Design for Dying

by Renee Patrick

“You had doubts?” I asked. “Since when?”

  “Since you received that phone call purportedly from her. Her dialogue seemed, well, familiar. Then it dawned on me. It actually was dialogue. Lines I’d heard before. Women being creatures of the heart, her saying now that she’d learned how Hollywood expected her to behave, she liked it here and intended to stay.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s from a movie, too.”

  “The Scarlet Empress. I screened it again to confirm it.”

  Bill shook his head as he dove into the bag for another doughnut. “Where else to learn how royalty should talk than a picture about royalty? How’d it hold up, by the way?”

  “It’s Travis’s masterpiece. Those gowns! We won’t see such lavishness again. I still remember his arguments with Marlene over her fur hat. Too much like Garbo’s in Queen Christina, he said. But Marlene insisted, and she was right. Then of course there’s the letter.”

  “From Marlene?” I asked.

  “No, dear, from Natalie ostensibly to Mr. Rice. I haven’t seen it myself, but I’d be curious whether the date was written in the European style. That’s how Ruby, as Natalie, wrote it on the puzzle piece. As opposed to November sixth, the way an impostor would write it.”

  “But Natalie herself was an impostor,” Bill pointed out.

  “Yes. It does become confusing.” Edith had kicked off her black pumps to curl up on the couch. Now she stepped back into them. “Which is why I choose to view events solely from Ruby’s perspective. She invents a character, Princess Natalie. Gives her a history doubtless drawn from her own family. Steals an appropriate wardrobe. Thinks of her creation as a separate entity, a second self, if you will. ‘Natalie is the most elegant woman. Natalie will get me my big break.’”

  “She wrote herself a role,” Bill said.

  “And took it on the road.” Edith began to pace the floor. “Starting at a hotel bar, then with Mr. Troncosa and his circle of friends. Next came her first real review. Addison Rice.”

  “Troncosa said that Ruby—sorry, Natalie,” I corrected, “tried to flee Addison’s house when he brought her to a party.”

  “Because Ruby was afraid of being recognized. She’d been careful to avoid people she knew. Suddenly she finds herself face-to-face with Mr. Rice, who’d met her several times. And he sees not the young actress he’d banished from his home, but a beguiling Hungarian princess. The encounter could only have galvanized her. Encouraged her to continue the masquerade.”

  I pictured Ruby at Addison’s party, realizing there was no way to avoid meeting her host, knowing she’d have to sink or swim. The Ruby I knew would have hurled herself into Natalie’s persona with abandon. She would have strode across the foyer, offering her hand for Addison to kiss, smothering any skepticism with the force of her charisma. That night, Ruby had triumphed beyond her wildest dreams. She’d not only fooled Addison. She’d fooled herself.

  “She picked a terrible time for a bravura performance,” Bill said. “If Rice had exposed the phony princess, Ruby would be alive today. What about Laurence Minot? Didn’t he also know Ruby and Natalie and not see what was in front of him?”

  “Much as it pains me,” I said, “I have to give Laurence a pass. He’d only met Ruby once, at his wedding reception when they’d both had a few. He basically knew Natalie and Natalie alone. I’m rather jealous of him, actually. I’d give anything to have seen Ruby in action as Natalie.”

  “And that’s what is key here,” Edith said. “Natalie is a character, created by Ruby. One to which she was so committed she even wrote the date differently when essaying the part. But the telephone call and the letter are instances of someone else playing Natalie, without Ruby’s dedication.”

  I joined Edith in pacing, partly to show off my outfit. I’d replaced the black belt on my taupe knit dress with a cherry-red scarf. A fetching addition, I thought, but Edith hadn’t noticed it. Or worse, she had and didn’t find it worthy of comment.

  “But who would do that?” I asked. “And why?”

  “It’s not my place to speculate. What does Detective Morrow think?”

  “He thinks he needs some time off. He’s also keen to talk to Laurence Minot again.”

  A crisp shake of the head from Edith. “Detective Morrow is allowing Mr. Minot’s amorous entanglement with Natalie and donnybrook with Mr. Troncosa to cloud his judgment. Mr. Minot would hardly send Addison Rice a letter implicating himself.”

