THE HOUSE THAT VANITY BUILT

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “I can’t believe you would ask such a thing. You’ve no idea who killed Jared, and you’ve no proof it was the doctor. None at all. What if it’s not?”

  “Oh, please. Does it really matter?” Eli asked. “If Jared had been killed here, we’d know who killed him. But he wasn’t. As luminaries, our knowledge of the world is sealed to the confines of this house, and since we’re unable to leave until we’ve completed our mission here, we may never know. But the fact of the matter is, if the doctor did kill Jared, it wouldn’t be his first.”

  Christina waved her hand. “Not at all. Believe me, I never accidentally fell off a ladder while stringing Christmas lights.”

  “And I never overdosed on sleeping pills. Elliott mixed up my medications with a little something he said would help with my beauty sleep. Little did I know it was a sleep I’d never wake up from. So you see, if the doctor were to die now, it would all be very justifiable. Best of all, the will the doctor signed would transfer the house and everything in it to the baby with Amy as the baby’s executrix. We’d be gone with the doctor, and the house would be Amy’s. As a result, Amy and the baby would be taken care of as beneficiaries of the company for the rest of their lives. Kind of what people today call a win-win.” Eli smiled. “But if you wait—”

  “I’m sorry.” I backed away, my hands in front of my face. “I can’t murder the doctor. It’s not what I do.”

  “If it’s because you think you might be caught, there’s no reason anyone ever need to know. You could call the doctor, and suggest he come by for tea and a casual conversation about Amy. I happen to know he likes tea almost as much as you do.” Christina giggled, the idea of the doctor and me sitting down to tea appeared to tickle her.

  “What Christina’s trying to say is, the doctor has a heart problem. You could slip a little something into his tea. There’s a prescription bottle of digitalis in his bathroom cabinet.”

  “Or,” Christina volunteered, “if you’re into something a little more organic, the doctor grows foxglove out behind the garage. It’s a natural form of digitalis. Quite deadly and very difficult to detect. In fact, I believe it’s what the doctor may have given me.”

  “No!” I said.

  Chapter 20

  “Are you talking to yourself again?” Lupe entered the kitchen and shut the door behind her. I noticed her shoes were covered with mud from the backyard.

  “Muttering,” I said.

  “Well, stop it, will you? I need you to take a ride with me. I want to talk, and I’d prefer it not to be here. Lately, I feel as though the house has ears.”

  I glanced back at Wilson with his lady friends. The three of them smiled at me, and Wilson waved for me to go on. I followed Lupe out the door to the golf cart.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Lupe didn’t answer. Instead, she put the cart in gear, and we swept down the hillside, toward the guest house, with me hanging white-knuckled onto the handrail.

  When we got to the guest house, Lupe stopped the cart, reached into her pocket, and took out three small oatmeal-colored capsules.

  “It’s these. Dr. Conroy’s been giving them to Amy. At first, I didn’t think anything of it—his being a doctor and all—but this morning, there was an argument. Amy got a call from Billy, and when he told her he had been arrested, she collapsed. It was awful. The doctor tried to give her some pills, but Amy threw them in the sink. I don’t know what to think anymore, but I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Jared’s death has caused the doctor to really lose it. He’s always been a little strange, but nothing like this. Lately he’s been coming downstairs in his bathrobe. The man never used to do that. He always dressed for breakfast. And these last couple of days, he’s been talking to himself more than usual. I can’t imagine he’d do anything to harm Amy or the baby, but something about it doesn’t feel right. I thought maybe you might know what to do or what these are.” Lupe put the pills in my hand. “I certainly can’t call the police, and I’m not about to ask the doctor.”

  I stared at the capsules filled with a cream-colored powder. I placed two on my lap and emptied the third into the palm of my hand. No smell. No bitter taste. They could be anything.

  “How long has she been taking these?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Since Jared died, I think. I heard the doctor tell her they’d help her sleep. I’m sure he wouldn’t give her anything that might harm the baby. But right now, I just don’t know.”

  A chill ran down my back. Had the doctor given her pills like he had his late wife? I couldn’t imagine the doctor would give Amy anything that might harm the baby. All the same, I wrapped the pills in a tissue and put them in my bag for later analysis.

  “The thing is,” Lupe said, “I know the police arrested Billy, and maybe they have their reasons, but I don’t think that boy’s the killer. You ask me the police have the wrong man. He’s too mild-mannered.”

  I wondered if Lupe had her own list of suspects, some of whom I sensed might my match my own. I hesitated to put words in her mouth. I needed her to tell me.

  “Then who else?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lupe grabbed a stack of towels from the back of the golf cart and headed for the guest house. I followed her inside.

  I sensed she was mentally blocking any name she might not want to think was connected to Jared’s murder.

  “You must have some idea. The coroner found bee venom in Jared’s system, and the police believe someone close to Jared replaced his EpiPen with one loaded with enough venom to trigger the reaction that killed him.”

  Lupe crushed the towels to her chest.

  I could feel her angst. The thought someone close to her had killed Jared was breaking her heart.

  I pushed a little harder. “Think, Lupe.”

