Voices in the Wardrobe

by Marlys Millhiser

  One was admitting she took some comfort in the fact he was behind her and that no matter how she tried to see as little of Mitch Hilsten as possible, he was becoming like family. The other was, there seemed to be a lot of night lighting at the Spa. Everybody should be in bed now resting up for their enemas.

  Charlie lowered her window to be swamped by the indescribably rich scent of the Pacific saturating the night, the sparkle of boat lights approaching the marina below and of aircraft in the heavens above. All eclipsed by the radiance of the Sea Spa. Every window dazzled with light from within, crystal glittering in most. Every patio and deck and garden walk was lit as well, sea breeze moving exotic vegetation to give a jiggling effect to the outdoor lighting. It would have been lovely if it weren’t for all the flashing lights of emergency and official vehicles. Uniforms directed Charlie and Mitch where to park and walked them to the wrought gold-colored gate where a sheriff’s deputy checked names on a clipboard.

  “Ohgod, Mitch. Maggie pleaded with me not to leave her.”

  “You don’t know this is about Maggie. Could be a drug bust or something. Oh, sorry, I didn’t—”

  “Name?” the clipboard deputy asked Charlie but stared at Mitch. “And reason for your visit?”

  “Charlie Greene. I have a room here. Is Maggie all right?”

  “Mitch Hilsten—”

  “I know.”

  “I had dinner with Ms. Greene and escorted her back here.”

  Charlie could have pulled out a rapid fire whatever and shot up half the parking lot before the deputy took her eyes off Mitch. Until he said, “Please tell me there hasn’t been another murder.”

  Now Charlie got the deputy’s full attention. She even checked her clipboard, “Charlie Greene. Well, there goes that theory. Last one unaccounted for. What do you mean by ‘another murder?’”

  “Well, wherever Charlie goes there always seem to be a lot of—oh, sorry Charlie.”

  “Thanks a whole lot, Hilsten. I owe you one.”

  Three

  Maggie Stutzman had thick black hair and lovely pale skin and eyes that had once snapped with intelligence, good humor, curiosity, verve. “Nobody didn’t like” Margaret Mildred Stutzman. But gradually over maybe a year, maybe longer, Charlie’s best friend began to withdraw, grow solemn, gain weight. Her gynecologist prescribed hormones to even out the early onset of menopause, her therapist Prozac to even out her moods, her dentist Vicodin for a root canal gone wrong. One night when Maggie didn’t show for a potluck, Charlie crossed the courtyard to find her neighbor passed out next to a wine glass half full and the bottle half empty.

  Betty Beesom, eighty-four, who lived on another corner of the courtyard, declared that Maggie should stop drinking alcohol. Charlie’s mother, back in Boulder, who’d undergone a mastectomy, thought she should get off the hormones. Charlie, who’d felt so much better when off the painkillers after injuries in an automobile accident, thought Maggie should get off the Vicodin. Jacob Forney, who occupied the last corner of the courtyard, warned that Maggie had a classic case of depression and thought she should see a shrink. Poor Maggie, who was already seeing a shrink, didn’t know what to do. So she started baking rich desserts and putting on weight which only made her more depressed. And then her massage therapist recommended a week at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol.

  Right now, Maggie Stutzman wore that scary empty look which could be replaced by a nervous terror or, just as easily, sudden but still nervous rashes of surprising humor. She scared the hell out of Charlie and herself too.

  She stood between Charlie and Mitch at the foot of one of the black kidney-shaped tubs on the enclosed deck where they did ghastly procedures and then wrapped people in gag-awful seaweed and left them nearly immobile to listen to birdies tweet and thunder roll over mountain streams while the biggest ocean in the world pounded a beach below.

  At the head of the pool, surrounded in potted plants that towered above him, the bald jerk who’d tried to keep her from leaving tonight glared at Charlie Greene. Even though the phony “eddies” had been turned off, there was water splashed all around this particular pool and yellow crime-scene tape too.

  On the other side of Mitch, a patient plainclothes asked, “You have witnesses to corroborate that Ms. Greene was with you all evening?”

