“Don’t talk, Maggie.” Boulton’s voice.
“Get her to the car.” Claire’s voice.
Boulton picked me up. What else are big arms for? Strangers gawked. The girl with the beautiful mahogany skin asked, “What happened to her?”
“Fainted. Seven months pregnant,” Claire said.
We moved past the curious group. I tried to open my mouth, tell them who it was, but nothing came out.
“She doesn’t look seven months pregnant.”
“Of course she does!” Claire said imperiously. “Give or take a few months.”
We were in the hall. The woman with the leaves on her back stared at me, giggling. The public library looked more like a mental hospital than Rosewood did. I tried to tell Boulton this.
“Don’t talk, Maggie. Your neck and throat are bruised.”
He carried me down the stairs. I leaned my head on his shoulder. It was a nice shoulder. Strong. Hard. The way a man’s shoulder should be. I could see Claire carrying my purse and using her walking stick to poke her way through the transients and the school kids.
Outside, I shut my eyes and let the cool night air blow softly against me. I was alive.
Claire opened the door to the Bentley and Boulton sat me down in the backseat. He poured me brandy from a crystal decanter. Claire got in the other side.
“Would you like one too, madam?” he asked.
“Please.”
The brandy burned all the way down.
“Sutton!” I gasped.
“Following Mother’s wishes, no doubt,” Claire said.
“How did he know I’d be here?”
“Probably following me. Couldn’t do much with Boulton around. We left. You appeared. He must’ve gotten away by going down the back stairs to the back parking lot. It’s a good thing you parked your car next to ours—otherwise we would not have gone looking for you. What a tedious day I’ve had going through three years of newspapers!”
“Why did he want to kill me?”
“Because we’re getting too close.”
She turned on the overhead light and began to read from a Xerox copy of a newspaper story. “This is dated about eight months ago. ‘A retarded woman wandered away from her home at 1345 Beech Street Wednesday night. Pasadena police have searched the area and are now widening their search to other parts of the city. No kidnapping or foul play is expected. The woman’s name is being withheld. She is a ward of the state and had recently been transferred here from Rosewood State Hospital.’”
She put the paper down. “There are many such stories on and off for about a month. Then I found this small item: ‘The investigation into the disappearance of a retarded woman has been scaled down. There are few clues, but the case remains open.’ Before I went to the library I checked the Hall of Records. No births or marriages listed for Judith. No marriages listed for Sutton Kenilworth. Of course they could be listed in other cities or states. One birth was listed for Patricia Kenilworth. Child’s name not given. The year was 1952. Now, I was under the impression that Victoria was born in some city other than Pasadena. So I’m assuming Patricia had two children.”
“Victoria Moor.”
“Yes. The actress. But there is another—”
I shook my head. “Victoria Moor was the name of a missing patient on the Rosewood computer. Ginger’s a good little Christian girl who wouldn’t take your money.”
“Bless her. Boulton, drive to Victoria’s house.”
“Why the same names?” I asked.
“Revenge, Miss Hill, revenge. When Victoria stared at her father’s casket, she said she was born out of her mother’s anger.” She poured me another shot of brandy.
I leaned back and watched the lights of oncoming cars smear yellow and thought about Sutton. He didn’t kill me. He had the chance. He didn’t kill me.
“By the way, do you have my two hundred dollars?” Claire asked.
“I left it there. On the ground.”
She sighed and closed her eyes.
In twenty minutes we were driving up the long drive to Victoria’s house. The gate was open. The house sparkled with lights. The garage doors were open, and the white limo was gone. So was the creamy Mercedes convertible. Only the Jag and Waingrove’s silver Mercedes remained.
We got out of the car. The front door was ajar. Boulton had his gun in his hand. We went in. I heard Victoria’s voice coming from the pub room. We moved toward her voice.
Patricia sat on the floor, video cassettes scattered around her like tiny coffins. She looked up at the image of her daughter on television. Victoria shimmered like a silver shadow.
The French doors to the garden stood open. A cool, damp breeze, sweet with the smell of cherry blossoms from Shangri-la, chilled the room. The garden was drenched in light. Every important tree had its own spotlight. Even Waingrove, in his pinstriped suit, floating on the pink candy-striped raft, was illuminated by the pool light. His blood spread from an open wound in his chest through the baby-blue water, turning it as brown as dirt. His empty eyes stared up at the moon, which shone as bright as a new silver dollar. Boulton went out to the pool. Claire and I kneeled down next to Patricia. I could see the barrel of a gun half-hidden in the folds of her caftan.
“Hello, Patricia,” I said.
“Look,” she said, staring at her daughter’s image. “Look how small she is. I could hold her in the palm of my hand. Keep her there forever.” She held out her hand, palm up, toward the television, as if she were holding a small, precious object.
“Where is she?” Claire asked.
“At a very prestigious dinner. They’re giving her an award. Most popular—”
“Where is the other Victoria?”
She reached for her drink. Ice cubes tinkled as her shaking hand brought it to her mouth.
“I don’t know. I thought Brian knew. But he wouldn’t tell me. I kept firing the gun and he still wouldn’t tell me.”
