Howard cued up the film on a projector at the rear of the room. Mary Pat drew shut the velvet curtains on the narrow basement windows. One didn’t close completely, and a sliver of daylight sliced the room’s darkness.
“Everyone ready?” Howard asked. “Got your highballs filled?”
People settled into the armchairs. Callie draped her shawl around her shoulders—the basement was cooler than the August afternoon outside. Joanna took a seat near the rear. She’d have the best view of the room from here.
“We’re ready. Let her roll,” Mary Pat said.
With a flick-flick-flick, the projector sputtered to life. An orchestra’s flourish filled the room, and Starlit Wonder in big black-and-white letters appeared, exactly as in the rubber stamp.
“I always did have a good memory for graphics,” Callie whispered.
“It’s in black and white?” Joanna asked. “By the mid-1950s, I’d have thought it would be in color.”
“Lots of noir films were shot in black and white,” Howard said. “Another martini?”
“No, thank you.”
“Hush. Here’s Norma. She loved a party, that one,” Callie said. She turned to Joanna. “She’s the actress who played Brigid.”
“Joanna, you’ll like that day dress,” Mary Pat said. “Edith designed it with a stand-away collar. Remember it upstairs?”
She did. She saw why Head focused on the collar. Norma was slender but low-waisted, and the collar put the focus on the woman’s radiant face. The color—all that taupe—made sense now, too. In black and white, it was a good foil for the actress’s raven hair and fair skin.
“Whatever happened to her?” Mary Pat asked.
“Last I heard she’d moved to Boca Raton.”
Joanna could have added that she’d died a few years ago of breast cancer, but there was already too much death in the room.
“Look, there I am. What a figure,” Callie said as her character entered the set. The character waved her arms and said, “Brigid, honey, have you been crying?”
Unsurprisingly, the film followed the script, from the starlet’s laments over her ill-fated romance with the producer, to their loving scenes at dinner and their growing relationship. Even though Joanna had read the script, she was swept away by the story, wondering if the producer would ever leave his wife.
The reel flapped to a close.
Howard raised the lights. “Won’t be a sec.” He pulled the reel from the projector. “Anyone need a refill?”
The words, the lights jerked Joanna into the current day. Her glass was still half-full.
“I’ll take another, if you don’t mind,” Callie said. “Margarita, no salt.”
“How about a cola?” Mary Pat asked. “I bought a six-pack especially for you.”
“I could get it for you,” Joanna said. And make sure it hasn’t been tampered with, she added silently. Callie had been married to Sip. This might be enough of a reason for Mary Pat to want her dead.
“Next one,” Callie said. “In Bradley’s honor, tonight is a two-cocktail evening.”
“Do you think—I talked about this a bit with Callie and Howard” —Joanna shot a glance at Mary Pat— “do you think Starlit Wonder really did reflect a real case?”
Howard chuckled his signature hee hee hee. “I’ll say it did.” Howard’s knowledge could put a target on him, too. Joanna would have to keep her eyes on both him and Callie.
“At least, the Big Sip sure thought so. He put an end to the movie’s release like that.” Callie snapped her fingers. “We barely got further watching the movie than we are now when he shouted, ‘It’s over!’ and stomped out of the room.”
“He really wanted revenge. The screenwriter, that is,” Joanna said.
“I think he wanted to clear his sister’s name.” Callie shook her head. “I’ll never forget it. The Santa Ana was really howling the night we screened Starlit Wonder. When he threw open the door, it stayed open, and papers blew all over the screening room. One of the crew finally shut the door. We must have sat there in the dark for ten straight minutes before the director said, ‘That’s it. Everyone go home.’”
“Was the screenwriter there?” Joanna asked.
“He was there all right,” Howard said. “Looking pretty proud of himself, too.”
“Oh, but Sip. I’d seen him all sorts of ways, but never as angry as then,” Callie said.
“Probably terrified of his wife,” Mary Pat said.
“I wonder what ever happened to her?”
Joanna knew the answer to this question, too, and asked another one in response. “Are the characters in the movie a lot like they were in real life?”
“The Big Sip was practically a double,” Callie said. “I know I was cast for my looks.”
“You weren’t the only busty blond in town,” Howard said.
“As if you cared,” Callie said. “Hurry up with that drink.”
“In a minute. I’ve got to get this reel lined up.”
“Anyway, yes,” Callie continued. “I remember they gave me this awful coral nail polish. You can’t see it in the film since it’s black and white, but the screenwriter had insisted, said it made it more realistic. The director didn’t have to listen to him, but it was easier not to fight it.” She readjusted her shawl. “I suppose because we all knew the real story—or thought we did.”
“The Big Sip was a wonderful man,” Mary Pat said with sadness.
The room quieted. Callie turned to face her. Howard set down the tequila bottle. They all froze, waiting for the next words.
“All he wanted was a quiet life. All he wanted was a home where he could get away from Hollywood.” In these two sentences, her voice had fallen from sadness to despair. Tears webbed her powdered cheeks.
“Oh, honey.” Callie lowered herself into the chair next to Mary Pat’s and draped her arms around her shoulders. “We’ve all had a rough time lately, you especially. I understand.”
