“I was at home, going over construction bills. What happened?”
“Anyone who can verify that?”
“An electrician in Tarzana, though he might not admit it. I called him at his home around eleven to ask why it cost six hundred dollars to install a dimmer switch.”
“You won’t need him if phone-company records check out. Did you know a woman named Karen Ogilvie?”
The chill spread to Valentino’s face. “I know her husband, Morris. He’s a major contributor to UCLA, including my department. Karen used to do television a long time ago; she was Karen Earl then. She quit acting when she married Morris. Has something happened?” An old woman seated directly in front of him, whom he recognized from a half-forgotten commercial for Spic and Span, turned her head and shushed him.
The lieutenant lowered his voice. “Palm Springs P.D. faxed these over this morning.” He slid a manilla envelope from his saddle pocket, removed the contents, and passed them to Valentino.
The pictures were smudged and grainy, but the face of the dead woman was familiar despite the depredations of age. Karen Earl Ogilvie was slumped over a steering wheel with her hair disarranged and dark smears on her forehead, chin, and the collar of her fur coat. Her eyes were open, her lips slightly parted as if to ask the photographer to wait while she fixed her lipstick.
Padilla took back the sheets. “She dined out with girlfriends last night. Husband was in New York on business. When the maid came in at seven A.M., she heard a motor running and looked in the garage. This is what she found.”
“Carbon monoxide?”
“They’re testing. That’s blood on her face and coat. Someone cracked her a couple times with a blunt instrument. Her Porsche was undamaged, so she wasn’t in an accident. Palm Springs cops think the killer was waiting for her in the garage, which meant he had access, and probably to the house as well.”
“Did Ogilvie tell you he knows me?”
“We missed him in New York. He’s in the air, on his way back to a surprise.”
“Then why are you here? Am I the suspect of the week?” Valentino raised his voice, and got a chorus of geriatric shushes for his indiscretion.
“I’m not finished. Mrs. Ogilvie wasn’t wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she left her friends. They said she was wearing a two-piece suit and no coat. Maid says the coat was hers, but she hadn’t worn it in years, on account of all the controversy about animal rights; kept it in a storage bag in a closet. The lab rats are pretty sure someone put her in a dress after death. They found the two-piece suit crammed into a hamper. The extra flourishes made me think of Beata Limerick, and Beata Limerick made me think of you.”
“If he changed her clothes after death, how did blood get on the collar of the coat?”
“It wasn’t a spill, it was a smear. Pattern’s different. Maybe the killer got blood on him and wiped it off.”
“Maybe he did it deliberately.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why would he change her clothes?”
“Good point. There’s more. The side door to the garage was bolted from the house side. He must have let himself out that way, but it’s odd he bothered to bolt the door behind him.”
Valentino experienced an eerie rush of déjà vu.
“The dress she had on,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Was it blue?”
“Thelma Todd,” Valentino said.
“Never heard of her.” Padilla looked at the black-and-white photograph of the beautiful curly-haired blond woman with the huge eyes and pert pointed chin as if he were committing a suspect’s features to memory.
Valentino took back the book and returned it to its shelf. They were in the oversize projection booth of the Oracle, which the new owner had converted into temporary living space while the rest of the theater was in upheaval; a square opening looking out on the auditorium showed coils of exposed wires like spilled entrails and jagged sections of old plaster heaped on scaffolds. The crew was eating lunch, oblivious to the mustard and pickles dropping onto the vintage upholstered seats. The pair had come there straight from the memorial service. Valentino drew a tattered paperback from another shelf and ran his finger down the table of contents.
“She was before your time,” he said. “Mine, too. Todd was a glamour queen and a fine comedienne, like Carole Lombard, who was another doomed blonde for Beata’s curse.”
“You’d think they’d learn to lay off the bleach.” Padilla looked out at the carnage. “So you live here?”
“Just barely. I went apartment hunting and wound up in a gilt palace, minus most of the gilt. They’d have torn it down by now if I hadn’t bought it.”
