“Ms. Bloom!” she said. “I would love to set a time to meet with you this week. I hear you’re taking your sister’s place in Arabian Nights. How about an exclusive interview about your first film role, how you’re fulfilling your sister’s legacy, how you’re soldiering through your sorrow to make her proud?”
Though Ms. Hopper’s turned-down eyes gave her a sleepy, indolent expression, it didn’t fool me for a second. I could hear the clever quickness in her voice, and I saw how her eyes flicked over me from head to toe—noticing, most likely, the cheapness of my purse, the simplicity of my dress, and my threadbare gloves.
I had no interest in becoming the subject of one of Ms. Hopper’s articles. However, the woman was the queen of gossip. A trove of information. If Hedda wanted to question me, then I could question her in return.
“Alright,” I said. “I’m staying at The Georgian. I’ll call on you this week for an interview.”
“Excellent,” Ms. Hopper said, smiling.
“You’d better be careful with her,” Ruby said, following me down the walkway. “She’s a snake.”
“I’m sure she is,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean she can’t be useful.”
At that moment I saw Lillie LaShay trying to escape the crowds outside the cathedral.
“Lillie!” I cried, catching her slim arm. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” Lillie said. “We had lunch on the boardwalk with Clara.”
“That’s right.” I nodded.
Since I’d watched every one of Clara’s movies, I’d also seen many of Lillie LaShay’s performances. I was struck again with how different she appeared in person—nothing like her manic, hectic screen persona. As a comedy team, Clara supplied the quips while Lillie was more of a silent partner, her skills almost entirely physical.
I remembered one short in particular, where the girls played waitresses behind a soda counter, trying to make a massive order of banana splits for a child’s birthday party. Lillie kept slipping again and again on banana peels, her wild flailing flinging up scoop after scoop of ice cream that landed with perfect precision in its intended bowl. It looked crazed and accidental, but of course required an immense amount of acrobatic skill.
Standing in front of the cathedral, Lillie didn’t look coordinated in the slightest. She was skinny in the extreme, with gangly arms and legs, and long, paddle-like hands and feet. She had a narrow, elongated face, and a soft voice that rarely rose above a whisper. She could barely meet my eye as we spoke, preferring to look down at her own feet.
“Clara was your roommate, wasn’t she?” I asked her.
Lillie nodded.
“Would it be alright if I came by later this afternoon, to get some of her things?”
“Yes, of course,” Lillie said quietly.
“I can pay any rent Clara owed as well.”
“That’s not necessary,” Lillie said, shaking her head. “She didn’t owe anything.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll see you this afternoon, then.”
As Lillie hurried away, I thought she seemed nervous and awkward. But that’s also how she’d been when we went out for lunch with Clara, so it likely didn’t mean anything.
4
After I saw Clara’s casket laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Cemetery, I stopped for a late lunch before heading over to Clara and Lillie’s apartment.
I ate at the counter at Schwab’s Drugstore on Sunset Boulevard, because it was close to Clara’s flat and because Clara told me that all sorts of deals were done here by agents and producers.
The more time I spent in Hollywood, the more I was beginning to realize it was a world unto itself, with its own rules and norms. I wouldn’t be able to discover anything as an outsider. I needed to immerse myself in it. Just like learning a language, I needed to understand the vocabulary and the subtle insinuations that would only be comprehensible to someone in the know.
I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup, pulling out a leather notebook from my purse. Clara had a very similar one—we bought them together at Marshall Field’s the last time Clara came to visit me in Chicago. Clara used hers for appointments and phone numbers. I liked to make lists.
I began a new list now, entitled Who Killed Clara?
I had no background in investigation, but I’d read enough Sherlock Holmes novels to understand the basic principles of deductive reasoning.
I thought it might help to make a list of the types of people who might want to kill my sister.
1. A Stranger, A Maniac
It was possible that the person who killed Clara had been someone unknown, a man who just wanted to murder a pretty girl. He could have snuck into the studio lot, happened upon Clara first, and strangled her.
I didn’t consider this the most likely option, because random killings were rare, and as far as I knew, no one had noticed a stranger on the Paramount lot. However, the killer might have remained unseen. And as Mr. Heller said, Arabian Nights had a large cast, a huge number of extras. The crew might have become used to seeing unknown persons wandering around.
2. A Crazed Fan
Clara was becoming increasingly famous. While she loved the letters she received from fans, some were more persistent than others. They sent her gifts as well—usually chocolates or flowers. But occasionally stranger things, like a freshly-baked banana cream pie, or a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
I was aware that fans could become obsessed with actresses to a dangerous degree. Only the year before, a woman tried to shoot Shirley Temple during a radio performance of “Silent Night.” Apparently the woman believed that Shirley had “stolen her daughter’s soul,” and thought the remedy was to assassinate the child star.
Clara had never mentioned anyone harassing her. But that was something I could confirm with Lillie.
I turned back to my list:
3. A Person Connected to Organized Crime
Ms. Hopper accused Clara of fraternizing with notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel. She asked the sheriff if he were looking at Siegel’s gang as potential perpetrators of the murder. If Clara indeed had dealings with Siegel, which I considered a very big if, since Clara had never mentioned anything of the sort, it was possible the gangster was responsible for her death.
Did gangsters strangle people quietly in hallways? I always pictured them driving by and shooting you out of the windows of their car. That had certainly been the modus operandi in the wild days of Prohibition. But from what I had read in the papers, they weren’t behaving as brazenly as they had ten years prior. They might not want the publicity of killing a young starlet. So the method of the crime didn’t necessarily rule them out.
Again, no one had seen a suspicious character lurking about the studio lot, but a practiced criminal might be even less likely to be spotted than some kind of maniac.
4. Someone on The Film Crew
To me, this seemed like a more likely scenario. Those were the people that Clara had been working with every day, the ones most likely to have a grudge against her. They were the ones that would have known where to find her, the people that would have passed unnoticed, going about their day as normal.