“Our plans are undetermined,” Syd told him. “Cheryl may have to go back to Beverly Hills on short notice.”
“I think it would be better if she checks with me before she goes to Beverly Hills, or anywhere else,” Scott said pleasantly. “And by the way, Baron-those bags of Leila’s fan mail. I’ll be taking them with me.”
He put down the spoon he was holding and began to push back his chair. “It’s funny,” he said, “but it’s my guess that one of the people at this table, with the exception of Mrs. Meehan, may have been writing some pretty rotten letters to Leila LaSalle. I’m real anxious to find out who that might be.”
To Syd’s dismay, Scott’s now steely glance rested squarely on Cheryl.
12
IT WAS NEARLY TEN O’CLOCK BEFORE THEY WERE ALONE IN their apartment. Min had agonized all day about whether or not to confront Helmut with the proof that he had been in New York the night Leila died. To confront him was to force the admission that he had been involved with Leila. Not to confront him was to allow him to remain vulnerable. How stupid he had been not to destroy the record of the telephone call!
He went directly into his dressing room, and a few minutes later she heard the whirling of the Jacuzzi in his bathroom. When he came back, she was waiting in one of the deep armchairs near the bedroom fireplace. Impersonally, she studied him. His hair was combed as precisely as though he were leaving for a formal ball; his silk dressing gown was knotted by a silk cord; his military posture made him seem taller than his true height. Five feet ten inches was barely above the average for men these days.
He prepared a Scotch and soda for himself and, without asking, poured a sherry for her. “It’s been a difficult day, Minna. You handled it well,” he said. Still she did not speak, and at last he seemed to sense that her silence was unusual. “This room is so restful,” he said. “Aren’t you glad you let me have my head with this color scheme? And it suits you. Strong, beautiful colors for a strong and beautiful woman.”
“I would not consider peach a strong color.”
“It becomes strong when it is wedded with deep blue. Like me, Minna. I become strong because I am with you.”
“Then why this?” From the pocket of her robe she pulled out the telephone-credit-card bill and watched as his expression changed from bewilderment to fear. “Why did you lie to me? You were in New York that night. Were you with Leila? Had you gone to her?”
He sighed. “Minna, I’m glad you have found this. I wanted so much to tell you.”
“Tell me now. You were in love with Leila. You were having an affair with her.”
“No. I swear not.”
“You’re lying.”
“Minna, I am telling the truth. I did go to her—as a friend-as a doctor. I got there at nine thirty. The door to her apartment was just barely open. I could hear Leila crying hysterically. Ted was shouting at her to put the phone down. She screamed back at him. The elevator was coming. I didn’t want to be seen. You know the right angle the foyer takes. I went around that corner . . .”
Helmut sank to the floor at Min’s feet. “Minna, it has been killing me not to tell you. Minna, Ted did push her. I heard her scream, ‘Don’t. Don’t.’ And then her shriek as she fell.”
Min paled. “Who got off the elevator? Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t know. I ran down the fire stairs.” Then, as if his composure, his sense of order, had abandoned him, he leaned forward, his head in his hands, and began to cry.
Wednesday,
September 2
QUOTE FOR THE DAY:
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.
—SHAKESPEARE
GOOD MORNING, TREASURED GUESTS.
Are you feeling a bit lazy this morning? Never mind. After a few days we all begin to unwind into delicious and refreshing slumber and think that maybe, just maybe this morning we shall lie abed.
No. No. We beckon to you. Join us in that wonderful and invigorating morning walk through our beautiful grounds and along the coast. You will be glad. Perhaps by now you have already learned the pleasure of meeting new friends, of revisiting old ones on our sun-bright journey.
A gentle reminder. All guests who swim in any of the pools alone must wear the regulation Spa whistle. It has never been needed, but it is a safety factor that we deem essential.
