Weep No More, My Lady

  Ted always in the way. Always the one with money and looks, always the one the girls flocked around. He’d forced himself to accept it, to make himself useful to Ted, first in college, then in the office: the gofer, the tenacious assistant. He’d had tonight his way up until the executive-plane accident had instantly made him Ted’s right hand, and then when Ted lost Kathy and Teddy, he’d been able to take over the reins of the company. . . .

  Until Leila.

  His loins ached remembering Leila. How it had felt to make love to her. Until he’d brought her here and she’d met Ted. And discarded him, like garbage tossed into a bin.

  He had watched those slim arms slide around Ted’s neck, that wanton body snuggling against Ted, had helplessly walked away not able to bear the sight of them together, planning revenge, waiting for the time.

  And he’d found it with the play. He’d had to prove investing in the play was a mistake. It was already clear that Ted was beginning to ease him out. And it was his chance to destroy Leila. The exquisite pleasure of sending those letters, of watching her fall apart. She’d even shown them to him as she received them. He’d warned her to burn them, to hide them from Ted and Elizabeth.” Ted’s getting awfully sick of your jealousy, and if you tell Elizabeth how upset you are, she’ll quit her play to be with you. That could ruin her career.”

  Grateful for his advice, Leila had agreed.” But tell me,” she’d begged.” Is it true, Bulldog? Is there someone else?” His elaborate protests had had the effect he wanted. She’d believed the letters.

  He hadn’t worried about those last two. He’d thought all that unopened mail had been thrown out. But it hadn’t mattered. Cheryl burned one, and he had taken the other one from Sammy. Everything was at last working for him. On Saturday he would become chairman and president of Winters Enterprises.

  He was at the pool.

  He slipped into the dark water and swam to the shallow end. Elizabeth always dived into the deepest area. That night in Elaine’s he’d known the time had come to kill Leila. Everyone would believe it was a suicide. He’d let himself in through one of the guest suites on the upper floor of the duplex and listened to them quarrel, listened when Ted stormed out, and then the idea had come to mimic Ted’s voice to make Elizabeth think Ted was with Leila just before she died.

  He heard the sound of footsteps on the path. She was coming. Soon he would be safe. In those weeks after Leila’s death, he’d thought he had lost. Ted hadn’t fallen apart. He’d turned to Elizabeth. The death had been considered an accident. Until that unbelievable stroke of luck when that crazy woman had come forward and said she had seen Ted struggling with Leila. And Elizabeth had become the chief witness.

  It was destined to be this way. Now the Baron and Syd had become material witnesses against Ted. The Baron wouldn’t be able to deny that he had heard Ted struggling with Leila. Syd had seen Ted on the street. Even Ted himself must have glimpsed them on the terrace and because he was drunk and it was dark, relived that episode with his father.

  The footsteps were getting closer. He allowed himself to sink to the bottom of the pool. She was so sure of herself, so clever. Waiting for him to come, anxious for him to attack her, ready to outswim him while she blew the whistle and called for help. She wouldn’t get the chance.

  It was ten o’clock, and there was a difference in the atmosphere of the Spa. Many of the bungalows were already dark, and Elizabeth wondered how many people had actually checked out. The talk-show host was gone; the Countess and her friends must have left before dinner, the tennis player and his girlfriend had not been in the dining room.

  Evening fog had settled in, heavy, penetrating, enveloping. Even the Japanese lanterns along the path seemed hooded.

  She dropped her robe by the side of the pool and looked carefully into the water. It was absolutely still. There was no one here yet.

  She felt for the whistle around her neck. All she would need was to be able to put her lips to it. A blast from this whistle would bring help.

  She dived in. The water felt clammy tonight. Or was it because she was afraid? I can outswim anyone, she reassured herself. I had to take this chance. It’s the only way. Would the bait be taken?

  Voices. Alvirah Meehan had been persistent on that subject. That persistence might have cost her her life. That was what she had been trying to tell them. She’d known it wasn’t Helmut’s voice.

