Murder among the Stars Read online

  “Who is this?” Hearst asked, holding up Juliette’s card. She hadn’t yet returned from her humiliating burial duty, though, so Hearst ordered her card to be put at the less prestigious end of the table, the place reserved for lowly accountants or writers. “Serves her right for being late,” he said pettishly.

  As Lulu was taking her seat, a new man walked in and took a seat at the far end of the table. Lulu gasped, and froze with her derriere hovering above her chair.

  “No,” she whispered. Her breath came hard, and her heart beat wildly in her chest. That glimpse she’d seen as they arrived hadn’t been her imagination. Sal Benedetto was really here!

  She shot Freddie a frantic look. What was Sal doing at the Ranch? How had he attracted the attention of a man like Hearst? She couldn’t guess the answer to the latter, but she began to tremble in fear that his main purpose in coming here was to continue his unwanted pursuit of her. He’d already bought off police and threatened her with prison in his attempt to procure her. Though she’d offered him no encouragement, he was obsessed and had told her directly that it was only a matter of time before she was his. He was a man accustomed to getting whatever he wanted.

  Even if she hadn’t been head over heels in love with Freddie, she would never yield to Sal’s advances. The man terrified her. He was a callous gangster who had happily taken over his father’s criminal empire and subsequently created a patina of culture around himself. But there was no amount of money or artificial suavity that could eclipse the fact that the first time she’d seen him, she had witnessed him shoot a rival in the head in cold blood. Her impression of him hadn’t improved since.

  Though her first impulse was to flee, Lulu soon found her steel. She sat and tried not to stare at him down the table. Sal wasn’t just a dangerous man; he imperiled the entire life she’d worked so hard to build. He knew about the past that she hid so carefully. If Sal chose to casually pull one silken thread, the entire fabric of her life would unravel, and no one in this mercenary business would glance back or remember her. If he bothered her, she’d have to deal with it privately, hidden away from the hundreds of prying eyes that surrounded them at the Ranch.

  Sal only glanced her way, a smile playing on his sensuously curving mouth. He gave her the barest nod, then turned his attention to the luscious starlet on his right. Lulu might have been no more than a passing acquaintance.

  Her jaw dropped. Inexplicably, she became aware of a heat in her cheeks. How dare he!

  Unaccountably annoyed, Lulu settled herself uneasily in her chair and looked around the room. She was sitting directly across from Freddie. It wasn’t as close as she was hoping for, but at least they could talk. John Emerson was on her left, and an artist named Hugh d’Or was on her right.

  Neither was shy in expressing their admiration of her. By the time the asparagus soup was cleared away for the next course, each had made her a proposal of sorts. John dropped his napkin and ham-handedly brushed her thigh retrieving it, then told her that, perhaps, if the stars aligned, even if she didn’t get the starring role, he could write a noteworthy part for her. He said it as other men might ask the time of day, and she assumed it was one of his standard pickup lines. Anita caught Lulu’s eye and gave a little shrug.

  Hugh the cubist talked about himself, slyly offered to paint her, then talked about himself some more. “You would be nude, naturellement, for the human form is the expression of the divine, no? But you would be rendered in flesh-colored geometry, cones and spheres, indistinguishable from other females. You can be nude without fear, for no one will know it is you.”

  “So I could be anyone?” Lulu asked archly.

  “Oui.”

  “Then I don’t see why I should let you paint me when an ice-cream cone could serve just as well as a model.” She tried to talk to Freddie across the table, but she had to shout to make herself heard above the lively din, and most of the things she wanted to say to him were meant to be spoken in loving murmurs. The other things were about Sal. Neither was appropriate dinner table conversation.

  It might be too far to conveniently talk, but perhaps they could communicate another way. She reached out her foot, feeling for his, catching his eye, and looking meaningfully down at the middle of the table.

  He must have understood, because after a moment of discreet searching, Lulu found his foot. She stroked it with the side of her kitten-heeled shoe and found bare flesh. Her lips curling into a secret smile, she looked demurely at Freddie across the table and slipped her own shoe off. Clever boy! Though she wondered what he’d done with his sock and how he’d get it back on when dinner was over.