Look in the mirror. Isn’t all the exercise and pampering starting to show? Aren’t your eyes brighter? Isn’t your skin firmer? Won’t it be fun showing off the new you to your family and friends?
And a final thought. Whatever troubles you brought with you to the Spa should by now be completely forgotten. Think happy.
Baron and Baroness Helmut von Schreiber
1
ELIZABETH’S PHONE RANG AT SIX O’CLOCK. SLEEPILY SHE groped for it. Her eyelids were heavy and drooping. The aftereffects of the sedative made it impossible to think clearly.
It was William Murphy, the New York assistant district attorney. His opening words snapped her awake. “Miss Lange, I thought you wanted your sister’s killer convicted.” Without waiting for her to answer, he rushed on: “Can you please explain to me why you are in the same spa with Ted Winters?”
Elizabeth pulled herself up and swung her feet onto the floor. “I didn’t know he was going to be here. I haven’t been near him.”
“That may be true, but the minute you saw him you should have been on the next plane home. Take a look at this morning’s Globe. They’ve got a picture of you two in a clinch.”
“I was never—”
“It was at the memorial service, but the way you’re looking at each other is open to interpretation. Get out of there now! And what’s this about your sister’s secretary?”
“She’s the reason I can’t leave here.” She told him about the letters, about Sammy’s death. “I won’t go near Ted,” she promised, “but I am staying here until Friday. That gives me two days to find the letter Dora was carrying or to figure out who took it from her.”
She would not change her mind, and finally Murphy hung up with a parting shot: “If your sister’s killer walks, look to yourself for the reason.” He paused. “And I told you before: Be carefull”
* * *
She jogged into Carmel. The New York papers would be on the stands there. Once again it was a glorious late-summer day. Sleek limousines and Mercedes convertibles followed each other on the road to the golf course. Other joggers waved at her amiably. Privacy hedges protected the estate homes from the curious eyes of the tourists, but in between, glimpses of the Pacific could be seen. A glorious day to be alive, Elizabeth thought, and she shuddered at the mental image of Sammy’s body in the morgue.
Over coffee in a breakfast shop on Ocean Avenue, she read the Globe. Someone had snapped that picture at the end of the memorial service. She had started to weep. Ted was beside her. His arm had come around her and he’d turned her to him. She tried not to remember how it had felt to be in his arms.
With a surge of heartsick contempt for herself, she laid money on the table and left the restaurant. On the way out she tossed the paper into a wastebasket. She wondered who at the Spa had tipped off the Globe. It could have been one of the staff. Min and Helmut were plagued with leaks. It could have been one of the guests who in exchange for personal publicity fed items to the columnists. It also could have been Cheryl.
When she got back to her bungalow, Scott was sitting on the porch waiting for her. “You’re an early bird,” she told him.
There were circles under his eyes. “I didn’t do much sleeping last night. Something about Sammy falling backward into that pool just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Elizabeth winced as she thought of Sammy’s bloodstained head.
“I’m sorry,” Scott told her.
“It’s all right. I feel exactly the same way. Did you find any more of those letters in the mailbags?”
“No. I’ve got to ask you to go through Sammy’s personal effects with me. I don’t know what I’m
looking for, but you might spot something I’d miss.”
“Give me ten minutes to shower and change.”
“You’re sure it won’t upset you too much?”
Elizabeth leaned against the porch railing and ran her hand through her hair. “If that letter had been found, I could believe Sammy might have had some sort of attack and wandered into the bathhouse. But with the letter gone . . . Scott, if someone pushed her or frightened her so that she backed away, that person is a murderer.”
The doors of the bungalows around them were opening. Men and women in identical ivory terrycloth robes headed for the spa buildings. “Treatments start in fifteen minutes,” Elizabeth said. “Massages and facials and steam baths and God knows what-all. Isn’t it incredible to think that one of the people being pampered here today left Sammy to die in that god-awful mausoleum?”
