“They’ll fire me if you leave!” Veronica insisted.
“Veronica! That’s low,” Lulu said dangerously. “You know I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you. Just . . . oh, please just get out of my way.” She shouldered past, leaving Veronica watching helplessly. Lulu was frankly surprised her publicist let her go. She fully expected to be physically tackled and held down for yet another imploring lecture.
Lulu made her way through the main house, certain that Veronica was exaggerating and more convinced than ever that she needed to get away from the Ranch immediately. No footman or butler seemed to be on duty, so she let herself out, shifting Charlie against her chest to give him a more comfortable ride. She suspected he was more bruised than broken, but he seemed to be enjoying the free transportation. Hugging him gave her comfort that she desperately needed. She could always rely on her Charlie. Lulu headed to the garage. She found the drivers lolling at ease, smoking and playing dice.
“Excuse me,” she said politely. “I need a car to the station, please.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” one of them said. “All the cars are out of commission today.”
“I don’t believe it!” she said. “They can’t all be broken.”
“Lady, I just do what I’m told.”
A little prickling worry began around the edge of her consciousness. Was she actually trapped here? Was everyone being held prisoner, albeit in the fanciest prison on earth, without knowing it? She went back to the mansion and called a taxi, giving him directions to meet her half a mile down the road from the Ranch. Then she went up to her room to change into something sensible enough to make it through an off-road journey.
“Oh, thank heavens! You came to your senses,” Veronica said when she saw Lulu had returned. “Take a nap—take a pill, whatever—and relax. Lulu, believe me, I’m well aware that bad things happen in the world, but you don’t have to let them ruin your chance at happiness and success.”
Lulu nodded very carefully and lay down on top of her covers until Veronica was distracted on a phone call with the studio. Then she slipped out the side door with Charlie and made her way through the gardens, past the Neptune Pool, and into the picturesque woods beyond. Though the noon sun shone strongly, it didn’t fully penetrate the tree canopy. With every step, her speed and sense of urgency increased. Her heart was pounding, and she could feel a growing sense of panic beginning to overwhelm her. Any minute now she’d reach the winding road that snaked up the hillside. Then she’d just follow it down until she met her cab.
When the man rose up out of the greenery, she was sure she was having a hallucination. No vision that bizarre could ever emerge in real life. He was painted in black and green greasepaint, and he had vines tied around his forehead, twined around his arms and waist until he looked like part of the landscape itself. This wild man rose up and loomed over her. She froze in her tracks.
He pointed a gun at her chest. That part was all too real.
“Name?” he barked.
“L-Lulu Kelly.”
He checked it against a piece of paper he had in his pocket. Lulu wasn’t sure exactly how he managed this, because he didn’t seem to take his eyes off her for a second.
“All right, miss, turn around and head back to the Ranch.”
“No!” she said, surprising even herself. The man looked surprised too. “Perhaps you don’t realize that this isn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me. I have to leave. My taxi is meeting me down the road.”
“Nobody leaves,” he said flatly.
“What? You can’t do that!”
“I’m not doing it. Mr. Hearst is. No one enters or leaves the property until he says so.”
Lulu glowered at him. “You mean I’m a prisoner?”
The camouflaged guard flashed a row of uneven but shining white teeth. “Naw, not a prisoner. A guest!” He holstered his gun, apparently convinced she was no threat.
If they made any kind of practical shoes for women, I might try to outrun him, Lulu thought. But he’d easily outpace her in his loose clothes and boots, even with vines trailing around him. Then, too, she wasn’t sure how seriously he’d take his guard duty. Hearst could cover up almost anything. Would the guard actually shoot her if she looked like she might escape the property? Somehow she managed to compose herself and commented on the one bright side to this ridiculous situation. “At least Mr. Hearst is taking the murders seriously,” she said. “The perpetrator is certainly one of the guests, so I guess it’s a good thing that no one is allowed to leave.”
“Murders?” the man asked. “Perpetrator? The negro who killed that poor girl is still in the hospital, far as I know.”
