The Last Embrace (18 page)

“Over here,” Gadge called from inside.

Lily bit the inside of her mouth. She didn’t want to get trapped.

“Hurry up, I can’t see anything,” the boy complained.

Lily played the flashlight along the barn and saw nothing ominous, though the light didn’t penetrate the deepest shadows. Slowly, she advanced, keeping the beam focused on Gadge, who pulled a U.S. Army duffel bag from a horse stall piled with moth-eaten blankets. The barn smelled of fermenting hay.

Gadge seemed twitchy, and she wondered why. A shaft of moonlight appeared, slanting in from a high window. Finally, it was up! She’d take every scrap of light she could get tonight. Lily heard a rustling and froze, ready to run. She turned the light in the direction of the noise.

“Hey!” Gadge shouted. “Bring back the light.”

An orange tomcat padded into the flashlight’s beam, trilling and rubbing his back against the boy’s legs. Lily’s knees almost buckled with relief. Gadge squatted down to scratch the cat under the chin. Lily noticed two chipped bowls against the wall, one empty, one with water.

“What’s his name?” she asked, still keeping an eye on the barn door.

“Trouble.” Gadge gathered the cat in his arms and his pinched face softened.

The ragged-earred cat began to purr like a jet engine. Lily moved toward him and tripped, putting out her arms to brace her fall. The flashlight fell, going out, and she cursed as she landed against a stack of hay bales. She groped frantically. Nothing.

“Gadge?”

Silence greeted her.

A shriek of fear rose in Lily’s chest and she tamped it down and pushed herself upright. She pressed her back to the hay, scanning the dark. Instead of soft straw, something hard poked into her back. Lily flinched, then felt behind her. She wondered if Gadge kept a knife at the ready for trouble. Her fingers closed around a sharp corner. She dug out more straw, saw a darker shadow amid the bale. She pulled. One last tug and it gave, Lily stumbled. Just then the flashlight went back on and Lily saw Gadge close by, training it on the thing she held in her hands. His face was awash in fear.

“No,” he said, and yanked it from her hands. The cat stood to one side, tail twitching.

Gadge darted toward the door, only to collide with Harry.

“Whoa.” Harry grabbed the boy. They stood in the shaft of moonlight, staring at the red leather purse in the kid’s hands. It had a broken strap.

“What have you got there?” Harry asked.

“It’s mine,” said the kid. “I found it.” He crouched, guarding it like a dog with a bone.

Lily’s brain was buzzing. The purse was red. The shoes had been red. Women liked matching accessories. “Where did you find it?”

“Just…on the street.”

“The same street where you found the shoe?” Lily asked in even tones.

“A half block up.”

“What was inside?”

“I spent the money,” the kid said. “How did I know?”

“How much was there?”

“Twelve dollars and forty-three cents.”

“And what else?” Harry asked.

“Makeup. A mirror. A change purse. I traded everything to a girl for a bag of pears.”

Was it really Kitty’s purse? The leather was stained in one corner. Blood?

“How about identification?” Lily asked.

Gadge shook his head.

“So that was it?”

“There was a note.”

“Let’s see.”

Reluctantly, Gadge surrendered the purse. Harry unclasped it and looked inside. He took out a folded piece of paper, opened it, and read it aloud:

Bits of straw clinging to their clothes, they reread the letter once, twice, ten times by the weakening beam of the flashlight, the questions roiling in their brains.

“Kirk,” Harry said. “The only Kirk I know in Hollywood is…this letter couldn’t be meant for Kirk Armstrong, could it?”

“The movie star?” Lily said, thinking about the virile young actor with the leonine mane of hair, the patrician good looks. The vast gulf that separated such a famous Hollywood player from a struggling fifty-dollar-contract starlet. “I wonder if she knew him?”

Lily slid the note out of Harry’s hand and into her own purse.

Gadge had gathered up the cat again. He knew they were angry. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Lily said.

“When we find out, maybe we’ll know who killed Kitty Hayden,” Harry said. “All right, Gadge, you got everything?”

The boy nodded.

“Put the cat down and let’s go.”

Gadge gripped the animal tighter. “I can’t leave Trouble. He’s my friend.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I’ll say trouble’s your friend.”

“Please, Harry. He won’t bother anyone.”

“The cat’ll be fine. Plenty of mice here.”

Gadge sat down. His lower lip thrust out. “I’m not going without him. He needs me.”

Lily considered that Gadge needed the cat even more.

“To hell with all of you.” Harry made a dismissive motion and clomped off.

Gadge buried his nose in Trouble’s fur and sniffled.

