by Helen Jacey
Beatty took another glug of wine and nodded. ‘True. But it feels too simple.’
‘Sonia doesn’t see Linda Hunter as a suspect. Never has. So if somebody is trying to force her in that direction, Sonia isn’t playing ball.’
Beatty gestured for me to expand.
‘Sonia’s argument is Linda Hunter would just divorce if she was desperate. And she could have an alibi. So no need to kill Ronald. But I guess she might change that opinion after I tell her about the other girls.’
Beatty said, ‘Cases like this have a funny way of suddenly flipping.’
She topped our wine glasses up, her heavy bracelet jangling. ‘Still, Parker’s an excellent lawyer. I get why she’s keeping her cards to her chest about her defense strategy. Frustrating for you, but you can always vent to little ol’ me.’ She winked.
‘I will. I’m so glad you’re back.’ This just came out. Beatty’s face softened with a smile. ‘Leave no stone unturned, however pretty the path, remember?’
‘Sure, if I was allowed down any paths of my choosing. Sonia Parker’s leash is pretty tight.’
‘Parker just doesn’t know how good you are, is all. You don’t need to tell her every single thing you do, not until you’ve got something concrete for her. The number of times a client’s told me how to run a case! If I’d stuck to their instructions, I’d be nowhere.’
I smiled, grateful. Beatty was encouraging me to have faith in myself as a professional woman.
She’d sensed Sonia was wearing me thin.
I asked, ‘You don’t know anything about Linda Hunter, do you? Any tidbits you can share?’
Beatty blew out a puff of air. ‘Nothing. I mean, I’ve heard of her. Who hasn’t? The papers are on fire with the Hunters.’
‘It must be terrible to be in the public eye, you know, when something like this happens.’
Beatty shrugged. ‘Price of fame and fortune. Can’t have it all.’
32
‘Probably some third-rate star. A hanger-on, no doubt.’ Martell muttered dismissively.
She sat behind the wheel of her gleaming red car. We were in a long, slow-moving line of expensive cars heading towards the Hunter estate. Police had cordoned off a large section of the road, in which the public were gathering. A crowd of middle-aged women, children, older people, and wounded veterans, most waving US flags.
Hunter was beloved by many.
Out of nowhere, reporters dashed past our car. I instinctively pulled the veil of the hat down, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t looking at us. Their prey was the monster of a black car creeping behind us.
More reporters ran past, frenzy in their eyes, cameras at the ready.
I gave a quick look behind. The press were swarming like flies on the car. I said, ‘I can’t tell who it is.’ I wouldn’t recognize anyone anyway.
As we got closer, a flunkey in a gray uniform piped with white stopped our car. Martell gave her name and he directed us to a side enclosure, rather than enter the main drive. Only a few of the most expensive cars were allowed inside the gates.
We looked like a pair of elegant black widows. I had on a little crepe and silk black dress I’d bought in Manhattan about six months ago, when I was planning on a more glamorous life. It had a high neck, with black soutache around the bodice, shoulders and wrists. The waistline felt tighter than it had when I bought it.
The hat Martell lent me was pillbox style in black satin, with a twisted sculpture at the back giving it more drama. The tulle veil was soft and fine. It fell to below my chin and draped onto my shoulders—dramatic, yet effective.
Martell had insisted I borrowed one of her coats instead of wearing my jacket. The one I now wore was tailored and waisted, in the finest wool, and edged with a full black fur collar and cuffs.
‘That’s more like it,’ she said, approvingly, before we set off.
I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I normally avoided wearing fur. She wouldn’t understand, nobody ever did. I had the odd fake fur item, but even then, I never really wanted to look like I was content that an animal had had a miserable life and death, just to make me look good.
On this occasion, I could only hope the victim would feel honored to come to such a swanky funeral.
But now, its soft fur close on my neck felt hot and cloying.
Let me go, it seemed to be saying.