  “I don’t know. For a while, I thought it might be Raul. I know he was worried the doctor would find out he had given the flask to Jared, and—”

  “And what?” I asked.

  “He had a thing for Amy.”

  “A thing?”

  “I don’t think he wanted Amy to marry Jared, but I just don’t see him murdering his best friend to stop her.”

  I didn’t feel so either. But if the police did charge Raul, I’d need whatever evidence I could find to rule him out.

  “No,” I said. “I agree. The boy strikes me as more a lover than a fighter. Am I right?”

  “Raul was all about having a good time. Jared used to tease him that in college there wasn’t a bar in town that didn’t know Raul. He said Raul majored in Partying 101. I doubt he ever saw the inside of a science class, much less knew how to get venom from a bee into a syringe.”

  “However,” I said, “his family does own the land where Billy grew up, and if what he says is true, he had access to his father’s orchards and the hives.”

  “Owned is the operative word.” Lupe raised a brow. “Have you seen Raul’s hands? No calluses. I doubt the boy ever labored a day in his life, much less on his father’s land.”

  I had to agree. Despite Raul’s early morning call to the mansion to retrieve the flask, he struck me as more of a playboy than a premeditated killer. He may have known Billy growing up and had access to the family farm, but it would take someone with more than a casual knowledge of bees to know how to harvest the bees’ venom. It had to be someone who understood the science behind the extraction, and how not to harm the bees. In my mind, that also meant it couldn’t possibly be Billy. Billy would never have experimented on his precious bees. They were not only a means by which he earned his living, but their very being an extension of his organically sweet nature. The boy didn’t have it in him. No, the venom more likely came from someone who worked in the bee-tox program for Conroy Cosmetics.

  “What about Jared’s cousin Matthew?” I asked. “I noticed he wasn’t sitting with Jared’s friends at the memoria
l, and yet, according to the police report, he was at Jared’s bachelor party.”

  Lupe bundled the towels in her arms and walked past me into the master suite.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention. In fact, I didn’t even know Matthew was here until Roger from the guard shack called and said he had just let Matthew through the gate with a party bus. When I told the doctor, he didn’t appear at all surprised.”

  “Had the doctor ordered it?”

  “I guess. I didn’t ask.”

  “Do you think Dr. Conroy suspected Jared might have been drinking?”

  “I don’t know. At the time, I just thought it was a nice gesture. A way to make sure everyone arrived at the party safely. When Matthew came in, Madeline was with him—”

  “The doctor’s sister-in-law?” I wanted to make sure I understood who was at the house that night.

  “Yes, the two of them went into the doctor’s office, and Matthew went on down to the guest house.”

  “You didn’t think that odd? That the two of them were alone?”

  “Not really. I just assumed they had business to discuss.”

  “She wasn’t there to go to the party?”

  “Hardly. She looked terrible. She’d done something to her face. Shots, I think. It was all swollen. I suspected that’s why she’d come by to see the doctor. She was always experimenting with some new chemical something or other, and the doctor would have to help her.”

  I tabled the thought of Madeline’s visit to the doctor and thought more about Matthew’s arrival with a party bus. It might have explained why his name hadn’t been on the guest list, and why he was there.

  “And then you went down to the guest house,” I said.

  “Just like I always did, right before I went home.”

  “When you got there, what was going on?”

  “It was a party. Jared and his friends, they were in the living room, drinking and laughing. It looked like they were having a good time. I tried not to interfere and went to hang the towels in the master bath, and that’s when I saw Matthew.”

  “He was in the bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Nothing really. He was just standing there by Jared’s dresser, staring at a photo of Amy and Jared.” Lupe pointed to a picture on Jared’s dresser of the engaged couple in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. One of the many trips Amy said they had taken during their whirlwind romance.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I heard Dr. Conroy come in. He had come down to say goodnight to Jared. By then, I was in the bathroom, and when I heard the doctor and Jared come into the bedroom, I busied myself and straightened the towels.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I heard Matthew say something about how lucky Jared was to have found a nice girl like Amy, and then he left.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No. Jared went to get his coat out of the closet, and the doctor stopped him.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, a tender moment maybe? At least it looked like it. Jared had just put on some cologne and then—” Lupe looked at the dresser and not seeing the cologne paused. “That’s odd.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The cologne’s missing. It was here the other day. I wonder what happened to it?”

  I knew exactly where the bottle of cologne was. Courtesy of Wilson’s inability to leave a crime scene without a souvenir, he had taken it home with him.

  “Perhaps the police picked it up when they investigated,” I said.

  “Humph.” Lupe wrinkled her brow. “Anyway, after Jared splashed himself with the cologne, the doctor asked him if he had forgotten anything. Jared checked his pockets. I think he was looking for his EpiPen. The doctor seemed to know what he was looking for and went to the dresser and took the pen from the top drawer where Jared always kept it.”

  “From the dresser, where Matthew had been standing?”

  Lupe nodded.

  “Do you think Matthew might have done something? Maybe switched out the EpiPens while he was in the room?”

  “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t think about it at the time,” Lupe said, “but maybe.”

