When I first received Oliver’s messages, I couldn’t shake the feeling something awful would happen, and I was right. There’s no saving Marlowe. If the police are expected to arrive in ninety minutes, that’s all the time I have left to figure out the meaning behind Oliver’s messages and whether they’re connected to Marlowe’s death.
Tippi’s Takes Presents:
What Hitch Taught Me About Life
An exploration of life and cinema from the viral sensation
by Tippi Rathbone
Chapter Five
Dial M for Murder(1954): Follow the Breadcrumbs
Dial M for Murderpresents one of the best twists in a murder-for-hire plot, even if Hitchcock himself wasn’t impressed with the final product.
There are many cinematic achievements in this film. We’re introduced to the alluring and seductive Grace Kelly, an actress capable of stealing Hitch’s heart just as easily as she wooed audiences. The limited setting of a stylish apartment provides a sense of claustrophobia and serves as a subtle reminder that one setting can easily be the backdrop to both a passionate affair and a twisted murder.
Our protagonist, Margot, strikes luck when she’s able to fight off herwould-be attacker, killing him in the process. This traumatic experiencesends the audience on a search for answers, each breadcrumb leading to the next until the truth is revealed: Margot’s husband is trying to kill her.
24
Before
A high-pitched whirring hummedin my ears. Raising my hands to cover them did little to drown out the sound. A man with sleek safety glasses and bulky gloves stood in front of Marmee’s crow fountain using a mechanical saw to dissect a sheet of wood into identical strips.
We’d arrived at the estate for Sunday brunch. Oliver and Mr. Stewart stood beneath the stone archway, shaded from the sun, discussing written plans and an estimated timeline for the remaining projects. In the past month, Mr. Stewart’s construction crew had reinforced the windows in the conservatory, inspected all the balconies for loose fasteners and railings, and begun renovations on the crow fountain out front. Houses as beautiful and antique as Marmee’s required routine, specialized care.
As the men talked, I marveled at Oliver’s quiet confidence, the way he treated every person he encountered with kindness and respect. I clung to these elements of his personality as proof Oliver was the man I’d fallen in love with, not the menacing person that Danielle and her mother described, but my own paranoid thoughts left me unsettled.
In the week that followed the funeral, I made it my mission touncover everything I could about Danielle Schwartz. The similarities between us left me awestruck.
Like me, Danielle had suffered the death of a parent at a young age. Her father, an oil tycoon, died of a heart attack when she was only a toddler. She was raised by her mother, much like Marmee had taken on the sole responsibility of caring for me.
Which brought us to the next similarity: Both of us came from very wealthy families. A quick Google search of the Schwartz family revealed Danielle’s generational wealth traced back to the 1920s. Smart investments had only multiplied the family fortune, building it to where neither Danielle nor her mother had to work.
That didn’t deter Danielle from educational and career pursuits. She attended some of the best private schools in the city, many of which I attended in different years. After college, she used money from her inheritance to open an art studio, a place whose doors shuttered a few years ago, around the time her marriage to Oliver ended.
Danielle Schwartz, although wealthy, was far from a socialite, but I was still able to find a few photos from her wedding in some of her friends’ old albums on Facebook. It was a small ceremony in the city where there were noticeably more people in attendance than at her funeral. That was to be expected. It’s easier to come together for a happy event than a sad one.
A small bulldozer droned into the courtyard, the noise interrupting my thoughts. My nose itched from fresh pollen and drifting sawdust. I slipped behind Oliver, squeezing his shoulder as I passed, and entered the house, comforted by the quiet of the foyer, the slight chill in the air.
“Tippi, is that you?” Marmee called my name from the dining room where she sat sipping some Earl Grey tea. A satchel filled with papers sat on the table beside her. “Oh, good! I wanted to run some ideas by you about the wedding.”
It took everything in me not to groan. All we talked about was the wedding, it seemed. The topic bored me. My thoughts were consumed with theories about Danielle and Oliver, not that I could share my thoughts with anyone else.
Marmee raised her arm, showcasing the sapphire and diamondbracelet that dripped from her wrist. “I’d thought this would be the perfect Something Blue for the ceremony.”
“It would be beautiful,” I said, tension easing. Imagining myself dressed in white wearing Marmee’s jewels didn’t bother me.
“Only problem is, I can’t find the matching necklace,” she said, leaning back in her chair. She studied the bracelet more closely. “I remembered you borrowed it for one of your book signings. Do you still have it?”
Marmee was right. I’d worn the necklace to an out-of-state book event, but I could have sworn I’d returned it months ago.
“I’ll go through my jewelry box when I get home,” I said, sliding out the chair beside hers. “It’s probably still there.”
“Everything all right, my dear?”
“Fine.” I pressed a hand to my forehead, trying to smooth the lines around my face. “I just keep thinking about how busy the next few weeks will be.”
