The Glitter Dome

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Martin Welborn was exactly right. Except that the owners were in Spain making a movie. There was one puzzling discovery in the house that night. The leaded glass by the side door had been broken. Someone had smashed the glass in order to reach inside and unlock the door. The glass had not been replaced and had been only halfheartedly swept away, probably when Lloyd moved out. Someone had broken into this house before Just Plain Bill Bozwell vacated the premises.

  17

  Danny Meadows

  The first order of business the next morning was to reinterview Peggy Farrell and try to persuade the little hooker that honesty was the only policy, or she could wait for her eighteenth birthday in Juvenile Hall, because the police still had a missing persons’ report signed by her father, Flameout Farrell. And, if they wanted to be really horseshit, a case might be made against Lorna Dillon for contributing to her delinquency.

  Before they left the office for the house in Benedict Canyon, Martin Welborn tried to call Deedra Briggs to explain that he had been too preoccupied with Griswold Weils to call last night as promised. Only two days and he longed for his woman terribly.

  Al Mackey guessed who Marty was calling from that boyish expectant look as he waited. Then the look faded and Marty hung up.

  “Calling your friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Actors get up at four o’clock to go to work, you know.”

  “That’s probably it. She’s working on a television commercial this week.”

  “You can see her tonight maybe,” Al Mackey said.

  “Sure.”

  “This one might be good for you, Marty,” Al Mackey said. “She seems okay.”

  “She is okay.” Martin Welborn smiled.

  “Well, let’s go make the little hooker bawl.”

  And bawl she did, as soon as she opened the door of the Benedict Canyon cottage. Peggy Farrell had been used and abused by men for a good part of her young life and the detectives only had to utter a portion of their catalogue of threats before she was lying on the couch crying her eyes out and begging them not to put her in Juvenile Hall. And offering to do anything for them, an enticement which had gotten her out of lots of temporary trouble but into lots of deep degradation these past two years on the streets.

  “Try telling the truth,” Martin Welborn said, and the two detectives waited until the frail and wan and troubled child wiped her eyes on the sleeve of Lorna Dillon’s large sweat shirt and gained some control.

  “I didn’t want to get Lorna in trouble. It’s the last thing I wanted.”

  “Then you have to tell us the truth this time, Peggy,” Al Mackey said.

  “What time will she be home today?” Martin Welborn asked.

  “About six, six-thirty.”

  “Let’s start with the audition,” Al Mackey said. “You were videotaped that night in Trousdale by Mister Silver, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometime later you were told that you had the job?”

  “I knew I had the job that night,” she said. “Lloyd said the other girls couldn’t compare to me and he was just going through the motions for his partner, but I was gonna be picked.”

  “And how much were you going to get?”

  “Eight thousand for three days in Mexico!”

  “And how many others would be picked?”

  “Just one boy, Lloyd said. He hadn’t been picked yet.”

  “And how did Lorna find out?”

  “She … she was waiting up when I got home. She thought I was turning tricks again but I promised her I wasn’t. And we had a fight, and … well, she hit me and I cried. And then she said she was sorry and we drank a bottle a wine and I hardly ever drink wine or anything and I got pretty high and …”

  “You told her about Lloyd and the offer?”

  “I didn’t mean to, but I was excited and scared. Eight thousand bucks for three days!”

  “And what happened?”

  “She asked for the address and I gave it to her.”

  “You’d memorized the street and the house number?” Al Mackey said.

  “Yeah, I was nervous going up there with Lloyd even if he did drive a Bentley. It was scary.”

  “Of course,” Martin Welborn said. “Did Lorna do anything else?”

  “At first she just made me promise to call Sapphire Productions and tell them I wasn’t going to take the job, but …”

  “But what?”

  “I think she knew I would. I mean, I was getting antsy around here in the house all the time, with her working so much and all. I wanted my own money and it seemed better than going back to those gnarly massages. Eight thousand for three days?”

  “What happened then?”

