68

On Saturday morning, Detective Wally Johnson pushed the intercom button under the name ANTON/KOLBER 3B in the foyer of the brownstone shared by Angela Anton and Vita Kolber. They were the young women who had been Brittany La Monte’s roommates before she disappeared.

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.

“What do you know about Bartley Longe?”

Wally Johnson was surprised to hear both young women laugh. “Oh, my God,” Vita said. “Did you know what Brittany did with that guy’s wigs and toupees?”

“I heard about it,” Johnson said. “What was that situation? Was Brittany involved with him, or was she in love with him?”

Angela took a sip of her coffee, and Wally wasn’t sure if she was considering the question or finding a way to be loyal to Brittany. Finally she said, “I think Brittany underestimated that guy. She was having a fling with him, but she did it for one reason only and that was to meet people at his Litchfield house who might do her some good as an actress. I can’t tell you how much she wanted to be famous. It drove her. She made fun of Bartley Longe. She put us in stitches imitating him.”

Wally Johnson thought of what Longe had told him, that Brittany wanted to turn their affair into marriage. “Did she want to marry him?” he asked.

Both young women began to laugh. “Oh, good God,” Vita said. “Brittany would no more have married him than…” She paused. “I swear, I can’t come up with a comparison.”

“Then what happened that caused her to destroy his hairpieces?” Johnson asked.

“She saw that most of the people he had up to that house in Litchfield were potential clients, not theatre people. She decided he was wasting her time. Or maybe by then this mysterious other job had come up. Bartley Longe had given Brittany some jewelry. I guess he could tell that she was sick of going up there, and he swiped it from her jewelry box. That’s what really ticked her off. They had a big fight. He wouldn’t give it back. So when he was in the shower, she collected all his wigs and toupees and drove his convertible back to New York. She told us she cut up all the ‘rugs,’ as she called them, and scattered them all over the convertible so that no one in the garage could miss seeing them.”

“Did she ever hear from Longe after that?”

“He left her a message,” Vita said, the smile gone from her face. She played it for us. “He wasn’t ranting the way he would be if she was late getting to Litchfield. He said. ‘You will regret this, Brittany. If you live to regret it.’”

“He threatened her that directly?” Wally Johnson asked, his interest aroused.

“Yes. Angela and I were frightened for her. Brittany just laughed. She said he was a big bag of wind. But I made a copy of the voice mail. As I said, I was frightened for her. It was only a few days later that she packed her stuff and left.”

Wally Johnson considered what he had heard. “Do you still have that copy of Longe’s voice mail?”

“Oh, sure,” Vita said. “I was worried that Brittany just laughed it off, but when she left town I figured Bartley Longe would eventually cool down.”

“I’d like to have that tape if it’s handy,” Johnson told her. When Vita went to get it he spoke to Angela. “You’re in show business, too, I guess.”

“Oh, yes. I’m a dancer. Right now I’m rehearsing for a show that’s going to open in two months.” Before he asked, she said, “And just so you know, Vita is a really good singer. There’s a revival of Show Boat opening off-Broadway and she’s in the chorus.”

Wally Johnson took in the Broadway playbill posters on the walls. “Was Brittany a singer or dancer?” he asked.

“She could get by in both areas, but basically she was a dramatic actress.”

Johnson could tell by the hesitancy in Angela Anton’s voice that she was not going to be lyrical about the theatrical talents of Brittany La Monte. “Angela,” he began, “Toby Grissom is a dying man and is agonized by his worry that his daughter may be in some kind of trouble. How good an actress was Brittany?”

Angela Anton looked reflectively at the framed playbill over the chair where Johnson was sitting. “Brittany was okay,” she said. “Would she have made it to become a star? I don’t think so. I remember one night about four years ago, when I got home, she was sitting here crying because once again an agent had turned her down. You see, Detective Johnson, she was a fabulous makeup artist. I mean fabulous! She could change the way someone looked in a heartbeat. Sometimes, when the three of us didn’t have jobs, she’d make us all up to look like celebrities. She had a collection of wigs that would knock you over. We’d get dressed up and go somewhere and everyone would think we were the celebrities we were imitating. I told Brittany that she could be the leading makeup artist to celebrities and that would be her path to success. She didn’t want to hear it.”

Vita Kolber had come back into the living room. “Sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t in the drawer where I thought I had put it. Would you like me to play it for you, Detective Johnson?”

“Please.”

Vita pushed the button of her tape machine. The voice of Bartley Longe, powerful in its fury, threatening and frightening in its message, reverberated through the room. “You will regret this, Brittany. If you live to regret it.”

Wally Johnson asked to have it played again. It sent chills down his spine. “I’ll have to take that tape with me now,” he said.