by Stuart Woods
In the car after lunch, Rick turned to Vance. “That was Tom Terry on the phone. He’s talked to Hank Harmon, and he’s suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what?”
“You have to understand how cops think. When questioning people they look for small signs of discomfort that shouldn’t be there. They try to trip up the people they’re questioning, get them to contradict themselves.”
“And after questioning Harmon, what does Tom think?”
“He suspects foul play; I told him to get the police involved.”
“Just what kind of foul play?”
“He can’t know that for sure; he’s just hoping for the best and doing everything he can to find Susie.”
“He thinks she’s dead, doesn’t he?”
“He thinks that’s a possibility. The other possibility is that she just had too much pressure on her last week, what with all the interviews and the opening, and she just felt she had to get away.”
“Susie is a strong girl,” Vance said, “and a responsible person. She wouldn’t just walk away from her work on the picture, especially since the worst was over. She was looking forward to coming to New York.”
“I can’t argue with that, Vance. I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
“I want to go back to L.A. Is the Centurion airplane still here?”
“No, it’s on the Coast. I’ll have the travel department get you on the first flight tomorrow morning.”
“Is there a night flight?”
“I’ll find out as soon as we get back to the Plaza.”
“Someone should speak with Susie’s parents.”
“I have their number; I’ll do that. We don’t want them to find out about this from the press.”
Vance left the hotel at eleven P.M. to catch a midnight flight from LaGuardia with a studio PR man who arranged for them to drive through a gate directly to the airplane, where Vance and his luggage were deposited at the steps to a TWA Constellation. He was the first aboard and was given two seats in the first row of first class.
As the other passengers got on board he began to notice something different: some of them were obviously recognizing him, perhaps having seen something in the papers or even having seen the picture. A couple of them complimented him on his performance. In the circumstances, he felt uncomfortable about this; he was unaccustomed to being recognized by anyone, and this was a new experience.
After a refueling stop, the airplane arrived at L.A. airport in the late morning, and another studio PR man came aboard to escort him to a car waiting next to the airplane.
“Has anyone heard from Susan Stafford?” he asked the man. He had a sick feeling in his stomach.
“No, nothing. I think you may want to go to the studio,” the man said. “The police are at your house with Tom Terry, our head of security, and sooner or later the press is going to start showing up there, if they haven’t already.”
“All right,” Vance said, “I’ll go to my bungalow.”
“Tom has promised to get in touch with you as soon as he knows anything.”
Having gotten little sleep on the airplane, Vance arrived at his bungalow exhausted. He ordered some soup sent over from the commissary and as he finished it, Tom Terry arrived and introduced himself.
“Have the police learned anything?” Vance asked.
“They’ve taken two sets of fingerprints from the driver’s side of Susan’s car, but as yet they have nothing to compare them with. Susan’s prints are not on record anywhere, and neither are Hank Harmon’s, and without evidence connecting her to a crime, they can’t force her to give them her prints.”
“Rick said you talked to Harmon yesterday. What do you think about all this?”
“I think Harmon is hiding something, that she knows more than she’s willing to tell.”
Vance was more frightened than ever. “Do you think she’s harmed Susie?”
“I don’t know, but in Susan’s absence, it’s something we have to consider. It’s fortunate that you were in New York when this happened.”
“What?”
“In a disappearance like this, the boyfriend is always the first suspect. Tell me about your day on Sunday.”
“I had brunch in my suite with Rick and Glenna, and we read the reviews in all the papers.”
“What about after that?”
“I tried to call Susie at my house, and when there was no answer, I asked the hotel operator to try her every half hour, so I waited there, in case she called back.”
“Did you wait with Rick and Glenna?”
“No, they left around one o’clock, I think. They called later…”
“What time did they call?”
“Around five o’clock. They asked me to go with them to a dinner party at the Waldorf Towers, but I declined and had dinner in my suite alone.”
“Did you speak to Rick again on Sunday?”
“He called when they came back from dinner, around eleven, I think, to find out if I’d heard from Susie.”
“That’s good; it means we can place you in New York until eleven on Sunday night, and that eliminates you as a suspect. Susie’s agent was apparently the last person to see her after the opening on Saturday night, except for the studio driver who took her to your house afterward, so whatever happened to her happened between, say, midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the driver went back to the house to drive her to the airport. We assume that sometime on Sunday she went to Hank Harmon’s apartment to pick up her things. Harmon says she was out at the farmer’s market for most of the afternoon, and when she came back, Susie had gone and left her a note.”
“What did the note say?”
“Harmon became defensive when I asked her about it, said it was of a personal nature. The police are talking to Harmon, and they’ll find out exactly what hours she was away from her apartment, so we can pinpoint when Susan was there.”
“Tom, tell me the truth. Do you think Susie is dead, that Hank Harmon killed her?”
“I’m sorry to tell you that I think that’s what happened. I hope to God I’m wrong.”
Vance buried his face in his hands. Panic was rising inside him.
