Silver Scream : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

by Mary Daheim

  Joe rested his chin on her shoulder. “Need some

  help?”

  Judith jerked away from her husband. “Help? Like

  what, plugging in the coffeemaker? I already did that.”

  “Hey!” Joe sounded offended. “What’s wrong?”

  She whirled on him. “What’s wrong? Are you

  kidding?”

  Joe held up his hands in a defensive gesture.

  “Take it easy, Jude-girl. I know you’re upset, but

  this morning I’m going to call Dilys at headquarters

  and find out what she’s—”

  “Dilys!” Judith exploded. “Where’s she been since

  Saturday night? Sunbathing? And what have you

  been doing except studying Bill’s stupid chart?”

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  “That chart’s not a bad idea,” Joe said, still relatively calm. “Woody and I used to put together something like—”

  “Woody!” Judith cried in exasperation. “I thought

  he was helping you. Has he been kidnapped by Gypsies or did the floating bridge between here and the

  Eastside sink again?”

  Joe threw up his hands. “Okay, okay! Don’t knock

  Woody. He’s been running background checks on

  these goofballs all weekend. I expect to hear from him

  soon.”

  “And he won’t have one single thing that will help

  us,” Judith declared, dumping two pounds of bacon

  into a skillet. “Toast.” She bit off the word. “That’s it,

  toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs. They can take their

  weird food cravings someplace else if they don’t like

  it.”

  “Hey, has Woody ever failed when it comes to being

  helpful?” Joe asked, getting two dozen eggs out of the

  fridge. Judith started to grab them from him, but he

  pulled the cartons out of her reach. “I’ll fix these. I do

  a better job of it.”

  Judith refused to acknowledge that Joe definitely

  had a way with eggs. “I’m not criticizing Woody per

  se,” she asserted. “I meant that any information he

  comes up with—and I’ll bet there won’t be much—

  isn’t going to help us in this particular instance.”

  “You don’t know that,” Joe countered. “I don’t see

  why you won’t sit back and let the police and the studio’s investigators figure out what happened. They’re

  pros.”

  “You used to be a pro,” Judith shot back. “I thought

  you still were with your private detective jobs. But you

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  don’t seem very involved in this whole, horrible situation.”

  “That’s because I’m retired from the force,” Joe said

  with obvious resentment. “I don’t have the resources

  anymore. Once you’ve been a cop, you realize that

  most of the time law enforcement personnel know

  what they’re doing.”

  Judith didn’t respond, but gave him a skeptical look.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe he didn’t have faith in his

  ability to work without the backup provided by a fullfledged police staff. Maybe, she thought with a pang,

  he didn’t care about Hillside Manor as much as she

  did. It was even possible that in retirement, he disliked

  the constant parade of strangers going in and out of his

  home.

  The phone rang as Joe was whisking eggs, green

  onions, and slivers of red pepper in a big blue bowl. Judith answered, and somewhat sheepishly wished

  Woody Price good morning. Without looking at Joe,

  she handed over the receiver.

  “Good morning!” Eugenia Fleming’s booming

  voice and majestic presence filled the kitchen.

  Judith pointed to Joe, who had put one finger in his

  ear. He immediately began moving down the hall and

  out of hearing range.

  “Sorry,” the agent apologized, speaking with less

  volume. She was already dressed, wearing a tailored

  pants suit with a no-nonsense silk shirt.

  “You’re up early,” Judith remarked, trying to be polite. “I usually don’t serve breakfast until eight.”

  Eugenia checked her watch against the schoolhouse

  clock. “Seven-forty on the dot. I’m a morning person,

  which can be a disadvantage in Hollywood. Except for

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  people who are actually involved in shooting a film,

  everyone else tends to work late into the night.”

  “The coffee’s ready,” Judith said. “Would you like a

  cup?”

  “Certainly,” Eugenia replied, surveying the kitchen

  with a critical eye. “Black, please.”

  Judith poured the coffee into a Moonbeam’s mug

  and handed it to her guest. “I’m curious,” she said in a

  casual tone. “Why was Morris Mayne’s wife allowed

  to go back to L.A. when the rest of you weren’t?”

  Eugenia choked on her first swallow of coffee.

  “Well . . .” she began, gathering her aplomb, “that situation was different.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” Eugenia cleared her throat. “Different.” She

  winked.

  Judith gave the other woman a quizzical look. “I

  don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to.” Eugenia winked again.

  Enlightenment dawned. “You mean,” Judith said,

  “Morris came here with someone who wasn’t his

  wife?”

  “Now,” Eugenia said, wagging a finger, “don’t be

  too hard on Morris. His wife is a genuine recluse. She

  hasn’t left their house in fifteen years. You can hardly

  blame the man if he sometimes gets lonely when he

  travels. It’s sad, really. I admire him for staying with

  her.”

  “Yes,” Judith said slowly, “you have a point. So the

  woman who came here with him after the premiere

  was his . . . ah . . . companion?”

