Voices in the Wardrobe (19 page)

“It's not in your office either.”

“No.”

“Everyone in your house and your little development seems to be gone.”

“We're busy people. There are not many of us. And one is probably lying dead and wet to be identified at our destination.” Charlie still held out hope that it wasn't so. How could she not?

“You're obviously an intelligent woman of the world. How can you ignore the seriousness of your situation?”

“It's not as serious as Maggie's, is it?”

“What would you say if I told you, we have picked up your daughter for questioning?”

“I'd say be damned careful. That kid's lethal.” Since she'd just recently talked to Libby, Charlie was fairly certain he lied. She couldn't imagine what she'd left at the Islandia. Her suitcase was in the back of the extended cab of the metallic-blue Ram as was her PDA.

He pulled over, turned on the overhead light, and asked her to empty her purse in her lap. Out came her wallet, tissue, lipstick, folded plastic hairbrush, plastic container of Tic Tacs, ballpoint, eye drops for her contacts, checkbook, sunglasses, two grocery receipts, a ticket stub, and purse lint. “What's next? A strip search?”

“Way you dress, you couldn't hide a peanut.” His disapproval was palpable. The man had huge ears and tiny hair that formed a gray fuzz all over a knobby head.

“I was right about the fallout from exposing the identity of the fanatics, wasn't I?”

“You have no way of interpreting any information you may think you have. You've fallen for a spin that is not true. You are not a specialist trained to interpret it and should not be allowed to disseminate it.”

Charlie knew she should be allowed to feel intimidated. But she was numb to the point of hopeless. The danger here was that, according to the rabid liberals, she could just disappear and no one would have to account for it. Her mind could only dwell on what Maggie might look like after drowning in the sea, being smashed around by tides and rocks and whatever. It was impossible to imagine Luella Ridgeway with more than one hair out of place.

The metallic-blue Ram still sat parked in the no-parking zone. She didn't see a ticket on the windshield. Mitch leaned against it, arms crossed, eyes and jaw bristling with anger and suspicion like when he'd played Artemis Bard in
Hell Hath No Pity
and grabbed a guard's super-duper bullet-spraying weapon and wiped out half a village in barely fifteen frames.

Detective Solomon and Deputy Saucier arrived to escort her to a makeshift tarpaulin tent set up in the parking lot. “What took you so long?”

“He had to be intimidating and convince himself my cell phone wasn't in my purse, upset because he can't round up my daughter, neighbors, laptop—you name it.” She stopped at the flap to the tarp morgue. “I don't know if I can do this. Maggie was my best friend and Luella sort of a mentor. I think I'm going to puke or something.”

But there was only one body inside. And it wasn't Maggie or Luella either.

Warren VanZant stood holding his wife against his chest, staring at Charlie in what her mood interpreted as gloating. The body was battered and bloated and awful, one eyeball all but squished out of the socket, but definitely that of Dashiell Hammett.

“Good news is, it's not your friend, Margaret Stutzman,” Gordy Solomon said. “Bad news is, she's in even worse trouble than before.” When they exited the morgue tent it was under lights—Jerry Parks and his photographer, front and center. Jerry too seemed to be gloating.

“Why did Detective Solomon think Maggie was in worse trouble now that Dashiell Hammett is dead? Does he think she's still alive? That she murdered him? What?”

“I don't know, Charlie. But look at the bright side. Maggie and Luella weren't found near the car. So maybe they're alive.” Mitch Hilsten had managed to smuggle Charlie away to the
Motherfricker
and escape an escalating media frenzy. The divers had come in, would search again in the morning for other victims. A large fish of some kind had been mistaken for another body initially, accounting for the original report of more than one.

They had brought the VanZants too and Warren tried to comfort Caroline up on the lounge deck. Mitch and Charlie stood on the lower deck with glasses of that satin scotch. It was chilly with night and sea breeze. What was it like for Maggie right now?

“What would old Dashiell be doing with Luella's car? How do I keep Libby from coming down here and walking right into an FBI trap? I'm so blown away I'm just not cutting it right now, Mitch.”

