by Marie Celine
The woman’s eyes teared up and the drops began to fall. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I am sorry. It’s just so hard to imagine poor Rich, I mean, Mr. Evan, being-being gone.” Her chest heaved.
Kitty wrapped her arms around the woman’s shoulders. “There now,” she said. “Everything’s all right now.”
The woman nodded. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me. I’m Florence Goodman. My husband, Stephen and I were Mr. Evan’s neighbors.”
“You and Mr. Evan must have been close.” Did she smell alcohol on the woman’s breath?
Mrs. Goodman stared at the lawn. “He was a very nice man.”
“Yes, he was,” agreed Kitty. “Did you see him the morning he died?”
“No!” Mrs. Goodman, said quickly. She glanced at her house. “I certainly did not!”
“I didn’t mean anything—I only wondered if you’d seen or heard anything. . .”
Mrs. Goodman’s back stiffened. “The police have already questioned me,” she sniffed, “and my husband,” she added. “I’ve nothing more to say.” She turned on her heels and waddled off across the lawn and disappeared behind her front door.
Kitty stared in stunned silence. “What was that all about?” she muttered finally.
“You better hope the doctor doesn’t get wind of you bothering his wife.”
Kitty spun. It was Consuelo standing at the side door. “The doctor? Whatever do you mean?”
“Mr. Goodman. He doesn’t like people talking to his wife.”
Kitty slowly walked to the house and followed Consuelo inside. “What do you mean he doesn’t like people talking to his wife? What’s wrong with that?”
Consuelo swirled a finger round and round her ear. “The doctor he is loco. You know?”
Kitty nodded. Consuelo was, in her opinion, weighted on the loco side herself.
“And after what happened with Mr. Evan and Mrs. Goodman. . .” Consuelo wiped her hands on her apron and pulled open the refrigerator.
“What?” demanded Kitty. “You can’t make a statement like that and simply stop.” She followed Consuelo to the refrigerator. “What happened between Mr. Evan and Florence Goodman?”
The housekeeper looked incredulous. “You do not know?”
“I already said I don’t know. How could I know?” She had laid her hand on Consuelo’s wrist and pulled it away when the housekeeper made a face. “What don’t I know?”
Consuelo smiled wickedly. In her hands she held an open bottle of champagne—a Roederer Cristal no less, worth several hundreds of dollars.
Consuelo pulled down a glass from the cabinet overhead and poured herself a generous glassful. She sat at the table—the same table where Rich Evan had eaten his last meal—sipped slowly and finally spoke. “The señor and Mrs. Goodman had some hanky-panky together.” She twisted the middle and index fingers of her left hand together.
“No!” said Kitty, incredulously.
She nodded and smiled broadly. “I caught them myself. In the señor’s bed. Not one week ago.”
Consuelo wriggled her eyebrows. “And it wasn’t the first time they had relations, if you ask me. No,” she shook her head, “not at all.”
Rich Evan and Florence Goodman? Mrs. Florence Goodman? The dowdy Mrs. Florence Goodman? Having an affair?
As if reading Kitty’s mind and doubts, Consuelo nodded. “It’s true.” She refilled her glass. “The doctor, he found out. I do not know how.”
Consuelo leaned forward. “He came to the house. The doctor was furious. Shouting louder than the waves. So furious he threatened to kill Mr. Evan!”
“Consuelo! Did you tell this to the police?”
The housekeeper shrugged. “No. For what? They do not ask and I do not tell.”
“But Mr. Goodman could be the killer.”
“They say you are the killer.” Consuelo was looking at her quite slyly now. The housekeeper’s words were slurred. “Maybe, perhaps I should not be in the same room as you? Maybe you want to kill me, too?”
Her eyes grew hard as stones. “I’m good with a knife, though.” Consuelo’s eyes darted to the counter and the wooden slab containing the kitchen knives. “Very, very good.”
Kitty found herself inching towards the door. Her only thoughts were of escape.
“Stay,” said Consuelo. “Have a glass.”
“No, thank you,” said Kitty, fighting to control her tremors. “I really should be going.”
“Sit!” ordered the housekeeper.
Without quite knowing why, Kitty obeyed.
Consuelo smiled. “That’s better.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Let me tell you a story.”
14
“I came to this country ten years ago.” She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. “I come from Guanajato. That is in Mexico.”
Kitty nodded.
