Silent Murders (33 page)

If I stood up, the curtain would fall. Even the dullest of murderers would see the large wet stain on my skirt and realize I had spilled the poison in my lap. But it required only minor adaptations to perform the scene from the ground, and I went on, stretching out what had been a two-minute death scene as long as I could in order to mimic the slow agony Faye had witnessed during Paul’s death.

Just before the part where Cleopatra bids farewell to her maid Charmian and collapses dead to the floor, I began again at the beginning, as if I were rehearsing for a hard-to-please director who was demanding multiple takes and greater melodrama. With louder groans, more writhing, and longer pauses between contortions, I ran through the scene at a slower pace. Much as I ached to hurry so I could get to Douglas, rushing the scene would only arouse Faye’s suspicions. I rubbed a little dirt in my eyes to make them water. Then it was time for a third run, my final take. This time, my imaginary director required a toned-down version, so I made the gestures feebler and drew out the still segments.

Faye came closer. I labored over my breathing. With my face in the dirt, I stared at her shoes and gave the most heart-rending cough I could muster. I hoped it was good enough. When all was said and done, Faye was a consummate actress who would spot a fake in a second. I lay stock-still on my stomach, my eyes closed, panting unevenly and hoping I was giving an accurate imitation of Paul’s death throes before he lapsed into a rigid silence.

She prodded my shoulder with her shoe to see if I would react. When I did not, she stepped very hard on my outstretched hand, grinding it into the rocky ground so hard I felt small bones crack. It took ten years’ worth of willpower to keep from crying out.

Satisfied that I was genuinely incapacitated, she fumbled for my skirt pocket and stuck something inside. The suicide letter. She set the thermos and cup closer to my hand, and gave me a hard kick in the ribs for the fun of it. I heard her footsteps crunch on the uneven ground and the car door open. I guessed she was wiping away any fingerprints. The door slammed. I didn’t hear anything for a while, and it made me suspicious. Was she watching me from a distance, waiting to see if I moved? Or had she taken off on her walk back to town?

I was frantic to move. What time was it? What was going on at the Fairbanks house? I knew the sequence, and it played out in my head like a film. They had finished dinner. They all rose from their chairs and ambled into the living room, oblivious to the peril that awaited them. Were the Chaplins there tonight? Probably … certainly, if there were foreign dignitaries or other important guests in attendance. Were they making themselves comfortable in the sofas while the projectionist set up the film? What if the butler was opening the box of chocolate-covered cherries right at that moment? Had the Chaplins excused themselves early, or would young Lita eat the chocolates and kill her baby as well as herself?
What time is it?
What if I missed warning them by minutes? I almost groaned with frustration. But if Faye was watching me and if I so much as twitched, she’d come back and wait longer.

Out of nowhere, I heard footsteps. Heavy feet, then men shouting from a short distance away.

“There she is!”

“Hold on, there, lady!”

I heard Faye’s voice, gentle and calm, coming from the direction of the car. “She’s over there, Officer. Thank God you’re here. I tried and tried to talk her out of drinking the poison, but she wouldn’t listen. Douglas Fairbanks broke off their affair—she’s been out of her mind ever since. I was just going for help when you arrived.”

I pushed up with one arm as they hurried to my side. Blue uniforms. Half a dozen of them. I opened my eyes to see a terrified expression on Carl’s face.

Throwing himself on his knees beside me, he lifted me with one arm behind my back. “Jessie! Jesus Christ, what happened?”

“She wasn’t making any sense at all,” said Faye, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “Babbling about killing Douglas Fairbanks. Killing herself. She’s too far gone now—”

“Don’t believe her. I’m fine.” I grabbed his coat with my good hand and watched the horror in his eyes fade to confusion. “There’s no time to waste. Get to the caretaker’s cottage and call the Fairbanks home. Warn them not to eat any chocolates! Quick!”

“What the hell…?” said Carl.

“She poisoned his chocolates. Hurry, it’s life or death.”

“The poor child, she’s delirious,” said Faye in a voice so convincing I almost believed her myself. “She’s swallowed almost a pint of undiluted mercury bichloride, and it’s affecting her mind.”

