Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers

by Diane Capri

  A private memorial with the immediate family will be held at an undetermined date.

  Scribbled next to the clipping were the words: The rose garden

  That rainy night weeks ago, Sybil kneeling in the mud, hands covered with fresh dirt, she had been either burying journals or digging them up. Were there more journals buried in the rose garden?

  Piper reread the entries. Samuel Knoller had a daughter. Their relationship suffered when he married Sybil. That was the first Piper had heard of Sybil’s stepdaughter.

  Piper knew nothing about the daughter, but she was sure she knew someone who did. She rose to her feet and rushed into Belle’s office. She thumbed through the rolodex on Belle’s desk until she found the number for Jane Hill, the Vogt’s dinner guest who had been a friend of Sybil’s long ago. She left a message on Jane’s voicemail, telling her it was urgent that she speak with her as soon as possible. Then she left the same message for Jason.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Only minutes after Piper left a message for Jane Hill, Jason called. She told him about the journal and read the notation about the stepdaughter. “I’m sure there are other journals, but this was the one she wanted me to see first, the one about the stepdaughter. Samuel Knoller and his daughter had a falling out when he married Sybil. He had a son with Sybil, then he adopted Sybil’s daughter. It’s possible this stepdaughter might hold a grudge,” she said. “Stepdaughter, nurse, what do you think?”

  He whistled softly.

  “I think the other journals are buried in the rose garden. They could be the key to all of this.”

  “Look, don’t do anything till I get there.”

  Piper hurried back upstairs, grabbed up the binoculars, and resumed spying. The outdoor lamp flicked on, illuminating the Vogt’s driveway. She didn’t have long to wait. Mr. Moto came out of the house lugging a large carton. He went to the carport, opened the trunk of the Lincoln, dropped the carton inside, and closed the trunk lid. Reminiscent of a scene from Hitchcock’s Rear Window. The body in the steamer truck.

  Moto backed the big car out of the carport and stopped. The nurse, wearing a chiffon scarf over her head, joined him inside the car. So much for Judith being on the east coast. By the time the Lincoln disappeared around the other side of the mansion, her palms were moist, her heart beat like a jackhammer in her chest, and her mind raced.

  Mr. Moto and Judith were away from the house. But Sybil wasn’t alone. Certain now that Judith’s son stood guard over Sybil, she focused the binoculars at the back of the house, at the window where Sybil had written the message. She was surprised to see the blinds were open. Not just open, but pulled up. Light from behind, in the hallway, seeped into the room. The red letters were still there, but something else was there too. A man stood at the double window, on the far side of the message, a pair of binoculars to his face, the lens pointed at her. Luke. He lowered the glasses, grinned, then cupped a hand over his crotch. She dropped the binoculars and stumbled backwards.

  Had he seen the message? It really didn’t matter because she had gotten to the journal first. If there were more of them, they had to be buried in the garden. Sybil’s message in the back of her journal “The rose garden” couldn’t be clearer. Piper had to get the rest of them. He wouldn’t expect her to go over there. The reasoning side of her brain told her to wait for Jason. The impulsive side said she had a better chance of succeeding now, with the other two gone.

  Changing into a pair of Belle’s black jeans and a dark hooded windbreaker of Mick’s, she silenced her cell phone and dropped it into a side pocket along with a penlight she found in the desk drawer. She had forgotten the can of pepper spray in the guesthouse. Dousing all the lights in the house, she exited through the front door. The warm, dry, Santa Ana wind blew her hair into her face. She stopped to secure it inside the hood. With that break in her momentum, she almost chickened out until she thought about Sybil struggling to write those words on the windowpane. She continued. From the Vogt’s tool shed in the rear yard, she grabbed a garden spade and hefted it. It could double as a weapon if necessary.

