Vivian had read the article. Barbara’s ball had been extravagant. Hundreds of guests had attended—among them, Hollywood stars like Rudy Vallee and Maurice Chevalier. And the papers had skewered her. So much money spent on a party when the world had fallen into the bleakest of depressions and most people were struggling to eat.
“Your mother would like you to come out, you know,” her father had said.
Vivian sighed. She’d be seventeen in a little over a month. A year was plenty of time to whip her into shape and plan a ridiculous party for her eighteenth birthday, but she had no interest in a debutante ball. No interest in being paraded around in front of marriageable young men. She looked down at that photo in the newspaper. It seemed to Vivian like a hellish existence—beholden to money and the family name. Vivian had stayed silent. She hadn’t known what to say. She would have protested, but her father already knew her position on the matter, and protesting would be like preaching to the choir.
“I took your side about boarding school, if you recall,” he’d said, fixing his light-blue eyes on her.
He had. Her mother had wanted to send her to Rosemary Hall, her own alma mater, the moment Vivian had turned fifteen. Her father had stood his ground. Vivian had not been sent to Connecticut to learn which fork with which to eat shrimp; she’d attended a public high school right there in Lincoln Park. The horror.
Vivian had no doubt that was why her mother had pressed so hard for a coming-out party. There was little chance of Vivian making a good match while rubbing elbows with the common folk. And perhaps that was why her father had been thinking of taking her mother’s side. He was a smart man, and he knew which battles to pick and which to concede. He wasn’t a snob, but he was also no fool.
“Are you saying I have no choice in the matter?” Vivian asked.
“I’m saying you should think about it.”
Vivian sighed again, louder, so there would be no misunderstanding how she felt. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“It’s important to your mother.”
“A lot of things are important to Mother.”
Her father sighed then. Vivian noticed how tired he looked. He took his spectacles off and rubbed them with the handkerchief he’d pulled from his front pocket. He was gathering his thoughts, stalling. She knew his closing argument was coming, and she knew she wouldn’t win.
“I know times have changed since your mother was your age, Vivian. But she is your mother, and she wants what’s best for you. You’re becoming a young lady now, and soon it’s going to matter very much how you act and who you associate with—whether you like it or not.” He’d stared at her. She’d squirmed and looked away, mistakenly thinking that he couldn’t know what she’d been up to—about her sneaking out and occasionally drinking. About the questionable young men (and some not-so-young men) she’d been seeing behind her parents’ backs.
In hindsight, he had to have known, of course. How could he not? She wasn’t as slick as she’d thought, and shimmying down drainpipes was a risky endeavor at any time of the year, but especially after the frost came. Not to mention that Everett had seen her the last time she’d done it. She’d caught his eye as she’d lowered herself over the sill and onto the ledge outside her bedroom window. Little sneak. He’d told Father on her; she was sure of it.
But her father had said nothing more on the subject that day. He’d merely tapped that photo and stared into the fire. Letting the idea simmer in her head. A coming-out party. The last thing she wanted. But then he’d died, and all thoughts of her daughter’s future connections had left her mother’s mind—at least for a time. The coming-out had never happened. And she had Father to thank for that too, in a manner of speaking.
• • •
“Vivian…”
Viv blinked herself back into the present, returning her attention from the photo of her mother at eighteen to the real-life woman in front of her. “I would appreciate your attention. This is an important matter.”
“Of course.”
“I was saying that it’s customary to receive any inheritance at twenty-one, you realize. There’s a reason your father delayed yours. I’m sure you understand why.”
Vivian swallowed. Her father hadn’t trusted her to make good decisions at that age. Twenty-one wasn’t far enough removed from the reckless seventeen-year-old he’d known. Even Vivian had to admit she would have wasted it, would have fallen for some gold digger, some good-for-nothing, alcoholic gambler. She couldn’t blame Father for thinking that. She hadn’t been trustworthy then. Perhaps he’d wanted her to marry before she came into money. That way, her husband would be sure to love her for herself rather than her bank account. But could her father have believed she’d be married by now? Maybe so. He’d been her champion, but even he hadn’t been progressive enough to imagine his daughter unwed at nearly twenty-five—practically an old maid.
Her mother studied Vivian, her mouth turned down at the corners.
“Is it serious with this Graham fellow?”
Vivian opened her mouth to produce the requisite flippant answer, but then shut it again. “No,” she said.
Her mother nodded. “I’m all for a bit of fun, but I think it’s time you started thinking about your future, Vivian.”
Vivian bit her tongue. Since when was her mother all for a bit of fun?
And her future? All she did was think about her future. But she knew what Julia had meant—her mother’s idea of a future, not hers. Her mother’s future was a man to take care of her, to set her up in a fine house with a few well-behaved children. Membership on some not-too-demanding but high-profile charity committees. In other words, a carbon copy of Julia Witchell. Vivian’s idea of a future did not involve marrying and being beholden to any man. She considered telling her mother that, but she didn’t want to suffer a lecture today. She already had a headache.
Instead, she nodded, trying to look as though she were taking the suggestion seriously.