  “Edo,” Bill announced, “it’s time for you to speculate.”

  She sighed, accepting his wisdom. “The party responsible for the letter and the phone call can only be that unsavory private investigator, Mr. Beckett.”

  “Because he strong-armed that photographer into stealing clothes for Ruby,” Bill said.

  “Because he orchestrated this from the outset. We now know why he resorted to that odious deception with your friend, Lillian, to acquire a picture of Ruby. The point being it was an older photograph in which Ruby was blond and didn’t superficially resemble Natalie. Having it appear in the newspapers delayed any connection between the two women.”

  “Beckett wanted the investigation to spin its wheels.”

  “He then took additional steps to maintain the fiction Ruby and Natalie were different people.” Edith faced me. “I fear you won’t like this next notion one bit.”

  “I don’t like any of it so far.” Marching around the room wasn’t winning plaudits for my fashion acumen, so I perched on Adele’s stool.

  “Remember it was Mr. Beckett who asked you about Natalie, giving you her surname. He then turned up after Natalie’s supposed telephone call to reinforce her importance. In order to sustain the illusion Natalie was still alive, he needed help. Unwitting accomplices to corroborate Natalie’s continued existence. I believe he used you as a cat’s-paw.”

  My voice quavered. “But why me?”

  “Because you were already involved in the investigation. A call from Natalie to the police might have been ignored. But if she telephoned you…”

  “I’d run to Gene and spill everything. How very clever of Mr. Beckett.”

  Bill passed me the bag containing the last doughnut. “What lovely shoes,” Edith said of my red patent leather pumps. Both the pastry and the compliment had been extended out of pity. That didn’t prevent me from accepting them.

  “Then Beckett killed Ruby.” Bill’s words split the difference between statement and question.

  “Entirely possible, not yet certain. Too much remains unknown. For instance, why would Ruby still pretend to be Natalie with the risk of exposure increasing and multiple suitors vying for her hand?”

  “To land one of those suitors as a rich husband,” Bill suggested.

  “Then she would have accepted Mr. Troncosa’s first proposal. She certainly wouldn’t have left him guessing about her response to his second. And what explains her protracted dalliance with Mr. Minot?”

  “Spite,” I said. “Ruby was jealous of Diana. Stealing her husband was a way to get back at her.”

  “You don’t honestly believe that.” Edith pointed at me like a district attorney. “Would Ruby have engaged in a deception like this for criminal gain?”

  The concentration on her face daunted me. I thought about Ruby, the small-town girl who craved only stardom. “No. She wanted attention. But she wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

  “Then the agenda wasn’t hers, but Mr. Beckett’s. He forced Ruby to continue stringing along the various parties who knew her as Natalie to some undetermined end.”

  “Natalie’s jewelry,” I said. “Troncosa must have showered her with gifts, but we haven’t found any.”

  “That would be one possibility,” Edith allowed.

  “So Beckett tumbled to Ruby’s racket, playing at being a princess for fun and champagne.” Bill diagrammed furiously on his mental chalkboard. “He made her keep up the act so he could turn a profit on it. We don’t know how he found out.”

  “Come now, Bill. Mr. Beckett is a
private investigator. He was hired to follow either Ruby or Natalie. In the course of doing his job, he stumbled upon the other identity.”

  “Put like that, it’s obvious.” He seemed delighted at being bettered by her—and Edith, I realized, relied on him as a sounding board. “Then we just have to figure out which one Beckett was following, and who hired him to follow her.”

  “I have some ideas about that,” I said.

  Edith nodded. “I thought you might.”

  After a soft knock, the office door opened. A gangly youth with the disinterested air of some executive’s nephew fidgeted in the corridor. “Sorry to interrupt, Miss Head, but Mr. Archainbaud needs you on set immediately.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Dorothy Lamour’s costume is…” The young man’s hair was so fair I could see his scalp blush along with his cheeks. “Her sarong wrap, it’s, um, unwrapping.”

  Edith had a bag in hand as she pushed the errand boy aside. “For goodness’s sake. When will they listen? I told George we had to sew her into it.”