  With a quick deep breath, she made a dash for the farthest corner of the ivy wall and slipped through the gap at the junction of the two walls. Staying close to the wall, she worked her way around the pool house. The rose garden was on the far side of the property, far from the ivy-covered wall where she had retrieved the journal. When had Sybil approached that wall and slipped her journal beneath the ivy leaves? Leaves crunched under her sport shoes. Olive and pepper trees flanked the garden to the rear and along the wall. She ran crouched down, making herself as small as possible. Even in the darkness, with the cover of trees and bushes, she felt exposed, vulnerable.

  Before she had made it halfway around the shallow end of the pool, car lights washed over the ivy wall. She spun around, ran to the pool house, and ducked behind a pillar. She held her breath, waiting for the car to enter the carport, where she’d be out of their line of vision. The car slowed. Don’t stop there. It stopped. Dropping to the ground, she crawled to the door of the pool house and slipped inside just as the Lincoln’s engine died.

  The room was pitch-black and smelled of mold and chlorine. Outside, two car doors slammed. A single pair of footsteps crossed the bricks to the house. She heard the sunroom door open and close. Only one set of footsteps. Where was the other one? With a trembling hand, she reached into the pocket of her jacket and found the penlight. She ran the beam over the walls. Across the room, farthest from the house, was a window. She prayed it wasn’t painted shut.

  The sunroom door opened and closed again. Voices. A man and a woman. Footsteps crossed the bricks again and came within several feet of where she stood on the other side of the door. The knob turned. She quickly shifted to the side of the door just as it opened. Through the crack between the hinges, someone stood on the threshold. The overhead light blinked on, nearly blinding her. She pressed herself against the wall and held her breath.

  The female voice called out from across the yard. “Jack, over here! Come look at this!”

  Mr. Moto stepped inside, his back toward Piper. He held a rolled up Persian carpet in both arms.

  She continued to hold her breath, feeling a crushing tightness in her chest. She slid her hand into her pocket. Her cell phone was gone.

  “Jack!”

  “Wait a sec, I want to—”

  She could see the vein in his neck pulsating. He dropped the carpet on the floor.

  “Now!”

  Moto stepped back and the room went dark. The door closed and the footsteps retreated rapidly.

  Piper sank against the door. Her fingers grasping the garden spade and penlight ached from the pressure. She worked her way through the cluttered pool house, lifted the sash on the window and climbed out, dropping the garden spade inside. Just as she lowered the window, the door flew open, banging against the wall where only moments ago she had stood. The light came on, throwing shadows across the ivy wall. She heard an angry voice call out, “Check the whole damn place.”

  She ran the length of the wall, through the gap, and past the Vogt’s tool shed. On the Vogt’s front porch, her breath ragged and hoarse, she fumbled with the key in the lock.

  A hand gripped her shoulder. “A little night reconnaissance?”

  Piper spun around and collapsed against the door.

  Jason took the key from her.

  She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hug him, so thankful was she that he wasn’t Luke.

  He opened the door. “Inside.”

  In the dark entry hall, her hand shook as she entered the security code. “I know, it was dumb of me, but I had to look for it. Judith and Moto left the house. It was the perfect—”

  “No,” he snapped. “There’s no perfect time for you to go off half-cocked. Dammit, Piper, next time you wait for me.”

  Her only concern was for Sybil. But he was right—it was risky and stupid, and she almost got caught. Although she sure as hell w
asn’t going to tell him that.

  The phone rang. She and Jason looked at each other. She patted her empty pocket. Stepping into the living room, she picked up the house phone receiver and said a tentative hello.

  “Piper?”

  “Jane? Jane, I’m so glad you called back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The evening traffic on Sunset Boulevard heading west was light. Rush hour traffic had passed, and 9 p.m. was still too early for the party crowd to be out. They drove by the Beverly Hills Hotel and made a right up Benedict Canyon past Chevy Chase Drive up the hill. Jane wore a Chinese-style, red satin lounge outfit. Considered seductive attire if not for the various stains speckled across the bodice. She frowned when she saw Piper was not alone.

