The Darkness Knows

by Cheryl Honigford

They all stared at the mailbags in silence for a moment. Suddenly, the inoffensive white envelopes and small brown-paper packages didn’t seem quite so innocent.

  “It’ll take hours to go through all of those,” Imogene said. She slumped back into her chair, discouraged by just the idea.

  “It’s actually more likely that the letter wasn’t delivered here at all,” Charlie said, lost in thought.

  Vivian turned to him, one eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?”

  “I think the letter was delivered directly to Mrs. Fox. How would she have received it otherwise? No one’s even looked through these bags of mail, and Imogene has never given her letters before. It’s safe to say none of the other secretaries have either.”

  Vivian nodded, thinking. “The killer would know that and would want to be sure she got it. And my letter was hand delivered.” Vivian shuddered.

  “Your letter? You got a letter?” Imogene asked, her hand at her throat.

  “Yes,” Vivian said. “I read it just before rehearsal for Millicent Morris. It was slipped into my script for Love & Glory this morning. I’d tucked it in my pocket and forgotten about it.”

  “Gosh…” Imogene said quietly, brown eyes wide.

  “Do you know who would have access to the scripts like that, Miss…uh…?”

  “Crook,” Imogene supplied.

  “Miss Crook,” Charlie repeated.

  Imogene bit her lip. “Lots of people might have access,” she said. Her brow suddenly wrinkled in concern as the information she’d received finally sunk in. “Viv, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly. If Charlie hadn’t been there, she would’ve told Imogene the truth: that she was terrified nearly out of her mind with worry.

  “Say,” Imogene said, “does this mean you won’t be at the masquerade tonight?”

  “Masquerade?” Vivian asked. She’d forgotten all about the station’s annual Halloween party. “They’re going through with that?”

  Imogene nodded and leaned forward. “They’ve sunk a lot of money into it. They can’t really afford to cancel it now, despite what happened to Marjorie.”

  Vivian looked to Charlie. “I… Well, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for me to go to any parties right now, Imogene.”

  Charlie nodded. “I agree.”

  Imogene glanced at Charlie and then back to Vivian. She frowned. “I suppose I can understand that,” she said, disappointment evident in her voice. “But you’re going to miss my costume. It’s a real corker.”

  “I’m sure,” Vivian said.

  “If you change your mind,” Imogene said, sliding her top-left desk drawer open dramatically, “the key to the costume closet is right here.”

  Vivian looked at her friend doubtfully. “Thanks, Genie,” she said.

  “But now,” Imogene said, glancing at the clock on the wall above the door, “I’m afraid we have a previous engagement.” She looked pointedly at Vivian, and when Vivian didn’t respond, she hinted in a singsong voice, “The photo shoot…”

  Vivian blinked. Right. She and Graham were scheduled for a Halloween-themed photo shoot for Radio Stars today. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Had been. But now she found herself wondering how she could smile for the camera when a killer was on the loose.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Vivian and Graham had smiled broadly for the Radio Stars photographer over sweet scenes like carving a pumpkin and bobbing for apples under the guise that those were normal activities at the station this time of year. It had been difficult for Vivian to hide her agitation from the camera, as well as from Graham, but she’d done her best.

  And now she found herself standing in front of the closed twelfth-floor lounge door, yellow police tape still stretched from one side of the frame to the other. It had been her idea to come up here. She’d thought it might be helpful to look at the room again. After all, a policeman who’d never been in the lounge before might miss something she would spot immediately. That is, if there were anything to notice at all.

  “Are you sure this is such a great idea?” Charlie asked her. “Are you up to it?”

  The truth was no. Vivian wasn’t at all sure she was up to it. She could still see Marjorie’s lifeless eyes in her mind. She swallowed, her fingertips resting lightly on the doorknob. She suddenly felt like she might be sick and whirled around, shaking her head.

  Charlie placed his hand lightly on her arm and nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” he said in a soothing tone. “I don’t think anything in this room is the answer anyway.”

  Vivian nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Viv!”

  She let the breath out slowly and turned to find little Sammy Evans rushing toward her.

  He was just a slip of a man with round spectacles and thinning, light brown hair that clung to the sides of his head in tufts above each ear. His eyes were bloodshot behind his spectacles. Vivian wasn’t sure he’d be in the station today with The Golden Years broadcast still up in the air, but here he was.

  “Have you heard anything?” His pale green eyes were magnified behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “About what?” Vivian asked, pressing her hand lightly to her stomach to staunch the queasiness.

  “Anything about The Golden Years. What Mr. Hart’s going to do.”

  Vivian shook her head. “Sorry, I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “I know he’s meeting with Mrs. Gill-Davison right now,” Sammy said with a shake of his head. “Without Marjorie, well, I don’t know if it will continue. And I got a wife and three kids to take care of…” He glanced at the police tape covering the door behind her.

  “Sammy,” Vivian said softly, “would you mind talking to us for a bit?”

  Sammy turned his head sharply, his eyes focusing on Charlie. “Who’s that?” he asked warily.

