“How do you know?”
“Why would they all go to such lengths to cover up, including protecting their blackmailers, if she hadn’t been murdered?” She grabbed the photograph and strode out of the room.
That night I went to bed thinking of an elegant, quiet man passionately pressing the body of a dead woman to his. Who was she? Whoever she was, he had to let go of her eventually. What happens to the people we let go of? What happened to her body?
20
I STRUGGLED OVER MY bridge of melancholy…groped my way to consciousness. My morning sadness was back. I thought of Ellis Kenilworth. He had given up struggling with his melancholy, given up fighting for light.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Toenail polish was still chipped, legs still unshaven. Again, there wasn’t time. Rosewood was on the other side of Bakersfield. I had something to do before I drove up there.
Today was Friday.
Claire was all in white, sipping her coffee, reading the Los Angeles Times. I sat down at the table. Boulton poured me coffee.
She peered at me over the top of her paper. “You look more determined than usual this morning,” she said, then continued reading.
Boulton leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Do you have your gun?”
“No. I saw enough guns yesterday to last me a lifetime.”
“Whatever madam wishes.” He retreated to the kitchen.
“While I’m at the loony hospital, what are you going to be doing?” I asked her.
“Thinking.”
“Wonderful.”
“And checking records. This young woman looks so much like Victoria that she must belong to someone in the Kenilworth clan—either by marriage or by birth.”
I finished breakfast, then went back to my room and got my purse. Claire met me at the front door. She was holding two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills in her hand.
“Money is almost as good as a gun when you need to get people to talk.”
“Great. I tried to bribe somebody once and it didn’t work.”
“Experience, Miss Hill.” She shoved the money into my hand. “You will be careful—not only on your drive up to Rosewood but when you attend the wedding.”
“How did you know?”
“I’m the detective.”
“Maybe you used your female brain.”
I went up the steps to the street. Boulton was washing the Bentley. The sun was out, but the sky was the color of Humphrey Bogart’s trench coat. I shoved the money in my purse and felt the pearl handle of the gun. I stared at Boulton. He wouldn’t look at me.
The Little Brown Church is on the busy intersection of Coldwater Canyon and Moorpark Boulevard in the Valley. This quaint piece of shabby architecture is nestled between condominiums and law offices.
I parked in the red across the street from the church and waited. At ten twenty the doors to the church opened and they came out into the sunlight. Married. Neil was dressed in gray. She was dressed in blue. She carried a small bouquet of white flowers. Two friends threw rice. Neil and his new wife lowered their heads, clinging to one another, laughing. Her hair was the same color as mine, but she was younger and shorter. Still, we were the same type of woman—whatever type that is.
Suddenly she threw her arms around Neil and kissed him. The others laughed. She was pert. I was never pert. The other couple started down the sidewalk. She yelled. They turned and she threw her bouquet. She was wearing white gloves. Short white cotton gloves. So female. So proper. So vulnerable. I swallowed back tears. The blond man with a mustache caught the bouquet. He got a big laugh and gave it a backhanded toss to the woman he was with. She dropped it. This got another laugh. Neil helped his new wife into his car. I had sat next to him in that very same car, resting my hand on his thigh. After a while he would stop helping her into the car. I had stopped resting my hand on his thigh. Walking around to the driver’s side, he dropped his keys. He leaned over to get them and raised himself up slowly. Stiff. Tired. He would cry out in his sleep tonight. He unlocked the door and got in. They drove off. Damn those pert white gloves. I shut my eyes, wanting their images to blur and fade.
I opened my eyes. A much younger couple walked toward the church. I put my car in gear and pulled out into the traffic. I blended with all the other cars.
I was doing eighty-five on a highway cut through plowed fields. The sun roof and windows were down, and I could feel the warm, dry air wrap itself around me. I was glad to be back in my car, alone, in control, driving far away from a small brown church and a man I should have given up a long time ago.
