“No, he didn’t, honest. I just guessed.” When the economy is in the toilet, people go into real estate and novel writing. Or selling cosmetics or vitamins nobody wants even in good times. Desperate people. Charlie took another look at Dorian Black’s wife. Maybe she was growing up. “Be careful,” she told Elaine. “It’s rough out there.”
But when Charlie emerged from the bathroom, Elaine hadn’t moved. “Charlie, do you think the police think Dorian killed Gloria? They’ve been hanging around, asking questions … you know. I mean, he can be a real asshole, but I know he didn’t kill her. He said you were kind of unofficially looking into things for the agency. I mean, the police make a lot of mistakes and—”
Charlie guided Elaine around a corner and into a telephone niche papered with signed eight-by-ten glossies of aged stars when they were young and dewy. Mitch Hilsten was probably the youngest, and he had to be pushing forty by now.
“Charlie?”
Charlie turned her back on the sexiest gaze in the universe. “Elaine, did Dorian ever have anything to do with Gloria outside the office?”
“No, why would he?” Dorian’s wife had good bones but no makeup sense. She accentuated her lack of color with dull lipstick and nearly beige eye shadow. Charlie watched a touch of color creep into pale cheeks now though, highlighting the cheekbones. Her eyes widened, and she became interesting. “Well, except for Halloween, but that—”
“Halloween.” And I should be surprised? “Last Halloween? Dorian and Gloria Tuschman on Halloween?”
“Well it was both of us. And the kids. Only time we’ve ever been up there. It was kind of fun. They called it ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ but it was neat. We all dressed in white—”
“What were you, the sacrifices?”
“No. They’re white witches. At least I guess that’s it. It’s kind of a religion with them I think. Everybody wore white and danced around this bonfire in this orange grove in the moonlight. The kids loved it because it was spooky. But it was fun, too. And the food was good. Lots of people.”
“Anybody else there from the agency?”
“Well, yeah. Everybody. Well, Richard wasn’t there. He and Ann were breaking up in Acapulco. And you weren’t there, were you? Irma Vance Was, and Maurice. Uh … Tracy. And Luella Ridgeway. Luella really got into it and wore a sort of white Grecian thing trimmed in gold.”
Now that Charlie thought about it, she and Libby did get an invitation to a Halloween party at the Tuschmans, way last October. One she respectfully declined, needing no extra contact with the office witch. Gloria was already on Charlie’s case about supposed psychic powers by then. “How about Larry?”
“Larry … who—oh the—I mean, your secretary—Larry,” Elaine caught herself in time. “I don’t remember seeing him. But most of the people weren’t anyone we’ve seen either before or since. You know. You could get into the spirit and act wacky because most of these people didn’t mean anything to you. But it all doesn’t mean Dorian would murder Gloria or anything.”
“I hear Irma got very angry or embarrassed or something,” Charlie fished.
“Dorian said he’d heard something about that too, but it happened after we left. She was fine while we were there, sort of aloof, you know how she is.”
“Did he say what he’d heard about it?”
“She and Gloria got into it over something. I don’t know what it was.”
Ed was in deep conversation with Ellen Maxwell and Maurice Lavender when Charlie located him at poolside. He looked a lot more elegant and at ease here than Charlie would at the yacht club Friday night.
He slid an arm around her waist. “I thought you’d abandoned me.”
“A little personal matter I had to clear up. I won’t let you out of my sight the rest of the evening.”
Maurice looked down his nose and out of the corner of his eye at the same time—which Charlie would have thought impossible if she’d seen it written. “Sweetie, you never told us you knew the Edward Esterhazie.” Even Maurice’s drawl was impressed. “What else haven’t you told us?”
“I didn’t know you knew him, why would I—”
“Well, it’s the cement, dear,” Ellen said, and everybody but Charlie snagged champagne off a passing tray. “Esterhazie Cement is blazoned on the side of just nearly every cement truck you see from San Diego to San Francisco. Wish I could get that kind of publicity, don’t you, Maurice?”
Maurice merely winked approval at Charlie and led Ellen off.
“Cement,” Charlie said to her date. “You made your money in cement. You never told me that.”
