Silent Murders by Mary Miley

Author:Mary Miley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466865181
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

22

Ministers are fine people to have at funerals. They can come up with nice things to say about anybody. The good reverend earned his pay that day, waxing eloquent on the noble life of a man he had never met, a man who, by all accounts, had done nothing more laudable than to create some first-quality pictures. A thin legacy, in my book. My gaze wandered from face to face, finding few that looked familiar. The majority of the mourners were the actors and cameramen who had been working with Heilmann on his last picture, a picture that was now stalled until Zukor could find a director with an undersized ego who would agree to finish another man’s work. A tall order.

After twenty minutes, a splendid coffin bearing the remains of Bruno Heilmann was lowered into the ground with ropes, and the minister threw in the first handful of earth. Some of the more publicity-hungry mourners went over to the reporters to offer quotations for tomorrow’s papers. The photographers fiddled with their flashes, waiting for the police to allow them access to the gravesite. Adolph Zukor escorted the Pickford ladies to their Rolls-Royce. When I saw Myrna engaged in conversation with her hometown friend, Gary Cooper, I seized the opportunity to pull David aside. I needed an expert.

“Look here, David. What if the motive wasn’t jealousy or revenge, like the police think, but dope? I saw some at his house. In an upstairs bedroom.”

“What sort?”

“I think it was mostly heroin and morphine, maybe some cocaine, too.”

“So what? All the parties around here serve dope.”

“But there was a lot of it. Drawers full. Big bundles, wrapped in blue paper. More than you would need for a hundred parties. And Douglas mentioned once that he thought Bruno was supplying Wallace Reid. You remember him?”

“The actor? Sure, I saw a few of his flicks. He died a couple years ago. It was in all the papers. Morphine, wasn’t it? Everyone was shocked to learn handsome Wallace Reid was a hophead.”

“What if Bruno’s death involved dope? What if some hired gangster killed him for that?”

“Sounds likely. I’m sure the police are investigating all leads.”

I winced. “No they’re not. They don’t know about the blue packages in the guest room. I asked Carl Delaney yesterday and he said there was nothing in the report about packages of dope, just that there were some traces around the house.”

“So let me get this straight. You think a hired killer shot Heilmann with a silencer, searched the house, found the dope, took it, then followed the caterers to your friend’s house and killed her?”

“No, the killer didn’t take anything. He may have meant to, but he wouldn’t have had time to search once Esther had seen his face. He had to shoot and leave fast to follow her home.”

“Maybe he came back after he’d killed Esther.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. A neighbor saw him leave Esther’s, and it wasn’t until the next morning. And he went straight to the train station.

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