Death Was in the Picture (20 page)

“Ta da,” she trilled, spreading her hands wide in a theatrical gesture that indicated quite clearly that our interview was over. “Thank you so much for your visit, both of you. But I’m tired now. I must retire.” When she stood, both cats dropped to the ground, one looked surprised, the other annoyed and Lorena herself unconcerned. “You can see yourselves out.”

“WHAT DO YOU make of her?” The noonday sun slashed at the car and the fields we drove through. It reflected off the swaying sugar beets and the white ribbon of highway. I knew that, if we stopped for a moment and I stood beside the car, I’d feel the sun on my shoulder, on my head. I’d feel the sun and maybe I’d feel warm again. But just then, for whatever reason, I felt fingers of damp; a chill. I felt cold.

“Nothing to make,” I said. “She’s nuttier than Marjorie’s fruitcake.”

Dex laughed. “You know, I haven’t had that pleasure—your Marjorie’s fruitcake, that is. But I would imagine it’s a nutty delight.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.”

“Please don’t,” Dex begged. “I have a hard enough time with her already. So,” he said at length, “do we think about what she said?”

“What Marjorie said?”

“No. Silly goose. Forget the fruitcake for a minute. Or think about a different one: Wyndham’s wife.”

“Do we think about what she said about Steward Sterling, you mean?”

Dex grunted his reply.

I considered before answering. “Thing is, I’m still confused about what she meant, are you?”

Dex nodded. “Like, did she mean Steward
did
it or did she mean Steward would know if Laird did it?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Like that.”

“Well, either way, I figure she’s barking up the wrong tree.”
Dex held the wheel with both hands. His knuckles were white. But he looked calm in all other regards. Calm and completely in control of the big car.

“Could be. Still, she’s the one that was married to Wyndham. That’s why we went to see her, right? She has reason to know more than we do. I think you have to talk to Steward.”

Another grunt. “I think you’re right,” he changed tracks. “Could be she was always a fruitcake.”

“Don’t know, Dex. Takes a while to work up to that many cats.”

“Could be that’s why they’re still married,” Dex said in a way that made me realize he was thinking it all through for the first time as it came out of his mouth.

“Why?”

“Maybe it’s what it always was. She needed … I dunno … protection, maybe? From the world …”

I saw where this was going. “And maybe he did too?”

Dex nodded as he drove. “A wife would save him a lot of scrutiny.”

“And not everyone would have been happy about all those cats.”

“You got
that
right, sister. Five minutes in that house and I felt like they were sizing me up for a hot meal.”

“Now what?” I said.

“Now we go back to the office and pick up where we left off: try to find someone who knows something about what’s happened to our boy.”

“But you don’t think the wife had anything to do with it?” I pressed.

“I don’t think she could do the crossword if it was already filled in.”

“So I’m back on the phone this afternoon.”

“Yeah. That and I want you to find Rhoda Darrow.”

“Who?”

“The woman who tangoed me around at the party.”

“What do I need to find her for?”

“Well, lots of reasons. Xander Dean hired her, for one. So it would be good to know what was in his head when he did it.”

“How am I gonna find her?” I asked, honestly perplexed.

“You’re going to detect.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Listen buddy,” I said, “that’s your job. I just answer the phones and type up fake letters to nobody.”

He looked at me sitting next to him in the car and grinned. “Yeah. And I’m sure they appreciate it.”

“Well, if you suddenly need an assistant, maybe you oughta hire one of those,” I suggested.

“Like a junior detective?” Dex asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Like that.”

“Yeah, I
could
do that, couldn’t I?”

“You could.”

“But let me tell you something,” he said with a smirk.

“What?”

“You come cheaper.”

FIND RHODA DARROW he’d said, making it sound easy. Like finding a good pastrami or a place to see a movie. In reality, though, we were back to needle in haystack time. All I had was a name that both Dex and I realized might or might not be real. And I had a description, through the observant but not entirely unjaundiced eye of my boss.

