Voices in the Wardrobe

by Marlys Millhiser

  “You know how I got out of there?”

  “You, Deputy Saucier, and Luella Ridgeway went out on the first ambulance. They wanted me to go out too but I had to look for Maggie and my daughter and—”

  “Your daughter was up there?”

  “Oh yeah, Mitch Hilsten and Kenneth Cooper and Brodie Caulfield and Keegan Monroe—I lose count. They all got there after you left. Gordy, someone planned to hush this all up somehow, huh? I haven’t heard a word and no one’s come to question me. Was there a lot of evidence destroyed by a major explosion on that promontory? The ambulances were told not to enter the Spa grounds. They waited in the parking lot. The Union-Tribune says Jerry Parks has left to work elsewhere but will give no more information.”

  “You know more than I do. So who killed Howard?”

  “Jerry Parks. He was on a spree and very angry that the Institute would lead him on. Says he confronted Grant Howard about it and Howard admitted it. Blamed me for pointing out the exploitation of hopeful screenwriters and for being helpful by bringing Maggie to the Islandia and she’d already tried to confess to killing Dr. Judy, sooo—”

  “Thanks. You’ve explained a lot. But you should have stayed away, like I told you to.”

  “If I had, you’d be dead. I can’t help wonder how many dead there are up there. How their deaths will be explained away to families and colleagues. If the government investigation was so overpowered by personal problems at the Spa that it was an embarrassment as well as that these powerful people were so easily done away with by a grieving, angry, gray-haired mother with no prior criminal record. Of course one could be made up I suppose. How is Deputy Saucier?”

  “Fine. Took the drugging and the recovery better than I did. How’s Margaret Stutzman and who drove her back to the Spa from the Islandia?”

  “She’s recovering and according to Jerry Parks, Dashiell Hammett drove her back, driver’s license or no. Says she was fed up with everything and went willingly. So, do I wait for a knock on the door and an arrest for whatever?”

  “I suspect there are too many people who know what you do and that they’ve spread it around enough it would be difficult to hush up everything by now. The grieving, angry, gray-haired mother thing won’t sit well. She may end up missing or something.”

  “She won’t care, she was betrayed once too often. What worries me is that my identification and Maggie’s and Luella’s are still up there somewhere. The earth shook as we were driving away—we got out just before paratroopers started dropping and then had to get our cars. We left in the second ambulance.”

  “Paratroopers? Charlie, are you sure all the drugs had worn off yet?”

  “Kenny and Mitch stood there and watched it with me and they weren’t drugged and people in the neighborhoods came out in their yards to watch it too. No way they can cover this up. There were cameras rolling even. It has to be on the Internet by now even if it isn’t in the papers.”

  “You can spin the Internet stuff as being faked, like by people who believe in alien invasions and everything. My guess is there’s some kind of lid put on it locally from Washington while it’s under investigation.”

  “How many people did the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department lose, do you think?”

  “I can’t say and don’t really know. I’m suddenly out of the loop because of my ‘mental health after injuries sustained in the line of duty.’ So is Lydia. We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on and what went on. If we speak up, our ‘mental health’ may be questioned.”

  Charlie wanted to tell him that the facts were very likely due to air anyway soon and he and Deputy Saucier needn’t worry. But she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t recording this conversation for at least county officials if not federal as well.

  Forty-Two

  “The secret’s Campbell’s Cream of Celery Soup,” Betty Beesom said of her famous hot dish at the compound’s potluck to welcome Maggie Stutzman home from the hospital. As if that should be news—it was always the same dish and these gatherings nearly always in Charlie’s kitchen breakfast nook—a high-backed wooden booth arrangement with a window that let in the sunlight and the awesome scent of the lemon tree.

  Unless they met for brunch when it was Sara Lee Cinnamon Rolls, Betty always explained the secret of tuna noodle casserole was Campbell’s. Only the crispy potato chip topping and chopped celery saved the watery canned tuna and mushy canned peas. Truth be known, Betty Beesom pretty much repeated everything these days. Charlie, Maggie, and Edwina exchanged looks—Charlie and Maggie smiled extra nice at Jacob Forney. He was a great baker and his onion-dill bread saved the day.

