The Darkness Knows (23 page)

Vivian's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. What exactly had Mr. Hart done? What was he trying to confess to her? And why
her
of all people? What did any of this have to do with Marjorie's death? Mr. Hart rose from his seat and started toward her, arms outstretched. Vivian yanked the door open.

“No! Don't go!” he begged as she ran down the hallway.

The door slammed behind her, and Vivian jerked at the sound. Her ankle twisted painfully sideways, and she lurched to a stop, muffling a cry with the back of one hand. Mr. Hart wasn't following her. She slumped back against the wall, her heart thudding in her chest. She put a hand to her sternum and forced two deep breaths through her lungs, feeling her diaphragm move up and down under her palm. She also felt something else, something flat and hard in the pocket of her jacket. Her hand slipped inside, and with her fingertips, she felt the worn leather cover of the Bible she'd taken from Marjorie's apartment.

She held it gingerly in the palm of one hand as if it were a living thing.
Holy Bible
was stamped in faded gilt lettering across the cover. She half expected the book to open of its own accord, its pages riffling by magic, but they didn't. The spine was still stiff, the book having rarely, if ever, been used. Vivian took another deep breath and opened to the flyleaf. A short inscription was written in a strong, ornate hand, stark black against the thick cream paper:
Presented to Euphemia Juergens upon the celebration of her first Holy Communion, April 25, 1900
. Vivian read the inscription three times before it hit her. Euphemia Juergens…Effie Juergens… Could that be the Effie that Mr. Hart had been so upset about? Before the connection could fully form in her mind, the elevator motor whirred to life. Vivian watched the needle over the elevator door slide from ten to eleven to twelve. Someone was coming up—it could be Imogene or even Charlie.

As the elevator lurched to a stop, Vivian looked down at her watch and gasped when she found it was only two minutes until showtime. She lurched toward the staircase, stumbling down the stairs on her twisted ankle, and made it into the studio just as the opening music began to play. Joe shook his head at her from the control booth. Vivian hadn't even looked at the script beyond the page she'd rehearsed with Frances. She would have to do the show cold.

Halfway through the script, Vivian thought that it was going as well as could be expected, especially as she could barely read her lines with her hands trembling so badly. She had to get ahold of herself. But she was holding her own against Frances, and Joe even seemed to have relaxed slightly in the control room.

“Talent opens a lot of doors,” Frances growled.

“I don't play any games,” Vivian replied in an icy tone.

“That's not what I've heard.”

Vivian furrowed her eyebrows. There was something familiar about these lines of dialogue. Frances seemed not to notice. She was deeply set in her character, relishing the starring role of murderess, her eyes focused intently on the script in her hand.

Dave Chapman, as Rodrigo, stepped up to the microphone, and Vivian fell back a pace. She was out of this scene and had a moment to breathe.

Vivian's hand found the Bible in her pocket. Effie Juergens was Marjorie Fox, she knew with sudden certainty. And Mr. Hart had done something horrible to Effie when she was younger…something that had gotten her killed years later? Had Mr. Hart killed her? He said he'd loved her, and Charlie had said it had been a crime of passion, a whiskey bottle to the head in a moment of exquisite anger.

Mr. Hart and Marjorie? Vivian could scarcely believe it.
Who didn't Marjorie Fox share a past with?
she thought. Then another, more upsetting thought struck her. Had Mr. Hart, the man who'd hired Charlie to protect her, been the one who'd wanted her dead all along? But why? What role could she have possibly played in any of this?

“I won't stand for it,” Frances said, breaking Vivian out of her reverie.

“Stand for what?” Vivian asked, hurrying to find the correct place in the script.

“I won't stand for you taking what's rightfully mine.” Frances's eyes glittered.

“Rodrigo was never yours,” Vivian said vehemently.

“He was, and you took him from me,” Frances replied, the anger in her voice unmistakable. Vivian looked up to find Frances glaring at her, both of them knowing they weren't talking about Rodrigo, but Graham. Frances finally broke eye contact and shrugged, still in character. “Doesn't matter anymore anyway,” she said. “Rodrigo is dead.”

“Dead?” Vivian asked, shocked.

“That's right,” Frances answered. “He's floating in the duck pond out back. And you're going to join him.” Frances pulled a gun from her pocket and leveled it at Vivian, the barrel aimed right between her eyes.

That's a real gun
, Vivian thought. A real gun pointed directly at her. Oh God, Frances wasn't really going to shoot her during a live performance, was she? Vivian watched Frances's thumb move back, heard the hammer cock. Vivian's eyes darted around the room, but she found only disinterested stares. The soundman was lounging at his table as if this turn of events were the most natural thing in the world. Wasn't anyone going to doing anything? Did they all really think this was just playacting? Vivian's mind worked frantically.

