Ted shrugged. “My apologies. You’re quite right. Now see if you can help Elizabeth. I’ll meet you back at my place in about an hour.”
* * *
Craig caught up with her at the gate. Quickly she explained what had happened. His reaction was comforting. “You mean to say that Sammy may have been missing for hours and the police haven’t been called?”
“They’re going to be as soon as the grounds are searched, and I thought I’d just see if maybe . . .” Elizabeth could not finish. She swallowed and went on: “You remember when she had that first attack. She was so disoriented and then so embarrassed.”
Craig’s arm was around her. “Okay—steady. Let’s walk a bit.” They crossed the road toward the path that led to the Lone Cypress. The sun had dispersed the last of the morning mist, and the day was bright and warm. Sandpipers flurried over their heads, circled and returned to their perches on the rocky shoreline. Waves broke like foaming geysers against the rocks and retreated to the sea. The Lone Cypress, always a tourist attraction, was already the center of attention of the camera buffs.
Elizabeth began to question them. “We’re looking for an older lady. . . . She may be ill. . . . She’s quite small. . . .”
Craig took over. He gave an accurate description of Dora. “What was she wearing, Elizabeth?”
“A beige cardigan, a beige cotton blouse, a tan skirt.”
“Sounds like my mother,” commented a tourist in a red sport shirt with a camera slung over his shoulder.
“She’s kind of everybody’s mother,” Elizabeth said.
They rang doorbells of the secluded homes hidden by shrubbery from the road. Maids, some sympathetic, some annoyed, promised to “keep an eye out.”
They went to the Pebble Beach Lodge. “Sammy has breakfast here sometimes on her days off,” Elizabeth said. With a clutch of hope, she searched the dining rooms, praying that her eyes would find the small straight figure, that Sammy would be surprised at all the fuss. But there were only the vacationers, dressed in casually expensive sport clothes, most of them awaiting their tee-off time.
Elizabeth turned to leave, but Craig held her arm. “I’ll bet you didn’t have any breakfast.” He signaled to the headwaiter.
Over coffee they surveyed each other. “If there’s no sign of her when we get back, we’ll insist on calling the police,” he told her.
“Something’s happened to her.”
“You can’t be sure of that. Tell me exactly when you saw her, whether she said anything about going out.”
Elizabeth hesitated. She was not sure if she wanted to tell Craig about the letter Sammy was going to copy or about the letter that had been stolen. She did know that the deep concern on his face was a tremendous comfort, that if it became necessary, he would put the awesome power of Winters Enterprises into the search for Sammy. Her response was careful. “When Sammy left me, she said she was going back to the office for a while.”
“I can’t believe that she’s so overworked she has to burn midnight oil.”
Elizabeth half-smiled. “Not quite midnight. Nine thirty.” To avoid further questions, she gulped the rest of the coffee. “Craig, do you mind if we go back now? Maybe there’s been some word.”
* * *
But there was not. And if the maids, the gardener and the chauffeur could be believed, every inch of the grounds had been searched. Now even Helmut agreed not to wait until noon, that it was time to phone in a missing-person report.
“That’s not good enough,” Elizabeth told them. “I want you to ask for Scott Alshorne.”
She waited for Scott at Sammy’s desk. “Do you want me to hang around?” Craig asked.
“No.”
He glanced at the trash bags. “What’s all that?”
“Leila’s fan mail. Sammy was answering it.”
“Don’t start going through it. It will only upset you.” Craig glanced into Min and Helmut’s office. They were sitting side by side on the Art Deco wicker couch, speaking in low tones. He leaned over the desk. “Elizabeth, you have to know I’m between a rock and a hard place. But when this is over, no matter how it ends, we’ve got to talk. I’ve missed you terribly.” In a surprisingly agile move, he was around the desk; his hand was on her hair, his lips on her cheek. “I’m always here for you,” he whispered. “If anything has happened to Sammy and you need a shoulder or an ear . . . You know where to find me.”
