Passion and Scandal

by Candace Schuler

  It would have been a lot more convincing if there'd been some signs that lives were actually being lived in the serenely pristine surroundings. A little girl riding the shiny red bike, a couple of kids playing basketball on the empty court, someone lounging with a book out on the cozy brick patio, a cat that actually moved, Willow thought, as she stepped over the sleeping animal.

  "Maybe Mom and the kids are out," she suggested. "Saturday errands. Football practice. Shopping for shoes. Stuff like that."

  "Then what's the minivan doing parked in the driveway?" Steve countered. "That's the kind of vehicle a rich suburban housewife runs errands in."

  The front door swung open as he spoke and a little girl in a bright yellow denim jumper and pink tennis shoes came barreling out the door and down the wide brick steps, plowing into them before she could check her forward progress. Steve reached out and put his hands on her shoulders to keep her from toppling over.

  "'Scuse me," she said, ducking out from beneath his hands to chase after the small golden cocker spaniel puppy that had dashed out the door ahead of her, barking wildly as it headed straight for the cat sleeping on the brick path.

  Both Steve and Willow turned to watch, knowing she'd be too late to save the pup from its fate. There was a loud hiss as the cat warned him off, then a surprised yelp and a whimper when he charged in anyway and got his tender nose scratched. The little girl bent over, scooping him up in her arms when he turned tail and came running back for protection.

  "Mary Catherine, put that dog down before he gets dirty paw prints all over your clothes," a woman ordered as she came out the open front door. She was wearing a crisp white tennis dress with a pleated skirt, a mint green sweater tied by the sleeves around her shoulders and white leather tennis shoes. The little pink pom-poms on her tennis socks bounced above the cuffs of her shoes. Her smooth skin was lightly tanned and her pale champagne blond hair was pulled back into a low, sleek ponytail tied with a pink-and-green grosgrain bow. She carried a leather gym bag and a tennis racket in one hand, and a set of keys in the other. "I haven't got time to have Alma change you again before we leave."

  The child turned around, her arms full of squirming puppy, ready to argue her case. Dusty paw prints already marred the front of her jumper and the striped T-shirt under it. "But, Mama, Butterscotch needs—"

  "Butterscotch needs to learn to fend for himself," said another voice. A tall, handsome man dressed in a burgundy knit polo shirt and pressed tan chinos appeared on the threshold behind the child's mother.

  Willow tried not to stare too obviously. The drooping mustache and the long sideburns were gone, of course, discarded relics of his youth. He was cleanshaven now and his conservatively cut, medium brown hair showed a distinguished touch of gray at the temples. There were fine lines of age and experience around his eyes and mouth that hadn't been there in 1970 and he had a certain understated elegance about him, even in the casual clothes, that hadn't been apparent in the photographs Willow carried in her purse. But he was so indisputably the same man pictured with his arm slung around her mother's shoulders that Willow wondered why she hadn't recognized him before Steve pointed it out to her. She realized it was because she had unconsciously been looking for the boy her father had been, not the man he had become.

  It was Ethan Roberts, in the flesh. The man who might—or might not, she reminded herself—be her father.

  "Put the dog down, please," he said to the little girl. "And come here and apologize to our guests for nearly knocking them over."

  Mary Catherine obeyed immediately. "Yes, Daddy." She put the puppy down, leaving him to his fate, and retraced her steps up the brick path, ineffectively brushing at the dusty paw prints on her clothes as she did so.

  "What do you say?" her father asked when she reached the front steps where Willow and Steve were standing.

  "I 'pologize for almost knocking you down," the child said earnestly. "I shouldn't have been running. But Butterscotch isn't s'posed to be loose in the front yard."

  She watched her father out of the comer of her eye as she spoke, as if to make sure of his approval. When he nodded, the tension in the child's face faded into relief. She turned and bolted for the minivan.

  "Walk," he hollered after her, then shrugged and shook his head at his guests. "My daughter, Mary Catherine," he said, by way of introduction. "And my wife—" he put his arm around the woman's shoulders as she came down the steps and gave her a quick squeeze "—Joanna."

