“Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“Take care.” He clicked off.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had to miss something because my mom was sick or drunk. But it was the first time I didn’t care.
Oh, I cared about getting into that room. But it could wait. As Den had said, the stuff wouldn’t disappear. And as I looked at my mom, the fresh memory of losing Justine reminded me of the fragility of life. One day here, the next day gone. I was in the right place, with the right people.
“Who was that?” Gram asked.
“The police officer working on Justine’s case.” I lay back on the cot, weary.
“What’s going on?”
“They’ve got a search warrant to check out Justine’s private room at Club Circe.” My head sank into the pillow. “They wanted me to come and help them sort it all out.”
“And?”
“I told them it could wait. And it can.”
“Club Circe? Isn’t that one of those fancy private clubs?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’ll take them a few days.”
The room quieted. Gram went into the bathroom and I closed my eyes.
I awakened to Mom and Gram laughing. I Love Lucy was on the television. I sat up and eyeballed them. Mom was smiling, a rosy touch in her cheeks.
“They’ll spring me tomorrow morning. Got a place for me at a rehab center in Jersey.”
“Jersey? Could they have picked a worse place? It’ll take hours to get there,” I said.
“We are not allowed to visit,” Gram said, shrugging. “It’s going to be quite a vacation for your ma.”
“Yeah,” Mom snorted. “A vacation in Jersey without my family and without the booze.”
“Let’s hope so, Mom. You don’t want to end up here again.” I stood and leaned over her bed, brushing away a cluster of gray hair on her forehead.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte. For everything,” she said with authenticity in her eyes and voice.
“Me too, Mom,” I said, warmth spreading through me.
“You need to know something,” she said. “Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail.” Her voice cracked.
What could it have been? A bill collector? Another package from Justine?
“It was a note from your father.”
“Come again?”
“He’s alive. Your father is still alive.”
Air whooshed from my lungs. “It can’t be.”
“That’s what I thought. I assumed someone was messing with me.” Her lips formed a straight line.
“And?” I prompted.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Charlotte. It looked like his handwriting. He wrote about things that only he would know about.”
No wonder Mom took that first drink. My dad had vanished twenty years ago without a word. We thought he was dead.
I had a million questions rushing through my mind. But only one came out. “Where is he?”
Mom’s eyes turned to blue pools of sorrow. “He didn’t say.”
Fifty-One
The next day, after we packed Mom off to her rehab facility and Gram off to Cloister Island, I hailed an Uber to Club Circe.
Gutted by the news that my dad was alive but hadn’t bothered to reach out to us until now, and with my energy as sapped, I didn’t have much left within me for investigation. Even though I was keeping up with my meds, I required rest.
But I needed to be in the space Justine lived in the last few weeks of her life. It was more than a nostalgic compulsion. It was a need to know, to dig through the things she’d left behind for some answers. What and who was she hiding from? Was it the person who killed her?
Did she have files pertaining to any of this? I’d found no juicy research on the Harlow book in her apartment. I decided they must be in her Club Circe suite.
A grim Ms. Collins opened the door to the club and directed me to the elevator. “Tenth floor, Suite A.”
As I made my way to the suite, I contemplated Club Circe, the missing files, and Justine. There were only two suites on the floor, and I assumed the one with the door open and police inside was Justine’s. But I was unprepared for the well-ordered chaos, and it took me a moment to get my bearings. Plastic bags, labeled, held Justine’s things. Uniformed officers walked around, bagging and labeling. The scent of sharpie markers and cheap plastic filled the luxurious room, making for an odd scene when combined with the Oriental carpets, crystal chandeliers, and original paintings. A forensics team was examining every nook and cranny of the place and working with the police.
“Charlotte,” Den said, lifting his chin toward me. He was crouched down on the shiny floor bagging up a dress. I inspected it further, my heart skipping a beat. It was the same pink dress that the Harlow impersonator had worn when she came to the apartment. The day Justine’s computer was stolen.
“Den, that’s—”
He stood. “She was staying here with Justine.”
I clutched my chest. “What?”
“Whatever they were involved in, they were in it together,” he said.
Justine had been living with the Harlow look-alike here? At Club Circe? Why didn’t she tell me any of this? What exactly was going on?
Several other officers were in the rooms, placing shoes, clothes, and such in bags and labeling them.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked as someone carried off one of Justine’s outfits. A black-and-white Chanel suit.
“It’s evidence,” Den said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her things back to you when we can.”
“Why is it evidence?”
“Everything in here could be evidence. We’ll examine each piece for any clues as to who killed Justine and Samuel.”
“Samuel?”
“The Harlow look-alike. Her name was Samuel Bello Stone.” Den handed me a passport. “Her name before she transitioned.”
Did I hear that right? “Wait. Did you say Bello?”
He nodded. “Yeah, why?’
