The garment, out of date as it was, double-breasted with a shawl collar as wide as a six-lane highway, was an uncommonly fine one of heavy silk and satin, but it had almost as many miles on it as the man who wore it. While trying it on in preparation for his nuptials, the professor had put his hand through the elbow of the dinner jacket, signaling the need for a new fitting. “They just don’t make them like they used to,” he grumbled.
“They don’t make them at all anymore,” his friend informed him. “Is that a watch pocket?”
“If cell phones get any smaller, it’ll be right back in style.”
It behove his best man to accompany him to his tailor of choice, whose probable extinction the groom stubbornly refused to accept. But as was usual with that infuriating man, the towering odds in favor of obsolescence in the ever-changing geography of Los Angeles were suspended. After Valentino had burned a quarter tank of gas looking in all the places the shop should have been but wasn’t, they pulled up at last in front of a squat ancient building with a faded striped awning surrounded by looming skyscrapers. A curling cardboard sign in the window had read FREE ALTERATIONS before someone had crossed out the first word and scribbled REASONABLY PRICED above it.
When they opened the glass-paneled door, a copper bell mounted on a spring clip tinkled and a pleasant masculine odor of leather and crisp fabric puffed out. Walls of yellow plaster wore framed blow-up photographs of Tom Mix, a positively adolescent Cary Grant, Emil Jannings, and other close contemporaries; former satisfied customers, Valentino supposed, wondering how the place had managed to stay afloat so long after they’d taken their business to the Great Beyond.
A door behind an oak-framed glass counter admitted a middle-aged Korean in white lawn shirtsleeves and pinstripe trousers with a yellow tape measure draped around his neck. “May I help you gentlemen?”
“Where’s Irving?” Broadhead asked.
“I’m afraid he retired fifteen years ago.”
“I get a card signed by him every Christmas.”
“That was Mr. Feingold’s wish, expressed on the occasion of his ninety-ninth birthday, the day he retired.”
“Where can I reach him?”
The young man blinked.
Broadhead turned to Valentino. “Irving made all the bespoke prison uniforms for George Raft.”
“I always thought that was an urban legend.”
“You didn’t know Raft. Cinematically speaking, he spent more time in stir than the Birdman of Alcatraz, and he hated the thought of looking frumpy.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” the Korean said. “I apprenticed under Mr. Feingold.”
“I’d feel better about it if you had cigarette burns on your vest and a Yiddish accent.”
“I don’t smoke, but—” He cleared his throat and released a string of guttural sounds from which the words “alter kocker” stood out. Valentino burst into laughter.
“What was so funny?” demanded Broadhead, when he paused for breath.
“Nothing,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Unless you ushered one summer when Sid Rugmann managed the Rialto Theater in Fox Forage, Indiana.”
The tailor snapped his tape measure taut with the crack of a whip, raising his eyebrows in anticipation. There was no trace of humor on his face.
It turned positively grim when Broadhead unzipped the garment bag he’d carried in and showed him the huge rip in the elbow of the jacket. “I’d have to re-weave it, sir. A new one won’t cost you much more.”
“I’m getting ready for a wedding, not supersizing a soda.”
“Very well. I estimate six months.”
“I’m getting married in three. What’s the holdup?”
“This fabric has to be ordered from Italy. The dockworkers have been on strike since December. Even if they settle the dispute tomorrow, I can’t make any promises beyond what I said.”
The professor’s eyes narrowed. “You did learn from Irving. You ought to fly the Jolly Roger out front.”
Later, seated in the fitting room in his shirtsleeves and boxers awaiting the return of the Korean, Broadhead hummed along with an easy-listening station piped in through speakers. Valentino averted his gaze from the scars on the man’s bare legs; fresh evidence of his long-ago incarceration in a Yugoslavian prison, charged with espionage.
“I won’t ask again what the joke was,” he said. “But I was afraid you’d become hysterical.”
Valentino nodded. “I was, kind of. It was the first thing that struck me funny in days.”
“One of the advantages of age is you grow accustomed to losing your friends. It’s also one of the disadvantages. In the end you cease to care about anyone’s mortality, least of all your own. You don’t buy into that curse nonsense, do you?”