* * *
Craig’s early-morning call was from the private investigator, and it was obvious he was troubled. “Nothing more on Sally Ross,” he said, “but the word is that the burglar who was picked up in her building claims he has information about Leila LaSalle’s death. He’s trying to make a deal with the district attorney.”
“What kind of information? This might be the break we’re looking for.”
“My contact doesn’t get that feeling.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The district attorney is happy. You have to conclude his case is stronger, not weaker.”
Craig phoned Bartlett and reported the conversation. “I’ll put my office on it,” Bartlett said. “My people may be able to find out something. We’ll have to sit tight until we find out what’s up. In the meantime I intend to see Sheriff Alshorne. I want a full explanation of those ‘poison-pen’ letters he talked about. You’re sure Teddy wasn’t involved with another woman, somebody he may be protecting? He doesn’t seem to realize how much that could help his case. Maybe you might mention that to him.”
* * *
Syd was about to leave for the hike when his telephone rang. Something told him it would be Bob Koenig. He was wrong. For three endless minutes he pleaded with a loan shark for a little more time to pay the rest of his debts. “If Cheryl gets this part, I can borrow against my commissions,” he argued. “I swear she has the edge over Margo Dresher. . . . Koenig told me himself . . . I swear. . . .”
When he hung up the receiver, he sat on the edge of the bed trembling. He had no choice. He had to go to Ted and use what he knew to get the money he needed.
Time had run out.
There was something indefinably different about Sammy’s apartment. Elizabeth felt it was as though her aura as well as her physical being had departed. Her plants had not been watered. Dead leaves rimmed the planters. “Min was in touch with Sammy’s cousin about the funeral arrangements,” Scott explained.
“Where is her body now?”
“It will be picked up from the morgue tomorrow and shipped to Ohio for burial in the family plot.”
Elizabeth thought of the concrete dust that had smudged Sammy’s skirt and cardigan. “Can I give you clothes for Sammy?” she asked. “Is it too late?”
“It’s not too late.”
The last time she’d performed this service had been for Leila. Sammy had helped her select the dress in which Leila would be buried. “Remember, the casket won’t be open,” Sammy had reminded her.
“It isn’t that,” Elizabeth had said. “You know Leila. If she ever wore anything that didn’t feel right, she was uncomfortable all evening even if everyone else thought she looked great. If there’s such a thing as knowing . . .”
Sammy had understood. And together they had decided on the green chiffon-and-velvet gown Leila had worn the night she won the Oscar. They were the only two who had seen her in the casket. The undertaker had skillfully covered the bruises, had reconstructed the beautiful face, now curiously peaceful at last. For a time they had sat together reminiscing, Sammy, holding Elizabeth’s hand, finally reminding her that it was time to allow the fans to file past the bier, that the funeral director needed time to close the casket and drape it in the floral blanket that Elizabeth and Ted had ordered.
Now, with Scott watching her, Elizabeth examined the closet. “The blue tie silk,” she murmured, “the one Leila gave her for her birthday two years ago. Sammy used to say that if she’d had clothes like this when she was young, her whole life might have been different.”
She packed a small overnight case containing underthings, stockings, shoes and the inexpensive pearl necklace Sammy always wore with her “good dresses.” “At least that’s one thing I know I can do for her,” she told Scott. “Now let’s get about the business of finding what happened to her.”
Sammy’s dresser drawers revealed only personal items. Her desk held her checkbook, daily memo pad, personal stationery. On a shelf of the closet, pushed back behind a stack of sweaters, they found a year-old appointment book and a bound copy of Merry-Go-Round by Clayton Anderson.
“Leila’s play,” Elizabeth said. “I never did get to read it.” She opened the folder and flipped through the pages. “Look, it’s her working script. She always made so many notes and changed lines so that they sounded right for her.”
Scott watched as Elizabeth ran her fingers over the ornate penmanship that dotted the margins of the pages. “Why don’t you take that?” he asked.
“I’d like to.”
