Silver Scream: A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery (11 page)

“…word of the Lord,” intoned the lector from the pulpit.

“Oh, my Lord!” Judith gasped from the pew.

The disheveled woman was Renie. She was panting and limping, her clothes in disarray and her hair going
every which way, including over her eyes. Judith hurried into the aisle and approached her cousin.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered in a frantic voice. “Are you sick?”

Renie shook her head, brushing unruly chestnut strands of hair out of her eyes.

“Have you been attacked?” Judith asked.

Renie shook her head again. “Not exactly.”

Judith gestured toward the pew where she’d been sitting. “Can you sit down?”

Renie nodded. The usher, whose wrinkled face was etched with concern, made a move to help both women.

“It’s okay,” Judith said softly. “She’s not heavy, she’s my cousin.”

R
ENIE ALL BUT
fell into the pew. By now, several of the nearby worshipers were staring. But as she regained her breath and straightened her clothes, the curious returned their attention to the altar. Judith, however, still stared at her cousin with anxious eyes.

“Later,” Renie mouthed.

It seemed like the longest Mass that Judith had ever attended. She had great difficulty concentrating on the liturgy, though she found no problem in praying for Renie and for herself. It seemed that they both were in a great deal of trouble. At last the priest gave the final blessing. Judith offered to help Renie out of the pew, but was shaken off.

“I’m okay now,” she declared. “I won.”

“You won what?” Judith asked as they started down the aisle.

“The fight,” Renie said as they reached the vestibule. “I got into a fight at the XYZ Market up the street.”

“Oh, good grief!” Judith exclaimed, drawing more stares from the exiting churchgoers. “How did that happen?”

“Some middle-aged Amazon thought she was
Wonder Woman and tried to edge me out at the checkout counter,” Renie explained as they headed down the stairs to the door that led to the parking lot. “I’d already stood in line for ten minutes and I was afraid I’d be late for Mass. Bill had gone to ten o’clock at Our Lady, Star of the Sea. I was so pooped from everything that happened yesterday that I slept in. Anyway, this brazen broad ran her cart over my foot and said something like, ‘Move it, shorty.’ So I rammed her with my cart. Then we got into it, and the next thing I knew we were slugging it out over the counter and finally I put a plastic produce bag over her head. She surrendered.” Renie wore a grim expression of victory. “So what’s new with you this morning?”

Judith started to speak, and discovered that she had no voice. “I…” The single word was a squawk. “Joe…” Her husband’s name was a guttural sound, as if she were gagging.

Renie looked alarmed. “What’s wrong, coz? Is something caught in your throat?”

Judith shook her head. The other churchgoers were now swarming the parking lot, revving engines, and readying for departure. The cousins were blocking traffic. With a desperate effort, Judith mouthed the words, “Buster’s Café.”

“Buster’s?” Renie looked bewildered.

Judith made chewing motions. Renie got it.

“You want me to meet you at Buster’s? Okay, see you in a couple of minutes.”

Buster’s Café was old, a lower Heraldsgate Hill landmark. Buster himself still ran the place after inheriting it from his parents forty years earlier. Nothing much had changed in that time, or even before, but the
food was decent and the rubber-soled waitresses could have won a restaurant Olympics for speed and efficiency.

It took each of the cousins less than three minutes to drive to the café, but almost ten to find parking spaces, even on a Sunday morning. Judith was out of breath when she arrived; Renie seemed to have regained her usual bounce.

“I can’t have more than coffee,” Judith said, “be-cause I have to get home. If you think you’ve had a bad weekend, listen to this…”

Renie did, her brown eyes growing wider and wider. When Judith had finished about the same time that Renie’s coffee had gone cold, an incredulous expression remained on her cousin’s face.

“You can’t lose the B&B!” Renie cried. “It’d be like removing your liver!”

“I know.” Judith sighed. “It’s not just a job or making money, it’s who I am. The horrible part is that we may be at fault. We were negligent in not getting that cupboard door fixed. Why, you almost slammed into it the other day.”

“True,” Renie allowed, her expression full of concern. “But you don’t really know what happened to Bruno.”

“Also true,” Judith agreed.

A brief silence fell between the cousins. “I’m not going to say it,” Renie said at last.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it,” Judith responded, finally taking a sip from her water glass. “No matter what, I’ve already said it about twenty times since last night.”

