Windhall

by Ava Barry

  “I heard that Theo died when his house caught fire,” Alexa said. “Is that true?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “If you’re really Theo’s son,” Alexa said slowly, “why would you give us all this information? Why now?”

  “It’s not fun to grow up with a lie. I’ve always wanted the truth to come out, to have the world stop hating my father for something he didn’t do. I couldn’t do it while my parents were alive, though, because the world would come rushing in. They would have sacrificed everything for nothing.”

  She seemed lost in thought for a moment, and then she stepped outside and cleared her schedule so that we’d have an hour free to talk. At the end of that hour, Jordan knocked on her office door to say that her next appointment was there, but she waved him away. In all, we sat in her office for four hours, talking and explaining everything that had happened.

  I could see that Alexa was deciding whether she could trust me. Ben promised to give her whatever she needed to publish and verify the story, stipulating again and again that his name was to remain out of it. When she had asked all her questions, and sat patiently through all the answers, she said that she was going to think about how to proceed. She promised that she would call us the next day, and if she decided to commission the article, that she would draw up contracts for both of us.

  “Just one more question,” she said, as we stood to leave. “People pay homage to Eleanor Hayes’s tombstone at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery every day. Whose body is really buried there?”

  Ben cleared his throat. “It’s empty.”

  “And what did you do with Lola DeWitt’s body? I hope you didn’t just dump it over a cliff somewhere.”

  Ben looked offended. “Ms. Levine, please remember that I was not complicit in any part of this affair. And I can assure you that my parents were not barbarians. She’s buried in Glendale.”

  “Under her own name?”

  “No,” he said. “But Theo’s lawyer allocated some funds so that she could be buried under her own headstone, should the time come.”

  “I’d say that time has come.”

  “There’s one more thing,” he said. “It’s about Theo’s last movie.” He reached into his briefcase and removed a blank DVD case, then set it on Alexa’s desk. “It survived, you know. And it reveals everything that happened.”

  Alexa stared at the DVD.

  “I was thinking,” Ben said. “If you wanted to show it, that’s your prerogative. It might go nicely with the release of the story. I heard that the Lens is struggling to make ends meet.”

  The room was silent as Ben stood and gave me a small smile, then nodded his head and left.

  * * *

  Things happened very quickly over the next few days. A few hours after my meeting with Ben and Alexa, Leland called to update me on Lola’s body.

  “We’ve purchased a plot for Lola at Forest Lawn,” he said. “We decided it would be best to move her body into a new space, rather than just giving her a new headstone. I don’t think she has any remaining family, but we’re still going to give her her own headstone.”

  “When will it be ready?”

  “Two days,” he said. “You’re welcome to write about it, if you like. We’ll have a small ceremony.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Alexa got in touch with me the next morning. “I found a venue to show the movie,” she said. “I’ve watched it three times now. I think it’s one of Theo’s best.”

  “Where are you going to show it?”

  “The New Beverly,” she said.

  “Quentin Tarantino’s movie theater? The one near Milk Bar?”

  “Apparently Tarantino’s always been a big fan of Theo’s movies.”

  “Are you going to run the story?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And I’m going to let you write it.”

  “Thanks, Alexa.”

  “It’s not a job offer,” she said. “I’d like to be very clear on that. You’re writing it as a freelancer.”

  “I understand.”

  “Heather’s lawsuit against the Lens is going forward,” she said. “For your breach of contract. It’s going to be very public.”

  I waited.

  “The Lens has never been one to back down from the threat of power, though,” she went on. “I think it might actually be good publicity. It’ll lend an air of veracity to the story we’re trying to tell. Plus, Heather seems to have absconded from the city, so that might look bad in court.”

  “So the lawsuit is a good thing.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she warned. “But you’re off the hook, for now.”

  * * *

  The next day, I went to meet up with Leland at Forest Lawn Cemetery, and was only slightly surprised to see that Ben was talking with Leland. Leland waved when he saw me.

  “Did you know?” I asked Leland. “Did you know about all of this?”

  He inclined his head but said nothing.

  Forest Lawn was quiet at that time of the morning, only a few families come to lay flowers on the graves of their loved ones, as well as groundskeepers mowing the grass. I doubted that Lola’s grave would have ever gotten much traffic even if it hadn’t been anonymous.

  We were quiet as the old coffin was lowered into a fresh grave, this time with Lola’s name on it, and then the three of us left the cemetery together in silence. When we reached the parking lot, Leland turned and offered me his hand, which I shook.

  “I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again, Hailey,” he said. “Take care of yourself. I hope the rest of your career is a little less… illegal.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for facilitating all of this.”

  When he was gone, I turned to Ben.

  “Do I get to know where Rebecca was buried?” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I’d like for her to remain anonymous.”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  “She’s somewhere that she loved,” he said.

  I knew it wasn’t fair for me to ask, but I couldn’t resist. “And what about Theo?” I asked. “Will he be buried next to her?”