“Sounds like a good excuse to pass it by.”
Valentino found the chapter he wanted and skimmed. “Todd lived a wild life even for a movie star of her era, including a relationship with Lucky Luciano.
In nineteen thirty-five her maid found her in her garage, slumped over the wheel of her Packard convertible. The ignition was on, there was blood on her face and fur coat, the door to the garage was barred on the other side. Death by monoxide poisoning. She had on a blue dress under the coat.”
“This scumwad knows his trivia.”
“Maybe he’s read this book.” Valentino held it up. It was titled Hollywood’s Unsolved Mysteries.
The lieutenant surveyed the rows of books, which took up most of the space on the shelves not devoted to videotapes, DVDs, and reels of raw film. “I hope, for your sake, your alibi floats. You’re a honey of a suspect.”
“Good luck finding a motive. I liked Beata, and I never saw Karen Earl outside old episodes of The Untouchables and Peter Gunn.”
“What’s good motive? These days, all you need is a truck-stop waitress who short-changes you to take it out on the first meter maid you see.” Padilla maneuvered his way around a plaster Buddha on his way to the stairs.
Throughout the next week, Valentino drew all his information on the murders from E.T., Access Hollywood, and the Los Angeles Times. Details linking the slayings to the cases of Marilyn Monroe and Thelma Todd had been suppressed, but he learned that Karen Ogilvie had whiled away the afternoon before her dinner with friends watching old footage of herself in her screening room, a staple in the motion-picture community every bit as crucial as swimming pools and tennis courts; apparently there was a smidgen of Norma Desmond in even the most well-adjusted retired siren. Valentino himself was not mentioned, to his relief, but Lieutenant Padilla was quoted often, saying that whoever had killed the two women was probably known to and trusted by them, in order to have obtained access to their homes and proximity to their persons. Even without the connections to infamous Hollywood fatalities, news that a serial killer was targeting old-time actresses filled columns and airtime. Little was left to cover the death in an automobile accident of Geoffrey Root, a popular female impersonator who played local nightclubs. For years he’d skewered—and sometimes amused—such flashy femmes as Dolly Parton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cher, and Madonna with his dead-on impressions of them in sequins and heavy makeup. E.T. sandwiched accident-scene footage between the latest on the Limerick-Ogilvie murders and Jennifer Lopez’s romance of the month. When the camera panned to the accordioned hood and what lay upon it, Valentino muted the sound and snatched up the telephone.
“Congratulations,” Padilla greeted. “You’re no longer my prime suspect. Your electrician backed up your story.”
“What do you know about Geoffrey Root’s accident?”
The lieutenant put him on hold for ten minutes.
“Highway Patrol says a jogger found his Acura folded up against a tree in Laurel Canyon at dawn,” he said when he came back on. “Apparently Root lost control on a curve, went through a guardrail, and bounced down a ravine. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. His head punched a hole in the windshield.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “He was headed to a charity benefit, which was canceled when he didn’t show; had a bunch of costumes in
the car. There were pink feather boas and high-heeled pumps scattered all over.”
“I’m more concerned about the wig,” Valentino said.
“Which one? CHiPs said it looked like an explosion at the Hair Club for Men. Or rather, Women.”
“The wig on the hood of the car. Do you know anything about the Jayne Mansfield case?”
Padilla swore and told the archivist to meet him at police headquarters.
Whoever decorated lieutenants’ offices in Beverly Hills had taken pains to keep them from looking as if they were occupied by police, and Ray Padilla had done his best to fill his up with cop. For every African violet and Miró print he had inherited, he’d installed a bowling trophy or a cartoon clipped from Parade. That day he was actually wearing a leisure suit, powder blue with a clip-on tie. He wasted no time on handshakes, waving Valentino into the plastic scoop chair facing his littered desk.
