Winter in June (25 page)

I cleared my throat. “We heard a rumor that Irene was looking into missing supplies before she left the island.”

“Oh that.” He exhaled a gust of air, ruffling the hair framing his face. “Late Nate was trying to pin that on the Japanese too.”

“So I heard. But Irene knew it wasn't them, right?” I asked.

“I wasn't here when that was going on, but she told me she was sure it was someone internal behind it.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “In fact, she pretty much implied that Blake was not only taking the stuff but he was selling it to the enemy. That's how
he got his nickname. A number of people saw him out and about after dark, toting packages from the supply hut. He wasn't a rear admiral yet—his commission hadn't come through—and Irene debated whether to come forward with the information. If she had, he probably would've been discharged or worse.”

“So why didn't she do it?” asked Jayne.

He shrugged. “It was his word against hers. She wanted out of here by then, and I think she knew that if she made waves, it would be more trouble than it was worth. And, of course, by the time she put two and two together, the stealing stopped.”

I felt strangely disappointed in this woman I'd never met. I wanted to believe Irene was a crusader who fought for what was right, but to learn that she folded so easily when things got rough seemed out of sync with that image. But then that was the point, wasn't it? I didn't know her. “But I heard the stealing started back up again after she left.”

“In much smaller quantities. Personally, I think someone else knew what Blake had been up to and decided to take advantage of the situation by doing a little stealing for themselves. They had to know Blake would never look into it. If he blamed it on the Japanese before, he had to blame it on them again—otherwise who knows what an investigation might turn up.”

“Do you think Late Nate knew that Irene had fingered him?”

“Absolutely. She had a hard time getting out of the Wacs. He was the one who went to bat for her, helping to convince the army that discharging her was the right thing to do. Knowing Irene, she probably used what she knew as leverage to get him to help her out. She wasn't a dumb girl. She knew how to play the system.”

“I'm surprised he would let her force his hand like that,” I said.

He ashed his cigarette. “It all worked out for him in the end. Not only did he get rid of a potential troublemaker, but a few months later he got his mistress brought to Tulagi.”

“Amelia Lambert,” I said.

He punched the air with his finger. “Bingo. She got a prime post, and he got a little sugar for his coffee. Until Gilda showed up.”

“What has Gilda got to do with them?” asked Jayne.

“You mean you don't know?” Dotty lowered his voice. “Late Nate and Gilda have been an item since her first night on Tulagi.”

 

By the time we left Dotty, my head was throbbing. We headed to the beach, hoping to catch a little sun and privacy before meeting up with Violet and Kay for rehearsal. The harbor was loaded with ships and cranes. We sat on a boulder beneath the shade of a coconut grove and watched the carefully choreographed dance of supplies leaving one ship and being brought onto another. Could something as seemingly harmless as providing the troops with what they needed really be the motive behind two murders?

“How could Gilda get involved with a guy like that?” asked Jayne.

“Beats me.” The whole idea made my skin crawl. Could he have forced himself on her? Was that why she hadn't told us?

“Do you think Amelia knows?” asked Jayne. Brilliantly colored lorikeets flew above her.

“Probably.” A sudden thought compelled me to snap my fingers. “You know, Candy said Amelia came to Tulagi at about the same time we did. She could've been in San Francisco with us when Irene was killed.”

“But what would her motive have been?” asked Jayne. “It doesn't sound like Blake was too worried about Irene squealing if he was willing to help get her discharged.”

“Maybe Amelia was jealous? She was from the same hometown as Irene. What if they knew each other? Maybe there was some deep-seated rivalry between the two of them and she thought Irene was stepping out with her man. If Blake could snag Gilda, is Irene really so far-fetched?”

Jayne kicked off her shoes and pressed her toes into the sand. A few feet away a crab made its slow journey toward the shore. “I don't buy it. Besides, if Amelia got here a few days before us, she probably left long before we did. I know you think they're related, Rosie, but I think you need to consider the idea that Gilda's murder has nothing to do with Irene's. Coincidences do happen.”

