Sheri Cobb South (7 page)

The driver of the DeSoto leaned on the horn. Mitch waved a “mea culpa” and floored the accelerator.

“If Mr. Cohen was so drunk,” Frankie pressed on, “why didn’t he have alcohol on his breath?”

Mitch gave a short, humorless laugh. “Honey, I’ll bet you wouldn’t know what liquor smelled like if—”

“I would, too!” Frankie retorted, bristling. “When I was fourteen, I stumbled across the bottle of Jack Daniels Daddy kept hidden in the well.”

Mitch guffawed, a real laugh this time. “You’re kidding! Don’t tell me you drank it!”

“Well, no. I was going to—just to see what it tasted like—but it smelled so nasty I couldn’t bring myself to do it. In fact, if it tastes anything like it smells, I wonder why Daddy bothers? Unless he just likes the idea of putting one over on Mama.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Mitch, who by this time had heard enough of Frankie’s mother to have formed a reasonably accurate picture of that formidable female.

“But back to what I was saying,” Frankie continued, determined not to be sidetracked. “Mr. Cohen didn’t smell like that at all.”

“Well, whiskey and vermouth are two different things,” Mitch hedged.

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something else I’ll bet you don’t know! Do you remember the night you took Pauline Moore to dinner?”

“How could I forget?” Mitch mused in so cryptic a tone that Frankie’s single-mindedness was in imminent danger of wavering. The only thing that kept her on track was not the memory of Arthur Cohen’s untimely end, but a perverse determination not to give Mitch the satisfaction of hearing her beg for details of his date with Pauline.

“Well,” she continued, “that very same afternoon, Mr. Cohen quarreled with his brother Maurice.”

Mitch arched a skeptical eyebrow. “He told you this in a job interview?”

“No, not exactly.” Frankie glanced up at him guiltily. “You see, I didn’t exactly have an interview with him. Oh, I tried, but there was no one at the reception desk. I heard voices down the hall, though, so I followed the sound to Mr. Cohen’s office and waited outside the door. I was going to knock, but I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just—I sort of—”

“Frances Foster!” exclaimed Mitch with unholy glee. “Do you mean to tell me that you eavesdropped outside the man’s door? What would your mother say?”

Frankie sighed. “She would say that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves. And she’d be right. Only I didn’t hear anything about myself—how could I, when neither one of the Cohen brothers had ever heard of me?—but I did hear them arguing, and I heard Mr. Cohen tell his brother that if he wanted him out of the business, he’d have to kill him first.”

Mitch let out a long, low whistle, but didn’t speak for a long moment. “Look honey,” he said at last, “it must have been awkward for you, stuck there in the hall, and I’m sure you must have been nervous. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be surprising if you misunderstood—”

“Don’t patronize me, Mitchell Gannon! I know what I heard!”

“Okay, okay!” Mitch released the steering wheel and raised his hands in mock surrender. “But think about what you’re saying. Do you honestly believe Arthur Cohen was murdered, and by his own brother, at that? That’s a pretty strong accusation.”

“I’m not accusing anyone—not exactly. I just think it’s a bit too much of a coincidence, that’s all.”

“Are you going to call the police?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t dare. I’ve got no proof, so they’d probably laugh at me. But I’ll bet Maurice Cohen wouldn’t laugh! At best he’d fire me for eavesdropping, and at worst he’d fire me for eavesdropping and then sue me for slander. Either way, I’d find myself on the next train back to Georgia.”

Mitch shook his head. “A fate too horrible to contemplate! So, what do you plan to do?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, and—” Frankie swiveled in her seat and gave him a long, measuring look. “Mitch, do you know how to pick locks?”

“What makes you think I would know such a thing?” demanded Mitch
.

“Feminine intuition,” she responded without hesitation. “Well, do you?”

“Maybe, maybe not. What kind of lock do you want picked?”

“A door lock. The door to Mr. Cohen’s office, to be exact. Can you get it open?”

“I can,” Mitch agreed cautiously, “but I’m still not convinced that I want to. Why do you need to get into his office?”

Frankie gave an impatient little huff. “Don’t you see? If someone murdered Mr. Cohen—notice, I said ‘if’!—then he must have been in Mr. Cohen’s office not too much earlier.”

“Yeah?” Mitch’s tone suggested curiosity mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

“He had to have some time to administer the poison, or whatever it was,” Frankie pointed out impatiently.

