Death of the Office Witch

by Marlys Millhiser

  “I don’t know, Keegan, it’s pretty original.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “Of course, you might make the cop a woman. It would have to be on spec. Write up a treatment and I’ll show it around.” She told him about Tina Horton at CBS that morning.

  “She pitched to Shapiro himself? Think he’ll pick it up?”

  “He was very interested. My gut feeling is it has a chance.” My gut feeling is also that he’ll want to buy Tina out and get a name to write the pilot, offer her her own show later. The name will be a guy, they’ll move the location to Seattle, and Tina will get screwed out of the credits and her own show later will never materialize. I’d sure like to be wrong on this one. “So if something has happened to Mary Ann, where does that leave Shadowscapes?”

  “All but finished. Second act needs shoring. But if I can unplug her suggestions, I could have it in in two days.” There was an odd catch in his voice as if the emotion behind his words threatened to choke him.

  Charlie glanced at his profile and then back at the traffic. Could this frustrating business have broken one of her best clients? Could Keegan have done something awful to Mary Ann Leffler? Could the woman simply have offered one too many frustrations for this normally even-tempered man? Or did Charlie actually know him as well as she thought she did? Writers had many hidden places in their psyches.

  “So tell me again about Lady Macbeth in her submerged car,” he said carefully, as if aware of her sudden attack of paranoia. “I can’t buy the business about our talking you into saying what you did back there.”

  “Have you ever been hypnotized? No? Well, I have. By a guy years ago at a party in college. I can remember him to this day telling me while I was supposedly under that I wouldn’t remember anything that went on. I also remember him telling me that later on in the evening long after I’d awakened, I would go up to this other guy and kiss him, but that I would not remember that my hypnotist had suggested it. And I did.”

  “Did what?”

  “Did go up and kiss this guy and did remember that my hypnotist had suggested it. And I really couldn’t tell you if the kiss was a lark or if the suggestion was so powerful I couldn’t help myself even though I knew full well where it came from.”

  “The power of suggestion.”

  “The power of suggestion. And when they find Mary Ann alive and well or find her dead but not in her car underwater we’ll know I said that because everybody has been on my back because of this psychic thing. I am not the L.A. fruitcake.”

  All hell had broken loose at the office. The Vance was on the front desk because The Kid and Tweety had had it out. Richard Morse was bouncing off the walls because so much was happening at once and Charlie wasn’t there.

  “Christ, you been in Malibu all day? I’m going to start hittin’ up the police department for your commissions. Listen, Steve took the manuscript home, says he’ll get back to you on it in two, three weeks.”

  “Dorian got Steven Hunter to look at The Corpse That Got Iced? I’ll believe that when I get that phone call.”

  “Ay, don’t underestimate Dorian. That’s your problem. You underestimate people just because they’re men. Listen, babe, you’re on a roll here. First the Alpine Tunnel, and now ZIA wants a call back, get in there. Oh, and CBS is even asking about Ellen Maxwell. Thanks for the mention. Maurice is on the line to her now.”

  “But Tina just pitched this morning.”

  “She pitched to Shapiro himself, right? Things can happen fast when you start at the top. That’s your problem, no confidence. All you women are like that. Good luck comes in threes you know.”

  “How about bad luck?”

  “Well, yeah, that too, but that’s everybody’s problem.”

  When Charlie Greene the agent staggered into the condo in Long Beach that evening, she was greeted by a frantic Libby before she could kick off her pumps.

  “Hurry, Mom, we’re invited to Doug’s for dinner tonight and Mrs. McDougal gets rabid about tardiness. I tried to call you at the office but the lines were busy, and then when I did get through, Larry was so pissed about something he kept on sputtering and I couldn’t make him listen. What are you doing, Mom? Hurry.”

  Charlie Greene the mother was leaning her spine against the kitchen door trying to focus. “Libby, I’m exhausted. I wish you wouldn’t spring this stuff on me. And Mr. Esterhazie and I really aren’t—”

  “Mom, on top of everything else … are you a les?”

  “Whaaat?”

