by Linda Barnes
Bits and pieces required Spraggue's face: the close-ups when shots were exchanged, the fight at the top of the stairs. Everod and the director of photography argued over the best angle for the fall while Spraggue stared quietly down the long flight of hard stone steps. The stunt coordinator chuckled.
"You only take the first ten. Then three of my guys scoop you up and put you back on your feet. Unless you'd like to do the whole twenty-seven—"
"I'll pass."
The scene was shot like fragments of a dream, out of sequence, unreal. Makeup puffed his eye, split his lip during the fight. Harvey insisted on three takes of the fall. Then makeup added blood, dripping from a scalp cut. The bruises and aches were all authentic.
Spraggue picked up from his double at the bottom of the stairs, staggered to his feet, stumbled after the killer. The longest shot was the fade-out, Harry Bascomb staring down at the train-mangled body of the murderer—a man he didn't hate, didn't love—but a man nonetheless, horribly dead.
"Again!" Everod called. "Get some more dirt on Mike. More blood. Some nice stuff, Mike, but this time, pull out the stops. Don't just see Dave flat on the tracks." The actor playing Dave stuck his tongue out of his bloody mouth. "See gore. See the inside of a man, the fragility of a man, the yolk with the shell broken—and realize how close you were to death. Okay?"
Smell is the most evocative sense. Spraggue closed his eyes, concentrated on the scent of Morrison's Funeral Chapel, recreated that little back room, saw the headless man. Fluid rose in his throat.
"Roll," Everod cried.
Spraggue stared at the actor on the tracks, saw the body on the mortuary table, felt again the revulsion, the need to distance himself from awful bloody reality, the—
"Cut!" Everod screamed. "Great, Mike; Beautiful."
Spraggue barely heard him. But he made it back to the trailer before he threw up.
11
Alicia Brent's house was close to the sea, one of six tiny cottages huddled together on a rocky Gloucester outcropping. Summer homes mostly, but the stacks of firewood piled beside the porch proclaimed Alicia's intent to stick it out for the winter. A lonely bleak season out here, Spraggue thought. Gulls circling, the low moan of the wind alternating with the booming cry of the foghorns.
He shivered in the cool ocean breeze, knocked again. He'd been lucky so far. The drive from Boston had taken just an hour and a quarter. Open roads and no cops.
"What do you want?" The woman's voice was sharp, anxious, but Spraggue recognized it. He slipped a pleasant smile on his face, hoped all the fake blood had yielded to cold cream, soap, and water. Alicia Brent's door had a peephole Howard Ruberman would envy.
"My name is Michael Spraggue/' he shouted back. "Can we talk? It's important."
"To me?"
"Yes. And me. And a close friend of mine. I could explain better if you'd open the door."
"Got any identification?"
A woman after Howard's heart. Spraggue fished in his wallet, shoved his driver's license down the mail chute.
"Spraggue," he heard her mutter. "We've met, haven't we?"
"A long time ago."
That seemed to reassure her slightly, but the door stayed shut. "Look," she said, "if this is about Lenny, if it's a condolence call or—well, you might—as well save your breath."
"I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't necessary." Spraggue jammed all his actor's sincerity into the eight words, shuddered inwardly.
The door creaked open. "Come in then. The neighbors have got plenty to gossip about without us shouting on the stoop."
"Thank you." He stepped inside.
There was hardly room in the vestibule for both of them. The woman retreated hastily to her right, motioning Spraggue to follow. He tried to match Alicia, this older Alicia, to Grady's description. Short, she was. Plump, maybe to someone of Grady's slimness. Her dark short hair was streaked with gray.
Alicia led him to a small bow-windowed living room, waved him into a chair by the fireplace. The springs sagged as he dented the chintz throw-cover. Color had done as much as it could for the place.
A first impression of warmth and welcome was soon replaced by one of thrift; every article in the room was chipped, mended, shabby, cheap. An old model train circling a single loop of track lay derailed on the rough floorboards. The glow from the lone lamp was dim. Alicia Brent wore dark glasses.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?" The woman was plainly ill at ease. She fussed with the thin curtains as if she couldn't decide whether to draw them or not.
