Harris picked up the phone and rang the newspaper.
If this worked, King might be able to make an arrest before Halloween.
Of course, there were kinks in King’s theory, and he knew it. Charlotte Shelby did not in any way match the description Faith MacLean had given of the person she’d witnessed leaving Taylor’s house. With her aristocratic features and luxurious copper hair, Charlotte Shelby was hardly the rough “motion picture burglar” type Maclean described seeing. But what if the man was actually a woman dressed in men’s clothes?
MacLean had used a phrase that kept running through King’s mind. She’d described the man she’d seen as “funny looking”—as if he wasn’t what he seemed. The answer to the riddle had struck King all at once. “Wasn’t that person a woman disguised as a man?” he had asked a gathering of reporters. Many had started to nod, as if to say, “Aha! Of course!”
Besides, King added, “That act of rearranging the body, the clothes, was characteristic of a woman moved to show a final tenderness after the death shot.” But Shelby—tender? To Taylor?
No, not Shelby. Mary.
King believed that Shelby had walked in and discovered Mary in Taylor’s apartment. He didn’t believe Mary’s story that she was home reading from a book to her sister and her grandmother on the night of the murder. She had gone to Taylor’s, and Shelby had followed her, concealing her gun, just as she had done once before, according to her secretary. And when she had caught the two lovebirds together, she’d shot and killed Taylor, just as she had always threatened to do. That left Mary to lovingly tend to the body before Shelby rushed her out of the house.
But Faith MacLean had seen only one person leave Taylor’s apartment. One more inconsistency in King’s theory.
The detective admitted he didn’t have all the answers yet. But he was certain he was on to something. The first step, he knew, was to draw Charlotte Shelby out of her seclusion and make her act. Then he could zero in and start asking her the questions he needed to get the full truth.
Only by gathering enough information could King force Woolwine into supporting an indictment. His boss’s opposition was based on more than just his friendship with Shelby, King suspected. Woolwine also feared a tearful Charlotte Shelby or Mary Miles Minter on the witness stand would prevent him from winning his case. Convicting a woman was notoriously difficult in 1922. Woolwine had just failed spectacularly to get a conviction against Madalynn Obenchain, who had murdered her fiancé. Juries had taken pity on the pretty young woman, and deadlocked repeatedly. Woolwine couldn’t risk another high-profile failure—not if he wanted to win the governor’s race.
But King was a detective, not a politician. Those weren’t his worries. All he cared about was justice for the dead man on the floor.
On October 4, the morning after Nick Harris’s phone call to the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Shelby sat comfortably in her newly refurbished mansion at Seventh and New Hampshire, which she’d grandly dubbed Casa Margarita. But her peaceful morning was about to be shattered. Shelby looked down at the headline in the newspaper and her blood ran cold.
SPIRIT HAS REAL DOPE ON KILLING
She read on. “Yesterday afternoon an unknown medium telephoned to the office of Private Detective Nick Harris, declared that Taylor’s murderer was a woman, the mother of a girl who Taylor had wronged, and that the spirits were determined to have the mystery cleared up. Harris himself vouches for the authenticity of the telephone call, as do three [sic] police detectives, who were in his office at the time.”
The spirits went on to say “that William Desmond Taylor was not murdered by a man but that he was shot by a woman disguised as a man and who is prominently known in Los Angeles.”
The prominent Mrs. Shelby picked up the phone to call her lawyer.
King was in his office at the Hall of Records when an attorney came bursting in, newspaper clippings in his hand. The city’s afternoon paper, the Los Angeles Record, had repeated the story of the spiritualist’s call to Harris, adding the fact that “E. C. King, on the district attorney’s staff, has been working on a similar theory since the killing.”
Striding directly over to King, the attorney demanded answers to several questions. He wanted to know the name of the spiritualist, where she was located, and if she had mentioned “the name of the woman with the beautiful daughter.”
