Shadowtown

by Lutz, John

  “Especially,” Oxman confirmed, with a quiet relentlessness that scared Youngerman.

  “Just like in the movies.”

  “Or in a soap opera,” Oxman said.

  After Oxman had left, Youngerman sat down again in his desk chair and leaned back, closing his eyes. He didn’t like what was playing in the theater of his mind. He could see again the dark figure near the building corner, but he refused to admit to himself the resemblance it had struck in his startled mind.

  He shivered. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe, like Oxman, he wandered now and then into another world.

  Delia—uh, Lana Spence—had driven plenty of directors and producers crazy.

  Youngerman felt sorry for Overbeck and Sales and all the others. And he was glad he hadn’t allowed himself to be lured into Lana Spence’s web. He’d had his chance, and probably would have fit in somewhere between Overbeck and Sales. Like brunch.

  He wondered again why Oxman was asking questions about Lana.

  What did Oxman know?

  E. L. Oxman—9:15 A.M.

  Oxman was told by “Shadowtown’s” bald director, Shane Moreland, that Lana Spence wouldn’t be in until noon, to tape the scene where she threatened Midge. So Youngerman may have been faking in his conversation with Oxman, telling him time was short because of the imminent taping. That could mean nothing, Oxman knew. Only a busy executive who didn’t want his time wasted by a persistent cop. Tough shit.

  He hung around for a while, chatting with various crew and cast members, trying to pick up some morsel of information that might help. But everyone seemed guarded, and no one rose to any bait Oxman put out suggesting they might know about the threatening Edgar Grume letters to Lana. Oxman learned nothing other than that Tobin was right: there was no shortage of egos in conflict, or of professional jealousy on the “Shadowtown” set.

  Oxman used the phone to check in at the squad room with Tobin, and learned there was nothing new on that front, either. He called Jennifer then, and she seemed to be in a normal frame of mind. Almost. There was a shade of something in her voice that made Oxman uneasy.

  Around eleven o’clock, he decided to go out for a short lunch before returning to talk to Lana Spence. After leaving Shadowtown Productions, he walked away from Riverside Drive. The day had warmed into the sixties, and a rare blue sky was swept clear of clouds by a southeast breeze.

  Oxman found a bar that featured a short-order grill and went inside and ordered a hamburger, French fries, and a Heineken.

  The barmaid brought the beer first, and as Oxman settled into his booth he noticed that the TV mounted behind the bar was tuned to “Shadowtown. “Lana Spence—rather, Delia Lane—was reclining in a lounge chair, wearing a scanty bikini. Dappled light playing over her lush body was supposed to represent reflection off water in a swimming pool. A handsome blond boy carrying a towel walked up and stood next to her. They began to talk; the volume was too low for Oxman to hear what they were saying, but Delia was obviously flirting with the boy and he was gradually picking up on the fact. Fast as the script allowed, anyway.

  Just as the boy was beginning to rub suntan lotion on Delia’s shoulders, the barmaid arrived with the hamburger and fries.

  “I thought that program was on later in the afternoon,” Oxman said, motioning toward the TV.

  “It is, on network,” the barmaid said, setting down the plates on Oxman’s table. “Those are reruns. On a local station. I heard that’s where the money really is in television programs, in the reruns. Specially cable.”

  Oxman studied the barmaid. She was a pretty, dark-haired girl with friendly brown eyes and a round, amiable face. “You a ‘Shadowtown’ fan?” he asked.

  “You betcha.”

  “So am I.”

  She perked up. “So what do you think of the murder, and that creepy business about Edgar Grume?”

  “You mean the vampire? I thought he was dead.”

  She smiled. “All vampires are dead. Question is, why’s Edgar Grume back to haunt ‘Shadowtown’?”

  “Publicity stunt, maybe,” Oxman offered.

  The barmaid looked skeptical. “Featuring a real murder?”

  “Guess not,” Oxman said. “So what do you think?”

  “I think it’s possible to make something seem so real it becomes real.”

