Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Murder Case Closed —Chief of Police William Parker today announced that the murder case of Walter Maynard, who was found dead in front of the Hollywood Hotel two weeks ago, has been closed. There will be no other statement or information released about the case.
Autopsy results reveal that Maynard died of a heart attack. He had last been seen at the Lucky 8 Tavern on Highland in an argument with Lena Taylor, the costume design head of Lux Studios. Miss Taylor was questioned and released. She is not a suspect.
Lux Costumer off the Hook! —Today police announced that Lena Taylor, Lux Pictures’ head costumer, is no longer a suspect in the death of her old friend actor Walter Maynard, who died under mysterious circumstances. They’ve given no other details in the case, and won’t, so we are left to wonder: What did the star tailor fight with Maynard about an hour and a half before he died? And who attacked Miss Taylor two weeks later in front of Flavio’s Couture on Rodeo? Nothing but questions for this reporter, especially because there are rumors that Maynard had underworld connections, and his wife, Elsie Maynard, has disappeared. Could Mrs. Maynard have something to do with her husband’s death? This reporter is dying to know. Anyone with any information about Elsie Maynard should get in touch with this office immediately. Another curious element to this case is that Lena Taylor has recently been seen in the company of a mysterious woman— très intéressant ! Given the stellar fashion designer’s new missteps, could we be watching a fall as spectacular as Miss Taylor’s rise?
“What’s this?”
Paul tossed the newspaper to where Lena sat on the couch in her office. She caught it—and caught also that he looked ... not angry, or not exactly angry, but conflicted. Sad and angry both.
She looked down at the gossip column, scanning it quickly first, then reading it more closely, because she needed time to think of an answer. That stupid private investigator. Or maybe it was even the CIA or the FBI who had planted this item; she had no idea. She wondered which of them had told the police to back off the Maynard case. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d told Paul nothing about Julia, and that Runyon’s words weighed heavily on her, Paul’s suspicions, her own, the decision she must make.
She decided to lead with the good news. “Thank God they closed the case.”
“That’s not what I mean. Who’s the ‘mysterious woman’ they’re talking about?”
“Oh. An old friend who came in from out of town.”
He raised a brow. “Another old friend? You didn’t tell me that.”
“You were working. I probably just forgot.”
“You just forgot.”
Lena tried to smile, it was a miserable failure. “She came into town, I took her out ... it was nothing, Paul.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“It doesn’t say ‘one night’ here. It says ‘recently been seen in the company of.’”
“It’s just a gossip column. You know how they exaggerate—”
“Lena.” He sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. “Don’t do this to me. Please.”
Her chest tightened so she could not get a breath. “Maybe you already know. Didn’t Runyon tell you, since he’s so busy filling your head with suspicions about me anyway?”
Paul’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you do. Just like he’s filling my head with suspicions about you. Like the fact that you wrote propaganda films for the army. I didn’t know that. Runyon works for the CIA—I think you know that too. Maybe ... maybe you work for the CIA too. Do you?” Lena spoke the words quickly, so she didn’t have to think about them.
Paul said, “The CIA? Is that what you think?”
“You think I’m a spy, don’t you?”
He took a deep breath. “No. No ... I don’t know. You never talk about your past, and I ...”
“I do talk about it,” she protested—a small protest, very small.
“What do I know? You’re from a pig farm in Ohio. You don’t share memories, Lena, not like most people. It’s like you’re ... you’re frightened of them, or ... or something ...”
“No,” she said. “No.”
“This Walter Maynard, who just pops up out of the blue, and this ‘mysterious woman’—I have to hear about these things in gossip columns, for Christ’s sake.”
“You never told me about writing films for the army. And Runyon implies you’re a CIA operative—”
“I wrote training films for the army! I guess if you want to call them propaganda, go ahead. It’s not completely wrong. Yes, I did, so what? I hated it. I hated it all. I hated the army and those films. They were half lies, and I didn’t want to admit that I’d helped make them, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I came out looking for something that was right in the world, something true and beautiful, and I found you, and—” He shrugged helplessly. “But you’re a lie, too, aren’t you?”
