by J. L. Salter
Jeff peered over her shoulder. “Oh, that same guy’s been in most of these pictures.”
Tanya did some quick research on her I-Phone. “Says here that Lynette Harte was in numerous silent movies and worked in the same film company with Charlie Chaplin during one of his earliest contract periods—1916.”
Beth wondered whether Lynette and Charlie were in any of the same films. “Based on these pix, it seems like she was most often paired with Cal.”
“Not only have most of the silent films been lost or destroyed, but sometimes there aren’t even any stills from those movies.” Jeff’s sneeze interrupted. “Dust allergy. Anyway, super good quality stills like these—they could be worth some money to a collector.”
“Would they be worth enough that somebody would break into my place and try to steal them?” Beth gulped.
Jeff wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “Hard to say. I don’t know which films those pictures represent. Might not even be possible to ID all of them.”
“Hey, I found more of these.” Connie held up additional Vaudeville era programs.
“Just toss ‘em on that pile.” Beth started to point, but her mouth opened wide. “Wait! If those are playbills for performances of some kind, they’re bound to have a cast listing somewhere. We need to check for Lynette Harte’s name.”
“I didn’t read those others from start to finish, but all I saw was a dozen pages of ads and info about the management of the theater. Plus the name of the production.” Jeff continued flipping through the publicity stills. “Hardly any two stage sets look the same.”
“Got to be in here somewhere.” Beth grumbled. “You don’t put on a show and forget to list the performers.” She flipped through page after page. Most of the programs were faded, torn, and water stained; some had evidence of insect damage around the edges.
Connie studied one of the playbills. “I see the name Harte a lot. But it looks like he’s the manager of the actors.”
“Hey, I might’ve found our actress!” Beth waved a playbill. “But she’s Lynett-a with an A at this point with the last name of Taldsworthy.”
“Wasn’t that one of the names from that affidavit?” Connie had a good memory for unusual names. “Remember that British girl?” She conked her forehead with the heel of her dusty hand. “Wait. I think Harte was on that document too.”
“Hold on. Let me see that affidavit again.” Jeff didn’t recall where it had landed.
Beth located it in a stack and handed it over.
After Jeff examined the faded and brittle page, a broad smile formed. Then he carefully reread the single long paragraph. “Not sure why this was processed in California for that British girl—but this is the Rosetta Stone.” He pointed triumphantly and handed it to Tanya.
“Huh?” Connie obviously didn’t get the reference. “The What Stone?”
Beth reached for it again. “The name matches! That little girl in the photo, Lynette, was born in England as Elizabeth Madison. Apparently informally adopted the name Taldsworthy—her mother’s second husband... and she later married a Harte.”
“The Harte with the mortgage?” Jeff looked like he wanted the affidavit back in his own hands again. “Or the theater manager?”
“Not sure.” Beth’s forehead wrinkled.
Tanya still looked confused.
“Slow down.” Connie stepped back to be able to breathe more fully. “How do you get all that?”
The explanation came partly from Beth, partly from Jeff, and—briefly—from both speaking at the same time. That single document tied together all three of Lynette’s surnames and three Christian names.
Tanya reached for one of the Vaudeville programs. “So the child, Elizabeth—or Lynette—Margaret Madison, starts out in England, and later she’s in America performing as Lynett-a Taldsworthy.”
“Yeah.” Beth flipped through a few more programs from the same theater. “On tour with the Harte Troupe of actors during 1906.”
Connie took a deep breath and waved excitedly. “Bingo! Here’s some more programs, but from 1911. And now she’s Lynette Harte.”
“After Miss Taldsworthy married her manager.” Tanya smiled quietly.
“That definitely ties the actress from the playbills and programs to the lady in those publicity stills from silent movies.” Jeff scanned the array of items to see if he’d omitted any connections. “And, as a child, she’s in that family photo album.”
