It was a fact of life that everyone at Cypress Point Spa dressed for dinner. She decided to wear a white silk jersey tunic with a knotted cord belt and silver sandals. She wondered if Ted and the others had gone to the Cannery in Monterey. That used to be his favorite spot.
One night, three years ago, when Leila had to leave unexpectedly to shoot extra scenes, Ted had taken her to the Cannery. They had sat for hours talking, and he had told her about spending summers with his grandparents in Monterey, about his mother’s suicide when he was twelve, about how much he had despised his father. And he told her about the automobile accident that took the lives of his wife and child. “I couldn’t function,” he said. “For nearly two years I was a zombie. If it hadn’t been for Craig, I’d have had to turn over executive control of my business to someone else. He functioned for me. He became my voice. He practically was me.”
The next day he told her, “You’re too good a listener.”
She had known that he was uncomfortable about having revealed so much of himself to her.
She deliberately waited until the “cocktail” hour was nearly over before she left her bungalow. As she followed the path that led to the main house, she stopped to observe the scene on the veranda. The lighted main house, the well-dressed people standing in twos and threes, sipping their make-believe cocktails, talking, laughing, separating, forming into new social units.
She was acutely aware of the breathtaking clarity of the stars against the backdrop of the sky, the artfully placed lanterns that illuminated the path and accentuated the blossoms on the hedges, the placid slap of the Pacific as it washed against the shoreline; and behind the main house, the looming shadow of the bathhouse, its black marble exterior glistening in the reflected light.
Where did she belong? Elizabeth wondered. When she was in Europe working, it had been easier to forget the sense of isolation, the alienation from every other human being that had become a fact of her existence. As soon as the movie was in the can, she rushed home, so sure that her apartment would be a haven, the familiarity of New York a welcoming comfort, but in ten minutes, she had been frantic to flee, had grasped at Min’s invitation like a drowning woman. Now she was marking the hours until she could go back to New York, and the apartment. She felt as if she had no home.
Would the trial be a purge for her emotions? Would knowing that she had helped to bring about the punishment of Leila’s murderer in some way release her, let her reach out to other people, start a new life for herself? “Excuse me.” A young couple were behind her. She recognized him as a top-seeded tennis player. How long had she been blocking their path?
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m woolgathering.” She stepped aside, and he and the young woman, whose hand was entwined in his, smiled indifferently and passed her. She followed them slowly to the end of the path, up the steps of the veranda. A waiter offered her a drink. She accepted it and quickly moved to the far railing. She had no small talk in her.
Min and Helmut were circulating among their guests with the practiced skill of veteran party givers. Min was triumphantly visible in a flowing yellow satin caftan and cascading diamond earrings. With a measure of surprise, Elizabeth realized that Min was really quite slim. It was her full breasts and overbearing manner that created the imposing illusion.
As always, Helmut was impeccable, in a navy silk jacket and light gray flannel slacks. He exuded charm as he bowed over hands, smiled, raised one perfectly arched eyebrow—the perfect gentleman.
But why did he hate Leila?
* * *
Tonight the dining rooms were decorated in peach: peach tablecloths and napkins, centerpieces of peach roses, Lenox china in a delicate peach-and-gold design. Min’s table was set for four. As Elizabeth approached it, she saw the maître d’ touch Min’s arm and direct her to the phone on his desk.
When Min came back to the table, she was visibly annoyed. Nevertheless, her greeting seemed genuine. “Elizabeth, at last a little time to be with you. I had hoped to give both you and Sammy a happy surprise. Sammy returned early. She must have missed my note and didn’t realize you were here. I invited her to join us at table, but she’s just phoned to say she doesn’t feel very well. I told her you were with us and she’ll see you in your bungalow after dinner.”
“Is she ill?” Elizabeth asked anxiously.
“She had a long drive. Still, she ought to eat. I wish she had made the effort.” Min clearly wanted to dismiss any more discussion.
