13 - Knock'em Dead

by Fletcher, Jessica; Bain, Donald

  The driver turned to hear where I wanted to go.

  “The Westin Central Park South.”

  He pulled away from the curb.

  “No,” I said, “I’ve changed my mind. The Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.”

  Chapter 16

  New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is internationally known as a vast complex serving as the city’s cultural center, but not as many are aware of its splendid library, a rich and deep repository of materials on the popular arts—stage, screen, TV, radio, and related media.

  I’d used the library a few years ago when researching one of my novels. The story was set in contemporary Hollywood, but I needed some history of the early days of film. The Lincoln Center library gave me far more than I could ever have used.

  “May I help you?” a research librarian seated behind a desk asked when Wendell and I approached. Her strange look at him undoubtedly had to do with the green uniform he wore.

  “I believe you can,” I said. I turned to Wendell. “Would you be a dear and find a good magazine or book to read while I take care of business?”

  He looked around.

  I pointed to a comer of the large room containing tables and chairs and a large rack filled with magazines. “Sit over there for a few minutes.”

  “All right,” he said, ambling off.

  I said to the librarian, “I’m researching two people who worked in Hollywood a few years back, the actress April Larsen, and a producer named Harry Schrumm.

  Her eyes went up. “The Harry Schrumm, who was just murdered?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re Jessica Fletcher.”

  I nodded.

  “He‘s—was producing Knock ’Em Dead, your book.”

  “Yes, he was, and Ms. Larsen is starring in it.”

  “What a dreadful thing that happened to him. The Broadway serial killer again.”

  “It looks that way.” “And you need information on him for a memorial service?”

  “Ah, yes. That’s right.”

  “How is April Larsen taking it?”

  “His death? Not well.”

  “They were so close.”

  “Were they? I mean, yes, they were.”

  She smiled. “That was quite a story. I was surprised they ended up working together again on your play.”

  “Time heals all wounds,” I said. “I’m sure you have material on their Hollywood days together.”

  “Of course. All the clips. Let me get you started.”

  I left the library an hour later with a manila envelope stuffed with copies of newspaper and magazine clippings about Schrumm and April Larsen, individually and collectively. Although neither had achieved the level of salacious celebrity to generate major articles about their earlier relationship in Hollywood, there was plenty to chew on.

  When we reached the hotel suite, I broke the news to Wendell that I’d been invited to a private dinner party, and that he couldn’t accompany me. He protested at first, but soon realized coming with me was out of the question.

  “Why don’t you stay here in the suite for the evening, Wendell, order up something you like from room service, and relax. I’ll come straight back from dinner. I’ll check in from time to time to let you know I’m okay.”

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  I showered, dressed for the evening, and took some time to go through the material from the library before leaving for the Factors’ apartment. Naturally, the focus of the articles was on April Larsen, whose movie acting career at the time most of the pieces were written was at what could be termed a pivotal point. Schrumm was a fledgling producer who probably wouldn’t have generated much attention if he hadn’t become romantically involved with April, the star of his breakthrough picture, A World Apart.

  According to reviews I’d photocopied, the film was dismal. One especially vicious reviewer summed up his reaction in a single line: “A World Apart opened last night. Why?”

  That film seemed to mark April Larsen’s downward career spiral and struck the death knell in what had been a brief fling between actress and producer. It culminated in April bringing a law-suit against Schrumm for, among other things, si-phoning money from the production budget, resulting in an inferior film, and for “deliberately and callously attempting to ruin her professional career.” It was settled out of court, details sealed under the judge’s order.

  Interesting, I thought, how they ended up together again for Knock ’Em Dead. I suppose I was right; time does heal all wounds, at least those particular wounds.

  The final few stories about Harry Schrumm reported that he’d left Hollywood for New York where he began producing plays. He was quoted: “I prefer the artistic freedom and dynamic creative atmosphere of Broadway to the Hollywood mill that cares only about the bottom line. Broadway is where I belong.”

  I was certain there had been other stories about him since his arrival on the Great White Way, but I wasn’t interested in those. I’d accomplished at Lincoln Center what I’d set out to do, learn about the previous relationship in Hollywood between Harry Schrumm and April Larsen that Detective Hayes had alluded to. I didn’t have any practical use to which to put my newfound knowledge, but I felt better possessing it.

  “The Factors’ apartment, please,” I told the doorman in the marble lobby of their high-rise building on Manhattan’s east side. He called up, then told me to take the elevator to the penthouse level.

  Arnold Factor, dressed in an obviously expensive English-cut blue suit, white shirt, and muted red-and-blue tie, answered my ring. “So glad you could make it on such short notice,” he said, standing back to allow me to enter. The entry foyer was stunning in its size and simplicity, floor and walls gleaming black-and-white marble, the modem furniture copper and brass and glass.

  “Come, have a drink,” he said, leading me to the living room, where a woman dressed in a black uniform and white apron delivered a silver tray of canapes to a long bar.

