“That used to be a Chinese restaurant,” Ollie observed, watching the town roll by from the passenger seat. He cracked a peanut shell, tossed the peanut in his mouth, and dropped the shell in an empty shopping bag.
Kate had stopped for gas. While the attendant had filled the tank and washed the windows of the borrowed Buick, she’d run into a neighboring grocery store for car snacks, sodas, and a couple of maps. On one map, she’d seen that State Route 15 was the best way to get to Long Beach; on the other, she’d seen a closer view of the street address in Long Beach. Ollie had been right; it would take close to an hour to get there.
Kate glanced at her watch as she drove and saw 2:40. Hugo had been missing for close to three hours.
As she drove, her mind sifted through everything she knew, trying to fit the pieces together.
The scarf had probably been dropped by Mrs. Fairchild. She’d bought Bonnie’s scarf in Paris, and a similar scarf for herself, with smaller polka dots and a chain border. She’d used the scarf to cover up her distinctive platinum blond hair, in case a neighbor glanced out their window, and left it behind by accident.
They’d been too preoccupied getting Ollie out of the house that morning to lock the front door.
“Ollie, when we went to auditions, how long did you stay in Bonnie’s car before you left for the bus? Bonnie and Tad took the car for a short drive, but someone else moved the car before that. I don’t suppose you know who that was?”
“It was me.”
Kate jerked her head to look at him. “You?”
He cracked a peanut shell. “I was a bit grumpy after you all left. I decided to drive home and got the key out of the glovebox. But driving terrified me, and I never made it off the studio lot. I never drove much in the old days, and all the pedals felt different. I came back and parked at the back, so I didn’t hit any cars.”
Kate laughed dryly. “I thought someone in our group drove home, murdered Lemmy, and came back.”
“You thought Hugo did that,” Ollie said in a tone of chastisement.
“I overheard a few things and thought the worst.” She squeezed the steering wheel. “I didn’t trust him.”
Well done on the breaking-my-heart thing. It just happened a little sooner than I expected.
She wondered what Hugo and Reuben had been talking about at the party, if it wasn’t Lemmy’s murder. Probably Ollie’s erased loan.
Suddenly that seemed obvious. The fake evidence had been the fake ledger, planted at the Galaxy. Reuben couldn’t go there, with the feds watching, so Hugo had done it—snuck into a gangster’s office so Ollie wouldn’t lose his house, probably during the day when the nightclub was quiet.
That’s why we had you do it, Reuben had said, and you handled it like a pro. Quick in and out, planted the fake evidence, and now Lemmy is dead and everything is good.
They were glad Lemmy was dead because he couldn’t tell Moe Kravitz, but they didn’t kill him.
“Cars move faster than I remember,” Ollie mused.
“Sorry, I can slow down if you want.”
“No, go faster. We’re on a rescue mission.”
Kate pressed harder on the accelerator and passed an old Model T, eager to find answers—and Hugo.
“Here,” Ollie said. “I shelled some peanuts for you.”
“Thank you.” She held out her hand. “I’m glad we’re doing this together.”
“Me too.”
She finally turned off State Route 15 onto Willow Street. They passed shops and houses, and then a strange sight appeared ahead of them, a few miles away.
A low, rounded hill was covered in tall oil derricks—hundreds of them, close together, towers of wooden scaffolding spiking upward, making the hill look like it was covered in sharp fur.
“Signal Hill,” Ollie said. “But they call it Porcupine Hill.”
“I see why. I thought we were in Long Beach.”
“We are. Long Beach surrounds Signal Hill. There’s oil all around here. You can smell it.”
“Yes,” Kate agreed. A thick, oily, sulfur smell.
They passed a few towering derricks along the road, intermingled with houses, schools, and billboards.
Ollie held the map. “Turn right at this corner. And then the second left.”
Kate turned, and then turned again onto Rowland Drive. She pulled the car up at the curb in front of 1640 Rowland Drive and turned off the engine. She stared out the window in amazement.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” Ollie said.
They both got out and stood side by side, exactly where Ollie and Frank Fairchild had posed for a photo, many years ago. The fence was still there, dividing the land, but the two properties had changed significantly, in different ways.
The property on the right looked abandoned. The wooden oil derricks, weather beaten. The pumps, silent.
The property on the left had newer derricks, and Kate could hear the pumps at work, filling the air with the heavy smell of fossil fuel long buried beneath the earth. There was a small office building with a sign: FAIRCHILD OIL COMPANY, 1640 ROWLAND DRIVE, LONG BEACH.
“Ollie, she isn’t leaving you a house. It’s her oil wells.”
“Why would she do that? Frank had lots of investments, but the oil was always one of his best incomes. She should leave it to her daughter.”
“It does seem strange.” Kate hugged herself, feeling the damp chill of ocean air. “Why go to the effort of changing her will on the same day she snuck into your house and took the frog and photo? It’s all connected, Ollie.”
“I don’t see how.”
