“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Don’t think.”
Loma burst out laughing, tearfully. “Then I believe you.”
“Good, now let’s get the hell out of here, I’m hungry.”
We timed our arrival perfectly, Santa Barbara opening up before us, muted in the twilight like a heaven-sent reprieve from the humid, smog-bound commonness of L.A.
We found our weekend haven on Bath Street, a few blocks off State: the Mission Bell Hotel, a converted Victorian mansion painted a guileless bright yellow. We registered as Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Underhull. The desk clerk started to look askance at our lack of luggage, but the sight of my badge when I pulled out my billfold to pay for the room calmed him down.
Giggling conspiratorially, I took Lorna’s arm as we walked to the elevator. Our room had bright yellow walls festooned with cheap oil paintings of the Santa Barbara Mission, bay windows fronting the palm-lined street, and a big brass bed with a bright yellow bedspread and canopy.
“I’ll never eat another lemon,” Lorna said.
I kissed her on the cheek. “Then let’s not have fish tonight. I left my shaving kit in the car. I’ll be right back.”
I took the yellow carpeted stairs down to street level. The clerk, a skinny, middle-aged man with incongruous bright red hair, started to fidget when he saw me walk through the foyer. I had the feeling he wanted to ask me something. He put out his cigarette and approached me.
I made it easy for him. “What’s up, doc?” I asked.
The man slouched in front of me, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. He hemmed and hawed, then blurted it out: “It ain’t none of my business, Officer,” he said, looking around in all directions and lowering his voice, “but when they say ‘degenerate’ do they really mean ‘queer’?”
“What the–” I started to say, then realized the source of the crazy non sequitur and sighed. “You mean it made the Santa Barbara papers?”
“Yes, sir. You’re a big hero. _Is_ that what it means?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it,” I said, leaving the clerk alone in the yellow foyer contemplating semantics.
I trotted down to State Street and found a newsstand, where I bought copies of the L.A. _Times_ and the Santa Barbara _Clarion_. It was on the front page of both papers, big headlines complete with photos. I started with the _Times_:
GAMBLER CONFESSES TO KILLING OF HOLLYWOOD WOMAN!
Linked to at Least Six Other Murders!
LOS ANGELES SEPT. 7: Police today arrested a Suspect in the August 12 strangulation murder of Margaret Cadwallader, 36, of 2311 Harold Way, Hollywood. The suspect was named as Edward Engels, 32, of Horn Drive, West Hollywood. Shortly after his arrest, Engels, a gambler with no visible means of support, confessed to L.A.P.D. detectives Dudley Smith, Michael Breuning, and Frederick Underhill, saying, “I killed Maggie! She treated me like dirt, so I returned her to the dirt.”
Miss Cadwallader, who worked as a bookkeeper at the Small World Import-Export Company in Los Angeles, was believed to have been killed by a burglar she interrupted in the early morning hours of August 12. Police had been carrying their investigation along those lines, questioning burglars known to use violence and getting no results, until the intervention of Detective Underhill, who was then assigned to patrol duties.
In a formally signed statement to the press, Detective Underhill, 27, said: “When I was working Wilshire Patrol earlier this year, my partner and I discovered the body of a young woman. She had been strangled. When the Cadwallader case made the papers, I noted similarities between the two deaths. I began an investigation of my own, and brought my evidence, which at this time I cannot discuss, to Lieutenant Dudley Smith. Lieutenant Smith headed the investigation, which led to the arrest of Edward Engels.”
Lieutenant Smith praised Underhill for his “grand, splendid police work” and went on to say, “We got Engels through dogged police work; long stakeouts at the many bars where he went looking for lonely women. His arrest is a victory for justice and a moral America.”
Links to More Victims Sought
In his rich brogue, the Irish-born L.A.P.D. lieutenant, 46, with 23 years on the force, continued: “I believe the tragic Miss Cadwallader is just the tip of the iceberg. Engels is a known degenerate who has frequented bars catering to his kind in the Hollywood area for many years. We know for a fact that he picks up women in cocktail lounges and pays them to be beaten. I strongly believe Engels to be responsible for at least half a dozen strangulation killings of women over the past five years throughout Southern California. I hope to persuade the district attorney to launch a massive investigation along these lines.”