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

by Ed Ifkovic

  “Any ideas?” I repeated.

  “I keep thinking it was Gus.”

  “Why?”

  “Every time Gus approached Evan—that I saw—Evan looked angry. Like…’Leave me alone!’ Once I heard Evan say, ‘I told you I’ll take care of it.’ Gus always stormed away. Once Evan said, ‘You shouldn’t have followed me here.’ Gus said, ‘I know. That’s what matters.’ Nonsense, all of it. Miss Ferber, nobody liked Evan.”

  “Except Evan. He was his own favorite love story.”

  “Yeah, but maybe that lopsided love affair got him shot to death.”

  ***

  Back in the hallways of the Jefferson Village Inn, reaching for my key, I stood outside Evan’s room. Earlier, I’d learned from Garret that the constable and the state police had been in the room, making a quick inventory of the contents, probing, delving into Evan’s life as represented there. Nothing removed, supposedly. Garret Smith, I noticed, had neglected to fix the broken latch, though the door was shut, a cord tied from the doorknob to the splintered jamb. I considered my cursory walk through the room after Gus was taken away, and realized I’d focused on that suspicious wad of cash and the strange note from Gus, wrapped around it. Gus wanted something in the room. He claimed it was money. Probably true, given Evan’s sudden flashing of easy cash. Somehow Gus was connected to that sudden windfall. But how? But it had to be more than that. Perhaps he wanted that mysterious note. Incriminating, perhaps, embarrassing. Enough to warrant even more suspicion heaped upon him. Given what I now knew about the Hollywood years, I suspected I might uncover something missed by law enforcement.

  Something in particular bothered me. That desk drawer with magazines and clippings, bulging, spilling out. Evan’s suitcase was unpacked, yet he’d jammed in all that accumulated material inside the drawer. Stacks of it, purposely chosen. Why was the collection so important to him? What secrets did it hold?

  Sighing, resigned to criminal trespass, I undid the cord, and the door swung open with an unfortunate creak.

  George, I knew, was still at the theater, giving notes to Cheryl Crawford. They’d been having some disagreement, which I’d ignored. Cheryl—nicknamed Miss Poker Face—had found fault with George in a deadpan, dismissive voice. George, usually shy and soft spoken and one who despised spats, had walked back and forth, talking loudly to himself, nervously.

  I slipped into Evan’s room, shut the door behind me and pushed a chair against it so it would not swing open. This time I made certain there was no gap for a nosy George to discover me. I switched on a lamp. Standing in that room, so very much like mine down the hall with the antique trappings and quaint rustic atmosphere, I telescoped to Evan’s moving in: his social arrival, of sorts. A move from the shabby rooming house to this upscale abode. A room with a view of what he imagined to be a glorious—if ill-gotten—future. An elegant tomb for the lost actor.

  This time I was more methodical in my investigation, extracting the magazines and clippings from the drawer and piling them on top, evening out the sagging pile. I ignored the recent clippings—the Gone with the Wind articles and the other movies, all of which he believed he should have starred in—and delved into the other pieces. A couple of issues of Moving Picture World and The Motion Picture News and Hollywood Time. Leafing through them, I found nothing, not even a scribbled notation.

  Evan was fascinated with Hollywood, its inelegant history, its evolution from the creaky one-reel silents through the talkies and the epic films of recent years. Intoxicated with celebrity, drunk on studio deals, caught by the minutia of this star’s marriage, that star’s divorce. It seemed harmless, if a little maddened. But how different was it from the early days of Hollywood when obsessed young girls in Keokuk, Iowa, plastered glossy fan-magazine photos of Alla Nazimova or Ronald Coleman or Francis X. Bushman on their bedroom walls?

  But no: something was different, and aberrant. Evan had a decided fascination with the dark underbelly of Hollywood, its worm-white scandals, its raw sensationalism, its gnawing criminal inclinations, and its pervasive tawdriness.

