by JL Bryan
“Hm. Take pictures of that program.”
We continued looking through them, but only found one other connection, a lucky catch. Adaire had starred in a local production of The Glass Menagerie in 1948, just before moving away to New York. She was listed as Laura, one of the small number of characters.
I was just about to close that program when I saw Stanley Preston’s name on the facing page, near the bottom, among the crew. He had worked as a stagehand instead of a cast member.
“I guess Stanley’s acting career went downhill,” I said.
“So he started looking for other ways to make money, like marrying young widows with big farms,” Stacey said.
“Which brings us to the drive-in.” I took pictures of the Glass Menagerie program. “Maybe they had a relationship, maybe not. Maybe he was just an admiring superfan.”
“Yeah, or maybe he killed her!” Stacey gasped. “Are we going to solve the murder of Adaire Fontaine after all? My aunt will want to know all about this.”
“I wouldn’t call your aunt just yet. Remember, Adaire was murdered out in Beverly Hills.”
“Oh, I know. And there was no sign of a break-in. That’s why she was probably killed by someone she knew. Like Stanley.”
“She didn’t have any security? A bodyguard?” I asked.
“Oh, no, she couldn’t afford it. Even the mansion was a rental. She blew through money like it was water. Plus, she was always loaning money to friends who mostly never got around to paying her back.”
“Sounds like people took advantage of her.”
“You get that impression from the biography. She was too innocent about the people around her, like she always wanted to see the best in everyone. Her childhood in rural Georgia didn’t prepare her for the shark-infested waters of Los Angeles.”
We checked through the rest of the materials, but we didn’t find Stanley Preston’s name again. We gathered the materials back into the folder before leaving.
The hallway outside was dim. Most of the Historical Association’s lights were off for the evening, and it was quiet enough to hear our own footsteps echoing down the paneled hallway. We passed paintings of local gardens, architecture, and historical personages, past bookshelves thick with volumes of local and regional history. We passed through the cutaway balcony area, looking down on the parlor, now full of shadows, the empty chairs still facing each other as though invisible occupants were gathered for a silent meeting.
“Why are you still here?” a voice snapped, and I jumped.
Elma Danford emerged from around a corner ahead, her bright eyes burning with clear disapproval.
“We were just, uh, leaving, ma’am,” I said, cowed by her glare, though she was shorter than I was and stooped over.
“Patterson allowed you to remain in the archives unsupervised,” she said, then clucked her tongue. “Very interesting. I hope you took great care. Every item the Association owns is unique and irreplaceable.”
“Yes, well, we definitely appreciate the help.” I took half a step forward, but I couldn’t ease around her to the stairs. She’d positioned herself right in the middle of the hallway, blocking my way if I didn’t want to literally elbow past her and risk toppling her over. She was using her age and fragility as a weapon, and I think it was deliberate.
“Only dues-paying members of the Association may be left unsupervised in the archives,” she told me, really laying down the law here. “Mr. Patterson sets a poor example by flouting the rules. It is conduct unbecoming a Steering Committee member. I shall be writing a letter to the chair.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure what else to say. She really was steamed about not getting that spot on the Steering Committee.
“I’m afraid I must insist you depart the premises.”
“That’s pretty much what we’re trying to do—” I began.
“Immediately.”
“Right. But you’re kind of blocking us,” I said.
Glaring, she took her time moving one step to the side.
Stacey and I hurried past and clambered down the wide wooden stairs as fast as we could.
“No running!” Elma shouted after us, and we slowed to a fast walk until we finally escaped out the back door and into the night outside.
Chapter Twelve
At the Nite-Lite Drive-in, the big monument sign outside was dark. I almost missed the turn-off.
“No movie tonight?” I asked when Benny and Daisy rode up to meet us at the ticket booth, the headlights and reflectors glowing on their bikes. Stacey waited behind me in her car.
