Soap Opera Slaughters Read online

  “Then you have no alibi.” I turned up one palm. “The next question, I’m afraid, has to be whether you and Mr. Niven recently quarreled over anything?”

  “All lovers do.” Even subdued, her voice had that familiar vibrancy that impressionists sometimes parodied. I could imagine her singing opera in the shower and sounding pretty good.

  “Any special argument I ought to know about?”

  “No.”

  I doubted that, but figured if it was important enough, I’d hear about it eventually, maybe from Lara. I went on to the next point. “Do you have any notion, Ms. McKinley, what Mr. Niven was doing at the studio on his day off?”

  She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. “He kept all his writing materials at WBS. He rarely worked at home.”

  “But isn’t there another possibility?”

  “What?”

  “That he went to the studio to meet someone?”

  “No.” Declared with such passion I think it surprised her almost as much as me. Just then, the Brahms trio ended and she used it as a convenient circumstance to occupy herself with the dials.

  “Excuse me, I was recording off the air,” she said, returning to the sofa a moment later. “Now what did you ask?”

  “Whether Mr. Niven might have had an appointment Saturday.”

  “Yes, of course it’s possible. I shouldn’t have been so quick to reply without thinking. But he told me he’d be busy all weekend.”

  “Doing what”

  Instead of answering, she turned to Lara and asked whether she’d mind going to the kitchen to make some tea. Lara said she’d be glad to and looked anything but After she was gone, my host, putting her finger to her lips, rose and softly glided across the carpet to the entryway. Only after she’d called down the hall and got a distant answer from Lara, presumably in the kitchen, did Florence nod in satisfaction and sit back down beside me.

  “Excuse me for acting so mysterious,” she said, “but sweet as she is, Lara is not the soul of discretion at all times.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She shook her head, smiling.

  “No, no, that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that I could not discuss what you’d asked with her in the room. Or anyone else from the cast, for that matter. You want to know what Eddie was presumably preoccupied with this past weekend?”

  “That’s right”

  “Well, it had to do with the new ‘Riverday’ ‘Bible.’ Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Sure. Has nothing to do with evangelism. The ‘Bible’ is the long-range plot synopsis of a soap opera, right?”

  “Yes. Eddie told me he’d be working on his latest one this weekend. I didn’t want to alarm Lara. Cast members aren’t supposed to know about it.”

  “But why would it alarm her?”

  “Because he is...was quite overdue in preparing it. He was supposed to turn in a draft of the ‘Bible’ by the beginning of this week.”

  “How bad does that leave off ‘Riverday’?”

  “It’s not good,” she replied grimly. “If we don’t get a new head writer fast, pretty soon it will be improvisation time for the cast.”

  She brooded on it for a moment. I asked her how come she knew so much about the ‘Bible’ if cast members are supposed to be kept in the dark about it. It was the absolute thousand percent wrong question. It provoked a filibuster on the way youth was exploited on TV to the detriment of maturer talent. I listened, puzzled, as “Mother Jennett” denounced producers, the network, sponsors, most of all her “loyal fans.”

  “The fickle bastards want your soul along with your autograph, but catch me giving perfect strangers the means to forge my signature!” In her agitation, she rose and stalked about the room, her swirling robes accidentally sweeping the program guide, scissors and Scotch tape off the phonograph dust cover onto the floor. She picked them up and replaced them. Seemingly calmer, she turned to me.

  “Lara said you watch ‘Riverday.’”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you remember Kit Yerby?”

  “I ought to. She was on Friday’s episode.”

  “Well, that was practically the last time you’ll see her. Snippy little bitch, got arrested once for shoplifting, but that’s neither here nor there. Our ratings slipped two points last month and she happened to be up for contract renewal. They fired her so they could budget some young stud that the fat ladies in Duluth will doubtlessly drool over.”

  Why did she sound so grimly satisfied about it? I was going to ask her when an altogether different question popped into my mind. It wasn’t important to anyone but me, but I asked it, anyway.

