American Blonde (21 page)

I snapped the head of it once, twice, till a flame shot up. I waved it this way, then that, the fire flickering and fluttering and changing shape. That’s why they’re asking about Johnny Clay, I thought. Not only did everyone see them together the day she died; she was carrying his lighter.

It didn’t take long to pack up three boxes of knickknacks and books in Mudge’s star suite while one of the Thalberg Building secretaries paced around with a clipboard, checking things off her list: window treatments, living room sofa, living room chairs, living room coffee table, portable bar, lightbulbs. All of it was gone over in the nittiest, grittiest detail to make sure no studio property had been removed.

When she was done, the secretary handed me a copy of the list and said, “I am sorry about Miss Fanning. We’re all going to miss her. I’ll lock up behind you.” Which meant she needed to make sure I didn’t take anything I wasn’t supposed to.

I bent down to pick up a box and when I stood, Babe was in the doorway. “Need a hand, Kit?”

“That would be great.”

Between us, we managed the three boxes, carrying them past the guard gate and to the parking lot, setting them on the backseat of my Oldsmobile.

As I closed the car door, Babe said, “I read about the DA’s decision. Why do you think they gave up so fast?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t think—I mean, I’m hearing rumors around the lot about Nigel—that maybe it wasn’t an accident?” I’d heard the same rumors:
Mudge and Nigel had fought and he had killed her without meaning to. Nigel had tired of her and purposely killed her to keep her quiet about the affair. Pia had killed her in a jealous rage.

“I don’t think anyone knows what happened.”

“I’m sorry you had to be the one to find her. If it had to happen, I wish someone else had found her instead.”

One of the publicists came walking toward us, waving and calling hello. We smiled and waved back and after he climbed into his car, Babe turned to me, serious once again. “Kit, I wanted to be the one to tell you—they’re giving me her dressing room. I don’t want it, but it’s the only empty suite, and it’s all a part of this new contract. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”

“Thanks, Babe.”

“I’m not fooling myself into thinking she’d be glad about it.” She smiled sadly. “It’s strange, you know? I’ve worked so hard for so long and it feels as if I’ve arrived, finally, where I always knew I’d be, yet I can’t really enjoy it. I shouldn’t enjoy it. It would be wrong to right now.”

Someone shouted her name, and we both looked. Yilla King stood across the street on the steps of the Thalberg Building, tapping her foot, tapping her watch. Babe sighed. “I wish I’d known her better. You’re lucky you knew her so well.”

With a quick hug, she walked away, heading for her mother, hair shining in the sun. I rearranged the boxes so they wouldn’t shift too much, and drove home.

Flora was still there, dinner warming, house sparkling. She said, “I didn’t know if you girls were planning to be in or out tonight, so I fixed something just in case.”

“Thanks, Flora.”

I said hello to Helen, and then went upstairs to my room and dialed Dr. Murdoch’s office. This time, he was there. He came on the line, pleasant and distracted, and when I told him who I was and why I was calling, he got very, very quiet. For a second, I thought he’d hung up, but then he said, “I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

Not
I have nothing to say to you
or
I don’t understand what I can do for you
, but
I shouldn’t be talking to you
.

“If I could meet with you briefly, I promise not to take up too much of your time.” I gave him my war hero speech, the same one I’d given the coroner, and then I said, “Please.”

He rattled off an address, said to meet him at six the next morning, and hung up the phone.

I
knew by the clock tower that it was quarter till six. The sky was still dark. My hair was pinned up, underneath a hat. I wore a light coat because the air was always cool this early in the morning. I was a spy again. I was in France, walking through the lobby of a Paris hotel, on the lookout for my contact, Dr. Frederick Murdoch, chief autopsy surgeon for the County of Los Angeles.

