Voices in the Wardrobe

by Marlys Millhiser

  Charlie, don’t. We let the sheriff’s department handle this one. We do not become involved with murder ever again. “It’s getting embarrassing.”

  “What’s embarrassing?” The deputy, blonde and blue eyed, but with a determined jaw line, looked up from her clipboard. Hadn’t everyone heard of PDAs?

  “Nothing, just talking to myself.” That’s what’s embarrassing.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” Caroline VanZant told Charlie and disappeared back down the hall to the studio with the cop.

  So Dr. Judy, after her performance and the questions from the audience, both on camera and off, slipped out this way to smoke and quiet her nerves. Charlie followed the trail back to the studio’s rear door. It was not a straight line, few of those in this gerrymandered place.

  There was no doorknob on this side of the studio’s door, just a keyhole in a small round plate. Interesting. No surprises from the uninvited during taping?

  Since the inner room of the studio was round, hallways made no sense to the linear mentality. Charlie could turn her back to the door without a knob and look down three hallways—one that branched into two just up or down a ways and one that went off toward the eddy-pool deck. But even more odd was the fact that in all this space and everywhere she’d been except the dining room there was hardly anyone around. Seemed to be more staff than paying customers. And this was a very expensive space.

  “Are you one of the inmates?” a deep but young voice snuck up on Charlie from yet another hall that circled the round room behind her and which she’d failed to count. An eager, superior, inquisitive squint—“press” written all over him. “I’m Jerry Parks, Union-Tribune.” For some reason the word “ferret” came to mind. Charlie had no idea what a ferret looked like. The word probably suggested to her by the verb and the press’s need to search out the facts? He dressed normally for Southern California—casual.

  Charlie took off running down one of the wye corridors. With any luck she’d lose him before she got lost herself. What she needed to do now was arrange some surveillance for Maggie, get cleaned up, dressed, and check into her room at the convention hotel in time for the cocktail party and dinner in Keegan Monroe’s honor.

  Keegan, the celebrity speaker at this conference for aspiring screenwriters, was a major portion of Charlie’s income. She represented many writers, both screen and book, some of them talented, but only a minuscule, lucky few made enough of a splash to hit “big time.” Which was about the only time that mattered these days. And talent was in the eyes of the beholder.

  And she must get a call into Luella about her client’s murder.

  Heads up. We’re lost. Charlie’s stupid common sense, or whatever it was, finally kicked in. But not before she found herself and her common sense outside, facing a labyrinth of pebbled pathways between statues, cactus, palms, ornate benches, pools, fountains, and discreet sheds for implements to care for all this.

  Charlie slipped inside a shed that had a partially opened door to watch her ferret streak by only to turn back and pass her hiding place again, this time slowly looking around. He seemed to glance at the crack in the door that hid her, began to approach it, but then raced off yelling, “Hey, wait, I just want to ask a few questions.”

  He’d apparently seen someone he thought was Charlie or maybe someone who looked more knowledgeable. It gave her the chance she needed to escape but she did so with the growing dread of what would happen if fragile Maggie Stutzman found herself in this situation. If it panicked Charlie what would it do to her friend?

  This place sat on a bluff or promontory. It had cliffs on the seaside.

  Charlie was still worrying about that when she checked into the Hyatt Islandia. Her room overlooked long docks with the moored boats of a marina as did the spa she’d just left. Marinas were not unusual along most coastlines or inland lakes or rivers for that matter, but this area was particularly rife. Charlie had never understood the lure.

  But then, she was not a person of leisure. All she wanted was time to do the work she loved. Ridiculed, but loved. She unpacked and called Luella Ridgeway who of course had heard of the fate of her client and was even now driving south on her way to the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol.

  “Charlie, I thought you were going to a conference in San Diego not a spa in the North County.”

  “I’m at the conference hotel right now. The Islandia. But I spent the last two nights at the Sea Spa with Maggie. Luella, she found Judy Judd’s body.”

  “Oh, Jesus. I was about to ask you how poor Maggie’s doing. But right now I think I know. What happened to Judith—what do you know?”

  “Nothing, but Maggie’s still there. And Luella, if you take my place looking after Maggie for a day or two and spend the night there, you’re going to learn more than you will any other way. Just don’t leave her alone—if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean and I don’t have the time, but for my client and your Maggie, I’ll try to steal some from something else. I’m packed for a night at least. But will they let me in?”

  “The VanZants, the proprietors or managers of the Spa, are worried too. I’ll call Caroline and tell her you’re coming. I’m tied up tonight and for a couple of days but keep your cell even if you’re told it’s forbidden and I’ll check in with you when I can and don’t hesitate to call me. And Luella? Be careful. There’s something uncomfortable about that place.”

  “Oh Charlie, with you everything is a menace and a mystery.”

  “Yeah. Murder does that to me.” But Charlie had no more than rung off than she felt a certain relief, lightening of the load. She straightened and drew in some serious oxygen and her back, neck, and shoulders sang with relief. Luella Ridgeway was small and no longer young, but she was one savvy lady. She didn’t miss much and put up with less.

