Diva's Last Curtain Call (20 page)

I
barely remembered the drive home. All I could think about was Cliff Preston. If he was actually a black man passing for white, then what lengths would he go to keep his secret? He must have started passing in order to have the kind of career in Hollywood that wasn’t available to a black man at the time. I sure couldn’t imagine his high-profile white clients putting their careers in the hands of a black man back in the fifties and sixties. Cliff’s talent agency used to be very prestigious and was now not doing so well. What would happen to his agency if his lie was revealed? At Vivianne’s funeral he’d mentioned how he had to fight tooth and nail for every part he got Vivianne. How successful would he have been as a black man in getting her those parts?

Cliff had also told me that Hollywood was the land of illusion where nothing and no one were what they seemed. Boy, had he been right. No one wonder he didn’t want any more children and had gotten a vasectomy behind Stephanie’s back. No one would question him having a child that looked black with Vivianne because she was black. But the truth might have come out if he’d had a child who looked black with his white second wife, Stephanie. I’d reached the Welcome to Willow sign when I remember the manager at Cartwright Auditorium mentioning seeing an older light-skinned black man going into Vivianne’s dressing room. I now knew it couldn’t have been Blackie Randall. But was it Cliff? Only one way to find out.

It was going on two o’clock when I walked into the auditorium. This time the door to Joyce Clark’s office was open. She looked up as I walked in.

“We haven’t found that bracelet of yours,” she said by way of greeting. I noticed an empty pizza box folded up and stuffed in the trash can by her desk.

“I figured you wouldn’t find it. I hope whoever has it is enjoying it.”

“If it was that expensive your boyfriend might have had it insured. Then you can get yourself another one.”

“I’ll ask him when I get up enough nerve to tell him I lost it.” We both laughed.

“I was just wondering,” I said, taking a seat in the chair in front of her desk without being invited. “Do you remember telling me about an older light-skinned black man you saw going into Vivianne DeArmond’s dressing room the morning she was killed?”

Joyce gave me a strange look and shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah. What about it?”

“I know this is going to sound weird but was he really a black man? Could he have been white?”

Joyce shook her head vigorously. “Nope, that man was black. But I could tell that brother was passing. He couldn’t look me in the eye, probably ’cause he knew I could tell what he really was. I got a sister that’s light enough to pass and that’s just what she does. Ran away from home when she as a teenager and married a white man. Has to sneak home to Willow to visit her own family so her husband won’t find out her secret. I can’t see how she lives with herself.” She shook her head in disgust. I thanked her and left.

When I got home, I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to figure out what to do. If Cliff was the one who had Lynette and had killed Vivianne to keep his secret from getting out in her book, then why in the hell did he think I had Vivianne’s computer disk? Maybe it was because I had been the one to tell him about Vivianne’s book the last time I’d seen him. According to Harriet, Vivianne didn’t own a computer let alone know how to use one. So who typed her manuscript? I grabbed my phone book, from the top of my fridge and flipped through the Yellow Pages in search of listings for typing services, which referred me to secretarial services, which only showed a listing for office temp agencies. Frustrated, I threw the phone book across the room, knocking my spice rack from the wall. Then I saw the newspaper wadded up in my trash can.

I’d immediately pitched the paper that morning after seeing the hideous image of me caught in midscream at the police station last night splashed across the front page, complete with the caption, “Sister of Murder Suspect Rages At The Press.” I wouldn’t be exaggerating one bit to say my mouth was opened so wide you could see the fillings in my back teeth. I looked like a lunatic.

I grabbed the paper, which was stained from coffee grounds and a banana peel, and quickly located the classifieds where people advertised services for hire. I found five listings for people who did word-processing. I immediately started dialing. I struck out with the first three but got lucky with the Tippy Tap Typing Service—I kid you not—owned and operated by Betty McKee. I called and inquired about Vivianne’s manuscript, pretending to be Harriet Randall and informing Ms. McKee that she’d failed to include the computer disk with the completed order. Betty did not sound pleased.

