A Death in California

by Barthel, Joan;

  “Taylor, this can’t go on,” Hope said shakily. “Somebody is going to discover Bill’s body. My God, it’s been three days!”

  “You’re right,” Taylor said reluctantly. “What you have to do now is call the ranch foreman and tell him someone’s in the ranch house writing a book and doesn’t want to be disturbed.” When Hope refused, Taylor smiled. “You have to,” he said. “You have no choice.” But when Hope telephoned Jim Webb, there was no answer.

  Keith and K.C. were tearing around the house, fighting, making an awful racket. “Please, please let us go to my mother’s,” Hope pleaded with Taylor.

  “You can go when I say it’s okay,” Taylor said. “Right now I’m going out to do some shopping.” He reached across the sofa and took her hand. “I owe you one antique white dress.”

  “Oh, God, Taylor,” Hope said. “I don’t want a dress. Please let me go to my mother’s.” Taylor shook his head. “I’m going to buy you that dress,” he said firmly. “Where do you buy your clothes?”

  “Never mind, never mind,” Hope said, trying to keep her voice under control. “Please, never mind the dress.”

  “I am going to make it up to you,” Taylor insisted.

  Hope gave in. “Usually at the House of Nine,” she said.

  “The House of Nine. Where is that?”

  Hope told him, and Taylor stood up. “Off to the House of Nine,” he said brightly. “Don’t answer the phone and don’t answer the doorbell while I am gone.” He reminded Hope that the house was being watched, the phone was being monitored, that the man across the street who looked like a gardener wasn’t a gardener at all.

  Hope sat on the sofa, smoking cigarettes, oblivious to the boys’ racket. When the doorbell rang, she jumped, and her heart pounded. It rang and rang, so she finally went to the kitchen window and called out. “Who is it?”

  It was the nurse of a little boy K.C.’s age, from a house down the street. The woman was very upset. She told Hope her little boy was lost and she thought he might have wandered over to Hope’s. Hope said she hadn’t seen the child, and when the nurse left, Hope was terrified that the woman would call the police and then, when Taylor returned and saw police cars on the street, he would think she had called them. She felt she had to reach him, to explain, so she called the House of Nine, where she was known. “Has anyone been in to buy a dress for me?” she asked frantically. They said no. “Well, if a man comes in to buy a dress for me, please have him call me,” Hope said. She left her phone number, and sank down on the sofa again, trying to think. If that little boy has been kidnaped, she thought, then there really are people out to get us; they must have thought he was K.C. But if Taylor can reach them and tell them they have the wrong child, everything will be all right. She had to talk to Taylor; she was depending on him.

  Meantime, though, the lost child had been found wandering in another neighbor’s yard, and when Taylor returned, the neighborhood was quiet. Hope poured out the story, stressing her terror, and he put his arm around her. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Everything is going to be all right. I have checked around, and now it is safe to go to your mother’s.” He apologized for not having found the white dress.

  After Hope phoned Honey to say they were coming, Taylor gave her last-minute instructions. She was to tell her mother the agreed-upon story of an unknown intruder in the night and her rescue, the next morning, by Taylor. He told her that if she drove anywhere but to her mother’s, or did anything to attract attention along the way, everyone would be killed. He warned her that if Honey became agitated and called the police, everyone would be killed. He told her that Honey’s phone was tapped, too, and that if anyone called the police it would be instantly known by all the people who were watching and listening and hovering, and everyone would be killed. He told her that he would follow her in the Lincoln and would watch to make sure she and the boys arrived safely at Honey’s. When she arrived there, he said, she was to immediately drive the car to the lower parking lot at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with her mother following, then return to Honey’s and wait until she heard from him again.

  Just before they left, Taylor picked up K.C. and hugged him, then he put his arm around Keith. “I have some presents for you,” he told Keith, and led him to the dining table, where he had laid out several items, including a portable radio and a Schick hot comb.

