Death of the Office Witch (27 page)

Charlie couldn't stop sniveling long enough to explain she shouldn't have coffee. So she had some—more.

“You realize you've ruined your face for the day?” Luella handed Charlie a cup and blotted her cheeks with a tissue. “You see why Maurice couldn't advertise his devotion to an all but catatonic wife? He earns their living with charm, which he's always had in abundance. I would guess Ellen Maxwell doesn't know about Medora, Charlie. To so many of his clients, he's a safe, handsome escort
and
their
agent
. You know what talent's like—who do you know better at stroking without intimidating than Maurice Lavender?”

“This is so embarrassing.” Charlie had always admired Luella, even if Luella had to share her assistant with Dorian the Jerk. “Oh my God!”

“What? Charlie, I missed getting to the office yesterday, and things are backed up and I have an early lunch meeting.”

The orthodontist bill is due today. It's Friday. It was due yesterday. And tonight I have to go to the friggin' yacht club. “And here I sit in your beautiful home making you late to the office, and I already made an ass of myself bothering Maurice and Medora. And I have to ask you some questions.”

“You're investigating.” Luella sighed and leaned back against the white and gold brocade. “I saw about your Mary Ann Leffler on the news last night and worried you would. Charlie, you have absolutely no expertise in investigating crime.”

“I know that, but they won't leave me alone. Lieutenant Dalrymple dragged me out there yesterday to view Mary Ann in the orange grove hoping I'd get a psychic revelation.”

“You're not psychic.”

“I know that, too. But Gloria claimed I was, and now I'm in the soup. And my life and stomach will never settle down until I do something about this problem. So I decided to try to solve Gloria's murder logically to get the Beverly Hills P.D. off my case.”

“I don't believe this world.” Luella's suit was a perfect-fitting olive and white plaid, over a snowy white blouse and collar—stunning against her tan. She spent time on that deck in the sun. Who wouldn't? Bright red shoes and jewelry. “And if it looks out of control from Hollywood, what must it look like from Peoria?”

“Maurice makes more than you do, doesn't he?” Charlie looked around, knowing she was being obvious, just wanting to get this over with.

“My first husband had money, and I did well in the divorce settlement. My second husband died and left me this house and some investments. But it doesn't make my job any less important to me, Charlie. My self-esteem is based not on what I have but on what I can do. I'm a damn good agent, and that's how I want to be remembered. All this is wonderful, and I don't deny it, but my work is what I get up for in the morning.”

Charlie could certainly identify with that.

“Can't you just see me sitting here, playing bridge with the other widows? Being a pink lady at a local hospital? I want to feel important for my own working skills, not the time some organized charity would like to steal from me. I do volunteer, but it's after work, and they don't ask me to stuff envelopes, either.”

“Why did you go see the Tuschmans the night before the murder?”

When she was in Minnesota helping her siblings put their father in a nursing home, Luella came across one of Roger's newsletters. “‘The Hollywood Insider,' it was called. Claimed to have the latest news that could be found nowhere else and all the knowledge needed to break into show business.”

In it was a piece of information that he could only have come by through the agency. “I didn't tell Gloria or even Tracy about Joe Marsdon's coming divorce from Lorna on ‘All My Lovers,' Charlie. That kind of privileged information would earn money from the soap tabloids, but apparently Gloria got a hold of it and just passed it on to Roger. Lance Gregory is my client, and he shouldn't even have known about it. He told me because he was upset it could mean the end of his job.”

Lance Gregory played Joe Marsdon on the afternoon soap “All My Lovers,” and the only reason he knew about it was that he slept with a guy who also slept with the head writer.

“And Lance called you about it?”

“That must have been where Gloria picked it up. It wasn't in writing anywhere. I thought I'd lose my client and maybe my reputation because of the Tuschmans' little prank. They'd already used the agency name in one or more of these newsletters and got Tracy in trouble.”

“And you and she went to Richard with it and tried to get Gloria fired. Why did you tell him Gloria was casting evil spells to get information for Roger's newsletters?”