Martell suffered no such remorse. She outshone me, wearing an enormous dark brown fur stole around her shoulders. Her suit was of darkest aubergine satin, almost an inky, dead-of-night purple. Her hat was an elaborate wide-brimmed number in black and purple stripes. She too had a fine net veil, but it hid less of her face.
She switched off the engine and glanced at me. ‘You are Mary, my cousin from San Francisco.’
‘Do you have a cousin called Mary?’
‘I do. She pens dreadful romantic novels she can’t get published. Had the gall to ask me if I’d adapt one! I was obligated to have a look, but what drivel. Couldn’t get beyond three pages. I’d pay for her to vanity publish if it got me off the hook. Now, I had to drop Linda a line you were coming with me. She’ll be surrounded, but we’ll get a chance to give her our condolences in person.’
‘Okay. I’m a failed novelist called Mary. Anything else I should know, in case she asks me?’
‘Oh, don’t worry. She’ll forget you the moment she’s met you.’
A large oil painting of Ronald Hunter dominated a vast oak table at one end of the ballroom. It was a strange reunion. I felt as if I knew him.
On each side of the portrait, two blue and white Chinese vases held magnificent floral displays of white roses, lilies and ferns.
The room heaved with over one hundred people, crammed onto the parquet floor. More spilled out into the grounds. All in all, three hundred members of the elite of Los Angeles and beyond were here to pay their respects.
If only Lauder could see me now.
A string quartet provided somber background music. Servants in black uniforms and white starched aprons lined another long table, serving tea, sandwiches and cake.
There wasn’t a drop of booze, annoyingly. I needed Dutch courage.
‘Linda’s over there.’ Martell subtly nodded at a huddle of people in black, surrounding a woman we could barely see. Only the top of her honey-colored head was visible. ‘I’d heard she’d gone blonde,’ muttered Martell. ‘She is going gray, so probably a smart move.’
Martell rattled off names and roles of important-sounding men: the mayor of Beverly Hills; the police commissioner; studio bosses; presidents of golf clubs, museums, and water companies. She even knew military figures, of which quite a few were here.
She was a social encyclopedia and I was soon lost. The faces blurred into one. What on earth had Sonia expected me to see or do here? It was just too crammed.
No lesser mortals like Pauline, of course. She’d been axed from the script.
‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to Martell, looking at a glamorous fifty-something woman with silver blonde hair in victory rolls. She was defiantly ignoring the dress code in a bright orange-and-black striped dress, an enormous corsage of orange and yellow flowers across her breast.
‘Lady Hester Swannington, Hunter’s first wife. I can’t see the daughters, but they’re here somewhere. Maybe outside with the kids.’
‘Lady? Is she British?’ My stomach knotted.
No English toffs today, please.
‘Married to a Brit aristocrat. Was. He’s dead, too.’
‘That is some outfit! Hell hath no fury like a first wife scorned, hey?’ I muttered, trying to be witty.
‘Oh, I’m sick and tired of that first wife crap. And I didn’t think you’d be one to peddle it, Elvira.’ Martell snapped, ratty all of a sudden.
I’d obviously touched a nerve. ‘Came out wrong. I meant, good for her, you know,’ I mumbled, eating humble pie.
Martell eyed me, only half-appeased. ‘Yes, it is good for her. And I’ll tell you why.�
� She explained that after she’d been dumped for the younger model Linda, Hester married Charles Swannington, even older than Hunter, who had promptly died. Before the war, she divided her time between the Upper East Side and Gloucestershire, where the British family estate was. She’d let the Brits use the stately home for convalescing RAF officers and had no intention of going back to a sodden, miserable isle.
Martell pointed out of the huge arched window at a bunch of kids, tearing around the grounds in an unseemly manner.
‘See the kid on the sidelines? Harvey. Hunter and Linda’s child.’ The other kids, probably Harvey’s nieces and nephews who were of the same age, were clearly doing their best to ignore him.
