Chapter 23: Meeting Gilda Maltin
The Mosman Police Department was bustling with life when Roxy strolled in and it took some time for an attendant to see to her. But no sooner had she mentioned her name, she was being ushered through to a back office with the words Detective Superintendent Maltin inscribed in silver lettering on the front.
‘Come in! Come in!’ came a woman’s voice and Roxy opened the door to reveal a very pretty, petite blonde beaming back at her behind a cluttered desk. She leapt up and stretched one hand out to shake Roxy’s hand while motioning her to a seat with the other. Her hair was cut in a shaggy pixie style and she was wearing a long string of beads over a black bodysuit that accentuated a small cleavage. ‘Brave woman,’ Roxy thought, glancing back out the office window to the station bustling with men.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Gilda Maltin said. ‘Did you bring the transcript?’
Roxy produced a disc from her bag labeled ‘Beatrice Musgrave Interviews’ and handed it across the desk. ‘No luck getting the tapes from Ronald Featherby?’
‘Oh I thought I’d give him a miss for now,’ Gilda replied with a wink. ‘Everyone’s a suspect, you know how it is?’
Roxy nodded, wondering if that included her.
‘I’m just glad you kept a copy,’ Gilda was saying as she popped the disc into her computer and waited for it to whir into action. ‘For a journalist, you’re quite cluey!’
‘Oh I do try,’ Roxy said with a smile. ‘To be honest, I thought you were going to reprimand me for getting involved, like Chief Butler did in Macksland.’
Gilda laughed. ‘Old Butler’s okay. I’ve had to deal with him before, a couple of years ago. Just old-fashioned that’s all. No, I’m happy for all the help I can get.’ She turned her attention to her screen. ‘Okay ... yep, it all appears to be here. Now,’ she turned back. ‘I’d like hear what you’ve found, if that’s okay.’
Roxy hesitated. It was not that she didn’t trust the well-spoken detective sitting smiling so sweetly before her. She just didn’t like handing over all her hard-found research. As if reading her mind, Gilda said quickly, ‘Hey, I’m not out to kill your story. I’d just like to put poor Beatrice Musgrave’s soul to rest.’
‘So you definitely suspect foul play?’
Gilda snorted. ‘If Beatrice Musgrave killed herself, I’m a 16-year-old virgin! Absolutely I suspect foul play! I just can’t seem to make anything stick. Everyone here’s got a different idea about whodunit, so to speak. The boss thinks it was the son or the grandson.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m not convinced.’ She reached for a large jar of moisturizer underneath some papers on her desk and scooped a generous amount out with two fingers. ‘I don’t think either men have it in them, to be honest.’ She began rubbing the cream thickly into her hands watching as the liquid soaked in, and then held it towards Roxy, who quickly shook her head no. ‘Actually, I think Willie and Fabs would have a hard enough time tackling a spider in the bathroom. No, I definitely think it was an outsider of some sort. Probably this missing daughter. I finally got Fabian to spill the beans on that one, not that he had much to tell. Would you like a cup of tea? A softdrink? Water?’
Roxy shook her head no and then proceeded to tell the policewoman everything she knew, from Fabian’s drug addiction and the threatening emails, to Beattie’s final phone call and her experiences in Macksland. As Gilda listened, she scribbled the occasional note, her blond eyebrows knotted together intently. Roxy decided she liked her. There was an easy sense of self-confidence about her. She was the sort of person you could imagine enjoying a girlie gossip with over coffee and cake. Perhaps that’s why she was so good at her job: she charmed confessions—or in this case, hard-fought, minute details—right out of you. Roxy guessed Gilda was close to 40 but couldn’t really tell, she had a youthful energy about her. When she had finished speaking, Gilda sat back in her chair and began knuckling the edge of the desk with one hand.
‘Velly, velly interesting. You ought to consider signing up for the force. You’re quite a detective.’
Roxy laughed. ‘Oh I don’t think you guys could afford me.’
‘So you’ve seen my pay packet, then? Pitiful! Tell me, who do you think done it?’
Roxy scrunched her lips together thoughtfully and pushed her glasses into place on her nose. ‘I’m not quite sure yet but I’m determined to find out.’ She caught herself then and shut her mouth firmly, but the policewoman seemed unperturbed.
