Irene eyed him warily. “Why are you pushing so hard on this particular subject?”
“Because I think that you have a specific reason to believe that the person who murdered Gloria Maitland was male.” Oliver paused for emphasis. “Perhaps because of what Maitland said to you in that phone call that made you get into a car and drive all the way to Burning Cove to meet her.”
Irene took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Good guess, Mr. Ward. Yes, I have a reason to think that Gloria Maitland might have been murdered by a man.”
“While I’m on a roll, I’m going to make another guess. You didn’t drive all the way to Burning Cove just to pick up a little Hollywood gossip from an aspiring actress. I’m sure you’ve got better sources in Los Angeles. I think you came here for a very specific reason. So I’m going to ask you again, what did Gloria Maitland tell you in that phone call that brought you to this town and my hotel?”
Irene rocked her glass back and forth a little, sending the whiskey into a slow swirl. In the past nine days she had chased too many false leads and run into too many stone walls. She had nothing left to lose.
She set the whiskey glass aside and met Oliver Ward’s unusual eyes.
“I came here to meet Gloria Maitland because she said she had something very important to tell me about Nick Tremayne.”
“The actor?”
Oliver sounded curious but not startled, Irene thought.
“Yes, Mr. Ward, the actor. I’m sure you know him. I believe that he is currently registered here as a guest. Tremayne and Maitland were involved in an affair that ended rather badly, at least from Maitland’s point of view. But I’m sure you know that. The news was in all the Hollywood papers.”
“I never give out personal information on my guests,” Oliver said.
“Yes, you keep mentioning that policy. Look, I’m not asking you to confirm or deny Tremayne’s presence in this hotel. I know he’s here because Gloria Maitland told me that much when she called my office.”
“You think that the other person in the spa tonight was Tremayne.”
It wasn’t a question.
She was on treacherous ground now. Nick Tremayne was under contract with one of the most powerful movie studios in Hollywood. His first film, Sea of Shadows, had been an unexpected hit. His latest, Fortune’s Rogue, had transformed Tremayne from rising talent to box office gold. He was suddenly worth a lot of money to his employers, which meant that they would go to great lengths to protect their investment.
She had been in Los Angeles long enough to know that the men at the top of the big studios ran Hollywood and, by extension, much of the city of Los Angeles. They routinely paid off cops, judges, and assorted politicians. Making an inexperienced reporter from a small-time gossip paper disappear would be no problem at all. She had to be very careful.
The studio execs weren’t the only ones with a vested interest in Nick Tremayne. Oliver Ward made a very good living providing at least the illusion of privacy to his Hollywood clientele. He had every reason to protect guests like Tremayne.
She had probably said far too much already, thanks to the whiskey and the state of her nerves. Time to take a step back.
She managed a steely smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Ward. I wouldn’t dream of implying that I thought Nick Tremayne was the other person in your spa tonight.”
He accepted that statement with equanimity. He had probably seen it coming, she decided.
“I understand your reluctance to confide in me,” he said. “But if you’re telling the truth about what happened this evening, then you might want to reconsider.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you are being honest, then I give you my word that we share the same goal.”
“Which is?”
“Finding out who killed Gloria Maitland.”
She went very still. For some inexplicable reason she was inclined to believe him. But she had learned the hard way that her intuition was not to be trusted.
“What happens if it turns out that one of your guests is the killer?” she asked. “A wealthy guest who has powerful connections? One who has every reason to expect you to keep his or her secrets?”
Oliver gave her a politely quizzical look. “If my guests choose to assume that I will keep all of their secrets, that’s up to them.”
“But you allow them to think that you will protect them.”
“My services do not extend to protecting a killer.”
She gripped the lapels of her robe. “I want to go back to the Cove Inn now, Mr. Ward. I need to think about this.”
“If you insist.” He pushed himself to his feet and gripped his cane. “You said you left your car on a side road behind the hotel?”
She leaped to her feet. “Yes. I didn’t want to ask one of the valets to park it for me.”
“In case you decided to leave in a hurry and didn’t want to have to wait while the valet fetched your vehicle? Never mind. You don’t have to answer that question. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“That’s not necessary, really.”
“It’s going on two o’clock in the morning, Miss Glasson, and if you are telling the truth, there is a murderer on the loose. He or she may still be on the grounds of this hotel. I insist on seeing you safely off the premises.”
He had a point, she thought. The one thing she knew for certain tonight was that Oliver Ward was not the person she had encountered in the spa chamber. The killer had not limped or used a cane.
There was another reason she was sure that Ward was not the murderer. She had a feeling that if he wanted to get rid of someone, he would handle the business with efficiency and finesse. He would have created a convincing illusion of an accident.
But not even the most practiced killer could plan for every detail, she reminded herself. Sometimes things went wrong, even for one of the world’s greatest magicians.
Oliver Ward, after all, was in a new line of work because two years ago things had gone very, very wrong for him.