Frances could shoot her in front of all of these witnesses and plead ignorance. She could claim someone had accidentally left a live round in the chamber and that Vivian's murder was an unfortunate accident. Vivian caught the director's arm moving in frantic circles out of the corner of her eye. Dead air. She was blowing it. Again. Vivian swallowed and forced the next line out of her constricted throat, her voice a squeak of panic.

“You can't do this, Evelyn. You'll never get away with it.”

“Oh, I don't plan on getting away with it. After all, what's another murder? They can only hang me once.” Vivian didn't even have time to blink before the gun went off, shockingly loud at such close range. Vivian gasped in surprise and clapped her hand over her mouth. She glanced up to see Frances smirking at her.
Blanks.
The gun had held only blanks. Vivian let out a shaky breath, and the announcer stepped up to the microphone for the sponsor break.

“Are you feeling weak, irregular, not at the top of your game?”

Vivian looked down at her script in embarrassment. She really was on edge. It was almost all there, the solution tantalizingly close, but she couldn't make anything fit yet. Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes, making the text of her script swim before her. She blinked to clear them and surreptitiously wiped away a tear that was making a break for it down her cheek. She hoped Frances wasn't watching.

She tried to control her racing heart. Her vision was blurred again by persistent tears, and before she could wipe them away, a pattern formed in the fuzzy text. She stared at it for a long moment and then blinked the text back into focus. The Os, she thought. The Os in every word on this page were off. She flipped quickly between the pages. Yes, they were different on the pink revised pages Peggy had given her. The Os on the new pages appeared lower than all of the other letters on the line, just a fraction, just enough to mar the symmetry.

Just like the Os in the letters Vivian had received—the second threat and the one that had just been delivered to her house. Then it hit her like a thunderbolt. She knew exactly why this pattern was so familiar. Why hadn't she put it together before? She sucked in her breath and held it. These Os were made by the typewriter outside Mr. Hart's office. She'd used that typewriter for two years, and she knew its quirks like the back of her hand. The person who'd sent her the letters had used that typewriter. Her roiling stomach told her so. But she had to be sure. She had to go back up to that typewriter and test it.

“What are you doing up here?”

Vivian jumped, her fingers dancing above the typewriter keys.

“Oh, Peggy, hello.” She sighed with relief and placed one hand over her thumping heart. She glanced at the girl and back down to the typewritten letters on the curled paper in front of her. She'd been terrified of running into Mr. Hart again. Terrified that he'd confess to Marjorie's murder or try to harm Vivian too. But his office had been dark when she'd returned to the twelfth floor. “Did you use this typewriter for the script revisions tonight?”

“I…” Peggy began. She swallowed visibly and continued. “I did.”

Vivian nodded. She rolled the paper out of the machine and studied it. The O was definitely lower than the other letters—just like in that last message warning her about Charlie. “Have you seen anyone else using this typewriter?” Vivian asked.

“Just Daddy's secretary.”

“Does Mr.—your father ever use it?” Vivian asked, trying to keep her tone neutral. She couldn't betray to Peggy that she suspected her father of anything.

A smile flitted briefly over Peggy's face, and she said, “I don't think Daddy knows how to type.”

Vivian returned the smile. Peggy was absolutely right. It was impossible to imagine the debonair Mr. Hart hunched over a typewriter.

“Vivian, can I get you to listen to something?”

“Listen?” Vivian looked up.

“Yes.” Peggy looked down at her feet. “I've written a lot for different shows, but I'd like to try my hand at acting…nothing big…just a bit part on a serial or something. Anyway, do you mind listening to me read and giving me some tips?”

“Oh, sure,” Vivian said, looking nervously down the hallway. What if Mr. Hart was lurking in the dark somewhere?

Peggy motioned toward the smoked-glass door of Studio G, the little one no one used because it wasn't completely soundproof and the noise irritated Mr. Hart in his office next door.

“Now?” Vivian said. “I haven't got much time.” She wondered for the hundredth time where Charlie might be. She supposed she'd just have to go home and wait for him. It was the only safe thing to do. She glanced down at the paper in front of her. There was something she was missing, a connection she wasn't making… Peggy had used the typewriter, as had Mr. Hart's secretary, but who else?

“Well, you're always so in demand,” Peggy said with a smile. “I finally have you all to myself, and I want to take advantage of the opportunity. I promise it won't take long.” Her gray eyes were bright, as if she was excited or about to cry.

Vivian smiled. She knew the girl was throwing shameless flattery at her, but Vivian never minded a little flattery, even at a time like this. “Okay,” she agreed. “Just for a few minutes though. Then I really have to get going.”

Peggy followed her into the studio and closed the door. The click of the latch echoed in the empty room.