  It was Eugenia’s turn to look puzzled. “What

  woman?”

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  “The one dressed as a pioneer,” Judith replied, turning the bacon in the cast-iron skillet.

  Eugenia shrugged her broad shoulders. “I’ve no idea

  what you’re talking about. Morris’s . . . companion remained at the hotel.”

  Joe’s conversation with Woody ended just as Eugenia took her coffee into the front parlor.

  “Eat your words, Jude-girl,” Joe said, wielding a

  whisk in a bowl of eggs. “Woody came up with some

  interesting stuff.”

  “Criminal stuff?” Judith asked in surprise.

  “If it was, would you stop treating me like I had

  bubonic plague?”

  So frazzled were Judith’s nerves that she actually

  had to think twice before answering. “Yes, sure, go

  ahead.” Her attempt to smile wasn’t very successful.

  Joe didn’t respond until he’d put a quarter pound of

  butter into a huge frying pan. “Nothing on Eugenia,

  Morris, or Chips,” he said, keeping his voice down in

  case Eugenia was still in hearing range. “Ellie has a

  stack of speeding and parking tickets as high as the

  Hollywood Hills. Ben got busted a couple of times for

  possession.”

  “Of what?” Judith asked, getting plates out of the

  cupboard.

 
“Weed.” He shrugged. “Dirk has been arrested four

  times for assault, but the charges were always

  dropped.”

  “Does that include the incident with Bruno at Marina Del Rey?” Judith asked.

  Joe nodded. “It seems Mr. Farrar has to prove his

  macho image on both sides of the camera.”

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  “Unsure of his manhood? Low self-esteem?” Judith

  murmured.

  “Rotten disposition, no self-discipline.” Almost

  forty years as a cop had caused Joe’s patience with

  people’s foibles to erode long ago.

  Judith placed the silverware settings next to the

  plates on the counter. “What about the others?”

  “I’m not finished with Dirk,” Joe said, taking a

  break from his cook’s duties to refill his coffee mug.

  “He was also involved in a messy paternity suit a year

  or two ago. He lost, and is paying for the kid’s upbringing.”

  “Is Mom anyone we know?”

  Joe shook his head. “Dirk was on location in Spain

  when he met Mom. She was an extra in a Basque uprising.”

  “No help there,” Judith said.

  “Only in terms of support payments.” He offered

  more coffee to Judith. “Dade’s had a couple of DWIs.

  He wiped out a Rolls-Royce on Sunset Boulevard and

  ran his Range Rover into a palm tree in Benedict

  Canyon. Not recently, though.”

  “He doesn’t seem like much of a drinker,” Judith remarked as she set out a dozen juice glasses.

  “You never can tell,” Joe said, reaching for a chafing dish high up in the cupboard. “Here’s one you expected—Angela La Belle’s been busted three times for

  coke possession. Bruno was arrested twice. On one occasion, they were together.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Judith said, “since Bruno

  supposedly got Angela hooked in the first place. Did

  they do time?”

  “No,” Joe replied, reaching for a second chafing

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  dish. “Their clever lawyers—Vito, maybe?—got them

  off with fines, community service, and promises to go

  into rehab.”

  “Anything on Vito himself?”

  “Nothing criminal,” Joe replied, “though I suspect

  that like any successful L.A. attorney, he may have a

  few slightly unethical tricks up his sleeve.”

  Judith narrowed her eyes at her husband. “You still

  look a bit scrofulous to me. Why am I supposed to

  heap you with praise and affection?”

  Joe held up his index finger. “For one reason, and

  one reason only. Ahem.” He paused so long for dramatic effect that Judith was poised to pounce on him.

  “In 1979, Winifred Lou Best was arrested twice, once

  for possession of cocaine and once for resisting arrest

  along with a man named Bartholomew Anthony Riggs,

  aka Big Daddy Dumas.”

  “Wow!” Judith’s eyes sparkled as she threw her

  arms around his neck. “Now that is news!”

  “What did I tell you?” He chuckled as she planted

  kisses all over his face. “I’m plague-free.”

  “More than you know,” Judith said, finally releasing

  her husband. “Morris mentioned Big Daddy Dumas

  last night at Capri’s. He was a pimp and a drug dealer.

  But Morris said Big Daddy was dead. He also said . . .”

  She frowned in recollection. “What was it? Oh! To

  blame Big Daddy for. . . . Damn, I forget.”

  “Sounds like Big Daddy was a bad daddy,” Joe remarked.

  “That’s the odd thing,” Judith said. “Bill had heard

  about him via a case study. According to Bill, Big

  Daddy wasn’t all bad. He was good to his girls, he

  treated them like family. But that’s not the point. Now

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  we know why Winifred doesn’t want to discuss her

  past. It’s possible that Big Daddy helped the Demures

  get their start in the music business. Maybe the three

  singers were in his stable of hookers. That might explain why the group didn’t have more than one hit.

