I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [103]
When they did not answer the messages he left them on Thursday evening, he’d been prepared to go directly to their apartment the next morning and take a chance on catching them at home. But then Vita Kolber called him back at eight A.M. on Friday asking if he could meet with them on Saturday morning instead. They both had early-morning rehearsal calls and the rehearsals were expected to last through the day.
It was a reasonable request and Wally spent Friday following up on the other names Bartley Longe’s secretary phoned in to him. “These are regular theatre people who would have met Brittany when she was in Mr. Longe’s country home,” she explained.
Two of the names were film producers who were both out of the country. The third was a casting director who had to search her brain to remember Brittany La Monte. “Bartley always has a bevy of blondes around him,” she explained. “It’s hard to tell them apart. If I can’t place this girl Brittany, it says to me she didn’t grab my attention.”
Now as soon as he announced himself a musical voice said, “Come right up.” At the sound of a buzzer he pushed the inner door open and climbed to the third floor.
The door of 3B was opened by a tall, slender young woman with long blond hair that cascaded down past her shoulders. “I’m Vita,” she told him. “Please come in.”
The small living room had clearly been furnished from make-dos and family castoffs, but was cheerful and coordinated with bright pillows on the vintage couch, colorful blinds on the long, narrow windows, and playbill posters of Broadway hits on the whitewashed walls.
When, at Vita’s invitation, he sat in one of the armless upholstered chairs, Angela Anton came in from the kitchen carrying two cups of cappuccino. “One for you, one for me,” she announced as she laid them on the round metal coffee table. “Vita’s a tea drinker but doesn’t want a cup now.”
Angela Anton was not more than five feet tall, with medium brown hair cut into bangs, and hazel eyes that Wally immediately noticed were more green than brown. There was something in the graceful way she moved that made him suspect she was a dancer, an observation that was absolutely on target.
Both young women settled on the couch and looked at him expectantly. Wally took a sip of the coffee and complimented Anton on it. “I usually have my second cup at my desk,” he said, “but, this is much better. As I said in my message, I need to talk to you both about Brittany La Monte.”
“Is Brittany in trouble?” Vita asked, anxiously, then didn’t give him a chance to answer. “What I mean is that she’s been gone almost two years and when she left she was so mysterious about it. She took Angela and me out to dinner and said it was on her. She was all excited. She said that she had gotten an offer of a job that would pay really well, but would take a while, and after that, she was going to California because hanging around New York trying to get in a Broadway show hadn’t worked for her.”
“Brittany’s father is concerned about her, as you know,” Johnson said. “He told me he came here to see you.”
Angela was the one who answered. “Vita only spoke to him for a couple of minutes. She had a casting call. I had time so I listened to Mr. Grissom’s life story, then I had to tell him that we just haven’t heard from her.”
“He told me that he showed you the postcard Brittany sent him six months ago. It was from New York. Do you think it was genuine?” Johnson asked.
The two young women looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Angela said slowly. “Brittany’s handwriting had curlicues and loops. I can see why she would have printed on a small card. But I just don’t know why she wouldn’t have called one of us if she was back in Manhattan. We were pretty tight with each other.”
“How long did you actually share an apartment together?” Wally asked as he put the coffee cup back on the table.
“It was four years for me,” Angela said.
“Three years,” Vita responded.