For the most part, I am relying on the conversations we had, before the murder and afterward—those of us who survived, that is. As for the dead, I trust you’ll grant me artistic license regarding their interior life. Given I am a playwright by trade, I am perhaps better qualified than most for this particular task.
My account is also based on my notes—taken both before and after the murder. A word of explanation regarding this. I have been in the habit of keeping notebooks for some years now. I wouldn’t call them diaries, they’re not as structured as that. Just a record of my thoughts, ideas, dreams, snatches of conversations I overhear, my observations of the world. The notebooks themselves are nothing fancy, just plain black Moleskines. I have the relevant notebook from that year open now, by my side—and will no doubt consult it as we proceed.
I stress all this so that, if at any point during this narrative I mislead you, you will understand that it is by accident, not design—because I am clumsily skewing the events too much from my own point of view. An occupational hazard, perhaps, when one narrates a story in which one happens to play a minor role.
Nonetheless, I’ll do my best not to hijack the narrative too often. Even so, I hope you’ll indulge me the odd digression here and there. And before you accuse me of telling my story in a labyrinthine manner, let me remind you this is a true story—and in real life, that’s how we communicate, isn’t it? We’re all over the place: we jump back and forth in time; slow down and expand on some moments; fast-forward through others; editing as we go, minimizing flaws and maximizing assets. We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.
It’s funny, I feel that you and I should be sitting together on a couple of barstools, right now, as I tell you this tale—like two old friends, drinking at the bar.
This is a story for anyone who has ever loved, I say, sliding a drink in your direction—a large one, you’ll need it—as you settle down, and I begin.
I ask you not to interrupt too much, at least not at first. There will be plenty of opportunity for debate afterward. For now, I request you politely hear me out—as you might indulge a friend’s rather lengthy anecdote.
It’s time to meet our cast of suspects—in order of importance. And therefore, for the moment, I must reluctantly remain offstage. I’ll hover in the wings, waiting for my cue.
Let us begin—as we should—with the star.
Let’s begin with Lana.
2
Lana Farrar was a movie star.
Lana was a big star. She became a star when she was very young, back in the days when stardom still meant something—before anyone with an internet connection could become a celebrity.
No doubt many of you will know her name or have seen her movies. She made too many to mention. If you’re anything like me, one or two of them are very dear to your heart.
Despite retiring a decade before our story begins, Lana’s fame endured—and no doubt long after I am dead and forgotten, as though I never existed, Lana Farrar will be remembered; and rightly so. As Shakespeare wrote about Cleopatra, she has earned her “place i’ the story.”
Lana was discovered at the age of nineteen, by the fabled Oscar-winning Hollywood producer Otto Krantz—whom she later married. Until his untimely death, Otto dedicated his considerable energy and clout to furthering Lana’s career—designing entire movies as showcases for her talents. But Lana was destined to be a star, with or without Otto.
It wasn’t just her flawless face, the sheer luminous beauty of a Botticelli angel—those eyes of endless blue—or the way she held herself, or spoke; or her famous smile. No, there was some other quality about Lana—something intangible, the trace of a demigoddess; something mythical, magical—it made her endlessly, compulsively watchable. In the presence of such beauty, all you wanted to do was gaze.
Lana made a lot of movies when she was young—and there was, to be honest, a slight sense of mud being slung at a wall, to see what would stick. And while her romantic comedies were hit-or-miss, in my opinion, and her thrillers came and went, gold was finally struck when Lana played her first tragedy. She was Ophelia in a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet and received her first Oscar nomination. From then on, suffering nobly became Lana’s speciality. Call them tearjerkers or weepies, Lana excelled as every doomed romantic heroine from Anna Karenina to Joan of Arc. She never got the guy; she rarely made it out alive—and we loved her for it.
As you can imagine, Lana made an enormous amount of money for a lot of people. When she was thirty-five, during an otherwise financially catastrophic couple of years for Paramount, the profits from one of her biggest successes kept the studio afloat. Which is why there was a sizable ripple of shock within the industry when Lana suddenly announced her retirement—at the height of her fame and beauty, at the tender age of forty.