Elizabeth clutched at his hand and for an instant held it against her cheek. She felt its solid strength, its warmth, the width of his blunt fingers. And incongruously thought of Ted’s long-fingered graceful hands. She dropped his hand and pulled away. “Watch out or you’ll get me crying.” She tried to make her voice light, to dispel the intensity of the moment.
Craig seemed to understand. He straightened up and said matter-of-factly, “I’ll be in Ted’s bungalow if you need me.”
Waiting was the hardest. It was like the night when she’d sat in Leila’s apartment hoping, praying that Leila and Ted had made up, had gone off together and knowing with every nerve in her body that something was wrong. Sitting at Sammy’s desk was agony. She wanted to run in a dozen different directions; to walk along the road and ask people if they’d seen her, to search the Crocker Woodland in case she’d wandered in there in a daze.
Instead, Elizabeth opened one of the bags of fan mail and brought out a handful of envelopes. At least she could accomplish something.
She could search for more anonymous letters.
6
SHERIFF SCOTT ALSHORNE HAD BEEN A LIFELONG FRIEND of Samuel Edgers, Min’s first husband, the man who had built the Cypress Point Hotel. He and Min had liked each other from the start, and it had pleased him to see that Min kept her part of her bargain. She gave the ailing and cantankerous octogenarian a new lease on life for the five years she was married to him.
Scott had watched with mingled curiosity and awe as Min and that titled jerk she married next had taken a comfortable, profitable hotel and turned it into a self-consuming monster. Min now invited him at least once a month to dinner at the Spa, and in the last year and a half he’d come to know Dora Samuels well. That was why when Min called with the news of her disappearance, he instinctively feared the worst.
If Sammy had had some kind of stroke and started wandering around, she’d have been noticed. Old sick people didn’t get overlooked on the Monterey Peninsula. Scott was proud of his jurisdiction.
His office was in Salinas, the seat of Monterey County and twenty-two miles from Pebble Beach. Crisply he issued instructions for the posting of a missing-person notice and directed that deputies from the Pebble Beach area meet him at the Spa.
He was silent on the drive. The deputy who chauffeured him noticed there were unusually deep creases in his boss’s forehead, that the craggy, tanned face under the wealth of unmanageable white hair was furrowed in thought. When the chief looked like this, it meant he anticipated a big problem.
It was ten thirty when they drove through the gates. The houses and grounds had an air of tranquillity. There were few people walking around. Scott knew that most of the guests were in the spas, working out, being pummeled and patted and scrubbed and plucked so that when they went home at the end of their stay, their families and friends would gush over how marvelous they looked. Or they were in the clinic having one of Helmut’s sophisticated and ultraexpensive treatments.
He had heard that Ted Winters’ private jet had landed at the airport on Sunday afternoon and that Ted was here. He’d debated with himself as to whether or not to call him. Ted was under indictment for second-degree murder. He was also the kid who used to delight in sailing with his grandfather and Scott.
Knowing that Ted was booked at the Spa caused Scott to register openmouthed astonishment when he saw Elizabeth sitting at Sammy’s desk. She had not heard him come up the stairs, and he took a moment to study her unobserved. She was deathly pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Strands of hair had slipped from the knot on
top of her head and curled around her face. She was pulling letters from envelopes, glancing at them and tossing them aside impatiently. Clearly she was searching for something. He noticed that her hands were trembling.
He knocked loudly on the open door and watched her jump up. Relief and apprehension mingled in her expression. Spontaneously she ran around the desk and with outstretched arms hurried toward him. Just before she reached him, she stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry . . . I mean, how are you, Scott? It’s good to see you.”
He knew what she was thinking. Because of his longtime friendship with Ted, he might regard her as the enemy. Poor kid. He gathered her in a quick bear hug. To disguise his own emotion, he said gruffly, “You’re too skinny. I hope you’re not on one of Min’s celebrity diets.”
“I’m on a get-fat-fast. Banana splits and brownies.”
“Good.”
