Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (63 page)

Red flags went up. Piper considered notifying the authorities, someone connected with the fraud division or social services, but decided that a few sundry items bought at a drugstore was not enough to confront them with her suspicions. She would do some checking on her own first.

The next day, she witnessed another concerning situation. The huge orange tomcat, the neighborhood stray, sat on Sybil’s patio. The blinds in the sunroom were open. Piper looked through the telescope that she had taken from the main house. Inside the room, she saw the birdcages, four of them. The birds were silent. Just then, the nurse stepped outside. She expected her to shoo the cat away. Instead, she bent over and placed a small bowl on the bricks. The cat practically dove at it, his back up, his face buried deep into the bowl. The nurse squatted on her heels and waited while the cat ate. When it had finished, she took the bowl and returned to the house. Minutes later Piper heard a woman’s voice raised in anger. “Stupid pig! … stubborn, bullheaded idiot!” Then glass breaking.

That evening at twilight, Piper noticed the drapes in the master bedroom were partially open. Through the telescope lens, she saw Sybil sitting on the edge of her bed. She wore a dressing gown, one side draped off her swimmer’s square, broad shoulder. Her hair uncombed, no makeup, Sybil sat staring straight ahead with her hands folded in her lap. Nurse Avidon came into view holding a bottle and a glass of water. She lifted Sybil’s hand, turned it over and shook something into her palm. Pills. Sybil merely stared at her palm until the nurse pushed her hand toward her mouth. Sybil obediently took the pills into her mouth and drank from the glass. The nurse left the room.

Sybil rose from the bed unsteadily, crossed the room, spit the pills into her hand and dropped them out the open window.

Piper had to get those pills.

#

Piper waited until dark. Getting in and out unseen was one problem, finding the pills was another. She chose the back way, through the gap in the two property walls, the route pointed out by Sybil’s housekeeper the day she joined Sybil for coffee. It was shorter to take the driveway route, a straight route from the street, but that way was in the open, with less trees and foliage for cover.

Lights burned in the back rooms of the mansion. Seeing Judith and Mr. Moto in the kitchen gave her the courage to make a dash from behind the pool house to the lemon tree across from Sybil’s window. She paused for a moment to control her breathing, then stole across the driveway to the area under the window. There, she crouched on her haunches to the side of a lilac bush like a wary rabbit. She felt for the pill with her fingertips. She leaned down, wishing she had brought a penlight, and searched again. She heard voices from the house. The caregivers. As long as they remained inside the house, she felt safe. Where were those damn pills? Bright lights suddenly blazed beneath the pale green water of the swimming pool. The back door opened. Moto and Judith Avidon came through, speaking in hushed tones. They wore robes, and on their feet flip-flops that slapped on the concrete as they walked.

She held her breath. Her palms began to sweat. Moto’s footsteps picked up speed, the slapping sound growing louder, coming nearer.

“You little bastard,” he growled out. “I got you now!”

Piper flattened herself to the house, her heart pounding insanely in her chest.

She heard a screech. Something brushed past her ankle. A large cat raced past her and up into the branches of the lemon tree. It was the orange cat he was chasing after, and not her. Her relief was short-lived. Moto turned to follow the cat’s path, a path that would lead straight to her and her hiding place.

“Let him go, Jack,” the nurse called out. “I have plans for him.”

Moto picked up a pebble and lobbed it at the cat crouched in the lower branches. The pebble hit the trunk with a solid thwack and dropped to the ground. He continued to come closer. It took all her will power not to bolt from her hiding place. He stopped three feet away. His feet in the flip-flops caught the light from the pool. At the tip of his big toe, she saw the pill. He turned. The flip-flops slapped their way back up the driveway.

Through the bush, she could see the pool. The nurse had removed the robe and was sitting on the steps, waist-deep in the water. Mr. Moto removed his eyeglasses and dove into the deep end. Piper reached out and snagged the pill. She made her escape then, moving briskly in the opposite direction, down the edge of the driveway to the street until she was out of their line of vision. Then she ran like hell.

Once inside the guesthouse, she opened her sweaty, trembling hand. The pill’s engraved brand had dissolved away, but it still held its shape and color. She stashed it in the medicine cabinet for safekeeping until she could have it checked out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

On the night she won an Oscar for her role in Shady Lady, Sybil eloped with western star, Chance Watson. Chance was the rough and tumble hero who had rescued Sybil from her taskmaster of a father. “He sent her daddy packing, but not before daddy had blown all of Sybil’s money,” said Sybil’s friend, Mae Gilbert. “Chance and Sybil seemed happy enough until Chance got kicked in the head by that bucking horse. He wasn’t right from then on. Turned mean and crazy. When that blood clot in his brain killed him, Sybil had to be … well, relieved.” Sybil borrowed money from the studio to bury her husband. At twenty-five, she was a widow, three months pregnant and flat broke.

—Excerpt from the biography of
Sybil Squire: The Platinum Widow
by Russell Cassevantes

The next morning, Piper sat with her coffee at the telescope, waiting. Sybil appeared outside the house sporting a black eye, a fist-sized shiner. Her translucent, pale skin made the shiner literally pulsate with color, giving her a haunting, ghoulish look. Her flyaway white hair only magnified the horror of this picture. She stood on the back steps wearing an ivory, full-length ermine coat. The heavy coat added to the oddity of the situation. The temperature that morning was in the eighties, and rising.

From behind the blackout curtains, Piper watched her tiptoe barefoot down the three brick steps and cross the patio to the swimming pool. She walked the length of the diving board to the end. From the pocket of her coat, she pulled out the black goggles, slipped them on her face. The coat slid from her thin naked body to drape across the board behind her, dangling down, the fur turning dark in the water. Her toes curled over the edge of the board, she lifted upward and executed a near-perfect swan dive into the deep water.