Kate tipped her head, studying the two properties in front of her. “Ollie … you and Frank were standing on the wrong sides.” She went to the car, retrieved the photo, and held it up. Ollie stood on the left, Frank on the right.
“The photo must be reversed,” Ollie said. “Like when you put a slide in the projector the wrong way.”
“No … look at the house.” Kate pointed to the house far behind Frank in the photo—the neighbor who wouldn’t sell his land. Then she pointed to the real house in front of them, still on the right, behind the barren, unproductive property.
She understood, all at once, but didn’t want to tell Ollie.
He figured it out on his own, pointing to the productive side, with its working pumps. “That’s my land. Those are my oil wells.”
Kate waited for that to sink in before adding more weight. “I think he cheated you, Ollie.”
“No,” he said in low disbelief. “It must have been some sort of mix up.”
“The old letters he bought for you at auction were forgeries. I thought the auction house cheated him, but I think Frank must have been in on it. Or maybe the auction house never existed, and Frank hired someone to forge the letters. Did you ever see the auction house?”
“No,” Ollie said quietly. “I never saw any of it. The orange orchards. The houses he bought and rented out for me. I wrote checks to his investment company, and he gave me paperwork showing what I owned. Investing in the future, he said.”
Kate could picture it easily—Ollie, suddenly rich and famous, accepting the advice of a friend who had a good head for business.
“I had to sell everything when the stock market crashed,” Ollie said. “Frank handled that too. I got very little back, but that wasn’t surprising. The entire country was in a depression, everyone losing everything.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Only, I didn’t have anything to lose. I’d already given it to Frank.”
“He stole it,” Kate said. “Used you as his personal piggy bank, and when your land struck oil, he pretended it was his. Probably forged some documents, in case you ever noticed, knowing he could fast talk you into believing you were wrong.”
Ollie huffed a bitter laugh. “That was Frank—a fast talker.”
Kate looked at the photo in her hand, trying to understand what it had to do with Lemmy’s murder. “This photograph proves that he switched the properties—that you own all that oil. Did Mrs. Fairchild know about this photo?”
“She’s the one who took the picture that day. Put it in a frame and brought it over. Helped me find a place to put it, beneath the sword Frank gave me.” Ollie paused. “She used to make up little excuses like that to come over. I knew what she was up to but never let it go anywhere. We were just good friends.”
“I think she loved you, Ollie. If she knew her husband was cheating you, she would have told you.”
“But she changed her will, so she did know.”
Kate frowned, seeing that it didn’t add up. “She must have found out recently.”
“Frank died last year,” Ollie said. “Maybe he told her on his deathbed.”
Not out of guilt, Kate suspected, but fear of a lawsuit. “He warned her, Ollie. He knew how she felt about you, and that the two of you might get together someday and talk about finances. If you ever saw these oil wells and figured it out, you could sue his widow and child for millions of dollars for past profits. You could take everything they have.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, you should,” Kate said fiercely. “All that money they’ve been spending is yours. Frank probably cheated other people too, and your lawsuit could lead to dozens more.” She shivered in the damp air. It was all too familiar.
“He warned her,” Ollie said faintly.
“It’s just a guess, but it makes sense. She probably consoled herself that she could marry you, and then you’d have what was rightfully yours—and she’d have you. But she knew this photograph would give it all away. Ever since I arrived, she’s been asking me to help her get back into your house on a social visit. When you left the house on Monday, she saw her chance.”
“She took the frog too. I didn’t even notice it was gone.”
“And then Lemmy came home. She wasn’t just embarrassed; her entire fortune was at stake—and her relationship with you.” Kate imagined how horrified Mrs. Fairchild must have been, whirling to see Lemmy with his knowing smirk. “He didn’t know why she was there but must have sensed her fear. Knowing him, he blackmailed her—said he would keep quiet if she paid him.”
“I never liked him much,” Ollie muttered.
“She killed him in the kitchen. My guess, she pretended to go home for his blackmail money, and then snuck back inside, got the sword, and…” Kate couldn’t say it.
Ollie made a small sound of disbelief. “Dorothy wouldn’t kill someone.”
But Kate had overheard another side of Dorothy Fairchild—growing up rough with a knife under her pillow, coming to Hollywood with nothing but ten dollars and a pretty face, almost marrying a mobster until a better deal came along.
She remembered something else too. “She killed Glenn today. I don’t know why. Maybe Glenn overheard when Hugo confronted her and—” Kate was gripped by sudden panic. “Ollie! We have to go! We have to go now!” She ran around the car and had the engine running before Ollie had even opened his door.
“Where are we going?”
“Falcon Pictures! We have to find Hugo! He had the gun, but he wouldn’t shoot Glenn or hide it in Aurelio’s trailer. Mrs. Fairchild must have grabbed it from him. But Hugo wouldn’t run away and hide—he would warn people—he would warn me!—unless he was too hurt to move! Ollie—hurry!”
Ollie pulled his door closed, and she pressed the gas pedal.
