Angel Among Us (12 page)

Dakota Wylie knew it, too, if only in her heart of hearts. I could feel the sadness leaking from her, and there was a familiarity in her yearning to not be abandoned. Then I felt a flash of fear from her, followed by memories of hunger and I knew that she had come from humble beginnings. How she had ended up here, in an immense mansion with a Hollywood star husband, was a story I did not know. All I knew was that the ending had not been a happy one. She was no more than a prop to Enrique Romero. She had been his ticket to a few more inches of tabloid fame. He didn't give a crap about her.

‘We need to talk to you alone,' Maggie said, addressing Dakota Wylie directly for the first time. It was hard to read Maggie's tone. I think she felt sorry for the woman hiding behind gauze curtains and sunglasses, but she had no patience for her at the same time.

‘Mr Romero says she is not to be questioned alone,' the maid said apologetically.

‘Then maybe Mr Romero should have stayed with his wife,' Calvano snapped back. He sounded angry and I knew what he was thinking: if she were my wife, I would treasure her. I would never abandon her like this.

‘It's OK, Lupe. I will sit with her while they question her,' a familiar voice said from the bedroom door. It was the man who had interrupted their meeting in the library earlier and I realized that he must be Lamont Carter, Dakota's manager. His expensive clothes could not disguise his rough edges or mannerisms. He held himself coiled, as if he were waiting for someone to pick a fight. Judging from how the other men in the library had treated him, it was an understandable attitude.

‘But Mr Romero said—' the maid began.

‘Leave,' the man said sharply and she scurried from the room.

Maggie did not like him. At all. ‘Who are you?' she demanded.

The man responded by sitting in the chair by Dakota Wylie's bed. He crossed his legs as if he were there to stay. He ran a manicured hand through his hair. ‘My name is Lamont Carter.' He sounded unconcerned about Maggie's abruptness. ‘I am Ms Wylie's manager. I am also her financial advisor, hold power of attorney over her affairs and have been her legal guardian for the past sixteen years.'

‘And here I thought Lincoln had freed the slaves,' Maggie snapped. She did not like short men in general, they postured too much for her, and this one she
hated.

‘Ms Wylie started out in the business very early on,' Carter explained, sounding bored and unapologetic, as if he had explained it one too many times before. ‘It would have been ridiculously easy to take advantage of her had I not been looking out for her interests. Believe me, people would have tried. Hollywood is full of bottom feeders.'

‘You've convinced me of that,' Maggie said, giving him the once-over. The man did not flinch. He shrugged, examined his cuticles and waved toward Dakota Wylie as if giving permission to Maggie to get started.

Maggie decided to ignore him. She looked around, seeking a chair, but Calvano had beat her to it. He was dragging a vanity table chair and an armchair over to the far side of the bed, across from the manager, and had taken the closest one for himself. He was about to see his fantasy in the flesh and he wanted a front row seat, even if there was a curtain between them.

‘Ms Wylie,' Calvano asked softly. ‘Are you feeling up to answering some questions?'

Instead of answering, she let out a long sigh and tilted her head back against her pillows. The blue scarf wound around her head slipped away from her face, revealing small white butterfly bandages underneath, as if keeping her face in place. She had clearly had some sort of surgery and was in the healing phase, but something was wrong. I had only caught a glimpse, but her face seemed out of kilter. Her famously symmetrical features were gone. She tucked the scarf back around her face, adjusted her sunglasses and turned to Calvano. When she spoke, there it was: the trademark voice. I could feel Calvano surrendering to it.

‘I will do the best I can,' she said. She waved her hand over the top of her embroidered covers, a gesture as graceful as water lilies floating in a stream. ‘As you can see, I am not feeling well. My pregnancy has proved to be a difficult one. But I am determined to see it through. Enrique wants a family badly.'

I knew what Maggie and Calvano were thinking, because it was the same thing I was thinking: if Enrique Romero wanted a family so damn badly, why had he just ditched her and fled to California with a coterie of advisers but not her?

‘We won't take up much of your time,' Maggie said. ‘May I hand you a photograph?'