“What do you mean you didn’t receive the computer disk? I put it in the box along with the typed manuscript, Ms. Randall. I shredded all of Ms. DeArmond’s notes just like you asked and handed you that box myself. You checked it before you paid me, remember?”

“Sorry, Ms. McKee. I must have misplaced it,” I said and quickly hung up.

Harriet had picked up the typed manuscript yet she claimed not to have known about the book until after Vivianne’s death and didn’t know what the book was about. Yeah, right. It was high time I found out just what else Harriet Randall knew.

I grabbed my purse and headed back to Troyer Road.

“Harriet, you got some ’splainin’ to do,” I said, attempting Ricky Ricardo but sounding more like Pee Wee Herman. Harriet frowned at me from behind the screen door of Vivianne’s farmhouse.

“What do you want now?” She didn’t bother to hide the look of distaste on her face, but hey, the feeling was very much mutual.

It was two forty-five. Eight o’clock wasn’t far off and I didn’t have time to waste. I pulled open the screen door and pushed past her into the house. The house, what I could see of it from in the foyer, was sparsely furnished but neat, and the furniture I could see had seen better days but must have been very expensive back in the day.

“How dare you barge in here. This is private property.” Harriet was wearing a cotton house dress decorated with large sunflowers. Her feet were bare and so hard and crusty-looking I’d have bet a sandblaster wouldn’t improve them much. The hairpiece on the back of her head was crooked, like she’d stuck it on in a hurry when she’d heard the knock on the door. I wondered if she’d have bothered if she’d have known it was me.

“You lied to me, Harriet. You lied about not knowing Vivianne had written a book until after she died, and you’re lying about not knowing what the book is about, aren’t you?”

“Okay, I lied. So what! Now get out of my house!” She held the door open for me.

“You knew that book was about Cliff Preston passing for white. You had to know he would kill to keep his secret. Yet you said nothing to the police. You let them arrest my sister! How could you stand by and let my sister take the blame?”

Harriet’s shoulders slumped. She sighed heavily and sagged against the wall. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t say anything,” she said. Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was 2:53 p.m. I didn’t have time for tears or sympathy.

“Oh, this oughta be interesting. I can’t wait to hear how you can justify letting an innocent woman go to jail.”

“He knows about Blackie. Cliff knows.”

“How?” I asked.

“Blackie had been back here for about a year when Cliff showed up unexpectedly. We never get visitors, being out here in the country with no neighbors for miles around. We hardly ever locked the door. Vivianne, Blackie and I were having supper one night and in walked Cliff, big as you please. Cliff recognized Blackie right away. He threatened to call the police.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“Because Vivianne told him she knew about him passing. She’d known for years, but he didn’t know she knew.”

“And how did she find out?”

“When she and Cliff were married she found out he was sending money to a woman in Indiana. Vivianne thought he had a mistress. She hired a private investigator and found out that Cliff was sending money to a black woman who turned out to be his mother. Cliff Preston isn’t even his real name. He’s living under a stolen identity. But Vivianne was so afraid of him she never confronted him about it.”

“If the two of you were so afraid of Cliff turning Blackie in, then why did she write that book?”

Harriet wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Revenge,” she said simply. She walked into the living room and I followed her. The furniture was rust-colored silk brocade, faded from the sunlight that streamed in through a large picture window. We sat down and she continued.

“Everyone thinks that Vivianne was a bad mother. That she lost custody of Kurt because she was unfit. But it’s all lies. Vivianne loved that boy, but when she left Cliff he vowed to get even with her and he did. He ruined her relationship with her only child.”

“How? Stephanie said that Vivianne neglected Kurt and—” She cut me off angrily.

“The only things Stephanie knows about Vivianne are what Cliff told her and they’re all lies. All lies! Vivianne left Cliff because he was abusive. Her face was her claim to fame so he only hit her where it wouldn’t show. Why do you think Stephanie wears such heavy makeup? I bet he’s using her as a punching bag, too.”

“How was Cliff able to make Vivianne look like a bad mother?”