  "Lovely to meet you," Joanna Roberts said pleasantly, nodding at each of them in lieu of shaking hands. "I really hate to greet and run but I'm already late. I have to drop Mary Catherine off at her play group before I go to the club," she explained. "We'll be back by three," she said to her husband, tilting her cheek for a kiss that just managed to miss connecting. "Make sure Alma puts the dog back in his run, won't you?"

  As she headed down the brick path to the van, Steve wondered if anyone else realized that Ethan Roberts hadn't actually introduced them to his wife by name. Was that a deliberate omission, he wondered, or just an oversight? And was the fact that Roberts' wife and child were leaving just as Steve and Willow arrived mere coincidence or the result of a watchful eye on the camera that monitored the front gate?

  A man who was prepared to answer a few casual questions about a woman he had dated twenty-five years ago would have nothing to hide from his family; a man who thought he was about to be confronted by the daughter he had abandoned before her birth probably wouldn't want his wife to witness the confrontation.

  "I'm assuming you are Ms. Ryan," Ethan said pleasantly, turning to look at Willow as his wife and daughter drove away.

  "Yes." She nodded. "I'm Willow Ryan. And this is my—" how did one introduce a private investigator? "—associate, Steve Hart," she said.

  The two men shook hands. Rather warily, Willow thought, as if they were using the brief clasp of hands to test each other's mettle.

  "Let's go inside, then, shall we?" Ethan stepped back, motioning them up the wide brick steps and through the door ahead of him with a gracious sweep of his arm.

  The inside of the house was like the outside, quietly luxurious and meticulously maintained with a folksy, all-American charm that felt too studied to be quite real, like some novice set designer's idea of what a politician's home should look like. The color scheme consisted of a subdued mix of navy-and-cream prints and plaids, with the judicious use of red as an accent. The furniture was mostly Early American with a few English antiques thrown in. The tall mirror in the foyer had an eagle carved into its gilded frame. A large family portrait, painted in oils, hung over the fireplace in the spacious living room.

  In it, Joanna Roberts sat in a gold brocade wing chair, with a younger version of Mary Catherine sitting in her lap. A boy who appeared to be about eleven or twelve years old sat perched on the arm of her chair. Another boy, perhaps fifteen or so, stood by her side. Ethan Roberts stood behind them all, one hand on the back of his wife's chair, one hand on the shoulder of the standing boy, proud patriarch of the perfect all-American family.

  "We had that painted a few years ago," Ethan said, noticing that Willow was staring at the portrait, "when the boys were home from the academy during Christmas vacation. That's Edward," he told her, gesturing toward the boy sitting on the arm of the chair. "And my oldest son, Peter. And, of course, you recognize Mary Catherine. She was about three when that was done."

  "You have a lovely family," Willow said, wondering if they might be her family, too. A sweet little sister... brothers... She felt Steve's hand settle gently on the small of her back and took a quick breath, tamping down the trembling emotions the thought of a real family evoked. It was too soon to be thinking of them as family.

  "You must be very proud of them," she said easily, steadied by the warm hand on her back.

  "Yes, I am," Ethan agreed. "Very proud." He turned his head, glancing down the hall to his right. "Alma!" he called impatiently.

  A middle-aged Hispa
nic woman in a classic maid's uniform answered his summons.

  "Mary Catherine's dog is in the front yard again," he said, speaking to the maid as if it were somehow her fault. "See that he gets put back in his run. And put her bike back in the garage where it belongs."

  The maid nodded.

  "I'll expect breakfast out on the deck in—" he glanced at the heavy gold Rolex on his wrist "—fifteen minutes."

  The maid nodded again and went outside to fetch the dog and put the child's bicycle away.

  Ethan Roberts turned a charming smile on his guests. "This way," he said, motioning them through the living room, toward the wide, multipaned glass doors that stood open to a cantilevered redwood deck with a spectacular view of the distant Pacific.