Out of nowhere, Brad, Hunter’s driver, appeared in the grounds. He was in a dark lounge suit and derby hat, and almost fitted in. Soon he and Harvey began kicking a ball around. The other kids now got interested. Maybe Brad had a good side, sticking up for the lonely kid.
‘So Linda Hunter inherits the lot?’ I muttered.
‘Oh, it will all be carved up somehow. All the children have trust funds. Nobody’s gonna starve. Now, let’s pay our respects and then I really should say hello to some people. You’ll be okay, won’t you?’ It wasn’t really a question.
Martell led the way through the crowd, and I followed.
Linda Hunter was magnificent as the beautiful yet tragic widow, in a long black silk dress with a severe mandarin collar and a simple gold cross around her neck. She looked like royalty, a medieval queen, the most elegantly dressed here. Her hair was a woody blonde, in neat long waves that reached her shoulders. There was something of Veronica Lake in her demeanor and style.
I almost jumped at the sight of the man next to Linda, his arm protectively around her waist. A much better-looking—and living—version of Ronald Hunter.
‘Rufus Hunter?’ I asked, my voice low. I recognized him from the paper.
‘Uh-huh. How can you tell?’ Martell replied, sarcastically.
‘They look like an item.’
‘A golden couple,’ Martell concurred.
Linda suddenly saw Martell approaching. She gave a small smile and stepped away from Rufus’s arm. A pair of older women homed in on Rufus. He watched, guarded, as Martell and I reached Linda.
Her lipstick was very red. It looked identical to the one I’d dabbed off the wall. She looked drawn, and her expression wasn’t quite as empty as it had seemed to me in the newspaper photograph. If she hadn’t killed Hunter, the murder must have come as something of a shock.
Martell was all syrupy, fake sincerity. ‘Linda, my darling, what a terrible ordeal for you and Harvey. This is Mary, my cousin. I wrote you about her coming. We so appreciate being here on this saddest of days.’
‘I’m truly sorry for your loss.’ I said. Linda and I shook hands. I’d kept my gloves on. Her grasp was weak.
‘You’re the romantic novelist?’ Linda tried to peer at my face through the veil.
‘Trying my best! My books aren’t everybody’s cup of tea.’
Martell eyes burnt into me, askance, from under her veil.
Linda Hunter said, ‘I love romantic fiction. My cousin Dwight’s starting a book publishing company. I could introduce you. He’s here somewhere.’ She looked apathetically around the room.
Martell jumped in. ‘Oh, Mary’s already promised her debut novel to a small company in San Francisco, haven’t you, dear? It’ll be out next year.’
‘Well, I’ll make sure to get a copy. What’s it called?’
‘Impossible Dream,’ I muttered.
‘That’s an original title.’ Linda said, without irony.
She wasn’t the brightest button in the box, but she was no killer. I just knew it. She looked like a model but at heart was just an uncomplicated girl next door. Married money, because she’d grown up surrounded by it. It was her misfortune that she married a bounder. But did she even know it?
Maybe she was as naïve as one of the heroines in my—in Mary’s—slushy novels.
I felt Martell’s finger jab me hard in the back. ‘Come on, Mary. Linda’s got the whole world to talk to.’
‘And it’s Mary who?’ Linda asked. She wanted my surname!
I froze. ‘I’m sorry?’
Martell laughed. ‘Look at her, she’s so tired from the trip! Mary Saunders. Or you were, the last time we spoke!’ Martell tittered.
‘Mary Saunders. I’ll be sure to remember it. Have you had something to eat?’ Linda said. Martell said we hadn’t and dragged me away.
Martell and I walked off, bickering under our breaths about whether she had told me the surname or not. ‘Well, never mind. But you see? If you think Linda Hunter’s a murderous Medea, you really are a romance novelist.’
‘Medea?’
‘Oh, it’s from Greek mythology. You probably don’t know the classics.’
Her snootiness was misplaced. I had been taught Greek and Latin for several years at a grammar school in London, in a former life, in another world, when I had been given my one chance of becoming respectable.
