Tom and Sullivan shouldered through the crowd. The patrolmen manning the doors stepped aside to let them enter, satisfied by Sullivan’s badge and a growl of ‘he’s with me’. Inside, the atmosphere was quieter, but only just. A hum of gossip passed from lip to ear and on again as information was gathered and relayed, and the latest rumors compared, about the death of a colleague whose propriety had been the rarest kind in Hollywood – almost entirely unquestioned. The inquest had been convened at the request of District Attorney Woolwine, and most of those attending had been summoned there expressly by telephone call from his office late the previous evening. Why it couldn’t have waited until Monday, nobody knew, though it certainly was a godsend for the Sunday papers.
Tom stood alone to one side, self-conscious now, aware from one or two disapproving looks that his sunglasses looked out of place and didn’t entirely disguise the bruising round his eyes. Sullivan had gone off to consult with his colleagues from the detective squad, but there were plenty more faces he recognized, acquaintances as well as those whose regular appearances in the fan magazines and gossip columns made them known to half the world. He forced himself to smile and nod at one or two who greeted him, but there was only one person he wanted to talk to, and he wasn’t about to miss his chance with her, if and when it came.
He felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘Hey, Tom, sad day, huh?’
It was Harry Fellows, a director he knew from Lasky’s, and who had worked with Taylor on and off. They chewed the air a while, catching up, when the sounds of a commotion emerged from a room on the far side of the lobby.
‘That’s the room where Mr Taylor’s laid out,’ Fellows explained. ‘That negro valet of his, he’s in there now. I saw two bulls take him in. You should see him, rigged out like he’s going to—’
Before he could finish the sentence, the door of the inquest chamber opened and an usher called those assembled to take their seats. Fellows hung back, saying he might be called to testify, so Tom went in alone, making for an empty place at the aisle end of a rapidly filling bench near the door. He had a momentary standoff with a thin, birdlike woman, impeccably coiffured and fitted out in the fabrics and furs of a studio executive’s wife. But he held his ground, knowing he might need to get out the door quickly if all went according to plan, and the woman pushed past to take a place further in as the coroner and two assistants entered from a side door.
Coroner Frank A. Nance looked like a man begrudgingly sacrificing his Saturday morning lie-in. A squat figure with a prominent gut, spectacles and the carmine flush of a drinker, he strode across the room and took his seat ill-temperedly, fussing over the documents he placed in front of him, then looked up for the first time at the packed room. The chatter dwindled.
‘We are here for one purpose only,’ Nance announced formally. ‘That is to establish the circumstances in which William Desmond Taylor met his death. Witnesses have been called here today to testify on the facts alone. Speculations as to responsibility, motive or guilt will not be tolerated.’
A murmur rippled through the assembly, which Nance rebuked with a sharp clack of his gavel. As he and his clerk went through the preliminaries, Tom looked round, saw Sullivan sitting amid a bunch of detectives crowded on to the police benches. Beside them, sectioned off behind a rail, sat six anxious-looking jurors, most of them fidgeting and sweating, eyes sweeping from person to person, awed by the famous faces and heavy fug of power. Apart from the cops, the hacks and the court officers, the jurors were about the only non-movies present. Sullivan caught his eye, crossed his arms and pointed discreetly at a dark-haired, pug-faced cop sitting to his right. That had to be Ramirez.
Nance called the room to order and asked that the first witness be called. When the clerk announced Mabel Normand’s name, heads turned, necks craned and, despite the coroner’s clacking disapproval, another murmur rustled through the room, rising in volume as, second by second, no Miss Normand came to answer the summons. Looking the least surprised of anyone, the coroner issued an order to the clerk, who dispatched an officer from the room. Clearing his throat, Nance himself then called for Charles Eyton.