I hit Bakersfield about twelve fifteen. Bakersfield reminds me of a certain kind of woman who, no matter how fancy she tries to dress, always has a dirty bra strap showing. I made it through the city, trying not to look at it too closely.
According to my map, Rosewood was about ten miles outside of Bakersfield. I followed the highway past a turquoise-and-orange coffee shop and a field of peach trees. The road started going up into the mountains, and I saw the sign ROSEWOOD STATE HOSPITAL. I turned off onto a road that led into beautiful park-like grounds. Low governmental-looking buildings were spread among pine and eucalyptus trees.
I parked the car in the visitors’ lot and got out. I had expected a foreboding Dickensian atmosphere, not a peaceful, camp-like surrounding. It felt good to stretch and walk. My feet crunched pine needles. The air smelled green and was so clear it hurt my lungs when I took a deep breath. Earnest-looking men and women in white uniforms sat at picnic tables eating their lunches. I had timed it just right. I had learned that if you want information, go to the secretary, not the boss. And the best time to do that was when the bosses were out to lunch and the poor secretaries were usually in their offices, brown-bagging it or dieting.
I made my way down a path toward a building marked ADMINISTRATION. I opened the screen door and went in. I heard the rustle of the brown paper bag before I saw her. She sat at one of three desks, behind a Formica counter, under the glare of fluorescent lights. She was fat and had stringy brown hair pulled back with a plastic green bow.
“Hi!” I leaned on the counter.
She looked up at me, popping the last of a white-bread sandwich into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “Janet’s gone to lunch. Be back in a half-hour.” She was probably all of twenty. She already had a double chin.
“What’s your name?”
“Ginger.”
She stuck her chubby hand into the paper bag and pulled out two Hostess cupcakes. She stared at them in loving amazement, almost as if she were wondering how they ever got into her brown paper bag.
“Good. You’re the one that Janet told me to see.”
She forced herself to look at me instead of the cupcakes. “She did? But I’m temporary.”
“I know the feeling. I talked to Janet this morning and told her it was the only time I could get up here. I just need some information. I’m from the Pasadena Public Health Agency.” I opened my wallet and flashed my library card at her. “We’re checking on a residence at 1345 Beech Street in Pasadena.”
“You are?” She had the Hostess cupcakes out of their cellophane wrap.
“Rosewood has some of their patients staying there. We’ve had a few minor complaints in the neighborhood. Nothing serious, but we just wanted to check out the patients and the owner of the house to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up.”
“I think all that would be on the computer. Janet doesn’t like me to use it without her being here.” She swiveled in her chair, facing me, and I saw the delicate gold cross shining on a thin chain around her pudgy neck.
“Where is the computer?”
“In there.” She nodded toward a closed door, then swiveled back to her cupcakes. I knew she wanted to be alone with them.
“It’ll take five minutes—then you can eat your dessert without me hanging around. They look real moist.”
“I’m still not supposed to work the computers. Janet said she’d fire me if she caug
ht me practicing on them. I take lessons at night school. But you can wait for her.”
She turned her back to me and picked up one of the cupcakes.
Oh, hell.
“All right. I guess I’ll have to tell you who I really am. I’m a private detective working for the actress Victoria Moor.”
She slowly turned around, her mouth full of half a cupcake. I flashed her my library card again. “This is really my P.I. license.”
“P.I.?”
“Private eye.”
“Victoria Moor? Really?”
I took one of the bills out of my purse. “She told me to give this to the person who helped me. She’s very thoughtful. She’s not stuck-up like most big stars.”
“What does she want to know?”
“Usually that’s confidential. But I guess I can tell you. She thinks she might have a family member—a cousin—at this house on Beech Street. And if so, she’d like to look after the cousin. Help her out.”
“She sounds real nice.”
I moved the hundred around on the counter. “And she says she hopes the person who helps me will take this money and do some good with it in a Christian kind of way.”
She pushed herself to her feet. Brown stretch slacks were stretched to the limit. A brown-and-white polka-dot blouse shaped like a tent covered the top of her. Chubby feet were shoved into pink rubber thongs. She waddled toward me and stared at the hundred bucks.
