Chapter 23 Loud Enough to Wake the Dead
Loud Enough to Wake the Dead
A sign outside the corner market informs people they can extend their credit, and a line of people creeps along the block. On the other side of the street, bougainvillea climbs up and off a stone wall, blaring against a darkening sky, and a woman reaches to catch her hat when it lifts in a breeze.
It’s futile to think of what she might have done differently, but Frankie’s mind revisits certain spots, like a tooth that draws your attention because it hurts.
The night with the gun and the woman and child in the alley, what would’ve happened if she’d told the truth?
If her priority had been Jack, and not just appearances?
Giving him the ugly truth about his behavior would’ve meant he’d most likely have been sober the night of the premiere, and maybe nowhere near June or this mess.
It’s early evening when she arrives at the bungalows to explore the vacant lot.
The air is crisp, and there is the scent of crushed leaves and overturned earth.
She’s looking for prints when the barking begins next door.
In seconds the dog’s snout is straining against the space between the fence’s slats.
“I recognize you,” a voice says. Darlene, the neighbor. She’s trying to silence her dog and see what Frankie’s doing at the same time. “We’ve had some rubberneckers over there, but they’re mostly at the windows. Looking for what, I don’t know.”
Saliva drips from the dog’s mouth. “I was trying to find shoe prints.”
“Louise Foster and her big mouth. I play bridge too. I was there when she blabbed to that tabloid reporter. Hold on, let me get this dog out of here.”
Waiting, Frankie studies the ground. If there were prints near the wall, they’re long gone. The ground is clean, raked of leaves, the soil smooth and undisturbed.
When she returns, Darlene says, “Cliff Foster never went anywhere near the property the next day. He and Louise were in San Diego. They came three days later, and by that time, people had been crawling all over everywhere.”
“He just made it up?”
“You work in Hollywood. You’re shocked by a lie?”
A reaction she’s used to. She’s found people either love Hollywood and are curious about it, or hate it and are somehow resentful of it.
It’s like people think we’re cheating by having stars that look flawless and glamorous and are rich and loved, Nico once said, and Frankie resisted the urge to remind him that, yes, it was cheating in some regard.
“But who’d want that kind of attention? Why would you want people to think that a killer was on your property? ”
Darlene laughs. “Why would someone who’d been trying to unload a property because he can’t afford to build a house want free press?
People are obsessed with this murder. They’ve been driving by and calling him to ask about price and parcel size, and I actually think he’s even got someone interested. ”
“And what about you? Your claim that Jack was there that night. That’s not for attention?”
Now Darlene straightens, clearly offended. “He was there. I heard it when someone walked to that back bungalow after midnight. Probably more like one a.m., actually. I know he was there.”
Or just after one a.m., Frankie thinks. She remembers the dog barking when Jack hit the midway part of the path, just past June’s bungalow. “Darlene, if your dog was barking, that means the person was already past June’s house. Why would Jack go past his own fiancée’s house?”
Though Darlene doesn’t say anything, Frankie catches her looking toward the bungalows as if searching for an explanation.
Off her silence, Frankie continues. “What that says to me is it could’ve been anyone. You didn’t get up to look, right?”
“Moving around wakes me up. I’m a troubled sleeper. But I got up when I heard the bang hours later because I was mad—I thought someone was shooting at my house again. The weather vane, I told you about that.”
Something occurs to Frankie. “And you heard barking in the morning.”
“Right. When he must’ve gone back to her bungalow so he could pretend to discover the body. I saw him, you know. Inside the house, in his tux. Covered in blood.”
“I did too. Because he tried to save her,” Frankie says, irritated.
“You think someone finds their fiancée shot and doesn’t touch her?
Of course he had blood on him. But this is what I want to know: Did you, or a husband maybe, did anyone let the dog inside after the person walked down the path around one a.m.? After the barking woke you up?”
Darlene laughs, confused. “Now it’s about my dog?”
Frankie says nothing, and Darlene finally continues.
“An indoor dog is not a guard dog. No, if he’s bothersome, like now, we tie him up to the tree up there. But my husband could sleep through a bomb. I’m the one who wakes up and has a hard time going back to bed. So no, I stayed in bed so I didn’t wake up even more. And the dog stayed outside.”
“But hours later, it was the gunshot that woke you up—not more barking? Even though the dog was outside?”
There is silence as Darlene must be piecing this together.
Frankie keeps going. “That tells me that whomever you heard walking toward Arlington Way around one a.m.—”
“Or not all the way to Arlington Way, but to the second bungalow.”
“Fine, if what you heard was someone walking to the second bungalow around one a.m., then they’d also have to walk back to June’s bungalow to kill her, and that would’ve started your dog barking all over again.
Right? But you didn’t hear that. There was silence, and then a gunshot.
” Frankie pauses, waiting for protest, but Darlene says nothing.
“So no one walked on the path by the second bungalow, immediately before or after the shot.”
Which, she thinks, means that Jack stayed put in his bungalow the rest of the night.
It’s not definitive, but it’s something, and though she knew in her heart Jack didn’t do it, the relief she feels is still immense, like someone who didn’t realize they were hot until they felt the shade.
Her instinct is to find a phone and tell Jack, but then she remembers she can’t.
Darlene shakes her head. “No, a person definitely went that way after the shot. I saw it. I got up after the bang, and I saw it.”
“But then he must have turned around, or your dog would’ve had a fit.”
Now Darlene sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You were tired. Who knows what you saw.”
“I was awake enough to get up and see what I saw and then make the phone call and—”
“Wait.” Frankie stops. “You said you didn’t call the police.”
“I didn’t. Remember, Mr. Marconi told me not to. He said not to bother them, that he’d take care of things. So I called Mr. Marconi when I heard the shot.”
It feels as though something’s lodged in her throat.
“I told you this,” Darlene continues. “He gave me his card and his personal number so that he could handle any party or star that got out of hand. That’s what I thought it was. Someone drunk.”
Almost in a whisper, Frankie asks, “And what did he say?”
“He didn’t. It rang and rang.”
It rang and rang. The phone in Nico’s house that’s loud enough to wake the dead, as his wife says. How late did Nico stay at the party? He never said specifically when he left. All he said was he was at the party late enough that he couldn’t claim to have been in Malibu.
“You’ll be all right in this dark?” Darlene asks.
It’s only now that Frankie looks behind her. At some point, the sun went down, the trees black against the sky.