“Oh, so now Cohen was poisoned! How do you figure that?”

“Well, he obviously wasn’t shot, or stabbed, or conked on the head! Poison is the only other method I could think of off the top of my head.”

“Brilliant deduction, Dr. Watson! And now I, Mr. Holmes, will use my superior intellect to reveal the murderer’s identity.”

“Oh, really?” Frankie’s chilly tone could have frozen water.

“Miss Kathleen Stuart, by her own admission, had an appointment with Mr. Cohen. A short time later, he stumbles onto the soundstage and keels over dead. Clearly, Miss Foster, your roommate is a ruthless killer.”

“Very funny! Now, if we could get some costumes from Wardrobe and pose as a cleaning crew, I think we could get into Mr. Cohen’s office without attracting undue attention, and—”

“ ‘We’?” echoed Mitch. “I don’t remember agreeing to any of this.”

“Okay, fine! I don’t need your help, anyway.” Frankie’s chin rose defiantly, but her eyes grew luminous and her lower lip quivered. “I’ll do it myself, and if a ruthless murderer finds me there and kills me to keep his terrible secret from being discovered, you can tell my parents I want a simple headstone of white marble with the words ‘She Was Right’ carved beneath my name.”

“Whoa, there! I never said I
wouldn’t
do it; I just don’t like being railroaded, that’s all. A fellow likes to think he makes his own decisions.”

“Then you will?” Frankie pleaded
.
“Please?”

Mitch made the mistake of looking into her doe-like brown eyes, and knew he was fighting a losing battle. “If I don’t, you’ll only make a mess of things and probably end up in the slammer, so I guess I’d better come along for the ride. Just tell me one thing.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why is this so important to you? After all, you hardly knew the man.”

“You saw what the filming was like this afternoon, after—
it
—happened. If there’s anything fishy about Mr. Cohen’s death, it needs to be settled, so the studio can get back to normal as soon as possible. The show must go on, and all that, you know.”

“It would go on just as smoothly if any monkey business was swept under the rug—maybe more so,” Mitch pointed out. “I would have thought Mama’s daughter would have been taught that a lady doesn’t make waves.”

“Yes, but Daddy is a judge, and Daddy’s daughter believes that a murderer—if there is one—should not be allowed to go unpunished.”

He regarded her with a curious half smile. “You’re something else, Frances Foster, you know that?”

Coloring slightly, Frankie looked down and twisted her gloved hands in her lap. “Maybe you’d better call me Frankie. All my friends do, and so far you’ve been an awfully good friend.”

Privately, Mitch thought he was a damn fool, and wondered if he would live to rue the day he’d hopped aboard a westbound train and met a sweet Southern girl with stars in her eyes.

Chapter 6

The Desk Set (1957)

Directed by Walter Lang

Starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn

Mitch made an illegal but highly effective U-turn at the next light, and soon they were rolling up to the studio gates.

“Take off your gloves,” Mitch commanded.

“What?”

“Don’t ask questions, just do it. Take off your gloves and put ‘em in the box.” He nodded in the direction of the glove compartment built into the dashboard.

Frankie gave him a puzzled look but obeyed without protest as they drew even with the security guard’s booth.

“ ‘Fraid I can’t let you in, kids,” the guard said. “We’re shutting down for the day. There’s been a death, you know. Old Arthur himself.”

“We know, we were there. Only Miss Foster here—” He indicated Frankie with a jerk of the thumb and an exasperated tone. “—forgot her gloves. Sheesh—
women
!”

Enlightenment dawned, and Frankie was quick to take her cue. “I was upset,” she protested. “You would be, too, if Arthur Cohen had just fallen dead at your feet!”

“Okay, I guess I can let you in for a minute,” the guard said reluctantly as the gate swung open. “Just don’t be long.”

“We won’t. I know exactly where I left them,” Frankie assured him with perfect truth.

A moment later, they were in, and only a few minutes after that, Frankie and Mitch were standing in a room that resembled a giant closet, working their way through row after row of clothes of every description. It didn’t take long to locate a dingy coverall for Mitch, although this strained a bit through the shoulders when he tried it on for size. Frankie, however, was a different story, as the women’s wardrobe boasted such an extensive selection. Mitch had high hopes for a leftover costume from
Parisian Follies of 1934
consisting of a form-fitting black dress with a very short full skirt and a frilly apron of white organza, but Frankie, seeing this, merely rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the racks of clothes.