“Beata did, and she was nobody’s fool. You have to admit a lot of top-billed blondes didn’t live long enough to check into the Motion Picture Home.”
“I could name as many or more top-billed brunettes who didn’t either, but no one would listen. Peroxide is a powerful aphrodisiac. Anyway, there’s more to this funk you’re in than silly superstition, or how close you were to Beata. You hardly knew Karen Ogilvie.”
“I didn’t know the latest victim at all.”
He told Broadhead about Geoffrey Root, not leaving out Eleazar Sheridan’s moving show of grief, which had affected the film archivist more than he might have expected. His mentor, steeped even deeper in the history of the motion-picture community than his protégé, picked up on the similarities to the Mansfield case immediately, and agreed with Padilla’s theory that their serial killer was involved; also with Valentino’s regarding the murderer’s motive in carrying away the box that had contained the wig he’d left at the scene.
“He’s a frustrated puppet master, for sure,” he said. “How does Padilla think he did it?”
“If he was riding in the car, he made some excuse to pull over. He’s partial to blunt instruments, so the lieutenant’s expecting the medical examiner to find evidence of concussion or worse. Then he drove the car the rest of the way to the top of the ravine, got out, and pushed it over by hand. Sheridan said he thought Root was alone, so our killer might have been following him and took advantage of a red light or a stop sign at some lonely crossroads—the area was full of those—jerked open the driver’s side door, and struck him that way. You know the rest.”
“Everything but why.”
“Padilla said that’s the prosecutor’s problem. His job is to nail the guy while there’s a blonde left in Southern California. His words,” Valentino added.
“I like a man who knows his duty. If he’s as good a detective as he sounds, he’s working on a way to be ahead of the killer for once.”
Valentino smiled grimly. “I don’t think Ray Padilla believes in crystal balls.”
“He doesn’t need one. He has you. Who was the other blonde Beata mentioned after Marilyn, Thelma, and Jayne?”
His friend felt his face grow pale again.
The tailor returned, carrying a bolt of black fabric; but by then his customer was stepping back into his trousers, with Valentino waiting impatiently for him to finish.
* * *
“It’s only a guess, remember. In any case, how can we act without knowing who he is or the name of his next victim?”
Valentino was driving; if not exactly aimlessly, in the general direction of the UCLA campus, where both men did their best thinking. “It would be a gathering of some kind, not just one person. So far he’s staged every murder as close to the original as possible. There’s no reason to believe he’d deviate from the plan.”
“You mean apart from the fact he’s crazy?”
“Insane people can be even more conscientious about following a pattern than rational ones. Who do we know who’s planning a party?”
“That should be easy; L.A. not being much of a party town.”
“Kyle, can you for once put aside your natural inclination to sneer at everything?”
“I’ll try; but you have to understand it’s how I cope. If it weren’t for a well-developed defense mechanism, I wouldn’t be sitting here, watching you shatter every traffic law in California.”
“I’m sorry.” He stopped with a chirp at a light that had just turned red. A Range Rover the size of Grauman’s Chinese Theater shot through the intersection, blasting its horn for a block.
“Think about it,” Broadhead said. “Every weekend—and some don’t wait that long—someone’s celebrating an award or a nomination or a movie wrap or a plum part or a retirement, and that’s just the industry. This is the largest city in the western world and one of the most gregarious. On any given evening it makes The Great Gatsby look like Castaway. And we don’t even know this guy’s thinking what we’re thinking.”
“Still, it beats no theory at all. Let’s go over it again. In each case, the murder was committed by someone the victim trusted.”
“It’s a wonder they lived as long as—never mind. On the day she was killed, Beata Limerick wasn’t expecting anyone but you. You never killed anyone; I’m not that cynical. Marilyn Monroe. Karen Ogilvie spent the night with friends, but as far as we know she was alone when the murderer came. No sign of a break-in, so she must have let him in. Thelma Todd. Geoffrey Root—the only male victim, but his dress and behavior put him just inside the perpetrator’s M.O.—was on his way to a paying gig when he was ambushed. Jayne Mansfield. This is shaping up like one of those cheesy shock-sexploitation flicks they used to show in drive-in theaters. Green.”
