The Woman Who Fell From Grace

by David Handler

“Wanna watch a movie? Got me a tape with my favorite actor in it.”

  Before I could reply, someone outside called out his name. It was Fern.

  “Oh, no!” he gasped, shoving Sadie at me. “Hide her, quick! She’ll kill her!”

  “Gordie?” called Fern from my doorway. “You in here?” She put her glasses on and saw he was and came in after him.

  I hid Sadie under my sweater, wondering just how I’d gotten myself into this.

  “Gordie, you’re supposed to be taking yourself a bath,” Fern barked, every inch the drill sergeant. “You ain’t supposed to be bothering Hoagy here.”

  “He wasn’t,” I assured her.

  Gordie said nothing. Just stood there stiffly.

  She pointed a finger at him. “Bathe yourself, Gordie. Or I’ll be in to do it for ya, hear me?”

  He still said nothing. His manner had changed noticeably in her presence. He’d withdrawn into himself. His face was now a mask, betraying nothing.

  Exasperated, she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “You hear me!”

  “Yeth’m,” he finally said softly and obediently.

  “That’s better. C’mon, Hoagy.” Thwack. “Dinner’s waiting.”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Gordie relaxed as soon as she left. I gave him Sadie back.

  “Thankth, Hoagy,” he said. “You take baths?”

  “Frequently.”

  He shrugged, disappointed. “Well, ’night.”

  “Good night, Gordie. Who is your favorite movie star, anyway — Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

  “Naw. McQueen.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said.

  “Really?” he cried.

  I nodded approvingly. “You’re okay, Gordie. You’re definitely okay. Too bad you’re a kid.”

  The big round kitchen table was heaped with a platter of fried chicken, bowls of coleslaw, macaroni salad, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, a basket of corn bread.

  Fern was filling two chilled mugs with beer. She squinted at me blindly when I came in. “That you, Hoagy?”

  “Looks good,” I said, partly to identify myself, and partly because it did.

  “Well, sit and get at it, honey. Just save a little room. I made an apple pie this morning, and there’s vanilla ice cream. We make our own. Vanilla, strawberry … ”

  “Licorice?” I asked, daring to hope. It’s my favorite, and damned hard to find.

  “Licorice? Why would anyone want to eat that?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  I sat and got at it. We both did. The chicken was crisp and moist, the salads homemade, the corn bread fresh baked and laced with hunks of bacon. It wasn’t a common meal. I told her so between bites.

  “Got a husband, Fern?”

  “That a proposal?” She erupted in her big jolly laugh. “Naw. Never have.”

  “Gordie. Who is he?”

  “He’s the VADD poster boy,” she replied. “Picture’s plastered up all over the state. Them public service posters for Virginians Against Drunk Driving. Poor thing’s parents were killed by one a few months ago. Local working people. Gordie had no other living family, so Mavis decided to adopt him. She feels very strongly about drunk drivers. They’ve never known for sure, but it’s generally believed her own mom, Alma, was run over by one. Mavis helped start VADD. The proceeds from the golden-anniversary celebration are going toward it.”

  “She sounds mighty into her causes.”

  “Mavis don’t know how to do things halfway. And she’s got a darned good heart, too, deep down inside. People around here thought it mighty kind of her to take Gordie in as her own. I kinda like having him around to fuss over, you want to know the truth. I’m just sorry there isn’t more for him to do around here. No other kids to play with. He gets bored. Real quiet, too. Can’t hardly get a word out of him.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “He talked to you?” she asked, surprised. “Wonder how come.”

  “Just my good fortune, I guess.”

  She got us a couple of fresh beers from the fridge and filled our mugs.

  “If he’s a member of the family,” I said, “how come he’s living out there in a guest cottage?”

  “No room for him in here,” Fern replied, cleaning her plate. “Mavis has got her gymnasium in the spare bedroom upstairs. She works out like a demon. I offered to give up my room down here for him. She wouldn’t hear of it. But, hey, he bothers you, let me know. I’ll move him somewheres else.” She drank deeply from her mug, then she sat back with a contented sigh. “So it’s not true what they say about you in all them articles?”