I didn't like that. I wanted my world to be nice and neat, where things that looked like kin were related. Happenstance screwed that up for me. Just because we hadn't found the connection between Irene and Gilda didn't mean it didn't exist.

“Okay, we'll play it your way,” I said. “Let's focus on the easy one: Who would've killed Gilda?” A thump startled me. A coconut had fallen and landed on the rock beside me.

Jayne leaned back on her elbows so that she could better catch the sun. “Van Lauer, for one. He was here. He said something to upset her right before she was shot.”

I cradled the coconut in the curve of my arm. “True. And he left in the middle of the show, giving him the opportunity to fire the gun. Do you want to go talk to him with me?”

“Why not?” she said. “I have nothing better to do.”

I decided that if we were going to confront an actor like Van Lauer, we better have a prop at our disposal. We stopped by the Wac barracks to get what we needed before tracking him down.

He was in his tent flipping through a copy of
Life Magazine
with marine ace Joe Foss on the cover. His duffle was packed and sitting on his cot waiting, no doubt, for someone else to lug it to the plane.

“Hiya,” I said.

He acknowledged us with a flutter of the magazine. “Can I help you?”

I elbowed Jayne in the back, and she took a step into the room. “I know you're awfully busy, and you probably have a thousand other things on your mind,” she cooed. “But I was wondering if there was any chance I could get your autograph.”

He gave my pal the up and down. It was obvious he liked what he saw. He smiled that Hollywood grin of his that made his wedding
ring magically disappear. “Of course, I'd be happy to give you an autograph, Miss—?”

“Hamilton. Jayne Hamilton. And this here is my girlfriend Rosie.”

He winked my way. “And would you like an autograph too, girlfriend Rosie?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I'm good.”

He produced a pen, and we offered him the copy of
Movie Scene
with his photo inside. He defaced it with his moniker before returning it to Jayne.

“So what are you girls doing so far from home?” he asked.

Was he for real? “We're in the USO tour,” I said. “You know, the one with Gilda? Jayne's the other girl who got hurt that night.”

“Right.” No offer to let us sit down. No inquiry about the state of her health. What a guy.

“We were so sorry about what happened to her,” said Jayne.

“I thank you for your condolences, but they're hardly necessary.”

If his words had a temperature, we would've gotten frostbite. “Still,” I said, “you must be a little sad about what happened.”

Something behind his eyes clicked into place, as though he realized that feigning emotion could be to his benefit. After all, it wouldn't be good for word to get out that upon Gilda DeVane's death Van Lauer didn't show a hint of remorse.

“Of course I'm upset about it.” He put a hand to his heart. “Gilda was a fine actress and a wonderful friend, I just meant that it seems the four of you are suffering the greater loss.”

“We weren't dating her,” I said.

“And neither was I.”

“Not anymore, sure, but there was a time when things were pretty hot and heavy between the two of you.”

Something in his face changed. “We had a fling. That's all. I made a mistake thinking she was more discreet than she was.”

“So is that why you told MGM to fire her? Because she was indiscreet?”

He picked at a lint ball on the shoulder of his uniform. “I hardly had the clout to make something like that happen. They fired her because she was too much trouble. Nobody wanted to work with her anymore.”

“What did you talk to her about the night she was shot?”

He looked ready to dismiss the question as too personal, but the temptation to finally set the record straight made him plod forward. “Before she left the States, she started a ridiculous rumor that I was going to leave my wife and marry her. MGM got wind and made it clear that divorce was unacceptable. I begged Gilda to retract.”

“Why would she lie about that?”

He attempted to flick the lint into the air, but it stubbornly remained stuck to his fingers. “I suppose she thought it would help her career, just like she thought having an affair with me might.”

“How would that help her? She was a star long before you ever came along.”

“Doors were opening for me while they were closing for her. If she could hitch herself to my wagon, she might get a second chance with the studio. And if that didn't work, perhaps public sympathy would force them to keep her.”

“That must've made you angry. Seems to me the best way to fix the situation would have been to silence Gilda for good.”

The lint ball flew into the air and landed on his pants. “Just what are you implying?”

“I'm not implying anything—I'm saying it outright. I think you had something to do with Gilda's death.”