“I explained to him,” said King, “that all I knew about it was merely what had happened while we were in Mr. Harris’ office.” That wasn’t enough to satisfy the attorney, and he returned the next day to ask more questions. Again, detectives had nothing to tell him.
Not once did the attorney mention any client. But it was easy enough for King to confirm their suspicion—that the outraged fellow was one of Charlotte Shelby’s personal lawyers.
“There was no one else,” King said, “who ever made inquiry about this news item.”
To King, this case was solved.
CHAPTER 55
LAST CHANCE
Los Angeles City Hall straddled Second and Third Streets like a crouching old woman, shrinking against the taller, newer structures rising all around. Gibby was once again passing under the building’s arched entrance. Last time she’d been there, she’d been forming her own company, filled with optimism, convinced her dreams were finally coming true. Now, in the fall of 1922, her business at City Hall was decidedly less hopeful.
The good news was, she’d found new partners for her independent venture. Tom Gibson (no relation) and Elmer Dyer were far more honest and aboveboard than James Calnay. But that hadn’t made them any more successful. And so the three partners had come to City Hall to hock the picture they had just made—the picture into which they’d each poured considerable blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention every last penny they had.
Gibby was broke again. She’d blown through all the money she’d had earlier in the year. How much dough it must have seemed at the time, and how rapidly it had disappeared. She’d bought herself a car and her mother a fur coat—just a sampling of the nice things they had coming to them. The rest she’d invested in The Web of the Law, a five-reel picture she’d made with Gibson and Dyer. But producing her own pictures, Gibby discovered to her great dismay, was far more expensive than she had anticipated.
All wasn’t lost, however, as Gibby’s partners told her. They’d found a creditor who was willing to loan them $1,800, payable within a year’s time at 8 percent interest, using as collateral a negative of The Web of the Law. If they couldn’t pay up, their creditor would own the picture.
Gibby had tried to play by the rules. She had taken her money and formed a company—everything legal, everything accounted for. If producers considered her too old to be a star—Gibby was almost twenty-nine—then she’d prove them wrong by becoming a producer herself and making her own pictures. And she had, following the Hollywood playbook exactly in the process. The Web of the Law had everything it was supposed to: action, adventure, great western scenery, love, sex. If it had been a Famous Players film, Gibby was convinced, it would have been a huge hit.
But a picture can’t be a hit if no theaters will show it. The Web of the Law—so carefully shot, directed, and edited—languished in its tin can where no one would see it. The exhibition stranglehold held by Adolph Zukor and the others was just too powerful. And so the film’s three producers had come to City Hall like beggars, signing away their ambitions with a promissory note they knew they could never redeem.
Gibby had tried playing by the rules. She really had. Several times now.
But honesty had gotten her nowhere.
Back on Beachwood Drive, she hoped to find other ways to make money.
At the moment, however, Don Osborn’s bunco business was moribund. After their high-flying spring, all of the locusts seemed down in the dumps. In July, Blackie Madsen had gotten nabbed for a scam in Long Beach and spent some time in the slammer. After that, the gang decided to lie low for a while. And so everyone was in need of so
me cash as Christmas approached.
Osborn was even more destitute than Gibby. His beloved Rose had turned out to be a rather demanding common-law wife. She wanted new dresses and fancy hats all the time, and Osborn had promised her trips to Cuba and Europe. But the biggest expense in recent weeks had been the cash he’d had to cough up after Rose got pregnant. Abortions didn’t come cheap. Now Osborn had no choice but to get back to work.
So when Blackie was sprung, the team of Osborn and Madsen quickly got back in business. That late fall and winter, Gibby was involved in “a series of petty bunco jobs” with the two miscreants, according to later federal reports.
Rose Putnam would say that Osborn was “feeling very confident” that season. For whatever reason, Osborn seemed to think they could get away with anything. And so he went after the biggest pigeon he could find. No more chump change. This time, he told Rose, he wanted a millionaire. And he had one in mind.