  “What do they say?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me shrewdly. “That you solve murders.”

  “Oh, that. Not true. I attract them. A flaw of some kind in my character. I wish I knew what.” I had some of my beer. “Why do you ask?”

  Fern took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Cause I think somebody was murdered here. Sterling Sloan, the star of Oh, Shenandoah. I think he got himself murdered here fifty years ago next month, and that whoever did it to him got away with it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “STERLING SLOAN,” I POINTED out, “died of a ruptured aneurysm in his brain.”

  Fern puffed out her cheeks. “That’s what they said, to sweep the whole mess under the rug. But I know otherwise.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I know I was there on that set,” she said, leaning forward anxiously. “I know I saw something. Something I’ve never dared tell another living soul about.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “Because I think I can trust you. And because it has to come out now. Don’t you see?”

  I tugged at my ear. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Other people know what really happened. She knew. Miss Laurel knew. Why do you think she went so nuts?”

  “She was an actress. Kind of goes with the territory.”

  Fern shook her head. “The others, they’ll be coming here for the fiftieth anniversary. Aren’t many of them left. Most of ’em are gone now, the secret buried with them. Don’t you see, Hoagy? It’s now or never. This is the last chance to see the plain truth come out.”

  “The truth is anything but plain,” I said. “It’s a very confusing business, and the closer you get to it, the more confusing it gets.”

  “But you’ll help me, won’t you?”

  I hesitated. “Well … ”

  “Don’t say you aren’t intrigued,” she said, grinning. “I can tell you are by the way you look.”

  “And how do I look?”

  “Profound. Disillusioned. Bored.”

  “I always look this way. That breeding thing again.”

  “Look here,” declared Fern. “I ain’t no crank from down on the farm thinks she seen flying saucers shaped like cigars. I ain’t crazy.”

  “I didn’t say you were, Fern. It’s just that —”

  A car pulled up outside in the courtyard. Fern stiffened, raised her index finger to her lips. The engine shut off. The car door opened, closed. There were footsteps. Then the kitchen door opened and in walked a tall young blonde clutching a pile of books. She was pretty, in a neat, correct, Laura Ashley flowered-print-dress sort of way, complete with lace collar and puffed sleeves. She would never exactly be willowy. She was a bit sturdy through the legs and hips. But there was a healthy pink glow to her cheeks, a youthful brightness to her blue eyes, a clean lustrousness to her hair. And there was what is, for me, the most attractive quality any woman can possess — she knew who she was. She was Mercy Glaze, the girl who would inherit Shenandoah.

  “Say hello to Stewart Hoag, Mercy,” said Fern as she dished up our pie. “Goes by Hoagy.”

  Mercy looked me over briefly and offered me her hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, manner forthright, grip firm. No Southern coquette this.

  “Likewise,” I said.

  Mercy dropped her books an
d purse on the counter, grabbed a leftover drumstick from the chicken platter, and started to bite into it.

  “Get yourself a plate and napkin and sit down,” commanded Fern. “You’re a lady, not a field hand.”

  “Tastes better this way,” Mercy insisted, attacking it happily.

  “Mavis would kill you if she saw you,” Fern said.

  “So don’t tell her,” Mercy said.

  Fern promptly whipped a Polaroid camera from a drawer and aimed it at her.

  Mercy froze, genuinely alarmed. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” Fern vowed.

  Mercy rolled her eyes and flounced over to the cupboard, every inch a suffering teenager now. She got a plate and napkin and sat across the table from me. “You’re the writer who’s going to get along with Mother?”

  “That’s the idea. Any advice?”

  “Yes,” she replied, nibbling at the chicken leg. “Place your foot firmly on her neck and keep it there.”

  “That’ll work?” I asked.

  “I honestly couldn’t say,” she replied. “But it sure would be fun to see someone try it.”