  There were articles on the Olive Thomas scandal, the actress famous for her wide-screen innocence who was found dead in a Paris hotel in 1920—suicide by poisoning. Her husband Jack Pickford, Mary’s scattered younger brother, dead months later from a cocaine overdose. An article on Wallace Reid, that handsome leading man, hurt on a shoot in the Sierras and pumped full of morphine by the studio—only to become a ravaged addict, eventually committed to a sanitarium. Will Hays, the Czar of the Movies, brought in to clean up Hollywood. For many, Hollywood was parties, orgies, sex, liquor, drugs. Dance the night away until you topple, comatose, into the screening room floor abyss.

  There were articles on the notorious Fatty Arbuckle debacle, the fat riotous comic arrested for the sensational murder of a young ingénue. Evan owned a dog-eared paperback thriller on the ugly end of Fatty’s career—Hollywood titillation and juicy tidbit. The dark side of the Hollywood moon. But Evan had speckled the margins with editorial punctuation: an exclamation point, a question mark. Odd, indeed. And a few blotchy notations: Sick people. Sad girl, dead. Rich bastard. Even: Nice car, alongside a shot of Fatty Arbuckle’s new Pierce Arrow, a car fitted with a toilet in the back and solid gold accessories. Idle doodling, most likely, but curious. Fatty Arbuckle, who on Labor Day weekend, 1921, rented three rooms at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco for a long party, only to see it end in trumped-up manslaughter charges. Fatty’s career over, three trials. The richest man in Hollywood done for. Evan circled a mention of Fatty’s five-reel movie The Life of the Party, and noted: Not so lively now, buster. Got you, didn’t they?

  I stuffed the clippings back into the top drawer. There were too many—I had little time to digest them, one by one. No help, these papers. A side drawer, stuck, finally yielded, though once again with an unnecessary creaking noise. Inside there was a manila folder that contained shots of Evan. Publicity photos. Evan smiling into the camera, looking roguish. Evan in a tuxedo, leaning on a Cadillac town car, the debonair man on the town. Evan in polo attire, mallet at the ready. Evan on a diving board, showing his toned physique. Evan, Evan, Evan. A handsome man, decidedly, but always about that face a hint of malice and cunning. Or did I imagine that?

  In the folder were signed contracts, purchase papers for the new car, a bank statement that registered only small deposits—and another note from Gus. It had been crumpled up, as though Evan had chosen to discard it but then smoothed it out to save it. A note probably written before arrival in Maplewood—or just about the time he arrived. The same Heil Hitler penmanship, and still unsigned, but revealing: So Dak will be surprised to see you. Let him wonder. He got nothing to do with us anymore. But on the other matter, hey Evan, one thing. Cut me in. Or else.

  I reread the words. What did they mean?

  The note was clipped to a photograph. When I lifted the note, I discovered a publicity shot of—Nadine Novack. An eight-by-ten glossy of the young girl in her Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm pose.

  Nadine? Why?

  I heard raised voices from the street so I moved to the window and looked down onto the sidewalk. Annika Tuttle was wagging a finger at Frank Resnick. I cracked the window and heard Annika yell, “You have no right to tell him what to do.”

  Annika was standing by her car, the door open, as though she’d just jumped from the driver’s seat to confront Frank, probably strolling by.

  Frank eyed her stonily, and then stepped back.

  “Don’t walk away from me.” Annika jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “You mess with God’s plans.”

  Frank spoke through clenched teeth. “And you, I suppose, know the inner workings of God?”

  “A godless thing for a heathen to say.”

  Frank’s voice was filled with amusement. “I’m always fascinated by the…the surety you religion folks have about God’s work. Do you ever think you mig
ht be listening to the addled voices in your head?”

  She screamed, “How dare you! Enough of this. Just leave Dak alone. Do you hear me? He tells me what you say to him…you promise a life in the theater…away from God…degenerates.”

  “Dak can choose…”

  “You leave Dak alone.”

  Hurriedly, I shut the window, rushed out of the room, and clumsily retied the cord around the doorknob. I galloped down the stairs and through the lobby. The desk clerk greeted me but stopped, stupefied, as I sped by out the front door. I stumbled down the porch steps and onto the sidewalk.

  Frank was already leaving. I watched his stiff, angry back as he moved away.

  Annika, holding the door handle, watched him, fury in her eyes. When she turned, she caught my eye, and they flashed with anger.

  “What do you want?”

  I had no idea. I sputtered, “Annika…”

  “Leave Dak alone. You, too.”

