The Woman Who Fell From Grace

by David Handler

  “Okay,” I said, backing off. “What happened then?”

  “Body was removed to Hamrick’s funeral parlor over on Frederick Street. He was cremated there next day.”

  “Quick, wasn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “There was a certain desire on everyone’s part to get it over with. Town was so damned full of reporters, radio people, newsreel cameras — a real carnival-like atmosphere. Pretty ghoulish, you ask me. Miss Barrett, she took the ashes home to England for burial. Funeral service was held over there a few days later.”

  I took my linen handkerchief out of my pocket and mopped my forehead and neck with it. “I understand your father was Alma Glaze’s lawyer.”

  He scratched his chin. “That’s right.”

  “Shortly before her death she had him draw up a codicil to her will that sealed her notes for Sweet Land of Liberty for fifty years. Any idea why she did it?”

  “Daddy said she was getting pressured by Goldwyn. He wanted her to hurry up and write it so he could get himself another movie. She didn’t like the idea of being rushed, particularly by him. She detested the man.”

  “Isn’t fifty years a little excessive?”

  Polk Two chuckled. “Not if you knew Alma. That woman, she was ornery. Mavis is a pure pleasure compared to her mammy. It was about control, son. Alma was showing Goldwyn she was boss, not him, and she was rubbing his nose in it for good measure. That man simply was not going to make more millions off of her creation. Not as long as she was around, and not in the event of her death, either.”

  “In the event of her death — meaning she expected to die?”

  “We all expect to die, son.”

  “But she was a relatively young woman. It seems like an extreme form of insurance to take, unless of course she had reason to believe she would the soon. Was she ill?”

  “Not in the least. You had to know her. It was just Alma being Alma, sticking it to that Hollywood fella.”

  “She was run over soon after that on Beverley Street.”

  “That’s right. Just after the movie came out. Biggest money-maker in history, you know, until all those damned spaceship movies come along.” He coughed and shifted in his chair with no little effort. “It happened on a Saturday night, about eight o’clock.”

  “Any idea what she was doing in town?”

  “Kids said she told ’em she had some business to do. The three of them were home alone when it happened.”

  “She was meeting someone on business at that hour?”

  “I never did buy that myself,” he confessed. “I figured maybe she had herself a fella in town. Didn’t much matter. She was dead was all that mattered. Run down while she crossed the street. Some fool ran the traffic light.”

  “You never found out who?”

  He got defensive. “I made some progress. Had the make and color of the car from a witness. A car matching it turned up ditched on the outskirts of town next morning, blood on the fender, seats and floorboard reeking of cheap whiskey. Had been reported stolen from an old lady’s driveway an hour or so before Alma was hit. I figured it was a couple of local boys having themselves a toot before they headed off to the Pacific to get their poor dumb asses shot off. I followed up. Had my eye on a particular pair of young hotheads, but they’d gone overseas by the time I got on to ’em. And they never made it back. So I reckon justice was done, in its own way.”

  “There must have been a lot of pressure on you to catch them.”

  “There was indeed. Alma was an institution here.”

  “Any chance her death was something other than an accident?”

  He peered at me intently from behind his heavy glasses. Then he chuckled and shook his head in amazement. “Son, you’re not interested in the truth one bit. You’re looking to spin wild yarns for the funny papers.”

  “I’m looking to figure out why Fern O’Baugh died the other day.”

  “Fell down a flight of stairs, I heard,” he said mildly.

  “Yeah. Lots of accidents seem to happen in this place.”

  “It’s a place like any other,” he said, grinning. “A little nicer, if you ask me.”

  A car pulled up outside, and someone got out. Lulu started barking from the porch. She has a mighty big bark for someone with no legs.

  “That’ll be Polk Four, I reckon.” Polk Two lifted the window shade and glanced outside. “Making friends with your pup. Always has been good with animals. Yessir, that boy’s just naturally likable.”

  “So I’m told.” I got to my feet. “I won’t keep you any longer, sir.”

  He started to struggle up out of his chair.

