“Miss Cooper. I’m telling you this because I’m sure Iz mentioned to you when she got to your house that she had just seen me in Boston. I realize you must be aware of what went on between us, and I need to know what you’ve told the police about it, do you understand? I don’t plan to hide anything, I’d just like to walk into that interview with an idea of how much they know about me.”
He had made the mistaken assumption that Isabella had called me with confidences about her Boston rendezvous with Burrell when she arrived on the Vineyard. My lie of omission was simply to let him believe that, and my larger deceit was to bluff him about what I had learned in the I conversation we never had. From the cast he put on the revelation, it was easy to infer that their encounter had not gone well.
“I do know how much the weekend upset her. She was quite unhappy about it,” I baited him.
“Maybe angry is a better word.”
“You have to understand my frustration, Miss Cooper. I adored Isabella, I worshiped her from the first moment I met her. I helped create the Isabella Lascar the world fell in love with on the screen.”
Here we go, another Pygmalion story. Another man behind the woman, responsible for her success. You’re losing me now, Burrell.
“We were fabulous together, before anyone knew who Isabella was capable of becoming. Then I screwed it up, all my own fault. My addiction destroyed everything in my life, personally and professionally. But I’ve got it all together again, I can assure you. I’ve written a great property, something that would have been perfect for Isabella. She wanted to meet with me, to read it, to talk about it. For me, it was my foot in the door to ask her to take me back. The movie was secondary I wanted to be her husband again, I wanted her to let me love her.”
As far as I could tell about Lascar’s love life, it would be like standing on line at a bakery the night before Thanksgiving to buy a couple of pies. Take a number.
“Bottom line, Mr. Burrell? She told me it didn’t fly.”
“Bottom line, as you say, Miss Cooper. I realize I’m running over the five minutes you gave me, but you see the urgency of all this, I’m sure. Isabella wanted a script but had no use for me, other than as a friendly old shoulder to lean on.”
“So the two of you fought.”
“I don’t think either one of us meant to, really. But she got sloppy the combination of vodka followed by too much red wine and all the while I was sober. And as you know, she could have a pretty cruel tongue when she was liquored up, and I didn’t have the benefit of any alcoholic anesthesia to ease her blows.”
“Yes, I’ve heard her barbs, Mr. Burrell. They could be very painful, I’m sure. Is that why you put your hands on her? She’d always described you as such a gentle person.”
It worked.
“Iz was getting so loud, Miss Cooper. I had images of people in adjacent rooms calling the front desk and someone generating publicity about her drinking or her temper. I didn’t hit her, you know, she didn’t tell you that, did she?”
“No, no she didn’t.” “I just grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to shake her her a bit. Merely to quiet her down and bring her to her senses. That only made her angrier and raised her volume a pitch or two. Her glass fell to the floor and splintered. She screamed some more insults, called me some names, went into the bathroom, and locked herself in. I waited awhile. When she refused to come out, I eventually went back to my room.
“I was afraid you’d consider that some kind of domestic violence, you know? Especially if housekeeping reported the broken glass and guests complained about the screaming. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, Miss Cooper. Anyone who knows the two of us knows that all I ever wanted was to be together with Isabella again. I could never have hurt her.”
Haven’t I seen this scene in a thousand B-movies?
“Did you see her again, after that argument?”
“No, no. I wanted to, I really did. But I gave her the night to sober up, and when I called her room in the morning she had already checked out. I knew she was going to your place on the Vineyard. I didn’t know where your house was and, quite frankly, I didn’t even know your name. Iz talked about you a lot, but just by your first name I never paid close attention, then I saw your name in all the newspaper articles, of course. It never occurred to me that she was taking someone to the island with her. She let me think she was going to the Vineyard alone.”
Me too, pal.
“Did you hear from her after that?”
