“He drove, of course. Isn’t that what people do out there?”
“He rented a car?”
“Used up most of his money on an old wreck, he said. Kept breaking down on the freeways and he had to get out and jiggle wires or something. He was good with cars, Kiki was. Lived in the wreck, he told me. His own Motel 6. Parked in the Wal-Mart lots at night and ate dollar burgers. He got by.”
“Did he look up any old records?”
“Records?” A sharp guffaw came over the line. “You mean like going to the library or something?”
“I mean police records.”
“Kiki wasn’t going around any cops, if that’s what you’re getting at. All I remember him saying is that he talked to some old people.”
“Old people?” Vicky said. A jumble of questions in her mind now. “Were they connected to the movies? Who were they? How did he find them?”
“You know what?” The old cynicism and resistance were back. “I didn’t ask him all them questions ’cause I didn’t care. And you know what else? I still don’t care, so you got all I know and I’m gonna hang up now.”
“Wait,” Vicky said, but she was talking into a dead phone.
She walked back through the restaurant and took her chair. “Sorry,” she said. “A call about work.” She was immediately sorry she had said it, because Susan’s head snapped back and a wary expression flooded her eyes. “About Kiki Wallowingbull.” Vicky hurried on, a weak attempt to explain. “Did you happen to know him?” They were close to the same age, she was thinking. There was every chance Susan might have run into him.
“Kiki’s your client?” Susan said. “He’s a loser, Mom. Into drugs big-time in high school. I heard he dropped out sophomore year. What are you doing with clients like that? I thought you and Adam were handling Indian law.”
“Kiki was killed a week ago,” Vicky said. “He was off drugs.”
Susan spread both hands over the traces of salad left on her plate. “I get it. You’re representing the guy that killed him.”
Vicky took a bite of the crab cake and washed it down with a drink of tea. She wasn’t hungry; a storm of butterflies had erupted in her stomach. “It may have been self-defense,” she heard herself saying. “I’m trying to get to the truth. Just before he was killed, Kiki came here to find out what happened to his great-grandfather when he was working in Hollywood in 1923.”
“He was in the movies?” Brett said. “Susan told me her people were in some of the old Westerns.”
Vicky nodded. “Charlie Wallowingbull disappeared from Hollywood,” she said. “The family has always believed he was killed. Kiki came here to find out what happened.”
“Nineteen twenty-three.” Susan shook her head. “This is a now place, Mom. I mean, all anybody cares about is what’s happening today.”
“I think Kiki found something,” Vicky said.
“Police records?” This from Brett.
“It’s possible, but his girlfriend doesn’t think so.” And yet, there was no telling what Kiki might have done or where he might have gone. “One of the old movie stars, Tim McCoy, tried to find out what happened,” Vicky said. Then she explained that McCoy hadn’t been able to locate any police records.
“A lot of records weren’t open back then,” Brett said. “It wasn’t easy for a curious citizen to get access to police records. The Hollywood division can confirm if any exist. It can take several weeks to get copies, but I’ve got a friend in records. He might be able to cut through the red tape.”
Vicky looked at the young man. The boyish grin, the eagerness, replaced now with an earnest, professional manner in the way he had straightened his shoulders and lifted his head. He’s serious, Susan had said. “I couldn’t ask you . . .”
Brett held up his hand. “I do it all the time.”
“Brett’s an investigator,” Susan said.
Vicky sat back, her eyes still on the young man. “I see. You are an investigator for the law firm.”
“Soon to be a lawyer, I hope,” Brett said. “I’m in my second year of law school. Evening classes. I’d be glad to see if there’s any records from 1923 on a missing Indian male. Do you know where he was staying?”
“Cahuenga Pass.”
“You’re kidding,” Susan said.
“They camped in the pass and rode horses into Hollywood every day.”
Susan tossed her head back and laughed. “A surprise every minute in this town,” she said.
“What else did this Kiki Wallowingbull do out here?” Brett said.