  “Does this so-called stud happen to be named Harry Whelan”

  “Yes. I think so. You know him?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Oh? Thereon, I believe, hangs a tale.”

  “Irrelevant. Let’s get back to the original question.”

  “I forget what it was.”

  “How you happen to know so much about Ed Niven’s “Bible. ””

  “Oh. Yes.” She sat back down. ‘Years ago, when Joe Ames originally called to offer me the part of Martha Jennett, I knew all the risks involved. I told him if I took it, I’d be the first Emmy winner to turn down primetime for a soap opera and would expect certain concessions in return for the publicity that would bring. He argued a bit, but that was only a matter of form. He eventually agreed to most of my terms. One was that I see every new ‘Bible’ as soon as it’s written.”

  “They gave you story approval?” An unheard-of thing. “I’m impressed.”

  “Not quite. Officially, all I’m entitled to is a copy of every updated synopsis.” Her lips curved ironically. “But you know what they say about a little knowledge.”

  “So that’s what Niven was supposed to be busy with this weekend, writing a new ‘Bible.’ The old one’s practically used up?”

  “Yes.” She muttered something about ratings taking a suicidal plunge. “But not this week. His death will attract the vultures.”

  “Will Ames promote your other writer?”

  “Tommy Franklin?” She grimaced. “Extremely improbable.”

  “Why?”

  “His plotting ideas are idiotic.”

  “Oh? Can you give me an example?”

  But just then Lara interrupted by putting her head into the room to say that tea was ready. Florence nodded, and the blonde entered with a small tray bearing three cups, saucers, a china pot and nothing else. I was disappointed. I’d hoped for something to eat, even a few cookies would have been pleasant.

  “We’re almost done,” I told Lara. “Ms. McKinley, I don’t like to distress you, but is there any chance Mr. Niven told you he’d be working this weekend so that he could meet someone else?”

  She raised her cup and sipped. “By someone else, you’re implying that there might be another woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “It may be true.” Her lips curved downward in a sour frown. “Over the past few months, Eddie canceled several dates with me.” She stared into her cup as if reading secrets in the leaves. “And now you know what we quarreled about.”

  “Assuming there is another woman involved, have you any idea who it might be?”

  She exchanged a glance with Lara before saying she wasn’t sure. That annoyed me, but I made a note to ask Lara later. “All right,” I continued, “you told Lara you think someone is trying to make it look like you were responsible for Mr. Niven’s death. Is that person the woman you have in mind?”

  “I didn’t say I had anyone particular in mind.”

  “You’re fencing with me. Is the reason you won’t name her because she’s also an actress on ‘Riverday’?”

  I got another noncommittal answer. My temper was rising. It was almost ten o’clock, I was hungry and tired and still had a two-hour trip home.

  “Look,” I complained, “you’re holding back information wholesale. If you don’t trust me eno
ugh to speak, your mind freely, there’s no point in continuing. I can’t accept you as my client unless—”

  “At this stage,” she broke in, “I neither trust nor distrust you. You’re here on your lady’s recommendation. I am not your client till I say so...you haven’t even told me yet what you charge!” She emphasized the last word with a smart tap on my knee with her forefinger.

  I put down my cup and rose to my feet. But my eyes connected with Lara’s and her mute “please” stopped me from walking out. Ah, damn, I thought, if I could put up with Hilary treating me like chattel (as I had for several years), I supposed I could tolerate a bit more of the same for her cousin’s sake.

  “Okay,” I told McKinley, swallowing my indignation, my pride and my tea, “will you at least tell me why you think you are a target?” I sat down again.

  “Yes.” Though there were just the three of us in the apartment, she lowered her voice to a melodramatic whisper. “This morning, I found something in my dressing room.”

  “What?”

  “A pile of Eddie’s clothing.”