He opened the appointment book. The entries were in the same curlicued handwriting. “This was Leila’s too.” There were no entries after March 31. On that page Leila had printed OPENING NIGHT! Scott flipped through the earlier pages. Most of them had the daily entry marked Rehearsal with a line drawn through.
There were appointments indicated for the hairdresser, for costume fittings, visit Sammy at Mount Sinai, send flowers, Sammy, publicity appearances. In the last six weeks, more and more of the extraneous appointments had been crossed out. There were also notations: Sparrow, L.A.; Ted, Budapest; Sparrow, Montreal; Ted, Bonn. . . . “She seems to have kept both your schedules right in front of her.”
“She did. So she’d know where to reach us.”
Scott stopped at one page. “You two were in the same city that night.” He turned the pages more slowly. “Actually, Ted seems to have shown up fairly regularly in the same cities where your play was booked.”
“Yes. We’d go out for supper after the performance and call Leila together.”
Scott scrutinized Elizabeth’s face. For just an instant something else had come over it. Was it possible that Elizabeth had fallen in love with Ted and refused to face that fact? And if so, was it possible that a sense of guilt was subconsciously demanding that Ted be punished for Leila’s death, knowing that she would be punishing herself at the same time? It was a disquieting thought. He tried to dismiss it. “This appointment book probably doesn’t have any bearing on the case, but I still think the district attorney in New York should have it,” he said.
“Why?”
“No particular reason. But it could be considered an exhibit.”
There was nothing more to be found in Sammy’s apartment. “I’ve got a suggestion,” Scott told her. “Go over to the spa and follow whatever schedule you had planned. As I told you, there are no more anonymous letters in that fan mail. My boys went through everything in those bags last night. Our chance of finding out who sent them is remote. I’ll talk to Cheryl, but she’s pretty cagey. I don’t think she’ll give herself away.”
Together they walked down the long hall that led to the main house. “You haven’t gone through Sammy’s desk in the office, have you?” Scott asked.
“No.” Elizabeth realized how tightly she was gripping the script. Something was compelling her to read it. She’d only seen that one terrible performance. She’d heard it was a good vehicle for Leila. Now she wanted to judge for herself. Reluctantly she accompanied Scott to the office. That had become another place she wanted to avoid.
Helmut and
Min were in their private office. The door was open. Henry Bartlett and Craig were with them. Bartlett lost no time in demanding an explanation for the anonymous letters. “They may very well contribute to my client’s defense,” he told Scott. “We have a right to be fully briefed on them.”
Elizabeth watched Henry Bartlett as he absorbed Scott’s explanation of the anonymous letters. His look grew intense. His face was all sharp planes; his eyes were hard. This was the man who would be cross-examining her in court. He looked like a predator watching for prey.
“Let me get this straight,” Bartlett said. “Miss Lange and Miss Samuels agreed that Leila LaSalle may have been profoundly upset by poison-pen letters suggesting that Ted Winters was involved with someone else? Those letters have now disappeared? On Monday night Miss Samuels wrote her impressions of the first letter? Miss Lange has transcribed the second one? I want copies.”
“I see no reason why you can’t have them,” Scott told him. He placed Leila’s appointment book on Min’s desk. “Oh, for the record, this is something else I’m sending on to New York,” he said. “It was Leila’s calendar for the last three months of her life.”
Without asking for permission, Henry Bartlett reached for it. Elizabeth waited for Scott to protest, but he did not. Watching Bartlett thumb through Leila’s personal daily diary, she felt an enormous sense of intrusion. What business had he? She threw an angry glance at Scott. He was looking at her impassively.
He’s trying to prepare me for next week, she thought bleakly, and realized that maybe she should be grateful. Next week, all that Leila was would be laid out for twelve people to analyze; her own relationship with Leila, with Ted—nothing would be hidden, no privacy beyond violation. “I’ll look through Sammy’s desk,” she said abruptly.