“The police are looking into it,” Charlie said, his voice strong and reassuring. He placed his hand over hers.
The elevator jerked to an unceremonious stop at the eleventh floor. Angelo placed his hand on the door lever, but before pulling it, he turned to Vivian and said, “You be careful, miss.”
• • •
Vivian leaned over the ladies’ room sink and let cold water from the tap drip from her fingers onto the back of her neck. She was no longer close to tears, but she still felt that nagging fear in the pit of her stomach. Lifting her head, she met her gaze in the mirror. She looked like a terrified rabbit ready to run at the slightest hint of danger. That wouldn’t do. It couldn’t do. If she wanted to feel confident, she had to look the part. She made herself smile and pinched her cheeks to increase the blood flow.
The door of the stall farthest down the row opened. Vivian’s eyes met Imogene’s in the mirror over the sink.
“Viv!” Imogene squealed, rushing toward Vivian, her face alight with concern. “Are you all right? I heard what happened from one of the engineers first thing this morning!”
Vivian had met Imogene on her first day at secretarial school. They’d shared a stick of gum and a wisecrack about the generous proportions of Mrs. Hepplebottom, the shorthand instructor. “She should be called Mrs. Amplebottom,” Imogene had whispered, and Vivian had had to fake a sneeze to cover her snort of laughter.
From there they’d both gone on to garner swell positions at WCHI—quite a coup for brand-new graduates. It didn’t hurt that both girls were cute young things with a penchant for flirtation. Actually, if Vivian was honest, Imogene had talked her way in the door at WCHI and then dragged Vivian along with her. It was only happenstance that Vivian, instead of Imogene, became Mr. Hart’s secretary. Imogene was better at shorthand, typing, and taking dictation—but Mr. Hart preferred redheads to brunettes.
Vivian’s forced smile became genuine, and she felt some of the tension leave her body. Imogene was exactly the person she needed to see right now. They hugged, and then Imogene pulled back and assessed Vivian with a critical eye. She didn’t seem fooled by Vivian’s newly pinkened cheeks.
“You’re not all right,” she said.
Vivian sighed and shook her head.
“I’m so sorry, Viv. That must have been a terrible shock.” Imogene lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Was it ghastly, seeing Marjorie dead like that?”
Vivian recalled the spongy flesh of Marjorie’s lifeless calf under her fingertips, and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “Yes,” she said, pressing one hand against her stomach. “It was.”
“You didn’t have to come in today. They could have found a replacement for your parts, you know.”
“I know,” Vivian said grimly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Right, right.” Imogene sighed. The name Frances Barrow went unspoken between them. “Do you really think it was murder though? I mean, couldn’t it have been an accident? You know, with all her…” She mimed tipping a bottle into her mouth.
“It was most definitely murder.”
Imogene sighed again. “So who do you think did it? Do you think it was really this crazed fan?”
Vivian glanced sharply at her friend, but she wasn’t surprised that Imogene had already heard about the letter. Word traveled fast at the station, and Imogene always had her ear to the ground.
“We both know how popular Marjorie was here,” Vivian said. “I could think of at least five people off the top of my head who might have wanted to do her in.”
“So can I,” her friend agreed. “Including me from time to time.”
Vivian frowned at her.
“Sorry. But do you think it could really be a fan?” Imogene continued. “It makes my skin crawl to think some crazy man might have been lurking around here, waiting for his chance to strike.”
That man could be lurking and waiting again—this time, to strike her, Vivian thought. Her knees weakened, and she steadied herself against the sink, feeling the color drain from her face. Her hands grew cold. She glanced up at the mirror and saw Imogene’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh God, Viv. What is it?”
Vivian hesitated. She knew she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but if she kept this to herself any longer, she would burst. And if she couldn’t trust her best friend with something like this, who could she trust?
“You know the letter they found with Marjorie?” Vivian said. Imogene nodded. “Well, it would seem that this crazy Walter person is also interested in Lorna Lafferty. Very interested.”
“No!” Imogene raised the back of her hand to her forehead. “But why you of all people?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? I have no idea who this Walter person is, and I haven’t received any letters myself. The police aren’t even sure this is a solid lead.”
“But what are you going to do, Viv? You have to protect yourself. I have a revolver you can borrow. Well, it’s my father’s, and I’m not sure it still works, but you could use it just to scare someone, I suppose.”
Vivian could see Imogene’s gears turning and moved to stop her before this conversation took a real turn toward the ridiculous.
“Genie,” Vivian said sharply.
Imogene stopped talking midsentence.
“I have someone to protect me,” Vivian said, turning back to face her friend. “Mr. Hart’s hired a private detective.”
“A private detective?”
Vivian nodded. “He’s already a special consultant to The Darkness Knows.”
“Oh,” Imogene said, her eyes lighting up. “I think I’ve seen him around here. Tall drink of water?” She leaned in, smugness in her voice. “Dangerously handsome?”
“Charlie Haverman,” Vivian supplied, glancing away from Imogene’s knowing gaze. She also wasn’t surprised that Imogene already knew about Charlie.
“Right. I might find myself in some danger too, if you know what I mean.” Imogene winked.