“No, that’s what I mean. I hung around for most of that day, then just drove myself back up the coast to home. It’s not a very helpful alibi, Miss Cooper. Eastport Harbor’s a pretty lonely place, and there aren’t any neighbors or deliverymen or camera crews to record my comings and goings.”
“Mr. Burrell, those things you’ve told me aren’t much to worry about. There’ll be hotel check-out records and garage receipts and a mini-paper trail to back you up, I’m sure.” He seemed much too frantic and concerned for the amount of information he had given me.
“Is that really all?”
“I swear to you, Miss Cooper, I swear on Isabella’s life…”
That oath had a rather empty ring to it.
“You’ve got to tell these things to the detectives, and you’ve got to do it yourself.” I didn’t want to be alone with this man a minute longer than I had to.“There’s no use pleading your case to me. I can’t help you with more than an introduction to the police, please believe me.”
He looked desperate, not evil, but my instincts had been wrong on more than one occasion and I was not in a good position to figure this one out tonight.
“Where are you staying in town?”
“The Peninsula.”
“Go back to your hotel. You’ll get a call from a detective named Chapman in the morning. Just tell him everything you’ve told me.” Only Mike will be able to play hardball with this guy and maybe we’ll be on our way to a confession.
Burrell tried to thank me as he slouched out of the office they and I noticed my hand was still trembling as I reached for the telephone to call for a cab. As the cab crawled up Center Street, which became Fourth Avenue, which became Park Avenue, I tried to think whether there had been anything memorable about the evening Jed and I had taken Isabella to dinner. It had been her just before the Labor Day weekend, which Jed was going to spend in California with his kids. We had planned to meet for dinner on Friday evening, and as I was dressing at my apartment, Iz called from her hotel room. She was cheerful and pleasant – the second stalker hadn’t started to call or write yet and she only wanted the name of my hair colorist for a touch-up while she was in town.
“Is this Elsa discreet, darling? The fans like to think I’m all natural,” she laughed into the telephone.
“She’s a dream, Isabella. I’m sure she’ll do it in your hotel room, if you’d like.”
“Marvelous, I’ll ask her. Is the D.A. a little house-mouse, tonight, Alex. No crime? No romance? None of those handsome detectives to drive you all over town?”
“Actually, I’m on my way out to dinner with a man I’ve been dating. You’re very welcome to join us.” “Ah, this must be the rich one that Nina’s told me about.
Would I be in the way? I don’t eat much.“
“We’d love it, Iz. Let’s surprise him, okay? I’ll pick you up at eight and we’ll meet him at the restaurant.” I knew Jed would get a kick out of meeting Isabella – what man wouldn’t? -so I called ‘21’ and changed Mr. Segal’s reservation from two people to three.
Jed was seated in the middle of the front room when the two of us arrived. The puzzled look on his face changed to delight when he ‘made’ Isabella vamping toward his table.
He was a regular at the club, but his stock soared that night as the captain and waiters watched the glamorous movie star sweep over and embrace him with a loud, “Jed, darling, it’s been far too long.”
It was an easy mix. The good Isabella was performing funny and charming
and eager to be liked. She was the center of attention in the room, and she enjoyed that.
Jed had spent most of his life in California, so the two of them knew some of the same people and all of the same places. The law firm he had started out with in Los Angeles had done a lot of work in the entertainment field. He left it to move to Washington for a special securities commission, then returned to the West Coast to make his unsuccessful run for the Senate from California.
“A Democrat, no doubt? Alex would only get in bed with a Democrat, I’m sure. I’m strictly a Republican, Jed, although I must say if I had noticed your face staring down at me from a campaign billboard, I might have pulled your lever.”
Iz loved to flirt and reveled in making sophomoric comments about sex. I can’t say she was all talk and no action – if one believed her stories, then intercourse was to her what aerobics classes were to my working friends.
“What’s CommPlex, Jed?” she asked in her most sincere voice, but zoned out of the conversation and back into her Stoli as Jed proceeded to give a detailed explanation of the giant communications and computer operation that Anderson Warmack had built from his home office into a Fortune 500 corporation over the last fifteen years.
