The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,41

Seven, a small studio that isn’t terribly well-equipped and hence not in much use...as a makeshift office. Or that is, we use the control room in that fashion.”

Welles, without glancing back, added, “Such as now, when we need to do some rewriting, away from the cast and techs. And to give Paul some breathing room to give the actors some last-minute tips.”

Gibson asked, “Why isn’t Howard Koch going along, if this a writing session?”

They had arrived at the end of the hall, which ended at Studio Eight, a hallway cutting to the left. Next to them at right were two doors, practically side by side, labelled: STUDIO SEVEN (left door) and CONTROL ROOM (right one).

Welles opened the latter door, reached a hand over to flick on the light switch, and with a gracious after-you gesture, said, “Because this isn’t so much a writing session as a cutting one—and I hate it when writers bleed.”

The joke wasn’t a particularly good one, but Gibson might have forced a chuckle if his eyes hadn’t been filled with something that turned the witticism into an unintentional lapse into poor taste.

This control room—not nearly as elaborately outfitted with electronics, and absent the adjacent smaller sub-control room—nonetheless had a large horizontal window looking out on a studio that was perhaps a tenth the size of Studio One.

The lights in the studio were off, but (sharing the control-room illumination) revealed itself bare of anything but a table and a chair, a few microphones on stands, and a few more chairs against a wall. Nothing very exceptional, really, except for the woman seated at the table.

Or rather, slumped there, like a schoolgirl napping at her desk.

Gibson didn’t recognize her at first—she was pale and her eyes were closed and her strawberry-blonde hair was askew, concealing a good portion of her face. But then it came to him: they had located the missing Miss Donovan, absent without an excuse from her receptionist post.

Only now she had an excuse, and a damned good one: her throat was slit and blood had pooled all over the tabletop, some of it dripping down the sides; and from their slightly elevated position in the control booth, the hunting knife...with the signature ORSON WELLES on its hilt...could be seen, swimming in red.

CHAPTER FIVE

NOW YOU SEE IT

WITHIN THE CONTROL BOOTH, THE three men pressed against the glass, like children at a department store window; but unlike those dreamy-eyed kids, this trio of adults stared aghast, at a nightmare.

“The poor child,” Houseman said. Then he rushed from the room.

Gibson followed, and saw Houseman at the studio door, reaching for the knob. He clutched the producer’s arm and said, “What about fingerprints?”

“What if the girl is still alive?” Houseman’s normally unflappable expression was replaced by one of wide-eyed horror.

“With her throat cut? With all that blood...?”

“Are you a doctor, man?” Houseman snapped, and he clutched the knob, and twisted.

The door did not open.

“Locked!” Houseman blurted. He touched a hand to his forehead as if checking for a fever. “The goddamned thing is locked....”

Gibson took the few steps back to see what had become of Welles. Through the open doorway of the control booth, Welles could be seen, moon face as white as its namesake, the long tapering fingers touching his lips, those normally rather Chinese-looking eyes now as wide as a Cotton Club dancer doing stereotypical shtick.

Gibson stood in the doorway. “Orson—are you all right?”

Welles’s body remained facing the window, but his head swivelled and the huge eyes under raised eyebrows stared unblinkingly at the writer.

Very softly, Welles said, “I am decidedly not all right. That poor young woman—that sweet young woman.... ‘For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?’ ”

Gibson thought if Welles was going to quote Shakespeare, it ought to be that line from Macbeth about how surprising it was, how much blood there’d been.

“Orson—join us in the hallway.”

He drew a deep breath, nodded gravely, but did not otherwise move, remaining as frozen as Lot’s wife.

In the hall, Gibson faced Houseman. “I believe she’s past help.”

Houseman had found his usual calm demeanor, if a troubled version thereof. “It would be difficult to break the thing down—all of these studios have heavy, soundproofed doors.”

Gibson pointed toward the small room from which Welles had yet to emerge. “What about that window?”

“Again,” Houseman said, shrugging fatalistically, “it’s heavy glass, perhaps unbreakable—part of the necessary soundproofing between control room and studio. Poor thing...poor thing....”

“Her name was Donovan.”

Houseman’s eyes tightened, in surprise. “That’s right—how did you know her,