Millard said, “Can you give us a reconstruction?”

“Pending the test results, sure. Here’s what she wasn’t: she wasn’t pregnant, she wasn’t raped, but she had had voluntary intercourse sometime during the past week or so. She took what you might call a gentle whipping within the past week; the last marks on her back are older than the cuts on her front side. Here’s what I think happened. I think she was tied down and tortured with a knife for a minimum of thirty-six to forty-eight hours. I think her legs were broken with a smooth, rounded instrument like a baseball bat while she was still alive. I think she either got beaten to death with something like a baseball bat, or she choked to death on her blood from the mouth wound. After she was dead, she was cut in half with a butcher knife or something resembling it, and the killer went in after her internal organs with something like a penknife. After that, he drained the blood from the body and washed it clean, my guess is in a bathtub. We took some blood samples from the kidneys, and in a few days we’ll be able to tell you if she had any dope or liquor in her system.”

Lee said, “Doc, did this guy know anything about medicine or anatomy? Why’d he go after that inside stuff?”

The doctor examined his cigar butt. “You tell me. The top-half organs he could have pulled out easily. The bottom organs he hacked with a knife to get at, like that was what interested him. He could have had medical training, but then again he could have had veterinary training, or taxidermist’s training, or biological training, or he could have taken Physiology 104 in the LA city school system or my Pathology for Beginners class at UCLA. You tell me. I’ll tell you what you’ve got for sure: she was dead six to eight hours before you found her, and she was killed someplace secluded that had running water. Harry, has this girl got a name yet?”

Sears tried to answer, but his mouth just fluttered. Millard put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Elizabeth Short.”

The doctor saluted heaven with his cigar. “God love you, Elizabeth. Russell, when you get the son of a bitch who did this to her, give him a kick in the balls and tell him it’s from Frederick D. Newbarr, M.D. Now all of you get out of here. I’ve got a date with a jumper suicide in ten minutes.”

Walking out of the elevator, I heard Ellis Loew’s voice, an octave louder and deeper than normal, echoing down the corridor. I caught “Vivisection of a lovely young woman,” “Werewolf psychopath” and “My political aspirations are subservient to my desire to see justice done.” Opening a connecting door into the Homicide pen, I saw the Republican bright boy emoting into radio mikes while a recording crew stood by. He was wearing an American Legion poppy on his lapel—probably purchased from the wino legionnaire who slept in the Hall of Records parking lot—a man he had once vigorously prosecuted for vagrancy.

The bullpen was taken over by ham antics, so I walked across the hall to Tierney’s office. Lee, Russ Millard, Harry Sears and two old-timer cops I hardly knew—Dick Cavanaugh and Vern Smith—were huddled around Captain Jack’s desk, examining a piece of paper the boss was holding up.

I looked over Harry’s shoulder. Three mug shots of a showstopper brunette were taped to the page, with three-closeup face photos of the corpse at9th and Norton affixed next to them. The slashed-mouth smile jumped out at me; Captain Jack said, “The mugs are from the Santa Barbara PD. They popped the Short girl in September ‘43 for underaged drinking, sent her home to her mother in Massachusetts. Boston PD contacted her an hour ago. She’s flying out to ID the stiff tomorrow. The Boston cops are doing a background check back east, and all Bureau days off are cancelled. Anybody complains, I point to those pictures. What did Doc Newbarr say, Russ?”

Millard said, “Tortured for two days. Cause of death the mouth wound or the head bashing. No rape. Internal organs removed. Dead six to eight hours before the body was dumped in the lot. What else have we got on her?”

Tierney checked some papers on his desk. “Except for the juvie roust, no other record. Four sisters, parents divorced, worked in the Camp Cooke PX during the war. The father’s here in LA. What’s next?”

I was the only one who blinked when the big boss asked number two for advice. Millard said, “I want to recanvass Leimert Park with the mugs. Me, Harry and two other men. Then I want to go to University Station, read reports and answer calls. Has Loew given the press a look at the mugs?”

Tierney nodded. “Yeah, and Bevo Means told me the father sold the Times and the Herald some old portrait pictures of the girl. She’ll be front page on the evening editions.”

Millard barked, “Damn,” the only word of profanity anyone ever heard him use. Seething, he said, “They’ll be coming out of the woodwork to greet her. Has the father been questioned?”

Tierney shook his head and consulted some memo slips. “Cleo Short, 1020Ѕ South Kingsley, Wilshire District. I had an officer call him and tell him to stay put, that we’d be sending some men by to talk to him. Russ, you think the strange-o’s will fall in love with this one?”

“How many confessions so far?”

“Eighteen.”

“Double that by morning, more if Loew got the press excited with his purple prose.”

“I would say I got them motivated, Lieutenant. And I would say my prose fit the crime.”

Ellis Loew was standing in the doorway, Fritz Vogel and Bill Koenig behind him. Millard locked eyes with the radio ham. “Too much publicity is a hindrance, Ellis. If you were a policeman you’d know that.”

Loew flushed and reached for his Phi Beta Kappa key. “I’m a ranking civilian-police liaison officer, specially deputized by the City of Los Angeles.”

Millard smiled. “You’re a civilian, counselor.”

Loew bristled, then turned to Tierney. “Captain, have you sent men to talk to the victim’s father?”

Captain Jack said, “Not yet, Ellis. Soon.”

“How about Vogel and Koenig? They’ll get us what we need to know.”

Tierney looked up at Millard. The lieutenant gave an almost imperceptible head shake; Captain Jack said, “Aah, Ellis, in big homicide jobs the whip assigns the men. Aah, Russ, who do you think should go?”

Millard scrutinized Cavanaugh and Smith, me trying to look inconspicuous and Lee yawning, slouched against the wall. He said, “Bleichert, Blanchard, you bad pennies question Miss Short’s father. Bring your report to University Station tomorrow morning.”

Loew’s hands jerked his Phi Beta key clean off its chain; it fell to the floor. Bill Koenig squeezed in the doorway and picked it up; Loew about-faced into the hall. Vogel glared at Millard, then followed him. Harry Sears, breathing Old Grand Dad, said, “He sends a few niggers to the gas chamber and it goes to his head.”

Vern Smith said, “The niggers must have confessed.”

Dick Cavanaugh said, “With Fritzie and Bill they all confess.”

Russ Millard said, “Shit-brained, grandstanding son of a bitch.”

We took separate cars to the Wilshire District, rendezvousing in front of 1020Ѕ South Kingsley at dusk. It was a garage apartment, shack sized, at the rear of a big Victorian house. Lights were burning inside; Lee, yawning, said, “Good guy—bad guy,” and rang the buzzer.

A skinny man in his fifties opened the door and said, “Cops, huh?” He had dark hair and pale eyes similar to the girl in the mug shots, but that was it for familial resemblance. Elizabeth Short was a knockout; he looked like a knockout victim: bony frame in baggy brown trousers and a soiled undershirt, moles all over his shoulders, seamed face pitted with acne scars. Pointing us inside, he said, “I got an alibi, just in case you think I did it. Tighter than a crab’s ass, and that is air tight.”