  Without asking, Jane poured them what she was drinking—brandy. After showing them into the den, where candles flickered and glowed around the room, she sank down on the sofa, scattering a number of small dogs and cats. The pets clamored over her, licking and nuzzling before settling down at her side and on her lap to sleep. Jason and Piper shared the loveseat, the only seat not occupied by an animal.

  “What brings you here tonight? You were very vague on the phone.”

  “It’s about Sybil,” Piper said.

  “Go on.”

  Piper and Jason told her what had been happening to Sybil, and now Piper. Jane listened with an occasional nod or sip of her drink.

  When they finished, Jane said, “Heartbreaking. Will it never end for Sybil?”

  “It doesn’t seem so, does it?” Piper answered.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Piper handed her the journal, the pages in question marked with slips of paper. She read the one about the mysterious death of Sybil’s third husband, Paul Winger.

  “You want to know about Paul’s suicide? About what happened that night?”

  Piper almost said no, that she wanted to know about Sybil’s stepdaughter, but Jane knew secrets and Piper wanted to hear all of them. She nodded.

  “It was our secret—mine, Sybil’s, my father’s, and of course Norma. Norma witnessed the entire debacle. Daddy and I merely cleaned up the scene and swept the ugliness under the proverbial rug. Daddy was head of Transworld Artists at the time and, naturally, he had a lot of power. When I say power, I don’t mean within the industry only, but with the press, the local law officials, and politicians. My promise to Sybil was to take what I know about that night to my grave. But—and I hope I’m doing the right thing—if it will help you to help Sybil, to help put these bastards behind bars, I guess I’m going to have to break that promise.”

  A white cat with a plaid collar leaped into Jane’s lap, catching its claws on her pants, snagging the satin. Jane scratched behind its ear. “Sybil was on location in Havasu, filming Delta Queen. The movie wrapped up earlier than expected and she arrived home sooner than planned. She surprised Paul, who was in bed with his lover. The young man, a mere boy, actually, was naked and very very drunk.”

  “There was quite a scene. Paul begged her to understand. Yet how could she understand that the man she’d married, the man who pretended to be a caring father to her daughter, was a freak of nature? That’s what she called him, ‘a freak of nature’—in those days it wasn’t politically correct to admit to being gay. She screamed at him, calling him every despicable name that came into her head. She threatened to tell the world that the great director, Paul Winger, was a flaming pervert. A queer and a pedophile. Her screaming frightened away his boy lover and roused Norma, who rushed into their room clutching a large kitchen knife in her little hands, terrified that someone was trying to kill her mother. Norma was ten at the time.”

  Jane looked from Piper to Jason. “Paul continued to plead and beg Sybil to forgive him. She refused. He went berserk, completely out of the mind. He snatched the knife from Norma and dragged her into the bathroom.

  “That’s where we came in, Daddy and I. Sybil was frantic. She called me. I called Daddy. Daddy could fix anything. He’d shielded her in the past. The studio would protect her again. Daddy and his assistant broke down the bathroom door and found Norma huddled in a ball in the corner, blood-spattered and in a state of shock. I’ll never forget that awful sight. Paul, God rest his soul, lay nude, sprawled in a crimson bathtub. He was bleeding profusely from the crotch and a wide slit in his throat. He died in route to the hospital without uttering a word. It was horrible.”

  Piper shook her head. One gossip rag had hinted at a mysterious woman in the house, not a boy. “In the news reports there was no mention of a male lover.”

  “I told you my father was a powerful man,” Jane said. “There was no reason for anyone to know what went on that night. No reason to make it public. Later Sybil admitted to me that their marriage of six months had not been consummated. His attempts on their wedding night, and the many nights following, had been clumsy, embarrassing failures. And now, of course, she knew why.”

  “So that’s why Norma was sent to Europe?” Piper asked.

  Jane nodded. “She was quite traumatized by the incident. She needed psychiatric help. The studio thought it best for her to get that kind of help … well, out of the country, away from the media.”

  “What did Sybil think of that?”