  Charlie kicked Libby under the table when she made fun of his sparse beard and hair and mouthed, “We’re going to need him,” nodding in Betty’s direction.

  “What I don’t understand,” Jacob said seriously, with no apparent clue what all the nodding at the table was about, “is how this whole thing was kept a secret for so long and why?” He picked up the folded Los Angeles Times and pointed to the headline story which had originally appeared in the New York Times.

  “Because my client, Kenneth Cooper, is a very savvy investigative reporter, was actually at the scene of most of it and able to sell it to New York while no one was looking, and the local papers were kept in the dark or somehow convinced to play it down while the Feds tried to figure out what had happened and get the right spin on it or hope it would just go away, or something less embarrassing would come along to overshadow it. And unfortunately for them there was a lull in the carnage abroad, weather disasters, and terrorism, soooo—And as Gordy Solomon said, the CIA hated the FBI who hated the IRS and everybody hated the San Diego Sheriff’s Department. Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh.”

  “I just find it hard to believe the VanZants and this Jerry Parks could have outwitted and overpowered the local and federal authorities that way. None of the three were professionals.” Jacob Forney was an accountant and of an orderly mind set. Just exactly what this tiny settlement needed.

  “Like Kenny said, the Feds wouldn’t cooperate with each other and were too busy trying to track people by their cell phone signals to watch their backsides. Three different agencies not cooperating, competing with each other while everybody but the dead and unconscious were busy coordinating by cell. I expect that the local sheriff’s department would have taken a lot of the heat if Kenny hadn’t exposed how they’d been sidelined by a higher authority.”

  Kenny was the only person involved who would sit for a TV interview. Mitch had corroborated the story through a publicist and the video and stills from the Spa’s neighbors below the crest. No government spokesmen would comment on the charges of a coverup except to make a blanket statement that the information in the article was being looked into and was no doubt blown out of proportion if there was any truth to it at all. One can compose pictures of anything these days, videos too can be “especially prepared.” Such as faked footage of flying saucers and it was derisively suggested that Mr. Cooper might be better adapted to writing fiction.

  “Why were people running around with boxes of paper and disks?” Libby wanted to know.

  “Luella thinks the IRS was looking into colossal payments by pharmaceutical companies to get endorsements on Dr. Judy’s TV show without being in a commercial. Concealing taxable money from them.”

  “Why? Everybody does it,” Jacob snorted. “Rich people, corporations, CEOs, officers of the New York Stock Exchange, mutual fund execs. That’s the way business is done.” Jacob had been demoralized and embittered by the venality of those in high places. He’d blown the whistle on his superiors in a well known accounting agency and of course lost his job. He now worked as a personal tax accountant for individuals and home businesses out of his house. Charlie, so benumbed by the book cooking in the entertainment industry, couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. No, it wasn’t right nor fair, but it certainly wasn’t new.

  In another conversation with Luella Ridgeway, Charlie learned that Ru
th Ann Singer and Sue Rippon had finally revolted at the carnage and tried to stop Caroline but Ruth Ann had been shot. She did not survive the trip to the hospital. She’d worked her way up from sound engineer to Judith Judd’s manager and was the one who’d done the mixing, at Caroline’s command, of conversations on Dashiell’s little recording devices long after he was dead with conversations recorded later. All this to flush Warren so his wife could shoot him too. Luella had the impression that the recorded voices could be activated from a console in the control room. Warren must die because he had helped Jerry send Dashiell over the cliff in Luella’s car.

