarrassment.
“No secret,” I said. “Temporary separation. She’s up in San Luis Obispo. We’ll work it out. Anyway, you probably figured it out, right?”
“I had my suspicions. You’ve been looking stepped-on. And you haven’t been talking about her the way you usually do.”
“Thus spake the detective.” I walked over to my desk, began straightening papers without purpose.
He said, “Hope you guys work it out. The two of you were good.”
“Try to avoid the past tense,” I said sharply.
“Oops again. Mea culpa. Mia Farrow.” He beat his breast but looked genuinely abashed.
I went up to him and patted his back. “Forget it, big guy. Let’s talk about something more pleasant. Like murder. I went digging today, came up with some interesting stuff.”
“Dr. Snoop?” he said, adopting the same protective tone I’d used on Maura.
“The library, Milo. Not exactly combat duty.”
“With you, anything’s possible. Anyway, you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine. But not on a dry mouth.”
We went back into the kitchen, popped a couple of beers, and opened a package of sesame breadsticks. I told him about Sharon’s fantasy childhood—the East Coast society background that resembled Kruse’s, the orphanhood that echoed Leland Belding’s.
“It’s as if she’s collecting fragments of other people’s histories in order to build one of her own, Milo.”
“Okay,” he said. “Other than her being a stone liar, what does that mean?”
“Probably a serious identity problem. Wish fulfillment—maybe her own childhood was filled with abuse or abandonment. Being a twin played a part in it too. And the Belding connection is more than coincidence.”
I told him about the War Board parties. “Secluded Hollywood Hills houses, Milo. The one on Jalmia fits that bill. Her mother works the party pad circuit. Thirty-five years later, Sharon’s living in a pad.”
“So what are you saying? Old Basket Case was her daddy?”
“It would sure explain the high-level cover-up, but who knows? The way she twisted the truth has me doubting everything.”
“Cop-thinking,” he said.
“I checked out a couple of books on Belding—including The Basket-Case Billionaire. Maybe something in there will be useful.”
“The book was a scam, Alex.”
“Sometimes scams are laced with a bit of truth.”
He chewed a breadstick, said, “Maybe. How’d you find it, anyway? I thought the damn thing was recalled.”
“I asked the librarian about that. Apparently, large libraries get advance copies; the recall order only applied to bookstores and commercial distributors. Anyway, it’s been buried there since ’73, very few checkouts.”
“Rare show of good taste on the part of the reading public,” he said. “Anything else?”
I recounted my meeting with Maura Bannon.
“I think I convinced her to back off, but she’s got a source at the coroner’s.”
“I know who it is.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Your telling me clears something up. Few days ago there was this third-year med student from S.C. rotating through the coroner’s office. Asking too many questions about recent suicides, seemed to be snooping around the files. My source told me about it. He was worried it was someone from the city, spying around.”
“Is he still snooping?”
“Nah, rotation’s over, kid’s outta there. Probably just a boyfriend angling for some white-knight sex from Lois Lane Junior. Anyway, you did right to cool her off. This whole thing keeps getting weirder and weirder and the fix is in heavy. Yesterday, at the Kruse place, Trapp shows up before the crime scene crew arrives, all evil smiles, wanting to know how I caught the call when I’m still officially on vacation. I told him I’d come in early to the squad room, was working at my desk clearing some paperwork when an anonymous call came through reporting foul play at the Kruse address. Total crap, wouldn’t have fooled a rookie. But Trapp didn’t pursue it, just thanked me for my initiative and said he’d take over from here.”
Milo growled, cracked his knuckles. “Asshole co-opted me.”
“I saw him on the news.”
“Wasn’t that a display? Bullshit augmented by horseshit. And more to follow: Word has it Trapp’s pushing the sex maniac angle. But those women weren’t positioned like any sex murder victims I’ve ever seen—no spread legs or sexual posing, no rearranged clothing. And, as far as my coroner source can tell, given the state of the bodies, no strangulation or mutilation.”
“How did they die?”
“Beaten and shot—no way to tell which came first. Hands tied behind the backs, single bullet to the back of the head.”
“Execution.”
“That would be my working guess.”
He took his anger out on a breadstick, crunching and wiping crumbs off his shirt. Then he finished his beer and went to get another one from the fridge.
“What else?” I said.
He sat down, tilted his head back and poured brew down his throat. “Time of death. Putrefaction’s no exact science, but for that much rot to go down in an air-conditioned room, even with the door open, those bodies had to be lying there for a while. There was gas bloat, skin peel, and fluid loss, meaning days, not hours. Four to ten days is my source’s theoretical range. But we know the Kruses were alive last Saturday, at that party, so that narrows it to four to six days.”
