“And you and she went to Richard with it and tried to get Gloria fired. Why did you tell him Gloria was casting evil spells to get information for Roger’s newsletters?”
“My, you have been a busy little thing, haven’t you? You may not have noticed, but Richard is really very superstitious. We thought we’d get his attention that way.”
Phy Duong, the cleaning lady arrived—young, Oriental, efficient, politely unimpressed.
“Oh Charlie, I wish I could stay and chat but I do have to get down to the agency.” Luella slipped her earrings back on and punched her garage door opener. “Have I answered all your questions to suit you?”
“All but one.” Charlie followed her into the garage, where a door lifted soundlessly and where there were two cars—Luella’s Honda Accord and a sleek black Jaguar. One for work and one for the weekend. “The Tuschmans had something on you, didn’t they? You confronted them that Sunday night with the inside information on your client that they’d stolen. But they confronted you back with something worse. They knew you’d spent time in prison.”
Luella Ridgeway stopped and turned to look through Charlie, petite and perfect, one slender hand with professionally manicured nails—red to match her costume jewelry—resting on the car, outwardly everything Charlie would have liked to have been, maybe could have been if she hadn’t screwed up at sixteen. “Why are you doing this to me, Charlie?”
I don’t want to. Oh God, do I not want to. “The police know about it. Better you hear it from me.”
Luella put the Honda between them and eyed Charlie over its top, the angry tapping of a shoe toe sounding hollow in this cavern that could have handled two more cars. “When I was a senior at the University of Minnesota, I was the public relations officer as well as treasurer of the student body government. I embezzled fifteen thousand dollars from the treasury. I figured the world owed me. At the time it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. I had access, I had the opportunity to cook the books, and I was fed up with never having enough money. It was stupid. I have always admitted it. I admitted it then. It’s a stupid age when you’re likely to do stupid things, what can I say?”
“But you got caught.”
“Charlie, it wasn’t as if I’d raped someone. Or committed murder. But I spent fifteen months in prison and served five years probation, paid back every penny plus fines that amounted to a good deal more. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find work if you have both a college degree and a prison record? I went back to finish my degree in journalism and worked to pay restitution. I cleaned houses like the superior little ass inside. I pumped gas. Think I could get a decent job? So I married. I had no choice. But first I changed my name, paid for a new identity. Husband number one had money, and we had a good time. He moved me out here. He dabbled in the industry at first but got lucky, got interested, got busy. Turned me loose and I found what I wanted to do.”
“Be an agent.”
“Be an agent. He lost interest and came back, and now I was busy. We split. Simple. And I remarried well and continued working at what I loved, almost had myself convinced the big bad world had forgotten all about my mistake, had forgiven me that—and then Gloria and Roger came up with it. Charlie, killing Gloria wouldn’t have helped hide my dirty secret. Roger would still know about it.”
“But how did they find out?”
“I went to an ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ party at their house last year and met your Mary Ann Leffler. She kept insisting she knew me but couldn’t place me. Her sister had been in the student government at the university at about the time I was. That family had followed my trial and attendant troubles with understandable interest, and of course my picture appeared in the local newspaper along with the story. Mary Ann finally remembered where she’d seen me and wrote to tell Gloria from Montana.”
Charlie would have liked to know more about that Halloween party from Luella’s perspective, but hadn’t the heart (or stomach) to go on. She walked around the Honda to give the woman a heartfelt hug. Luella stayed statue stiff. Charlie left before she could feel any worse. How did real investigators live with themselves?
Back at the agency, Charlie called Tina Horton to congratulate her and warned her not to do any work on the pilot until they saw the white of at least the deal memo. Other than eating the flan, it was the first pleasant thing she’d done all day, and she tried to sound up through it all. Then she called Shelly and asked him to meet her in an hour out back in the alley. “You know where.”
Then she whispered in Larry’s ear that she was taking him to lunch so they could talk about what was bothering him in the privacy of a public restaurant.
