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

by Ed Ifkovic

  “Married?” My head was reeling. “Evan? Suicide?”

  “Yeah, ask Evan about that. Oh, you can’t. He got murdered. Suddenly Nadine is in Maplewood for the summer. And Evan, too.” He smiled. “And even me. All the Hollywood players assembling for the final curtain.”

  ***

  Back in my room, I lay on the bed, exhausted. The conversation in the Full Moon Café had been unsettling, more than I realized. George knocked on my door, bidding me to dinner with him and Cheryl Crawford and Louis Calhern—both actors staying the evening, but I refused, croaking out a no that left him puzzled. I ate soda crackers and sipped water, then fell into a deep sleep. Nightmares flooded me: chain-link fences, barbed wire, broken glass, overturned tables, smashed windows. Rumbling tanks. Airplanes showered fire down on screaming children. I woke with a start, and Gus’ face floated in front of me: a Heil Hitler grin with blackened teeth and bloodshot eyes. I cried out. I flashed back to my young days. Ottumwa, Iowa. The little girl who brought lunch to her father daily and was taunted by the dirty street boys: hey sheeny, kike, hey hey hey…

  Nazis in my old neighborhood, swastikas on the windows of the shops where I bought succulent strudel.

  Suddenly I began weeping, out of control, and I couldn’t stop.

  ***

  Late that night, darkness outside my window, I heard a ruckus down the hall. I cracked my door to see Constable Biggers and two deputies wrestling with a belligerent Gus Schnelling. I stepped into the hallway as the men handcuffed him and pushed him past me. Red faced, spittle at the corners of his mouth, Gus was wild-eyed. “I ain’t done nothing. He owed me money. It’s my money in there.”

  Gus had slipped through the lobby and sneaked up the stairs, though Garret Smith spotted him. By the time Gus used a screwdriver to snap open the door and was rummaging in the room, an alerted Biggers intervened, dragging him out and down the stairs.

  “I gotta right to my cash.”

  In the quiet hallway I stood with the proprietor observing the smashed lock. Garret tsked. “Gotta get that fixed tomorrow.” He shut the door, which wouldn’t latch now, and shook his head. “I don’t suppose that fool’ll be back tonight. They’ll cool him off in a cell.” He went downstairs.

  George returned from dinner while I stood there. “Edna, what are you up to?”

  I pointed to the broken door, describing the scene he’d missed.

  “Edna, don’t.”

  “What?”

  “Edna, I know you.”

  “Good night, George.”

  He passed by me and entered his room. Waiting a second, listening, I quietly pushed open Evan’s door and slipped in, switching on the light and closing the door behind me. I shoved a chair against it so it wouldn’t swing open, though the door would not fully close. Light from the hallway streamed in. I was breathing hard and feeling like a lawbreaker. Of course, I was a lawbreaker. I didn’t care.

  So little in the room, considering Evan’s short time there, his last-gasp spending spree. Some new clothes still wrapped in packages, pushed into a corner of the desk. A room that seemed alien to the flashy man, with quaint, country inn trappings: heavy damask draperies with the frilly borders, a dull burgundy. A sleigh bed with a flowered counterpane. A centennial Windsor chair. A walnut bureau with a matching nightstand. A large cedar armoire, the doors flung open. A few shirts and pants, still tagged, and a pair of shiny new shoes on the floor, also unworn. A suitcase, opened, stuffed with unpacked clothing and expensive toiletries. A brand-new leather satchel, empty, hanging off a wrought-iron hook. A piddling display of opulence, unrealized.