  “Nothing. I decided I was gonna call Lloyd and take it. Then I changed my mind. Several days passed and I didn’t call. Then I go … I go, fuck it! I’m gonna do it. And I tell Lorna I’m gonna do it, but she doesn’t hit me this time. She gets real serious and she told me that Lloyd’s been to my dad’s restaurant looking for me. He’s that anxious for me to be in the show. And then she tells me that the show in Mexico isn’t gonna be some ordinary fuck movie between me and some boy, like I was told by Lloyd.”

  “What did she say it would be?”

  “She said it was gonna be something real kinky where I could get hurt.”

  “How did she know that?”

  “She’s in The Business. She says nobody gets paid the kind a money I’m being offered to go to Mexico for three days and do an ordinary porn show. She said Lloyd was lying to me, and she said she was positive it was dangerous. She said she called my dad and told him not to tell Lloyd nothing about me if he came there looking for me.”

  “She knows Flameout Farrell?”

  “Only on the telephone. When we first got together she called my dad and told … almost everything. That she takes care a me and likes me and is trying to get me off drugs and off the streets. And she even gave him her name and phone number. So you see? I’m not really a runaway no more. He knows how to get in touch with me if he really wants to.”

  “That’s interesting,” Al Mackey said, looking at Martin Welborn. Flameout hadn’t told the Weasel and Ferret everything. No one was telling everything.

  “Did Lorna tell your dad about the … danger you were in?” Martin Welborn asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “She wouldn’t tell me any more about what her and my dad talked about.”

  “Did you ever hear from Lloyd again after those two times?” Martin Welborn asked.

  “No, and I never called Sapphire Productions again. Lorna said not to even call him. Maybe that’s how come I let the nurd in the pickup truck tempt me. I figured I lost the eight thousand and maybe I was mad and wanted to make some bread. Lorna just can’t understand me wanting to have something a my own.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Nigel St. Claire?” Al Mackey asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you see on television or read in the paper about a big movie producer getting killed?”

  “No. I just watch Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days, stuff like that.”

  “Did you ever hear Lorna mention that name?” Martin Welborn asked.

  “No.”

  “I want you to go somewhere this afternoon,” Martin Welborn said.

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. Go visit your dad or something. We want to wait for Lorna and talk to her privately.”

  “Can I go to a movie?” Now her eyes were like sun-filled amber. She looked twelve years old.

  “Yeah. Do you have any money?”

  “Not enough for popcorn and a movie,” she said.

  Martin Welborn took ten dollars out of his pocket and said, “Go to a movie and buy some popcorn, Peggy.”

  “Well, we’ve got the rest of the afternoon to kill,” Al Mackey said when they got back in the car. “May as well go to the station. Maybe someone’s slipped another load of dope in Woofer’s pipe. We should be ther
e to get rousted like everyone else.”

  “It’ll give me a chance to call Deedra,” Martin Welborn said absently.

  “Maybe she has a friend,” Al Mackey said, driving south, out of the canyon. “I’m ready for a hot date. Wing’s given me a few … pointers.”

  “There’s still something … wrong,” Martin Welborn said. “It smells all wrong.”

  “There you go again with the bird-dog bullshit. The case stinks, is what it does. I’m getting so I don’t give a damn who wasted Nigel St. Claire. I just wanna clear the case before Woofer whacks our balls.”

  “It’s still not right. Why film in Mexico?”

  “Because Peggy’s co-star was gonna to be a goddamn burro, or an iguana, that’s why. And they’re more plentiful in Mexico.”

  “Maybe,” Martin Welborn said.

  “And I don’t think the Tijuana vice squad, if there is such a thing, is quite as diligent as ours, so there isn’t much chance they’d get caught during production.”

  “Maybe,” Martin Welborn said. “Maybe.”

  When they got to the squadroom Al Mackey reported their progress to the Ferret, who by now had all but given up his drug cases, so obsessed was he with the search for the Vietnamese assassin. Much to the displeasure of the Weasel, who had to deliver a bagful of lies to Captain Woofer about a big dope case they were about to crack which would bust the seams of the county jail with drug traffickers and make Hollywood as dope-free as Spearfish, South Dakota, to which the Captain intended to retire.

