“Carisa kept Jimmy from me. I hated her.”
“Lydia, slow down, please. What letter are you talking about?” I was frantic.
“Nobody knew I sent that letter, and now it makes me look like a killer.”
“What did Detective Cotton say to you?” Another bit Cotton kept from me. So he’d unearthed another missive. What was with this young crowd, firing off letters like verbose Edwardian correspondents? Jimmy’s letter, threatening Carisa; now Lydia’s, threatening. They bed one another down, I thought cynically, and then spend hours writing angry letters to one another.
“How was I supposed to know he found that letter? It was my secret. I told no one. Carisa called me and said…” Her voice trailed off.
“What exactly did you say in that letter?”
“I told you…everything.” She was fading, drowsy, out of steam.
“How was it a threat?”
“I said I’d hurt her…you know…it’s just something you say to scare…”
“What did Cotton tell you?” Obviously more than he told me.
“What?” Out of focus.
“Lydia!”
Silence. A hum. I was listening to a dial tone.
The phone woke me up, and I glanced at the clock. One in the morning. Good grief, what was wrong with these people out here? Back East I got my solid eight hours a night, faithfully; a walk in the morning, maybe one at night, rain or shine. And so to bed. I was not myself without the requisite hours.
But at one a.m. the phone needed to be answered. Groggily, “Yes?”
I heard Tansi’s teary voice. “Oh, Edna,” she said, “I know it’s late but I had to tell someone.”
I tried to focus in the dim room. “Tansi, what is it?”
“It’s Lydia. She killed herself this evening. Jake Geyser just woke me up and then I told Nell and she got hysterical and…”
“What happened?”
“It seems Max Kohl found her. He was supposed to meet her in the lobby, but she didn’t answer, so he slipped upstairs when the clerk wasn’t looking, and she was dead. And the police called Warner’s and…”
“So Max was in her room?”
“He called the police. They found drugs.”
“Are they sure it’s a suicide?” I said.
“What?”
“I mean, why did they say it was a suicide?” I thought of my earlier conversation with Lydia. Maybe it was an accidental overdose.
Tansi paused. “I don’t know, Edna. That’s what Jake just told me. He woke me up. Why?” Then, her voice shaky, “Oh my God, Edna, you don’t think…no…it couldn’t be murder.” A deep intake of breath. “Could it?”
Chapter 16
Late the next morning, dropped off at the Burbank studios by my driver, I sensed a shift in the atmosphere on the Giant soundstage. A ripple of euphoria. Not that anyone said anything, to be sure. There was no uncontrolled laughter, not even a barely suppressed smile. This was the world of illusion-from Rock Hudson who strutted past with Chill Wills and smiled at me, to the woman who offered me coffee and pastry and told me how lovely I looked that morning. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, this hum of bliss that covered the studio like a gentle patina on valued wood. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I read human endeavor purposely, and accurately. That was my job, for all the many decades.
And I was sickened by it all. I wanted to get away, even though I had a tedious meeting scheduled with the very people who would feel safe now, secure, the impediment dislodged. Good God.
I’d listened to the radio over breakfast in my rooms, and one of the last news items mentioned the death of Lydia Plummer, Hollywood bit player. Her minor-league credits included the soon-to-be released Rebel Without a Cause and the film Giant, then finishing production. The announcer remarked that she’d died from a suspected drug overdose. Miss Plummer, he concluded, had died at the Studio Club for Women where Mary Pickford once lived during another era of Hollywood glory.
I wanted to talk about the death. I wanted details. Was Lydia’s death a suicide or an accidental overdose? Or something more ominous? What did Max Kohl have to do with this? He’d been in her room-forbidden in the women’s hotel. What about his rumored drug involvement? A needle in the arm? The brutish, powerful Max could easily overpower the zombie-like Lydia, then entering her narcotic heaven. But when I asked George Stevens what he thought, he skirted the subject. So, too, did one of the assistant directors; even the good soul who primed me for the dailies wouldn’t answer.
I tracked down Jimmy, who’d finished a morning of shooting. Dressed as the older Jett Rink, still with the graying temples and dapper-Dan tuxedo, he waved to me, and then was at my side. I waited for him to say something about Lydia, but nothing. I’d have to bring it up, and that made me furious. For God’s sake, what was with these people?
“Come with me,” he said. “Get some coffee.”
Outside, by the gate, was a new car watched by an admiring guard. “My Flat-four 547 Porsche Spyder Speedster,” Jimmy said. “A masterpiece.”
“Jimmy…”
“I’m having ‘Little Bastard’ stenciled on the back.”
“Jimmy!”
“You know, Miss Edna,” he mumbled, a faraway look in his eye, “the only time I feel whole is when I’m racing.”
He’s avoiding the subject, I thought. I sensed something in the eyes, cloudy behind those thick eyeglasses; the awkward movement of his body, the twisting of the head. His own mortality-that, he relishes. Another’s, well, dismissed. I’ll not have that, I told myself. I just won’t. It filled me with rage. So I accepted the invitation, telling him I had to be back to meet Jake and Tansi within the hour. He nodded.
He was explaining the car to me. “I can go 120 miles per hour.” I didn’t listen. I knew nothing of cars. Years back, I’d driven roadsters, clumsy oversized Oldsmobiles and Buicks, especially when I owned my home in Connecticut. Cars were vehicles for getting from A to B, with an occasional side trip to C or D, depending on the richness of this foliage or that gushing mountain waterfall that had to be seen. Other than that, they were instruments of vanity and often folly. But I nodded now, dutifully, as Jimmy gave his enthusiastic oration, all the time running his hands over the steel metallic blue fender, the glistening chrome, the leather so new and supple it seemed just hours from the offering cow.
Over coffee at Hoyt’s Restaurant near Hollywood and Vine, I tried to cut through the dense vehicular verbiage. What fascination do men have with grease and joints and pistons and carburetors?
“Lydia is dead, Jimmy.”
The line stopped him cold, and I saw him bite his lip.
“I know!” he thundered, so loudly that other patrons glanced our way. He leaned into me. “I know.” A whisper.
“Then why is everyone avoiding the subject?” I snarled. “And you, Jimmy, the one she mooned over, despaired over, probably ended her life over.” The last line was cruel, I knew, but I didn’t care.
“I’m not to blame. I was honest with her. She was troubled, Miss Edna. She and Carisa and Max-all the drug users. That’s what killed her. Stuff she put in her body.”
“But do you care?”
“Of course, I do. I’m not an animal, for Christ’s sake.”
I couldn’t read him. Despite his words, which I suspected were heartfelt, his wiry, malleable body suggested something else: a cavalier demeanor, even a frivolous one. It was the way he sat, like a schoolboy ready to flee outside to recess; the way he flirted with the waitress, a momentary flicker of the eyelids, even the deprecating nod to an autograph seeker, his name scribbled on a napkin. Yes, he was bothered, genuinely so, but he was also relieved. That’s the word, I realized: relieved. Out of danger, the prisoner released from his solitary confinement.
“Jimmy, do you think Detective Cotton will believe Lydia killed herself because of guilt over her killing Carisa?”