The Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Murder Case

by George Baxt

  While talking with Herb, Carole checked and checked and then rechecked the food and liquor supplies. There were roasted chickens, a variety of pâtés, expensive cheeses, bread and biscuits, all forms of liquor, and cokes and other soft drinks. It would be a cold repast but a very sumptuous one. Nothing as spare and simple as what Daniel Boone brought along on a hunting trip.

  In the Cadillac, Clark was wishing the weather was better. Clouds dominated the sky and he said if it was going to rain, they should have planned on hunting for ducks. But ducks meant rising at two or three A.M., setting out blinds near a marshy area, and then sitting in the damp and cramped blinds blowing on instruments that simulated ducks quacking and geese honking. Carl Arden was openly glad they weren’t after fowl that morning. He passed around a flask of brandy. Clark warned him to go easy on the stuff. Hunting deer required a clear head and good eyesight.

  The previous evening, while Clark prepared the weapons and ammunition, he and Carole had discussed in which direction Clark should lead the talk about Lynton’s murder and the possibility of Lydia’s having suffered a similar fate. Carl was prepared to be bombarded with questions and suppositions. He’d been advised by J. Edgar Hoover in Washington during a long conversation the previous day. Hoover was pleased with what Arden had learned from Carole and was impressed that a mere actress could have such an analytical brain.

  “Tell me, Carl,” asked Clark, “what are the laws governing the conduct of agents for hire by foreign nations?”

  Carl cleared his throat and expostulated. The ball was in his court and he enjoyed running with it. “American agents in the employ of foreign powers must register with the Bureau. They must list in detail exactly what they’ve been contracted to do.”

  “They aren’t looked upon as subversives? You know, acting against the best interests of the U.S.?”

  “Professional agents, although they are always walking a thin line, do their damnedest to keep from being suspected as spies. These people are mostly hired to lobby business interests, investments, that sort of thing.”

  “What happens if they find out things they really shouldn’t know?”

  “They’d damn well better let us know about it or face arrest, a trial, and being stood up against a wall and shot.”

  Clark said, “A lot of people get away with it though, don’t they?”

  “Mostly those who defect or try to. We haven’t had much of that lately. I had a long session with Herb Villon yesterday.” His laugh sounded like a gargle. “Good man, Herb, real good man.”

  “Yes,” agreed Clark, “he’s aces.” It felt as though he was doing a scene in an espionage movie, with Carl Arden being played by Walter Pidgeon, the only actor in Hollywood who had the addresses of every important whorehouse and madam in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

  Carl said to Oscar Levitt, “Carole says you know how to keep your mouth shut.”

  Oscar said, “Carole should know. She’s shut it often enough for me. She chewed me out on the phone for announcing Nana Lewis would replace Lydia Austin in my movie. Believe me, in my heart of hearts, I swear if Lydia turns up alive, she’ll have the part again. I explained that to Nana and she’s a good girl. She understands.”

  Clark said, “Also aces, eh? Sounds like a crooked poker game. Too many aces.”

  Carl said, “I don’t know how Carole worked it, but the subtle way she pried that information out of the Eskimo girl about her aunt deserves an Academy Award.”

  “She’ll take it. It wasn’t all that hard. Mala didn’t exactly blab at full speed, but she was helpful. I don’t think she knew she was.”

  “That’s the art of asking questions. Act innocent, matter-of-fact, and, boy, the things you can get out of people. Don’t you find it that way, Oscar?”

  “Find it what way?”

  “How about that, Clark! He hasn’t been listening. I have a feeling you’d be an easy mark, Oscar.”

  Oscar was annoyed at having been taken unawares. “I have nothing to hide,” he said weakly.

  Carl Arden said, “I’ll bet you’ve got plenty to hide. Ha ha ha! Everybody has something to hide. Everybody’s had their hand in the cookie jar at one time or another. Look at Oscar, Clark! Look! He’s blushing!”

  “It’s very hot in the car.” Clark rolled down his window.

  “Mala’s aunt?” asked Oscar.

  “She has twelve of them,” said Clark. “We didn’t ask her about any uncles.”

  Carl said, “Carole suspects Mala’s aunt is Takameshuga’s widow.”

