by Joan Hess
“Yeah, and he looks real pretty,” Willard said with a giggle.
Billy Dick stood up and offered her his hand. She allowed him to pull her to her feet, but the clamminess of his hand, along with the flush of excitement on his face and the glazed flatness of his eyes, made her uneasy and she jerked her hand away.
They resumed their hike along the logging trail.
Raz responded to the sound with a cackle. There weren’t nobody that was gonna steal his moonshine. He told Marjorie they was going to stay close as stink on a skunk till the feller was long gone, but she looked so glum that he took out a jar and unscrewed the lid, took a swig, and obligingly held it under her snout.
“Hal was blackmailing you,” I said flatly. I held up a Baggie that contained the photograph. “Would you like to examine the evidence?”
“I’ve already seen it,” Carlotta said. “He hired some private investigator, who climbed a tree to get the shot when I handed over the pirated tape.”
“Who’s the man?” Plover asked.
“An underling at Cinerotica. It’s a distribution company for … specialty films. He had access to the equipment to make copies and the list of outlets. We split the profits.” She made a face and shrugged. “I needed the money to start my own production company. Working for Hal was lucrative, but less than aesthetically satisfying.”
A stern young state trooper came into the motel room, nodded deferentially at me, and said to Plover, “We searched all the rooms and the immediate area for the girl, but we didn’t find her. There’s more, sir, but I don’t know if … I should report in front of a witness.” At Plover’s suggestion, they went into the bathroom and closed the door.
“So he knew you were cheating the other members of the company,” I said, returning to business despite a gut-wrenching urge to tiptoe to the door in order to eavesdrop.
“He took fifty percent of my share. He didn’t object to the arrangement, in that he made more money this way than he would have if we’d gone through usual distribution and prorated the net with the others. It didn’t appear on the books, and I doubt he reported the income to the IRS.”
“But something happened and he threatened to expose you?” I asked.
“No. This production is more difficult than others, but we were at budget and I would imagine Hal was expecting to receive the illicit money for it in a few months.”
“Did Kitty or Meredith find out about it?”
“If they did, they didn’t tell me,” she said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened here.”
She sounded sincere, but I was beginning to realize these people sounded however they damn well pleased. I scowled at my notes until Plover and the trooper returned, then sent Carlotta away with the latter to give a statement at the barracks, and waited for the former to enlighten me. He opted to sit down and smile. It went no deeper than his teeth. The dimple was absent.
“What’s the latest?” I said, trying not to sound irritated.
“Cocaine … it falleth like the gentle rain … everywhere,” he murmured. “Among other places, it falleth in Anderson St. James’s room. Shall we ask him about it?”
I wasn’t overwhelmed with astonishment, but I was disappointed, as much in myself as in Anderson. However, there was no need to convey this to Sergeant Smug, so I nodded and followed him across the lot to #6.
Anderson let us in, then sank down on the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared at his limp hands. I crossed my arms and stood by the door, motionless and emotionless. Plover finally got the message and said, “Mr. St. James, you are under arrest for possession of an illegal substance, specifically cocaine.” He reeled off the Miranda, asked him if he understood his rights, and nodded when Anderson declined to call an attorney.
“So I do a little coke,” he said dully. “It’s as common as Evian in the industry. I didn’t kill Hal, and I didn’t kill Kitty. I have no idea what’s happened to Meredith, Gwenneth, and Fuzzy. One of them must have gone off the edge and decided to decimate Glittertown. Frankly, I’d feel a lot safer in a jail cell than in this local version of Bates Motel, so feel free to take me into custody as soon as possible.”
“We’re occupied at the moment,” Plover said, “but I’ll put a man outside the door.”
“Whatever.” Anderson looked at me. “Would it be possible to have a moment with Chief Hanks?”
“Fine with me,” I said without inflection.
Plover shot me a tight look as he left the room. I waited until the door clicked, then I exploded. “What is it with you people? Drugs and sex and treachery—and what else? Are you secretly making a snuff movie? Transporting children across a state line to make porno flicks?”
