Oops.

"All right, I think Zoe and maybe Carrie should go to the bank and look at the safe deposit box? Me, Mordred, and Lacie could all go to UCLA to find George Ayers now, or I could ask around about the cult, Mordred can do print research stuff, and Lacie can talk to her friends, and then we can all meet back here in the afternoon and either go to UCLA together or discuss who should follow up on which additional leads we've found?"

"How worried are we about any of us going places alone?"

"I think I'm willing to chance it to cover more ground, but more willing to chance it when we're doing sort of distant research stuff an less willing to risk it when we're interacting with things directly involved with the case, like the safety deposit box or Mr. Aarons's former associates."

"All right." 

Carrie and Zoe depart for the bank. 

"I think I'm kind of in favor of researching all morning and then regrouping before we decide how to approach UCLA? It's early enough that the bank people should be able to get back before things close down there, unless something weird happens."

"Sounds good to me."

Anemone has a lot of contacts in the entertainment industry because she lived with the circus for so long, and obsessively collects acquaintanceships with people who can tell her about weird stuff.

She goes off to find her old friend who makes props for horror movies. Anemone engages them in a little bit of conversation about the super cool work she was doing before she started doing this case, and then ask them if they know anything about a guy named Ecchavarria who was in film about ten years ago and may have Had A Cult Following If You Know What I Mean.

"Echavarria?" she says. "I think I've heard of an Echavarria. Long time ago."

"Yeah, it would have been. I'm looking into some pretty odd stuff that happened around a decade ago? I hear he had a big collection of occult stuff and some followers who were really into it. Died in 1924, I think, though. If you know anything about them, or can point me to anyone who might know more, it'd be a big favor."

"I don't know much about him," she says. "I remember this guy I was working on Phantom with used to work for him. He was weird. His name was Ramon Echavarria. Producer. You'd never guess how weird he was from the stuff he put out."

She takes out her journal and makes a note of the name. "Sounds like the right guy. Weird how, exactly?"

"I don't know," she says. "That was the thing about him. You could never point to anything he did that was wrong, he was just... off, somehow."

She nods sagely. "This guy you knew who worked for him, do you know his name? Where to find him?"

"Oh, sure," and she gives Anemone a name.

She'll write that down, then. "You remember anything else about him? Anyone else who might have been connected to him?"

"No one knows why he died, you know," she says. "They hushed it all up."

She grins broadly. "Yeah, so I hear. It's all very mysterious."

"They hush a lot of things up in this town, but normally you'd hear gossip at least? About who does drugs and who's a homosexual and who's cheating on their wife with every starlet who comes to the casting couch."

Nodnod. "But not with this?"

"Nothing. Maybe because there's nothing to gossip about, but..."

"I see. I guess I have my work cut out for me, then. Thanks a lot."

Anemone tracks down the other guy who knows Echavarria, but it's a bust. This guy regales her with stories of Echavarria's adventures in the movie biz, but doesn't have anything on the cult.

Meanwhile--

Mordred starts digging into the archives of the LA Times to look for anything about the cult ten years ago or Echavarria. Mostly what he discovers about Echavarria is that there are a lot of Hispanic people in Los Angeles with the surname 'Echavarria.'

However, when he looks up the August 1924 attack, he hits pay dirt. 

Movie Star Buys The Farm

We’re sure to remember movie star Richard Spend from monster movies like The Vampire Mystery and Black as Night. Well, he’s scared his last kiddie because he was stabbed to death at a crazy masquerade party last night! Don’t read any further unless you’ve got a cast-iron stomach! 

Reliable sources tell your humble reporter that his body was found on a farm out in the north country. Apparently, it was a real bloodbath where more than a dozen people bought the farm! No other victims have been named and the police don’t have clue number one about who could have gone on this depraved rampage. Half the corpses were dressed up in robes and masks - it could have been anybody!

Spend’s been seen at crazy parties before, most recently in the company of his lithe and lissome costar Olivia Claredon. Did he get involved with the wrong married woman? Stumble into some kind of drug war? Who was Richard Spend, anyway?

August 14, 1924

Well, that was not very helpful.

Mordred looks for more about Richard Spend and about George Ayers, does not succeed, and winds up getting kicked out of the LA Times newspaper morgue because the librarian felt that he was putting his articles back in the wrong order and it would be hard to clean up.