Chapter 6
The shrill screech of the printing machine hurt Oliver’s ears and made conversation in a normal tone of voice impossible.
He looked at his uncle, who was watching the stylus move slowly back and forth across the paper with the air of an alchemist observing the results of his latest attempt to transmute lead into gold.
“Can you shut that damned thing down?” Oliver said, projecting his voice the way he had once done onstage.
“Almost finished with the test run,” Chester yelled back. “I’m telling you, Oliver, this machine is the future of newspapers. All you need is a radio equipped with a printing device like this one.”
With his wild mane of gray hair, round gold-rimmed spectacles, and faded coveralls, Chester Ward looked like a cross between an absentminded professor and an eccentric mechanic. The reality was that he was a combination of both. He was an inventor.
Chester loved to take machines apart to see how they worked. When he was satisfied that he understood the design of a particular instrument or device, he invariably made some modifications and reassembled it in a way that made it function faster or more efficiently or even perform an entirely different task. He currently held a number of patents on everything from slot machines to hydrofoil engines. Unfortunately, the hydrofoil design had failed to catch the attention of the military, so there was no income from that source.
The slot machine patent was a very different story. Chester had licensed his design to a man with extensive interests in the gaming industry. Luther Pell had recently installed the Ches. J. Ward Gaming Machines in his Reno casino and his offshore gambling ship anchored in Santa Monica Bay. It was hard to go broke in the gaming business, Oliver reflected. Chester might never have another moneymaking patent, but he wouldn’t need one. The steady income from the slot ma
chines guaranteed him the cash he needed to finance his endless projects.
It was Chester’s innovative machines and devices that had elevated the Amazing Oliver Ward Show to a level never before seen in the world of magic. Until disaster had struck, Oliver had been well on his way to joining the ranks of Houdini and Blackstone, and Chester had been his secret weapon.
Chester could design and build anything that Oliver had been able to imagine. Audiences had left the theater thrilled by a flawless performance of magic and convinced that they had witnessed working prototypes of exotic, highly advanced technology.
Self-driving speedsters, one-man submarines, robots, ovens that cooked entire meals at the touch of a button—the Amazing Oliver Ward Show invited people to “See the Future.” It had been a great publicity hook. The advance press releases had played up the educational aspect of the performances, which inspired parents to take their children to the show. Science teachers across the country had encouraged their students to attend. Afterward, there were invariably front-page stories in the local papers rhapsodizing about the futuristic engineering marvels witnessed onstage.
Of course, after the disaster, the press had taken a different tack. The mystery of what went wrong with Oliver Ward’s final performance had made headlines for weeks. Eventually the reporters moved on to other sensational stories, but the questions surrounding the bloody end of one of the world’s most famous magic acts had achieved something close to legendary status. It was his own fault, Oliver thought. Speculation had run wild primarily because he flatly refused to discuss the subject. In addition, he forbade his employees to talk about the disaster.
“You know, in the length of time it will take you to print out just the front page of one of those radio newspapers, you can read the Burning Cove Herald and several L.A. papers as well,” Oliver said. He held up the copy of Hollywood Whispers that he had picked up at the front desk. “This was delivered to the hotel fifteen minutes ago, for example.”
“Old technology,” Chester shouted. He patted the massive, waist-high radio with its screeching printer. “In the future you won’t have to wait for the news to be printed and distributed. It will be delivered directly into every home and office by one of these babies.”
The shill screech ended abruptly. Oliver exhaled in relief. He watched Chester remove the freshly printed page.
“Here you go.” Beaming like a proud father showing off his firstborn, Chester held out the printed page. “This just in from a small radio station a few miles up the coast. They’ve agreed to work with me on the testing phase.”
Oliver looked at the page. The headline read Test. The story was short. Weather sunny and warm.
“There’s no news,” Oliver said.
“Course not. Still running tests.”
“The ink is still wet. No one’s going to want to read a wet paper. And at the rate it was printing, it’s going to take a very long time to get the front page out of the machine.”
Chester grunted. His bushy brows scrunched together. “The slow speed of the printer and the fact that the ink needs time to dry are problems, but I’m working on them.” He looked up and squinted at the headline of Whispers. “What’s it say?”
Oliver read the headline aloud.
ACTRESS FOUND DEAD IN BURNING COVE HOTEL SPA.
WAS IT MURDER?
“Well, damn,” Chester muttered. “That reporter lady didn’t waste any time, did she?”
“No,” Oliver said grimly. “She did not. Must have telephoned her editor right after she got back to the Cove Inn last night. The editor, in turn, must have moved heaven and earth to get the story on the front page in time for today’s edition.”
“Huh,” Chester said. “Well, Whispers is a small paper. Doubt if very many people read it.”
“They will read it today,” Oliver said. “And by tomorrow morning, the story will be in every paper in the country.”
“Nah. Gloria Maitland wasn’t a famous actress. She was just another pretty face who went to Hollywood to become a star. She didn’t make it.”
