The Darkness Knows (24 page)

It all made sense, all of the little things along the way that had tripped her up and kept her from guessing the truth. Kept her suspicion aimed mistakenly at Graham, Frances, Morty, Mr. Hart, Charlie—nearly everyone in at the station except the real culprit.

“You know, Marjorie showed that fake letter from the foundling home to your father. I heard them arguing outside the ladies' room.” Vivian thought of the smell in Mr. Hart's office when she'd woken from her fainting spell after finding Marjorie. He must have taken the letter and burned it in the ashtray on his desk.

“I should've known she'd run to Daddy,” Peggy said, her face twisting with annoyance. “I didn't want to get him involved.”

“Is that who Marjorie was blackmailing? Your father?”

Peggy laughed suddenly, a sharp bark in the silence. Vivian jumped. “Marjorie Fox was blackmailing herself,” Peggy said.

“Herself?”

“She was always trying to manipulate Daddy. That's how a drunk like her kept a plum role like Evelyn Garrett,” she said. “She'd come to the house begging for favors, money… It was disgusting. And Daddy went along with it because he felt he owed her something. And he didn't want Mother to find out…to upset her… She's so terribly sick.” Peggy's voice cracked.

“One evening a few weeks ago, Marjorie showed up with a silly note cut from some letters in a magazine and convinced Daddy she was being blackmailed over their
secret
. That's when I got the idea for the letter from the foundling home. That horrible woman deserved to get a real scare. And that's all I really meant to do,” she said, her voice shaking. “I just meant to scare her.”

Peggy shook her head, her face reddening. “But she underestimated me,” she said, sticking out her lower lip like a petulant child. “Everyone underestimates me.”

“You shot at me outside the masquerade.”

“I didn't shoot at
you
.”

“Charlie,” Vivian whispered.

“I knew Daddy knew about Charlie, but I didn't know until the night of the masquerade that Charlie knew about Daddy. I overheard Charlie confronting Daddy. Charlie was trying to weasel in on our family too. He wanted my father's attention, his recognition. He wanted too much. I'd already killed Marjorie and gotten away with it. What was another murder? But then you got in the way and I missed my shot—literally. But that led to an even better idea. Soon they'll find Charlie's lifeless body next to the suicide note confessing his murder of Marjorie. Two birds with one stone.”

Peggy shook her head, giving Vivian a small smile. “You know, it wasn't planned, but it really was fun watching you think this was all about you. You do have quite an ego. You stole all of the attention for yourself.” Peggy tipped her head to one side. “You're a lot like Marjorie, you know,” she said.

Vivian narrowed her eyes at Peggy. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

Peggy smiled briefly. “Oh, it's a compliment. Marjorie was a talentless drunk, but she knew what she wanted. And she knew how to get it…just like you.”

Vivian glanced toward the door, catching a flicker of movement behind the smoked-glass panel, the distinct shadow of someone passing in the hallway beyond. Passing and moving on.
No, stop
, Vivian pleaded in her mind.
Come back, whoever you are.

“I'm sorry to have gotten you all mixed up in this,” Peggy said, raising the gun at Vivian again. “But you have to understand I can't let you go now.”

“What if I promise to never say a word about any of this?” Vivian said, making every effort to keep her voice steady.

“Then I'd say you're a liar.”

Vivian's stare shifted from the barrel of the gun to the girl's cold, gray eyes. Peggy watched Vivian expectantly. It was now or never, Vivian's only chance. She hitched in her breath, opened her mouth, and screamed. It was truly bloodcurdling, one of her best.

Peggy winced, letting the gun drop. “That was right on cue,” she said. “You know, it's as if this were all a scene written for
The Darkness Knows
. I couldn't have imagined it playing out better. But Harvey Diamond isn't coming to save you. No one can hear you, and no one will hear this.” Peggy raised the gun again, biting her lower lip in concentration as she took aim.

The heavy oak door flew open behind Peggy, making contact with her backside with a satisfying thump and knocking her off balance. The gun flew from her hand and skittered across the parquet floor. Vivian watched it land near the piano bench, spinning twice before finally coming to rest. The spell broken, Vivian lunged forward. She felt the heel of her right shoe snap off and the pain shoot up her leg as her already tender ankle twisted again. She crawled toward the gun, her hand reaching it a split second before Peggy's did. Vivian kicked out savagely with her left leg and made contact with Peggy's stomach. Vivian struggled to her feet, the loaded gun in her own hands. She pointed it down at Peggy, trying to look as if she knew how to use it.