Elizabeth watched as, with a practiced eye, Min surveyed the surroundings. Woe to a waiter who did not have the proper demeanor, who rattled, or spilled, or brushed against the chair of a guest. The thought struck her that it was not like Min to invite Sammy to join her table. Was it possible that Min had guessed there was a special reason she had waited to see Sammy, and wanted to know what it was?
And was it possible that Sammy had shrewdly avoided that trap?
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Alvirah Meehan yanked out the chair before the waiter could help her. “The cosmetician did a special makeup after I got dressed,” she said, beaming. “How do you like it?”
Alvirah was wearing a scoop-necked beige caftan with intricate brown beading. It looked very expensive. “I bought this in the boutique,” she explained. “You have lovely things there. And I bought every single product the makeup woman suggested. She was so helpful.”
As Helmut came to the table, Elizabeth studied Min’s face with amusement. One was invited to join Min and Helmut-something which Mrs. Meehan did not understand. Min could explain that and place her at another table. On the other hand, Mrs. Meehan was in the most expensive bungalow in the Spa; she was clearly buying everything in sight, and offending her could be very foolish. A strained smile tugged at the corners of Min’s lips. “You look charming,” she told Alvirah. “Tomorrow I shall personally help you select other outfits.”
“That’s very nice of you.” Alvirah fiddled with her sunburst pin and turned to Helmut. “Baron, I have to tell you I was re-reading your ad—you know, the one you have framed in the bungalows.”
“Yes?”
Elizabeth wondered if it was just her imagination that made Helmut suddenly seem wary.
“Well, let me tell you that everything you say about the place is true. Remember how the ad says, ‘At the end of a week here, you will feel as free and untroubled as a butterfly floating on a cloud’?”
“The ad reads something like that, yes.”
“But you wrote it—didn’t you tell me that?”
“I had some input, I said. We have an agency.”
“Nonsense, Helmut. Mrs. Meehan obviously agrees with the text of the ad. Yes, Mrs. Meehan, my husband is very creative. He personally writes the daily greeting, and ten years ago when we converted the hotel into the Spa, he simply would not accept the advertising copy we were given, and rewrote it himself. That ad won many awards, which is why we have a framed copy in every bungalow.”
“It certainly made important people want to come here,” Alvirah told them. “How I wish I’d been a fly on the wall to listen to all of them. . . .” She beamed at Helmut. “Or a butterfly floating on a cloud.”
* * *
They were eating the low-calorie mousse when it dawned on Elizabeth how skillfully Mrs. Meehan had drawn out Helmut and Min. They had told her stories Elizabeth had never heard before: about an eccentric millionaire who had arrived on opening day on his bicycle, with his Rolls-Royce majestically trailing him, or about how a chartered plane had been sent from Arabia to pick up a fortune in jewels that one of a sheikh’s four wives had left behind on a table near the pool. . . .
As they were about to leave the table, Alvirah posed her final question: “Who was the most exciting guest you’ve ever had?”
Without hesitation, without even looking at each other, they answered “Leila LaSalle.”
For some reason, Elizabeth shivered.
* * *
Elizabeth did not linger for coffee or the music
al program. As soon as she reached her bungalow, she phoned Sammy. There was no answer in her apartment. Puzzled, she dialed Sammy’s office.
Sammy’s voice had an excited urgency to it when she answered. “Elizabeth, I nearly fainted when Min told me you were here. No, I’m perfectly all right. I’ll be right over.”
Ten minutes later, Elizabeth flung open the door of her bungalow and threw her arms around the frail, fiercely loyal woman who had shared with her the last years of Leila’s life.
Sitting opposite each other on the matching sofas, they took each other’s measure. Elizabeth was shocked to see how much Dora had changed. “I know,” Dora said with a wry smile. “I don’t look that hot.”
“You don’t look well, Sammy,” Elizabeth said. “How’s it really going?”
Dora shrugged. “I still feel so guilty. You were away, and couldn’t see the day-to-day change in Leila. When she came to visit me in the hospital, I could see it. Something was destroying her, but she wouldn’t talk about it. I ought to have contacted you. I feel I let her down so terribly. And now it’s as if I have to find out what happened. I can’t let it rest until I do.”
