“And you told him to just leave—without saying goodbye. To just disappear from my life as if pulling the bandage right off would make it hurt any less. That was cruel.”
Adaline waved her hand dismissively, and the gesture was so much like her mother that it made the small hairs at the back of Vivian’s neck bristle.
“That’s neither here nor there. It was best for both of you, for all of us, if you just forgot each other.”
Vivian wanted to scream. Instead, she dug her fingernails into her palms. “And it never occurred to you to tell me any of this in the years since?”
“Why would I? The problem was solved. I’m just grateful that you didn’t get yourself in the family way. What would we have done with you then?”
Vivian couldn’t speak because of the fury rising in her chest.
“You’ve always been willful, Vivian. I’m just glad your father wasn’t around to see the way you behaved that summer.”
“The way I behaved? Like a girl in love?”
“Love? That wasn’t love.”
“What do you know about it?”
“A lot of silly girls thought they were in love with Hap Prescott…all of them fools. And when you get a chance to calm yourself and think all of this through, I think you’ll understand why I did what I did.”
There was a noise at the end of a hall, and Vivian jumped. Someone was knocking on the front door. Vivian turned back to Adaline.
“I understand that you toy with people’s lives when it suits you,” Vivian said.
Adaline raised an eyebrow. Vivian heard David answer the front door.
“Believe it or not, I was protecting you.”
“From myself, you mean?” Vivian said. “From my own baser urges?”
A humorless laugh escaped Adaline’s mouth in a hiss. “No. I never liked Hap. He was a manipulator, and he had a particular talent for hurting people.”
Adaline’s eyes shifted to the doorway as David’s voice rang out behind her. “There you are.” Vivian turned to find David standing there. “Western Union man on the porch for you, Viv.”
David’s blue eyes darted from Adaline to Vivian. How much of their conversation had he heard?
What had he just told her so gravely in the game room? They were all guilty. Maybe he’d only been talking about the Agatha Christie book, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe they were all in on it, she thought. Bernard, Adaline, Gwen, the lot of them. Maybe they were all crazy as loons. Maybe they’d all conspired to get rid of Hap Prescott.
Chapter Twenty-One
The young man stood in the open doorway in his dark-blue uniform and flat cap, the triangular Western Union badge glinting in the dim light of the hall. Vivian approached, her pulse thumping. Charlie, she thought. The telegram could be about Charlie.
The deliveryman straightened and smiled as she approached.
“Miss Vivian Witchell?”
“Yes.”
The man held the envelope out to her and she took it, her hands shaking. She ripped it open and read it before she could lose her nerve.
LOS ANGELES CA 830 P JUN 15 1939
MISS VIVIAN WITCHELL
LANG RESIDENCE OAKHAVEN LAKE GENEVA WI
MET MAYER SCREEN TEST COMPLETE STOP YOU ARE REPLACED IN SUN CC HOUR—NO NEED TO HURRY HERE STOP HOPE C OK GRAHAM
Vivian’s heart slowed as her brain absorbed the information. How had Graham found her here? She stared at the words. The show would go on without her. It wasn’t a surprise, but despite everything else that had happened tonight, it still stung. She’d missed her screen test and had been replaced in the guest spot on The Carlton Coffee Hour. They’d have to rewrite the part.
But these were all petty concerns since she still had no idea where Charlie was. She imagined him at this moment, cornered by the police in a rank back alley somewhere. He could be in custody. He could be hurt. He could be dead. There was a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.
“Miss?”
She glanced up and realized the Western Union man was hovering in the doorway. “I’m sorry, yes?”
“Would you like to send a reply?”
“No. No reply. Thank you.”
The deliveryman tipped his cap and made his way down the porch stairs. She watched him go, her mind returning to the scant words of the telegram. Replaced, Graham had written. Replaced by whom? It hardly mattered. There were a thousand girls always at the ready to take her place if she faltered even the tiniest bit. And this was more than a tiny falter. This was a tumble.
Her eyes fell on the shiny black telephone sitting on the gossip bench. She wanted to call someone. But who? Adrenaline thrummed through her veins. She had to do something.
The telephone rang, and she jumped. She shouldn’t answer it. No one was supposed to know she was here. She glanced around but heard no indication that anyone else was stirring on either floor to answer. She looked toward the kitchen, but there was no sound. Adaline and David must have left while she was at the door with the deliveryman. She moved to the table, picked up the receiver, and held it gingerly to her ear. She swallowed.
“Lang residence,” she said.
“Is there a Vivian Witchell at this number?” the operator said.
“Y-yes. This is Vivian Witchell.” Her heart thumped in her chest.
“Hold, please, for a person-to-person long-distance call,” the operator said in a singsong voice.
Vivian heard several clicks before the operator told the other party, “You may proceed.”
“Yes, hello. I’m looking for a Vivian Witchell. I was told she was staying there.” It was a man’s voice, one that Vivian didn’t recognize, one that was commanding and take-charge even over the miles of long-distance wires.
Were the police calling her to tell her that Charlie had been captured and was back behind bars? That he’d been grievously wounded in a shoot-out? No, she thought. The police wouldn’t call her like this—not directly, and certainly not long distance. Perhaps it was Cal, telling her not to worry and that Charlie was fine.