  She’d reached the north end of the pool; she flipped over and began to backstroke. Voices. It was her identification of Ted’s voice that had placed him in that room with Leila a few minutes before her death.

  The night Leila died, Craig had claimed to be in his apartment watching a television show when Ted tried to call him. No one had questioned that Craig was home. Ted had been his alibi.

  Voices.

  Craig wanted Ted to be convicted. Ted was about to turn over the running of Winters Enterprises to him.

  When she asked Craig about changing the message on his recorder, had she frightened him enough to force him into an overt attack?

  Elizabeth began a freestyle breaststroke. From beneath her, arms encircled her, pinning her own arms to her sides. Her startled gasp caused her to swallow a mouthful of water. Choking furiously, she felt herself being dragged to the bottom of the pool. She began to beat with her heels, but they slipped off the heavy rubber wet suit of her assailant. With a desperate burst of strength, she dug her elbows deep into the ribs of her captor. For an instant the grip relaxed, and she began to rise to the surface. Just as her face emerged, as she managed to gulp one breath of air and fumble for the whistle, the arms enclosed her again, and she slipped downward, through the dark waters of the pool.

  11

  “AFTER KATHY AND TEDDY DIED, I WENT TO PIECES.” IT was as if Ted were talking to himself, not Scott. The car raced past the gate to Pebble Beach without stopping. The roaring siren shattered the peace of the surroundings; the headlights opened only a few feet of visibility in the deepening fog.

  “Craig took over running the whole business. He liked it. There were times when he’d answer and say he was me. Imitate my voice. I finally told him to cut it out. Then he met Leila first. I took her away. The reason I was so busy those months before Leila died, I was starting to reorganize. I intended to de-emphasize his job; split his responsibilities with two other men. He knew what was happening.

  “And he’s the one who hired the detective to follow that first witness; the detective who was so conveniently there to make sure the new witness didn’t get away.”

  * * *

  They were on the grounds of the Spa. Scott drove the car across the lawn and stopped in front of Elizabeth’s bungalow. The maid rushed from her station. Ted was banging on the door. “Where is Elizabeth?”

  “I don’t know,” the maid said, her voice faltering. “She gave me a letter. She didn’t say she was going out.”

  “Let me see the letter.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Give me the letter.”

  Scott read the note to Vicky, ripped open the letter addressed to him and began to read.

  “Where is she?” Ted demanded.

  “Oh, God, that crazy kid . . . The pool,” Scott snapped, “the pool.”

  The car smashed through hedges and flower beds and roared toward the north end of the property. Inside the bungalows, lights began to go on.

  They reached the patio. The fender of the car caught the edge of an umbrella table, knocking it over. The car stopped at the edge of the pool. Scott left the headlights on, and they shone over the water. Waves of the gathering fog shimmered in the lights.

  They peered down into the pool. “There’s no one here,” Scott said. A terrible fear grabbed at him. Were they too late?

  Ted was pointing at bubbles floating to the surface. “She’s down there.” Kicking off his shoes, he dived into the pool. He touched bottom and came up. “Get help,” he yelled. He went down again and again.

  Scott scrabbled in the
glove compartment for his flashlight, grabbed it and saw a figure in a scubadiving outfit begin to climb the ladder out of the pool. Drawing his pistol, he rushed toward the ladder. In a swift, violent gesture, the scuba diver lunged forward and butted him. The gun fell from Scott’s hand as he slammed backward onto the patio.

  Ted resurfaced. He was holding a limp figure in his arms. He began to swim toward the ladder, and as Scott dazedly pulled himself to a sitting position, the scuba diver fell backward onto Ted, dragging him and Elizabeth under the surface.

  Gasping for breath, Scott reached out a groping hand. His numbed fingers closed around his gun. Pointing it upward, he fired two shots, and was rewarded by the insistent sound of sirens racing toward him.

  * * *

  Ted desperately tried to hold on to Elizabeth with one arm as he pummeled his attacker with the other. His lungs were bursting; he was still groggy from the effects of the sodium pentothal; he felt himself losing consciousness. Futilely he tried to punch the thick rubber suit. His blows fell harmlessly on the solid, massive chest.

