Murder among the Stars

by Adam Shankman

  The butler nodded but stopped Lulu from entering. He must think I’m just a vile tourist eager for another glimpse of something macabre in the castle. “And I broke my pearl bracelet, and I desperately want to find the missing pearls!” Lulu explained, acting the part of the scatterbrained actress to the hilt. “It was of untold value! Rudolph Valentino gave it to Theda Bara while they had a torrid affair, and a very nice gentleman who Miss Bara then gave it to as payment for some chandelier repairs in her house after she lost all of her money gave it to me as a gift when . . .”

  The tortured butler winced and said, “Of course, madam. Good luck,” as he ushered Lulu into the room.

  She dropped to her knees and forced herself to look at Juliette while she pretended to grope the ground for her pearls. Then she stopped pretending and just sat back on her heels, looking at Juliette.

  She had been close to an actual dead person only once before, when she’d witnessed Sal shoot a man in the head. She’d done her best to avert her eyes. Besides, there had been so much else to look at in that moment—Sal’s gun pointing at her face, the police arriving seconds later.

  Juliette was different. Though Lulu could see the bruising on the girl’s throat, it was mostly hidden by the flowing ends of the scarf. She looked so lovely, so alive! Only her vacant stare showed that all that really mattered of her had left this world. You can’t really be dead, Lulu thought. You’re so young—my age! In disbelief, she reached out to touch Juliette’s curled fingers, recoiling at their chill. Then she steeled herself and took the girl’s hand, holding it, warming it with her own living flesh.

  “I’ll find out who killed you, I promise,” Lulu whispered. “And what’s more, I’ll find out why.” To her, that seemed almost more important than who.

  “You were right. No water on her,” Freddie said. “So she never made it back to her room. I don’t see any signs of a struggle. No scrapes or bruising on her hands.”

  “She must have fought back. Juliette was no shrinking violet.” From the acidity of her verbal attacks, Lulu couldn’t imagine Juliette succumbing quietly to anything.

  “Maybe not, if she was attacked from behind. She might have been unconscious in a matter of seconds. See, her nails aren’t broken, and her clothes aren’t mussed.”

  “They said the man they caught had scratches and marks on him, so there should be signs on her hands and wrists . . . ,” Lulu said. “And if he killed her because she saw him, wouldn’t he have attacked her from the front?”

  “Not if she was running away.”

  “She would have screamed. Someone would have heard.”

  “Not necessarily,” Freddie said. “This is a huge place. We were all inside. The staff was busy preparing for dinner, and the groundskeepers were home for the night.”

  Lulu scanned the ground. There were no telltale footprints or mud. “They said he killed her outside and dragged her here, but he would have left dirt.”

  “Maybe he walked in the dirt afterward.”

  “It just doesn’t all fit,” Lulu said in frustration.

  “We won’t know what happened until the suspect wakes up and the police question him. Things might not look like they fit now, but that’s because we don’t have all the information. Though if he didn’t do it, who else could it have been? All the guests were together in the Assembly Room.”

  “Not all of them,” Lulu said. “Not you, or Waters, or Emerson, Lolly, Docky . . .” She scrunched her face up, trying to remember. “Who else was missing when you came back?”

  “I haven’t a clue—quite literally,” he said. “I was only looking at you.”

  “Oh, Freddie! Stop flirting. This is serious.”

  “I’m dead serious. Well, not as dead as her serious, but, well, you know what I mean. I think you’re right, though. Something’s all wrong. Listen, let’s get out of here. We can’t help Juliette just kneeling here.”

  Freddie led her out of the dining room. The butler expressed his opinion of them with one small, dignified sniff.

  They discovered from the staff that the rest of the guests had been herded to the in-house theater. Hearst had the latest releases driven up to the Ranch every weekend to entertain his guests. If the movie proved a dud, he’d replace it with one of Marion’s films.

  “I couldn’t watch a movie now,” Lulu said. Neither of them knew the layout of the house well yet, but they made their way back up another of the small winding staircases that led to the second floor and tried doors until they found a room that looked quiet and comfortable. It might have been a library, because books lined the walls, or it might have been an office, because there were several desks with typewriters on them. Each machine looked brand-new.

