Sheri Cobb South Read online

  “Who can say unto the Lord, ‘What workest thou?’ ” intoned the rabbi, bringing Frankie’s attention back to the burial service. “He ruleth below and above; He ordereth death and restoreth to life.”

  Frankie was almost certain it had not been the Lord but someone else entirely who had ordered Arthur Cohen’s death. Maybe it was a pity the actual death hadn’t been a bit more dramatic, like the script girl’s description; if there had really been blood everywhere, the police might have been a bit more thorough in their investigation.

  When the rabbi had finished, Maurice Cohen shoveled the first scoops of dirt onto his brother’s casket. There was something very final about the thud of earth on the lid of the casket, as if any secrets Arthur Cohen’s body might have revealed were being buried with him.

  Frankie frowned as a new thought occurred to her. It was true that there wasn’t any blood, but what if there was some other form of evidence? When he burst onto the soundstage, Arthur Cohen was practically foaming at the mouth. Surely it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think he might have spilled or coughed something onto his clothes—certainly not blood, but something else, something that could be tested for poison. Since Mr. Cohen had fallen forward and landed face down on the floor, she hadn’t seen anything. She glanced at the hearse from the Shady Rest Mortuary. No, she hadn’t seen anything, but she knew who would have, if there had been anything to see.

  The rabbi bowed his head and began to back away from the grave. “In the world which He will create anew, where He will revive the dead, construct His temple, deliver life, and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and uproot foreign idol worship from His land, and restore the holy service of Heaven to its place, along with His radiance and splendor, and may He bring forth His redemption and hasten the coming of His anointed one . . .”

  A murmured chorus of “amens” marked the end of the prayer, and the knot of mourners clustered about the casket began to disperse.

  “Do we go, or stay?” asked Kathleen, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “We’re more than sightseers, but not exactly mourners, either.”

  “We stay,” Frankie said decisively. “Remember, Officer Kincaid is giving us a ride, and he can’t leave until the mob goes home.”

  Kathleen muttered something about getting back in time for Fibber McGee and Molly.

  “Give you girls a lift?”

  Frankie hadn’t heard Mitch’s approach—hadn’t even known he’d come to the funeral at all, in fact—and was annoyed to find her heart racing like a roadster competing for the Vanderbilt Cup. Even more distressing was the fact that Mitch didn’t seem to be suffering any similar ill effects, standing there in his dark suit and tie with his hands dug into his pants pockets smiling at her as if they had parted on the chummiest of good terms.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked frostily.

  “Same thing you are, I imagine. Paying my last respects to the guy who gave me my big break. So do you want a ride back to the Studio Club, or not?”

  “Not.” Frankie tossed her head and set out in the direction the young policeman was stationed. “Officer Kincaid is giving me a lift as soon as he gets off duty.”

  Mitch grinned and fell into step beside her. “If you really want to ride in a paddy wagon, I can arrange it.”

  “I’d rather ride in the front, if it’s all the same to you!”

  “I’d love a ride, Mitch, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Kathleen put in eagerly.

  “I thought you were coming with me and Officer Kincaid,” Frankie protested, feeling somehow betrayed.

  Kathleen shook her head. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

  “Great!” Mitch pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit coat and swiped it across his forehead. “It’s gotten awfully warm. We could stop at Schwab’s for an ice cream soda, if you’d like.”

  “Chocolate, with whipped cream and a cherry on top?” Kathleen asked eagerly, Fibber McGee apparently forgotten. “Heavenly! What girl could resist?”

  Mitch reached out a hand to steer Kathleen around a low headstone. “I don’t know, you might be surprised at the girls these days who’d rather drag a fellow all over town. Come on, Kathleen, my car’s over here. See you around, Frances.”

  He led the British girl away, leaving Frankie alone to cool her heels while she waited for her ride.

  “Sorry to take so long,” the young policeman said, joining her at last. “Some of these folks don’t give up easily. Can you imagine, begging for autographs at a funeral? Sheesh!”

