“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.
40
Rick and Glenna got back to L.A. on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning Rick was in a meeting with Eddie Harris, Tom Terry and the studio’s publicity chief, Bart Crowther. Tom brought them up-to-date on the investigation.
“The police are at a dead end,” he said. “They have Susie’s car and her boxes of belongings, and, except for a few clothes in her bungalow, that’s all that exists of her. They have two different sets of fingerprints from Susie’s car and no one to compare them to. Hank Harmon has got herself a lawyer, and he won’t allow her to be fingerprinted. I personally think Susie is dead, but my guess is until her body is found there aren’t going to be any breaks in this case.”
“Tom, what’s your time line for all this?” Rick asked.
“Harmon told the police she was out of her apartment from around two to four on Sunday afternoon, and the cops tell me a couple of witnesses have put her at the farmer’s market during that time. My guess is that’s when Susie went to the apartment, packed up her stuff, then wrote Hank Harmon a note, which Harmon now says she can’t find, and was about to leave when Harmon came home. There was probably an argument, and Harmon either hit Susie with something or strangled her.
“After that, I think she waited until the wee hours, put Susie’s body in her car, disposed of it — God knows where — then drove the car to Vance Calder’s house. She used Susie’s key to get in and leave a box of clothes in an upstairs dressing room, then put the keys back in the car’s ignition and walked home.”
“How long a walk would that be?”
“I clocked it at about three and a half miles, perfectly doable in the middle of the night without being noticed. Sunset is deserted at that hour.”
“Any other way it could have happened?”
“Only if she had an accomplice, and who the hell do you call up and say, ‘I’ve just murdered somebody and I need help in getting rid of the body and getting her car out of here’?”
“That all makes sense to me,” Rick said. “Is anything else being done?”
“I’ve got two private detectives, experienced men, going over everything about Henrietta Harmon with a fine-toothed comb. We’ll know more about her in a day or two.”
“Has anybody talked with her family?” Eddie asked.
“I called them from New York,” Rick said. “They wanted to come out here, but I discouraged that.”
Bart Crowther spoke up. “I speak to them daily.”
“I see the papers have got this now,” Eddie said.
“It’s been pretty mild, considering,” Bart said. “They’re concentrating mostly on Hank Harmon, and she’s hiding out somewhere. She hasn’t been to work since the first of the week.”
“Have the press found Susie’s parents yet?” Eddie asked.
“Yes, but a relative is answering their phone and giving out ‘no comments.’ Vance has spoken with them, too.”
“How’s Vance doing?” Eddie asked.
“I haven’t seen him since I got in, but I’m going over there when we’re done here,” Rick said.
“I’ll go with you,” Eddie said.
Tom spoke up again. “He was very shaken right after he got back. He was going to lie down for a while.”
“Bart,” Rick asked, “do you have any other recommendations on how we should be handling this?”
“It’s under control right now. If the police find a body, then everything will explode, but my people are ready for that.”
“Why don’t you come over to Vance’s bungalow with us and get him ready for it?” Eddie said.
They broke up the meeting, and Rick, Eddie and Bart went over to Vance’s bungalow and found the actor sitting on the living room sofa, looking pale and drawn. They all sat down in the bungalow’s living room.
“How are you managing, Vance?” Rick asked.
“I’m all right,” he replied. “I’m getting a little cabin fever here, though. I’d really rather be at my house.”
Bart shook his head. “Vance, if you go back there before there’s some resolution to all this, the press will be all over you, and we don’t want that.”
“I suppose that at some point I’m going to have to address this publicly.”
“No, you’re not,” Bart said. “We’ll issue a press release with a quote of two or three sentences from you, and that will be it. I don’t want you to talk to anybody about this, except the police.”