Soap Opera Slaughters (6 page)

The machine was on. A cassette revolved within. From the speakers sounded the nervous scherzo of the Brahms piano trio in B, its vaguely sinister motif echoing again and again, fragmented and recombined by frenetic strings that filled the empty room with an air of ominous anticipation.

As my eyes ticked off the chamber’s inventory in swift professional reconnaissance, I saw, in a corner by the great picture window overlooking promenade and river, the only neat well-cared-for object in the place besides the cat: a gigantic aquarium, easily one hundred gallons capacity, fitted with a breathtaking miniaturization of a Medieval European village complete with shops, streets and a lofty mountain bridge leading to an ornate baronial manor carved with intricate detailing. But the diorama paled before the magnificence of the goldfish swimming in, around, past and through its nooks and recesses. A gorgeous profusion of colors, patterns, and shapes distinguished the many varieties...comets, ordinaries, fantails, nymphs, veiltails, calicos, shubunkins, and lionheads. One odd breed of piscine acrobat was brand-new to me. Its mode of navigation was so unusual it practically turned the creature into a living hoop. I bent over and squinted to see it more clearly.

“It’s a tumbler, I had him imported. Please don’t smear the glass.”

I turned, startled that I hadn’t heard the illustrious Florence McKinley enter the room.

I’d expected her to be distraught, but she was putting on a good act of being in control. Tall, cool, aloof, she was slim and sleek in a long tan at-home robe that draped her slender figure and fell nearly to the floor, stopping just above tiny feet encased in white slippers. She extended her hand to me, smiling distantly, a queen acknowledging the presence of an ardent commoner. Damned if I didn’t fall into the expected role and raise her fingers to my lips.

She had the poise and containment of a fashion model. Her brown hair was carefully arranged in an upswept mass of curls, no strand out of place. Dark steady eyes. Her crimson lips, full and slightly parted, had a gloss that diverted my attention from her heavily rouged cheeks. She had Kate Hepburn bone structure and all the planes of her tapered down to a firm chin unparenthesized by jowls. On first glance, she seemed as I remembered her...the glamorous Florence McKinley of early television rather than the homey Martha Jennett of “Riverday.” But as my gaze lingered on her features, my eyes saw more than I wanted: the base coat minimizing tiny lines puckering the skin at her temples, the gray lusterless hair near the roots, the mottling that small blue veins worked beneath her eyes and at the tip of her nose.

Yet it was still an arresting, scored but not yet effaced by time. Her eyes held mine, studying and evaluating what they saw. Looking down, she noticed her tubby cat rubbing against my legs. She smiled more warmly than before.

“A man who likes goldfish and is liked, in turn, by Rathbone has much to recommend him. Rathbone is very choosy about the company he keeps. Come, sit and talk to me.” She sat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. I did as she bid and Lara chose an armchair across from us, an overstuffed green affair that threatened to envelop her like an amoeba.

We passed a few moments in obligatory politeness. I reinforced the fiction that Lara and I had known each other for years. Our host’s arch looks implied our friendship was more than casual, or was so once.

We talked of felines and fish. She said her aquarium cost $450 used, her tumbler ran close to $200 new, that she bought all her accessories in lower Manhattan, that her cat adopted her in Indiana while she played a supporting role in a touring version of Ouida Rathbone’s unjustly obscure
Sherlock Holmes,
written especially for her husband, Basil.

Lara glanced at her watch more than once. As soon as I could, I brought up the problem of Ed Niven’s death. Florence McKinley’s animation immediately disappeared. Her shoulders slumped, her flood of chatter ebbed away, her pale hands stopped in midgesture and came to rest on her lap. She looked down dully at them. I realized the poise she’d put on to greet me was all pose.

“I’m sorry I’m going to have to ask things you must have had to deal with this morning, but it’s absolutely essential I know at least as much as the police if I’m going to be of any use.”

She nodded. “Go ahead. First question?”

“Where were you when Niven fell?”

“Here. At home.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No.”

“Think hard. Did you leave your house at any time Saturday? Could a neighbor, a local shopkeeper testify you were in the vicinity?”

