Windhall

by Ava Barry

  “Yes. She’s friends with Theo.” I thought for a moment, then tried again. “Who’s Connie?”

  “Look, I need to know who you are. Tell me who you really are.”

  “I was writing a story about Theo,” I said. “But I got too involved, and everything went to shit. I’m not working for anyone but myself at this point. I just need to know what happened, even if nobody believes me when I go home. I need to know, because this story has turned my life upside down, and I still don’t understand it.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, then nodded. “Flannery was my friend,” he said finally. “We were kids together. Flannery was in love with Theo’s son.”

  The story was getting more and more complicated. Finding out that the woman in the photograph was Flannery didn’t clarify anything, either.

  “Was Theo in love with Connie?”

  He looked confused and I immediately realized that it was the wrong question. Before I could backtrack, however, he shook his head and set the photograph on the table.

  “Connie,” he said slowly, “was Theo’s son. Short for Conrad.”

  My head was spinning. “And who was the mother?”

  “Rebecca,” he said. “Rebecca Lewis. It was a home for unwed mothers, remember. Rebecca and Connie lived in the house at the other end, the one that’s painted peach now. Theo used to come and visit them.”

  Rebecca Lewis. I had a sick feeling in my stomach, and suddenly realized that I had been chasing the wrong person all along. I took out my phone and scrolled through until I found a picture of Ben.

  “He’s probably older than when you remember him,” I said. “But do you think this could be Connie?”

  He took the phone in his hands and pulled out a pair of glasses, which he slipped onto his nose. After staring at the photo for a moment, he smiled, looked sad, then handed the phone back to me.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’d say that would have to be him.”

  * * *

  I was back at Burlington Airport when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen. Petra.

  “I’ve been calling you for hours.”

  “Hello to you, too,” I said. “I haven’t had service. I’ve been up in the mountains.”

  “So you haven’t seen the news.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was too late,” she said. “It’s about Linus and Heather.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Turns out I was right about the dead girls,” she said. “There’s a connection after all. Someone talked—I think it was a disgruntled former employee from Heather’s Getty Art Trust.”

  I was starting to feel excited. “What did they say?”

  “The first victim was incidental,” she said. “The art student near Windhall, it was supposed to be some kind of tribute to Theo.”

  “By the performance artist?”

  “Exactly. When Linus and Heather caught wind of it, they paid her something obscene to kill more girls, and make it look like it was Theo. It all tied back to the development in Highland Park. Heather knew that her father had something to do with Eleanor’s murder, and she was worried that if it ever got out, she wouldn’t get the political support she needed to get started on the development.”

  “Did Heather actually admit that?”

  “No. Nobody can find her, of course.”

  “How are you going to proceed with this?”

  “Deborah hasn’t been willing to talk to any male journalists, thinks they’re all chauvinist pigs. I managed to get in touch with one of her friends, and she says Deborah might be willing to talk to me.”

  “Good work, Petra.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Soon. They’re calling my flight right now.”

  * * *

  By the time I got back to Los Angeles, I was so tired that I was almost hallucinating. I had gone four days on fractured sleep, not getting more than two hours at a time, and the picture in my head was getting blurrier with each new piece of information. I was about to crawl into bed and fall into a coma when Claudia called.

  “Hailey,” she said, and I was surprised by how serious she sounded. “I need you to come in and see me.”

  I felt weird and jumpy. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Come in. Let’s have a chat.”

  “Claud, what’s going on?”

  She sighed. “We need to talk about the results,” she said. “Just come in. I’ll be around until four today.”

  I got in my car and drove toward Cedars-Sinai, knotted up with anxiety. Claudia was incredibly frank, and it was a surprise that she didn’t tell me what was going on over the phone.

  I found her in her office, and she motioned for me to close the door.

  “I did the tests,” she said. “I ran them twice. I had a friend check the DNA sequence against Eleanor’s DNA, and I’ve got some bad news.”

  “It’s a match.”

  She held up a finger. “It’s not a match,” she said. “This blood belongs to someone other than Eleanor Hayes.”

  I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it? Sorry to hear that.” She handed me a file. “This is your paperwork. I can’t offer you help on your Jane Doe without a contrasting DNA sequence.”

  “Can you tell me how old the blood was?”

  “Afraid not,” she said. “You can’t date blood through standard DNA processing.”

  I must have gone pale, because she reached over and grabbed an apple, then offered it to me.

  “You eat today?”

  “How is that possible?” I said, ignoring the offer. “You think the results could have been tainted by dust, or paint, or something like that? Maybe the fact that it’s an old sample means that the results are inaccurate.”

  “DNA is smaller than dust, first of all,” she said. “It’s a pretty good sample, all told. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to implicate you.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “You can buy me dinner next time we see each other.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  After leaving the hospital, I didn’t even bother going home. It was a little past three in the afternoon, and I took out my phone to text Petra.