  “Charlie Haverman,” Charlie said, extending his hand. “Special consultant to The Darkness Knows.”

  Sammy nodded and shook Charlie’s hand. “The private detective,” Sammy said. “I heard you were knocking about around here.”

  Vivian and Charlie exchanged glances.

  “Sure. I already told the police everything I know,” Sammy said. “What harm can it do?”

  They found an empty rehearsal space. Sammy seemed eager to get his true feelings about Marjorie Fox off his chest, and he launched directly into his story without being prompted.

  “I hate to speak ill of the dead,” Sammy said solemnly, “but I hated Marjorie Fox. She talked down to me all the time like I was a mental deficient. I know she despised me for being…a midget.” He looked down at his hands clasped in his lap. “But her drinking was really the worst of it. She would come into the studio for a broadcast three sheets to the wind sometimes. I complained about her to the director a few times in the beginning, but nothing ever happened, except that she got even more attention. Sometimes Mr. Hart himself would come in and watch the broadcast—he treated her with kid gloves. She was never reprimanded, from what I could tell. It was a sort of favoritism that I didn’t understand. Of course, she hated me even more for tattling on her—”

  “And for being popular with the listeners,” Charlie added.

  Sammy nodded. “But what could I do but accept the situation? This is—was—a good gig.”

  “What happened during the show yesterday, Sammy?” Charlie prompted.

  Sammy hesitated and stole a quick glance at Vivian. She nodded her reassurance.

  “She was her usual terrible self, sniping at everyone during rehearsal.”

  “Had she been drinking?” Charlie asked.

  “I assume so,” he said, then added in a whisper, “She was always drinking.”

  “Did you happen to see her with a letter?” Vivian asked.

  “A letter?” Sammy’s forehead creased in tho
ught. “Yes, as a matter of fact, a page brought an envelope in for her between the rehearsal and the live broadcast.”

  Vivian looked at Charlie, and he nodded. So Marjorie’s letter had also been hand delivered.

  Charlie leaned forward, one elbow on his knee. “Did she read it there? In the studio?”

  Sammy looked off into the distance. “She opened it, but I didn’t see her read it. The writers had just given me some extra dialogue to review. Boy, she loved that,” he said sarcastically.

  “Sammy,” Vivian said. “What did the letter look like?”

  “Look like?”

  “Yes, what did the paper look like?”

  He thought for a few seconds and shrugged. “White, I suppose.”

  “All white?”

  “No.” Sammy wrinkled his brow in thought. “I think it had a stripe at the top…blue or green… And a crest of some kind.”

  Vivian nodded. “The same letter I saw her with shortly before…well, you know.” She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. “Did you see her talking with a man at any point?” she asked, thinking about the argument she’d overheard through the ladies’ room door.

  “A man?” He shook his head. “Just the men working on the show. Me, Lester Garvey…” He glanced toward Charlie. “That’s her husband on the show,” he explained. “The director, Morty…”

  “Did she have an argument with one of them?” Charlie asked.

  “One of them?” Sammy laughed. “How about all of them?”

  Vivian and Charlie looked at each other.

  “What did she argue with Morty about?” Charlie asked.

  “Ah, the usual stuff. Morty wasn’t getting the sound levels right. She thought he was making her microphone weaker than everyone else’s.” Sammy rolled his eyes behind the thick lenses.

  “Did they argue often?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah, all the time, but Marjorie argued with everyone all the time.” Sammy shrugged. “All I know is that she stormed off the second we were off the air. I don’t know where she went.” He looked down at his hands again and hitched in an audible breath. “Viv, will you let me know…” Sammy continued, his voice trembling slightly. “If you hear anything about the show?” He looked up, his eyes watery with tears.

  Vivian placed her hand over his and pressed down lightly. “Of course, Sammy,” she said softly. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  He nodded and looked down at the floor.

  • • •

  As they were leaving the station, Charlie grasped Vivian’s arm and pulled her into a small alcove near the elevators.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.

  Vivian nodded. She did feel a little better after talking to Sammy. She wasn’t sure he had told them anything helpful, but at least it had been something concrete to do.

  “Good, because I think I may be on to something.”

  “What? Is it something that Sammy said?”

  He nodded. “I think the letters were switched.”

  “Switched? Which letters?”

  “I only saw it for a moment or two last night, but I’m certain that the letter found with Marjorie’s body was typed on plain white paper. No blue stripe. No crest.”

  “But both Sammy and I saw her with a letter with a blue or green stripe and a crest.”

  Charlie waited for Vivian to make the connection.

  “The killer switched the letters?” she asked.

  “Someone did, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “I can only assume there was something in the original letter that the killer didn’t want anyone to see. The motive for Mrs. Fox’s murder, maybe.”

  “But why bother to replace the letter with another? Why not just take the letter and leave it at that?”

  Charlie shrugged. “To deflect attention, send the police on a wild-goose chase…”

  “A wild-goose chase?”