Together they went into Min’s office. Scott raised his eyebrows when he saw the haggard expression on Min’s face, the wary, veiled eyes of the Baron. They were both worried, and somehow he felt it went beyond concern for Sammy. His direct questions garnered the information he needed. “I’d like to take a look at Sammy’s apartment.”
Min led the way. Elizabeth and Helmut trailed behind. Somehow Scott’s presence gave Elizabeth a faint touch of hope. At least something would be done. She had seen the disapproval in his face at the realization they had waited so long to phone him.
Scott glanced around the sitting room and walked into the bedroom. He pointed to the suitcase on the floor near the closet. “Was she planning to go somewhere?”
“She just got back,” Min explained, then looked puzzled. “It’s not like Sammy not to unpack immediately.”
Scott opened the bag. There was a cosmetic case on top filled with pill bottles. He read the directions: “One every four hours; twice a day; two at bedtime.” He frowned. “Sammy was careful about her medication. She didn’t want another siege. Min, show me the condition of the office as you found it.”
It was the copy machine that seemed to intrigue him most. “The window was open. The machine was on.” He stood in front of it. “She was about to copy something. She looked out the window, and then what? She felt dizzy? She wandered outside? But where was she trying to go?” He stared out the window. This view took in the expanse of the north lawn, the scattered bungalows along the way to the Olympic pool and the Roman bath—that god-awful monstrosity!
“You say every inch of the grounds, every building was searched?”
“Yes.” Helmut answered first. “I personally saw to it.”
Scott cut him off. “We’ll start all over.”
* * *
Elizabeth spent the next hours at Sammy’s desk. Her fingers were dry from handling the dozens of letters she examined. They read alike—requests for Leila’s autograph, requests for her picture. There was so far no sign of any more anonymous letters.
At two o’clock Elizabeth heard a shout. She raced to the window in time to see one of the policemen gesturing from the door of the bathhouse. Her feet flew on the stairs. At the next-to-last step, she tripped and fell, smashing her arms and legs against the polished tiles. Heedless of the sharp sting in her palms and knees, she ran across the lawn to the bathhouse, arriving as Scott disappeared inside. She followed him through the locker room into the pool area.
A policeman was standing at the side of the pool pointing down at Sammy’s crumpled body.
Later, she vaguely remembered kneeling beside Sammy, reaching her hand to brush back the matted, bloody hair from her forehead, feeling Scott’s iron grasp, hearing his sharp command: “Don’t touch her!” Sammy’s eyes were open, her features frozen in terror, her glasses still caught on her ears but dropped down on her nose, her palms outstretched as though pushing something back. Her beige cardigan was still buttoned, the wide patch pockets suddenly prominent. “See if she has the letter to Leila,” Elizabeth heard herself say. “Look in the pockets.” Then her own eyes widened. The beige wool cardigan became Leila’s white satin pajamas, and she was kneeling over Leila’s body again. . . .
Mercifully, she fainted.
* * *
When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the bed in her bungalow. Helmut was bending over her, holding something that smelled harsh and pungent under her nostrils. Min was chafing her hands. Uncontrollable sobs racked her body, and she heard herself wailing, “Not Sammy too, not Sammy too.”
Min held her tightly. “Elizabeth, don’t . . . Don’t.”
Helmut muttered, “This will help you.” The prick of a needle in her arm.
When she awoke, the shadows were long in the room. Nelly, the maid who had helped in the search, was touching her shoulder. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, miss,” she said, “but I did bring tea and something for you to eat. The sheriff can’t wait any longer. He has to talk with you.”
7
THE NEWS OF DORA’S DEATH RIPPLED THROUGH THE SPA like an unwelcome rainstorm at a family picnic. There was mild curiosity: “What ever was she doing wandering in that place?” A sense of mortality: “How old was she, did you say?” An attempt to place her—”Oh, you mean that prim little woman in the office?”—then a quick return to the pleasant activities of the Spa. This was, after all, an extremely expensive retreat. One came here to escape problems, not find them.
In midafternoon, Ted had gone for a massage, hoping to obtain some relief from tension in the pounding hands of the Swedish masseur. He’d just returned to his bungalow when Craig told him the news. “They found her body in the bathhouse. She must have gotten dizzy and fallen.”