  Not good. I asked her to reconstruct the moment. She closed her eyes and re-created it in her mind. As she did, her fingers trailed along her cheek in concentration. “A quarter past six. The door was slightly ajar. That bothered me immediately, I always keep it locked. I pushed it open, switched on the light. First thing I saw was a pair of men’s shoes under my makeup table. I checked the label. 7½ triple Es.”

  “Niven’s size?”

  “Yes. He used to complain how hard it was to find stylish shoes that fit.”

  “What did you do when you found them?”

  “I had a bad feeling about it. I started opening dresser drawers and, sure enough, stuck in the back of one was a bloody shirt of his that I recognized, along with trousers, socks and underwear, all crumpled up.”

  “Did you show the clothing to the police?”

  “No. I got rid of them.”

  “You did what? ”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Don’t bark at me. I was frightened. I knew I had no alibi for Saturday. I didn’t want the police to find the clothes in my room.”

  “How did you get rid of them?”

  It’s not important.”

  It took all the reserve I had not to call her a string of names. Instead, I merely pointed out that what she’d done might be viewed as an obstruction of justice, maybe worse. Then I really zinged her. “Has it occurred to you that the police already may know the clothing was in your dressing room?”

  “How could they?”

  “You can bet they searched the studio from roof to basement What makes you imagine a team of professionals would miss something you saw immediately?”

  “They told the public—”

  “Just what they intend the public to know, nothing more. Maybe they wanted to see what you’d do with the clothing.”

  “Oh, God!” Her went white. She raised her hands histrionically and pressed knuckles to temples, wincing. “Oh, my God! It was not her most impressive performance.

  Up to then, Lara hadn’t said a word, but now she stood up and asked me to join her in the hall. McKinley was too caught up in her private angst to object.

  I followed Lara into the corridor. When we were out of earshot she turned so suddenly I almost bumped into her. “Gene,” she snapped, “I asked you to help me calm her down. You’re upsetting her worse than ever.”

  “Look, this whole business is poison. I can lose my license if I don’t report what she did with his clothes.”

  “Surely you won’t get in any trouble if you don’t report it tonight?” In her anger, her resemblance to Hilary was more pronounced than ever.

  “I’d love to let it rest. I’m worn out and hungry as hell.”

  Her manner softened at once. “Why? Didn’t you eat?”

  “I didn’t have time. After you called, I showered and shaved and hopped in the car.”

  “Poor baby!” She touched my cheek gently. “All to please Hilary’s cousin.”

  “Correction—as a favor to you.”

  “All right, let me atone. Say something comforting to Florence, then come home with me and I’ll fix you a light supper.”

  The stuff of fantasy...a quiet tête-à-tête with a dream girl. Except I couldn’t. “Lara, that’s the best offer I’ve had all month, but I’ve still got to drive back to Philly tonight.”

  “Absolutely not. I won’t hear of it, I can see you’re exhausted. If you had an accident on the road, I’d never forgive myself. And neither would Hilary.”

  “But—”

  “Hush, no arguments! You can use my sofa bed.”

  I tried to convince myself that going home with Lara would solve nothing, but at that moment, my common sense decided to take a leave of absence.

  I eased Florence’s mind on the subject of the police knowing about the clothes. No talk now about what I’d charge, she insisted I take her on as my client. I hedged on committing myself, but promised I’d at least look into the matter on her behalf.

  “One condition, though...I want to see your dressing room immediately.”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  The sooner the better. And while I’m there, I need to ask a few discreet questions around the studio.”

  “I’ll make arrangements so you can,” Florence assured me, suddenly seized with the spirit of cooperation.

  I waited at the hall entry while Lara fussed over her friend, plumping up the pillows of the armchair nearest the aquarium, turning off the air pump for the night—presumably to save Florence a few pennies in electricity—tuning in WQXR, bringing her enough Valium to sedate a horse.

  “That’s how she gets ready for bed,” Lara explained. We said good night and left Florence McKinley staring peacefully at her fish while the strains of “The Perfect Fool” played over her FM.

