Weep No More My Lady (30 page)

She still had Alvirah's sunburst pin. It was in the pocket of the slacks she'd been wearing when she'd gone to the clinic. When she took it out and held it, she realized it was heavier than it looked. She was no expert on jewelry, but clearly this was not a valuable piece. Turning it over, she began to study the back. It didn't have the usual safety catch. Instead, there was an enclosed device of some sort. She turned the pin again and studied the face. The small opening in the center was a microphone!

The impact of her discovery left her weak. The seemingly artless questions, the way Alvirah Meehan had fiddled with that pin—she'd been pointing the microphone to catch the voices of the people she was with. The suitcase in her bungalow with the expensive recording equipment, the cassettes there . . . Elizabeth knew she had to get them before anyone else did.

She rang for Vicky.

*   *   *

Fifteen minutes later she was back in her own bungalow, the cassettes and recorder from Alvirah Meehan's suitcase in her possession. Vicky looked flustered and somewhat apprehensive. “I hope no one saw us go in there,” she told Elizabeth.

“I'm giving everything to Sheriff Alshorne,” Elizabeth assured her. “I just want to be certain they won't disappear if Mrs. Meehan's husband tells anyone about them.” She agreed that tea and a sandwich would taste good. When Vicky returned with the tray, she found Elizabeth, earphones on her head, her notebook in her lap, a pen in her hands, listening to the tapes.

SCOTT ALSHORNE DID NOT LIKE HAVING A SUSPICIOUS death and a suspicious near-death unresolved. Dora Samuels had suffered a stroke just before her death. How long before? Alvirah Meehan had had a drop of blood on her face which suggested an injection. The lab report showed a very low blood sugar, possibly the result of an injection. The Baron's efforts had fortunately saved her life. So where did that leave him?

Mrs. Meehan's husband had not been located last night until late evening—one A.M. New York time. He'd chartered a plane and arrived at the hospital at seven A.M. local time. Early in the afternoon, Scott went there to talk to him.

The sight of Alvirah Meehan, ghostly pale, barely breathing, hooked to machines, was incredible to Scott. People like Mrs. Meehan weren't
supposed
to be sick. They were too hearty, too filled with life. The burly man whose back was to him didn't seem to notice his presence. He was bending over, whispering to Alvirah Meehan.

Scott touched his shoulder. “Mr. Meehan, I'm Scott Alshorne, the sheriff of Monterey County. I'm sorry about your wife.”

Willy Meehan jerked his head toward the nurses' station. “I know all about how they think she is. But I'm telling you, she's going to be just fine. I told her that if she up and died on me, I was going to take that money and spend it on a blond floozy. She won't let that happen—will you, honey?” Tears began to stream from his eyes.

“Mr. Meehan, I have to speak with you for just a few minutes.”

*   *   *

She could hear Willy talking to her, but she couldn't reach him. Alvirah had never felt so weak. She couldn't even move her hand, she was so tired.

And there was something she had to tell them. She
knew
what had
happened now. It was so clear. She
had
to make herself talk. She tried moving her lips, but she couldn't. She tried to wiggle her finger. Willy's hand was covering hers, and she couldn't get up the strength to make him understand that she was trying to reach him.

If she could just move her lips, just get his attention. He was talking about the trips they were going to take. A tiny stab of irritation flared through her mind. Keep quiet and
listen
to me, she wanted to shout at him. . . . Oh, Willy, please listen. . . .

*   *   *

The conversation in the corridor outside the intensive-care unit was unsatisfactory. Alvirah was “healthy as a horse.” She was never sick. She was on no medication. Scott did not bother to ask if there was a possibility that she used drugs. There wasn't, and he wouldn't insult this heartbroken man with the question.

“She was looking forward so much to this trip,” Willy Meehan said as he put his hand on the door of the intensive-care unit. “She was even writing articles about it for the
Globe.
You should have seen how excited she was when they were showing her how to record people's conversations. . . .”

“She was writing articles!”
Scott exclaimed. “She was recording people?”