The girl cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, standing a bit taller. “You shouldn't have gotten involved.” Peggy paused.

Vivian waited for her to continue her monologue, but the girl simply stared at her, a slight smile on her thin lips. Vivian's smile faltered.

“Go on, Peggy,” she said. “I'm listening.”

Peggy's brow furrowed. “You shouldn't have gotten involved,” she repeated. It was obviously a line she'd been practicing.

“Yes, all right, Peggy. That line sounds fine. What's next?”

Peggy shook her head, sighing. “No, Viv. This isn't part of a script. I'm saying,
You shouldn't have gotten involved.
”

“What do you mean?” Vivian asked, ice crawling up her spine as she realized they were completely alone on the twelfth floor—in an almost soundproof studio. “Involved with what?”

“Fiddling with the typewriter just now…”

“Oh.” Vivian laughed nervously and took a step toward the door. “I know it's not my job anymore, but I can't seem to tear myself away.”

“I know very well what you were doing,” Peggy said in a low voice. She leaned back against the door and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Peggy, what's going on here? I need to get back to—”

“I suppose it really is my fault you're mixed up in this, isn't it? After all, I mentioned you in the letter.”

“The letter?” Vivian swallowed, her throat as dry as sandpaper.

“I picked Lorna Lafferty out of thin air, you know. Must be the alliteration in the name that makes it so memorable. I had nothing against you. I still don't…”

Details tumbled, clicking into place in Vivian's mind, little things she'd overlooked—expressions, choices of words, the Os, the typewriter, the threatening letters. It all suddenly came together in one thundering, inescapable conclusion. Peggy hadn't just typed the threatening letters. Oh no. She'd done far worse. “You killed Marjorie,” Vivian whispered. “Why?”

Peggy shrugged, her eyes flicking to the floor. “Your dashing Mr. Haverman knows why.”

“Charlie?” Vivian breathed.

Peggy smiled. “I
knew
there was something going on between you two,” she said as if she'd caught Vivian confessing a sin. Then she frowned and said, “I suppose you
could
ask him, but I don't think he'll answer. Not now.”

Vivian felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle. “Where is he?”

Peggy shrugged again.

“Where is he?” Vivian repeated, keeping her voice as steady as possible.

“Slowly suffocating in that shabby rented room he calls an office, I suppose,” Peggy said. “It seems he's opened the gas line to end his guilt and misery over Marjorie's death—or, that's what it'll say in the papers tomorrow, anyway.”

Vivian made a move for the door, but Peggy pulled a revolver from the pocket of her cardigan, aiming it dead center at Vivian's chest. “Don't even try it,” she said.

Vivian stopped midstep and raised her hands reflexively. The weapon looked exactly like the prop gun Frances had leveled at her a few minutes earlier, but she couldn't take the chance that this gun held only blanks. Vivian's eyes darted around the room, looking for something, anything, to aid in an escape. There was nothing. The studio was empty except for the piano in the far corner. The small control room was dark behind the square pane of glass. Panic seized her. Peggy had killed Marjorie, and now she'd…

Charlie. Oh God, Charlie.

“His guilt and misery,” Vivian repeated in a dull voice, feeling like her legs might give way under her. She looked at Peggy, at the gun, helplessly.

“Oh, I left a letter with Charlie too,” Peggy said. “His suicide note explains how he'd killed Marjorie and how the guilt was making his life a living hell.”

Vivian stared at the girl. Suicide letter? But why would Charlie have killed Marjorie? He didn't even know her, or she thought he hadn't. What had that letter said? What Marjorie was… What Charlie is…? Vivian shook her head. None of this made any sense.

“
You
sent me that warning earlier tonight with the clipping from the
Patriot
.” She watched the gun, watched Peggy's finger hover over the trigger.

“I did that for your own good.”

“My own good?”

Peggy shifted the gun slightly, moving her finger away from the trigger. “It was an apology. I got you mixed up in this, mixed up with him, and I wanted to lessen the blow a little for you when he was found dead. You see, this way, you'd already have suspected him of being a murderer. And when it was confirmed with his suicide note confession, then maybe you wouldn't take it so much to heart.”

Vivian clenched her hands into fists at her sides.
An apology? Lessen the blow?
Vivian regarded the girl through narrowed eyes. Vivian felt sick, but she couldn't fall apart now. Charlie was out there—likely hurt, possibly dying. Vivian was the only one who could save him, and to save him she had to get out of this room. At the very least she had to get to the telephone on the desk outside and call for help. She glanced at the door behind Peggy. She had to get out there somehow. Vivian stared into the unblinking eye of the gun and stiffened her spine. She took a deep breath.

“You were wrong, Peggy,” she said, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice. “I hadn't suspected. I had no idea.”