Renie said it anyway. “It can’t be another homicide.
That’d be three at Hillside Manor. On the other hand, if it is, you wouldn’t be at fault.” She paused after stirring extra sugar into her coffee. “When is a murder not a murder? How on earth do you and Joe expect to find out?”

“I’m not sure,” Judith replied, looking worried. “I talk, I listen, while Joe sleuths in a professional way.”

“Can Bill and I help?” Renie offered, her deep sense of family loyalty leaping to the surface.

While not nearly as compassionate, Renie ran a decent second to her cousin when it came to striking up a revealing conversation. As for Bill, whatever he disliked about idle socializing was more than made up for by his extraordinary perceptiveness. Being a trained psychologist didn’t hurt any, either.

“Why not?” Judith said, brightening a bit.

“Well…” Renie grimaced. “We were planning on inviting our future in-laws over so we could make sure who was marrying whom, but the kids aren’t positive that will work with their various and elaborate schedules. They insist we’ve met them already. I’ll find out what Bill thinks. If he gives me a green light, we’ll be over as soon as we can.”

Driving to Hillside Manor, Judith breathed a little easier. To her relief, the cul-de-sac was empty, except for the patrol car that had crept close to the curb. She couldn’t see who was inside, but assumed it was someone from the day shift. Darnell Hicks and Mercedes Berger would have gone home hours ago.

As she often did, Judith left her Subaru in the driveway. She usually entered the house from the rear, but on this anxious Sunday she retraced her route to the front. Pausing on the walk, she drank in the entirety of
Hillside Manor, acknowledging its age, soaking up its memories. The house was almost a hundred years old, built in the Edwardian era. The dark green paint and the off-white trim on the Prairie-style Craftsman had just begun to chip and fade. Next summer, Judith would have to hire a painter. If there was a next summer at Hillside Manor.

So many memories, she thought, ignoring the slight drizzle. Her Grover grandparents had bought the house in the twenties. Her father and Renie’s father had grown up there along with four siblings. Gertrude and Donald Grover had raised Judith within its sheltering walls. After Don died, Judith and Mike had returned, converting the house into a bed-and-breakfast. To Judith, it wasn’t just a building, it was a sanctuary. She couldn’t possibly give it up. Not ever.

With a dragging step, Judith entered through the front door, where her melancholia was swept away by angry voices coming from the living room. One voice soared above the rest.

“You don’t live in our world, Mr. Flynn,” proclaimed Angela La Belle. “You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be in the picture business. If we aren’t free to talk to people, to make contacts, to keep up on every nuance of the business, our careers are in jeopardy. Indeed, after last night’s fiasco, all”—she paused, and Judith thought she glanced at Ellie Linn—“or
almost
all of us are already in deep doodoo.”

It seemed to Judith the reference was not to Bruno’s death, but to
The Gasman’
s flop. She couldn’t help but flinch at the lack of humanity.

Joe remained unruffled. “Don’t blame us. Talk to your studio suits. You all have cell phones, don’t you?”
He cupped one ear with his hand. “I could swear they’ve been ringing like a satellite symphony.”

“It’s not the same,” Ben Carmody argued. “I planned to take a dinner meeting tonight with the number two producer in Hollywood. Number one now, with Bruno out of the picture. So to speak.” The actor looked faintly sheepish, but continued, “After last night, there may not be any producers who want to talk to me.”

“You’re not kidding,” Angela chimed in. “Now when my name comes up, they’ll say, ‘La Belle? She was in that disaster,
The Gasman
. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.’ It’ll be like I have a contagious disease. There’s no rationality in this business. Only success and its afterglow count.”

The others enumerated their complaints, all of which swelled into a dirge of doom. Judith studied the gathering. Winifred was seated on one of the sofas by the fireplace with Chips Madigan at her side. Opposite them were Angela and Dirk. Ben Carmody leaned against the mantelpiece and, while not wearing his usual sinister screen expression, definitely looked morose. Dade Costello retained his lone-wolf status in his favorite place by the French doors. Ellie Linn also stood outside the circle, perched on the bay window seat with her feet tucked under her. It seemed to Judith that the young actress hadn’t been nearly as vocal about the unfortunate movie premiere as her colleagues.

It was time, Judith believed, to cut someone from the herd. She singled out Winifred Best.

“Excuse me,” she said in a deferential voice, “but could I speak with you privately, Ms. Best?”

Briefly, Winifred looked hostile. Or maybe just wary. But her response was sufficiently courteous. “Yes, if you like.”