The Farmers Market was a maze of food stands and stalls, selling everything from homemade jam to fresh honeycomb to peanuts under canvas awnings. Farmers still made the daily drive into town to set up their displays of fruits and vegetables. But right now it was a ghost town. I found a bench, where I sat and waited. I was due at the recording stage by nine a.m., where I would lay down the songs from
Flyin’ Jenny
for a soundtrack album produced by Metro’s new record label.
Kit Rogers Sings Flyin’ Jenny.
Songs like “Facing the World Alone,” “Fly Away with You,” and “Red, White, and Blonde.” In my head, I went over the lyrics, and then I went over my questions for the doctor.

I told myself to be calm, but with each second that ticked by on the clock, my heart beat three times as fast.

As the clock struck six, I saw him—glasses, balding white head. Even dressed in a suit, he looked like a country doctor. “Dr. Murdoch?”

“Miss Rogers?” We shook hands. “I almost didn’t recognize you. I’m afraid I don’t have long.”

As we took a seat on the bench, I thanked him for meeting me.

“You have questions about Miss Fanning’s death?”

“Yes, sir. I was there when she died, and it didn’t look natural to me.”

“The district attorney closed the investigation.”

“And sealed the coroner’s report.”

“Perhaps it’s easiest if you tell me what you need to know, keeping in mind that I may not answer.”

“Was Barbara Fanning murdered?”

Without so much as a blink, he said, “I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is that she did not die from a bump on the head suffered from a fall. That knot on her forehead was superficial at best.”

“What did she die of?”

“Asphyxiation.”

“She was—she was strangled?”

“Poisoned.”

“Poisoned.” I repeated it, as if that would help me make sense of it.
Poisoned.
“I don’t understand.” I felt dull and stupid and chilled completely through.

“Asphyxiation can cause petechial hemorrhages to form on the face and chest. This is most typically seen in strangulation, but can be present after any asphyxial death. They appear as small red or black dots, often around the eyes and cheeks, and as little red dots at the front of the eyes—subconjunctival petechiae.”

“I didn’t notice any—”

“They would have been difficult to see behind her makeup. On autopsy, I noted the dark blood and petechial bleeding in the lungs and heart, which also suggests poison.”

“Do you know when? Or how—I mean, what kind of poison it might have been?”
And who—and why?

“It may have been acute, possibly chronic.” I shook my head to let him know I wasn’t following. “She could have been poisoned that day or over a longer period of time.”

“You mean a little here, a little there.”

“Yes. Not enough for her to feel anything but under the weather. If acute, it could have happened anytime that Saturday. The process from ingestion to death might be several hours. As for what kind, I’m unable to say. Unfortunately, the toxicology laboratory is limited to a few test tubes. I sent the liver, kidney, samples of blood, and stomach contents to the Army Medical Museum to be analyzed, hoping to identify the type of poison, but the investigation was closed before I heard the results. Toxicology is in its infancy, so it’s difficult to know if the tests would have detected anything. Far more significant in determining the type would be the mode of death observed by others. In other words, what were her symptoms before death, and what did the scene look like—the ceiling, walls, furniture.”

“The running water in the sink.”

“No longer running by the time Coroner Nigh and I arrived.”

“You reported all of this, everything you’ve told me, to the coroner?”

“Yes.”

“And he reported it to the district attorney?”

“Yes.”

“But the DA closed the investigation.” A voice inside me was saying: This can’t be happening. It isn’t real. Things like this don’t happen.

“Miss Fanning was an extremely high-profile MGM star. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is an extremely lucrative studio.” His eyes were kind, but his manner was matter-of-fact, as if to say,
This is just the way things are
. “I’m sorry.”

“But there’s got to be something we can do.”

“I’m afraid the studio’s power extends well beyond the movie screens. Especially if they think they’re protecting one of their own.”

The weight of his words made it hard for me to breathe. I sank back against the wall, as if I couldn’t hold myself and all that weight upright any longer.

“Why did you agree to meet me?”

“Even though the investigation was closed, I was curious. For my own peace of mind, I contacted the laboratory regarding the report. The organs and blood went untested and the stomach contents were reported missing.”

“Missing?”

“I was told the contents disappeared along with the mouse they were tested on. The first time, in my forty years, that I’ve known this to happen.”

