“The fan keeps blowing the hair in Sarah’s face. You should be out there with her,” Nora said.
“She said she didn’t want me lurking around,” he complained, getting to his feet and grabbing a can of hair spray.
“Since when do you listen to the models?” Nora asked.
He made it to the door.
“And nobody is to come in here until Sarah needs to make her change. You got it?”
“Yes, Ms. Brown.” He opened the door. The music wailed into the room.
“And close the door.”
“Yes, Ms. Brown.”
He said “Ms.” as if he were playing a southern black servant in a 1930s movie. He closed the door and the music faded. Claire paced the room. I leaned against the closed door.
“Nora Brown, meet Sarah Grange. Sarah Grange, Nora Brown,” she said.
Nora tentatively extended her hand. “Hello, Sarah.”
Ignoring the gesture, Linda sat on the counter, her back against the long mirror as if she wanted to deny the reality of her own reflection. “I’m Linda.”
“Linda,” Nora repeated the name. “I was with your mother when she gave birth to you in Paris.”
“I’m touched.”
“I’m sorry, there’s no reason you should be.”
“Did I have pockmarks then?”
“What? No, you were a perfect baby.”
“I wonder what happened.” Linda spoke to the wall in front of her, never looking at Nora.
Nora glanced down at her blue sleeve; there actually was a piece of lint on it. She didn’t bother to brush it off. As if suddenly exhausted, she slumped against the counter, her back to the mirror. I guess nobody wanted to look at herself.
“When did you know that Marina Perry was not Sarah Grange?” Claire stopped her pacing and leaned on her walking stick.
“I didn’t know until you showed me the video and I confronted her. You have to believe me,” Nora said.
“Miss Brown, if you believed she was Sarah, then why didn’t you tell her that Sheridan Reynolds was her father? Because you knew she was an imposter.”
“There were times when I wondered, but it was just a feeling. She was vague about certain things. I assumed she didn’t want to talk about her past. She made Cybella happy.” She turned to Linda. “I’m so sorry.”
“You keep saying that.” Linda’s face was expressionless.
“I do, don’t I? I’m usually not sorry for anything. Now I can’t stop.”
“Marina Perry also secured your job at Bonton,” Claire reminded Nora. “Maybe that helped with any doubts you had.”
“Sarah … I mean Marina was very good. The first time she called me, all she wanted was to see Cybella. She never mentioned anything about modeling. She let me discover her. When she walked into my office, I knew she had it. The hair needed work, makeup … but there was no doubt the camera was going to love her.”
“And what about Cybella’s love? Did that come as easily as the cameras?” I asked.
“When Cybella saw her,” Nora continued, “she reached out. Marina took her hand and said, ‘Hello, Mommy.’ Cybella wanted to believe. I wanted to believe.”
“In what? All this?” Claire raised her stick and took a swipe at the blow-dryers and makeup on the counter. A lipstick and a brush clattered to the floor. Linda laughed sharply—or was it a cry?
I felt the door handle turn and moved away. Marina rushed in. She stopped when she saw us. Her lips drew back, her nostrils flared slightly. She reminded me of a beautiful thoroughbred horse smelling fire.
“Marina, they know,” Nora said.
Marina closed the door and locked it. “You can’t let them tell anybody, Nora,” she said. “You and your magazine will be destroyed. Everything you worked for. St. Rome wants me to change into the gold dress. He’s wondering where you are.”
“It’s over, Marina.” Nora almost sounded relieved.
“No.” Marina faced Claire. “Don’t tell St. Rome, please. I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You had every reason to,” Linda said.
Marina turned on her. “Is that your way of getting back at me? Telling them I killed Jackie and Goldie? This all happened because you’re a coward. You didn’t even try to stop me. You could’ve told Cybella you were her daughter, but no, you just wanted to cry about your terrible life. At least you knew where your mother was—I still don’t.”
There was a knock on the door. “They’re waiting, Sarah.” It was the hairdresser’s voice.
“I have to change.” She grabbed a gold sequined dress from the rack and tossed it on an empty chair. She slithered out of her black dress. It crumpled on the floor around her feet like a broken shadow.
“When did Cybella know that you weren’t her daughter?” Claire asked.
“She never did. She suffocated me, wouldn’t leave me alone.” Braless, wearing only panty hose, she leaned against the counter and peered at her face. Her breasts curved toward the mirror as if admiring themselves. “I would’ve moved out but I couldn’t afford to. I was paying Goldie.”
Somebody tapped on the door. “Sarah, what are you doing?” It was the hairdresser again.
“I’ll be right out.”
“Does St. Rome know about any of this?” Claire asked.
“No.” With expert precision Marina ran a dark pencil back and forth across the bold line that already outlined her eyes. “He thinks I did the video because I’m a flake, a masochist.” Marina threw the pencil down, picked up a soft brush, and stroked her cheeks with it.
“Sarah? Nora? We’re waiting.” It was St. Rome’s voice.
Marina stiffened. “I’m coming.” She quickly applied lipstick with a tiny pointed brush, blotted it, and threw the Kleenex on the floor. “I’m making money for Nora and St. Rome. I made Cybella happy.”
