Chapter 17

Mike Strickland’s funeral was at two o’clock Saturday afternoon, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Healdsburg. It was a traditional white church with a steeple and it was very crowded when I arrived at one-thirty. The crowd skewed older, given Strickland’s age, but I saw a smattering of middle-aged and younger people. A closed casket bedecked with flowers stood below the pulpit, with photographs of Strickland on a nearby table. I walked up the aisle and looked at the photos, one of them showing a very young Strickland in a Navy uniform. Given his age, that must have been the early fifties, the era of the Korean War.

The first few pews, on my right, were reserved for the family. I turned and walked back down the aisle, past groups of people who knew each other, talking quietly among themselves. I took a place on the aisle of a pew near the back, and studied the program for the service, as well as the obituary I’d found online. I’d met Strickland’s daughter, Victoria—he’d called her Tory—Ambrose the night of the gallery opening. He also had a son and daughter-in-law, Dennis and Melinda Strickland, who lived in Carson City, Nevada. The surviving family members included six grandchildren and assorted nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A woman began playing Bach on the church organ. Conversations ceased as people sat down, waiting for the service to begin. Then the family filed into the church sanctuary. Tory Ambrose, somber in a black dress, was the first to walk up the aisle. As she neared the pew where I sat, she glanced to her left and saw me. She frowned, as though trying to place me. Then she continued up the aisle, followed by a teenaged girl, about fifteen, who dabbed at her tear-stained face with a tissue, and two younger boys, about ten and twelve, looking subdued in their suits. Then came the man I assumed was Dennis Strickland, accompanied by his wife and three children, two girls and a boy. Behind them was an assortment of relatives. Once the family was seated, the organist stopped playing and a minister in vestments stepped up to the pulpit.

After the service was over, I waited near the entrance to the church sanctuary, watching Mike Strickland’s family as they stood in the building’s foyer, accepting the condolences of the people who filed by. I needed to talk with Victoria Ambrose but now didn’t seem like the time. I was pondering how best to approach her when she saved me the trouble. She walked up to me, a no-nonsense look on her face.

“I recognize you,” she said. “You were at the gallery opening last Saturday, chatting with Dad about your grandmother, the bit player.”

I had a feeling she didn’t miss much. “Yes, I was.”

Her voice turned icy. “You didn’t know my father. You just met him that night, didn’t you? Why did you come to his funeral?”

“To pay my respects. I really enjoyed talking with him at the gallery opening. But there’s another reason.” I took a business card from my purse and handed it to her.

She frowned as she looked it over. “A private investigator?”

“I don’t normally come to funerals and hand out business cards,” I said. “However, I wonder about the circumstances of his death. A random murder doesn’t fit. There must be a connection.”

“With what? One of your cases? Why did you come to the gallery opening? To meet my father?”

“Yes. Your father had a large collection of movie memorabilia. And a buyer approached him recently.”

“He was always being approached by buyers,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“This was a specific buyer, the week before the gallery opening.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I overheard a conversation.”

“Someone mentioned Dad’s name?”

“No. The conversation concerned a man in Sonoma County who collected movie memorabilia and had some valuable Hitchcock items. When I saw the article in the Press Democrat about the gallery opening and the Hitchcock memorabilia, I figured it must be the same man. So I decided to check it out.”

“And you met Dad and talked with him. That story about your grandmother being a bit player in Hollywood, is that phony?”

“No, it’s true. That’s what led to my own interest in movie memorabilia. Just like your father became interested in collecting because his sister was a bit player.”

She frowned again but this time it was different. She was no longer annoyed with me, and my intrusion into a time of grief. She was putting the pieces together. “The collection? Or someone wanting to get their hands on the collection? Does this have something to do with my father’s murder?”

“I’m not sure. There are threads but I’m not certain where they lead right now.” One thread was Strickland and the other, I was sure, was Roberta Cook, the collector in Petaluma. “Right now I’m just operating on my gut, which tells me that your father’s murder and another death are related.”

“Is your gut usually accurate?”

“Frequently. I’ve been in this business for years and I have a good track record.”

“Fine.” Tory Ambrose tucked my business card into her pocket. “My gut tells me I want to hire you. We have to talk. But it can’t be today. I have all these relatives here for the funeral. Even my ex-husband showed up. He always did like Dad.” She sighed as her brother beckoned to her. “Anyway, they’re all gathering at my house. I can’t leave without getting a lot of questions. You know how it is when people die: Sit around, drink coffee, and eat. People bring food. I’ve got enough food to feed an army.”

I nodded. “Yes, I know how it is. Is tomorrow a possibility?”

“My brother and his family are staying with me, and they’re heading back to Carson City tomorrow morning. So late morning, let’s say eleven o’clock. I’ll meet you in Railroad Square in Santa Rosa, at Flying Goat Coffee.”

“I know where it is. I’ll see you there. My cell phone number is on my card, if you need to get in touch with me.”