  When Keegan Monroe, famous screenwriter—well okay, as famous as screenwriters ever get—called from the lobby, Charlie Greene was back in her dressed-to-kill outfit with all the lavender and chlorine washed from her hair and looking forward to the evening. And, after another day without the good life, prepared to party.

  Seven

  The pre-conference dinner for the speakers had two purposes as did most dinners of this sort, no matter the type of information or talents being shared. One was so that the speakers could hobnob with each other, not nearly so tantalizing for them as supposed. And the other was to give the organizers a chance to hobnob with those who actually worked in the industry, perhaps wrangle an inside tip, make an important contact, convince someone on the inside to look at a treatment, script, teleplay, sometimes even a published novel that would make a hit film.

  That was all drearily predictable. What wasn’t was that the dinner was held at Le Crustacione. Without Mitch Hilsten and the metallic Dodge Ram Charlie made not a ripple, but this time she behaved herself and had poached fillet of sole. It was still fabulous. What wasn’t were the two other Hollywood literary agents at the long table in a private dining room she would not have guessed existed in so snooty a joint. It overlooked the parking lot and the bus that had brought them instead of the mer. But everyone was so busy impressing everyone, Charlie suspected few noticed.

  The gentleman who’d sat beside her on that bus explained that this way they had a designated driver and could start the conference off with a bang—nudge, nudge.

  Charlie sat next to Keegan now. The chief organizer Dr. Howard, administrator of one of the many “film institutes” that littered the area, sat on the other side of Charlie’s main source of income. On her other side sat one of the other agents. In younger more jaded days she’d have told herself everybody had to make a living—that’s the way the world is—get used to it. Now she very carefully avoided touching the jerk with her shoulder or arm, leaned closer into Keegan with her knees.

  This guy, Jason North, was a predator. They existed in every profession where dreams most often pay better than reality. He was known for scrawling Spielberg 2:30, Evan
Black 5:00 across a chalkboard in his office to lure aspiring screenwriters to leave scripts and fees with him, wait for a phone call that would never come. Budding screenwriters were seduced by advertising in the trades, on the Internet, newspapers, magazines. These predators bought the mailing lists of conferences such as this. These sharks were bottom feeders.

  The other shark she knew by sight, but had forgotten his name. He sat across the table and down far enough that she couldn’t hear him but he kept gesturing toward her and Keegan to the woman next to him, and nodding at Charlie like they were buds. She ate more of her sole than she should have and nodded at the waiter, prepared to refill her wine glass, instead of the shark.

  Okay, so this is not nirvana—but it’s also not spa deprivation and murder. And you get to sleep in a bed without Maggie tonight and Luella is there to cover for you and you should be deliriously delighted.

  “I am.”

  “You am what?” Her client turned to her and smiled fondly. Keegan had thinning hair and carried too much weight but she had been his agent when he hit, and that was a bond like no other.

  “I am talking to myself.”

  “I don’t understand how anyone so transparent can be such a good agent.” Keegan Monroe had never been impressive looking, his hair and mustache grew thinner while his body thickened. But his bolo ties, turquoise jewelry, and cowboy boots were back in style, what with the current leadership in Washington. “Which reminds me, since this could be as close to getting you all to myself as I’ll have this week, I’m looking for an editor to edit a novel manuscript. The best there is. Where do I go?”

  Charlie nearly choked on her lemon sole. “You finished a novel?”

  “Well no, but I have a treatment—”

  “Proposal.”

  “Right. And I want to publish with an e-publisher, print on demand. But I’ve heard there’s no critical, talented editing so they get little review space and if they do reviewers feel free to trash them.”

  “Reviewers are free to trash any book, Keegan.”

  “With all the downsizing there must be some good editors willing to freelance. I can pay. And this way I would have complete control of the storyline.”

  “Bookstores don’t order books they know they can’t return. Why not write a book about screenwriting? Your name could get you a New York publisher, your credits could convince the chains to buy the book.”

  “That’s crass commercialism and you know it.”

  “Keegan, commercialism doesn’t get any crasser than Hollywood.”

  “I like to think there are loftier instincts in the old-line prestigious houses in New York publishing.”

  “Once you had an editor in New York, the next book you send her could be your novel. You’d have a foot in the door.” If you ever finished it. Charlie’d had several houses interested in him and one even offered an advance. He never completed the book. Even in Folsom Prison he couldn’t finish a novel. But he did write a screenplay there that earned him an invitation to Cannes and he did gain a lot of weight when he got out, both events inspired by prison food. “And self-publishing a book, which is what original I-books are, is likely to get you slammed by snooty reviewers. Self-published books have no promotion budget.” Most other published books in this corporate world didn’t either, truth be known.

  “I’ll make it a mystery and go to those conventions around the country to promote it.”

  “And there you will meet thousands of I-published writers instead of book-buying fans—all trying to do what you are doing.” But she made a mental note to hunt up a poor unemployed editor of merit to work with him.

