The Pictures Read online

  THE PICTURES

  Los Angeles, 1939: the Golden Age of Hollywood motion pictures.

  World-weary Jonathan Craine is a detective at the LAPD who has spent his entire career as a studio ‘fixer’, covering up crimes of the studio players to protect the billion-dollar industry that built Los Angeles.

  When one of the producers of The Wizard of Oz is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Craine must make sure the incident passes without scandal and that the deceased’s widow, the beautiful starlet Gale Goodwin, comes through the ordeal with her reputation unscathed.

  But against his better instincts, Craine finds himself increasingly drawn to Gale. And when a series of unsavory truths begin to surface, Craine finds himself at the center of a conspiracy involving a Chicago crime syndicate, a prostitution racket and a set of stolen pictures that could hold the key to unraveling the mystery.

  For my mother

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  One Month Later

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  West Hollywood, Los Angeles

  May 10th, 1939

  The roads were busy for a Wednesday night. The evening sky was drawn and overcast and most Angelenos were heading home before the rain came. In a radio car smelling of cheap coffee and paper-bag dinners, Officers Becker and Cassidy took a disturbance call from Dispatch, a last pickup twenty minutes before the midnight changeover.

  They were both local product, rare in the department, with over thirty years of service between them and a working partnership for almost half that. A disturbance report meant very little but the address was a tony neighborhood three miles west of Hollywood and Becker suspected nothing more than a domestic dispute, maybe assault and battery if they were unlucky. He slouched in the passenger seat, his partner steering slowly and carefully down a row of detached houses surrounded by neatly sheared hedgerows and freshly trimmed lawns.

  “You got the house number?”

  “One-ten. Looks like the third on the right.”

  Becker peered through the windshield. A porch light revealed a woman sitting hunched on the steps leading up to the front door.

  They parked in the shadow of a coral tree, Becker pulling out his notebook before they’d even killed the engine. They could wrap this up in fifteen minutes easy, type it up in the morning.

  They stepped out onto the asphalt, glancing sideways at the adjacent houses, noticing the curtains twitch and a second later the lights go out. This was a quiet neighborhood and people weren’t used to police cars pulling into driveways this late at night.

  “You Mrs. Greer?” Cassidy asked the woman. She looked to be seventy or so, with thin, almost wispy hair and sharp elbows hiding beneath a woolen housecoat. When they stepped closer they could see her face was twisted in fright.

  “Excuse me?” Cassidy repeated. “Are you Dolores Greer? You called the police a few minutes ago?”

  The woman looked at each of them in turn without recognition or surprise. She blinked several times but said nothing.

  Becker looked at Cassidy then back again. He had to hide the irritation in his voice. “Ma’am, are you Dolores Greer? Did you call the police department about a disturbance at one-ten Longbrook?”

  “I called,” she said at last. “Something terrible has happened.” There was a shrill ring of fear in her voice.

  “You live here? This your place?”

  A shake, and then a nod. “This is my house. I own it.”

  “Can you tell us what happened? You reported a disturbance.”

  She looked back at the door and flinched, nervous by proximity.

  Exasperated, Cassidy lit a cigarette. “Everything alright? You had an argument with your husband?”

  “It’s awful.” Her voice sounded like a child’s whisper. “Look at what they did. Dead. And for what?”

  Becker’s eyebrows arched. He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. He pointed his notepad at the doorway. “Someone’s died in the house? There’s a body inside?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Inside.”

  Becker pondered the possibility of murder. No—unlikely in these parts. He envisioned instead some old-timer rigored in his armchair. Mr. Greer, probably eighty years old, resting peacefully in a puddle of his own piss and shit.

  He turned to his partner. “You want to stay with her?”

  He went up without waiting for a response, stepping around the old lady as he made his way up to the front door.

  The screen door was wide open, the front door unlocked. Inside, the house was dark, with only a dull tungsten glow coming in from the front windows facing the street. He reached for the light switch and the hallway lit up.

  Becker left the front door ajar and moved through the house. The corridor was empty but picture frames had been pulled off the walls, glass and wood laying across soiled footprints on the floorboards. There was a soft hissing sound like running water but it didn’t look like anyone was inside.

  Becker put his hand on his pistol and tilted his head back toward the front door. “Looks like we got a robbery.”

  The first room he entered was the living room. The room had been turned over, that much was clear. The couch was cut open, more pictures broken from their frames. The floor was covered in shattered glass and one or two of the floorboards had been jimmied up.

  He scanned the room but there was no dead body. The kitchen was the same, drawers and cupboards torn open but no corpse and no sign of blood. There was a bathroom at the end of the hall, some jewelry visible on a side cabinet, which seemed strange for a robbery.

