“I joined the Marines, but I blew a knee in basic training and got a medical discharge. I guess we were both lucky, eh?”
“Well, we’re both alive.”
They ordered lunch.
“You’ve got a good reputation around town, Tom.”
“So do you.”
“So, we’re both good at our jobs. I guess the blacklist is giving you problems, just like me.”
“It hasn’t been too bad; Centurion has fewer people under contract than most studios, so maybe that’s helped.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.”
“Were you ever a cop, Jake?”
“Yeah, I was a detective with the Long Beach department, burglary and vice mostly. You were with Beverly Hills, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I was in a patrol car.”
Lunch came, and they began to eat.
“What did you want to talk about, Tom?”
“First of all, this is off the record, under the table, whatever you want to call it. You can use what I tell you, but you can’t tell anybody where it came from.”
“I guess I can live with that. What’s up?”
“One of your studio’s employees is a murderer.”
Connor’s eyebrows went up. “Only one?”
“Only one, that I know of, who’s both a murderer and a lesbo.”
“Well, Tom, I guess you know that the picture business, in general, is pretty loose about who puts what, where, in the sack. Unless she wears a crew cut and carries a whip, or makes a major pass at a female star who doesn’t share her inclination, her dykeness is likely to be overlooked.”
“Is murder likely to be overlooked?”
“Is this about the Susan Stafford case?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And Hank Harmon?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t really know the girl, but I’ve seen her around the lot. Ben Morrison at the LAPD made a courtesy call on me when he first questioned her, but it’s my understanding that she has been eliminated as a suspect.”
Tom shook his head. “Don’t you believe it. I had lunch with Ben a couple of days ago, and she’s still right at the top of the list. In fact, hers is the only name on the list.”
“I thought she had an alibi.”
“Not one that covers the time in question. Her story was that she went to the farmer’s market, and that was confirmed by witnesses, but the case theory is that she returned to the apartment in time to catch Stafford there. Do you know the story of their relationship?”
“You mean that beautiful girl was in the sack with Hank?”
“Stafford lived with her for four or five months. I took a good look around Harmon’s place, and there was only one bed. When Susan came to work on Bitter Creek, she took up with her leading man, and, by all accounts, they fell in love. She was moving her stuff out of Hank’s apartment and into her costar’s place when Hank came home and caught her leaving. She beat up Stafford, knocked her unconscious, then strangled her. Late that night she drove the body, in Stafford’s car, way out Mulholland and dumped it on a trash pile, then she left the car at the leading man’s house and walked home. She did a good job of cleaning up after herself, too.”
“You’ve been following Morrison’s investigation, then?”
“He’s been following mine; I was the first person to talk to Hank. I made her as guilty in a ten-minute interview, and if she hadn’t lawyered up so fast, Ben would have sweated it out of her.”
“But there’s no physical evidence to put her in Hank’s apartment, is there?”
“We don’t need that evidence; Hank admits the girl was there and left her a note, but says she was already gone when she got home.”
“Have you seen the note?”
“Nah. She says she threw it away, but you can bet your ass it was a ‘Dear Mary’ letter. The fact that Susan was leaving her for a man pushed Hank over the edge.”
“But Morrison doesn’t have any hard evidence?”
“No witnesses, no blood on the floor, no prints in Susan’s car. Let me ask you something, Jake: when you were working in Long Beach didn’t you learn to read a suspect?”
“Yeah, I did, and I don’t think I was ever wrong about one. Couldn’t always prove it, but I knew.”
“I knew right away that Harmon killed Susan Stafford, and so did Ben Morrison; we just haven’t been able to prove it yet.”
“What are you asking me to do about this, Tom?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Jake. I just want to give you something to think about.”
Jake toyed with his food.
“Talk to Harmon yourself; see what you think.”
Jake shook his head. “Nah. She’s had plenty of time to get her story straight.”
“Yes, she has. Look, I don’t know what your management is like, but I can tell you that if my management knew that there was a homicidal dyke working on our lot, she wouldn’t be there another minute, and she wouldn’t walk away with a fulsome letter of recommendation.”
“I don’t think my management would like it much, either,” Connor said.
“There’s another factor.”
“What?”
“If Harmon was out on the street and unemployable, she’d be pretty pissed off, wouldn’t she?”
“Sure. I expect so.”
“And in that frame of mind, with pressure on her, she’d be more likely to make a mistake, maybe cry on somebody’s shoulder.”
Connor nodded. “Probably so.”
“Jake, my people at the studio are really hurting about this situation. The girl has parents back in Georgia, and she was the light of their life. She’s gone from being a brand-new movie star to being dumped, dead, on a trash pile, and from her family’s point of view, nobody’s doing anything about it.”
“Shit,” Connor said, “if I were in your shoes I’d probably take her out somewhere and put a slug in her head.”
“Believe me, that crossed my mind, and I haven’t ruled it out yet, but I want to give the system a chance to work.”
“I see your point.”
“Well, Jake, it was good to meet you,” Tom said, putting down his napkin “Let me get lunch.”
“Nah. It’s on me,” Connor replied. They shook hands. “Let me see what I can do.”
“It’s probably better if we don’t speak again for a while,” Tom said, rising from the table. “But after some time has passed, I’ll buy lunch.”
“We should keep in touch, anyway,” Connor said.
Tom walked back to his car, knowing he had planted a ticking bomb under Hank Harmon.
50
Rick was working on the budget for Greenwich Village Girl when Eddie Harris came through their connecting door, through their shared screening room, holding a newspaper in his hand.
“Have you seen this?” he asked.
“I read it at breakfast.”
“Then you saw Hopper.”
“Saw her column; didn’t read it.”
“It’s written as a news story under Hopper’s byline. Listen to this, Rick: ‘A script supervisor at RKO, linked by police to the brutal murder of Susan Stafford, the beautiful young costar of Centurion’s huge hit, Bitter Creek, has been unceremoniously fired by RKO. No one in management there would confirm the reason for the firing, but speculation has increased that the LAPD is closer to an arrest. Henrietta Harmon, known as “Hank,” was escorted off the RKO lot by security officers at the close of business yesterday.
“‘Harmon was the first person investigated by police after Susan Stafford disappeared, and after Stafford’s body was found at a garbage dump, a search warrant was obtained and detectives searched Harmon’s apartment. They found no evidence of the murder, but a source at the LAPD has told this reporter that the place had been thoroughly cleaned before their arrival. This reporter has also learned that Harmon disappeared after initially being questioned, and police believe that she did so in order to allow cuts and scratches that she would have received during the killing to heal. The coroner’s report states that Stafford fought for her life.