“Callie’s at work, and none of the Bluegazers felt like volunteering,” Benny said. “We haven’t been rehearsing much, either. I’m working on a new song, though.”
“Didn’t you say you had some old movies that came with the drive-in?”
“Yeah, really old. There’s a Legend of Boggy Creek in there, hopefully the original and not one of the unauthorized sequels. But like I said, I can’t exhibit them to the public without paying a license fee. Plus, some are in really poor shape. They haven’t been stored in the most careful condition.”
“Are there any with Adaire Fontaine? Or maybe Chance Chadwick?”
“There’s one with both of them, Pocketful of Aces. I know because that was sitting in the projector when we bought the place. It must have been the last movie Stanley watched before he, you know, kicked it.”
“Is there any chance you could play it for us?” I asked. “Since the drive-in’s closed tonight, it wouldn’t technically be illegal, right?”
“Oh, no, that’s more like watching it at home, I think. If nobody’s paying and it’s closed to the public. I can load the reel and get it going, but I can’t guarantee it’s in good enough condition to watch. It’ll break at least once, probably more. I’d have to hang around and watch for problems.”
“Stacey can probably help with any of that.”
Benny nodded and pulled the lever to raise the striped arm blocking the road. “Meet me at the concession stand.”
We drove on ahead, the circuitous driveway taking us the long way to the parking lot, where Stacey and I again parked on either side of the sunken old projection house in the middle of the lot.
Then we headed to the concession stand, where Benny and Daisy pedaled over to meet us. The majority of the exterior lights around the parking lot were switched off, conserving electricity while the theater was closed.
“Pizza!” Daisy proclaimed, pedaling her bicycle inside as soon as Benny opened the door.
“No pizza tonight,” Benny said. “We already had dinner.”
Daisy rode through the dining area and on into the game room, where she drove in circles around the foosball table. “Foosball, foosball, Daddy’s gonna lose-ball!”
“Right,” Benny said. He glanced from me to Stacey. “The projection booth is, uh, cramped for four people. Is it possible for one of you to stay down here and keep an eye on Daisy?”
“And make pizza!” Daisy said.
“We’re not… you already had dinner.”
“Snack!” Daisy said, ogling the candy counter with its giant movie-theater-sized bags of Twizzlers and Junior Mints. Her voice rose with a hopeful question: “Maybe it’s snack time?”
“It’s not snack time.”
“Maybe tomorrow?” Her big hazel eyes were still affixed on the Twizzlers.
“Maybe tomorrow. Probably not Twizzlers.”
I sighed. “I guess I’ll stay with her, since Stacey’s the one who’ll be monkeying with your projector if needed.”
“Oh, yeah, I can shut it all down for the night, too,” Stacey said, “so you don’t have to come back out after the movie.”
“Cool.” Benny stooped toward Daisy. “Miss Ellie’s going to play with you for a minute while I go upstairs, okay?”
“Foosball?” Daisy cast a hopeful look from me to the foosball table in the next room.
“Sure,” I said. “But, fair warning, I’m not very good.�
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“I am!” Daisy skipped ahead of me into the game room, with its one game. “Foosball, foosball, Miss Ellie’s gonna lose-ball…”
I followed her while Benny and Stacey headed upstairs to the projection booth. Daisy scooted a bright yellow two-step staircase out from beneath the foosball table and climbed up on it to face me. A gritty look of determination formed on her face.
“You’re gonna lose-ball,” the little girl said firmly, trying to intimidate me with her trash talk.
“We’ll see,” I said.
The ball dropped onto the shiny green playing surface, and we were off. Daisy’s hands danced from one rod to another, reaching so far I thought she’d fall off her step-stool, but somehow she didn’t, instead balancing on her toe-tips like she was in a ballet.
I struggled to get my little guys to whomp the ball into the wire cage of her goal, but she scored on me twice before I even got it close to her goalie, and then she immediately whacked the ball deep into my side of the table. At one point, she jabbed me in the leg with one of the rods, and she apologized but didn’t stop playing while I recovered.