Tom watched intently as the familiar trim and well-tailored figure made his way to the plain wooden chair at the front of the room. His former boss was looking good, a slate-gray suit setting off the pomaded gleam of his black hair and sun-tanned skin. The flat nose, high cheekbones and powerful shoulders gave a strong impression of pugnacity. In the good times, Tom regularly shot the breeze with him about the fight game, impressed by his knowledge. As he took the oath, an air of power radiated from Eyton, permeating the crowd, setting them on edge.
‘State your name,’ said the coroner, an extra purr of gravity in his voice.
‘Charles Eyton.’
‘Where do you reside?’
‘Nineteen twenty Vine Street, Hollywood.’
‘What is your occupation?’
‘General Manager, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.’ Eyton settled back in the chair but didn’t relax, squeezing his hands into fists in his lap.
‘Mr Eyton, have you seen the remains of the deceased in the adjoining room?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you recognize them as one you knew in life?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Who was it?’
‘William Desmond Taylor.’
‘Where was he born?’
‘He was born in Ireland, to the best of my knowledge. He told me so.’
‘What was his age?’
‘Forty-four, I should judge.’ Eyton eyed the coroner to see whether this would be contested.
‘Was he married, single or a widower?’
‘He was married.’
A low gasp went through the room. Only that morning, newspapers reported rumors of a woman claiming to be Taylor’s abandoned wife in New York. What now of his supposed engagement to Mabel Normand? But Nance seemed determined to question none of it. It was more usual, Tom knew, for a cop to be called first. To establish the facts, the wheres and whens, the whos and hows. But for some reason, Nance was taking Eyton’s authority as a recorder for granted. Which was hardly credible, given his, or at least the studio’s, vested interests. Taylor was on the cusp of fifty and had claimed to be single for years, regardless of what the studio deemed it best for the public to believe.
‘What was the cause of his death, if you know?’
‘Well, Mr Taylor’s assistant rang me up at my residence about eight o’clock and told me Mr Taylor had died suddenly; so I immediately went over to his residence and he was lying on the floor on his back. Detective Ziegler was there.’
Here Eyton broke off to nod towards the detective in question, before resuming.
‘He had called the doctor prior to my arrival and the doctor told me Mr Taylor had died from a hemorrhage of the stomach. Douglas MacLean told me he thought he heard a shot the night before, and his wife also thought she heard a shot. He wanted the body turned over; they didn’t want to turn it over until the coroner came. The deputy coroner came after a while, and I told him he had better turn the body over to make sure, and he put his hand under Mr Taylor’s body and he found a little blood on his hand. Douglas asked him what that was, and he said it evidently had run down from his mouth, but I noticed that there was no trail of blood – Mr Taylor’s head was in a pool of blood – there was no trail of blood running down.’
‘There was a pool of blood under his head?’
‘Under his head, yes – a little pool of blood. I immediately opened up Mr Taylor’s vest and looked on the right-hand side, and there was no mark. I looked on the left-hand side and saw some blood, and then I told the deputy coroner I thought that evidence enough to turn his body over to see what would happen. I sent for a pillow to put under Mr Taylor’s head, and we turned him over – the deputy coroner and myself – and we pulled his shirt and his vest up and we found the bullet wound.’
At this point, Eyton directed his gaze towards
the room, which had rippled with a collective intake of breath. Tom watched his green eyes slowly sweep the room, assessing the reaction, calculating its worth, preparing to present the next exciting instalment. But Eyton’s anticipation was short-lived. Nance trundled on, seeming not to notice that anyone had been shot, instead asking if the body had been stone cold, where it was lying with reference to the front entrance, and who else had been present.
‘Did all of those persons live there in the neighborhood?’
‘That I could not tell you,’ Eyton said. ‘Mr MacLean did, I know, because he showed me where his apartment was.’
By now it was becoming clear that Eyton was frustrated with this tedious line of questioning. Like everyone else present, all he wanted to do was get back to the body.
‘The place Mr Taylor lived was in a court?’
‘In a courtyard setting, yes.’
‘These other buildings were nearby?’