“My, you have been a busy little thing, haven't you? You may not have noticed, but Richard is really very superstitious. We thought we'd get his attention that way.”

Phy Duong, the cleaning lady arrived—young, Oriental, efficient, politely unimpressed.

“Oh Charlie, I wish I could stay and chat but I do have to get down to the agency.” Luella slipped her earrings back on and punched her garage door opener. “Have I answered all your questions to suit you?”

“All but one.” Charlie followed her into the garage, where a door lifted soundlessly and where there were two cars—Luella's Honda Accord and a sleek black Jaguar. One for work and one for the weekend. “The Tuschmans had something on you, didn't they? You confronted them that Sunday night with the inside information on your client that they'd stolen. But they confronted you back with something worse. They knew you'd spent time in prison.”

Luella Ridgeway stopped and turned to look through Charlie, petite and perfect, one slender hand with professionally manicured nails—red to match her costume jewelry—resting on the car, outwardly everything Charlie would have liked to have been, maybe could have been if she hadn't screwed up at sixteen. “Why are you doing this to me, Charlie?”

I don't want to. Oh God, do I not want to. “The police know about it. Better you hear it from me.”

Luella put the Honda between them and eyed Charlie over its top, the angry tapping of a shoe toe sounding hollow in this cavern that could have handled two more cars. “When I was a senior at the University of Minnesota, I was the public relations officer as well as treasurer of the student body government. I embezzled fifteen thousand dollars from the treasury. I figured the world owed me. At the time it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. I had access, I had the opportunity to cook the books, and I was fed up with never having enough money. It was stupid. I have always admitted it. I admitted it then. It's a stupid age when you're likely to do stupid things, what can I say?”

“But you got caught.”

“Charlie, it wasn't as if I'd raped someone. Or committed murder. But I spent fifteen months in prison and served five years probation, paid back every penny plus fines that amounted to a good deal more. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find work if you have both a college degree and a prison record? I went back to finish my degree in journalism and worked to pay restitution. I cleaned houses like the superior little ass inside. I pumped gas. Think I could get a decent job? So I married. I had no choice. But first I changed my name, paid for a new identity. Husband number one had money, and we had a good time. He moved me out here. He dabbled in the industry at first but got lucky, got interested, got busy. Turned me loose and I found what I wanted to do.”

“Be an agent.”

“Be an agent. He lost interest and came back, and now I was busy. We split. Simple. And I remarried well and continued working at what I loved, almost had myself convinced the big bad world had forgotten all about my mistake, had forgiven me that—and then Gloria and Roger came up with it. Charlie, killing Gloria wouldn't have helped hide my dirty secret. Roger would still know about it.”

“But how did they find out?”

“I went to an ‘All Hallows' Eve' party at their house last year and met your Mary Ann Leffler. She kept insisting she knew me but couldn't place me. Her sister had been in the student government at the university at about the time I was. That family had followed my trial and attendant troubles with understandable interest, and of course my picture appeared in the local newspaper along with the story. Mary Ann finally remembered where she'd seen me and wrote to tell Gloria from Montana.”

Charlie would have liked to know more about that Halloween party from Luella's perspective, but hadn't the heart (or stomach) to go on. She walked around the Honda to give the woman a heartfelt hug. Luella stayed statue stiff. Charlie left before she could feel any worse. How did real investigators live with themselves?

Back at the agency, Charlie called Tina Horton to congratulate her and warned her not to do any work on the pilot until they saw the white of at least the deal memo. Other than eating the flan, it was the first pleasant thing she'd done all day, and she tried to sound up through it all. Then she called Shelly and asked him to meet her in an hour out back in the alley. “You know where.”

Then she whispered in Larry's ear that she was taking him to lunch so they could talk about what was bothering him in the privacy of a public restaurant.

Next, she visited Dr. Podhurst's office. Linda Meyer was reading a fashion magazine to the accompaniment of her boss's choppy drone and irritating throat-clearing coming from the open door of his office. Charlie gestured her surprise, and Linda got up to close his door.