Carl didn’t have to ponder over which of us to believe. He turned to Brickles standing behind him. “You get all that?”

Brickles nodded and took off toward the cottage, at his heels a thin man in street clothes I took to be the caretaker. He must have heard us; he must have called the police. I heaved a great sigh and prayed the message would not come to Pickfair too late.

“My God, your hand…”

“She brought me here to kill me. She made me drink poison. I didn’t really drink it. She’s the one who killed Lorna McCall and Paul Corrigan. She knew I had figured it out—oh, my God, I forgot. She’s got a gun.”

I twisted my neck just in time to see Faye backing away from the officers who had clustered close around me. As soon as she realized I wasn’t dying, she knew the jig was up. She darted uphill, wrapping herself in the darkness behind the huge sign just as I had planned to do earlier.

“There she goes!” I cried.

Four cops with flashlights scrambled up the hill after her, but Faye had several seconds’ and several yards’ start, and she moved surprisingly fast. Soon they had all disappeared into the night and I heard shouts from the cops as they stumbled over the rough terrain.

“There now, don’t you worry, they’ll get her,” said Carl, sounding like he was soothing an injured child. “You look pretty bad. Bet that hand hurts. Let’s get you to the hospital and then you can tell us all about it.”

The minute he said that about my hand, it started to hurt like the dickens. I began shaking with cold. Or shock. Someone handed Carl a blanket and he wrapped it tight around me.

“She’s crazy,” I said. “She told me how she killed them. Oh, God, I hope Douglas and Mary haven’t—” A shout came from the hills, and I strained to make out the words. “Oh, no, it sounds like they’ve lost her.”

“They’ll get her,” Carl reassured me, but I wasn’t reassured. Everyone underestimated Faye, myself included. We were all in mortal danger while she was still free.

“If she gets away…”

“We’re not leaving here until we have her, so don’t worry.”

Moments later Officer Brickles came hustling down the hill toward us, watching his feet so he wouldn’t stumble. My mouth opened but fear had robbed me of my voice. My heart pounded in my throat. Carl called out for me, “What did they say?”

He lumbered over. “They didn’t know about any chocolates. Turns out someone delivered them to the butler this afternoon, and he set them aside and forgot to tell Mr. Fairbanks. They’re holding them for the police.”

Faye had failed. This time, at least. The news took the starch out of me and my knees refused to hold me up any longer. Chilled to the bone and exhausted, I sagged against Carl like a marionette with its strings cut.

“Come on,” he said, scooping me up against his chest. It felt so good, I made no protest. “No need for you to hang around here. We’ll get you to the hospital and have someone take a look at that hand.”

A shout stopped him in his tracks. It was the caretaker’s reedy voice coming from behind the sign. “Hey, lady! Don’t go up there! It’s dangerous!”

“She’s climbing up the
H
!” yelled one of the cops.

Most of the men were still chasing shadows in the hills. Faye had eluded them and circled back toward us, for what purpose, I don’t know, but she still had Lottie’s gun so I doubted it was anything benevolent. I looked in the direction of the great Hollywoodland sign and thought I could make out some movement on the
H
about twelve feet off the ground. It dawned on me that the giant letters must have some sort of ladder built into them—there had to be a way for the caretaker to reach the lightbulbs when they needed replacing. With the light in my face, I couldn’t see Faye, but I could hear the commotion on the ground as all the men started trying to talk her down.

“Come on down, lady. You’ll get hurt up there.”

“Come back, we just want to ask some questions.”

“What’s her name?” asked one.

“It’s Faye Gordon, the actress,” said another.

“Never heard of her. Miss Gordon! Come back down, honey. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

“Fool woman, thinking she could hide up there and we’d never notice.”

Faye continued to climb. A brief debate on the wisdom of going up after her followed, with the caretaker settling the issue. “I’m the only one who knows how to climb the letters without getting electrocuted,” he said. “It’s hard enough during the day. Just wait here. I’ll go help her down.”

It was then that I knew how the story was going to end. I knew how Faye’s mind worked. She wasn’t trying to escape. She wasn’t trying to hide. She had no intention of coming down from the
H.
She was crazy, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what awaited her—months in a prison cell and a sensational murder trial splashed across the world’s newspapers, followed by a hangman’s noose or an insane asylum. Faye Gordon could spit in Death’s eye, but not if she were wearing a gray prison smock and no makeup, with her hair pulled back in a knot. She was a star.

