“I’m not following this.”
“Lydia interpreted those letters Carisa was writing to Jimmy as a personal affront. A slap at her. Carisa, she told Nell, was old news, so she should leave her Jimmy alone. Lydia resented the baby threat. Lydia said she was the new girl and thought Carisa’s letters were a ploy to get Jimmy back. Nell told me she told Lydia-but now you’re the old girl. He’s got Ursula Andress. Lydia went nuts. Yelled at Nell. Scared her.”
“Would Nell actually tell Lydia that to her face?”
“Why not? Nell can’t stand Lydia now that I’ve made her see the light.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “Jimmy has to come clean about a lot of things.”
Tansi spoke in a soft voice. “What does that mean?”
“Jimmy hasn’t been forthright with the police.” I was thinking of Jimmy’s newly discovered letter.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a reason, Edna.”
“You don’t lie to the police.”
“He wouldn’t lie. Maybe he forgets things.”
“No, Tansi, stop this. I like Jimmy. I do, despite some of his childish behavior. And I don’t believe he’d kill anyone. But if we’re to help him, we have to be realistic. Your idealizing him into junior-grade God is touching, but one of the dangers of elevating men to godhood is that, well, we’re forced to stare at them up there. Sometimes, when the light hits the statue, you see the pock marks, the blemishes, the…”
“I’m not a giggly bobby-soxer, Edna,” she said, hurt, bewildered, near tears.
“I know you’re not, Tansi. And I know you are an intelligent woman. But your protestation of Jimmy’s innocence smacks of unexamined devotion.”
Tansi stood up, not happy. “Jimmy is the future of Warner Bros.,” she said. “And he’s a good boy.”
“He’s not a boy. He’s a man.”
“You know what I mean. He’s decent and…and…”
“Then work with me to prove he’s innocent.”
“How?” Tansi breathed in. “I want to.”
I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“He is innocent,” Tansi pleaded. “He has to be. Maybe Nell is right. Maybe it was Lydia.”
“You can’t just say that, Tansi, without proof.”
“How can anybody prove that? But Nell’s convinced Lydia killed Carisa in a fit of anger. They had nasty fights, really. A number of them. And do you know what Nell told me? She says Carisa probably had it coming.”
Chapter 12
I sat with Detective Cotton the next morning in my suite at the Ambassador. I’d reached him at the precinct the previous afternoon and related Tansi’s story of Nell and Lydia, and the accusation of murder. My information wasn’t news to him, it seemed. Though I considered the information of little value, I decided to create a bond with him: a mutual sharing. I was convinced he’d held back crucial bits of information, and his candid talk with me was a conscious ploy. Before he hung up, he asked if he could stop by in the morning. Of course I said yes.
I served him coffee, and I noticed he didn’t slurp it noisily nor did he overload the hot brew with excessive sugar cubes. I smiled.
“Nice place,” he said.
“I don’t own it.”
“Whenever I stay in a hotel, it’s one room.” He looked around. “Not a half dozen.”
“I sleepwalk and the management is trying to avoid lawsuits.”
“Then they should have put you on the ground floor.” He smiled.
“You’re obviously curious about something. Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“In fact, yes. For one thing, your obsession with James Dean’s innocence.”
“It’s not an obsession, sir. I’ve never obsessed about a single thing in my life. But in my scant dealings with him, I sense…well, I sense a certain truth in him.”
“My gut tells me he’s dirty.”
“Proof?”
He shrugged. “Slow train through the alleys of L.A.”
“Sounds like a line from an old Wobbly protest song.”
He looked baffled, but didn’t ask me to explain. “But I’ve come to believe we’re on the same side of the law here…”
“Of course.”
“Though your intent is more narrowly defined. And I trust you, Miss Ferber. I asked around about you, even called a cop I know in New York City. He never heard of you. And that can be a good thing. But hereabouts you have a reputation for, well, decency.”
I nodded. Thank you.
“So I believe anything you uncover that is relevant will come my way.”
“Hence my phone call to you yesterday.”
“That struck me as a little self-serving.”
“Like your being here this morning?”
He nodded.
“Tell me something.” He put down the cup he’d been holding. “What do you see in this James Dean? I’ve talked to him a bunch of times lately, when he’s found or available, and he’s moody, evasive, downright rude. On top of that he hadn’t bathed when we spoke.”
“Please, sir.” I was munching on a soda cracker.
“Sorry. But I just don’t see the attraction. They’re telling me he’s the wave of the future. Clark Gable is passe, and Brando and Dean and Clift are in-people who talk with stones in their mouths and who thumb their noses at…at everything.” He looked angry.
“Detective Cotton, I sense you’re a well-intended man. I also sense that you were probably happy when Clark Gable was tossing Vivian Leigh around like a sack of potatoes-that Hollywood. You have about you a hint of Ronald Coleman.”
“I don’t like what the Second World War did to America.”
“You’re blaming this on a war?”
“A slippage of morals. Everything’s turned upside down. Teenage drag racing. Rock ‘n’ roll. Thank God for McCarthy and his ferreting out Commies.”
“I don’t choose to discuss domestic totalitarianism and rearguard politics with you this morning, sir. It’ll only give me indigestion.”
“So be it,” he conceded. “So be it. But I’m curious. Are you writing a book?”
“I wrote a book. It’s called Giant.”
He glanced to the side, as though unwilling to face me. “I mean, you seem to be intent on this murder case.” Stressing the word.
“Intent?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd for a little old lady to venture into one of the most depraved parts of L.A., especially at night, looking for a woman she’s never met?”
I waited, watched him with cold, cold eyes. When I spoke I knew my tone was peevish, which I despised in myself. “Sir, I didn’t get to be a famous and rich writer sitting in a comfortable drawing room sipping tea with pretentious social lionizers.” I took a breath. “If you read my work, you’ll notice I have written about lumber camps in the wilds of Wisconsin, and truck farms in Connecticut and in Chicago, and interracial love on the Mississippi…”
He held up his hand. “Okay, okay. I just asked a question.”
“And, I hope you realize, I have walked streets filled with derelicts, villages where every eye on me is hostile, shacks where depraved girls…” I stopped. I was surprised by the trace of a smile, a genuine one, not the snickering, insulting facial gestures he’d offered earlier. “What?”
“I appreciate honesty,” he said. “I almost never encounter it any more.”
“Perhaps you need to be honest with yourself first?”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re convinced Jimmy is the killer, a bias you’ve allowed to set in concrete.”
“You misread me, Miss Ferber.”
“I don’t think I do, sir.”
“I gather evidence, but I do start with a premise. And my premise, given the scant evidence to date, is that your darling boy is the culprit.” He kept going, even though he noticed I was ready to speak. “And the fact that he didn’t mention this threatening letter to Carisa is one more piece of bad news for him.”