Consuelo wiped her lips with the inside of her arm. “I wanted to come to work for Jack Benny. My father was a huge, giant Jack Benny fan,” she said wistfully. “We watched all his movies and his TV shows.”
“My father, he always said, ‘Go to work for Mr. Jack Benny, Consuelo. He’s a great man. A funny man.” She hung her head. “But Mr. Benny was dead.”
Kitty nodded once more. She was pretty sure Jack Benny had been dead long before Consuelo had arrived in the States. “So what did you do?”
“I was forced to take temporary jobs. Cleaning jobs. Cooking jobs. Whatever I could get. I had to send money home for my family. My father he has a clubbed foot and my younger brother is blind.”
“Oh, dear,” commiserated Kitty, “I am sorry.”
“It happened when he was twelve. He was working after school in a fireworks factory. There was an explosion.” At this moment, Consuelo’s fist exploded on the kitchen table, lifting its legs right off the floor.
Kitty nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Mr. Evan he promised he would help bring Ricardo and my father to America. He promised.” The housekeeper’s eyes bored into Kitty’s.
“How-how long have you been with Mr. Evan?”
“Six years,” she spat. “Six long years.” She pushed her glass aside and drank from the bottle. “All the time he keeps telling me he is going to help.” The bottle slammed down on the tabletop. “But he never did.” Consuelo’s eyes narrowed. “And now he is muerto.”
Yes, thought Kitty. So he is. And it would be so easy for Consuelo to have murdered him. Who better? She had access. After all, she lived in. That gave her plenty of opportunity. She could easily have doctored Benny’s food.
But had Consuelo been trying to kill the dog to spite her boss or had she been out to get Mr. Evan himself somehow expecting that he’d eat Benny’s food? Perhaps she’d even suggested that he eat it? And where had Benny been throughout all this anyway?
“I remember how shocked you looked when you came into the kitchen here and saw poor Mr. Evan lying there.”
Consuelo nodded gloomily. She looked suddenly tired and frail.
“Where was it you said you had been?”
Consuelo frowned. “I was shopping.”
“Did Mr. Evan have any other visitors that morning?” Kitty asked. “Any late night guests, like Mrs. Goodman?”
Consuelo’s shoulders heaved. “I do not know. Mr. Evan was not home when I went to sleep and he was not home, at least I did not see him, in the morning before I went to the market.”
Kitty nodded thoughtfully. “What time did you leave for the market?”
“Why so nosy?” Consuelo barked, yet she answered anyway. “I left around nine, I think, and got back when you saw me.”
So either Rich Evan had stayed out all night and returned in the late morning or he’d come in late that night and sequestered himself away with a woman. “Was his car here when you left that morning?”
Consuelo thought a moment. “No, it was not.”
Kitty smiled. Now she was getting someplace.
“And I remember something els
e about that night.”
“What?”
“The doctor and his wife had a loud argument out on the beach that evening. He was shaking her. She fell down trying to break loose.”
“Then what happened?”
“She stormed out, took off in her car.”
Well, well, thought Kitty, Mr. Evan’s housekeeper was a bit of a snoop, wasn’t she? Rich Evan and Florence Goodman could have met up for a late night rendezvous somewhere.
“Tell me, Consuelo—you mentioned telling me a story a while ago—have you ever heard any stories?” Consuelo looked puzzled. “About the house, I mean.”
The housekeeper glanced nervously over her shoulder. Was she expecting a demon or an evil spirit to pounce on her? She made the sign of the cross. “It is unwise to speak of such things.”
“So, you have heard the stories?”
Consuelo shook her head. “I warn you, do not talk about this house.” She rose and roughly pushed back her chair. It skidded across the floor and fell over on its back.
“But, Consuelo, I only want to know—”
Consuelo cried out and ran from the room. “Uh-uh,” she shouted, “do not speak about the house. The house does not like it!”
A door slammed and Kitty was all alone.
“It was over you know.”
A cry escaped Kitty’s lips. She turned her head. Mrs. Goodman was standing in the kitchen doorway.
Kitty said accusingly, “Mrs. Goodman, you were eavesdropping.”
Mrs. Goodman shrugged. She’d removed her gloves and hat. Her hair was now neatly combed and her makeup looked freshly applied. “Only near the end. The door was ajar. Do you want to hear about it or no?”
Kitty nodded and picked up Consuelo’s fallen chair. Mrs. Goodman sat. “We did have an affair,” she began slowly. “Rich was a very charming man and my husband, well. . .” Her voice trailed off. “He’s a cardiac surgeon. He has a very busy practice.”
