“I know it sounds incredible, but, yeah, that’s what I think.”
He looked at his notes. “And you think the shooter’s name is … Barry Doon?”
“That’s right.”
“You sure about that?”
“No, I’m not sure at all. I didn’t see him. I just know that he’s verbally threatened me and my business partner, and we’ve caught him stalking us.”
“He said he was going to kill you?”
She shook her head. “No, he didn’t say that exactly. He just—”
“How did he threaten you?”
Karissa was tired and annoyed with the man’s line of questioning. “It was more like intimidation. He told me not to continue my research.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else … he didn’t say. It was an implied threat.”
The man looked skeptical. “Uh huh.” He wrote something down and reread his notes. “These flowers that were delivered, you don’t know who sent them?”
“No.”
“Ex-boyfriend? Ex-husband?”
“Like I told the other officers, I’m in the process of a divorce. My ex-husband is an actor, Willy Puma.”
“Willy Puma? The guy from Meat Grinder?”
“That’s him.”
“Huh. I like those movies.” He wrote it down. “You think he might have done this?”
“Honestly? No.”
“Well, we’ll see if he has an alibi. You have his contact information?”
She gave him Willy’s address and phone number. “Look, Detective, those flowers were placed on the swing so I would be forced to walk over and stand in a spot that made me a target. Whoever had the gun was waiting for me to do that.”
“Good thing he missed,” the man said.
Duh. Karissa wanted to shake him.
The detective eyed the distance between the bullet holes and where she had been standing. “If you ask me, whoever it was is a lousy shot. Or he intentionally missed you.”
It was nearly eleven o’clock when Detective Madison finally gave her his card, gathered his things, and departed, saying, “If you have any more trouble, don’t hesitate to call.”
Oh, thanks, that’s very helpful.
When she was alone in the house, Karissa texted Marcello and asked him to call her if he was still up. It seemed he wasn’t.
She was starving but was too exhausted and wired to do anything elaborate for a late dinner. Instead, she had a bowl of cereal and four glasses of wine.
It was pathetic.
When she was finished, Karissa sat in Blair Kendrick’s easy chair near the grand piano in the parlor. Photos of the movie star were all around. The actress in them stared at her, all smiles and bright eyes.
Halfway drunk, she asked aloud, “Is it worth my life to make a movie about you? Why should I? What happened to you and Hank Marley? What happened in that studio office when Eldon Hirsch was killed? Did you really have a baby? Who the fuck were you?”
Karissa wondered if the now-familiar ghosts lingering in the expansive ballroom of the old house would answer her questions, but the room around her remained silent.
29
THE MOVIE
The music on the soundtrack shifts into a plaintive melody that evokes a darker mood. The scene is a daytime exterior shot of a shoreline, with the Pacific Ocean stretching far to the horizon. The camera moves in to a lone house set on a cliff above the beach. An unpaved drive leads to it from the main road above. A tall wooden staircase covers the rocky bluff and connects the house’s sun deck to the sand below, a distance of approximately forty yards.
We slowly zoom in on the picture window that faces the sea. A very pregnant Blair stands behind it, looking out, her hands over her swollen belly.
“The days, the weeks, and the months passed slowly,” the voice-over tells us. “I was a prisoner in the house. The horrid woman, Leni, acted as maid, cook, and jail guard. She was very cruel at times, punishing me for the slightest infractions by taking away privileges such as listening to the radio or not allowing a walk outside.
“When I was ‘good,’ I wasn’t mistreated. The food was fine, but that really didn’t matter. I wanted to go home. I craved getting out of that house.”
Cut to a shot of Blair and Leni strolling along shoreline, the tide lazily lapping at their bare feet. The camera catches a glimpse of the pistol tucked in the waist of Leni’s pants.
