“I think there’s a lot about Father we didn’t know,” Everett answered.
Vivian turned to face him. “What do you mean by that?”
Everett shrugged. “Well, he died before we could know what he was all about…as a person, I mean.”
“Yes.” Vivian sighed. “I miss him.”
“Me too,” Everett said.
Vivian turned the Christmas card over in her hands. “Do you think he was a good person?” She glanced up to find Everett studying her.
“Of course,” he said. “What kind of a question is that?”
It had been a ridiculous question to ask. How else would Everett have answered?
“I mean…he was a lawyer, Ev. You’ve heard all the jokes about lawyers—out for themselves, liars, thieves, ambulance chasers…”
“Hey! You’re addressing one of those future ambulance chasers.”
Vivian smiled.
“What’s all this about?” her brother asked. He put the book aside and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
She could just ask Everett if he’d taken the money, she supposed. That would be the easiest thing to do. But if he hadn’t taken it, then the question itself would open up a whole new can of worms. She would have to explain everything, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. Because although Everett might be a future man of the law, he could never keep a secret. He’d run to their mother and told on Vivian when he’d caught her smoking cigarettes behind the garage with the neighbor boy, Jimmy Durden. Vivian had been thirteen at the time, Everett only eight, but her mother’s lecture about what proper young women did and didn’t do still rang in Vivian’s ears—and probably would for eternity. And although she didn’t have proof, she’d always suspected Everett of even greater indiscretion.
She was certain that he had told their father, just a few months before he died, that Vivian was sneaking out of the house to meet boys. Everett was the one who’d gotten her into such hot water that night after the Green Mill. He might be older now, but not that much had changed. If she told him any of her suspicions about their father, she had little doubt that he’d go straight to their mother with the information. He couldn’t help himself. It was his nature. Honest to a fault. Law was a poor choice of profession for Everett, in Vivian’s opinion. He wasn’t crafty enough.
He also wasn’t crafty enough to steal thousands of dollars and a threatening note from his dead father’s locked desk drawer and then calmly converse with her as if nothing had happened, she thought. Everything Everett thought or felt was always written all over his face. And right now she could see that all he felt was bewildered at her choice of conversation.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m feeling sentimental, I suppose. Being cooped up in the house for the past few days…too much time to think. And Oskar the other night, making toasts and playing lord of the manor. What do you make of him?”
Everett frowned. “He’s nice enough. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him.”
Vivian nodded.
“Mother seems to like him,” Everett went on. “And she hasn’t had anyone since Father.” His voice trailed off. “There’s something about Oskar that’s familiar though. I can’t place it. Like I’ve seen him before somewhere.”
“He’s a big-shot something or other,” Vivian said. “I’m sure his picture has been in the papers. What did Mother say he did?”
“She said he’s a financier.” Everett shrugged. “Whatever that means. Certainly not my crowd. Anyway, I’m glad she’s happy. Maybe he’ll loosen her up a little.”
Vivian smiled at the absurdity of the idea of Mrs. Witchell “loosening up” at any time. “My thoughts exactly. Speaking of happiness…” She plopped down onto the sofa next to him, jostling the book in his hands. “What’s with this Gloria?”
He closed the book with a thump and glanced away, his cheeks pink. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know anything about the girl. Where did she come from? Who are her parents?” She asked the last question in a perfect imitation of their mother’s affected finishing-school diction.
Everett laughed. “There’s not much to tell. I met her at a football game. She’s a Kappa Kappa Gamma. She’s pretty and funny and smart.” He shook his head in amazement. “Boy, is she ever smart.”
“And her parents?” Vivian prodded, still imitating their mother’s voice.
“Average, everyday people as far as I know.”
Vivian widened her eyes in pretend shock. Then she smiled, dropping the snooty act. “So it’s serious?”
“I think so. We’ve been seeing each other for two whole months. I’m thinking of pinning her.”
Vivian whistled in genuine surprise. “Well, well, that is serious. I know a Lambda Chi Alpha boy doesn’t give his pin to just anyone.”
Everett’s blush deepened under the sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks. “What did you think of her? Be honest.”
“She seemed swell, Ev.” Vivian reached behind her to pluck a pomander from the bowl on the sofa table, bringing it up under her nose to breathe in the heady scent of orange and cloves.
Everett beamed. “I think so too,” he said.
“And that was a lovely necklace you gave her for Christmas,” she said, picturing the orchid charm and the way it glinted in the light. “Where did you get the money for something like that?”
Everett ducked his head. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.”
It seemed quite a bit more than nothing. “No, really,” Vivian said, poking him in the arm with the scented orange in her hand. “How did my dopey little brother manage to buy such a nice present for his girlfriend?” Everett had no money of his own. Their mother paid his tuition and room and board, and Everett was too busy studying to have any type of job.
He looked away from her. “I have my sources,” he said. He picked up the copy of the Tribune that had been left open on the arm of the sofa and began leafing through it.
She looked at the swirling auburn cowlick at the crown of his head. Then it hit her. Mother had given him the money. Having to accept money from your mother to buy a Christmas present for your girlfriend wasn’t the most adult thing in the world. No wonder he was so embarrassed and evasive.
