Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers

by Diane Capri

  From behind the blackout curtains, Piper watched her tiptoe barefoot down the three brick steps and cross the patio to the swimming pool. She walked the length of the diving board to the end. From the pocket of her coat, she pulled out the black goggles, slipped them on her face. The coat slid from her thin naked body to drape across the board behind her, dangling down, the fur turning dark in the water. Her toes curled over the edge of the board, she lifted upward and executed a near-perfect swan dive into the deep water.

  Sybil dove to the bottom of the pool and stayed there for what seemed a very long time. Piper felt her pulse accelerating, going into overdrive. Sybil seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the pool. Piper couldn’t stand there and watch her die. She had to do something to help her.

  She snatched up the phone and dialed 911 just as Sybil’s two caregivers rushed outside. A moment later Sybil popped to the surface.

  In a rush of words to the dispatcher Piper tried to explain what was happening next door. “I think she’s in danger. Send someone … Please. Hurry.”

  She yanked the drapes aside and watched the two try to coax Sybil from the pool. She ignored them, continuing to swim from end to end in the long, rectangular pool. Mr. Moto waded into the water fully clothed and snatched at her the moment she came within reach. Their struggles took him underwater. He came up sputtering and cursing, calling Sybil a bitch.” The nurse waded in to assist him. It would have been comical if it had involved anyone other than Sybil Squire.

  She quickly looked up the number for the clinic, dialed and asked for Dr. Lowdell, the GP who had treated her burns. While she waited for him to come on the line, she watched them haul Sybil out of the pool and practically drag her toward the house. They didn’t bother to retrieve the fur coat. As the three climbed the brick steps, Judith Avidon cast a sharp glance at Piper standing in the open window, the cordless phone to her ear. Let them see her. Let them know they’re being watched.

  “Dr. Lowdell speaking,” the voice on the phone said in a deep authoritative tone.

  “Doctor, this is Piper Lundberg. We spoke a while back regarding Sybil Squire?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Lundberg, I remember you.” His tone now had a guarded edge to it.

  “I think now’s the time to pay a house call to Mrs. Squire. I’ve already called the police and they’re on their way. Do you want to call Social Services, or should I?”

  #

  Piper stood on the deck watching the house next door. Dr. Lowdell and a young black woman with an accordion gusset briefcase, who Piper assumed to be a case worker from Social Services, had arrived an hour ago in separate cars, but joined up to enter the premises together. The police left first. When the doctor and the woman finally reemerged and returned to their respective cars, Dr. Lowdell paused at the door of his Lexus. He glanced around at the neighboring houses until he spotted her on the deck. After depositing his case into the trunk of the car, he headed up the driveway toward her.

  She invited him inside, away from the prying eyes of the people next door. Of course, they knew she was the busybody who’d contacted the authorities, and she didn’t care. The black eye was the proof. Sybil did not give herself a shiner.

  “I thought the police would want to talk with me,” Piper said.

  “I told them I’d take care of it.” Translated: don’t bother, the neighbor is a kook. “She fell climbing out of the pool yesterday and hit the side of her face on the edge.”

  “Is that what they said happened to her?”

  “No, that’s what Mrs. Squire said happened and I have no reason not to believe her.”

  “Well how about fear of reprisal or fear for her life? Are those valid enough reasons?”

  “I took her aside and asked her point-blank. I assured her that if anything criminal, or remotely suspicious, was going on in her house under the supervision of her caregivers, she would receive immediate protection and the guilty parties dealt with here and now.”

  “And?”

  “And she said she fell while swimming alone in the pool.”

  “Doctor, she wears water goggles. Would she get that kind of an injury wearing goggles?”

  He paused a moment, twisting his mouth to first one side and then the other. “I can’t say for sure. Of course, anything is possible. I told her that you were concerned for her. That you thought she might be a victim of abuse.”

  Finally. Thank you.

  “She said, and this is verbatim: ‘My neighbor watches too many bad thrillers. She should find something better to do with her time than to look for menace makers.’”

