She looked at me, and despite myself I wanted nothing more than to put my arms around this girl and comfort her.
The instant I moved toward her she disappeared.
Poof.
Chapter 9
Okay, I admit that after-midnight online searches for ghosts on blustery October nights were arguably not the best thing for my mental health, but I couldn’t not look up Trixie when I went home that night. And the sanity-restoring news was that I found her.
Beatrix George was a real person.
My first stop was the Wikipedia page for the Palace that I’d found before. I zoomed in as far as I could on the photo of the Depression-era staff. There were a couple dozen employees, all wearing uniforms that were heavy on buttons and braid. They stood in rows on the sweeping lobby stairs and faced the future like they had no idea what it was about to do to them. Trixie was in the third row from the top. That blond hair stood out like a beacon.
Good. I had seen her photo before I conjured her up. Good.
Next I tried to search the online archives of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner, but neither of them went back far enough. I could probably go to the library and scroll through microfilm, but in the end I didn’t need to. Because the guys who had made that TV show about the haunted Palace had done all the work for me.
From the Evidence Found! website:
Beatrix “Trixie” George was a 21-year-old usherette at San Francisco’s Palace theatre in December of 1937. One night, during a movie, she was pushed from the balcony and died instantly.
Edward Wheeler was a popular young man from a good family, but was also known as a troublemaker in the neighborhood. Wheeler was in the balcony that night and several eyewitnesses swore they saw him push the beautiful young usherette to her death.
Wheeler was charged with murder. The charges were later reduced to involuntary manslaughter as it emerged that Trixie was accidentally pushed as she tried to stop a fistfight between Wheeler and another man. Wheeler pled guilty and served two years at San Quentin. The ghost of the usherette Trixie haunts the balcony to this day.
It went on to list numerous sightings and strange occurrences in the theatre over the course of the next eighty-some years, some more preposterous than others. I refused to believe that Trixie could be heard moaning the name “Edward” in the balcony on the anniversary of her death. I scoffed, and then realized I was scoffing because I knew Trixie called him “Eddie,” which I didn’t really know, I reminded myself, because Trixie was a figment of my imagination and not a ghost.
Still. Trixie’s story checked out. Which meant that I had probably read something about it when I was researching Kate and the Palace the night before I got bumped on the head. That’s all. That’s what I kept telling myself. The story was missing some of the detail my imagination had supplied, like the film that was showing, but that was to be expected. Trixie—my hallucination—had said it had been The Awful Truth. That made total sense. The Awful Truth is about a divorcing couple, and it had probably crept into my subconscious simply because divorce was never long off my mind these days. Simple.
I shook my head and focused back on the Wikipedia page, staring at the photo, looking at the faces of people who had all presumably died long ago. Then I stopped looking at the picture, just the slightest bit afraid that I’d see myself staring back at me from under a jaunty little gold-embroidered cap. I had no intention of turning into Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining (1980, Nicholson, Shelly Duvall, and a couple of very creepy little girl ghosts).
I shut down my laptop and then glanced at Kate’s. I had made no progress in finding her email password, looking for the piece of “ah ha!” information in her emails that would tell me whether she’d been murdered and what, if anything, she’d had to do with Raul Acosta’s chilly death.
Was my vision of Trixie related to the investigation? It had to be. There must be something that I’d noticed on some subconscious level, and I’d simply conjured Trixie up to tell me what it was.
And then it hit me. If I really had noticed something, and if the hallucinated Trixie really was trying to tell me what it was, maybe the simplest thing in the world would be to ask her. What if I just asked Trixie what she’d seen on the day Kate died? Or the day Raul Acosta was murdered?
Okay. That sounded like a plan. In the morning I would interrogate the figment of my imagination and with her answers both solve the murders and get rid of the ghost.
That’s assuming she would appear to me again.
“Good morning, Nora! What did you do last night? Did you go out? Are there still nightclubs? Gee, I always wanted to go to a nightclub—you know, the kind of nightclub with a floor show and dancing and everything. But I never had the right kind of fella to take me. Do you have a fella, Nora? I bet you do, and I bet he’s a wonderful dancer. Do you like dancing?”
Trixie greeted me with this as soon as I opened the lobby door the next morning. It was early on a Sunday, so I expected the theater to be empty. Which it was, except for one bouncy hallucination.
She peppered me with questions as I turned off the alarm and danced around me as I went up the balcony stairs, humming something that might have been Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top” as I opened Kate’s office and deposited laptop and backpack on the desk.
“Trixie, we need to talk.”
“Oh, goody!” She sat on the desk and put her feet on the chair in front of it. “I can’t believe I finally have someone to talk to. It’s so exciting! What do you want to talk about?” She hugged her knees and looked at me with the thrilled anticipation of a kid on the countdown to Christmas. “What kind of music do you like? Who’s your favorite singer? Mine’s Bing Crosby. Gee, he’s swell. Do people still listen to Bing Crosby?”
“Some of them,” I answered. “But, Trixie, I want to ask you about Kate.”