He was interrupted. A nurse rushed out. “Mr. Meehan, will you come in? She's trying to talk again. We want you to speak to her.”

Scott rushed in behind him. Alvirah was straining to move her lips.
“Voi . . . voi . . .”

Willy grasped her hand. “I'm here, honey, I'm here.”

The effort was so much. She was getting so tired.

She was going to fall asleep. If she could just get even one word out to warn them. With a terrible effort, Alvirah managed that word. She said it loud enough that she could hear it herself.

She said, “Voices.”

THE AFTERNOON SHADOWS DEEPENED AS, UNMINDFUL OF time, Elizabeth listened to Alvirah Meehan's tapes. Sometimes she stopped and re-wound a segment of the tape and listened to it several times. Her lined pad was filled with notes.

Those questions that had seemed so tactless had actually been so clever. Elizabeth thought of how she had sat at the table with the Countess, wishing she could overhear the conversations at Min's table. Now she could. Some of the talk was muffled, but she could hear enough to detect stress, evasion, attempts to change the subject.

She began to systematize her notations, creating a separate page for everyone at the table. At the bottom of each page she scribbled questions as they came to mind. When she finished the third tape, it seemed to her that she merely had a jumble of confusing sentences.

Leila, how I wish you were here. You were too cynical, but so many times you were right about people. You could see through their facades. Something is wrong, and I'm missing it. What is it?

It seemed to her that she could hear Leila's answer, as if she were in the room.
For heaven's sake, Sparrow, open your eyes! Stop seeing what people want you to see. Start listening. Think for yourself. Didn't I teach you that much?

She was just about to put the last cassette from Alvirah's sunburst pin into the recorder when the phone rang. It was Helmut. “You left a note for me.”

“Yes, I did. Helmut, why did you go to Leila's apartment the night she died?”

She heard him gasp. “Elizabeth, do not talk on the phone. May I come to you now?”

While she waited, she hid the recording equipment and her pad. She had no intention of letting Helmut become aware of the tapes.

For once, his rigid military carriage seemed to have deserted him. He sat opposite her, his shoulders slumped. His voice low and hurried, his German accent more pronounced as he spoke, he told her what he had told Min. He had written the play. He had gone to plead with Leila to reconsider.

“You took the money out of Min's Swiss account.”

He nodded. “Minna has guessed. What is the use?”

“Is it possible that she always knew? That she sent those letters because she wanted to upset Leila enough to destroy her performance? No one knew Leila's emotional state better than Min.”

The Baron's eyes widened. “But how magnificent. It is just the sort of thing Minna
would
do. Then she may have known all along that there was no money left. Could she have been simply punishing me?”

Elizabeth did not care if her face showed the disgust she felt. “I don't share your admiration for that scheme, if it was Min's doing.” She went to the desk and got a fresh pad. “You heard Ted struggling with Leila?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Where were you? How did you get in? How long were you there? Exactly what did you hear?”

It helped to be writing, to concentrate on taking down word for word what he said. He had heard Leila pleading for her life, and he had not tried to help her.

When he had finished, perspiration was glistening on his smooth cheeks. She wanted to get him out of her sight, but she could not resist saying, “Suppose instead of running away, you had gone into that apartment? Leila might be alive right now. Ted might not be plea-bargaining for a lighter sentence if you hadn't been so worried about saving yourself.”

“I don't believe that, Elizabeth. It happened in seconds.” The Baron's eyes widened. “But haven't you heard? There is no plea bargain. It's been on the news all afternoon. A second eyewitness saw Ted hold Leila over the terrace before he dropped her. The district attorney wants Ted to get life.”

Leila had not toppled over the railing in a struggle. He had held her, then deliberately dropped her. That Leila's death had taken a few seconds longer seemed to Elizabeth even more cruel than her worst fears. I should be
glad
they're going for the maximum penalty, she told herself. I should be
glad
to have the chance to testify against him.

