Death Was in the Picture (27 page)

“No,” I said. “No, never. She actually wanted a ride home—she lives out in Tar zana—and he was offering, so …”

Dex didn’t say anything for a moment. Just looked at me piercingly. “Anything else?” he said after a while.

“Well, it gets ugly.”

“Go ahead, Kitty. I’m a big boy,” Dex said. “I can take it.”

“He put the moves on her, before they got to her place.”

“There’s a shock,” Mustard said.

“Only when he found out she’s Jewish, he almost pushed her out of the moving car.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice, Kitty, but it doesn’t have anything at all to do with our case, does it?”

I shook my head. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t think so. But I wanted to pass it on, anyway. Plus, in the course of all this he told her that Xander Dean is in his employ.”

“Which may or may not be true.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“Anything else?”

“Just one thing. And it’s nothing I found, just a phone message from Samuel Marcus at the
Courier.”
I relayed the message and both men sipped their drinks while they contemplated what it might mean.

“They think it’s a broad, huh?” Dex said.

I shrugged. “I told him I didn’t think it was likely, but they have other ideas.”

“Well, like I said a few days ago,” Dex said, “I think we need to find Rhoda Darrow.”

“So much has been happening, Dex. That’s what I forgot to tell you. I found an address for her. In Santa Monica.” I hit the highlights of my sleuthing and was warmed by Dex’s approving smile.

“That’s just swell, Kitty. Great work. That’ll save some steps. Course we won’t know until we get there if this is her current address. Still, it’s a better lead than we had before.”

“But do you think Rhoda Darrow might have done it?”

“Do I?” Dex said. “To be honest, I’m not sure I do. But I’d like to know what she knows, in any case. And we
do
know that Dean hired her so, if nothing else, it’s another connection to
Dean. I’ll go out there in the morning and see if she’s still around there. Thanks, Kitty.”

“I could do that part,” I said.

“Do what part?”

“Drive out to Santa Monica and see if that’s still her address.”

Dex looked at me speculatively before answering. “I guess that’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Divide and conquer,” he tipped his glass. “We’ve got this Chicago thing to check up on. Xander Dean. The priest guy.”

“And Joe Breen,” Mustard put in.

“But you hafta promise you won’t actually
do
anything,” Dex said. “Just find out if that’s still where she lives.”

“Sure, Dex.”

“And don’t be disappointed if she doesn’t live there anymore. Chances are she doesn’t. You said she left the apartment, what? Six months ago? She seemed the type that might already have moved on.”

“But if she did, there might be a new address for her, right?”

“Right. And it’ll save me some steps. Me and Mustard have got things to work through around here, so take Mustard’s car.”

“Hey!”

“Why not?” Dex said. “You ain’t going far. We can’t have Kitty going all the way out to the beach on the streetcar when there’s a perfectly good heap sitting right outside.”

“You can drive a car?” Mustard said, sounding astonished.

I choked back a sigh and the impatience I felt creeping in. Dex had taught me to drive. Mustard had sat in cars while they were being driven by me. Yet both of them always forgot I could drive.

“Sure,” I said, feigning innocence. “You just point it in the direction you want to go and push the pedals, right?”

“It’s not a gun,” Dex said. “You can’t just aim it at a target and expect to get to where you’re going without hitting a few innocent bystanders.”

“Dex, you taught me to drive. I know what I’m doing.”

“Ah. Well then, I should definitely be able to vouch for you. If I taught you everything I know, then you should be better than Mustard here.”

“Will you bring it back tonight?” Mustard asked.

I shook my head. “Tomorrow morning.”

“All rightee then,” he said jovially enough, “why not? But make sure when you bring it back, it’s still got all four wheels and the radio works.” He handed across the keys. “It’s parked on Spring.”

I’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT the dark maroon Marmon Sixteen until I stood in front of it. When I did see it, I nearly lost my nerve. You didn’t need to be a mechanic or look under the hood to know that this was a more powerful kind of car than the ones I was used to driving. It was longer, lower and altogether meaner looking. Mustard had told Dex it was the world’s most advanced car. He hadn’t told me what he meant by that, but he and Dex had exchanged a look like they were sharing some secret only men would understand and I hadn’t bothered asking. Anyway, the Sixteen
looked
like the world’s most advanced car. You didn’t need to ask questions.