“So all the actress stuff links to the family photo album and those legal documents. It is all connected.” Beth shook her head slowly. “Wow. Elizabeth Margaret Madison Taldsworthy Harte—as Lynette or Lynetta—performed all over the country. Some of these are from Colorado and several cities in California.”
Connie mentioned one in Missouri and another in Ohio. Jeff cited one in New York.
“Just thinking about all that travel wears me out.” Tanya dropped heavily into a camp chair.
“And this was between 1902 and 1911, from what we’ve seen so far.” Jeff also sat back down. “You didn’t just jump in your SUV and drive from state to state back then.”
“Probably took trains...” For some reason, learning about a real person who lived and worked over a hundred years ago just made Beth feel like crying.
Connie must have felt the same, because she abruptly shifted gears. “So where’s this book we came out here to look for, in the beginning?”
“Got to be in here somewhere.” Jeff rose from his seat and dusted off the rear of his jeans.
“How big a book?” Tanya asked.
Beth collected herself and resumed sifting through the items remaining in the case. “Oh, about the size you’d expect for a diary. Maybe five-by-seven or so.”
Connie took another deep breath and poked her head above the open suitcase. “No books in here.” Then she ducked back again.
Tanya clutched Jeff’s elbow. “Maybe it’s inside something...”
Jeff patted another manila envelope which looked about a full inch thick. “Ladies, unless this is another stack of photos, I’ll bet this is our book.” His fingers were dusty, so he handed it to Beth.
Beth opened the envelope and carefully pulled out the contents. “A diary for 1955.” She re-wiped her own hands and opened the front cover. “It’s the actress, Lynette Harte!” It also had her home address in North Hollywood.
“So we found the famous diary, after all.” Jeff’s voice seemed very matter-of-fact. “Wonder what that former actress wrote about in 1955.”
“Gardening and grandchildren.” Connie shrugged.
Tanya looked down toward her slender feet. “Wonder if she hounded her daughter about having kids.”
“Maybe Lynette didn’t even have a daughter.” Beth’s hand swept above the array of items. “With all that travel and performing, who’d have time for kids?”
“Hey, gang, it’s getting late.” Connie yawned as she stretched her lower back. “I don’t live here, you know. What else is in that stinky old suitcase?”
Beth shifted some of the remaining items without actually removing them from the bottom of the overnighter. “Uh, looks like some travel brochures, a few clippings, more post cards, some letters, another couple of programs, some musty old pages of something, et cetera.”
“Okay, I’m gone.” Connie departed the garage to grab her purse from the living room. She was already at the front door by the time everyone else entered the cottage.
Tanya went to the bathroom to wash her hands and then thanked Beth for her hospitality. All four of them clustered in the space between the front of Tanya’s vehicle and the rear of Connie’s dealership loaner.
Beth handed Jeff the packet of still photos. “Would you take a closer look at these? We probably missed something in all the rushing around.”
Jeff looked toward Tanya, who nodded affirmatively. “All right. But I don’t know when I’ll get to this. We’re supposed to move furniture again tomorrow.”
“Oh, stop.” Tanya slapped him p
layfully. “Don’t pay any attention. He’s trying to pretend like I work him too hard at home.”
Beth also handed him the diary. “Think you’ll have time to leaf through this too?” She knew Jeff wanted to be an archivist.
An exaggerated shrug preceded his big smile. Jeff put those items in his backpack. “Don’t forget new batteries for your flashlights, Beth.” He and Tanya got into her vehicle.
Beth went to the passenger side and motioned for Jeff to roll down the window. “You take good care of those pictures. Might be valuable.”
Connie lightly bumped Beth’s shoulder with her forehead like she was banging her head against a wall. “They might even be what the robber was looking for.”
Jeff and Beth both stared at Connie. Sometimes she had moments of extreme clarity.
“Thanks for all your help, guys.” Beth waved.
Tanya drove away with Jeff.
“You going to be okay?” Connie squeezed Beth’s arm. “I mean, by yourself?”
“I might’ve if you hadn’t reminded me.” Beth tried to smile, but couldn’t manage.