  His foot was chilly, and she placed her own silk-stockinged foot over it to warm it up.

  “Cold in here, isn’t it?” she shouted across the table at Freddie. He smiled but gave her a funny look.

  His foot was strangely inert. But then she realized that he must be extending his leg as far as it would go to reach her. He probably couldn’t move it to stroke her foot without being obvious. It was a compliment to Lulu that he could flirt with her at all, given the gorgeous women on either side of him. Jean Harlow was on his right, a dancer named Ginger Rogers on his left. The last-minute card switcheroo had put him in an enviable position.

  So Lulu did the work for both of them, caressing his foot with hers as she pretended to be impressed by the artist’s inflated ego and John Emerson’s poorly concealed advances amid bits of acid wisdom.

  “Hearst claims he’s such an animal lover,” Emerson said as the main course was served. “But look at his table. Foie gras. Veal. And do you know what this is?”

  “Duck, I think,” said Lulu, salivating at the rich aroma and the crispy fat. Her physical culture coach would have a fit if she saw Lulu eating something like that. Lulu planned to ask for seconds.

  “Pressed duck. Just this morning our fine feathered friend was decorating the pond for the pleasure of WR’s guests. Next thing he knows he’s being slowly strangled to death.” A look of malicious pleasure crossed Emerson’s face as he mimed squeezing the life out of someone. “Not for him the quick death of the guillotine. This duck’s blood had to be saved for nefarious purposes. Next he was plucked and half roasted—let’s pray he was quite dead, not just faking and hoping for the best—and his tender bits removed. The rest of his mortal remains were clamped in a sterling-silver vise and squeezed until they yielded their juices. See that delicious-looking sauce? Blood and marrow, semi-raw. Spanish Inquisition duck, I call it. And yet they say Hearst won’t kill a bug.”

  At the center of the long table, Hearst was shoveling crisp, fatty duck into his mouth.

  Lulu shuddered. She’d suddenly lost her appetite.

  Louella’s shrill voice rang out. She was one of the only people—besides Hearst himself—who could command the attention of most of the table. She might be Hearst’s minion, writing for his papers and commenting on his radio stations, but she was powerful in her own right.

  “Mr. Hearst, I cannot understand why Marion hasn’t talked you out of your disgraceful habit.”

  Hearst looked momentarily alarmed, until Louella went on. “You have built the biggest and most beautiful home on this part of the continent, have a staff that’s larger than the population of many smaller European countries, the finest china dishes, the most delicate glass goblets . . . and yet you use these . . . these paper napkins! It’s appalling! And ketchup and mustard bottles right on the table, too.”

  “This is a ranch, after all,” Hearst said amiably. “We can’t get too far above ourselves.”

  “Some of us can,” Lulu heard Emerson mutter beside her, but she couldn’t tell who he was referring to.

  “Oh, dear me, I’m just teasing you, Mr. Hearst,” Louella said, not pushing her criticism too far. Even a favorite could fall. “I think it is charmingly unpretentious. If you don’t mind, I’ll even write about it in my next column.” To show her approval, she snatched up a bottle of ketchup and prepared to desecrate her mea
l.

  But the second she opened the top, the ketchup exploded in a red volcano, covering her and everyone around her with a spray of tomato gore. She screamed, then tried to laugh because she knew she was supposed to, but failed miserably. She dabbed at her silk and chiffon gown, but it only made it look more like blood on her chest.

  “Baking soda in the ketchup bottle,” Marion howled. “A classic.” No one claimed credit though. They didn’t want Louella as an enemy.

  The scarlet image, so familiar to Lulu, made her feel momentarily queasy. Ruby had looked like that, with the blood of her gunshot wound blossoming on her breast. Added to her duck-induced nausea, she really didn’t think she could make it to dessert. And there went John Emerson’s napkin again, so she was in for another feeling-up.

  Regretfully, she gave Freddie’s toes a last caress and slipped her foot into her shoe.

  “Excuse me,” she said, pushing her chair back and standing.