“My future,” she said. “Yes. I think so too, Mother.”
• • •
Joe McGreevey, one of the directors at WCHI, phoned Vivian’s house in midafternoon. They were a female supporting character shy on some half-baked Sherlock Holmes–style mystery on late that afternoon. Who in the world wanted to listen to murder and detection on Christmas Day? Grisly to say the least, Vivian thought. She agreed to do it only because she knew she could not refuse.
She thought again of the conditions of her employment. Things were going well for her, but that didn’t mean she could afford to play the diva. And she certainly wanted to stay in Mr. Langley’s good graces. Graham had gone to bat for her with the new head of the station after all that mess with the press and her suspension during the investigation of Marjorie’s murder. But Vivian still felt like she was on thin ice, and one wrong move could send her whole career back into a tailspin.
Vivian hopped aboard the red-and-cream streetcar as the leaden sky began to melt into dusk. The conductor on the back platform nodded without speaking as he took her dime. He spit three pennies out of the coin changer strapped to his waist and handed them to her. The back of the car was open to the air, and even though he was well bundled against the chill, the tips of his nose and ears were painted a painful cherry red. Vivian headed into the enclosed passenger section and slid into a wicker seat. The inside of the car was marginally warmer and almost empty save a snoring older man near the front.
She watched the well-appointed homes of the Gold Coast quickly turn into the motley mix of the shopping and financial district as they neared the Loop. The conductor at the front had stuffed a wad of newspaper between the clapper and the gong so that the insistent ding, ding of the bell situated directly above his head had been rendered a muted thwack, thwack. She was grateful for that. The dull ache between her eyes was beginning to worsen.
Vivian considered everything that had
happened today, not least of which was her mother informing her that she was coming into a substantial amount of money. Substantial. She wanted to be giddy about that, she should be giddy about that, but her mind just wouldn’t latch on to the idea. Instead her thoughts were running round and round.
She hopped out again at State and Madison, marveling at how empty a teeming metropolis could look when everyone but her had reason to stay in their warm homes. She frowned and pulled her hat lower over her ears. The icy wind worked itself into a veritable frenzy as it rent through the metal and limestone canyons of the Loop. She ducked her chin into her upturned collar and negotiated the empty sidewalks the two blocks west on Madison to the Grayson-Cole Building that housed the studios of WCHI on the eleventh and twelfth floors.
The station itself was a ghost town. The only activity centered around small Studio G on the eleventh floor. It was two minutes to air when Vivian hustled into the room. Someone shoved a script into her hands, pointed to her part, and they were off.
She hadn’t had time to rehearse, so Vivian had to read cold. That was a terrifying prospect on live radio, and her nerves were still on edge after she said her lines, even though she’d finished without a hiccup. The show was nearing its end, and things had gone as well as could be expected considering the actors for this performance were all brand-new to the station and generally inexperienced. They were so young and keen to make a name for themselves that they’d volunteer to work on Christmas Day if it meant a starring role in a show—any show. She’d been of a similar mind-set not so long ago.
Vivian’s role had been a chintzy one—a minor character with only a handful of lines. She was sure that they hadn’t truly needed her to come in, but she was also sure that Langley wanted to make sure she knew who was boss. She glanced at him in the control room. He was a squat, jowly, red-faced man who wore a perpetual scowl. There was no need for the man to be here today of all days, but there he was just the same.
Before he’d been promoted to interim station head, Mr. Langley had held the lessor role of program director at the station. He’d backed Frances Barrow for the role of Lorna Lafferty on The Darkness Knows, and the former head of the station, Mr. Hart, had backed Vivian. Vivian had won the role, of course, but Mr. Hart had left the station shortly thereafter. Mr. Langley was not one of Vivian’s biggest fans, and Graham had practically had to beg the man to keep her in the role after Mr. Hart’s departure. Vivian knew that if she placed just one foot wrong, Langley would replace her with Frances. It was simple, really. He had her jumping through hoops. And jump she would, she thought, until she could use this job to catapult herself into something better.
Mr. Langley seemed pleased enough about the performance. He smiled at Vivian, a tight little closed-mouth smile. She returned it and then gave her full attention to the action at the center of the room. The episode had reached its crescendo. Having solved the crime, the brilliant sleuth would now confront the murderer with the error of her ways.
“Arsenic,” the actor playing the sleuth said, his voice dripping with condescension.
The “murderess” gasped into the microphone. “You can’t mean…poison?”
“You know as well as I do, Wilhelmina. Arsenic—they call it the inheritance powder in the newspapers. Put a dash in Aunt Lillian’s soup, and the fortune is yours.”
“You can’t be serious. Where on earth would I get arsenic?”
“Why, from your own cellar, of course.”
The organ thrummed ominously in the corner of the room, the hands of the young man playing it dancing wildly on the keys.
“You fooled the doctor. I admit, you almost had me too, but I was too keen for you. I found this open container of Rough on Rats downstairs. That’s right, Wilhelmina. A few spoonfuls in her nightly tea induced a sudden, devastating fit of apoplexy in someone with no history of the malady.”