Peggy's gray eyes flicked to hers, and she studied Vivian for a moment. “You didn't?”

Vivian shook her head.

Peggy sighed, pushing out her lower lip so that the wisps of fine brown hair around her temples fluttered. “But you were getting close. I could see it all over your face.”

Vivian eased one foot tentatively off the floor, hands still raised, and Peggy cocked the gun, the metallic
click-click
loud in the empty room. “Don't.”

Vivian's heart thudded painfully in her chest. Her eyes shifted to the clock above the window of the empty control room. It was already after eight o'clock, the second hand moving forward in merciless little jerks. Charlie had gotten that note and left just shy of noon. That was eight full hours ago. She felt the warmth drain from her face, her entire body.

She wasn't going to be in time to save Charlie no matter what she did now. If Peggy had done what she'd said she'd done, he was already gone. Vivian's heart thumped once, painfully hard, and then seemed to stop entirely.
Gone.
And now she understood that Peggy likely had no intention of letting Vivian out of this room alive—not now that she knew the truth.

“I don't understand any of this, Peggy,” Vivian said, her voice and her mind somehow still working.

“Haverman took you to the foundling home, didn't he?” The gun was still pointed squarely at Vivian, but Peggy's arm had visibly relaxed, the elbow bending slightly under the pistol's weight.

Vivian blinked. Nodded.
The foundling home
. She had to keep Peggy talking, keep her distracted. Find a way out. There had to be a way out of this. Peggy looked at her expectantly for a long moment. “You really don't know?” When Vivian shook her head, Peggy said, “Maybe you two weren't as close as I thought.” She emitted another long sigh, and then the words tumbled out in a rush.

“Marjorie Fox had a baby. Of course, she was little Effie Juergens then, Father's dutiful secretary
and more
. Father likes his secretaries…but you know all about that, don't you?” Peggy's bland face crumpled with disgust. “Father didn't care a whit for her. I know he didn't. How could he? He already had Mother. So he took care of it, or at least he told Effie that he had. A member of the board of directors can easily get access to the confidential files.”

Vivian's head was spinning. That explained it. She touched the Bible in her pocket. Marjorie was really Effie, and Effie had had Mr. Hart's baby when she was his secretary so many years ago. Mr. Hart had joined the Chicago Foundlings Home board of directors to cover up his own secret—an illegitimate child.

“He told Marjorie that the baby had died. But the baby hadn't died,” Peggy said.

Vivian remembered Charlie's closed expression outside the foundling home, his hardened jaw, how he'd refused to look at her. He'd been protecting himself. How could Vivian have been so blind?

“You destroyed the letter Marjorie was carrying from the foundling home and replaced it with the fan letter, didn't you?”

Peggy raised her eyebrows. “I didn't replace the letter. She didn't have it when I confronted her in the lounge, and it wasn't really from the foundling home. I wrote it using some of Daddy's blank stationery. He keeps it in his desk, you know.”

“
You
wrote it?” Vivian shook her head. “Why? What did it say?”

“That the child she'd given up had found out who she was and would go to the press if she didn't meet with him.” Peggy was proud, Vivian thought. Proud of her complicated scheming. Proud to have someone to share it with.

“But Charlie didn't know then that Marjorie was his mother. Why on earth would you do something like that?”

“Why would I make it up, you mean? I knew that was her worst nightmare. Marjorie was never the maternal type. And she still had ambitions to go beyond radio, deluded as they may have been, especially at her age. A scandal like a bastard child would have sunk her. So I wrote that letter to shake her up, to show her what it felt like to be harassed—just like she harassed my father, my mother, me. Then I found myself alone with her in the lounge, and I decided to needle her about it. I just wanted to get a rise out of her. But she didn't play along.” Peggy shrugged. “I got angry, and I hit her with whatever I could find.”

“The whiskey bottle.”

“Ironic, really. We all knew the bottle would get her someday.” She smiled. “Anyway, that was an accident. I hadn't meant to do it.” Peggy was so engrossed in her story that the barrel of the gun had wandered slightly to the right, no longer centered on Vivian's chest. Should she make a break for it?

“And when you realized she was dead, you rushed to the typewriter and cranked out some nonsense to throw the police off.”

“Good, wasn't it? A red herring, and apparently it worked like a charm. You really believed there was a Walter that couldn't live without you.”

Vivian ignored the dig. “And then you snuck out down the back stairs.”

Peggy nodded, and something else clicked into place for Vivian.

“You took Graham's cuff links, didn't you?”

The shock on Peggy's face was almost comical. “He left them in the studio. I just picked them up so I could return them to him,” she said defensively.

“Of course,” Vivian said. “And you dropped one in the stairway, or hadn't you noticed?”