The actress nodded and reached languidly through the gauze curtains. She definitely had a flair for the dramatic. Maggie brushed her fingers lightly while Calvano looked on longingly. Boy, he had it bad.

I was less enchanted. I was confused by the emotions tumbling through the room, by the territorial way the manager hunched over in his chair watching every move Dakota Wylie made, no matter how small. His eyes darted back and forth between Maggie and Calvano as if he were certain they were out to harm his client.

It was odd, but he and Dakota Wylie seemed so much in synch they gave off what was almost a single aura, as if they were very nearly the same person. How long had he been protecting her? Perhaps he had been telling the truth. Perhaps, without him, she would have been used and discarded like so many other young actresses. Instead, she was a millionaire married to a multimillionaire, and the whole world watched to see what she would do next.

Dakota Wylie was studying the photo of Arcelia Gallagher carefully, and though you could see little of her face except for her swollen mouth, she exuded an air of concern. She was an actress of course, and it could all have been for show, but she seemed genuinely distressed about Arcelia Gallagher.

‘I'm sorry,' she said in her breathy voice. ‘I've never seen her before. I'm sure of it.'

‘What about you?' Maggie asked her manager.

Lamont Carter barely looked at the photo and shrugged. ‘I can't be expected to remember everyone who works here. They all look alike to me.'

‘She didn't work here, asshole,' Calvano interrupted. ‘She's a preschool teacher and a lot of people are upset that she's missing. She was spotted here at the mansion. Are you telling me you don't know anything about that?'

Lamont Carter looked surprised at Calvano's anger. I realized that he had little sense of how others saw him. He was one of those people who go out into the world with a determined sense of self – but absolutely no clue as to how others perceive them.

‘There's no need to get nasty,' Carter said. ‘I just meant that I don't know her and I have never seen her.'

‘What do you know about your gardener Rodrigo?' Maggie asked Dakota Wylie.

She shifted slowly in the bed, as if it were taking a long time for Maggie's question to permeate her brain. I wondered if she was on some sort of medication, or if she was acting this way on purpose. I know I was not the only one wondering.

‘Ms Wylie does not know anything about the help. That's why she has me, not to mention a butler to manage the staff.' Lamont Carter's voice had taken on a hard edge and I knew with a certainty that he was a man who could not keep his temper in check.

‘Are you all right?' Calvano asked Dakota Wylie directly. ‘Can I get you a glass of water? You don't look well.'

That was both an understatement and a kindness. Once you got used to the dim lighting of the room, it became more apparent that something terrible had happened to Dakota Wylie's face. Her lips were not only swollen, they were misshapen, and flesh-colored bandages braced her nose on either side. Bruises snaked up from her nose to disappear underneath her huge sunglasses. I didn't want to think about what had caused those marks.

‘I would love a glass of nice, cool water,' she told Calvano. She leaned forward and reached through the curtains to briefly stroke his hand. It had an almost magical effect on Calvano. He rose and went to a pitcher of ice water that was sitting on top of a table in one corner of the room, poured her a glass and returned, walking as carefully as if it was plutonium, unaware of the silence as both Maggie and the manager watched him curiously. Calvano parted the curtains, leaned forward and steadied her chin with one hand as he carefully tipped the glass until the water trickled through her swollen lips. She drank as if she were a baby, nodding when she'd had enough.

Calvano sat back down holding the glass of water like it was the Holy Grail. Maggie was staring at him, dumbfounded.

‘I believe Ms Wylie has told you everything she knows,' the manager said sharply. He made a big show out of checking his incredibly expensive-looking watch. ‘I have some business matters to discuss with her now, if you don't mind.'

Maggie knew it was useless to try to get anything more out of her anyway. She rose and tapped Calvano on the shoulder. He was lost in staring at Dakota Wylie.

‘Let's go, Adrian,' she said sharply, hoping to penetrate his hormonal fog.

Calvano nodded, then rose and made a half bow. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms Wylie,' he said. ‘If ever you need anything, please do not hesitate to call on me.' Lamont Carter was staring at his nails, bored with the spectacle. He had no doubt witnessed it dozens of times when he was out with Dakota Wylie in public.

