INGRID DOWS - AN ALTERNATE STORY PART 2 - THE JET AGE by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

Cedars of Lebanon Hospital

4833 Fountain Avenue, Hollywood

Before letting him enter Ingrid’s room, the doctor treating her cautioned the LAPD

detective one last time.

‘’Remember, Lieutenant Brolin: Miss Dows was just operated on for her bullet wound to her left arm and lost a fair amount of blood before she was given a transfusion.

She will be both tired and a bit woozy from the remaining painkillers in her system. One last thing: she was allowed by me to keep with her a pistol she used to defend herself at the Chinese Theatre, as she argued that someone could try again to kill her. In view of her reputation and of her history as a top Air Force commander, I agreed to her request.

Her pistol is presently under her pil ow.’

Ryan Brolin raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t object, nodding his head instead.

‘’Alright, Doctor Shapiro, I wil go easy on her. However, expect a horde of reporters and press photographers to show up at your hospital: this case is going to make the front pages of the newspapers this morning.’

Daniel Shapiro sighed at those words: he was too familiar with the media circuses which came with treating celebrities in Hollywood.

‘’Thank you for your comprehension, Lieutenant. You may go in now.’

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When he entered Ingrid Dows’ room, he found it in semi-darkness, as only a small bedside lamp was on due to the early hour. Before coming to the hospital, Brolin had quickly reviewed what was publicly known about her, which was quite a lot, due to her outstanding war record. He was thus not surprised by her young age but did admire briefly her beauty before quietly approaching her bed while holding up his police badge.

‘’Miss Dows, I am Lieutenant Ryan Brolin, of the Los Angeles Police Department.

I was put in charge of investigating the case about the attack against you and your friends at the Chinese Theatre. With the death of a celebrity like Howard Hughes, this case is now being treated as a top priority by the LAPD. First off, do you feel up to answering a few questions now or would you prefer to rest more. I can always return later.’

‘’Thank you for your consideration, Lieutenant Brolin. I can answer your questions now: one of my best friends is now dead because someone wanted to kill me and I badly want to know who sent those bastards.’

‘’So do I, miss. What makes you think that you were the intended target, and not Mister Hughes?’’

‘’One, I saw that the barrel of the gun sticking out of that car window was pointed directly at me and not at Howard Hughes. Second, I made a lot of enemies during the war and gained a few more after the war due to my outspokenness about both racism in this country and what I consider the failed defense policies of the present government in Washington. As for Howard Hughes himself, he may have been a very rich and powerful man but he was also a very decent man and a philanthropist and I knew of no real enemies to him. Jealous ones, yes, but not true enemies.’’

Brolin, who had taken out a small notepad and a pen, scribbled down a few notes before asking his next question.

‘’When you say that you have many enemies, what kind of enemies are you alluding to, Miss Dows?’’

‘’Both internal and external ones, Lieutenant. Externally, you could pick between the Soviets, who can’t be appreciating my efforts to push for bigger military budgets, or ex-Nazi sympathizers, who say that I killed Hitler and his clique in 1944, when my air wing hit Berlin and a few more spots in Germany. Internally, I pissed off a number of promoters of racism by both my public declarations and by the way I was friendly with a black student during my studies at the Boston’s M.I.T. I also recently initiated a project

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supported by Howard Hughes for a new short-haul airline company which would serve the whole of the United States while employing ex-Air Force female personnel put out of work by President Truman’s military cuts. That new airline company is bound to seriously cut in the business of other airlines and of bus companies, which are at risk of losing a lot of customers to us.’

Brolin nodded his head at that.

‘’I have seen violent crimes committed for less than that, miss. Anything else?’

‘’Nothing that I can think of right now. May I ask if you found anything about those who attacked me and my friends?’

‘’Unfortunately, we have very little to go by right now, miss. The three men found inside the grey sedan that burned down were incinerated to cinders, while the car itself sported false plates. As for the weapon used, a M3 .45 caliber submachine gun, it was a surplus weapon of the kind one can easily buy in many places in this country. I haven’t given up yet on that but I am not expecting much either.’

‘’What about Howard Hughes’ body? What wil happen to it, Lieutenant?’’

‘’It is presently at our medico-legal center and is due to be autopsied later this morning. Then, it will be released to members of his family for burial.’

‘’Uh, you may have some problems there, Lieutenant: Howard Hughes was an only-child and both of his parents died before he reached full adulthood. He did have many close friends, including me, Katharine Hepburn and Hedy Lamarr but I knew of no close living relatives to him.’

‘’Oh, I didn’t know about that. Thank you for that information. I was contemplating the possibility that someone could have wanted to kill him in order to inherit his money.’

‘’Well, with his fortune estimated at over two and a half billion dollars, your theory was certainly a plausible one, Lieutenant Brolin.’’

That number made Brolin stop his scribbling for a moment as he looked at Ingrid with some surprise.

‘’Two and a half bil ion dollars?! Hell, that’s a lot more than I had thought. Now, don’t get mad at me for asking this, Miss Dows, but were you in line to receive something from his last wil ?’

Brolin was relieved to see that Ingrid didn’t take badly his question. Instead, an air of profound sadness came to her face.

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‘’Even if I was mentioned in his last wil , which I don’t know anything about, what I wanted was to be with him and realize together our dreams of advancing aviation in the United States.’