His words broke her heart, and how could she say that no, she wasn’t a lie? How could she say she was something true, when she wasn’t, and when she was so afraid of her past? When she’d lied, but not just that, when she had a friend who was a Soviet spy, when she’d couriered secrets she was afraid to think about, when she was the reason Walter Maynard was dead. Could Paul bear those things? Was it right to ask him to, especially when associating with her could ruin his career?
“You can’t believe what Runyon tells you about me.” She heard the desperation in her voice. “Why do you believe him?”
“I’ve known him for a long time, Lena.” Paul sounded resigned. “We were in the army together, in the signal corps. He left before I did. When I got out, he approached me to come work for the CIA. I refused. I was done with all of it. He doesn’t trust me, but he’s never quite let me go, and I’ve never known him to be a liar.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”
“He warned me to be careful. I didn’t know what to think.”
“I’m not a spy,” Lena said.
“Okay.” He nodded shortly.
“You don’t believe me.”
“You’re not a spy. Okay. Tell me something real.”
“I love you.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “That I believe. But I don’t think it’s enough, Lena. Not now. I think you’re keeping things from me. Secrets. How can we go into marriage like that? What are you not telling me?”
She wanted to cry. Tell him. It should be easy. Open her mouth. Tell him her real name. Tell him who Walter really was. Those things weren’t so hard, were they?
“Just one thing,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes. “Lena Taylor isn’t my real name. My real name is Elsie Gruner. I changed everything, even my age. I’m not thirty. I’m twenty-six. I came to LA with Walter, and actually ...” The next part was hard to say. “Actually, he was my husband.”
Paul was quiet. She could not bear his silence, or not seeing his face. She opened her eyes. What was his expression? She couldn’t tell. Sorrow? She couldn’t read it, she didn’t know.
She could think of nothing to do but keep talking. “We weren’t together very long. I hardly knew him, but ... he was a small-time pool hustler and I helped him. We came out here because he wanted to be an actor and I wanted out of Zanesville. But he was a terrible actor. I mean really terrible.” A half laugh, half cry. “Then I met Harvey and Charlie and they liked my designs and Charlie got me into Chouinard and I left Walter. Well. We left each other.”
Paul looked so helplessly confused. Like a small boy really. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because we weren’t divorced, and ... and I was afraid that if I tried to divorce him, he would come back and ... do exactly what he did.”
“Which was what?”
“Try to blackmail me.”
“About what? Was he a criminal or something? Did the two of you ... I don’t know, do something illegal?”
“No. Nothing like that. He threatened to tell you I was married, and he wouldn’t give me a divorce because he saw me as his way into an acting career. He would have caused a scandal, and that would have led to ...” She paused, trying to find the words. “Led to other things.”
“Other things?” Paul asked warily. “Like what? You aren’t telling me that you—”
“No. No. I didn’t hurt him. I gave him money, just like I said.”
“Then what?”
“Even though I didn’t kill him, Walter’s dead because of me. Oh ... please believe me when I tell you I don’t want you involved in all this.”
He frowned deeply. “What are you talking about? Involved in what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Another lie?”
“No, not a lie.” Lena spoke desperately. “It’s just ... it’s dangerous, and I can’t ...”
“You’re involved in something dangerous?” Paul rose from the couch. “Lena—Elsie—whoever you are—for God’s sake. Does this have something to do with that attack the other day? Those men?”
“It wasn’t an attack, but yes. I’m being followed. The FBI. Maybe the CIA too. I don’t know, Paul, but please—don’t you see how you can’t get involved in this?”
“Are you telling me Runyon’s right? You’re some kind of ... of agent?”
“No!” The word came out with more force than she intended. “No! Paul, please. Please, just listen to me. I love you. I just ... I can’t tell you this yet. Please just trust me.”
He gave her a look—such a look. Amused, wondering, perplexed, angry ... she saw all those things. “How can I trust you, when you’ve just told me you’ve lied to me about something as basic as your name?”