I left the church. The day before, I had called Sergeant Marty Toland, the Sonoma County sheriff’s detective who was investigating the Strickland murder. She told me she’d be at the funeral and we agreed to meet after the service. Now I looked around and spotted a woman who fit the description Toland had given me on the phone. I walked over and introduced myself.

“What’s your connection with all of this?” she asked. “Please tell me you’re not trolling for clients.”

“I’m not, although I will disclose that Tory Ambrose has expressed an interest in hiring me. She and I will be having coffee tomorrow morning.”

“Just so you share information,” she said. “I checked you out, and Joe Kelso vouches for you.”

“If I find out anything that will help you clear this case, I’ll be on the phone. As I told you yesterday, I’m curious about a movie memorabilia dealer named Charles Makellar. I believe he visited Mike Strickland the week before Strickland was killed, trying to purchase items from the Hitchcock collection. This morning I found out Makellar visited an elderly woman in Petaluma. She also collected movie memorabilia, and Makellar tried to buy her collection. Then she died.” I outlined what I’d learned from my talk with Sadie Espinosa.

“That’s a stretch,” Toland said after I’d given her what details I had. “But if you can connect the dots and give me some evidence I can use, I’ll take it.”

We parted, and I walked back to my car. I had more than twenty hours until my appointment with Tory Ambrose. I’d made arrangements to spend the night in Graton, with Aunt Dulcie and Cousin Pat.

As soon as I arrived I changed from my gray slacks into something more comfortable, and sat on the floor in Dulcie’s room, with boxes of letters around me. Up until now the correspondence I’d read had been in chronological order, but this latest batch was mixed up, with letters from 1942 stuck in with those from 1941. I sorted them and then began reading letters postmarked in the fall of 1941. I hadn’t found out anything more about Sylvia Jasper or Ralph Tarrant. But I did get a sense for the ups and downs of Jerusha’s relationship with Ted Howard. They dated steadily during the summer and fall of 1941, sharing a love for long walks and Glenn Miller’s music. Ted was sure Jerusha was the woman he loved and he wanted to get married. In fact, Ted had given her a sort of pre-engagement, I’m-serious-about-you present, a heart-shaped locket, gold set with a big amethyst. On the back it was engraved with their initials. I knew it well. That particular item was in my jewelry box at home, with pictures of Grandma and Grandpa inside. My grandmother had given it to me before she died.

But the road to marriage was strewn with obstacles, and one of them was big, labeled “Jerusha’s career.” She wasn’t ready to give up on Hollywood, as so many others had before her. She was sure, even after four years of bit parts, that the next job would be that bigger part she hoped for, the role that would get her noticed and elevate her to the ranks of featured players.

After all, Jerusha argued in a letter to Dulcie, look at Susan Hayward, who had also arrived in Hollywood in 1937. She played bit parts, too. And now she was featured as the second lead in Reap the Wild Wind, with John Wayne and Paulette Goddard.

Between the lines she wrote, I sensed Jerusha’s soul-searching. She had done so well in Babes on Broadway, in that scene with Mickey Rooney at the drugstore, and singing and dancing in the elaborate “Hoe-Down” number, hoping to come to the attention of director Busby Berkeley.

But... There’s always a but. And Jerusha was asking herself questions. If her career was progressing, wouldn’t she be getting those second-lead parts now? But no, she was back to bits, just one line of dialogue in a scene with Rosalind Russell, in a movie called Design for Scandal.

I understood Jerusha’s aspirations, I thought, leafing through the pages of the letters. We all need our dreams. Many people who wind up successful must pursue those dreams despite naysayers and doubts. How many women have given up what they wanted to do to get married? But I also understood the feelings of urgency Ted felt. Their letters to one another mentioned the war in Europe and the darkening mood of the country that autumn.

Then they broke up. Specifically, during Thanksgiving dinner at his uncle’s home in Chatsworth. Jerusha and Pearl had made the trek to the San Fernando Valley in Pearl’s old car, the Gasper. They left before the pumpkin pie. Jerusha’s subsequent letter to her sister said she’d tried to return the locket to Ted but he wouldn’t take it.

I tucked that letter back into its envelope and reached for the next one. A chill crept up my back when I saw the postmark next to the three-cent stamp.

December 8, 1941.

I unfolded the letter and saw that it had been written the day before it was mailed. The date at the upper right corner was in Jerusha’s handwriting. But the voice I heard in my head was that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying, as I had heard so many times on the preserved recordings, “Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty-one, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

Then, as I read the words written on paper, I heard my grandmother’s voice.

Dear Sis,

I don’t know where to begin. So I’ll start with breakfast. I didn’t eat much, just a piece of toast. Everything else seemed to stick in my throat. Then I went for a walk. All I could think about was Ted. I don’t know when I first noticed something was wrong. But it was in the air, like vibrations. Maybe it was when I saw that man running down the sidewalk. Why would a man be running on such a quiet Sunday morning?