‘Thank you so much,' Dakota Wylie told Calvano. Her mouth stretched in smile that quickly turned grotesque.
What had she done to herself?
‘You're such a gentleman and it was so nice to meet you.'

Calvano nodded mutely, unable to speak.

I followed Maggie and Calvano out into the long hallway toward the curving grand staircase that led to the ground floor. Once again, we stepped through an icy patch of air and I wondered who or what was holding the mansion hostage. At least this time I felt no pain.

Amateur
, I thought to myself. Patches of cold and shoving books around. Sitting on the gardener's face? Big deal. I could do that. I could do something even better than that. If you're going to haunt a house, then, by god, haunt it.

As if my fellow traveler could read my mind, the huge chandelier that anchored the center of the foyer began to tremble. It shook faster and faster until the hanging squares of glass began to clatter against one another.

Well, excuse me.

Maggie and Calvano were staring at the chandelier.

‘Was that an earthquake?' Maggie asked after a moment. Calvano shrugged and she did not speak again until they were halfway down the stairs when she turned to Calvano, stopping to emphasize her words, and asked, ‘What the hell was that all about up there? Is it just me or was that interview creepy as hell? What was with her face?'

‘I think she's had plastic surgery,' Calvano admitted. ‘Up close, you can see the scars at the base of her hairline. She can't be more than thirty years old. Why would she feel she has to get plastic surgery?'

‘That's not the main question, Adrian,' Maggie pointed out. ‘The real question is why anyone would risk getting plastic surgery when they're pregnant? How self-centered is that?'

As if to emphasize her words, a vase of flowers on an entrance table in the foyer below them suddenly tumbled over, spilling water and stems to the floor.

‘Let's get the hell out of here,' Calvano suggested.

‘I'm right behind you,' Maggie agreed.

T
he rest of the day had been spent on interviewing Arcelia Gallagher's co-workers and neighbors, checking in with the task force and plowing through any open cases that might possibly be connected to Arcelia's disappearance. The only respite from paperwork came when Maggie and Calvano got a call that Danny Gallagher had been assaulted at a local restaurant. They rushed to the scene and understood at once what had happened. Danny had tried to resume some semblance of a routine, at the urging of those who knew him, but routine would not be possible. He had not been in the restaurant for more than a minute, waiting for the owner to come out so he could apologize for the lateness of his produce order, when a pair of elderly patrons had stood up in a huff and stomped out the door without paying, hurling names at Danny as they left. Danny had been too stunned to react, which made him an easy target for the drunk at the bar who decided to punch Danny in the face and teach the wife killer a lesson. Danny refused medical care and fled home. Neither Maggie nor Calvano thought he was likely to venture out again. Not with all the television networks broadcasting his photo and speculating that he killed his wife.

Now, Maggie and Calvano had reported for a briefing with Gonzales. Unfortunately, they had little to offer him and Gonzales was not interested in either strange noises or Hollywood eccentrics. He dismissed their lack of progress at the Delmonte House with a shrug.

‘What did you expect?' he asked them. ‘They don't live in the real world. They have other people to do that for them. Maybe she's just using pregnancy as an excuse to stay away from the public view while the scars of her plastic surgery heal. If she doesn't come up with the kid, because she won't be the first person to have elective surgery while pregnant, trust me, then she'll announce she's had a miscarriage in a couple of weeks, get a bunch of tabloid headlines, and that will be that. She'll emerge from her so-called tragedy looking ten years younger than she used to and no one will notice.'

‘If she emerges looking ten years younger than she used to, then she'll look like she's ten years old,' Calvano said.

‘I don't care about Hollywood stars, got it?' Gonzales said. ‘Enrique Romero uses our town like it's a set for his press conferences. I won't play into his hands. He probably wants to be accused so he can pull rank and then tell the press we're persecuting him. From what you are telling me, I suggest you take a clue from the gardener and go talk to the priest again. Could he have made it any more plain?'