Lone star

of the back lot and there was little Nell Meyers, probably still with echoes of African chants in her ears and the resounding boom of Tansi’s lovely slap against Tommy’s face. And she’s walking with a quaint cardboard box, prettily tied with a red string. Nell, it seems, is leaving her job. Today.”

I started. “What? Why would she do that so suddenly?”

“I asked about that. She said she’d actually resigned two days ago, told her boss, but didn’t tell us at Jimmy’s.”

“And why not? It seems the natural thing to do-to tell your friends.”

“She said she wants to go away quietly. I guess Carisa and Lydia dying spooked her. She told me Hollywood’s not right for her. She’s going to a small hamlet in Pennsylvania, where her mom’s from, I gather.” She stopped. “Edna, what’s that look on your face?”

I had blanched, shifted in the seat. “This is not good news, her leaving.” Nell, fleeing with a cardboard box and a Greyhound ticket to some dirt road corner of civilization. Speaking rapidly, I outlined my ideas to Mercy, who turned pale, but added, finally, a caveat. “Edna, these are random bits of information, compelling, I have to admit. But this notion about Nell. Well, isn’t that a stretch?”

“What else have we got?” I asked. “We have to stop her. I mean, she’s not leaving today, is she?”

Mercy nodded. “That’s what I find strange. Yes, she is. Ticket in hand.”

“We need to do two things,” I said, staring at the ragged napkin before me, frayed and crumpled. “One, you find Nell. If need be, stall her from leaving. And I need to run this by Detective Cotton. I need his advice here. And,” I added, eyebrows rising, “we may need him to get to Nell.”

While I phoned Detective Cotton, Mercy went looking for Nell, who seemed to be making a sentimental round of goodbyes to people who scarcely knew her. Bustling down a hallway, I spotted Mercy. She shook her head as I approached, nodding toward a doorway where Nell lingered. She was with a make-up artist, chatting away, her cardboard box resting at her ankles. Nell said a hearty goodbye to the woman, and the woman looked annoyed. Nell, however, was smiling. “I will miss you people.”

Mercy mumbled to me. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Could I have a minute of your time?” I said to her as she turned from the doorway, but Nell closed up, the smile gone. She looked nervous. “Why?”

“About Lydia.”

Nell shook her head. “No. Don’t you see? I don’t want to be part of this any more.”

But I persisted. Mercy joined in, speaking softly and even smiling, and Nell found herself sitting across from us in the commissary. I sat there, iron-willed, jaw set, eyes sharp and focused.

“Nell, I just need to ask you something.”

Nell looked frightened. “Yes?”

“You probably knew Lydia better than most,” I began. Nell nodded, nonstop. “But there is something I have to know. Mercy and I have been talking about the letters.”

“The letters?” Nell actually gulped.

“You know, the letters. Not so much Carisa’s stream of anger to Jimmy and Warner, but letters to Carisa.”

“Jimmy never told me about his letter to her until later.”

I made a clucking sound. “He didn’t seem to tell anyone until he had to.” I waited a second. “But no, Lydia’s letter to Carisa.”

“What about it?”

“You knew about it? You knew Lydia wrote a threatening letter to her?”

Nell waited a second, seemed to be thinking it through. “Not when she actually wrote it. I mean, I remember her, and even the others, bitching that they couldn’t reach Carisa a lot of the time. She didn’t answer the phone and even if you went there, as I did with Lydia once or twice, there was no guarantee she’d let you in. So I guess if you had to reach her, you, well, dropped her a note. It was…” She waved her hand.

“What?”

“Easier, I guess. But, you know, later on, after Carisa’s death, that’s when I learned about it. She told me she’d been hoping no one found out because it threatened her.”

“But she was found out, no? Once the letter was found.”

“Of course. And it scared her. She went nuts over it. She thought it would mean Detective Cotton would think she killed Carisa.”

I timed my response. “But Detective Cotton never found that letter.”

Her eyes got wide. “Of course he did.”

“No.”

Nell shuddered, looked around, nervous. “I mean, she said he…I assumed…”

“What did you assume?”

“Lydia said…I think she said…well, she was crying a lot…no, that was later…she…”

“Nell, I want you to tell me everything. You hear me. Step by step. Think back. Put things in order, please.”

Nell looked around, again. The commissary was filling up with people, and getting noisy. She half-stood, as though ready to flee, then her arm hit the cardboard box she’d placed on a chair, and the string unraveled. The box toppled to the floor. Personal items-a photo in a cheap frame, a coffee mug, a Warner Bros. Studio paperweight, papers bound with elastic bands-spilled out, and, clumsily, frantically, she pushed everything into the box, and then closed the flaps.

Quietly: “This is important, Nell,” I said.

She nodded.

An hour later, in Mercy’s dressing room, we sat with Detective Cotton. The detective listened to my terse summary, sitting there impassive and largely unblinking. He cleared his throat. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” I expected more. Backslapping, accolades, hip-hip-hurrahs.

“It makes sense…”

I broke in, impatient with his manner. “Of course it makes sense.” You bumbling fool, I added, hopefully to myself.

Detective Cotton smiled, and I realized he was a man used to condescending to women-a man whose world-a downtown precinct of testosterone-jumpy cops-was a sanctified male preserve. A man who, had he the misfortune to be married, most likely treated the little missus like chattel, some Doris Doormat to do his bidding. I was very familiar with his ilk, frankly. And yet I’d thought him decent, a good cop. A man who seemed to entertain the idea that I might contribute to the investigation.

“You’re a tough bird to read,” I remarked.

“Why so?”

“I don’t know if you value the ideas of women.”

“I value a good idea.”

“That’s not answering my statement.”

“I don’t answer statements. I answer questions.”

“You’re playing games, sir.”

“So, Miss Ferber, I do think you may be on to something here, and I’ll not fault you for that. But I’ve been conducting my own investigation, you know, and this morning, finally, I convinced a judge-actually I convinced Jack Warner through his boy Jake Geyser-that the matter needs to go before a grand jury. It’s time. And my case, I’ll tell you frankly, is against James Dean. Warner isn’t happy, and Dean has been forewarned. It’s going to get messy, but this now has to leave the studio and go downtown. The case has languished too long…”

I felt my heart in my throat. “So you’re going to name Jimmy as murderer.”

“We’re going to name him as number one suspect-not murderer. We’ll couch the arrest in language the studio will tolerate. Means the same thing, just delays the inevitable.”

“Give me twenty-four hours,” I demanded, sharply.

“What?”