  Sybil’s words stung. They were harsh and unkind. And odd. Menace Makers was one of her movies, a thriller. There was something there, but she couldn’t put her finger on it just yet.

  She sighed. “Doctor, don’t you see she’s gone downhill since you released her from the hospital, and rather drastically? She’s much thinner. Almost skin and bones. She walks around like she’s in a fog. She’s being drugged, I know it. Oh, shit, wait—” Piper ran into the bathroom, grabbed the pill from the medicine cabinet, and returned to him.

  “They’re making her take these,” she said, holding out the pill. “Among others.”

  “Making her?”

  “Sybil threw this pill out of her window when she thought no one could see her. If they weren’t making her take them, why would she throw it out the window?”

  He studied it. “From the size and color, I’d say it’s a Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. She takes this and a light tranquilizer, both prescribed by me. She doesn’t sleep well, hasn’t for years. Yes, she’s frail,” he continued. “She’s eighty-five years old and drinks heavily. What you might think is a drug-induced stupor is more likely a result of alcohol. She’s been drinking today already. I smelled it on her. So sure, her responses, her reactions, are slower than usual. But I blame it on the alcohol. Until she agrees to give up scotch and brandy, there’s not much any one can do about it. Not unless she’s committed. Is that what you want, Mrs. Lundberg, for your neighbor to be committed?”

  “Of course not,” Piper said. Let it go. Just let it go. “They dragged her from the pool today. Literally dragged her.”

  He nodded. “Yes, she said her caregivers might have acted impulsively in the pool, but they were afraid she was trying to drown herself. Drastic actions call for drastic measures.”

  “You said this caregiver has excellent credentials?”

  “I said that, yes.”

  “And you know her personally?” she pressed.

  “She worked at the clinic. I don’t know her well, but the head nurse recommended her. I trust Avidon. After reviewing her file and asking around at the hospital, we were all satisfied that she was competent. I’m fond of Mrs. Squire, that’s why I came out this afternoon. Like you, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

  “Doctor, when I spoke with you at the clinic, you mentioned a housekeeper, Sybil’s housekeeper. Do you know her name or where I might get in touch with her?”

  She saw him staring past her head, his expression intent, grim. She turned, following his gaze across the room to the corner window where the telescope and a camcorder stood on separate tripods, their lens’s pointed in the direction of the Squire mansion.

  “I suggest you accept the situation and move on, Mrs. Lundberg. Maybe concentrate on your own business.”

  She showed him out the door. When the door shut behind him, she added under her breath, “Thanks for nothing.”

  The next day she received a scented note card in the mail. The initials S and S in an ornate scroll on the letterhead and the back of the envelope left no question regarding the sender.

  Dear Mrs. Lundberg,

  Thank you for your concern in the matters of my personal affairs, but rest assured I neither need nor want your unwelcome assistance.

  MYOB.

  Forever Yours,

  Sybil Squire

  MYOB. Mind your own business. The note was meant to make her
back off. Yet Piper wasn’t buying into it. Strange for Sybil to use MYOB and not write it out. Sybil was in danger. She knew it as sure as she knew Sybil was being forced to take medication and that she did not give herself a black eye.

  She reread the note, pausing at the salutation. Forever Yours.

  Forever Yours? That was peculiar. In all her publicity photos, she signed off with “Sincerely yours.” Forever Yours was her third movie, a film about insanity and murder. She compared the handwriting with that of the publicity photo she’d autographed two weeks ago. The handwriting looked the same, but even more strange was that she had autographed the publicity photo Forever Yours as well. Piper hadn’t noticed that before.

  What did it mean? Was Sybil trying to tell her something? Or, was Piper looking for threats where none existed?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Star Tattler — August 1952 [Archive]

  Guess who was spotted at a Dude Ranch in Reno last week, awaiting the required six-week residency? Not the western-star-turned-rebel, CW, but his platinum-haired wife, who is rumored to be in a delicate condition. CW broke down the door of a mutual friend demanding to see his missing wife. The friend set her dogs on him.