  What drew me, however, was the small knotty-pine desk. On top lay a pristine copy of Samuel French’s acting edition of The Royal Family. Hastily I leafed through it—unmarked, even his own part. I opened the top drawer and discovered it crammed with magazines and clipped articles and torn scraps of paper. A slick, glossy copy of Motion Picture World slipped out onto the floor—an old issue, decades old. Mabel Normand on the cover looking madcap and gullible. Quickly, I scanned the ungainly pile and realized that Evan had been a collector of Hollywood memorabilia. Some old programs, dog-eared. A lobby card. Photoplay. Screenland. Motion Picture. Hollywood intrigue and scandal. Yellowing pulp tabloids with headlines followed by multiple exclamation points. Hollywood Folly!! Mae West Sex Romp!!! A few clippings about recent movies. Gone with the Wind. The Wizard of Oz. The Grapes of Wrath. Last year’s magnificent hits. I spotted a notation on the spread for The Grapes of Wrath. He’d scribbled in bold black ink: “A part made for me.” An arrow pointed to Henry Fonda’s name. On Gone with the Wind, an arrow pointed to Clark Gable. Just one word circling the name: Me. Well, not you, sadly. Never to be. The Wizard of Oz—no arrow pointing to Dorothy or Toto or even the Tin Man. The jottings gave me pause. What was the matter with Evan? Was he just one more Hollywood dreamer waiting for the big role but eventually abandoning that glitter land, a failure, and heading back East…to Maplewood?

  Yet Evan had made it clear he was headed back to Hollywood. A star would be born. His name illuminated in lights. A sparkling fantasy carried in the soul. Unrealized.

  A boyhood probably intoxicated with that dream machine. Dream street. Photographs torn from magazines and taped to a mirror he spent too much time looking into.

  As I fumbled through the meager sheets, my hand touched something stuffed at the back. A wad of cash, thick as a fist, buried under a folded handkerchief. Lots of money. Twenties and tens. Fresh, new, crinkly to the touch.

  The dead uncle he crowed about?

  A piece of paper, ripped from a schoolboy’s tablet, was bound with the cash. I unfolded it. A few cryptic lines in crooked sloppy letters:

  Remember that I know. We’ll talk. Cash. Heil Hitler.

  No signature, but the author was obvious. So what did this mean? What did Gus know? Was this his wad of cash? Or was Evan giving it to him? For the German Bund? Unlikely. Evan did not strike me as one of the Führer’s robotic underlings. Perhaps the Hitler reference meant nothing more than Gus’ devious identification—no name save the tag he clearly embodied.

  Was the money the reason Gus was trying to break into the room? His money, he’d insisted.

  I stood still, contemplating, though I finally pushed the note and money back into the desk. Had Constable Biggers and the state police examined the room yet? It seemed unlikely, but how was I to know? Could this be why the constable was keeping an eye on Gus—when he wasn’t banging on the doors of the Assembly of God and asking for Dak’s whereabouts?

  “Edna!”

  I screamed and knocked a lamp onto the carpet.

  George was peering through the opening in the doorway.

  “George, really!”

  “I knock on your door but discover you rattling around a dead man’s things.”

  “You’re so nosy, George.”

  He bellowed, “You…you accuse me of…”

  “Well, of course.”

  “Edna, they have a police force in Maplewood.”

  “I know. But since the door was open, I thought…”

  He cut me off. “I’m worried about you, my dear. Curiosity is all well and good, but we’re talking murder here.”

  “I’m fully aware of that, George.”

  George’s voice was a whisper. “Edna, I’m afraid something is going to happen to you.”

  “Nonsense.”

  But my hand trembled as I gripped the edge of the desk.

  George waved a hand at me, helpless. “Oh, dear Edna. Will you be the body on the stage just as the curtain falls?”

  Chapter Nine

  “Nadine.”

  The young woman heard me call her name but turned away.

  The morning’s rehearsal was like a well-oiled machine, George strutting and stomping us into a polished, believable adventure. He preened, hap
py with the results, and we all glowed. Opening night was days away. Throughout my delivery, I was aware of Nadine sitting in the orchestra, the script resting in her lap, following lines as Irene Purcell played the role of Julie. She looked deadly serious, and at one point I caught her mouthing the lines she’d probably never get to recite the coming week. When George told us we were done for the day and folks rushed to catch the 2:11 into Manhattan, I walked to the apron and called to her. “Nadine.”

  She’d been backing up, headed toward the exit, but now waited, her arms dangling at her side, as I walked down and toward her. “Nadine, wait. Can we have lunch?”

  “Lunch?” she echoed.

  My voice was cool and deliberate. “Nadine, I like you. I believe you’re a good young woman. And my instincts are rarely wrong. But you lied to me.”

  She fluttered about, a wispy butterfly unable to settle, her hands drifting up to her ears, her eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, Miss Ferber. I didn’t lie to you. Well, I just didn’t tell you something. I couldn’t.”