  Dinner at the Esterhazie mansion was certainly a step up from macaroni and cheese with Dom Perignon. The Greenes and the Esterhazies dined in a small informal room just off the kitchen that overlooked the bay window that overlooked the lighted swimming pool in the backyard. They sat at a cozy round table that seated four comfortably—could have handled six—and were served formally by Mrs. McDougal. The catch was that to get to this cozy back room you had to walk through the intimidating formal dining room, where the table could have handled twenty-four without blushing.

  “She won’t sit with us when we have guests,” Ed explained in a whisper. “It’s embarrassing, but what can I do? I think there are laws against harassing housekeepers.”

  “Too bad there aren’t a few against harassing parents.” Charlie smiled sweetly at Libby, who grinned a nasty, braces-filled reply.

  Dinner was a simple little shellfish casserole. Individual casseroles, actually. Simple chunks of shrimp, crab, oyster, lobster, and asparagus tips floating in a rich cream sauce and baked in paper-thin pastry. Served with a white wine Charlie could actually stomach, stuffed artichokes, and crusty rolls. Brie and fresh strawberries for dessert.

  Ed was in sport shirt and slacks tonight, but even they looked pricey and tailored. Charlie was still dressed for the CBS meeting in black skirt, hose, and pumps with a black shell and red blazer. She would gladly have killed to get out of the pantyhose.

  The kids conveniently disappeared afterward, and Mrs. McDougal served coffee in Ed’s study. Ed’s study was three times the size of Charlie’s office on Wilshire Boulevard.

  “The dinner was marvelous,” Charlie told the housekeeper, whose face completely rearranged itself when she smiled. Thin, pale, tired, and sinewy was Charlie’s first impression of the woman. And disapproving. Definitely disapproving. But the thick gray hair was cut short and stylishly brushed upward, and when she smiled, all the droop lines tilted up to join the haircut and she was lovely.

  “Don’t forget the amaretto and the fire, Mr. Esterhazie.” And Mrs. McDougal left them alone in the dim lighting.

  “I wasn’t kidding about the dinner, but how do we scotch this arranged romance, Ed? Libby practically accused me of being a lesbian if I didn’t come tonight, and frankly I’ve had an incredible day and am this far from passing out.”

  “We do have a problem here, Charlie.” His lips had been fighting a curl all evening, and he finally let them catch up to the grin in his eyes. “For one thing I think they have an accomplice in Mrs. McDougal, who really runs this place. And you played into their hands just now with your compliments on the dinner.”

  “You’re not going to build a fire? That would really put me out.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll pour the amaretto and forget the fire. You take off your shoes, loosen your tie,” he pushed an enormous brown leather ottoman up to her chair, “rest yourself, and we’ll make our plans.”

  “They’re probably watching from somewhere.” She tried to see through the French windows next to the fireplace, but they only reflected the room.

  “I’m sure of it.” He sat on the ottoman near her bare feet and poured tiny cut-glass glasses full of liqueur. “Charlie, are you currently involved with someone special?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “A lesbian?”

  “Involved.”

  “That’s our answer.” She took a grateful sip of coffee. “I can
just tell Libby that and—”

  “It’s not so simple. We have two major problems here. One is that your Libby can talk my son into anything.”

  “That I can believe.”

  “And the other is that neither he nor Mrs. McDougal approve of my current.”

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “She enjoys cooking and other domestic arts, which my housekeeper finds threatening, and she’s a frustrated mother, which my son finds threatening. I think they have decided that you, as a dedicated career woman, are the answer. What I am not sure of is what Libby hopes to get out of it all.”

  “Well, this is pretty fancy living compared to our little nest. Maybe she wants to live in style. Which is moot because next week she’ll want something else. I have a lot of trouble believing she wants a father. Another parent would just double the rules and expectations she’s determined to avoid now. She does keep mentioning your belonging to the yacht club though, seems incredibly impressed by that.”

  “You know, that might be it? What exactly do you know of the local social strata?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I get my self-esteem from the size of my commissions. Why?”