“Sorry.” Connie got into her loaner and headed home, which was north of Forest Road and west of Quarry Pike.
With everybody gone, Beth was alone again. Well, not completely alone—now that Lynette was dwelling there too. It was nearly nine o’clock. Beth hurried inside and double-locked both doors. Lynette wouldn’t be much protection if the robber returned or the prowler found her residence.
Chapter Fifteen
Beth re-checked her door locks and showered quickly. Normally, her showers with shampoo would last about fifteen minutes—with five more if she shaved her legs. Mostly wearing slacks or jeans didn’t require as precise shaving attention as it would if Beth often wore hose and heels.
Over an hour later, she was curled up in bed reading. She was exhausted from the day’s activity, especially standing on concrete for so long. Beth’s brain was awhirl with this new data about Lynette, the silent movie star. How sad it must be to die without heirs and have family treasures tossed in a dumpster.
That reminded her to check the Internet for additional information. Her search pulled up numerous links. Not much more than Tanya previously noted, however. Lynette was in forty-five silent movies—many were shorts but a few were features. She was born in November 1882 in England and died a few days shy of age eighty-eight in November 1970 in Los Angeles. That was strange. If the old lady died in late 1970, why were her belongings trashed over thirty-five years later? Lynette, where was your stuff all that time?
Beth put away her laptop and got back into bed to continue reading. Moments later, her phone rang. Shane again.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry, Bethany.”
“Never mind.” Beth punched a pillow and propped it behind her. “Do you remember all the stuff in that antique overnighter you used to have?”
“Well, I haven’t seen it in a long time... years.”
Oops. Beth had forgotten that Shane didn’t know she had it. “Well, I didn’t completely realize this, but it kinda got mixed in with my load when I moved.”
“You’ve got my suitcase with my movie pictures?”
She gulped. “Yeah... and I’m really sorry, Shane. I was in a hurry...”
There was a long silence. Shane didn’t like people messing with his stuff.
“Well, anyway, it’s here... and it’s safe.”
He still had not responded.
“I should have told you the case was here. I’m sorry.” She waited for a reply, but there wasn’t one. “Anyhow, the reason I brought it up is... well, we think it might contain something that both robbers were looking for—your break-in and mine.”
“Who’s we?”
“Uh, two friends here. They’re helping me out.”
“By going through my stuff?”
“Shane, I told you I’m sorry. It was a mistake. But I need you to forgive me long enough to focus on one of the items in the overnighter. Do you recall seeing a diary?”
He probably wanted to sputter a bit, but he finally focused. “Yeah... from back in the fifties, I think. Some old lady.”
“You never found out who she was, did you?”
“There might have been a name in it.” Shane cleared his throat. “But there’s lots of old ladies in North Hollywood. Why?”
“Well, I know her. I mean, who she is. The same lady’s in the movie publicity stills and those old Vaudeville programs, and it’s her family in the photo album.”
“For real? So, who was she?”
“Lynette Harte. A silent movie star in the same studio with Chaplin... for a while, anyway.”
“Can’t believe you found some names. I thought I’d looked through everything.”
“Did you have your reading glasses on, Shane?”
Brief silence from his end. “Uh, no. Not usually.”
Beth chose not to rub it in.
“Wait. Back up a minute. How’d you hook all that together?”
“We went through everything in that musty old case. Well, nearly everything.”
“So what made you—and your friends, evidently—decide to look for that old diary?”
She explained about its similarity to her stolen day planner.
“Sounds like a stretch to me. If he stole your planner, I’d say that’s what he was after.”
“Nobody in their right mind would break in to steal my diary, even if they knew I had one. It has to be a mistake—the robber’s mistake.” Beth wished she’d paid closer attention to the overnighter’s contents when Shane had tried to interest her years before. “Do you remember much about how those scavengers said they’d found the case?”
“Not sure what you mean.” Shane sounded completely exhausted. “But I think they opened it and saw there wasn’t much inside, so they heaped some other dumpster stuff in there to save space. I never could get a straight answer from those tweakers about what else they scooped up from the trash around it.”
