“No, I didn’t.”
“You knew Elizabeth had been there, and you went over there and found him in his robe, probably because he’d just fucked your girlfriend. Maybe it was something in his eyes, maybe you even smelled it on him, and you couldn’t stand it, and you just had to go and kill him.”
All the anger and fear that had been building in me now burst like a broken dam. “No! No, I had nothing to do with this! Look at my hands—is there a gunpowder stain? Look in my house—I don’t even own a gun! Talk to my butler—he was home with me all last night! Talk to Tyler’s neighbors—I have never been to his house before this morning. Don’t you think someone would have noticed if I’d walked through the courtyard? Or if I went into his house last night?”
I stopped abruptly and started to shake. I clenched my fists and tried to prepare for the next wave of accusations. But Jones just looked at me curiously, as if observing a young child who was throwing a temper tantrum. Hopkins watched quietly, and I may have imagined it, but the expression on his face seemed troubled. Then, without saying another word, they nodded to each other and left.
I stayed there in the interview room for what felt like weeks. Eventually the door cracked open and a familiar face peered in. “You can go now,” Hopkins said, and I blinked up at him, unspeaking. “We’re finished with you here,” he added gently. “You’re free to go home.”
I thought at first that he was trying to trick me, but then he stepped back out again and kept the door open. I stood and walked into the hallway. The station, or at least that part of it, was eerily quiet; there were no policemen milling about.
“You should go out the back way,” said the young detective, and his voice was kindly. “You’ll be able to avoid the cameras that way.”
I heeded his advice and went out a back door, into an alley filled with garbage. It was dark outside—the whole day had passed. There was no one on the streets, so I walked through downtown and then along a series of small roads. I walked the entire six miles back to my house, and did not emerge again for several weeks.
In retrospect, I realize that the police never truly suspected me or they would not have let me go so quickly. Even Jones’ harsh line of questioning was just meant to shake loose information, some fact that might set them down the proper path. He upset me, I think, more through his insinuations about my personal life than by his suggestions that I was involved in Tyler’s murder. For as I stayed locked up in my house during those weeks after the killing, I felt a shameful and uncontrollable anger at Tyler, the very jealousy that Jones had accused me of. Perhaps I hadn’t allowed my envy to come fully to light until somebody else had unleashed it. I liked Tyler, and admired him, and had never wished him ill—but there was a part of me that was not altogether displeased that he was now out of the picture. This feeling would then be followed by shame at having such thoughts, as well as genuine sadness about his death.
For the first several days after Tyler was murdered, I couldn’t bring myself to dress in the morning. Phillipe would make me breakfast and bring me the paper, and then leave me to myself. He delivered my only communication with Elizabeth during this time, a note asking her how she was holding up; I couldn’t send a telegram since the telegram companies were all in the pay of the papers. Her reply arrived the following morning, by way of her maid: Police were terrible. Have to go back this afternoon. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, don’t know what to do. But the fact that she had sent a note at all, and that it was coherent, assured me that she was basically all right.
I called several people, including David Rosenberg at Perennial, but no one would come to the phone. The only person who tried to reach me during this time was Hanako Minatoya, and I couldn’t bear to speak to her—not so much because of Tyler’s death but because of the shame I felt on so many accounts, most immediately my friendship with Elizabeth. For that piece of information, like so much other private business in the wake of Tyler’s death, quickly became known to the public. The front page article in the Los Angeles Times two days after Tyler’s death detailed how Elizabeth had called me on the morning of the murder, and how we’d had “a long and close friendship.” This alone was bad enough, but on the second page the paper had published a sidebar with the names of all the men with whom Elizabeth had ever been linked. I cannot say now what troubled me more—seeing my own name there in stark black-and-white or seeing it at the end of a rather long list of men, most of whom I knew and had worked with. Our affair had been grist for the Hollywood rumor mill, yet until then it had stayed out of the general public. Now everyone knew, which would only cause further damage to our already fragile reputations.
In those days, I got news about the case the way that everyone did—from the Los Angeles Times and the Herald Examiner. The first day’s story was about the death itself and the questioning of Elizabeth, Willy, and me. The second day’s news included the story about Elizabeth’s love interests, but the speculation slanted more toward Tyler’s supposed enemies—a driver with whom he’d had a falling out, a jealous producer whose wife had pursued the director, a recently fired contract actor from Perennial who was rumored to supply drugs for other actors. There was also more extensive