‘Well, yes, obviously, there are several apartments all the way around. It being a court.’
The sarcasm elicited a laugh from the room and drew the coroner irritably up from his note-taking. ‘Did Mr and Mrs MacLean, or either of them, tell you about the hour that they heard the gunshot?’
‘Yes, Mr MacLean told me it was about eight or a quarter after eight, and Mrs MacLean thought it was a little later.’
‘That night?’
‘The night before.’
‘You didn’t make any definite measurements as to the position of the body?’
‘No, sir, I would not have regarded that as my role.’
‘So what you have testified to is only an estimate, and nothing definite about it.’
Eyton’s shoulders went up as he took a deep breath. Everyone in the room held theirs too as he glared for some seconds at Nance, before responding in a voice clipped with disapproval. ‘Yes.’
‘Now, how long has Mr Taylor lived in this place?’
‘That I could not tell you. He lived in it before he went to the war, I believe.’
‘When did you last see him alive?’
‘The day before – Wednesday.’
‘Now, did he have any firearms of his own?’
‘I believe he had a revolver. I believe the revolver was in a drawer upstairs; in fact, I know it was there because Detective Ziegler and myself went up there and saw it.’
‘Did you see any firearms in the room where he was?’
‘No.’
‘What was the name of his valet or attendant there?’
‘Peavey, the colored cook. I never knew him or saw him.’
‘Was he the one who called you?’
‘As I said, Harry Fellows, Mr Taylor’s assistant director, was the one who called me.’
‘You have no independent knowledge of the manner in which he met his death?’
‘No, sir.’
Coroner Nance let out a long sigh and turned his attention to the startled jurors. ‘Have you any questions, gentlemen?’
One, eager as everyone else to hear more of the dead man, put a hand up gingerly.
‘Was his clothing ruffled in any way, showing any violence?’
‘No, not at all,’ Eyton said. ‘It looked like he just walked in the door and was shot in the back; that’s the way it looked. Neither the room nor the body showed any evidence of a struggle. He had on the same suit as the day before when he talked to me.’
Eyton looked back at Nance, expecting the coroner to grab the out-held baton and run with it. But it was not to be.
‘Is there any other question? No? That is all, you may be excused.’
Eyton rose and left the stand, shaking his head, eyes checking that the crowd also thought the questions he’d been subjected to were something in the line of a farce. The whispers of discontent rippling through the ranks confirmed it. But already Nance was rapping his gavel and ordering the next witness to be called. Dr A.F. Wagner, county autopsy surgeon, was duly sworn in.
‘Doctor Wagner, did you perform a post-mortem on the body of the deceased?’
‘I did.’
‘Will you state your findings?’
‘I performed an autopsy on William Desmond Taylor here on February second, 1922 and found a bullet hole in the left side. The bullet entered six and a half inches below the armpit, and in the posterior axillary line, and passed inward and upward, passing through the seventh interspace of the ribs, penetrating both lobes of the left lung and emerging on the inner margin of the left lobe, then traversing the mediastinum …’
NINETEEN
For Tom, the testimony that followed seemed largely irrelevant. The appearance of Taylor’s butler, Henry Peavey, who’d been first to come across the dead body and was the most visibly distressed person in the room by some margin, caused a particular stir. A heavy-set man with the build of a bare-knuckle boxer, he cut quite a dash in an outlandish costume of checkered plus-fours, canary-yellow silk shirt and maroon bow tie. Speaking of the circumstances in which he had found Taylor’s body, he burst into tears and it was some minutes before he could be calmed enough to resume. Many in the room were unable to decide whether horror or glee was the more appropriate reaction, and opted for snickering of the lowest kind instead. At least three reporters dashed for the door, much to Nance’s annoyance. After more questions and a deal more commotion, Peavey was excused.