“Every now and then, Leni escorted me down those rickety steps to the beach, where we would walk along the shore. Leni always warned me not to speak to anyone if we happened to come across another beachcomber, but we never saw a single soul. From what I could gather during the conversations we had, the house was located near Malibu, far from the metropolis of Hollywood. I learned over time that it belonged to Eldon Hirsch himself. A getaway beach property that he hadn’t used in years. My jail cell was the room his own son had used when the Hirsch family went to the beach together—once upon a time.
“Even though my Oldsmobile was parked in the garage, hidden from sight, I couldn’t get to the key, which Leni kept on a ring with all the other house keys. The thought of escape was futile.”
Blair got up from the bed in her room, put on the house slippers that had been provided for her, dressed in the tattered bathrobe, and opened the door. Leni had given her free rein of most of the house now. As it was April and she was seven months pregnant, trips to the bathroom required easy access. For the first six weeks, Leni had kept her locked in the room at night, but after a couple of accidents, the woman relented. Nevertheless, Blair was prevented from exploring anywhere else but the bathroom, den, and kitchen. The doors to the deck, Leni’s bedroom, and the garage were locked. The front door was locked and barred. So were all the windows. The only exception was the den’s picture window, which could slide open to the deck. Blair would have to strike the pane with something hard, like a chair or a big rock, to break it.
At night, Leni fastened a built-in gate at the end of the hallway to keep Blair confined to her bedroom, the hall, and the bathroom. While Leni slept, there would be no trips to the den or kitchen. Furthermore, there were no utensils in the kitchen that could possibly be used as weapons. No knives, forks, or pans large enough to be bludgeoning instruments. Leni kept them under lock and key, producing them only at mealtimes. There was no telephone in sight.
Blair thought that she might as well have had a ball and chain attached to her ankle.
The pregnancy seemed to be going all right, though. She had seen no doctors since her abduction. Blair could only assume that the baby was healthy. The bigger question was—what was going to happen to the child after it was born?
She often wondered if it would be a boy or a girl. Would the baby’s skin coloring favor Hank’s or hers? Probably a mixture of both, a lighter shade of dark than its father’s shade. Sometimes Blair lay awake at night fantasizing about a life with Hank and the baby, living somewhere free of prejudice and hate, a nonexistent paradise where Hank could make plenty of money playing music and she could continue to act in pictures.
Then her thoughts would always go to Hank. Was he all right? Was he working to find her? Blair had asked Leni about him at one point, but either she didn’t know or she refused to say anything. Leni frankly didn’t seem to know much at all about what was happening outside the house. She never left. Food and supplies were brought to the place by an unseen delivery person. Blair knew it was a man, for she’d heard his voice—probably one of Buddy Franco’s goons or maybe even a studio runner, some poor kid who had simply been told to deliver groceries to the house, unaware that a prisoner was being kept inside.
Sometimes, when the stillness of the day got to both women, there were attempts at conversations. They often didn’t go well.
“Do you work for Buddy Franco or for Eldon Hirsch?” Blair once asked.
“That is not your concern,” Leni answered with her nose in the air. “Shall I make coffee for us?”
“You said you’re
from Germany. Were you a Nazi?”
Leni only gave her a chilling smile.
“How did you get to this country? If you worked in one of those camps, like you say, why aren’t you in prison? Didn’t they arrest all the Nazi guards?”
The woman simply shook her head and tsk-tsked. She then delivered a short speech in her heavy accent. “You may be a beautiful and popular Hollywood actress, but you understand very little about the world. Money and knowing the right people—that’s what it takes, ja?” She shrugged and made a little wave with her hand. “I got to this country and found my way to my current employers through a relative. Now, I am grateful for a job I can do, here by the sea, where no one knows me or how to find me.”
Blair found it all so incredibly bizarre and downright … nasty. The woman could have been a stereotypical antagonist in one of the films noir in which Blair starred, right out of central casting.