I reached for the gun and carefully moved it toward me. It felt warm.
“It wouldn’t fire anymore,” she said simply. “Eleanor must know where she is. She knows everything. She knew I didn’t belong.” She tried to smile but didn’t make it. Her lips went slack and her mouth just hung open. She stayed that way for a few moments, staring at the television, then slowly she began to speak.
“I thought if I had a baby…a beautiful, perfect baby…I would belong to the Kenilworths. But I created imperfection in a perfect world. A monster. No!” Tears formed under heavy lids. “Sweet…always innocent…always a child.”
“And Eleanor wanted you to give the little girl up to the state? To commit her to Rosewood?” Claire asked.
“Yes. So did I. Only Ellis wanted to keep her.” She placed her hand on Claire’s wrist in a conspiratorial gesture. “Had I kept her, Ellis probably wouldn’t have divorced me. But I didn’t see that. I was trying to please Eleanor. Eleanor saw it. Eleanor knew.”
“You named her Victoria?”
“Victoria Kenilworth!” She slammed the glass down, slopping amber liquid onto the floor. “Eleanor made me change it. She didn’t want the Kenilworth name tainted. Moor is a pretty last name. It has class, doesn’t it?” Desperate green eyes looked up at us.
“And when Ellis divorced you, you knew you were pregnant?” Claire asked.
“He had stopped loving me. But God, he desired me. I was very desirable then. Having another baby kept me going, kept me from killing myself. I prayed every night my baby would be a girl.”
She looked up at the television. The moving reflection of her daughter cast flickering shadows across her ravaged face as she took another drink.
“I used the name Eleanor had given my other daughter. I created a beauty. I made her famous—so famous the Kenilworths could not deny her existence!”
“How did your first daughter die?”
“Dead. Just like Brian.”
“You shot her?”
“No. Eleanor knows. She called me one day.”
>
“When?”
“Eight, nine months ago. Said how proud she was of my Victoria’s success. Said she wanted to make amends. I was so damn needy. I believed her. All those years of pain and I still wanted to be accepted by the Kenilworths.” She sat her glass on the floor, almost knocking it over.
“Did she invite you to the house?” Claire took the glass and sniffed it.
“We had tea on the patio overlooking the garden,” Patricia said, watching her intently. Claire set the glass back down. “On the table was a pink jewelry box. Eleanor opened it and smiled. I didn’t understand at first. Then I saw…her…in the garden. From the back she almost looked like my beautiful Victoria. But her face…so imperfect.”
“What did you do when you saw her?” Claire asked.
“What?” Her eyes closed and she rocked back and forth.
“You saw your daughter. What did you do?” Claire’s voice was firm.
Opening her eyes, Patricia blinked, trying to focus. She looked at Claire, then at me. The cat-green eyes were no longer clever or coy. They were filled with selfhatred and fear.
“I stood up,” she said. “And she ran toward me—as if she knew I was her mother. Over thirty years had passed. She didn’t really know…did she? Did she?”
“She ran toward you, and what happened?”
“My baby wanted to put her arms around me and I shoved her away. I pushed her hard down the stone steps. She fell. She broke her neck.” Tears streaked her face and hung from her chin like drops of diamonds. “I ran out of the house. Later, Eleanor told me they had taken care of her. I wouldn’t have to worry about police or publicity. Eleanor took care of it.”
“And then the photograph of Ellis holding his dead daughter arrived in the mail.”
“A month later…I thought it was the Kenilworths trying to blackmail me. They thought I was trying to blackmail them.” She began to laugh, but it sounded more like a cry of pain. “You were right. It was Brian,” she gasped.
“And when Miss Hill discovered Ellis’s body, you thought she’d seen the photograph.”
“Yes.” She looked up at the image of her daughter. “Victoria realized how much she looked like her sister in that picture. She thought if we told you that story you’d leave us alone.” She swayed from side to side. “But you didn’t.” She slumped to the floor, breathing heavily. “I had to get rid of her,” she groaned softly. “She could never grow up. She could only grow old.” Her eyes rolled back. The whites glistened; the lids closed halfway.
“She’s passed out,” I said.
Claire stared at her, saying nothing. Patricia’s breathing slowed to a rasping rattle, then stopped. Claire felt her pulse.
“She’s dead.”
“What?”
“She put something in her drink. Cyanide, I think. Can’t smell it. The death is almost peaceful. You just stop breathing.”
“You knew it was poisoned? You let her die, just like Sutton let his brother die?”
“I let her execute herself, Miss Hill.”
I stood up and walked out into the garden. Boulton kneeled by the pool. His handsome face reflected a ghostly shade of bluish white from the pool light.
“He hasn’t been dead long,” he said, looking up at me. “She unloaded the gun on him. But it looks like only two hit their mark.”
“How come the bullets didn’t deflate the raft?” I asked.
“You see, Miss Hill, you do get used to it,” Claire said, moving beside me.
“Waingrove was standing,” Boulton said. “It looks like he staggered back with the force of each bullet and fell onto the raft.”
I stared down at Waingrove. Even dead and floating on a silly raft, he still managed to look debonair. I took a deep breath and almost gagged. The air was too sweet in this garden.