  When Hope saw the car she was to drive, her heart began pounding again. It was the yellow car with brown trim. She was sure the brakes had been broken and that she and the children were to die that way, hurtling down the mountain road. “No, no,” Taylor soothed her, when she told him of her fear. “I’ve driven this car myself. It’s perfectly okay.”

  Hope put K.C. in the back seat and Keith in front beside her. Taylor backed out of the driveway in the white Lincoln and Hope backed out next; when she turned and headed up the Drive, he stayed very close. She drove so slowly that Keith noticed. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Keith had observed that his mother had been acting strangely since she’d come home from the ranch, kind of nervous and scared and tiredlike, her hair all messed up. He had been told not to answer the telephone, even though it rang a lot, and he had been told that he wasn’t going to school that day, though nobody gave him a reason. Keith hadn’t been really worried, because the man who had come back with his mother had been so nice. Taylor seemed to like kids a lot, even though he had made Keith clean up his room and pick up, a little, in the bathroom.

  “What’s the matter?” Keith asked again as they drove.

  “Nothing,” Hope said.

  But Keith kept at it: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”

  “Somebody’s trying to kill us all,” Hope blurted to the boy.

  “Golly, m-maybe Hopie shouldn’t have gone to school today,” he stammered.

  “No, it’s okay,” Hope said, instantly sorry she’d told him. “It’s okay. We’re going to Honey’s now and we are going to be okay. Taylor is helping us.”

  Honey was watching from the living room window. When she saw Hope pull into the little half-moon driveway, she turned off the alarm. She stood in the doorway as Hope hurried the children inside.

  As Hope went in, she looked back quickly and saw Taylor parked across the street, watching. She fell into her mother’s arms. Honey called to Kazue to take the boys into the den; then she took Hope into her bedroom and closed the door.

  Hope tried to stay calm so her mother wouldn’t start crying. “You’re going to have to keep complete control of yourself,” Hope told Honey. “You cannot cry, you cannot become hysterical, you cannot fall apart. Bill is dead, and someone has threatened us. We are all in danger.” She tried to follow her own advice to stay calm as she poured out the story of Bill’s being murdered at the ranch by a stranger in the night, the contract and professional killers, and Tom Masters’s involvement, the blood and the screaming and the vomiting and the planned bloodbath, her rescue by a man named Taylor. She showed her mother her wrists, with gummy adhesive marks on them, her right hand swollen and colored a light purple, bits of dried blood under her fingernails. “Darling, let me clean that for you,” Honey said, but Hope yanked her hands out of her mother’s lap. “No, no,” she insisted, “this is reality to me. Every time I think I’m losing my mind, I look at my hands and I know everything has really happened.”

  Honey was aghast at Hope’s appearance—filthy and disheveled, her skin gray, with sunken eye sockets, the way her own parents looked just before they died. Honey wanted to take Hope to the hospital. “I can’t leave until the contract is canceled, don’t you understand?” Hope screamed. “If I’m still alive in the morning, then I’ll go to the hospital.” Honey suggested getting a doctor, then, to come to the house. “No, no,” Hope said. “Taylor said your telephone is tapped and it would be dangerous to call anybody.” Honey wanted to call Van, and Hope Elizabeth’s school, to warn them of the danger, but Hope insisted they follow Taylor’s instructions. “He told me that either he
or his people would look after Hopie, and I’m counting on him.”

  Suddenly Hope jumped up. “My God, the car. We have to take the car back.”

  “You can’t drive,” Honey said. “You’re in no condition to drive.”

  “Don’t argue with me,” Hope shouted. “The only reason we are all still alive is because I have done exactly what I am told.”

  “But is it safe for us to leave the house?” Honey asked.

  “Yes,” Hope said, “as long as we go straight to the hotel and come straight back and don’t attract attention.”

  Honey told Kazue to keep the children in the den while she and Hope went on an errand. At the front door, Honey forgot she had turned the alarm back on after Hope and the boys had entered; when she opened it, there was a piercing shriek. Hope began to sob. “If the police come now, we are all dead, dead, dead!”