  Oxman stared at this apparently normal young woman. “I don’t follow.”

  “I mean, maybe if enough people pretend hard enough, long enough, that something is real, it can take on a kind of reality of its own. Now, ‘maybe,’ I said.”

  “Kinda bizarre,” Oxman told her.

  She smiled and turned to walk back behind the bar. “That’s why I said ‘maybe,’” she lobbed over her shoulder.

  Oxman glanced back up at the TV. A commercial was on. A woman was comparing nasal sprays and seemed enchanted by the one that had instantly cleared her sinuses. Nasal sprays were, at that moment, the most important thing in the world to her, pivotal to her existence.

  He looked away and took a large bite of his hamburger.

  Where was this case going? he wondered as he chewed, trying not to think about the nasal-spray commercial. If the idea of Edgar Grume walking around outside “Shadowtown” had gotten something of a grip on soap fans now, wait until they learned that Grume—or at least someone resembling a vampire—had been sighted since the murder. Publicity about the murder and about Grume would explode, and Smiley Manders would be unbearably depressed, and the pressure to solve the case would increase so much you’d need a computer to figure it. And even a computer might not be able to figure how hot the case would get when the media learned that Grume had been sending imaginatively threatening letters to Lana Spence.

  Oxman sipped his beer. He was uncomfortable about the way the line between “Shadowtown” and reality seemed to be getting vague.

  After lunch he returned to “Shadowtown” and was told Lana Spence was in her dressing room, preparing for the Midge Brown scene.

  “Ah, my friend and protector, Ox,” she said, after he’d knocked on the door and been royally summoned with a “Come!”

  She was seated at her dressing table, where a makeup artist in a red T-shirt was applying coloring to her features with a soft brush and then skillfully blending the edges of the smears into flesh tones. Oxman watched as the man brushed dark makeup beneath her cheekbones, then softened it with deft twirls of the bristles so that her strong bone structure was emphasized. Oxman sat down and observed silently as Lana the bitch was transformed into Delia the bitch. The difference was, he decided, only a matter of degree.

  Finally the makeup artist left, and Lana sat primping, licking a forefinger and making minor adjustment in whatever had been applied beneath her eyes. She caught Oxman looking at her in the mirror and said, “If they don’t get this just right, the overhead lighting makes it appear that I have bags beneath my eyes. “She made it seem as if bags beneath the eyes could be equated with cancer.

  “Some very attractive women have bags beneath their eyes,” he said.

  She didn’t answer. He’d given no solace.

  “Received any more notes?” he asked.

  She surprised him. “Yes. This morning I found this slipped under the door.” She turned from the mirror, got a plain white envelope from the middle drawer of her dressing table, and handed it to Oxman.

  He read the note. It graphically explained the things that were going to be done to Lana Spence with a straight razor. Not to Delia Lane this time, but to Lana Spence. That could mean that the genuine Lana and soap-opera character Delia had merged in the killer’s deranged mind, making him all the more out of touch with reality and all the more dangerous.

  “There’s a reference there to a strawberry birthmark on my left breast,” Lana said in a tight voice. “I do have such a birthmark, exactly where whoever wrote the note said it is.”

  Oxman thought about asking to see the birthmark. Line of duty. Not a good idea; not professional. “Have you eve
r done any film work nude?” he asked.

  “No. Stage, either. But when I was very young I did some posing for a magazine layout. Nothing really undignified.”

  “But nude? So the birthmark showed?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lower lip, then said, “An acting company is close, Ox. Almost anyone here in the crew or cast might have seen that birthmark. During a costume change, for instance. We get busy sometimes and don’t think much about modesty.”

  “Did you find this here or at your apartment?” Oxman asked, putting the note and envelope into his pocket.

  “Here. Slipped beneath that door behind you. So far the monster has left me alone at home. Thank God.” She turned back to the mirror and began nudging her long, wild hairdo into an even more flattering arrangement.

  “Youngerman thought he saw someone in a long black cloak outside the building this morning,” Oxman said.

