The Dahlia

A Horror Story based on the Murder of Elizabeth Short

The girl had been dead forty-seven hours when they found her in that vacant lot on South Norton Avenue.​

January morning cold as a stone. The grass bent wrong around her like it knew something wasnt right with the world anymore.

Detective William Dolan stood at the edge of the lot smoking a Lucky Strike and watching the coroner's boys work. He'd been on the force twelve years and seen plenty but this was different. The way she was laid out there. Cut clean in half at the waist. Drained of blood. Face carved into that terrible smile. Arms raised above her head like she was surrendering to something that had already won.

They didnt know her name yet. Just another girl come to Hollywood with a suitcase full of dreams. Black hair. Pale skin. The reporters would call her the Black Dahlia later but right now she was just Jane Doe Number 39.

Dolan walked back to his Plymouth and sat there with the engine running. The heater didnt work worth a damn. He pulled out his notebook and wrote down what they had. Female. Early twenties. Five foot five. One hundred fifteen pounds. Last seen at the Biltmore Hotel downtown on January 9th. Today was the 15th.

His partner Jimmy Haskins climbed in the passenger side bringing the smell of death with him.

"What do you think?"

"I think whoever did this has done it before."

"Yeah."

"And will do it again."

"Yeah."

They drove east on Wilshire past the mansions and palm trees. Past the oil derricks pumping away like giant insects feeding on the earth. The city had a way of swallowing people whole. Especially the pretty ones who thought they could make it in pictures.

The Biltmore Hotel lobby was all marble and brass and crystal chandeliers. The kind of place that made you feel small if you didnt have money. The desk clerk was a thin man with pomaded hair and nervous hands.

"We're looking for information about a young woman. Black hair. Stayed here around January 9th."

The clerk's eyes darted between them. "I'd have to check the register."

"You do that."

He flipped through the pages with those nervous fingers. "Here. Elizabeth Short. Checked in January 8th. Checked out January 9th."

"Anyone with her?"

"No sir. She was alone."

Dolan showed him the morgue photo they'd cleaned up best they could. This her.

The clerk went pale. "Yes. That's Miss Short. She was waiting for someone in the lobby that night. Kept checking her watch."

"Did the someone show up?"

"I believe so. A man in a dark suit. They left together around ten."

"You get a good look at him?"

"Not really. Average height. Dark hair. Nothing special about him."

Nothing special. That was always the problem. The monsters looked just like everyone else.

They found her room at the Chancellor Apartments on Cherokee. Sixty dollars a month for a single with a Murphy bed and a hot plate. The landlady was a hard woman named Mrs. French who kept a baseball bat behind her desk.

"She was behind on the rent. Had to put her out last week."

"Where'd she go?"

"How would I know. These girls come and go. She left some things. I was going to throw them out."

"We'll take them."

The belongings fit in a single cardboard box. Some clothes. Makeup. A Bible with pressed flowers between the pages. Letters from her mother back in Massachusetts. Photos of her with various men, their faces scratched out with a pen.

Haskins held up one of the photos. "Looks like she had man trouble."

"They all have man trouble."

In one photo she was smiling at the beach. Dark hair blowing in the wind. White bathing suit. You could see why men would want her. That kind of beauty was dangerous in a place like this. It made you visible when you needed to be invisible.

The first break came from a bartender at the Formosa Cafe on Santa Monica. Red O'Mara had been slinging drinks there since before the war. He knew everyone and everything that happened after dark in Hollywood.

"Yeah I knew Beth. Sweet kid. Used to come in with different fellows. Always ordered a Coca-Cola. Never drank alcohol."

"Any of these fellows stand out?" 

"There was one guy. Mark Hansen. Owns a theater. She stayed at his place for a while."

They found Hansen at his Playhouse Theater on McCadden. He was a big man with soft hands and hard eyes. The kind who liked to collect pretty things.

"Sure I knew Beth. Let her stay at my place when she was between situations. Me and some other girls. I run a kind of boarding house."

"When did she leave?"