Franco had visited once. Two weeks after she’d been kidnapped, he showed up at the place to outline the situation. He explained that she was being kept out of the public eye “for her own good.” The studio had put out a statement that she was suffering from mental and physical exhaustion—what people called a “nervous breakdown”—and that she was being cared for in a resort facility away from the attention of Hollywood press. Franco told her that if she “behaved,” then the baby would be taken to a reputable adoption agency and would be given a loving home. However, if she did not cooperate—the child would not live to see its second day.
Blair begged him to give her news about Hank. Franco said, “The Negro is not my concern, nor should he be yours.”
She formed a wad of saliva in her mouth and spit in his face.
Franco glared at her, wiped himself with a handkerchief, and got up to leave. He told Leni, “For that, make sure she gets no radio for a week.”
The radio had been a lifesaver of sorts. Aside from the few magazines and books that didn’t interest her much, the set provided entertainment that passed the time. The broadcasts of dramas, comedies, variety shows, and music were something Blair looked forward to every day. For that alone, she had acquiesced and resolved to “behave.”
Blair could only hope for a miracle to liberate her from this hell.
In clichéd 1940s style, the motion picture once again focuses on a close-up of a paper calendar. The month of April 1949 is ripped away, followed quickly by May, and then we settle on June. Cross-fade to Blair in bed, writhing in pain. Leni is acting as midwife.
“My belly grew bigger and bigger, and I became more frustrated and angrier. All the while I kept my eyes and ears open for any kind of possible escape route. But then, in mid-June, right on time, my water broke one morning and the contractions began. By the middle of the afternoon I was in the throes of labor, and Leni had to fulfill one of her primary functions for me and my baby.”
An old-fashioned, wordless montage, accompanied by dramatic, swirling orchestral music, depicts a succession of images. Blair is in bed, her face twisted in agony. Sweat pours off her skin. Leni carries a pot of hot water into the bedroom. A clock reads 3:05. Leni offers a glass of water to the patient, and Blair strikes it away—the glass smashes on the floor. Leni yells at Blair. Blair screams. The clock now reads 4:35. The sweat has soiled the white sheets on the bed. Blair’s hands clutch towels. A close-up of Blair’s wide eyes exhibits fear and pain. Leni mouths orders to push, but not kindly. The clock reads 5:20. Now Blair is bucking and writhing. Leni squats on the bed between Blair’s legs and shouts commands. The clock reads 6:05.
Fade to black.
The ordeal was over. The child, a girl, was born at 7:36 p.m. She had skin that was a light olive-brown, dark eyes, and jet-black, fuzzy hair that barely covered her little head.
Blair was exhausted, weak, and sore. Leni removed the baby from the bedroom soon after she’d arrived, saying that the child would be cleaned and wrapped in warm blankets. Blair had to lie in the wet, bloody bed for another hour before Leni returned to help her out so that the sheets could be changed. She also brought something for the new mother to eat.
There was still no sight of the baby. Anguished, Blair begged Leni to allow her to see her daughter. The woman must have had some sort of remaining maternal empathy in her soul, for she acquiesced and brought the baby back into the room. Blair held the little thing in her arms and began to nurse. It was all new to Blair. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for becoming a mother, but some things in life happened naturally. This seemed to be one of them.
Suzanne.
That’s what Blair had decided to name her. There was no reason for it. She just liked the sound of it.
She held the little miracle as tears of wonder filled her eyes. There were also tears of anger. Blair’s daughter had been born in captivity, and for that she could never forgive Eldon Hirsch, Buddy Franco, and the woman called Leni.
Blair spent the first night together with her daughter. They slept soundly and peacefully, although the baby woke twice, wanting more nourishment. In the morning, Leni came back into the room and took the child away to change her. Luckily, it seemed the midwife had diapers on hand.
But when Blair asked Leni when she could have Suzanne back, the woman replied, “Best not to become attached or name her. She will be adopted. You will never see her again.”