  “The social life of a certain set of young people revolves, particularly in summer, around the pool at the yacht club and selected social events. Although families belong in a manner of speaking, they do so through the auspices of a male head of household.”

  The good old boys strike again. “Now that sounds like something Libby would connive for.”

  “What’s the best way to get her to stop wanting something?”

  “Give it to her. Once she’s got it, she doesn’t want it anymore. Goes on to new wants.”

  “What if we pretend to go along with their little plans?”

  “Ed, what about your current?”

  “Dorothy? It would just be for a week or two. She’ll understand when I explain why we’re doing it.”

  Boy, what Ed Esterhazie didn’t know about women. Charlie could only stare at the man.

  15

  “Charlie, who are you talking to?” Luella Ridgeway said, and Charlie very nearly choked on her Maalox tablet.

  “I was just talking to myself.”

  Luella peered down the stairwell at the end of the back hall on the fifth floor of the FFUCWB of P.

  “Luella, can I borrow your nail file?”

  “Sure. Listen … we’ve talked Richard into calling in Dr. Podhurst. This whole thing has been wild. Why don’t you talk to him? I’m going to.… Charlie, what are you doing? That’s the janitor’s closet.”

  “Gloria has decided she’s in a trash can in the closet. I figure it’s this closet.”

  “Gloria is at home in an urn.”

  “I know that. You know that. Gloria does not know that.”

  “Much as I ache for some free counseling, I think you, Charlie, should be the first to talk to Dr. Podhurst.”

  And much to Charlie’s amazement, the janitor’s closet could be unlocked with a simple nail file, but since there was no knob or handle, she broke Luella’s file in the lock pulling it open.

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  And no Gloria and no trash can in the closet. There was a portable broom-closet trolley on a metal frame with a heavy canvas bag hanging from it. A mop, a bucket, a push broom were attached at one end—spray bottles of cleaners, paper towels, and heavy-duty rags at the other. Charlie wheeled it out in the light and peeked over into the canvas bag. It was empty now, but easily big enough to hold a doubled-over body with maybe a few baskets of paper waste spread on top. Industrial-strength bearings made it roll with silent ease.

  Luella was nearsighted like Charlie and wore contact lenses for distance but then couldn’t see close up to read. She’d had a new haircut and color job since the murder, and her eyebrows arched up under puffy bangs as she peered over the tops of the little half-glasses she wore around the office. Curls curled onto her face to cover the sun wrinkles—bright blue eyes, bright red lipstick, pale sage-colored suit with flashy blue costume jewelry and pumps.

  You could easily move a dead Gloria in this thing, but it wouldn’t wheel down the stairs. The canvas part was meant to unhook and throw over your shoulder like a duffel bag and carry out to the dumpster in the alley. But even the security guards probably wouldn’t notice if you slid around the concrete block wall with it. And from there you might take Gloria out and toss her up into the bush tops to hide her.

  Luella looked twenty years younger than she had when she’d come home from her unpleasant tasks in Minnesota.

  But you’d have to be big and strong, and dressed like somebody who would look normal carrying out bags of trash to the dumpster. There was a dumpster just behind the end wall sheltering the parking barn. Why hadn’t the murderer thrown Gloria in it? It would have been closer and easier. No extra uniforms in the closet. Charlie pushed the janitorial rig back and slammed the door on it.

  Nice try, Gloria, but you obviously still don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Then again, if Luella had committed a murder, that would have taken its toll on her looks—that is, if it bothered her. And it would have bothered her. She was small and could be fierce when bargaining for what she believed in, but Charlie couldn’t imagine her being mean, knowingly. She was kind of a neat lady, really.

  “Hello?” Luella folded her arms and tapped the toe of her tiny blue pump. “Larry told me you were going to play detective again. Charlie, are you sure it’s what you want to do?”

  “No. It’s what everyone else wants me to do. I don’t have time for this, Luella. I pay through the nose in taxes for a police department to solve crimes. But if I don’t at least make an effort, nobody lets me work at the job I get paid to do. Can you please explain this to me?”

