Hollywood, California
Hollywood, California. Irene’s mother was there, in Hollywood, when Irene was found and — when Irene was buried.
People had to be buried; they couldn’t be kept on ice indefinitely. Plus, rumors across seventy-plus years don’t make these women, mother and daughter, out to be particularly fond of one another. Oil and water. Yes, Oil and Water, and we’ve never quite made that connection before, how Olive’s name lends itself to “Oil” and how Irene’s life was “Water”. But we have now.
The two, by all accounts, didn’t mix. And on the day the detectives came to St. Felix Street, Olive Lamberson Lowe was in Hollywood. Lung problems, they say. And Bea (of the blue eyes and blond curls) was living in Hollywood then, in 1936. Her husband (the second one) was a fight promoter in LA, and Bea (of the numerous modeling poses and ads in newspapers and catalogues) had auditioned (it was rumored) as an extra in Charlie Chan at the Opera. What mother wouldn’t want to be there instead of wintering in cold and damp New York?
