Playland (57 page)
It was a long time later when she told me, he said. In her own—he paused—devious way.
(For the moment, I let
devious
pass.) Did you believe her?
I knew my father. I knew his tastes.
Your father ran her out of the Industry. That could be why she said it.
She wasn’t like that, Jack. You never knew Blue Tyler. You just knew Melba Mae whatever her name is …
Toolate.
Anyway, it was after she left Hollywood and dropped out of sight when she told me. Three, four years ago.
How’d she tell you?
You remember how I once said she always kept in touch. Out of the blue I’d get something in the mail.
Like Walker Franklin’s obituary, stuff like that?
That’s it, yes. Well, she’d seen this show on television.
Unsolved Murders
, I think it was called. One of those shit shows like
Hard Copy
. Re-created crimes. She sent me a review of it from some paper in the Midwest.
A show about Jacob King?
No. About someone she’d gone to school with. At the Little Red Schoolhouse. Meta … Arthur paused, as if wondering whether to continue; then he did, selecting each word even more carefully than usual.… Meta somebody who the studio publicity department said was her best friend. Blue mixing with real people was the story line. The fan magazines ate up that kind of stuff. It was bullshit.
And this woman was murdered? Arthur seemed to be putting distance between Meta and Blue, and I was curious as to why, so for the moment I chose not to mention that I had already rummaged through dusty studio files and discovered the photographs of Blue doing algebra problems with Meta Dierdorf, and reading
Little Women
with her, Meta Dierdorf, who even in death took second billing to her more famous schoolmate:
BLUE’S TRAGEDY
NON-PRO CLASSMATE FOUND STRANGLED IN TUB
It happened when I was in the army, Arthur said. Making propaganda films with Ronnie Reagan down at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. You know, I actually outranked him. This Meta …
Dierdorf, I said. Meta Dierdorf.
Jack, Arthur said, scolding. You knew about her all the time, didn’t you?
I came across her name. In the clips.
Yes, Arthur said, drawing the word out, even in distress never losing his ingrained capacity for irony, his eyes never leaving mine, as if demanding I ask the question that hung in the air between us.
I knew my father, I knew his tastes
.
I could not avoid it: Did your father … know her?
Arthur nodded. Yes, he said finally. I can’t say I was surprised, it was a pattern with J.F. The younger they were, the younger he felt. She was—another pause—perfect …
In what way?
Non-industry. She didn’t know anyone we knew. Except Blue. And that was just a friendship the publicity department dreamed up. I don’t think I ever heard Blue mention her.
Melba Mae talking:
This girlfriend I had at the studio school. She wasn’t in the business. Meta said dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire
.
Arthur continued: J.F. must’ve seen her on the lot. And seen the advantages …
Advantages?
There was always gossip about that … chorus line he kept. And so I asked Lilo.
Why Lilo?
It was the kind of thing he would know. What you’ve got to remember about Lilo is that he was always preparing a defense, for the day he might need one. Looking for an edge. When that girl died …
Miss Dierdorf.
I know her name, Jack, Arthur said sharply.
I did not respond.
When she died, Arthur said after a moment, Lilo told me he’d asked J.F. if he knew her.
Knowing already of course that he did.
Lilo just hated surprises. And he was also Blue’s lawyer. He was watching out for her, too.
Why?
There were all these photographs of the two of them at school …
Arthur was prevaricating, I knew it, but at least he was talking. Better to let him continue. Double back later.
And some at the Hollywood Canteen, I said.
More publicity shots. The Canteen was for enlisted men. Blue wasn’t much of an egalitarian when it came to the military. She preferred officers, but publicity said it was good for morale to send out shots of her with soldier boys and sailor boys.
Your father … I hesitated.
Did he kill her? Arthur said, finishing the question for me. No, I don’t think so. J.F. was capable of doing a lot of terrible things, but I don’t think he was capable of that. He was, and even now it’s hard to say this about your own father, he was a coward.
He might have had somebody do it.
Jack, stop talking like a television writer.