  He had to admit he found some satisfaction in the thrill of fear that momentarily brightened her eyes. At least he had her full attention now, even though it was via her mirror.

  “What time this morning?” her reflection asked.

  “Early. About seven-thirty.”

  “Do you think Edgar might have been in here, delivering the note?” Oxman was getting confused again. “Who do you mean by ‘Edgar’?”

  “Edgar Grume. Or whoever’s pretending to be him.” She suddenly slammed a hairbrush down. “Shit! I don’t know! That’s the trouble, I don’t goddamn know!”

  Oxman went to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. He wasn’t sure if she was acting, doing a bit from an old script. “Don’t cry,” he cautioned her, “you’ll cause your makeup to smear.”

  But she was crying. Or at least she’d summoned tears. Not quite enough, though, to mess up her makeup. She stared up at him. “Oh, Ox, can you help me? Protect me?”

  He knew he had to tell her about Austerman, now that she’d requested protection. “Someone is watching you,” he said, “looking out for you. He’s a good man, so you’ll be safe as possible. I want you to pretend he isn’t there; that’s the way he can do his job best.” But he knew Lana would need heavier protection now, publicity be damned, and would get it as soon as he had a chance to clear it with Manders.

  “And I can do my job better knowing he’s there,” Lana said. She laid a hand on Oxman’s and squeezed. “I realize it seems crazy, to get so upset about some crank notes …”

  “I’d be upset if they were written to me,” Oxman told her.

  “I know what everyone’s been telling you about me,” she said. “About how cruel I can be in love.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She seemed surprised. “What else would they tell you? It’s all true. It’s the way my affairs seem to go, I’m afraid. After a while, men—all men—seem to want more of me than I’m willing to give. I react, go on the offensive, sort of. It’s a compulsive and protective thing in a woman such as myself. Can you understand that?”

  Oxman felt as if he were talking with Blanche DuBois. “I understand what you’re saying,” he said.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone at first,” she said softly. “It isn’t in my nature. And then, I do want to hurt—to hurt back!”

  “Zach Denton injured you physically. You want to hurt him back?” She laughed. “Physically! That’s nothing. That was only Zach’s childish reaction. I bear him no ill will at all, Ox. I swear it.”

  “You think he’s capable of greater violence?”

  Her eyes widened; they were beautiful. “You mean murder? Did he kill Vince McGreery, you’re asking.” She lowered her head for a moment, then raised it and focused her gaze to bore into Oxman. “I don’t think he’d kill,” she said. “Zach’s violence is aimed at women, if you know what I mean. Sometimes it’s erotic, sadistic, sometimes merely a temper tantrum. But I don’t think he would or could kill anyone, male or female. Men like Zach, they’re actually cowards trying to affirm their masculinity.”

  “Maybe,” Oxman said. Not that it made a difference. Cowards could kill.

  “Is Zach your main suspect?”

  “No. As of now, there are no suspects.” But Oxman wondered if Zach Denton was shaping up to be the prime suspect. And if so, was it the facts of the case pointing to him? Or was it Oxman’s loathing for the man and what he’d done to Jennifer?

  “What about other men in your life?” Oxman asked. “Before your ‘Shadowtown’ days.”

  “I was married once, a long time ago. The man’s name is Calvin Oaks. After a few months I felt trapped, and I began to take it out on Cal. He initiated me in the use of drugs, and I resented that, too. After I left him, it took me two years to get free of them.”

  “Where’s Oaks now?”

  “Last I heard, he’d found God and was in some kind of religious cult in the Midwest. In the Ozarks, I think. I guess that’s where you go to find God—among the acorns.”

  “Think he’s capable of writing those notes?”

  “I doubt it, but I don’t know him anymore. And it’s been almost ten years since we saw each other.”

  “What about other men in your past?”

  She grinned with deliberate wickedness. “In alphabetical order?”

  “I get the point,” Oxman said. “Never mind. But is there any one of them specifically, other than Denton, who might threaten you?”

  “I’m afraid they all have at least some smidgeon of motive.”