  “Unwrapping, huh?” Bill turned to me with a grin. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d like to see this.”

  23

  I WANTED THE office to be shabby. I wanted Winton Beckett to be operating out of a hovel. But the Loomis Building, off Broadway near Pershing Square, was reputable if tired. Every tenant of the sober gray brick structure from the See-Mack Duplicator Company to Allied Asbestos Pad was doing their best to get by. The elevator operator wished me a pleasant day as he deposited me on the fourth floor.

  Beckett’s office was at the end of a narrow corridor reeking of Dutch cleanser. Movement was visible through the door’s pebbled glass. The brunette at the reception desk scarcely glanced up from the emery board she dragged across her fingernails. “Mr. Beckett isn’t in. I can take a message or notarize a document if that’s why you’re here.”

  I’d known Beckett wouldn’t be there. I was interested in his girl, the one Gene mentioned. She wore a maroon dress with a black bow and matching buttons on the puffed sleeves. She was pretty in an indistinct way, like a wax figure fashioned to resemble a famous person you couldn’t identify. Even bored, her voice sounded familiar. I imagined it with an accent, Slavic by way of von Sternberg.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The emery board stopped moving. “Mavis Kreutzer. Who’s asking?”

  “Someone who needs a document notarized. I should see if you’re any good at it.”

  I snatched a piece of paper off her desk. It was a shopping list: oleo, coffee, evaporated milk. The items written in the same sloping script on Natalie’s letter to Addison.

  As I returned the list, I noticed the hastily packed boxes behind her desk. “Big Marlene Dietrich fan, are you, Mavis?”

  Her eyes sparked, recognizing that the game was up. “I couldn’t give a Spanish fig for her. I don’t go to pictures to look at women. You’re Lillian.”

  “And you’re ‘Natalie.’”

  “Command performances only.” The emery board scraped her nails again.

  I nudged one of the boxes with my foot. “This looks like Beckett will be gone for a while.”

  “I’m pretty sure the son of a bitch is gone for good. But the rent’s paid up, so I’m using the space myself. Kreutzer Typing and Notary Services. I like your shoes.”

  “Thanks. Do you know where the son of a bitch is? Maybe back in San Francisco?”

  “Unlikely. San Francisco was just a daylong affair. Win whisked me up there, had me write a letter and spread a little green, then sent me back to the grind. Not even a trip to Chinatown for some good chow mein. The stuff here is the pits.”

  “Did you meet the real Natalie?”

  “Nope. Win told me about her, though, gave me pointers on what to say. The Dietrich was my idea. Did you like?”

  “I liked.” Her blasé attitude was discomfiting; she’d worked with Beckett too long to bother concealing her mercenary instincts. “Why was your boss forcing Natalie to jump through hoops?”

  “Why does anybody do anything? Money.”

  “What form did this money take?”

  The question provoked a chilly smile. “You’ve seen the rocks, then. Gorgeous, aren’t they? Natalie picked up a new sparkler every time she stepped out. Win plucked ’em right off her. He’d loan her one or two whenever she saw Mr. South of the Border. I’d hear Win on the phone, coordinating her ensemble. He always wanted her to look nice.”

  “Too bad he couldn’t take his own advice. That jacket of his is atrocious.”

  She abruptly flipped the emery board into the trash. I’d struck a nerve. Maybe the jacket had been her Christmas gift to him several lifetimes ago, when both believed in peace on earth and goodwill to men.

  “I imagine this caper was supposed to run until Natalie got herself hitched. Shame she got herself killed instead. Do you think Beckett did it?”

  “Do you think I’d ask?”

  “No, Mavis, I don’t think you would. Not when good chow mein’s in the offing.”

  She stood up, opened a closet door, and kicked one of the boxes toward it.

  “What’s Win’s plan now the money’s stopped rolling in?”

  “Oh, honey.” Her contempt was the least synthetic emotion she’d shown so far, and still there was something off-the-shelf about it. “Money keeps rolling in. Thing about Win, by the time he gets involved, there’s already plenty of wrongdoing going on.”

  “So he’s blackmailing people. Let me guess. Diana Galway’s sin is she stooped to being your boss’s client. With Laurence Minot, it’s photos of him and Natalie.”