‘Just be careful, right?’ Roxy couldn’t hide her surprise and, noticing it, Gilda sat upright and clasped her fingers before her. ‘Look, I probably should be telling you to lay off. I know that’s what the boss would say. But I like you. You do good work and, as far as I can tell, you aren’t hindering anything or writing salacious stories. Yet. I’m happy for you to continue with your inquiries if you like. Just keep everything confidential. And report back to me the second you find anything new. And whatever you bloody do, don’t print a word of any of this until you’ve checked it all with me. Sound fair?’
‘As fair as Snow White,’ Roxy said. ‘Is that it?’
‘Absolutely. Have a good one!’
As Roxy strolled out of the police station she felt a flicker of guilt. She had not been completely honest with the personable detective. She had made no mention of that final interview with the Johnson neighbor and the photo that had, she now knew, revealed the real identity of Beatrice Musgrave’s daughter. She told herself it was because she needed to check her facts first before pointing the finger. But the truth was probably baser than that. Deep down, she relished the idea of confronting snotty Heather Jackson all by herself.
As Roxy steered her car towards home, her phone rang. ‘Roxy speaking.’
‘Roxy? It’s Loghlen here, how are ya?’
‘Lockie! Fine, fine. You?’
‘Good, yeah,’ he said, his Scottish accent even stronger over the phone. ‘You been away? I’ve bin trying to get you for days.’
‘Yeah, Lockie, I’ve been out of town.’
‘And yer not in the middle o’ somethin’ now?’
‘No, no. I’ve just been rubbing shoulder pads with the Mosman Police department but I’m free now. What’s up?’
‘Well I thought I should let you know that I finally thought of that name.’
‘Name? What name?’
‘The maid. You know, Heather Jackson’s lackey. The one who was gonna write the tell-all.’
Roxy slowed her car down and pulled it to a stop by the side of the road, then leant across to retrieve the Filofax and pen from her handbag. ‘Okay, Lockie, go ahead.’
‘Look, I’m no’ sure about the spellin’ but it’s somethin’ like Margarita Mosalas. I found it in one of me note books from Art school days,’ and then as though embarrassed quickly added, ‘Don’t ask!’
‘I won’t even go there,’ Roxy said with a laugh. ‘She sounds Spanish.’
‘Aye, very Californian of Heather to have Latino help. Quite pretty I believe, was pursuing a modeling career after she got the boot from Heather’s. But then she just disappeared, or so they say.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘Ah, look, she could be just livin’ the quiet life in the sticks somewhere or gone back to Mexico or wherever she’s from. I really wouldn’t know. Why don’t ya call your new police friends, get them to look her up?’
‘Yeah, I could,’ Roxy agreed, ‘but I want to keep them out of it for now.’
‘Well, good luck with it all, eh?’
‘Thanks Lockie, you’re a dream!’
Roxy pressed the ‘end’ button on her phone and then pressed the speed dial for Oliver Horowitz.
‘She lives!’ he said. ‘Where the hell have you been? Don’t you answer text messages anymore?’
‘Sorry, I’ve been “out the back of Bourke” so to speak; crap reception.’
‘What on earth were you doing out there?’
‘Just chasing some lea
ds. Sorry, I should’ve let you know.’
‘Duh! After our last conversation you had me terrified! Jesus, Roxy, you’re a handful. Where were you, exactly? What were you doing?’
‘I’ll explain it all later, I promise. For now I need a favor.’
There was a brief pause and when Oliver spoke again he sounded resigned to his ghostwriter’s antics. ‘What is it?’
‘I need to find out about an unauthorized biography on Heather Jackson that was set to be published about 15 years ago. The author was her ex-maid, Margarita Mosalis or Moralis, something like that, but I don’t have the name of the publishing house.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘I could probably look it up myself, Olie, but I know you have links in that area and it’d take you about a minute. Come on, you know you still owe me…’
Another pause and then the agent relented. ‘Okay, I’ll ask around. Be in my office by midday tomorrow, I should have the answers by then. I need to see you anyway.’
‘Oh?’
‘Check you don’t have anymore suspicious scratches across your face.’
‘Hi Shazza,’ Roxy chirped as she pushed the door open to Oliver Horowitz’s office just after 12 o’clock the next day. ‘His Highness got you working on a Saturday, eh? That’s a bit rich.’