Vivian turned her head to hide the roll of her eyes. This was low-rent stuff. It didn’t really matter though. No one was listening anyway.
Her mind returned to her father and the locked drawer. She thought over and over about the cash, the second key, but most of all, the threatening note: Talk and you lose everything. What did everything mean—his career, his fortune, his home, his family…his life? She frowned. She didn’t have any of the answers, and she wouldn’t stumble upon them by wading through the jumble of thoughts in her head. She needed help. But she certainly couldn’t bring any of this up to her mother or Everett, at least not yet. Maybe not ever, her sick stomach told her. No, it was clear to her now. There was only one person she could talk to about any of this, one person who could help her get to the bottom of this without her mother finding out.
Charlie.
Chapter Five
Vivian checked her reflection in the window of the Tip Top Café. The gray fox fur of her new wool winter coat framed her face beautifully, she thought, and her blue Robin Hood–style hat set off her strawberry-blond curls to good effect. She freshened her lipstick and pressed her hand to her stomach to settle it, then walked over and pulled open the door.
She’d tried Charlie’s office number last night in desperation, expecting the answering service or, worse yet, the operator informing her in nasal tones, “I’m sorry. This line has been disconnected.” She’d stood shivering, staring out the window at the wind-swirled snow sparkling in the light of the back porch from the front house. The money and note were gone, and now she had yet another key. And someone knew she knew about all of it. The only one who might be able to help her was Charlie. He wouldn’t answer, she’d told herself listening to the faint burring ring of the telephone. But then he had.
The small diner was crowded with post-holiday bargain shoppers. The din of dozens of voices met her ears, and she sniffed at the tang of frying onions thick in the air. Her eyes passed over the crowd and landed on the booth nearest the counter.
Charlie’s head had snapped up at the jingle of the bells hanging from the front door, a lock of dark-blond hair falling over his forehead. He brushed it away as his eyes caught hers, and he smiled. Vivian’s insides turned to goo at that smile, despite her every resolve to remain detached. Part of her had hoped she would feel nothing upon seeing him again, that maybe she would have a professional discussion with him about her father and come away somehow relieved that Charlie had rejected her. But the twinge in her stomach told her that was not to be.
He stood as she reached the booth and took her coat and gloves. His fingertips brushed her wrist, then across the top of her hand where they lingered just a little longer than necessary, and his blue-green eyes flashed down and then up again.
“You look…well,” he said.
She flicked her eyes down and up in a perfect imitation of him, and watched his slow smirk of recognition. “You don’t look too bad yourself,” she said, sliding into the booth. He sat on the opposite bench, and they looked at each other in silence, expectation and longing pulling like a visible strand between them. Vivian glanced away, afraid that if she held his gaze any longer she’d burst into flame.
She cleared her throat. She hadn’t actually thought about what she’d say when he was in front of her—in the flesh.
Where have you been? The question floated to the front of her mind, but she pushed it away. She didn’t want to start him on the defensive. He’d disappeared for a reason, and it was probably one she didn’t want to hear. Better not to know the details.
“How have you been doing since…well, since everything?” She winced at the inanity of the question. Charlie had been through things she couldn’t imagine. He’d found his birth parents, only to see his mother murdered and his father shun him. And he’d almost been killed by his half sister. It was a plot as convoluted as one of the sappy melodramas Vivian appeared in at WCHI.
Charlie shrugged, shifting his weight. “I’ve been all right, I suppose.”
“I’m glad,” she said.<
br />
Vivian’s eyes were drawn to Charlie’s right temple, where that horrible purple bruise had been when she’d last seen him. There was still a tiny knot there, but he was otherwise unblemished. She wanted to reach over the table to touch it, to let her fingertips run down his cheek and rub her thumb along the stinging stubble at his jawline. She sucked a deep breath in through her nose. Focus, Vivian, focus.
The waitress came over and filled their coffee cups without a word, dropping a couple of tattered menus on the table.
Charlie stirred a dollop of cream into his coffee. Then he glanced up at Vivian, one eyebrow arched. “So what’s the professional opinion you need?”
“Right,” she said. She’d called him after all. She looked down at the table. Lifted her spoon. Set it down again.
“You did ask me here for my opinion on something, didn’t you?” He took a sip of coffee, regarding her seriously over the rim of the ceramic mug. “Let me guess. You’ve gotten yourself into trouble again.”
“It’s not me,” she said. She dropped two sugar cubes into her cup and stirred vigorously. “It’s my father.”
Charlie paused. His brow furrowed, and he sat back in his seat again. “I thought your father was dead.”
“He is.”
Vivian leaned toward the detective and pitched her voice low. “When my father died almost eight years ago, we couldn’t find the key to the top drawer of his desk. We all assumed it had been lost. Well, I found that key on Christmas Eve, and I opened the drawer…”
“And?”
“I found cash. A big, fat envelope full of bills. And another mysterious key taped to the back of the drawer. And there was a note. It said, ‘Talk and you lose everything.’” She locked eyes with him and paused to let the import of the words sink in.
Homicide for the Holidays Page 6