Vicky told him that all she knew was what Kiki’s girlfriend had said. “He told her he talked with some old people, but there can’t be any movie people around who were old enough in 1923 to know what happened.”
“Their kids might know,” Brett said. “And they’d have to be pretty old.”
“Thing about the movie business, Mom”—Susan leaned over the table—“is that it’s a family business. Kids follow Mom and Dad into the movies. I know best boys and grips and makeup artists whose great-grandparents were in the movies.”
“How would Kiki have gotten in touch with anyone who had worked on The Covered Wagon?”
“I know what I would do,” Brett said. “Check out the retirement homes for movie folks.”
“But you’re an investigator. Kiki was an Indian from a reservation.”
“All he had to do was Google retirement homes for movie people. My bet is he found somebody willing to chat with him.”
Vicky gave the young man a smile and thanked him. Then she caught Susan’s eyes. “I’ll look into that on Monday,” she said. “After we’ve enjoyed the weekend.”
Susan leaned forward and scooted herself even closer to the edge of the table. “Let’s check it out tomorrow,” she said. “I’d like to hear about the old days out here. I mean, it would be interesting.”
28
THE FREEWAY WOUND through the hills, then straightened out past stretches of shopping centers, car lots, and blocks of houses with tiled roofs and garages that jutted toward the street. But there were stretches of wilderness, too, the way the landscape had once been, Vicky thought. Palm trees waving overhead, and trees with red and blue flowers, indigo lilacs and sage bushes with apricot blossoms, and wild grasses tinged purple. Wisps of white clouds scudded across the pale blue sky. Everything so different, so unlike the plains.
“Not much farther,” Susan said. She was a good driver, gearing down for traffic stops ahead, settling into a steady pace when the highway opened up. She had a small, light-blue sedan with a clicking noise in the engine that gathered energy whenever the car slowed down. Still it drove smoothly enough. She went on about the friend she worked with who had a house in Malibu with great views of the ocean from the pool. “Her parents are in the business,” she said.
They crested a hill, then started dropping into what looked like a valley of rooftops and swimming pools intersected by asphalt grids, except for the wide, green open place that looked like a park off to the left. The grounds of the retirement home, Vicky suspected. This morning, she had checked the internet while Susan was still asleep and gotten the telephone numbers of three retirement homes for people in motion pictures. Later, on the way to the Getty Museum, she had called the offices, given her name—Vicky Holden, attorney from Wyoming—and said she would like to visit the people Kiki Wallowingbull had talked to two weeks ago. No record of a Mr. Wallowingbull on the visitor lists at the first two homes, but on the third call, the woman at the other end had hesitated before asking her to hold on. Vicky could hear the click of a keyboard and the rustle of paper. Finally the woman was back. Yes, Mr. Wallowingbull had spent time with two of the residents.
“Would it be possible to see them?” Vicky had asked. Oh, yes, it was possible. All the residents loved visitors, and Norma Brown and Hugh Caldwell had so enjoyed chatting about the old days with Mr. Wallowingbull. This afternoon would be a good time, around three o’clock.
Susan slowed down,
and the clicking noise gathered into the fast rhythm of a pendulum in an old clock. They made a right and drove through two brick columns onto the grounds of what resembled a college campus. The lane curved around manicured lawns with walkways past flower gardens and topiary trees. Small groups of people strolled along, men in khaki trousers and windbreakers, women in capris and pastel jackets. Ahead, set back from a circular drive, was a sprawling, one-story white stucco building with a bloodred tiled roof.
Vicky glanced at her watch. A quarter to three. The engine clicked faster as Susan turned into the drive and parked in front of a sign that said Visitors. They walked across the drive to the large porch in front of the leaded-glass door. Inside was all white marble tile and dark, polished tables with vases of flowers. The entry flowed into a corridor that ran toward the rear where a leaded-glass door mirrored the door in front. The blond-haired woman at the desk across the entry was getting to her feet as they walked over.