Joanna barely made out Mary Pat’s words beneath the sobs. “Bradley found out and took me away. Here. That was it.” The rest of her words were lost.
“He said he’d take care of you, didn’t he?” Callie said. Apparently this story was not news to her. “He was good to me. The Big Sip always took care of his girls.”
“It was Meredith, wasn’t it?” Howard said. “She chased you out of town.”
Mary Pat nodded. Her tears were subsiding. Callie patted her back and returned to her chair. A fresh margarita sat on the side table. Joanna had watched it being made, from splash of triple sec to lime, and it didn’t appear tampered with.
“Poor Bradley,” Callie whispered.
“I know.” Mary Pat’s words were hitched by sobs. “He really did want what was best for me.”
“Bradley had his quirks, but he was a good man,” Callie said. “I’m sorry he’s gone. I can’t even imagine how you feel, honey.”
Mary Pat drew in a long breath and let it go. “Thank you. I lost it there. I just…I guess I shouldn’t be drinking.”
“It’s okay, hon.”
Howard cleared his throat. “Let’s keep watching. If you’re all right with it, Mary Pat?”
Mary Pat took a wavering breath. “I’m sorry. It’s all the stress. And that poor girl in the film.”
“Do you think he really killed her? Sipriano, I mean.” Joanna softened her voice, hoping it would take the edge off of the question.
Mary Pat stared at her so long that Joanna was sure she’d decided not to answer. Then she said, “No.” Her voice was stronger now. She turned to the screen. “I’m fine. Let’s keep watching.”
The film again whirred to life. Joanna half-paid attention as scenes passed by—moody traffic, an impassioned argument between Brigid and her scriptwriter brother, lunch at an L.A. diner.
Yes, Mary Pat stood to gain from Bradley’s death, but what did she have now that she didn’t have before? She couldn’t have sold the house without her brother’s consent, but she wasn’t hurrying to put it on the market now. Could Joanna have been wrong about her? But who else had the access to murder Bradley and Luke?
Now they were at Starlit Wonder’s last act. The scene was in the Big Sip’s living room, and if this was what his real home looked like, life had been good to him. The sunken room was full of low, plush couches and sleek silver lighting. Doors opened to a palm-lined patio. The actress playing the producer’s wife strode into the scene, her evening gown swishing around her calves.
“Bradley designed that one,” Callie whispered to Mary Pat.
The character put her hands on her hips. “Have you been playing around with that tramp?” she said.
Ouch, Joanna thought. Not the finest dialogue.
“I swear to you, you’re the one who matters to me,” the producer said.
Something was familiar about the producer’s wife. It was vague, but nagging. Callie had said the producer’s wife had once been an actress herself. Maybe the casting director had found a double for that starlet, and Joanna had seen one or the other in a movie.
At last they came to the movie’s climax, the murder. The room was quiet. Even Callie didn’t speak.
On the screen, Brigid and the producer embraced, Brigid wearing the negligee Joanna had seen upstairs. The producer jerked the actress away from him. They shouted. Joanna found herself gripping the chair’s edge, her muscles tense.
“I’m sorry,” the producer said, gasping. He plunged a jagged-edged knife into the starlet’s side, drew his hand back, and stared at the blood.
“All that chocolate syrup,” Callie whispered.
“What?” Joanna said.
“They used it for blood in the black-and-whites,” Howard said.
“A living nightmare to get out of your hair. You didn’t want to be in a gangster flick, believe me,” Callie said.
Joanna’s breath caught. “You’re sure? They used chocolate syrup for this movie, too?”
“Of course.”
“Definitely,” Howard added. “I must have gained five pounds in Hollywood from fake blood alone.”
The negligee from the Edith Head wardrobe. That had not been chocolate syrup. She closed her eyes. The negligee had rust-brown stains. Oxidized. Absolutely not food. Her eyes flew open. Bradley had saved the negligee for a reason.
As she pondered this, the movie continued. The starlet’s funeral. The brother thrashed his hand against his steering wheel. Night was falling, and rain slicked the buildings.
Now they were at the producer’s house. The man playing the Big Sip looked strong and prosperous. In the scene, his wife straightened his tie. As she laughed, her hair fell back, revealing a beauty mark just to the outside of her left eye.
A mole. Just like the neighbor’s mole. Carol. Carol hadn’t lived next door long. Carol would have had easy access to the Stroden mansion.
In the film, the screenwriter drove the streets in a fury, rain pounding on the car, the windshield wipers unable to keep up. Still to come was the scene with the poisoned drink.
“Did the producer’s wife have a mole by her eye in real life?” Joanna asked.
“What?” Callie swiveled her head toward Joanna. “You ask that now?”
“I don’t know,” Mary Pat said.
“In fact,” Howard said, “she did. Like I said, the screenwriter insisted on every detail. He’d convinced the director it was the only way to bring the film to life. I remember the props gal complaining, because they had to have camellias in the vases even though we were filming in summer and they were out of season.”
It was Carol. Carol was Meredith Sipriano. Joanna stood up so fast, she tipped over the table next to her, sending her martini glass to the carpet. She had to call the police.
A quiver in the shaft of light through the crack in the curtains caught her attention. Feet, clad in brand new hiking sandals.
The skin on her back prickled from her skull to the seat of her skirt. And she smelled smoke.