  “Thank you, Mary,” Factor said to her. To me: “What’s your pleasure, Jessica?”

  “White wine?”

  “Of course. French or California?”

  “Either.”

  “Lately, we’ve been partial to California wines,” he said as he busied himself behind the bar. “They’ve come quite far with their vineyards, although a good French will ultimately win out. Don’t you agree?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said, “but I’ll defer to your experience.”

  He poured wine for me and mixed a martini for himself. I watched the ritual he went through, first filling a wide cocktail glass with ice cubes and adding water, then putting ice and a drop of vermouth in a stainless steel cocktail shaker, adding gin, and methodically stirring it. He placed a strainer over the top of the shaker, emptied the glass of the ice and water, and carefully poured from the shaker into the glass.

  “You seem very much at home making a martini,” I said.

  “I pride myself on how I make them, Jessica. Today’s young people have bastardized the martini, using vodka and a whole array of other inappropriate ingredients. They even have chocolate martinis, for God’s sake. There’s only one way to make a martini and that’s the way I make them. Sure you won’t join me?”

  “Too potent for me. Where’s Mrs. Factor?”

  “Getting dressed. She had a tough, eye-opening day at the theater.” He came around from behind the bar and raised his glass. We touched rims. “To salvaging Knock ’Em Dead,” he said.

  “I didn’t realize we were in the midst of a salvage operation,” I said.

  “Unfortunately, we are. Please, sit. Take that chair. The view is better.”

  He was right. From that vantage point, floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a dazzling panoramic view of Manhattan.

  “It’s even nicer from the terrace,” he said, “but not in this weather.”

  I laughed. “I’m quite used to winter, Arnold, coming from Maine.”
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  “Usually, we’ve gone south by this time of year. We have a house in Palm Beach. But with the demands of the play, it was out of the question.”

  I’d taken one sip of my wine when Jill Factor suddenly appeared from the recesses of the apartment wearing a floor-length green silk dress cut low, and accented by an exquisite diamond necklace. My thought at the moment was that if this couple was having financial difficulties, they certainly didn’t live as though they did. Of course, I’d known a few people in my life who managed to live far above their means, seemingly always able to juggle what money—and credit—they had to put on a facade of easy wealth. If that was the case with the Factors, they were very good at it.

  “Sorry I ran late,” she said, coming over to where I sat and extending her hand. “The rehearsal was dreadful, and I stayed later than I’d planned. I see you have a drink. Arnold couldn’t entice you into one of his martinis?”

  “No,” I said, laughing. “The wine is fine.”

  “The usual?” Arnold asked her.

  “Yes.”

  He went behind the bar again, and Jill took his chair. “I thought you might stay longer at the rehearsal than you did,” she said to me. “I could have used some input from you.”

  “No, I had other things to do. You said it was a dreadful rehearsal. Are things that bad? Previews are just a few days away.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” she said, sighing and accepting a glass from her husband containing a brown liquor and ice. He’d made himself another drink, too, and I had the impression the martini he’d had upon my arrival wasn’t his first of the day.

  “To opening night,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “provided there is one. From what you say, that might be in question.”

  “Oh, no,” Arnold said, standing behind his wife and placing a hand on her bare shoulder as though about to pose for a family portrait. “Knock ’Em Dead will open as scheduled, won’t it, dear?”

  She replied without looking up, “If I have anything to say about it—and I do!”

  “Now that you’re the producer,” I said.

  “Tragic what happened to poor old Harry,” Arnold said, pulling up a matching red-and-gold Oriental chair. “We’re still in shock.”

  “You knew him a long time,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, a very long time,” said Jill. “It’s bad enough when a friend of long-standing dies of natural causes, but when he’s slaughtered by this madman, the Broadway serial killer, it’s especially hard.” Her eyes misted.

  “Disgusting, really, the way this nut goes about it,” Arnold said, draining what was left of his drink. “Bad enough he goes around killing people, but he has to add his little signature touch by costuming the body. Sticking a pipe from the show in poor old Harry’s mouth is sick, really sick.”

  “There isn’t much question, is there, that it was the serial killer?” I asked.

  “I should think not,” Arnold said. “Open-and-shut.”

  “I’m not sure I should be telling you this,” I said, “but I’ve heard the police have a break in the case.”

  “In Harry’s murder?” Jill asked.

  “In the serial killer case, which includes Harry.”

  They looked at each other.

  “That’s good news,” Arnold said. “More wine?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Excuse me.” He went to the bar to freshen his martini.

  “How do you know this, Jessica?” Jill asked.

  “Just scuttlebutt. I’m not even sure who said it.”

  “Someone from the police, I assume.”

  “I suppose so. This wine is lovely. California?”

  “French,” Arnold said, stirring his second or third drink.

  “We’ve never even mentioned Vic Righetti,” I said.

  “Who?” was Jill’s response.

  “The doorman at the Drummond. He was killed, too.”

  “I heard about that,” Arnold said, rejoining us. “I forgot to mention it, Jill.”