Next, she visited Dr. Podhurst’s office. Linda Meyer was reading a fashion magazine to the accompaniment of her boss’s choppy drone and irritating throat-clearing coming from the open door of his office. Charlie gestured her surprise, and Linda got up to close his door.
“Don’t worry, there’s no patient in there. He’s just dictating into his machine. You should have heard him before he got a hearing aid. I had to go shush him if a patient came in. Did you need to see him? He’s got an appointment in ten minutes.”
“No, don’t bother him. I just wanted to ask you more about that party last Halloween. Did they actually sacrifice a black and white cat and dance naked in front of Dorian Black’s children around that bonfire in the orange grove?”
Linda’s giggle was so cute it reminded Charlie she used to giggle—way last week. “Oh, I know what you’re up to Charlie, you’re investigating. It’s so exciting. I love to gossip. The cat was already dead. It was Gloria’s what-do-you-call-it—?”
“Familiar?”
“Hey, right. Just hours before the party, it got hit by a car. Don’t you remember Gloria carrying on about it for a month? No? Well, I’ve always thought you were beautiful but not very perceptive, you know? Hey, don’t take offense, I mean, what do I know? Gloria said you were psychic, but Gloria said the weirdest stuff.”
“So it was some kind of funeral rite for the cat.”
“Bingo. And yes, everybody danced skin out, and it was so much fun. Have you ever tried it? The kids loved it. It wasn’t just Dapper Dork’s kids, either, but we’d all had some interesting social—let’s say, party snacks? Kids were no problem. These weren’t toddlers. I mean, it wasn’t taking advantage of innocents or anything.”
“Was there sex?”
“Well, not for the kids, and not for me. It was after the people with kids left, too, but if my boyfriend had been there, we’d have shown them how. I mean, I was greased. There was a couple there—the guy was sort of wimpy, but he dressed like a cowboy, and he wasn’t taking his clothes off for anything. His girl was a real skinny Oriental thing. No breasts. I mean flat-out flat.”
“This wimpy cowboy—did he ever take his clothes off?”
“No, his girl took them off him. She was damn near lactating. He finally got in the mood. He’s not as wimpy as he looks. Gloria told me she sent them home in a cab, delivered their car later. Gloria was a flake. But she was responsible.” The twinkle in Linda’s eyes faded. “I heard about Mary Ann. I sure am sorry. Are you investigating her death, too?”
Charlie’s next stop was the VIP hall. She didn’t hear any voices claiming to be Gloria’s. She didn’t study the view outside the window. She studied the hall, the stairs, made three trips down to the outside door, peeked out, came back up.
When Charlie met Sheldon Maypo out by the bushes where Gloria’s body had been found, she asked him if he still wanted to aid her investigations. “I know I shouldn’t ask you to spend time on this, you with no job and I haven’t sold your stuff. Yet.”
He yawned and leaned back against the woody part of the bushes where getting Gloria down had done so much harm. He took off his baseball cap to run a hand over his white tufty hair and regarded his agent with a certain mischievous glee. “You say that every time you see me. Tell you what, I’ll help you if you’ll try harder with my ‘stuff.’ Ho
w’s that?”
“Oh I will, Shelly. I promise. But I still feel guilty.”
“Well, don’t. I just landed a new security job. Start tonight.”
“That’s wonderful. Night jobs work so well for you. And you can write and eat, too. Where?”
“Right here. No thanks to you. But I have impressive references nonetheless.”
Charlie had forgotten all about trying to wangle him a security job at the FFUCWB of P, or even looking into who might have some clout in the matter. One more reason to feel guilty. But that job would help out with what she had in mind for him to do next. “It may not solve Gloria’s murder, Shelly,” she said after telling him what she wanted. “But it could explain how she got up in the bushes.”
Charlie thought she’d had all the surprises anyone would come across in one day already, until she took her assistant to lunch at Mom and Pop’s to hear his secrets in private.