“No, he didn’t . . . Oh, what’s the use? No one believes me anyway. But Dolores, the girl killed by the tiger, she was murdered, and the killer is still on the loose!”
“Look, Miss Kelly, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but this lockdown has nothing to do with any murder.”
“I don’t understand,” Lulu said, reeling. “Why can’t I leave, then?”
“It’s all very hush-hush,” the guard said in a low voice. But like so many men, he couldn’t quite resist prolonging a conversation with a pretty girl. Especially one whom he fantasized about from the movies. “It seems Mr. Hearst got a threatening letter, and he’s sure one of the guests or staff delivered it, and most likely wrote it. He’s not letting anyone leave the property until this situation is . . . well . . . dealt with.”
Lulu closed her eyes as she felt her world slip further out of kilter. Two women were dead, and Hearst was treating it all as a casual inconvenience. But someone blackmails him—for an amount he could pay without so much as a pang—and the world stops, secret guards come out of the landscape, and every guest is suddenly a prisoner.
“What is wrong with you people?” she asked of no one in particular, and walked away, leaving the guard to disappear back into the underbrush.
“Told you that you couldn’t leave,” Veronica said smugly when Lulu returned with leaves in her hair and mud on her shoes.
“You failed to mention we were incarcerated at gunpoint,” Lulu said, plopping down heavily in a gilded chair in front of a vanity overwrought with curlicues. She reached for her hairbrush and began viciously yanking through the tangled mess.
“Easy there, girl,” Veronica said, taking the brush from her hands. She began to coax the snarls out, and Lulu gradually calmed down a bit. It was hard not to relax when someone was brushing your hair, she thought absently. But she was still furious.
“Can’t you call someone?” she asked Veronica. “The studio? The police? It can’t be legal to keep us here against our will.”
“Well, there’s legal, and then there’s . . .”
“Hearst,” Lulu finished dryly. “I understand. It’s just wrong.”
“Maybe so. But all we can do is play along until the puppet masters get bored and we can pick up our own strings.”
“I guess I don’t have any choice now,” Lulu said, biting her lip.
“That’s the spirit!” Veronica slapped Lulu on the back. “Get back on that horse and win, win, win! Speaking of which, I heard a rumor that Hearst is asking all of you to go horseback riding this afternoon. Then there’s talk of a pool party tomorrow. Did you see that skimpy little number that I packed for you? When Hearst sees you, he’s gonna need a surgeon. It’s a heart attack in red and white polka dots.”
“No, I mean I don’t have any choice but to solve the murders. Everyone thinks one of ’em is already solved, and no one believes Dolores’s death is actually a murder. Veronica, I didn’t want to be involved.” She rubbed her eyes wearily. “That was bad of me, but I just wanted to go home where it’s nice and safe. But now I guess it’s all going to have to be up to me.”
“You know, my shrink would probably say you’ve got a very warped hero complex. You want to save the world all by yourself.”
“I promise you, I decidedly do not,” Lulu insisted
. “But Freddie has his own problems, and no one else will help. Will you?”
“Abso-tutely not! Listen, young lady, I need you focused and calm, with your head squarely in the game. I guarantee you the rest will sort itself out. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get to work. I’m going to put itching powder in all the other girls’ bathing costumes. Lord knows, every little advantage helps. Plus, how fun will that be to watch!”
Veronica sailed off, and as usual Lulu had no idea whether her sarcastic friend was serious or not.
“What should I do, Charlie?” she asked, lying down on her back on her rumpled bed. The little dog was on the floor now, and looked none the worse for his encounter with the tiger. He nosed diligently around the room he’d already searched half a hundred times since their arrival, just in case a rat had managed to sneak in or someone had dropped a piece of ham since his last visit.
“Exactly!” she cried, inspired by Charlie’s determined snufflings. After a few minutes of staring at the meticulously paneled and painstakingly frescoed ceiling, her mind sorting through her various alternatives and willing painful thoughts of Freddie away, she rolled over with new resolve and determination. “I have to keep looking. Now, where to start?” With a heavy heart she knew she’d have to go back to the tiger’s cage. She sighed. It was the last thing she wanted to do.