“This is Vivian Witchell speaking,” she said.
“Miss Witchell? Louis Mayer here.”
She froze, her pulse whooshing in her ears. She craned her neck to get a glimpse at the hall clock. Why would Louis Mayer be calling her at this hour? Why would Louis Mayer be calling her at all—especially after that telegram from Graham telling her not to hurry out?
“Hello? Do we have a bad connection?”
“Uh, no. No.” She cleared her throat. “The connection is fine. Hello, Mr. Mayer.”
“Good. Good. I was calling to tell you that I’m sorry you missed our meeting yesterday.”
“Yes, I’m sorry too,” she said. “I had to return to Chicago…family emergency.” Her mind worked furiously to think of a suitable emergency in case he asked. My ex-lover’s been murdered. The thought sprang to her mind without warning, and she pressed the back of her free hand to her mouth to stop the hysterical laughter that threatened.
“Yes, I heard,” he said. “I hope everything’s all right.”
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Things are improving,” she said. Actually, things are looking worse by the minute. She craned her neck to try to look down the hallway into the kitchen, but she couldn’t see anything. Were Adaline and David still nearby, listening?
“Anyway, I’m a fan of your work on The Darkness Knows,” Mr. Mayer continued. “And if you’re half as pretty as the publicity photos I’ve seen, you’re just the kind of American wholesome we look for at MGM.”
Vivian glanced around her. This had to be a joke. Her eyes drifted toward the kitchen and her thoughts to the conversation she’d just had with her aunt. Wholesome, she thought. She was wholesome? Aunt Adaline certainly didn’t think so. Mr. Mayer continued talking, blithely unaware that she was on the verge
of breaking down entirely.
“I liked that Yarborough fellow,” he said. “But no one we tested with him had any chemistry. He insisted that you were the only actress who could play Lorna on the big screen, and I’m inclined to take him at his word.”
Vivian leaned back against the wall and exhaled. So Graham had come through for her again, she thought. She truly didn’t deserve his friendship. What sort of alchemy had he worked in his scant twenty-four hours in Hollywood?
“… make it, won’t you?”
Vivian blinked herself back to the present.
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll make it,” she said automatically.
“Good. Then we’ll see you on the lot Monday morning.”
“Yes,” she said. “Monday morning.” Monday morning? Her mind raced to catch up. It seemed Louis B. Mayer himself was offering her another chance at that screen test. Her movie career was not dead on arrival after all. But that would mean she’d need to be on the Super Chief tomorrow evening. How could she ever swing that—with Hap truly dead and Charlie on the run?
“I look forward to meeting you. Good night, Miss Witchell,” he said.
“Good night, Mr. Mayer.”
Vivian sat with the receiver to her ear for a full minute after the connection cut off. She was stunned, but through the fog, she heard that soft click again that signaled someone somewhere in this house had been listening on another extension. She just couldn’t make herself care at this particular moment. Her mind was whirling. She hung up the phone and then stared down at it as if it might offer further clues to what had just occurred. Louis B. Mayer had called her personally to invite her to take a screen test. But how would she ever make it out to Hollywood by Monday morning?
This had to end. She needed to find everyone and gather them together and get to the bottom of all of this. No more secrets. No more fantastic stories. No more suspicion. She walked down the hall to the parlor. The lights and the radio were on, but the room was deserted. She checked every room on the first floor, including the bathroom, and found them all empty.
She’d been stumbling over people around every corner over the past few hours. Now that she wanted them all together, where had everyone gone?
• • •
The wind gusted as Vivian came out the back door, catching the screen and slamming it against the wooden siding with a bang. The air roared in the trees at the back of the house. Vivian looked off toward the west and saw a flash of lightning illuminate the sky under glowering clouds. She didn’t have long until rain starting pouring down, she thought. She didn’t know where she was headed or what she wanted to do. So much had happened since dinner, and she needed answers.
She glanced around the yard. The summer kitchen sat dark and quiet a few feet away. The murderer had been there, she thought. Just out of sight around the corner. It seemed ominous, with its blank windows like two unseeing eyes winking in the reflected flashes of intermittent lightning. Then again, everything looked ominous under the threat of a storm. The wind whipped a strand of hair across her eyes, and she tossed her head to clear her vision.
“Psst.”
The noise came from direction of the summer kitchen. She stood still and listened. There it came again, barely audible over the roar of the trees. Psst. Someone was calling to her from the spot where the murderer had been hours before. Vivian hesitated. The murderer would not go back to the spot where they left the murder weapon, unless it was to retrieve said weapon. In this case, he or she would have quickly found that the gun was already gone, so there would be no reason to hang around. Besides, would someone who wanted to do her harm call to her like a cartoon villain in a Merrie Melodies short?
“Psst.”
Against her better judgment, Vivian made her way down the back stairs and inched around the corner. She would be out of view from the house, she reminded herself. No one would see if the killer accosted her here. She stuck her head around the corner and could discern the bulk of a man in the shadows. She saw the tiny orange glow of a cigarette as the man moved toward her.
