by Ava Barry
“So they killed her?”
He cut me another look. “Let me finish telling the story,” he said. “No more interruptions.”
“Sorry.”
“They had been planning to escape for a while,” he said. “Eleanor’s aunt Penelope had a horse farm in San Diego, and they were going to stay there for a while, then head down to Mexico. Theo wanted to finish making Last Train to Avalon, because it was about what really happened—the fact that Reuben Engel was trying to have her killed, that the film industry was corrupt, et cetera.
“They threw a party. It was supposed to be one last chance to say goodbye to friends, without really saying goodbye, of course. But then Lola showed up.”
He rubbed his neck and took a sip of coffee. “The producers had been making her promises for a while,” he said. “They said that she could be the next Eleanor. They wanted another pretty, bright-eyed starlet, and one they could control. They’d spent all this time and money on Eleanor, but she refused to let them control her life. Lola wanted to be Hollywood’s sweetheart, but she couldn’t take Eleanor’s place unless Eleanor was actually out of the picture.”
“Where does Reuben fit into the story?”
“He took Lola to Windhall that night,” he said. “I don’t think anyone was supposed to get killed. There are conflicting stories about this, but I think Lola was planning to disfigure Eleanor. Cripple her, maybe. They found out that Reuben had the whole thing planned. There was a fight, and Theo stepped in to help Eleanor.”
I pictured Lola’s famous injuries, the hole through the heart, the black eye.
“Did Theo punch Lola?”
“Theo would never,” he said. “But there was a struggle. She fell off the balcony on the third story and landed on the second-story roof.”
I frowned. “There was no third story balcony on Windhall.”
“There was,” he said. “It was part of the renovations when Theo moved into Windhall. They had it removed after Lola died.”
“The spike,” I said. “I thought they stabbed her through the back.”
He shook his head. “She fell from the balcony and landed on the roof,” he repeated. “There was a row of gothic Victorian spikes. She landed on one, and while the party continued, Theo moved her inside.”
“Into the maid’s room,” I said. “That’s why there was blood on the windowsill.”
“You should have been a cop. You figured it all out.”
“They must have taken the spikes down,” I said, thinking. “That’s why there was a delay.”
“Eleanor panicked.”
“What about the dress, though? Lola was wearing Eleanor’s famous green dress.”
“The dress never belonged to Eleanor,” he explained patiently. “It was an iconic image that the press seized on.”
“Why didn’t they tell the police what really happened? If Lola was really the aggressor, Eleanor had an excuse.”
He looked sad. “It wasn’t that simple,” he said. “For one, Los Angeles was completely owned by the studios. Eleanor had been receiving threats, notes from stalkers, for years. Without the studio’s protection, she wouldn’t have been safe.”
“Awfully cavalier, to just let someone die.”
“Lola was dead,” he said softly. “There was nothing they could do for her. And she was the one who attacked Eleanor.”
“What about the medical examiner? Didn’t he realize that it wasn’t Eleanor?”
“The man was a drunk,” he said. “Besides, Eleanor’s aunt Pen was in on the plan. She drove up from San Diego straightaway, identified the body. She was hysterical, they couldn’t contain her. She was calling out for Theo’s head. All an act, you see.”
“And Theo was willing to risk going to jail over a crime he didn’t commit?”
“It happened so quickly, I don’t think they even considered the consequences.”
“So that’s why Theo came back,” I said. “It was because of the new death. He was worried that people would break into Windhall and find out what really happened.”
Ben nodded.
“But why did he leave the house alone for so long? Wasn’t he worried that someone would break in earlier?” I asked. “I mean, why didn’t he destroy the house as soon as he left Los Angeles?”
“There were attempts,” he admitted. “At first, Theo considered having the house torn down, but Leland said that the construction crews might find the hidden room. Instead, Leland filed a petition to have it declared a historic monument. It’s one of the oldest remaining buildings in Los Angeles, as I’m sure you’re aware. Or was, I should say, since it’s gone now.”
I cleared my throat. “There’s something else,” I said. “Something I never figured out. There was a film.”
Ben frowned. “What film?”
“It was just a clip, really,” I said. “Shot in Eleanor’s dressing room. Less than thirty seconds long. A man walks toward her and starts to attack her. I couldn’t figure out who made it.”
Ben closed his eyes. “Ahh, yes. I know what you’re talking about.”
“Was it Engel? The assailant, I mean.”
He nodded. “It was good timing. Engel showed up to set drunk half the time anyway, and from what I’ve heard, he was wasted that day. Jules was behind the camera, and he turned it on Engel.”
I was taken aback. “If they had proof that Engel attacked Eleanor, wouldn’t that force the studio’s hand? They’d have to deal with the problem.”
Ben held up a finger. “They couldn’t prove it was Engel,” he said. “His back was to the camera. That film was one of a chain of events that led to the creation of Last Train to Avalon.”
I had been studying Eleanor for years, chasing down someone I thought had been her assailant and murderer, but all along, her studio had been the one to betray her. I couldn’t believe that they would treat her as a prized commodity and yet do nothing to ensure her safety.