She gasped in excitement. “Oh! Kate! Can you tell her about me? I’ve tried everything to get her to see me, but she never has. When she first came here I was always knocking things over and moving things—you have no idea how hard it is to knock things over or move things when you’re a ghost—but she never realized I was here. But now if you tell her—What’s wrong, Nora?”
Trixie didn’t know. How could she not know? And how could I tell her?
I swallowed. I hesitated. Then I just had to say it. “Trixie, Kate died.”
She blinked rapidly several times. “No.” She shook her head. “No, I just saw her.” She looked confused. “When did I see her? I saw her just the other day. Or maybe it was longer than that. Did I go away before you came here?” Confusion was turning to panic. “How long was I gone? Is Kate really—When? How?”
“What happened the last time you saw her?” I asked. “Think very hard. It’s important.”
Trixie turned her huge blue eyes to me. “It was…I don’t know exactly when it was, but it was the first day Random Harvest was playing. I know because my friend Rivka’s daughter brought her granddaughter—she would have been Rivka’s great-granddaughter—to see it.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. “The previews were playing, and there was nobody in the lobby but Kate, and then this man came in.” She looked up at me. “He talked to her, and I wondered who he was, because Kate knew him right away. Is that important?”
“It could be,” I told her. “What did the man look like?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I only saw him from behind.”
“Was he dark, fair, tall, short?”
“Tall, I think, but then everybody seems tall now compared to me. And dark hair…” She nodded. “I’m sure it was dark hair.”
Dark hair like Raul Acosta?
“What happened?” I pressed. “What did Kate and this man talk about?”
Trixie’s face crumpled. “I don’t know. I didn’t stay. On any other day I would have, but I heard Random Harvest start
ing, and I just love that picture, and I wanted to watch Rivka’s great-granddaughter getting to see it for the first time.” A look of horror came over her. “Kate and the man went up the stairs and I went into the theater. But she shouldn’t have gone up the stairs with him and left the lobby unattended, should she? So something must have been wrong.” She wrung her hands. “Something was wrong and I didn’t see it and now Kate’s dead and I should have—”
“No, Trixie, this isn’t your fault,” I told her. “There was nothing you could have done.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I caught myself before reaching out to hold the hand of a hallucination.
“What am I doing?” I muttered. “This is not real. She is not real. What am I trying to tell myself?”
Trixie straightened, wiping her eyes. “What’s not real? Who’s not real?”
“You’re not,” I told her bluntly. “You’re a figment of my imagination. You’re my subconscious trying to tell me something that I already know about Kate’s death. Or Raul Acosta’s. I’m not even sure anymore.” I slumped onto the couch and closed my eyes.
Maybe this whole San Francisco experiment had been a bad idea. Maybe I needed to check into a nice, quiet sanitarium somewhere. Did they still have sanitariums anymore? The one Bette Davis went to in Now, Voyager (1942, Davis and Claude Rains) seemed quite nice. Woodsy, if I remembered correctly.
“Well!” Trixie said. I opened my eyes, and what I saw was a very indignant usherette. “Not real? Well, I like that. I’m standing right here!” Anger simmered in her eyes. “You’ve got some nerve, telling me I’m not real. I’m just as real as you are! Why, I’m—”
But whatever she was would have to wait. Because just as she was working up a good head of steam the door to the office opened, and in the doorway stood a tall dark stranger.
Blog Post: The Awful Truth
1937
Jerry (Cary Grant) and Lucy (Irene Dunn) are getting a divorce. All they need is the final decree and they can move on and marry other people. And if you believe that…
This is one of those rich-people’s-problems movies that were so essential during the Great Depression. They may be dressed in gowns and top hats, but they squabble and love and break up just like the rest of us. Except with better dialogue.
The story begins with the assumption that both Grant and Dunn are having affairs. Each suspects the other is up to something, which leads to hurt feelings and brilliant lines like “You’ve come home and caught me in a truth.”
Another stellar line: “The road to Reno is paved with suspicions.” (For all you kids out there, people—usually wives—used to go to Reno for six weeks to establish residency for a divorce. There was a whole industry of dude ranches for divorcing women. Don’t believe me? Watch The Women. Even if you do believe me, watch The Women, it’s amazing. But I digress…)
So they split, with Dunn seeing a new guy (Ralph Bellamy) and Grant pausing for a brief dalliance with a showgirl on his way to an engagement to a stuffy heiress (Molly Lamont). But separated is not divorced, and the awful truth of the title is that Grant and Dunn still love each other. Of course they do! They’re perfect for each other.
Grant and Dunn are so good in this movie. There’s an ease to their performances, and they play off each other gorgeously. Just take a look at the interplay between the two as Grant’s showgirl performs a cheesy nightclub act involving a wind machine blowing her clothes off. The look Dunn gives Grant is priceless, his reaction perfect.