“She’s going to jump,” I said to Carl.

He tightened his protective hold on me. “No, she wouldn’t do that, I’m sure. She—”

Jumped.

Without a farewell speech, without a long scream, without a dramatic gesture, Faye Gordon stood atop the highest row of lightbulbs where the ladder ended and dove out of the darkness into the bright light of a thousand bulbs. With her clothes flapping like a bird’s broken plumage, she plunged in silence fifty feet to the rocky ground, landing on her head, breaking her neck instantly. Like the bird against the window glass.

43

You might say I went to bed with Carl and woke up with David.

The last thing I remember, after the doctor had finished setting my broken bones, packing my hand in ice, painting my scrapes with Mercurochrome, and dosing me with some sort of medicine, was Carl’s solemn face watching me from the wooden chair beside my hospital bed. When I opened my eyes the next day and my gaze fell on the same expression, it took my fuzzy head a moment or two to register the substitution. Someone had waved a magic wand and changed Carl into David.

“I came as soon as I heard,” said David.

“Heard what?” I was still feeling woolly from the medicine.

“I saw Mary at the studio this morning. She told me what happened last night. Or as much as she and Doug knew. I came straight here. You look great, kid.”

Everything came back in a rush, playing through my head like a film running triple-time. Remembering, I winced, but the movement only reminded me of the cuts on my forehead. With red-orange splotches of Mercurochrome decorating my skin and bobby pins sticking out of my hair, I could imagine how great I looked.

“Flatterer. What time is it?”

“Eleven.”

The door to my room opened and a nurse walked in. She was short, with curly gray hair peeking out from under her starched white cap and a moustache to match, and she bustled about in a motherly way. “There you are, dearie. And top of the morning to you. And to you, too, sir. How’s our little patient this morning?”

“A little woozy but otherwise pretty good.”

She set about changing the ice packs on my hand. “That’s the Luminal the doctor gave you last night to help you sleep. It’ll wear off. Does your hand hurt?”

“Some.” In truth, it hurt a lot, but I hated to sound like a baby.

“I’ll bring more aspirin. Are you hungry?”

I thought back to my last meal and realized I had missed dinner last night. The hole in my stomach woke up angry. “Starving. I haven’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours.”

“Well, I’ll call down to the kitchen and get a tray sent up right away, dearie. Meanwhile, drink some of this.”

“What is it?” I think to the end of my days I’ll be suspicious whenever anyone says, “Drink this.”

“Water. Do you want ice in it?” I shook my head and drank deeply. “Where’s that nice policeman that was here last night?”

I shrugged that I didn’t know and emptied the cup. David stood and held out his hand in a wordless offer to refill it.

“Such a polite young man he was. Here, hold this under your tongue.” Silencing me with the thermometer, she picked up my good wrist to take my pulse. “Reminded me of my brother killed in the war. He was still here when I left at midnight. Said he wanted to make sure you were sleeping soundly. Above and beyond the call of duty, that’s what I say.” She nodded knowingly. David set the full cup on the bedside table and scowled.

“I feel well enough to leave,” I said when she removed the thermometer, squinted at it, then shook it down.

“Sure you do, dearie. As soon as we get a hot meal inside you and the doctor has a look at you, we’ll see if that’s in the cards. He’ll be doing his rounds this afternoon. Until then, you just rest quiet.” With that pronouncement, she gathered up her ice packs and charts and bustled away.

“What am I going to do with you?” David asked softly. “The minute my back is turned, you get into another scrape.”

I gave an apologetic grin. “It’s not like I go looking for trouble, you know. I’m not even sure how trouble found me. All I did was travel to Bakersfield, ask some questions, and come home, and there was Faye, lying in wait like a cat at a mouse hole, trying to kill me and Douglas both. I don’t know how she found out what I was doing. For that matter, I don’t know how the police got there. I suppose the caretaker telephoned them, but I sure didn’t hear anyone coming. No cars, no headlights, not an echo of a footstep. They just appeared out of thin air, like ghosts.”