Windhall

by Ava Barry

  “Sorry, I’m a paid writer.” I sighed and tried not to seem impatient. I decided to stretch the truth a bit. “Look, I’ll be very respectful. Someone is campaigning to have Windhall torn down, and since it’s a historic building, I’d like to try to save it.”

  “Someone is what?”

  “You’ve heard about the two girls who got killed recently? The father of the first victim is very upset. Can you blame him? I don’t think Theo had anything to do with the murders, but since it was a tribute to Eleanor Hayes, he’s trying to get Windhall torn down.”

  She still didn’t look like she trusted me, so I took out my press pass.

  “I’m a journalist,” I said. “I’ve just been to Windhall to speak with Theo, and I need to check something.”

  “Come on.” She gave me a dubious smile. “Nobody’s seen Theo in fifty, sixty years.”

  I took out my phone and scrolled through to find the picture of the foyer. I passed it over the desk to show her, and she studied it for a moment.

  “Is that…?”

  “Look at the date. I took the picture from the inside of Theo’s house just a little while ago.” I scrolled through the other pictures that I had quickly taken that afternoon.

  “How on earth did you get inside?”

  “I have my ways.”

  She sighed and took off her glasses. “I’m really not supposed to let you see the blueprints,” she said. “I guess I would feel better about breaking the rules if I knew that you were a member of our library.”

  I whipped out my library card. There were five or six library systems within Los Angeles, and I had cards for all of them. Upon seeing the card, the woman’s face relaxed.

  “Come with me,” she said. “You’d better not have chewing gum. You’re not allowed any recording devices, either, so I’ll have to take your phone.”

  With some reluctance, I passed her my cell phone. She took me down a softly lit hallway, into a spacious room lined with filing cabinets. There was a big table in the middle of the room, and I took a seat while she rifled around in one of the filing cabinets. After a few minutes of searching, she found what she was looking for.

  “We have two sets,” she said, bringing over two tubes of rolled up blueprints. “One was from the original building, which was a tuberculosis facility in the 1910s and ’20s. The other set is from the renovations that Theo did.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Which set would you like to see? I can let you see them one at a time.”

  “Just the renovations,” I said. “If I need the other ones, I’ll let you know.”

  “There’s something I should mention,” she said, and I could see her biting back a smile. “There are some handwritten notes on the second set of blueprints.”

  “From the architect?”

  “No,” she said. “Actually, I think they’re from Theo.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’ll give you ten minutes,” she said. She handed me a pair of single-use cotton gloves. “Use these.”

  I sat down and slipped on the cotton gloves, then carefully unrolled the library’s blueprints of Windhall. A grid of tight lines unfolded before me, and I saw the familiar shapes of the dining room, the screening room, and the library.

  The librarian had been right. Scribbled in the margins and blank spaces of the blueprints were a set of handwritten notes. Faded green ink, spikes and squiggles. I recognized Theo’s handwriting from the journals, and it seemed that he had written what each of the rooms was going to be used for.

  This is the conservatory, read one note. Intended for breakfast, but I’ll mostly eat in the kitchen, standing up. Otherwise I’ll eat in my office.

  “Office” was circled upstairs; another note indicated that it was meant to be used as a guest bedroom, but Theo had later converted it for his use.

  I read through the rest of the notes carefully, and I couldn’t help laughing at a few of them. Here’s the music room, read another. Absolute best place in the house to get squiffed and watch the sunset.

  Another set of notes indicated that climbing out the windows of the tower at the back of the house allowed for partygoers to smoke hand-rolled joints or cigarettes without having to worry about sharing their stash. I had an image of Errol Flynn precariously balancing at the edge of the roof before climbing up the shingles, monkey-like, then perching beneath the stars to smoke with a gang of wild friends.

  And then I paused.

  I set my index finger on the room labeled “Upstairs Guest Room,” the room in which I had encountered Ben and Leland on the night of my original break-in. Behind the guest bedroom was a maid’s room, and the two rooms were adjoined by a door. On the night that I had visited, however, there had been no sign of a door. I thought back in desperation, then remembered that they had been busy working on the wallpaper. I had assumed that they were busy patching it up, but it seemed now that they had been peeling it away to reveal the missing door.

  There was something else that caught my attention. According to the blueprints, the maid’s room stood in a part of the house that had once been three stories tall, with a second tower and a lower roof extending over the garden. The third story and roof were no longer part of Windhall.

  I glanced at my watch. I only had three minutes until the librarian returned and took the blueprints away, and I knew that there was very little possibility of seeing them again.

  I took out my pen and a crumpled paper bag from my satchel, and, working quickly, sketched the general layout of the maid’s room and the missing tower. There was an additional part of Windhall that I hadn’t seen, and if Theo had been trying to hide it, there was probably a good reason for it.

  I had just finished sketching and managed to spirit away the drawing before the librarian returned.

  “All finished?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful, thank you.”

