Although less than a week had passed since Beth’s three suitcases had been placed on top of Sadie’s old Follies trunk, they were already covered with a faint film of dust. Amazed by her own affrontery, Marilu was relieved to find the diaries in the very first case she opened.
With her bed pulled away from the wall to catch any vagrant breeze through the window, Marilu glanced through several of the diaries, noting that in each one the last section, though headed Notes and Addresses, had been used instead as a date book and monthly accounts were summed up on the two end pages.
Deciding that the sensible thing would be to read the entries made on the last few days of Beth’s life, Marilu reached first for the 1949 diary. Each page accommodated two days. A gold ribbon lay between the pages dated July 30 and 31 and August 1 and 2. Both pages were covered with Beth’s neat southpaw script in purple ink. The single entry read:
“It’s him, I know it is. At first I didn’t recognize him because he was wearing dark glasses — the kind with lenses like mirrors. He kept them on even after he closed the draperies to keep the sun out. When he told me he’d be in touch with Max, I left. Only when I got to the door I saw I’d forgotten my gloves, the lacy white ones, so I went back.
“He was talking on the phone with his back to me, so I didn’t say anything — just picked up the gloves. But I must have made some noise because he swung around to face me. This time he wasn’t wearing the glasses and when I saw his eyes I thought I’d die on the spot. It was the same man, I’m certain. I saw those pale eyes with the tiny black pupils only that one time, but there is no forgetting them ever. Somehow I managed to explain about having left my gloves and said goodbye. He didn’t try to prevent me from leaving so I suppose he didn’t recognize me. I pray to God he didn’t.”
There was a space, then the writing continued:
“I thought of going to the police, but what could I tell them that would make any sense after so long? I’ll just have to live with things as they are and trust to luck.”
That was all. The rest of the diary was blank except for the pages in the back.
Marilu’s first impulse was to show the diary to Sadie. She was halfway to the stairs before she realized there was nothing to show anyone. The fact that seeing a man with pale eyes had frightened Beth Downey was meaningless unless the circumstances in which she first had seen the pale-eyed man were known. Even then there might not be much to go on unless a name was mentioned. Marilu retraced her steps. She would have to go through the diaries until she found the man — if she did.
Reading back through the years, she found nothing about a man with pale eyes in the rest of 1949, in 1948, 1947, 1946, or 1945. By then it was almost two A.M. and she was sleepy and discouraged. She turned out the light and fell into a troubled sleep.
The first thing she saw in the morning was the unread diaries. She had no plans, but she needed to get out, take a walk along the semi-deserted Sunday streets, and have something to eat.
Less than an hour later, she was settled at a table on the balcony of the Fifth Avenue branch of Bickfords at Forty-second Street reading the 1944 diary over an order of scrambled eggs and sausages. In this one, Beth related her adventures while singing with USO camp shows in the States and overseas.
Reading her roommate’s innermost thoughts filled Marilu with regret that envy had kept her from seeing her as she really was — wide-eyed and enthusiastic. She had seen New York as Walter Winchell saw it, as “Bagdad on the Hudson” — unlike Marilu, who thought of it as a dog-eat-dog jungle. And Beth’s romanticism became even more evident when she chronicled her months in Italy, especially Naples.
Moving from the peaceful Caserta Vecchio to Bagnoli on the outskirts of the city, she had raced to the topmost balcony of a jam-packed San Carlo Opera House to hear Jascha Heifetz play. She had sung for soldiers while Vesuvius spewed molten lava high into the sky before falling back on the mountain and inching its way down to the valley below. She had heard Padre Pio say Mass in San Giovanni the same week she was photographed at the Army airfield in Foggia, painting Happy Birthday to Hitler on a fat silver-grey bomb. When the USO unit she had come with left to return to the States, Beth had stayed on in Italy, singing in hospitals.
And then Marilu found what she had been looking for — the reason why Beth had been so terrified of the pale-eyed man.
Running up the stairs to Sadie’s room, she knocked and Sadie said to come in. Marilu burst through the door. “Oh!” she was brought up short by the sight of a man wearing mirror-lensed glasses over by the window.
“Marilu,” Sadie said.
Carter Harris took off the glasses and put them in his shirt pocket.
Marilu looked away from him to Sadie. “I’d like to talk with you in private.”
“Look, Miss Jennings, no matter what you may think, I had nothing to do with Liz’s death. I loved her.” Harris’s voice held the ring of truth.
Marilu fumbled in her bag for Beth’s diary, found the place, and handed it to Sadie. She pointed to the first of a series of short entries. “It’s Beth’s diary for 1944.”
Sadie read from it aloud.
“ ‘After I saw Garfield, Foy, and the rest off on the plane I moved from the Parco to my new billet at the Terminus Hotel beside Garibaldi Railroad Station. It’s lit up night and day. Ruby, a First Lieutenant who eats at the hotel, has invited some of us with USO to a bath-and-cocoa party at his apartment on the other side of the city. As most of the heating, as well as the elevators, were sabotaged by the retreating Germans, a hot bath sounds delicious.’ ” Sadie looked up at Marilu. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”
“Keep reading.”
Looking from Marilu to Carter and back to Marilu, Sadie shrugged and read on. “ ‘With eight of us there, clutching soap and towels, it looked like an all-night affair. Finally, at three A.M. I decided to leave. The pick-up time was only four hours away and I needed some sleep. With the clouds reflecting the station lights, it was easy enough to find the way. But when I was almost back to the hotel, the air-raid siren went off and the street was as bright as day. I started toward the nearest shelter, then I heard sounds that drew me to an archway near the comer of the street. And there in the shadows a bare-headed American soldier was systematically beating a fellow officer’s head to a pulp. The double silver bars gleaming on his shoulder told me he was a captain.
“ ‘I cried out and he turned his head in my direction, rose to his feet, and came toward me, gripping a blood-stained stone in his hand. He was slim and dark, not very tall. His eyes chilled me to the marrow. They were like two ovals of white marble centered with tiny specks of jet. I suppose they were a very pale blue or green but in the light from the flares they appeared to have no irises at all. I stood there pinned to the cement, then a hand grabbed my arm and I was pulled along the street to the air-raid shelter by a Scottish soldier.’ ”
Sadie turned a page. “ ‘The body was found in the doorway the next day, beaten beyond recognition. Identified by his dogtags, he was Marvin Kane.’ ”
“Marvin Kane, the actor?” Harris said. “I thought he was killed in an airplane accident.”
“What has this to do with Beth?” Sadie asked Marilu.
Marilu presented the 1949 diary. “Read that.” She’d marked the place.
When Sadie had read the passage aloud, Carter Harris poured himself a Scotch. “So what? This all happened so long ago. When Liz knew Martin Kane was the victim of the attack she’d witnessed, why didn’t she report it?”