“Hopefully not the German eagle,” I said.
Lucille began to paint sections of my hair with the dark dye. I had never colored my hair before. Its natural shade was a sort of deep honey, not as trendy as the platinum-blondes you saw so often, but I liked it well enough.
Lucille let the color sit, then rinsed it out. She began to trim and shape my hair, using heated tongs to approximate Clara’s natural wave.
“There,” she said at last.
She turned me to face the mirror. We both stared, amazed and slightly horrified at what she had done.
“God in heaven,” Lucille said, laughing nervously. “We’ve brought Clara back.”
She had certainly increased the likeness very much. She had captured Clara’s hair color exactly: black, but not a flat, dull black—a vibrant, living, multifaceted black. The contrast of that dark color somehow changed the appearance of my eyes, which were normally golden brown, bringing out the bits of green in them.
I could have stared at myself for an hour. I wanted to try to smile like Clara did, mysterious and mischievous. Then it really would be like seeing my sister again. But I didn’t want to attempt it with Lucille watching.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Ruby cried, putting her hand over her heart. She had come back from whatever errand she was running for Mr. DeMille. “You’re a miracle worker, Lucille.”
“She’ll pass,” Lucille said modestly. “Especially once we put the makeup on her.”
“I brought the script for tomorrow,” Ruby said, passing a stack of loose sheets over to me. “I marked your lines with pen, the ones you have to memorize.”
I flipped through the pages nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Ruby said. “There’s not too many. I wanted Mr. Gable to read through them with you this afternoon, but Mr. DeMille has him filming a scene with the Vizier. Mr. O’Neil, I mean. He likes for us to call him the Vizier all the time. He says he has to stay in character.”
“Is that everything for today, then?” I asked. I was thinking there was someone else I’d like to meet up with, if I had time.
“Yes,” Ruby said, “Come back early tomorrow, eight am. Mr. DeMille wants to start filming by ten, and it takes a while to get everything ready.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
I checked my watch—only 11:48. If I hurried, I could probably catch Hedda Hopper on her lunch break.
7
I called up to Hedda’s office at the Los Angeles Times, and Hedda eagerly agreed to meet me at a small Italian restaurant across the street.
I guessed Hedda chose that particular place not only because it was close to her office, but because each of the high-backed padded booths was almost entirely enclosed from those around it, providing privacy for Hedda’s sources to spill their secrets.
Through the plate-glass window, I saw Hedda hurrying across the street, as if she were afraid I’d change my mind and run away. Hedda hadn’t taken the time to put on her feathered hat, but she was smartly dressed in a silk blouse with a large bow at the neck, a pearl necklace and earrings, a wool skirt, and expensive-looking stockings with seams up the back. Her brown hair was as freshly waved as if she’d just been to the salon that morning.
As she came inside the restaurant and waved to me, I saw that she wore too much makeup. Her painted cheeks and lips, combined with those drooping eyes, gave her the look of a sad clown. Hedda reminded me of the girls I knew who were not popular at school, but desperately wanted to be.
I felt an uncomfortable swoop of sympathy and reminded myself not to be swayed by it. I had to be careful. Hedda hadn’t become one of the top gossip columnists in the country by accident.
“Goodness, look at you!” Hedda exclaimed, taking the seat across from me.
“Oh, yes,” I touched my newly waved and colored hair. I’d forgotten about it already.
“You look much more like her now,” Hedda said. “I take back what I wrote this morning, that having you replace your sister would be a disaster. Though I suppose you could still be awful at acting,” she added cheerfully.
Our waiter approached, balancing two glasses of water on a tray.
“Do you want food?” Hedda asked me.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “Just a coffee please.”
I preferred to eat later—I wanted to focus on my conversation with Hedda.
“Same for me,” Hedda told the waiter, waving him away. “You don’t keep this figure eating spaghetti for lunch.”
She smiled at me across the table, cocking her head slightly to the side as she sized me up. “I’m so glad you decided to call me!” she said.
“I think we can be helpful to each other,” I replied. “But I want to make myself clear—I’m not interested in being written about personally. I solely want information. If you answer my questions, I’ll answer yours. That’s the trade.”
“Certainly.” Hedda nodded, clasping her hands together on the table in front of her. “But you go first, my dear. What do you have to tell me?”
I took a deep breath. I had agonized over this all night. I hated to betray Clara’s trust to Hedda Hopper, but what was more important? Clara’s secrets . . . or finding her killer?
“Clara was pregnant at the time of her murder,” I said at last.
Hedda actually gasped. Her excitement was palpable, but she didn’t want me to see it. In a moment she had recovered her composure, smiling as serenely as ever.
“She was? How do you know?”
“It was in the autopsy report,” I said.
“What else did it say?”
“Just that the cause of death was strangulation. And that Clara was about four months along.”
“That poor, innocent baby,” Hedda said, with no trace of sincerity. I ignored her, pressing on.
“What I want to know is, who was the father?”
“Who indeed?” Hedda said, tapping a long, lacquered fingernail against her chin.
She paused while the server returned with a pot of coffee, filling the mugs that had already been sitting upside down on small saucers at the table.
“Cream, ladies?” he asked in a heavily accented voice.
“No thank you,” I said, and Hedda waved him away again.
“You were saying?” I prodded.
“Well,” Hedda mused, “I don’t know for certain of course, but I have a few ideas.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Bugsy Siegel, to start.”
“You told Sheriff Biscailuz that you thought there was a connection between him and Clara.”
“I don’t think it, I know it.”
“How?”
“I’ve seen the two of them together at the Trocadero, and at Santa Anita Park.”
“What are those?”
“Mind if I smoke?” Hedda asked.
I hated the smell of smoke, but I wanted to keep Hedda chatty, so I said, “Go ahead.”
Hedda took a silver case from her purse and extracted a long, slender cigarette. She lit the tip and puffed delicately with the cigarette resting between her index and middle fingers.
“The Trocadero is a supper club—black tie,” she said, “It’s the place to be seen for celebrities and gangsters. Santa Anita Park is the racetrack in Arcadia.”