Chapter 9
Sonya watched Kittywalk out of the studio, then returned to the makeup room.
“What happened here, Eddie?”she said softly.
Everything had been so chaotic earlier; Kitty’s hysterical cries, Betty’s sorrow and the cast so distraught. But now Sonya had the leisure of really looking at everything in the room. Using the sensitivity of her vampire eyes, she analyzed every aspect of the room.
At first glance, everything looked as it had just twenty minutes earlier, but on closer inspection a few things stood out. Powder dusted the floor. She bent down to have a better look; makeup powder, the sort Marion used to knock down the shine on everyone’s faces.
Then she noticed a few footsteps in the powder.Faint but there; Eddie’s boots. There were five clear steps leading up to the makeup chair. Then a series of smudged marks around the chair, as if he’d tried to get up. Amidst the boot prints were several of Marion’s pumps; small, light and seemingly dancing all around the stronger boot prints.
Five of her makeup brushes were scattered everywhere as were some of her sponges and small cloths.
“Did you guys fight it out?”Sonya said into the empty room. “With each other? Or did you struggled with someone else?”
She squatted down to take a close look at every individual footmark in the powder. They mostly belonged to either Eddie or Marion. A few belonged to Betty who’d come close to check Eddie’s breathing as well as her own as she’d come forward to check his pulse.
“No one else came in here...or at the very least, they didn’twalkin.” She looked around. She had been there, in that very same makeup chair, only moments before Eddie walked in.
Sonya plotted out a timeline. When she had walked in, Marion was alone. Everything was nice and neat on her table, just as always. One rack of costumes was up against the right wall, and a smaller rack was pushed up against the wall to the left. Marion had been professional and amiable, just as always. No nerves. No fear. No apprehension.
As she’d exited the makeup room, Sonya hadn’t crossed Eddie’s path. How many minutes passed before he entered?
And then, how long before the Bat came in to attack him? Had Marion been working on Eddie at the time?
Sonya took a step back to take a better look at the entire room.
If Marion had been working on Eddie at the time he was attacked, that would leave Marion as a witness.
“Damn it,” Sonya let out. Closing her eyes, she recalled what she’d seen on first entering the makeup room when the assistant had cried out. Marion hadn’t been there at all.
“Oh, no. Marion?”she called out as she opened her eyes and once again looked at the floor for any clues.
Sonya went back to the makeup room to find Marion.Perhaps she saw someone?
Near the door there were a few faint steps, barely visible; just the tip of Marion’s pumps. No. It didn’t make sense. Marion wouldn’t leave her station, not without her touch-up makeup. Between every shot, she was always there, touching up one actress or another.
Sonya was certain Marion hadn’t voluntarily walked out of her makeup room. And there was no sign at all of her returning to the room after Eddie’s death.
With a flash of clarity, Sonya suddenly remembered Yolanda and her desire to do her own makeup. Why now? Why today? What did the young actress know about the possible danger of sitting in Marion’s makeup chair?
Certain Yolanda had visited the makeup chair every other day before this, Sonya headed out to confront her ‘sister’, but as she turned to leave, she noticed a flash of pale flesh amidst the dark costumes on the rack.
Her heart sank, knowing before she reached the rack what she might find. She went to Eddie’s jacket, the blue velvet one he was to wear for the ball scene. Out of the jacket’s long sleeve, trimmed with gold at the wrist, was a small, pale hand.
Reaching for the cold hand, Sonya closed her eyes in dismay. Not Marion, too. Pushing hangers heavy with costumes aside, she was confronted with the full truth. Hanging there in Eddie’s jacket, was Marion, drained and pale.