Kate kept the car moving at top speed along the highway, crossing lanes to pass slower vehicles.
Ollie asked, “If Hugo figured this out last night, why didn’t he go to the police?”
“Probably the same reason he wanted to hide your sword—so your name wouldn’t be caught up in a big scandal, just as you’re starting to rebuild your life. The papers would love it—a beautiful killer and a stolen oil well fortune. He probably hoped she would give the oil back quietly, without reporters hearing about it.” She glanced at her grandfather. “It was the reporters during my kidnapping that drove you inside.”
“Not the reporters,” he said somberly. “The realization that I wasn’t a hero after all, just an ordinary fifty-year-old man.”
“You’ve never been ordinary, Ollie.”
“My granddaughter was missing, and then my daughter was dead, and I didn’t save either of you.”
Kate tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “We’re saving Hugo now. That makes us both heroes.” She had to believe that.
The traffic was heavier than it had been earlier. She weaved her way through the cars and trucks as quickly as she dared.
“That was brave of Hugo,” Ollie said, “confronting her when he knew she killed Lemmy.”
And foolhardy, Kate thought, especially taking the gun. A precaution, he’d called it. “He knew she wouldn’t want a scandal hurting Bonnie’s career. That’s what he banked on, anyway—you getting your oil wells back without any fuss. And in return, he wouldn’t tell the police about Lemmy.”
“But then she would get away with murder.”
Kate mulled that over. “I think he was more concerned about you getting your oil wells and rebuilding your life without a scandal. He doesn’t care so much about Lemmy.”
The guard at the gate of Falcon Pictures recognized Kate and waved her through, but she paused the car in front of him. “Do you know if the police have found the boy they were searching for? The one they think killed the tutor?”
“I know they took away the one who’s an actor. They never found his friend. The two boys were working as a team, I guess. Probably stealing something, and the tutor got in the way. That’s what I heard.”
Kate resisted an urge to set him straight.
She drove as quickly as she dared through the narrow studio roads, weaving the car around the usual chaos. As they neared buildings five and six, she was glad to see the crowd and the police cars were gone. But her doubts rose. “Ollie … if the police couldn’t find Hugo, how can we?”
“We’ll find him, Kate,” he said, with such hardy conviction she almost believed it.
The alley between Stages Five and Six was deserted. Kate parked and was relieved when Ollie stepped out of the car without seeming overly anxious about being back at a studio. Whatever transformation he’d undergone taking off Captain Powell’s hat seemed to have stuck. “Let’s start in Stage Five,” she said, hurrying that way. “That’s where Glenn was killed.” But the door wouldn’t open. She yanked in frustration.
“Let’s try the back,” Ollie said.
“Yes!” Kate ran in that direction, glancing back to see Ollie huffing behind her. She tried the other door on that side of the building—locked—then ran around the back corner, near the storage building where she’d gotten the suits. The wide roll-up door along the backside of Stage Five was open a few inches. “This way, Ollie!” She grabbed the rope on the wall and pulled, and the door rolled up. When it was several feet off the ground, she wrapped the rope and ducked inside.
Kate halted, her chest tightening at the endless darkness in front of her.
Ollie entered beside her, gasping for breath. “Must be … a switch somewhere.” He moved away from her along the outer wall, not seeming to mind the dark. Kate heard his echoing footsteps—a grunt as he ran into something—and then the sound of a large lever being pulled.
In the distance, a few lights flickered to life. Kate heard another lever, and more lights flickered on.
They’d entered the building behind the theater set, most of the enormous space out of view. Kate broke into a run, darting around equipment and plywood walls. “Hugo!”
Ollie’s voice joined hers, moving the other direction.
She ducked under wooden beams. Peered into rolling carts. Ran around a supply truck and opened the back. “Hugo!” She trotted up the stairs onto the theater stage, searched it quickly, and then returned to the ground floor. She dropped to her belly to look under the stage—forced herself to crawl into the ominous shadows—but only found empty space. She crawled out, relieved to be back in open air.
Ollie’s voice echoed in the distance. “We’re coming, my boy!”
Kate halted when she reached the front of the stage and saw the front row of audience seats where Glenn had died. She forced herself to walk down the center aisle, looking carefully between each row of seats. “Hugo!” Now that she was in the wide, open space, her voice sounded small and frightened.
Much of the enormous building was open and visible, and they ran out of places to look.
“He isn’t here!” Ollie called out.
“Let’s go to Stage Six!” Kate ran toward the back of the building, waited for Ollie, and they ducked under the rolling door together.
Across the pavement, Mrs. Fairchild emerged from the storage building where Kate had gotten the suits. She saw them and halted, looking harried, her eyes widening. “Ollie! What are you doing here?” The blood seemed to drain from her face.
“You!” Ollie cried with furious venom. He stalked toward her.
“I … I just found that boy in here. He’s been shot. I think he’s dead.” Mrs. Fairchild opened the door to the storage building behind her.