Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (60 page)

Her final week at the studio was hectic, but not so hectic that she didn’t think about Sybil. Since she’d come home from the hospital there was little or no movement around the house, at least none that Piper could detect. The drapes were opened in the mornings and closed some time before dark each evening. The canaries continued to sing, but Sybil did not venture outdoors.

The housekeeper’s green bug remained conspicuously absent, which surprised Piper. Whatever they had argued about had been more serious than she originally thought. The confrontation reminded her of something Nana had told her about Sybil. She’d suffered abuse at the hands of her mother. Years of neglect, malnutrition, beatings, and possibly sexual exploitation—men eager to pay for a short time in the company of the young girl with spun angel hair. “Mother hated me,” Sybil had told Nana. “She hated me for everything bad that had ever happened to her. There was no good in her life, only bad. Someone had to pay. I guess that someone was me.” A sympathetic drama teacher, a spinster, had thrown Sybil the lifeline that would pluck her from a life of unbelievable oppression and clear the way for happiness and her future success. The teacher became a legal guardian to fifteen-year-old Dolores Robles, and with her limited studio connections was able to get her ward a screen test with RKO. Sybil wowed them. Her first roles had been a deranged babysitter in the dark thriller,
Crybaby,
and an evil sorceress in
Moon Madness
. Two films that had recently captured a robust cult following.

Piper finished the WB job and found herself at home again. She needed to find work until the Vogt’s left for Hong Kong at the end of the month. She dug out her old day/date books from her memento box. It had been five years since her last editing job. This was the part of the job she dreaded, calling every contract she knew or didn’t know to say “hi” and “I’m back. Need a good editor?” So many dead ends and brush-offs. The receptionists took her name and number only when she insisted. Gary Ott’s assistant saying, “Mr. Ott’s still on location, may I take a message?” Piper had seen him on the lot yesterday.

Between sending out resumes and cold calling, she thought about Sybil Squire.

Several days later at the bank, the same bank where she’d met Sybil Squire those many weeks ago, she again caught sight of her. The white hair, the light blue eyes—unmistakably Sybil Squire. She almost didn’t recognize her. She seemed different. Not her physical appearance so much, but something in her demeanor. Something was definitely off-kilter. Sybil perched stiffly on a padded bench alongside the wall, her back straight, her feet flat on the floor, neatly aligned. Her hands were in her lap, pulled tight against her stomach. Medical gauze covered one hand completely. A large bandage covered the back of the other hand. A woman in her late fifties or early sixties, slightly disheveled, sat beside her. The contrast between the two women was startling. Sybil’s knit suit and pumps were dated, yet classic. Her trademark platinum hair was neatly coiffed. Her face, now thinner, more mature with tiny creases, was expertly made up and as lovely as ever. The other woman wore baggy gray sweats, no make-up, her dark, gray-streaked hair hanging limp around her face.

A bank employee approached the two women and said, “Mrs. Squire, Mr. Oberson can see you now.” The other woman rose to her feet. Sybil seemed not to have heard the employee and remained sitting. Sybil’s companion took hold of her upper arm and lifted her. They walked to a desk several feet away, the desk of an associate bank manager.

Sybil seemed confused, and sat only after the dark haired woman pressed down on her shoulder. Who was this woman leading Sybil Squire around like a dog on a leash? Not a relative. If what she’d heard from Nana was true, Sybil had no living family after the brutal murder of her daughter four decades ago.

For once Piper didn’t mind waiting in line, even allowing others to go ahead of her. When she could stall no longer and her transaction with the teller was completed, she stepped to the center counter and pretended to scan pamphlets on money market accounts while she continued to spy on the two women. The other woman did all the talking, with Sybil merely nodding, her gaze fixed straight ahead. Papers were passed from one to another and signed. The three stood, both women shook hands with the banker, though Sybil merely placed her fingers in the palm of the man’s hand. Then they headed out the glass door, the stranger, with a hand cupping Sybil’s elbow, guiding her.