  “Then you need to explain it to me.”

  “I…” She turned away.

  I stepped closer. “Of course, you do. Would you have me revise my good opinion of you? I hate it when my first impressions are proven wrong.” I smiled, attempting to be less intimidating. “Do I have to revamp my own self-image? Most folks would rather die than change their hard-fought sense of self.”

  A flicker of a smile. She looked into my face. “I am a good person.”

  “Well, we’ll talk about that at lunch. I’ll even treat. Back to Mamie Trout’s. Sooner or later everyone ends up there.”

  We walked the block to the Full Moon Café, though, interestingly, she trailed a half step behind me, a little bit deferential but probably wary of my next words.

  Seated, she looked ready to sob.

  Mamie, approaching, started to say something but simply put a cup of black coffee in front of Nadine and a cherry soda in front of me. I nodded at her as she backed off. Once back in the kitchen she started humming as she wrestled with some pans. I swear it sounded like a discordant take on a ditty from The Wizard of Oz.

  “Tell me.” I spoke so sharply Nadine’s head jerked up, her eyes locking with mine.

  A deep sigh, melancholic. “I’ve been stupid, Miss Ferber. I’ve made some awful choices over and over.”

  “Tell me.” I softened my voice.

  Her fingers fiddled with the menu though she never looked at it. “Everything goes back to Hollywood. I headed there from Michigan, where I was born. Outside of Detroit, in Warren. You know the routine. High school actress, cheerleader, pretty—‘You should be in the movies!’ So I took a bus. My parents went nuts. You’ve heard the story a hundred times. Then nothing. A job in a doughnut shop. I got a small-time agent who renamed me Nadine Novack, which I hated and then sort of liked. I was an extra in a Clark Gable movie, but I disappeared on the cutting room floor. Old story, new girl. I changed agents, went back to using my real name.” She smiled thinly. “I loved the sound of it. Nadine Chappelle. Then, a whirlwind romance, I married this assistant director, though I don’t know why. It wasn’t love—it was, well, something to fill in the pain inside me. So lonely out there.”

  “It never worked out?”

  She blinked wildly. “Six months later he divorced me. For another woman, or so I heard. Then he killed himself a month later. I mean, he was into drugs—I hadn’t a clue—and he’d just got fired from Universal. Out on a binge one night, he’d got picked up by the cops and, overnight in jail, he hanged himself.” She looked me in the face. “Why would they let him keep his belt? I thought…never mind.”

  “I’m so sorry, my dear.”

  Her eyes were wet and she used a napkin to touch the edges. Her makeup was smudged and she looked like a damaged doll. “I blamed myself but I don’t know why. And suddenly Dakota was there. The wanderer with the sketchpad who drew my portrait in the park one afternoon. He was working on a movie. He actually had an agent who promised him parts, the sensitive young poet—I don’t know. That’s how they described him. Something like that. Meanwhile he was chauffeuring stars to back lots. That sort of thing. We fell in love. He was so gentle and sweet…It really knocked me off my feet, that…that attraction. And there I was, getting married again. And it was good this time. We both sort of looked at each other—and relaxed. It was like…like coming home, being with him.”

  “But something happened.”

  A sliver of raw anger. “His mother happened.”

  “She knew?”

  “Dak told her—joyous, thrilled, anxious to bring me back to Maplewood.”

  “But if he was happy…”

  She was shaking her head. “Well, it seems Clorinda and Tobias hate Hollywood. She’d been there during the silent era—had her fill of it. Before she found God and those rainbow chiffon robes and her imaginary halo. She tried to stop Dak from going out there. So when she heard about the marriage, she went crazy. And Dak blabbed everything—how I’d suffered, the suicide of my ex-husband, the drugs. Especially the quick divorce. The scandal. The Assembly of God does not believe in divorce—and certainly not suicide. Two no-nos on their commandments of evil. Or, I suppose, budding actors. Make that three no-nos then.”

  “But Dak was a grown man.”

  Nadine took a sip of hot coffee.

