Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal Page B

mind and redirected the driver to Aimee Cole’s address.
    She had a role in this story too. She had met the dead man. She had met his wife. No one had been charged with the crime yet. She still had opportunities to have her questions answered.
    A striking woman with sparkling eyes and red hair arranged in ringlets opened the door to the apartment. “Can I help you?”
    Kitty tried to contain her disappointment. Mrs. Cole probably wasn’t in.
    â€œIt’s me—Aimee!” the woman squealed once it became clear that Kitty hadn’t recognized her. She pulled off the wig and transformed back into her unremarkable self. “I know you must think I’m awful, playing around so soon after what’s happened, but I’m all alone, and I’ve nothing to do except look through my old things.”
    She flung the door wide open, and Kitty followed her inside. Open boxes and cartons littered the living room. Flouncy garments spilled out of one; another overflowed with shimmery bits. Aimee tossed her wig into a box of hairpieces.
    â€œIt started with my not being able to find my black gown,” she explained. “The funeral is tomorrow, and I need something decent to wear. Mama’s gone to the shops to buy me proper mourning.”
    She cleared a pile of scarves from the couch. “Souvenirs from my former life. Will you have some tea?”
    â€œI don’t want to trouble you.”
    â€œIt’s no trouble at all. Here, take a look at this while I put on the kettle.” She handed Kitty a linen-bound album.
    Kitty opened it, expecting to find photographs from Aimee and Hunter Cole’s marriage. Instead, the album was filled with page after page of clippings, photographs, and postcards of Mary Pickford, the motion-picture actress famed for her long, red curls—no doubt the inspiration for Aimee’s wig.
    Kitty leafed through the pages: here was thoughtful Mary in an advertisement for Mender of Nets ; there she was looking saucy in Female of the Species . She was on alert in Tess of the Storm Country , forlorn in Cinderella , and ready for romance in Hearts Adrift . Reviews from Photoplay and Motion Picture Weekly had been interspersed with the pictures. Some had been starred with a thick red pencil, while portions of the others had been circled or underlined for extra emphasis.
    â€œ The Eagles Mate is a lively feature without a real kick,” Kitty read a marked review to herself, “but it has Mary Pickford, the best kick or punch that could be put in.”
    â€œIsn’t she wonderful?” Mrs. Cole returned to the parlor. “She looks like she’s not much more than a child, but she’s America’s highest-paid motion-picture heroine.”
    â€œI’m partial to Pearl White myself.” Kitty put the album on the coffee table. She loved Pearl’s films, but she hadn’t created a shrine to her like Aimee Cole had for Miss Pickford.
    â€œPearl doesn’t hold a candle to Mary,” Aimee replied. “We’re the same age, you know. Both twenty-three this April. But Mary’s been working forever. She started onstage when she was five years old. Her mother brought her down from Toronto, and little Gladys Smith, as she was called then, has been supporting her family ever since.”
    â€œHave you seen all her pictures?”
    â€œAll her features. The one- and two-reelers are too numerous to count. But take a guess—tell me how much you think Mary makes.”
    â€œHow much she earns, you mean?”
    â€œThat’s right.” Mrs. Cole’s eyes blazed.
    â€œI have no idea.” Kitty hadn’t encountered such devotion to an actress even among her school friends. And for a married lady of twenty-three, the passion certainly seemed, well, unexpected.
    â€œGive it a try,” Aimee cajoled.
    â€œA hundred dollars a week?” It was a wild guess. Kitty knew that society reporters made fifty,