Tom went to the bar and poured Vance a drink. “Here, get this inside you; it’ll help.”
Vance took a slug of the drink and barely got it down. He ran to the bathroom and threw up.
“Vance, are you all right?” Tom called from the living room.
“Yeah.” Vance put cold water on a facecloth and came out of the bathroom with it pressed to his face. “I’m sorry, Tom. I just don’t feel very well. Will you excuse me? I think I want to lie down for a while.”
“Of course, Vance. Get some rest. In the unlikely event that anyone from the press gets in touch with you, just tell them you don’t know anything and refer them to the publicity department.”
“All right, Tom.” Terry left, and Vance went into the bedroom, stretched out on the bed and draped the cool facecloth across his forehead. He had never felt anything like this: frightened and helpless.
40
Rick and Glenna got back to L.A. on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning Rick was in a meeting with Eddie Harris, Tom Terry and the studio’s publicity chief, Bart Crowther. Tom brought them up-to-date on the investigation.
“The police are at a dead end,” he said. “They have Susie’s car and her boxes of belongings, and, except for a few clothes in her bungalow, that’s all that exists of her. They have two different sets of fingerprints from Susie’s car and no one to compare them to. Hank Harmon has got herself a lawyer, and he won’t allow her to be fingerprinted. I personally think Susie is dead, but my guess is until her body is found there aren’t going to be any breaks in this case.”
“Tom, what’s your time line for all this?” Rick asked.
“Harmon told the police she was out of her apartment from around two to four on Sunday afternoon, and the cops tell me a couple of witnesses have put her at the farmer’s market durin
g that time. My guess is that’s when Susie went to the apartment, packed up her stuff, then wrote Hank Harmon a note, which Harmon now says she can’t find, and was about to leave when Harmon came home. There was probably an argument, and Harmon either hit Susie with something or strangled her.
“After that, I think she waited until the wee hours, put Susie’s body in her car, disposed of it—God knows where—then drove the car to Vance Calder’s house. She used Susie’s key to get in and leave a box of clothes in an upstairs dressing room, then put the keys back in the car’s ignition and walked home.”
“How long a walk would that be?”
“I clocked it at about three and a half miles, perfectly doable in the middle of the night without being noticed. Sunset is deserted at that hour.”
“Any other way it could have happened?”
“Only if she had an accomplice, and who the hell do you call up and say, ‘I’ve just murdered somebody and I need help in getting rid of the body and getting her car out of here’?”
“That all makes sense to me,” Rick said. “Is anything else being done?”
“I’ve got two private detectives, experienced men, going over everything about Henrietta Harmon with a fine-toothed comb. We’ll know more about her in a day or two.”
“Has anybody talked with her family?” Eddie asked.
“I called them from New York,” Rick said. “They wanted to come out here, but I discouraged that.”
Bart Crowther spoke up. “I speak to them daily.”
“I see the papers have got this now,” Eddie said.
“It’s been pretty mild, considering,” Bart said. “They’re concentrating mostly on Hank Harmon, and she’s hiding out somewhere. She hasn’t been to work since the first of the week.”
“Have the press found Susie’s parents yet?” Eddie asked.
“Yes, but a relative is answering their phone and giving out ‘no comments.’ Vance has spoken with them, too.”
“How’s Vance doing?” Eddie asked.
“I haven’t seen him since I got in, but I’m going over there when we’re done here,” Rick said.
“I’ll go with you,” Eddie said.
Tom spoke up again. “He was very shaken right after he got back. He was going to lie down for a while.”
“Bart,” Rick asked, “do you have any other recommendations on how we should be handling this?”
“It’s under control right now. If the police find a body, then everything will explode, but my people are ready for that.”
“Why don’t you come over to Vance’s bungalow with us and get him ready for it?” Eddie said.
They broke up the meeting, and Rick, Eddie and Bart went over to Vance’s bungalow and found the actor sitting on the living room sofa, looking pale and drawn. They all sat down in the bungalow’s living room.
“How are you managing, Vance?” Rick asked.
“I’m all right,” he replied. “I’m getting a little cabin fever here, though. I’d really rather be at my house.”
Bart shook his head. “Vance, if you go back there before there’s some resolution to all this, the press will be all over you, and we don’t want that.”
“I suppose that at some point I’m going to have to address this publicly.”
“No, you’re not,” Bart said. “We’ll issue a press release with a quote of two or three sentences from you, and that will be it. I don’t want you to talk to anybody about this, except the police.”
“Vance, did Hy Greenbaum get you a lawyer?” Eddie asked.
“Yes, a fellow named David Sturmack. I spoke to him at some length on the phone. After I told him what little I knew he told me to tell the police everything. They came here and talked to me for an hour, and I followed David’s advice.”
“Vance,” Rick said, “you were talking about going down to Puerto Vallarta for a few days with Susie; maybe it would be a good idea if you went now.”