  Martin Welborn again received no answer when he called Deedra Briggs.

  “Actors work long hours, Marty,” Al Mackey said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How about going down on Melrose for some Mexican food? I’m starved.”

  “I’ll come along,” the Ferret said. “Maybe some food’ll take my mind off finding the gook. I think I’m going bonzo.”

  “I might as well come,” the Weasel said. “Only work the Ferret’s willing to do anymore has to be with you guys. I’m getting tense waiting for Woofer to knock our dicks down.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Martin Welborn said, “I’ll see you when you get back. Take your time. Lorna Dillon doesn’t get home till six.”

  After the others had gone, Martin Welborn dialed Deedra Briggs’ number yet another time just in case he had dialed incorrectly. He had to see her tonight.

  Then he got an idea. The more he thought of it the more shape it seemed to take. He made another phone call, this one to Sergeant Gabe Samson of Administrative Vice Division, the department’s pornography expert, who had been comparing the mug shots of Just Plain Bill Bozwell with performers in recent porn films. Martin Welborn talked for a moment with Samson, then hung up and wrote on the sign-out sheet, listing his destination as Parker Center, Administrative Vice Division.

  He still hadn’t returned when the others came back from lunch smelling of beans and burritos and salsa and chile verde. Al Mackey noticed the sign-out and was surprised when Marty wasn’t back until everyone else was going end-of-watch.

  When he came in Martin Welborn looked pale and tense and troubled.

  “I saw you went to Ad Vice,” Al Mackey said. “Samson able to make Bill Bozwell?”

  “No,” Martin Welborn said. “Excuse me, Al, I have to make a call.”

  Al Mackey knew who he was calling, so he walked away from the homicide table and said his good-nights to the Ferret and Weasel, who were signing out. He saw Martin Welborn hang up, again having received no answer. Then Martin Welborn picked up their plastic briefcase and said, “It’s time to talk to Lorna Dillon.”

  Martin Welborn didn’t talk much on the ride to the cottage except to say he might be making a mistake. He stared a lot and Al Mackey didn’t press him. They were sitting in front of her cottage when she came in the driveway in her Fiat. She didn’t look terribly surprised to see them, but she seemed surprised that Peggy wasn’t home.

  “We sent her to a movie,” Martin Welborn said when they were inside and seated in the tidy living room.

  “So it’s me you wanted to see.”

  “You don’t look astonished,” Al Mackey said.

  “I thought you might discover that Peggy hadn’t told you … everything.”

  “And how about you?” Martin Welborn said. “Have you told us everything?”

  “Everything I’m going to,” she said calmly. “I don’t have to talk to you at all, do I?”

  “No,” Martin Welborn said. “But I have to advise you of your rights.”

  She sat quietly during the reading of her constitutional rights and then said, “You think I killed Nigel St. Claire.”

  “Possibly,” Martin Welborn said. “And you might actually want to talk about it.”

  “And why would I have wanted to kill him?”

  “I think you suspected what Lloyd and his Vietnamese friend were going to do in Mexico. I think after Peggy had her audition you were outraged, and went to the house in Trousdale the next day and found no one at home. I think you broke the glass of the side door and went inside and saw enough to satisfy yourself as to what they were really going to make in Mexico.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A snuff film,” Martin Welborn said.

  “A snuff film? How interesting. Have you ever seen a snuff film?”

  “As far as the Los Angeles Police Department knows, there’s never been a snuff film actually verified. There’ve been simulated snuff films from South America where they use animal guts and tricks they use in regular movies. But no police agency has yet confiscated a real snuff film despite all the rumors of their existence.”

  “And how did I know they were going to use Peggy for a snuff film?”

  “You found something in the house. Something that spelled more than S and M, which you probably suspected at first. Something that told you they weren’t just going to physically abuse Peggy in their movie. They were going to kill her. On camera. A genuine snuff film.”