  STARLIGHT AND CHAMPAGNE CAN’T hide an insult to the stomach. I’m quoting Hilary. A lot of men would have been glaucous with envy at the prospect of my late supper with Lara in her Riverside Drive penthouse, but the reality of thawed quiche, wilted salad and stale croissants only would have been marginally palatable if washed down with large drafts of Veuve Clicquot or at the very least, a few pints of Watney’s Red Barrel. I got mineral water, uncarbonated.

  Lara’s apartment was lofty and slightly sumptuous. Florid floral arrangements graced polished mahogany bureaus, hand-woven straw placemats held down with sparkling silver service rested on a great curved glass dining table. Delicate crystal figurines danced motionless in carved shadow boxes on textured-paper walls that matched the deep-pile carpeting. The obligatory actor’s stock-in-trade of Stanislavski, Herman, Spolin, Corson and innumerable softcover playscripts filled the shelves of a tall lacquered oriental bookcase next to a beige armchair adjacent to a Lucite magazine caddy neatly stuffed with the latest numbers of Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, People, Variety and Back Stage. In the foyer, beside a pink-and-gold designer telephone placed on a butterfly-shaped end table, I saw the most recent issue of Ross Reports, the TV industry’s indispensable monthly update of the whereabouts of all major producers, casting personnel and talent agents.

  Admittedly, interior design isn’t my long suit I suppose my tastes are still small-town Ohio, but Lara’s glossy, sleek apartment reminded me too much of one of those never-been-lived-in model rooms you see in the furniture department at Gimbel’s.

  I nibbled at my feast as Lara nervously chatted about anything that occurred to her. She seemed determined to mention Hilary’s name at least once every minute. Her eyes kept glancing away from mine. When I was done eating, she asked me what I thought about her friend Florence’s predicament. Leaving the table, I chose the beige chair near the bookcase and sat down.

  “Well, she’s in a jam,” I conceded. “How bad I can’t say. If she’d tell me the truth—”

  Lara frowned. “You think she’s lying?”

  “She’s certainly holding back information. Like the name of the wo
man she thinks Niven was seeing on the side. And what she did with his clothing. And why she thinks she’s being set up.

  “Surely,” Lara interposed with a flip of her hand, “that’s because she feels the mysterious woman deliberately put the clothing in her room.”

  “But there’s a two-way discrepancy. Number one—why didn’t the police find the garments if they’ve been there all weekend?”

  “You told Flo they might’ve been left there by the inspector to trap her.”

  “I said that to rattle her into divulging what she did with them. Lou Betterman’s style isn’t subtlety. If he suspected her, he would have hit her with it when he questioned everybody this morning at the studio.”

  “So you don’t think the police are watching Florence?”

  Her inflection made me look up. “Why?”

  “This afternoon she thought someone was spying on her.”

  “Where? When?”

  “Outside her house in Brooklyn Heights. I rode there with Florence in the limo. We went straight from the studio. On the way up the front steps, she turned around and claimed there was a man in a dark coat watching her.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No. When I turned, she said he’d concealed himself in a doorway across the street I couldn’t spot him, though.”

  “Maybe,” I suggested drily, “it was one of Florence’s loyal fans.”

  The ghost of a smirk on Lara’s lips. “All right, what’s the other discrepancy that makes you think she wasn’t telling the truth about finding the clothes this morning?”

  “Presumably,” I said, “discovering his things frightened Florence into thinking they were planted deliberately to cast suspicion on her. Isn’t that the impression she gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if that’s the case—and if she really did find the clothing early this morning—how come she already thought someone was trying to frame her yesterday afternoon?”

  Lara’s forehead furrowed, then she realized what I meant “My God, she told me that on the phone when I called her long distance from your place!”

  “Exactly. Roughly fourteen hours before she allegedly saw his 7½ triple Es beneath her makeup table.”