Ted thought of the afternoon in New York when Sammy had had that first stroke. They were all in Leila’s apartment, and in the middle of a sentence Sammy’s voice had trailed off. It was he who had realized there was something seriously wrong.
“How is Elizabeth taking it?” he asked Craig.
“Pretty badly. I gather she fainted.”
“She was close to Sammy. She . . .” Ted bit his lip and changed the subject. “Where’s Bartlett?”
“On the golf course.”
“I wasn’t aware I brought him out here to play golf.”
“Ted, come off it! He’s been on the job since early this morning. Henry claims he can think better if he gets some exercise.”
“Remind him that I go on trial next week. He’d better curtail his exercise.” Ted shrugged. “It was crazy to come here. I don’t know why I thought it would help me calm down; it’s not working.”
“Give it a chance. It wouldn’t be any better in New York or Connecticut. Oh, I just bumped into your old friend Sheriff Alshorne.”
“Scott’s here? Then they must think there’s something peculiar about Sammy’s death.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s probably just routine for him to show up.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, he asked about you.”
“Did he suggest that I call him?”
Craig’s hesitation was barely perceptible. “Well, not exactly—but look, it wasn’t a social conversation.”
Another person avoiding me, Ted thought. Another person waiting to see the full evidence laid out in court. Restlessly he wandered around the living room of his bungalow. Suddenly it had become a cage to him. But all rooms had seemed like that since the indictment. It must be a psychological reaction. “I’m going for a walk,” he said abruptly. Then, to forestall Craig’s offer of company, he added, “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
As he passed the Pebble Beach Lodge, he wondered at the sense of isolation that made him feel so totally apart from the people who wandered along the paths, heading for the restaurants, the tourist shops, the golf courses. His grandfather had started bringing him to these courses when he was eight. His father had detested California, and so when they came it was just his mother and himself, and he’d seen her shed her nervous mannerisms and become younger, lighthearted.
&
nbsp; Why hadn’t she left his father? he wondered. Her family didn’t have the Winters millions, but she would certainly have had enough money. Wasn’t it because she was afraid of losing custody of him that she’d stayed in that cursed marriage? His father had never let her forget that first suicide attempt. And so she had stayed and endured his periodic drunken rages, his verbal abuse, his mimicking of her mannerisms, his scorn of her private fears until one night she had decided she couldn’t endure any more.
Unseeingly, Ted walked along the Seventeen Mile Drive, unaware of the Pacific, glimmering and gleaming below the houses that rose above Stillwater Cove and Carmel Bay, unaware of the luxuriant bougainvillea, heedless of the expensive cars that sped past him.
Carmel was still crowded with summer tourists, college students getting in one last fling before the fall semester. When he and Leila walked through town, she’d stopped traffic. The thought made him pull his sunglasses from his pocket. In those days, men used to look at him with envy. Now he was aware of hostility on the faces of strangers who recognized him.
Hostility. Isolation. Fear.
These last seventeen months had disrupted his entire life, had forced him to do things he would not have believed possible. Now he accepted the fact that there was one more monumental hurdle he had to overcome before the trial.
Drenching perspiration soaked his body at the image of what that would be.
8
ALVIRAH SAT AT THE DRESSING TABLE IN HER BUNGALOW, happily surveying the shiny rows of creams and cosmetics that had been presented to her in the makeup class that afternoon. As the instructor had told her, she had flat cheekbones that could be beautifully enhanced with a soft blush rather than the crimson rouge she favored. She also had been persuaded to try wearing a brown mascara instead of the jet black which she believed drew attention to her eyes. “Less is better,” the makeup expert had assured her, and truth to tell, there was a difference. In fact, Alvirah decided, the new makeup, combined with the way they’d toned down her hair to a rich brown, made her look just like the way she remembered Aunt Agnes, and Agnes always was the beauty in the family. It also felt good that her hands were starting to lose their calluses. No more heavy cleaning for her. Ever. Period.