Belatedly, Valentino saw the light had changed. He started forward, not before the driver behind beeped twice, almost politely.
“I know what you mean. Harriet says when The Oracle is up and running, I can recoup my investment in three years if I cater to that trade; but I can’t even bring myself to screen that kind of trash, much less—”
He slammed on the brakes. Broadhead seized the dashboard in both hands. “Are you trying to duplicate the scene of the last murder?”
The same cordial driver who’d tooted at him earlier leaned on his horn button. Valentino held up an apologetic hand and resumed driving.
“Forgive me, Kyle. Since I’m pushing my luck at the wheel already, do me a favor: Look up Lieutenant Padilla’s number and give him a ring.” He handed the professor his phone.
“If you want to turn yourself in for being a menace on the road, you should call Traffic Enforcement instead.”
“Sheridan.”
“Root’s partner? What makes you think he—?”
“No, I’m convinced he’s innocent. But he said something that showed me how dense we’ve—I’ve been.”
“So you’re going to keep me in the dark until I goggle at you along with all the rest during the Big Reveal? I should tell you, Nigel Bruce ruined Dr. Watson for me.”
“Maybe Basil Rathbone didn’t want to look like a fool if he turned out to be wrong. I probably am, but if I’m not, I think I just figured out who killed them all and how he got in.”
15
“IT’S RINGING.” BROADHEAD grinned and winked. “I always wanted to do this.”
“Kyle, don’t—”
“Shhh! Lieutenant Padilla, please. Tell him Valentino is calling about the Marilyn murders. Yes, I’ll hold.” He hummed, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “ABBA. I’m disappointed.”
“What did you expect, the theme from Dragnet?”
“Anything but ‘Honey, Honey.’” He took away his hand. “Lieutenant Padilla? Please hold for Valentino.” Chuckling, he thrust the phone at the driver.
“What the hell!” was the first thing Valentino heard.
He glared at Broadhead, who appeared to be enjoying the scenery. They were passing along a bleak section of Sunset, all parking lots and major-appliance boxes rigged out for habitation. “I apologize for my friend, Lieutenant. I thought of a lead you might—”
“Save your sorries for yourself, buster. Tell me what you’re doing meddling in an open homicide investigation.”
Buster? “I wasn’t. I just thought of something Eleazar Sheridan said when you and I visited him.”
“Glad you remember I was there. Not that I give a rat’s tuckus what an amateur thinks he heard that I didn’t. I ask questions, I listen to the answers, I bring ’em back to the office and turn ’em over till they’re done on both sides, and if I don’t like the way they turn out I go back and ask the same questions and nine times or ten I get a whole different batch of answers. In the real world, pal, we don’t gather all the suspects in a ritzy dining room and spill everything we know. We don’t get confessions that way. What we get is the big clam.”
Pal? He pulled over to the curb. Negotiating L.A. traffic was challenge enough without digesting a lecture on police procedure at the same time.
Broadhead, staring at him now, mouthed, “What?”
He shook his head. “Hold on, Lieutenant. No matter what you said last time we spoke, I know I’m still on your books because I knew two of the victims. It’s only natural I’d want to look into the case.”
“Nuts. You take in an all-night Charlie Chan film festival and you think you’re Number One Son. You don’t hang around after the credits finish rolling to see the cops try to assemble the mess of pieces he scraped up into a picture they can sell the prosecutor. Even when that makes it to the screen, the editors or whatever they’re called snip out ninety-nine percent of the gruntwork involved, because nobody’d sit through a movie that’s three months long. We do, because we’re paid to.”
“That’s why I called, to help save you some of that time. I think I can identify the murderer.”
“Me, too; which is why I put Sheridan in custody.”
A truck rumbled past, shaking pieces out of the cracked pavement. Valentino stuck a finger in the ear on that side. “I told Broadhead just a minute ago I think Sheridan’s innocent.”
“Based on what? And what are you yelling about?”