  Want to know how the story ends?

  A few minutes later, a response came through.

  Yes.

  On the way to her apartment, I stopped at a doughnut shop to pick up a bag of glazed doughnuts and two cups of coffee. Petra was already waiting outside her apartment when I pulled up to the curb. She climbed inside and took one of the cups of coffee.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Burbank.”

  I followed the directions on my phone, which took me past Griffith Park and the Los Angeles Zoo. Burbank had always felt strange to me, the way the sky seemed to zing with electricity, the pregnant stillness of a valley beneath a crest of mountains. The only errands I had ever done in Burbank involved IKEA and a bad acupuncture session.

  After double-checking the address on my phone, I parked outside a little row of bungalows that had been converted into offices. They were all cute and perky, with flowers in boxes outside every window.

  “Where are we?”

  I still felt some of the lingering insomnia, but I was more clearheaded now. My heart was beating quickly, though, and I hoped that Petra could take the information well.

  “Dr. Lewis is Theo’s son,” I said.

  “We always thought that was a possibility, but do you have proof?”

  “Here’s the really tricky bit,” I said, nodding. “I don’t think Eleanor died.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think she died that night.” I took a deep breath. “I think it was part of an elaborate cover-up.”

  “When did you decide this?”

  “It makes sense,” I said. “Theo was a magician. People never knew how he pulled off those elaborate sets.”

  “A set is different from a h
uman body, Hailey. Think about the medical examiner, all the police. Do you think Eleanor played dead long enough to fool them into thinking she was dead? Or are you suggesting that Theo paid them off?”

  “This is the really crazy bit,” I said. “I think… I think it was someone else’s body.”

  She stared at me.

  “The blood in Theo’s maid’s room didn’t match Eleanor’s DNA. What if they killed someone else, then dressed her up like Eleanor and told the police that there had been an accident?”

  “Jesus.”

  “Let’s go talk to Ben.”

  We got out of the car and walked down the path between the bungalows. There was a directory board in a little courtyard, and I consulted it.

  “He’s in three,” I said. “Let’s see if he’s in.”

  We entered the bungalow, where we found an empty waiting room and a receptionist.

  “Hello,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, I thought I’d just drop by,” I said. “Is today busy?”

  “Is this a medical emergency?”

  “No, I’d just like to ask Dr. Lewis a few questions.”

  “You have insurance?”

  “Not since I quit my job.”

  She looked at an iPad. “He’s on a house call,” she said. “But I imagine he’s on his way back to the office now. Take a seat, I can squeeze you in for a quick appointment when he gets here.”

  I took a seat, glancing around the office. “Nice place,” I said. “It looks like a house.”

  “It was,” she agreed. “These were bungalows for the Disney studio, back in the fifties and sixties.”

  “So I’m sitting in someone’s living room?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The bookshelf is actually a fireplace.”

  Petra and I were quiet as we waited. Three patients cycled through, exchanged words with the receptionist, glanced at us, and left. After an hour, the front door opened and Ben came in.

  He didn’t see me at first, but went straight to his receptionist’s desk, then checked the mail.

  “You have a walk-in,” she said, and gestured at me.

  Dr. Lewis glanced up with a polite smile, then realized who I was.

  “Hailey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping that we could talk.”

  Petra stood up and glanced at me.

  Ben addressed her. “Did you come together?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll see you, Hailey, but your friend will have to wait here.”

  “No insurance,” the receptionist said in a low voice, but Dr. Lewis waved a hand.

  “Don’t worry about that, Sandy,” he said, then motioned for me to follow me into his office.

  I was so high on adrenaline and nerves that I had lost the ability to make small talk.

  “Thanks for not pressing charges,” I said.

  He frowned.

  “You know, the other night,” I said. “When I broke into Windhall.”

  “Leland wanted to, but I managed to talk him out of it.”

  “Any idea who set that fire?”

  “It was electrical.” His mouth twitched.

  “I know who you are,” I said.

  He put his bag on his chair, then turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “How about that.”

  “You’re Theo’s son.”

  He occupied himself with some papers by his computer, and for a moment, I thought that he hadn’t heard me.

  “You’re Connie,” I added.

  He set down his papers and then slowly turned to face me. “Hailey, I’m not willing to talk about this with you,” he said. “If you’re feeling unwell, I’m happy to give you a diagnosis, but otherwise, I have real patients to see.”

  “Eleanor didn’t die that night, did she?”

  He was quiet now, watching me.

  “Theo loved Eleanor,” I went on. “He would have done anything for her. They wanted to leave Los Angeles, but she couldn’t, because she had two more movies on her contract. She was threatening to expose Reuben for the things he had done to her friends, and they even wrote a movie about it. When they found out that Reuben Engel was planning to kill her, they decided to run away.”

  He still didn’t say anything. I was on a roll, and my heart was beating so quickly that I thought I might start hyperventilating.