  “My head feels like it’s going to explode,” Lulu muttered, massaging her temples as she flopped onto a sofa. “I can’t think about corpses and murderers any more today. It’s absolutely exhausting.”

  “Very well . . . Hmm. I wonder how I can distract you.” Freddie had a number of excellent ideas and proceeded to distract her as best he could until her mind could focus only on the feel of his skin, the taste of his mouth.

  All too soon, the door burst open. “There you are!” Waters said. “Been looking all over this pile for you. Hearst needs us both. Something’s happened.”

  “What is it? Did the man confess?” Lulu gasped.

  “Not yet, but he will, mark my words. This is something else. Now, get moving. Hearst is waiting.”

  Freddie left her with a regretful backward glance.

  For a while Lulu sat in silent contemplation. When the door opened, she looked up expectantly, eager for a little more of Freddie’s skillful distraction. But it was another man—auburn haired, about twenty, with clear, pale brown eyes and a sensitive face.

  At first she didn’t recognize him. Then she gasped and jumped to her feet. She didn’t know his name, but he was the man who had arrived late to dinner just as Juliette’s body was discovered. She hadn’t seen him until that moment. Where had he been before that? He could be the killer!

  Six

  Who are you?” Lulu demanded, her voice sharp and apprehensive. Then she realized what she was doing. The slight, owlish young man had committed no offense except being late for dinner. While the controlling, rule-obsessive Hearst might think that was a crime, it wasn’t enough for her to look at him like he was capable of murder. “Sorry,” she said, softening. “I’m just a little on edge. It’s been a rather challenging day.” She eased herself back down onto the sofa.

  “That’s perfectly all right,” the young man said. “We’re all on edge right now.”

  His voice was soft and slow. It wafted toward Lulu like the bouquet of whiskey in the deep South, though the man had no discernible accent. He seemed to Lulu like some curious woodland creature, shyly inching his way into a glen. He hesitated by the door as if he might turn and run if she made any sudden movement.

  “After something like that, I’d really rather pack up and go home,” he said. “But for better or worse, I know which side my bread is buttered on. Hearst wants me here, so here I stay.” He edged forward, holding out his hand. “I’m Paul Raleigh.” His fingers were long and elegant, his skin soft as Lulu’s own.

  “The writer! I just saw your first film.”

  “My only film,” he said, inclining his head modestly so that his just-too-long auburn hair fell into his eyes.

  “But what a film!” The Thousand Cuts had been a smash, heralded as one of the greatest psychological masterpieces Hollywood had ever produced. “Eva, the wife. She was the most completely realized female character I’ve ever seen in a film. How is it that you could possibly understand the female nature so intimately?”

  Paul blushed. “I don’t know all that much about women, really. At least, not from practical experience.”

  That was refreshing in Hollywood. Most men prided themselves on being self-minted Casanovas and Don Juans.

  “But I pay attention,” Paul went on. “
To women, for sure, but not because they are so different from men, but because they are superior versions of the same species. Men and women are both motivated by the exact same things. Survival. Fear. The need to be safe. The need to be loved. But their modus operandi are vastly different. They are the physically weaker sex, but spiritually they tower above men. Whereas men live to conquer and rule, they are ultimately inferior because they don’t possess the ultimate power: to give life. So God himself tipped the scales in favor of the fairer sex, and all we men can do is beat our chests in defiance and lamely attempt to exert superiority over that which has given us our existence. To simultaneously worship and detest our makers. It’s in our blood. Eva understood that, and perished standing up for her place in this godforsaken world. . . .” Paul stopped, and suddenly grew self-conscious. “Oh dear. I’m rattling on. I apologize. I just feel very deeply for my characters. They’re really my only children.”