  John, who had been in an awkward position with his attempt to subtly reach Lulu’s leg, fell sideways to one knee on the floor as Lulu stood. He reached for the table to catch his balance, and caught Lulu’s wrist instead. A delicate bracelet of pearls, given to her by Lux Studio head Niederman to mark the signing of her new contract, broke, and the gems clattered to the floor.

  “How clumsy of me,” John said, managing to sneak in another fondle. A girl can only take so much, even in Hollywood, so Lulu stepped down hard on his hand before she knelt and tried to pick up the pearls.

  Undeterred, John stooped to help her, brushing her hip.

  Lulu screamed!

  “I was only being friendly,” John whispered.

  But Lulu wouldn’t stop screaming. She staggered back, pointing under the table.

  Freddie launched himself over the centerpiece and was at her side. He flung back the tablecloth.

  Underneath the table, still and staring and cold, was the body of Juliette Claire, her bare foot splayed near Lulu’s chair.

  Just then the door burst open and an auburn-haired young man strode in.

  “Sorry I’m late, everybody. What did I miss?”

  Four

  Call the police!” Freddie shouted as he felt Juliette’s wrist for a pulse. But even Lulu could see that there was no hope for the young actress. A silk scarf in shades of pale sea green was wrapped so tightly around Juliette’s neck that there were livid bruises on her skin. Her eyes were wide and staring, her painted mouth agape.

  “No, don’t call the police just yet,” Hearst commanded in a low voice. “Everybody out of the room, now. You stay, Waters, and you, too, Docky.”

  “Stop,” Freddie said in a firm order, surprising a roomful of people who were decidedly unprepared for any more surprises. He released Juliette’s wrist, and her hand fell to the floor with a limp meaty sound that made Lulu shiver. “Everyone has to stay right here.”

  Even amid the horror of discovering Juliette’s corpse, Lulu was impressed with the young man she loved. Half a century younger and infinitely poorer than Hearst, he still faced the tycoon down with steady eyes and a confident stance, as if he owned the room.

  “She was killed by someone in this house,” Freddie went on. “Maybe even someone in this room. The first thing we have to do is account for everyone’s whereabouts.” He pulled a little notebook from his inside jacket pocket. “Please, no one leave until I’ve gotten your name.”

  He seemed to suddenly remember that he was only a junior assistant detective under Mr. Waters. No one knew that he had until recently been Freddie van der Waals, son of a man even richer than Hearst. Now he was just Freddie Van, assistant gumshoe.

  He looked to Mr. Waters. “Isn’t that what you taught me, boss?” he asked. Waters seemed flummoxed. Freddie knew that even though Waters was at heart a fine detective, he’d been in Hollywood a long time and was used to bending the rules—and maybe even the truth—to help his big-name clients. Hearst was by far the biggest. But Freddie himself had once lived in a world of luxury surrounded by yes-men, and he wouldn’t ever let himself be one.

  Mr. Waters recovered himself and looked sharply at his protégé. Beckoning Freddie, he crossed the room to Hearst’s side and whispered confidentially into his ear, “Don’t worry, Mr. Hearst. We understand the need for discretion to a man such as yourself, and we will conduct the inquiry with the utmost tact and consideration for your position.”

  Hearst nodded, looking relieved, until Freddie said, loudly enough for those closest to hear, “Still, we must not forget that a girl is dead. What is scandal compared with a human life? The police have to be called.”

  “Of course,” Hearst said. “I only thought that since Mr. Waters and the good doctor were here, it was better that they begin the investigation, instead of waiting. The nearest police station is a good hour away through the mountains.”

  Freddie wasn’t the only one with a notebook. Louella Parsons was already hunched over the corpse, scribbling furiously into an ostrich-skin journal. Lulu, watching her, felt a fresh quiver of revulsion. The woman—dressed in a black satin gown with black feathers on the shoulders—looked exactly like a vulture. She feasted on anything rotten.

  Lulu’s heart was still pounding loudly in her chest, but she found herself filled with a strange new calm. The sense of moral rightness that had so treacherously deserted her once now rose up stronger than it ever had been. Someone had murdered poor Juliette in cold blood. She might not have liked the girl, but as she looked at her cold, lifeless body she was overwhelmed with a desire to bring the murderer to justice. It didn’t matter that Waters, Freddie, and soon the police would be on the case. She knew right then that she had to do whatever she could.