Imogene stood in the doorway, openmouthed with shock.

“What—”

“Oh, Genie, thank God,” Vivian said. “Call the police. Ask for Sergeant Trask and tell him to get to Charlie's office right away. He's in terrible trouble.”

Imogene glanced from Vivian to Peggy and back again. Then she nodded, eyes wide, and scurried from the room.

Vivian swallowed and tightened her grip on the gun. She narrowed her eyes at Peggy, who curled into the fetal position on the floor, her arms over her head.

“That was close, wasn't it, Peggy?” Vivian said, her voice shaking. “You almost got away with it.”

Peggy lowered her arms and glared at Vivian, teeth bared in a snarl. “Your beloved detective is still dead,” she said. “That's all I really wanted.”

Vivian knew it was a taunt, just empty bravado, but her stomach dropped just the same. Charlie could very well be dead, and what would she do then?

Vivian nudged the hospital room door open, heart thudding in her chest. There were two beds in the room, Charlie's nearest to the door. He was lying on his back, eyes closed. She watched automatically for the rise and fall of his chest. Her fear was irrational, of course. The police had already told her they'd gotten to his office in time. But she watched anyway, only satisfied when she saw his chest rise and heard a tiny rumble of a snore drift toward her. She stepped into the room and eased the door closed behind her.

What she wanted to do was climb into the bed with him, rest her head on his chest, and feel the reassuring aliveness of him. Instead, she glanced at the shriveled man in the bed next to his and then quietly pulled the curtain closed for some modicum of privacy. As she turned back to Charlie, he opened his eyes, gazing directly at her like he'd known she was there the whole time. He smiled at her, his lips slightly lopsided. There was a bright purple bruise on his left temple that would turn nasty in the next few days, but beyond that, he looked unhurt.

“I'm so glad you're all right!” she blurted out, her voice sounding strange and high-pitched. For just a moment she thought she might cry out of sheer relief. She rushed to the bed and kissed Charlie as passionately yet delicately as possible, wary of his injury and everything he'd been through in the past twenty-four hours.

He groaned in pain anyway.

“Sorry,” she said, her fingertips hovering over his temple before lowering to touch his unblemished cheek.

He smiled and winced slightly, closing his eyes briefly before saying, “No, it's okay. I appreciate the enthusiasm.”

Vivian blushed and straightened up. She never lacked for enthusiasm. “Are you really all right?” she asked. She didn't like seeing him this way, so helpless.

“Well, I have a splitting headache, but the doctor tells me I'll live,” he said, his deep voice husky from the gas inhalation.

“Thank God.” Vivian sighed, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, he was frowning at her in that familiar way.

“You didn't listen to me, Viv,” he said.

Vivian blinked.

“I told you to stay home yesterday,” he said, his voice stern. “And you went to the station anyway.”

“Yes, well, I… They needed me,” Vivian sputtered, feeling guilty at how inane that sounded. She'd put herself in such danger for the sake of her silly career. Flustered, she sat in the chair by Charlie's bed and tugged at one of her gloves. She winced as she heard the fabric tear along one of the fragile seams.

“Thank you,” he said in a voice almost too low for her to hear.

Vivian looked up, confused. “I'm sorry?”

“Thank you for being stubborn and contrary and self-absorbed…and for saving my life,” he answered. He closed his bloodshot eyes briefly, and then they opened and fixed on hers.

Vivian opened her mouth to reply, but her throat felt tight.

“I… Well, you're welcome,” she said finally, the words completely inadequate. She waved one hand dismissively. “I don't even want to think about what might have happened if I…”

“What
did
happen exactly?” he asked, his brow furrowed over his dark blond eyebrows. “I'm a little cloudy on the details of my near demise.”

“The police haven't told you?”

“Just bits and pieces,” he said. “And frankly, what they did tell me doesn't make much sense.”

“Well,” Vivian started and then realized she didn't really know how to begin. It was still a muddle in her own mind. “It was that note you got at the house yesterday that started everything, wasn't it?”

