Final Curtain: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) (21 page)

“You’re mocking me, Miss Ferber.” He smiled.

“A little. It comes in handy as a tool.”

Annika rushed her words, “No, not me.”

“No,” I agreed, “not you, foolish though your behavior has been. But only one other person comes to mind, perhaps.”

An echoey voice. Dak looked over my shoulder. “Who?”

“Your mother.”

“No.” Emphatic, strong.

“Your mother seems to have little concern with the murder nowadays—or the apprehension of the killer. It’s as though all this horror hasn’t happened. What only concerns her is—you, Dak. She might not lie or cheat—good disciple of God that she is—but she’ll…well, dissemble. That note, including the one sent to me as well, had her handwriting all over it.”

Dak didn’t like the tenor of my words. “No, she couldn’t. I mean, my mother’s dictatorial, vain even, over the top, God-maddened, if there’s such a word—but such a note is dangerous. The police would not look too kindly on it…” A deep breath. “I did it, Miss Ferber.” An astounding statement, so abrupt that Annika cried out.

“Dakota, stop. You know you didn’t…”

“I did it. I was tired of Constable Biggers trailing me.”

“Stop it, Dak. You’re being childish and foolish. Of course, you love your mother, but her foolish act—perhaps a mother’s misguided stab at misdirection—shouldn’t be cause for your foolish act.”

He sat back, sheepish. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what…”

Annika broke in. “Clorinda did it.”

The words hung in the air, frozen, stark. “Annika?”

“She told me she did. She
had
to, she said. ‘My Dakota is in trouble.’”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Dak said to her.

Annika looked helpless, trembling, “How could I? Your mother is God’s daughter. She knows best.”

Dak frowned. “Oh, Christ!”

But Annika looked confused. “But she never mentioned any note to Miss Ferber. I don’t think that she did that she would have told me.…”

“It makes a certain sense,” I went on. “Three friends—of sorts. Two murdered. Evan and Gus, dead. Dak is left, and he was not fond of the two dead men. Evan, obviously. Gus, probably.”

“Why do you include Gus?” A question, his eyes wary.

“Well, I’m convinced now his murder is somehow connected to Evan’s. I didn’t think so at first, but now it’s clear to me.”

Dak looked perplexed. “But, well, Annika and I talked about it. A lot. I mean, Gus had got real involved, more and more each day, with that Nazi crap. Out in California, I remember, he started buying these books and yammering on about Aryan this, Aryan that. Master race this or that. We made fun of it, thinking it was nonsense. But then, like overnight, he got deadly serious. That’s when he disappeared. One time Evan mocked him and Gus stormed away, purple in the face. Then we knew he really was caught by it. ‘Hitler?’ I said to him once, mocking, but he yelled. ‘A great man! A leader!’ And he swelled up with pride.”

“He had no problems being friends with you two?”

A deliberate pause. “We weren’t
friends
. Not really, I mean, he and Evan seemed closer. But I could never understand their friendship. They didn’t
like
each other. I know they bumped into each other back in New York—that’s how Gus learned about Maplewood. To Evan’s horror! I was the oddball out there—even here. I was surprised when Gus appeared in Maplewood, but he claimed he needed work real bad. He couldn’t find a job in New York, he said. He couldn’t hold a job. Somewhere along the line he’d met Meaka Snow, and she was eager to listen to his nonsense, and she got more fanatical than him, pushed back at him, and they both went over the edge. I mean, he created her, and then she scared him, so fanatical she was. The two of them started wearing swastikas and pasting flyers on walls and poles. When he died, I—we”—he looked at Annika—“just thought, well, you reap what you sow.”

Annika was nodding her head. “Reap what you sow. A Biblical judgment.”

I drew my lips into a thin line. “No Biblical judgment here, I’m afraid. Just out-and-out murder. A convenient subway train and a mob scene. Calculated. Gus had advertised his plan to be at that Union Square rally that afternoon.”

Annika squinted. “A Nazi hater, the paper said.”

“No,” I insisted. “Why was he chosen from all those congregated on that platform to be shoved in front of that oncoming train? An old feeble man, whiskered, who became amazingly fleet of foot the minute the deed was done.”

Annika sneered, “You’re not saying people think Dakota did that, are you? It’s pretty far-fetched.”

“How so?” I glared at her, which made her squirm.

“Miss Ferber, do you really see Dak doing such a deed?”

“Of course not. But that’s not to say others might see it differently. Clorinda obviously feared Dak would be blamed for the second murder, too.”

Annika suddenly looked scared and grasped at Dak’s elbow. He gave her a puzzled look.