“You know, time was, the Feds would have put a tap on your phone lines, known where you were calling from. I haven't heard they can do that with these, have you?” He pulled her cell from his pocket. “I'll keep watch for Agent Green.”

She had two messages. Could someone tap into her voice mail? She'd never listed this number on her letterhead or business card. But it had to be on file in the office and the office had been thoroughly gone over.

The first was a cryptic message from Luella, “Charlie, Maggie and I are at the Sea Spa. Something's terribly wrong here. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Charlie plopped down on a narrow shelf bench and stared at the instrument of communication in her hand. Had she just heard the voice of a dead friend? A ghost of the once smooth scotch returned up her throat to burn her tongue.

She sipped at another scotch in the
Motherfricker
's impressive dining room where she, Mitch, and the VanZants huddled at one end of an oval table that, with the room, rendered their little group small, insignificant, and dowdy. Sidney or whoever brought in a platter of crab salad croissant sandwiches and a carafe of coffee. He studied the mood of the huddle and left the room.

Warren and Mitch tried to discuss the scenes that would be shot in this room but their companions were so dismal they gave up.

“Was there a time on that first message?” Mitch finally broke the silence.

“Five? Five forty-five, I think.”

“He'd finally gotten off the drugs and alcohol,” Dashiell Hammett's mother said to no one and in a deadened tone beyond feeling. “He was clean for a year. My nightmares had all but stopped. There's nothing more devastating than an adult child you can't help and you can't help their hurt and they can't help but hurt you.” No tears, she barely blinked, picked up her sandwich, set it down twice without taking a bite. “He'd worked so hard.” Her melodious voice had flattened.

“Caroline,” her husband said softly, “it's time for your medications.”

The second message left on her voice mail had been from Kenny Cowper—both Maggie and Luella's luggage had disappeared from the hotel. “Hope you took yours because it's gone too. Hope you're okay. I'm on my way to the Spa.”

Charlie had left a message that she was down at the marina and to call her back, but he hadn't yet. Her suitcase was still locked in the back of the extended cab of the Ram, she hoped.

“The press up at the Spa is going to be almost as bad as down here. What do we do?”

“My car is on this side of the bridge, give me your keys and I'll see if I can get someone to steal your truck and take it up to the Spa. I'll take you and the VanZants in my passenger-concealing rental. Just for the hell of it, why don't you try to get a hold of Luella?”

All Charlie got was Luella's professional voice mail. Even that was painful to listen to. Charlie left a message anyway, that she was heading up to the Sea Spa.

Charlie sat alone on the
Motherfricker
's deck and watched the night, tried to make a connection between Dr. Judy's hyping of the product, Redux, as well as the hotly contested HRT treatments for women, and four murders including her own—between the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol and the Film Institute—between prescription drug peddling and profiting from screenwriter hopefuls.

It was all about communication for profit, about misleading people—what was she missing here?

In Mitch's Stealth on the way up to the Spa, she asked the VanZants who Judith Judd's lover was and got one connection. She also noticed a new message on her cell. It was Libby telling her she was headed for the Spa because her mother hadn't answered her last message. Charlie called Libby to inform her daughter's voice mail that she must absolutely stay away from that place at all costs but to let Charlie know where she was going. “Keegan's at Les Artistes in Del Mar. A better place to head for because something very deadly is going on at the Spa.”

But when Mitch's Stealth breached the promontory Libby's Jeep was already parked in the lot.

Twenty-Five

“Oh shit,” Charlie said as the other Agent Green pulled up behind Mitch's rental. At least Libby's Jeep was empty and the people getting out of the low black Stealth probably didn't know who the dented Wrangler belonged to. Maybe Mitch, but she didn't think so. And probably not Charles Green, who worked so hard to imply he knew all, either. It sat at the end of a short line of cars, and Mitch
would
pull right in next to it instead of starting a new line.

Two San Diego sheriff's cars were parked there too so Charlie's daughter might be safe with them—but she didn't want Libby and Charles meeting up.

