I finished shortly after dark, and drove to the house to grab dinner.

Pulling up, I saw Kay storming out the door and down the steps, hurling an armful of paper onto the lawn, then storming back while Lee stormed beside her, shouting and waving his arms. I walked over and knelt beside the discarded pile; the papers were carbons of LAPD report forms. Sifting through them, I saw FIs, evidence indexes, questioning reports, tip lists and a complete autopsy protocol—all with “E. Short, W.F. D.O.D. 1/15/47” typed at the top. They were obviously bootlegged from University Station—and the very possession of them was enough to guarantee Lee a suspension from duty.

Kay came back with another load, shouting, “After all that’s happened, all that might happen, how can you do this? It’s sick and it’s insane!” She dumped the papers beside the other pile;9th and Norton glossies glinted up at me. Lee grabbed her by the arms and held her while she squirmed. “Goddamnit, you know what this is to me. You know. Now I’ll rent a room to keep the stuff in, but babe, you stick by me on this. It’s mine, and I need you… and you know.”

They noticed me then. Lee said, “Bucky, you tell her. You reason with her.”

It was the funniest Dahlia circus line I’d heard so far. “Kay’s right. You’ve pulled at least three misdemeanors on this thing, and it’s getting out—” I stopped, thinking of what I’d pulled, and where I was going at midnight. Looking at Kay, I shifted gears. “I promised him a week on it. That means four more days. On Wednesday it’s over.”

Kay sighed, “Dwight, you can be so gutless sometimes,” then walked into the house. Lee opened his mouth to say something funny. I kicked a path through official LAPD paper to my car.

The snow-white Packard was in the same spot as last night. I staked it out from my car, parked directly in back of it. Huddled low in the front seat, I spent angry hours watching foot traffic enter and leave the three bars on the block—daggers, femmes and obvious sheriff’s dicks with that edgy look indigenous to bagmen. Midnight came and went; the foot traffic picked up-mostly lezzies headed for the hot sheet motels across the street. Then she walked out the door of La Verne’s Hideaway alone, a showstopper in a green silk dress.

I slid out the passenger side door just as she stepped off the curb, giving me a sidelong glance. “Slumming, Miss Sprague?”

Madeleine Sprague stopped; I closed the distance between us. She dug in her purse, pulling out car keys and a fat wad of cash. “So Daddy’s spying again. He’s on one of his little Calvinist crusades, and he said you shouldn’t be subtle.” She switched to a deft imitation of a Scotchman’s burr: “Maddy girl, ye should not be congregating in such unsuitable places. It would not do to have ye seen by the wrong people there, lassie.”

My legs were trembling, like they did while I waited for the first-round bell. I said, “I’m a police officer.”

Madeleine Sprague went back to her normal voice. “Oh? Daddy’s buying policemen now?”

“He didn’t buy me.”

She held out the cash and looked me over. “No, probably not. You’d be dressing better if you worked for him. So let’s try the West Valley Sheriffs. You’re already extorting La Verne, so you thought you’d try extorting her patrons.”

I took the money, counted over a hundred dollars, then handed it back. “Let’s try LAPD Homicide. Let’s try Elizabeth Short and Linda Martin.”

Madeleine Sprague’s brassy act died fast. Her face scrunched up with worry, and I saw that her resemblance to Betty/Beth was more hairdo and makeup than anything else; on the whole her features were less refined than the Dahlia’s, and only superficially similar. I studied that face: panicky hazel eyes caught by streetlight glow; forehead creased, like her brain was working overtime. Her hands were shaking, so I grabbed the car keys and money, stuffed them into her purse and tossed it on the hood of the Packard. Knowing I might have a major lead by the short hairs, I said, “You can talk to me here or downtown, Miss Sprague. Just don’t lie. I know you knew her, so if you jerk me off on that it’s the station and a lot of publicity you don’t want.”

The brass girl finally composed herself. I repeated, “Here or downtown?” She opened the Packard’s passenger door and got in, sliding over behind the wheel. I joined her, flicking on a dashboard light so I could read her face. The smell of leather upholstery and stale perfume hit me; I said, “Tell me how long you knew Betty Short.”

Madeleine Sprague fidgeted under the light. “How did you know I knew her?”

“You rabbited last night when I was questioning the barmaid. What about Linda Martin? Do you know her?”

Madeleine ran long red fingertips over the wheel. “This is all a fluke. I met Betty and Linda at La Verne’s last fall. Betty said it was her first time there. I think I talked to her one time after that. Linda I talked to several times, just cocktail lounge chitchat.”

“When last fall?”

“November, I think.”

“Did you sleep with either of them?”

Madeleine flinched. “No.”

“Why not? That’s what that dive is all about, right?”

“Not entirely.”

I tapped her green silk shoulder, hard. “Are you lez?”

Madeleine went back to her father’s burr. “Ye might say I take it where I can find it, laddie.”

I smiled, then patted the spot I’d jabbed a moment before. “You’re telling me that your sole contact with Linda Martin and Betty Short was a couple of cocktail bar conversations two months ago, right?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Then why did you take off so fast last night?”

Madeleine rolled her eyes and rolled “Laddie,” Scotch-voiced; I said, “Cut the shit and tell it straight.” The brass girl spat out: “Mister, my father is Emmett Sprague. The Emmett Sprague. He built half of Hollywood and Long Beach, and what he didn’t build he bought. He does not like publicity, and he would not like to see ‘Tycoon’s Daughter Questioned in Black Dahlia Case—Played Footsie with Dead Girl at Lesbian Nightclub’ in the papers. Now do you get the picture?”

I said, “In Technicolor,” and patted Madeleine’s shoulder. She pulled away from me and sighed, “Is my name going into all kinds of police files where all kinds of slimy little policemen and slimy little yellow journalists will see it?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What do I have to do to keep it out?”

“Convince me of a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as first you give me your impression of Betty and Linda. You’re a bright kid—give me your play on them.”

Madeleine stroked the wheel, then the gleaming oak dashboard. “Well, they weren’t sisters, they were just using the Hideaway to cadge drinks and dinner.”

“How could you tell?”

“I saw them brush off passes.”

I thought of Marjorie Graham’s mannish older woman. “Any passes stand out? You know, rough stuff? Bull daggers getting persistent?”

Madeleine laughed. “No, the passes I saw were very ladylike.”

“Who made them?”

“Street trade I never saw before.”

“Or since?”

“Yes, or since.”

“What did you talk about with them?”

Madeleine laughed again, harder. “Linda talked about the boy she left behind in Hicktown, Nebraska, or wherever it was she came from and Betty talked about the latest issue of Screenworld. On a conversational level, they were right down there with you, only they were better looking.”

I smiled and said, “You’re cute.”

Madeleine smiled and said, “You’re not. Look, I’m tired. Aren’t you going to ask me to prove I didn’t kill Betty? Since I can prove it, won’t that put an end to this farce?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Did Betty ever talk about being in a movie?”