“Dak couldn’t have killed Gus,” she declared with such force that Dak leaned forward and stared into her impassioned face. Annika was rolling back and forth in her seat, a dervish, and her face was ashen, drawn. A wreck of a woman, I thought, someone whose mechanical spirituality had masked what was really there: a real concern for Dak. That concern was coupled with another awful thought: she knew she’d somehow lost him. So she sat there, a shattered woman, confused yet ready to do battle. “I have proof that Dak couldn’t have done it.”

“Whoa,” Dak burst out.

“And what is that?”

“He was with me that night. I remember we heard about it the next day. You’d had dinner with Clorinda and Tobias, and Dak and I spent the evening doing missionary work.”

Dak was fidgeting, his foot nervously tapping the floor. “Annika, for God’s sake. No, I wasn’t. I spent that night finishing Miss Ferber’s drawing for her. You
know
that.”

She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure?” Then, “No, you didn’t. We were together. I remember.”

Baffled, he looked at her. “You don’t need to lie to protect me, Annika.”

“I’m not. We were together. You couldn’t be two places at one time.”

Suddenly Annika looked baffled, as though she’d missed something. As Dak babbled about the evening spent in his rooms, drawing for hours, she struggled with her words. Almost under her breath, she begged, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he insisted.

But the look on her worn face was hard to interpret.

She looked ready to faint. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

Chapter Eighteen

Ilona House was leaving Simpson’s Bakery as I headed back to the inn. Distracted, I nearly collided with her, but she’d spotted me first and tried to step behind three chattering women. Avoiding them myself, I looked into her face. What I spotted was a mixture of dread and curiosity. She was holding a white box tried with string, cradling it against her chest.

“Ilona!”

Nervously, she swung around, as though ready for flight. Finally, her back against the plate-glass window, she acknowledged me. “You seem to be everywhere, Edna.” For a moment her tongue stuck out, ran over her upper lip. “Like certain strains of bacteria.”

“Unfortunately some folks are immune to my contagion.”

“Ha!” A vaudeville laugh, artificial and arch.

“A moment of your time, Ilona?”

She breathed in. “That doesn’t auger well for my mental health. I’m on strict orders to avoid talking to you.”

“From Clorinda?”

“From Tobias. Well, really both.”

“And since when do you listen to either one?”

She leaned into me. “I may detest both and feel free to mock them—at least Clorinda, not Holy Tobias—but I know which side my bread is buttered on.”

“Maplewood has turned out to be a buttered-side-down kind of town.”

“Now you’re speaking in tongues.”

“I just saw Dak and Annika.”

That surprised her. “Annika? She’s betraying Clorinda’s strict orders? My, my, a rebel in the family.” Then she thought better of her words. “That gal is a wreck. Dak’s self-banishment is temporary. He’ll come home wagging his tail shortly. He always does. But Annika surprises me—she’s lost her energy, looks like a specter, and seems headed for a breakdown.”

“She knows now Dak’ll never marry her.”

“Which is why she’s cracking up. The awareness has settled in. Like a fatal and disfiguring disease. That beautiful phantom Nadine has the upper hand. A wanton Jezebel, I hear.” She took a step away. “Well, it’s been a pleasure…”

“Wait a second.” My most acrid tone, a leveler of the best of them—and she was not of that ilk. “Just a moment. I wanted to ask you about Clorinda’s husband, about Dak’s father.”

“Philip?”

“Yes. Dak only knows the mythology Clorinda shared with him. What do you remember?”

“Well, hardly anything. A wild Hollywood romance, not talked about because of Father, who was suitably horrified. Clorinda wrote brief gushy letters and sent a few snapshots. Philip was a good-looking man, although I remember little of it. He was wearing a New Year’s Eve party hat in one shot. Stupid grin on his face. Nice moustache, very villainous. I never met him. Clorinda got pregnant and gushed about
that
. I suspect they had to get married, if you know what I mean. She didn’t plan
that
—her career, you know. But that’s a taboo subject, let me tell you. Then the sad accident, accompanied by the clipping from the newspaper. The untimely death of a young unknown actor. When Dakota was born, Father insisted I raise him under his severe tutelage. You’ve heard that story. She went a little wild for a few years, then found Aimee Semple McPherson, the evangelist of all evangelists. The holiest of the holy. And the seeds of a new empire—heaven on earth—were sown.” She took another step. “End of story.” A cynical wave.

“Did you know he was married before? He divorced his wife and left behind a little girl—Dak’s half-sister.”

It was as though I slapped her in the face.

She choked on her words. “What did you say?”

“So you didn’t know?” I waited, watched her breathing in short, audible gasps.

“Clorinda never mentioned…” But she recovered immediately, her jaw set, her eyes unblinking. “Goddamn it! That Clorinda. I always
knew
she had a secret.”

“Why keep it a secret?”