“It’s the leash for you this time, my boy,” she told Charlie, tossing aside the pillow and jumping to her feet. “You’re so cocky from beating a tiger, next thing I know you’ll be tangling with the lions or the elephant.” She clipped on his braided leather leash and strolled toward the menagerie under pretext of taking Charlie to do his business.
Sixteen
Though Lulu tried to avoid meeting anyone, Marion’s dachshund Gandhi sniffed out Charlie, pulling Patricia in his wake.
“What’s the haps, Lulu?” she asked, her slang at odds with her starched pink eyelet dress and Mary Janes. “Tell me, was that woman in the tiger cage murdered?”
Lulu was surprised by the young girl’s seeming clairvoyance. “What on earth would make you ask that?”
“Sardines,” Patricia said, tapping the side of her head. “Brain food. I eat ’em like candy. That, plus there are some books in the library here that would convince you to never leave your house again. Murders galore! It’s practically become a hobby of mine. Combine that with the constant exposure to scandal one hears living with a major motion picture star and a newspaperman, and voilà, you have a kid always willing to believe the worst of mankind. So, why do you think it was a murder, and who do you think did it? Spill!”
Lulu considered the pros and cons—and the appropriateness—of sharing her thoughts with the disarmingly precocious girl. She remembered not long ago being the same age and having to truly be the woman of her house in so many ways, helping her mother care for her disabled father, navigating the slums of New York. Truth and respect were more important to her than food some days, when her sense of dignity was so diminished.
She kept more than a few details from the ten-year-old. She didn’t breathe a word about Dolores spending the night with Sal. Still, she found herself confiding much more than she probably should. It was just so refreshing to talk with someone who believed her. Patricia listened earnestly, nodded, and said, “Do you think the same person killed both girls? It could be unrelated, you know.”
“True, but in my admittedly limited experience, coincidences like that only happen in novels and screenplays.”
“It does seem like there’s been a lot more misfortune here than usual. I’m sorry no one is taking you seriously,” Patricia said with the air of someone who truly understood.
“At least you do,” Lulu answered. “Not that I should be encouraging your hobby, as you call it. You shouldn’t be anywhere near a murder investigation.”
“Do you have any new suspects?” the girl asked.
Lulu bit her lip, but finally told Patricia about the lipstick on Emerson’s collar. She figured that a girl as cheeky as Patricia had to have some idea about marriage and infidelity, given her surroundings.
“Oh, everyone knows about John Emerson,” Patricia said in a blasé tone. “He’s notorious for, well, kissing people other than his wife.”
Lulu had the dismal suspicion that this ten-year-old was more worldly than she was.
“So I definitely want to talk to Emerson,” Lulu said.
“Is that really such a good idea, if you think he’s the killer?”
“Well, I just want to get a feel for him. I won’t ask him anything directly. I won’t let him know I suspect him.” It occurred to Lulu that she should have been reading murder mysteries all her life, instead of Shakespeare.
“I agree he looks suspicious in Juliette’s death,” Patricia said. “And from what you said about the conversation the maid heard, it could have been Emerson arguing with Juliette. But what connection does he have with Dolores? I saw her flirting with that French painter on the first night and then with that gangster later on. Sal Benedetto, isn’t it?”
Lulu was positively stupefied. Where did this child get her information? It was absolutely dumbfounding.
“Oh, I keep my eyes and ears open,” Patricia said. “Most of the time I sit in a corner with a book and people forget I’m there. They think I’m too young to understand half the things they talk about anyway, so they say the most outrageous things in front of me.” She shrugged. “I noticed that you appear to be a touch friendly with Mr. Benedetto yourself.”
“We have a history,” Lulu admitted. “Ancient history.”
“Sure,” Patricia said with a knowing nod. “But to get back to the murder. Crime is far more interesting than romance, I think. And it’s all passion, however you look at it. Where were you heading?”