It was a line meant to terminate debate. I let the silence build between us. Then: What did Blue have to say about this
Unsolved Murder
show? How did that lead into her and your father?
She didn’t have anything to say about the show itself. It was just her way of telling me she knew about J.F. and this Meta girl, and she knew I knew. That’s the only reason she sent it. Arthur smiled. Memories are made of this, he said softly, almost singing the lyric. Then: There was a piece of lined notebook paper with the review, the kind kids use, that seemed to have been ripped out of a spiral notebook. And on it she’d written that I was always nicer, I was always the nice one. Nicer than J.F. is what she meant without saying it. And then she said she’d been with him when that plane went in. That’s all she said. That she’d been with him. Nobody had to draw me a picture. Even at the time I suppose I knew. Or guessed.
But you never asked her.
No. Arthur stared into the lengthening twilight, biting his lower lip until I thought he might draw blood, and I realized that whatever he had once felt for Blue had never been entirely erased, and never would. J.F. was at the Fremont, he said at last, and I knew she was too because she’d called me from there, I thought she was on the plane, I thought she’d died in the crash with Carole, and she called me because she wanted me to know she was all right, she was registered as Wanda Nash.
Arthur closed his eyes and pinched his face between his hands. Nobody had to draw me a picture, he repeated, his voice trailing off. Then after a moment: We came up with some medical excuse about why she missed the flight.
Strep throat …
You’ve done your homework, Jack. He was back in control, his smile as arch as ever.
So she sent you this clipping.
Our code. When we were together, what counted was not what we said to each other, but what we didn’t say.
It still seems to be, I said.
You know the police never made the connection between that girl … Arthur paused, as if he could not bear to say her name.… that girl and J.F. And they never thought to ask Blue about it. Maybe Lilo had the fix in. It didn’t matter. She would have lied for him.
For your father? Why?
Because he was family, Jack. We were the only family she ever knew.
I
knew that an unsolved homicide investigation was never closed, and so after my conversation with Arthur French in Nogales I was able, through an LAPD detective I knew (one who like Maury Ahearne was always available for a little free enterprise) to photocopy the file on Blue Tyler’s schoolfriend Meta Dierdorf, female Caucasian, age 19 years, height 5’3″, weight 121 lbs., eyes brown, hair brown, file A-39536 (dead body). Date: July 27, 1945. Crime: PC 187 (Homicide).
The initial report filed by the primary investigator set the scene:
At 9:45
A.M
., July 27, 1945, notified by teletype from Mid-Wilshire substation that there was a dead body in bathtub at El Coronado Apartments, 8497 Fountain Avenue, West Los Angeles. Body discovered by maid upon arriving at site o/a 8:30
A.M
. this date. Maid Emerald Johnson notified janitor Cletis Rivers, who notified substation. Proceeded to above location El Coronado apartments. Victim resided in Apartment G, two-floor apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms on 2d floor, LR, DR, kitchen and toilet on 1st
floor. Found dead body of victim lying in bathtub in bathroom on 2d floor. The head face down was at the spigot end of tub and the left foot was resting upon the upper edge of tub at other end. The right leg was resting in the tub. There was no water in bathtub at time of my arrival at scene. There was small amount of blood upon bottom of bathtub under victim’s face. Also what seemed to be dried discharge upon lower part of buttocks. Victim’s body was nude. There was a wet turkish bath towel lying upon bathroom floor alongside of bathtub. When assistant medical examiner arrived at scene, body was examined, samples taken of dried blood in tub and discharge on victim’s buttocks, and cultures taken from anus and vagina. Body was turned over in bathtub and it was then discovered that a piece of cloth was protruding from victim’s mouth, and the teeth were clamped tightly over same. The piece of cloth had a small red border upon it, and seemed to have been torn or cut from the end of a towel or a roll of bandage. A search was made of every part of the house for a towel with a red border with a part of it missing or a bandage box, but nothing was found. The bedroom of victim is adjacent to the bathroom. There was valuable jewelry and other articles of value upon dresser and in closet, including camera equipment. There were