Charlie couldn't remember when she slept last. The crab salad croissants and scotch did help to keep the jitters at bay. A cup of coffee wouldn't hurt about now—wouldn't you know she was at probably the only place in Southern California where she couldn't get one.

How can you be thinking about such banal things when three of the most important people in your life are hopefully just in danger and not dead? “I don't know.”

“Oh really? I thought you knew everything,” the funny-haired agent in safari dress said pleasantly.

Kenny Cowper's flashy red rental pulled up to extend the line. Even so, there weren't an awful lot of people here.

“You don't know what?” the FBI man insisted, adding a touch of triumph to his pleasantness.

“I don't know where my friends are. Hi, Kenny, this is Mitch. Mitch, this is Kenny.” And this has got to be a bad dream, right? “Oh, boy.”

Charlie Greene decided she had a plan and was about to attempt an escape when she smelled the coffee. The VanZants, the Feds—three in number now—Charlie, Mitch, and Kenny, Sue Rippon, and Ruth Ann Singer sat in the Spa's kitchen at a long staff table. Somebody on the other side of a head-high partition was making coffee. Smelled like the real thing—as in caffeinated.

Dr. Grant Howard of the San Diego Film Institute had been Dr. Judy's lover. That was the connection between the Sea Spa and the Institute. And they were both murdered—another connection.

“So, Dr. Judith Judd prescribed medicines for your son's condition, is that right, Mrs. VanZant?” asked a man sitting next to Charles Green. He had a folder of papers he rustled through and tilted his head back to study them through bifocals. Neither he nor the gentleman on the other side of the FBI agent had bothered to introduce themselves. All three were so smug, intimidating, and patronizing Charlie would have been furious if she weren't so worried about her friends and her daughter, if she weren't so very weary.

“Judith was one of his doctors,” Warren answered for his wife.

“He was addicted to drugs so you all gave him drugs?” Charlie asked. She'd always had trouble getting her head around that one.

“Just because you're allergic to milk doesn't mean you can't drink water. Dashiell was on medications to control his addiction to drugs and alcohol. The medications were for behavior control and cravings, not euphoria. It's possible to forget to take medications. They are definitely needed but one does not feel the need.”

“There's a pill for everything.” Charlie accepted a hot mug of the evil brew with a grateful sigh, refusing cream or sugar, wondering if there was a pill for caffeine addiction, vowing to flush it down the toilet if it was ever prescribed for her. This wasn't euphoria as much as an aid for getting through a horrible night. Right? Their server was Deputy Saucier of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. She had a cute pug nose just right for her face. Where was Solomon?

Caroline VanZant wept softly into her hand and Charlie felt like a creep for questioning Dashiell's treatment. If she'd seen Libby in the condition Caroline had her son a few hours ago she would not have waxed flippant either. Did whoever killed Dashiell have Maggie and Luella, Libby even? The thought turned the coffee sour in her stomach and she set the mug down.

“And your daughter and her cell phone appear to have disappeared from the face of the earth, Mrs. Greene,” said the smug Fed to the left of Agent Green. “I should think that would worry a mother.” He was the youngest of the three but with only a fringe of head hair left.

“It's Miss Greene. I have never married. And I'm always worried about my daughter. How do you know her cell is missing?”

His scorn seemed triumphantly justified by Libby's fatherless state. “I suppose you don't even know which one was the father.”

“Kenny, leave it,” Charlie warned the stud beside her as he threatened to bestir himself. “As a matter of fact I do and he's a creep.”

“Next time your daughter uses her cellular, we've got her. Been having some trouble with the system, but it's all fixed now. You might as well tell us where she is. You are both suspected of interfering with a federal investigation.”

Agent Charles Green asked to see her purse again. And again found no cell—not even her little address book, both having been hurriedly secreted in the crack between the front rider's seat and the gearshift console in Mitch's rental. Not that hard to find if they went searching for it, but all Charlie could manage in the time she had upon her arrival tonight.

“Your ‘system' must be pretty crowded if you monitor all the cells in Southern California,” Mitch said.