  “Annika, I saw you arguing with Frank.”

  She broke in. “He asks too many questions.”

  “About?”

  “And so do you.” She slipped into the car and slammed the door.

  Chapter Ten

  An hour later Clorinda phoned to invite me to that afternoon’s five o’clock service at the Assembly of God. Tired, I hesitated, but the image of the furious Annika assailing Frank stayed with me, so I said yes. Perhaps I could understand Annika better if I talked to her…or to Dak. Especially to Dak, that young man who seemed at the heart of so much of the mystery I was witnessing.

  Clorinda also implored George to accompany me, and though he grumbled that he feared my succumbing to my own personal Protestant Reformation—“You’ll be nailing chapters of Show Boat to the walls of some rural church, and masses will follow you into the Mississippi River”—he cavalierly sat next to me as Alexander, Clorinda’s driver, picked us up.

  “I never see Tobias Tyler in town,” I said to Alexander. “Clorinda, once, at the Five and Dime…”

  The quiet man glanced over his shoulder. “Mr. Tyler does not come into town. Ever. He goes from his home to the temple. Back and forth—only. Sister Clorinda rarely comes into the Village. Miss Ilona does the errands. Mr. Tyler doesn’t like the town.”

  “Why?”

  Alexander shook his head. The conversation was over.

  The Assembly of God temple looked like a dated art deco movie palace plopped into a field at the end of Springfield Avenue, a densely wooded area of town. With gold-plated spire, massive Corinthian white columns sweeping up the front of the building, and bulky marble statues of angels guarding the entrance, the temple struck me as a mishmash of architectural styles running the gamut from neoclassical through Baroque and even New England Colonial chapel. Stained-glass windows had been placed, almost willy nilly, into the façade, so random they seemed afterthoughts, with one, indeed, misaligned. Yet the overall effect of the large cavernous structure was one of over-the-top spiritual splendor married to gilded opulence. Deep pockets funded such a coliseum in these sad economic times. No Depression here.

  Late afternoon, bright summer sunlight, and the cars streamed into the parking lot. Carloads of eager congregants, mostly women, I noticed, hundreds of them. Arms linked, heads covered, they surged toward the doorway. A line of green-painted old school buses shuttled hordes from God-knows-where. As Alexander drove by, circling around to the back, I could hear the excited babble of raised voices. A horn blared, and a pretty woman in a flowered Sunday-best dress waved to the driver. A woman munched on a White Castle burger and then stuffed the crumpled wrappings into her purse.

  George and I sat in an anteroom where an old woman in a floor-length black dress, a sprig of real violets pinned to her dress, served us coffee and apple cake, telling us in hushed, reverential tones that Clorinda was meditating. “An ecstatic state of spiritual awakening.”

  “Much,” George told me, sotto voce, “like the state you get into, Edna, when you put pen to paper.”

  I ignored him. “Are Dak and Annika around?”

  Saying nothing, simply nodding, she bowed out, but in moments the door opened and Dak and Annika walked in.

  “Annika,” I began, “I must apologize for intruding this afternoon. I was out of line.”

  She glared at me and then glanced at Dak, who looked puzzled. “What happened, Miss Ferber?” he asked.

  “I interrupted a conversation between Frank and Annika.”

  Dak’s face froze. “Annika, what?”

  She shrugged. “I told him to leave you alone. You told me that he bothers you.”

  George eyed me and mouthed a word: troublemaker.

  Dak’s voice was crisp. “I said that we talk.”

  She glanced at the clock. “I have to go. I’m to begin.” Another fierce glance at me. “The matter is over. Trivial. Forget it, Miss Ferber. You, too, Dakota.”

  We were left alone with Dak, who now looked uncomfortable.

  “I told her how much I like Frank. But she doesn’t like me working at the theater. You know, I’m forbidden to mention the theater at my mother’s home.”

  “Annika doesn’t like you out of her sight,” I told him.

  “She’s afraid…” His voice trailed off.

  “Of what, for God’s sake?”

  “That I might drift away again.”

  “To Hollywood?”

  He shook his head. “No, never back there. Just”—he waved his hand around the room—“away from here.”