“The one that arrived after you nearly clocked me with the vase of flowers, you mean,” Charlie said, one corner of his mouth curling. “Yes, it said that Mr. Hart wanted to see me in my office and that I should tell no one.”

“But that message wasn't really from Mr. Hart. It was from Peggy.”

Charlie touched his forehead lightly with the tips of his fingers and winced. “I went to my office and waited, but Mr. Hart didn't show.” Disappointment showed on his handsome face for an instant and then was gone. “There was a folder on my desk. My folder from the orphanage…the one Sister Bernadine had told me was burned in that fire. I started to leaf through it, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital.”

“Peggy was waiting for you in your office. She knocked you out and opened the gas line,” Vivian said. “And if she hadn't been so proud to tell me about it afterward, you would have…well, you would have…” She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “She left a fake suicide note with you, Charlie. It said you had killed Marjorie. She wanted to pin the whole thing on you.”

“How do you know all this?”

Vivian bowed her head. “Peggy told me.”

“She told you?”

Vivian nodded. “After you left yesterday afternoon, Peggy called me to fill in last minute on
Murder & Mayhem
. I know you told me to stay at home, but she told me Joe McGreevey was frantic and that he asked for me specifically. You don't refuse Joe McGreevey,” Vivian said with an apologetic shrug.

“And you never turn down an opportunity to make your mark,” Charlie said, crossing his arms.

Vivian smiled wanly. “Yes, and Peggy knew that too,” she said. “I'm fairly certain now, of course, that Peggy lured me to the station to keep me from interfering in her real plan.”

“Of offing me,” he said.

Vivian swallowed and nodded. She thought of Peggy's secondary goal of getting Vivian to spar with Frances. She felt her color begin to rise at the very idea and decided that was a detail Charlie didn't need to know—not now anyway.

“I went to Mr. Hart's office before the show and found him there alone. He was drunk and rambling on about Orson Welles and his own sick wife and how awful he felt about what he'd done to Marjorie so long ago…”

Charlie blanched and turned his face to the window.

“He called her Effie,” Vivian continued. “What he'd done to Effie… How he'd loved her and thought he'd taken care of everything. I didn't make the connection immediately, but that was the name in the Bible in Marjorie's apartment: Euphemia Juergens. Marjorie had been Effie Juergens.”

Charlie's fixed his gaze on the window. “How did you see that?”

Vivian glanced down at her hands. “I took it after you left her bedroom. The look on your face told me there was something important about it.”

Charlie stared at her for a long moment and then smiled wryly. “You really
aren't
the flibbertigibbet I thought you were.” But then the smile faded, and his attention shifted back to the grime-smeared window. “And Effie, as we both know now, was the woman who gave birth to me. I had seen the name in the files in Mr. Hart's home study a few weeks ago. It was the same file I found on my desk yesterday. Evidently, Peggy had seen that file too and had connected the dots long before I had. I didn't connect the name with Marjorie until I found that Bible in her apartment.”

“You've been to Mr. Hart's home? Seen his files?” Vivian asked.

Charlie shrugged. “I snooped around.”

Vivian placed her hand lightly on top of Charlie's. “So you've known since we were in her apartment that Marjorie was your mother?” she asked quietly.

Charlie nodded.

“You could've told me.”

“It wasn't related to your threatening letters. Well, I didn't
think
it was related.”

Vivian felt a stab of shame. None of this had ever been about her.

“You could've told me anyway.” She paused. “So then you knew this whole time that Mr. Hart was your father?”

“I started digging into my adoption after my mother died a few years ago. I'd known I was adopted, of course, but I knew it would have hurt her for me to be so interested in finding a birth mother that hadn't wanted me—you know, when she so obviously had. I've been to the foundling home maybe a dozen times since then. The first ten times or so, Sister Bernadine told me the standard line—all files prior to 1930 had conveniently been destroyed in a fire. Then something happened on the eleventh visit.”

“What was that?”

“Well, she started to aggressively discourage me from digging any further. Tried to make me feel guilty for even wanting to know about my birth parents. It was then that I knew I was on to something and that that something had to be pretty big. I looked into the workings of the home, the board of directors. I found out that Mr. Hart was on that board. As luck would have it, I'd already been doing some detective work for him, so it was easy enough to snoop around his home office, and that's where I found my file.”