In fact, he’d had this sucker in his crosshairs ever since Rose had come to Los Angeles to live. Before falling under Osborn’s sway, his pretty niece had led quite the checkered love life. It was time, Osborn figured, to put that history to good use.
Back in her hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, Rose Putnam had dreamed of life beyond those pastoral hills. Seeing no way out, she’d married a man eleven years her senior, a foreman at the Estey Organ Factory, and had promptly found herself bored to death. While her husband was off fighting the war, the restless Rose had taken comfort in the arms of a neighbor, wealthy Beatty Balestier, who happened to be the brother-in-law of author Rudyard Kipling. That family connection guaranteed the affair would draw major headlines in the local newspaper after Rose’s husband discovered it, and the errant wife was run out of town on a rail.
Rose fled to Boston. There, at the apartment of another young woman who enjoyed the company of wealthy older men, she made the acquaintance of John L. Bushnell of Springfield, Ohio. Bushnell was forty-six years old, the son of a former governor, and the president of the First National Bank of Springfield. He was rich—beyond rich—and moved in the highest ranks of society. His Thoroughbred prize horses—with names like The Governor and June Maid—won medals competing against the steppers of Vanderbilts and Astors.
Bushnell was also married, with three children. Rose hadn’t let that inconvenient little detail get in the way of a good time. She let Bushnell show her the town, and in return she showed him a few things herself.
Several months later, after Rose had settled in Los Angeles, Bushnell wrote asking her to join him in New Orleans for the annual horse races at the Fair Grounds. Bored with her job at Hamburger’s department store, she jumped at the chance. One hundred dollars soon arrived to cover a first-class train ticket and expenses.
Osborn, who hadn’t yet expressed his romantic feelings for his niece, objected to the trip, but Rose brushed him off. She took the train to Beaumont, Texas, where Bushnell had met her. There they’d spent the night at a hotel, registered as man and wife. As an investigator would note prosaically later, “Bushnell had sexual relations with her there.”
The fun was just beginning. The next night the pair took the train to New Orleans, occupying the lower berth together. Arriving in the Big Easy, they registered at the Gruenwald Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. John L. Bushnell. Rose enjoyed the masquerade. In the basement of the posh hotel was the Cave, a jazz nightclub known for its waterfalls, stalactites, and bootleg gin. Rose danced, drank, and wore pretty clothes. Bushnell took her on a tour of the charming French Quarter, buying her expensive meals and gifts. To Rose, this was living.
When the weekend ended, however, Rose returned to Los Angeles and the monotonous grind of her daily life. That seemed to be the end of Bushnell.
But now her usually possessive uncle and lover was suggesting that Rose write to Bushnell again. Remembering how much money the millionaire had spent on her, Rose happily complied.
Gibby had no millionaire in her sights. But she had something almost as good. If she ever wanted to get The Web of the Law out of hock, there was only one option.
She went back to Famous Players and asked Jesse Lasky to put her in another movie.
Remarkably, Lasky agreed.
Just why was anyone’s guess, but in the fall of 1922 Patricia Palmer was cast in a second Famous Players picture, to start shooting in late November. And it wasn’t some low-budget programmer, either. Mr. Billings Spends His Dime was set to star box-office champ Wallace Reid, and every picture with Reid was a major release.
With an utterly undistinguished filmography, a record for prostitution, and a desire to form a company that would compete with Famous Players, Gibby should have been a pariah in Lasky’s office. But instead she had now been hired for a second major feature at the biggest, most prestigious studio in the industry.
Gibby seemed to be the absolute luckiest actress in Hollywood.
CHAPTER 56
EVIDENCE MISSING
Making his way to the property room at police headquarters, Eddie King was feeling encouraged. Things were finally proceeding on the Taylor case. The item about the spiritualist had accelerated a very convincing theory, and most of King’s fellow detectives were now convinced that Charlotte Shelby was their culprit. With Mary’s love for the dead man common knowledge, the cops finally had a motive that made sense.