“The veneer has slipped,” he said wryly. “You have discovered the deities of the silver screen are but mortals with feet of fertilizer. It’s not easy to be a deity, you know. It’s hard work.”
“Forget the crap!” I dug my fingernails into my palms and reminded myself that I was a police officer—and one tough cookie. “Was Hal blackmailing you, too? Is that why you were willing to make low-budget films for such a sleazy little company?”
“The reason’s a bit more mundane, I’m afraid. Incredibly handsome faces stroll down every sidewalk and crowd the waiting rooms at cattle calls. I’m a decent actor, but not Burton or Olivier, and I have to pay the rent like everyone else.”
“Let Carlotta write the dialogue,” I said, frowning at the backside of the door. “The night of your wife’s murder … Hal and you supposedly shared a room, but he might have preferred Gwenneth’s company. Were you left out in the cold, and so angry at your wife that you decided to pay her a late-night visit?”
“As usual, Hal wanted Gwenneth. Carlotta and Fuzzy decided they would continue the celebration in her room, privately, so I ended up with Frederick. I drank way too much and passed out. The next morning at my house, when we were waiting for the police, we decided it wouldn’t look quite right in the official report to admit to musical beds, so we all claimed to have spent the night celibately and in our original rooms.”
“Then why did Hal save a clipping and underline a reference to your alibi?”
“Frederick told him I’d said a lot of wild things about my wife and even threatened to drive to L.A. and kill her. I don’t remember saying those things, but it’s possible. I moved out of the house the night she told me she’d had an abortion that morning, lunch with her friends, and a quickie with my agent in the hot tub before cocktails.”
I ignored his plea for sympathy. “That doesn’t explain why Hal thought he had something on you. The rantings of a drunk don’t constitute evidence, and Frederick could give you an alibi, couldn’t he?”
“I suppose so. Hal told me that he had proof that someone had taken his car during the night. He had the oil changed while we were on location, and the guy at the garage wrote down the mileage on a sticker inside the door. It didn’t jibe with what it should have been, unless the car had been driven a good ways.”
I leaned forward. “Did you drive back to L.A., Anderson?”
“I don’t remember.” He raised his head to stare at his reflection in the mirror. In a voice that parodied himself, he said, “Let us examine the well-known actor Anderson St. James. Alas, the ravages of age, drugs, and booze are visible. Wrinkles are beginning to show, around the mouth in particular. The voice doesn’t glide like it used to, and before too long the body will slowly and insidiously sag. There goes Anderson St. James, shuffling down the street to beg for a bit on a commercial or an extra in a crowd scene. Remember him? No? Wasn’t he in Tanya Makes the Team?”
“That’s all you are?” I asked.
“That’s all that’s left of me.” When he smiled at me, I could see the fine lines around his mouth, the puffiness under his eyes, the softness of his jawline and neck. “Maybe I ought to retire to a little town somewhere and learn to spit and fish.”
“Spitting’s not all that much fun,” I said, then left
before I tripped on my own weaknesses and fell into the chasm of his self-pity. Plover was in the doorway of Hal’s room, conversing with someone inside. I went to Frederick’s room and knocked.
“Any leads on Gwenneth?” he asked as he let me in. “Have you got cops looking for her? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I thought she irritated you.”
“Of course she does,” he said. He sat down for a second, then stood up and began to pace. “But she’s kind of like a kid sister, you know?”
“Not really,” I said truthfully. “How’d you feel about the way Hal Desmond treated her?”
“I thought he was a black-belt slime. Gwenneth told me he had information about something she’d done back home and that he would turn it over to the police if she didn’t indulge his appetite. She acted as if she didn’t really care, but he was a gross old man, nothing but a fat white satyr.”
“I understand she was in his room the night Anderson’s wife was murdered,” I said, “and Anderson was with you.”
