Dig Deep My Grave

by Cheryl Honigford

  But she was worried about her detective. He was still sitting in jail. Why didn’t Bernard go there right now and clear all of this up, if that was his intention? And, actually, it wouldn’t really clear anything up, would it? Because it was a lie.

  “But Hap is dead,” she said, her voice cracking. She fought against the black tide of grief that tried to force its way into her consciousness. She wouldn’t let herself think about Hap again. She had no time to grieve Hap with Charlie accused of his murder.

  “Yes,” Bernard said, frowning, his eyes skittering away from hers. “He’s dead. And there’s nothing any of us can do about it now.”

  So Bernard would lie to the police. But not for her benefit and not for Charlie’s. For the family’s benefit, and for his own. To avoid scandal. The anger and the frustration rose in her. She clenched her fists. Her family and their obsession with scandal. Surely, that couldn’t be the only reason. Surely, Bernard didn’t want someone to get away with murder. Unless, of course, he knew exactly who’d really killed Hap and was covering up for them. Someone very close to him—a member of his own family, perhaps. Vivian pressed her fingertips to her temples. Her head pounded.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he said. “We all are.”

  Vivian closed her eyes and tried to shut out the thought that Bernard was covering for the person who had murdered Hap in cold blood. Then another thought occurred to her, a thought so dark and unlike her that she wanted to reject it out of hand. Was it selfish of her to not to care as long as that lie cleared Charlie of all suspicion and brought him back to her?

  No, she decided. It wasn’t selfish. Bernard was right. Hap was gone, and there was nothing she could do about that now. Despite how things appeared, she didn’t believe Charlie had killed him. But someone had. Still, she wouldn’t get involved. She’d let Bernard go to the police, and she would go to Hollywood as planned.

  Chapter Seven

  Vivian stepped off the streetcar on the corner of State and Madison. She took a deep breath and was rewarded with the ripe stench of city in the summer—body odor, sewer gases, and car exhaust. She coughed into her gloved hand, straightened her dress, and adjusted the front pin in her hat. She’d caught the last train out of Lake Geneva the evening before and had expected a night in her own bed to put her to rights, but she hadn’t slept a wink.

  The city teemed with life around her. It was the middle of a Monday afternoon, and people swarmed the sidewalk, pushing past her with places to go, things to do. She stood for a moment and closed her eyes. The sun beat down on her upturned face. Heat seeped through the thin soles of her shoes from the sidewalk and through her clothes from the swirling eddy of moving bodies around her. It was muggy for so early in June, she thought, the air thick and suffocating. Or perhaps that impression had to do with her general mood.

  She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be in Wisconsin, close to Charlie until all this was settled. She wanted to be there when he walked out of that police station a free man. She exhaled, trying to calm her nerves. She couldn’t let anyone see the strain the past day had put on her. She’d have to pretend everything was fine. No one at the radio station knew what had happened at Lake Geneva. No one in the world knew—beyond her family, Charlie, Cal, and Uncle Freddy—though she supposed gossip got around a small town like Lake Geneva. Especially when that gossip was about a murder that had happened in their midst.

  A car honked irritably, and Vivian’s eyes flew open.

  So she would pretend. Good thing she was an actress. She smiled—at no one in particular, just as practice—and was rewarded with a double take from a man passing by. So she’d been convincing enough, she thought. She could do this. She would do this. She didn’t have a choice.

  Vivian made her way toward the Grayson-Cole Building in the middle of the second block west on Madison. She glanced across the street at the Tip Top Café huddled on the lower level of the gargantuan Morrison Hotel and thought of sitting there with Charlie, sipping coffee. If it all went sour in Lake Geneva, he might go to jail or worse, and she’d never get to share a coffee and flirtation with him there again. She shook the thought from her head and glanced at her wristwatch. If she didn’t rush up to the studio on the eleventh floor, she’d be late. And God knew she couldn’t be late. The ad man would be there, and Mr. Langley would give her a dressing-down.