“Well, apparently a good bit is connected to Lynette the actress.”
“So how much do you figure is not connected to her?”
“Hard to say, but some of the souvenirs and magazines seem too new. Some of the clippings seem too old. Plus there’s still some real old paperwork in the bottom that I haven’t had a chance to look at yet.”
Over the phone, Shane’s stifled yawn was audible.
“You sound really beat.”
“I am, Bethany. Plumb wore out.”
Her chest tightened. “Shane, did you quit your job to make this wild hare trip?”
“How could I quit working at a chopper shop? That’s a life-time enlistment.” He chuckled slightly. “No, Doc let me off. He’s been after me to take some vacation. His CPA’s been ragging him about benefits for employees.”
“Doc has benefits in that junk yard?”
“It’s not junk—that’s the museum part he’s planning to build. Who knows, I might be the curator someday. It’s all good.”
“Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m at a rest stop just west of Albuquerque. I don’t think I can ride much more tonight.”
“Why didn’t you just take a plane? You could’ve been here in one afternoon.”
“For what I figure I’ll be doing, I’ll need my bike to get around. I don’t think I can track Ricks in a rented minivan.”
Beth wanted to ask what he had in mind, but figured she already knew. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
“But I’m worried about you in the meantime.”
“I’ll be okay, Shane. Me and my friends have this under control. We’re just trying to figure out why somebody would be after that diary, if that’s actually what they want. Or maybe something else connected to it.” Beth rubbed her sternum where a pain burned like indigestion.
Another long pause from New Mexico. “There’s a lot of screwy stuff going on, Bethany. I don’t understand it all, but it seems to involve Ricks, and he’s totally un
predictable. If you’re right about the little suitcase, then somebody wants it—or something in it—real bad. Bad enough to break in, follow you on the street, and whatever. Plus, I think my break-in back home is somehow connected to you.”
“Sometimes things just happen, Shane. You’re being too paranoid.”
“And sometimes paranoid people just happen to be in the middle of several connected situations. Bad situations. We’ll straighten them out when I get to Verde-town.”
“Verdeville.”
Yeah, she was confident in Shane’s ability to straighten things out.
Chapter Sixteen
October 9 (Sunday morning)
Edward Dillon, campaign chief of staff, had selected the spacious suite rental at the beginning of the year. His boss’s election headquarters was one block off Fourth Avenue, behind one of the larger bank structures in downtown Nashville across the street from the spectacular Nashvillage Hotel. From there, Nancy Durocher could dart over to many of the elegant hotels for photo-ops.
Though beginning with only Dillon and his boss, there were now full-timers covering fund-raising, scheduling, public relations—media and advertising—and P.R. related to yard signs, bumper stickers, lapel pins, and other individual components. Some of those sections had several paid part-timers as well as numerous volunteers.
But much of Dillon’s job was behind the scenes; he’d been working on Nancy’s campaign a long time before they opened this office front. One of his most significant, but invisible, efforts was locating the investigator who’d been on the job since late July. They hadn’t yet met in person, but Dillon already knew he’d found the right professional for this job. Had he realized how thorough this researcher would be, Dillon would have started him even earlier. Salaries, stipends, and contracts were no obstacle—Nancy’s family had plenty of cash which wouldn’t be tallied and couldn’t be traced. Dillon was taking care of that himself.
But sometimes Dillon’s ambitious and high-strung boss treated him like hired help rather than the expert architect of her campaign out-of-nowhere. There should be awards for this kind of skillful transition: transform an aggressive, hard-edged socialite into a viable candidate for state senate. Nancy knew nearly nothing about politics or policy, but as long as Dillon stayed within a few feet of her, she could be maneuvered through almost anything. His biggest challenge was Nancy’s tendency, when angered by surprises or any hint of negativity, to bristle and counter-attack. She needed to keep her mouth shut until he told her what to say.