“I want to get the hell out of here,” I said.
We made our way to the front door. The governess stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at us. The two maids stood behind her.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“We’ve called the police!”
“Make sure the child does not come down here. And you had better contact Victoria Moor,” Claire said.
As I quietly shut the front door, I looked up. Rebecca stared out of her turret. I thought I saw tears glistening on her cheeks. But then, maybe I didn’t.
As we drove away, Boulton asked, “Our destination?”
“The Kenilworths’,” Claire said.
22
AGAIN I KNOCKED ON the mahogany door of the big white house. Aiko answered. He looked pale. Nodding toward the library, he hurried away. The chandelier scattered golden drops of light on the marble floor. The hall clock chimed discreetly, breaking the heavy silence of the house.
Claire turned to Boulton. “Check upstairs.”
He moved swiftly up the stairs. My heels made their tippity-tap sounds as we crossed the foyer to the library.
Judith sat on the silk damask sofa. When she saw us, she pulled her gray cashmere cardigan tighter around her shoulders and stood.
“Get out!” she said defiantly. “Get out of our house!”
“We know the woman in the photograph is dead. She was Ellis’s first daughter. Victoria Kenilworth,” Claire said.
Defiance faded. She was back to being the hurt little girl. “Moor. Her last name is Moor,” she said.
Claire sighed and started to sit.
“You haven’t been invited to sit down.”
“I’m a very tired woman. I’ve been dealing with a lot of people I detest, including you. I’m sitting down.”
Boulton came into the room. “No one’s upstairs.”
“Not even Eleanor?” Claire asked, surprised.
“No one.”
“Where are Sutton and your mother?” Claire tapped her walking stick impatiently on the carpet.
“I can’t tell.” Lips pressed white.
“Judith, it’s all over,” I said. “Waingrove is dead.”
“No…no…he can’t be…he can’t…” Her body sagged onto the sofa. The cardigan slipped off one shoulder. Her arms hung limp.
“Get her some brandy, Miss Hill. Get us all some.”
I poured the brandy and handed it around.
“How did he die?” Judith asked in a flat voice.
“Patricia shot him,” Claire said.
“She’s destroyed our family. And now Brian.”
“Come off it, Judith,” I said. “The Kenilworths have destroyed the Kenilworths. And Brian was a hustler. A blackmailer. The perfect friend for your kind of perfect family.”
“I loved him!” Her hands kneaded the hem of her skirt. “I caused all this, you know. I was so tired. I wanted to sleep at night. That’s why I told Brian about what happened in the garden. You’re supposed to be able to tell all your secrets to the man who loves you. I just wanted to sleep. Mother couldn’t understand that. But then she can sleep at night.”
“Where did you hide Victoria’s body?” Claire asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Boulton, go to Erwin’s house. Find out if he knows—”
“He doesn’t know,” Judith said softly. “Erwin really thought Victoria had wandered off. That’s what made it so easy with the police investigation. Then the photograph arrived in the mail. At first we thought it was Erwin blackmailing us. But we weren’t sure, because Patricia got one too. How could he know about her? He wasn’t there in the garden when it happened.” She pulled the sweater back over her shoulder. “So Mother thought Patricia might even be the blackmailer. That’s when she got Bobby to spy for her. And then you told me Brian owned Erwin’s house and I knew.”
“Where did Sutton and Eleanor go?” Claire asked.
“To get rid of her. Forever.”
“Where?”
“Where Ellis and Sutton took her.”
Claire stood. “Where is that?”
“The hotel,” she whispered.
We hurried out of t
he room and across the foyer. Judith followed us.
“It was all Patricia’s fault. We told Ellis that. She never should’ve been part of the family. Never!”
I closed the big mahogany door and never looked back.
The carcass of the hotel emerged from the night.
Boulton maneuvered the Bentley down the cracked asphalt road. The islands of brown grass floated like dark pools. He turned onto the circular drive. The white limo was parked at an angle. Its doors gaped open. Boulton got a flashlight from the glove compartment and handed it to Claire. We got out of the car. Boulton took out his gun. He peered into the limo.
“Nothing.”
We moved slowly toward the hotel. The padlock was broken, the doors open.
We entered the black, cavernous lobby. Our feet scraped on the grimy marble floor. The three of us moved in a strange choreographed unit as if the darkness had made us one. Something slithered. Insects and rodents had taken over the hotel. Damp, thick air clung to my shoulders like a moldy shawl. I smelled decayed leaves, rotted wood. Death. The beam of the flashlight darted around the lobby. It cast icy white circles on the walls, the floor, then far away into the squalid blackness.
“If I remember correctly, there are stairs just over here,” Claire said.
The flashlight located a grand, sweeping staircase. A rat, momentarily paralyzed by the bright beam, stopped descending. He stared at us. Claire banged her walking stick on the floor. The rat ran, its naked pink feet scratching at the floor.
We moved up the stairs. Floorboards sighed and wheezed like old sick people. At the top Claire stopped. She moved the light around. We were on a large landing overlooking the lobby. Long, endless corridors extended from each end of the landing. To the right, about halfway down, a thread of light shone dimly under a door.
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