We sat in silence, and then he said, “I’ve been a doctor for most of my life. The reason I went into medicine, trite as it sounds, was to help people. As far as I can see, a blocked investigation doesn’t help anyone except the people blocking it. And those people don’t interest me. I’ve made it clear to both the coroner and district attorney where I stand in the case of Barbara Fanning. There’s little more I can do without risking my career. However, I believe we have an obligation to state the truth, no matter what.”

“What if there were evidence?”

“I would do what I could to help.”

Shop owners started trickling in, the sounds of chatter adding life to the place. He stood. “I wish you luck, Miss Rogers. I’d like to think this did you some good, but I’m afraid I’ve made a bad situation worse. Perhaps it’s better you didn’t know.”

I stood. “Thank you, Dr. Murdoch. But on some level, I think I already did.”

In the parking lot, vendors and customers passed by on their way into the market as I rested my hands on the steering wheel, then closed my eyes and rested my head on it as well. Mudge had been poisoned. She had died of asphyxiation. The DA had called it accidental, but someone had deliberately killed her.

I was trying to think of her symptoms the day she died, of the moment she began acting the least bit strange or different. I went over everything she’d eaten or drunk, starting with that morning. I had thought she was drinking too much, that she’d had too much gin. . . .

Gin . . .

The flask.

The driveway was empty, which meant Flora was running errands and Helen was out somewhere. I ran up the walk and, without thinking, turned the doorknob before reaching for my key. The door opened, which meant Flora or Helen had either forgotten to lock it behind them or they were still home. But if they were home, where were the cars?

I told myself it was nothing, just an oversight, but I pushed the door open, slowly, silently, and peered inside. Everything looked just as I’d left it that morning. I slipped off my shoes, set my purse on the hallway table, and grabbed the first hard object I could find—a sterling silver candlestick. I crept through the downstairs first, from room to room, checking drawers and valuables. The back door was locked. The downstairs and backyard appeared to be empty.

I crept up the stairs then, candlestick in hand, and explored each bedroom and bathroom until I could see that no one was there, not even hidden in a closet or under a bed. I set down my weapon and checked more thoroughly now—my room, the guestroom where Helen was staying, Mudge’s room. I checked her furs and her fine jewels, the ones she kept locked up on her dresser. Everything accounted for, nothing missing.

I pulled Mudge’s suitcase from the back of her closet—the suitcase she’d taken to Broad Water. I’d thrown everything in there, so it was all jumbled together: clothes and shoes and magazines. I’d gone through it all before the funeral to find her silver wings, but I’d left the flask in the bag. I would get the flask now and give it to Dr. Murdoch so he could take it to the laboratory and have it tested.

I rooted through the mountain of clothes and shoes—but the flask wasn’t there.

I sank back on my heels and made myself breathe. I had put it in there myself. It must be here. It had to be here. I turned the suitcase upside down and dug through all the contents again. I was still digging when Flora walked in.

“Miss Velva Jean?”

“Flora, I’m looking for Mudge’s flask. It’s not here. Did you happen to see it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Maybe Helen?” Even as I said it, I knew this wasn’t true.

“She’ll be back soon. We can ask her.” Flora started picking things up and folding them neatly, setting them on the bed.

“Did you remember to lock the front door when you left?”

“Of course, honey. I triple-checked it like I always do.”

“Did Helen leave after you?”

“She was already out by the time I got to work.”

“They knew.”

It’s gone.

“Miss Velva Jean?”

They took it. Whoever did this, whoever poisoned her. So there would be no evidence, no proof. It’s gone.

That afternoon, on Metro’s recording stage, Rosie played back the songs so I could hear them. The truth of it was, no matter how rattled I was from the morning, I’d still been able to remember the words and hit the notes. Unless you were Judy Garland, singing for MGM meant sounding clean and sparkling and just like everyone else.

The technicians gave me a thumbs-up, which meant that was it. Cut. Print. No need to try it again.

Afterward, Rosie said, “You sounded fine, but you weren’t there. I need you to show up next time.”

Why, I thought, when we’re all so interchangeable?