Sybil dove to the bottom of the pool and stayed there for what seemed a very long time. Piper felt her pulse accelerating, going into overdrive. Sybil seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the pool. Piper couldn’t stand there and watch her die. She had to do something to help her.

She snatched up the phone and dialed 911 just as Sybil’s two caregivers rushed outside. A moment later Sybil popped to the surface.

In a rush of words to the dispatcher Piper tried to explain what was happening next door. “I think she’s in danger. Send someone … Please. Hurry.”

She yanked the drapes aside and watched the two try to coax Sybil from the pool. She ignored them, continuing to swim from end to end in the long, rectangular pool. Mr. Moto waded into the water fully clothed and snatched at her the moment she came within reach. Their struggles took him underwater. He came up sputtering and cursing, calling Sybil a bitch.” The nurse waded in to assist him. It would have been comical if it had involved anyone other than Sybil Squire.

She quickly looked up the number for the clinic, dialed and asked for Dr. Lowdell, the GP who had treated her burns. While she waited for him to come on the line, she watched them haul Sybil out of the pool and practically drag her toward the house. They didn’t bother to retrieve the fur coat. As the three climbed the brick steps, Judith Avidon cast a sharp glance at Piper standing in the open window, the cordless phone to her ear. Let them see her. Let them know they’re being watched.

“Dr. Lowdell speaking,” the voice on the phone said in a deep authoritative tone.

“Doctor, this is Piper Lundberg. We spoke a while back regarding Sybil Squire?”

“Yes, Mrs. Lundberg, I remember you.” His tone now had a guarded edge to it.

“I think now’s the time to pay a house call to Mrs. Squire. I’ve already called the police and they’re on their way. Do you want to call Social Services, or should I?”

#

Piper stood on the deck watching the house next door. Dr. Lowdell and a young black woman with an accordion gusset briefcase, who Piper assumed to be a case worker from Social Services, had arrived an hour ago in separate cars, but joined up to enter the premises together. The police left first. When the doctor and the woman finally reemerged and returned to their respective cars, Dr. Lowdell paused at the door of his Lexus. He glanced around at the neighboring houses until he spotted her on the deck. After depositing his case into the trunk of the car, he headed up the driveway toward her.

She invited him inside, away from the prying eyes of the people next door. Of course, they knew she was the busybody who’d contacted the authorities, and she didn’t care. The black eye was the proof. Sybil did not give herself a shiner.

“I thought the police would want to talk with me,” Piper said.

“I told them I’d take care of it.” Translated:
don’t bother, the neighbor is a kook.
“She fell climbing out of the pool yesterday and hit the side of her face on the edge.”

“Is that what they said happened to her?”

“No, that’s what Mrs. Squire said happened and I have no reason not to believe her.”

“Well how about fear of reprisal or fear for her life? Are those valid enough reasons?”

“I took her aside and asked her point-blank. I assured her that if anything criminal, or remotely suspicious, was going on in her house under the supervision of her caregivers, she would receive immediate protection and the guilty parties dealt with here and now.”

“And?”

“And she said she fell while swimming alone in the pool.”

“Doctor, she wears water goggles. Would she get that kind of an injury wearing goggles?”

He paused a moment, twisting his mouth to first one side and then the other. “I can’t say for sure. Of course, anything is possible. I told her that you were concerned for her. That you thought she might be a victim of abuse.”

Finally. Thank you.

“She said, and this is verbatim: ‘My neighbor watches too many bad thrillers. She should find something better to do with her time than to look for menace makers.’”

Sybil’s words stung. They were harsh and unkind. And odd.
Menace Makers
was one of her movies, a thriller. There was something there, but she couldn’t put her finger on it just yet.

She sighed. “Doctor, don’t you see she’s gone downhill since you released her from the hospital, and rather drastically? She’s much thinner. Almost skin and bones. She walks around like she’s in a fog. She’s being drugged, I know it. Oh, shit, wait—” Piper ran into the bathroom, grabbed the pill from the medicine cabinet, and returned to him.

“They’re making her take these,” she said, holding out the pill. “Among others.”

“Making her?”

“Sybil threw this pill out of her window when she thought no one could see her. If they weren’t making her take them, why would she throw it out the window?”

He studied it. “From the size and color, I’d say it’s a Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. She takes this and a light tranquilizer, both prescribed by me. She doesn’t sleep well, hasn’t for years. Yes, she’s frail,” he continued. “She’s eighty-five years old and drinks heavily. What you might think is a drug-induced stupor is more likely a result of alcohol. She’s been drinking today already. I smelled it on her. So sure, her responses, her reactions, are slower than usual. But I blame it on the alcohol. Until she agrees to give up scotch and brandy, there’s not much any one can do about it. Not unless she’s committed. Is that what you want, Mrs. Lundberg, for your neighbor to be committed?”

“Of course not,” Piper said.
Let it go. Just let it go
. “They dragged her from the pool today. Literally dragged her.”

He nodded. “Yes, she said her caregivers might have acted impulsively in the pool, but they were afraid she was trying to drown herself. Drastic actions call for drastic measures.”

“You said this caregiver has excellent credentials?”

“I said that, yes.”

“And you know her personally?” she pressed.

“She worked at the clinic. I don’t know her well, but the head nurse recommended her. I trust Avidon. After reviewing her file and asking around at the hospital, we were all satisfied that she was competent. I’m fond of Mrs. Squire, that’s why I came out this afternoon. Like you, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“Doctor, when I spoke with you at the clinic, you mentioned a housekeeper, Sybil’s housekeeper. Do you know her name or where I might get in touch with her?”