With a cry, Blair attempted to get out of bed, but she was too weak to fight with the woman. Leni forced her back, left the room, and locked the door. For an hour, Blair was inconsolable. She beat on the walls, screamed for Suzanne, shouted obscen ities, and eventually crumpled into a quivering mess of sweat and tears.
She thought she heard a car leave the house. Forcing herself to stand, Blair went out into the hall—but Leni had put the gate up. The woman was gone. Where was her baby? Had Leni taken Suzanne someplace? Blair called out in despair, but there was no one to answer her. Unable to act, she went back to her bedroom, cried some more, and eventually fell asleep.
That afternoon, before even a day had passed, Blair heard a car outside. Had Leni returned? Would she see Suzanne again?
Voices. A man and a woman. Leni and …
No. Buddy Franco.
Blair shrunk back into the bed, cradling her legs and clutching the teddy bear that she had unwittingly been using as a surrogate child over the last several hours.
The door opened and Franco came into her room.
“How are you doing, Blair?”
“Go to hell.”
He didn’t react. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and attempted to adopt a physician’s bedside manner.
“Blair, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. This morning, Leni noticed that your child was having trouble breathing. She got word to me. I was prepared to take the baby to a pediatrician, but … it happened too quickly. There was nothing that could have been done, even if an ambulance had been waiting here at the house.”
Blair stared at him with watery eyes. “Wha—what are you saying?” she asked hoarsely, fearful but somehow already knowing what he was going to tell her.
“The baby is dead, Blair. She died. I’m sorry.”
The rage rose slowly, developing first as a rumble in her chest. Then the heavy breathing picked up, and then Blair screamed. “No! I don’t believe you! Where is she? Bring me my baby! Bring her to me!”
Leni rushed in to help Franco subdue her. They held her down on the bed as she battled them with what little strength she had. It took a full six minutes of thrashing and wailing before Blair’s energy finally gave out. She was completely spent.
Franco stood. “I’ll make the arrangements to see that the baby gets a proper burial. Look on the bright side, Blair. You’ll be here another week or two. You’ll recover from the childbirth and get strong again. And then … you can leave. You can go back to work. And we can put this unpleasant business behind us.”
She barely opened her eyes to look at him. “Bright side?” she whispered through clenched teeth. “You’re a goddamned m
onster.”
Franco shook his head as if to say, What’s the use? Then he turned and left the room with Leni, locking the door behind them.
30
KARISSA
The next morning, despite the lack of sleep, Karissa drove to Vernon Healthcare Center again. After parking and entering the building, she approached the receptionist and asked if she could speak to Sylvia, the nurse they had dealt with on their first visit to see Ray Webster. Karissa lingered in the waiting room until Sylvia appeared in the open doorway to the facility.
“Yes? You wanted to see me?”
“Oh, hi, Sylvia. Do you remember me? I came here with my business partner a little over a week ago to see Ray Webster.”
She nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“Could I speak with you privately? I’ll just take a minute of your time.”
“Come on back.”
When they were at the nurse’s station, Sylvia asked what she could do for her.
“I really need to contact Mr. Webster’s son, Gregory. I’d left my name and number the last time, and you’d said you would try to get ahold of Gregory and ask him to call me. Were you successful?”
Sylvia shook her head. “No, ma’am, I wasn’t. I did try and phone Mr. Webster—Gregory, that is—and the number was no longer in service. I meant to call you right then, but there was an emergency with a patient and then, well, I had to do something else and it slipped my mind. We’re always very busy here. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. Do you know where Gregory lives? I understand he had to drive a good distance to visit his father.”
“I seem to remember he lives up north somewhere. The only contact information we had for him was the phone number. He didn’t have financial responsibility for his father’s care. Medicaid handled all that.”
“Any idea where ‘up north?’”
She pursed her lips. “Hm. When I asked him where he lived, I’m pretty sure he mentioned the Bakersfield area.”
Karissa thought about that. Not tremendously helpful, but it was something. “Okay. Thanks.”
Blues in the Dark Page 19