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” I insisted. “Thank you for your time.”

  “My pleasure, son,” he said, easing back down. “Helped fill the day. Retirement’s a lousy deal. Better off if you die young.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I went outside, closed the front door, and stood there on the porch inhaling the fresh air and watching Lulu and Polk Four. I counted to ten before I hurried back inside.

  The old man was on the phone. He panicked when he saw me, slammed it down, red-faced.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Forgot my hat.” I plucked my cap off the arm of the easy chair and grinned at him. “Like I said, it sure is nice how everyone in the valley talks to everyone else.”

  Polk Four was scratching Lulus tummy out on the thick grass by the mailbox. She was on her back, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. She’d fallen for him. What can I say — she happened to be vulnerable right now.

  When Polk Four saw me, he stood to his full height and smoothed the wrinkles in his khaki trousers — not that there were any. “Pretty car,” he said, gazing at the Jag.

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “Yours?”

  “My ex-wife’s.”

  “So you’re divorced?”

  “We are but we aren’t.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means we’re both mad as hatters,” I replied. “Why do you ask?”

  He adjusted his troopers hat. “I’m just trying to figure out why you’re attempting to ruin my life.”

  “I wasn’t aware that’s what I was doing, Sheriff.”

  “Mercy called me first thing this morning,” he revealed darkly.

  “Oh?”

  “Said she had something very important to tell me.” He narrowed his alert blue eyes at me. “Any idea what it was?”

  I tugged at my ear. “None.”

  “She’s decided to go to Europe for a year when she graduates in June. She said she wants to experience life on her own.

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding.” He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “She said it was your idea.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Sheriff. I simply told her that’s what I did when I was her age.”

  He crossed his arms. “I don’t appreciate this at all, Mr. Hoag, you filling her head with crazy ideas.”

  “Not so crazy. She’s kind of sheltered.”

  “She’s kind of impressionable is what she is,” he argued. “She’s also kind of terrific, and I intend to marry her.”

  “I’m sure that’s what she has in mind, too, Sheriff. She just wants to kick up her heels a little first. It’ll be for the best,” I assured him. “This way she won’t wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “If she missed out on anything. She’d only end up taking it out on you.”

  “What makes you such an expert on the subject?” he demanded testily.

  “You want advice on marriage, talk to a man whose own turned to shit.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your advice,” he said crossly.

  “My mistake. Sorry.”

  He crouched back down and patted Lulu’s soft, white underbelly. Out came her tongue again. “Sometimes Mercy … she gives me the feeling she thinks I’m a real clod.”

  I left that one alone.

  “Has she said
anything to you?” he pressed.

  “She said she likes you.”

  He brightened. “She did?”

  I suddenly felt as if I were back in junior high school. I hated junior high school. “Only she feels like you’re being forced on her by her mother. It’s got to be her own choice. Don’t crowd her. Let her come around to it in her own time.”

  He mulled this over. “Think I should loosen up on the reins a little, huh?”

  “If that’s how you want to put it. But you’ll do better if you start thinking of her as a woman and not an Appaloosa.”

  He shook his head at me, disgusted. “I really don’t get you, Mr. Hoag. Bothering her. Bothering my granddad. Pestering everybody in town with your weird ideas about Fern O’Baugh being murdered —”

  “She wasn’t the only one, Sheriff. Alma Glaze was murdered, too.” I glanced up at the house. Polk Two was watching us through the window. “Why she was, I’m still not sure. Something to do with Sterling Sloan’s death — which was not caused by any brain aneurysm. That was just a cover-up.”

  “Uh-huh. Is there anything else?” Polk Four asked with exaggerated patience.

  “Franklin Neene’s suicide.”

  “What about it?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t. Suicide, I mean.”

  Polk Four stayed calm. Dangerously calm. “I have to tell you, Mr. Hoag,” he said very quietly, “I’ve had just about as much of you as I can stand.” He came up close to me now. I felt his breath on my face. It smelled of Tic-Tacs. “I’m not ordinarily one to get tough. You can ask anybody. But I sure do feel like taking off this badge and gun and punching you in the mouth.”

