Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
“And who is this friend of yours?” the shorter cop asks.
I give them a steady look. They all know I’m dating Marco, one of Mickey Cohen’s best buds. Still, I don’t know if this is a trap.
“I was with Marco Russo,” I say carefully. “He can vouch for me.”
Unless he’s setting me up to take the fall for something…
“Ms. Reid,” the third cop asks, scribbling something on a pad of paper, “when was the last time you spoke with Elizabeth Short?”
My blood seems to thin. “Betty? Why?”
“Just answer the question, ma’am.”
I look at Joey. “What’s going on? Is she okay?”
The red-nosed cop nods at my dressing room. “Do you mind if we take this in there? You might need to sit down.”
I shake my head, panic clawing through my chest like a cat. “No. No, tell me here, tell me what happened. Is Betty okay?”
“Elizabeth Short was found murdered,” the cop says but I barely hear him. It feels like the hall is starting to distort and spin.
“She’s going to faint,” I hear one of them say and before I know what’s happening, I’m sitting in my dressing room and Joey is grabbing a bottle of vodka from my table, thrusting it into my hands, mumbling how I might need it.
“Murdered?” I repeat. “What? How?”
“I’m afraid we can’t give you any details,” the notebook cop says. “But we’re going to have to follow up on your whereabouts with Marco.”
“You think I had something to do with it?” I ask, my words cracking.
No. Not Betty. She’s my closest friend.
Was.
Was.
No.
“I don’t understand,” I say, tears flooding my eyes. “She was murdered?” I ask again.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” the shorter cop says. He’s the only one who sounds mildly sympathetic. “Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt her?”
“No,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. The vodka burns my throat as I take a swig directly from the bottle. “I don’t know anyone who would want to hurt her. Everyone loved Betty.”
Didn’t they?
“Maybe that was the problem,” he says.
“When was the last time you saw her?” asks the cop with his pencil poised above his notepad.
I pause. The last night with Betty floods back to me—her wide, frightened eyes darting to the windows of my apartment, the way she’d chewed her thumbnail to the quick. The memory tightens around my chest like a vise.
“January eight?” I say, the words sticking in my throat. “Yes. The eighth. She came to my apartment late. She was…anxious.”
To say the least.
“Anxious about what?”
I hesitate. Betty hadn’t just been anxious—she’d been terrified. Pacing my living room, peering through the curtains every few minutes, jumping at the slightest sound.
“They’re watching me, Lena,” she’d said. “I see them everywhere. That black Cadillac? It’s been outside my building for three nights.”
And that wasn’t all. She’d told me more, things I instinctively know I shouldn’t share with these men, men who are on Cohen’s payroll.
“Mickey’s got me working for these new people, these weird Europeans, and I don’t trust them. They keep promising me the moon and yet…the things I’ve seen…” She’d shaken her head, unable to finish the thought.
“She was worried about money,” I say carefully. Half-truths are always more convincing. “Said she needed to get out of town. Start fresh.”
“Did she say where she was going?” the notebook cop asks.
“San Francisco.” That part, at least, was true. “She was planning to leave after…after one last job.”
“One last job?” The shorter cop leans forward, brows raised. “What kind of job?”
I take another swig of vodka to buy time. I can’t tell them she was doing deliveries and favors for Cohen, to these Europeans who frightened her so badly. Can’t tell them how her eyes had filled with tears when she told me about her “one last courier job” at the Biltmore Hotel on the ninth.
“After this, I’m done,” she’d promised. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”
“I don’t know exactly,” I lie. “Just something that would give her enough money to get away…”
As I speak, I think of Betty’s diary. She’d been carrying the small leather-bound book in her purse that night. I hadn’t thought much of it until I found it tucked between my sofa cushions two days later. I’d tried calling her boardinghouse, but no one knew where she was.
And now I know why.
She was dead.
And whatever’s in that diary might explain why. Did she forget it there by accident? Or was it a message to me? Of course, the moment I found it I put it on my shelf. I didn’t look at it. What kind of friend would I be to look at someone’s private diary?
“Was she seeing anyone? Anyone who might have been, I don’t know, possessive? Jealous?” The red-nosed cop’s eyes narrow, as if Betty and I have a type.
“Betty dated a lot of men, but nothing serious.” I shake my head. “Look, she was just a girl trying to make it in Hollywood. Like thousands of others.”