  Lulu, hypnotized by Paul’s overwhelming passion and dizzying worldview, came out of her haze. She paused, then patted the sofa cushion beside her. She longed to talk more with this sensitive, brilliant man, and felt like she was a better woman simply by proximity. Paul sat at a respectful distance. She was a beautiful young starlet, so virtually any other man, whether actor, writer, or lighting assistant, would have sat as close as possible. But Paul was deferential, a natural gentleman. She silently prayed that he wouldn’t hold her earlier, childish behavior against her.

  “Well, then! What do you say we sit back and compare notes on our technique,” she said, and settled in for a chat with a kindred spirit.

  “I want answers now!” Hearst thundered, slamming his fist down on the desk of his private office. A letter, damp with sweat, was crumpled in his fingers.

  “Sir. If I may? You’re destroying the evidence . . . sir,” Freddie said, and gently unclasped the tycoon’s fingers. He smoothed the paper onto the desk and read it through.

  This, apparently, was the second threatening letter Hearst had received. The first message had been cryptic: I KNOW YOUR SECRET—AND MARION’S. It had been written on ordinary stock paper in black-inked block letters, so perfectly uniform that Freddie surmised it was meant to disguise the writer’s natural hand.

  As a publisher of some of the most widely read newspapers in the country, Hearst received a vast wealth of hate mail. Freddie wasn’t sure why this particular letter was exceptionally distressing. Perhaps because it mentioned his mistress. But what could the secret be? The world—both the young, rich, fashionable world of Hollywood and the gossip-loving public—had by now accepted the fact of Hearst and Marion’s affair. They had been together so long that Marion was considered by most to be a second wife, concurrent with his actual wife, Millicent, who ruled the East Coast while Marion dominated the west. That indiscretion was so public that Freddie didn’t think there could be any room left for secrets. Waters had told Freddie that the first letter had been found in the regular mail, but in an envelope without a stamp or postmark. Someone had evidently delivered it directly, slipping it in with Hearst’s mail and bypassing the post office. Whoever it was had gotten uncomfortably close, though none of the servants reported being handed a letter. It had just appeared.

  This second letter had arrived in a much more troubling way. When Hearst had retired to his private office to make a few calls, ensuring that his empire was running smoothly, he’d discovered it placed carefully in his desk drawer on top of his personal gun.

  “He’s here! In this house!” Hearst shouted. Freddie noticed that he was far more alarmed now than when faced with a dead body and the knowledge that there was a murderer loose at the Ranch. Or could it be the same man? He raised the possibility, but Hearst shot it down.

  “This is my private room,” he said. “I let the maid in once a week to clean it, but I’m the only one who ever goes in here.”

  “So there’s only one key?” Freddie asked. Hearst nodded. “And you always lock it?”

  Hearst admitted that he sometimes forgot.

  “So it could have been left by anyone in the house.” Freddie glanced over at his employer. Waters was beginning to slur, but was now doing his level best to appear steady and sober in front of Hearst. Poorly. He nodded at everything his protégé said, but didn’t seem capable of adding any insight or assurances to the problem before them. Freddie knew he’d have to lead the investigation despite his limited experience . . . for tonight at least.

  He peered intently at the letter. He hadn’t thought people really crafted cliché blackmail letters like this outside of dime-store novels. Maybe this was no more than a prank, designed by one of the starlets before Hearst’s joke moratorium. Each word had been cut out of a newspaper and carefully glued to form the threat. The lines of the cuts were a little uneven, slightly curled, definitely cut by an unskilled hand. Some words, huge headlines, stood out boldly, while others, snipped from tiny advertisements, hunkered in their shadow. It read:

  “If I may ask, sir,” Freddie said in his most respectful voice. “Can you recall anything of special significance happening thirteen years ago?”

  Hearst mumbled something about his life being too busy to recollect every day’s occurrences, and stared out the giant iron-framed window in front him into the darkness.

  “And why that amount of money?” Freddie wanted to know. “Does that number mean anything to you?”

  “The thirty thousand? I have no ide—” Hearst began, then stopped as if an electric charge had just shot through his body. “But no, it couldn’t be that. The number’s not right. That extra four hundred and sixty-eight dollars. It can’t be.” He turned slowly and sat down in the massive cordovan leather chair behind the desk.