  “But always a confused one. You would be too—if you had that childhood. Tyrant grandfather, bitter aunt, wandering mother, no father. Think about it. For years his mother and Tobias hammered home that he had to be the next prophet, the prodigal preacher, up there in the pulpit, redeemed and saved. They sent him pictures of when he preached—this little boy up there. Cute as a button in those white robes, a mass of black curls and those…those eyes. But it turns out he can’t be married to a divorcee, especially one like me who drove a husband to cocaine and death. That wouldn’t go over well with the congregants who already hold Hollywood suspect. Folks in New Jersey see Hollywood as a…cesspool.” She smiled. “Have they even smelled their own state?” A dry chuckle. “Suddenly, one day, she arrives by train from the East. The arguments, the pleading. She leaves. She comes back with a battalion of lawyers and maneuvered Dak and me through an annulment. Over and done. I was dazed. Dak hid in a park. A marriage that never happened. Dak headed back East.”

  “You’re not telling me something, Nadine. All right, I admit Dak is easily intimidated, maybe a little weak. But he loved you. He would not cave in so…”

  She held up a hand. “Smart lady, you are. You see, Evan Street and this Gus character were living there then, casual friends of Dak. At least they lived in the same rooming house for a while. Drinking buddies. They met in some bar or at a studio. I never really knew.”

  I pursed my lips. “Evan.”

  “Exactly. Romeo—the hound off the leash. Dak fought his mother, refused to listen to her, but one night when I was alone, Evan showed up, started flattering me, romancing me, and foolishly…I don’t know why…I let him. I was so beaten down—sorry for myself. Maybe I was mad at Dak because he didn’t fight hard enough, but of course Evan crowed about his sleazy conquest to Dak.”

  I sat back. “So Dak agreed to the annulment.”

  Her tone got sharp. “I swear, Miss Ferber, Clorinda was behind that…that foolish seduction.”

  “How?”

  “I have no proof, but Evan’s attitude was like he’d been sent on a mission.” She shrugged. “Maybe I was imagining it. I hated him so much.”

  “And here you all are in Maplewood.”

  She smiled. “I never stopped loving Dak, Miss Ferber. I knew he lived here, of course. I read articles about the Assembly of God in the newspapers. And so when the understudy job opened up here—a small notice in Variety—I rushed to get it. I wanted to be here. Near him.”

  “Was he surprised?”

  She chuc
kled. “Stunned is the word. I turned around and he was working at the theater. I never expected that.” Then she lowered her voice. “But he was also pleased to see me. He…melted. But I knew I’d made a mistake.”

  “Because of Annika?”

  She nodded. “That marriage was already planned, and Dak seemed resigned to it. I was only complicating his life, something he didn’t need.”

  I bristled. “Why not let a grown man make up his own mind?”

  She scoffed. “Not if your life belongs to Jesus Christ.”

  I waited a moment. “You know, sometimes I want to shake some sense into Dak. Shake the haze off him.”

  “There are too many people coming at him.”

  “Annika, for one. Suddenly she knew you were in town?”

  “She didn’t know who or what I was to Dak, our past, but she caught him mooning around me. That’s all it took. We did battle, the two of us, out in the street like gunslingers in The Virginian.”

  “And now Clorinda and Tobias know that Dak’s former wife is at the theater.”

  She started. “What?” Her hand trembled on the coffee cup.

  “Well, when I had dinner with them last night, I mentioned your name. I’m afraid I stoked the fire, dear. You’re here with your stage name, but I told them you were Nadine Chappelle in Hollywood. Your real name.”

  A mixture of horror and wonder flashed in her face. “Oh my God. What did she do?”

  “She screamed like the hound of hell was ripping at her heels.”

  Involuntarily, Nadine burst out laughing, and I joined her, the two of us rolling in our seats, tears streaming down our cheeks. When we stopped, we smiled at each other like old friends with a new and delicious secret.

  “What now?” I asked her.

  “Evan’s murder changed everything.”

  “Any ideas?”

  Her voice got sharp. “Not Dak. Of course not Dak. Impossible. Though he hated Evan. I hated Evan. He’d seen me at the theater, of course, and whispered, ‘I’ve got a secret. What’s it worth to you? I’m gonna tell.’ On and on, taunting. But it didn’t work with me. He couldn’t touch me anymore. I just want this summer to end and I’ll leave Dak to his new life. But Evan’s murder is somehow in the way. I don’t understand exactly how.”