"Couple weeks ago. Said she found something better."

"She say where."

"No. Just packed up and left. Ungrateful if you ask me."

"Anyone ever threaten her. Anyone she was afraid of?"

Hansen lit a cigar and blew smoke at the ceiling. "Beth was afraid of everything. The dark. Being alone. Not making it in pictures. But no one specific."

"You ever touch her?"

"What kind of question is that."

"The kind that needs an answer."

"We were friends. Nothing more."

Dolan knew he was lying but couldnt prove it. Not yet.

They interviewed dozens of people over the next weeks. Friends. Acquaintances. Men who'd bought her dinner hoping for more. The picture that emerged was of a girl lost in the space between who she was and who she wanted to be.

She'd grown up in Medford, Massachusetts. Father died when she was young. Mother worked in a bakery. Beth had asthma and was always sickly. Came to California for the weather and the dream. Every pretty girl's dream. To be discovered. To matter.

But Hollywood was full of pretty girls. They washed up on the shore like driftwood. Some found their way. Most just drifted until they broke apart.

Beth had drifted. From rooming house to rooming house. From man to man. Always looking for someone to save her. To see her as more than just another pretty face in a city full of them.

The second break came from a doctor named Walter Alonzo Bayley. He ran a clinic on South Flower Street. One of his nurses called in a tip.

"Doctor Bayley knew that Short girl. She came in last month."

"What for?"

The nurse looked nervous. "I shouldnt say. Patient confidentiality."

"She's past caring about confidentiality."

"She was pregnant. About two months along. Doctor Bayley took care of it."

They found Bayley at his house in East Hollywood. He was a small man with wire-rim glasses and shaking hands. The kind who'd lost his license twice for drinking but kept practicing anyway.

"I dont know what you're talking about."

"We have a witness says Elizabeth Short came to your clinic."

"Lots of girls come to my clinic."

"This one ended up cut in half."

Bayley poured himself a whiskey with those shaking hands. "I remember her. Pretty girl. Sad eyes. Said the father was married. Couldnt keep it."

"She say who the father was."

"No. But she was scared. Kept looking over her shoulder like someone was following her."

"You do the procedure?"

"I referred her to someone else. I dont do that kind of work anymore." "Who?"

"I dont remember."

Dolan leaned forward. "Try harder."

Bayley finished his whiskey. There's a doctor in Chinatown. Nyang. He helps girls in trouble.

They never found Nyang. The address Bayley gave them was a vacant building. Had been for years. The trail went cold again.

Then the letters started coming.

The first one arrived at the Examiner newspaper office. Letters cut from magazines and pasted on plain paper. HERE IS THE BLACK DAHLIA'S BELONGINGS. LETTER TO FOLLOW.

With it came Elizabeth Short's birth certificate. Her social security card. Photos from her purse. Things only the killer would have.

The second letter was worse. More magazine letters. HEAVEN TO CATCH ME. AN ADDRESS - NOT FOR YOU BUT FOR THE ONE I WILL GET NEXT. AM TOO CLEVER FOR YOU.

They analyzed the letters. Checked for fingerprints. Nothing. Whoever did this was careful. Methodical. Enjoyed the game.

More letters came over the months. Taunting. Giving false leads. The killer was out there watching them fail. Laughing at their incompetence.

By spring they had interviewed over 150 suspects. Boyfriends. Doctors. Drifters. Men with violent histories. Men who knew too much about anatomy. None of them panned out.

The press had turned it into a circus. The Black Dahlia. They made her into something she never was in life. A symbol. A mystery. A beautiful corpse.

Her mother came from Massachusetts to claim the body. A small woman destroyed by grief. She kept asking why. Why her daughter. Why like that.

Dolan had no answers. Just more questions that led nowhere.

Robert Manley was the last person known to have seen her alive. They'd driven down from San Diego together. He dropped her off at the Biltmore that night.

They brought him in for questioning five times. Each time the story was the same. He'd met her in San Diego. She seemed troubled. Said she was meeting her sister at the Biltmore. He dropped her off and never saw her again.