  Marion, who looked annoyed rather than horror-struck, took Lulu’s arm. “This kind of thing always seems to happen to me,” she said, nattering pathetically.

  “Funny, I thought this happened to Juliette,” Lulu countered archly, gesturing to the corpse.

  Marion didn’t seem abashed. “First there was that scandal at my sister Reine’s party. Some drunken dame shot up her husband in the road outside her house. The papers said that she was jealous of me, but I’d never met them. I wasn’t even at the party! And of course you know about poor Tom Ince.”

  Everyone had heard about the Thomas Ince scandal, even Lulu, who had been no more than ten at the time. Though the official story said that the famed producer had suffered a massive heart attack while on board Hearst’s yacht, other people swore to a different version. Hearst had supposedly caught Marion in flagrante in a hallway with Charlie Chaplin, and tried to shoot him. He missed, and shot Ince in the heart. To this day, gossips whispered their own ideas of the truth.

  “The worst part is that my name will be in the headline,” Marion said. Lulu’s opinion of her hostess had been falling steadily, and her attitude now—that she was the one suffering when a girl lay dead underneath her dining table—was unconscionable. But then Marion added, “It’s disgusting. She’s the one who has suffered. She’s the one whose life has been brutally snatched from her in the prime of her youth and beauty. But no, if it happens near me or WR, we’re the news. We’re the story.” She looked down at Juliette’s body. “The poor, pretty child. What a rotten world it is. I need another drink.”

  Marion moved to the table, picked up someone’s half-drunk glass of wine, and neatly polished it off. Mrs. Mortimer came in and made a beeline toward Marion. Someone must have relayed the news. The two women conversed in a whisper, their heads bent close. Marion was weeping quietly, and the housekeeper pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dried Marion’s cheeks with a surprisingly tender gesture. Then she helped Marion out of the room, half-supporting the much smaller woman.

  Freddie and Mr. Waters were writing down names, letting each person exit to the Assembly Room to be interviewed as soon as possible. When she was released, Lulu decided to do a little investigating of her own. Since the incident with Ruby, she knew that the best course of action was the systematic
elimination of plausible suspects, which Freddie and Mr. Waters would inevitably take far too long to do, since they had no entrée into the inner circle of the guests. Obviously people would be much more likely to blab to her than to them!

  She squinted and looked about the room, imagining the dreadful things Juliette had said to each person there, and thought, Good Lord, not a single person in this room, except Marion, demonstrated any sadness when they discovered that Juliette was dead! They all loathed her. And with that in her head, Lulu began her probe. She took a deep breath, and gliding casually across the room, cornered Boots, Eleanor, and Toshia by a bookcase at the far end of the great hall.

  “Girls like that get theirs in the end?” she said at once to Boots, glaring at her with her hands on her hips as she quoted the girl’s words back to her.

  “What are you talking about?” Boots asked, leaning her lanky body against the bookcase.

  “Juliette, of course!” Lulu said hotly. “You three said you had a plan to take her out of the running. I never dreamed you meant permanently.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Eleanor said.

  “You came to me just before dinner with some cockamamie scheme. You even said the three of you should be strong enough to handle whatever it was you were doing. Well, I guess three of you could move a body pretty easily!”

  Toshia had tears in her eyes, which could either be a sign of guilt or innocence. Lulu was excruciatingly aware that she was dealing with actresses. Turning on the waterworks came with the territory. “How could you even think that of us?” Toshia asked. “We would never hurt anyone.”

  “Is that so?” Lulu needled.

  “Not much, anyway,” Boots muttered under her breath.

  Eleanor nudged Boots in the ribs. “Oh, all right, so we did have a plan to do something to Juliette. Something just a teeny bit horrible. But she deserved it! She was telling everyone you were expecting, and when she got bored of slamming you, she started in on me, ratting out to a few carefully chosen people of influence my not-so-dignified past! Sure, I posed in my scanties, but I never took ’em off for anybody! Juliette had it coming, but good.”