  “Andre Lyon, the Maitre d’ at Crustacione de la Mer. You have to admit she is rather distinctive. And the waiter, soaked in disdain when she insisted her lobster be simply boiled and served with drawn butter. And the parking valet who was duly impressed someone in that outfit would drive up in a pickup truck.”

  “She drives a pickup?” Warren VanZant, the Spa’s owner, said on the other side of Charlie and peered down at her lack of cleavage through some pretty racy eyeglasses. His hair a gray fringe, he was tall, lean, muscular, and his voice came up from somewhere down around his navel. If she’d had any cleavage worth staring at she’d have penetrated one of his tennis shoes with a killer heel.

  Maggie giggled suddenly.

  “Maggie,” Charlie warned, but too late.

  “Well, there goes your case, Detective. Guess you’ll just have to settle for me.” And she held out her wrists for handcuffs. “That’s okay, Charlie, I want to die.”

  “What do you mean, you want to die? Jesus.”

  “Detective Solomon,” Caroline VanZant leaned around her husband to address the other side of the row, “Ms. Stutzman has been through a rigorous day of herbal cleansing and needs much rest before anything she says can be taken seriously.”

  “She’s an addict,” announced the jerk under the potted palms at the head of the eddy pool. “Just like Ms. Greene. Just like everybody here. Very probably including yourself, sir.”

  “That’s enough, Dashiell.” Mrs. VanZant was short, plump, with a sincere comforting smile, large rose-tinted eyeglasses, and a soft whispery voice that could take on a cleaver-sharp edge when she needed it to.

  “Are you admitting to the murder, Ms. Stutzman?”

  “Have you questioned the entire production crew?” Charlie asked the laid-back plainclothes. They seemed to be mysteriously absent.

  “Don’t fool yourselves, anybody who takes one drink a week is an alcoholic. Any alcoholic is drawn to drugs,” Dashiell said.

  “I want to die.” Maggie giggled. Maggie had found Dr. Judy face down dead in the eddy pool.

  “You just walked out and left me. Why should I listen to you about anything?”

  They sat cross-legged, facing each other, in the center of the bed for skinny kings. This room was draped in Victoriana, layers of cloth and ruffles, the four-poster so high little stools sat on each side to help you mount. “Well, I came back didn’t I? I’m here now and you do not want to die. In California they just put you in prison anyway, I think. Tell me again what happened.”

  The PA system announced lights out. They ignored it.

  “I walked out on the deck because the night was beautiful and the stars and because I felt so good about her presentation. She said there is orgasm after menopause.”

  “Well of course there is.” Charlie raised her arms toward the silly ruffled canopy above. “I could have told you that. My mom told me.”

  “Edwina has orgasms?”

  They stared at each other like little girls at a slumber party for a whole minute. Charlie blinked first. “Well, okay, I have a little trouble with that one too, but that still doesn’t explain why you say you want to die.”

  “Because now I feel terrible. It’s not worth it.”

  “What’s not worth what?”

  “Life’s not worth living.”

  “Just a minute ago you said you felt good about what Dr. Judy said at her presentation. Life’s always been full of good news and bad news. Have you had your Prozac?”

  The lights had gone out in Maggie’s eyes again. There was just a weary waiting. “You went off and left me. You should have stayed away.”

  “This isn’t about me. I won’t be your excuse.” Char
lie assured herself she didn’t feel a bit guilty, even though she enjoyed the evening so much and the best lobster, coffee, and wine she’d ever had, ever, ever, ever. She crawled off the bed to find Maggie’s drug bag. The only pieces of furniture that didn’t have either fringe or ruffles were the two wardrobes, no closets. One of the wardrobes concealed the television. “Okay, Dr. Judy was face down in the eddy pool. Was there any blood in the water? Was there a knife sticking out of her? What did you see, Maggie?”

  “Don’t start playing detective with me. I know you’re lousy at it. What I need is my friend back.”

  “Well, I’m back.” Charlie crawled to the middle of the bed with a glass of water and a sack of meds. The first one she pulled out was Diazepam. “Jeez, Maggie, this is what the vet just put Tuxedo on. Next thing you know the Spa will put you on Science Diet.”