“Hah! A divorce, a child.” Her grip on the pastry box tightened. “You know, one time a young girl came to services. She stayed afterwards and wanted to meet Clorinda. She approached me, told me her name. She had the same last name as Dakota. She was wondering about family connections, she said, because Clorinda uses her first married name—Roberts Tyler. Let’s hope she never marries again. She’d string another name after ‘Tyler.’ I wish I could remember. She was…Linda Roberts or Martha or something. I can’t recall. She didn’t claim to be related—after all, it’s not an uncommon last name—she just thought it…wonderful. Another ecstatic acolyte, I guess. But when I spoke to Clorinda she went white. ‘Tell her I’m busy,’ she insisted. Of course, hundreds want to
meet
the messenger of God. Now, well, I wonder.” A maniacal laugh. “So that was the deep dark secret she kept from Tobias.” She raised her voice. “I love it. Divorce, Hollywood-style. Miss Holier-than-Thou got herself a secret. And Dakota’s got a sister.”

“Dak seemed happy with the idea.”

“He’s a simple boy, that Dakota. He’s happy with a smile and a candy bar.”

I bristled. “Such dislike, Ilona.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that, Edna? I don’t like most people.”

“I don’t trust you,” I blurted out.

“Good judgment on your part.”

“I don’t know what you really think about people and things.”

“And that’s the way I like it.”

Now, deliberately, she elbowed her way past me, purposely brushing my arm.

But she looked back over her shoulder. “Just this morning, Clorinda, out of Tobias’ earshot, told me how much she despised me. It was a beautiful moment. Truly a sisterly spat that got raw and almost poetic. Shakespearean. ‘I hate you.’ To which I replied, ‘I hate you.’ ‘You’re a liar,’ she screamed. And I laughed. ‘I may be a lot of things, but a liar I’m not. Didn’t I just tell you that I hate you?’ She sputtered and said what she always falls back upon. Her malevolent God, that vindictive Being whose sport it is to toy with us, watch us grovel like silly ants. She yelled, ‘God smites the unbeliever!’ Very Spanish Inquisition. I loved it.”

“Good Lord.”

Ilona was so fiery, thrusting out the pastry box, stamping her feet. Passerby lingered a second, then fled.

Ilona spoke to her absent sister, “Oh, you’re wrong, dear sister of the diamond mines. Our lady of the three-carat ring. I’m indeed a believer. It’s just that I don’t believe in what you believe.”

With that, Ilona thrust her head back, a grande dame affectation, and sailed away. She stopped at the corner a block away and leaned against the plate-glass window of Perkin’s Stationery Store. From where I stood, still staring after her, I could hear the nasty ripple of her hysterical laughter.

***

George was waiting for me in the inn’s lounge, nursing a cup of coffee and reading the
New York
Times
. Reluctantly, my eyes searched the headline. Something about a British bomber shot down. So many souls butchered. America was sending four thousand tanks to Britain. In London sirens pierced the dark nights. I looked up because George was saying something. “Do you ever come home to roost, dear Edna?”

“I just had a bizarre encounter with Ilona House. And one with Dak and Annika. And…”

“Edna, Frank says it’s time he spoke with you. He knows you’re in pursuit of a murderer. He also knows you think he’s part of the mix because he’s spotted you staring after him, watching, watching, judging. Your evil eye. Such scrutiny can make a man go mad. It’s a wonder that I, your collaborator on
The Royal Family
and
Stage Door
and
Dinner at Eight
—masterpieces all—gold mines, to be sure—have a modicum of sanity left. You do eviscerate a man, dear Edna.”

I groaned. “Someone has to do it, dear George.” A pause. “Your wife has other men on her mind.”

“Right for the jugular, Edna?” He bowed.

“Thank you. Now what about Frank?”

“I’ve invited him to dinner with us. He has something to tell you.”

“I hope it’s a confession.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. He refused to give me a clue. You, I gather, are the choice for shared confidences. Perhaps my kindness and all-around decency scare folks away.”

***

An hour later Frank picked us up in his car, a creaky old Ford, missing a fender and a hubcap, rusted doors, smelly seats. Like me, George had a fear of germs, so he tried to sit with his bottom elevated and his hands cradling his chest. The car also had an erratic horn that blared whenever Frank took a right turn. He kept apologizing, wending his way to a small restaurant in nearby South Orange, driving maneuvers that involved a series of out-of-the-way left turns, a route that was starting to drive George balmy. George despises automobiles, dreads bumpy rides, and gets nauseated when a driver exceeds a speed limit greater than that of a mildly trotting horse. I recalled—with a smile—George’s ashen face after Evan’s madcap spin with us in the backseat. By the time we arrived at Balboa’s, a rustic steak and chops eatery nestled under hemlocks and crisscrossing power lines, George was positively bilious. He spoke not a word for the short-circuit journey. A green pallor did not coordinate with his salmon-colored shirt and the bright red bow tie and white linen jacket. He looked like lime sherbet with a cherry garnish. I’d have to remind him of it during one of our future skirmishes.