“Oh, you’re not Gwen.”
“Who is it?” she said, her voice quavering.
The man stepped forward, and Vivian sighed with relief as his face came into view. She didn’t know what she was expecting—a bloodthirsty German spy luring unsuspecting family members to their deaths with a whisper?
“What are you doing out here, Marshall?”
He took a long drag on his cigarette and spoke with the exhale.
“I was worried about Gwen,” he said. “She seemed…odd…when she said good night earlier. I just had to see her and make sure she was okay. She usually comes out here before she turns in for the night, so I decided to wait for her. Sorry if I scared you. You two look a lot alike from a distance.”
“You should go,” Vivian said. “This really isn’t the best time.”
“Why? What happened?” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Does it have to do with that Hap fellow?”
“No,” she lied.
Marshall squinted at her as he brought the cigarette to his lips again. “Her sister Constance then? She’s had another crack-up?”
“Another?”
“She has them on the regular, I hear. Usually little ones for attention. You know, takes to her room for a few days, then reemerges good as new once the act has worn out its novelty. But Gwen told me she had a big one a while ago, and they sent Constance to some loony bin in Switzerland to recover.”
The wind was picking up. Vivian heard the rowboat knocking against the dock where she and Gwen had tied it earlier.
“A while ago…when?” she asked.
Marshall shrugged. “Sometime before my folks bought the house next door.”
“And when was that?”
“Well, we moved in five years ago, so she must have spent time in the booby hatch before that,” he said.
“I think they prefer the term ‘sanatorium’ these days,” Vivian said absently. She had never heard of Constance spending time in a sanatorium. Then again, that wasn’t the sort of news that was distributed in the yearly Christmas card, was it?
“Smoke?”
Marshall held an open pack of cigarettes out to her. She glanced at the brown paper wrapper, the winged helmet illustration on the front, and the breath caught in her throat. “Gauloises,” she said, pretending to read the name upside down. “French?”
“Sure sounds like it,” he said, turning the pack around to look at the cover himself. “Gwen gave them to me.”
“Did she?”
“Sure, she likes to be sophisticated.” He smirked. “They’re too strong for my taste, but I’m desperate. I ran out of Lucky Strikes.”
“Where did Gwen get French cigarettes?” Vivian knew the answer, of course, but did Marshall?
Marshall shrugged as lightning lit up the sky behind him. He cocked his head to the side as he shoved the pack back into his pocket.
“Say, are you all right? I saw you when Gwen’s mother brought you back from your walk earlier. You didn’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“You do look better now. You have more color in your cheeks,” he said, motioning vaguely with his lit cigarette. “Gwen told me all about you. You’re on the radio, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Gwen thinks you hung the moon.”
Vivian exhaled. That’s the problem, she thought. If only she didn’t, then none of us would be in this mess. And maybe Hap might not be dead.
“You should go home, Marshall,” she said. “Before Mr. Lang finds you and starts to inquire why you might be smoking outside his house in the middle of the night.”
“You’re probably right,” he said. Marshall glanced in the direction of the main house and flicked his cigarette butt to the ground, smashing
it out with the toe of his shoe.
“Gwen’s fine,” Vivian said. “I’ll convey your concern.”
“Thanks,” he said. He turned and started walking away, hands in pockets. In the direction of his own house next door, she hoped. She watched him until he’d disappeared among the trees of the lake path.
Marshall looked awfully comfortable waiting in that hidden smoking spot for Gwen. Vivian was certain he’d done it before—perhaps every night of the summer so far. Had he done it earlier tonight? Maybe Marshall had found the pistol under the bushes—or maybe he’d been the one to leave it there. After all, if Vivian knew where Gwen had gotten French cigarettes, then Marshall might have too and been lying about it. And he might not have taken too kindly to an older man trying to horn in on his girl. That was far-fetched, she thought. But everything that had happened tonight had been far-fetched.
Vivian strode off in the opposite direction from where Marshall had gone. Where was everyone? There were several other buildings on the property, but the most likely place that everyone had gone to meet without her was the guesthouse. Lightning flashed, followed closely by a clap of thunder. She wouldn’t make it through the woods before the storm struck. She spotted the odd jumble of angles and sharp peaks that comprised the Siamese pagoda. She’d go there and think for a bit, wait out the storm. Maybe something would come to mind if she had time to think things through.
The wind whipped her hair in front of her eyes again, blinding her. As she lifted her hand to brush it away, strong arms grabbed her around the middle and lifted off her feet with tremendous force. The air escaped her lungs in a whoosh. She tried to scream, but a large hand slapped over her mouth. She struggled, twisting and pushing at the arm around her middle, but the man only tightened his grip.
Marshall? Had he come back to stop her questions? No, that didn’t make sense. Hired goons, then, she thought frantically as she struggled. Oh God, David was right. Hired goons had killed Hap, and now they would kill her too. She bit the fleshy part of the man’s thumb and kicked backward with everything she had like an angry mule. Her stacked heel connected solidly with shinbone, and the man grunted in pain. He didn’t release her, but he lightened his grip as he spoke directly into her ear.
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