  The oxygen mask. He had to pull it off. He let go of Elizabeth, trying with all his strength to push her toward the surface. For a moment, the grip on him relaxed. A hand stretched past him, reaching to drag Elizabeth back. It gave him the chance to grab at the face mask. But before he could pull it off, a vicious shove sent him reeling backward.

  * * *

  She had held her breath, forcing herself to resist inhaling. She made herself go limp. There was no way she could get away from him. Her only hope was that he would think she was unconscious and leave her. Even from the feel of the arms that pinned her she knew it was Craig. She had forced him into the open—but now he would get away again.

  She was slipping into unconsciousness. Hold on, she thought. No, it was Leila telling her to hold on. Sparrow, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you. Don’t let me down now. He thinks he’s safe. You can do it, Sparrow.

  She felt the arms begin to release her. She was drifting down, trying to resist the impulse to fight her way to the surface. Wait, Sparrow, wait. Don’t let him see you’re still conscious.

  And then she had felt someone grabbing her, pulling her up; other arms, arms that held her to him, cradled her. Ted.

  She felt the night air on her face; gasped in one shuddering breath as, his arm around her neck, he dragged her along the top of the pool; heard his own breath, straining, choking, drowning out the sounds she was making.

  And then she felt before she saw the heavy figure bear down on them and managed to pull in one great gulp of air before the water again covered her face.

  Ted’s arm tightened. She felt him flailing out. Craig was trying to kill both of them. Nothing mattered to Craig except to destroy them now. The water pressed against her eardrums. She could not fight Ted’s grip. She felt the push as he tried to shove her toward the surface, felt Craig’s grasp on her ankle and managed to kick it away.

  On the surface she could see the cars pulling up, hear the shouts. Elizabeth gulped in air, once, twice, filled her lungs and then dived down, down to where Ted was fighting for his life. She knew where Craig was; the arc of her descent was directly over his head. He was squeezing Ted’s neck. She reached both hands down. Lights were beaming over the water. She could see the silhouette of Craig’s arms, the desperate struggle of Ted’s body. She would have only one chance.

  Now. She kicked—a sharp, cutting movement of her legs. She was directly over Craig. In a savage thrust, she managed to get her fingers under his face mask. He reached up, and she recoiled from the shove that made her head snap backward, but held on to the mask, held on until she had wrenched it away from his face.

  She held it while he groped for it, while his arms grabbed her body, while he tried to pull it from her, held it until she felt him being pulled away from her, held it until, lungs bursting, she found herself being hauled to the surface, still in his grasp.

  She could breathe at last. She choked in great gulping sobs as Ted finally relinquished his grip on Craig to the policemen who surrounded them in the water. Then, like two figures drawn by an irresistible magnetic force, she and Ted drifted to each other, and clinging together made their way to the ladder at the end of the pool. . . .

  Friday,

  September 4

  QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

  For love and beauty and delight. There is no death nor change.

  —SHELLEY

  DEAR SPA GUESTS,

  Some of you will be leaving us today. Remember, our only concern has been you, your well-being, your health, your beauty. Go into the world knowing that you have been loved and cared for here at Cypress Point Spa, that we are longing for your return. Soon our magnificent Roman bathhouse will be completed. It will be the unparalleled and consummate experience. There will be separate hours for the women and men except between four and six, when we shall enjoy mixed bathing in the European fashion, a very special delight indeed.

  Hurry back for another retreat into pampering and health-awareness in the serene atmosphere of Cypress Point Spa.

  Baron and Baroness Helmut von Schreiber

  1

  THE MORNING DAWNED CLEAR AND BRIGHT. THE EARLY-morning fog evaporated with the bright warmth of a glowing sun. Sea gulls and blackbirds swept high over the surf and returned to perch on the rocky dunes.

  At Cypress Point Spa, the remaining guests followed their schedules. Water classes were held in the Olympic pool; masseurs kneaded muscles and pounded layers of fat; pampered bodies were wrapped in herbal-scented sheets; the business of beauty and luxury continued to function.