I thought Dex would tell me how to detect, but he just dropped me off and swanned away, which I supposed was how I was getting stuck with this assignment in the first place. Many hands make the load lighter, so they say. My hands just didn’t have any actual experience doing this sort of thing.

“You’re a smart girl,” Dex said when I tried to stop him. “You’ll figure something out. Can’t be any harder than me figuring out how to make a cuppa joe, right?”

He was right: I
am
a smart girl, but I know there are easy ways to go about things and there are hard ones. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference is by having someone tell you which is what, but Dex didn’t seem in the mood for that. Not today.

After Dex dropped me at the office, I had the little lunch Marjorie had packed for me in the morning. While I ate my kipper and brown butter sandwich, I thought about all those mixed up files again. Then, after lunch, I got to work on finding Darrow, because clearly the filing was going to be even less fun.

Anyone watching the first fifteen minutes or so of my search wouldn’t have thought I was doing very much at all. I just sat quietly at my desk thinking about the little I knew about Rhoda Darrow—and where would be a good place to
start looking. Finally I looked in the book for the number of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where Wyndham was under contract. Then I called them up. It seemed like as good a place as any to start.

When I got the switchboard, I asked if an actress named Rhoda Darrow was on their roster. The switchboard patched me over to the publicity department and when I said her name, they said they knew who she was. She had been under contract a couple of years before but now she was not. Did they know what had become of her? They did not. Did they know where she lived? No, but the nice woman I spoke to at MGM publicity went away to check their files. When she came back, she told me that Rhoda Darrow was represented by Wally Garris at the William Morris Agency, did I want that number?

I did.

Garris was apparently not available to anyone calling regarding Miss Darrow. I waited another hour, then tried again. The secretary was sharp. Sharper than I was about these things, I suspected, though I figured maybe she had more reason to be.

She recognized my voice right away.

“Listen,” she instructed, “I’m done talking to you about Rhoda Darrow, see?”

“But,” I pointed out helpfully, “you haven’t told me anything at all.”

“Right. And that’s what I’m done telling you. Don’t let me hear you on this phone again.” With that she slammed the receiver down so hard, I imagined it rocking in its cradle.

Her instructions had been explicit—”Don’t call here again.” I had no intention of doing so, either. Instead, I decided it was important enough and the office was quiet enough that I’d get me some air.

Grabbing my handbag, a light coat and my hat, I locked the office and set off for the subway station, just a few blocks away
on Hill Street. I risked the ire of the ticket taker in the grand lobby by asking for a receipt. But I reasoned that this wasn’t going to be a pleasure ride. It was business, after all. Dex could pay me back. If he was going to make me detect, he could darn well give me my expenses, too.

I went down a series of stairways and ramps to catch the Hollywood train. I sat on a bench while I waited, thinking carefully about what I’d do when I got where I was going. I had a destination, I realized, but I didn’t have much of a plan.

It was mid-afternoon when I boarded and the train was mercifully uncrowded. A light smattering of businessmen, no doubt headed out to appointments, shoppers on their way back home, laden with packages and tired satisfaction. A harried young mother traveled with two small children—one firmly attached to each hand. The smaller of the two, a little girl, coughed violently while her mother patted her back, wiped her spittle and looked concerned. I felt bad when I seated myself at the very back of the car, as far from this little family as I could.

When we got underway, I didn’t pay any attention to the series of bells or the clacking of the tracks under us as we changed from one set to another. I knew that the two were related—the bells, the clacking, the destination—but I didn’t know how and I figured there are some things in life one just doesn’t need to know.

Before long—perhaps only a mile and after what felt like only a slight ascent—we emerged from the darkness of the subway into a visual cacophony of light and wires and the general melee that was Toluca Yard, where the extra trams were kept and, I imagine, other various bits and bolts needed to keep the whole complicated electric car system running.

I got off at Hollywood and Vine. A half dozen people got off with me. Not all of them were headed for the Equitable Trust Building, but a clump of us trooped into it together. That suited me just fine since entering the imposing structure on my
own would have been a bit nerve-wracking, especially considering my mission.