  “One question I have, Dak.” I rushed my words. “Why didn’t you tell me you were once married to Nadine?”

  A weak smile, his face flushed. “I don’t know. Somehow I thought I was protecting her. Nadine. Nobody, especially my mother, was to know. I want to keep her away from all of this.” Again the cavalier hand swept the room.

  “Be honest with me, Dak. You wanted her kept away from Annika.”

  “And your mother,” George added, which surprised me. He nodded at me.

  Dak stared from me to George. “Annika just knew there was a girl at the theater who talked to me. I never told Annika and my mother that…that Nadine from Hollywood was in town, but now everyone knows.”

  “Gus was the one who told me. And Nadine even suggested that her infidelity with Evan was ordered by your mother.”

  “Oh God, no. And Gus? You listen to him? That…that Nazi?” He swallowed. “And why would Nadine say that? That isn’t true.”

  “Look, Dak. Gus was up to something with Evan. And Evan had Nadine’s photograph in his desk drawer. I don’t understand…”

  Dak didn’t answer, though his face had a worried look.

  Finally, hurried, he reached into the leather satchel he carried and pulled out a rolled-up drawing, handing it to me. “This will be for you.”

  I took it from him. An exquisite drawing of some bucolic scene, a waterfall against black rocks, in the foreground a bush of bright red-and-white flowers. Pencil marks in the sky, faint and tentative. “It’s beautiful, Dak.” I breathed in. “But you’re not answering my questions.”

  Pleading in his voice. “Because I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He took the drawing back from me. “It’s unfinished. I need another night on it. It’s for you. Special. I want it just right.” He smiled that infectious smile. “And framed in a gilt frame I found at a thrift store in Newark. Perfect. For you.”

  “What am I?” George grumbled. “Chopped liver?”

  Dak grinned. “Miss Ferber believes I’m innocent of murder.”

  “So do I,” George said.

  “But she’ll prove it.” A flat-out statement, bold and confident. I sucked in my breath and glanced at George. He was shaking his head.

  “Dak,” I began, “I have so many questions.”

  He stood. “If you want to hear
my mother, we gotta hurry.”

  We followed him into the hallway.

  “Are you attending the service?” I asked Dak as we hurried along.

  He reflected a second. “I will be tonight. Because of the two of you. But Mother’s sermons are so theatrical and exhausting that I find myself drifting…fatigued. Her congregants swoon and jump and soar. I’m a tad cynical, Miss Ferber.”

  “You’re not a believer?”

  “Oh, I believe in God all right.”

  George drew his lips into a thin line. “But not in your mother’s God.”

  Silently, Dak led us into the vast auditorium, already packed with excited congregants, a rolling hum filling the space. Vast gossamer curtains hung from the ceiling, gigantic wall fans gently swirling them—like a breezy, cloudy sky—and the effect was that of a pasha’s harem room, exotic and mysterious. We sat in the back, Dak on my left, as a curtain rose on a wide stage and a robed choir began singing. Hand-clapping, swaying, hands raised in the air as a man soloed on “Give Me That Old-Time Religion.” Suddenly, slipping into a seat to the right of George, Tobias nodded at us, his face flushed. The chorus swelled, filled the room, and everyone got quiet. Then, clad in a rainbow-colored gown, veils trailing after her, a tiara in her hair, Annika appeared in a spotlight and, accompanied solely by an unseen piano, began singing “Amazing Grace.” A high, reedy soprano, a little shaky on the upper ranges, but eerily sublime. Her face lost the hardness of her street look; instead, positioned under the brilliant spotlight, she looked…well, angelic, rapt, possessed. A handmaiden of the Lord, transported.

  I glanced at Dak. At first I thought he wore the sliver of a smile, pleased, but then I realized that his look was one of embarrassment. It was as though he were witness to a sacrilege.

  Then, the last notes fading away, Annika spoke, the gritty harshness back in her voice. She talked of tonight’s topic, “Women in the Hands of a Demanding God.” She pointed to anonymous women below her in the orchestra, all with upturned heads. “You and you and you and you, loyal women and girls, daughters of Mother Mary. Serving our Lord, Jesus Christ. Holy daughters. Holy daughters. Holy daughters.”