“That's absurd.”

“Is it? How is it you ended up on the very island that served as her base camp?”

With a roll of his eyes, he removed a shoe and set to polishing it with a stained cloth. “Tulagi is the center of operations for the Pacific theater. It was inevitable that I'd end up here.”

“But you knew she was here, right?”

“I knew she was in the islands, of course. But I didn't know that she was here. And I certainly had no intention of seeking her out.”

“Sure. Which is why you arranged for our command performance.”

He paused in his work and checked his reflection in the shiny leather. “That wasn't my idea any more than coming here was.”

“Where did you go in the middle of the show?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You got up and left halfway through the show. I saw you leave.”

He switched one shoe for another. “I had to go to the bathroom.”

“For thirty minutes?”

He waved his shoe-clad hand at me. “The length of my bowel movements is hardly any concern of yours. If I had wanted to kill Gilda, believe me there would've been ample opportunity before I ever left the States. I certainly wouldn't have come all the way out here to do it. And do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to weather a potential murder scandal as a way of getting people to forget about my affair? I enlisted to regain my credibility, not to find another way to destroy it. Gilda's death is hardly a boon for me. She'll be a martyr when word about this hits the States.”

He had a point there.

“And might I remind you: Gilda's murderer has been captured. While I may be grateful to him for what he did, I certainly didn't instruct him to do it. Now I ask that you leave. Now.”

 

We were almost a half hour late to our one o'clock rehearsal. Violet and Kay were seated in the mess waiting for us, their bodies rigid with impatience.

“Get lost?” asked Violet.

“The floor took longer than we anticipated,” I said.

She lit a cigarette. If she had to wait for us, we were now going to have to wait for her. “Where did you go last night, anyhow?”

I looked to Kay to see what, if anything, she'd already told her. She shook her head so slightly that if Violet had seen her, it would've appeared that she was having a tremor.

“You tried to stop them from hurting the prisoner, didn't you?” said Violet.

“We didn't just try, we did,” I said.

She spat a mouthful of smoke at me. “You really are a Jap-lover, aren't you?”

The hair at the back of my neck stood at attention. “What I am isn't up for debate. Who killed Gilda is.”

“What do you mean?”

Kay slouched farther down in her chair. “They arrested the wrong man.”

“Unbelievable. You went too? And how do you know he wasn't the right one?”

“Because he told us,” said Jayne.

Violet raised her hands above her head, sending a flicker of ash to the floor beneath her. “Oh, he told you. Then that settles it. And did he tell you the Japs have a right to these islands too? Because maybe we should let the Allies know that we can pack up and go home.”

“It wasn't like that,” I said. “Trust me: they arrested the wrong hatchetman. This guy's barely out of diapers. Ask Spanky if you don't believe me.”

She looked like she was contemplating doing just that when something stopped her. “Okay, fine. They caught the wrong guy. But if he didn't kill Gilda, who did?”

“That's the hundred-dollar question,” I said. “Did you know Gilda was seeing Rear Admiral Blake romantically?”

“Late Nate? Sure,” said Violet. “We both did—didn't we, Kay?”

Kay nodded.

I had to shake my head to make sure I'd heard her correctly. “If you knew, how come you didn't tell us?”

“We figured if she wanted people to know, she'd tell them,” said Violet. “I only found out because I saw them together. And Dotty told Kay. When we realized we both knew we decided to commiserate. You have to admit she had a knack for picking the worst possible men.”

“You got that right,” I said. “We just paid a visit to Van Lauer.”

“Why would she get involved with Blake?” asked Jayne.

“He might be repugnant, but he's powerful,” said Violet. “And his brother's a big-time producer. Like him or not, he's a good man to have on your side.”

Not that I ever ran the risk of experiencing that. “But why did she keep quiet about it?” I said.

“Wouldn't you?” said Kay. “We all saw the way he treated you. Who would want to associate themselves with someone like that?”

She was probably right about that, but I was starting to suspect that what we didn't know about Gilda far outweighed what we did.