“Is that why she supposedly killed herself—because she was so happy?” I asked.
“We’re all responsible for her suicide,” Nora said, then looked at Marina. “I wanted to believe you were making her happy but you weren’t. I could see it in her face. And I did nothing because I didn’t want to know the truth about your identity.”
“All right, she was miserable.” Marina took the dress off the chair and stepped into it, pulling it up around her. The sequins shimmered. “She’d just stare at me. I was afraid she’d see that I wasn’t her daughter, see it in my eyes. I think she hated me. I didn’t care. It was easier if she hated me.” Unzipped, the dress hung loosely on her body. She held it to her like a golden shield, took a step back, and sank down awkwardly into a chair. She looked dazed. Her long legs jutted out. Away from the camera and the lights her shoulders looked bony, her hands and feet too large. Her body too thin. Her neck too long. Her make-up too thick. Her hair too wild. Every part of her was an exaggeration.
“I spent nights preparing how to be her daughter, looking in the mirror, remembering everything Linda had told me. But how can you be a daughter when you’ve never had a mother?” she asked plaintively.
“Nora? What’s going on?” St. Rome demanded imperiously through the door.
Marina hurried to her feet. “I’ve got to get out there,” she whispered nervously. “Zip up my dress, Nora.”
“It’s over, Marina.”
“Nora, please,” she begged.
“The clock is ticking, ladies,” St. Rome persisted.
“Nora, please, I have nothing else in my life. Zip up my dress.”
“Sarah, darling!” St. Rome commanded Marina.
She froze as if hypnotized by the voice on the other side of the door. The gold sequined dress shimmered, seeming to have a life of its own.
“Somewhere in these United States is a young girl admiring herself in the mirror this very moment and saying, ‘I’m just as pretty as Sarah Grange,’” St. Rome derided. “She’ll be strutting into town any day now. So get your ass out here.”
Nora stared straight ahead. Linda looked down at the floor. Claire tapped her
finger on the head of her walking stick. The lapis shimmered darkly.
“Sarah!” St. Rome pounded on the door.
“Coming!” Marina cried out.
She leaned over, adjusting her breasts in the dress. I thought of the gowns with their empty bodices waiting in Cybella’s closet. Then Marina slipped on a pair of gold satin high heels. She turned to Linda. “Fasten my dress.”
Linda shook her head.
She faced Nora. “Please.”
“No, Marina.”
Marina turned her back to me and held her long dark hair up off her shoulders. Her body trembled. “Help me. Help me.”
I fastened her dress.
“Thank you.” Tears welled, mixing with the eyeliner, streaking her face.
St. Rome knocked.
Twenty-four
“HURRY, MISS HILL.” CLAIRE strode quickly through the Bonton lobby. Linda ran after us.
“Wait a minute!” she yelled. “What about my money?”
“I thought if we understood why the model had done the video,” Claire said, ignoring her, “we would understand why the murders were committed. But the murders have nothing to do with that silly video.”
“But Marina Perry …”
“There’s only one person who could have committed these murders. But I need proof. The police ignored the woman, Miss Hill. I’ve been avoiding her but I can’t any longer.”
“What woman? Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“I want my money!” Linda caught up with us by the Bentley.
“No!” Claire snapped. “And I don’t have time to talk.”
“It’s mine, or am I still a suspect?” she demanded.
“You are not. But the police are going to want to talk to you, young woman. If I give you the money, you’ll run away.”
“So when do I get it?” Her tough demeanor was back.
“When the case is over.”
“Marina Perry did it. The case should be over now. So give me my money.”
“She is not the murderer.”
“But she has a motive,” I said.
“What is her motivation for following Jackie to our hotel that morning? If she’d wanted to kill her, all she’d have to do is call and arrange a meeting with her in some out-of-the-way place. I will call you, Miss Hansen.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from me.” She tossed her head back and managed a sardonic smile. “Coin of the realm. See you around, Maggie.” She turned and headed down Madison. Her body swayed with sexy abandon. Two men deep in conversation swiveled their heads in unison, watching her. Linda had her audience, her own version of being on the cover of Bonton. At least she had it for a while.
“I hate to say this,” I said, settling in my corner of the car, “but I’m beginning to think Cybella did kill herself.”
“You’ll be happy to know that for once a beautiful woman did not die by her own hand. The Duke Hotel, Boulton.”
He turned to look at her. “The Duke, madam?”
“She didn’t open the door. That’s what was disturbing me when we discovered Goldie’s body.”
“The Woman Who Cries?” I asked.
“She sits alone in her room, crying out for help, listening for the footsteps that might bring it.” Claire’s voice was concentrated and precise, as if recalling a dream. “And when she hears them she pushes open the door, and clutching her torn garments to her naked body, she screams out for that help.”
“Just because she didn’t open the door when we walked by doesn’t mean …”
“Miss Hill, it’s a ritual, a compulsion. She must scream for help, she must open the door. But the afternoon we discovered Goldie’s body, something overpowered her compulsion.”
“But what?” Boulton asked.
“Is she a reliable witness?” I asked.
“I don’t think you should do this, madam.”