Piper hurried to catch up. “Mrs. Squire,” Piper said, stepping out onto the bright sunlit sidewalk. They stopped, turned. “It’s good to see you again. I’m so sorry to hear about the fire and … your injuries.”

Sybil Squire squinted against the sun. She looked at a point on Piper’s forehead. She smiled tentatively.

“It’s Piper. Piper Lundberg. I live in the guesthouse next door. We had coffee in your patio the day of the fire.”

The smiled faded. Any emotion resembling the slightest bit of enthusiasm or interest disappeared, replaced by a blank stare.

The woman with Sybil spoke up. “That’s nice that you’re concerned, but Mrs. Squire isn’t … well, isn’t strong enough to be socializing yet. She’ll give you a call when she’s ready. Won’t you, dear?” Without waiting for Sybil to respond, she took her arm again, turned and led her away.

Piper stood on the sidewalk staring at their retreating backs.

#

Something woke her. The luminous dial on the clock read 4:10. Without turning on the light, Piper put on her robe and went out onto the deck. The sweet scent of night blooming jasmine hung in the air. She breathed it in. A faint odor of chlorine co-mingled with the jasmine. The pool probably hadn’t been vacant for long. Was Sybil swimming again? She shook out a cigarette from the pack, the third cigarette of the night, hoping it would relax her enough to let her go back to sleep.

A cat screamed, then another. Mating or fighting, she couldn’t tell which. The screams settled into the high-pitched wails that sounded so much like the cries of a baby. Not fighting.
Mating
. That’s probably what woke her.

The muted whop-whop from the rotors of a police helicopter flying high up in the hills oddly melded with the animals sounds. The beam of the copter’s searchlight probed the thick foliage along Mulholland Drive. She looked away, lighting the cigarette.

The bulky square shape of the Squire house reared up cold and ugly in the moonlight, its windows dark except for several on the second floor. Piper’s gaze was drawn to them. In a window straight across from her, Sybil’s bedroom window, she saw something odd. Something she couldn’t get her mind around for a moment or two. A figure stood at the arched window. There was no doubt in her mind it was Sybil Squire who stood pressed tight against the window. The heavy drapes were open, sheer transparent panels covered her back, allowing the filtered light from within to outline her pale, naked body. Her arms were stretched straight out above shoulder height, fingers splayed wide against the panes, head bowed. Her white hair, usually worn close to her head, fanned out in wild abandonment. The sheer oddness of her action sent a chill through Piper and made her shudder. Sybil was in pain. Piper could feel it through the void separating their houses.

A hand grabbed Sybil’s arm and pulled her away from the window. The heavy drapes were flung together, shutting out the light from behind. The face of the companion appeared in the place Sybil had occupied. She looked straight at the guesthouse.

Piper cupped her cigarette to hide the glow, then stepped back, deeper into the shadows of the deck.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Star Tattler
—
May 1944 [Archive]

Sybil Squire, the star of Crybaby and A Pocket Full of Lies, is rumored to have collapsed on the set of her latest project due to exhaustion. Or maybe drugs and booze? Daddy Dearest denies she fired him minutes before paramedics rushed her to the hospital. “Lies,” he shouted to a group of concerned cast and crew members. “She’d be nothing without me. A two-bit actress playing whores and hussies.”

—Cricket Summers: Columnist to the Stars

Piper stood in the cool, shaded archway of Sybil Squire’s front entrance. In one hand, she clutched a potted African violet with purple blossoms. In the other, a plate of homemade date bars. Nana Ruth said that Sybil loved dates and would often drive to a little town outside of Palm Springs to buy them fresh. Dark residue on the stucco surrounding the front window was a reminder of the fire. Belle found the cleanup team’s failure to remove it annoying. She had threatened to send her handyman over to fix it on her dime, or maybe work out some kind of deal on one of those Q. Letec figurines.