  “I knew about it. It was the talk at the theater this afternoon”

  “Nothing to do with Harry’s murder,” Arnold said. “A simple robbery.”

  “A deadly robbery,” I said.

  Jill made a sound of disgust, stood, went to the window, and wrapped her arms about herself. She said to the glass, “Enough about murder, unless it has to do with the play.” She turned and smiled. “I hope you like rack of lamb, Jessica. It’s on the menu tonight.”

  The dining room table was long and lavishly set for three; it could accommodate sixteen. We were served by their housekeeper and cook, Mary. After she’d delivered our salads and gone to the kitchen, Jill said, “It’s so difficult finding good help these days. She’s the third one we’ve had in a year.”

  I silently wondered whether the others had left because they hadn’t been paid, if the bartender at Rafferty’s was right about the Factors’ financial situation.

  It was a pleasant if somewhat stiff dinner. The conversation was dominated by talk of Knock ’Em Dead, most of it coming from jill Factor. Arnold, who’d had another martini before dinner, showed the effects of the gin, although I wouldn’t characterize him as drunk, just an occasional slurring of a word and a look of fatigue not caused by the hour.

  It was over dessert that the topic turned to me.

  “I understand you’re widowed,” Jill said.

  “Many years.”

  “Never interested in marrying again?”

  I was uncomfortable being asked such personal questions by people I hardly knew and didn’t particularly like, but I didn’t intend to make an issue of it.

  “No, I haven’t met the right man yet.”

  “Your husband must have been very special,” Jill said.

  “He certainly was.”

  Arnold laughed. “We did some research on you, Jessica.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Research? On me?”

  “We like to know as much as possible about the people in whom we’re investing,” said Jill.

  “That sounds reasonable. Did you come up with anything about me I should know?”

  “Quite a career,” Arnold said. “How many books?”

  “I’ve lost track. Dozens.”

  “And every one a bestseller.”

  “I wish that were true,” I said. “Some of the earlier ones never made the lists, but the reviews were always good, and my publisher is a throw-back to an earlier period when authors were nurtured, their careers built over a period of time. I was lucky in that sense.”

  “How much does a really successful book earn—you know, one that hits the Times’ best-seller list and stays there?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. It varies.”

  “Millions?” Jill asked.

  “Some books, but not mine. Let’s just say I haven’t missed any meals.”

  They laughed politely. Arnold said, “I read in some gossip column a year or so back that you were romantically involved with a Scotland Yard inspector.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think it’s wonderful that a rich and famous murder mystery writer would fall in love with a Scotland Yard type,” Jill said.

  The conversation was beginning to nettle me. I said, “One, I may be famous but I don’t consider myself rich. Two, the gossip columnist you read has it wrong. The Scotland Yard inspector in question and I are good friends, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Arnold said.

  “Why don’t we have our coffee and after-dinner drinks in the living room where we can enjoy the view,” Jill suggested.

  Arnold mixed himself another martini. Jill accepted a balloon snifter of brandy from him; I was content with coffee.

  Arnold said from behind the bar, “We’d like to make you a business proposition, Jessica.”

  “Oh? What might that be?”

  “A chance to invest in your own show,”said, “to reap the profits of what
will obviously be a long-running smash hit.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve already made my investment by writing the book the play is based upon.”

  Arnold came around the bar and perched on a stool. “Jessica, the percentage of the profits you hold won’t amount to much. The real money is the return on financial investment in the show. Jill and I are willing to sell you a half interest in our percentage, which, I hasten to add, is substantial.”

  Before I could respond, Jill said, “We’re willing to sell you fifty percent of our share for only five-hundred-thousand dollars. That’s less than half of what we’ve put up for Knock ’Em Dead.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. The last thing I expected was to be given a pitch on investing in the play. I shook my head and said, “I appreciate the offer, but investing in a Broadway show isn’t on my agenda.”

  “Even your own Broadway show?” Arnold asked.

  “From what I’ve seen, especially my own show.”

  “Perhaps you’d consider the same stake for, say, four-hundred and fifty thousand?” Jill offered.

  I stood. “This has been a lovely evening. The dinner was as wonderful as the views, but I really must be going. May I use your phone?”

  “Of course.” Arnold pointed to a small study off the living room.

  I dialed the hotel and was put through to the suite. “Wendell, it’s Jessica Fletcher. I’m just leaving and should be there in twenty minutes.”

  “I was getting worried about you,” he said.

  “I’m just fine. Couldn’t be better. See you in twenty minutes.”

  Arnold stood at the front door holding my repaired coat, which had been returned to me earlier in the day. He helped me into it, saying, “Give it some thought, Jessica. We’ll hold the offer open for you for forty-eight hours. Then I’m afraid well have to sell to others, who, I might add, are chomping at the bit for the opportunity to grab a piece of this show. We preferred to keep it in the family but—”

  “Again, thanks for a lovely evening—and the offer. But I don’t need forty-eight hours. I’m much too conservative an investor to be dabbling with Broadway productions.”