She wanted desperately to be alone, but she managed to ask the Baron one more question: “Did you see Syd near Leila's apartment that night?”

Could she trust the look of astonishment on his face? “No, I did not,” he said firmly. “Was he there?”

*   *   *

It is finished, Elizabeth told herself. She put in a call to Scott Alshorne. The sheriff was out on official business. Could someone else help her? No. She left a message for him to phone her. She would turn over Alvirah Meehan's recording equipment to him and get on the next plane to New York. No wonder they'd all sounded so on edge from Alvirah's relentless questioning. Most of them had something to hide.

The sunburst pin. She started to put it into a bag with the recorder and then realized she hadn't listened to the last cassette. It occurred to her that Alvirah had been wearing the pin in the clinic. . . . She managed to extract the cassette from the tiny container. If Alvirah was so concerned about the collagen injections, would she have left the recorder on during the treatment?

She had. Elizabeth turned up the volume and held the recorder to her ear. The cassette began with Alvirah in the treatment room talking with the nurse. The nurse reassuring her, talking about Valium; the click of the door, Alvirah's even breathing, the click of the door again . . . The Baron's somewhat muffled and indistinct voice, reassuring Alvirah, starting the injection; the click of the door, Alvirah's gasps, her attempt to call for help, her frenzied breath, a click of the door again, the nurse's cheerful voice, “Well, here we are, Mrs. Meehan. All set for your beauty treatment?” And then the nurse, upset, on the edge of panic, saying, “Mrs. Meehan,
what's the matter?
Doctor . . .”

There was a pause, then the voice of Helmut barking orders—”Open that robe!”—calling for oxygen. There was a pounding sound—that must have been when he was compressing her chest; then Helmut called for an intravenous. That was when I was there, Elizabeth thought. He tried to kill
her. Whatever he gave her was meant to kill her. Alvirah's persistent references to that sentence about “a butterfly floating on a cloud,” her constantly saying that that reminded her of something, her calling him a clever author—did he perceive that as her toying with him? Had he still hoped that somehow Min wouldn't learn the truth about the play, about her Swiss bank account?

She replayed the last tape again and again. There was something about it she didn't understand. What was it? What was she missing?

Not knowing what she was looking for, she reread the notes she had taken when Helmut described Leila's death. Her eyes became riveted to one sentence. But that's
wrong,
she thought.

Unless.

Like an exhausted climber within inches of an icy summit, she reviewed the notes she had made from Alvirah Meehan's tapes.

And found the key.

It had always been there, waiting for her. Did he realize how close she had been to the truth?

Yes, he did.

She shivered, remembering the questions that had seemed so innocent, her own troubled answers that must have been so threatening to him.

Her hand flew to the phone. She would call Scott. And then she withdrew her fingers from the dial. Tell him what? There wasn't a shred of proof. There never would be.

Unless she could force his hand.

FOR OVER AN HOUR, SCOTT SAT BY ALVIRAH'S BEDSIDE, hoping she would say something else. Then, touching Willy Meehan's shoulder, he said, “I'll be right back.” He had seen John Whitley at the nurses' station and followed him into his office.

“Have you anything more you can tell me, John?”

“No.” The doctor looked both angry and perplexed. “I don't like not knowing what I'm dealing with. Her blood sugar was so low that without a history of severe hypoglycemia we have to suspect that somebody injected her with insulin. She sure as hell has a puncture mark where we found the spot of blood on her cheek. If Von Schreiber claims he didn't inject her face at all, something's screwy.”

“What are her chances?” Scott asked.

John shrugged. “I don't know. It's too soon to tell if she has incurred any brain damage. If willpower can bring her back, that husband of hers will manage it. He's doing everything right. Talking to her about chartering a plane to get here, about fixing the house when they go home. If she can hear him, she'll want to stay around.”

John's office overlooked the garden. Scott walked to the window, wishing he could spend some time alone,
think
this through. “We can't
prove
Mrs. Meehan was the victim of an attempted murder. We can't prove Miss Samuels was the victim of murder.”