“How did you feel when they told you about all this? Were you still a kid?” I asked.
“We lived on a farm back east. Of course, those were the days before Internet, so I was a young man before I even knew that they had been famous. Our telephone barely worked most of the time.” Ben paused. “How did you find out that I was Connie?”
“I went to Vermont.”
He looked confused for a moment, then seemed to realize what I was talking about.
“They were so careful,” he said quietly. “They thought of everything. How on earth did you find out?”
“I didn’t, actually,” I admitted. “Petra is the one who figured it out. There was a lab developing number on the back of a photograph. Grafton, Vermont. I went there and met someone there who remembered Flannery, and you, of course. He called you Connie.”
“You know, a part of me always thought this day would come,” he said quietly. “I thought that someone would find out the truth. I used to imagine what I would say to them, how I would explain it. It’s not my job to explain it, though. It’s Theo’s. But I guess it’s too late for that.”
“Didn’t you want people to know the truth?” I said. “If you knew that Theo was innocent, and you knew what really happened, wouldn’t you want others to know?”
He seemed to be at a loss for words. “Theo was always the storyteller, not me,” he said. “Nobody could take a narrative out of his hands. He was adamant that we keep living our lives the way we always had. I knew that revealing the truth would have been a violation of his trust. Privacy was so important.”
“That doesn’t seem to leave you with much agency.”
“They didn’t tell me until I was fifteen.” He took another sip of his coffee. “By the time I realized, I didn’t see what good it would do to change things around. I thought they were ordinary people.”
“And why did he agree to talk to me?”
Ben gave me a rueful smile. “He wanted to see how much you knew,” he said. “If you knew about me, about my family. That’s part of the reason h
e’s kept this charade up, you know, all these years. He didn’t want anyone else’s name to get dragged through the mud.”
“Dr. Lewis—”
“Really, Hailey, call me Ben. I think we’ve been through enough to have passed formality.”
“I looked up Lola,” I said. “It said that her date of death was 1951. If Lola’s body was the one they used, how is that possible?”
“When the studio realized what had happened, they fixed things. They didn’t want it to lead back to them. By then, Theo had been long gone. They couldn’t find him.”
“And Eleanor changed her name to Rebecca Lewis.”
“Yes.” Ben closed his eyes.
“She died recently, didn’t she? That’s why Theo was ready for the story to come out.”
“Last year. Throat cancer.”
I cleared my throat and rubbed my hands together, unsure of what to say. I had been around enough death to be squeamish with shallow condolences, but Eleanor’s death truly did feel like a loss, and Ben had been extraordinarily compassionate with me.
“It’s hard. It must have been hard, I mean,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
I finished my coffee, which had gone cold. Los Angeles glimmered in the distance, a flat bas-relief of the city I thought that I knew so well.
“There were so many people,” I said. “They looked everywhere, that night, if you can believe the articles. How on earth did they hide Eleanor?”
Ben gave me a rueful smile. “You’ve been to the house,” he said. “You must have seen it.”
“Seen what?”
He drew a shape in the air. “There was a little door in the wall, leading to the neighbor’s house. He was away, filming something in Italy. They stole through the garden and disappeared, and then Theo came back.”
“Wow. Of course.”
We were both silent for a moment. It almost felt companionable.
“I used to imagine meeting him,” I said. “I spent my whole childhood wishing that I could have grown up in that world of movie stars and glamour. I didn’t know whether I should fear him or want to be his friend. But I definitely wanted to be a part of that gilded life.”
Ben nodded.
“One last question,” I said. “The second set of footprints in the garden. Who did they belong to?”
He sighed and shifted in his seat. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “She died twenty years ago. He never wanted the truth to get out about her.”
“It was Marja,” I said, slowly realizing the truth.
“Yes, Fritz’s mother,” he said. “She was the one who helped Theo move the body to the garden, and afterward, she was the one who boarded up the maid’s room and covered it with wallpaper. That’s why Fritz was always so unfriendly to you; he didn’t want you asking questions. I don’t think they would have gotten away with any of it without her.”
All of the details I had collected over the years went flipping through my head like playing cards loosed from a deck. There was one detail that stuck in my head.
“The shoes,” I said. “The second set of footprints. They belonged to a man.”
Ben gave me a sad smile. “What did they always say about Theo?” he asked.
“That he was a murderer…?” I was drawing a blank.
Ben gave me a look of infinite patience. “Every detail,” he said. “He thought of every detail, in all of his films, down to the rip in a pair of stockings. He knew that all the household staff would be questioned about that night, and he didn’t want to implicate Marja. He gave her a pair of men’s dress shoes.”
“And it never occurred to anyone that it wasn’t actually a man?”
“No, never,” he said. “Not until you came along. Theo was so close to getting away with it.”