“Gawd, that was a long time ago.” Frederick went to the window and pulled back the curtain, then let it fall back into place. “Anderson shared a room with Hal. Fuzzy, the wunderkind of the camera, was with me.”
“That’s what you all told the police, but it wasn’t true. Anderson’s already admitted that everyone switched rooms.”
He flopped down on the bed and directed his words to the ceiling. “We all got plastered in Hal’s room, then scattered when Daddy Dearest decided he wanted to do some coke with Gwenneth. Anderson and I finished off a bottle in my room, and he was really carrying on about his wife and what a slut she was. Made my innocent little ears burn. The next morning he swore he didn’t remember any of it, including when I had to wrestle him to the floor to keep him from continuing his rampage outside the room.”
“But he did stay in the room all night?”
“I was drinking pretty heavily, too. I got him on the bed, took off his shoes, made it to the other bed, and passed out faster than a snake goin’ through a hollow log. The next morning my tongue was coated with fungus and my head was echoing with cathedral bells. Anderson wasn’t all that chipper, either, but we survived.”
A charming picture. I put it aside and said, “Where were you born?”
“I told you, San Diego.” He lifted his head to look at me. “You can check with my folks, if you can find them. My old man’s in the Navy, and he might be stationed anywhere from the Pentagon to the Persian Gulf. Then again, if he retired, they might be living in a lighthouse in Maine or a houseboat in the Okefenokee Swamp.”
“You don’t know?” I asked, wishing just one of my suspects came from a Beaver Cleaver home that was still inhabited by June and Ward—who could be called on the telephone. If there were any families left that fit the description.
“I split when I was eighteen. The old man wanted me to follow in his soggy footsteps, and I wanted to see the world without wearing a funny hat.”
I told Frederick someone would take him to the barracks, then went outside and watched the ambulance pull slowly out of the parking lot. No need for sirens and lights after the fact.
This was reality—sunshine, men going about their duties, car doors slamming across the road at the supermarket, a wasp assessing the eave as a building site. The movie was fantasy—a shallow, happily-ever-after plot about young love. The people in the movie existed in a netherworld between the dichotomies. Becky Hopperly had been real; Loretta never would be.
And Buddy Meredith was most likely dead, I realized as I stood there.
After a long while of snuffling wet leaves and holding his breath, Kevin decided gooks were not patrolling the ridge. He stood up, brushed himself off as best he could, wiped his face with a muddy hand, and hurried back down the path to make sure his beloved was safe.
The car was empty. He wanted to call for her, but he was afraid to make so much as a peep. Instead, he hesitantly made his way across the yard and porch of the shack, opened the door, and whispered, “Dahlia? Are you in here?”
Being careful not to look at the corpse in the middle of the room, he edged inside and repeated the question. There was no place large enough to conceal her, but there was another door that led to a bedroom.
“Aw, shit!” said a voice from outside the shack.
Kevin stumbled across the room, let himself into the bedroom, and closed the door just as the front door opened. He flopped on the floor and wiggled under the rotting remains of a corncob-filled mattress on a wooden frame.
“Well, what do we have here?” the voice continued, sounding more bemused than maniacal. “You don’t look so good, buddy boy. That must smart. I think you ought to do something about that knife, don’t you?”
Kevin watched a spider creep within inches of his nose, but he was too terrified to move. The door opened. Shoes encrusted with mud approached the primitive bed. A face appeared below the edge of the frame, and a toxic wind engulfed him as the man said, “This is really weird.”
Before Kevin could plead for mercy, or much of anything, footsteps clattered across the porch. The voices were loud and on the shrill side.
“Oh, my goodness,” said one. “He’s—he’s dead.”
“Don’t faint on me now, Ruby Bee. There ain’t no way I can carry you back to the station wagon.”
“You’re the one who’s whiter than a baby’s hindside. We’d better get out of here and go for help.”
“Ain’t nobody goin’ nowhere,” snarled a third voice, this one male. “Hands up, all of you.”