My mouth dropped. Could it be? Could she be from Jean Harlow’s stepfather’s line somehow? How could it be? My brain clicked into action. Had Marino Bello gotten someone pregnant and taken the baby to France? Is that why he was there?
“Ah, Charlotte?” Den’s left eyebrow cocked and his voice held expectation.
“Bello was Jean Harlow’s stepfather’s last name,” I said.
Den blinked several times, as if trying to process the information. “Do ya think?”
“I don’t know.” My heart thudded against my rib cage. “But it’s possible. He cheated on his wife frequently. Perhaps he fathered an illegitimate child.”
“Hey, Sergeant Brophy,” a uniformed officer interrupted. “Guy’s got a question for you over here.”
“Be right back,” he said.
I was going nowhere. My feet were firmly planted on the black-and-pink tiled floor as if frozen. Had Bello had a child?
An illegitimate child of Jean Harlow’s stepfather would be considered quite an embarrassment. The Hollywood studios would have done anything to keep her reputation pristine. She was highly regarded in Hollywood. One of the best to work with, always had a kind word for the guys on the crew. People loved her. But any whiff of scandal in those days could ruin a young rising star. She’d already suffered one almost-scandal with the suicide of Paul Bern. Would her stepfather siring an illegitimate child have led to concern with the studio?
These days, I couldn’t see why anybody would care. But in the 1930s, it would have been viewed in a different light, even though he was her stepfather, not her father.
Den brought me an armful of files. “Would you like to sort through these? We’ll take them with us. But you can go through them and label them. And if there’s anything you need for your book, let me know and we’l
l get you a copy.”
I took the files from him and sat at a desk with them. I glanced over at a dressing table holding a mannequin head with a red wig on it. The very wig the impersonator had worn at Justine’s service. But why had she been stalking me if she was a friend of Justine’s? It made no sense.
The first folder I opened contained copies of Jean Harlow’s official documents. Birth certificate, marriage and divorce certificates, and death certificate. I’d wondered about these. The next folder was chock-full of magazine clips about Harlow. Standard stuff for a biographer.
The next folder contained Justine’s interviews with experts about Harlow. I already had those files on the computer. I placed it on the stack of folders I’d already examined. The next folder contained a bad copy of Samuel Bello Stone’s birth certificate: mother Grace Harcourt, father Luther Stone. Luther was from France and Grace was from Great Britain. One of the attached sheets was Luther’s immigration paper for England. The other was a listing of addresses where the couple had lived in London.
So, Marino Bello’s love child must have been Luther or Grace. No, wait—the numbers didn’t add up. It must have been one of their parents. But even if that was the case, it would only be worth a sentence or two in the Harlow book. Hardly a huge secret, and not worth all the fuss. There had to be more.
I set the folder aside and moved on to the next one, which was full of information about the star sapphire ring. The very ring I still carried in my purse. Official papers about its worth in the 1930s, where Powell had purchased it, and so on. He was cheap. We already understood that. I flipped the page over and saw, written in Justine’s handwriting: “Current owner Sam/Jean Harlow, who claims the piece was handed down in the family. Says the real Jean Harlow gave it to her stepfather to hand over to the child in France.”
What? Why would Jean Harlow have done that? Why would she want her stepfather to give her ring to his illegitimate child? I would think she’d be pissed—he’d cheated on her mother and had a child with someone else. Why would Jean entrust him with her ring? The ring given to her by the love of her life?
I stared at the words. Sam/Jean Harlow claims. Justine was a wordsmith. She purposefully used the word “claim,” which meant she had no solid evidence. And that Sam didn’t either. They were trying to find proof—and in doing so, got themselves killed.
The police surrounded me as I searched through the folders. I barely heard their shuffling around because I was deep in thought.
“Have you found something?” Den came up beside me. “Hey,” he said poking me.
“What?” I raised my face in his direction.
“What have you got there?”
I explained to him what I’d uncovered.
“Is it relevant?”
“The fact that Bello had an illegitimate child is a blip. I mean, it warrants a mention, not a chapter. It’s not a twist in the Harlow story. But it’s odd she would have sent her ring to the child. I’m not sure Justine believed that. I think she may have been trying to prove it.”
“Would that warrant a chapter?” Den’s eyebrows shot up.
“Probably. Because there’s been so much speculation about the ring for years. It’s taken on mythical qualities,” I said and laughed. A pang of guilt shot through me then. I gazed into Den’s blue eyes. Okay, so he wasn’t attracted to me anymore, but he was a good cop and a good guy. I’d been holding on to the sapphire far too long. Maybe handing it over would help solve Justine’s murder in some way. It wasn’t my last link to her. It wasn’t. She’d left everything to me. I wouldn’t get it all, due to Judith, but still, the fact that she wanted me to have it? Well, that meant more than the sapphire ring I was hiding.
“Den, I have something to tell you.”
He pulled up a chair close and sat down.
“I have the ring.”
His head tilted in interest and he leaned forward. “The ring?”