What got me moving was turning the alternatives over in my head. Well,
alternative
really, because there was only one, and it ran on tracks. I swallowed my fear, got up my gumption and climbed behind the wheel.

Once I got the car moving I spent a few minutes getting used to the sensitivity of the controls. The dashboard looked like it belonged in something you could fly to Pittsburgh. I thought the Marmon felt lighter than other cars. And more powerful. It was a distinctive car and I felt a weird and possessive pride to see heads turn as we drove past.

Rhoda Darrow’s former landlady had written down an address on Palisades Beach Road and the information that the house was called Bella Luna. I couldn’t help but wonder how an out-of-work and apparently down-on-her-luck actress had ended up in such a swell neighborhood. Would that be another clue? Another hint toward Mustard’s much-ballyhooed Chicago connection? I pressed ahead.

I found the place without much difficulty. The golden mile isn’t even a mile long and, what with Marion Davies’ huge and glistening beach house taking up five acres of that mile, it was simple enough to narrow down where the house was. Especially with a name like Bella Luna. I could only see one house that would fit that description and when I stopped the car and went in on foot for a closer inspection, I saw that I was right: a tiny mosaic sign announced to visitors that they had arrived at the house of the beautiful moon.

Bella Luna was small, charming and walled like a tiny Mediterranean fortress right there on the beach at Santa Monica. A gate with a bell greeted visitors on the street side and the same high wall surrounded the whole place.

For a while I pondered how to discover if Rhoda Darrow was still in residence. It was possible Dex had some highfalutin’ detective trick for this part of the investigation. The only thing I could think to do was approach the front door.

A uniformed maid opened the gate not long after I rang.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m here to see Miss Darrow.”

“Who shall I tell her is here?”

“Miss Katherine Pangborn,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height and shifting my body so that the Marmon would be easily visible.

“Please wait here,” the servant instructed. “I’ll see if Miss Darrow is receiving.”

So that was that, I thought to myself as I stood there on the stoop. I had my confirmation. Rhoda Darrow did still live here. I could leave now, mission accomplished, and tell Dex what I’d discovered. I peered into the door the girl had left open. The garden the wall surrounded was beautiful—I could see it through a massive window—and a swimming pool glistened in an unreal but beckoning shade of blue. Inexplicably, though, boxes were stacked neatly next to the front door.
Someone was moving, though if it was in or out, I could not be sure. What if she was leaving? What if Dex came tomorrow and found nothing but dust bunnies? Then where would we be?

“I’m sorry,” the girl said on her return. “Miss Darrow is indisposed this afternoon. Perhaps if you check in with us in the morning. By telephone,” she added pointedly, handing me a stiff piece of cardboard, on which there had been written a phone number in the Gladstone exchange.

“Is Miss Darrow going on a trip?” I asked, indicating the boxes.

The woman’s face might have shown surprise at the question, or maybe alarm. Whatever it was, I didn’t have the skill to read it properly and she didn’t answer my question. Just looked down her nose at me and shut the door.

I went back to the car and drove a few blocks before I found a phone booth. When the office phone rang and rang and rang I cursed myself for my optimism. What had I been thinking? Of
course
Dex and Mustard wouldn’t be there. The two of them in the mood they’d been in, there were any number of downtown dives where they might have taken their self-satisfied joviality to kill the rest of the afternoon in mutual congratulations.

While I drove back to the beach, I thought about what to do. I was all the way down here and, from what Dex had said, slightly taller and stronger and healthier-looking than Darrow, and no doubt several years younger. Mustard would have said something like, “In a clean fight, you could take her easy.” He would have been half-kidding, but he’d have meant it just the same. That was the place from which he viewed the world. Simple-like. Most of the time it didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

Now that I was all the way out there, I had no doubt but that it ought to have been Dex there thinking about his next move. But it was not. It was me. This left me with a sort of sadness for
my beautiful, broken boss, but it also sprang the steel in my spine. A thing had been thrust upon me. Was I big enough for it? I thought maybe I was.