  “All I remember of that was being in the grass with Luella’s hand over my mouth watching a car roll down the hill and brake lights go on and off like someone was trying to stop it. But it was too late and it went over the cliff. Luella told me to lie real still. Next I knew, I was on a bed in a room and the room kept going around and around.” Maggie was pale, colorless, droopy, tired, but alive. Charlie liked to think she saw occasional sparks of hope in her friend’s eyes. Between what Parks had told Charlie—she wasn’t sure she remembered it right—and what Luella had learned from Sue Rippon and Dr. Judy’s lawyer, it appeared that Jerry Parks killed Dr. Judy because her daughter had broken off their engagement. Judith Judd threatened to disinherit her altogether if she didn’t find a more suitable father figure for Judy’s granddaughter.

  After meeting her daughter, Parks had met the doctor several times trying to find a story there and discovered her fabulous wealth. He wanted to do an exposé on the money to be made at what she did, but he didn’t realize how much more of her wealth came from payments under the table offering exposure to pharmaceutical companies than from her PBS appearances. He’d planned to call it, “The TV Doc Documentary.”

  Still, his real yearning was to be a successful screenwriter and Judy’s daughter had plenty of money from her mother so he wouldn’t have to work anymore—could concentrate on making it writing screenplays until he became successful. Not to mention she would inherit a fortune from her mother someday.

  And then Judith Judd declared him off limits and her daughter’s father as well, so both men had it in for Dr. Judy. Warren had also had it in for the unlovable Dashiell and somehow the two men got together to blame Judd’s murder on him. “But good old Maggie offered herself up so—”

  “I really wasn’t sure I hadn’t done it. I just sort of wanted to hurt myself,” Maggie said, eyes tearing up.

  “He also killed Grant Howard to blame it on Maggie to further the questioning of her questionable morality and sanity and to vent his anger on the man who admitted he had no intention of reading any of the filmscript submissions, claimed he’d done his part by bringing the aspiring together with professionals in the business.”

  Had Raoul died because he suspected the two of killing the doctor or was it an accident? He had a heart attack in the water. His body was full of prescription drugs, not very carefully mixed. Dr. Judy and the Spa were practically smothered with them by drug companies trying to gain her approval.

  Warren VanZant had met Jerry when the reporter was snooping around Judy and the spa for his story.

  Luella suspected what was going on to build this fortune. It was perfectly legal but kept quiet because it might not sit right in a country where the silent majority was getting royally sick of getting royally soaked in the name of commerce.

  The plan had been to put Dashiell’s drugged body behind the wheel of Luella’s car and send it over the cliff. They didn’t want Luella talking to the Feds either so she could go along and Maggie too, to put an end to any investigation. Jerry, in his snooping around the place, had come across the stash of medications as well as all the places to hide in the narrowed halls in the walls and dead ends.

  Charlie still didn’t know if there had been a meth lab on the promontory or what might be left of the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, or what had caused the earth to quake and the explosion. It could have been something dropped from the helicopters or some of the paraphernalia the paratroopers had worn on the way down.

  “It will be interesting to see how it all washes out in the press after Kenneth’s exposé,” Edwina said. “But the spin will continue—the whole truth may have to wait for the history books. Or it may just die away as things do in the news.”

  “I hope not, but you’re right.” Jacob stood to study the cat on top of the refrigerator. “What’s the matter, fella? It’s like he knows, huh?”

  Tuxedo just stared wide-eyed at Charlie.

  Forty-Three

  Charlie sat in her office in Beverly Hills watching the sparrows build nests in the palms growing out of the sidewalk five stories below on Wilshire. They did this every spring, but this year there were a couple of mourning doves too, rubbing their necks together, picking at each other’s feathers. Is that where the old-fashioned term “necking” came from?

  Charlie took a deep breath and grabbed the desk top, a startling sense of loss seemed to suck out her soul, create an enormous vacuum in her chest, leave her dizzy and gasping.

  “You gonna make it, Charlie?” Larry Mann, her gorgeous assistant, said softly from the doorway of his cubicle that protected her office from the hallway.

  “Yeah, I just suddenly felt so empty and alone and worthless. God, I hope menopause isn’t coming on this early.”