Vivian wanted to apologize, but she knew that would embarrass her brother further. She cleared her throat, dropping the orange back into its bowl, but Everett spoke before she did.
“Hey,” he said, his finger planted on a picture in the sports section. “Gloria and I are going to the opening night of Sonja Henie’s ice review this evening. It’s sold out, but I have connections. I could find two more tickets if you and Graham would like to tag along.”
Vivian glanced down at the photo underneath the headline SEABISCUIT IS 1938 TURF KING, which showed a smiling young woman in a short, white skating costume, a large glittery bow in her braided blond hair.
“You and your connections,” Vivian teased. “Thanks for the offer, but Graham’s busy getting The Scarlet Pimpernel together. I’m sure he’ll be working all evening.”
Everett raised his coppery eyebrows. “On Christmas?”
“He’s a hard worker.”
“I’ll say.” Everett looked up from his book, his brown eyes—the exact shade as her own—locked with hers. “Viv, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You and Graham. You aren’t really together, are you?”
“Of course we are.” Vivian glanced away. She should have told her family that the relationship wasn’t real, but she just hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t realized it herself until a few weeks after Halloween and Marjorie Fox’s death. After all, she and Graham had already discussed the unromantic fact that their publicity relationship was mutually beneficial for their careers. There should have been no doubt that was all he wanted from her—a show for the cameras. But he had also kiss
ed her, really kissed her, that night a few days after Marjorie’s murder when he’d taken her to Chez Paree.
Now she suspected that had been more for Charlie’s benefit than his own. Graham didn’t want her, but that didn’t mean he wanted Charlie to have her either. They’d been like two dogs marking their territory, she thought. And that kiss had been staged for Charlie to see so he would know to back off. Happily, it hadn’t worked.
But then Charlie had slipped from Vivian’s life, and Vivian and Graham’s staged publicity dates had continued just as before. Graham had never shown any interest in taking it further than that chaste peck on the lips. Vivian’s ego had taken a hit, but she had also been relieved. She hadn’t been interested in Graham anymore either. So they continued pretending, and not discussing why they were pretending.
It was cowardly on Vivian’s part not to confront the issue head on, but things at the station were going so well that she didn’t want to rock the boat. And besides, a real friendship had grown between her and Graham through all of that pretending. Vivian found she liked him even if she didn’t think of him romantically, and she liked the sense of purpose and camaraderie they shared.
However, a sham was a sham, and she felt terrible about keeping the truth from her brother, but Vivian knew she had to be careful in her confidences. Her family wasn’t in show business, and they wouldn’t understand that she and Graham needed to keep up the pretense at all times. Everett was likely to let the truth slip to one of his friends, and soon it would be in the papers that she and Graham were faking for publicity. That would be beyond embarrassing for them both.
“I have eyes, Viv.”
“What does that mean?” Her stomach dropped. Could he tell by looking at them that it was all an act? Boy, she was some actress.
He leaned over and nudged her. “I guess now I know what it’s supposed to look like when a boy admires a girl. And when Graham looks at you, and you look at Graham…it looks like it should on the surface, but well, there’s nothing behind it, is there?”
“Is it that obvious?”
He shook his head. “I can only see it because I know you. Graham doesn’t make you light up inside.”
Vivian couldn’t help but laugh at her brother’s uncharacteristic sincerity. She met his eyes, serious and appraising, and her laugh faded. Boy, he was in deep with this Gloria girl. She’d never seen him like this before.
“My kid brother, love doctor,” she said, chucking him on the shoulder. “You’re really learning something at that expensive school, aren’t you?”
He blushed, opening his book again. He gazed at a painting of Medusa and her writhing snake hair. “So why are you pretending?”
Viv tapped an index finger against her lips. “It’s sort of a condition of my employment,” she answered, wondering how far she would let this condition go to boost her career. Marriage? Children? She shook her head. No, most definitely not. The sham would have to end, and the sooner the better. Perhaps after all the fuss with The Pimpernel was over. After the holidays when Graham was in better humor. Funny how the idea of a lifetime on Graham Yarborough’s arm would have thrilled her a few months ago. But that was before she’d seen his true character. And before she’d met Charlie.
• • •
Vivian sat in the chair across from her mother’s desk, feeling like she was at an interview with a bank examiner. She fidgeted as her mother finished some correspondence, her fountain pen scratching across the stationery. Vivian twisted an emerald ring around her finger—she’d been surprised to find the ring in her stocking this morning—and glanced out the window.
Vivian was reminded of another “chat” in this room, years ago. It hadn’t been winter, but the end of summer—the cicadas humming in the trees outside. Vivian had returned to the city after spending the summer at her aunt and uncle’s house in Lake Geneva. She and her mother had never had a good relationship, but that summer it had been especially tense—to the point of snapping. She’d been back in the house two days when her mother found the copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that Vivian had hidden under her mattress. More likely, Mrs. Graves had found it while making the bed. The idea of the prim housekeeper opening that book and discovering the scandalous things inside made Vivian smile.