  * * *

  By mutual, if silent, agreement the three of them kept the conversation light and inconsequential as Alma quietly and efficiently served an al fresco breakfast of individual fresh fruit salads in chilled bowls and spicy huevos rancheros.

  "You can leave the pot on the table," Ethan said to her as she filled his coffee cup for the second time. "I'll call you if we need anything else."

  Without a word, the maid set the coffeepot down on the glass-topped patio table and turned to go.

  "Muchas gracias, senora," Steve said, thanking her for the breakfast. "El desayuno estuvo delicioso."

  The maid looked up, as if startled to be addressed politely and in her own language, and then smiled shyly. "De nada, senor," she murmured softly, and pulled the glass doors closed, leaving the three of them alone on the deck.

  "You speak Spanish," Willow said admiringly.

  Steve shrugged. "It comes in handy in my line of work."

  "And what exactly is your line of work?" Ethan Roberts asked. "I don't think anyone has actually said."

  "I'm a private investigator," Steve said, watching to see how the other man took the news.

  "I see," Ethan said, his eyes lowered as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips. He took a small sip, then put the coffee cup down and looked directly at Willow. "The message I got via my campaign manager said you have some questions you think I might be able to answer about your mother."

  "Yes, I..." Willow didn't quite know how to put the question to him now that she had the chance. It wasn't an easy thing to ask. "I was wondering, ah... that is..." She took a quick breath and began again. "I guess I should begin by telling you that my mother died when I was a baby," she said, looking at him closely to see how he reacted to the news.

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Ethan murmured sympathetically. "I had no idea. When Donna dropped out of sight all those years ago, I guess I assumed that she'd just—" he made a brushing-away motion with one hand "—quit the business."

  "Yes, well... I know very little about her and nothing at all about the man who was, or is, my father. I've been trying to reconstruct her life here in Los Angeles before I was born. I know you worked together on television and that you lived in the same apartment building and I..."

  "And you're wondering if I can tell you anything about her?"

  "Yes." Willow seized on that as a good place to start. "Yes, I was wondering if you could tell me anything about her. Anything at all that you might remember."

  "I remember her quite well, actually," he said. "She was a stunning young woman. Really quite spectacular looking." He smiled across the table at Willow. "You resemble her a great deal."

  Willow smiled back but made no comment. She resembled her mother slightly, around the eyes, but no more than that. To have Ethan Roberts say otherwise smacked of an insincerity that made her uncomfortable in some indefinable way, as if he were flattering her for a purpose.

  "How well did you know Donna Ryan?" Steve asked bluntly, impatient with all the fancy tap dancing around the subject. He knew Willow was trying to handle the whole thing as diplomatically as possible, tactfully working her way toward the real question, hoping Roberts would bring it up himself and save her from having to ask it. But Steve had the deep-down gut feeling that if they waited for Roberts to bring it up, they'd wait forever. The man had the natural caginess of a born politician, unwilling to be the first to broach a potentially unpleasant subject.

  "Did you date her?" Steve prodded, wanting to see how the other man would reply to a question they already knew the answer to.

  "Date her?" Ethan said, as if there were some doubt as to what the word meant. He shrugged. "I guess you could say I dated her."

  "You guess?" Steve didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  Willow shot him a look across the table, silently censuring him for his bluntness, but he ignored her.

  "Either you dated her or you didn't," he said. "Which is it?"

  "The studio arranged for us to go out two or three times. Publicity," Ethan said, and paused to sip from his coffee cup again. "Studios still did things like that back then and actors went along with it. Especially young actors just starting out in the business. Your mother—" he smiled at Willow as he set his cup back down"—was, as I said, a stunning young woman. The studio heads thought it would be good for both our careers and the show if we appeared to have a personal relationship. It was business."

  "According to the manager at the Wilshire Arms, you were the one who told her about the vacancy in the building," Steve said. "Was that business, too?"

  "I knew she was looking for an apartment. One was available in my building. It was as simple as that."

  "Jack Shannon remembers it a little differently," Steve said, watching the other man carefully, hoping for a reaction to the name.