“Did Victoria touch this money?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, looking at the clock. If Janet was punctual, she’d be back in fifteen minutes.
“I guess it won’t hurt. I mean, this is a kinda unusual situation, isn’t it?”
“Victoria Moor just wants to do a good deed.”
“It’s nice to know that big stars like her have love in their hearts.” The thongs slapped against her fleshy feet as she headed for the computer room.
I came around the counter. She opened the door and turned on the light. I was in! The computer sat on a table in the middle of the room. I could hear the hard disk whirring. Filing cabinets lined the walls.
“I’ll be sure to tell Victoria how nice you were about helping me.”
She sat down in front of the computer and began to punch in some commands with her flat, short fingers. I stood behind her, watching the monitor.
“What was the address?” she asked.
I gave it to her.
She tapped the keys, then said, “Beech Street house is owned by Waingrove Enterprises, and we have a Jerry Frant, Penny Thomas, and Oliver Basscom residing there.”
“Thank you. Aren’t there usually four people in that house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could I see if there was anyone else there recently?”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“What does this mean?” I pointed to a line that read “Access DM6009.”
“I don’t know.”
“Call it up.”
She shrugged and punched at the keys. Up came a list of deceased patients.
“Scroll down to the K’s,” I said.
“Why not ‘Moor’?”
“No. It’s a stage name. Oh, hell…Excuse me—Victoria doesn’t like me to talk that way. Give K a try.”
She did. There was no Kenilworth.
“What the hell, try ‘Moor.’”
She scrolled down to the M’s. Up popped the name “Victoria Moor.”
“Look—they have the same name!” she gasped.
“So I see. That code after her name starts with the letter M.”
“I think that means ‘missing.’”
“Missing?”
“Sometimes they wander off. We always find them.”
“Call up that number.”
The door banged open. A woman with pimples covering most of her face snapped, “What are you doing, Ginger?”
“I was just helping.”
“I run the computer. Not you!”
“I know. But she’s a private eye.”
Oh, Ginger. The pimples turned toward me. Some had been freshly picked.
“A what?”
“She’s helping Victoria—”
“Let me see your license.”
It had worked so far. I flashed my library card, but Pimples grabbed it.
“You idiot!” She turned on Ginger. “The only thing she can do with this card is check books out.”
I stuffed the hundred in Ginger’s hand and started toward the door.
“Thanks, Ginger. I’ve got to be going—”
“I’m calling security!” Janet cried.
I ran. Janet yelled at Ginger, complaining about not being able to get through to security. The screen door slammed behind me.
As I unlocked the car door, I heard the rubbery, sucking sound of Ginger’s thongs flapping against her feet. She lumbered up the path.
“She fired me! You lied and got me fired.”
“Look, I’m really sorry. But it wasn’t a lie—exactly. Here, take this.” I shoved the other hundred at her.
“I can’t.”
“For night school!”
She opened her hand. Two hundred dollars fluttered to the ground. Big, plump tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I can’t take it. Jesus wouldn’t like it.” She waddled away.
Earnest people watched me. I looked down at the two hundred bucks on the ground. The wind scattered the money like leaves. Oh, hell. I got into the car and drove away.
The radio blared. The warm wind pulled at my hair. I headed back toward Bakersfield trying to figure out why there were two Victoria Moors. I felt something men have been feeling for centuries—the excitement of closing in for the kill. Getting closer to that moment of truth. God knows, I wasn’t getting closer to virginity. I had just gotten a good Christian girl fired and then tried to pay her off. Maybe wind could purify.
21
I LEFT THE CAR in front of the house and ran down the steps. Gerta let me in.
“Where is she?”
“At the library.”
“Where’s the library?”
“Who has time to read?”
“If she comes back here before I do, tell her to wait. I have important information.” I hurried out of the house and back up the steps to the car.
