“Where does Boulton sleep—I mean, stay—I mean, his rooms?”
“Boulton’s rooms are downstairs.” The sound of his voice made me hit the crystal goblet against my plate. It let out a thin cry, as if I’d hurt it.
Gerta leaped up. “Boulton! Why don’t you make noise like other men? You’re supposed to come into a house and yell ‘I’m home! I’m home!’ so the women can stop gossiping about you!” She turned and left the room.
His jacket was unbuttoned and his tie loosened at the neck. He was looking less and less like a butler.
“What else would you like to know, Miss Hill?” He went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy.
“Was Neil there?”
“Not a bad bloke.”
“And does the fingerprint have a name?”
“I am employed by Miss Conrad. I’m to convey all information to her first. Anything else?”
“Yes…I can’t believe you got that body by polishing tea sets.”
“Tea services are quite heavy. By the way, my room is not far from yours. Just down the stairs.”
“In case I need help.”
“Of course.”
“You’re rather far away from the woman you’re supposed to be protecting. You’re not a butler. You’re her bodyguard, aren’t you?”
“I am highly trained as both, and my rooms extend from the stairs to her bedroom. There is a private staircase between her bedroom and mine.”
“Convenient.”
“It is, rather. Well…good night, Miss Hill.”
“All this ‘miss’ and ‘madam’! Do you and I have to be so formal? I’m not used to it.”
“To quote Miss Conrad: ‘Formality is structure. Structure is civilization.’ And I am a butler.”
He swallowed the last of his brandy and walked quietly out of the room. I stuck my head into the kitchen and thanked Gerta for the meal. She gave me a motherly pat on the cheek and I went back to my room.
My computer, telephone machine, radio, books were all neatly placed. While I got ready for bed, I decided to call Neil and find out about the fingerprint. I wasn’t paid by Miss Conrad. The phone was on the nightstand. I sat on the bed and dialed his number. While it rang, I was sure I heard the click of another phone being picked up. Somebody was listening. Or was I paranoid? She answered.
“Hello?”
“Is Neil there?”
“He’s working.”
“Oh.”
“Who is this?”
“Maggie Hill. The ex.”
“Oh.”
“I was having him check on something for me at the department.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll call there.”
“We’re getting married.”
“Oh.”
“I just thought you should know.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll tell him you called.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hung up. I didn’t. I waited to hear if there was another click, if somebody else was hanging up. I held my breath, thinking of Neil holding the champagne bottle in his hands, the bottle tied with silver ribbons. He had wanted to celebrate.
“Good night, Maggie.” Boulton spoke softly into the phone.
I heard the click.
7
IT WAS THE NEXT morning, and I was dressed in my beige number, sitting at the dining-room table, finishing the last of my coffee. Claire sat across from me. She wore a black shirt, black slacks, and a black jacket. Her large, pale hand rested on the handle of an ebony walking stick. The chunk of lapis shimmered darkly. She read from a piece of paper.
“His name is Bobby Alt. He was arrested a year ago for prostitution. At the time he was twenty-five, weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, five feet seven inches tall, brown hair, brown eyes, and no distinguishing marks. He gave a Glendale address—4081 Wedgwood Street. Sound familiar?”
“No.”
“You must thank your policeman for us.”
“He’s getting married.”
“Again? Men and women will never learn. It’s eight forty-five. The funeral’s at eleven. We’ll go to Glendale first, see if he still lives there. I doubt that he does, but it’s a beginning.”
“Does Boulton always listen in on phone conversations?”
“I allow him to use his own judgment in that area.”
“Does that mean I’m still under suspicion?”
The dark blue eyes assessed me. “I’ll tell him you’re to be trusted. One more thing, Miss Hill. I’m not used to having a client who doesn’t pay. My fees are quite high.”
“If you’re as good as you say you are, you’re going to get four million dollars!”
“Miss Hill, if I am to trust you, you must trust me. I don’t want the coin collection.”
“What do you want?”
“To do what I do best. Sleuth. Now, when did Ellis pay you last?”
“The first of the month.”
“A week ago.”
“Yes.”
“In other words, he has paid for your services for another three weeks. Due to circumstances you cannot fulfill those services.”
I nodded and brushed toast crumbs from my dress.
“Since you have been paid for an entire month, I see no reason why you couldn’t perform similar services for me.”
“Be your secretary?”
“I will take your services as my fee. You will perform your duties at the big table in the living room.”
“Perform my duties! You’ve got to be kidding! I’m not going to sit here answering the telephone while you’re out having all the fun!”
“Fun?” She repeated the word as if she didn’t know its definition.
“What I mean to say is…the codicil was stolen from me. It was my apartment that was broken into. I want to be there when you find out who did it, not banished to the big table because Ellis Kenilworth happened to pay me before he died!”
She leaned back in her chair. “Miss Hill, if you are to be involved in the art of detection, the first rule to learn is that you mustn’t leap to conclusions. I have no desire to deprive myself of your secretarial skills. Nor do I have a desire to deprive myself of your quick mind and confrontational spirit. Which reminds me, you can call Valcovich from the car phone.”