“C’mon,” Lily said, pulling Gadge up. “Let’s just go. We’ll work it out later.”

The cat didn’t flinch when Harry started the car, just hunched into a bread-loaf position on the boy’s lap, the two of them watching warily. No one spoke as they drove down to the stretch of Morton Street where Gadge had found the purse. Harry had already canvassed the block. Now he and Lily walked it once more, but didn’t find anything new.

“Maybe the murderer tossed Kitty’s purse out of a moving car,” Harry said.

“Wouldn’t he have removed anything incriminating first?” Lily asked. “What if she threw it out herself, in hopes that someone would find it?”

The street held no answers.

Back in the car, Harry said, “Why did you hide the purse, Gadge?”

The boy shrank back in his seat. “If you don’t hide beautiful things, somebody comes along and steals them.”

On the radio, a sultry female voice was singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

“Did you see it happen?” Lily made her voice soothing. “Maybe you were scared and you hid, but you watched. Please don’t be afraid to tell us.”

“I didn’t see anything. Honest.”

Harry took some photos out of the glove compartment and handed them to the kid. “Look closely. This is the girl whose shoe and purse you found. Ever see her before?”

“No.” The boy pushed them away.

“Did somebody give you the purse, maybe?”

“I told you, I found it.”

Lily looked at Harry. “We need to call those detectives.”

“No,” Gadge said, his voice muffled. “They’ll send me back. And they’ll take Trouble. He’ll die without me.”

Harry sucked his teeth. “How about a milkshake down in Beverly?” He made his voice jovial. “And a burger for your feline friend?”

Gadge stirred. “Okay.”

They drove to a Beverly Hills drive-in, where a waitress in a red cap and tight slacks attached metal plates to the car doors and took their orders, smiling as she caught sight of the cat. When the burger came, Gadge fed morsels of meat to Trouble, drank his shake, and fell asleep in the back, arms curled around the cat.

Lily took the note out of her purse and they read it again:

The RKO makeup artist had said Kitty was dating someone she called the Big K. Finally Lily had a name. Kitty’s roommates hadn’t mentioned anyone named Kirk. Maybe the romance was clandestine because Kirk was married. Kirk Armstrong certainly was married.

Beside her in the car, Harry shifted, and Lily considered how odd it was to be sitting here with this practical stranger. Neither of them had known Kitty in life, but her murder had created a strange bond. Lily sensed from the gruff but kind way Harry dealt with Gadge that there was no bad in him. And she needed a confidant. Under the bright glare of the drive-in’s sodium lights, Lily recounted everything she’d learned at RKO, her unsettling visit to Dr. Lafferty, Freddy Taunton’s dirty pictures.

“You think this Kirk got her knocked up and she had to get an abortion?” Harry said.

“Maybe she tried to blackmail him into marriage and it didn’t work.”

“She signed her letter
love,
” Harry pointed out. “That doesn’t sound like a blackmail letter.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Lily said dryly. “She must have been terrified. Pregnant and unmarried? That would have ended her career. She’d have to go home in shame.”

“The letter’s awfully cryptic. Maybe it’s a red herring to throw us off the scent. Is this even her writing?”

“I can check at the rooming house.”

“But what if someone forced her to write it at gunpoint?”

“Kirk is the key,” Lily said. “If we can find out who he is.”

“You’ve got the note. Take it to the cops. You didn’t make the kid any promises, I did.”

Lily glanced into the backseat.

“All of a sudden you’re worried about him?” Harry said. “You want to adopt him?”

“Me?” Lily said. “They don’t let single people adopt children.”

The photographer examined her steadily. “They don’t, do they? We’d have to get married.”

Lily felt a flush rise up her throat.

“I’m just kidding,” Harry said. “But I’m serious about the cops, Lily. This is some very sensitive stuff we’ve uncovered. Dangerous, even. I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

Lily shrugged off a twinge of fear. “I promise to be careful. So. Have you canvassed the shopkeepers along Morton?”

“There’s one place I need to go back to, they were closed for a private party today. The Crow’s Nest. It’s a strange joint. Piano player—god, he was horrible—started playing “God Save the Queen” as soon as I walked in. Maybe he thought I was British.”

Harry photographed the note and gave it to Lily. He kept the purse so he could shoot Gadge later, holding it with the red sandal. “The
Mirror
’s going to be on its knees,” he said.

“So you’re going to take the kid home with you after all? And the cat?”

“I suppose another day won’t hurt.”

“Bless you,” said Lily.