She finally settled on a frumpy yet functional gray dress and chunky black shoes with low heels. Standing before the large mirror, she held it up to her chest and examined it for fit.

“I’d better check out the locks on those doors,” Mitch said in a rare display of tact, and left the room, allowing her the opportunity to try on her borrowed plumes in privacy. She soon had the satisfaction of seeing that the dress did fit, if one overlooked a slight bagginess about the bodice. Not that it mattered; in an industry based on beauty, no one would look twice at such a dowdy creature
.
She quickly stripped off the dress and dressed again in her own clothes before Mitch returned.

Their mission completed, they climbed back into Mitch’s borrowed car and left the studio for the second time in less than an hour. Frankie made a point of putting her gloves back on, and even waggled her fingers at the security guard as they passed through the gate.

“So far, so good,” said Mitch, wheeling the Model A Ford into the street. “I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. What are you going to tell the girls back at the Studio Club?”

“As little as possible. Oh, I’ll have to tell them Mr. Cohen is dead—that’ll be all over town by morning! And I guess I’ll have to give Kathleen some explanation of why I’m going out tonight dressed like someone’s cleaning lady.” Her brown eyes grew round as a new thought occurred to her. “Mitch, do you think Kathleen might have seen something? She was on her way to see Mr. Cohen only an hour or two before he died.”

“You scoffed at the notion when I suggested it,” he reminded her.

“I scoffed at the notion that Kathleen had anything to do with it,” Frankie retorted. “But she might have seen someone suspicious lurking around his office, or noticed Mr. Cohen acting strangely, or—oh, anything.”

Mitch shrugged as he drew up next to the curb in front of the Frankie’s boarding house. “Couldn’t hurt to ask. See you at nine, okay?”

Frankie agreed, although somewhat absentmindedly. She snatched up the frumpy dress and shoes and ran inside, eager to collar her roommate. When she opened the door to the lounge, however, she discovered the Studio Club’s other residents had ideas of their own. She had hardly closed the door behind her before they demanded, “What happened? We heard all about it on the radio. Is Arthur Cohen really dead?”

Frankie sighed. “If you heard it on the radio, you probably know more than I do. It was awful! He came staggering in during filming and fell practically at my feet. The ambulance came and took him away, and nobody would tell us anything at all. What are they saying killed him?”

“Either a heart attack or a stroke,” Roxie said. “They won’t know for sure without an autopsy.”

Arching one plucked eyebrow, Pauline regarded the gray dress draped over Frankie’s arm. “Have you been shopping, Frances?” she purred. “I hope you got it on sale.”

“I—I have a late audition,” Frankie stammered, and headed for the stairs.

Kathleen entered their room only a few minutes behind her. “What sort of audition is it, Frances?” she asked in her soft British accent.

“Call me Frankie,” she reminded her roommate. “As for the audition, I don’t know all the details.” Feeling that some sort of explanation was called for, she added, “I don’t know if they’ll finish
The Virgin Queen
or not, now that Mr. Cohen is dead. I figure I’d better start looking around for a new role.”

Kathleen sat on the edge of the bed, and reached for Frankie’s hand. “I don’t know quite how to say this, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea, going on an audition so late at night. You haven’t been in Hollywood very long, so perhaps you’re not aware that some ‘auditions’ are little more than an opportunity for an unscrupulous producer or director to get inside a girl’s underpants.”

Frankie blushed at such plain speaking. And she’d always heard the British were reticent! Still, Kathleen clearly expected an answer, and Frankie was very much afraid she might insist on accompanying her. Taking the gray dress by its shoulders, she shook it out, displaying it in all its frumpiness.

“I don’t think anyone is very likely to have improper designs on me dressed in this,” she said. “Besides, Mitch is coming with me. He’s driving me to the studio.”

Kathleen’s brow cleared. “Oh, if he’s going to be with you, then that’s okay.”

Frankie was a bit annoyed at the suggestion that Mitch’s mere presence somehow made a girl instantly respectable, but she bit her tongue and sat down beside Kathleen on the bed as if settling in for a long session of girl talk. “So, wasn’t it awful about Mr. Cohen? Did you ever get to see him?”