She plucked a small pill from a silver tray and downed it with the last of her orange juice. “Please, write down the time I took this dreadful hormone.”
“It doesn’t matter when you take them just as long as you take them.”
“I am reduced to being dependent on a substance that is a chemical imitation. Dependency and imitation are forms of behavior I do not admire. This is my way of asserting control. Humor me.”
I got my Filofax out of my purse and wrote down her name, the date, and the time.
“I’ve told Boulton to bring the car around. Are you ready?”
I followed her down the hall and out the front door. I had the feeling that being a secretary to Claire Conrad was going to be a lot tougher than being a secretary to Kenilworth. I also felt that I was somehow being taken advantage of. I just couldn’t figure out where.
We went up the steps and there was the car, big and black as a hearse.
“It’s a Bentley!” I blurted.
“Correct.”
“Don’t you think you’re tempting fate?”
“I challenge fate.”
Boulton came around the car, opened the back door, and helped her in. He turned to me, bowing slightly. “Good morning, Maggie.”
“I’m to be trusted. Now you won’t have to stay up late listening to my phone conversations.”
“Pity,” he said, helping me in.
The car door closed with the authority of a bank vault’s. The seats were well-worn gray leather. Highly polished burl wood framed the windows and the very narrow dashboard. Crystal bud vases, in sterling silver holders, were connected to the side paneling near the passenger w
indows. Each vase held a small bouquet of fresh wildflowers. The car rolled forward and we lumbered down the narrow street. I felt as if I were inside a dinosaur.
Claire handed me the car phone. “Make Mr. Valcovich an offer he cannot refuse.”
I punched in his number.
“You remember his number,” she observed.
“I only have an incredible memory.”
The Smoker’s voice filled my ear. “Law offices.”
I took a deep breath and clamped my fingers over my nose. “This is Edith Wharton from the Arts and Stars Theatrical Agency calling Mr. Roger Valcovich.”
She coughed and asked me to hold. Valcovich must’ve been standing on top of her. He breathed greedily into the phone.
“Yeah? This is Roger Valcovich.”
“Mr. Valcovich? This is Edith Wharton from Arts and Stars Theatrical Agency. I saw one of your commercials and thought you’d be just right for a role in an upcoming miniseries we’re casting.”
I had to look away from Claire. She was staring at me as if she were witnessing a bad accident.
“Of course, being a busy, successful lawyer, I don’t know if you’d be interested in such a—”
“I’m interested. Lawyers are actors at heart, you know.”
“Yes. Well, I’m not going to be in my office today. I’m calling from my car phone. I hope you can hear me. Maybe we could meet at your office.”
“My last appointment’s at six. How about six thirty?”
“Fine.”
“I have photographs. Do you want photographs?”
“Photographs? Oh, yes…of course. Six thirty then. Look forward to meeting you.”
“Thank you for calling. Thank you for seeing my commercials. Thank you for thinking of me,” he gushed.
I hung up the car phone.
“Edith Wharton?!” Claire gasped.
“He fell for it.”
“What if the man reads literature?”
“He’s a jerk.”
“There are jerks who read literature.”
“Not this one.”
“Let’s hope your perceptions are as acute as your sense of irony. Which reminds me, I read your novel last night. You’re a very promising writer.”
“Thank you.”
“After a certain age, Miss Hill, it’s not a compliment to be just a promising writer.”
“Look, I didn’t ask you to read my book.”
“You did not.” She turned and looked out the window.
“What kind of comment was that anyway?”
“I merely suggest that writing about yourself growing up in Ohio is charming, especially the section on the nuns in full habit, sitting at your mother’s table, nibbling on baked chicken thighs, but—”
“They weren’t nibbling, they were gnawing. And it was fried chicken breast, not the thigh.”
“I think ‘thigh,’ as a word, has much more—”
“Look, my book has been published and buried and I’ve never written anything else, so why are we going on about it?”
“I am not a wasteful person and I hate to see waste in others—especially if it’s intelligence and talent which are being squandered.”
It was my turn to look out the window.
“It seems to me you haven’t found the right subject,” she continued. “You need a subject that goes beyond mere charm. You need a subject that is highly intelligent, sophisticated, complex, and yet has a touch of mystery mixed with danger. In other words, unique.”
I peered back at her. “And who might that subject be?”
“Me, of course.”
“Oh, hell.”
“That wasn’t exactly the reaction I had hoped for.” She tapped Boulton on the shoulder with her stick. “That’s the address across the street.”
As Boulton aimed the Bentley into a parking space, between a dented pickup and Chevy on blocks, she smiled benignly at me.
“Forget my idea, Miss Hill. I succumbed to a moment of whimsy. I was thinking about Holmes and Watson…Johnson and Boswell…Vance and Van Dine. Notice how equally famous they all are. You can’t talk about Holmes without talking about the good doctor. But where are the women? You don’t see that kind of strong, classical relationship between women. Women go off by themselves, like sick animals, and write pathetic little diaries in rented rooms. Poor women. Please, forget my idea.”
“Sure.” Boswell and Johnson. Sure! And who the hell were Vance and Van Dine? They sounded like a pair of figure skaters. Just get the codicil back, Maggie, and leave.
