Lone star

slipped upstairs when the clerk wasn’t looking, and she was dead. And the police called Warner’s and…”

“So Max was in her room?”

“He called the police. They found drugs.”

“Are they sure it’s a suicide?” I said.

“What?”

“I mean, why did they say it was a suicide?” I thought of my earlier conversation with Lydia. Maybe it was an accidental overdose.

Tansi paused. “I don’t know, Edna. That’s what Jake just told me. He woke me up. Why?” Then, her voice shaky, “Oh my God, Edna, you don’t think…no…it couldn’t be murder.” A deep intake of breath. “Could it?”

Chapter 16

Late the next morning, dropped off at the Burbank studios by my driver, I sensed a shift in the atmosphere on the Giant soundstage. A ripple of euphoria. Not that anyone said anything, to be sure. There was no uncontrolled laughter, not even a barely suppressed smile. This was the world of illusion-from Rock Hudson who strutted past with Chill Wills and smiled at me, to the woman who offered me coffee and pastry and told me how lovely I looked that morning. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, this hum of bliss that covered the studio like a gentle patina on valued wood. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I read human endeavor purposely, and accurately. That was my job, for all the many decades.

And I was sickened by it all. I wanted to get away, even though I had a tedious meeting scheduled with the very people who would feel safe now, secure, the impediment dislodged. Good God.

I’d listened to the radio over breakfast in my rooms, and one of the last news items mentioned the death of Lydia Plummer, Hollywood bit player. Her minor-league credits included the soon-to-be released Rebel Without a Cause and the film Giant, then finishing production. The announcer remarked that she’d died from a suspected drug overdose. Miss Plummer, he concluded, had died at the Studio Club for Women where Mary Pickford once lived during another era of Hollywood glory.

I wanted to talk about the death. I wanted details. Was Lydia’s death a suicide or an accidental overdose? Or something more ominous? What did Max Kohl have to do with this? He’d been in her room-forbidden in the women’s hotel. What about his rumored drug involvement? A needle in the arm? The brutish, powerful Max could easily overpower the zombie-like Lydia, then entering her narcotic heaven. But when I asked George Stevens what he thought, he skirted the subject. So, too, did one of the assistant directors; even the good soul who primed me for the dailies wouldn’t answer.

I tracked down Jimmy, who’d finished a morning of shooting. Dressed as the older Jett Rink, still with the graying temples and dapper-Dan tuxedo, he waved to me, and then was at my side. I waited for him to say something about Lydia, but nothing. I’d have to bring it up, and that made me furious. For God’s sake, what was with these people?

“Come with me,” he said. “Get some coffee.”

Outside, by the gate, was a new car watched by an admiring guard. “My Flat-four 547 Porsche Spyder Speedster,” Jimmy said. “A masterpiece.”

“Jimmy…”

“I’m having ‘Little Bastard’ stenciled on the back.”

“Jimmy!”

“You know, Miss Edna,” he mumbled, a faraway look in his eye, “the only time I feel whole is when I’m racing.”

He’s avoiding the subject, I thought. I sensed something in the eyes, cloudy behind those thick eyeglasses; the awkward movement of his body, the twisting of the head. His own mortality-that, he relishes. Another’s, well, dismissed. I’ll not have that, I told myself. I just won’t. It filled me with rage. So I accepted the invitation, telling him I had to be back to meet Jake and Tansi within the hour. He nodded.

He was explaining the car to me. “I can go 120 miles per hour.” I didn’t listen. I knew nothing of cars. Years back, I’d driven roadsters, clumsy oversized Oldsmobiles and Buicks, especially when I owned my home in Connecticut. Cars were vehicles for getting from A to B, with an occasional side trip to C or D, depending on the richness of this foliage or that gushing mountain waterfall that had to be seen. Other than that, they were instruments of vanity and often folly. But I nodded now, dutifully, as Jimmy gave his enthusiastic oration, all the time running his hands over the steel metallic blue fender, the glistening chrome, the leather so new and supple it seemed just hours from the offering cow.

Over coffee at Hoyt’s Restaurant near Hollywood and Vine, I tried to cut through the dense vehicular verbiage. What fascination do men have with grease and joints and pistons and carburetors?

“Lydia is dead, Jimmy.”

The line stopped him cold, and I saw him bite his lip.

“I know!” he thundered, so loudly that other patrons glanced our way. He leaned into me. “I know.” A whisper.

“Then why is everyone avoiding the subject?” I snarled. “And you, Jimmy, the one she mooned over, despaired over, probably ended her life over.” The last line was cruel, I knew, but I didn’t care.

“I’m not to blame. I was honest with her. She was troubled, Miss Edna. She and Carisa and Max-all the drug users. That’s what killed her. Stuff she put in her body.”

“But do you care?”

“Of course, I do. I’m not an animal, for Christ’s sake.”

I couldn’t read him. Despite his words, which I suspected were heartfelt, his wiry, malleable body suggested something else: a cavalier demeanor, even a frivolous one. It was the way he sat, like a schoolboy ready to flee outside to recess; the way he flirted with the waitress, a momentary flicker of the eyelids, even the deprecating nod to an autograph seeker, his name scribbled on a napkin. Yes, he was bothered, genuinely so, but he was also relieved. That’s the word, I realized: relieved. Out of danger, the prisoner released from his solitary confinement.

“Jimmy, do you think Detective Cotton will believe Lydia killed herself because of guilt over her killing Carisa?”

His eyes got wide with alarm. “My God, Miss Edna, you have a way of stating things in headline form.”

“I’m always the girl reporter in Appleton, Wisconsin-who, what, where, when.”

“You left out why?”

“That I can’t answer yet.”

“Look, Miss Edna. I really didn’t know Lydia well. We dated, had a brief affair. So brief, it might only have happened in her imagination. She got obsessed with me. Like Carisa. Two women a little unhinged.”

“Jimmy, why do you choose women who are ready to spiral out of control?”

“You know, I think it’s the other way around. They choose me. I’m like a magnet. I’m, like, there, and I’m lost myself, and I’m down in the dumps. I’m moody, and they come to me-like I can fill the deep, black hole in their lives. It’s like a paradox. Women seek the men who are the ones they should never go near. You know, like men who are mirror images of their own anguish. That’s me. If I’m at a party, and there’s one girl-sometimes even a guy-who should never seek my company, in a half hour they’re up against me, eyes pleading, hands clutching, wanting me. It’s like they’re drowning, and they don’t want to go under alone. So I run away, and they say, there, another man is cruel to me.”

“Jimmy, you could say no the first time they approach you.”

“You miss the point, Miss Edna. I’m at the same party, trying to find someone who will go under with me. I don’t want to drown alone.”

“All right, all right. But I sense gloating-maybe that’s not the right word here-I sense satisfaction that she’s dead. Nell told everyone, including Detective Cotton, that Lydia was most likely the murderer.”

“Of course she wasn’t. Lydia couldn’t murder. She was so riddled with guilt for everything she did, she’d