Millard stood up and stretched. “Bright penny, you go up to Hollywood Station and meet Bill Koenig, then you two go question the tenants at the Hollywood addresses on my summary. Stress the boyfriend angle. Keep Koenig on a tight leash if you can, and you write the report, because Billy’s practically illiterate. Report back here when you’re finished.”
My headache going migraine, I obeyed. The last thing I heard before hitting the street was a group of cops chortling over Betty Short’s love letters.
o o o
I picked up Koenig at Hollywood Station and drove with him to the Carlos Avenue address. Parking in front of 6024, I said, “You’re ranking, Sarge. How do you want to play this?”
Koenig cleared his throat loudly, then swallowed the wad of phlegm he brought up. “Fritzie does the talking, but he’s home sick. How about you talk, I stand backup?” He opened his jacket to show me a leather sap stuck into the waistband. “You think it’s a muscle job?”
I said, “Talk job,” and got out of the car. There was an old lady sitting on the porch of 6024, a three-story brown clap-board house with a ROOMS FOR RENT sign staked on the lawn. She saw me walking over, closed her Bible and said, “I’m sorry, young man, but I only rent to career girls with references.”
I flashed my shield. “We’re police officers, ma’am. We came to talk to you about Betty Short.”
The old woman said, “I knew her as Beth,” then shot a look at Koenig, standing on the lawn surreptitiously picking his nose.
I said, “He’s looking for clues.”
The woman snorted, “He won’t find them inside that big beak of his. Who killed Beth Short, Officer?”
I got out pen and notepad. “That’s what we’re here to find out. Could I have your name, please?”
“I’m Miss Loretta Janeway. I called the police when I heard Beth’s name on the radio.”
“Miss Janeway, when did Elizabeth Short live at this address?”
“I checked my records right after I heard that news broadcast. Beth stayed in my third-floor right-rear room from last September fourteenth to October nineteenth.”
“Was she referred to you?”
“No. I remember it very well, because Beth was such a pretty girl. She knocked on the door and said she was walking up Gower when she saw my sign. She said she was an aspiring actress and needed an inexpensive room until she got her big break. I said I’d heard that one before, and told her she’d do well to lose that awful Boston accent of hers. Well, Beth just smiled and said, ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party’ with no accent at all. Then she said, ‘See! See how I take direction! She was so eager to please that I rented her the room, even though my policy is not to rent to movie types.”
I wrote the pertinent info down, then asked, “Was Beth a good tenant?”
Miss Janeway shook her head. “God rest her soul, but she was an awful tenant, and she made me regret bending my policy on movie picture types. She was always late on her rent, always hocking her jewelry for food money and trying to get me to let her pay by the day instead of the week. A dollar a day she wanted to pay! Can you imagine how much space my ledgers would take up if I let all my tenants do that?”
“Did Beth socialize with the other tenants?”
“Good lord, no. The third-floor right-rear room has got private steps, so Beth didn’t have to come in through the front door like the other girls, and she never attended any of the coffee klatches I put on for the girls after church on Sunday. Beth never went to church herself, and she told me, ‘Girls are good for chitchat once in a blue moon, but give me boys any day.”
“Here’s my most important question, Miss Janeway. Did Beth have any boyfriends while she was living here?”
The old woman picked up the Bible and hugged it to herself. “Officer, if they’d come in the front door like the other girls’ beaus, I would have seen them. I don’t want to blaspheme the dead, so let’s just say I heard lots of footsteps on Beth’s stairs at the most ungodly hours.”