Walking into the restaurant, George found his scratchy voice, out of Frank’s earshot as Frank struggled to lock a car that had a window that wouldn’t shut. “He’s probably going to kill us, you know.”

“He’s made a good start with that rodeo ride over here.”

“He bought the car off a farm boy going into the service. He confessed that he doesn’t have a driver’s license.”

“Wouldn’t you say that was obvious?”

But inside the knotty-pine paneled room, dimly lit with chianti bottles stuck with dripping red candles, Frank assumed a sober expression. “Miss Ferber, Dak has told me your concerns. And I admit I kept my distance from you on purpose. You’re probing a murder and…and I’m not sure I knew why you were doing that.”

George broke in. “She likes to tempt death.”

“But,” he went on, “I was afraid to get involved. You see, I came to Maplewood—well, to be a stage manager, yes—but, truthfully, I had other reasons.” He sucked in his breath and scratched his head. A heartbeat. “The murder of Evan Street got in the way of my reasons for being here. A distraction. I know that sounds callous and cold, but it kept me from…from…well, I feared it might make me look like a killer.”

“You’re doing a good job of making yourself suspect now, Frank,” George offered.

“Why? Really? Oh God, I didn’t think that. I’m a man of few words. I like the shadows. I do my job, behave.”

“Frank,” I interrupted, “your discussion of your taciturn character is welcome, I’m sure, though not to me, yet it doesn’t explain why I’m sitting here looking at unswept floors and unwashed tables. The food, I’d hazard a guess…”

“I didn’t want people to see us together.”

“What’s going on, Frank?” George asked quietly.

Frank withdrew a small envelope from his breast pocket. “This arrived late this afternoon when I wasn’t at the theater.” He pushed it across the table. George opened it, took out a tiny piece of paper, and clicked his tongue.

“What, George?”

He handed it to me. It was a note from Dak to Frank, scribbled as though in a fury, with blotchy ink and cross-outs. A couple lines in which Dak told Frank he wouldn’t be at work that afternoon. “Constable Biggers and the state police demand that I visit them in Newark. I believe I’m going to be taken in for murder.” Signed, dramatically, “Dak the Accused.”

Frank was shaking. “He came to see me but I wasn’t there.”

I looked at Frank. A palpable fear in his eyes, he reached out to take back the note, returning it to the envelope as though it were precious, an ancient scroll, coveted.

“They’re questioning him again.” My voice was flat, deadened. “I was afraid of this. Biggers seems dead-set on naming Dak the murderer because there’s no one else. It’s a horrible way to do business, that.”

George was watching Frank. “This really bothers you, Frank. You know, I’ve known you for years, though we are not very close, and you’ve struck me as a man who…hides away, and avoids getting close to folks…and yet…” His shoulders shrugged.

I finished for him. “And yet you’ve taken undue notice of Dak. A real concern. Dak—and Nadine, as well. And you’re making scenes on Maplewood Avenue.”

He smiled wistfully. “I’ve taken a liking to Nadine. She’s young and a little foolish as she stumbles into situations, but she’s good-hearted, decent. I know she looks like a…a vamp with that makeup—a little too Betty Boop for my taste—but I’m a old codger, and young folks, you know…”

I broke in. “Did you know she was Dak’s wife in California?”

“Not at first. But she told me early on. When he came looking for a job, I know it pleased her that I hired him.”

“He came to you for a job?” I asked.

A few hesitant syllables, then a sigh. “I’m lying. I saw him in town, so I struck up a conversation and offered him work. I confess—I followed him, purposely. I’d had dinner with Nadine, and she’d pointed him out. And he was eager to do anything to get away from the Assembly of God.”

“There’s something you’re not telling us.” I looked into his eyes, demanding the truth.

But George was speaking over my words. “Tell us about Evan Street.”

“I hated him. A blustery, arrogant ass, so taken with his own looks, strutting around, a peacock, sidling up to Nadine and whispering something so that she’d run away. I never would have hired him. I knew he got the job because of your wife”—he glared at George—“who had a college friend whose wayward son needed help…all right, all right. That’s the way it is sometimes in this business, hand washing hand—dirty though it might be, but then he showed up.”

“No one liked him?”

“How could you?”

“How did he act with Dak?”

“Well, Dak wasn’t around much during rehearsal time, only afternoons. And Evan was only there for a few days, really. But Dak would watch for Nadine, anxious, and, oddly, if Evan approached Nadine any time, Dak would suddenly appear, almost out of the bushes, so to speak, and step into the scene.”