28
Charlie, it’s not bad news—what I wanted to tell you yesterday. It’s good news. That is, if whoever bugged your office doesn’t decide to fuck it up.” Larry snapped a crisp potato chip between those gorgeous teeth and said around it, “I’ve got work.”
“Of course you’ve got work. You work for me. Oh you mean—”
“Real work. Come on, Charlie, you always knew I’d leave when a break came. Don’t look like that.”
“It’s just such a surprise.” I don’t need more surprises. “I’m happy for you, of course.” You can’t leave me. I need you. “What is it?”
“Beach-beer commercial. Hard hat. Coors.” He raised a glass of Pepsi on ice to her in triumph.
He certainly had the body for beach shots and the jaw for hard-hat stereotyping. “Isn’t beach and hard hat kind of a funny combination?”
“There’s a pickup instead of a volleyball net, and they’re roasting steaks instead of baking clams but—see, after a hard day of building roads or whatever, a bunch of guys go to the beach, swim, pop a cool one, throw around a football, jock it up.”
“No girls? In a beer commercial?”
“Well, yeah, they come along and decide to join the party. But you know the best part? It’s to air locally first.”
Some producer sitting home with his feet up after a hard day punches his remote and there’s this fantastic guy on this beer commercial, and he thinks to himself this fantastic guy would be perfect for the part of Fantastic Guy. Producer’s on the phone in seconds telling his minion to find this guy and line him up for an audition. Actors.
Oh well, all Charlie’s writers were going to hit the New York Times best-seller list or win an Oscar—most of them both. She looked down at the disgusting mess on her plate. Mom or Pop—they were both women—had said she had just the thing for an ulcer. The man at the next table was turning green merely watching Charlie eat it. But it was strangely soothing. A poached egg with a soft yolk on a piece of toast with hot milk poured over it, salt and pepper to taste. “So how long will it take to shoot it?”
“Three, four days, probably.”
“And you’re willing to give up a steady paycheck and medical insurance for a few days of work?” Why not? You’ll be discovered in a week and a superstar in a year.
“What else can I do? I’ve used up my vacation time. Look, I don’t want to be an assistant all my life, same as you don’t want to be a housewife. Okay?”
“Okay, but what if I could convince the Vance into letting you have a week of unpaid leave for that time? Just in case new work doesn’t come right away after the commercial’s shot?”
“Fine by me if you can work it, but you’re not going to get Irma to go for that. Might not be good for dear Richard’s business.”
“Let me see what I can do.” Let me see if I can’t just do a little blackmailing on my own.
Charlie cornered Irma Vance in the ladies off the VIP hall. Talk about taking unfair advantage. She stood outside the stall door and waited for the woman to stop peeing. “I want you to talk Richard into giving Larry a week’s unpaid leave starting a week from next Monday.”
Irma waited to flush and come out to wash her hands, meticulously of course, before bothering to answer. “And how do we expect me to do that, Charlie dear?”
“We expect you to figure out a way.”
“And why should we do that? And since when have we demanded such favors in this office?”
“Since we found out about Scarborough House.”
Irma’s eyes met Charlie’s in the mirror over the sink. Richard once said Irma’s sharp stare could slice a man’s balls thinner than home fries before he felt the blood in his shorts. Charlie didn’t back away, but she had the urge to.
“You found the tapes. Yesterday afternoon when you were here alone. Yet they were here when I came in this morning. Why did you put them back?”
Charlie shrugged. “My turn to have secrets. About time, too.”
“First Gloria. And now you. Where does it end? Mr. Morse already knows about Scarborough and so does Mr. Congdon. Besides, I can support myself now. What is it you expect to do with this information, Charlie?”
“I expect I’ll think of something, Irma. And you’ll never know when that particular gun’s going to go off, will you? It’ll be just like before Gloria died.”
“I’ll see what I can do. But little girls shouldn’t play with fire, Charlie dear.”