  The national campaign for Sultan’s Gold cigarettes that she’d appeared in with Graham had been a success. You’ll be sold on Sultan’s Gold, she thought. It was a catchy slogan. The ad had featured illustrated photos of her and Graham smiling at each other from opposite sides of the page. Speech bubbles came out of each of their mouths. Vivian’s said, “Here, Graham, smoke a Sultan’s Gold. That mellow flavor and cool menthol taste will assure you of a confident vocal delivery every time.” Graham’s said, “Thanks, Viv. Harvey Diamond’s got to be on top of his game, and with Sultan’s Gold, that’s assured.”

  Poppycock, she thought. All of it. Vivian didn’t smoke, and Graham wouldn’t stoop to smoke the inferior Sultan’s Gold brand unless pressed. But the public loved it. Sales of Sultan’s Gold had spiked over the past few months, which had entirely to do with Graham and Vivian—specifically Graham and Vivian together. She swallowed hard.

  Vivian and her costar had been thrown together often over the past several months, at the behest of the station’s publicity department. They were seen at all the hot spots around town—the Empire Room, Chez Paree, the Edgewater Beach Hotel, the Blackhawk, the Allerton—and had their photos taken for the gossip pages of the newspapers. It was assumed that they were a couple, and that’s exactly what the publicity department wanted.

  The truth of the matter was that Vivian was not interested in Graham, and he was most definitely not interested in her. Quite simply, Graham preferred the company of other men, which was a secret only Vivian and the top brass at the station were privy to. Being seen with beautiful women was a means to an end for him. This was show business, and he knew he had to play the game to get where he wanted to go. He was supposed to be a debonair leading man, a man that the females of his audiences felt they had some sort of long-shot chance with. Someone they could daydream about. If they’d heard he wouldn’t give any of them a second glance, they’d never believe him as the suave ladies’ man Harvey Diamond.

  And Vivian knew the common views about homosexuals. If his proclivities got out to the public, his career would be over, along with quite possibly his life. He could never openly be himself. He’d always have to live behind a facade, even if he left show business. And like it or not, Vivian’s career was tied to his.

  Vivian and Graham had become friends over all the time they’d spent together. So she’d agreed to pretend to be his girl for a bit longer, and then they’d planned to officially “break up”—amicably and without fuss so that Vivian could be with Charlie. They’d just gone through the motions of that breakup, planting discreet notices in the gossip columns. And it had seemed to go over well enough. Show business types were known to be fickle. None of them stayed long in any relationship. And as it turned out, it didn’t hurt ratings to have thousands of people hoping they would reconcile and hanging on every mention of them, waiting for just that. It was like a daily melodrama working out in their personal lives.

  Despite all of that, interest in The Darkness Knows had remained strong. So much so that there was interest in making a feature motion picture—which was why Vivian and Graham were scheduled for a screen test in Hollywood. They were in consideration to play Harvey and Lorna on the big screen. Vivian might be a movie star at last. And if all it took to reach that seemingly unreachable goal was to fib about an imaginary off-and-on love affair and the quality of a certain cigarette brand, then by God, she could do that in her sleep.

  But it wasn’t quite that easy. Mr. Marshfield, the ad man, was visiting from New York. He was there to oversee a
transcribed recording of an episode of The Darkness Knows. Transcription was a fairly new technology allowing the engineers to record a live session onto a large vinyl disk. The recording wasn’t for broadcast but for the advertisers and anyone else who might help the show along financially. In this case, Mr. Marshfield was going to follow Vivian and Graham out to Hollywood, transcription disk in tow, and share it with movie executives and other advertising big shots.

  Vivian pushed her way through the large, glass front door and entered the huge lobby of the Grayson-Cole Building, nodding to the security guard at the desk. He tipped his hat to her and said, “Miss Witchell.” Her heels click-clacked across the floor. The building was busy; it was the first day of the workweek, after all. Everyone was so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Vivian headed to the bank of elevators on the far wall and made a beeline for the one with Express to 11 over it. The elevator was crowded, but Angelo, the elevator operator, saw her coming and held the door for her. She slid inside, grateful for the distracting crush of people. This way, she wouldn’t have to make small talk with Angelo. She could do her job today, say her lines, but having to talk about the weather as if nothing else were going on in her life would kill her.