But Claire had stopped talking and had closed her eyes, leaving Boulton and me to look with concern at one another in the rearview mirror.
Twenty minutes later we were walking down the side street next to the hotel. Claire stopped at the alley. “I’d like to avoid the desk clerk. Let’s see if the back door has been locked,” she said.
In the alley the smell of urine and garbage mixed with the aroma of Chinese cooking. I thought of the flies circling over the thick red meat. Claire rested her white-gloved hand on the handle of the hotel’s back door.
“If I am unable to question her, Miss Hill,” Claire instructed, “I want you to. I doubt she’ll be coherent, so you must listen to her words carefully and take them literally. Do not project your own feelings onto her.”
“I understand,” I said.
“It’s the shattering of all logic, the shattering of the intellect by one violent act. It is chaos I abhor. The chaos of helplessness, of weakness. You know I could do nothing for my family, or yours, Boulton.”
“I know, madam.”
She pulled at the door. It opened; a broken chain dangled from the handle. “The tenants still rule,” she commented as we stepped into the alcove.
Boulton let the door close quietly, easing us slowly into the darkness of the hotel.
We moved to the dim light at the top of landing. The woman whimpered in her room. Her door remained closed. Claire tapped it with her walking stick. It swayed open, revealing the woman crouched on her bed, clutching ripped clothes to her half-naked body. The room smelled of dirty hair, unclean sheets, and soiled flesh. Light from a brass lamp shaped like a genie’s bottle cast a weak glow over the woman’s tormented face. Wrinkles as thick as bird’s claws pulled at her colorless eyes and twisted the skin on her chin and neck. Tears stained her face and breasts. Elizabeth Reynolds cried in much prettier isolation.
Claire walked slowly to the bed and looked down at her. The woman drew back, cowering. Claire’s shoulders grew rigid. I felt Boulton move behind me. The woman threw her arm over her face as if to ward off an imaginary blow. Claire flinched and stepped back. The woman let her arm fall to her side. She stared at Claire with eyes that could see only horror.
“I’ve come to help you,” Claire said, her voice hollow.
“Yes?” The woman’s voice was raspy but childlike.
“Yes.” Perspiration had formed above Claire’s lip. The hand on the walking stick trembled. She looked down at it and willed it into stillness.
The woman peered around at us. Her body began to shake. She raised a swollen finger and pointed at Boulton.
“No, no, no,” she cried out. “Don’t hit me.”
“It’s all right,” Claire said.
The woman’s mouth fell open like an old empty purse and she screamed. The suddenness of it made my body jerk. Somebody pounded on the floor above but she continued to scream, and for a moment there seemed to be nothing else in the world but her cry.
Claire turned on Boulton. “Leave the room.”
“Miss Conrad, I don’t think …”
“Boulton!”
He stepped out, closing the door. The screaming stopped. I let out my breath. The back of my neck was damp with sweat. My hair clung to it like wet fingers.
“I helped you,” Claire said soothingly. “He’s gone.”
“There are others.” The woman’s eyes searched the room. “With their car lights and their heavy dirty boots.”
“They’re gone too.”
“They always come back. Always.”
“Did they come back yesterday?” Claire clenched the handle of her walking stick so tightly that her hand drained of color.
“Yesterday?”
“Do you remember yesterday?”
“Always. Always.” Her words turned into a whimper.
“Do you remember Goldie?”
She nodded. Claire’s eyes grew distant. And again it was as if she were seeing beyond the woman into another room, another world. I walked toward her. The woman sucked in her breath at my sudden movement.
“No! No!” she gasped.<
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“Claire?” I murmured.
“I cannot help her.” Claire stared at the woman, unseeing.
“Did you see Goldie yesterday?” I asked the woman. The sweat ran from my neck down my back like a sharp fingernail.
“Car lights, surrounding me. I can’t see because of the lights. But I can see their boots on the ground. They laughed. One grabbed my hair. The other my legs. The lights are so bright.”
“Let’s go,” I said to Claire. When she didn’t move, I put my arm around her and guided her toward the door. I reached for the knob but the head of her walking stick stopped me.
“Not yet, Miss Hill.” She turned quickly and confronted the woman. “Were there lights yesterday?” The sharpness in her voice was back.
“Always.”
“And the light blinded you?” Claire demanded.
“They wanted it that way.”
“So you couldn’t identify them?”
“Yes, yes.” Her dead eyes searched the room once more. “Handsome young men. Bright lights. I just wanted them to want me.”
“And Goldie. Did you see him? Hear him?”
“He moaned.”
“Did he moan after you saw the light?”
She nodded. “I was afraid. I didn’t open my door anymore. They’ll come with their car lights.” She let out another piercing cry. The woman put her hand over her mouth. Yellow nails curved. The screaming stopped. Her hand dropped from her lips.
Claire opened the door and moved out into the hall.
“I wanted to feel beautiful,” the woman said to me in a little-girl voice, trying to cover her sagging breasts with the thin shreds of her clothes, of her decency.
Gently I closed the door.
Shadowed by the dim light at the top of the landing, Boulton waited. Claire walked past him and down the stairs without speaking.
Beauty Dies Page 19