“Genie, this is serious.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “Just trying to lighten the mood a little.” She gave Vivian another quick, bone-crushing hug. Then she glanced at her wristwatch and started. “Oh shoot! Sorry, Viv. I have to go! I promised Mr. Langley I’d get him those scripts tout de suite.” Imogene was secretary to Mr. Langley, the head of programming at WCHI. If Mr. Hart was the boss, Mr. Langley was a very close number two. “I’ll tell you first thing if I hear anything. You’ll be okay?” Imogene asked, already backing toward the door.
Vivian nodded, hoping the doubt didn’t show on her face. As Imogene opened the door to the hall, she turned.
“Take care of yourself, Viv,” she said. “A murderer might be lurking the halls of this station as we speak.” She shuddered dramatically and was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
In fact, the halls of WCHI were always so crowded and chaotic that lurking was quite unnecessary. The murderer could be sauntering down the hallways right now in broad daylight. Pages scurried in every direction. Actors, musicians, and writers chatted and mingled as they made their way between studios. Vivian knew perhaps half of them by sight. She found herself scanning each unfamiliar face and wondering if he or she had taken that whiskey bottle to the back of Marjorie’s head. And Vivian wondered, not without trepidation, where Charlie had gone.
Studio F was one of the smaller studios on the main floor. Love & Glory was a quiet serial with a small cast, almost all of which was already assembled for rehearsal when Vivian entered the room. Ralph Murphy, the director, pointed to his watch, and Vivian said defensively, “It’s ten fifty-nine, Ralph. By my watch that’s right on time.”
The group chuckled.
Vivian reached for the last script on the t
able, but it disappeared under one of the other actor’s hands. She turned around in frustration. “Any other scripts around?”
Peggy stepped forward and handed her the copy she’d been holding. Vivian smiled her thanks and glanced at it as she poured herself a glass of water from the carafe on the refreshment table.
“Horrible what happened to Marjorie…”
Vivian swallowed the water with a gulp and peered over the edge of her glass at Dave Chapman. He was looking decidedly the worse for wear this morning. The purple bruises under his eyes were only highlighted by his sallow complexion, and he yanked on the knot of his tie with one finger as he spoke as if the tie were strangling him.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Horrible.”
“I just had to say it,” Dave said with the slightest trace of a smile. “Elephant in the room and all…” He poured himself a glass of water. “Did you speak to the police last night?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said grimly. “You found her.”
Vivian winced. “Did you speak to the police?” she asked.
“Yes, yes, of course. But I really had nothing to tell them. I barely knew the woman…” Dave looked off over Vivian’s shoulder instead of meeting her eyes.
Vivian recalled that Dave had also worked with Marjorie off and on throughout his time at WCHI. They’d even starred on a short-lived show called Night at the Theater in which they’d played a bickering newly divorced couple. It had aired for fifteen minutes nightly for two months last year before it failed to find national sponsorship and was canceled. Working with the woman day in and day out for months qualified as “barely knowing” Marjorie? Vivian wondered what would have to occur between him and someone else for Dave to remove the qualifier “barely.” After all, he currently played Vivian’s on-air husband in Love & Glory, and she’d feel terrible telling someone that she “barely knew” Dave, especially if he’d just been murdered.
“Nice of you to join us, Frances!” shouted Ralph Murphy.
Vivian turned to the studio door. Frances was never a welcome surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Frances said, out of breath. “I got stuck on the other side of the bridge…” She paused to make sure everyone knew she meant that the Michigan Avenue Bridge had gone up and she’d had to wait for it—shorthand for the fact that she had been on another show on another network, from which they were all to infer that she was in demand.
“I got here as quickly as I could,” she continued, dropping her bag on the floor near the door. “I ran all the way from the elevator.”
“Where are you working?” someone asked enthusiastically. “Wrigley?”
“Merchandise Mart,” Frances said. “It’s a new historical reenactment program. Very dramatic. I’m playing Mata Hari.” She looked directly at Vivian and smiled.
A collective “ooh” arose from the few other women in the room at the mention of the exotic, doomed spy.
Frances Barrow was beautiful. There was no denying that. With blue-black hair that curled under in a soft wave just above her shoulders and a creamy complexion, she looked like the cartoon Snow White sprung to life.
Frances had started as an actress at WCHI around the same time that Vivian had decided to make the switch from typewriter to microphone. Frances had broken into the business as one of the cowgirls on Chet Whibley’s Country Cavalcade, a hokey, hoedown-type show WCHI had added to contend with the farm stylings of competing station WLS. But she’d quickly moved on from square dance calls, and in the past year Vivian had found herself in direct competition with Frances for most of her roles. Vivian’s recent triumph with Lorna Lafferty had dealt Frances’s ego a substantial blow, and she’d been unbearable in the weeks since.
“All right, everyone. Let’s get going. No time to waste.” Ralph nodded toward the glass-enclosed control room where a fleshy woman had just entered and taken a seat.
Vivian’s stomach lurched. Edith Gill-Davison, the grand dame of all dramatic daytime serials and producer extraordinaire, had come for a rare visit.