  Ben hesitated. “You don’t need to worry about them anymore, Hailey. Just write a decent article.”

  * * *

  I didn’t think that the New Beverly would be able to arrange a screening for Last Train to Avalon for at least a week, but after returning home from Lola’s burial, Alexa gave me a call.

  “The theater’s really excited about Theo’s new movie,” she said. “They want to do three screenings this weekend. The first is going to be tomorrow. Sort of a Halloween special.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’d like to release the article tomorrow, too,” she said. “Article in the morning, movie at night. Do you think you’ll be finished by then?”

  “I just need a few more hours.”

  “I had a meeting with the district attorney this morning,” she said. “I wanted to let her office know about the article before our story was published.”

  The legal ramifications of the story hadn’t even occurred to me; I had been so busy chasing my own answers.

  “She would like me to pass along a message,” Alexa went on. “No more vigilante work. She quoted a figure, some amount of money that you’ve cost the Angeleno taxpayers with your little escapades, but I can’t remember it off the top of my head.”

  “Sorry.”

  Alexa gave a dry laugh. “No, you’re not,” she said.

  “I’m glad the truth is out,” I said. “Nobody deserves to have that kind of blame on their head.”

  “Well, don’t get all hung up on that,” she said. “Not yet. We need you to focus all your energy on the upcoming article, if we’re going to publish it tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The article was published the next day. I had gone on several days of fragmented sleep in order to finish it, but in the end, it was worth it. Ben and I had sat down
for hours to go over all the missing details, and the result had been a fifteen-thousand-word feature on the Lens website. I had been incredibly explicit about certain things—the years in Vermont, Reuben’s threats against women, the way Marja had helped move the body into the garden—and skimped on other details. We had decided to only identify Ben as Conrad.

  When the article was published, I decided to give myself a well-earned day off. I hadn’t had time to do laundry or clean the house in weeks, and I was looking forward to sitting down in the garden with a pot of coffee. I turned off my Internet and ignored the copy of the Los Angeles Times that had arrived in my driveway earlier that morning. There would be time for all of that later.

  I took my time doing my chores, cleaning every surface and purging all my waste baskets, then plumping up my couch cushions. I threw open all my windows and gathered up the old newspapers that had been collecting in bins around the house, then did a thorough dusting job.

  I went out for a late lunch on Franklin Avenue, enjoying the fact that I had time to sit and watch the stream of people walk past. Hipsters, fashionistas, aspiring young comedians who hadn’t shaved or exercised in months. All of them eager for recognition, eager to make a name for themselves in Los Angeles. There was a kind of obtuse snobbery present in all of that, and I was slightly sickened to reflect that that had been me, once, not too long ago.

  That evening, I got ready at my house, then drove over to Madeleine’s, where I would meet up with Thierry and Petra. We had all decided to head over to the premiere together.

  Everyone was already there when I arrived, and they quietly climbed into my car. Nobody spoke as we drove toward Melrose, and I found parking a few blocks away so that we could walk.

  “So, Hailey,” Thierry said, breaking our silence. “This movie any good, or what?”

  “I haven’t actually seen it yet.”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” he said. “You spent years of your life chasing down any kind of information about Theo, and when you finally get the most important piece of the puzzle, you don’t seem to care?”

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, T,” I said. “I’m here to watch it tonight, aren’t I? I didn’t need to see it first. Alexa watched it; she said it was good. I trust her.”

  As we approached the cinema, I saw that there was a crowd on the sidewalk. It didn’t register until we were nearly within shouting distance that the crowd seemed to be for the New Beverly. I glanced at Petra, and she shrugged.

  “You really think Theo had that many fans?” I asked.

  “I think people like a spectacle,” she replied. “The theater did a pretty good job of promoting the movie, considering they only had a few days to get this together.”

  The line of people was so big that we had to elbow our way through. Someone was calling my name, and I turned to see Brian, standing with Ford and Lapin. He came over and grinned.

  “Well done, my man,” he said. “Never thought you’d manage to pull something like this off.”

  “Thanks.” That was Brian for you—last time I had seen him, he had been celebrating the fact that I was getting publicly fired, but now that I had a tiny bit of celebrity, the past was forgotten. I was surprised to find that I didn’t care one way or the other.

  He turned to Petra. “You can have your job back, you know,” he said.

  “I’ve already spoken to Alexa.”

  Brian leaned in and gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Have you heard about Heather?”

  “What about?”

  “Conspiracy to commit murder,” he said. “They can’t find her anywhere, man, but they will. You should write the story when they do.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Once we were inside the theater, we ran into Marty, the Lens photographer. He gave me a big hug and clapped me on the back.

  “You’re a legend,” he said. “This is going to bring in a ton of revenue for the magazine. Looks like we’re not going to get evicted for at least three years, thanks to you.”

  Praise had always made me squeamish, so I diverted the conversation. “You working tonight?”