She shook her head. “Lately, I’ve had more than the usual number of script pages to learn, they’ve been using me quite heavily on the show. Saturday I was busy all day with my part. I never left the apartment”

“Then you have no alibi.” I turned up one palm. “The next question, I’m afraid, has to be whether you and Mr. Niven recently quarreled over anything?”

“All lovers do.” Even subdued, her voice had that familiar vibrancy that impressionists sometimes parodied. I could imagine her singing opera in the shower and sounding pretty good.

“Any special argument I ought to know about?”

“No.”

I doubted that, but figured if it was important enough, I’d hear about it eventually, maybe from Lara. I went on to the next point. “Do you have any notion, Ms. McKinley, what Mr. Niven was doing at the studio on his day off?”

She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. “He kept all his writing materials at
WBS
. He rarely worked at home.”

“But isn’t there another possibility?”

“What?”

“That he went to the studio to meet someone?”

“No.”
Declared with such passion I think it surprised her almost as much as me. Just then, the Brahms trio ended and she used it as a convenient circumstance to occupy herself with the dials.

“Excuse me, I was recording off the air,” she said, returning to the sofa a moment later. “Now what did you ask?”

“Whether Mr. Niven might have had an appointment Saturday.”

“Yes, of course it’s possible. I shouldn’t have been so quick to reply without thinking. But he told me he’d be busy all weekend.”

“Doing what”

Instead of answering, she turned to Lara and asked whether she’d mind going to the kitchen to make some tea. Lara said she’d be glad to and looked anything but After she was gone, my host, putting her finger to her lips, rose and softly glided across the carpet to the entryway. Only after she’d called down the hall and got a distant answer from Lara, presumably in the kitchen, did Florence nod in satisfaction and sit back down beside me.

“Excuse me for acting so mysterious,” she said, “but sweet as she is, Lara is not the soul of discretion at all times.”

“How do you mean?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“No, no, that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that I could not discuss what you’d asked with her in the room. Or anyone else from the cast, for that matter. You want to know what Eddie was presumably preoccupied with this past weekend?”

“That’s right”

“Well, it had to do with the new ‘Riverday’ ‘Bible.’ Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Sure. Has nothing to do with evangelism. The ‘Bible’ is the long-range plot synopsis of a soap opera, right?”

“Yes. Eddie told me he’d be working on his latest one this weekend. I didn’t want to alarm Lara. Cast members aren’t supposed to know about it.”

“But why would it alarm her?”

“Because he is...was quite overdue in preparing it. He was supposed to turn in a draft of the ‘Bible’ by the beginning of this week.”

“How bad does that leave off ‘Riverday’?”

“It’s not good,” she replied grimly. “If we don’t get a new head writer fast, pretty soon it will be improvisation time for the cast.”

She brooded on it for a moment. I asked her how come she knew so much about the ‘Bible’ if cast members are supposed to be kept in the dark about it. It was the absolute thousand percent wrong question. It provoked a filibuster on the way youth was exploited on TV to the detriment of maturer talent. I listened, puzzled, as “Mother Jennett” denounced producers, the network, sponsors, most of all her “loyal fans.”

“The fickle bastards want your soul along with your autograph, but catch
me
giving perfect strangers the means to forge my signature!” In her agitation, she rose and stalked about the room, her swirling robes accidentally sweeping the program guide, scissors and Scotch tape off the phonograph dust cover onto the floor. She picked them up and replaced them. Seemingly calmer, she turned to me.

“Lara said you watch ‘Riverday.’”

“That’s right.”

“Do you remember Kit Yerby?”

“I ought to. She was on Friday’s episode.”

“Well, that was practically the last time you’ll see her. Snippy little bitch, got arrested once for shoplifting, but that’s neither here nor there. Our ratings slipped two points last month and she happened to be up for contract renewal. They fired her so they could budget some young stud that the fat ladies in Duluth will doubtlessly drool over.”

Why did she sound
so
grimly satisfied about it? I was going to ask her when an altogether different question popped into my mind. It wasn’t important to anyone but me, but I asked it, anyway.

“Does this so-called stud happen to be named Harry Whelan”

“Yes. I think so. You know him?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh? Thereon, I believe, hangs a tale.”

“Irrelevant. Let’s get back to the original question.”

“I forget what it was.”