  “Tuxedo’s not sick, is he?”

  “Libby just picked him up after his checkup and that was the prescription. You know, Science Diet might well taste better than the food at this place. What I’m really wondering I guess is, how did you know Dr. Judy was murdered and not just drowned in the pool by accident? The water’s fairly deep in those things if you’re not weighted down with seaweed and cucumbers and buoyed by Jacuzzi bubbles.”

  “So what did you have for dessert?” Maggie asked out of the blue where she mostly lived nowadays.

  “I didn’t. I was too full of lobster.”

  “So what did Mitch have?”

  “Crème brulée.” And I don’t feel guilty, dammit. I needed a break. “Now you answer my question.”

  “Caramel?”

  “Caramel and raspberry. Maggie, about the dead doctor?”

  “I’m addicted to food too.”

  Charlie climbed down off the bed again. Damn thing needed a gangplank. This time she came back with tissues, the box covered with pink gauzy ruffled stuff dotted with rhinestones. Where did people come up with this crap? “Everybody is.”

  “You’re not. Look at you.” Her poor friend sobbed. On a cushy, if over-dramatized bed, wrapped in a cushy house terrycloth robe. Out in the damn eddy pool, strangled with seaweed and rectally tortured, she’d been dreamy-happy. “You never even clean up your plate.”

  “Did tonight. Ask Mitch. Maggie, was there blood in the water? A wound on the back of her head? Where’s the Prozac? Jesus, how many pills do you take? Why don’t you answer my question?”

  “Which one?”

  They looked at the plastic bottles tumbled together on the lavish coverlet and Charlie hadn’t emptied the bag yet. Maggie Stutzman reached for another tissue and the remote. “Leave me alone.”

  “I did and you got mad at me and found a dead body.”

  The television inside the wardrobe began to talk. It was creepier than the PA. How could Maggie turn it on without the door open? The ocean smell crept into the room through the gauze and ruffles and tassels at the window just as a man, unseen, inside the wardrobe asked, “Do you suffer from fatigue, irregularity, insomnia, arthritis? There is help. Clinical studies have shown amazing results with Aviatrix.” The sound of a small propellor plane soaring and diving to the tune of a woman’s giggle. “Ask your doctor if Aviatrix is right for you. Possible side effects may include nausea headache jaundice intestinal bleeding heart murmurs and dry mouth.”

  “Where’s the Prozac?”

  “I threw it away. It didn’t help.”

  “That’s the one pill they warned you not to stop taking, Maggie. It’s to keep you from being depressed. Or was that the hormones?” But Charlie couldn’t help but think how depressed she’d feel too if she had to take all these pills. She hadn’t had to take this much medication to recover from a near fatal car accident.

  Four

  The footboard, really a beautifully carved horizontal pole, came up to Caroline VanZant’s chest as she peered across the drugstore on the bed. “You have prescriptions for all this?”

  “I was so embarrassed because I couldn’t even walk upstairs without pain in my knees,” said a haunted woman in the wardrobe. But then a World War II dance band began to boogie and the woman, no longer haunted, said, “But now I can dance the night away.” And a man said, “Ask your doctor if Celebrate is right for you. Side effects may include vision problems, diarrhea, fainting spells and dry mouth.”

  “How can the remote work without opening the door?” Charlie asked, but then noticed the strategically placed slit in the door’s paneling.

  “Dashiell’s idea.” Caroline’s wan smile and puckered brow reminded Charlie of her own ambivalent take on Libby.

  “Now, only five percent down and no interest payments for a whole year. This is Dealing Dirk and I guarantee the lowest prices on all makes of new and used cars in Southern California. Don’t wait another day.”

  Charlie took the remote from Maggie’s hand and turned off the voices in the wardrobe. Her friend didn’t seem to notice. Charlie did have to aim the business end at just the right angle, but it was a clever idea for a jerk to come up with. She wasn’t sure why anyone would want to listen to a TV like you would a radio. She and Caroline turned over the plastic bottles one by one in a line, with prescription stickers facing up.

