A Cast of Killers (10 page)

Then there was another, more ominous silence. This time, Moreno really had hung up.

12

The concierge in the Lombardy Hotel directed Vidor to a florist’s shop just blocks down Lexington Avenue. While his cab waited, Vidor purchased violets. The florist wrapped them in green foil, affixing a card on which Vidor had quickly jotted the three initials that conveyed his and Colleen Moore’s shared eternal slogan, Love Never Dies.

At Columbus Circle, he pocketed his Checker cab receipt and walked on a frozen sidewalk to the statue where many years before he and Colleen had said good-bye, vowing never to see each other again. Moore had chosen the meeting place, though she was also staying at the Lombardy. And though Vidor, anxious for their reunion, had arrived early, she was waiting for him, looking as beautiful as he had ever imagined her.

“Don’t you look like quite the detective,” she said as he approached in his trenchcoat and tilted hat. “What happened to the young director with the breeches and riding crop.”

Vidor handed her the violets. “He ran off with the young flapper in the sequined dress.” He kissed her gently on the cheek.

Moore brushed her short black hair away from her face and read the card with the flowers. She smiled, tucked the card into her purse, and, taking King by the hand, led him across the street into Central Park.

Vidor smiled, fighting the urge to ask Moore about her traveling companion: a well-known film producer, a millionaire owner of supermarkets. Jealousy had been outlawed early on in their relationship, and Vidor struggled determinedly not to succumb to it today. He and Moore were together now, and he told himself that that was all that mattered.

“How’s my handsome detective’s investigation coming along?” Moore asked.

King warmed to the new subject, as he felt her grip on his hand restoring his self-confidence, like a double shot of adrenaline.

Vidor shook his head. “No, he seems to think it’s more than that. I don’t know. The whole thing is odd, his calling me and everything. I think he’s scared of something. I’ll have to call him as soon as I get back to L.A. If he’s in L.A.”

“Well, in the meantime,” Moore said, a twinkling hint of suggestion in her eyes, “we have some time before the party at Sardi’s, and I have a bottle of champagne chilling at the hotel.”

For the next several hours there was no mention of business, Taylor, or the supermarket millionaire. Everything was champagne and violets. Then, as they were preparing to leave for Gloria Swanson’s soiree at Sardi’s, Moore asked, “When are you going back to Los Angeles?”

“I’m not sure,” Vidor said. “Soon. I’ve talked with everyone I need to here, and I do want to find Moreno. I think he may be able to answer the key questions. Doug MacLean as well.”

Vidor caught himself checking his reflection in a mirror, something he’d been doing altogether too much lately. He turned self-consciously away; Moore hadn’t mentioned the signs of ever-advancing age that so bothered him, and he didn’t want to draw her attention to them now.

“Why don’t you come back to Beverly Hills with me?” he asked. “You can stay in the guest house. Give us a good chance to work on the script with Dalmas.”

“The Chicago
Tribune
has asked me to write three columns about Kenya. I’m leaving on safari the day after tomorrow.”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, but there’s certainly room for one more. Want to come along? We can put the project on hold for a while, get back to it when we return.”

Vidor considered the offer, then thought of Betty and the simple note he’d left, telling her he was going to New York for a few days. That was easily explained behavior. But disappearing to the Dark Continent without telling her? He didn’t think he could do it.

“I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t interrupt this investigation,” he said. “I should get back and see about finding Moreno while he’s in a mood to talk.”

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Moore told him. “I won’t be gone all that long. Besides ...” She handed Vidor his trenchcoat and, smoothing with one hand her new Yves Saint-Laurent suit, picked up her mink from the bed. “We’ve still got the next two days.”

13

Vidor’s arrival turned heads at Sardi’s. With Colleen Moore and Gloria Swanson on either arm, he strutted proudly to their reserved table. At the table, Bob Giroux, NBC founder General David Sarnoff, and musician Artie Shaw stood to greet them. Other guests had been invited—Jennifer Jones, Daniel Selznick, Lee Remick, Groucho Marx, all friends of Vidor—but would not be able to make it.

Vidor helped Moore and Swanson into their seats and took the place saved for him at the head of the table. He ordered appetizers and bottles of California champagne and a cup of herbal tea for the health-conscious Swanson.

As the conversation turned to the reasons for Vidor’s trip east, everyone ventured an opinion on the Taylor murder case.

“It’s obvious,” said Artie Shaw, who of all those at the table was the least familiar with the case (and consequently the least aware of the ironic plausibility of his remark). “The butler did it.”

Vidor returned the bottle to the ice. He took a sip from the glass. He had, in fact, been intently studying that last day. It was how he intended on opening the movie.

“Nothing Taylor said or did that day could lead a detective to believe that it would end in violence. Why had the murderer selected that day? Was it motivated by some series of events, a sudden decision, or a bit of information that has somehow been overlooked?”

He had everyone’s complete attention. He paused as a waiter removed the empty bottle from the table, then continued.

“On February first, nineteen twenty-two, Taylor was not engaged in the actual process of shooting a film. That morning he could lie in bed until he heard Henry Peavey, busy in the kitchen below his bedroom, or could doze until Peavey came up with an eye-opening cup of coffee.