  Mavis’s expression would shame the sphinx. “The photos are only the start. Win’s holding something bigger on Minot. Don’t ask. I don’t know what it is.”

  Proof of murder was the obvious thought—provided, of course, that Beckett hadn’t killed Ruby himself. It became vitally important for me to leave, to get away from Mavis Kreutzer at once. I’d paid her a compliment by comparing her to a wax figure. Wax figures at least have a core. Mavis was a husk, hollowed out by years of disappointment. She was what Ruby had been on her way to becoming, and I fleetingly entertained the loathsome notion that perhaps Ruby was better off.

  “You must be pretty positive Beckett’s not coming back to tell me all this.”

  “He promised me one of those pieces of Natalie’s. A diamond ring I’d picked out. Should’ve stashed it in a coffee can when I had the chance. I’ll never see it again, so to hell with him.” She pushed the box into the closet and shut the door. “You must meet people at Tremayne’s who need secretarial services. Pass along my name, would you? I do good work, and I’m always open for business.”

  * * *

  SWEET-TALKING MY WAY onto the Lodestar lot wasn’t difficult with the end of workday exodus underway. But the soundstage hosting Hearts in Spring, directed by Laurence Minot and featuring Diana Galway in the role of Susie, still teemed with activity. As I approached I was engulfed by a sea of blondes dressed like dolls. Short gingham skirts over mountains of petticoats, hair in pigtails, circles of rouge on their cheeks. I washed ashore by a wall as they rolled past for a smoke break, tap shoes clicking.

  No Raggedy Ann getup for the picture’s third female lead. Diana sat in a corner of the set, a robe draped over her lacy peignoir. Waves of chestnut hair framed her face as she pored over the latest Photoplay the way Father Costigan used to study the Daily Racing Form.

  “I thought those magazines were only for us fans.”

  She started as if I’d woken her. “My photo spread is inside.”

  “Did you smile for the birdie?”

  “Four hours in the broiling sun at the Riviera Country Club and they only use two lousy pictures.” She tossed the magazine to the floor. I marveled at the speed with which she’d acquired that essential accessory to Hollywood success, a permanent sense of dissatisfaction. “I won’t ask if you’ve heard. Detective Morrow was here this morning and to
ld us you’re in this up to your ears. We know about Ruby pretending to be a princess.”

  “Give her some credit. She delivered the performance of a lifetime as Natalie. Got great notices including a marriage proposal.”

  Diana tensed. Let her wonder from whom the proposal had come. We were both acting now, and while Diana had the training I had the motivation.

  “She overplayed it, I’ll bet, knowing Ruby,” Diana said. “Loads of grand gestures.”

  “But an authentic Hungarian accent. You said Gene told us.”

  “Yes, well, apparently, Laurence did know Natalie in a professional capacity. Remember I said she wanted to be an actress.”

  “Meaning he lied to the police before.”

  “No, he simply forgot he’d been introduced to her at the studio. In a professional capacity.”

  All the theatrics were making me tired. Maybe that was why I’d washed out as an actress. I lacked the stamina for it.

  “I doubt a professional capacity is what got your husband punched in the face. Or why you hired a private investigator to follow him.”

  Diana’s transformation was jarring. First the tears, hot and sudden. Then her face collapsed, revealing the emotions roiling beneath. The raw materials of her trade laid bare. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Laurence had become so distant. And Ruby was too busy to talk to me about him. I was alone. Of course I’d heard of Princess Natalie. Everyone was talking about her, even Laurence. Then he started spending more time away from home. I knew Natalie was his type. An aristocrat. Everything I’m not. I never thought—” Her voice caught, and she began weeping even harder. “Did Ruby hate me? Is that why she’d go to all this trouble? Because she hated me that much?”

  There was no calculation to her show of neediness, no technique. It was like watching a world-class jockey lose control of a thoroughbred, and I wanted the spectacle to end before someone got hurt. “This wasn’t about you,” I said. “You knew Ruby. She never planned anything.”

  “I’d try to get a look at this princess at parties,” Diana said. “But she was always on the other side of the room, or had just left. I got it in my head she was avoiding me.”