“But my publisher is Zulu Press, not any of those other publishers.”
“Merged with Bootstrap two years ago.”
“Which all means what?”
“Get kneepads.”
“I thought agents were supposed to keep authors from getting screwed.”
“Look, most writers never get published at all. I was able to get you a contract for a two thousand advance—you are now on the bottom rung of a very tall ladder. It’s either the beginning of a climb or you fall off and expire as an author or turn to self-publishing, which is pretty much the same thing. With that advance you’re lucky the books got out of the warehouse. With that advance there is no clout for an agent to use.” Charlie’s commission on that advance didn’t pay its share of the paperwork or overhead.
“So I’m never going to see any royalties? This is just like Hollywood.”
“Look at it this way, Ronald, kneepads are cheap.”
Ten
“Kneepads,” Kenny said, wide-eyed and for once not in total sarcastic control of a situation. “You talking praying or sodomy? Was that a client?”
“Well, it wasn’t a gardener. Ronald published his first book last year and just received his first royalty statement.”
“Oh. You were talking—”
“Right.”
Luella Ridgeway, dressed in slacks and flats instead of business suit and heels, appeared from an angled walkway, talking on her cell. “Hang on a minute. Charlie, I need paper and pen. You have any in your purse?”
Before Charlie could make a move, a small notepad opened to a clean page descended from the porch above with a ballpoint and muscled forearm for a writing surface. Luella paused to stare up at the command center of this instant office, glance puzzlement at Charlie. “Okay, go ahead.”
Luella was small, smart, swift, and savvy. She used the proffered desk as if she expected no less from the world as Kenny held the pad still for her so she could hold the cell and the pen. He had to bend almost double over the railing. Charlie wished she had a camera.
“You’re sure? What’s the source on that? Okay. Go on.” Finally, she thanked her informant and punched off, tore out the pages she’d used and handed the notepad and pen back to the desk whom she thanked also and asked Charlie, “He for hire?”
“I only handle his writing talents. Luella Ridgeway, Kenneth Cooper. Luella is Dr. Judy’s agent, also Congdon and Morse. So what you got?”
“Well, I’ve talked to her doctor, her lawyer, and her daughter.”
“She had a daughter?”
“And a granddaughter. And an ex. And a boyfriend.”
“Who’d have thought?”
“Charlie, I keep telling you to stop stereotyping everyone you meet. You miss so much that way.”
“Yeah, and she’s totally cynical too,” Kenny added.
Charlie’d learned a lot from this woman and had always thought she wanted to be like Luella if she ever grew up. They wandered absently along the footpaths, Kenny’s big shoes crunching gravel behind them.
“Anyway, the skinny here is Judith not only went out for a cigarette after her gig, but she swallowed a handful of pills as well. Washed them down with bottled water and somehow choked on the bottle. It’s strongly suspected she had some help with the latter.”
“Legal drugs?” Kenny asked.
“Dr. Judy took drugs? Nice old Dr. Judy?”
“You know anybody who doesn’t? Her assistant says she took them morning and night. She had them divided up in baggies and they were a combination of prescribed drugs, over the counter, and alternative. Her doctor listed an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, hormones, blood pressure, acid reflux, allergy, cholesterol medications. And she had a sleeping disorder. He was looking through his records and sounded kind of stunned at the length of the list, himself. And then being a doctor herself—who knew what else she had access to with samples and all. Got a problem, take a pill.”
“How did you get a doctor to give away confidential information like that and on another doctor?” Kenny the investigative reporter sounded impressed. “And over the phone yet?”
“He’s my doctor too and his client has been murdered in one way or another, and I convinced him I could be of use to him should there be a lawsuit since I was also his patient’s business agent and speaking from the scene of the crime. He has aspirations to become a celebrity doc on TV and will need representation. And I got to him before he’d had time to consult his lawyer. Toxicology won’t be back with results for awhile.”