  She squeezed in next to him, and Angelo half turned to her as the elevator doors closed. “And how was your weekend, Miss Witchell?”

  Vivian’s heart thumped in her chest. A perfectly innocuous question. Or was it? She was on edge around Angelo now. He’d sold secrets to a local rag, the Patriot, about Marjorie Fox’s murder and Vivian’s involvement in it. He’d apologized later, practically groveling on the floor for her forgiveness. But Vivian found she still didn’t quite trust him. And had that been a knowing lilt to his voice? Did he know something about what had happened yesterday?

  No, she thought. Impossible.

  “It was fine, Angelo. You?”

  “Good. Good. The weather. It was perfect, no?”

  “Perfect,” she agreed. The weather had indeed been perfect, even if everything else had been a catastrophe.

  “You got the big recording today, eh? Ad man in from New York?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t elaborate, even though Angelo arched a heavy brow at her. They rode in silence until the elevator reached the eleventh floor, which housed the operational broadcast studios of WCHI. Angelo pulled the brake lever, and the elevator slid to a stop with the slightest of jolts, the brass needle above the door pointing to eleven. He pulled the door open, and Vivian stepped out.

  “Good luck, Miss Witchell,” Angelo called as Vivian joined the stream of people walking down the hall. She half turned and raised one hand in salute. Then walked on. She’d accept that luck. She’d need it.

  She made her way to Studio C, passing dozens of acquaintances in the hallway but speaking to no one. All she had to do was make it through the next hour. She could do that. She hitched in a deep breath and then opened the door.

  A raucous din met her ears. Studio C was already crowded with people. The ad man, Mr. Marshfield, and the station head, Mr. Langley, were chatting in the control room. Mr. Marshfield flicked a long ash into the tray at his elbow as she watched, and the corners of his mouth turned down at whatever Mr. Langley had just said. Vivian glanced around the studio, noting all the usual faces. Dave Chapman, who played assorted heavies and bad guys on the weekly episodes, stood in the far corner, a cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger as he read the latest script. The organist was warming up in the corner, sending ominous vibrations throughout the room as she worked through the minor chords used as stingers before the commercial break. The three girl singers that sang the Sultan’s Gold jingle were also there, standing in a huddle beside the organ.

  This was going to be just like a live performance, Vivian thought, except that no one would hear it outside this studio. It would be contained on a single sixteen-inch vinyl disk. She shook her head in baffled wonder at the idea. The networks didn’t allow playback of prerecorded programs over the air, and Vivian wasn’t sure they ever would. The excitement of live theater was what the public wanted.

  Her eyes landed on Graham at the far side of the studio, leading her to think what she always did when she spotted him from across a crowded room—Lands, is he ever handsome. With wavy black hair, dark eyes, and chiseled features, he was the epitome of classically beautiful. He looked the way she imagined Greek gods might have look as they lounged on Mount Olympus. Vivian narrowed her eyes and tried to imagine him in a toga, absently strumming a lyre. She smiled. Graham Yarborough as a Greek god… Wouldn’t he preen if he ever heard that thought come out of her mouth? She almost laughed, and on a day like today, that was an unexpected blessing.

  Graham smiled at her as she approached, and the smile that used to make her weak in the knees only gave her comfort now. He was her friend. He would be gentle with her today if she asked and wouldn’t press her about why. She could confide in him, but not here and not now.

  “Big day,” he said. “Ready to make your mark for posterity?”

  “Stop it,” she said with a playful tap to his arm. “I’m nervous enough as it is. I’ve never heard my own voice recorded before. Posterity. Imagine… It’ll last forever.” She said that with a mix of wistfulness and trepidation. What if she was terrible?