A chance I blew, of course.
The fact Martell was so sure a streetwise PI wouldn’t know Greek myths annoyed me. I suddenly wanted to show off my education.
‘I know exactly who Medea is. Why her?’
‘Oh, she was the first husband-slayer that came to mind.’
‘I think you mean Clytemnestra. She killed Agamemnon. Medea killed her kids.’
Martell ignored this, her eyes lighting up. She waved at someone. She said she would find me and we could leave after that.
I headed for the long table, wondering if I could manage a piece of cake and a cup of tea with gloves and a veil on.
What are you thinking! Work the room. Find something! Anything!
I turned around and headed back to the baronial wood-paneled hall with two stags’ heads on huge wooden mounts.
Off this was a vaulted hallway, with stone tiles. Portraits of men, alongside lamps and small brass plaques lined the long walls, punctuated with mahogany doors with colossal carved frames.
Nobody was around to prevent me from gawking at the Hunter clan, so I slipped down the hall.
The clan turned out to be mainly several portraits of Ronald Hunter in various guises. The first, him in pose, in a tuxedo and bow tie. He wasn’t averse to tooting his own horn, obviously.
I peered closely into his eyes. The painter had even got the stubby fair lashes right. I whispered, ‘Look, buddy, I know you weren’t much of a gentleman. But who killed you? Help me out here.’
Hunter’s greedy eyes danced right back at me. Nobody would recognize the look of a predator but me.
I moved on to the next painting. Linda Hunter, posing in such a way her profile seemed to be looking at Hunter’s. A matching pair of portraits. She wore a peach satin evening dress and a diamond choker. Her hair was darker than her new shade of blonde.
‘Randy says that Flannery is one of the best detectives the department has. The case against her will be watertight. And then it will all be over.’
I threw myself against the wall. A young woman’s voice, coming from a room further down the corridor.
A calm and poised voice.
Randy? Randall? My Randall?
Was I in spitting distance of The Fiancée?
33
My stomach lurched. My mouth was full of sawdust, but still, I edged towards the half-open door. I had to hear more!
‘I know. But I was thinking, could it be them, not her? I’d hate for an innocent person to…you know….’ This was Linda’s voice.
‘She’s hardly innocent. She sounds demented.’
‘Yes, but…’
Them?
‘Look, the cops know what they’re doing. Soon you can move on.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You’ve waited so long for this. So has Rufus.’
What? Rufus?
I had been right. Rufus and Linda were in love. She’d married one brother and fallen for the other.
> It hit me, like a wave. Rufus. It had to be. He coveted his brother’s wife and killed him. At least paid somebody for the hit. But was Linda in on it?
Linda let out a heavy sigh. ‘I’ve got Harvey to think about. He’s not himself. Not to mention the gossip. Sometimes I just want to take him back to Texas and disappear. Forget about everything.’
‘But Rufus?’
‘He’ll get over me.’
‘The path of love never runs true. Take me and Randy. You think my folks approved of my future husband being a cop? It even took me a while to accept he wasn’t after my money. But he’s a good guy, the one for me. You just have to give it time, sweetie. You’ve been through so much. You’ve got to be strong, for the trial.’
‘I know you’re right.’
‘I am. Forget about what other people think. You’ve done nothing wrong!’
‘Randall’s been so kind. He doesn’t know yet about Rufus, does he? I don’t want him to think ill of me.’
‘Of course not, darling. I promise you. That’s between us girls. He’ll understand in time, when everything’s out in the open.’
My mind raced. The Fiancée was in the room with Linda Hunter. It was her. I knew it. I had to remember every word they were saying.
‘I’m so sorry this has ruined your holiday. Will you thank Randall for me?’
‘Thank him yourself. He’ll be here any minute.’
Lauder. About to show up. This couldn’t get worse. He’d see through the getup, the ludicrous veil. He would mentally yank it off and he would be mad, but without saying a word.