Elizabeth felt tears begin to spill from her eyes.
“Now don’t you dare get me started,” she said. “For the entire first year I had to carry dark glasses with me. I just never knew when I’d start crying. I used to call the glasses my grief equipment.”
She clasped her hands together. “Sammy, tell me. Is there any chance I’m wrong about Ted? I was not mistaken about the time, and if he pushed Leila off that terrace he has to pay for it. But is it possible he was trying to hold her? Why was she so upset? Why was she drinking? You heard her talk about how disgusted she was with people who drank too much. That night, a few minutes before she died, I was nasty to her. I tried to do what she used to do to Mama-shock her, make her see what she was doing to herself. Maybe if I’d been more sympathetic. Sammy, if I’d only asked her why!”
In a spontaneous gesture they moved together. Dora’s thin arms encircled Elizabeth, felt the trembling in the slender young body and remembered the teenager who had so worshiped her big sister. “Oh, Sparrow,” she said, unthinkingly using Leila’s name for Elizabeth, “what would Leila think about the two of us going on like this?”
“She’d say, ‘Quit moaning and do something about it.”’ Elizabeth dabbed at her eyes and managed a smile.
“Exactly.” With quick, nervous movements, Dora smoothed the thin strands of hair that always wanted to slip out from her bun. “Let’s backtrack. Had Leila started to act upset before you left on the tour?”
Elizabeth frowned as she tried to focus, to weed out extraneous memories. “It was just before I left that Leila’s divorce had come through. She’d been with her accountant. It was the first time in years I’d seen her worried about money. She said something like ‘Sparrow, I’ve made an awful lot of loot, and honest to God, now I’m on thin ice.’
“I told her that two deadbeat husbands had put her in that bind, but I didn’t consider being about to marry a multimillionaire like Ted being on thin ice. And she said something like ‘Ted really does love me, doesn’t he?’ I told her to, for God’s sake, get off that line. I said, ‘You keep doubting him and you’ll drive him away. He’s nuts about you. Now go earn the four million bucks he just invested in you!’”
“What did she say?” Dora asked.
“She started to laugh—you know that big, gorgeous laugh of hers—and she said, ‘As usual, you’re right, Sparrow.’ She was terribly excited about the play.”
“And then when you were gone, and I was sick, and Ted was traveling, someone began a campaign to destroy her.” Dora reached into the pocket of her cardigan. “Today the letter I wrote you about was stolen from my desk. But just before you phoned I found another one in Leila’s mail. She never got to read it either—it was still sealed—but it speaks for itself.”
Horrified, Elizabeth read and reread the uneven, carelessly pasted words:
Dora watched as Elizabeth’s face turned stony pale.
“Leila hadn’t seen this?” Elizabeth asked quietly.
“No, but she must have been receiving a series of them.”
“Who could have taken the other one today?”
Briefly Dora filled her in on the explosion over the expenses for the bathhouse and about Cheryl’s unexpected arrival. “I know Cheryl was at my desk. She left her bill there. But so could anyone else have taken it.”
“This smacks of Cheryl’s touch.” Elizabeth held the letter by the corer, loath to handle it. “I wonder if this can be traced.”
“Fingerprints?”
“That, and typeface has a code. Even knowing what magazines and newspapers these words were snipped from could be helpful. Wait a minute.” Elizabeth went into the bedroom and returned with a plastic bag. Carefully she slipped the anonymous note into it. “I’ll find out where to send this to be analyzed.” She sat down again and folded her arms on her knees. “Sammy, do you remember exactly what the other letter said?”
“I think so.”
“Then write it down. Just a minute. There’s paper in the desk.”
Dora wrote, crossed out, rewrote, finally handed the paper to Elizabeth. “That’s pretty close.”
Leila,
How many times do I have to write? Can’t you get it straight that Ted is sick of you? His new girl is beautiful and much younger than you. I told you that the emerald necklace he gave her matches the bracelet he gave you. It cost twice as much and looks ten times better. I hear your play is lousy. You really should learn your lines. I’ll write again soon.