W
hat’s new, Miss Kessler?” a grating voice called as Lily walked up to the rooming house.

“Nothing,” Lily said, as the reporter named Violet McCree fell into step beside her, gliding along like a perfumed shark.

“Did you have a productive day?” Violet asked with an insinuating smile.

Lily felt the devil playing the xylophone along the knobs of her spine. Had this gal followed them?

“Please go away,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Well, I had a very productive day, Miss Kessler. I thought you’d like to know…I’m working on a story about you.”

“Me?”

The reporter smirked. “It’s called ‘Who’s the Mystery Girl at the Heart of the Scarlet Sandal Investigation and What Isn’t She Revealing About the Starlet’s Murder?’”

Lily swallowed. The headline was more apt than Violet McCree could imagine.

“That’s horrible,” Lily said. “You’re not even a real journalist, all you do is print lurid gossip and innuendo. You’re like a vampire, feeding off people’s misery. Leave me alone.”

The reporter cocked her head. “Perhaps you’ve been gone from America too long, Miss Kessler.”

Lily’s head jerked up. How the hell did she know that?

“Surprised that I’ve done my
research
? That I know you’ve spent the last five years in Europe, long after most loyal, God-fearing Americans have come home? Makes me wonder whether you’ve fallen prey to foreign influences. I’m as real as Eric Sevareid and Edward R. Murrow and I’ll bet more people read
Confidential
than listen to those blowhards. Americans are tired of wars. They want glamour. Entertainment. We take them inside Hollywood, show them what the stars are really like. People have a right to know.”

“You disgust me.”

“And you make me wonder, Miss Kessler, what strange people you’ve befriended on your travels. Those who might loathe the American way of life, be bent on destroying it. Hollywood is full of such people, working deep undercover. It’s our job to root them out. Do you get my drift?”

Lily shut the front door on Violet McCree.

“How’s tricks?” said Red, who was drinking coffee and reading a typed manuscript with a blue cover. A script.

“You got a part!” Lily said. “Congrats.”

Red looked especially pretty tonight, almost glowing. Her wool sweater clung to her bosom. Her lips and nails were painted luscious red.

“I went down to RKO today and met with the casting director.”

“About what?”

“I made him a proposition and, well, he wants me to finish out Kitty’s contract.”

“Oh, Red, he doesn’t!”

Red looked squarely at Lily and pouted. “Why shouldn’t I? A girl’s got to eat.”

“It just seems so prema…as if…”

“Premature? She’s dead, Lily. She’s not coming back.”

“I know but…” Lily remembered Pico accusing her, the day they’d met, of wanting to take advantage of Kitty’s disappearance.

“You should try it sometime, lining up at auditions, praying for two minutes of a director’s time. Waiting for a callback that never comes. When you’re under contract, you don’t go out on cattle calls, you get a screen test. Understand the difference? And I deserve it. I’m every bit as talented as Kitty and I’m sick to death of modeling clothes for J. C. Penney.”

Once again Lily felt how opportunistic this business was, the envy that churned just below the surface, how one actor’s tragedy meant another’s big break. She wondered, then, how big a step it would be from wishing for your rival’s demise to orchestrating it.

Lily studied Red in her furry slippers, legs propped up, memorizing her lines. No, it was ridiculous. She was just being paranoid.

“I learned some things today about Kitty’s murder,” Lily said, “that I’d like to discuss with you and the other girls.”

Behind Red’s eyes, something flared, then banked. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee.”

Lily ran upstairs to see who else was home and found Mrs. Potter emerging from Beverly’s room, looking like she’d been caught red-handed at something. The landlady hurried down the hall. Beverly was at her vanity table, sniffling.

“What’s wrong?” Lily wondered what Mrs. Potter had done to upset the girl.

“Nothing.” Beverly composed herself. “I’m just being silly.” Her apple cheeks quivered as she tried not to cry. Lily could smell the Jean Naté perfume she wore. “Oh, Lily. I found out today I got passed over for a role I really wanted.”

Lily considered Beverly’s high forehead, her barrettes and little-girl hair, her matronly bosom. She exuded common sense and favored conservative clothes—blouses never too tight, skirts never too short. Jinx said she’d done well in the war years, when the studios wanted girl-next-door types that homesick soldiers could pine for. But as the decade inched to a close, it was glamour girls like Red and Kitty, all sexual allure, curves, and cleavage, that excited the public’s imagination.

“Did you hear about Red?” Beverly asked.

Lily nodded.

“I’m so happy for her,” Beverly said, and her eyes shifted sullenly.

“Don’t worry, another casting director will snap you up in no time,” Lily said.