  “And then what?”

  “You waited at the Trousdale house and followed Weils’ taxi right to his apartment. You looked at his name on the mailbox. You found him in the phone book. You finally decided to call and warn him to change his plans. You have a deep voice. You wanted to sound like a man.”

  “And then?”

  “And then you found out from Flameout Farrell that Lloyd was still coming around looking for Peggy. You were furious, but still all you had was the suspicion of a snuff film in another country. There was nothing you could even report to the police. You decided to tell Lloyd that you were onto him and he’d better leave Peggy alone. You took a gun for protection and …”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “… and you waited at Griswold Weils’ apartment for a night or two until you saw that Bentley drive up across the street in the bowling alley parking lot.”

  “And then?”

  “And then you waited until you saw Lloyd go to the apartment to talk to Griswold Weils. You walked to the Bentley to wait for him. You were shocked to see a man in that car whom you knew.”

  “I didn’t know Nigel St. Claire.”

  “You know his face. You were shocked to think he was part of this. You were more than shocked. You were furious.”

  “Why would Nigel St. Claire be part of it?”

  “I don’t know. To have something no one else has? Or perhaps Nigel St. Claire was simply a victim of blackmail and was helping Lloyd the blackmailer put together his package, as they say in your business. Maybe he didn’t know that Lloyd was planning to make something more than kiddy porn, or animal porn, or something more than S and M.”

  “In other words, Nigel St. Claire might have been a victim after all? A victim of an extortion? Wrongfully killed by an outraged lover of a little girl he was only going to exploit in an ordinary way by letting a dog or a donkey fuck her brains out? Or maybe let her be whipped and burned and savaged a little, with eight thousand dollars to salve the wounds?”<
br />
  “Something like that,” Martin Welborn said.

  “Yes. Maybe Nigel St. Claire thought it was only to be kiddy porn with Mexican kids and they don’t count for much anyway? In any case, he didn’t know it was a snuff film because he wouldn’t countenance murder, no matter how sinister and perverted he was, correct? Or how frightened he was of a blackmailer?”

  “Something like that,” Martin Welborn said.

  “Well then, a piece of filth like Nigel St. Claire should be killed. And I’m delighted that someone performed the public service. May I borrow a piece of notebook paper?”

  Al Mackey looked at Martin Welborn and tore off a sheet of yellow lined paper.

  “Your pencil, please?” she said.

  Then they watched her write a name and telephone number. When she was finished, she said, “This is not a signed confession. I want you to save yourself further embarrassment. I want you to call this man tomorrow. He’s the production manager on a show I just finished. I want you to ask him where I was for three days before and four days after Nigel St. Claire was killed. I want you to question him thoroughly and then question every witness he gives you. I want you to be absolutely satisfied that I was on location in Wyoming. Far from a commercial airport, at all times in the immediate presence of a cast and crew of more than one hundred people. I’d like you to do all that, and I don’t require an apology. But I do want you to promise not to bother Peggy and me ever again or I’ll call my lawyer and bring a lawsuit against you for police harassment.”

  When they were driving back to the station, Al Mackey said, “She wasn’t bluffing, Marty.”

  “Damn it, I know I’ve got most of it right,” Martin Welborn said. “I know I do. The snuff film. It makes sense. Bozwell and his friend are thugs, hoodlums, killers, if there’s enough money in it.”

  “What if you’ve got it correct up to the point of St. Claire’s murder?” Al Mackey said. “The snuff film makes some sense. More, if St. Claire was a blackmail victim and didn’t know what Bozwell was really up to. In other words, St. Claire was a filthy cowardly pig, but not a killer. How about St. Claire just gets sick of being leaned on? And when Bozwell came back to the car from Weils’ apartment, St. Claire has it out with him and says he won’t give him any more help or money. And Bozwell shoots him. Then Bozwell goes out of the movie business, gets rid of all his equipment, and goes back into the armed robbery business, which he does best anyway. Something like that?”