“There wasn't any luck involved. Mr. Hart knew who you were the whole time. He'd hired you for those jobs and suggested you as the special consultant to
The Darkness Knows
so he could meet you, see what you were like,” she said.

Charlie looked down at the sheet covering him. Then he jerked his head sharply back up at her. His eyes blazed. “Then why did he deny everything when I confronted him at the masquerade?”

Vivian searched for an answer but couldn't come up with anything that made any sense.

So Charlie
had
confronted Mr. Hart at the masquerade. And Peggy had been listening. No wonder the dialogue in last night's script had sounded so familiar, Vivian thought. Now she realized it matched a conversation she and Frances had had days earlier almost word for word. Peggy had been listening, all right. She always had been.

He pursed his lips. “How did you get Peggy to spill all of this anyway? How did you even know to ask?”

“Well, it was sort of an accident… I did the show, and after my character was bumped off, I had some time to think. It was then that I noticed that the Os on the new pages of my script matched the Os I'd seen on the threatening letter I'd received. And I thought those Os matched what I remembered about the typewriter I'd used as Mr. Hart's secretary for two years. So I went up to test it to make sure. That's when Peggy showed up and assumed I knew more than I did.” Vivian looked down at her hands, remembering the feeling of fear and panic when Peggy drew the gun. “She trapped me in a rehearsal room to confront me, and the only way out was for me to keep her talking.”

“And she spilled the whole story just like that?”

Vivian shrugged. “I think she really enjoyed telling someone. She said I was the only one who knew everything. I suspected that Mr. Hart had helped her, but now I think she did this all on her own. She thinks she's exceptionally clever.”

“Not clever enough,” he said, grimacing. “How did you get out of it?”

“I screamed,” Vivian said, deciding to give Charlie the abridged version of events. “I saw a shadow go past the door behind Peggy. When I screamed, that person came back, flung open the door, and knocked the gun right out of Peggy's hand. That person turned out to be Imogene, of course. She always comes through in a pinch.”

Charlie smiled and shook his head in disbelief.

“I know. Just like a script for
The Darkness Knows
, isn't it?”

They smiled at each other.

“Have you spoken with Mr. Hart?” Vivian asked.

“No, and I don't expect to. He made it perfectly clear the night of the masquerade that he wants nothing to do with me.”

“Maybe he's changed his mind.”

“I wouldn't bet on it. Frankly, I'm not sure I want anything to do with
him
. He doesn't have the most upstanding character. Not to mention that his daughter tried to kill me.”

“Several times,” Vivian added unnecessarily.

Charlie gave her a withering look, and then his expression softened. “Listen, Viv, thank you again for what you did for me.”

“Well,” Vivian said, suddenly growing shy, “I'd like to keep you around.” She placed her hand lightly on top of Charlie's. She squeezed it, and he flipped his hand over and squeezed hers back.

“By the way, I believe you still owe me for services rendered,” he said.

Vivian glanced sharply at him. “Services rendered?” she said indignantly. “
I
saved
your
life, mister. Besides, I don't recall ever coming to terms on your fee.”

“Still, a debt is a debt.” Charlie gazed seriously at her for a moment, then broke into a smile—or as much of one as he could muster. “But I'm sure we can work out some sort of a payment system.”

Vivian felt her palms go sweaty at the suggestive tone in his husky voice. Before she could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Graham burst into the room. Vivian pulled her hand away from Charlie's. She hadn't told Graham about what had happened between her and Charlie yet, and she didn't want him to find out like this.

“Chick!” Graham exclaimed, unable to hide the shock of seeing the detective laid up in bed. “Hell of a thing that happened to you,” he said, frowning. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I've been better,” Charlie said.

Graham shook his head. “Peggy,” he said in a low voice. “Who would've guessed she'd do something like that?” He looked at Vivian and Charlie expectantly.

Charlie touched the garish purple bruise at his temple gingerly.

“Well, I'm glad to see you're on the mend,” Graham boomed. “And I hear that's all due to our little Viv here.” Graham placed both of his hands on Vivian's shoulders and squeezed a bit too hard.

Charlie closed his eyes for a moment. “Indeed,” he said, smirking. “She'd make quite a private detective.”

Graham laughed at this a little too readily, and Vivian shot him an irritated look over her shoulder, which he failed to notice. Instead, he glanced down at his wristwatch, and his brown eyes widened.