Beverly Hills Dead

39

Rick left the phone booth and walked slowly back to the table, forcing himself to seem calm and unconcerned.

Vance leaned over and asked, “What’s up?”

“Just some studio business,” Rick replied and resumed his conversation with the Life people, while a photographer circled the table, looking for good angles on Vance.

In the car after lunch, Rick turned to Vance. “That was Tom Terry on the phone. He’s talked to Hank Harmon, and he’s suspicious.”

“Suspicious of what?”

“You have to understand how cops think. When questioning people they look for small signs of discomfort that shouldn’t be there. They try to trip up the people they’re questioning, get them to contradict themselves.”

“And after questioning Harmon, what does Tom think?”

“He suspects foul play; I told him to get the police involved.”

“Just what kind of foul play?”

“He can’t know that for sure; he’s just hoping for the best and doing everything he can to find Susie.”

“He thinks she’s dead, doesn’t he?”

“He thinks that’s a possibility. The other possibility is that she just had too much pressure on her last week, what with all the interviews and the opening, and she just felt she had to get away.”

“Susie is a strong girl,” Vance said, “and a responsible person. She wouldn’t just walk away from her work on the picture, especially since the worst was over. She was looking forward to coming to New York.”

“I can’t argue with that, Vance. I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

“I want to go back to L.A. Is the Centurion airplane still here?”

“No, it’s on the Coast. I’ll have the travel department get you on the first flight tomorrow morning.”

“Is there a night flight?”

“I’ll find out as soon as we get back to the Plaza.”

“Someone should speak with Susie’s parents.”

“I have their number; I’ll do that. We don’t want them to find out about this from the press.”

Vance left the hotel at eleven P.M. to catch a midnight flight from LaGuardia with a studio PR man who arranged for them to drive through a gate directly to the airplane, where Vance and his luggage were deposited at the steps to a TWA Constellation. He was the first aboard and was given two seats in the first row of first class.

As the other passengers got on board he began to notice something different: some of them were obviously recognizing him, perhaps having seen something in the papers or even having seen the picture. A couple of them complimented him on his performance. In the circumstances, he felt uncomfortable about this; he was unaccustomed to being recognized by anyone, and this was a new experience.

After a refueling stop, the airplane arrived at L.A. airport in the late morning, and another studio PR man came aboard to escort him to a car waiting next to the airplane.

“Has anyone heard from Susan Stafford?” he asked the man. He had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“No, nothing. I think you may want to go to the studio,” the man said. “The police are at your house with Tom Terry, our head of security, and sooner or later the press is going to start showing up there, if they haven’t already.”

“All right,” Vance said, “I’ll go to my bungalow.”

“Tom has promised to get in touch with you as soon as he knows anything.”

Having gotten little sleep on the airplane, Vance arrived at his bungalow exhausted. He ordered some soup sent over from the commissary and as he finished it, Tom Terry arrived and introduced himself.

“Have the police learned anything?” Vance asked.

“They’ve taken two sets of fingerprints from the driver’s side of Susan’s car, but as yet they have nothing to compare them with. Susan’s prints are not on record anywhere, and neither are Hank Harmon’s, and without evidence connecting her to a crime, they can’t force her to give them her prints.”

“Rick said you talked to Harmon yesterday. What do you think about all this?”

“I think Harmon is hiding something, that she knows more than she’s willing to tell.”

Vance was more frightened than ever. “Do you think she’s harmed Susie?”

“I don’t know, but in Susan’s absence, it’s something we have to consider. It’s fortunate that you were in New York when this happened.”

“What?”

“In a disappearance like this, the boyfriend is always the first suspect. Tell me about your day on Sunday.”

“I had brunch in my suite with Rick and Glenna, and we read the reviews in all the papers.”

“What about after that?”

“I tried to call Susie at my house, and when there was no answer, I asked the hotel operator to try her every half hour, so I waited there, in case she called back.”

“Did you wait with Rick and Glenna?”

“No, they left around one o’clock, I think. They called later...”

“What time did they call?”

“Around five o’clock. They asked me to go with them to a dinner party at the Waldorf Towers, but I declined and had dinner in my suite alone.”

“Did you speak to Rick again on Sunday?”

“He called when they came back from dinner, around eleven, I think, to find out if I’d heard from Susie.”

“That’s good; it means we can place you in New York until eleven on Sunday night, and that eliminates you as a suspect. Susie’s agent was apparently the last person to see her after the opening on Saturday night, except for the studio driver who took her to your house afterward, so whatever happened to her happened between, say, midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the driver went back to the house to drive her to the airport. We assume that sometime on Sunday she went to Hank Harmon’s apartment to pick up her things. Harmon says she was out at the farmer’s market for most of the afternoon, and when she came back, Susie had gone and left her a note.”

“What did the note say?”

“Harmon became defensive when I asked her about it, said it was of a personal nature. The police are talking to Harmon, and they’ll find out exactly what hours she was away from her apartment, so we can pinpoint when Susan was there.”

“Tom, tell me the truth. Do you think Susie is dead, that Hank Harmon killed her?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that I think that’s what happened. I hope to God I’m wrong.”

Vance buried his face in his hands. Panic was rising inside him.

Tom went to the bar and poured Vance a drink. “Here, get this inside you; it’ll help.”

Vance took a slug of the drink and barely got it down. He ran to the bathroom and threw up.

“Vance, are you all right?” Tom called from the living room.

“Yeah.” Vance put cold water on a facecloth and came out of the bathroom with it pressed to his face. “I’m sorry, Tom. I just don’t feel very well. Will you excuse me? I think I want to lie down for a while.”

“Of course, Vance. Get some rest. In the unlikely event that anyone from the press gets in touch with you, just tell them you don’t know anything and refer them to the publicity department.”

“All right, Tom.” Terry left, and Vance went into the bedroom, stretched out on the bed and draped the cool facecloth across his forehead. He had never felt anything like this: frightened and helpless.