“You must be Ms. Holden,” the woman said, holding out a hand. She looked about thirty, only a few years older than Susan, but there was an air of confidence and authority in the way she grasped Vicky’s hand. She had a warm, practiced smile and blue eyes that matched the blue sapphire pendant at the base of her neck. “I’m Lilly Harrison, assistant manager,” she said.
Vicky introduced Susan and the woman shook her hand. “I can’t tell you how excited Hugh and Norma are to have other visitors interested in the old days. Would you mind signing in?” She pushed a registry across the desk.
Vicky signed in first. She was thinking that Kiki would have signed the same registry, and what he had learned here could have killed him. After Susan had signed her name, Lilly Harrison said, “They’re waiting out on the lawn.” She came around the desk and started down the wide corridor to the leaded-glass door in back.
They followed her across the marble-paved patio outside and down a grassy hillside to where a stand of bushes and gnarled trees separated the parklike grass from the beach. The sound of crashing waves came from the distance, and the soft sea breeze tugged at Vicky’s slacks and sweater. The woman stopped in front of an elderly couple sitting in white wooden chairs that slanted backward. Beside them were two vacant chairs.
“Norma. Hugh. Here are your guests,” she said, waving Vicky and Susan closer. “Vicky Holden, the lawyer I told you about, and her daughter, Susan. They’re friends of Mr. Wallowingbull.”
“Hugh Caldwell,” the old man said, lifting his hand. In his eighties, Vicky guessed, with gray hair and a little gray goatee that gave him a rakish look despite the folds of wrinkled skin and the thick eyelids that drooped over his dark eyes. His palm was soft, but his grasp was surprisingly firm. “Pardon me if I don’t get up,” he said. “The ups and downs these days are no easy matter.”
“Oh, Hugh,” the elderly woman said. “You’re as strong as a horse. You just don’t want the bother.” She looked from Vicky to Susan. “My, your daughter is beautiful like you,” she said, holding up a limp white hand with gold-and-diamond rings on the fingers. “I’m Norma Brown. Perhaps you’ve seen my movies? Late-night television? A little diversion for insomiacs?” Vicky smiled and took the woman’s hand. Then she stepped back so that Susan could greet them.
“I’ll leave you to chat,” Lilly Harrison said. She was already backing up the hill. Then she pivoted about and hurried toward the marble patio, long strides, arms swinging at her sides.
“Do sit down.” Norma flecked ringed fingers in the direction of the vacant chairs, as if she were brushing dust out of the air, and Vicky perched on the edge of the chair close to the couple. Susan sat back in the other chair and crossed her legs as if she were settling in for a movie.
“So you are friends of that nice young Indian,” Norma said. “He came all the way out here to talk about the past. Not many young people give a hoot about the old days. Too much going on too fast, you ask me.”
Hugh gave a loud snort and looked slantways at Norma. “You forget how fast everything was in our day? Every generation has its own craziness. How’s Kiki doing, anyway?”
Vicky took a moment, and in that moment, both of the old people seemed to understand that something had changed. They shifted around, walking their feet in her direction, and leaned on the armrests. She could hear the tension in the rhythm of their breathing.
“Kiki was killed a short time after he returned to the reservation,” she said.
They stared at her, slack-jawed, eyes wide, as if they were waiting for the rest of it, something more to explain the inexplicable. Vicky heard herself saying that Kiki had gotten into an argument and was killed in self-defense. All of it supposition, based on words whispered over the telephone, uttered in the shadows.
“The poor boy,” Norma said. “He told us he was looking for his great-grandfather, but I think he was looking for himself.”
Vicky let the sound of the breeze fill up the space around them for a moment before she said, “It would help his family to know what he learned. It might help them to understand why he was killed. Can you tell me what you told him?”
“It was a long time ago, 1923.” Hugh pulled at his goatee, working it into a neat triangle. “I was born that year, so I couldn’t give him a blow-by-blow account of what might’ve gone on. Same for Norma here.”
“Of course I wasn’t born until much later,” Norma said, gazing in the direction of the ocean, patting the silver hair into place, and Vicky suspected that much later was no more than a year or two. “Naturally I have no memories of my own from that time.”