two photograph albums of men in uniform which were collected to aid in investigation, as was film in camera, which was sent to police lab for developing. There was also $272 in cash in stocking drawer. Change purse in pocketbook on dresser contained $14 in bills and $3.42 in coins, as well as victim’s driver’s license, gas and food ration cards, and card saying victim was registered as a hostess at the Stage Door Canteen in Hollywood. A pair of pajama pants was lying upon floor alongside of bed. The pants had a tear in them. There was a blood spot upon carpet next to the door that leads to the bathroom. The carpet was wet around the blood spot and indicated that an attempt had been made to rub it out with a wet cloth. There were no blood spots of any kind upon bathroom floor or upon the bed. Also no indications
of struggle having taken place on the bed. In room was also a diary and address book, property of victim. Attempted to question colored maid Emerald Johnson, but she was too distraught to answer questions except to say that she came to apartment to clean three days a week and that nothing of value seemed to be missing. She said that she was at choir practice at Bethany Baptist Church, 3891 Central Avenue, night before. Questioned colored janitor Cletis Rivers, who said victim’s car, a green 1939 Dodge coupe, was not in basement garage where it was usually parked. Notified Mid-Wilshire substation to check DMV re registration and to put trace on vehicle. Photographs were taken of crime site and victim and then body was removed to the county mortuary for further examination and investigation and postmortem operation.
T. J. Spellacy
Lieutenant Robbery-Homicide
Investigator (Primary)
It was odd, even obscene, looking at old forensic photographs of a naked dead nineteen-year-old who if she were still alive would be close to seventy, with all the attendant miseries and complaints of old age and failed expectations. Meta Dierdorf was not a pretty sight in her bathtub. Her face was battered, her nose bloodied, her lips puffed and split, her breasts bare and bruised. On the side of the tub, there were smeared traces of excrement, indicating that as she was dying her sphincter had loosened and she had evacuated her bowels, which meant that the last thing she smelled was the stink of her own shit. In one photo, taken at the County Medical Center morgue after her body had been moved there for the postmortem, a pocket handkerchief had been placed over her pubic symphysis, a peculiar daintiness, I could not help thinking, considering the circumstances of her death. Perhaps the real obscenity, however, was that I found myself getting a little turned on by the
pictures, especially by the one with the handkerchief over her bush.
In spite of that, in spite of the blood and the bruises and the blackened eyes and the shit and all the detritus of violent death, I recognized almost immediately that the body in the bathtub was that of the naked young girl in those postcard-sized photographs Maury Ahearne had stolen from the refrigerator in Melba Mae Toolate’s recreational vehicle at the Autumn Breeze trailer park in Hamtramck, Michigan. The photographs Blue Tyler had kept for nearly half a century. The photographs she had spilled on a Greyhound bus platform in Kansas City. The photograph I had shown Arthur French on my first trip to Nogales. And whose subject Arthur had claimed he was unable to identify.
I remembered:
I knew my father, I knew his tastes.… The younger they were, the younger he felt.… She was perfect.… She didn’t know anyone we knew. Except Blue. And that was just a friendship the publicity department dreamed up. I don’t think I ever heard Blue mention her …
And Blue:
This girlfriend I had at the studio school. She wasn’t in the business …
Arthur again:
Lilo just hated surprises. And he was also Blue’s lawyer. He was watching out for her, too …
Why was Lilo watching out for Blue?
I knew it was not because of any studio publicity pictures of Blue and Meta Dierdorf that might be floating around. Not even at my most gullible would I have believed that. Lilo wouldn’t have told me, even if he could; he died of acute uremic poisoning in 1980, after he was mistakenly transfused with the wrong blood type after a prostate operation at the J. F. French Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Rita Lewis might have told me, but in 1964 she was strangled while waterskiing off Acapulco in the company of a beachboy
that she had, as she had prophesied, bought as her toy. As she was trying a complicated backward turn, the ropes got caught around her neck, and broke it.
And Arthur seemed to be lying.
Why?