  “She was heartsick about having to send Norma away. But in time, she realized that those of us who play an important role in this fantasy world called Hollywood must make certain sacrifices. Sybil’s a strong woman, a survivor. She put it behind her, met and married Samuel soon after. That was probably the best period of her life. The birth of little Sammy was the happiest day of her life. She adored that boy. He was a sweet, beautiful baby.”

  Piper leaned forward. “Samuel had a daughter.”

  “Yes. Sam had left his wife and teenage daughter to be with Sybil. It was a bitter, harsh estrangement. Marlene—that was Sam’s daughter—was especially heartbroken. She wanted nothing to do with Sam’s new family. She went so far as to break into the house and threaten to kill all of them, to shoot them with a gun from her father’s hunting collection. Sam was a big-game hunter in the days when killing a defenseless animal was considered macho.”

  “What did she look like?” Jason asked.

  “Spitting image of her father. Fair complexion with dark hair and eyes.”

  Piper and Jason exchanged looks.

  “Jane, do you have any idea where she might be now?” Piper said.

  “I’m afraid not,” Jane shook her head. “The last news I had about her was after Sam crashed his plane into that mountainside. Marlene had protested her father’s will. Except for the small trust fund in Marlene’s name and the Château in the Alps, the remainder of his estate went to Sybil. I guess you could say that her bitterness was justified. She blamed Sybil for her father’s desertion, the loss of his love, and her vanished inheritance.”

  When Jane showed them out that evening, she pulled Piper aside and whispered, “Your Jason is a lucky man.”

  “He’s not my Jason. We’re not a couple.”

  Jane smiled. “Really? Have you noticed the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not looking?”

  Piper felt her cheeks grow warm. She had caught herself stealing glances at him the past several days. He was an attractive man, after all, and he had rescued her. In the past three days, his arms had been around her three times. Each time protecting her. No one had ever protected her.

  From time to time during the drive, she felt his eyes on her and thought of Jane’s words. Piper had wanted Jason to believe her about the caregivers, and now he did. She had wanted him to help her, and he was. She wanted him to … Damn, she wanted him.

  The traffic on Sunset Boulevard had picked up on the drive back. Just ahead, the cruisers packed the boulevard. That section began the over-the-top, always illuminated, giant billboards and digital screens on the sides of buildings—LA’s version of Times Square. Fortunately, the road returning to the Vogt’s was at the start of the chaos and not right in
the middle of it.

  “Knoller’s daughter certainly had good reason to hate her stepmother,” Piper said.

  “I’ll check her out,” Jason said. “And that guard, the one from the asylum. We owe him a visit.”

  They made the left, heading up the hill.

  Jason walked her to the front door of the Vogt house. When she opened the door and stepped inside, she said. “They have my cell phone. I dropped it in the Squire back yard tonight. They know I was there.”

  He followed her inside. “Lock up and set the alarm, I’m staying.”

  #

  While Jason checked through the house, Piper closed all the blinds and then looked in on Dr. J., who wanted to play. Feeling guilty for leaving him alone all day, she indulged him by letting him out of his cage and scratching the back of his neck.

  “All clear,” Jason said returning to the kitchen.

  Dr. J. greeted Jason with a series of animal sounds. Not the least bit frazzled by Jason’s presence, Piper recalled how he had screeched whenever Luke entered the room.

  “He must like you. He doesn’t talk around new people.” Piper fed Dr. J a piece of his favorite fruit, pineapple.

  “He knows a bird lover when he sees one. Had a Green parrot in my college days. Now I have a BDD—big dumb dog.”

  That was the first personal information he’d offered. Was he married, engaged, divorced, gay? Not gay. That much she knew from the growing magnetism between them. Magnetism that grew by the hour. She could feel herself drawn to him by an invisible thread. She realized he knew so much more about her than she knew about him. In fact, she knew nothing about him. Maybe it was the brandy at Jane’s, or his willingness to help her, or his obvious attraction to her, but suddenly she wanted to know all about Jason Bower, the man.