A Cast of Killers by Kirkpatrick Sidney

Author:Kirkpatrick, Sidney [Kirkpatrick, Sidney]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kirkparick
Published: 2011-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

27

Vidor had trouble sleeping that night. He lay on his bed, a single sheet covering him from the steady breeze rustling the trees outside his windows, as pages from the police file transcripts flashed over and over in his dreams like flipping calendar pages marking the progression of time on a movie screen.

He finally sat up, put on his terry-cloth robe and leather slippers, and walked into the den. The house was quiet except for the breeze and an occasional muffled crackle from the last ash-buried embers still glowing in the fireplace. Empty wine bottles sat on magazine coasters on the hardwood floor along with the Monopoly board still lined with the hotels, houses, and cash that Colleen had amassed while taking the others to the Parker Brothers bank. Vidor added fresh wood to the fire and took one of his guitars from its case. He sat directly in front of the fire, holding the guitar but not playing it. Nippy walked in without making a sound and curled up at Vidor’s feet.

In a couple of hours, the others would be up, preparing for the picnic they planned to have on Moonstone Beach while Vidor finished his examination of the police files. Vidor thought of Colleen, of the decision he knew he had to make. He and Colleen could not continue to see each other, to speak of any kind of future together, until he did something about Betty. Likewise, the future of Vid-Mor Productions—perhaps, Vidor was beginning to feel, his only promising connection to Hollywood—seemed to depend on his decision about his marriage. He didn’t know if he could continue a professional partnership with Colleen if he couldn’t make a commitment to a personal one. And he desperately wanted Vid-Mor to succeed, to show the powers that were running the motion picture industry that two old veterans could still pack a powerful creative punch.

But, over four months into his research, Vidor had yet to write one page of his William Desmond Taylor script.

Vidor decided not even to try to sleep again. He set his guitar down and went to the kitchen, where he brewed a pot of coffee. Then he returned to the living room, shut the door quietly behind him, and settled in for another day’s work reading the reports of each successive district attorney, this time paying particular attention to every mention of Mary Miles Minter and her mother.

Once again, he was surprised at what he found. During the entire first year after Taylor was murdered, Minter, known nationwide as the girl with the pink nightgown, was questioned officially only once, while her mother was never questioned at all. Five years later, Minter and Shelby became the prime suspects, with police gathering such circumstantial evidence against them as the items that now so bothered Vidor. But once again, just as logic seemed to dictate that an indictment would be brought against them, no arrests were made. Vidor knew that circumstantial evidence—personal items at the scene of the crime, blown alibis—wasn’t necessarily enough to produce a conviction.

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