“My first partner worked the Mansfield case from this end,” he said. “Kept bending my ear about it till he retired. Jayne was running around with a mob lawyer at the time, named Brody. He represented Jack Ruby, the guy that shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Seems these sex kittens couldn’t keep away from gangsters and Kennedys. Anyway, she, Brody, and her teenage son were killed in June nineteen sixty-seven when her Buick rear-ended a truck on I-90 in Louisiana, on their way to do a TV interview in New Orleans. To this day, a lot of people think Jayne was decapitated. She wasn’t. Her wig flew out through the broken windshield and landed on the hood and a gawker saw it and leapt to the most sensational conclusion, as gawkers will, especially when a movie star’s involved. I called Highway Patrol again after I spoke to you. There were no pieces of shattered glass in Geoffrey Root’s wig, which means he wasn’t wearing it when his head hit the windshield. Someone had to have placed it there after the accident.”
Valentino said, “I think at this point we can stop calling it an accident.”
“Dollars to Ding-Dongs he was knocked out or dead before his car went down that ravine. Our boy aimed it at the guardrail, put it in Drive, jumped clear, and climbed down afterwards to dress the set. Same basic M.O., except his first two victims were women.”
“Female impersonators come close; that’s the whole idea.” Valentino stood and paced in a circle. The office was too cluttered with stacks of file folders to encourage any more movement than that. “I can’t help thinking this character got all his ideas from Beata. When I asked her what she meant by the curse, she mentioned Thelma Todd, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Harlow, Sharon Tate, and Jayne Mansfield. Three of those have already served as models for the crime scenes.”
“That checks with the profile. The victims had to have known and trusted the killer for him to get so close. Trouble is, by the time we finish questioning all the friends, servants, personal assistants, and presidents of fan clubs, this maniac will have died of old age.”
Valentino considered. “Did Root live alone?”
“He had a companion, fellow named Sheridan. What their relationship was isn’t police business these days.” Padilla straightened his clip-on. “It’s a place to start. Let’s go.”
“Why me?”
“You speak entertainer. I need an interpreter.”
Padilla drove better than he dressed. Half an hour later they entered the driveway of Geoffrey Root’s Frank Lloyd Wright house in the Hollywood Hills. The late performer’s partner, Evan Sheridan, let them inside. Tall and graying with a slight stoop, he was obviously composing himself with effort. The visitors apologized for intruding and said they wanted to ask about Root’s activities before the accident.
Sheridan showed them into the sunken living room, where he said he and his companion had been relaxing before it was time for Root to leave for his charity benefit. It was done in tasteful colors with modern furnishings. An Impressionist-inspired painting of a premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre decorated the chimney above a fieldstone fireplace. Valentino noted a pair of tiny, state-of-the-art speakers propped on the ends of the granite mantel. He asked if the room was a home theater.
For answer, Sheridan bent and activated a switch hidden beneath the marble top of a huge coffee table. The painting above the mantel slid up noiselessly into a pocket, exposing a canvas screen.
“Rear or front projection?” Valentino asked.
“Front.” His host pointed to a square aperture high in the wall opposite the screen. “Geoffrey preferred film to DVD and videotape, using a professionalgrade projector. I said we were relaxing, but actually he was working. He always prepared for a show by watching footage of the women he impersonated. Yesterday we saw excerpts from Some Like It Hot, Red-Headed Woman, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? You know: Marilyn, Jean Harlow, Jayne. Will you gentlemen please excuse me?” He left the room hastily, tugging a white handkerchief from a pocket.
“Interviewing the widow’s the worst part of this job.” Padilla spoke without irony. “Harlow was one of the blondes the Limerick woman mentioned. Did she die violently?”
“No. Kidney failure took her at age twenty-six.”
“Not promising. From a killer’s point of view.”
Sheridan returned. “I’m sorry. It’s very hard answering all these questions. Is it common in accident investigations?”
Valentino turned aside the inquiry. “Which one of you operated the projector?”
“Neither one of us. Geoffrey was adamant about observing union rules in work-related situations. He always employed a professional projectionist.”
The archivist and the detective exchanged glances. Padilla spoke first. “Who’d he use yesterday?”