  “Buy some time by sending them after a man named Walter who probably doesn’t exist. To keep the focus on preventing your murder instead of finding Mrs. Fox’s killer…”

  Vivian blinked, and a smile of relief spread slowly across her face. “So the threat letters are just red herrings then? There’s no Walter? No one wants to kill me?”

  “Now, now,” Charlie said, holding both hands up. “I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “But it’s a possibility?”

  “I’d say so.”

  Vivian let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding in a long, slow rush of air. “Thank God,” she said.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Charlie said. “That’s just my hunch. We need to find out what was in that original letter—the one the killer didn’t want anyone to see.”

  “But wouldn’t the killer have destroyed it?”

  “Most likely,” he answered, his jaw working in agitation. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “And let’s not forget that someone’s still threatened you, red herring or no.”

  “You’re right,” she said, her brow furrowed with renewed concern. “My letter may be a fake, but it was still placed in my script by the killer. So we’re back to square one, aren’t we? It’s someone I see every day. And that means that anyone at the station who had a grudge against Marjorie…” she said, deep in thought.

  “Is a suspect, yes,” he finished.

  “That’s a lot of people,” she said helplessly.

  “It seems to be,” Charlie agreed.

  Vivian thought for a moment, watching people pass in the hallway. As luck would have it, Chet Whibley chose that moment to saunter by, along with a few of his Country Cavalcade girls, replete in their Western finery. Vivian turned back to Charlie.

  “But there is some good news,” Vivian announced brightly. “I know where everyone who worked directly with Marjorie will be between, oh, roughly eight and midnight tonight.”

  Charlie eyed her suspiciously.

  “We just need to make a pit stop in wardrobe before we leave,” she said, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back out into the hustle and bustle of the hallway.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I look ridiculous.”

  Vivian eyed Charlie’s reflection in the full-length mirror in her mother’s study and suppressed a smile. “Well, I think you make a marvelous cowpoke,” she said. “Very Randolph Scott.” He cocked an eyebrow in surprise at the compliment until she added, “If I squint my eyes and cock my head to the right.”

  “I knew there was a catch,” he said dryly. “Are you sure this getup is strictly necessary?” He pulled at a piece of the red fringe hanging from his sleeve.

  Thanks to Imogene’s tip and the key she kept in her desk, Vivian and Charlie had had their pick of Chet Whibley’s Country Cavalcade outfits from the station’s costume closet. Charlie sported a Chet Whibley special, most likely last used while the wearer crooned a mournful country ballad. The costume consisted of a cowhide vest over a white-collared shirt replete with delicately embroidered red carnations that ran up the entire length of the placket. Silky red fringe extended down the seam of both sleeves and swayed like prairie grass with the slightest movement. Cowhide chaps matched the vest, and the same fringe appeared on the seam from hip to ankle. Vivian considered the overall effect. Everything fit Charlie remarkably well. In fact, she didn’t know why she’d tempered her earlier compliment with a slight dig. He did resemble Randolph Scott.

  “Of course it’s necessary. You can’t go barging into a masquerade in a suit and tie,” she admonished. “You’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

  Charlie made a face at himself in the mirror. “I still look ridiculous.”

  “Yes, yes, but how do I look?” Vivian spun in a tight circle, allowing the fringe on her skirt to flare. Then she stopped and posed fetchingly, she hoped, with
one hand on her hip. Her outfit matched Charlie’s almost exactly, except that the hemline and neckline were both considerably more daring.

  “I do declare, Miss Witchell,” he said, hitching one thumb on the side of his vest and pretending to chew on a piece of straw. “You sure do look purdy.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” she said, fanning herself with one red cowhide glove.

  “May I have the pleasure of a dance later?” he asked. He reached to tip the brim of his hat toward her, but his fingers touched only air.

  “Your hat!” Vivian cried in alarm. “It’s key to the ensemble.”

  “No need to panic, missy,” he said, pointing.

  Vivian turned and spied the Stetson sitting atop a pile of papers on her mother’s desk. As she lifted it, something caught her eye in the pile below.

  A sheet of paper with a tantalizingly familiar blue stripe across the top lay half-hidden among her mother’s correspondence. Vivian handed the hat to Charlie without turning away from the desk and pulled the letter farther from the pile with her thumb and index finger. The letter was upside down, so she tilted her head to the side in an effort to glean its contents without disturbing its placement further. Her mother didn’t like her things bothered.

  Vivian let out a little yip of triumph and snatched the letter from its spot on the desk—Mother be damned. She whirled around and held the paper mere inches from Charlie’s nose.

  “This,” she said dramatically, shaking the piece of paper with excitement, “is what I saw Marjorie with just before she died.”

  Charlie settled the cowboy hat atop his head, then squinted to read the letterhead. Chicago Foundlings Home.

  “My mother’s on the board. Believe it or not, she has a soft spot for babies.” Vivian smiled ruefully at Charlie. “But why would Marjorie be getting mail from the foundling home?”

  Charlie shrugged and turned back to the mirror. “You’re sure that’s the same letterhead?”

  “Positive,” she said.

  “Who knows?” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe she was on the board too.”

  Vivian shook her head. “Boards are for rich swells.”