“Once, after they’d split and she’d made it clear she wasn’t coming back, Cliff had Kurt for the weekend. Vivianne was on location filming a movie. Cliff showed up on the set and just left Kurt in Vivianne’s trailer without bothering to tell her. He was only two or three. He was there for hours alone. Vivianne suffered from occasional bouts of insomnia and took sleeping pills. Kurt got into her pills and almost died. Everyone blamed Vivianne, but she had no idea he was there. Another time, Cliff beat Kurt black and blue because he wet the bed, then he told everybody Vivianne’s new boyfriend had done it and she’d stood by and let him. When she finally took Cliff to court to get sole custody, he paid people to lie about her on the witness stand. Most of them were extras on her movie sets whom Cliff promised to make stars. Vivianne lost custody of Kurt.”

“If all of this is true then why did Kurt hate Vivianne so much if Cliff is the one who mistreated him?”

“Kurt didn’t hate Vivianne because of anything she did to him. He hated her for not saving him from Cliff. Why do you think he got so mixed up in drugs? It was all Cliff’s fault. He was abusing him.”

“I’m surprised Vivianne didn’t threaten to tell his secret during the custody case to keep him from taking her child.”

“She was too terrified that Cliff would make sure she’d never see Kurt if she confronted him about his real identity. He only let her see Kurt for a couple of weeks every summer. She thought she might not even get that if she told what she knew. Not that it mattered.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s hard to be a mother to a child you only see once a year. She tried and tried to maintain a close relationship with him. She wrote him letters, sent him presents, tried to call. But Cliff was always in the way messing things up. Telling him his mother didn’t care. Throwing away her cards and letters when they arrived. Then Cliff married Stephanie and Kurt started calling her Mom. Vivianne told me that broke her heart. By the time Kurt was a teenager their relationship was beyond repair.”

“Stephanie seems to think Cliff was still in love with Viviannne. Was he?”

Harriet made a disgusted noise. “That’s the biggest joke of all.”

“How so?”

“In his own warped way Cliff loved Vivianne very much. He still tried to find work for her until she decided to retire. I think on some level he felt guilty about what he’d done to her. Cliff’s the type of man who’d rather be respected and feared than loved. And Vivianne feared him all right.”

“Well, something must have changed if she had the courage to write that book,” I said watching her closely.

“Something did change. But all Vivianne would tell me is that she had something to keep Cliff off her back. I swear she never told me what it was.”

I hoped I wasn’t being a fool, since Harriet had already lied to me once, but something in her expression and the way she was looking me in the eye made me think she was telling the truth.

“I really need to get my hands on the computer disk with a copy of the book. I called the typing service Vivianne used and I know the disk was in the box with the typed manuscript you picked up. Cliff has my friend and he’s threatening to kill her if I don’t bring him the disk tonight.” I checked my watch. It was three-thirty.

“Then we should call the police.” She jumped up and headed for a phone perched on a nearby end table.

“Touch that phone and I’ll call the police myself and tell them where to find Blackie Randall.” Harriet froze and stared at me fearfully. “I was told not to involve the police or my friend will be killed. Look, all I need is the disk. Do you have any idea where it could be now?”

Harriet thought for a moment. “Follow me.”

She headed up a flight of stairs just off the foyer and I was hot on her heels. I didn’t even stop to admire the photos of Vivianne that lined the walls up the stairway. She stopped at a door at the top of the landing and pulled a key ring from the pocket of her house dress. Before she unlocked the door, she turned to me.

“You know, I really had no idea Vivianne had set up that interview with your sister. She was an impulsive woman. I never knew what she was up to half the time.”

I nodded absently and followed her into a room that looked like a cotton-candy machine had exploded all over it. Pink as far as the eye could see. Pink walls, pale-pink velvet curtains hanging in the two large windows framing a round bed with pink satin bedding and covered in big fluffy pillows made of pink fur. The carpet was plush and hot pink. The only things in the room that weren’t pink were the white vanity table and chair that were trimmed in pink, and the two white nightstands on either side of the bed. An ornate crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, It wasn’t pink, either, but it might as well have been as the profusion of pink reflected in the crystals gave it a pink glow. It looked like a teenager’s room.