“Actually, it’s concrete. Every highway project you pass, to and from work or Vegas or Oregon has a damn good chance of its concrete trucks carrying the Esterhazie name on their cab doors. It’s not a very ordinary name. I can’t believe you didn’t know.”
“The things I seem not to notice would blow your mind to Zaire and back.” The name Ed Esterhazie conjured up a self-employed handyman auto mechanic in rural Wisconsin. “Ed, do you think you could find me some more mineral water? I promise I’ll stay right here.”
Lieutenant David Dalrymple of the Beverly Hills P.D. came up to Charlie the moment Ed turned his back.
“Lieutenant, did you know about Roger and Gloria Tuschman’s All Hallows’ Eve party last October?”
“Not until yesterday. Mrs. Black mentioned it in passing and suddenly everyone else from the agency who attended is remembering that fact. You, I understand, were not invited?” His eyes had been skimming the faces on the patio and those coming and going through the two sets of doors leading inside. Now they settled on Charlie. Irritation peeked through the blandness perpetually masking his thoughts.
“I was invited. I just didn’t want to go. And I totally forgot about it until Elaine Black mentioned it to me just now. I have never noticed the name Esterhazie on cement trucks before. And I learn tonight that my date for the party, Ed Esterhazie, made his fortune in cement, concrete actually.”
“So what is it you’re trying to say, Miss Greene?”
“That I better stick to agenting. That I’m no good at detecting because I don’t notice half of what goes on around me. I’m no help to you.”
“Then again, you may be noticing the half that other people aren’t because you see things differently. And yours may be just the half we need.”
20
How do you know Edward Esterhazie?” Richard Morse confronted Charlie, who was about to go looking for Ed and her mineral water. “You never told me. Charlie, I’m devastated.”
Charlie was beginning to notice other people having a little trouble with consonants, and with standing still without rocking, and with dilating pupils. “Why do I never notice what I’m supposed to?”
“You didn’t notice twenty percent of Legionnaires’ Disease was Esterhazie money? We’re talking cement here. Charlie, I’m disappointed in you.”
“I never heard of Legionnaires’ Disease. Well, I’ve heard of the disease, but—”
“You never heard of Leg—that was box office. Smash. Hit. I can’t believe what I am hearing. And what’s that Dalrymple doing here? Don’t I pay enough in taxes I shouldn’t have to put up with police gate crashers?”
“Take it easy, Richard.” Charlie’s boss could be a belligerent drunk. She tried to deflect his attention. “Who are the Oriental types?” She’d noticed three more.
“Japanese. They just bought Ursa Major.”
“God, did I not notice that, too?”
“Won’t be announced till tomorrow. You making any headway tonight? I’m counting on you, Charlie. Congdon and Morse has got to get the cops off its back and itself back to business.”
She wanted to ask how he could count on someone who devastated and disappointed him, but was growing weary of the smart-ass repartee. Probably just the time of the month.
The timing of the party had been a major blunder from the beginning, and she watched Richard Morse walk off with a disconsolate droop
to his shoulder blades. Things were not going according to plan. The entertainment press here was probably quizzing guests on their reactions to the murder at the agency and the strange disappearance of Mary Ann Leffler instead of the fantastic possibilities of Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel. This kind of blunder was not like Richard.
He’s desperate, Charlie. That should be telling you something. Just because you don’t want to hear it, doesn’t mean it isn’t so.
Where would she and Libby be without him?
Wind rippled the surface of the pool and sent goosebumps climbing Charlie’s exposed spine and puckered her nipples into hard little tingles. There were other agencies, and she was good at what she did. Besides, she could always go into real estate.
The four Japanese businessmen stood together in front of the lemon tree on the other side of the pool. It was lighted from under water, and the night was dark enough that she saw their hands holding drink glasses or gesturing out in front of their bodies more clearly than the faces attached above.
Edna Thurlow’s daughter, Tessie, and grandson, Sonny, stood apart, appeared to have little to say to each other, looked like they’d rather be home in bed. Charlie didn’t recognize most of the people in between. Until she saw Edward Cement-Mixer Esterhazie, a glass in both hands, leaning over tiny Cyndi Seagal’s no-longer tiny cleavage. They stood just inside the door, and Cyndi was doing her sexually vulnerable gig.