“Don't worry, there's no patient in there. He's just dictating into his machine. You should have heard him before he got a hearing aid. I had to go shush him if a patient came in. Did you need to see him? He's got an appointment in ten minutes.”

“No, don't bother him. I just wanted to ask you more about that party last Halloween. Did they actually sacrifice a black and white cat and dance naked in front of Dorian Black's children around that bonfire in the orange grove?”

Linda's giggle was so cute it reminded Charlie she used to giggle—way last week. “Oh, I know what you're up to Charlie, you're investigating. It's so exciting. I love to gossip. The cat was already dead. It was Gloria's what-do-you-call-it—?”

“Familiar?”

“Hey, right. Just hours before the party, it got hit by a car. Don't you remember Gloria carrying on about it for a month? No? Well, I've always thought you were beautiful but not very perceptive, you know? Hey, don't take offense, I mean, what do I know? Gloria said you were psychic, but Gloria said the weirdest stuff.”

“So it was some kind of funeral rite for the cat.”

“Bingo. And yes, everybody danced skin out, and it was so much fun. Have you ever tried it? The kids loved it. It wasn't just Dapper Dork's kids, either, but we'd all had some interesting social—let's say, party snacks? Kids were no problem. These weren't toddlers. I mean, it wasn't taking advantage of innocents or anything.”

“Was there sex?”

“Well, not for the kids, and not for me. It was after the people with kids left, too, but if my boyfriend had been there, we'd have shown them how. I mean, I was greased. There was a couple there—the guy was sort of wimpy, but he dressed like a cowboy, and he wasn't taking his clothes off for anything. His girl was a real skinny Oriental thing. No breasts. I mean flat-out flat.”

“This wimpy cowboy—did he ever take his clothes off?”

“No, his girl took them off him. She was damn near lactating. He finally got in the mood. He's not as wimpy as he looks. Gloria told me she sent them home in a cab, delivered their car later. Gloria was a flake. But she was responsible.” The twinkle in Linda's eyes faded. “I heard about Mary Ann. I sure am sorry. Are you investigating her death, too?”

Charlie's next stop was the VIP hall. She didn't hear any voices claiming to be Gloria's. She didn't study the view outside the window. She studied the hall, the stairs, made three trips down to the outside door, peeked out, came back up.

When Charlie met Sheldon Maypo out by the bushes where Gloria's body had been found, she asked him if he still wanted to aid her investigations. “I know I shouldn't ask you to spend time on this, you with no job and I haven't sold your stuff. Yet.”

He yawned and leaned back against the woody part of the bushes where getting Gloria down had done so much harm. He took off his baseball cap to run a hand over his white tufty hair and regarded his agent with a certain mischievous glee. “You say that every time you see me. Tell you what, I'll help you if you'll try harder with my ‘stuff.' How's that?”

“Oh I will, Shelly. I promise. But I still feel guilty.”

“Well, don't. I just landed a new security job. Start tonight.”

“That's wonderful. Night jobs work so well for you. And you can write and eat, too. Where?”

“Right here. No thanks to you. But I have impressive references nonetheless.”

Charlie had forgotten all about trying to wangle him a security job at the FFUCWB of P, or even looking into who might have some clout in the matter. One more reason to feel guilty. But that job would help out with what she had in mind for him to do next. “It may not solve Gloria's murder, Shelly,” she said after telling him what she wanted. “But it could explain how she got up in the bushes.”

Charlie thought she'd had all the surprises anyone would come across in one day already, until she took her assistant to lunch at Mom and Pop's to hear his secrets in private.

28

Charlie, it's not bad news—what I wanted to tell you yesterday. It's good news. That is, if whoever bugged your office doesn't decide to fuck it up.” Larry snapped a crisp potato chip between those gorgeous teeth and said around it, “I've got work.”

“Of course you've got work. You work for me. Oh you mean—”

“Real work. Come on, Charlie, you always knew I'd leave when a break came. Don't look like that.”