 

It didn't seem right to reassign Gilda's songs to someone else. After all, none of us could possibly fill her shoes. Instead, we eliminated them entirely and added one act each, plus a final song that would be done as an in memoriam piece for Gilda and for all of the men who had already been lost.

With that heart-breaking process complete, Jayne and I decided to go for a walk, and Kay and Violet went back to the barracks. It was a beautiful day that was doing its darndest to show off all of the island's attributes, though I could see, to the west, what looked like storm clouds gathering. On one end of the beach a game of touch football kicked up the sand. At the other, a piece of fishing net had been strung between two poles, and the Yanks were taking on the Aussies in a game of volleyball. Everywhere you looked were shirtless men showing off their tans and tattoos, their eyes hidden beneath their reflective cheaters, none of them showing evidence they had a care in the world. They all seemed so young, healthy, and strong that I wished I had a camera to capture the moment and remember them all before they went off to the next battle.

“For the record—I believe Van,” said Jayne.

“Me too. But I don't understand why Gilda would've lied.” Who was she really? A scorned brokenhearted woman or an actress so desperate to stay on top that she would've done anything to stay there, including sleeping with someone as despicable as Late Nate?

“So if it wasn't Van and it wasn't the sniper, who was it?” asked Jayne.

Someone behind us cleared her throat. “Miss Winter, Miss Hamilton—Rear Admiral Blake wishes to see you.” It was Amelia Lambert, her updo torn asunder by the wind.

“Thanks for the message,” I said. “You can tell your pal we'll stop by a little later.”

She grabbed us both by the forearms and pulled us away from the beach. “He wants to see you immediately. I assured him that I would personally escort you to his quarters.”

I wrestled my arm free. “Don't bust a button—we'll go in peace. Is this about last night?”

She looked down her nose at me. “I'm not privy to what you're referring to, but I can assure you that if you've done something wrong, he knows about it.”

Who was he, Santa Claus? I shuddered inwardly. If this wasn't a reprimand for our curfew violation, then it was very likely a confrontation about our visit to the POW camp. I was hoping we could depend on everyone who was there to keep their yaps shut, but apparently we were like a sinking tugboat in the middle of the ocean: full of leaks with no hope of repair.

When we arrived at Blake's tent, Amelia announced our presence. He instructed her to show us in, then he dismissed her with nary a thank you. As she turned on her heel to depart, her face made it clear that she didn't appreciate his tone. I would've felt bad for her if she hadn't just left her handprint on my upper arm.

Would a woman scorned still be so eager for a man's approval? Was it possible she didn't know about Late Nate and Gilda's relationship? Or had she resigned herself to stay with him after doing the unthinkable to get rid of her rival?

“Thank you for coming, ladies,” said Blake.

“It's not like we had a choice,” I said.

Jayne shot me a look, urging me to close my head. Blake gestured us into the same chairs we'd sat in when he'd told us about Gilda's death.

He folded his hands together and stared at us the way the principal did when he expected you to drop a dime on someone. “I understand you paid a visit to Van Lauer.”

“We're big fans,” I said. “We wanted to make sure we got his autograph before he left.”

“Funny,” said Blake, “but that wasn't the way he described the visit. He said that you intimated that he may have had some sort of involvement in Miss DeVane's death.”

“I didn't intimate it,” I said. “I outright said it.”

One half of his mouth quirked into a smile. How did he do that without causing any movement in the rest of his needle-thin lips? “I'm glad there's no dispute there. Captain Lauer was very upset by your accusations, and although I must admit I'm not a fan of those men who gain rank because of who they were before they enlisted, I certainly empathize with his position. What I find most troubling about all of this, though, is that your actions imply that you don't believe we've caught the culprit. Can you tell me why?”

Jayne nudged my foot with hers, urging me to let her speak for once. I obliged. “We heard him fighting with Gilda right before the show,” she said. “And he disappeared halfway through the performance. Given their history together, we thought maybe he might've hired the sniper or something.”

“Is that so, Miss Hamilton? Is that why you decided to visit the POW camp last night?”

He knew. Who was the snitch?

“We wanted to see the shooter with our own eyes,” said Jayne.