I assumed she was at the Pasadena library. I stopped and asked three different people. Not one knew where it was. Too bad I wasn’t looking for the nearest video store.
I got on Colorado Boulevard and headed toward the Civic Center. I turned north off Colorado and drove around City Hall and various municipal buildings before I saw it—a graceful old Spanish building in need of paint and a good gardener.
I turned into the parking lot. The Bentley was there. I parked next to it. I hurried through wrought-iron gates into a tiled courtyard. A brown cement fountain, which looked as if it hadn’t bubbled water in years, was spray-painted with the words MASSIVE MISFITS 1989. Carved in the stucco façade of the library were the names of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Pindar. Who was Pindar? Under this list of names sat a young Asian girl and a Chicano boy. They kissed with teenaged passion—new American sweethearts.
Inside, the lobby was as cool and almost as dark as a cave. I stood for a moment trying to figure out what part of the library Claire would be in. A young woman, her skin the same color as her mahogany desk, asked if she could help me.
“I’m looking for a tall, silver-haired woman with a butler.”
She stared blankly at me. I didn’t blame her. A middle-aged man, dragging a blanket and swinging a lunch pail, wandered in chanting, “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
She ignored him. I didn’t blame her.
“Where do you keep records like births, marriages…?”
He swung the pail down onto her desk. “Hello! Hello!”
“It sounds like you want the Hall of Records.”
“No. She said ‘library.’”
“Hello! Hello! Hello!”<
br />
“You might try upstairs in the microfilm library—where they keep documents and newspapers.”
“Hello! Hello!”
“Good idea.”
“Library closes in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.” I turned to the man with the blanket and said, “Hello! Hello!” His mouth dropped open in surprise. He turned and ran.
I headed for the stairs. I went down a narrow, dimly lit corridor. A woman with tangled hair made a large circle around me, watching me furtively. Leaves and dirt were stuck to the back of her stained coat.
I peered into a well-lighted room filled with reading tables and chairs. Schoolchildren studied and stared into space. A young, still handsome wino slept it off; his bottle, in a paper bag, rested at his feet like a faithful dog. An old man and woman sat contentedly reading, feeding each other grapes.
I continued down the corridor and turned left into a small room jammed with books. A goateed man dressed in jaunty tweeds looked up from his studies.
“Do you know where the microfilm library is?” I asked.
“Sorry, darling, I spend all my time with the Romans. February is the month they talk to the dead.”
“Glad it’s April.”
I backtracked and came out into another room. Newspapers hung over wooden racks. A sign on a desk read, PLEASE PRINT YOUR REQUESTS—sounded like a very organized piano bar. There was nobody behind the desk. I started going down the aisles of books. As far as I could tell, I was the only one in the room. I got smart and decided to go outside and wait by the Bentley.
I started back up the aisle. The lights went out and the room was swallowed up in darkness. A door closed.
“Hey! Wait a minute! I’m still in here!” I yelled, bumping into a table. I tried to get my bearings, feeling as though I’d fallen into a vast black lake and I didn’t know which way was the shore. I could hear someone breathing. I held my own breath, listening. A shoe squeaked.
“Is someone in here? Do you know where the light is?”
No answer. And I knew, with extraordinary clarity, that I was going to be murdered.
I edged along the side of the table, hoping I was going in the direction of the door. I stumbled over the leg of a chair; it rattled against the table. I held on to it, listening. Warm breath brushed my cheek. My body went cold. I screamed and threw the chair. Running wildly, I tried to get the gun out of my purse. I collided with a bookcase. Books fell on my head and shoulders. Stunned, I grabbed hold of a shelf for support. Hands gripped my throat. He breathed like a hot lover into my ear. I jammed my elbow into his gut. I kicked. I tore at his hands. He pressed harder and harder. No air. No shore. Only the spinning, suffocating darkness and his soft words: “I’m not my own man, Maggie.” A dark shadow hovered over me. A white shadow hovered over the dark…I opened my mouth. No sound.
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