  The Beverly Hills Hotel was only a few blocks from Honey’s, at the corner of North Canon Drive and Sunset Boulevard. Hope parked the yellow car in the lower lot, left the keys in the car, and ran back to Honey’s car. They were gone only ten minutes, but when they returned, Kazue told them a man had called, asking for Hope. Kazue had said she wasn’t home.

  Hope was frantic. “Now he won’t trust me, now he won’t trust me!” Honey tried to calm her, reminding her that Taylor must have known they had been out returning the car, as he had instructed her. She gave Hope a glass of wine.

  Hope and Honey sat on the edge of the long sofa in the living room, smoking, trying to keep each other calm. They decided that one of them, not Kazue, should answer the phone because Taylor had said he would let them know when the contract had been canceled and they could safely call the police. Very soon, the phone rang. When Honey answered, she recognized the voice of the man she had spoken to the night before, the man who had said he was a friend of Bill’s and that Hope had a small problem.

  “We’ve just been out returning the car,” Honey said.

  “Yes, I know,” the man said. He asked to speak to Hope. Their conversation was very short.

  “He said he has to change locations and he’ll call again,” Hope told her mother when she had hung up.

  “When he calls back, ask him to come here,” Honey said.

  But when he called again, saying the same thing—that he had to change locations and would call back—Hope just hung up, and Honey became upset. “You have to ask him to come here,” she insisted.

  When the fourth call came, Honey answered and again gave Hope the phone. But when Hope didn’t ask Taylor to come to the house, Honey grabbed the phone. “Please get right over here to our house and explain what is going on or I will call the police,” Honey said.

  “Don’t call the police,” Taylor warned. “I can’t explain now because I can’t stay on the phone or this call will be traced to me. Your phone is tapped.” He hung up.

  Standing near her mother, Hope wanted to cry but didn’t dare, for fear she would never stop. “Why did you do that,” she moaned. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because he has to come here and talk to us,” Honey said.

  Hope took several deep breaths. “Okay,” she said. “Just be very, very careful what you say to him if he comes. Just listen to what he has to say and please, please, please don’t get hysterical. He hates hysterical women. Be nice to him. Be very charming, and don’t ask him too many questions.”

  In between the calls from Taylor, Honey was getting personal calls. “I can’t talk now,” she would say, hanging up the phone quickly. Shortly after three o’clock, Hope Elizabeth rang the doorbell, stopping by her grandmother’s on the way home from school, as usual, and shortly after that, Taylor called again to say he knew the child was there and he was coming over.

  Hope went into the den and took Keith and Hope Elizabeth, one at a time, into Honey’s bedroom. She spoke to Keith first. “Something very bad has happened, Keith, and I’m going to tell you about it now. I don’t want you to cry and I don’t want you to make a big fuss. I want you to listen to me and not ask me any questions and then I want you to go back in the other room and take care of your little brother, because that is what I need you to do right now.

  “Someone has killed Bill, and now somebody wants to steal K.C. I want you to stay in the den and watch K.C. and keep him quiet while I try to work this out.”

  She told her daughter the same thing, feeling that if she told them K.C. was in danger, it would bring out their protective instincts. Both children went back into the den after she talked with them, stunned but not crying.

  The doorbell rang as Hope was with Kazue and the children in the den. When she came hurriedly into the living room, she saw Honey looking out the window. Hope ran to the window.

  “It’s Taylor! It’s Taylor! Let him in.”

  Honey released the chain bolt from the door and turned off the alarm. She opened the door to a handsome, smiling man.

  “I’m Taylor,” he said.

  “I’m Hopie’s mother,” Honey said. “Please come in.”

  She closed the door behind him, bolted the chain, and turned the alarm on.

  “Did Hope explain to you that I’m the news photographer whom Bill Ashlock invited up to the ranch to do an interview and to take pictures?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Honey said. “Bill telephoned me last Friday to be sure it was all right with me to invite you up there. Aren’t you the person I talked with last night on the phone at Hopie’s?”