  “Officially, yes,” he said. “I’ll have to show you my pictures later. There are some seriously famous people here. Marion Cotillard was standing in the lobby a minute ago, but I think you missed her. And then there were three old ladies with walkers and oxygen tanks. Turns out they were debutantes in Gone with the Wind. And speaking of Gone with the Wind, Olivia de Havilland is here.”

  “Oh my God,” Madeleine said. “I forgot she was still alive.”

  “She’s a riot,” Marty said. “Still a babe. You should go talk to her.”

  “Afterward,” I agreed. “I think they’re going to start soon.”

  We found our seats in the little theater, and the lights dimmed to announce that the movie was about to begin.

  There was no studio card at the beginning. The opening credits began right away, and I felt a chill when I saw Eleanor Hayes’s name imprinted over the shot of a train traveling along tracks through the desert.

  Last Train to Avalon appeared after the last of the names had rolled, and a wave of applause spread throughout the theater. People clapped and cheered, and someone behind me whistled so loudly that my ears rang.

  Madeleine squeezed my arm. “You did this,” she said. “Everyone is here because of you.”

  “I’m the reason everyone isn’t here, too,” I whispered back.

  It took her a moment to decipher my meaning. “Theo’s death is not your fault,” she said. “Heather set fire to Windhall, and Theo was old. He probably didn’t have much time left, anyway.”

  “You know that Olivia de Havilland is pushing a hundred, right? Theo could have had another ten years in him.”

  “You exposed what really happened,” she said. “That matters. Theo might have died, but if you hadn’t stepped in, he would have died without letting the truth come out.”

  I turned my attention back to the screen without saying anything else. I had been so distracted that the first ten minutes of the movie had been nothing but images: black-and-white cacti, oil derricks reeling against a turbulent sky, a young girl clutching her skirt as a wind threatened to spirit her away.

  Eleanor’s love interest, played by Robert Taylor, arrived at a nondescript building that resembled the front of MGM. He pushed back his hat and grinned.

  “Never thought I’d make it,” he said. “But I’m here now. Wait’ll they see me back home!”

  The movie was fast-paced and surreal. The cinematography was beautiful, with gray expanses of land punctuated by diagonal shadows and winding rivers. It captured the feel of old California, the black-and-white images I had imagined as I read through Theo’s journals.

  Eleanor was ravishing, no longer a sweet, girl-next-door type, but a tough businesswoman who made it clear that she wouldn’t let anyone push her around. Things appeared to be going well for her at first: she scored a major scoop on a murder that happened in Malibu, and gained popularity with the other writers at her paper. As her star began to rise, however, the new editor in chief, played by a menacing Charlton Heston, began to bully her.

  It took me a while to realize that Robert Taylor’s character was meant to be Theo. There was a scene where Eleanor and Robert conferred together, trying to figure out how they could show the world how awful the editor in chief truly was, and Eleanor turned to Robert.

  “Nobody will believe us, you know. This is a life that everyone wants, and we’re on the verge of throwing it all away.”

  He stroked her face. “Our lives are fun, but not for us.”

  Petra sat next to me, and I felt her hand close down on my arm.

  * * *

  When the movie was over, I let myself get carried out of the theater by the crush of people moving toward the exit.

  “There’s a party,” Petra said, turning to me. “I think it’s at Ford’s house. Should we drive together?”

  “I think I’ll meet you t
here,” I said. “I need a bit of fresh air first.”

  I drove around for an hour, too wired to stop anywhere for longer than five minutes. First I drove up to the Franklin Canyon Reservoir, but the silence was too eerie, so I headed down Mulholland and studied the skyline from a distance. I got back in my car and started driving again, and I didn’t realize where I was going until I was almost there.

  I hadn’t been to see Windhall since the fire, and I was surprised by how quiet the neighborhood was. It had been almost a week since my arrest and the fire, followed by my trip to Vermont, but I still expected to find someone waiting for me when I pulled up in front of Theo’s gates and parked. Instead, I was the only one there.

  The main gates had been thrown open at some point during the fire to allow the firefighters access to the house, and nobody had bothered to close them. They hung open like broken wings. The swaths of vines that had once strangled the wall surrounding the property had been singed in patches, and great chunks had been burned out of them; most of the gardens had burned and black patches were carved into the ground.

  The house itself was difficult to look at. It hardly looked like Windhall anymore: the gaping holes where the windows had once been were hollow and cruel, and all the paint on the exterior was streaked with soot and smoke. The moonlight was bright enough that I could make out a fair amount of damage, and it reminded me of the dreams that I used to have about strolling up the main drive to find a ghostly procession of guests and champagne.

  The front of the house was caved in, and there was no clear way to get inside. I decided to try my luck entering around the back of the house, and took the little garden path flanked by singed figs, where I had once followed Flannery.

  I had almost reached the desiccated orange grove when I realized that I wasn’t alone. A man stood at the edge of the ruined orchard, hands in his pockets. His back was to me, and in the darkness, for just a moment, I thought it might be Theo. Then the man turned; Fritz.

  “So,” he said. “You’ve come back to see the damage you caused.”