  “I’m real sorry to hear you say that, Sheriff. Because if you do, we’ll have to fight, and one of us will end up in the hospital, and it won’t be you.”

  “What I am going to do,” he promised, “is advise Mavis you’re a public nuisance and ought to be put on a plane back to New York.”

  “Mavis happens to need me,” I reminded him. “As long as she does, I’m not going anywhere. Sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.”

  “What is it going to take for you to realize that I’m not doing this for laughs, Sheriff?” I demanded. “You happen to be sitting on one of the biggest scandals in motion picture history. Bigger than Thomas Ince. Bigger than William Desmond Taylor. Bigger than Fatty Arbuckle. Well, maybe not bigger than Fatty Arbuckle, but big. People have been murdered. I realize these are your folks down here, your family, your friends. Their lives may be ruined. I can’t help that. And neither can you. You have a choice to make. You can put your money where my mouth is or you can stand by and watch. Only, if you do, you’ll be the one who is ruined. Because I will get to the bottom of this, and when I do, it will go very, very public, believe me.”

  He took a deep breath. Slowly, he let it out. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Fern asked me to. It was her last request. You’re supposed to honor those.”

  “Okay, fair enough. You’ve said your piece. Now I’ll say mine: Number one, I think you’re full of crap. I think you smell a buck and you don’t care who gets hurt. Number two, I’ll be watching you. You bother anybody in Augusta County, I’ll be on you. You exceed the speed limit by one-half mile per hour, I’ll be on you. You so much as smile at a girl under the age of eighteen or smoke in a no-smoking —”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Or step on a crack in the damned sidewalk, I’ll be on you! Got it!”

  “Got it, pardner.”

  “And don’t call me pardner!”

  Polk Four didn’t wave good-bye when he went tearing off in his big sedan. He didn’t smile or tip his big broad-brimmed trooper’s hat either. I don’t think he liked me anymore.

  I drove slowly back through the Mennonite farms toward Route 11, wondering.

  Say Sloan had died of an overdose — why had Alma been killed? Had she found out about the cover-up? Threatened to expose it? Was Goldwyn possibly behind her death? If not him, who? Why was Fern killed? Whom could she hurt now, all these years later? How much did Polk Two know that he wouldn’t tell me? Did Polk Four know anything, or had he been shielded from all of it?

  I was thinking about these things when I got to a stop sign. It was a rural intersection, nothing but farmland in all four directions. A four-wheel-drive Ford pickup came to a stop directly across from me, all styled up with racing stripes and fog lamps and chrome roll bar and tires so huge you’d need a pole vault to reach the seat. I’d seen a lot just like it since I’d arrived in the valley. They seemed to hold great appeal for cretins aged seven to seventy. I didn’t pay too much attention to this one. Not until I noticed the two men riding in it. The driver had a crew cut. The other man had a ponytail. And an over-under shotgun aimed out his window right at me. He pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I DOVE DOWN ONTO Lulu just as the Jag’s windshield exploded, showering me with broken glass. I stayed down, eyes squinched shut, breath sucked in, heart racing. He wasn’t through — one more shot boomed in the country quiet. This one hit nothing. Then they took off for the hills with a screech.

  I sat up at once, pellets of broken glass tumbling down the back of my neck. Lulu climbed down onto the floor under the glove box and cowered there, shaking. I assured her I could handle it.

  Then I went after them.

  I can’t explain why. I had no idea what I’d do if I actually caught up with them. Die, maybe. All I knew was I had to do it. I tend not to be totally rational when I’ve been kicked in the head and shot at.

  They were heading toward the Shenandoah Mountains and the West Virginia state line, moving fast but not that fast. Maybe they didn’t know I was after them yet. The narrow farm road dipped and darted through the undulating pastures. No other cars were on it.

  Merilee kept the Jag perfectly tuned. It responded at once as I tore my way through the gears, the wind biting at my face through the empty windshield. My eyes started to tear. I fumbled in the glove box for my aviator shades. Lulu glowered up at me, not liking this one bit. She had enough on her plate already.