  Lost in a waking nightmare in which Mitch and Kathleen sat hip to hip at Schwab’s soda fountain, heads bent together as they sipped a single ice cream soda through two straws, Frankie greeted Kincaid more warmly than the situation warranted.

  “Thanks awfully for giving me a ride, Officer,” she said, smiling up at him as she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.

  “I’m off-duty now,” he reminded her. “Why don’t you call me Russ?”

  “Russ, then,” she echoed, trying it out. “Would you mind making one tiny stop on the way back? I have an errand to run.”

  “I’d be glad to take you anywhere you want to go.” He grinned dopily into the wide brown eyes sparkling up at him. “Just name it.”

  Her forehead puckered in concentration as she recalled the writing on the side of the long black car. “Four twenty-two Camden.”

  A short time later, the squad car drew up to the curb in front of the Shady Rest Mortuary.

  “A funeral parlor?” Russ’s eyebrows lowered ominously. “Miss Foster, I warned you—”

  “I’ll only be a minute,” Frankie said brightly, hopping out of the car and slamming the door on his protests.

  Frankie had never been in a funeral parlor, her grandmother’s body having been laid out in the parlor of the old antebellum home where she’d lived for more than fifty years. Inside, the Shady Rest was sparsely yet carefully furnished to convey an air of churchlike dignity without declaring in favor of any particular religion. The heels of her black patent leather shoes clicked on the polished hardwood floors, sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness.

  “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?”

  A stirring sound emanated from the back room, and a moment later a tall, thin man bustled forward, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Good afternoon, young lady.” Frankie found his ingratiating smile somehow at odds with the solemnity of his dark suit and necktie. “How may I help you in your time of bereavement?”

  “You can’t. That is, I’m not bereaved.” Frankie took a deep breath and started afresh. “I’m here on behalf of the Arthur Cohen family.” That much was true, so far as it went, although Arthur Cohen’s family would have been surprised to hear it.

  “Dear me!” exclaimed the mortician in some chagrin. “Were they unhappy with the arrangements?”

  “No, no, the service was lovely,” Frankie assured him hastily. “I’ve just come for Mr. Cohen’s clothes—you know, the things he was wearing when he died.” She only hoped his clothes hadn’t been returned to his wife or, worse, destroyed.

  “How very odd.” He rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture. “Miss Lamont—Mrs. Cohen, that is—indicated that there was no need to return the late Mr. Cohen’s clothing.”

  “Maybe she changed her mind,” Frankie suggested, crossing black-gloved fingers behind her back. “She was probably too distraught to know what she wanted, poor thing.”

  Even as she said the words, Frankie knew this was laying it on a bit thick. When she’d spoken to Miss Lamont, the “poor thing” had been as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

  “I suppose you’re right. As luck would have it, I haven’t yet disposed of the deceased’s clothing. If you’ll wait right here, I’ll fetch it.”

  He disappeared through the back door, and returned a few minutes later carrying a bulging canvas sack.

  “I’m afraid they haven’t been laundered,” he said
apologetically.

  “That’s perfect! That is,” Frankie amended quickly, “I’m sure Miss Lamont won’t mind.”

  She thanked him as profusely as she dared without arousing suspicion, then carried her prize outside to Russ’s squad car, where the young policeman sat impatiently drumming his thumbs against the steering wheel.

  “Jeepers creepers!” he exclaimed. “What are you up to now?”

  Frankie tugged open the drawstring and rifled through the sack. At last she located a once-crisp white cotton shirt. She held it up by the shoulder seams, displaying the greenish-brown stains liberally spattered across the front.

  “There! Smell that!”

  Russ wrinkled his nose in distaste, but obediently sniffed at the stained fabric.

  “Well?” Frankie demanded.

  “I’d say it was some kind of herbal concoction.”

  “Exactly! Arthur Cohen drank some kind of herbal tea for his stomach, and his brother knew it.”