  “Yes, I am,” he said. “I’m sorry about lying to you on the phone, but Hope’s telephone is tapped and I had to be very careful what I said. I don’t know what might have happened if you had come up there, or sent the police.”

  Honey had many questions, but she remembered that Hope had told her to be charming. “Come in and sit down,” Honey told Taylor. “Would you like a drink?”

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I’m too upset.” He sat down at the end of the long sofa, nearest the door. “Are the children here? I know Hope Elizabeth is here because I watched her to be sure she was safe.”

  “Yes, they’re all here,” Honey said. “They’re all in the den with the maid.” She sat on the smaller sofa.

  Taylor smiled at Hope. “Did you return the car?”

  “Yes,” Hope said.

  “Did you go directly there and come right back here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you put it where I told you to put it?”

  “Yes, I put it in the lower parking lot.”

  “That’s a good girl,” Taylor said approvingly. “Did you stop and speak to anyone?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Hope said. “No, we didn’t.”

  “How did that car get to Hope’s house?” Honey asked.

  “Oh, my people brought it up there for me,” Taylor said easily.

  Hope made herself another drink and Honey watched Taylor closely as he talked. She was impressed by the look of this man, tall, well-built, with broad shoulders. His brown wavy hair was well-groomed, evenly cut about two inches below the ears, worn very thick and full. She thought he had brown eyes, but it was difficult to be sure because he was wearing wraparound glasses with a light mauve tint. He was beautifully dressed in a brown tweed jacket with a pale yellow shirt, a gold and brown striped tie, well-polished leather boots. Obviously intelligent, well-educated, wellborn, Honey thought. He was calm and self-confident, with a pleasant smile.

  Taylor related to Honey how he had seen Bill in the city on Friday and had made plans to go to the ranch. But he didn’t go until Sunday, Taylor said. He had arrived in Springville at 9:30 Sunday morning, but when he’d telephoned from town to the ranch to get final directions, as he and Bill had arranged, there was no answer. He assumed that Bill and Hope must be outdoors, so he just drove around the area until he found the ranch road, with the ranch name on the gate. He drove up the winding road and saw two houses; he assumed that Bill would be at the larger house. He went to the back door, found it unlocked, walked in, heard a woman screaming
, walked through the kitchen into the living room and found Bill Ashlock shot dead on the sofa. Following the screams, he went into the front bedroom and found Hope naked and tied. “She was a real basket case, and she has been a basket case ever since,” he said. “It was obvious from the way she was tied that she couldn’t have had anything to do with Bill’s death, and I untied her. She was terrified and just wanted to get out of the house, but she said she couldn’t stand the thought of going through the living room where Bill was, so I moved Bill’s body to the back bedroom, threw a sheet over the bloody sofa, and told Hope it was okay for her to go through the room. She ran out the front door to my car and I ran after her.”

  “How was she tied?” Honey asked.

  “Very, very professionally,” Taylor said. “Her feet had been taped together at the ankles, then her legs had been pulled up behind her and her hands taped to her feet. I removed the tape as gently as I could, but I know it must have hurt when I pulled it away from her skin.”

  “How did you know who she was?”

  “Well, Bill had told me all about her, and I knew she was going to be there with Bill, and at our lunch he had showed me her picture.” Taylor shook his head gravely. “You know, when I saw her, she was just barely recognizable as the beautiful girl in the picture. The man who did this to your daughter has to be insane.”

  Hope was pacing the room, smoking. “Why are you so nervous?” Taylor asked. “Sit down and relax.” When he said this, Hope sat down immediately.

  “After you untied Hopie and left the ranch, why didn’t you drive straight to the nearest police station?” Honey asked.

  “Because your daughter told me what had happened up there and she was terrified for the safety of her children. She said they were at home with her Mexican maid, and she said the killer had told her that if she notified the police before he said she could, he would kill her and her children and”—he gestured toward Honey—“you and your husband, too.