  "Jack Shannon?" The flare of surprise in his eyes was quickly hidden behind a pleasant smile. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while, although I have seen his by line in the Times of late. How is ol' Jack?"

  Steve ignored the question. "Ol' Jack said you used to brag about going out with Donna Ryan. That you made sure everyone in the building knew about it."

  Ethan's smile died. "It's quite possible that I did," he said, his gaze gone cold and steely as it met Steve's across the table. "I was a young man, unattached at the time. She was a beautiful young woman. I may have cherished certain—" he glanced at Willow as if to apologize for what he was about to say "—lustful thoughts in that direction. They were completely unreciprocated, I assure you."

  "Then you didn't sleep with her?"

  "Sleep with her?" Ethan Roberts managed to look outraged, insulted and innocent, all at the same time. "No. Definitely not. I don't know why you'd even suggest such a thing," he said to Steve, "especially in the presence of her daughter."

  "Because we thought that, maybe, I might be your daughter, too," Willow said.

  "My daughter?" Ethan Roberts looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "No, I..." His eyes hardened. "If this is some sort of blackmail scheme, you can forget it." He pushed back from the table and stood, righteous indignation and outrage in every line of his body. "Get out of my house before I call the police," he ordered them. "Now."

  Steve reached over and put his hand on Willow's arm, stopping her from rising from her chair. "Take it easy, Roberts," he said, his voice deliberately lazy. He knew a bluff when he heard one, and the threat to call the police had been just that. A bluff. "This isn't a shakedown. My client isn't after money or publicity. If she was, she'd have already gone to the papers with this. All she wants to know is if there's any possibility you might be her father. Any possibility at all."

  "I told you. No. No possibility at all. None whatsoever."

  "All right." Steve nodded agreeably. "You're not her father." He waited a beat. "Do you know who might be?"

  "How would I know something like that?"

  "You worked on the same television show. Lived in the same building. Shared some of the same friends. It's conceivable you might have known who she was involved with back then." He glanced over at Willow. "Show him the pictures," he said to her.

  Willow reached down and picked up the slim beige leather shoulder bag she had wedg
ed between her hip and the arm of her chair. Opening it, she pulled out the five pictures taken of her mother and her friends at the Wilshire Arms and handed them to Ethan Roberts.

  "And the card," Steve said.

  Willow handed that over, too.

  "Neither you nor Zeke Blackstone has changed beyond recognition in twenty-five years," Steve said, watching Ethan's face as he sat back down and began to thumb through the photographs. "And the Wilshire Arms was easy to identify, especially since I drive by it a couple of times a week. Once we had that, it was easy to find out the names of the other two guys in the pictures. The manager at the Wilshire Arms said he was pretty sure both you and Eric Shannon had dated Donna but he didn't know how serious it was in either case." He paused, waiting and watching while Ethan opened and read the greeting card. "I take it you didn't send that to her?" he said when Ethan laid the card down on the table.

  "No." Ethan shook his head. "I didn't." He looked back down at the photographs, shifting them around on the table with the tip of one finger. "Maybe Eric did."

  "Maybe." Steve shrugged. "But with him being dead and unavailable for comment it would be kind of hard to prove either way," he said, so callously that Willow's eyes widened in surprise.

  Steve gave her a small admonishing shake of his head that kept her quiet.

  "The manager gave us quite an earful," he went on easily, probing for a reaction. Any reaction. "All the gory details about the night Eric Shannon committed suicide, along with some cock-and-bull story about a ghost in a cursed mirror."

  "I'd forgotten about the mirror," Ethan murmured, still looking at the pictures.

  "Mueller claimed you'd seen something in it, too."

  Ethan looked up then. "Mueller's got a screw loose," he said flatly, a hint of anger in his tone.

  "No question about that," Steve agreed, wondering at the vehemence of the other man's response. Aside from his outburst when he accused them of blackmail, it was the strongest reaction they'd gotten from him. "Jack Shannon said pretty much the same thing about him. He also said he and his wife both saw something in the mirror themselves," Steve added, trying to find out if the reaction had been in response to Mueller or the ridiculous story about the mirror.