‘’Were you in love with him, Miss Dows?’’

Ingrid hesitated for a moment before answering him.

‘’You could say that, Lieutenant. Howard Hughes was truly a man any woman could love: he was intelligent, generous, adventurous and kind. He regularly funded many charitable operations and he also treated his employees, all of his employees, with respect and care. In return, his employees loved him. On the lover’s side, you must know already that Howard Hugues was a true womanizer and frequented many female celebrities in the past and stil did up to yesterday.’

‘’And, being close to him and living at his mansion, you didn’t feel jealousy about that?’’

To Brolin’s surprise, Ingrid’s reaction to his question was to briefly laugh.

‘’Me, jealous of other women being with Howard? Please understand that I, like my friends Katharine Hepburn and Hedy Lamarr, have been doing a lot of galloping around of our own during the last few years. We and Howard had a tacit understanding about our ‘live and let live’ style of relationship.’’

Brolin couldn’t help smile at the thought of the kind of rumor mil such a story could create among the American public, which he would be the first to recognize it as quite prudish and even hypocritical about sexual relations.

‘’I see! So, no ongoing knife fights among female Hollywood stars trying to grab Howard Hughes favors, right?’’

His analogy actually made Ingrid smile in amusement.

‘’Well, if any woman would have chal enged me to a knife fight in order to have Howard to herself, then good luck to her: I could slice and dice easily anyone in a knife fight. For your info, while fighting in the Philippines in 1942, I personally skewered a good dozen Japanese soldiers with my bayonet. I am also quite a good shot.’

‘’I certainly saw that, the way you peppered that car with bul ets. Wel , that’s about it for now, Miss Dows. By the way, what is the prognostic for your arm?’’

‘’No bones or nerves were touched, so I should regain the full use of my left arm within a few weeks.’

‘’Then, I can only wish you a prompt recovery, Miss Dows. Thank you for answering my questions.’

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Brolin then left her room and walked back to the bank of elevators serving this floor. He didn’t pay attention to the tall man wearing surgical garb and a surgical mask who passed by him near the elevators.

After Brolin’s exit, Ingrid took some time to think back at the questions he had asked her, wondering if he could have been right about one of his hypotheses. The fact was that two and a half billion dollars were a lot of reasons to have someone killed.

Maybe Howard had tangled with some Mafia type trying to swindle him? She was still mentally pondering about that when a man in surgical garb and mask entered her room, carrying a medical tray covered by a piece of cloth.

‘’Good morning, miss. I came to administer more sedatives for your pain.’’

That immediately raised Ingrid’s suspicions: Doctor Shapiro had not mentioned the need for such additional sedatives. There was also something about the man’s accent that had tickled her ear.

‘’Thank you but I don’t need more sedatives, mister: I feel fine right now.’

‘’Ahah! Doctor’s orders, miss.’ replied the man in a playful tone while grabbing a syringe full of liquid. The size of that syringe alerted her at once that this was not normal: she had seen plenty of men being treated for wounds during the war and she knew that the quantities of painkillers needed was nowhere as large as what she was seeing in that syringe. Using her power of telepathy, she scanned the mind of the man and instantly stiffened in alarm: that ‘doctor’ was thinking in Russian! The man then started walking quickly towards her bed, not even bothering to check for air bubbles in his syringe. Realizing that she would need a few precious second to reach for her pistol, Ingrid then concentrated her powers on the man’s mind, making him grimace in pain while holding his head with both hands.

‘’AAH! What are you doing to me, you witch?’

Her response was to intensify even further her mental attack, making the man fall to his knees. As he was trying to recuperate from that mental assault, Ingrid used that chance to grab her pistol hidden under her pillow and pointed it at her attacker, then fired twice, intentionally aiming at his knees. The false doctor screamed with pain and fell on his back, then swore in Russian, proving to Ingrid that she had acted correctly. With her pistol still in her right hand, she pushed the button meant to alert a nurse when she needed someone to come see her. That was when the man tried to grab a pistol he had

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hidden under his surgical garb. Her response to that was to fire again, this time hitting his right shoulder and making it impossible for her attacker to use his right arm.

Ryan Brolin had decided to use a nearby bathroom before going down by elevator to the ground floor and was coming out of it when he heard the three shots coming from the direction of Ingrid’s room. Swearing to himself, he launched on a sprint down the hal way while unholstering his revolver. Kicking in the door of Ingrid’s room while pointing his handgun, he was relieved to see that Ingrid was apparently unhurt but had her pistol in her hand. Brolin then saw the man writhing with pain on the floor, blood on both of his legs and on his right shoulder.

‘’He came to assassinate me, Lieutenant. Watch for the pistol he has at his belt.

He also brought a large syringe full of a drug or poison.’

Only then did Brolin realize that the man, in obviously excruciating pain, was swearing out loud in Russian. Keeping his revolver pointed at the man, Brolin cautiously went around him and grabbed the pistol visible at his belt before stepping back a bit and throwing a bemused look at Ingrid.

‘’Well, it seems that my case is about to become a FBI10 case, miss.’

‘’I believe so as well, Lieutenant.’

‘’Two assassination attempts within less than nine hours: the Russians must really like you, Miss Dows.’

‘’I am now sure that Comrade Stalin hates my guts with a passion, Lieutenant.’

replied Ingrid with a smirk.

11:12 (California Time)

Ingrid’s hospital room