This might be the first film where we see that signature Cary Grant thing where he’s operating on two levels. We see how he’s interacting with the other people in the scene, but we also see what he’s thinking about them. And what he’s generally thinking is “isn’t this amusing?” Why, yes, Cary, it is.
And let’s just take a moment to appreciate Ralph Bellamy, who made a career out of never getting the girl—or at least the lead. He’s always likable and decent. He’s just never Cary Grant.
Fashion thoughts:
While I bitterly regret that women rarely have the occasion to wear gloves indoors anymore, it must be a lot easier to get away with hiding an inconvenient lover in your apartment now that men’s hats have gone out of style. Fashion is a double-edged sword.
Speaking of fashion, take a moment to soak in the sequins, the sequins, the sequins on Irene Dunn’s gowns.
Things you’ll have to overlook:
The opening scene’s “what wives don’t know won’t hurt them” attitude of male entitlement to infidelity. Harrumph.
Most Cary Grant delivery of an annoyed line:
“Why don’t you go…on with what you were doing.”
Parting thought:
Does Cary Grant not realize that he’ll always go back to his first wife? Has he not seen The Philadelphia Story? Or His Girl Friday? Or My Favorite Wife? Really?
Movies My Friends Should Watch
Sally Lee
Chapter 10
“I’m sorry.” The man smiled enquiringly, glancing around the office. “I called out from the lobby but nobody was around. I came up here looking for the new manager.”
I’d jumped to my feet, completely freaked out. “Who are you? How did you get in?”
I knew I’d turned off the alarm that morning, and I was sure I hadn’t left the lobby door unlocked. There was no need to since all the senior staff had their own keys. And they wouldn’t show up for hours anyway.
He held up both hands and backed up a step. “Whoa…it’s okay. I’m not—” But I wasn’t waiting to hear his explanation. I had already made it to the desk and picked up the phone.
“Hang on,” he said. “Look, I didn’t mean to scare you. The lobby door was open and I really did yell ‘hello’ a few times from downstairs, but I guess you didn’t hear me.” He turned his still-upraised hands. “I’m Todd Randall?” He said it questioningly, as if testing to see if I recognized it. When it was clear I didn’t, he went on. “I have a film blog. I was working with Kate on putting together a film noir festival.” He flashed a quick smile. “We’d been emailing about it for the past few months.”
This made me slightly less inclined to call 911. Slightly. Had I left the lobby door unlocked? Trixie had been waiting for me. Had her chatter distracted me from closing it properly behind me?
“I came upstairs because I thought I heard someone,” he went on. “And I followed the sound of your voice…” He lowered his hands. “Who were you talking to?”
I was talking to the still-fuming usherette who was standing right next to him, but I thought it best not to say so.
“No one,” I replied.
“Well, I like that!” Trixie snorted.
“So,” Todd gave me another smile. “Are you the new manager?”
“Nora Paige.” I didn’t smile back, but there was something engaging about the guy that made me want to. He looked to be in his early fifties and had that comfortably-broken-in-yet-still-quite-fit thing going on that some lucky men can pull off.
“Nora Paige,” Trixie mimicked in a sing-song voice. “Nora Paige, who doesn’t believe her own eyes when someone is standing right in front of her.” She stamped a petite foot.
“Sorry,” I said—to Todd, not to Trixie. “I haven’t had a chance to come up to speed on everything Kate was working on.”
“Oh, of course. Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about Kate. She was…something else.”
There was a slightly awkward silence after that. More of a silence for Todd, probably, because he didn’t hear the indignant protest from Trixie.
“The nerve of some people, calling other people imaginary!”
“Um,” I said. “You mentioned something about a film festival?”
“Right.” He took a step into the room, then paused, as if waiting for permission. I relented and made a “come in” gesture, s
till keeping a wary distance from him as he entered. “We were thinking of this spring. It’s coming up on the ninetieth anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon, and San Francisco is such a great town for noir.” He sat easily in one of the guest chairs by the blackboard. “It just seemed like a natural connection. I hope you’ll agree.”
“Most of what I know about San Francisco comes from the movies,” I admitted.
Trixie snorted. “Sure. Like you know anything about anything.” She circled the intruder, regarding him appraisingly. He was dressed in dark jeans, a button-down shirt and a thick knit cardigan. The outfit, along with wavy salt-and-pepper hair and Clark Kent glasses, gave him the look of a liberal-arts professor on sabbatical.
“What’s your blog?” I asked him, doing my best to ignore Trixie.
“It’s called Real on Reel,” he said, taking a card out of his pocket. “But do me a favor and hold off on looking at it this week. I just changed web hosting services and everything’s a little messed up.” He grinned wryly. “Computers, right?”
Trixie now stood behind his chair. “So I’m a hallucination, am I? Well, could a hallucination do this?” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Yes,” I said. Then, to Todd, “I know what you mean.” I took the card.
“Could a hallucination do this?” She reached for yesterday’s coffee mug on Kate’s desk. I thought she was going to sweep it to the floor, but her hand went right through it.
Her hand went right through it.
Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 7