  He found the source of the noise at the end of the hallway, outside what must be the bedroom. On a dresser was a phonograph, the needle prodding aimlessly at the end of the record. He left it there and approached the bedroom door, taking out a handkerchief to turn the knob.

  When the door opened his stomach concaved. His heart rose in his chest and he felt his pulse throbbing in his ears. For a long minute he saw red spots and dark concentric circles. Dizzy, he steadied himself on the doorway.

  Officer Eric Becker had thought he was hardened to death. He had lost two fellow officers in his tenure and believed he’d seen enough dead hoods and dope peddlers to keep his head at the sight of blood. He was wrong.

  The butchered remains of a pale, lithe body lay on a double bed in the middle of the room. A woman, if not a girl, was sprawled on her back, surrounded by a pool of coagulating blood. She was naked but for the tattered remains of a once-white nightgown clinging to her midriff. Both arms and legs were extended into
a spread-eagle, her ankles and wrists trussed tightly against each of the four bedposts. Her pale limbs and torso were swollen and bruised, her neck crisscrossed from a ligature. But where the body’s head should be sat only a loose jaw with a small ovate hole in it. The body had no eyes, no nose, no face: the remains of her skull littered the pillow like bloody eggshells. Whoever she was and whatever she’d done to deserve such an end, the victim had been cuffed, beaten, strangled, and then finally killed.

  After the shock receded, Becker looked back through the door at the needle dancing on the phonograph. They must have played the music to drown out the screams.

  Chapter 1

  Fred Astaire was performing at the Lilac Club.

  A black tie supper club on the eastern end of Sunset Boulevard, the Lilac Club was a venue synonymous with stars and stardom. It was owned by William Wilson, the wealthy publisher of The Hollywood Enquirer. Not content with running Hollywood’s most popular trade newspaper, Wilson had bought seven highly profitable clubs on the Sunset Strip, catering specifically to the Hollywood rich and famous. The Lilac Club was the largest and grandest of them all.

  Jonathan Craine was sitting at a table not far from the bar. Resisting the recent trend for white jackets, he wore a plain black New York drape suit with the legs tapered at the ankle. To look at, he was at once both appealing and unremarkable. Standing a little under six feet, Craine was fairly tall and reasonably broad but not quite either. He remained to most people who met him quiet, measured and reserved, a harmless nobody.

  The evening was in full swing, the room alive with chatter and laughter, but Craine sat alone. He bowed his head as a few familiar faces passed by, anxious to avoid their awkward nods and smiles. He tried to ignore the hushed whispers of strangers who knew him only by reputation, the hairs standing tall on the back of his neck as he imagined how they gossiped about the widower of the late actress Celia Raymond.

  “Detective Craine?”

  Craine looked up to see a waiter he recognized. Being referred to by his profession always put him on edge when he was off-duty.

  “Hullo.”

  “Good to see you again. Have you been away?”

  “I was in New York.”

  The waiter lowered his voice. “Are you back working the studios?”

  Craine was a little taken aback by the directness of the question but he recovered his composure. “No,” he answered truthfully. “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Well, it’s nice to have you back, sir. And I wanted to say—” the waiter paused, trying to find the right words. “I wanted to say I was very sorry about your wife. She was a lovely lady.”

  Craine tilted his head to acknowledge what he’d said then replied simply, “I’ll have a French 75 whenever you’re ready.”

  The waiter stiffened. They returned to their roles as server and guest. “Oh, yessir, right away.”

  On stage “Cheek to Cheek” was brought to an end and the club audience broke into applause. A tall, olive-skinned man came on stage to shake Astaire’s hand: the club manager, Benjamin Carell. They hadn’t met before but Craine knew he was a Chicago-bred Italian with criminal ties. He wondered why William Wilson had ever hired him.

  “Jonathan Craine? Detective Jonathan Craine?”

  He was expecting his cocktail but when Craine turned around the concierge was standing over him. “Yes,” he said.

  “There’s a call for you, sir.”

  Craine sighed. He knew exactly who it would be.

  “Thank you, I’ll be right over. Cancel my drinks order.”

  “Yes, sir, right away.”

  Craine took the call at the front desk. Two studio executives were moving through the foyer and Craine caught them staring at him. He heard his name mentioned and one of them laughed. His ears burned and Craine contemplated why, after almost five months away, he’d decided to come back from New York to a place that left him feeling injured and empty.

  “This is Craine,” he said after they’d gone.

  “Good evening, Detective,” said a young man’s voice. As expected: it was Dispatch. “I apologize for calling you. Your secretary said you might be at the Lilac Club.”

  “Yes,” added Craine impatiently.

  “We have a report of a robbery-homicide in West Hollywood.”

  “Who’s on duty? I’m not due in until nine.”

  “I’m afraid all our night officers are out on calls.”

  Craine sighed quietly. The homicide unit was understaffed and overstretched. It was little surprise Captain Simms had been so keen to have him back.