Glendale could be any small town in any state in America. In California it just happens to have popped up between Pasadena and Hollywood. Wedgwood was a working-class street lined with small Spanish bungalows. The tile roofs gleamed a warm earth red in the sun. The lawns were neat and the sidewalks bumpy from the roots of old trees. Worn compact cars rested in some of the driveways.
Three small children stared in awe at the car through a chain-link fence surrounding their yard. Next door to the children an Asian woman squatted on her square of lawn as if she were in a rice field, her claw-like hands plucking at weeds only she could see. She rose; ancient eyes took us in and lodged us in the vast history of her memory. It was the kind of neighborhood that made me feel embarrassed about being in a Bentley.
“Good morning,” I said to her. She scurried into her house.
“You’re not used to being the intruder, are you?” Claire asked.
“I think it’s the car.”
“It’s the profession. The detective is always the intruder,” she said flatly.
We walked across the street to the house.
“Wait out here,” she commanded Boulton.
He stood guard on the little slab of lawn, looking every inch like Secret Service. Claire rang the bell.
“Do you really need him?” I whispered.
“I pay him to prove his masculinity so I don’t have to prove mine.”
The door opened. A middle-aged woman, in a pink knit dress and a valentine-dotted apron, peered through the screen door at us.
“Yes?”
“Excuse me,” Claire said. “We’re looking for a Mr. Bobby Alt.”
The woman shifted uneasily. TV news droned, with artificial urgency, in the room behind her.
“Who are you?” she asked timidly.
Claire handed her a card. The woman wiped her hands on her apron before she took it.
“I don’t understand.”
“If we could just talk with you…Your son is not in any trouble. Bobby Alt is your son?”
“Yes.”
Claire opened the screen door. The woman stood passively as we edged our way into the living room. Beige walls matched the beige rug which matched the beige sofa. The young blonde in lime-green shorts lying on the sofa didn’t match. She dangled a chunky leg, her big toe digging at the sand-colored carpet. Brown eyes were riveted on the TV. She was maybe twenty.
“My daughter Robin.”
Robin didn’t look at us. Robin didn’t move, except the one leg. She continued watching the news, one instant clip of disaster after another.
“Robin?” The mother tentatively approached her. “Robin?”
Robin was transfixed, her pupils large. Robin was stoned out of her head.
“Robin’s concentrating. It’s all right. We won’t disturb her.” She motioned for us to sit in two beige chairs in the corner of the room.
“I’ll stand. No rest for the weary,” she said. “Would you like some coffee? Tea?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
We didn’t take the chairs. Claire leaned elegantly on her walking stick as if she were watching a cricket match and asked, “Does your son still live at home?”
“No. I don’t know where he lives. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“When did you see him last?” Claire asked.
“About six months ago. He came to get his things. He got a new job. He’s a very good boy.”
Ro
bin moaned and giggled. It was hard to tell if it was in reaction to her mother’s observation, the television, or just a thought she’d never remember again.
Claire asked, “Did he tell you where he was working?”
“No.” She looked hurt. “I pleaded with him to tell me. But he wouldn’t. He just kept saying…he’s got another…” Her eyes focused on her daughter, who had pulled herself up into a sitting position. “It’s so difficult to raise children now,” she sighed.
“There are places you can take her,” I said.
“Places? I don’t know what you mean. She’s just watching television. As soon as she figures out what she’s going to do with her life, she’ll be fine. Things aren’t like they used to be. Did you see the people in this neighborhood? Boat people! I’m living next door to boat people!”
Claire’s voice was soothing. “Your daughter will do just fine. What did Bobby mean…he got another? Another what?”
Mrs. Alt nervously wiped her hands on her apron again.
“Mother! Another mother!” She spat out the word. Resentment glistened in her eyes. “I hate that word. I hate it! I wish to God I’d never been a mother!” She moved to the door and opened it. “I can’t talk anymore. Please go.”
I took one last look at Robin. On the table next to her was a large brass-framed picture. In it a bright-eyed Robin leaped toward the heavens, waving pom-poms and smiling victoriously in the sun. Now she stared dumbly at some revolutionaries in the Philippine jungles. The beige walls and the beige carpeting felt like quicksand.
We were back in the car and headed toward the Pasadena Presbyterian Church.
“Great,” I said. “We found out Bobby Alt has acquired another mother.”
“Not an easy thing to acquire if you already have one,” Boulton said.
“I wonder if he would break into an apartment for his new mother,” Claire mused.
8
WHEN I WAS ELEVEN, I did twenty Hail Marys for whispering to my girlfriends that Jesus’s blood—painted dripping from his hands and feet on our church’s cross—was the same color as Revlon’s Love That Red.
There was no blood on the gold cross in the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. No Christ figure writhed in pain or ecstasy, those two emotions so interrelated in my religious upbringing. This cross was as clean and as sleek as a new hood ornament. Below the unadorned cross was the closed coffin of Ellis Kenilworth. Draped in a blanket of flowers and surrounded by enormous bouquets and wreaths, it looked like a float in the Rose Parade.
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