by Stuart Woods
“Oh, shit,” Stone said involuntarily.
Sixty-one
ARRINGTON TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE PAPER AND stalked off. Stone followed her as quickly as he could, with reporters shouting questions at him from both sides. He got Arrington into the rear seat of the Bentley, but before he could climb in, she slammed the door and hammered down the lock button. Stone was left on the sidewalk, surrounded by cameras and screaming reporters.
Marc Blumberg grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the curb as Dino and Mary Ann drove up in the Mercedes station wagon, and they both got into the rear seat. Dino drove away, while reporters scattered from his path.
“You can drop me at the garage entrance around the corner,” Marc said.
Dino glanced back at him. “Congratulations; you sure nailed Beverly Walters. How did you know she and Vance had an argument?”
“I figured he dumped her. Everybody dumps Beverly, sooner or later, and I figured she didn’t like it. At least she admitted to an argument.” Marc turned to Stone. “By the way, I had a call early this morning from my attorney friend in Milan, about the possibility of divorce.”
“And?” Stone asked.
“The news isn’t good. In order to get a civil divorce in Italy, the two of you have to appear before a magistrate and mutually request the action.”
“Can’t I sue?”
“Yes, but in a contested divorce, you’d have to subpoena her, and you can’t do that in the United States. You’d have to serve her in Italy.”
Stone winced. “Good God.”
The car stopped at the entrance to the garage, and at that moment, there was a ringing noise.
Marc took a small cell phone from an inside pocket. “Yes?”
He smiled broadly. “Sure, I’ll see her. I’ll go right now.” He closed the phone and stuck it back into his pocket. “That was my office,” he said. “Beverly Walters has been arrested for Vance’s murder, and she wants me to represent her.”
“Are you going to?” Stone asked.
“Sure, why not? Since the charges against Arrington were dismissed with prejudice, there’s no conflict. Anyway, it’s an easy acquittal.”
Mary Ann turned around. “Acquittal? After what was said in court today?”
“Sure. My guess is that, since she wasn’t a suspect, she was never Mirandized, so everything she told the police and everything she said in court is inadmissible. The only testimony against her is Cordova’s, and he’s already admitted that he couldn’t distinguish between Beverly and Arrington in the robe.”
“What about Vanessa Pike’s murder?” Stone asked.
“There’s no evidence against her,” Marc replied, “or they would already have arrested her. Anyway, she may not have murdered Vanessa.”
That was true, Stone thought, and the other possible suspect was in a mental hospital.
Marc opened the car door and offered Stone his hand. “Thanks for the fun,” he said. “Now I’ve gotta go see my new client.”
“And thank you, Marc. I’ll get you a check tomorrow.”
Dino drove away and pointed the car toward Bel-Air. “Hey, what was all that crowd of reporters after you about?”
Stone sighed and told them what had happened.
“Did Arrington see the paper?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
They arrived back at the Calder house to find Manolo loading suitcases into the Bentley.
“Manolo,” Stone asked, “is Mrs. Calder going somewhere?”
“Yes, sir,” Manolo replied. “But you better ask her about that.”
“She certainly packed fast,” Stone said.
“Oh, she packed before we went to court,” Manolo said. “And on the way home, she called Mr. Regenstein from the car. The Centurion airplane is waiting for her at Santa Monica.”
Stone went into the house, followed by Dino and Mary Ann. Arrington was coming out of the bedroom. He stopped her. “Can we talk?” he asked.
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about,” she said. “I’m going to Virginia to be with Peter and my mother, and I don’t know when I’m coming back. Why don’t you join Betty Southard in Hawaii? The two of you were made for each other. Or, perhaps, you could move in with Charlene Joiner.”
He took her arm, but she snatched it away.
“Good-bye, Dino, Mary Ann,” she said, kissing them both. “I’m sorry your stay wasn’t as pleasant as it might have been.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dino replied.
“Something I want to know,” Stone said. “The amnesia: Was it real?”
“It was at first. After I came home from the clinic, everything gradually came back to me.”
“So what happened that evening?”
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” she said. “You still think I might have killed Vance, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Sure you do, Stone. Anyway, you’ll never know for sure, will you?” And with that she turned and walked out of the house. A moment later, the Bentley could be heard driving away.
Isabel came into the room. “Lunch is served out by the pool,” she said.
Dino took Stone’s arm. “Come on, pal. You could use some lunch, and probably a drink, too.”
Stone followed him outside, and the three of them sat down. Isabel brought a large Caesar salad with chunks of chicken and served them.
“You did very well this morning, Isabel,” Stone said. “Thank you very much.”