  “There’s got to be lots of bucks here,” Charlie said in awe.

  “How many doctors does she have?” Mrs. VanZant pushed the big rose-colored glasses back up her nose to magnify her astonishment. “How old is she?”

  “Well, there’s a gynecologist, a dermatologist, a psychiatrist, a dentist, a heart specialist, a massage therapist.” Charlie realized they were talking about Maggie like she wasn’t there. “Who else, Maggie?”

  Maggie didn’t even look up, let alone bother to answer.

  “And that doesn’t include the alternative types. She’s forty-one, two. This all started with early menopause and kind of snowballed. Biological clock running out, all that stuff. Wonder what would happen if we went cold turkey here?”

  “That could get scary. Better talk to her psychiatrist first. Does she suffer from hot flashes?”

  “No she doesn’t because she takes estrogen,” Maggie Stutzman spoke up for herself. “And I hate pills!” She swept the whole lot of them off the bed with one swipe of her arm.

  Charlie Greene sat in her own cushy spa robe that came with matching slip-on slippers, hers a tad large but she could walk without losing them if she was careful. She sat in the administrative office with Detective Solomon, the laid-back plain-clothes, Mitch Hilsten, and Warren VanZant whose wife was upstairs babysitting Maggie Stutzman. The snappy number in black with the clicking heels cooled them outside in a hallway lounge staring daggers at Dashiell, the hairless twit.

  Charlie, after a far too long day and a far too magnificent dinner, was weary. And she had the feeling she dare not sleep tonight.

  VanZant looked every bit as tired as she felt. “Judith was in good form and the audience eager—although I can’t believe there’s anyone over forty left in the world who hasn’t heard her spiel at least once—if not that, read the book. She sold a great many of them here tonight.”

  “So what was she doing out on the deck? No one will answer that question. What’s the deal here? Hey, I got all night. Do you?” Detective Solomon screwed up one cheek in a faux grin, leaned back in the padded chair behind the desk, and scratched the bridge of his nose.

  “I would hate to have the estate sue me. She had a secret she didn’t want public. We all pretended not to know.”

  “This is a murder investigation, Mr. VanZant.”

  “And there are witnesses in the room,” Warren countered.

  Solomon allowed the grin to morph into a lazy smile, reached for a manila envelope on the desk, and pulled out a baggy. “Yes or no, Mr. VanZant.”

  Warren nodded and looked away. The plastic baggy contained the stained filter end of a used cigarette.

  “Dr. Judy smoked?” Charlie came awake. “The press will have a holiday with that.”

  The detective turned his
attention to Charlie and Mitch. “And neither of you had any prior knowledge of or contact with Dr. Judith Judd while she was living?”

  “I know her agent. We both work at Congdon and Morse on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. I should call Luella, huh?”

  “I have to admit I’ve never heard of her before tonight. I’m down here scouting a few locations and Charlie has a convention to attend.”

  “It’s a screenwriters’ conference, godsaveusall. What am I going to do, Mitch? I can’t leave Maggie.”

  “I thought, Mr. Hilsten, that through your relationship with Miss Greene, you might have come in contact with Judith Judd, at a party or something.”

  “I’ve never met her, how would he meet her through me? Luella handles talent. I handle writers. And we do not have a relationship.”

  Detective Solomon glanced at Mitch, who shrugged, and turned his amusement back to Charlie with widened eyes exaggerated by a subtle lifting of the forehead. “Writers aren’t talent?”

  “Not in Hollywood. They’re vendors. Not that there can’t be a few very expensive vendors.”

  “Perhaps we could have someone watch out for your friend while you’re at the convention. You could come back at night to be with her,” VanZant offered.

  “Oh yeah, like old lovable Dashiell. I don’t think so.”

  He stiffened and looked down at Charlie through those interesting glasses again. “Old lovable Dashiell is my wife’s son by her first marriage. We both recognize that he has problems and are proud that he is dealing with them instead of denying them.”

  “And he’s driving you both nuts.”

  “Right.”

  Mitch cleared his throat to clear the air. “Charlie, what’s your schedule for the week? Maybe I can help find someone to cover for you part of the time.”