“Better scurry,” Dave said under his breath. He hurried to the far side of the room to await his cue.
Vivian thought Mrs. Gill-Davison more closely resembled a washerwoman than a dramatic genius. In fact, she was more than a genius. She’d single-handedly created the genre of the family daytime drama and had no fewer than three sponsored serials on the air at any given time, dictating the story lines for all of them on a weekly basis.
Vivian knew Edith Gill-Davison could make or break your career. If she didn’t like you, she made damn sure that no one else did either. She hadn’t visited a live performance of Love & Glory for months. And today she looked to be in a foul mood, fouler than usual, probably because the star of her linchpin serial, The Golden Years, had just been bludgeoned to death. That would ruin anyone’s day.
Vivian caught Frances’s eye and was satisfied to see that her rival seemed equally terrified by the older woman’s presence.
Vivian glanced at the first page of today’s script. She was playing Donna Riley, wife of respected heart surgeon Delbert Riley. Donna was the supportive-woman-behind-a-successful-man type, and she’d had little to do until recently because the focus of the show had been on Dr. Riley’s turbulent office life. But Donna had suspected for a week’s worth of episodes that Delbert had been getting a little too close to his surgical assistant, Nancy. And today apparently was the day she was to confront the suspected other woman. Vivian smiled. This was just the type of juicy script she’d been waiting for. Maybe coming into the studio today wasn’t really such a bad idea after all.
“Okay, let’s begin.”
Vivian glanced around but didn’t see the actress who played Nancy. Surely, they couldn’t start without her. She carried half the script.
Ralph pointed to the organist in the corner, and the theme music began quietly. He then pointed to the announcer, who stepped up to the microphone, one hand to his ear.
“Wickman’s Laundry Soap presents Love & Glory… We return to Morgan Creek where the travails of a young successful heart surgeon are nothing compared to the troubles at home.”
The theme music grew louder as the organist pounded on the keys with fervor and then died away again as the announcer continued.
“We find ourselves again in the home of eminent heart surgeon Delbert Riley. His wife, Donna, has finally acted upon her suspicions and invited Delbert’s beautiful young assistant, Nancy, for a serious talk. Donna paces nervously before the front door…”
Ralph pointed to the soundman. He knocked on the prop door, waited a few seconds, and then opened it. Ralph pointed to Vivian.
“Hello, Nancy. Please come in,” Vivian said.
Frances stepped up to the microphone.
“Hello, Mrs. Riley,” she said, her voice smooth as butter. “Thank you for inviting me. I’ve wanted to meet you for such a long time.”
Vivian looked up sharply at Ralph, one eyebrow raised. Ralph just shrugged his shoulders and jerked his thumb toward Mrs. Gill-Davison. So that was it? Frances had somehow weaseled her way into the woman’s good graces and into a plum role on the show? Vivian narrowed her eyes and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She had fifteen minutes of scripted melodrama to rehearse, and there was only time for one rehearsal before the live broadcast.
She turned the first page and something white slipped to the floor—an envelope. Vivian glanced at it as she picked it up and shoved it into her jacket pocket.
After a moment of panic, Vivian found her place in the script. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.
“Yes, cream and sugar.” Frances paused and then added with hesitation, “Mrs. Riley, is something wrong?”
“Why?”
“You’re wringing that poor handkerchief to pieces.”
“Oh.” Vivian laughed nerv
ously. “I suppose I am.”
She glanced at Mrs. Gill-Davison. The older woman watched the scene play out before her, her expression unreadable. Where had that envelope come from? The silly thing had broken Vivian’s concentration. She took a deep breath and fought the threatening nerves. She couldn’t have her voice quaver, not now.
“Ahem.” Frances cleared her throat in irritation. “Your line, Viv.”
Vivian jerked her head back down to the script.
“I…uh…” The lines were reeling before her eyes. She blinked them back into focus. She’d made a mistake during The Darkness Knows last night. She couldn’t make another now. “I have something important I need to discuss with you, Mary.”
“Nancy,” Frances corrected in a flat voice.
“I’m sorry. Nancy.” Vivian shook her head in an attempt to clear it. She needed to get back on track. She couldn’t afford to flub in front of someone as important as Edith Gill-Davison. “I have something important I need to discuss with you, Nancy,” Vivian repeated with her eyes closed, focusing as hard as she could on the task at hand. She needed to make it through this show. She opened her eyes again and saw the older lady frowning at her, her lips pursed into a thin, white line.
Vivian made it through the rest of the rehearsal by the skin of her teeth. The appearance of the envelope had rattled her, and Frances’s spiteful presence only made matters worse. She knew Frances was hanging on her every word, waiting to pounce on any mistake. To Vivian’s immense relief, the live show went without a hitch. Even Dave held his own, showing no signs of the nervousness he’d exhibited before the rehearsal.
She risked another glance at the grande dame after the on-air light was turned off. Mrs. Gill-Davison wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning either.
Vivian watched Frances surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. She had to admit that Frances was perfectly cast as the cunning, man-stealing Nancy. She’d finally found a role that truly suited her. Vivian opened her mouth to tell her just that when Frances fired the first shot.
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