  “Polk Four phoned for you a while ago, honey,” Fern told her, setting my pie and ice cream before me. For my benefit she added, “Polk’s her fiancé.”

  “He is not,” Mercy said petulantly. “He just thinks he is.”

  “Polk Four?” I inquired, tasting my dessert. I was not disappointed.

  “Polk LaFoon the Fourth,” Fern explained. “He’s Augusta County sheriff like Polk Three and Polk Two before him. Handsome as Mistuh Bob Stack in his uniform. And he’s smart, too. Got his law degree from Duke. Gonna be our attorney general someday. Maybe even governor” — she winked at me — “if he marries right.”

  “I swear, Fern,” declared Mercy. “You are getting absolutely senile, the things come out of your mouth.” She turned to me, frowning. “You’re not the same Stewart Hoag who wrote Our Family Enterprise, are you?”

  “I am.”

  She looked a bit awestruck now, poor child. “I-I read you in modern lit.”

  “You don’t say. Large class?”

  “I guess there were about eighteen of us. Why?”

  “Just calculating my royalties.”

  “You’re a real distinguished American author,” she pointed out.

  “Careful. My head swells easily.”

  “To tell you the truth,” she confessed, “I didn’t realize you were still alive.”

  “That’s more like it, though you could bring me back down a little easier in the future.”

  She giggled. Fern busied herself at the sink, noisily.

  “So you do this sort of work, too?” Mercy asked, fascinated.

  “Yes. I’m kind of the Bo Jackson of publishing.”

  “But isn’t this, well, beneath you?”

  “Nothing is beneath me,” I replied, “with the possible exception of screenwriting.”

  “I guess I don’t understand why you bother.”

  “Just finicky, really. I won’t eat out of garbage cans.”

  “Oh.” Chastened, she poured herself coffee. “You must think I’m awfully sheltered and insensitive and stupid.”

  I gave her a frisky once-over. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all.”

  She blushed and lunged for her books. “Well, I’ve got a paper due tomorrow,” she said, starting for the stairs with her coffee. “Know anything about Spenser’s Faerie Queen?”

  “Yes. Understanding it won’t come in handy later in life.”

  “That’s not what this little girl needs to hear,” Fern cautioned.

  Mercy sighed. “I’m not a little girl, Fern. I’m twenty-one years old.”

  “Don’t remind me,” said Fern. “I was a middle-aged woman when you was born. I hate to think what that makes me now.

  “Enjoy your Spenser,” I said.

  She smiled and said it was nice meeting me. Then she went off to her room.

  “Seems like a nice girl,” I observed.

  “Keep your hands off or Mavis’ll cut ’em off,” Fern warned. “With a hatchet.”

  “Not to worry, Fern. I’m not looking these days.”

  “Look all you want. Just don’t touch.”

  I brought my dessert plate to her at the sink. “Thanks for the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

  “You don’t believe me about Sterling Sloan, do you?” she demanded, peering up at me. “You think I’m some crazy old lady.”

  “That’s not the case at all, Fern,” I replied tactfully. “I’m flattered that you confided in me. I’m just not your man. I came through the gate in a Chevy Nova, not on the back of a white horse. You need someone with a square jaw and fists of stone and a resting pulse rate of fifty-six. You need a hero.”

  “I reckon so,” she said, crestfallen. “I just don’t know who … I mean, you were my best hope.”

  I sighed inwardly. One hundred percent marshmallow, through and through. “I’ll sleep on it. How’s that?”

  She brightened considerably. “That’s more like it!” Thwack. “Only don’t sleep too late. You got an audience with Mavis at nine o’clock sharp in the old library. She has fits if people are even a minute late.”

  “I thought the old house was only used for formal occasions.”

  “Believe me, honey, meeting Mavis Glaze is one.”

  Her phone rang several times before she finally picked it up. My heart began to pound at once when she did. It always does when I hear that feathery, dizzy-sounding, teenaged-girl’s voice that belongs to her and no one else.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked.