King expected to make an arrest at any time. Even though the “spiritualist” had never made good on the threat to name names, the detective was certain Shelby was desperate enough that she’d tip her hand at some point. So, to prepare the case against her, King and Winn decided to have another look at the physical evidence.
But when they peered around the property room, Taylor’s clothing was gone. His jacket had definitely been there at one point—King had tested the burn marks on it himself—but now the detectives discovered everything had been sent back to the Overholtzer mortuary. How could Woolwine have allowed it? This rose to the level of tampering with evidence.
King and Winn hopped on their motorcycles and arrived at the mortuary just in time. “They were about to burn the clothing,” King would recall, “as it was covered with blood, and they considered it of no value.”
The detectives brought the garments back to the police station.
King had never been allowed a thorough examination of the dead man’s clothes, other than to test the bullet holes. Now that Woolwine was in the final, fevered days of his gubernatorial campaign, King had the freedom to do so.
Inspecting the fabric with the aid of a bright light and a magnifying glass, he made a very interesting discovery under the collar of the coat.
Three long, blond hairs.
Clearly not Taylor’s.
With a tweezer the detective removed the hairs and placed them in a sealed envelope.
Now he just needed to match them to someone’s head.
At the moment, Mary Miles Minter was making a picture at the Famous Players–Lasky studio on Sunset Boulevard. In and out of the busy studio all day long were charwomen and delivery boys, many of them glad to make an extra dollar running errands or doing favors.
Pulling up alongside the studio on his motorcycle, King spotted a good candidate for his errand. With the promise of some cash, he gave a delivery boy instructions to sneak into Mary’s dressing room, pull a few hairs from her hairbrush, and bring them back out to him.
A short time later, King got what he needed. Mary was none the wiser.
Back at the station, the detective called in a follicular expert to compare the two sets of hairs. With the aid of a microscope, the expert declared that the hairs taken from Taylor’s jacket and the hairs taken from Mary’s brush came from the same woman.
To King, it seemed obvious now: Mary had been in an embrace with Taylor, her head resting on his chest, when her mother walked in and pulled the trigger.
It was time to talk with little Miss Mary again.
Trooping back to the Hall of Records, Mary insisted “she could add nothing to her pre
vious statements.” Since King kept no record of what Mary revealed during this particular visit, whether she told him about her late-night Christmas Eve visit to Taylor—which could have explained the hairs—would never be known. But King knew that Henry Peavey brushed his employer’s clothes frequently. Could the meticulous valet really have missed those hairs for five full weeks?
Possibly. But King decided it wasn’t likely.
In King’s opinion, the hairs were enough evidence to warrant a full-scale investigation. Both Mary and her mother needed to be subjected to intensive questioning. More people were coming forward now to tell stories of Shelby’s threats and temper. She was a shrew. She was mean-spirited and vengeful. She flew off the handle at the slightest provocation. She’d assaulted Monte Blue when she’d caught him with Mary. She’d made enemies right and left.
In Tinseltown, Charlotte Shelby made for a very popular suspect.
But not in the district attorney’s office.
Shortly after this, Woolwine ordered King to cease and desist in his attempts to interview Mary and Shelby.
There was no arguing with him. The district attorney was in a foul mood. He’d lost his campaign for governor, crushed by his Republican opponent, Friend Richardson, by more than 100,000 votes. And Thomas Lee Woolwine, the Fightin’ Prosecutor, wasn’t used to losing. So he took out his disappointment on his staff. When he told King to back off Shelby, it was a direct order.
King was flabbergasted. He had come so close.
In dismay, he watched as Woolwine confiscated all the evidence in the Taylor case and brought it to his office. Everything was now under his control: Taylor’s clothes, the pink nightgown, the handkerchief with the initials MMM, the letters, the photos, the jewelry. Even the blond hairs King had so carefully sealed away. All of it was placed in a cabinet under lock and key; no one could touch it without going through Woolwine.
And then, not long after that, the evidence disappeared again.
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