We had almost gotten through the meal without Isabella asking for a favor a rare stretch of time for me when something Jed said about money and business ventures seemed to spark her memory. She told us that she thought her business manager had been stealing from her investments, pilfering increasingly substantial sums of money from deals he set up, but she didn’t know how to hire someone to look over his shoulder to confirm her suspicions. Jed asked the captain for a piece of paper and gave Isabella the name and number of his accountant in Los Angeles, assuring her that his man would be able to refer her to the right person to check her records for a scam.
“He’s a good man, Isabella. And extremely trustworthy he runs all Anderson Warmack’s personal finances.”
“And how many millions might that involve?”
“Three hundred, maybe three-fifty. That’s if the market had an average day today, Isabella. Even more if it was strong.”
Isabella was grinning now, licking her chops for effect.
“And is he cute, this Anderson fellow?”
“Well, did you think Charles Laughton was cute?” I asked her.
“Like in the last three or four movies he made? We’re talking rich, old, fat, and usually intoxicated.”
“One out of four isn’t bad especially if it’s my favorite one.Now that you two are so happy together, Jed will just have to introduce me to Anderson Warmack. I insist on it.”
Isabella and I left the table to go the ladies’ room, like two girls at a high school prom, while Jed signed the tab – ‘21’ had the best steak tartare, the best Dungeness crabs, and the most wonderful ladies’ room attendant in New York. She was smart and lively, and instead of sitting sullenly in a corner with a stack of paper towels, Marie was always reading. Current fiction – mostly mysteries usually with a library dust jacket, and she was always eager to give me her opinion of the writer.
“Hey, dear, how are you? Haven’t seen you in weeks. Put anybody away lately?” she giggled.
I introduced her to Isabella, who rudely blew her off and wanted only to gossip about Jed.
“Darling, hang onto this one. Handsome, smart, rich I’m not kidding, I really want to meet his boss.”
“The old guy does have a wife, Isabella.”
“Really, Alex. I didn’t say I wanted to marry the old coot, did I? I might just want to play with him for a while, see where he likes to spend his millions.”
“Good night, Marie,” I said, tripling my usual tip out of guilt and annoyance over Isabella’s display of vulgarity.
Jed’s car was waiting in front of the restaurant so we dropped Iz at the Carlyle, then went on to my apartment together. We both agreed that once a year might be often enough for an evening like that, and put thoughts of Lascar behind us as we undressed and made love to each other with great enthusiasm after ten days of separation.
Now, as the cab squared Grand Army Plaza and dropped me at the front steps of the Plaza Hotel, I wondered whether Jed had told Warmack about Isabella’s short-lived expression of interest in him… and whether I should suggest to Mike Chapman that her business manager be added to the list of suspects.
I realized that I was arriving almost an hour later than I had promised Jed, because of Burrell’s unannounced visit and the crush of traffic on the streets uptown. Cocktail hour was long over and I was grateful for my thin build as I wiggled and squeezed my way through the Grand on Ballroom between two hundred round tables packed to “ the gills with CommPlex sycophants and rival business leaders, surrounded by surly waiters trying to serve platters of rubber chicken to the noisy crowd.
The program I had picked up at the entrance listed our names at Table 2. I could spot the top of Jed’s head as I plowed halfway through the room, waved to the mayor, who was working the tables near the podium, and stopped for a kiss from one of Jed’s partners as I neared my empty seat.
“Sorry, Jed, the usual complications and excuses,” I whispered to him as he rose to introduce me to the rest of the men and women at the table. Anderson Warmack grinned down at me from the dais on the stage, and it seemed that I owed Richard Burrell a small ‘thank you’ for the timing that had made it possible for me to avoid any discussion of the late Lascar with the fat tycoon.