Belle had begged off going with her, using her frantic schedule as an excuse, but Piper knew better. Belle had no interest in meeting her reclusive neighbor. Having lived side by side for ten years, nothing had changed to make her want to be pals, not even the figurines she coveted. The fire merely added to the ongoing saga and confirmed Belle’s suspicions that the lady lived under a dark cloud, and she wanted no part of it.

Piper pressed the doorbell and was immediately sorry. The chiming pealed throughout the house, going on and on. Too late, she remembered it from the day she and Belle had come over.

On the other side of the massive mahogany door, the grating sound of bolts scraped and clanked. The door jerked open, causing her to take a startled step backward. Instead of Sybil or the female companion from the bank, a short Asian man peered out. He was about her age, mid-thirties or younger. He wore round eyeglasses with lenses so thick they magnified his eyes to enormous proportions. His gaze moved from her face to the items in her hands and back to her face. The man’s resemblance to the actor Peter Lorre was uncanny. A young, bespeckled Peter Lorre in the role of Mr. Moto, master of disguise. She loved Mr. Moto, loved the wily, charming character with his biting wit. Yet, within those initial seconds, something told her that there was nothing charming or witty about this man.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I’m Piper Lundberg from next door.” She tipped her head in the direction of her guesthouse. “I’d like to see Ms. Squire.”

He closed the door in her face.

She waited, thinking he would return or that someone else would come to the door, but after five minutes, she realized she had been dismissed.

This time she used the large, brass knocker, giving it three solid raps.

Twice more she rapped with the brass knocker. Louder. Time passed. She exhaled and turned away. The door opened again. The dark-haired woman from the bank stood stiff and unyielding in the opening.

“Hi, I’m from next door. We met outside the bank a while ago. Remember?” Piper asked. When the woman didn’t respond, she continued. “Could you tell Mrs. Squire that Piper Lundberg would like to see her?”

“I thought I made it clear she wasn’t seeing people.”

“I think I’d like to hear her tell me that, if you don’t mind.”

“Look, Pepper—”

“Piper.”

“Whatever. She isn’t up to having company.”

“Is she ill?”

“She’s … well, let’s just say she has a problem maintaining mental balance. She gets upset if things don’t keep to a certain routine. You, Ms. Lundberg, are not a part of that routine. Now I’m sure you don’t want to upset her, do you?”

What the hell did she mean by that? Maintaining mental balance? Was she implying that Sybil Squire was mentally incompetent?

“No, of course I don’t want to upset—”

The door closed again. This time with a rude finality as the bolts slammed home.

#

From what I observed in her stay with us, Mrs. Lundberg, I’d say Mrs. Squire’s mental state seemed perfectly normal to me.” Dr. Lowdell poured coffee into a mug, moved down the counter of the hospital cafeteria, and selected a bear claw from the tray of pastries. “As you know, this is a medical hospital, not a mental facility. We treated her for physical injuries.”

Piper poured coffee, but passed on the pastries as she moved along with him to the cashier. He pointed to a table by the window. She had to rush to keep up with him. They pushed the littered contents of the last diner’s food to the side and took seats opposite each other. Outside, a stiff breeze played with the row of towering palms along the entire block. They swayed gently, rhythmically, as though choreographed to the canned music in the cafeteria. She’d obtained the name of Sybil’s doctor from Dr. Oates, the plastic surgeon who had pulled her from her burning house. Using Dr. Oates’ name had gotten her a brief interview with him.

“We treated her for burns to her hands,” he said. “During her week at the clinic, I found her to be quite lucid—charming, in fact. She was eager to be done with us here, and back in her own home. If she’s exhibiting any mental deficiencies, they didn’t surface while she was under my care. Tell me again, what is your connection to Mrs. Squire?”

“I’m her neighbor and a great admirer of hers. I’m concerned about her.”

“Concerned in what way?”