“Meaning they could have been killed either after Sharon died, or before.”
“That’s right. And if it was before, a certain scenario rears its ugly head confirming your theory about Rasmussen. I called the Newhall sheriffs station about him. They knew him well: ugly drunk, chronic troublemaker, very short fuse, multiple assault busts, and he did kill his dad—beat him to death, then shot him. Now we know he was getting it on with Ransom, but not as an equal, right? He was a major maladjust, probably had half her IQ. She was manipulating him, playing with his head. Let’s say she had some major beef against Kruse and mentioned it to Rasmussen. She wouldn’t even have had to be direct—as in go and
kill the bastard. Just hint around, complain about how Kruse had hurt her—maybe use hypnosis. You said she knew hypnosis, right?”
I nodded.
“So she could have used it to soften Rasmussen up. Angling for some white-knight pussy of his own, he went and played Lord High Executioner.”
“Killing his father all over again,” I said.
“Ah, you shrinks.” His smile faded. “The maid and the wife died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He stopped talking. The silence put me somewhere else.
“What’s the matter?”
“Seeing her as a murder contractor.”
“Just a scenario,” he said.
“If she was that cold, why’d she kill herself?”
He shrugged. “Thought you might be able to fill in that one.”
“I can’t. She had problems, but she was never cruel.”
“Fucking all those patients wasn’t an act of charity.”
“She was never overtly cruel.”
“People change.”
“I know that but I just can’t see her as a killer, Milo. It doesn’t sit right.”
“Then forget it,” he said. “It’s all theoretical bullshit, anyway. I can spin you ten like it in as many minutes. And it’s about as far as we’re gonna go, given the state of the evidence—too many unanswerable questions. Like are there phone records tying Rasmussen to Ransom between the time the Kruses died and the time she died? Newhall to Hollywood is a toll call. Normally, that would be easy to trace, except when I tried, the records had been pulled and sealed, courtesy of my employers. And who reported Ransom’s death in the first place? Normally, if I wanted to know that, I’d just take a peek in her file, but there ain’t no goddam file. Courtesy, my employers.”
He got up, rubbed his hand over his face, and paced the kitchen.
“I drove up to her house this morning, wanted to talk to her neighbors, see if any of them had made the call. I even figured out who lived across the canyon and visited them to see if they’d seen anything, heard anything, maybe a peeper with a telescope. Zilch. Two of the four houses in hercul-de-sac were unoccupied—owners out of town. The third’s owned by this free-lance artist, old gal who does children’s books, shut-in, bad arthritis. She wanted to help. Problem is, from her place you can’t see what’s going on in Ransom’s—just the driveway. No good view from any of them, matter of fact.”
“Party pad architecture,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said. “Anyway, from her garden, the artist could see some comings and goings. Occasional visitors—women and men, including Rasmussen—in and out after about an hour’s time.”
“Patients.”
“That’s what she assumed. But all that stopped about half a year ago.”
“The same time she was caught sleeping with her patients.”
“Maybe she decided to retire. Except for Rasmussen—she held on to him. He kept coming, not often, but up until a month ago, the artist remembered seeing the green truck. She also described a guy who sounded like Kruse—he stayed longer, several hours at a time, but she only saw him once or twice. Which doesn’t mean much. She can’t get around too well—it might have been more often. Other interesting thing is that a photo of Trapp didn’t register. Which means he probably wasn’t one of Ransom’s boyfriends. And if the bastard was investigating the case, he never bothered to talk to the next-door neighbor—didn’t even do the basics. Sum total: Slimeball’s involved in the cover-up. And I’m off the case. Goddammit, Alex, it makes my adrenals hurt.”
“There are other question marks,” I said. “Your scenario’s based on some kind of hostility between Sharon and Kruse. She was having problems—she told me so at the party. But nothing indicates they were with Kruse. At the time of her death she was still registered as his assistant. She showed up at a party to honor him, Milo. I did see her arguing with that older guy I told you about. But I have no idea who he is.”
“What else?” he said.
“There’s lots of other factors to consider: Belding, Linda Lanier, the blackmailed doctor, whoever he is. And Shirlee, the missing twin—I called Olivia Brickerman, tried to get into the Medi-Cal files. The computer was down. I’m hoping for something soon.”
“Why’re you still pushing that? Even if you find her, you won’t be able to talk to her.”
“Maybe I can find someone who knows her—knew both of them. I don’t believe we’ll ever understand Sharon without knowing more about Shirlee, about the relationship between the two of them. Sharon perceived Shirlee as more than a sister—they were psychological partners, halves of a whole. Twins can develop identity problems. Sharon chose that topic—or something like it—for her doctoral dissertation. Ten to one she was writing about herself.”
That gave him pause.