  “Do you know the name of the first officer?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The first uniform officer on the scene.”

  “One second, please.” The line went quiet and Craine heard a ruffle of papers. Outside, four security guards pushed back a rank of photographers gathering beside the double glass doors. Craine followed their gaze. A woman entered the foyer and walked briskly toward the main hall. He recognized her as the actress Gale Goodwin. Her latest picture, The Tainted Feather, had topped the box office—she must be celebrating.

  The dispatcher came back on the line. “I’m sorry, I don’t have that information, sir.”

  Craine rolled his eyes. “Do you have the address?”

  “Yes, Detective, the address is—”

  “Hold on one second.” He cradled the receiver between cheek and neck and stretched across the desk for a pen and pad. “Go on.”

  “Address is one-ten Longbrook Avenue.”

  Craine scrawled it down then checked his watch. Just after midnight. He let out a long sigh. “Tell the first officer I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He put the phone down, rubbed his eyes and asked the concierge to retrieve his coat and hat.

  * * *

  A gray and dusty Los Angeles reeled through the windows like a broken strip of celluloid. Although the motion picture industry had helped prop up Los Angeles in the lean years since the Wall Street Crash, visible shocks of depression were not in short supply. Craine wound up the window as he drove past a slum of tarpaper shacks and a group of homeless men fretting over a garbage fire. He passed vacant lots and filling stations, mile after mile of billboards selling God, bank loans and beauty creams.

  He accelerated west down Sunset before turning south toward Hollywood, the neon nightlife receding in his rearview mirror. He was driving the V-16 Cadillac Fleetwood that Celia had bought him for their ten-year anniversary. The car radio was playing an Ella Fitzgerald record and he turned it up so loud that thoughts of Celia were buried in the song.

  The slum receded, quickly forgotten to palm trees, flowering plants and the stucco-walled homes of the Hollywood middle class. This is a city of contradictions, Craine thought, a metropolis where sepia and Technicolor play side by side.

  He turned into Longbrook where the roads were quiet now, almost empty, with barely a Buick or Packard in sight. Craine looked at the address Dispatch had given him, counting the house numbers on his right. He spotted a squad car parked outside a single-story and pulled up behind it in the driveway.

  The porch light flicked on and the front door opened. A squat uniform officer with a thick mustache and a flashlight cradled under one arm stepped outside.

  “Evening, Detective,” he said as Craine got out of his car. His eyes widened when he caught a glimpse of the Fleetwood but he kept his thoughts to himself. He probably thought all detectives drove two-thousand-dollar Cadillacs.

  “You the first officer?”

  “Yes, sir. Becker. Arrived about an hour ago. My partner, Cassidy, went to take a statement from the neighbor. She called it in.”

  Craine took a pencil and notepad from his jacket pocket. “Did you touch the body, move it at all?”

  “Didn’t get further than her doorway.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yessir. Shot dead.”

  He sighed inwardly. A dead girl meant unwanted media interest.

  Crain
e paused to examine the door and windows on the front of the house. All intact, no signs of forced entry.

  “Door was unlocked when I got here,” said the uniform, taking off his hat to wipe his brow. “I went all around with the flashlight but there’s no windows broken either.”

  “Make sure that’s in your report.”

  Craine noticed Becker was staring at him. “Have we met before?” Becker asked. “Yeah, we have. That assault charge on that actor. They called you—”

  “I remember.”

  “He beat her up real bad. Broke her nose, stitches across her cheek where he’d split it right open. What was she, sixteen? I’m surprised the charges didn’t stick.”

  They didn’t stick because the actor in question was two days away from shooting a million-dollar motion picture and City Hall had asked Craine to have the charges dropped.

  “Why don’t we concentrate on the task ahead, Officer Becker?” said Craine sharply. “Let’s head inside.”

  Bare ceiling bulbs lit a wide hallway leading onto a checkered kitchen floor to their left and what must be the living room to their right. Craine could see the bathroom further down the corridor, opposite a white door. The house was spacious and well decorated inside but the kitchen and hallway had been ransacked.

  The officer pushed open the living-room door. There were no lights on but the mess was evident in the half-light. Framed pictures had been pulled off the walls and the couches had been cut open. Even a wall clock lay on the floor in pieces. “All the rooms are the same.”

  “Looks like a botched robbery. Where is she?”

  “Bedroom. Down the end there.”

  “You got her name?”

  Becker pushed a cigarette between his teeth and lit it while talking: “Florence Lloyd. White female. Thirty years old.”

  Craine wrote down F/W/30 on a new page in his notepad.

  “Did she live here alone?”

  “Far as we know. Rents it from her neighbor, a Dolores Greer. Says she noticed the door open and went inside.”

  “What time?”

  “A little after eleven.”