  Whatever Hearst was thinking of, Freddie was pretty sure from the look on his face that it decidedly could be.

  “Sir, whatever it is, I promise you nothing leaves this room. We can’t do our jobs unless we have some idea what this is about, and I can guarantee total discretion. It would help us narrow down suspects.”

  Hearst looked dubious. “I will only say this. Thirteen years ago I paid someone—it was actually more of a donation—thirty thousand dollars to deal with a particular issue. It was handled quietly, and everyone involved was satisfied with the outcome. No one knows outside of those immediately concerned.”

  “And those people?” Freddie carefully prompted.

  Hearst’s eyes moved to the blackmail letter. “I assure you, they have every reason in the world to keep it a secret, and nobody else knows.”

  When everyone finally retired in the small hours of the morning, Freddie, his head full of a million questions about both the murder and the blackmail, went back to the library where he’d left Lulu, hoping against hope. Surely she’d gone to bed by now, resting up for what would be an arduous day of strictly scheduled and enforced fun, obscure tests of character, and preparation for the talent show on the following Friday.

  But when he lingered outside the door, he heard murmured voices and Lulu’s low, musical laugh. With vague apprehension, he opened the door silently. Lulu was sitting thigh to thigh with a handsome young man, looking adoringly into his eyes.

  Once she spied Freddie, she jumped to her feet, which seemed to him a rather guilty piece of behavior. “Oh, Freddie darling, we were just, er, um . . .”

  The man stood too and approached Freddie with his hand out and a soft, fanciful smile on his face. “Paul Raleigh,” he said. “Miss Kelly was helping me run the dialogue of a scenario I’m working on. A sister who is seeing her brother off to war. I’m so grateful to her.”

  “Yes. She’s quite a girl,” Freddie said carefully with an uneasy smile. Seeing Lulu so physically close with another man, and so obviously flustered at her discovery, made him . . . Well, there’s no other word for it, he thought. I’m jealous. He knew that she was an actress, and as long as he was with her, this was likely to always be an annoying reality. It was her job to act the part of the beautiful young woman in love, or the sexy
temptress, and that was annoying enough when she was on the clock.

  Still, a well-bred gentleman would never let anyone know he felt jealous, least of all the girl he loved. He would prove his trust by confidently leaving them alone . . . though perhaps not cheerfully.

  “Good night, my dear,” he said, nodding to Lulu and cursing himself for that childish, possessive use of the endearment, showing off to Paul that he had the right to call Lulu “dear.” “I’ll see you in the morning. Lovely to meet you, Mr. Raleigh.”

  He turned to go, clumsily saluting them with two fingers as he tried to affect a casual, happy-go-lucky attitude that made him wince when his back was to them, but Lulu dashed after him with a backward wave to Paul. “I had no idea it was so late. Good night, Mr. Raleigh! It was lovely to meet you. Until tomorrow!” Then, whispering to Freddie, she said, “We were talking about how similar our jobs are, how deeply we have to get inside the heads of the most troubled characters. You should hear how brilliantly he expresses himself! He puts into words things I’ve half felt for the past year but could never articulate. Hearst is right—he’s a genius.”

  Freddie didn’t like Lulu’s eyes to glow like that for anyone but him. Was this to be his life now, always sharing her with other people? People who understood her Hollywood life and artistic passions better than he ever could? He kissed her on the cheek stiffly as they walked, another possessive gesture, and then, vigorously, told himself to knock it off.

  After all, he trusted Lulu.

  He just didn’t trust Paul Raleigh.

  Seven

  Veronica shook Lulu awake at six a.m., a mere three hours after she’d collapsed into bed. “Up and at ’em, sunshine!” she said in a voice far too chipper for the early hour. She held up a beautiful white silk floor-length day dress with big orange polka dots.

  Lulu regarded the dress, teeter-tottering between being euphoric from her talk with Paul, then lost in doubts about the suspected murderer. Pensively, Lulu set about the business of making herself look like a fresh-faced and well-rested star, her mind focusing on everything but.