“Tell this clown to put down the gun,” said a fourth, also male.
“We weren’t doing anything,” said a fifth, female. “It’s not against the law to walk in the woods.”
“We’re just kids,” said the sixth, male but with a pubescent squeak.
The face that was hovering beneath the bed vanished. As Kevin squirmed out from under the bed, he heard a babble of voices interspersed with threats, demands, protests, and some right colorful curses. He thought about staying put where he was in hopes they’d all go away, but he finally went into the front room to see who all was there and what in tarnation was going on—and if his betrothed was among them.
“Fingerprints all over the room, naturally,” Plover said. We’d availed ourselves of the key to the bar and grill and were sitting in a booth, untouched coffee cooling on the tabletop between us. I’d switched on a light above the bar, but the overall dimness seemed more suitable to my mood.
“But they were in the room for that meeting, so it doesn’t mean anything. Any of them could have killed Kitty Kaye, for that matter.” I toyed with the cup, sloshing the coffee until it splashed on my hand. “Any of them except Frederick Marland, who was in a motel room in Farberville with one of the local girls. He’s damn lucky she’s above the age of consent; I’d like nothing more than to bust him for statutory rape.”
“Contributing to the delinquency?”
“I suppose so, but I doubt Darla Jean wants to testify in a case that’s liable to attract the national media. It may take some time for her to heal, but she will.” I put my finger in the coffee and on the Formica drew the antithesis, of a happy face. I wasn’t sure if it was Darla Jean’s or my own. “No one has an alibi for the time of Hal’s death, and if it was an accident or suicide, then I’m Meredith in drag and you’re having a B-grade nightmare. Carlotta, Frederick, and Anderson were in their rooms, and Gwenneth was known to have been in Hal’s room. The vigilant trooper, who might have been able to tell us about suspicious movements in the parking lot, was at the Dairee Dee-Lishus picking up cheeseburgers. I don’t know if we should be concerned with past crimes, present crimes, or even future crimes.”
“Past as in the unsolved murder of Anderson St. James’s wife?” Plover said, although with an admirable absence of malice. I’d told him what I discovered about the members of the Glittertown family. I hadn’t elaborated on my personal reaction, but he was being nicer than usual, f
or which I had to give him his due. His lack of expression was easier to handle than sympathy—or pity.
“Even if he did drive to L.A. that night, he still doesn’t have a motive for the murders here,” I said.
Harve came into the bar, located us in the shadows, and came to the table. “We can’t find hide nor hair of Gwenneth D’Amourre, or any of the missing persons,” he said. Sighing, he slid into my side of the booth. “Arly’s gonna be chief of a ghost town the way things are going. We’ve got nine missing at last count. They must have chartered a damn bus.”
Plover gave me a perplexed look. “Nine?”
“I forgot to mention some of it,” I said, “because it’s unlikely to be relevant. You’ll agree when you hear the names.” I rattled them off, and for those who’ve lost track, we were searching for (with varying amounts of dedication): Buddy Meredith; Fuzzy Indigo; Kevin Buchanon; Dahlia O’Neil; Billy Dick MacNamara; Willard Yarrow; Ruby Bee Hanks; Estelle Oppers; and the latest addition to the list, Gwenneth D’Amourre.
“Wow,” Plover murmured.
“We can’t hide this from the media much longer,” Harve said. “I already had a call from some television station. Somebody must have noticed the activity out back and alerted ’em. I said we’d hold a press conference in the morning.”
“We’re not going to look good,” I said as I sank into the plastic upholstery. “I guess there’s no reason why we should look good. A production company comes to Maggody, and before anyone yells ‘Action!’ one’s been brutally murdered and another’s disappeared. Now we’ve got another corpse and lost two more of them and a handful of locals to boot. If I were a reporter, I’d be salivating at the possibility of a Pulitzer … for absurdity.”
“Sheriff Dorfer!” said a deputy as he banged open the door. “I reckon you ought to see this!”