  Great! Oxman thought. Makes it easy. He was intrigued by Lana Spence, but he wasn’t sure if he liked her. Or even if he felt sorry for her.

  “I suppose you’ve heard those awful show-business stories about how leading ladies sleep with the leading men?” Lana said.

  “Sure,” Oxman said, “to make the love scenes more realistic.”

  “Usually those stories are false, but in some cases they’re true.”

  “Are they true in your case?”

  “More often than not.” If she’d glanced up to see if he was shocked, she might have been disappointed. After deftly playing a mist of hair spray over her head, she said, “Why did you become a cop, Ox?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m interested in why people do things. That’s one reason I’m an actress. One of many reasons.”

  “I like things to be the way they should be,” Oxman said. She’d have to settle for that simple answer. It wasn’t inaccurate. He’d become a cop because of his persistent feeling that the world was unfair to the wrong people and should be set right. As a policeman, he was one of the few who could help set it right—as right as possible, anyway. It ran deep in him, this passion for order and justice, like something stamped on his genetic code. Even before he’d put on the uniform, he’d been a cop. He didn’t think Lana would understand that. He wasn’t sure if he did. One thing he’d learned: People usually did things for reasons they didn’t really understand.

  There was a knock on the dressing-room door, and a male voice told Lana she was needed immediately on the set.

  She gave Oxman’s cheek a pat in parting, stood before the full-length mirror, and twirled artfully.

  “Thank you, Ox,” she said, then she flounced out the door. The room seemed excruciatingly devoid of her presence, emptier than empty.

  Oxman was left standing and wondering if he’d been witness to reality, or if he’d been part of a well-played scene.

  Jennifer Crane—3:15 P.M.

  Jennifer knew what she had to do. She had to face the fear to make it stop gnawing at her insides, permeating everything she’d done since learning about Zach being at “Shadowtown.” She checked her appearance in the mirror, as if it mattered how she looked for this. But her navy-blue dress fit her well, and with her dark-blue high heels and simple string of pearls, she was dressed up just enough to project the attractive but subdued image she thought appropriate.

  She absently fluffed her long auburn hair, and, slightly irritated with herself that she’d been so particular about her appe
arance, snatched up her purse and left the apartment.

  Though it was a nice enough day to walk, she took a cab to Shadowtown Productions.

  When he came through the door and saw her seated in a chair in the reception area, his craggy features creased into the smile she remembered, and she raged inwardly at the old emotions that welled up in her. She knew again why she’d forgiven him for all the beatings, why she’d believed each time was the last.

  “Jennifer!” he said, and extended both hands toward her. “I was shocked when I heard who wanted to see me.”

  She couldn’t recall getting to her feet, but she was standing and her hands were in his. When he kissed her cheek she recoiled slightly, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was of average height, yet she felt dwarfed by him; he was even taller than she’d remembered.

  “I’m glad to see you!” he said.

  It sounded so genuine. As if the past didn’t matter. As if it had all happened to two other people. She had to remind herself that it had been real, and very personal.

  Now that Jennifer was here, with him, she didn’t know quite what to say. “I saw your name in the paper,” she told him. “That’s how I knew you were back in New York.”

  Gripping her elbow, he guided her over near a small sofa and a potted rubber plant, where they could talk privately. “Yeah, that McGreery thing. A hell of a business.”

  And then, quickly, she told Zach about her relationship with Oxman.

  Denton shrugged. He hadn’t put on an ounce of weight; he looked as lean and youthfully loose-jointed as he had when Jennifer watched him walk out of her life. That made seeing him all the more unsettling.

  “It won’t matter,” she assured him. “Ox is a professional.”

  Zach smiled warmly down at her from his lanky height. “I didn’t suppose he’d try to frame me for McGreery’s murder.” But there was a trace of something in his voice that suggested to Jennifer he feared exactly that.

  “I suppose that’s why I wanted to see you,” Jennifer lied, “To assure you that Ox wouldn’t let our past relationship color his investigation.”