“Man, you agents kick ass. I thought you were persuasive, diplomatic types.”
Both women turned to look at him, shielding their eyes from the sun before continuing on their way. Charlie asked, “And the lawyer, did you know him?”
“I’ve dealt with him on estate matters, copyrights, residuals, that kind of thing. Her daughter gets everything, her ex and boyfriend nothing. She’d made that public herself recently, but not that it comes with strings, paid out in healthy yearly sums, forfeited if the daughter should give any of it to her father—trust fund kind of thing, I guess.”
“Couldn’t she have choked on the pills and sucked the water bottle down her throat and then fell in the pool?”
“Got me. That’s your department.”
“No, it’s not.”
Kenny brought them up short with, “Anybody know where we are?”
They were in a valley of ruins, the sound of the sea coming from three sides. Empty reflecting pools with crumbling columns and statues. Long dried-up vines and tipped-over fountains ran along what might have been where an old streambed eroded the rock, taking the rare storm runoff to the sea.
There had been a lot of less-than-useful building going on, on this bluff, and money squandered. The naked statue of a well-hung young man of the Greek or Roman persuasion tipped dangerously toward a fissure.
Charlie realized she was staring at the young Mediterranean while her companions tossed path pebbles into the fissure and listened for the reassurance of a landing. Maybe he’d had one orgy too many.
“Something about this place,” Luella said, hugging her arms. Her last pebble just kept slithering down in the crevice, rattling against one side, bouncing off to hit the other, the sound of its journey fading with the distance but still audible long after it should have been swallowed up by the earth. “Even without Judith’s murder.”
“Yeah, look at all this real estate—a bunch of it in ruins. There’s gotta be developers salivating. On the way up here, there are houses stacked above each other and then on top where the view is worth zillions—there’s all this unused,” said the boy from Myrtle, Iowa.
“According to the VanZants, the state is trying to put a stop to shore developments cutting off public access, wants eventually to bring this cliff top into the park system. Right now there’s no money for such a project, but they’ve been able to hold off developers so far.”
Charlie followed the fissure to its end, maybe ten feet short of the cliff edge, and then continued on to peer over the rim, where there was no discernable beach but her acrophobia was relieved the drop was not as far as it had looked to be from the eddy-pool deck. Still, she moved well away from the precipice before turning around to look up at the Sea Spa’s main building.
The fissure snaked jagged but true as far as her eye could see. So she followed it back again through the ruins, up slope until she reached a high point from which she could see matching tiled rooftops all in a row below on the other side. Those apartment houses must have been built after the earthquake that caused the fissure. And below them rooftops and commercial areas extended beyond the ribbons of the 101 and the 5 after that and into a mist of pollution obscuring less populated regions of the county inland.
She didn’t realize her companions had joined her until they turned together to view the magic of the ruins and the unrealized promise of splendor offered by the Sea Spa against the backdrop of unending ocean and sky.
“The
public would just ruin this,” Kenny said. “There’s too much of it—the public, I mean.”
“If I were Arab-oil-filthy-rich, I’d buy it to protect it and to enjoy it all by myself.” Luella Ridgeway took in such a deep breath she had to cough some of it back. “What would you do, Charlie?”
“I’d worry myself sick this sizable crack would open up and tumble me and all that’s here into the sea.”
“You ever consider Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil or Euphoria III?” Luella asked as they headed back to the Spa and the tinkle of wind chimes. “You’re carrying too much stress, babe.”
Two men stood in earnest conversation in the shade of one of the cottages, Warren VanZant and a shorter man who resembled the ferret. Had he followed them or was he just continuing his investigations for the Union-Tribune?
“Euphoria III?” Charlie came back to her own conversation, glad to see both men disappear before she reached them. “Is that a legal substance or something teenies think it’s cool to take before dancing?”
But in the suffocating Victorian suite, Maggie refused to leave and the voice in the wardrobe swept away what little reality remained in San Diego County.