Sharon looked up from behind her computer and smiled broadly, her cigarette managing to stay firmly in place between her lips as she did so. ‘Blood oath. He gets rich, I get to do all the work. Slave driver.’ She shrugged her head towards Oliver’s office. ‘He’s in a foul one, darl’, so take care.’
‘He doesn’t scare me,’ Roxy laughed and tapped lightly on his closed office door before entering.
Oliver was staring at some sheets in front of him as she entered and simply waved her to a seat before returning to his work. Roxy sat down and waited, noting as she glanced around the room, that her agent had some new toys. There was a miniature basketball hoop with the Nike logo slashed across it and a giant teddy bear with a pink ribbon for breast cancer.
‘Getting a conscience in your old age,’ Roxy said but the agent ignored her and kept right on reading. So she waited some more.
‘Oi!’ hissed Sharon behind her. ‘You want some coffee?’
‘You read my mind, yes, thanks. Milk, two sugars.’
‘Me too,’ Oliver muttered.
‘Good Lord! He speaks!’ Sharon said, winking at Roxy before disappearing again.
‘You okay?’ Roxy asked Oliver as soon as she caught his eye.
‘Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah ... just a bit of grief from our mutual mate Miss Passion.’
‘Oh? Anything to do with her ex-thug boyfriend Angelo?’
He glanced up and then away again. ‘No, nothing at all. That’s ancient history.’ He shuffled the papers on his desk and then dropped them into a drawer to his right. ‘Okay, forget about that. How the hell are you?’
‘Good.’
‘Jesus, Roxy, you gave me an almighty scare.’ He squinted his eyes and scanned her face. ‘No little pushes lately?’
‘No, no. What’s the problem?’
He leaned back in his chair and shook his head slowly.
‘What is it? What have you found?’
‘I spoke to my mate at Flatter Publishing.’
‘And?’
‘And ... Christ, Roxy, how do you manage to land yourself in a pile of shit every single time? I send you to do an innocent story and the next thing I know, you’re surrounded in bloody mayhem!’
Roxy shifted to the end of the scratchy sofa and glared at her agent. ‘Come on. What did he tell you?’
‘Here you go,’ Sharon sang behind her and, reluctantly, Roxy waited for the assistant to place their coffees down before saying, ‘Olie?!’
‘Okay, easy does it. I don’t know who gave you the tip but as soon as I started asking questions about one Margarita Moralis, Pete—my mate at Flatter—got real edgy. Said she was this close’—he indicated with two fingers held an inch apart—‘to handing over her juicy book when she just vanished. This was pre-digital age, so they didn’t have a dozen email copies they could turn to.’
‘Oh I know all that,’ Roxy replied impatiently. ‘But was it foul play?’
‘Does the Pope shit in the friggin’ woods? It had to be, Roxy. The day before Margarita’s due to reveal all to the publishing house, she disappears. The publishers go over there to find out what’s going on and find she’s just evaporated. Not a trace of her or her manuscript. They haven’t seen either since.’
‘And she didn’t just take off? Maybe she thought better of it all? Maybe she was making it all up and decided to clear out before the truth came out?’
‘Her clothes were all there, apparently, like she’d just stepped out for a fag. No way, babe, she took off, alright, but to a higher plane, I reckon.’
‘And they never found the body?’
‘Not that Pete knew. He said the publishing house made a damn good effort to try to find her, but they came up empty handed. Apart from them, I gather she was all alone in the world. So no one else really bothered.’
‘Hmmm.’ Roxy sat back in her chair sipping her coffee.
‘Another missing woman, I’d say.’ Oliver stared at his own drink for some time. ‘What are you going to do now? Had enough murder and mayhem for one month?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Oh come on Roxy, I think we both know you gave it your best shot, and my God it would have made a good story, but the way bodies are piling up, I’d say it was time to step out of it. No story’s worth all this.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding! The story’s only getting better. Besides, if I was a bloke you’d be spurring me on.’
Oliver seemed offended by this but ignored her comment and asked, ‘So, what else you been up to?’
‘Nuh-uh. No time now, I’m afraid.’ Roxy took a final gulp of her coffee and sprang to her feet. ‘I’ve got a little confronting to do first!’