  Scott had asked Min and Helmut, Syd and Cheryl, Elizabeth and Ted to meet him at eleven. They gathered in the music salon, the door closed, removed from the eyes and ears of the curious guests and staff. Elizabeth remembered the rest of the night as a blur: Ted holding her . . . someone wrapping the robe around her . . . Dr. Whitley ordering her to bed.

  Ted knocked at the door of her bungalow at ten of eleven. They walked up the path together, hands entwined, not needing to say what was between them. Min and the Baron sat side by side. Min’s face was weary but somehow more at peace, Elizabeth thought. There was something of the old Min in the steely determination in her eyes. The Baron, still so absolutely perfect in every hair on his head, his sport shirt resting on him with the ease of an ermine robe, his posture aloof, his assurance regained. For him too, the night had exorcised demons.

  Cheryl’s eyes moved restlessly toward Ted, narrowed when they found his face. With her sharp-tipped tongue she licked her lips like a cat about to pounce on a forbidden dish of cream.

  Next to her, Syd lounged. There was something about him that had been missing: the casual confidence of success.

  Ted sat beside her, his arm thrown over the back of her chair, his manner protective and watchful as though he feared she would slip away from him.

  “I think we’ve come to the end of the road.” The fatigue in Scott’s voice suggested that he had not spent the long hours of the night in bed. “Craig has retained Henry Bartlett, who urged him not to make a statement. However, when I read Elizabeth’s letter to him, he admitted everything. “Let me read that letter to you now.” Scott pulled it from his pocket.

  Dear Scott,

  There is only one way I can prove what I suspect, and I’m about to do that now. It may not work, but if anything happens to me, I think it will be because Craig has decided I’m coming too close to the truth.

  Tonight I practically accused Syd and the Baron of causing Leila’s death. I hope that will be sufficient bait to make Craig feel secure in attempting to harm me. I believe it will happen at the pool. I think he was there the other night. I can only rely on the fact that I can outswim anyone, and if he tries to attack me, he will have exposed himself. If he succeeds, go after him—for me and for Leila.

  By now you will have heard the tapes. Have you caught how upset he sounded when Alvirah Meehan was asking so many questions? He tried to cu
t Ted off when Ted said that Craig could fool people by imitating him.

  I thought I heard Ted shout at Leila to put the phone down. I thought I heard her say, “You’re not falcon.” But Leila was sobbing. That’s why I misunderstood. Helmut was nearby. He heard her say, “You’re not Falcon.” He heard accurately. I did not.

  That tape of Alvirah Meehan in the treatment room. Listen carefully. That first voice. It sounds like the Baron, but there’s something wrong. I think it was Craig imitating the Baron’s voice.

  Scott, there’s no proof of any of this. The only proof will be obtained if Craig has found me too dangerous.

  We’ll see what happens. There is one thing I know and probably have always known in my heart. Ted is incapable of murder, and I don’t care how many witnesses come forward to claim they saw him kill Leila.

  Elizabeth

  Scott put down the letter and looked sternly at Elizabeth. “I wish you had trusted me to help you. You almost lost your life.”

  “It was the only way,” Elizabeth said. “But what did he do to Mrs. Meehan?”

  “An insulin injection. As you know, during college he worked summers at the hospital in Hanover. He picked up a lot of medical knowledge those years. But initially the insulin wasn’t meant for Alvirah Meehan.” Scott looked at Elizabeth. “He had become convinced you were dangerous. He had planned to find a way to do away with you in New York this week, before the trial. But when Ted decided to come here, Craig persuaded Min to invite you too. He persuaded her that you might back off from testifying against Ted once you saw him. What he wanted was a chance to arrange an accident. Alvirah Meehan became a threat. He already had the means to get rid of her.” Scott stood up. “And now I’m going home.”

  At the door he paused. “Just one last observation I’d like to make. You, Baron, and you, Syd, were willing to obstruct justice when you thought Ted was guilty. By taking the law into your own hands, you did him no favors and may indirectly have been responsible for Sammy’s death and Mrs. Meehan’s attack.”