I nodded. “The very ring.”
He sat back and crossed his arms and appeared deep in concentration. “Where did you find it?”
“In Justine’s apartment.”
“Where is it now?”
“In my purse.” Sweat was pricking at my forehead.
“As a cop, I should ask you to hand it over, but then it would become a matter of public record and I think that might be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Look, you’ve been stalked, attacked, and it probably has something to do with this ring. Nobody knew where it was and you’re still being attacked. I care about you, but I can’t protect you twenty-four-seven.”
My heart fluttered. “You care about me?”
“Yeah, yeah. I told you, you know, after this case is solved. You and me. You still up for that?” he said in almost a whisper.
“I’ve been getting mixed signals, Den. I didn’t think you were interested anymore.” I closed the folder and placed it on the already examined pile.
“Whadya mean?”
“The day you put me on the boat to head back to Cloister Island. And then you didn’t come to the island to pick up the computer. I just assumed.”
His face fell and eyes slanted. It was the same expression that was on his face as I’d jetted off across the water. “Look,” he said. “You may as well know.”
I leaned in. “Know what?” Was he married? Engaged?
“I don’t do water.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a type of aquaphobia. I don’t like water,” he said. “I don’t do boats and I don’t do islands.”
I blinked. Den, a sergeant in the NYPD, didn’t do islands. But Manhattan was an island. I was confused.
“What I mean is, I don’t leave my island to go to other islands.” He sat back. “I don’t like to talk about it. But none of this shit had anything to do with you, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. What do I do about the ring?”
“Keep it. Let me think about the best thing to do here, okay? I don’t want to put your life in danger, so we need to proceed with caution. Tell nobody. I mean, not even Kate. Understood?”
“Kate knows. She was with me when I found it.”
An officer walked by with several plastic bags in his arms. One held the silver pumps the Harlow look-alike had worn when I first spotted her.
“Okay, tell her to keep her mouth shut.”
“Will do.”
A few moments passed of awkward silence. “Den? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. About the ring.”
“S’okay. I think your instincts are solid. I think the ring might be the key to solving both murders. But I need to think.”
“Understood,” I said. “I need to think, too. I don’t understand why Jean would have sent her ring to Bello’s illegitimate baby in France. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Could be a ruse.”
“Yeah, could be.”
“Or maybe the baby was hers.”
“It can’t be. She was on-screen, working, all the time. If she’d been gone from the scene long enough to have a baby, I’d know it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Marino’s kid,” Den said after a moment. “Maybe it belonged to someone she cared about.”
“Makes sense,” I said, making a mental note to call the French embassy as soon as I could.
“So between this baby in France and the missing ring, which is now found, you may have something new to add to your story,” Den said.
Out of the mouths of cops. But how to prove or disprove any of it? My fingers tapped on the last few folders to sift through. Documents could be forged. Hollywood was a master at it. They loved to create backstories for their stars, especially those who had something to hide.
The fog in my head was taking over. A throbbing crept into my temples. My arms heavied. Torn between staying and reviewing the files a
nd going back to the apartment to rest, I asked Den if I could take the files with me.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said. “But what I can do is have them copied and sent to you. How’s that sound?”
“Perfect,” I said, standing, trying to brush off the weariness in my legs. “I’m off, then.”
I rustled up whatever energy I had left and exited Justine’s suit, made my way to the front door of Club Circe, and caught a cab back to L’Ombragé.
Fifty-Two
The next day, I woke up to the buzzing of my cell phone. I picked it up. Kate was calling.
“Hey,” I said.
“Where’ve you been?”
I told her about my mom, leaving out the news about my father, then informed her about going into Justine’s private rooms at Club Circe.
“Oh my gawd. What did it look like? How was it decorated?”
“You know what? I noticed nothing at all except the red wig on one of those heads.”
“Charlotte Donovan! What about the bedding? What about the paintings? I’m sure there must be several wonderful paintings in her rooms! How about the books?”
“Nothing, I’m sorry. My mind was struggling to concentrate on what I needed to focus on.” I yawned.
“Are you still in bed? It’s almost noon. I was going to ask if you wanted to meet for lunch. I’m on your side of town. But why don’t I just bring you something to eat?”
“Okay,” I said.
“See you in a few.”
I lay on the chaise for a few moments before trying to lift myself off of it, remembering what I’d learned yesterday, wondering when Den would send the files. I sat up, feeling as if I were moving through water, which was typical when I felt Lyme-ish. I took a deep breath and made my way to the bathroom, then to the kitchen where I prepared coffee.
As the scent filled the room, I sat down at the kitchen island, scanning myself. Was my grogginess because I was just now getting up or was another Lyme episode setting in?
The buzzer sounded, and I pressed it.
“Kate to see you,” the gravelly voice said.
“Okay, send her up.” I unlocked the front door and went back into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. I heard the elevator and a slight rapping at the door.
The Jean Harlow Bombshell Page 22