Detective Ziegler’s evidence was notable chiefly for its brevity. Eyton had clearly satisfied all Nance’s curiosity regarding the scene. When Ziegler told him of Faith MacLean’s encounter with a stranger outside Taylor’s door just after the gunshot was heard, Nance moved on hurriedly as if this information was of no consequence. Again, it was left to a juror to elicit the useful fact that the caliber of Taylor’s revolver and that of the bullet found in his body were different, and that therefore he hadn’t been shot with his own gun. Tom was beginning to wonder how long this slow torture would continue when he heard Ziegler dismissed and Mabel Normand’s name called again. Immediately, a cop pushed into the room and held the door open behind him.
This time, everyone gawped. If Mabel Normand knew anything, it was how to make an entrance. She was tiny, barely over five foot tall and slightly built, although her wide-brimmed green velour fedora and button-over high-heeled shoes added extra inches to her height, and her brown-and-white three-quarter-length coat, with fox-fur collar and cuffs, imbued her with still more presence. It wasn’t until she reached the stand and turned to sit that Tom saw her demeanor for the first time and realized what had made the people further up the room gasp. The beautiful, animated face that had brought Normand worldwide fame was pale, spent and haggard. Her huge, usually laughter-lined eyes were dull and lifeless, rimmed with sorrow. The personification of grief.
As she was sworn in, she barely looked up, concentrating on folding and unfolding a lavender silk handkerchief in her gloved hands. Coroner Nance rapped the desk and the babble ceased, the silence and expectation as complete as when a great conductor taps his baton. Here was the moment everyone had come to witness – one of movieland’s royalty come to explain in public her involvement in the murder of the man she loved.
‘Please state your name.’
‘Mabel Normand.’
‘Where do you reside.’
‘Thirty eighty-nine West Seventh.’
‘What is your occupation?’
She hesitated, searching for an adequate description. ‘Motion pictures.’
‘Miss Normand, were you acquainted with Mr Taylor, the deceased in this case?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see him the evening before his death occurred?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Did you see him at his home?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were with him about how long on that occasion?’
‘I got there about seven o’clock and left at a quarter to eight.’
‘And when you left his place, did you leave him in the house, or outside?’
‘No, he came to my car with me.’ Her voice trembled, aware of the fateful significance of that final act of gallantry.
‘Where was your car?’
‘Right in front of the court.’
‘On Alvarado Street?’
‘Yes, on the hill.’
‘Was he still there when you drove away?’
‘Yes, as my car turned around, I waved my hand at him.’
She raised a gloved hand towards the jurors to show them how. A tear spilled down her left cheek, transforming a gesture of innocence into one of overwhelming sadness. While she dabbed at her tears, two or three sympathetic sobs broke out in other parts of the room. Tom looked round at all the faces transfixed, wondered whether this was the greatest performance ever given or simple unadulterated truth. He for one was convinced. She looked to be close to breaking point. He would have to go gently when he approached her. Meanwhile, Coroner Nance considered she’d had sufficient time to compose herself, and forged on.
‘At the time you were there, was anybody else in the house?’
‘Yes, Henry, his man.’
‘Henry Peavey?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know whether Mr Peavey left the house before you did?’
‘Yes, he did. He left about, I should say, fifteen or twenty minutes before I left, but stopped outside and spoke to my chauffeur. We came out later.’
‘No one else except Peavey was there?’
‘That was all.’
The coroner hesitated, apparently lacking for anything more to ask, and for the first time since she had taken the stand, attention shifted away from Normand and on to Nance. Reddening slightly, he coughed to cover his confusion.
‘And what time was it you say you left him – drove away from his place?’
‘I left him on the sidewalk about a quarter to eight.’
‘Did you expect to hear from him later that evening?’
‘No, I went to bed; when I am asleep, he tells my maid not to disturb me.’
‘Was that the last time you saw him, when you left at about a quarter to eight?’
She looked up at the coroner directly for the first time, eyes wide, her voice faltering. ‘That was the last time.’
The Long Silence Page 11