“Back to the tiger cage. I thought perhaps I’d try one last sweep for evidence.”
“Don’t you think they would have collected it already?”
“Probably, but you never know. If they declare it an accident, not a crime, they might just clean up and notify next of kin.”
“Well, Gandhi and I will tag along. I’m sure they’ve scrubbed up by now. Why on earth didn’t you run and get me right after it happened? I would have loved to see.”
Lulu shuddered. Patricia really was a macabre little thing. The scene had been washed as clean as an hour or two could make it. All evidence of the corpse had been removed, and the tigers evacuated to another holding area. The plants had been propped up and sprayed, water glistening like fresh dew on the leaves, and the dirt was freshly raked. It was as if the gory horror had never happened. It might just as well have been a movie set, wheeled in for the occasion and wheeled away again when the scene was concluded.
The cage might have been vigorously scrubbed until every trace of blood was gone, but Lulu’s memory had by no means been washed so clean. The staring eyes, the metallic tang of blood on the air, the gamey smell of the tiger. Though she was grateful she didn’t have to see it one more time, it didn’t seem right, somehow, that the crime had been washed away so quickly and easily. It typified Hearst’s desire to wipe away problems as quickly as possible. The facade of perfection had to be maintained, no matter what filth was swept under the carpet.
I saw you, Lulu told the departed Dolores silently. I saw what happened to you and to Juliette. I will never forget, and I won’t rest until I find out who did it and bring them to justice.
Patricia took her hand, and the girls and the dogs walked slowly around the cage, looking, without much hope, for anything that might hold a clue. The cage and the area immediately behind and around it were sterile. “Not the way you’re supposed to treat a crime scene,” Lulu said heatedly.
It was only when they got a little farther away from the cage that they found something out of place. There, obscured from view by the shrubberies that divided it from the rest of the menagerie, was a tie crumpled up in the dirt.
“I recognize that tie!” both Lulu and Patricia said at the sa
me time. They looked at each other, wide eyed.
“Emerson was wearing it on our first night here,” Lulu said, struggling to recall an incident that had seemed trivial at the time. “Anita Loos made a comment about his tiepin—a golden lion head. I noticed it then.” It was very distinctive, a broad silk tie with an undulating pattern in various shades of purple. “No one else could have a tie as peculiar as that. Is that where you saw it too?”
“I hate to be a bucket of cold water, but that tie was given as a gift to all the male guests at the Ranch last Christmas. Marion probably bought about twenty or thirty of them, at least.”
First the scarf, now the tie? Lulu felt herself deflate. Every time she seemed to get close to a suspect, the clue got diluted. She had been so sure it was Emerson when she saw that tie. Coupled with the lipstick stain, his obvious interest in Juliette, and the overheard argument (which could easily have been his voice, though she had to admit it could be a lot of other men, too), it seemed like Emerson was pulling ahead in the race for prime suspect.
“So it could belong to anyone who stayed here at Christmas,” Lulu said with a sigh.
“Emerson, Docky, the painter, a dozen actors . . . Plus, just because it’s near the crime scene doesn’t mean it was part of the crime. It’s circumstantial at best.”
Lulu was growing used to being astonished by this astonishing young girl.
“Emerson—or whoever—could have come here days ago, weeks ago. One of the dogs could have dragged it out here from someone’s bedroom. There are a million possibilities.”
Lulu closed her eyes. She’d felt so close. If she could somehow link Emerson to both murders, it might not be absolute proof, but it might be damning enough that someone in authority would listen to her speculations.
They walked back to the front of the cage, while the dogs snuffled at the farthest limits of their tethers, straining for freedom. Charlie managed to pull Lulu so off-balance that she gave him enough slack to slip through the bars again. He yipped excitedly.
“Looks like he wants to relive the scene of his past glory,” Patricia said, after Lulu told her how boldly Charlie had stood up to the tiger.
Murder among the Stars Page 14