“How you happen to know
so
much about Ed Niven’s “Bible. ””

“Oh. Yes.” She sat back down. ‘Years ago, when Joe Ames originally called to offer me the part of Martha Jennett, I knew all the risks involved. I told him if I took it, I’d be the first Emmy winner to turn down primetime for a soap opera and would expect certain concessions in return for the publicity that would bring. He argued a bit, but that was only a matter of form. He eventually agreed to most of my terms. One was that I see every new ‘Bible’ as soon as it’s written.”

“They gave you story approval?” An unheard-of thing. “I’m impressed.”

“Not quite. Officially, all I’m entitled to is a copy of every updated synopsis.” Her lips curved ironically. “But you know what they say about a little knowledge.”

“So that’s what Niven was supposed to be busy with this weekend, writing a new ‘Bible.’ The old one’s practically used up?”

“Yes.” She muttered something about ratings taking a suicidal plunge. “But not this week. His death will attract the vultures.”

“Will Ames promote your other writer?”

“Tommy Franklin?” She grimaced. “Extremely improbable.”

“Why?”

“His plotting ideas are idiotic.”

“Oh? Can you give me an example?”

But just then Lara interrupted by putting her head into the room to say that tea was ready. Florence nodded, and the blonde entered with a small tray bearing three cups, saucers, a china pot and nothing else. I was disappointed. I’d hoped for something to eat, even a few cookies would have been pleasant.

“We’re almost done,” I told Lara. “Ms. McKinley, I don’t like to distress you, but is there any chance Mr. Niven told you he’d be working this weekend so that he could meet someone else?”

She raised her cup and sipped. “By someone else, you’re implying that there might be another woman?”

“Yes.”

“It may be true.” Her lips curved downward in a sour frown. “Over the past few months, Eddie canceled several dates with me.” She stared into her cup as if reading secrets in the leaves. “And now you know what we quarreled about.”

“Assuming there is another woman involved, have you any idea who it might be?”

She exchanged a glance with Lara before saying she wasn’t sure. That annoyed me, but I made a note to ask Lara later. “All right,” I continued, “you told Lara you think someone is trying to make it look like you were responsible for Mr. Niven’s death. Is that person the woman you have in mind?”

“I didn’t say I had anyone particular in mind.”

“You’re fencing with me. Is the reason you won’t name her because she’s also an actress on ‘Riverday’?”

I got another noncommittal answer. My temper was rising. It was almost ten o’clock, I was hungry and tired and still had a two-hour trip home.

“Look,” I complained, “you’re holding back information wholesale. If you don’t trust me enough to speak, your mind freely, there’s no point in continuing. I can’t accept you as my client unless—”

“At this stage,” she broke in,
“I
neither trust nor distrust you. You’re here on your lady’s recommendation. I am not your client till
I
say so...you haven’t even told me yet what you charge!” She emphasized the last word with a smart tap on my knee with her forefinger.

I put down my cup and rose to my feet. But my eyes connected with Lara’s and her mute “please” stopped me from walking out.
Ah, damn,
I thought, if I could put up with Hilary treating me like chattel (as I had for several years), I supposed I could tolerate a bit more of the same for her cousin’s sake.

“Okay,” I told McKinley, swallowing my indignation, my pride and my tea, “will you at least tell me why you think you are a target?” I sat down again.

“Yes.” Though there were just the three of us in the apartment, she lowered her voice to a melodramatic whisper. “This morning, I found something in my dressing room.”

“What?”

“A pile of Eddie’s clothing.”

Not good. I asked her to reconstruct the moment. She closed her eyes and re-created it in her mind. As she did, her fingers trailed along her cheek in concentration. “A quarter past six. The door was slightly ajar. That bothered me immediately, I always keep it locked. I pushed it open, switched on the light. First thing I saw was a pair of men’s shoes under my makeup table. I checked the label.
7½
triple Es.”

“Niven’s size?”

“Yes. He used to complain how hard it was to find stylish shoes that fit.”

“What did you do when you found them?”

“I had a bad feeling about it. I started opening dresser drawers and, sure enough, stuck in the back of one was a bloody shirt of his that I recognized, along with trousers, socks and underwear, all crumpled up.”