Sorry Dorothy, but Oz will never be the same.
Dr. Evan Podhurst was here. That did seem odd. He leaned sideways in a predictably awkward stance to hear Irma Vance, who gestured widely with the hand not holding her drink. Her blue full-length dress had long sleeves and a high neck. Sensible Irma did not shiver in the wind. The gesturing hands had big knuckles and crabbed fingers—witchlike.
You’ve got witches on the brain, Charlie.
Gloria might have decided she deserved part of Irma’s winnings, too. Sounded far-fetched, but so had damn near everything since Gloria’s murder what … a week ago Tuesday. Only nine days. And so much had happened—
“Hi, Charlie. That dress looks so great on you, I hate you.” Linda Meyer, Dr. Podhurst’s receptionist, stood at Charlie’s elbow.
“You’re here, too? What is this?”
“Mr. Morse needed extras for milling. Irma Vance even asked me to bring a ‘companion.’ But my boyfriend’s out of town, and she didn’t ask us until this morning. So Dr. Podhurst and I came together.” Linda was cute in long curly hair just a shade darker than Charlie’s and a sequined skirt a lot shorter than Charlie’s. Like every other third person in L.A., Linda was being a receptionist only until she was discovered.
“I suppose Richard told Irma to promise you producers and directors and casting agents and stars and the moon.”
“Hey, free food and drink—I’m not complaining.”
“But how did he get Dr. Podhurst to come?”
“The doctor likes to be able to say he was at a Hollywood affair the other night. Some of the glamour might wear off on him. He could sure use it. He can say he spoke with Cyndi Seagal and … who’s the old lady with Maurice? Does commercials for cornmeal and American Express.”
“Ellen Maxwell. Linda, did you go to a party at the Tuschmans last Halloween?”
“Yeah, it was a real bash. Everybody was wiggin’ out. You know, that’s where I met Mary Ann Leffler? I’d read her newsletter, and after I met her I read Shadowscapes. First novel I ever read. Bet I’ve read it three times since, and every time I find something new. I wrote to her when she went back to Montana and asked her about the things in it I didn’t understand? And she wrote back. Nice, nice lady. And some guy just asked me if I’d heard about her being missing.”
“Mary Ann Leffler was at Gloria’s All Hallows’ Eve party?”
“Yeah, she was sort of the witch of honor. Gloria took it real serious, too. Me, I just figure the witch stuff’s another excuse to party.” Linda Meyer did a wiggly little dance step and shook out her hair, shoulders, tits, and ass. “You know?”
“So it wasn’t the witch stuff that made you read her book three or four times in less than a year?”
“No, it was the people, the people in the story. I couldn’t forget them. I couldn’t keep from thinking about what was happening to them after the story ended. And how all of it came together—oh, I don’t know. But I saw it like a movie. I laughed and I cried. And it was just a book. And I kept seeing myself as different women in the story and wondering if I’d do what they did when I got that old.”
Charlie couldn’t help asking, “So did you start reading lots of novels after that?”
“No, just that one. It’s pretty exhausting. There’s always the boyfriend and TV, working out, dance lessons, acting lessons. I just know nobody else can write like her. I sure hope you find her alive and up to writing more books for me.”
Linda started to walk off, but Charlie caught her by the thin strap of a shoulder bag. “You hope I find her alive?”
“Well, I just heard Mr. Morse tell someone that he’d hired you to look into Mary Ann’s disappearance and Gloria’s murder. I didn’t know you were a detective and an agent, Charlie. How do you find time for everything?”
“Listen, did you know about Gloria’s funeral, or what passed for one? Were you even notified of the Memorial Séance and Dance?”
“No. But that’s no surprise. I didn’t make a very good witch. They were always saying stuff at their little ceremonies and cracking me up. And you know how jealous older women get. If Gloria had been alive, she’d have asked me to her funeral.”
Charlie let Linda go this time, grinning over those last words. David Dalrymple popped up in front of her again to ask anxiously, “Are you getting anything? Vibes or telepathic thoughts? Auras? Anything?”