  CW, darling, you need help.

  —Cricket Summers: Columnist to the Stars

  Sybil Squire was the distraction that kept Piper from dwelling on her pending divorce. The papers had been served on Gordon and the process was in motion. Gordon’s only response had been to send her an unpaid dentist bill.

  At Les Deux, over wine, the words came gushing out. Piper filled Lee in on the last several days, Sybil’s shiner, and her call to Dr. Lowdell.

  “There’s obviously a connection between the visits to the bank and the Squire estate,” Lee said. “Crimes against the elderly have become big business in America, especially fraud.”

  “If they’re mistreating her and stealing from her, they’re being very transparent about the whole thing. That’s the part I don’t understand.”

  “Then they’ll get caught.”

  “Before or after Sybil is dead?”

  “I doubt they’ll go that far. I’m missing all the mystery and intrigue. I want to come over and play spy with you. I’ll bring my own telescope.” Lee blew a kiss at two rival agents from CAA who stood chatting near the gurgling water tank in the restaurant’s patio. “What about that mystery car cruising your neighborhood?”

  Piper realized she hadn’t seen the dark car with the tinted windows in weeks.

  “I think it belonged to them. Before worming their way in as her caregivers, they’d staked out the house and neighborhood.”

  “So it wasn’t the Gorgon after all?”

  “Gordon never bothered to contact me, let alone try to get me back. I was such a sucker. I could’ve continued to stay with the asshole until he traded me in on a younger, more impressionable sucker. Lee, how could I have married such a cold, manipulative man?”

  “You have a good heart. You’re kind and trusting. Everyone is exposed to someone like Gordon in his or her lifetime. It’s a rite of passage. Move on.”

  Since the Vogt’s departure, Piper kept a running correspondence with them via the internet. She collected their mail and sent them a copy of whatever she thought important, faxing or scanning it into the computer. One day after scanning several pieces of mail to the Vogt’s, Belle e-mailed back:

  The letter you sent in that last batch was from Sybil

  Squire’s former housekeeper. Seems she’s concerned

  about Lady Squire. Because of your preoccupation with

  our tragic leading lady, I trust you’ll want to follow up on this.

  A bit of advice, Piper, the less contact with the neighbors and

  their affairs, the better.

  It’s not your concern.

  Belle

  Piper nearly jumped out of her chair. The housekeeper was someone she very much wanted to connect with. If she were concerned about Sybil, that made two of them. She could be her biggest ally. Together, they had a better chance of finding out what was going on over there. Piper dug through the morning mail until she found the letter signed by Vera Wade.

  She paused for a moment before calling. Belle’s advice was equivalent to Sybil’s “mind your own business.” Belle wasn’t here. She didn’t see what Piper saw. She quickly dialed the phone number at the bottom of the letter before she could change her mind.

  It rang and rang. On the tenth ring, someone picked up.

  “My name is Piper Lundberg. I’m calling about Sybil Squire.”

  “What’s that about Sybil Squire?” she said.

  “I live next door … in the guesthouse.”

  “Yes. Yes. Hello? Hello, are you still there?” she said, her voice rising with excitement.

  “I’m here.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to get your call. The worry’s been making me just sick. Sybil, er, Mrs. Squire, how’s she doing, do you know? Have you seen her or talked to her lately?”

  “Yes. I’m worried too.” Piper tried to tell her what had transpired in the last few weeks, but most of what Piper said was lost to the woman, garbled because of her hearing aid.

  “Look, I’m coming over there,” Vera said. “We gotta’ talk face-to-face.”

  Piper paced the small living room, waiting. Black clouds rolled in and the wind picked up, whining under the eaves, blowing gusts strong enough to rattle the windows. Another storm was on the way. She waited, training the telescope on the narrow streets that snaked throughout the neighborhood. She could see a stretch of Sunset Boulevard.

  An hour later, as the last glimmer of daylight faded, the familiar battered green VW chugged up the hill. It shuddered to a noisy stop in front of the Squire house. Vera Wade climbed out, the teased red hair—faded to an orange hue—blew around wildly in the wind. She wore purple tights and a long pink t-shirt with a picture of two big-eyed kittens on the front.