  “And you’re sure it was the doctor who put the pen in Jared’s pocket?” I needed to verify in my own head that the doctor was the last to touch the pen.

  “Yes, and then the doctor put his hand on Jared’s shoulder, and the two of them just stood there and stared at their reflection in the mirror.” Lupe pointed to the armoire’s mirror, and for the moment, I could imagine the father and son standing there.

  Lupe dabbed away a tear. I took her hand and reassured her. “You did the right thing calling me. I’ll check out the pills. They’re probably nothing. I’m sure the doctor wouldn’t give Amy anything that would harm the baby.”

  “Do you think maybe Matthew had something to do with the EpiPen?” Lupe asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t think we’ll have any firm answers until we find the pen Jared used that night.”

  “I can’t believe anyone close to Jared would have done something deliberate. His friends loved him. In my opinion, it’s some outsider, maybe one of the doctor’s competitors. I can’t tell you the number of times I heard the doctor arguing on the phone about trade secrets, and how he thought someone was always trying to steal from him. Believe me, there’s nothing pretty about the beauty business. The doctor has a lot of enemies. If anyone wanted to hurt the doctor, it’d be through Jared. He loved that boy.”

  I wasn’t so certain.

  Chapter 21

  Back in the car, Wilson and I compared notes about our meeting with his lady friends and my visit to the guest house with Lupe. After a brief recap about what Lupe had shared with me concerning the pills Dr. Conroy had given Amy, Jared’s last appearance in the guest house with his rat pack, and Matthew’s arrival with his mother and the party bus, I circled back to the more pressing matter, concerning our discussion with Eli and Christina. Their absurd suggestion that I was in the position to poison the doctor and that my services were necessary, was—to say the least—mind-blowing.

  “And not because they think the doctor killed Jared,” I said. “But because they’re upset about Amy moving in and her interfering with their hauntings.”

  Wilson glanced over at me. He was driving slower than usual. “Everybody’s upset about Amy.”

  “Maybe so, but nobody else is suggesting I kill the doctor.” I crossed my arms and leaned against the passenger door. “The idea is totally preposterous.”

  “Although, not that I’m proposing you do so, but...how did Eli put it? It’d be a win-win for everyone. Amy might be better off.”

  “Murder is never a win-win, Wilson.”

  He drove on in silence. I wasn’t sure if he was weighing the advantages of the luminaries’ suggestion or concerned how upset I was over the idea.

  “Besides,” I said, “Lupe’s not convinced Dr. Conroy killed Jared. She thinks he’s innocent, overwrought with grief, and acting irrationally as a result of losing his son. Which under the circumstances, could very well be.”

  Wilson’s eyes slid from the road to mine. “You really think that? Because you mustn’t forget, Lupe doesn’t believe the rumors about the doctor killing his wife or his paramour either.” Wilson took one hand from the steering wheel and patted his heart mockingly. “She thinks he’s simply haunted by his loss. Bereft and deranged by their deaths, but if what Eli and Christina say is true—”

  “Which considering the source, may or may not be. Don’t forget, Wilson, luminaries lie.”

  “Perhaps, but in this case, I believe what they’re telling us is true.”

  “And hard to prove.” I couldn’t imagine how I’d explain to Detective Romero I had come
to such a conclusion. The cases had been closed long ago. The coroner had confirmed the causes of the deaths as accidental and suicide. It was only tabloid gossip that kept them alive.

  As we approached the guard gate, neither of us spoke. I glanced back in the direction of the House that Vanity Built. A superstructure of monolithic proportion surrounded by marble statues of youthful gods. I wondered how many secrets the house kept and the price the doctor had paid for such fame.

  Finally, it was Wilson who broke the silence. “So, that leaves Matthew.”

  “And his mother,” I said. “She had motive. She had connections inside the company, which would have given her access to bee venom. And what mother doesn’t want to see her son advance?”

  “Agreed,” Wilson said. “Who do you want to start with?”

  “Matthew,” I said.

  I glanced at my watch. It was exactly four fifteen p.m. By now I figured Madeline to be either prone on some suntan bed in Beverly Hills or bending her elbow at a private club with some gentleman she probably wouldn’t want her husband to know about. But Matthew, I was more certain about.

  “If I’m right, we can catch Conroy’s new VP just as he’s leaving his office. Think you can get us there?”

  “Conroy’s Cosmetics? Fasten your seatbelt, Old Gal.”

  Conroy Cosmetics was a good hour’s drive in rush hour traffic, but if Wilson took Mulholland and we zigzagged through the residential mountain areas, there was a good chance we could cut off fifteen to twenty minutes and make it in time to catch Matthew exit the building. I knew exactly how I planned to coax Matthew into a conversation. Never underestimate the powers of an innocent-looking old lady stranded by the roadside with a little white hankie in her hand.

  At exactly four fifty-five, we pulled up in front of the headquarters for Conroy Cosmetics. A handsome looking building that had once housed the business offices for a large movie studio. Wilson found a parking space on the street across from the building’s main entrance. I took the keys from the ignition, got out of the car, and with my bag under my arm, promptly dropped the keys on the pavement.