“True, but Nick Tremayne is fast becoming a household name, and he is mentioned in the piece.”
Chester started to look worried. “How bad is the story?”
“The article states that Tremayne happens to be vacationing at the same hotel as the dead woman. But the big problem is that there is a thinly veiled reference to a rumor that Tremayne and Maitland once enjoyed a romantic liaison.”
Chester pursed his lips. “That’s not good.”
“No,” Oliver said. “It’s not.”
Chester clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up. Not the first time we’ve had a little scandal here at the hotel. It will all blow over in a day or two. You’ll see. Just more publicity.”
Oliver tossed his copy of Whispers down on the nearest workbench. It landed on top of the latest issue of Popular Science, Chester’s favorite reading material. The cover of the magazine featured an artist’s rendering of a futuristic war machine designed to navigate on land and sea.
“This isn’t the kind of publicity the hotel needs,” Oliver said.
Chester squinted thoughtfully. “Are the police looking into the death of Miss Maitland?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t talked to Brandon this morning. He’s a good man. I know he has his suspicions but I’ll be surprised if Chief Richards allows him to conduct a serious investigation.”
Chester snorted. “Everyone knows that Richards owes his cushy job to the city council, and the council likes to pretend that there is no crime in Burning Cove. Bad for business.”
“Right. So unless Brandon comes up with some hard evidence, Maitland’s death will go down as a tragic accident.”
“How did the Burning Cove Herald cover the drowning?”
“As an accident, unsurprisingly. When was the last time the Herald covered anything in depth except charity luncheons and the thrilling activities of the Burning Cove Gardening Club?” Oliver said.
“Y’know, they say that once upon a time Edwin Paisley used to be a red-hot crime reporter.”
“Well, he’s obviously retired from that line of journalism.”
Chester picked up the copy of Whispers and quickly scanned the front-page story. He paused at one line, squinting a little.
“What’s this about a quote from the proprietor of the Burning Cove Hotel?”
“Don’t remind me,” Oliver said.
“You actually gave that reporter lady a quote?”
“Her name is Irene Glasson, and I didn’t exactly give her a quote. What I tried to do was warn her off the story. I told her that if she wasn’t careful, the police might conclude that she had something to do with Maitland’s death.”
“Looks like you didn’t do a very good job of scaring the daylights out of her.”
“No,” Oliver said. “Apparently not.”
He brooded over his impressions of Irene. He didn’t have to dredge up the memories. He had been thinking about her nonstop since the moment he met her. That had occurred last night when Tom O’Conner, the head of hotel security, summoned him to the spa chamber.
Irene was soaking wet, shivering in the cool night air. Someone had given her a towel, which she had wrapped around her shoulders. She clutched it closed in front of herself with one hand. In her other, she gripped a handbag that looked like something a professional woman would carry. Her whiskey brown hair hung in damp tendrils. Her wide-legged trousers and thin blouse were plastered to her slender frame.
Aware that Irene was both the only eyewitness and the principal suspect, Oliver had whisked her into his private villa before any of the guests could see her. At that point, Jean Firebrace, the head of housekeeping, had taken charge of her for a while. The two women disappeared upstairs to the guest bedroom, a room that, until that moment, had never housed a guest.
The next time Oliver saw Irene she was bundled up in a thick white robe and ensconced in one of the two big chairs in front of the fireplace.
What had surprised him the most was that he found it difficult to read her. He was usually very good when it came to figuring out what made someone tick. He could pick out a stranger in an audience and come up with an accurate character analysis in a few short minutes. All it took were some key questions and a quick study of the individual’s clothes, jewelry, and voice. It was amazing how much you could tell about someone from just a pair of shoes.
One thing had been clear from the start. He was damned sure that Irene didn’t trust him. But for some reason, that just made her all the more interesting. There were secrets hidden in her big eyes and a haunted quality that told him she had learned some things the hard way.
Well, that gives us something in common, lady.
She would never have survived a casting call in Hollywood because, with the exception of her fine eyes, everything else about her was too subtle for the camera. She was attractive but not spectacularly so. She had an edge, though, an intensity that aroused his curiosity. He was very sure that, like with any good illusion, there was a lot hidden under the surface of Irene Glasson.
By the time he had limped back to the villa after seeing her off in her nondescript Ford sedan, he concluded that he was more than merely curious. He was downright fascinated.
He probably ought to be worried by his reaction to her, he thought.
“So where is this famous quote from management?” Chester asked, scanning the article.
“It’s somewhere near the end of the piece, and I told you, it’s not a quote.”
“Ah, here we go,” Chester said. “The management of the Burning Cove Hotel refused to respond to this reporter’s request for clarification.”
“In other words, I wouldn’t confirm that Nick Tremayne was staying in the hotel or that he was rumored to have had an affair with the dead woman.”
“Which is as good as telling her straight out that he was here and that he probably did have an affair with Maitland.”