Your friend.
This letter Elizabeth read and reread. “That bracelet, Sammy. When did Ted give it to Leila?”
“Sometime after Christmas. The anniversary of their first date, wasn’t it? She had me put it in the safety-deposit box because she was starting rehearsals and knew she wouldn’t be wearing it.”
“That’s what I mean. How many people could have known about that bracelet? Ted gave it to her at a dinner party. Who was there?”
“The usual people. Min. Helmut. Craig. Cheryl. Syd. Ted. You and I.”
“And the same group of people knew how much Ted put into the play. Remember, he didn’t want it publicized. Sammy, have you finished going through the mail?”
“Besides the one I started this afternoon, there’s one more large sack. It may have six or seven hundred letters in it.”
“Tomorrow morning I’m going to help you go through them. Sammy, think about who might have written these letters. Min and the Baron had nothing to do with the play; they had everything to gain by having Ted and Leila together here, with all the people they attracted. Syd had a million dollars in the play. Craig acted as though the four million Ted invested was out of his own pocket. He certainly wouldn’t do anything to wreck the play’s chances. But Cheryl never forgave Leila for taking Ted from her. She never forgave Leila for becoming a superstar. She knew Leila’s vulnerabilities. And she would be the very one who’d want the letters back now.”
“What good are they to her?”
Elizabeth stood up slowly. She walked to the window and pushed back the curtain. The night was still brilliantly clear. “Because if some way they can be traced to her, they can ruin her career? How would the public feel if it learned that Leila had been driven to suicide by a woman she considered a friend?”
“Elizabeth, did you hear what you just said?”
Elizabeth turned. “Don’t you think I’m right?”
“You have just conceded the fact that Leila might have committed suicide.”
Elizabeth gasped. She stumbled across the room, fell to her knees, and put her head on Sammy’s lap. “Sammy, help me,” she pleaded. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what to do.”
8
IT WAS AT HENRY BARTLETT’S SUGGESTION THAT THEY went out for dinner and invited Cheryl and Syd to join them. When Ted protested that he did
not want to get involved with Cheryl, Henry cut him off sharply. “Teddy, like it or not, you are involved with Cheryl. She and Syd Melnick can be very important witnesses for you.”
“I fail to see how.”
“If we don’t admit that you may have gone back upstairs, we’ve got to prove that Elizabeth Lange was confused about the exact time of that phone conversation and we’ve got to make the jury believe that Leila may have committed suicide.”
“What about the eyewitness?”
“She saw a tree on the terrace moving. Her lively imagination decided it was you struggling with Leila. She’s a nut case.”
They went to the Cannery. A chattering, happy end-of-summer crowd filled the popular restaurant; but Craig had phoned ahead, and there was a window table with a sweeping view of Monterey Harbor awaiting them. Cheryl slipped in beside Ted. Her hand rested on his knee. “This is like old times,” she whispered. She was wearing a lame halter and matching skin-tight pants. A buzz of excitement had followed her as she walked across the room.
In the months since he’d seen her, Cheryl had phoned him repeatedly but he’d never returned the calls. Now as her warm, restless fingers caressed his knee, Ted wondered if he was being a fool for not taking what was being offered to him. Cheryl would say anything he wanted that might help his defense. But at what price?
Syd, Bartlett and Craig were visibly relieved to be here instead of at the Spa. “Wait till you start eating,” Syd told Henry. “You’ll know what seafood is all about.”
The waiter came. Bartlett ordered a Johnnie Walker Black Label. His champagne-toned linen jacket was an impeccable fit; his sport shirt in the exact champagne shade and cinnamon-colored trousers were obviously custom-made. His thick but meticulously barbered white hair contrasted handsomely with his unlined, tanned face. Ted imagined him by turn informing, wooing, scolding a jury. A grandstander. Obviously, it worked for him. But what percentage of the time? He started to order a vodka martini and changed it to a beer. This was no time to dull any of his faculties.