Jonathan Kellerman: Private Eyes

LAPD Hollywood Division Commander Bryce Donnemeister said that information provided by another suspect in the case, Melvin Findlay, 28, arrested March 18, had incriminated McCloskey. “It appears at this time that Findlay was hired help and McCloskey did the alleged hiring.”

Donnemeister added that Findlay had worked for McCloskey in 1967 in a “janitorial capacity” but declined further comment pending a full investigation.

McCloskey, a native of New Jersey and a former nightclub singer, came to Los Angeles in 1962 with aspirations of being an actor. When those failed, he opened the Belle Vue Modeling Agency. After luring Miss Prince away from the larger, more established Flax Agency, he tried to serve as her film agent, according to Hollywood sources.

McCloskey and Miss Prince are reported to have developed a personal relationship that ended when Miss Prince left Belle Vue and, in an attempt to trade fashion modeling for screen stardom, signed with the William Morris Agency. Shortly after, Belle Vue’s fortunes plummeted, and McCloskey declared bankruptcy on February 9 of this year.

When asked whether revenge figured as a motive in the attack, Police Commander Donnemeister said, “We’re reserving comment until the suspect has been fully and properly questioned.”

Miss Prince continues to recuperate at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where plans are being made for her to undergo extensive reconstructive surgery.

There was a photo with this one, too: a small, dark, slender man being led away by two detectives who dwarfed him. He had on a sport coat, slacks, and an open-neck white shirt. His head was lowered and his longish hair hung down over the top half of his face. What was visible of the bottom half was angular, grim, James Deanish, and in need of a shave.

It took a while to locate the conclusion of the case. McCloskey’s extradition and arraignment, Melvin Findlay’s agreement to plead guilty and testify against McCloskey in return for a simple assault conviction, McCloskey’s indictment for attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and mayhem. Arraignment proceedings, then a three-month lag until the trial.

The judicial process was swift. The prosecutor distributed selections from Gina Prince’s modeling portfolio to the jurors, followed by close-ups of her ravaged face taken in the emergency room. A brief appearance by the victim, bandaged and sobbing. Testimony by medical experts to the effect that her face would be scarred permanently.

Melvin Findlay testified that McCloskey had hired him to “trash the {obscenity} girl’s face, make sure she was no {obscenity} good for nobody, and if she died, he wouldn’t have no {obscenity} problem with that, too.”

The prosecution produced a taped confession that the defense tried unsuccessfully to challenge. The tape was played in open court: McCloskey tearfully admitting to hiring Findlay to maim Gina Prince but refusing to explain why.

The defense didn’t dispute the facts but attempted an insanity defense, which was hampered by McCloskey’s refusal to talk to the hired-gun psychiatrists. The prosecution’s psychiatric pistol testified to observing McCloskey in the county jail and finding him “uncooperative and depressed, but lucid and free of serious mental disease.” It took two hours for the jury to bring in guilty verdicts on all charges.

At the sentencing hearing, the judge called McCloskey “an abject monster, one of the most despicable defendants it has been my displeasure to encounter in my twenty years on the bench,” and handed down a combination of sentences that added up to twenty-three years in San Quentin. Everyone seemed satisfied. Even McCloskey, who fired his lawyers and refused to appeal.

After the trial, the press tried to interview the jurors. They chose to have their foreman speak for them and he was concise:

“Only a semblance of justice could be accomplished,” said Jacob P. Dutchy, 46, an executive aide at Dickinson Industries, Pasadena. “This young lady’s life will never be the same. But we did what we could to ensure that McCloskey pays the harshest penalty possible under the law.”

A Mikoksi with acid.

Twenty-three years in San Q.

Time off for good behavior could cut it in half. A belated appeal might shave off more. Meaning McCloskey’s release could be imminent- if it hadn’t already taken place.

No doubt Dutchy would know the precise release date- he’d be the type to follow that kind of thing closely. I wondered how he and the child’s mother had explained it all to Melissa.

Dutchy. Interesting fellow. Throwback to another age.

From juror to retainer. I was curious about the evolution but had little hope of satisfying my curiosity. The way things were going, I’d be lucky to get an accurate history on my patient.

I thought of Dutchy’s secretiveness and devotion. Gina Dickinson had the ability to inspire strong loyalties. Was it the helplessness, the same princess-in-distress frailty that had brought Eileen Wagner out on a house call?

What did growing up with a mother like that do to a child?

Men with sacks…

Same dream I’d heard from so many other children, almost an archetype. Children I’d cured.

But I sensed this child would be different. No easy heroism here.

I had a deli dinner at Nate ’n Al, on Beverly Drive: corned beef on rye accompanied by the tape-loop blather of Hollywood types shmoozing about pending deals, drove home, and phoned a San Labrador exchange that had stuck in my head.

This time an answering machine with Jacob Dutchy’s voice informed me no one was available and invited me, halfheartedly, to leave a message.

I repeated my urgent desire to speak with the lady of the house at 10 Sussex Knoll.

No callback that evening, nor the following day, and as 5:00 P.M. approached I resigned myself to pumping Dutchy for information again- awkward position be damned.

But he didn’t show up. Instead, Melissa was accompanied by a Mexican man in his sixties- broad and low-slung, hard and muscular despite his age, with a thin gray mustache, beak nose, and hands as rough and brown as cedar bark. He wore khaki work clothes and rubber-soled shoes and held a sweat-stained beige canvas hat in front of his groin.

“This is Sabino,” said Melissa. “He takes care of our plants.”

I said hello and introduced myself. The gardener smiled uncomfortably and muttered, “Hernandez, Sabino.”

“Today we took the truck,” said Melissa, “and looked down on everyone.”

I said, “Where’s Jacob?”

She shrugged. “Doing stuff.”

At the mention of Dutchy’s name, Hernandez stood up straighter.

I thanked him and told him Melissa would be free in forty-five minutes. Then I noticed he wasn’t wearing a watch.

“Take a seat, if you’d like,” I said, “or you can leave and come back at five forty-five.”

“Okeh.” He remained standing.

I pointed to a chair.

He said, “Ohh,” and sat down, still holding his hat.

I took Melissa into the consult room.

Healer’s challenge: Put aside my annoyance at the way the adults were fancy-dancing around me and concentrate on the child.

Plenty to concentrate on, today.

She began talking the moment she sat down, looking away from me and reciting her terrors nonstop, in a singsong oral-report voice that told me she’d studied hard for therapy. Closing her eyes as she went on, and climbing in power and pitch until she was nearly shouting, then stopping and shivering with dread, as if she’d suddenly visualized something overwhelming.

But before I could say anything, she was off again. Fluctuating between blurt and whisper, like a radio with a broken volume control.