Thirty-Nine

Babe, what are you doing?”

“Detective Whitbread warned me about you. He said he’d forbidden you to approach me but that, if you did, I should contact the police. He said you were dangerous.”

I sat back in my seat, my hands wide in surrender. “I’m sorry, I just want to help my brother.”

“Your brother! Your brother has been a pest and an obstruction for too long. Why is he always trying to cover for Kathlyn? She’s the one who shot George. She met him at the studio and she shot him. She’s the one who locked Leeder in with the leopards. He was blackmailing her about Vic and the Copper King. Her husband already suspected Vic wasn’t his. He was jealous of the Copper King, even though she never let him make love to her. That’s what she said, anyways. She told me. I was the only one she confided in. But she was desperate to keep her husband from knowing Mr. Clark was around again, and she was desperate to keep Selig from knowing she had a kid. Kathlyn Williams killed George and she would have been blamed, if your brother didn’t keep trying to cover for her.”

“No,” I wanted to say, “it was Col. Selig.” But I was staring down the muzzle of the wicked little gun, aware that it could do terrible damage. Babe held it in both hands, pointing it steadily at me, the big diamond gleaming on her finger. She didn’t really believe I was that dangerous, she couldn’t.

“Kathlyn didn’t shoot your husband because he censored her films, and neither did Alden. You shot him because you wanted to marry Alonzo Swift.” I was angry at myself for not seeing it before. I was so convinced Hyde was working for Edison, that Leeder blackmailed him, and Selig killed him, but I was wrong all along. What a vicious little viper. “What did you do, get him to censor Kathlyn’s films? She’s the one you’ve wanted to hurt all along, isn’t she? Why?”

There was no way to pretend I didn’t know. She was going to shoot me, then claim I’d attacked her. Somehow, she must have thought that would convince the police that I was capable of staging the leopard attack with Kathlyn, in order to save Alden. They would be portrayed as lovers who’d killed together to protect Kathlyn’s career. That would not only destroy them but Clara and her children as well. And I’d be portrayed as the mad sister helping them. How was it that I hadn’t seen all this before?

She laughed. It was a cackle. “Kathlyn got all the best parts. She was going to get Selig to send her to California because of those awful animal pictures.”

“So you wanted to get rid of Kathlyn Williams so you could be the one to go to California?”

“I want to be the female lead. Alonzo will be the male. Whoever goes out there will be big, really big. Wait and see.”

“How did your husband feel about that?”

“Poor George. He didn’t understand. He thought that if he censored Kathlyn it would be enough to prove that he wanted to help me as a film star. But he still wanted me to come back to him. Of course, that couldn’t be. Alonzo and I belong together.” She smiled at the ring on her finger.

“So you got him to meet you at the studios and he let you get close enough to shoot him. But even that wasn’t enough for you. You planned to make it look like Kathlyn had done it. You sent a blackmail note to Kathlyn to get her to the studios, didn’t you?”

“Your brother tried to make it look like suicide but only managed to make them think he was the one who shot George.”

“And Leeder saw him. Did Leeder see you the night you shot your husband? Is that why he had to be killed?”

She wrinkled her nose. “He was a lecher, just like everybody says. He suspected something and was threatening to tell the police he’d seen me at the studio the night George was shot. It was his own fault. He insisted I meet him at the cage. He was going to film there the next day and he wanted to show me what a big strong guy he was. I decided he needed to go.”

“And you thought if you could get Kathlyn Williams to show up at the same time you could shift the blame to her…for whatever you decided to do to Leeder, didn’t you? You slipped a note into her purse at the roadhouse, demanding so much money she’d have to show up to try to plead with her blackmailer for more time.”

“Who would have thought she could get $10,000 that night?” Babe asked. “Your brother, again. If he hadn’t interfered, he wouldn’t have suffered. It’s his own fault. He could have written scenarios for me.”

“So what happened when you met with Leeder at the cage? Did you intend all along to lock him in and leave him there with the leopards?”

“At first I just thought I could sweet talk him into keeping quiet…string him along a bit. We were in the big part of the cage and the leopards were in the smaller part, with the gate down. He was taunting them, trying to impress me. But then he started pawing at me and grabbing at my skirt. That I couldn’t tolerate. So I jumped out of the cage and locked him in…he’d stupidly left the key in the lock. He started to say truly disgusting things to me…so I grabbed the rope and lifted the gate up. I left before the leopards got to him. I’d had enough.”

I was horrified that she’d admitted so casually to causing Leeder’s death. Her face remained perfectly calm and she patted her hair as she gazed at herself in the mirror.

“But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You still wanted to make the police think someone else was responsible. So you tried again at the party. You locked me in the cage and sent Kathlyn Williams down. You put something into my drink, didn’t you?” She grinned. “Then you hit Kathlyn on the head so she’d be found there.” I remembered those terrifying minutes in the leopards’ cage. “And you teased the leopards with sticks to rile them. What kind of a monster are you?”

“I’m a film star,” she said. “You’re worse than your brother. You wouldn’t see what was right in front of you…that Kathlyn Williams was the guilty one. You kept interfering.” She took one hand off the gun to pull at her hair. Tresses fell to her shoulder, then she ripped the sash of her dress. “You and Kathlyn acted out the scene in the cage to try to save your brother and, when that didn’t work, you came after me, just like the detective warned me you would.”

“No,” I said, holding still, afraid that any movement would provoke her to shoot. “Don’t!”

She smiled. Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me. Her hand wavered and I dropped to the floor. I saw Whitbread’s long arm reach out to grab the gun. They struggled. She shot, and I felt a huge mass fall on top of me. I screamed. Fitz groaned and rolled off me. He’d been hit.