  Charlie asked Dr. Podhurst the same question. He had a new hearing device in one ear. It was so small Charlie couldn’t really tell which ear, but he kept turning his head to catch her words just right. It seemed to her he was concentrating more on the novelty of how he was hearing them than on the sense of the words themselves.

  “How would you explain it, Charlie?” Even sitting down he looked gangly and all wrong for his clothes and the chair, too. But he didn’t look strong enough to carry a body in a duffel over his shoulder down four flights of stairs and past the security guard and parking valet attendants. Then out into the alley, around the concrete wall. Then throw her up into the bushes. And he was so strikingly odd that even disguised in a janitorial coverall he’d be recognized in a minute. Disguised in anything but a total gorilla costume or as Abraham Lincoln, he would look exactly like Dr. Evan Podhurst, no question.

  “Charlie?”

  “Humm? Oh, well I’d explain it the same way I’d explain hearing Gloria Tuschman speaking to me in the hall. It’s nuts. Either that or it’s a conspiracy.”

  “Are you telling me that a murder in your office and the fact that the homicide division of the Beverly Hills Police Department is pressuring you into solving the crime for them strikes you as either nuts on their part or a conspiracy?”

  “Sounds paranoid, doesn’t it?”

  “Or as though you had not thought this through too clearly. Or perhaps have misinterpreted the intentions of the police in this matter. But let’s come back to that, Charlie, let’s talk about your home life. Is there anything there that could account for your self-admitted paranoia or such fantasies?”

  They discussed Libby Greene and her grandmother, Edwina Greene, for three times as long as they’d devoted to the effects of murder and the Beverly Hills P.D. on Charlie’s personal and working life.

  Charlie did not feel better when she left Evan Podhurst’s office. She felt like a crazy paranoid whiner who couldn’t look at anybody involved without suspecting them of murder.

  “So what happened yesterday between Tracy and Larry?” she asked Dorian Black when she found him alone in his office on her way back to her own. “I can�
�t get him to talk about it.”

  “He called her a pig and she called him a fag.” Dorian faced her over a desk as neat as his clothes. “Don’t know what the problem is. They were both right.”

  “Anybody ever tell you you’re a real sweetheart, Dorian?”

  “Ay, can I help it?” But Dorian was pretty sure it started over who had to man the front desk. “I mean hell, Tweety’s got two agents to carry and fetch for. We can’t spare her out there on the phones.”

  Dorian possessed a captive housewife, and they had two children. He doted on the children, but Elaine could do no right. Elaine was a lot younger than he, and Charlie figured the abuse was only verbal. But once Elaine grew up, Charlie hoped she’d shuck this guy. He womanized openly, yet all his clients were male. Still, she couldn’t see him doing anything so messy as murder.

  “So what, Charlie, what? You going to just stand there and stare at me? Since Tweety is on the desk right now I don’t have time to sit and watch you stare at me. You want to do a strip or something, doll, I’ll reconsider.”

  “Dorian, how well do you know Mary Ann Leffler?”

  “Seen her around here a couple of times, read about her—but don’t know anything you wouldn’t know a lot better. Famous novelists are your meal ticket, remember?”

  Tracy Dewitt was no happier about the fact she was manning the phones and the door buzzer than was her co-boss. “Charlie, Irma Vance has the whole office to oversee plus the business of the head of the agency. I am the lone support group for two very busy and important talent agents. Larry is responsible only for your office work, and all you handle are writers. I mean, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that in an emergency he should take over the receptionist job so the real work of the agency can continue with the least disruption. But here I sit doing Gloria’s job while mine piles up. Even Irma serves a shift out here. It’s lunacy.”

  “Well, Larry takes a turn out here.”

  “Right. He takes a turn. He should replace Gloria full-time until her permanent replacement is hired, since his work is the least vital to the entire agency on a minute-by-minute basis. I’ve written to my uncle about this.” Tweety watched Charlie for a reaction, squinting, and one eyelid twitching. Why would anybody listen to an eye doctor and opt for hard lenses? “You can bet if he weren’t a guy this whole problem would never have arisen.” She took a bite off the top of a Snickers, crunched the peanuts, pulled in a stray string of caramel with her tongue.