Maurice didn’t even smile when Charlie passed him on her way back to the office. Luella made a point of avoiding her all afternoon.
Tracy passed Larry by and brought James’s script right to Charlie’s desk, said nothing, and left. If Dorian came in, Charlie didn’t see him. Richard seemed to be bouncing back, though. Richard was like that. Edwina would have called him rubbery. Charlie preferred elastic. But the biggest surprise of the day was that the deal memo from ZIA arrived by messenger. Would Tina Horton begin work on the pilot at once?
“This does not happen in this town,” Richard Morse said and drafted a leak to the trades. “Nothing so quick and easy. Then again, don’t look a gift horse in the asshole, I always say.”
He handed Irma the rough copy, but she didn’t rush off to key it in. She stood there and cleared her throat. Then she tilted her head toward Charlie and coughed.
“What, Irma? You can speak. You are among friends. Oh that’s right, I forgot. So Charlie, you’re trolling for favors for your friends instead of yourself? That’s not smart, baby, but it’s your tush. What will you do without Larry the Kid for a whole week? And who will help out on the front desk? You? We’re already shorthanded around here. Everybody’s working two jobs the way it is.”
“Relieve me of all detection responsibilities and I’ll help out on the phones. Or you could hire a temporary.”
“Jesus, remember the last time we hired a temp? Shut down the system. Lost business. And we should do it again so the Kid can take a trip or something? Charlie, I thought we were on the same side in this war. Maybe I was wrong.”
“Not all temporary receptionists are as bad as the last one, Richard. And these are hard times, as you so often tell us. Extraordinary measures are needed at times like this. And I, in the last week, have laid ‘Southwestern Exposure,’ Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel, and Shadowscapes on your plate—and you still think you’re going hungry. Maybe I need to look for another job.”
With that Charlie Greene sashayed her terrified ass out of the boss’s office and left the agency early to get ready for a stupid dinner at a stupid yacht club.
She left an office suite once full of colleagues and now full of enemies. An office that supported her and her bastard child and saved them both from depending on the bile of Edwina Greene. Charlie didn’t burn bridges, she dissolved them. Maybe Libby was right, maybe she should latch onto a safe older male with money.
Incredibly, after all she’d been through and all she still faced at work, at the doctor’s, at the Beverly Hills P.D., and at home, Charlie had a good time at the yacht club dinner in Long Beach that night.
She broke her word to Dr. Williams and had a couple of glasses of wine and a small beef fillet swimming in a naughty sauce with strange herbs, mushrooms, liqueurs, garlic, and probably cream and butter. It was Friday night, and after her week she was taking a well-deserved break from stress in her own way. She danced with Ed and she danced with strangers. She applauded as he and they presented each other with trophies for some regatta. She was assailed in the powder room by women wanting to know what it was like working in “the industry” and how they could get their niece, daughter, neighbor an audition or their book published. She was assailed outside it by men wanting to know about the murder at the agency and how they could get their son, nephew, friend an audition or their book published.
She even went out to look at Ed’s boats. A smaller thing with a mast and sails he used for racing and a larger one with motors he used for travel. There were quite a few signs of Dorothy about on this one. They talked about murder, standing on the deck watching city lights twinkle just like people used to watch stars.
“Everybody has a motive, and damn few of them have alibis,” she told him. “And I’ve pissed off all my friends at work and probably my enemies, told off the boss, and decided to solve Gloria’s murder on my own and hope when I do the reason for Mary Ann’s death will become clear. Ed, I think I’ve lost my mind.”
“I hope you’re not being set up for a dangerous situation, Charlie. I hope the Beverly Hills P.D. is prepared to offer you some protection, since they seem as open about involving you in the investigation process as your boss is. I hope this Lieutenant Dalrymple is not depending on your so-called psychic powers to protect you here. I hope Dorothy will start speaking to me again.” He lit a cigarette and tossed the paper match overboard. “I’m sorry. I am trying to quit, but you are not helping at all.”
Death of the Office Witch Page 21