Charlie lost it this time and flounced out to find someone in this place who had retained an ounce of sanity. Instead, she found women with hair wrapped in towels, euphoric faces red from granite rubs, filing out the door to the parking lot with Sea Spa bags probably full of clay, cucumbers, packets of ship-bilge tea, and what all else Charlie did not wish to contemplate. But she did try to envision what an enema pack might look like.
Her cell tweedle-dee-deed in her purse and she was so stressed she answered it. Mitch was down at the Marina del Sol, thinking she must be at the Islandia in town. “No, I’m up at the Spa about ready to slit a throat, possibly mine. Maggie will not listen to reason.”
“That’s why she’s there, right? I’ve got something you might like to see. And you can take a breath of fresh air, settle down.”
She hated when he did that. But it would be good to get away for a bit. She explained she was without a car and Mitch would have to come get her, persuaded Kenny to go back to the conference and Luella to hang in for a while longer. Caroline VanZant assured her that her best friend was responding well to the therapies the Spa had to offer and suggested that it might do Maggie good to be alone a little, to find herself and not feel pressured.
“Have you talked to her about this?”
“Yes, and I know how protective you are, but I think she needs time to straighten out a few things. Ms. Ridgeway can go back to L.A. without worrying. I’ll monitor Maggie during the night to see that she’s comfortable and not afraid.”
“Not Sue, or Raoul, or Dashiell.”
“I promise. Give us a chance, Charlie.” Caroline was using her sweet, caring voice. Her face, plump and pink as the tinted glasses, seemed to belie her mostly gray hair. Botox? “Give Maggie a chance too. In the end only she can deal with her demons and she must feel strong enough to make the right decisions.”
“Makes great sense if there was anything normal about this situation, but there’s been a murder here and she’s offered herself up as a prime suspect.”
“But she’s still the same Maggie with the same problems as when she arrived and with the same desire to overcome them.”
“What if the murderer strikes again? Strikes Maggie? Or she gets the blame for it?”
Eleven
“You all right?” Mitch asked when Charlie slid into the low, black, sinister rental.
“No. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Maggie?”
“Yes.” The rooftops started just below the rim here too, descending in terraced rows on a curvy street that would lead eventually to the 101 or Pacific Highway or Coastal Highway—same road but the highway signs did not agree. Stucco houses in white, peach, sand colors. Wood bungalows in light grays, blues, and yellows. Small homes on small lots, known in real-estate parlance as “scrapers.” Every third or fourth house spread over three or four lots where moderate homes had been excised, towering over their neighbors with setbacks of no more than ten feet, fifteen from the street. The setbacks were mostly filled with retaining or thick stucco walls, vines, trees, garage access, and heavy gates with “Armed Response” warning signs.
A wye in the street forked off to the Marina del Sol and on the opposite hillside the lowering sun glittered on the glassed-in fronts of lavish trophy homes the size of hotels, staking claim to an ocean view.
At the end of the wye, signs greeted them in a parade of warnings. NO PUBLIC ACCESS. PRIVATE PROPERTY BEYOND THIS GATE. MARINA MEMBERS, GUESTS, AND STAFF ONLY. TWENTY-FOUR HOUR ARMED HUMAN AND DOG RESPONSE. HAVE IDENTIFICATION AND MEMBERSHIP PASS IN POSSESSION AT ALL TIMES.
Charlie was impressed already. “What kind of heat do the dogs pack, I wonder?”
Mitch grimaced without even showing his beautiful teeth. They were capped and at one time insured by Lloyds of London. He presented a card for a machine to scan and about a minute later the gate opened. Charlie wondered what would happen if some partying “guest” was in a royal rush to get to the biffy but she didn’t particularly feel like tempting another grimace.