  Their lives couldn’t have been conducive to the discipline required by a serious music career. For all we

  know, the other two may have overdosed, gone to

  prison, or were murdered in a drug deal gone sour.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Joe allowed. “What happened to Big Daddy?”

  “A dissatisfied hooker/would-be singer killed him,”

  Judith replied. “Not one of the Demures, but a Latino

  girl.”

  “So maybe,” Joe conjectured, “Big Daddy was the

  muscle who got Win and the other two started in the

  music business. When he got whacked, the Demures

  lost their leverage.”

  He picked up the plates and silverware from the

  counter. “Here, let me set up the dining-room table.”

  “What?” Judith was lost in thought. “Oh, thanks. I’ll

  cook Mother’s breakfast now. I feel bad, I’ve hardly

  seen her lately.”

  “Don’t worry,” Joe called from the dining room.

  “She hasn’t improved.”

  As Judith prepared Gertrude’s meal and set it on a

  tray, the house seemed very quiet. Typical for early

  November, she thought, with the fog not only isolating

  but insulating Hillside Manor from the rest of the

  world. The calm, however, was not reassuring.

  As usual Gertrude was up and dressed before eight

  o’clock, She sat behind the card table, not bothering to

  look up when her daughter arrived with breakfast.

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  More surprisingly, the old lady was humming in an

  off-key manner.

  “Hmm-dee-dee-hmm.”

  “Good morning,” Judith said, forcing a bright smile.

  “You seem cheerful this morning.”

  “Hmm-mm-hmm-mm.” Gertrude picked up her TV

  Guide and riffled through the pages. “Hmm-dee-deehm-hm.”

  Judith wasn’t in the mood to play games with her

  mother. She placed the tray on the card table. Gertrude

  ignored it. “What is it?” Judith asked. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Dee-dee-mm-hmm.”

  “Mother!” Judith’s patience fled. “Stop that humming! What’s going on?”

  Slyly, Gertrude looked up from the TV Guide. “Oh,

  it’s you. I suppose you expect a tip now that I’m going

  to be rich. Forget it, I’m spending every dime on satin

  bloomers, lace hankies, and a walker with a motor on

  it.”

  Puzzled, Judith sat down on the arm of Gertrude’s

  Davano. “What’s going on? Did you win the lottery?”

  “That’s for suckers,” Gertrude declared, even

  though she frequently conned Judith into buying lottery and scratch-card tickets for her. “You’ll find out

  when the armored car pulls up with my loot.”

  Judith fought an urge to shake her mother until the

  old girl’s dentures rattled. “What then?”

  Gertrude shot her a contemptuous look. “How do

  you think, dummy? By selling my life story to the

  movies. That nice young Southun gentleman is writin’

  the script,” she went on, her speech suddenly tinged

  with a drawl straight out of th
e cotton fields. “He’s

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  promised me a piece. Up front, too, but no points. Ah

  couldn’t expect that for my first story, could Ah?”

  Judith didn’t know whether she was more amazed

  by Dade’s offer or her mother’s use of movie jargon,

  which, judging from the drawl, was straight from the

  writer’s mouth. “Are you sure he’s not kidding you?”

  “He’s not the kind to spoof,” Gertrude replied

  smugly, the drawl gone. “He’s on the up-and-up. He

  says I’m great. In fact, I’m part of the Greatest Generation. I’ve lived through a bunch of wars, a big Depression, a whole slew of newfangled gadgets, going to the

  moon, riots, earthquakes, volcanoes, and bathtub gin.

  Not to mention your two lunkhead husbands and listening to Aunt Deb talk my ear off on the telephone.”

  It almost made sense. It was, in fact, not unlike the

  concept of the simple gasman viewing the history of

  the world. Judith was speechless.

  “So what have you got to say for yourself now,

  Toots?” Gertrude demanded, finally picking up a fork

  and studying her meal.

  “I think it’s . . . terrific,” Judith said at last. “If it all

  works out.”

  “That nice Southern boy says it will,” Gertrude

  replied glibly. “What did he call it? ‘An intimate portrait of the twentieth century.’ See here?” She tapped a

  small piece of paper. “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t

  forget.”

  Judith still had some reservations. “Have you signed

  a contract?”

  “Nope,” Gertrude said. “But some guy named Vito or

  Zito or Tito is writing it up. Still, I figure I’d better get

  an agent first. I can’t read all that fine print. Literally.”

  Standing up, Judith reached out to hug her mother.

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  “It sounds promising. I hope everything turns out the

  way you hope it will.”

  “It will,” Gertrude said complacently. Then she

  frowned. “I just hope they hurry.”

  “You mean because the Hollywood people may be

  leaving soon?”

  Gertrude shook her head. “No. Because I may be

  leaving soon. Even the Greatest Generation can’t live

  forever.”

  By the time Judith got back to the house, she was

  surprised to see that several guests were sitting down

  to breakfast. In the kitchen, Joe was hustling eggs,

  bacon, and toast.

  “The estimated time of departure is ten-thirty,” he

  informed her in a low voice.