  Kincaid gave an exasperated sigh. “So what? My grandmother swears by chamomile and honey. Says it calms her nerves.”

  “Is she still living?”

  “Yep. She’ll be eighty-three next August.”

  “That’s more than poor Arthur Cohen can say.” Seeing Russ was not impressed, she hurried on. “Maurice didn’t even have to be present to knock his brother off; all he had to do was slip something into the canister, and the next time Arthur drank his daily dose—bang! He’s—he’s—achoo!”

  “Gesundheit.”

  “Thank you.” Frankie fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief, and dabbed at her nose. “It’s that herbal stuff. It makes me sneeze. But that’s nothing to what it did to poor Arthur Cohen.”

  Russ heaved a sigh. “Look, I know you’re a good kid, and your heart’s in the right place. If I take this stuff and have our boys in the lab I.D. it, will you please give it a rest?”

  Frankie was all smiles. “Oh Russ, would you do that?”

  Russ raised a finger in warning. “If I do, will you quit playing detective?”

  “But what if it turns out to be poison?”

  “If it turns out to be poison—which I doubt—the police will take it from there.”

  With this Frankie was forced to be content. Russ dropped her off at the Studio Club, and she entered the common room to find Roxie, clad in a man’s sweat suit of gray jersey, stretched out on the floor doing slimming exercises. The redheaded girl sat up at her entrance.

  “Hey, Frankie, where’s Kathleen? You didn’t lose her at the cemetery, did you?”

  Frankie shook her head. “She got a better offer. I take it she hasn’t made it back yet?”

  “Nope—two—three—four.” She leaned forward to touch her toes. “Haven’t seen hair nor hide of her.”

  “How long does it take to drink an ice cream soda, anyway?” Frankie muttered, starting up the stairs.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?’ ” Frankie shoved Mitch and Kathleen and their shared soda to the back of her mind. “What to catch a movie? There’s a new Clark Gable picture at Grauman’s.”

  Roxie, now on her feet, bent deeply from the waist and looked up at Frankie from between her legs. “Sorry, maybe another time.” She gave Frankie an upside-down grin. “I’m going to a gramophone dance at the YMCA with a dreamboat named Harry.”

  “Some girls have all the luck,” Frankie grumbled in mock indignation before scampering up the remaining stairs.

  Upstairs, she fitted her key into the lock and opened the door. The room was dark, as she’d expected. She switched on the light and found a little pile of letters on the floor. Someone—probably Roxie—had collected her mail and pushed it underneath the door. Frankie picked it up and thumbed through the correspondence, keeping those addressed to her and tossing Kathleen’s onto the other girl’s bed. Her spirits lifted somewhat at the sight of her mother’s handwriting; sometimes her father tucked a fiver inside. With the fate of The Virgin Queen in limbo, she could certainly use the money. She put the letter aside to save for last.

  There was one letter addressed to “Occupant” trying to sell her a set of encyclopedias, and one for Kathleen from someone with the improbable name of Harvey Mudd. It bore a West Virginia postmark, which surprised Frankie. She didn’t know Kathleen had any American acquaintances outside Hollywood. Now that she thought of it, Frankie couldn’t remember her roommate ever getting any letters from relatives in England, either. Maybe they couldn’t afford the expensive air mail postage or maybe her family, like Mama, disapproved of Kathleen’s ambitions. Frankie decided it was better not to ask, since it might be a sore point. She kicked off her shoes, peeled off her stockings, and curled up on the bed to read the latest news from home.

  This was not all joy. Not only was there no five-dollar bill from her father, but Mama was full of the news that Charlie Compton, that nice boy who had escorted Frankie to her high school’s senior prom, had come home last weekend from the University of Georgia and announced his engagement to that Thompson girl who everyone knew dyed her hair. The wedding was set for December. This was related in a slightly accusatory tone, as if it were somehow Frankie’s fault and could have been avoided, had she been home to prevent it.