Kitty said she understood. It was that be polite habit thing working again. “You said it was over?”
“That’s right.” Mrs. Goodman was looking at her hands. “We had been seeing each other for about a month when my husband found out.”
“Caught you.”
Mrs. Goodman nodded. “Yes, caught us. He was so angry. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Angry enough to kill?”
“Oh, no, Stephen wouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Goodman said quickly. “He’s not the type.”
Kitty wasn’t so sure about that. If what Consuelo had told her she’d seen was correct, Stephen Goodman could be a violent man indeed. And he had reportedly threatened Rich Evan already. Maybe he’d finally done the deed. Yes. A doctor would certainly know all about poisons, wouldn’t he?
Kitty didn’t know about ghosts, but there sure was a lot of bad karma floating around this place. “Tell me, Mrs. Goodman, what do you know about the history of this house?”
For the first time, Mrs. Goodman managed a smile. “You’re talking about the legends, aren’t you, young lady?”
Kitty said yes.
Mrs. Goodman sighed. “Everybody wants to hear about the ghosts.” She pursed her lips. Her fingers worked over the table like it was a piano. “Where shall I begin?”
“Someone told me that there had been several previous murders in this house.”
“That’s right. Have you ever heard of Becky Wright?”
“No. Who was she?”
“Becky Wright was a silent film actress. She’d been quite a star in her day.” Mrs. Goodman leaned forward, as if the walls might hear her speak. “She was the first to die in this house.”
“I see.”
“What do you know about the history of Malibu, Miss Karlyle?”
“Nothing, I guess. What’s there to know?”
Mrs. Goodman smiled. “This entire region of Malibu belonged to one family, the Rindge’s—made their money in oil and energy, I believe.”
Mrs. Goodman settled back into her chair. “In any case, they owned this whole area, including the beach. The widow allowed some folks like Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Colman to build beach homes here in the Twenties. But they were only allowed to rent.
“It wasn’t until the late Thirties that Mrs. Rindge allowed them to buy the land. Mrs. Rindge was having some money problems at that time. Many wealthy folks, especially celebrities began building then. That’s when this house went up. Becky Wright and her architect husband built it. Oh, it’s gone through numerous modifications and remodels over the years, but it’s basically the same house.”
“And how did Becky Wright die?” Even though it was broad daylight, Mrs. Goodman and her tales were scaring Kitty more than she’d have thought possible. Maybe it was just knowing that poor Mr. Evan had recently sat in the same chair that Mrs. Goodman sat in now. . .and died.
“Poisoned,” said Mrs. Goodman without emotion. “Her assistant found her dead in bed. They say she had a tortured look on her face. It must have been quite nasty.”
“Did-did they ever find her killer?”
Mrs. Goodman shook her head. “No. Her husband was suspected, of course. Spouses always are.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He disappeared. Then one day, his body washed up on the beach.”
Kitty realized she was shivering.
“This beach right here. It was high tide and he washed up almost at the back doorstep. Eerie, isn’t it?”
Kitty nodded.
Mrs. Goodman grinned. Kitty wondered if the woman enjoyed scaring her. “That was in 1940, I believe,” said the doctor’s wife. “The house sat empty for a spell, then went through several more owners. One of them was Desi Almodovar. They found him hanging from the rafters in what’s now the study.”
Kitty found her hands going to her neck and forced them back to the table. “Murdered?”
Mrs. Goodman shrugged. “Murdered, suicide, who knows? Again, I don’t think the case was ever really solved. Though there was a lot of heat to do so. Almodovar was a very well-known film director. He died in nineteen fifty-five. I remember because that’s the year I was born.”
“How do you know so much about the history of this place, Mrs. Goodman? Have you lived here very long?”
“Only five years or so. We lived in Pacific Palisades before that. Then Stephen decided he wanted to live at the beach and here we are. Personally, I hate all the sand. Gets into everything.” She wiped her slacks.
“You ask how I know the history. One picks up gossip from the neighbors. People love to talk about the houses in the Colony as much as they do the occupants. And my husband is quite a history buff as well. The Wright house is quite famous, or should I say infamous?”
Mrs. Goodman rose and stared out the kitchen window. “There was a cult around Malibu back in the Twenties and Thirties—I don’t know if they exist to this day—but they objected to the house being built on this spot.”