“No,” Bart said. “The press would find him there. Confidential magazine is trying to get together a story on Susie, and they’d pay anything to get to Vance.”
“Vance,” Eddie said, “would you like to go to the ranch in Jackson Hole for a while? You wouldn’t be molested by all these news hounds.”
“Yes!” Vance said emphatically.
“There’s snow on the ground,” Eddie said, “but the Coopers are still in the main house, and I’m sure they’d be glad to see you.”
“Yes, please,” Vance said.
“I’ll arrange for you to be flown up there,” Rick said. “Nobody will ever find you there.”
“How soon can I leave?”
“Tomorrow morning. Early, say, seven o’clock at Clover Field?”
“Good. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll have wardrobe fix you up with some warm clothing,” Rick said. “If you need anything, you have only to call me.” Rick handed him a manila envelope. “Here’s something to read, when you feel like it.”
“A script?”
“Yes, and we can go to work on it the minute you feel like it.”
“I’ll read it.”
“Oh, we’d like to assign a permanent secretary to you,” Eddie said. “There’s already a lot of fan mail about Susie.”
“The steno pool sent a girl over earlier. I’d be happy to have her stay on permanently.”
“Good. Phone her every day, and if we need to speak to you, we’ll leave a message with her.”
The group left, and Rick went back to his office to make the arrangements for Vance’s travel. An hour later, Tom Terry called.
“Remember our friend Harold Schmidt from Milwaukee?”
“Yes,” Rick said.
“He’s turned up in L.A.”
41
Vance Calder took off at half past seven from Clover Field in Jack Barron’s Beech Staggerwing with a hired pilot. He persuaded the man to let him fly the airplane for long periods, and he learned to operate the radio and the radio direction finder. By the time he reached Jackson, Wyoming, he had resolved to learn to fly.
While Vance was still in the air four county garbage trucks and a dozen workers showed up in the farther reaches of Mulholland Drive, closer to Malibu than to Beverly Hills, to clear a part of the remote area that had been used for months as an illegal garbage dump. Twice before the county had cleaned up the place, but people were still coming out there and dumping old furniture, dead pets and whatever else they no longer wanted. This time, the county employees were determined to end this, and they planned, after clearing the area once more, to fence the approaches to the informal dump and make it impossible for people to reach the area by car or on foot.
They began by removing the larger objects—sofas, chairs and kitchen appliances—and loading them onto the trucks. They planned, after removing anything larger than a bread box, to bring equipment to scoop up the remaining trash.
Two men were struggling with an old refrigerator, complaining about its weight, when the door came open and the naked corpse of a woman spilled out. The foreman sent a man in search of a telephone and the sheriff.
Later the same day, Tom Terry answered his phone at the studio security office.
“Lieutenant Morrison of the Los Angeles Police Department to speak to you,” his secretary said.
Tom picked up the phone. “Ben?”
“Hello, Tom. I may have some news for you.”
“Shoot.”
“This morning, a cleanup crew from the county was clearing an illegal dump way out on Mulholland, and they found a woman’s body in a refrigerator.”
“Any identification?”
“No, the body was naked and, of course, in poor condition, but the height and hair color and maybe the weight match your girl, Susan Stafford. Can you round up some photographs of her?”
“Sure, I can. I’ll messenger them to you.”
“Something else: the medical examiner found a small gold ring—pinkie ring—on her left little finger. There was a lot of s
welling, and he had to cut it off. It’s two hands shaking, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, sort of a friendship ring.”
“Like that. Was your girl wearing anything like that?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll try and find out. Anything else you need?”
“Just the photos, not that they’ll be of all that much use. She’s pretty much unrecognizable.”
“Are you taking fingerprints and dental impressions?”
“Sure.”
“There’s a dentist near the studio that we send a lot of actors to for cosmetic work; I’ll find out if she’s been to him.”
“Thanks, that would be a big help.”
“I’ll call you when I know more.” Tom hung up and called Bart Crowther in publicity.
“Hi, Tom. What’s up?”
“You said you’re in daily touch with Susan Stafford’s parents, Bart?”
“That’s right. I talked to them about an hour ago.”
“A body has turned up, way out on Mulholland. There was a ring on the left little finger, a gold ring with two hands shaking.”
“I’ve seen rings like that.”
“Will you call her parents and ask if Susan wore anything like that?”
“Sure, I will.”
“I’d call Vance, but he’s on his way to Wyoming.”
“I’ll call the parents right now.”
“One more thing, Bart: do you know if the studio sent Susan to our dentist for any work?”
“Yes, we did; not much, though.”
“Will you call him and ask if he made any impressions of her teeth? It would be a big help in identifying the body. Also, I need some photographs of Susan.”
“Sure. I’ll get back to you.”
Tom waited impatiently for half an hour before the phone rang.
“It’s Bart. Bingo on the ring. Her mother says it had her initials and another girl’s, somebody she roomed with in New York, but she couldn’t remember her name.”
“Did you tell the folks about the body?”