“Peavey arrived as usual at seven-thirty, stepping off the Maryland Street trolley, then walking up the gravel path through the building courtyard, then to the front door of the small bungalow. Next he went to the kitchen, where he picked up the morning’s milk delivery, waiting on the back steps. Interviewed the next day, he did not remember seeing any strange footprints or cigarette butts by the steps—as the police would later find.

“Taylor took his gold cuff links from his middle dresser drawer. What else was in there with them? Obviously, something soft and pink. Was it a handkerchief? A woman’s nightgown?”

Vidor made eye contact with everyone at the table, drawing them into his story as his film would draw its audience.

“At breakfast, Taylor read the front-page newspaper story about the raging Fatty Arbuckle scandal. As Peavey cleared the dishes, he noticed his employer’s gold cigarette case beside his coffee cup. It was inscribed WITH LOVE, MABEL NORMAND, CHRISTMAS, NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE. Peavey specifically remembered seeing this because the cigarette case had been missing since Taylor’s bungalow had been ransacked and robbed a few weeks earlier. The cigarette case had been stolen along with a package of Taylor’s specially made black cigarettes with gold tips.

“What I would like to know was what Peavey and Taylor talked about that morning. Only a day or two before, Taylor or his chauffeur had posted bail for Peavey, who had been arrested for soliciting young men in Westlake Park, which, coincidently, was virtually across the street from the Taylor bungalow. Was Taylor shocked by the arrest? Was Taylor worried what his friends at the studio would say? I think not, or else Taylor would have fired Peavey. They likely talked about what Taylor was going to say on Peavey’s behalf at the upcoming hearing.

“At eight-thirty, Taylor’s chauffeur, Howard Fellows, dropped Taylor off at the Los Angeles Athletic Club where during his morning swim and workout he encountered Mickey Neilan and Tony Moreno. Were these encounters merely casual, or were they planned? No one seems to know what was said between Taylor and these men, but both would figure in the mystery.

“Later that morning Taylor went to the First National Bank, where he deposited two eight-hundred-dollar pay paychecks, and stock dividend checks totaling seven-hundred-and-fifty dollars. Did he withdraw money as well, which he would later deposit back into his account? And if he did, why? The record is not clear.

“Taylor arrived at the Realart Studios offices later that morning, where Julia Crawford Ivers, his screenwriter, was waiting for him. From reports I’ve gathered, they had an argument over the next picture Taylor wanted to direct:
The Rocks of Valpre.
Ivers said that there wasn’t enough action and the story was too convoluted to follow, and Charlie Eyton said the picture would be too expensive. They would have to wait the return of Cecile B. deMille himself, who was with director Jimmy Kirkwood aboard the Aquitania, at that moment enroute from Europe to New York. But there was no big rush. Ivers, at the time, was occupied with another picture at another studio.”

Vidor paused only to sip champagne. “So Taylor left, disappointed, of course, but with too much work to do to brood about it. After lunch at the studio commissary, he left for Projection Room C, where he did some editing on his latest picture,
The Green Temptation,
with coworkers he treated with utmost respect. His editor, Edy Lawrence, reported that Taylor kissed her hand at the end of that editing session—a remarkable gesture, when one considers the way most directors treated their editors. Significantly, many of Taylor’s coworkers who attended this session were thought to have been the same people at Taylor’s bungalow the next morning, picking through his possessions.

“After work, with Fellows driving, he stopped at the office of Marjorie Berger, his tax accountant. During their two-hour meeting, Taylor expressed his frustration at not being able to distinguish his own signature on checks from those forged by Edward Sands. Berger told Taylor that she was glad that Taylor was finally rid of Sands, whom she obviously disliked. Taylor did not comment on this point but was reported to have looked at Berger with an expression that seemed to say: ‘I’m not so sure of that.’

“Before Taylor left, he wrote a check for her services, then another to Ada Tanner—which was how police were able to locate his sister-in-law, and break the story that Taylor was not who he pretended to be.

“On his way home, Taylor briefly stopped at Robinson’s department store, purchased two books—one a German translation of a criticism on Nietzsche—and then went to Parker’s Bookstore, where he bought a two volume anthology,
The Home Book of Verse
, which was to be a present for Mabel Normand. He was, after all, a very literate man. Mack Sennett, Mabel’s long-time partner, would have given her candy, but not Bill Taylor.

“After that he may or may not have stopped at the bank again. I don’t know for sure because I haven’t yet seen the police records. The important thing, at this juncture, is who Taylor ran into while out shopping or visiting the bank. He saw Mary Miles Minter and her grandmother, Juliet Miles, driving down Broadway, out for a ride in Minter’s lavender touring car. Taylor and Minter exchanged a few friendly greetings. Hugs and kisses? Count on it. Minter was in love with Taylor. Her mother, Charlotte Shelby, would surely be told of the chance encounter. Or was it a chance encounter? Had Mary and Bill secretly planned to meet? Perhaps it was meant to look accidental. Don’t forget Mary’s grandmother, Juliet Miles, was her chaperone that afternoon, and would report back to Charlotte, the Major Duomo in the household. Did Taylor whisper something in Minter’s ear when they embraced? Did Minter whisper something in Taylor’s ear? Did they plan to meet secretly later that night?”