“Oh, the same one as always, Arthur Augustine. For a young man he’s one of the best in the business.”
“Who left first, Root or Augustine?” Padilla asked.
“They left together. Geoffrey was his ride home. But he won’t be able to give you any information about the accident; his house is between here and Laurel Canyon. Geoffrey would have dropped him off several miles short of where—he ended up.” Sheridan swallowed.
“One more question,” Valentino said gently. “Where is his house?”
“Stupid,” Padilla said, driving. He gripped the wheel tightly in both hands.
Valentino was startled. “Who, me?”
“Me. I’m paid to be a detective. These are all pros, and they were all screening or about to screen films the day they were killed. It stands to reason they’d hire a projectionist, one they knew and trusted. That’s how he got into their houses. They let him in.”
“We didn’t know Root was screening until just now. The other two could have been coincidence. I didn’t see it, either; and I know the procedure; screening’s a big part of my work. It shouldn’t be hard to find out if Augustine ran projectors for Karen Ogilvie and Beata.” Valentino stared out the window, at the same scenery Geoffrey Root had seen on his way to death. “How do you think he killed Root?”
“Probably at some lonely stop sign, or else he made an excuse for Root to pull over. This guy likes blunt instruments. With Root dead or unconscious, he slid him over and drove him to the top of the ravine. You know the rest.”
“Everything but why.”
“Why’s the prosecutor’s problem. Right now I’m wondering what next. Who was the other blonde Beata Limerick mentioned?”
Valentino hesitated. “Sharon Tate.”
Both men fell silent, and Padilla pressed the accelerator. They were old enough to remember the lurid details of the blond actress’s murder in 1969; a ritual slaughter, along with three friends, in a bungalow in Bel Air by the Charles Manson “family” of devil-worshipers. They’d been stabbed multiple times and Sharon’s blood used to smear the word “Pig” on the front door. That sun-drenched drive seemed as bleak as midnight.
The house was an anomaly in twenty-first-century L.A.: white clapboard with a steep peaked roof and a picket fence, held over from the forgotten days before the movie colony was founded. The door was opened by a woman in her fifties, with s
kin brown and crinkled by too many tans and a head of fried hair, aggressively peroxided. She was dressed too young, in a tight pink halter and canary-yellow Capri pants that squeezed her bare midriff into something resembling a bicycle inner tube. The rest was rouge, mascara, and vermilion on her fingers and toes.
“Arthur Augustine.” Padilla held up his shield.
“Artie’s at work. I’m his mother. May I take a message?”
“Where’s he working?”
She drew in her chin and turned to Valentino. He pulled a sympathetic face. “It’s important we find him.”
“He works all over; he’s very popular in his field. He never tells me where. He hasn’t been in an accident?” She touched her throat, a theatrical gesture.
“He causes accidents,” Padilla growled.
Quickly, Valentino said, “We just want to ask him some questions. Could we see his room? He might have an appointment book.”
“He rents an apartment upstairs. Artie’s no mama’s boy. You won’t disturb anything? He’s particular about his things.”
The lieutenant let Valentino mouth the comforting response, and she stood aside. The front parlor (as it would have been called when the house was new) glittered with professional-quality photographs of a young Mother Augustine in silver frames: cheesecake shots in two-piece swimsuits, glamour poses in evening wear, tough-girl tableaus with a pistol and a dangling cigarette. She’d chosen to display her aspiring-actress portfolio.
“You’ve learned my secret,” she said. “I tested for everything in town, from soap operas to deodorant commercials. I finally landed a part opposite Bobby Darin, but I got pregnant and had to bow out. Sandra Dee stepped in. I tell Artie it took my little man to knock the stars out of my eyes.”
“Tease him a lot, do you?”
She tipped back her head and looked down her nose at the lieutenant. Valentino wondered if she’d had it bobbed. “He pretends to be annoyed and I pretend to think he’s ungrateful, after I gave up the bright lights for him. We laugh.”
“Where’s his room?” Padilla said.
Valentino: Film Detective Page 14