I decided that I owned enough of that steel to at least walk the perimeter of the property, keeping close to the wall at first, but just seeing what I could see. That proved to be pretty much nothing. The wall was taller than I with no openings. The sand was hard going in my medium-heeled pumps, but I didn’t dare take them off for fear of ruining my stockings. I negotiated the sand in my shoes as well as I could, hoping that Dex would appreciate the lengths to which I would go for the good of his business, even while I knew that there was no way he’d really be able to.

In the wall farthest from the street there was a gate that was no doubt intended to allow residents the easiest possible stroll to the surf. I could see the gate was locked. For one awful moment, I thought that was it, I’d have to turn around and shuffle back through the sand to the car. At the last minute, though, I noticed that the gate was not locked at all, but had merely been made to look that way. I just had to reach through and unlatch the bolt from the inside.

Then I was inside the wall in a garden that seemed, at first, like a fantasy or something from a film. The swimming pool I’d gotten a glimpse of through the house dominated the space and was surrounded by beautiful tile work. A Moorish bath of Roman design, that was the feeling one got.

Inside the walled garden, you could not see the ocean, though you could catch a sliver of the view by way of the wrought iron door through which I had come. You did not have the feeling of being at the beach, virtually on the strand. Until you listened. That was an odd sensation, strangely soothing. Not seeing the view, but hearing it. It was like being on another plane in a different world. It was a lovely garden. I could have spent a long time there.

Then I saw her where at first I had not. She was reclining on a chaise at the far side of the pool, under the shade of a huge orange umbrella that cast a reddish glow over her skin. Though I’d never seen her before in person, I didn’t need anyone to confirm that this, finally, was Rhoda Darrow.

She was thin. I could see this through her swim costume. Almost bizarrely so, with pointy little elbows and bony little knees. She looked as though she might break. Thin as she was, she had the pallor most of us gain only in illness or even in death. It was something beyond the pink alabaster so admired in maidens, a ghostly glow that increased when she caught sight of me.

Rhoda Darrow brought herself to a standing position in a single movement that managed to appear both lithe and painful. “What do you want?” she said in a voice that was surprisingly smooth and well-modulated. I had expected something else from an actress who had never “talked.”

Her question was itself telling. She didn’t ask who I was or what I was doing there. With her question, she assumed a desire. That meant something. She was scared.

It was actually a good question. I’d spent so much time tracking her down, now that I had her, I didn’t know exactly what to do.

“I work for Dex Theroux,” I told her. I saw a flicker of something, but not full recognition. She remembered the name, her look told me, but not the context. “He’s a private investigator,” I told her. “His office is downtown.”

“What’s a shamus want with me?” she said, but I thought I could see full recognition now.

I tried again. “You were his … date the night Fleur MacKenzie … died.”

“At the party,” she said quietly.

“That’s right. It is my … my understanding that you were told to have him see certain things.”

A spot of color to those pale cheeks. But no denial. “How did you get in here, anyway? I should call someone.” She started to move toward the house but I stopped her easily with my hand on one frail arm. I could feel her little bird bones moving beneath the skin. I held fast. Mustard was right: if it came to it, I could take ‘er easy. My heart clenched at the thought.

“You’re not going to call anyone,” I said quietly and, fortunately, she wasn’t putting up much of a fight. Then something emboldened me. I gave her a little push and she fell back into her chair. I controlled the rush of excitement that flooded through me and found I couldn’t quite. As a result, I felt a flush of embarrassment stain my cheeks. That together with the glitter the excitement this no doubt put in my eyes, combined with the slight shake of my hands—pure nervousness—probably combined to make me appear more dangerous than I ever had before. I could see that danger reflected in her eyes.

“What do you want?” she said tremulously. I tried to feel pity for her but I just couldn’t muster any. Instead I started grilling her, while keeping on eye on the door that led into the house. It wouldn’t do to have a servant come out here while I was browbeating her mistress. I could imagine police being called, paddy wagons arriving and me in handcuffs being marched off to join Wyndham at Number 11.