Her mother had demanded to know where Vivian had gotten such “filth” and then attempted to give her a lecture on sexual education that tangentially bordered the sexual and didn’t come within spitting distance of the education. Meanwhile, Vivian bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing. She’d wanted to tell her mother that she hadn’t learned anything from that book that she hadn’t already known—mostly from her own experience. But she was wise enough, even at seventeen, to know that while the revelation would have been satisfyingly shocking, it would have not have helped her case.
She’d been confined to the house until school started again—two long weeks. Vivian wondered what had ever happened to that book. Maybe she should check under her mother’s mattress, she thought and stifled a giggle. She tamped down her smile, and when she turned from the window, she found her mother looking at her, a serious expression on her face.
She gazed at Vivian, fingers threaded over the blotter on her desk. Then she launched right into the subject at hand without preamble—as was her mother’s custom. An unnerving quality, Vivian thought.
“I have what I suppose is a combination Christmas and birthday present for you,” her mother said.
“You’ve already given me a Christmas present,” Vivian said, looking down at the beautiful emerald ring.
Her mother waved one hand dismissively at her. “That was from Saint Nicholas.”
Vivian waited while her mother gazed off toward the window, lost in thought. Then her focus returned, and she trained her brown eyes on Vivian’s.
“This gift is from your father.”
“From Father?”
“I’ll set up a meeting with the lawyer, a Mr. Henrick, in a few weeks to get the details, but the thing is, Vivian, you’ll be coming into quite a bit of money on your twenty-fifth birthday.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes at her mother in disbelief. The only conversation they’d had about her twenty-fifth birthday previous to this was her mother letting Vivian know that she was getting a bit “long in the tooth.”
“Your father left this money in trust for you.”
Vivian blinked at her mother. Money? For her?
“How much are we talking about?”
“I don’t know exact sums, but I do know that it is a substantial amount.”
Substantial, Vivian thought. What constitutes substantial? Her mother thought talking about money in specific terms was gauche, so Vivian knew better than to press the topic. She’d get specifics from the lawyer in a few weeks, but substantial sounded like enough to move out of her mother’s house. Substantial sounded like enough to make her own life. She felt like laughing, or crying. Her father was saving her once again—stepping from beyond the grave to make a shield between Vivian and her overbearing mother.
“Of course, you’ll also get your share of my inheritance when I pass on,” her mother said, pursing her lips into a thin white line.
Vivian glanced back down, setting her eyes on her mother’s uncomfortable expression. Her mother had always had the real wealth in the family. It came from the vast reserves of her father’s meatpacking fortune left in trust, as far as Vivian could piece together. Julia shared the fortune with her two older sisters—all of them distancing themselves from the source of their wealth. Huge sums of money made by butchering animals at the Union Stock Yard. Talk about gauche.
Her mother was silent for a long time, but Vivian knew the conversation wasn’t over. There was that particular vertical line between her mother’s brows. Vivian’s surprise inheritance was just the beginning of what her mother had called her in to discuss. Her mother’s dark eyes fli
cked to the window, and she spoke without looking at her daughter.
“There are men out there who prey on young women in your position, Vivian.” She paused and then fixed her eyes on her daughter. “Look at what’s happened to that poor Barbara Hutton.”
Vivian’s eyes flicked to the ceiling. It was difficult not to roll her eyes in front of her mother, but she was trying her damnedest. Vivian was nothing like Barbara Hutton, the Poor Little Rich Girl and heiress to the Woolworth fortune. Hutton had inherited a vast fortune at twenty-one and had seen nothing but trouble since. She’d been in the papers a few months ago over her nasty second divorce. First, she’d married a sham playboy who spent her money like water, then a man who’d beaten her so terribly he’d put her in the hospital. Two awful marriages already behind her, and she was only a few years older than Vivian.
“Ah,” Vivian said, her eyes moving down to meet her mother’s. “So the hordes will set upon me once they realize I have more than two nickels to rub together, and you think I’ll fall for the first oily huckster to pay me a compliment.”
Julia pressed her lips together again. She had a particular set of wrinkles forming around her mouth from repeating that movement over and over. Vivian liked to think of them as her mother’s “disappointment lines.” Vivian’s glance strayed to the mantel and the framed photograph of her mother in a glittering white gown with cap sleeves and tiny embroidered flowers—a genuine Worth, her mother had told her often with pride. Her mother was so young in that photo, her cheeks blooming roses and full of baby fat. That had been 1907, the tail end of the Gilded Age, when coming out was de rigueur for families of means. But then again, her mother’s family had had quite a bit of panache. Vivian’s father’s meager origins had diluted the family bloodline, and Vivian was grateful for that.
• • •
Her father had had the paper opened to the article about Barbara Hutton’s lavish coming-out ball in New York City when he’d called her into his study that evening in late November of 1930, his index finger resting on the photo on the society page. Barbara Hutton had looked beautiful; she wore a sparkling beaded dress and a pointed, starlike crown on her head. But she also looked horribly sad, as if the photographer had caught her as she was about to burst into tears.
Homicide for the Holidays Page 5