“Rumors were all we could give the boy,” Hugh said.
Norma laughed. “Oh, how this town thrives on rumors and gossip. Always has.” She brought her eyes to Vicky’s. “We’re in the story business. We live on stories. All we could tell that nice young man were stories we heard when we were kids.”
Norma smiled. A far away look came into her eyes. She might have been lost in a movie playing in her head. “Mother did the makeup for big stars,” Norma said. “Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Mabel Normand. Lois Wilson. Missy Mae Markham. She used to hear a lot of juicy gossip. Who was sleeping with whom, that kind of thing. I used to sneak down the stairs and hide in a little alcove and listen to her and Dad talking. Dad was a cameraman. Karl Brown. You heard of him?” She hurried on without waiting for an answer. “That’s how they got together, a whirlwind courtship on location for The Covered Wagon. Lots of Indians in that movie. Kiki said his great-grandfather was there.”
“Did your parents talk about the movie?”
Norma nodded, still intent on the scenes in her head. “It was in 1939, the day Missy Mae Markham died. I remember Mother banging through the front door and shouting, ‘Karl, you heard the news?’ Dad was out by the pool, having a scotch and smoking his cigar. Mother marched out there, and naturally I followed. ‘Missy’s dead,’ she said. I remember how Dad didn’t say anything at first, just looked up at her like she was talking French or something. Finally he said, ‘Took her a long time.’
“It was like a little earthquake running through everything.” Hugh shifted forward. “Everybody remembered Missy Mae Markham. Big star in the twenties. Perfect, white complexion like you never saw. Folks said she had violet eyes that bored right into you. But drugs and alcohol got the best of her in the thirties. She had powerful patrons, but they deserted her one by one. Producers turned on her, wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, couldn’t rely on her showing up for work. She died of an overdose.”
Norma ran the tips of her fingers over the rings on her other hand, polishing the stones. “I remember Mother poured herself a scotch and sat down next to Dad. The sun was setting and the patio turned red. Even the pool was red. Mother had a sadness about her. I remember how she sipped at her drink and started talking about The Covered Wagon. Just going back in her mind, and Dad nodding, like he remembered the same things. How Missy turned down the lead role, then changed her mind. Well, Lois Wilson had al
ready been cast, but Missy went on location anyway. Mother said she hoped Lois would fall off a horse, and Cruze would have no choice but to put Missy in.”
“My father had a lot of respect for Jimmie,” Hugh said. “Made the A-list after The Covered Wagon. Dad said he learned everything he knew from watching Jimmie work. Didn’t make much difference. Dad directed a slew of forgettable movies and never made the A-list, but he liked palling around with big names.” Hugh leaned over and set a hand on Norma’s arm. “But I digress,” he said. “Better get to what you told the boy.”
“What I told Kiki”—Norma turned to Vicky—“was what Mother said. Missy was Jesse Lasky’s girlfriend, so she got pretty much what she wanted. Missy wanted him to fire Lois, but Cruze said he’d quit the movie, so Lasky had to tell her no. Made her real mad. She caused a lot of trouble on location. Even took up with the Indians,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, “just to cause trouble.”
“Gossip said she took up with Charlie Wallowingbull,” Hugh said. “Turns out he was the boy’s great-grandfather.”
Norma pursed her lips together and nodded. “Charlie was real good-looking, Mother said. She worked on the Indians’ makeup, too. Gave them big, black eyebrows and used rouge to highlight their cheekbones. She said everybody talked about Charlie and Missy, and Mother tried to warn him that she was Lasky’s girlfriend. Told him no good would come from an affair with her. Eventually the rumors got back to Lasky, because he sent a bodyguard to keep tabs on Missy.”
“Did that end the affair?”
Hugh gave out a loud guffaw. “Upped the ante with that woman,” he said. “Tell them the rest of it.”
“One Indian wasn’t enough for Missy. Pretty soon the gossip was about the other Indian she was flirting with, Charlie’s best friend.”
The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 26