"You were the last one with her?"

"I told you. I dropped her at the hotel. She walked in the lobby. That was it."

"Where'd you go after?"

"Back to my motel. The Gates Motel in Eagle Rock."

"Anyone see you there."

"The night clerk. I got in around midnight."

They checked. The clerk confirmed it. But three hours was a long time. Long enough to kill someone. Cut them in half. Drain their blood. Dump them in a vacant lot.

But Manley passed the polygraph. His hands were steady. His story never changed.

The summer turned to fall. The case grew cold as the girl in the morgue. New murders pushed it off the front page. The city moved on like cities do.

But Dolan kept working it. Reading the files. Looking at the photos. That terrible smile carved into her face haunted him.

He started drinking more. His wife left him. Said he was obsessed. Said he needed to let it go.

But he couldnt. Something about the way she was displayed. The precision of it. This wasnt random violence. This was a message. But from who. To who.

The answer came from an unexpected source. A hood named Mickey Cohen who ran half the rackets in the city. He sent word he wanted to meet.

They met at Sherry's Restaurant on Sunset. Cohen was eating lamb chops and drinking milk. Two bodyguards watched the door.

"I hear you're still working the Dahlia case."

"That's right."

"You're wasting your time."

"You know something."

"I know lots of things. That's how I stay in business."

"Then tell me."

Cohen cut into his lamb chop. Blood ran across the plate. "You think this was about the girl. It wasnt. She was just the canvas."

"What does that mean."

"It means she saw something she shouldnt have. Knew something she shouldnt know. Someone had to shut her up. But they wanted to send a message too. To others who might talk."

"Who?"

Cohen smiled. "You're a smart cop. Figure it out."

Dolan spent weeks going through Elizabeth's movements in the days before she died. Who she saw. Where she went. What she might have witnessed.

Then he found it. A police report filed two days before she disappeared. A disturbance at the home of a prominent surgeon named George Hodel. Elizabeth Short was listed as a witness. She'd been at a party there. Saw something happen in one of the bedrooms. But she left before police arrived.

Hodel was connected. Friends in high places. The report had been buried. The investigation dropped.

Dolan drove to Hodel's house in Los Feliz. It was a Frank Lloyd Wright mansion perched on a hill. All concrete and glass and strange angles.

Hodel answered the door himself. He was tall and thin with cold eyes and steady hands. The hands of a surgeon.

"Detective Dolan. I'm investigating the death of Elizabeth Short."

"I dont know anyone by that name."

"She was at a party here in January. Two days before she died."

"I have lots of parties. Lots of people come and go."

"This one was special. Someone filed a police report."

Hodel's eyes never changed. "I dont recall any police report."

"It says Elizabeth Short witnessed an assault. In one of your bedrooms."

"You must be mistaken."

"I dont think so."

Hodel stepped back. "I think you should leave now, detective. Unless you have a warrant."

"Not yet."

"Then we have nothing more to discuss."

Dolan knew he was onto something. Started digging into Hodel's background. The man was brilliant. Graduated medical school at 21. Spoke five languages. Studied in Paris and Vienna. But there were rumors. Dark tastes. Young women who disappeared from his parties. Police reports that got buried.

He tried to get a warrant. The judge refused. Not enough evidence. Hodel had friends everywhere.

Then Dolan got a call. His captain wanted to see him.

"You're off the Short case."

"What."

"You heard me. It's been a year. We need you on active cases."

"This is active. I'm close to something."

"No you're not. You're chasing shadows. Making enemies of important people."

"Hodel."

"I dont want to hear that name. You're done. That's final."

Dolan turned in his files but kept copies. Kept working it on his own time. Following Hodel. Watching his house.

Then one night he saw something. A young woman leaving Hodel's house. Black hair like Elizabeth's. Crying. Holding her torn dress closed.

He followed her. Caught up at a bus stop.

"Miss. Are you alright."

She looked at him with terrified eyes. "Please. Just leave me alone."