  The road started getting curvy right about when I got close enough for him to spot me in his rearview mirror. I could tell when he did — he speeded up. I did, too. His partner turned around. The cab’s rear window slid open and the muzzle of his shotgun poked out. He took one wild shot at me, then another. Ignore those high-speed gunfights you see on TV — you can’t get off any kind of a shot when you’re bouncing down a country road at sixty miles an hour. Still, it crossed my mind that he might get lucky. So I floored it and cozied in right under the truck’s upraised tail, the Jag’s nose almost touching its Keep on Truckin’ mud flaps. He was up so high on those stupid tires he couldn’t get a clear shot down at me now even if he tried — the tailgate was shielding me. I was okay there. Unless they decided to hit the brakes.

  Lulu let out a low moan. Again, I assured her I could handle it. There was no one to assure me I could handle it.

  Faster. Seventy … eighty … veering past a Mennonite horse and buggy on a blind curve. Edging back over just before getting splattered by an oncoming car. Climbing hard into the mountains now, road twisting, narrowing. Signs shooting past … Head Waters — Elev. 2,925 Ft … Bullpasture Mountain — Elev. 3,240 Ft … Climbing up among pines now, swollen spring rivers roaring past. Climbing, curves blind, road a narrow ribbon hugging the side of the mountain. No shoulder. No rail. Only a sheer drop. And down, down, down … Jack Mountain — Elev. 4,378 Ft … The entire Shenandoah Valley laid out far below us now. I had no time to admire the view. I was too busy pushing him on. Faster …

  We crested. Briefly, the road flattened out. Then we were descending. Flying down the twisting road, tires screaming, the Jag hugging the pavement like a panther. Twice he fishtailed, but held the big truck in check. We were playing a dangerous game of chicken now. I could stop at any time, turn around. I had his license number. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to ma
ke him go faster.

  He took his eyes off the road. Must have, because he didn’t ever even try to hit the brakes. One moment he was flying down that twisting road. Next moment he was still flying, only there was no road under him. Only sky, his wheels spinning in the air.

  I had just an instant to react. No time to weigh my options, to arrive at a sound, measured plan of action. There was only the Jag and the road that was no longer right in front of me. My brain shut down. My body took over. Feet rammed the brakes and clutch. Hands drove the wheel hard left. I spun out, wildly out of control. Skidded to a stop on the very edge of the road, facing uphill, stalled. I sat there like that for a moment, too dazed to move. Then the thought processes returned, and I jumped out to look.

  The truck had touched down at the base of the mountain three thousand feet below, its wheels up, still spinning. A puff of gray smoke wafted lazily up from it, like from a campfire. It looked kind of peaceful. Until it blew. I saw it before I heard it. Saw the tongue of angry orange flame, the hunks of twisted steel flying off in every direction. I heard the explosion a second later. And for many seconds after that. It echoed across the entire valley, like a clap of thunder.

  Lulu squirmed in between my feet and nuzzled my leg. I reached down and rubbed her ears. I got the battered silver flask of Macallan from the glove box and drank deeply from it. I stood there for a while taking in the panoramic view of the valley. I had time to admire it now.

  And to wonder just whom Polk Two had been on the phone with when I’d gone back inside for my cap.

  Pamela, housekeeper nonpareil, was waiting patiently outside the airline terminal in a sweater and skirt of matching bottle-green cashmere and knobby brown oxfords, her raincoat folded over her arm, two old leather suitcases beside her on the pavement. Pam’s in her early sixties, plump and silver haired, and owns the loveliest complexion I’ve ever seen. Also the most unflappable disposition. I got to know her in Surrey a couple of years back when I was ghosting the life story of Tristam Scarr, the British rock star. Maybe you read it. Or about it. It got a little messy.

  She smiled cheerily and waved when I pulled up at the curb and hopped out. “Yes, yes, it’s so lovely to see you again, Hoagy.”