Jed was in a good mood, despite my failure to show up for the reception.
“Warmack came into my office at the end of the day,” he explained, sotto voce.
“He’s not ready to make any public announcement tonight, but he’s going to issue a press release right after the Christmas holidays, and I’ll probably be named to the presidency of the company by February. I’m going to plan a wonderful trip for us over New Year’s, to celebrate – it may be my last vacation for a year.“
I was thrilled for Jed, knowing how much he had wanted all this to fall into place and how hard he had been working for Warmack’s approval. I squeezed his thigh under the table as he tried to run his hand under my tight sheath and pinch me, winking at me with an enormous grin on his face.
“You’re not going to make me wait till New Year’s to celebrate, are you?” I teased. “Can’t we start sooner?”
“Of course, darling. We can get a room here tonight and go right upstairs after the speeches and…”
“Whoops, maybe tomorrow. That’s a wonderful offer, but I’ve got to leave after the testimonials, Jed. Chapman’s meeting me with some evidence that just came in from Massachusetts so I can look at it tonight.”
“Evidence? What kind of evidence? I thought there was no other evidence.”
I laughed at Jed’s concern.
“I’m not making that mistake again. My lips are sealed. It’s just a long shot, some things I want to look at, in case they contain any leads.”
“Will you come back and meet me later for a nightcap? Larry, Stan, and I are taking Anderson over to the Tap Room at the University Club for a more intimate toast when this is over.“
“Are you crazy? I’ve got a sentence first thing tomorrow morning. You take care of what you’ve got to do you should be very happy with the news you got today. And don’t make any plans for the weekend the celebration will be my surprise, okay?”
The speeches went on interminably, and I was relieved that Warmack had finished his remarks before I checked my watch, rose, and said my good nights, and kissed Jed good-bye. It was a little after ten-thirty when I went out of the hotel through the revolving doors and let the doorman help me into a yellow cab for the short ride home.
Mike’s car was parked at the end of the circular driveway when my cab pulled in and dropped me at the apartment. He was standing in the lobby with the two doormen, critiquing whatever sports event had been on the tube that evening.
“Whoa, blondie, bet you ten on the Final Jeopardy question tonight you didn’t cat
ch it, didya?”
“Hardly.”
“Category was African history. Wanna bet?”
Damn. Not one of my strengths.
“Did you get it right?”
“Yeah. You chicken?”
“All right, ten dollars.”
We were in the elevator on the way up to my floor.
“The Final Jeopardy answer is: Napoleon defeated them at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798.”
I shook my head.
“Just deduct the ten from whatever you owe me.” I didn’t have the faintest idea.
Mike gloated: “Who are the Mamelukes? I knew you wouldn’t know that. I should have doubled my bet.” He proceeded to give me a thumbnail version of the battle, which was apparently fought nowhere near the great pyramids, and explain who the Mamelukes were and where they came from. He was a whiz at both world history and military battles, and delighted in showing it off.
“I hope I do better with Wally’s photos,” I said, as I turned my keys in the locks.
“Not much to see.”
“Do me a favor and put up the coffee. I’m just going to get out of this dress, okay?”
It only took me a minute to change from the silk dress into my long shirt and leggings. I hurried back to the kitchen to get out mugs for the coffee that Mike had already scooped into the coffeemaker, then we both went into the living room to look at the blowups he had picked up from the lab when he came on duty half an hour earlier.
“Who took the photos?” I asked as Mike untied the brown Homicide folder in which he carried his case file.
“Wally says tourists are calling in from all over. But most of these first shots are from islanders. You’ll see in a minute when you start to look at them almost all of the ones I have with me tonight were taken on the ferry on different trips throughout the week. The story and appeal for the film was on the radio as well as in Friday’s Vineyard Gazette, and locals started showing up at Wally’s office on Saturday morning with rolls of film, claiming they thought they saw Isabella on the boat ride.
Final Jeopardy Page 16