"Coffee would be nice," Spraggue said. Maybe she'd calm down given something to do.
She knelt, righted the engine. "The kids, they leave things everywhere. Here"—she moved to the sofa, lifted a large brown—wrapped parcel from a cushion—"I'll get this out of the way. If you'd prefer the sofa—that chair's not very—"
"May I help?"
"No. Please. I'll heat up the coffee. It'll just be a minute."
Spraggue got to his feet as soon as she left, stared out the window, read the book titles on the two warped shelves. He was studying the train when Alicia returned, tray in hands.
She'd not only made coffee, she'd combed her hair, tucked in her blouse, changed from terrycloth slippers to high-heeled shoes, applied makeup like a mask. She still wore the glasses.
"Cream? Sugar?" She set the tray on an open metal TV table, tried to force cordiality into her
voice.
"Black," said Spraggue.
Her hand shook only a little as she passed him the cup and saucer. They drank in silence. Spraggue let the tension build.
"So," she began finally. "If you'll tell me why you're here—"
"How did you hurt your eye?"
"A . . . a door. One of the kids—they're so careless. I was bringing in the groceries and she just let it slam."
"Have you had a doctor look at it?"
"No. No need. A simple black eye, really—"
"And you probably didn't know a doctor in California."
The cup almost jerked out of her hands. She set it down hurriedly. "I don't understand—"
"You were seen, Mrs. Brent."
"Don't call me that." Her tone was fretful rather than angry. "Alicia's good enough. I only kept his name for the kids' sake. Now that they're older, maybe I'll change it .... "
"Why did you lie about going to California?"'
"I didn't. The police never asked. Are you working for them?"
"For myself."
"Then I think you'd better leave." Her voice trembled, died near the end.
"I'm much easier to talk to than the police."
Spraggue kept his tone gentle, but the threat was there.
"What do you want to know?"
"When were you in Napa?"
Silence.
"It's so easy to find out," he said. "Airlines keep records."
"I left here September ninth, a Tuesday. I meant to stay a week, but I came home a day early."
Came home Monday, the fifteenth. And Sunday night Kate had a fight with Lenny.
"Why did you come back early?"
"I was ashamed," she said simply. She pulled off the glasses, clutched them in her lap. Her left eye, fading now, was still a mass of bluish-yellow bruise.
"I didn't want anyone to see this."
Spraggue waited.
"My parents sent me the plane ticket. They live in St. Helena. They want me to bring the kids and move back there. Maybe I will . . . now." She gulped her coffee, coughed. "I begged them to send money instead. Both my children need braces and . . . But my folks are old, they wanted to see me. A neighbor was glad to take the kids ....
"It was okay at first. The valley was just like I remembered. And then I picked up some local rag, with a big front-page story, all about Lenny Brent, the bright star of winemaking? Her mouth tightened into a hard little line. "They had a picture of him, dancing with this lovely young girl." The mouth turned wistful, shook, regained control. "And I
decided to talk to him, because it wasn't fair. Why should kids grow up with crooked teeth when their father's making good money?"
She didn't want or expect an answer.
"I shouldn't have seen Lenny, but I had to. I was waiting at his house when he finally drove up. Can't you see"—her hands fluttered helplessly—"I'm not the right generation for this? I wasn't brought up to it. You got married, you had kids, you lived happily ever after. I'm coping; I'm making a living now, finally; but I don't want to. I want their father to take care of our children."
"What happened?"
"With Lenny?" She laughed, but the noise wasn't warm or funny. "He hardly recognized me. He said hello and started past me to the house, and I yelled at him. I called him names I didn't even think I knew, words I must have picked up at the hospital. I wasn't even coherent. I went there to make a statement, to plead, if you like, but not for me—for the kids—and then I acted like some hysterical idiot. I couldn't stop screaming . . . until he hit me."
The room was so still Spraggue heard ticking, noticed a clock on the mantel for the first time.