  “No, I’m sitting up with Elliot.”

  “Something serious?”

  “I don’t know, darling. He simply wouldn’t touch his food all day.”

  “Maybe he just wasn’t hungry, Merilee.”

  “Hoagy, pigs are always hungry. No, I’m afraid Elliot’s not himself, the poor dear.”

  She had named him after her first agent. And people say there’s no sentiment in show business.

  “Call me old-fashioned, Merilee, but I still don’t believe in giving a name to someone you intend to eat.”

  “Mr. Hoagy! How could you be such a-a barbarian!”

  “Merilee … ”

  “Elliot happens to be a member of this household, sir! And he’s certainly more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be.”

  “Merilee … ”

  “What!”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello yourself. Did you find out yet?”

  “Find out what?”

  “Who Vangie marries at the end of Oh, Shenandoah, silly.”

  “Not yet. Do you really care?”

  “Are you serious? I’ve only read that book eight times and wept uncontrollably every single time. And the movie, merciful heavens … Now listen, Hoagy, when you do find out, don’t tell me who it is. I’m serious. I’m such a blabbermouth I’ll spread it all over town and get you in deep doo-doo.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Stunned silence. “What did you say?” she demanded.

  “I said okay.”

  “Mister Hoagy!”

  “Just agreeing with you, Merilee.”

  “I’m not so sure we can be friends anymore.”

  “Is that what we are?”

  “How’s sweetness?” she asked, neatly slipping my jab.

  Lulu whimpered from next to me on the bed. She always knows when her mommy is on the phone. Don’t ask me how.

  “Her usual obnoxious self. Have you called the vet about Elliot?”

  “Not yet. I don’t want to be one of those overprotective city slickers who they all hoot at. I will if he isn’t better in a day or two.”

  “Well, look on the bright side.”

  “Which is … ?”

  “He could stand to take off a few hundred pounds.”

  “Very funny.”

  “What do you remember hearing about the filming of Oh, Shenando
ah?”

  Merilee is a big fan of show-biz gossip, as long as it isn’t to do with her, of course. She often befriends elderly fellow cast members and eagerly soaks up their reminiscences of Hollywood’s golden age.

  “Way over budget,” she replied. “Tons of pissy fits, bad weather, last-minute rewrites. First two directors got fired by Goldwyn in preproduction before Wyler finally took it over … Or are you more interested in who was doing the big, bad naughty with who?”

  “I’ve missed your quaint little expressions.”

  “It seems to me,” she recalled, “it was one of those shoots where everyone was hopping into the feathers with everyone else. Of course, that always happens on location, particularly with a love story.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We can’t tell the difference between real and make-believe, darling. That’s what makes us actors.”

  “Which am I?”

  “I like to think of you as a bit of both.”

  “Why, Merilee, that’s the second-nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “What was the nicest?”

  “ ‘You’re not the sort of man who I can see wearing anything polyester.’ ”

  “As I recall,” she said, “neither of us was wearing anything, period, at the time.”

  “Merilee Nash! You’ve been getting seriously ribald since you started hanging around with farm animals.”

  “So that explains it.”

  “Anything about Sterling Sloan?”

  “Well, he died.”

  “I know that. I was wondering if there was any chance it didn’t happen the way they say it did.”

  She was silent a moment. “Oh, no, Hoagy … You’re not getting into something weird again, are you?”

  “No chance. Housekeeper here just has some crazy idea.”

  “I certainly don’t remember hearing anything.” She mulled it over. “I’m skeptical, frankly. Oh, Shenandoah has commanded so much attention through the years. If there’d been even a hint of scandal about Sloan, the sleaze-biographers would have been all over it by now.”

  “That’s kind of what I was thinking.”

  “Of course, I could ask around for you. Some of the old-timers might remember if there was scuttlebutt. Want me to?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. It’ll give me an excuse to call them. Comfy down there?”