  She walked up the driveway toward Piper’s place, slowing to look at the Squire mansion. She stopped, took a piece of gum from her lime-green purse, unwrapped it, and stuck it into her mouth. The wind snatched the wrapper from her fingers. With the rubber sole of her orthopedic shoes—the only thing about her that appeared stodgy and sensible—she stomped down on it before it could blow away. After depositing the wrapper into her purse, she continued up the driveway.

  Piper had liked Vera the moment they met, the day she came to her door with an invitation to coffee. Not exactly the sort she would have expected to be a loyal, long-time housekeeper to a famous, reclusive star. Then again, loyalty came in all shapes and sizes.

  After greeting Vera on the deck, she ushered her inside. The strong wind at her back pressed her along amid a swirl of eucalyptus leaves.

  She stood on the hardwood just inside the door, smoothing down her flyaway hair with both hands. “That’s a pretty big computer,” Vera said pointing at the editing bay in the dining area.

  “It’s what I use to edit film. It’s my job.”

  Vera nodded. “I should have thought to call you myself. You seemed to care about Mrs. Squire. It showed that day when you came for coffee. With you living right next door, well, you’d know as good as anybody if something funny was going on over there.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  She accepted a Heineken, waved away the glass, and drank straight from the bottle. She sat on the edge of the couch, her body poised for action, like someone not used to sitting for long periods of time.

  Piper pulled up the ottoman and sat in front of her. “What happened? Why did you stop working for her?”

  She adjusted her hearing aid by twisting a finger inside one ear. “I was told I wasn’t needed no more. I went to visit her every day in the hospital and she never, not once, said anything about canning me. No one was more surprised than yours truly when I showed up that morning and this woman, the one they sent home with her, says ‘She don’t need you no more.’”

  “A
nd you accepted that?”

  “Hell no. I told that stuck-up nurse that I don’t take orders from her or nobody but the mistress. I told her if Mrs. Squire wants to let me go, she’s gotta be the one to say so.”

  “And did she?”

  Vera nodded. “I had to wait awhile, but Sybil signed my paycheck and handed it to me personally. That gal made it out for her cause Sybil’s hands were still bandaged from the burns, but I watched her sign it. You coulda’ knocked me over with a canary feather. Twenty years I worked for her, all day, five days a week. Sometimes on the weekends if she needed me. The only reason I wasn’t a live-in is ‘cause of Nutmeg. Nutmeg’s my cat. Cats and canaries don’t mix. Those birds are her life, you know? They’re what kept her going all these years—her birds and me. We was friends. Good friends. She don’t have much to do with people.” Vera paused. “‘Cept you. She took to you.”

  “She did? She said that?”

  “Yeah. She don’t invite people over unless she likes them. She talked about you that day I picked her up at the bank. You reminded her of someone from her past.”

  Her grandmother. Vera’s words warmed her.

  Since meeting Sybil, she had reread both biographies and every article written about her. There were plenty of discrepancies, but one thing remained undisputed. Sybil’s life had been fraught with selfish, abusive, and deceptive people. People she loved, people who should have loved and protected her, but instead had hurt her. First her mother, then her father, then her first husband.

  Now it seemed to be happening again. Only this time the villains were preying on an elderly Sybil.

  “Do you know anything about these people living in her house?” Piper asked.

  “Nothing, not a danged thing. She said if she wanted to stay in her own house, she had to have live-in help, something about Social Services setting it up.”

  “And that was it? She cut you off?”

  She made a sour face. “I call, and that one over there,” she tossed her head in the direction of the Squire house, “tells me the mistress will call me back. She don’t call back. Except…” Vera leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Except that one night. She called me out of the blue. It was real late. I was sleeping. By the time I got my hearing aid adjusted so’s I could get what she was saying, she was gone. I called back, but the line was busy an’ stayed busy all night. Ain’t been able to reach her since.”