"I walked away," she continued. "I got into the car. Somehow I wound up at the airport. I had my ticket, open-ended, and I left. I looked at myself in the rest-room mirror and bought a cheap pair of sunglasses. I wrote my folks to send my things."
Spraggue said nothing.
"Lenny was alive when I left. He was."
Still nothing.
"I had no reason to kill him. None. Lenny's been dead to me for years."
"Why did you ask Grady Fairfield for Lenny's things?"
She shook her head. "I don't follow you."
"When you visited his girl friend, were you looking for Lenny?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've been honest with you, probably too honest."
"Or were you looking for his will?"
"I think you'd better go now."
"You are Lenny's heir."
This time the response was a long time coming, a tentative "What?"
"Lenny named you as his only legatee."
She replaced the glasses. "Look, I can't absorb all this. I want you to leave."
"All right, but the police—"
"If Lenny left me anything, it's only because he was too damned lazy to change his will after we split up. But I'm grateful. For the kids."
He left her sitting on the faded sofa. "You'll be hearing from the lawyer—"
"Wait. If I call the police, admit that I was in the area, will you tell them about this?" Her hand went to her eye, gently touched the mottled skin.
"No, but I think you should."
She watched numbly as he opened the door, started to speak, stopped.
"Yes?"
"Um . . . that girl, the one in the picture, was that his girl friend?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"Well, she's lying. I've never met her."
Somehow Spraggue got the feeling that that wasn't what she wanted to say at all. But she slammed the door behind him, chained it. No footsteps. She stood by the peephole.
He turned and walked way.
Small, plump, and dark, he said to himself as he started the car. Mary Ellen Martinson.
12
Quiting, Spraggue thought, would get him a hell of a rep in the film industry .... Still, the temptation was growing.
Pushing the speed limit and skipping lunch had gotten him back downtown dead on schedule. Made-up and costumed, he'd waited. At three o'clock, Everod decided there was still sufficient sunshine to wrap up the love-on-the-Boston Common montage.
Spraggue grimaced, remembered with regret his promise not to quarrel until the dailies. He just played the scenes, thankful for their lack of dialogue, grateful that he couldn't hear the orchestral violins that would no doubt underscore his passion. Stock shots every one. Standard young couple clapping along with the one-man band. First brush of hesitant hands, first shared smile, first kiss.
Spraggue felt twenty again . . . and that brought memories of Kate—and jail.
"Cut!" Everod actually grinned at him, and Spraggue wondered how he'd make it through the film. Quitting might screw up his career, but surely it was worse to play this easy stereotyped "love." Leave out all the real stuff—the sizing—up, the talk, the doubts, the fears. Just gaze into her eyes and sigh and fall in love. The great Hollywood bullshit.
Everod wanted more takes. Spraggue pressed his lips shut and complied. Couldn't the director see how wrong the damned scenes were? Lucy, the client, victim of a brutal husband, and Harry Bascomb, hard-boiled private eye, weren't exactly prime candidates for puppy love. And that's what old Everod had them playing: young love in the green grass. First love, the kind that never comes again.
Kate.
She could have drowned Lenny Brent so easily could have stood close beside him, up on the catwalk over the fermentation tanks ....
The dailies were gruesome, Everod unreasonable.
Karen Cameron found the scenes on the Common "cute."
"You did read the script," Aunt Mary reminded him hours later, near the end of a perfect dinner. Her gray eyes twinkled.
"I read tons of scripts. Still Waters seemed comparatively inspired."
"Has it changed?" Innocently, Mary forked a last mouthful of strawberry tart.
"How was I to know Everod was planning to treat the damn thing like Holy Writ? I've seen directors cut Shakespeare to ribbons. Why this kid-glove treatment for some hack writer?"
"I would assume the writer's last film made a great deal of money."
"Bingo," Spraggue said gloomily.
Mary chuckled. "Then you are insulting a man who has his finger on the pulse of the movie-going public."
"I'd like to get my fingers on the pulse in his throat."