Charlie wouldn’t know an aura if one goosed her, but she played along, “I’m working on it, Lieutenant. I need to know one thing. What was Gloria struck with? Well, okay, two things. How do you know she died up in the hall on the fifth floor?”
“One, a blunt object. Two, she would not have somehow led you to believe she was in the janitor’s closet there. She can’t escape that hall until you clear up her death. Simple?”
“She was wrong a lot when she was alive. She can’t be wrong when she’s dead? Lieutenant, Gloria doesn’t even know she’s been cremated.” If Congdon and Morse’s ex-receptionist really was a ghost, it hadn’t improved her intelligence. “And she spoke through Marvin Grunion at the séance in her condo. Why aren’t you after him to psych this out?”
“But she thought she was still at the agency on Wilshire. He was able to contact her through her material possessions then. Perhaps because you were present. He’s had no luck doing so since.” He was talking to Charlie while his eyes scanned the people present.
“Have you found Mary Ann yet and whoever bugged my office?”
But before he could answer, Tweety pushed her face into Charlie’s. “I’d like you to meet James.”
Tracy’d had too much to drink. James looked hired. In L.A., dates or companions were important enough to pay for.
“I’m delighted to finally meet you, James. Tracy speaks of you constantly. Has for years.”
“Charlie handles screenwriters for the agency,” Tracy told her date, her tone bestowing on Charlie’s position a great deal more prestige than it had yesterday afternoon at the office. “And this is Lieutenant—”
But David Dalrymple, still uncharacteristically nervous, slipped off between two Ursa Major execs who stood eyeing the gentlemen from Japan. Would the new ownership bode well or ill for the Alpine Tunnel project? Was Dalrymple so anxious because maybe the Beverly Hills P.D. was getting tired of his off-the-wall methods? Charlie sure was. Maybe if he kept refusing to answer her questions, she wouldn’t tell him if she did discover something.
“Well, will you?” Tracy and the handsome rent-a-date looked expectantly at Charlie.
“I understand you were at Gloria’s Halloween p
arty last year,” Charlie answered.
“So? I didn’t know what it was till I got there. Not that I shouldn’t have suspected, knowing Gloria.” Tracy wore a black shapeless dress and huge gold earrings. “Us secretaries beneath your notice, Charlie? And therefore our friends? You didn’t even answer James.”
“Did you ask me a question, James?”
“He asked if you’d look at a screenplay he’d written. He’s even got it out in his car.”
“Uh, have him call Larry, okay?” And Charlie slipped away, too, but not before she heard Tracy begin to explain to James in detail why he would want nothing to do with Larry Mann even on the phone.
Keegan Monroe stood alone on the other side of the pool, a short distance from the four men representing the new owners of Ursa Major. They in dark suits, faces hidden by the pool lighting. He in formal Western dress, standing in such a way that the light at the corner of the pool caught his face and eyeglasses rather than his hands and drink glass. Charlie decided to join him and discover if this was the best vantage point. She didn’t know about the Japanese, but Keegan Monroe was very likely to seek out such a place in this world to be quiet and to study it.
“Nice dress, nice body, I’ll take the Alpine Tunnel project if offered enough. I’ve got Shadowscapes wrapped and with me.”
“You’re such a good boy. So, where’s Mary Ann Leffler?”
“Under wa-a-ater-r-r in her ca-a-r-r.”
“Very funny. Why didn’t you just deliver the script to Carla at Goliath?”
“I thought she’d be here. Printed it out maybe half an hour before I left home. I thought everybody who was anybody would be here—according to Irma Vance. This party’s half extras, Charlie.”
Charlie watched Shelly Maypo step from the shadows at the side of the house with an empty tray balanced on his fingertips. He began filling it with empty glasses and plates left on ledges and tables and a stone planter that divided the patio. He moved slowly, not meeting people’s eyes, attracting little attention to himself. He stopped just behind Lieutenant Dalrymple, who had returned to poolside to have a confab with Detective Gordon. Charlie may not have convinced Richard to give her a raise, but she had convinced him to convince the caterer to put Shelly on the kitchen crew.
Death of the Office Witch Page 15