  Chapter 10

  Shall We Dance (1937)

  Directed by Mark Sandrich

  Starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

  The next morning Frankie had the Studio Club all to herself, since most of her housemates were out earning their living. The lucky ones were off acting in bit parts or even minor speaking roles; the less fortunate, attending endless casting calls or, worst of all, waiting tables. Bored with her own company, Frankie wandered into the common room where the large wooden-cased radio held pride of place. She clicked on the knob and turned up the volume.

  “—Cream of Wheat is so good to eat—”

  Frankie made a face and twiddled the tuning knob.

  “—Ma Perkins, brought to you by Oxydol—”

  Another tweak of the knob brought her to the CBS station.

  “—The Romance of Helen Trent, who sets out to prove that because a woman is thirty-five, romance in life need not be over—”

  Frankie heaved a sigh of annoyance that the very mention of romance should bring Mitch Gannon to mind. There was absolutely no reason why she should cling to the possibility that Kathleen’s letter had been from a previously unmentioned beau back East. Just because Mitch had kissed her once on a train, it didn’t mean they were a couple. Kisses these days didn’t mean anything at all. Just look at the movies: actors and actresses who couldn’t stand one another in real life kissed with reckless abandon on the silver screen. Things had been different in Mama’s day, of course; back then, a kiss was tantamount to a proposal of marriage. But everything had changed since the War, and people were more sophisticated about such things now. Still, sometimes Frankie couldn’t help wondering if the new sophistication was really such an improvement.

  She switched off the radio and picked up a tattered copy of Variety magazine. She flipped idly through the pages, pausing here and there to admire the glossy black-and-white photographs of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur, and wondering which of her housemates had torn out the picture of Errol Flynn that was supposed to be on page fourteen. She skimmed the articles detailing upcoming productions, until one item caught her attention.

  “—Worldwide Studios announced Tuesday that filming will begin next week on The Hawk and the Dove. A swashbuckling costume drama set in Elizabethan England, the picture has a budget of almost two million—”

  Frankie gasped, unable to believe her own luck. What were the chances that another studio was about to produce a film that so closely paralleled her only real acting experience? She flipped the magazine closed and checked the date on the front cover. It was last week’s issue, which meant that “next week” in the article meant this week in real time.

&
nbsp; She hadn’t a moment to lose. Clasping the glossy publication to her chest, she leaped up from her chair and clattered up the stairs to her room. She descended half an hour later, clad in a floral georgette dress and a wide-brimmed picture hat which, she hoped, would conceal the fact that she hadn’t taken the time to set and style her hair. At the foot of the stairs, she rummaged through her handbag in search of loose coins. There were not as many of these as she would have liked, but she decided to splurge on a taxi anyway. It would be quicker than taking the bus, and time was of the essence.

  “Worldwide Studios,” Frankie instructed the driver as she climbed into the back seat. “And step on it!” She’d always wanted to say that.

  The cabbie needed no further encouragement. The ride that followed was the longest twenty minutes of Frankie’s life. Clutching the edge of the seat for support, she watched as the needle on the speedometer crossed forty. As it approached fifty, she closed her eyes and prayed silently for deliverance. With a screech of brakes, the taxi finally lurched to a stop.

  “Here you are, Worldwide Studios.”

  With shaking fingers, Frankie counted out the fare and breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the cabbie drive away. Then she squared her shoulders and followed the same procedure she’d practiced so many times before since arriving in California.

  “Good morning,” she told the receptionist at the front desk. “My name is Frances Foster, and I’m an actress. I saw in Variety that Worldwide is starting to film a costume picture. I was working on The Virgin Queen over at Monumental, and now that filming there is in hiatus, I wondered if there might be a place for me here.”

  The receptionist had that “don’t call us, we’ll call you” expression on her face, but at the mention of Monumental Pictures something sparked in her eyes. “Straight down the hall, third door on the right.”