  * * *

  It was dark when the bus dropped me off at the bottom of Laurel Canyon. I hated taking the bus and was normally exhausted from the walk up to my house, but that night I was energized by all the new information. I was excited at the prospect of the missing room, and all the clues it might hold. If anything was a damning piece of evidence against Theo, this was it.

  I planned to make myself a coffee and head straight to my office, but when I reached my driveway, I stopped in my tracks. The lights were on in my kitchen. I lingered there for a moment, trying to remember whether I had left them on that morning before Fritz picked me up. Before I could contemplate the thought any further, a silhouette passed before the window and lingered there for a moment before disappearing.

  Someone was in my house.

  I made my way around the back of the house. When I stepped through the back door, I heard voices. I froze, listening. There were two men—no, three—talking to one another. By the sound of it, they hadn’t realized that I had come home. My first thought was to wonder why someone had broken into my house. I didn’t even stop to wonder whether confronting them would be a good idea.

  I glanced around quickly, then grabbed a wooden plant stand that was by the back door. Wielding it in front of me, I stalked toward the kitchen. The voices were getting louder, and one of the men laughed.

  I waited for a moment, then walked straight into the kitchen. I was about to start swinging the plant stand like a pickaxe, but stopped when I saw ladders, tools, and a drop cloth.

  “Whoa, what the fuck!” one of the men exclaimed.

  “Shit, man, you scared me!” One of the men threw his fists up, but the other two men started laughing. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Who are you?” I demanded. “What the fuck are you doing in my kitchen?”

  “We’re here to replace your skylight,” one of the men spoke up, then pointed to the rotting hole in my ceiling. He wore a set of faded green coveralls. “You know, the massive fucking hole above the counter?”

  “It’s not a skylight.”

  “I k
now that, genius.”

  I backed toward the door, then quickly assessed the situation. Everything that had been on the kitchen counters had been replaced with piles of tools. A stack of wood and sheet metal sat on the tiles, and a box of shingles were placed on top of my coffee table. All three men regarded me warily.

  “How did you get into my house?”

  “The door was unlocked.”

  “So you thought you’d let yourself in?”

  The men exchanged looks, then turned back to look at me. “She wasn’t sure if you’d be home,” Green Coveralls said. “She said you worked during the day, and that we should go ahead and let ourselves in. There’s a key in the birdhouse out back, right?”

  “Wait, what? Who said that?”

  “Heather.”

  My brain did a few somersaults. The men stared at me in confusion, and then one of them covered his mouth to hide a laugh. Green Coveralls narrowed his eyes at me, then rubbed his chin.

  “You didn’t know,” he said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  At this, the other two men burst into laughter. One of them doubled over, and the other one clapped a hand on his back. Green Coveralls looked like he wanted to join in, but he tried to remain professional.

  “You’ve got some friend, buddy,” he said. “We’re not cheap.”

  “I’m not paying for this,” I said quickly.

  “That’s the point, you don’t have to. Heather’s already paid for everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Sounds like you’ve got an admirer.” Green Coveralls winked at me.

  “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this.”

  He crossed his arms. “We’re slated for more rain in three days,” he said. “I can tell you’ve had this problem for a while, because the damage is extensive. Miguel went into the attic to do an assessment earlier, and he nearly fell through the ceiling.”

  Miguel gave me a lazy salute.

  “Let me put it to you this way, pal—if you don’t get this fixed within the month, you’re going to have to tear off the entire roof. You’ll have to replace the attic and the support beams, unless you like living al fresco, of course.”

  Miguel and the third man started giggling again.

  “Shut up, you two,” Green Coveralls snapped.

  “I need to make a phone call,” I said. “I’m going out back.”

  I retreated into the hallway and made my way outdoors. Once I was outside, I called Madeleine.

  “Hey, I can’t talk long,” she said, as soon as she picked up.

  “You still mad at me?”

  There was a pause. “Why was I mad at you?”

  “Because of Heather,” I said.

  “Remind me.”

  “It’s not worth it,” I said. “I think you were right.”

  “Okay, it’s starting to come back to me,” she said. “Is this about the contract you signed with her?”

  “She sent some men over to fix my roof,” I said.

  “That’s generous.”

  “She didn’t tell me, Mad,” I said. “She told them to let themselves in. She even knew where my spare key was. I had completely forgotten about it, until they reminded me.”

  “Okay, that’s creepy. You think she’s trying to get into your pants?”

  “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

  “Did you call her to ask her why she sent them over?”

  “No,” I said, then thought for a moment. “You think she’s putting bugs in my roof?”

  Madeleine burst into laughter. “Now you’re being paranoid. I think she’s flexing her muscles, Hailey. She’s trying to show you how powerful she is. Hey, I need to go.”

  “Oh, wait,” I said. “I have a request.”

  “Make it quick.”

  “This is a shot in the dark,” I said. “But Windhall is a historic structure. If Theo wanted to make renovations to it, he’d have to get it approved with a historical council, wouldn’t he?”

  “Today, yes. Back in the day, though, things were probably looser. Wait a sec—I think it’s only been considered historic for a few years, which means that he probably wouldn’t have had to request them at all.”