  Charlie opted out of the party continuation back at the hotel and went up to her room to face the music. She had messages on her cell and the phone light blinked on her room phone. She slipped into her night shirt (a man’s V-neck undershirt) and the hotel terrycloth robe, not as luxurious as the one at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, and washed her face. Munching a chocolate mint the maid left on her pillow, she took the cell out to the deck that overlooked a row of sailboats dipping and nodding at their moorings below and moonlight showering down from above. The sound of the bay lapping at the marina’s docks reminded her of the eddy pool of cucumber, seaweed, and murder fame.

  It felt so good being alone and on her own, having her life back. But she listened to Luella Ridgeway’s message. “Charlie, Maggie’s relatively stable but call me when you can. I snuck my cellular into the room. This is a weird place and I live with weird every day, but—”

  Libby Abigail Greene—“Mom, do you know how to make a cat, who smeared the kitchen with poop and Science Diet, take a pill?”

  Richard Morse of Congdon and Morse, Inc. who employed both Luella and Charlie. “What the fuck’s going on down there? I just saw the score on Judy Judd’s murder on TV. Luella’s not answering my calls. I’m getting royally pissed, babe. Why hasn’t anybody filled me in on all this? Heads are going to roll around here, I’m warning you.”

  Charlie rubbed the back of her neck. She was going to need a massage pretty soon. Luella was in the room with Maggie so not as free to speak as they both would have liked.

  “I like the VanZants but the help is creepy and there’s hardly anybody here but the aforementioned and a cop now and then.”

  Charlie could hear muted voices in the background. “Has she opened the wardrobe doors?”

  “No, just listens. It is kind of interesting though. I don’t pay any attention to the commercials when I’m watching TV unless one of the agency’s clients are involved, but did you realize half the commercials are prescription drugs and the other half car dealers?”

  “Yeah, it used to be ask your doctor, now it’s tell your doctor. Kinda scary. Richard the Lionhearted is trying to get hold of you.”

  “I know. He’s going to expect me to solve Judy’s murder while I’m here. That’s your department.”

  “No Luella, my department is writers. Judy was your client.”

  “And Maggie Stutzman is your friend.”

  Libby actually picked up her cell but she wasn’t home with Tuxedo the terrible tomcat unless all of Wilson High was over for a party. “Where are you? This is your mother answering your distress signal, dammit.”

  “Hi Mom, I’m at the Smelly Socks concert. It rocks. Can you hear?”

  What Charlie could hear was the slight slur in her daughter’s consonants. “What about the cat barf and shit all over the kitchen? Did you clean it up?”

  “Itch your kitchen.”

  “And it’s your cat. Did you figure out what to do with the pill?”

  “Yeah, Doug shtuck it in a piece of cheese. I left before I found out if the cheese stayed down.”

  “You clean that mess up before I get home, toots.”

  “Gotta go now, bye.”

  Charlie went back in the room and closed the balcony door on the peaceful night. Her stomach started the familiar burn. She looked at the light blinking on the room phone and considered ignoring it, turned on the television in the wardrobe, and muted the familiar Aviatrix commercial, then listened to the message on the hotel voice mail. It was Kenny Cowper, a.k.a. Kenneth Cooper, and another of Charlie’s clients. He was staying in the hotel. Kenny was a book author. What the hell was he doing at this conference? He was also stud city and the last complication she could handle now.

  She jotted down his room number though. He was better than a massage—but no.

  Charlie unmuted the TV for the eleven o’clock news. Might as well, she wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight anyway. Dr. Judith Judd had not died of drowning in the eddy pool at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol. She’d been strangled first and then either fell in or was deposited there.

  Eight

  Charlie woke up groggy from having slept so hard, surprised she’d slept at all. She ordered room service, showered, shampooed, dried and tamed her hair as best she could. She’d had it cut shorter than usual which made the curls go ballistic, so she tied it back
with a navy blue scarf to match a severe tuxedo suit she’d don when she finished eating and offset it with a naughty, blazing-white, frilled peek-a-boo blouse.

  When her breakfast came she took it and the newspaper out onto the balcony, dressed again in the hotel robe. Fog rolled sluggishly off the bay as if it too needed coffee. She wasn’t due to go on until ten.

  Vegetarian eggs hollandaise, a pot of coffee, luscious thick toast. A yacht pulled out from the next pier over. An article about the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, with a picture of Dr. Judy alive, began on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Apparently she’d choked on a plastic water bottle. Police were not convinced that the plastic bottle was “self-administered.”

  Judy’s ties to the Spa were curious. She owned a portion of it, had lent the VanZants money to pay expenses and taxes more than once and in return was allowed to tape many of her medical-showbiz stunts free in its odd studio/auditorium and had the Spa’s paying customers as an on-set audience. She hired film crews piecemeal from the out-of-work, disenchanted, and nonunion scabs adrift in Sou Cal. Where do reporters come up with such odd bits of information? This by-line was none other than Jerry Parks’, the guy who’d chased her around the spa.

  Charlie and Luella better get a fragile Maggie away from the place. But what would they do with her? She couldn’t be on her own. Funny, Charlie and Maggie used to worry about what they would do with Betty Beesom, their aging neighbor, when she could no longer be left alone.

  Charlie, Dr. Judy is Luella’s problem. Maggie is yours. You’re in this all by yourself, sweetie.