"There must be scenes you enjoy." She nodded to the immaculate butler. "Coffee, please, Pierce. Brandy in the library."
"My favorite is the climax: Park Street Station. The murderer races across the tracks and gets mashed by a speeding trolley."
"Nonsense," Mary said firmly.
"Fact."
"There's no such beast as a speeding trolley."
"It's one of the more realistic scenes."
They drank coffee in comfortable silence.
Spraggue leaned back in his chair, felt the day's tensions slowly melt. His eyes did a quick survey of the rosewood-paneled dining room, stayed fixed on the familiar Degas.
The Chestnut Hill place was his—dining room, library, and all the thirty-odd other rooms. It was part of the loot left by his robber-baron great-grandfather, chock-full of family ghosts and heirlooms. He couldn't live there; its hugeness mocked his solitude, inquired after a nonexistent wife and unborn children. Alone, he rattled around like a penny in a strongbox. So Mary lived there for him, Mary with her wondrous cook, her devoted butler, her quick game player's mind, and her ticker-tape machines.
"When's your flight?" she asked gently.
"Ten. The red-eye special."
Spraggue took her arm to lead her to the library, a courtesy only. At seventy, Mary Spraggue Hillman looked frailer than she was. The red still warred with the creeping silver in her hair. She settled in her usual chair, a green velvet wing-backed job near the bow window. Spraggue sprawled on the matching couch. Pierce heated brandy, served it in crystal snifters.
"To business," Mary said, shifting gears after a single sip. "I want to help. I like Kate. I'm good at asking questions, mostly because no one takes us dithery old ladies seriously."
"I take you seriously."
"You'd be a fool not to. I'm a damn good financial adviser. Do you think Brent's wife was really holding out on you?"
"Ex-wife. She seemed uncomfortable. She kept her own counsel."
"Works in a hospital? I feel an urge for volunteer work coming on."
"Be subtle. But let me know if she's planning any sudden vacations."
"I'm always subtle when I have the time."
"And speaking
of hospitals . . ." Spraggue's voice trailed off momentarily. "Still have your WATS line?"
"Where do you want me to call?"
"Napa. Phone hospitals, clinics, every health-care facility within a fifty-mile radius, and find out if Grady Fairfield was a patient within the past six months."
"Just whether or not she was a patient?"
"What I'm after is admittance records: Was she brought in as an emergency case or scheduled?"
"Just for my own curiosity . . ." Mary began.
"An abortion or a miscarriage."
"Ah . . . I suppose I could impersonate a Blue Cross bureaucrat."
"I'll nominate you for a Tony award."
"What else can I do?"
"Get me the gossip on corporate takeovers in the wine industry."
"Simple enough."
"Pay special attention to United Circle Industries. And a Mr. Baxter. Kate says he's been nosing around, making offers—"
"On Holloway Hills?"
"Right. She said he was persistent."
"No doubt why they employ him."
"Excuse me." Pierce could have been standing in the doorway for two seconds or two hours, so silently did he open and close doors. "A collect call for Mr. Spraggue. From someone named Howard. The gentleman sounds a bit—"
"Frantic? Unglued? He always is," Spraggue said. "Could be anything from a stuck fermentation to a sliver in his little finger."
"You could take it upstairs, Michael. Or I could move to the solarium."
"I'll get it here. Stay put." Spraggue crossed the room to his great-grandfathers desk, a hunk of mahogany that hadn't been moved since the six vanmen first set it in the center of the oriental rug. He picked up the receiver and slid into the leather swivel chair.
"Everything okay, Howard?"
"Is that you, Mr. Spraggue? Thank goodness. I didn't know . . . Operator? I have my party now. Operator?"
"Howard," Spraggue said firmly. "What can I do for you?"
"Uh . . . thank you for taking the call, for accepting the charges, I mean. I'm at home, you see. At the Inn .... "
"Any problem?"
"The police . . ." Howard's voice cracked. "The police have been at the winery . . . almost all day. Poking and prying. They won't say what they want, and I can't keep them out. They say they've got a search warrant . . . or they can get a search warrant .... "