  I gritted my teeth in frustration.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

  * * *

  Once I was back inside my office, I was too distracted to sit down and get work done. I was torn between conflicting desires: on one hand, I wanted to call Heather and give her a piece of my mind, but I wasn’t exactly sure why I was so upset. I didn’t have a concrete reason to mistrust her, and I thought it might be better to wait until I had a handle on the situation to give her a phone call.

  Instead, I took out my phone and called Petra.

  “Hey,” she said, picking up after three rings. “How did the interview with Theo go?”

  I quickly filled her in on all the pertinent details, and she listened carefully. After I described Theo and the house itself, I told her about the hidden room.

  “I think I know where Theo killed Eleanor,” I said. “It’s going to be tough to prove it, though, and we’ve only got one shot at this.”

  “Which room was it?”

  “It was supposed to be a maid’s room,” I said. “It was on the original blueprints. Here’s my theory: Theo killed Eleanor in the maid’s room, she bled a lot, and there was a bit of a mess. At some point, he moved her down to the garden with someone’s help, which would explain the second set of footprints in the garden. After Theo is taken away, this second person works through the night, boarding up the maid’s room and gluing wallpaper up, like the room was never even there.”

  “Wow,” Petra said. “Any idea who the second person might have been?”

  “The only person I can think of is Reuben Engel,” I said. “Theo’s producer. But they didn’t seem to get along very well, so I’m not sure.”

  “I can’t believe they didn’t find the room in the original investigation,” she said. “Oh, that reminds me. I’ve looked into everyone who was at the party that night, and they’re all dead.”

  “That’s disappointing, but I can’t say I’m surprised,” I said. “At least I found out who Ben is. He’s Theo’s doctor—Dr. Lewis. That’s what I want you to focus on. See what else you can find out about him. If they’re hiding something, Dr. Lewis is helping them.”

  After we hung up, I was tempted to drive to an all-night café somewhere and claim a table, but I didn’t want to transport Theo’s journals and risk having someone see me reading them. I took a swig from a cup of leftover coffee sitting on my desk, then opened my computer.

  If I couldn’t find out the truth from a tour of Windhall, my last hope of discovering what had happened was talking to Marcus Loew, Bernard Loew’s son. His father might have been an alcoholic and an unreliable worker, but he had also known Theo pretty well. After Petra and I had talked about Marcus the day before, I had downloaded all of his music into my library. Most of the scores Marcus had written accompanied noir-style films about murder and intrigue, and frequently, one of the main characters was bumped off to a dramatic crescendo. I wasn’t normally a fan of movie soundtracks, but his scores were haunting and tragic, and I found that I really enjoyed listening to them.

  With Marcus’s music playing in the background, I took out the box containing Theo’s journals. When I opened the next journal, a stiff piece of paper fell out and landed on the floor. I reached down and picked it up.

  It was a thick piece of cream-colored parchment, embossed with curly lettering. As I read the words on the piece of paper, I saw that it was a funeral announcement for someone named Walter Thomas. I had to flip through my notes to remind myself where I had read the familiar name before, and when I finally found it in my pages, I was surprised. Walter Thomas had been Theo’s mentor when he first moved to Hollywood, and he was someone about whom Theo had written fondly. I had to remind myself that many of
the people mentioned in Theo’s journals had been dead for quite some time, whether or not Theo had attended their funerals.

  The funeral had been held on August 10, 1946. I flipped the parchment over and saw that Theo had scrawled some notes: That bastard had the gall to show up and pretend like he didn’t want this. Saw Hedda leaning on his arm and talking during the entire ceremony.

  And then, beneath that, it looked like he had engaged in a silent conversation with someone else at the funeral, because there was another style of penmanship, one I didn’t recognize.

  Thinking of having people over at mine after. You game?

  Course. When?

  Methinks seven.

  Who?

  Rows 8 - 15. Leave out the heads and the gossip writers.

  Let’s get squiffed.

  I had to laugh when I saw that Theo had written a little grocery list beneath that, composed mainly of alcohol. He had written down drinks he planned to serve—sidecar, gin rickey, French 75, vesper, aviation cocktail—and I could see that even though his friend’s death had probably devastated him, he was determined to make the best of the situation.

  I tucked the parchment back into Theo’s journal, then turned the page. Theo had glued in a newspaper article, dated only a week after the death notice.

  Reuben Engel assumes top producer role at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the article began. I scanned the rest, but I was more interested in what Theo had to say about it. On the next page, he had written, Only four more years on my contract! Then Paramount?

  Reuben Engel. His name was popping up more and more throughout my investigation into Theo. It was also suspicious that his favorite daughter, Heather, had contacted me right around the time that I had made contact with Theo. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to consider him a serious suspect in Eleanor’s death, because it was clear that Theo hadn’t liked him, and I couldn’t think of a reason why Theo would protect someone he hated over someone he had seemed so fond of.

  I knew that there was only one way to find out what Theo thought about Engel, however, and that was to keep reading his journals.

  * * *