"I'm a detective. Did someone hurt you."

She shook her head. "I cant. He said he'd kill me. Cut me up like that other girl."

"What other girl."

"The one in the papers. The Dahlia."

She ran before he could stop her. Disappeared into the night.

Dolan went to Haskins. Told him everything. The witness. Hodel. The cover-up.

"You need to let this go, Bill. For your own good."

"He killed her, Jimmy. Cut her in half to send a message. Keep your mouth shut or end up like her."

"You cant prove it."

"Because they wont let me."

"That's how it is sometimes. The big fish swim away."

"Not this time."

"Haskins put a hand on his shoulder. What are you going to do. Kill him yourself. That wont bring her back."

"No. But maybe it stops him from doing it again."

"Or maybe it just gets you killed too."

Dolan sat in his car outside Hodel's house. Watching. Waiting. His service revolver heavy in his lap.

He thought about Elizabeth Short. How she'd come to California full of hope. How she'd died in terror and pain. How the city had failed her. How he'd failed her.

The lights in Hodel's house went out one by one. The street was quiet. A fog rolled in from the ocean, covering everything in grey.

He could go in there. End it. But Haskins was right. That wouldnt bring her back. Wouldnt bring justice. Just more blood on the ground.

He started the car and drove away.

Two years later George Hodel fled to the Philippines. Never came back. The rumors followed him but no charges were ever filed.

Dolan kept the case files in his garage. Still pulled them out sometimes. Looked at her photos. That smile before it was carved into something else.

The city built over the vacant lot where they found her. Put up apartments. New people moved in who'd never heard of Elizabeth Short. Never knew a girl had been laid out there like a broken doll.

But Dolan knew. He'd always know. That was his burden to carry.

Some cases you solve. Some solve you. And some just hollow you out until there's nothing left but the knowing that you failed.

He'd failed Elizabeth Short. Failed to find her justice. Failed to stop her killer. Failed to make it right.

All he could do was remember. Remember her name. Her face before the knife. The girl she'd been before the city turned her into a symbol of its own darkness.

That would have to be enough. In this world, sometimes that's all you get.

The fog rolled in thicker. The city disappeared behind it. And somewhere out there, monsters walked free among the innocent.   

They always had. They always would.

That was the real horror. Not what happened to one girl on one night. But that it would happen again. And again. And again.

And all the good men in the world couldnt stop it.

They could only bear witness. Remember the names. Carry the weight.

Elizabeth Short. The Black Dahlia. Forever 22. Forever broken. Forever unsolved.

Just another girl who came to Hollywood to become a star and became a ghost instead.

The city was full of them. Would always be full of them.

And men like Dolan would always be there to pick up the pieces. To fail at making it right. To carry the burden of knowing.

That was the job. That was the curse.

That was the way of it in a world where the monsters looked just like everyone else and justice was just a word people said to make themselves feel better about the dark.

The fog swallowed everything. The night went on forever. And somewhere, Elizabeth Short's killer slept.

Then one night, the phone rang, shattering the oppressive silence of Dolan's apartment. It was Haskins, his voice tight with an urgency Dolan hadn't heard in years. "Bill, you won't believe this," he began, "they found another one. Same MO. South Central. Young woman, black hair… they're calling her the 'Red Carnation'."

A cold dread seeped into Dolan's bones, a familiar chill that had never truly left him. The cycle had begun anew, a gruesome echo of Elizabeth Short's fate. ​He knew, with a certainty that was both sickening and profound, that Hodel was back, or perhaps, had never truly left.​ The "Red Carnation" was merely another canvas for the monster who walked among them, an unspeakable message carved into the city's underbelly.

Dolan hung up the phone, the receiver feeling impossibly heavy in his hand. The fog outside had lifted, revealing the indifferent glow of city lights. He reached for his old, worn case files, the ones containing Elizabeth Short's haunting image. This time, he wouldn't just bear witness; he would find a way to break the curse, even if it meant confronting the darkness that had consumed him for so long.