TWENTY-FOUR
It was three days before Halloween. Hollywood and Sunset bore the usual traces of the season: the advertisements for pumpkin patches, witches and orange streamers hanging from light posts, children running around in partial costumes, giving them a test-drive. The air was unseasonably warm and dry as the inside of a clay kiln. I parked on De Longpre Avenue, then walked toward the Lens office.
Petra was waiting for me in the courtyard of the building.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Only one way to find out.”
It was a typical Monday in the office, writers milling around each other’s desks and slouched over computers and stacks of papers. We got a few nods as we walked down the hall toward Alexa’s office, and I knocked on her door.
She answered a moment later. “Max,” she said. Her expression was cool and distant. “Petra. What can I do for you?”
“I have a story for you.”
“I’m not interested.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m in the middle of something, and I’ve got an appointment at three o’clock.”
“That gives me fifteen minutes.”
“Max—”
“I know that I don’t deserve a second chance,” I said. “I wasn’t completely honest with you. But, please, Alexa, hear me out.”
She glanced between me and Petra. “All right, come in,” she said. “You’ve got two minutes.”
I followed her into the office and pulled out my satchel. “I know this is going to sound crazy,” I said. “But please let me explain. I know what really happened to Eleanor Hayes.”
Alexa folded her arms and leaned back against her desk.
“Eleanor Hayes,” I said, “matinee idol and American sweetheart, died in Maine last year. She had throat cancer, and she passed away surrounded by family and friends.”
She shook her head. “If this is a conspiracy theory, then this meeting is over.”
“You’ve always been interested in stories about corporations against individuals,” I said, speaking quickly. “This is one of those stories. Eleanor Hayes was threatening to reveal Reuben Engel’s crimes against women, and the studio wanted to get rid of her. They couldn’t just fire her, or there would be an outcry from the audiences who loved her. Reuben was scared that even if they fired her, the story would still get out. He sent someone to disfigure her.”
“Max—”
“Theo found out what was going on,” I said. “There was an actress, Lola DeWitt, who looked just like Eleanor, and who had also been stalking her for months. That’s the body they found in the garden. Lola showed up to the party and something happened, I think she attacked Eleanor, anyway, she died—and they pretended that it was Eleanor’s body.”
“I think I’ve had enough,” Alexa said. She crossed the room and opened her door.
“He’s telling the truth, Alexa,” Petra said. “I can verify all of this.”
Alexa raised a hand to stop her. “You’re new at this,” she said, then turned back to me. “Hailey, I know you’ve done some great coverage, but that doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible to believing a wild theory.”
“I’ve done my research on this. I have the paperwork to show that Eleanor changed her name to Rebecca Lewis. I can take you to where Lola’s body is buried—”
There was a knock on the door, and Jordan poked his head in.
“Your three o’clock is here,” he said. “He said that he has information about Heather Engel-Feeny.”
“You need to go, Max.”
“I have someone who can verify all of this,” I said.
Alexa folded her arms across her chest. “Who could possibly verify all of this, other than Theo?”
“That would be me.”
We all looked to see Ben standing in Alexa’s door. Alexa frowned.
“Are you Dr. Lewis?” she asked. “My three o’clock?”
“Yes.”
She glanced between us, uncertain. “And you two know each other?”
Ben closed the door behind him. “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “I don’t think we can keep the truth hidden any longer.”
“Remind me why we’re meeting,” she said
, frowning.
“I wanted to validate a few points.”
She glanced between us, then threw up her hands, exasperated. “All right,” she said finally. “Have a seat. I’ll give you a chance to explain yourselves, but be warned, I’m very weary of sensationalist bullshit.”
We all sat down.
“Now, tell me—succinctly—why you’re both here,” Alexa directed.
I began slowly, telling her all the disparate pieces of evidence I had gathered, from the blueprints showing the hidden maid’s room, and finally the blood stains that had seeped into the wood of the windowsill. I told her about Lola DeWitt and the missing journals, about Reuben’s threats toward women and the fact that Eleanor wanted to expose him. And finally, I told her about going to Vermont and finding the man who remembered Eleanor, not as a matinee goddess, but simply as a woman looking for redemption.
When I had finished telling her everything, Alexa turned to Ben.
“How do you fit into this?” she said. “If you’re Theo’s doctor, aren’t you bound by confidentiality?”
“I’m not here as Theo’s doctor,” he said. “I’m here as Theo’s son.”
“Excuse me?”
“Theo and Eleanor were my parents.”
Alexa glanced around the room, looking at each of us individually. “Come on.”
“I know you’re a busy woman, and I respect the work that you do,” Ben said. “I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time.”
“Can you prove this insane paternity claim?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “If you want DNA evidence, I can provide it. In the meantime, however, here’s an album of family photographs. All of them taken after Eleanor was supposed to be dead, of course.”
He passed her a photo album, and Alexa quietly flipped through the photographs. I watched as Alexa pored over shots of Eleanor and Theo working together in a garden, sometimes accompanied by Ben, sometimes not. There were pictures of meals, of dancing, of quiet moments of reflection. None of it matinee quality, all of it the boring rituals of everyday life that most celebrities never got to have.