She also knew about the no-spinning rule, so maybe Stacey wasn’t making that up.
Chance Chadwick watched over us from the Pocketful of Aces poster on the wall, clutching his winning five-ace hand. Handsome as he was in his gangster suit, he paled next to the gorgeous Adaire Fontaine, draped in a famous black gown and gloves, her hat tilted to emphasize the black feathers, her trademark gray eyes, exotic even in black and white, seeming to gaze deeply into me and through me.
“Boom! Lose-ball!” Daisy announced after smashing a winning goal against my hopeless foosball team. The ball dropped away into my miniature soccer goal, disappearing into the foosball table’s invisible underworld of gutters and tunnels, the dark places through which foosballs passed between their death at the tabletop goal and their rebirth in the return drop. “Tough turkey! Want to play Frisbee?”
I glanced outside. It was dark, but a few exterior lights were on, and with the theater closed for the night, there wasn’t any need to worry about cars driving through. “Sure. I’ll just text your dad about it real quick.”
Focused on my phone screen, I followed Daisy outside, where she picked up a green Frisbee featuring Oscar the Grouch from one of the picnic tables and headed toward the parking lot.
“Hey, maybe we should play on the lawn instead of the parking lot,” I suggested. It didn’t seem like a good idea to encourage her to play where cars often drove.
Daisy frowned, looking past me to the wide lawn behind the concession stand. “I don’t want to go there,” she said.
“It’s probably safer,” I said. Then, not wanting to worry her, I added, “For me. In case I crash to the ground trying to catch a Frisbee. I’d rather do that on grass than pavement.”
She still frowned at me, but finally sighed, “Well, I guess,” as though incredibly put upon by my change of plan. She reluctantly doubled back from the parking lot.
The lawn was spacious and shadowy, enclosed by the woods and the high fence. Fortunately, the Frisbee glowed a radioactive shade of green in the dark, making it easy to see. Daisy and I threw it back and forth. Her throws were more like bowling, rolling it along the ground on its side, usually in a very wrong direction that required me to chase after it.
For my part, I was able to sling it through the air a little more effectively toward Daisy, but I was out of practice. More than once, the glowing green disc swerved unpredictably, wobbling like a UFO on its way to a crash landing in New Mexico.
Daisy enjoyed chasing after it, laughing as she pursued the glow farther and farther away each time, only to send it rolling sideways across the ground toward me like a loose hubcap.
As I sent the green disc away on another long, wobbling glide over the lawn, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Stacey was calling, because she’s into voice calls rather than texting more than the average human.
“What’s up?” I asked, watching the glowing disc careen to another graceless crash in the distance. Hello, Roswell.
“We are good to go. The Pocketful of Aces reels aren’t in the best shape, but the movie can handle a viewing. Are we definitely going with that one? There’s a few other choices up here. I don’t recommend Legend of Boggy Creek, though.”
“Pocketful of Aces has both Chance Chadwick and Adaire Fontaine, and if it was the last movie Stanley ever watched here, it might have the greatest chance of stirring up his ghost. Assuming he’s Cigar Man.”
“Or maybe we'll see Chance Chadwick again,” Stacey said. “That would be pretty cool. Especially if Jacob was here to see it this time. Can he join us for the movie tonight? Like I said, he really wants to check out the drive-in—”
“Maybe tomorrow night. We can try screening another movie from Stanley’s collection, if Benny allows it.”
“Ooh, I know which one,” Stacey said. “Anyway, we are good to go up here. Benny also loaded in an ad reel to buy us more time before the feature.”
“Great. I’ll meet you in front of the concession stand.” I hung up and looked toward the glowing green disc in the distance. “Daisy, let’s go. We’re all done here.”
The green glow didn’t move. From here, it was no bigger than a tiny orb, the kind of thing we might catch on camera as a spirit passed through a room.