  “Her aunt’s Japanese?” Oscar asked, looking a bit bewildered.

  “Oh no,” said Carl, “she’s a true blue Eskimo. She went to college in Tokyo and decided to stay there. Carole thinks it was as Takameshuga’s wife. That’s how the man got to Mala, Carole says.”

  “Mala didn’t deny it,” said Clark. “Sweet girl, Mala. You ought to have a part for her, Oscar.”

  “I’m having one written in. One for Nell Corday too.”

  “Why Santa Claus, and it’s months away from Christmas!”

  Clark couldn’t resist asking Oscar, “She fed you any of her blubber cookies?”

  “Blubber cookies?” Carl looked at Clark. “What the hell are blubber cookies?”

  Clark told him. “They’re baked with whale fat. A couple of bites and you end up blubbering!” Clark found his joke terribly funny and roared with laughter. The others didn’t join in. Clark was wondering what was going on in the trailer. They were somewhere behind the Cadillac.

  In the trailer, Carole was holding forth on the sexual mores of Hollywood. Since she was a curious kid when she promised her brothers faithfully to show them “hers” if they’d show her “theirs,” Carole took a deep interest in Tinseltown’s sexual proclivities. Hers was a healthy attitude, unlike that of her peers who held up their hands in shock and looked aghast at the mere hint of who was doing what to whom and good heavens where do they learn such things? While expounding and not knowing she was making Jim Mallory uncomfortable, Carole was doing all sorts of fascinating things with crackers and soft cheeses. Hazel admired a cracker slathered with camembert and two pieces of pimiento artfully, or rather daringly, placed so that they resembled two disembodied nipples. She suggested Jim might like to bite into this one and Hazel told Carole to behave herself.

  Behave herself is what Carole had done in her many years in the limelight. Her mother was a loving and very moral woman and she inspired Carole, who was a good little girl and remained a good little girl until she found out why boys were different from girls, clapped her hands with joy, and began what in her high-minded way she considered scientific experiments. By the time she became a working actress and exposed to all forms of sexual aberrations about which she was tolerant but largely uninterested, Carole had only one objective, a man of her own. For a long time the title of the 1932 movie she did with Clark, No Man Of Her Own, was right on the nose. She would look back on that movie and wonder why she and Clark never cottoned to each other despite the fact each was married to other people. This at a time when most people at the studios were bed-hopping, cheating on their spouses, and crowing about their conquests in the studio commissary.

  A lot of actors and actresses, it turned out, were what Carole termed “ambisextrous” and she dreaded ever having to count up the ladies of the charmed circle on the Paramount lot who took a stab at trying to wrestle Carole in her trailer. Fortunately, Carole’s brothers had given her wrestling lessons when a child and she had since perfected a real mean hammerlock. There was one actress on the lot who persisted in paying court and Carole treated her with a soupçon each of patience and good humor. Gertrude Michael, it seemed, was headed for stardom after a few delightful films in which she played a jewel thief named Sophie Lang. Carole at one time suggested she reverse her name and be billed as Michael Gertrude. Carole spoke of the actress with kindness and understanding rather than rancor. “Poor Gertie,” she said, “she’s doing supporting roles on Poverty R
ow and she’s become sadly alcoholic. Oh everybody! Look what I’ve done with the roquefort!” Only Hazel looked and clucked her tongue in dismay.

  “Carole, how do you think of such things?” asked Hazel, slightly dazed by this talent of Carole’s she never suspected existed.

  “Hee hee hee!” giggled Carole, her only throwback to her childhood that persisted into her adult years. It wasn’t only a giggle of childish delight but a defense mechanism. It was one of the few things about Carole that could drive Clark into a frenzy. Carole recognized this and used it as an advantage when she felt an advantage was necessary.

  Up ahead, Jim Mallory saw the Cadillac pulling into a clearing. Clark got out of the car and waved for Jim to pull in behind him. Carole was the first to leave the van and yelled, “Oh hell! It’s drizzling!” Drizzle or no, the air was invigorating and the lush greenery gave off a delicious smell like none to be enjoyed in a studio. Clark was unloading the trunk of the car, assisted by Oscar Levitt, while Carl Arden put on a deerstalker that made him look like Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. Carole shouted to Clark, “It’s better weather for ducks!” Clark flashed her a look that warned her to back off.

  Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne were yelping with excitement. It had been many weeks since they last gone hunting and they were prowling around with joy, sniffing for messages at the bottom of treetrunks, messages left by other hunting dogs. Dogs were always leaving messages for each other, a fact Clark had carefully explained to Carole the first time he took her hunting. Carole wanted to know, of course, why they didn’t leave messages for other hunters and Clark said something about it being unsanitary. Carole said something that didn’t bear repeating. She invited the men into the trailer for something to eat before starting off to worry the animals. Oscar Levitt didn’t need to be asked twice. He was in the trailer and chomping on a chicken leg while Hazel, who had brought all the L.A. newspapers with her, settled onto a window seat and read aloud the news about Mike Lynton’s murder, which remained fresh days after the murder because little else had happened to stir up a comparable frenzy.

  There were photographs of Mike Lynton with Lydia Austin, with Bugsy Siegel, who was working hard to put Las Vegas on the map as the gambling mecca of the West. There was Mike Lynton’s sister Loretta, dredged out of the files by a smart reporter who remembered there had been a sister who had committed suicide. There was a photo of Mike Lynton with Mae West at the fights, which were a Friday night must. There was Mike with Carole and Tyrone Power, who was looking lovingly at either Carole or Mike, and Hazel was positive the loving look was for Mike. Carole never mentioned any relationship with Ty Power, so there probably wasn’t one, as Carole wasn’t shy about mentioning her extracurricular activities. Hazel long suspected Carole had fabricated most of them, as she was not to be outfoxed by the competition. Hazel remembered a weak moment when for want of anyone better as an escort, Carole linked herself to Greg Bautzer, a well-known and well-liked Hollywood lawyer, who was very handsome, very wealthy, and very stereotyped. Carole called him “Any port in a storm Bautzer” because if an actress’s romance was faltering, she called on Bautzer to pick up the slack until someone better came along.

  Hazel said, “You’ve made the L.A. Times, Oscar.” She handed him the newspaper. It was a picture of him taken several years ago when he had more hair and more promise and for a brief period dated an Mexican actress named Armida, who never was as successful as her sister, Raquel Torres, who made it as far as Duck Soup with the Marx Brothers. The photo caption implied that Lynton was a backer of Darkness in Hollywood, which Levitt neither denied or confirmed when Hazel questioned him.

  Herb and Carl Arden were now in the van and Herb commented wryly on Carole’s artwork with the crackers and cheese. Jim Mallory, who had been in the trailer’s bathroom, which Carole had decorated with pictures of herself and Gable, joined the others around the groaning board. He still harbored a curiosity as to whether Oscar had made it with Nell Corday. His instincts advised him Levitt had probably made it with most of the candidates for his picture. Years ago when Jim was Herb Villon’s assistant, long before he was promoted to Herb’s partner, Herb told Jim the quickest way to win candidates as bedroom partners was to announce he was producing a movie. Hollywood was notorious for announcing more movies than it produced. “That,” said Herb, “is how most of the other guys make out.” Jim not only did not have the courage to ask Hazel to place a come-on for him, he couldn’t think of a title to use.

  The smell of food brought the dogs back to the van, and Carole climbed in after them. “Don’t feed the children!” she cautioned the others. “This stuff’s too rich for them.” Clark joined them and listened as Hazel read off headlines and portions of the story. Carole picked up a paper and flicked pages as she always did. She had a short attention span unless it was a story about an unsuspecting husband catching his wife in flagrante delicto. Carole thought that was a perfume and was chagrined when it was explained it meant an immoral act of sex. “Immoral my behind,” snorted Carole, “it’s a national pastime. Hee hee hee.”

  Carole commented that the Sarita Maru seemed to have bored the newspaper boys. There wasn’t a line about it anymore. Herb suggested the papers had been cautioned to sit on the story. “How about it, Carl?”

  “How about what?” asked the FBI man, while making a sandwich with cold cuts piled so high, Carole was positive when it came time for the first bite, Carl wouldn’t be able to manage it. She was wrong.