“All I did was tell the truth,” Isabel replied. She opened a bottle of chardonnay and left them to their lunch.
They chatted in a desultory way about the events of the past weeks, and Stone felt depressed. He finished his salad and tossed off the remainder of his wine. “Excuse me a minute,” he said, getting up. “I have to make a phone call.”
“There’s a phone,” Dino said, pointing at the pool bar.
“This one is private,” Stone replied. “I’ll go inside.” He went into the living room and looked around for a phone, but didn’t see one, so he went into Vance’s study and sat at the desk. Someone had left the bookcase/door to the dressing room open. He got out his notebook and dialed.
“Hello?”
“Betty, it’s Stone.”
“Well, hello there. I heard about the court thing this morning on the news. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, but Marc Blumberg carried most of the water. Listen, I called about something else, something you have to know about.”
“Dolce’s dirty pictures? I probably saw them before you did; it’s earlier here, remember?”
“I’m so sorry about that, Betty.”
“Don’t worry about it; it’s made me a lot more interesting to people here. I’ve already had three dinner invitations this morning.”
Stone laughed. “You’re amazing.”
“I don’t imagine the pictures went down quite as well for you. They must have caused problems.”
“Well, what can I do about it?”
“Treasure the photographs, sweetie; I will. Bye, now.”
Stone hung up laughing. Then he noticed that something seemed to have changed in the dressing room. He got up and walked through the doorway. The dressing room was empty of all Vance’s clothes; only bare racks were left. The chesterfield sofa, where Vance’s trysts with Beverly Walters had occurred, was all that was left in the room.
He was about to turn and go back outside to join Dino and Mary Ann, when he remembered something. He walked to Vance’s bathroom, looked inside, then down the little hallway that separated it from the dressing room. He had noticed something odd here before and had forgotten about it.
He went into the bathroom and, with his outstretched arms, measured the distance to the door from the wall of the bathroom that backed onto the dressing room. Holding out his arms, he walked into the hallway and held his arms up to the wall of the little corridor. Then he measured the distance from the wall containing the dressing room sa
fe to the door, and marked that off on the corridor wall. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, he thought, but with his experience of remodeling his own house, he had. The wall containing the safe appeared to be about eighteen inches deep, instead of the usual four or six inches.
He went back into the dressing room, trying to remember the combination to the safe. “One-five-three-eight,” he said aloud, then tapped the number into the keypad and opened the door. The safe was about four and a half inches deep; it was the kind meant to be installed in a standard-depth wall between the studs. Or it appeared to be. He rapped on the sides of the safe, which made a shallow metallic noise, then he rapped on the rear wall of the safe, which made a deeper, hollower sound. Something was very odd here.
He rapped harder, and the rear wall of the safe seemed to move a little. Then, with his fingertips, he pressed hard on the rear wall. It gave an eighth of an inch. Then there was a click, and the seemingly fixed steel plate swung outward an inch. Stone hooked a finger around the plate and pulled it toward him, revealing a twelve-inch-deep second compartment in the safe. Inside, Stone saw two things: Vance Calder’s jewelry box and a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.
“My God!” he said aloud. “Arrington killed him.” Then from behind him, a male voice spoke.
“I thought so, too.”
Stone turned to find Manolo standing there. “What?”
“When I found Mr. Calder dead, I thought Mrs. Calder had shot him. They had had a big argument about something earlier; there was lots of shouting and screaming. It wasn’t their first.”
“What have you done, Manolo?”
“When I heard the shot and found Mr. Calder, the gun was on the floor beside him, where whoever shot him had dropped it. I thought Mrs. Calder had done it, and my immediate thought—I’m not sure why—was to protect her. So I took the gun and put it in the hidden compartment of the safe, and, so the police would think it was a robbery, I put his jewelry box in there, too, and closed it. They never figured it out.”
Stone took a pen from his pocket, stuck it through the trigger guard of the pistol and lifted it from the safe. “Then it will have the fingerprints of the killer on it. Now we’ll know for sure who killed Vance.”
Manolo shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Barrington; I wiped the gun clean before I hid it. I was so sure that Mrs. Calder had done it. Of course, after this morning in court, I don’t think so anymore.”
“Does Arrington know you hid the pistol?”
“No. I never told her.”
Stone put the pistol on top of the chest of drawers, then, weak at the knees, sat down on the sofa. “So we’ll never know for sure.”
“I know,” Manolo said. “I’m a little surprised that you don’t, Mr. Barrington.” He picked up the pistol by the trigger guard, put it back in the safe’s rear compartment, and closed it.
“I’ll leave it there for a while; then I’ll get rid of it and send the jewelry box to Mrs. Calder.”