  “Well, no one’s surprised at that but you. Look at it this way. You’re going to have time to get some work done. Which by the way is stacking up around here. Lester P. wants to see some more of Brodie Caulfield’s work. Uranus has rejected Rites of Winter.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Our new star client is going to need a manager pretty soon if this keeps up. But right now, you’re it—you’re needed. Cooper said something about a massage? Don’t worry, I’m not going there. A massage before he goes into hiding to research the Invasion at Home book. Pitman’s wants all subsidiary rights to the nursing home book. Corporate policy, they can’t help it. Same ol’, same ol’…”

  “Screw that. I can sell it elsewhere.” Charlie was on her feet looking for her shoes under her desk. “They know I never sign over all the goodies to the publisher. What’s the word from Onyx on film rights?” Charlie was so incensed it took her a second to realize Larry had grabbed one shoe from her and was kneeling on the floor, slipping it onto her foot.

  “Welcome back, Cinderella.” He looked up with that sardonic smile that could melt a solar ice cap.

  Charlie dragged a weary bod into the empty house, empty except for Tuxedo. Libby hadn’t moved out yet but she would leave in a few days. There were signs of packing everywhere.

  “You knew, didn’t you, Tux?” She guessed she couldn’t call him “that damn cat” now. “Everybody knew but me, huh?”

  The damn cat watched her with eyes that were all iris while she slipped out of her shoes and opened a can of gross-smelling cat food, spooned a third of it into a clean bowl, and set it down beside the refrigerator. He just sat looking at it.

  Libby and Edwina Greene had announced that Libby would move to Boulder and live with her grandmother for awhile, sort out what she wanted to do, get a little perspective on life.

  “It will save you both some money and be a safe haven for her while she works things out.”

  “Safe haven? Boulder? That’s not the Boulder I remember.”

  “And, Charlie, it will take one of the responsibilities off your back for a time. I’m afraid Maggie and Betty will be a continuing responsibility here. And your work has always been hectic.”

  “Edwina? You have a clue what you’re taking on? You’re not getting any younger.”

  “Raised you, didn’t I? And you aren’t either. Charlie, let me help out. You’ve got so much on your plate. And I see two, no three gray hairs, my dear.” Charlie’s mother brushed at the hair above Charlie’s forehead and sighed. “No surprise with the life you lead.”

  A tickle of hope at the back of her throat, Charlie considered no
lying awake for the kid to come home, worrying about a car breakdown or worse. Coming home to a little peace after an exhausting day and a killer commute instead of arguments and more tension. And Libby wouldn’t be alone and vulnerable in some apartment somewhere. Not just yet.

  The house seemed so quiet already. A box of CDs sat on the kitchen table, another of toiletries on the counter by the sink. Then a memory sound of her daughter’s hooting laughter, very faint. Kind of sad and creepy, like voices behind the door of a wardrobe. Tuxedo moved his gaze to the air beside her, one ear swiveling as if to pin down a sound. As if he’d heard the memory too.

  Charlie sat on the floor next to the cat food. “I never dreamed it would come to this, did you? Maybe it will work out for all of us for awhile? I mean, that’s all we’ve got is awhile, any of us, right?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t blink.

  “Oh come on, I’m a grown woman, dammit. A kick-ass Hollywood agent.” But Charlie rolled over a sore body onto hands and knees, lowered her head, and butted foreheads with the creature. He blinked, put his cold nose on hers, and bent over his dish.

  Charlie didn’t understand what all that meant but paused, on her way to find tweezers and mirror in case any more gray hairs had appeared today, to say something she wouldn’t have dreamed possible yesterday. “We’ll both miss her. But at least we’ve got each other, huh?”

  About the Author

  Marlys Millhiser is an American author of fifteen mysteries and horror novels. Born in Charles City, Iowa, Millhiser originally worked as a high school teacher. She has served as a regional vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and is best known for her novel The Mirror and for the Charlie Greene Mysteries. Millhiser currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.