“Daisy?” I strode toward the distant Frisbee, getting anxious. The girl was not known for her silence. “Hey, Daisy, let’s go back to your dad. Daisy?”
She didn’t respond, and the glowing green spot didn’t move.
I broke into a run, calling her name, my heart racing.
The Frisbee lay in the glass, glowing green, not far from the high fence at the back of the lawn. I picked it up and looked around, but there was no sign of her. The lights of the concession stand were far away, and there were none around here, just deep shadows and the high fence, its old boards and posts bone-pale in the moonlight.
“Daisy, where are you? Daisy!” There was still no sign of her, and I hadn’t strapped on my utility belt for the night yet, so I had no flashlight. “Daisy!”
I walked along the fence, using my phone flashlight to light my way as I approached the glowing flying-saucer shape.
“Daisy!”
Finally, I reached the gate, the one that looked no different from any other section of fence, almost imperceptible until you stood right in front of it.
It stood ajar, open by a foot or so, enough for a small girl to squeeze through.
“Daisy?” I asked. A shiver ran through my spine as I pushed the gate panel open wide. Its hinges creaked loudly in the quiet night. The background chirping of night insects was more distant here, despite the surrounding woods, and the air again felt cooler on this side of the fence.
The farmhouse was a dark, shadowy bulk looming over me, casting everything before it into pitch darkness. I could just discern its bulky roofline against the cloudy night sky above, the broken-down widow’s walk railing like a row of broken teeth in the sparse starlight.
As I looked around, trying to see in the shadow of the house, something seized my arm, cold fingers gripping tight.
“Daisy?” I said, still not seeing anything. The hand was small and trembling.
I reached out and touched her small head, her long hair. She was shaking but said nothing.
“Daisy, let’s go,” I said. “Your dad’s waiting.”
She didn’t budge, though. Her hand gripped me like a claw, and it felt like she was riveted to the spot.
“Come on, Daisy,” I said, amazed at how difficult it was to get her moving. I would have to pick her up if she didn’t cooperate.
Then I heard her speak, her voice a tiny, raspy whisper: “She’s watching us.”
“Who?”
“The lady in the house.”
I looked across the broken-down house again, the empty window holes, the broken railing. “I don’t see anything. What does the lady look like?”
Then I heard it, the creak of a footstep up on the roof.
It wasn’t particularly heavy or loud, but it was clear in the still, quiet night, and Daisy gasped. I tried not to react, even when the second footstep sounded, followed by a small thud. It continued across the roof, in the makeshift widow’s walk area, but from where I stood, and with the lack of light, I couldn’t see anything beyond the railing.
Step, thump. Step, thump. As if someone were walking across the roof, watching us.
“She looks too scary,” Daisy said, as if she could see a person standing up there at the railing. She trembled harder. “She looks bad.”
“Let’s go. Can you walk?”
“No. My feet are too heavy.”
“I understand.” I dropped the Frisbee and picked Daisy up, then hurried away from the house.
I stopped only to close the gate behind us. Just before I did, I took another look up at the widow’s walk.
I didn’t see anything there, but I heard the door leading into the house creak, as if whoever had been on the roof was stepping back inside.
After I shoved the gate closed, I broke into a run across the lawn, barreling toward the distant lights of the concession stand, moving as fast as I could with Daisy in my arms.
Chapter Thirteen
“What took so long?” Stacey asked as I reached the front of the concession stand, still holding Daisy. “You look like you’ve seen a… wait, did you see a…?” She looked from me to Daisy, clearly struggling not to say words like ghost with the little girl listening.
“Daisy, are you okay?” Benny asked as I passed the girl over and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you hurt?”
“It was scary,” she said.
“What was?” Benny looked over her tiny shoulder at me. “What happened?”
“She ended up near the farmhouse,” I said.
“A scary lady lives there,” Daisy added. “She’s old and breathes weird and her eyes are missing but she can stare at you. I hate that house.”