  “The Sarita Maru,” Herb reminded him. “Is there a reason for you feds to drop a curtain over the story?”

  “Not that I know of. I guess it’s because there’s no new information that’s newsworthy.”

  “There’s always the war in Europe.” Carole had picked up another newspaper. “But you wouldn’t know it if you read this rag. There hasn’t been an offensive or a defensive in days. I think Neville Chamberlain is a shmuck. I’d like to tell him what to do with that umbrella of his.” Her eye traveled to another photograph. “I know the king and queen have two daughters, but every time I look at them I can’t believe they ever had sex.”

  Clark was impatient. “Come on, men, let’s get going. It’s after seven o’clock.”

  “Goodness!” exclaimed Carole. “The deer must be up by now.” Early in her hunting career, in one of her wilder flights of fancy, Carole told some friends at lunch she had visions of the deer, upon hearing of celebrity hunters planning to pursue and destroy them, clapping their hoofs together and crying, “Goody gumdrops! The Gables are coming after us! We must set the alarm and get up bright and early to greet them!”

  Their eyes haunted Carole. She thought that deer had such soulful eyes, like Fay Bainter, and she wouldn’t dream of knocking off that lovely actress. Clark would try to assuage her by telling her the deer population was getting way out of hand all over the world. They were destructive. They stripped shrubs and trees bare. They were carriers of disease, in response to which Carole stormed, “So why do you lick your chops anticipating a venison roast for dinner! It could be fatal!” But still she accompanied him on the hunt, so deep was her love for him. Joan Crawford once remarked, “Carole is so in love with Big Ears that if he was sentenced to the electric chair, she’d sit on his lap.” To which Carole, on hearing the crack, riposted, “I’d have a tough time getting her off it.”

  Despite the fact Gable was her very own, Carole fretted in silence about what she suspected was still an ongoing romance between Crawford and Gable. This was especially so on those days when he came home from the studio so exhausted he had to have a nap before dinner. Carole had her spies on the Metro lot, who assured her Clark was ever faithful, which made Carole suspect either Clark or Crawford or both knew who they were and paid them off. Carole had once confided to her close friend Fieldsie Lang, “It’s tough for a gal to win in this town.”

  Soon she was alone in the trailer with Hazel. From a window they watched the men trudging off into the underbrush, the dogs circling and anxi
ous for action. Hazel was delighted there was a phone in the trailer, and it gave her comfort. Phones always gave Hazel comfort. She was even more comforted when Clark assured her he had hooked it up to a jack installed for him outside by the phone company. The phone company didn’t object, especially when it was pointed out to them a phone was necessary in case of an emergency, like a gunshot wound or an attack by an animal protecting both its turf and its skin. Carole pointed out there was also a phone antenna on the roof of the trailer, but it wasn’t always dependable. Carole, deep in thought, was shaken out of her reverie when she heard Hazel say, “A penny for them.”

  “Mike Lynton and Lydia Austin deserve more than a penny. Is it true the Las Vegas mob are moving in on Mike’s casino?”

  “They’re already in. They even did it fair and square as a tribute to Mike. They made a deal with his lawyer, who I’m sure pocketed an ugly sum for himself. It was a very smooth transition. They kept the staff intact, who agreed to stay intact, or else.” Hazel ran a finger across her throat.

  “Hazel? You rarely discuss the case. Don’t you have any theories as to who carried Lydia off, who killed Mike?”

  “Thanks for asking. Herb never does. I’ve nothing elaborate to tell you. I’m sure the way just about everybody else does that they knew something they were better off not knowing and had to be erased.” Erased. Carole suppressed a shudder. Human lives snuffed out. How callous to refer to them as erased. She didn’t say this to Hazel. Hazel wouldn’t understand Carole’s sensitivity.

  Carole said, “Why do I keep seeing Takameshuga’s ghost wandering around the periphery of the mystery, as though he knows something we don’t know? And now that he’s dead, probably won’t ever know.” She nibbled at a sliver of cheddar. “You know, I’ve been through this with Pappy and with Herb in a lot of phone calls, about which I must say, he’s been the soul of patience.”