  “You’ll be great, doll,” Graham said in his gruff Harvey Diamond voice. He reached out and squeezed her hand gently. “Has Morty shown you how the process works yet? It’s surprisingly interesting.”

  Vivian raised her eyebrows. Morty Nickerson and surprisingly interesting were two concepts that didn’t usually go together.

  She shook her head, and Graham motioned her to follow as he turned wordlessly and started toward the control room.

  Morty, one of the station’s engineers, had always had a crush on Vivian, a nervous schoolboy-type crush, where he stammered and tripped over himself at her appearance. She’d hoped it would abate with time, but it hadn’t seemed to. He was just as nervous around her as he’d always been. But at least he was talking to her again. He’d stopped for months after she’d rebuffed his clumsy advances last fall. She’d felt terrible about hurting his feelings. He’d meant no harm, even if she had suspected him of murder for a short time after Marjorie Fox was killed.

  She just wished he would find someone he had more in common with. Someone on whom to fixate all that puppy-dog adoration. Someone who wasn’t her.

  “…you see?”

  Vivian snapped to attention. Morty was explaining the recording process, and she had been lost in her own world. She nodded, though she didn’t see.

  “It’s expensive to cut one of these disks, and it requires a lot of skill at the lathe to keep the recording even,” Morty said solemnly. He frowned down at the large mechanical contraption in front of him. “They sent an engineer from New York City to teach me the ins and outs. Took a whole week.” He reached down and pulled a large, red vinyl disk from its paper sleeve. “It’s blank, you see, smooth.” He flipped it over to show her the other side.

  He held it out to Vivian and she took it, holding it gingerly along the outside edge with her fingertips. It was entirely smooth. She’d never seen such a thing before. “It’s so much bigger than the records I have at home,” she said, handing it carefully back.

  “Sixteen inches instead of ten. Recorded at thirty-three and a third RPMs instead of seventy-eight like a regular recording,” he said. He was warming to his topic, glancing at her every few moments to make sure she was listening.

  “Could I play it back on a regular phonograph once it’s recorded?”

  “Oh no. You need special equipment.” He slipped the blank disk onto the spindle of the recording machine. He pulled the arm of the needle over to the middle of the disk but didn’t drop it. He moved the arm slowly outward. “It records backward, as well, from the inside out. It also records what they call ‘hill and dale’ instead of side to side. Altogether diff
erent from the records you’re used to.”

  “It’s all so interesting,” she said enthusiastically, and was mildly surprised to find she meant it. “And you learned how to do all this for our little show?”

  Morty blushed a very slight pink under the spray of freckles high on his cheeks. He nodded. “Part of my job,” he said.

  “Thank you for showing me how it works,” she said. They looked at each other for a long, awkward moment. “How’s Fantasy Ballroom going?”

  Mr. Langley, head of the station, had allowed Morty airtime for this cockamamie idea of playing music records over the air. Morty called it the Fantasy Ballroom. Vivian had thought it would fail within weeks, but Morty was still at it months later, spinning Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman disks into the ether. Morty acted as the master of ceremonies at some posh hotel ballroom, introducing each new song.

  He smiled at her. “Well,” he said. “Mr. Langley said he might move the show into a more prime-time slot if the ratings keep their steady rise.”

  “Wow, Morty. That’s wonderful.”

  He ducked his head and started fiddling with the dials on the machine, clearly embarrassed by her praise.

  “Viv!” Graham called from the other side of the small room. She turned to see him sidled up to Stuart Marshfield, the New York ad man. Graham waved her over, a lazy, confident smile on his face.

  Vivian made her excuses to Morty and walked over to the group. Mr. Marshfield smiled brilliantly at her as she approached. He was a handsome man somewhere in his midforties, the type of man who regularly had three-martini lunches and expensed them to the company tab.

  “And how’s Lorna Lafferty today? In good voice, I hope,” Mr. Marshfield said jovially. He clapped a hand on Graham’s back and winked at Vivian.

  She smiled in return. “Of course,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Marshfield.”