“Air your dirty laundry and get a Ph.D.? That’s considered kosher?”
“Not at all. But she managed to get around lots of things.”
“Well,” he said, “you go ahead, look for your twin. Just don’t expect too much.”
“What about you?” I said.
“I’ve got another day and a half left before Trapp locks me into some new plum assignment. Seeing as we’re dealing with thirty-five-year-old stuff, there comes to mind someone who might be able to educate us. Someone who was around in those days. Problem is he’s unpredictable, and we’re not exactly good buddies.”
He got up, slapped his thigh. “What the hell, I’ll give it a try, call you tomorrow morning. Meantime, keep reading those books and magazines. Uncle Milo will be giving you a pop quiz when you least expect it.”
Chapter
22
I spent the rest of the day getting a master’s degree in Leland Belding, starting where I’d left off—the demise of the Senate hearings.
Immediately following his reprimand, the billionaire threw himself into the movie business, renaming his studio Magnafilm, scripting, directing, and producing a string of combat sagas featuring rugged individualist heroes who bucked the establishment and emerged victorious. All were panned by the critics as mechanical and bland. Audiences stayed away.
In 1949 he purchased a Hollywood trade paper, fired the film critic, and installed his own yes man. Bought a string of movie houses and filled them with his product. More losses. In 1950 he went into deeper seclusion than ever and I found only one reference covering the next two years: Magna’s patent application for an aluminum-reinforced girdle that suppressed bulges but heightened jiggle. The device, developed for an actress with a tendency to corpulence, was marketed as the Magna-Corsair. American women didn’t go for it.
In late 1952 he emerged, suddenly a new man—a public Leland Belding, attending premieres and parties, squiring starlets to Ciro’s, Trocadero, the Mocambo. Producing a new string of films—vapid comedies heavy with double entendre.
He moved from his “monastic” apartment at Magna headquarters to an estate in Bel Air. Built himself the world’s most powerful private jet, upholstered in leopard skin and paneled with antique walnut stripped from a centuries-old French chateau that he reduced to rubble.
He bought Old Masters by the truckload, outbid the Vatican for religious treasures plundered from Palestine. Snapped up race horses, jockeys, trainers, an entire racecourse. A baseball team. An entire passenger train which he converted to a moving party pad. He acquired a fleet of custom-made cars: Duesies, Cords, Packards, and Rolls-Royces. The world’s three largest diamonds, auction houses full of antique furniture, more casinos in Vegas and Reno, an assortment of domiciles stretching from California to New York.
For the first time in his life he began contributing to charity—hugely, ostentatiously. Endowing hospitals and scientific research institutions, on condition that they be named after him and staffed by him. He threw lavish balls supporting the opera, the ballet, the symphony.
All the while, he was assembling a harem: actresses, heiresses, ballerinas, beauty queens. The most eligible ba
chelor had finally come into his own.
On the surface, a radical personality shift. But a Vogue writer, reporting on a bash Belding threw for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, described the billionaire as “standing on the sidelines, unsmiling and fidgety, observing the festivities rather than participating in them. He looked, to these admittedly cynical eyes, like a little lost boy locked in a room full of candy—so much candy that he’s lost his appetite for sweets.”
Given all the partying, I expected to find something about William Houck Vidal. But there was nothing, not even a snapshot, to suggest that the former “management consultant” had participated in the metamorphosis of his boss. The sole mention of Vidal during the early fifties was a quote in a business journal regarding early development of a new fighter bomber. A quote attributed to “W. Houck Vidal, Senior Vice-President and Head of Operations for Magna.”
One man going from businessman to playboy. The other reversing the process. It was as if Belding and Vidal were perched on a psychic teeter-totter.
Switching identities.
Then, in early ’55, all of it stopped.
Belding canceled a gala for the Cancer Society, dropped completely from sight. Then commenced what one magazine called “the greatest rummage sale in history.” The mansions, cars, jewels, and other trappings of princely consumption were sold—at great profit. Even the movie studio—nicknamed Magnaflop—earned millions in real estate appreciation.
The press wondered what Belding’s new “phase” would be. But there was none, and when it became clear that the disappearing act was permanent, coverage grew progressively sketchier until, by the mid-sixties, neither Belding nor Magna was mentioned other than in financial and technical journals.
The sixties: Oswald. Ruby. Hoffman and Rubin. Stokely and Rap. No shortage of actors willing to strip for the camera. No one cared about a rich hermit who’d once made bad movies.
In 1969, Leland Belding’s death was reported “somewhere in California, following a prolonged illness.” In accordance with the bachelor billionaire’s will, a group of former Magna executives assumed leadership of Magna, with the chairman of the board position going to William Houck Vidal.
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