  “That’s why you asked me to look into Lola DeWitt,” I said. “She was the girl in the garden, wasn’t she?”

  “Who’s your friend?” He nodded toward the reception area.

  “Her name is Petra,” I said. “She was helping me research the article.”

  “What have you told Heather?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “I know about your contract with Heather, Hailey. I have trouble believing you haven’t told her anything.”

  “I was planning to report to her,” I said. “But when the story started to unfold, I realized that I didn’t trust her.”

  “I don’t know which of the journals she gave you,” he said. “Not exactly. But I do know Heather, and I know that she’s incredibly manipulative. If she gave you something, it would have been a distraction from what really happened. Theo’s real journals detailed what really happened, and that’s why the prosecution went after them.”

  “Tell me what really happened.”

  “I thought you knew everything.” He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you come here to tell me that?”

  “I came here to tell you that I have information,” I said. “Information that’s come at a great cost to me. I can run half a story with that, and you can sue me for misinformation. We’ll go back and forth for a few years, and eventually the real story will leak out. In the meantime, however, Heather will go forward with her development in Highland Park, and by the time everyone realizes that her father was a murderer, it will be too late.”

  Ben’s face was impossible to read. He hesitated for a moment, then crossed the room and went out into the reception area.

  “Lucy, please cancel my next few appointments,” he said. “I have to step out for a minute.”

  He came back into the office, then closed the door. “We can talk,” he said. “But not here.”

  I was suddenly wary. “I think I’m more comfortable talking here,” I said.

  Dr. Lewis folded his arms across his chest, annoyed. “You came here to talk to me,” he said. “If you want to talk, we can talk, but I’m not willing to have such a personal discussion in my place of business. Yes? No?”

  “Fine.”

  “We’ll take my car,” he said. “I could use a coffee.”

  We exited into the reception area. Petra looked up from the book that she was reading.

  “Can she come with us?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It’s okay, Hailey,” Petra said. “Go without me.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said. “It’s probably best if you go home. I don’t want to keep you here.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Thanks, Petra.”

  Ben was quiet as we drove out of Burbank, toward the city. I didn’t want to ask where we were going, because I didn’t want him to know how anxious I was. Finally, he turned off the freeway and down Los Feliz Boulevard, and I realized where he was taking me.

  “Griffith Park?” I asked.

  “You know a better spot for a private conversation?”

  “What about all the tourists?”

  “They won’t pay attention to us,” he said. “They came for the view of the Hollywood sign, the city. We could set something on fire and they wouldn’t pay attention.”

  It was similar to something that Theo had said, about distracting someone while presenting them with the truth all along. The most gifted storytellers were the ones who didn’t have to work to hide their secrets, they simply presented you with another option.

  We stopped at the Trails Café for coffee, then got back in the car and h
eaded up to the Observatory. It was a quiet Sunday, and Ben found parking near the beginning of the hiking trail.

  “Here we are,” he said, climbing out. “Let’s take a walk.”

  We walked side by side in silence, until we reached a bench overlooking the city. The trail was quiet at that time of day; it was cold enough that most of the tourists had flocked to the safety of the observatory.

  “I guess there’s no harm in me talking to you,” he said. “Not now.”

  It took me a moment to realize his meaning. “The fire,” I said. “I heard that Theo was inside. Is it true?”

  “He was dead before they reached the hospital.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I wondered if Ben had gone through Theo’s emails after his death, and seen the message that I had sent him after the fire. I decided not to ask him.

  “Tell me what you know,” Ben said, facing Los Angeles.

  “Reuben Engel was a monster, and Eleanor threatened to expose him,” I said. “They wrote a movie and started production, but Reuben found out the movie was really about him. Theo and Eleanor didn’t have a lot of options, so they faked a death.”

  “Not quite.”

  “It wasn’t her body, I know that much,” I said. “I found the blood, had it tested.”

  He shook his head, incredulous. “You’ve done your job, I’ll give you that much.”

  “It was Lola’s body, wasn’t it?”

  “They didn’t plan to kill her,” he said softly. “It was never part of the plan.”

  “Right, so this perfect Eleanor doppelgänger turns up dead, and the real Eleanor doesn’t appear to set the story straight.”

  “Have you seen pictures of Lola?” he asked, turning to give me a cross look.

  “Just the shots of Eleanor’s dead body. Lola’s dead body, I guess.”

  “She looked exactly like Eleanor. If you’ve seen The Man Who Death Forgot, you’ve seen her. She was in most of the second half of the movie, because Eleanor refused to come to work. She didn’t want to work with Engel.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Lola was unstable, though. Nobody would deny that. Eleanor tried to take the girl under her wing, but she was like a parasite. Eleanor found her in her dressing room, going through her things. She would show up at parties, pretending to be Eleanor. It was funny for a while, but Eleanor was already feeling paranoid and trapped.”