But in her heart, she wondered.

Soon everyone was in the kitchen except Louise, who was at a photography studio, having new, glammed-up head shots taken so she’d stop getting typecast in girl Friday roles.

Lily recounted for them how she’d met Harry Jack and Gadge and what they’d found, leaving out the note for now.

Fumiko put her hand to her mouth. “Kitty bought that purse last month.”

Just then Mrs. Potter walked in with a basket of tea towels and aprons. She began to fold them and put them away and Lily wondered if she wanted an excuse to listen in.

“Oh God,” Jinx said. “I bet Kitty was on her way home when it happened. She probably screamed and screamed, and nobody heard her.”

“We don’t know that,” Beverly chided.

“Did Kitty ever talk about someone named Kirk?” Lily asked.

“Why?” they chorused.

“Just wondering,” Lily said. She noticed that Mrs. Potter had stopped folding towels. She stood at the sink, slowly washing a glass.

“Did Lily know anyone named Kirk, Mrs. Potter?” Lily asked.

Mrs. Potter turned, regarding Lily with blank eyes.

Lily repeated the question.

“The girls don’t confide their affairs in me,” she said at last.

“What have you learned, Lily?” Jinx said. “Out with it.”

“There was something in the purse?” Red said, going pale.

Lily explained how Gadge had bartered away everything except a note. Screwing up her eyes, she recited it from memory.

The girls sat in stunned silence. Finally, Beverly asked Lily if she’d turned the note over to the police.

“Not yet,” Lily said. “I wanted to talk to you all first.”

She didn’t point out the obvious—that Magruder and Pico would shut her out of the investigation as soon as she surrendered it.

“Kirk,” said Red thoughtfully. “Well, I have no idea if this is significant, and I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but Kitty had a small part in a Kirk Armstrong movie called
Young Man with a Horn
over at Warner’s just before RKO signed her. She said he’s just dreamy.”

Lily pondered the enormity of this. What if Harry Jack had been right?

“Could they have been”—Lily cleared her throat—“seeing each other?”

“Kitty never mentioned it,” Beverly said stoutly.

“Kirk Armstrong is married. Lovely wife and three girls,” Fumiko said.

“That never means anything,” Red said in a tone that made Lily think she’d dallied with married actors herself.

“So Kitty never even hinted she was dating a star?”

“No,” Beverly said. The rest shook their heads.

“I always wondered if she might have caught the eye of Howard Hughes,” Jinx said. “He’s notorious at RKO. Treats the place as his own private harem. And someone sure was showering her with silk lingerie and perfume.”

“Naw,” said Red. “He would have moved her into fancy digs.”

“Not if she turned him down,” Jeanne said.

“I think Howard Hughes is as farfetched as Kirk Armstrong,” said ever-practical Beverly.

Fumiko looked at her watch and left, saying she was late for a date.

Lily recalled a movie magazine she’d flipped through in a Berlin canteen, how she’d stopped at a photo layout of the handsome star, his beautiful wife, their children. They’d been posed with the family dog by a swimming pool, a white mansion in the background, the living embodiment of the Hollywood dream.

“Maybe he swore her to secrecy,” Lily said. “It would have ruined his career. And imagine if she was pregnant on top of it…”

“I can’t believe it,” Beverly said.

“Say, let’s see that note.” Red licked her lips.

Reluctantly, Lily brought it out, admonishing the girls not to touch it.

Five heads bent over the kitchen table.

“Sure looks like her writing.”

“Who’s got a sample?”

Jinx got a thank-you card Kitty had written her and they laid them side by side. The Kirk note had been dashed off in a hurry, the letters sloppy and running together, but it looked like the same hand.

“The police will analyze it,” Red said, sliding it over to Lily. “You’d better call them now.”

“I suppose I should.”

In the hallway, Mrs. Potter was on the phone. When she heard Lily’s tread, she hung up and moved past Lily in the narrow hallway.

Lily dialed. An LAPD operator answered and said she would take a message. Lily left word for Magruder or Pico to call her as soon as possible.

Back in the kitchen, the girls were disappointed to learn that the detectives weren’t on their way. Soon they drifted upstairs. At midnight, after eating an avocado sandwich and drinking a glass of milk, Lily joined them.

Lying in bed, she tried to recall her fiancé’s face, but the image that came to mind was blurry and indistinct. When she focused harder, what materialized was a tawny face with wavy hair, a long straight nose, and hazel eyes flecked with gold. She saw a full, sensuous mouth, lips parted, asking in a hushed voice if she was cold.