Even through the tinted windshield of the black Stealth, the sun on the ocean glinted hard. This marina was a small town, the curved shoreline of the inlet lined with condos, the yacht club a rambling hotel with only two or three stories and just above the docks on one side of the inlet with condos terraced above that. On the other side, the shore accommodations were fewer and even more lavish. But the real difference between this marina and others Charlie had seen, here and on the East Coast, Long Beach, Oregon, and a few other places, was the size of these “yachts.” Many looked more like ships, a few took up a whole dock by themselves. “Did I tell you I haven’t had dinner?”
“We have reservations at the club, on the deck if the weather and wind are gentle, behind glass if not.”
“Dinner with a view.”
“Dinner with a view. But first, drinks on the Motherfricker.”
The Motherfricker was one of the ship-yachts, with its own dock across the inlet from “the club,” and reached by a one-lane bridge at the head of the inlet.
“How many people does it take to operate something this size?” Charlie asked as they walked up the gangplank.
“There’s a permanent crew of seven when she’s underway, not including the chef who is on vacation for a month now to visit family in France, while the owner is at his home in Orange County. Probably has a resident chef there too.”
“Is he a real Arab oil sheik?” Charlie had seen things like this only in the movies, as the Motherfricker was soon to be. A master study and stateroom, a VIP stateroom almost as big. And two more smaller bedrooms, all with their own full baths.
“Car dealer.” The master bath had a whirlpool tub and huge glass shower, his and her commode rooms, sinks in the shape of seashells.
“You’re not going to use the name—”
“We’re thinking of The Cassandra.” Surprisingly large rooms, lavishly furnished and decorated. There was no crystal chandelier in the dining room, but the lighting consisted of an interesting array of recessed tiered tube lights in the ceiling molding, patterned to match the oval of the table.
“The Cassandra seems kind of lame for such a ridiculous story premise. At least the script’s not a musical.”
“There’s actually talk of Harvey Piddle writing the music for a theater production aimed at Broadway or Vegas, smartass. All the great musicals have ridiculous premises, if you think about it. I don’t know how I ever became involved with someone so cynical about everything.”
The galley had white woodwork, stainless steel counters and appliances—two refrigerators and a spacious wine cooler. A “salon” with comfortable furniture and lush fabric on the mid deck, a “sky lounge” on the upper deck with great views and a bar, the seating in soft leather.
“I never dreamed I’d ever keep s
peaking to someone who’d made such marvelous films for years and then turned turncoat on all his values to endorse Hollywood shlock.”
Something haunted in Mitch’s expression reminded Charlie of Maggie. The dead look in his eyes was soon replaced with humor—but then he was an actor and Maggie was not. “It’s simple, Charlie. I wanted to keep working. It’s all I have.”
Oh, Charlie didn’t want to go there. Her work, crazy as it was, was all that kept her sane. She didn’t want to end up on mood-numbing pharmaceuticals like Maggie.
A quick glance at the crew lounge and the “helm” cabin and then back to the sky lounge and bar, where they took glasses of the smoothest scotch she’d ever tasted out onto the “aft deck” and butter-soft leather armchairs under an overhang. Right now the crew, but for the steward who ministered to them, was off doing whatever crews do when they’re not on board. The steward wore white like on Love Boat, and the yacht was white and all the buildings on the hillsides, the club, condos, and everything manmade. When she pointed this out to Mitch he in turn pointed to a seagull perched on a white railing not far from them.
“I have no expertise on this, but I expect if he shit black, boats and ships and marinas would be black too.”
“Navy ships aren’t white.”
“They have young swab labor. We’ve got this for a month, my crew starts moving in tomorrow. We’ve got exterior shots of her running out on calm and rough seas already, some we’ll digitalize. I’ve been offered a room at the club under special aegis, can run up to Long Beach for the wedding Saturday, and move into the club when I get back.”
Across the inlet smaller boats rose and dipped gently as a remnant of the surf washed in clear to the bridge. The Motherfricker didn’t seem to notice.
Voices in the Wardrobe Page 6