The lobby was big, shiny and impressive. I know that it cannot have been marble from floor to ceiling, but that was the impression I was left with: acres of marble worked to a finish so fine, the surface reflected my face back at me with all the authority of a mirror.

There was a building directory in one corner of the marble-festooned lobby. It indicated that the offices of the William Morris Agency were on the eighth floor. The elevator was swift and new and smooth and if either the elevator or its operator smelled of anything but clean I could not detect it.

On the eighth floor, the operator directed me to follow the hallway all the way to the left where, just as advised, I found a door marked with the name and trademark of the agency. It was a big operation, one of the most important of its kind. I had a tough time reconciling what Dex had told me about Rhoda Darrow and the name and reputation of the best-known talent agency in the business.

At least, that’s what I thought when I stood in the hallway. Inside the office itself, I changed my tune. The William Morris Agency didn’t look greatly different from Dex’s operation. Oh sure: it was bigger, more bustling and a lot more was going on. But there was no more opulence than Dex and I enjoyed and no one was just sitting around on their keisters eating bon-bons and shooting the breeze. I got the feeling that you had to work with a lot of Rhoda Darrows before you hit a payday like Laird Wyndham or Lorena Duvall. At a certain level, then, like so many others, the movie business was a numbers game.

“How can I help you?” the receptionist said brightly as I entered. I was encouraged.

“I’m here to see Wally Garris,” I said.

“Is he expecting you?” she asked, pulling her appointment book toward her as she spoke. I knew the move. I always did it
that way myself. Thing was, there were probably actual appointments listed in the Morris Agency’s book. Dex’s tended to be as empty as a Sunday school teacher’s bank account.

“No,” I said. “I just thought I’d pop in and see if he was around.”

She pushed the book back to its place thoughtfully. I could almost hear the réévaluation going on in her head. She pulled her sweater closer to herself protectively while pushing a doubtful eye over me. There was no part of me that looked like a glamour puss and I fit into that reception area the way a bear fits into a dinner party.

“Are you one of his clients?” she asked at length.

I shook my head.

“I see. Can I tell him what it’s about?”

I thought about it quickly, then shook my head again. Mentioning Rhoda Darrow’s name on the telephone hadn’t brought me any traction, I had no reason to think it would be different now.

“What have you done?” she asked, pulling a form toward her from the other side of the desk. I could see she was prepared to put together some sort of resume on me. That wouldn’t get me an interview with Mr. Garris. My theatrical resume wasn’t very impressive, unless you counted my Desdemona in the senior girls’ production of
Othello
my last year at Mrs. Beeson’s School.

“I’m afraid I haven’t done much of anything.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but I could tell that she was not. “I’m trying to help you here, but you really have to do something to help yourself.”

“Look,” I said, “I just want to see Mr. Garris. On a personal matter.”

The young woman sat back in her chair with an exasperated look on her face. “Unless you tell me what it’s about, you will not get in to see him.”

“It’s just that… well, I called and … I wanted to talk to him about one of his clients. Rhoda Darrow?”

“That’s not exactly a personal matter, is it?” she said coldly. I could see the last vestiges of the gentility she saved for real clients falling off her in chunks.

“Well,” I said, kind of hemming, “I do want to see him. Personally,” I said with a haw. “If Mr. Garris could just give me a few minutes of his time …”

She drew herself to her full sitting height in order to look down her nose at me. The pose looked most uncomfortable. “Have you any idea how valuable Mr. Garris’s time
is?”
she said, clearly understanding that I did not. “If he just gave it away …” She let her voice trail off tantalizingly, leaving me to guess what calamities might be possible if such a thing should happen.

“Look, if you would just ask Mr. Garris if he would see me.”

She looked at me as though astonished that I was still standing there, still breathing her air. “Close your head and pipe
this,
sister,” she said, all of the veneer cracked away by now. An intercom buzzed and she ignored it in order to finish her tirade, “Mr. Garris will
not
see you, we do not have time for whatever it is you’re selling, we—” The intercom buzzed again and she broke off with an exasperated gulp and picked it up.