He lowered his voice. The truck was a block away. “That’s why I called you. I—”
“You had somebody call for you and dick around. But, hey, if you say Sheridan’s clean, that settles it. I’ll get the D.A. on the horn right away and tell him my pet college egghead spoke up for our most valuable perp.”
“You think he killed his partner?”
“Not just Root. The whole shebang, Limerick and Ogilvie too.”
“But why?”
“That’s our job, and it’s half-done. The job says I take in everything, even crackpot theories by amateurs who spend too much time at the cineplex. ‘Come on down,’ like they say on The Price Is Right. It’s my dinner party, but I won’t hog it. I’ll hang on every harebrained word you have to say, sucking piping-hot joe from the machine down the hall in a mug my kid made for me in summer camp.”
* * *
Through Padilla’s glass wall, Valentino watched Eleazar Sheridan, his face gray and blank, being conducted down the hall by a plainclothesman whose own face looked as if it had been left to soak too long, hanging in loose folds pegged in place with eyes as flat as thumbtacks. The suspect’s wrists were shackled behind his back.
The lieutenant’s desk was piled high as before. He pulled out the bottom drawer, rested his feet on it with the ankles crossed, and blew steam from his mug. He hadn’t lied about that. It was ceramic, somewhat lopsided, and the handle canted off at an inconvenient angle. He ignored it, raising the receptacle by wrapping his hand around it, like a cup of saki in Benihana’s. His initials were scooped into the side; Valentino thought at first it read R.I.P.
“How’s that water?” he asked Broadhead. “We’re fresh out of Perrier. Sorry as hell. Hoping to buy one of those fancy water stations like in Safeway soon as we find a customer for the department armored half-track. Since the President stopped us from buying surplus equipment from the army, chief says holding onto it’s a PR issue.”
The professor drank from his Ozarka bottle. “It’s refreshing, thank you.
I like your office. Who did it for you, Eliot Ness?”
He got a blank stare back. They were two of a kind, Valentino noted: Men with edgy senses of humor who failed to acknowledge it in others. Their host snatched up his handset and hit a button. “Can I get an ETA on that interview room? Seriously?” He banged the receiver into the cradle. “Gang boys broke up a brawl this morning in East L.A.: ‘with chains and knives,’ like they used to say on Adam-12. They’re re-running it on broadband every night this week. Now, there was a cop show. That pair of squaddies got more action in one tour than all Downtown gets in a year.” He slurped coffee, sighed. “If one of our vics was Julia Roberts, maybe a little old homicide case would get first crack.”
“Let’s hope for the best.”
“Kyle.” Valentino spoke wearily. He was the only man in the room on his feet; not that there was another chair available, but if there had been one he’d have declined it.
“Well, we’ll get our turn. What we got won’t expire while the Jets and the Sharks are singing for Officer Krupke.” Padilla showed his lower teeth in his Werewolf of London grin. “Yeah, I tune in to AMC now and again. You were there, son. You heard everything I heard; according to you, you heard more, but we’ll come to that. It’s what we underpaid public servants don’t hear sets us scrambling for our Miranda cards. He made out like he didn’t know Beata Limerick or Karen Ogilvie from the Olsen twins. What he didn’t say was how he met Root: waiting tables at a political fund-raiser for a man running for Governor of California on a gay rights platform, where Root was performing. He was Peggy Lee that night, our informant says. His ‘Why Don’t You Do Right’ brought down the house.”
“What’s incriminating about that?”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet. Who said that?”
“Al Jolson,” Valentino and Broadhead said simultaneously.
“Rhetorical question,” growled Padilla. “Our informant was headwaiter that night. We found him through the same catering firm Sheridan told us he worked for before he retired—on his partner’s salary. You need to remember that. This headwaiter’s working in Beverly Hills now, pulling down a couple of hundred thou a year, not counting tips, showing the guests to their tables in the Wilshire dining room. That’s how good he is, and why he can tell you years later who waited on which table and where. Sheridan was in charge of three stations that night. How he met Root, Root was invited to join one of those parties after the show. It was Karen Ogilvie did the inviting.
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