Stone was beyond arguing with him.
Sixty-two
STONE STAYED IN L.A. FOR A COUPLE OF MORE DAYS, paying the last of the bills to come to the bungalow and seeing that Vance Calder’s estate was released to Arrington.
After he had packed his bags and was ready to leave the bungalow, Lou Regenstein came into Vance’s study.
“Good morning, Lou.”
“You on your way home, Stone?”
“Yes, I’m done here. Louise can pack up Vance’s things and send them to the house. Manolo and Isabel are still there.”
“Have you talked to Arrington?”
“No, she isn’t speaking to me.”
“I should think she’d be grateful to you for everything you’ve done for her.”
“Maybe, but there are other things she’s not grateful to me for.”
“The business in the tabloid?”
Stone nodded. “Among other things.”
“Well, I want you to know that I am certainly grateful to you. Arrington is now the second-largest stockholder in Centurion, after me, and together, the two of us control the company. If she’d gone to prison, God knows what would have happened here.”
“I’m glad it worked out all right.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Stone?”
“You can have someone drive Vance’s car back to the house,” he said, holding out the keys.
Lou accepted the keys. “I’ll have my driver take you to the airport.” Lou picked up the phone and gave the order. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
Stone looked around. “What will happen to Vance’s bungalow?”
“Charlene Joiner is moving in, as soon as we’ve redecorated it to her specifications. She’s Centurion’s biggest star now.”
“She deserves it.”
They chatted for a few minutes, then Lou’s chauffeur knocked at the door. “Shall I take your bags, Mr. Barrington?”
“Yes, thank you.” He shook hands with Lou. “Thanks for all your help.”
“Stone, you’ll always have friends at Centurion. If there’s ever anything, anything at all, we can do for you, just let me know.”
“When you speak to Arrington, tell her I’m thinking of her.”
“Of course.”
Stone left the bungalow and was about to get into Lou’s limousine, when Charlene drove up in a convertible.
“Leaving without saying good-bye?” she called out.
Stone walked over to the car. “It’s been a weird couple of days; I was going to call you from New York.”
“I get to New York once in a while. Shall I call you?”
He gave her his card. “I’d be hurt, if you didn’t.” He leaned over and kissed her, then she drove away. Before she turned the corner, she waved, without looking back.
Stone got into the limo and settled into the deep-cushioned seat. He’d be home by bedtime.
Back in Turtle Bay, he let himself into the house. Joan had left for the day, but there was a note on the table in the foyer.
“A shipment arrived for you yesterday,” she wrote. “It’s in the living room. And there was an envelope delivered by messenger this morning.”
Stone saw the envelope on the table and tucked it under his arm. He picked up his suitcases and started for the elevator, then he looked into the living room and set down the cases. Standing in the center of the living room was a clothes rack, and on it hung at least twenty suits. He walked into the room and looked around. On the floor were half a dozen large boxes filled with Vance Calder’s Turnbull & Asser shirts and ties. Then he noticed a note pinned to one of the suits.
You would do me a great favor by accepting these. Or you can just send them to the Goodwill.
I love you,
Arrington
His heart gave a little leap, but then he saw that the note was dated a week before their parting scene, and it sank again.
He’d think about this later. Right now, he was tired from the trip. He picked up the suitcases, got into the elevator, and rode up to the master suite. Once there, he unpacked, then undressed and got into a nightshirt. Then he remembered the envelope.
He sat down on the bed and opened it. There were some papers and a cover letter, in a neat hand, on Eduardo Bianchi’s personal letterhead.
I thought you might like to have these. This ends the matter. I hope to see you soon.
Eduardo
Stone set the letter aside and looked at the papers. There were only two: One was the original of the marriage certificate he and Dolce had signed in Venice; the other was the page from the ledger they and their witnesses had signed in the mayor’s office. These made up the whole record of his brief, disastrous marriage.
He took them to the fireplace, struck a match, and watched until they had been consumed. Then he got into bed, and with a profound sense of relief, tinged with sorrow, Stone fell asleep.
Acknowledgments
I AM GRATEFUL TO MY NEW EDITOR, DAVID HIGHFILL, AND my new publisher, Phyllis Gra
nn, for their enthusiasm and hard work on this book. I look forward to working with them both in the future.
I must thank my agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow & Nesbit, for their continuing fine management of my career and their meticulous attention to every detail of my business affairs.
I must also thank my wife, Chris, who reads every manuscript, for her good judgment and acute insight, as well as for her love.
Author’s Note
I AM HAPPY TO HEAR FROM READERS, BUT YOU SHOULD know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my Web site at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all of my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is because you are one among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail return address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
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Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.