Lena’s vision blurred. “Because I love you, and I don’t know how this is all going to work out, and I’m trying to protect you.”
“How what is going to work out? You’re scaring me, Lena. It’s supposed to be the other way around. I’m supposed to protect you .”
“You didn’t do something stupid years ago. Believe me, Paul, I’m trying to fix everything.”
He stared at her in obvious disbelief. “You’re really not going to tell me what’s going on.”
There was too much at stake, and Paul was too important. Until Julia was gone—really, truly gone—Lena refused to endanger Paul, whatever it cost her. “No.”
He exhaled, obviously frustrated, a great rush of breath, a muttered curse. Then, without another word, he went out the door.
She watched him leave with a slow and terrible sadness. She could do nothing else. She had taken a risk. All she could hope was that eventually Paul would understand. For now—
The constant hum of the sewing machines downstairs stopped abruptly.
Lena sighed wearily. What now? She was in no mood for another emergency.
Then Lena heard the boom of Higgy’s voice reverberating through the floor. God, not this, not now.
Reluctantly, Lena left her office, ignoring Shirley’s watchfulness—Lena didn’t want to think about what her secretary might have heard between her and Paul. Lena went down the hall and down the stairs, setting herself to Determined Costume Head, but the moment she reached the sewing room and saw Higgy pacing, she realized she should have stayed in her office.
“You!” he thundered the moment he saw her. “You are just who I wanted to see.”
“My office is upstairs.” Lena tried for calm. “You didn’t need to disrupt the entire costume department.”
“I wanted to see if Runyon was right.”
“Right about what?”
“About the schedule.”
The seamstresses wouldn’t meet Lena’s eyes. “I don’t understand. But maybe we could talk about this somewhere else so everyone could get back to work?”
“I’ve been patient with you, Lena,” Higgy said. “The gossip and Claudia Mazur, and now this thing with Runyon—”
“What thing with Runyon?” They all watched, every seamstress. Lena was afraid to look behind her; she feared the cutters were gathered in the doorway.
“He wants you off the film unless you can find a way to work together. I don’t have time for all these histrionics.”
“What histrionics?” Lena asked, but she knew. She knew exactly what this was. Runyon’s pressure. She heard the message clearly, though Runyon had obviously told Higgy only that he could not work with her. Do what we want, or you lose your job. Get the CIA the record. Get them Julia. This now, on top of what had just happened with Paul. Desperately she said, “Higgy, I don’t know what he’s talking about. Everything is going well—”
“The schedule is right here. You’re behind, even I can see that. And what’s all this?” He pulled the newspaper from an inside suit coat pocket. “Suspect in a murder case? Mysterious women? Falling stars? Goddamn it, Lena, I warned you! Do you know what the papers have been saying about Twenty Steps to Heaven ?”
“Um, no—”
“ Nothing , that’s what! The gossip columns are all about you, not about the feud we planted between Helen Richards and Tony Curtis. Not about the expensive location shoot in New Mexico. And not about the Oscar talk we paid for. How do you think I feel about that?”
“Not good,” Lena said quietly.
“Not good. Ha! Not good!” Higgy laughed and took in the very alert staff. “She says not good! Yes, Lena, I do not feel good about it. So make nice with Runyon before I do what he wants! That’s an order!”
The humiliation itself was too much to bear; her face burned as she turned to go. But these seamstresses were her employees; she would not run away. Her cheeks might be a furious red, but Lena lifted her chin and walked with dignity back to the stairs, ignoring their looks, ignoring the cutters gathered, as she’d expected, in the doorway. Everyone knew Higgy Braxton’s tempers. She would not give him the satisfaction of breaking her before her staff.
Upstairs, both Connie and Shirley waited for her. Connie said, “What happened? I heard him yelling.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Lena managed through a constricted throat.
She went into her office and collected her purse, her sketchbooks, the things she thought she couldn’t do without for the next several days. Then she went to find Michael Runyon.