Judith led her guest into the front parlor. “It’s really none of my business, but since I’ll have to fill out some forms, I should know what the plans are for Mr. Zepf’s body.”

“Oh.” Winifred’s face fell. “I’ve contacted his children—they’re both in the L.A. area—and they’re making the arrangements. My understanding is that the body will be shipped from here tomorrow. Under the circumstances, I should think any kind of service will be private. Very private.” She uttered the last words through taut lips.

Judith wondered if the very private services were because the family was very private or because the deceased had suffered a huge professional catastrophe and the survivors were afraid that nobody would attend.

“Are his children grown?” Judith inquired.

Winifred nodded. “Practically. That is, they’re both in college. Greta’s at Pepperdine and Greg just started USC.”

“Um…” Judith cleared her throat. “Is their mother also in L.A.?”

Winifred arched her thin eyebrows. “Their mother is in Dubai. She divorced Bruno several years ago and married an emir. She was an actress named Taryn McGuire. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d never heard of her. She did mostly TV and only appeared briefly in two or three feature films.”

The name meant nothing to Judith. “I suppose being married to Bruno wasn’t easy,” she said in a sympa
thetic tone. “That is, he really was considered a movie genius, wasn’t he?”

“Brilliant.” Winifred’s eyes lit up and her voice became almost caressing. “He always had his dreams. Bruno attended every Saturday matinee, his attention fixated on the screen, his imagination catching fire. Early on, he understood what made a successful picture. It was born in him.”

Judith felt as if Winifred were reading from a press release. Maybe she was; maybe she’d written it.

“It was only in the last six or seven years that he began to recieve the kind of acclaim he’d always sought,” Winifred went on. “Two years ago he made the short list.”

“Which is?” Judith asked, puzzled.

Winifred offered Judith a pitying smile. “It refers to those few at the very top of their professions in the film industry. Like Spielberg or Cameron. And Bruno.” Quickly, she turned away. “Excuse me. It’s so hard to think of Bruno going out…with a failure.”

“You seem genuinely fond of him,” Judith said, surprised at herself for being so bold, even more surprised that she was using the word
genuine
with a Hollywood person.

Winifred drew back sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be? He gave me an excellent job.”

Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe gratitude was possible in the movie business. Maybe something other than ice water ran in the veins of Winifred Best.

“You’d been with Mr. Zepf a long time?” Judith said, keeping her voice low and casual.

“Yes,” Winifred replied, still wary.

“You must have had excellent credentials to get the
job as Mr. Zepf’s assistant,” Judith remarked, hearing a car pull up outside.

“Good enough,” Winifred said, her expression shutting down. “Is that Morris who just arrived?”

“Morris?” Judith echoed, puzzled.

“Morris Mayne, the studio publicist,” Winifred said, joining Judith at the parlor’s tall window.

“No,” Judith said, recognizing Woody Price’s car. “It’s a friend.”

Winifred stiffened. “Not Vito?”

“No…”

“Who, then?” Winifred rasped out the question.

“Ah…An old friend of my husband’s, actually.” Judith didn’t want to identify Woody as a cop. He had probably come to collect the physical evidence Joe had gathered. As much as she wanted to see Woody, she thought it best to stay out of sight. Joe could handle his ex-partner’s arrival with a minimum of fuss.

But Winifred persisted. “Why is he here? He’s not media, is he?”

“Heavens, no!” Judith’s laughter was false. “He won’t stay. I think he wants to borrow something from my husband.”

Winifred looked relieved. “Morris has done an outstanding job of misleading the media about Bruno’s death. So far, they have no idea where or how it happened.”

Judith could hear Joe greeting Woody in the entry hall. To divert the other guests, she led Winifred through the parlor door that opened directly into the living room.

“Excuse me,” Judith said loudly. “Since I can use the kitchen, I’ll take dinner orders now. Does anyone have some particular craving?”

Only Ellie Linn seemed excited by the announcement. “Can I get some of my dad’s famous hot dogs? I’ve really missed them the past few days, you know.”

Judith nodded. “There’s a Wienie Wizard just across the ship canal. Anyone else want something special?”

“Not wieners,” Angela said with a sneer. “I’d rather eat rubber.”

“Steak,” Dirk said, giving Angela’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “New York cut, an inch thick, rare.”

“You know what sounds good to me?” Chips Madigan said in his ingenuous manner. “An old-fashioned chicken pot pie, like my mother makes.”

Ben Carmody gazed at the ceiling. “Pasta. Any kind, with prawns and a really good baguette.”

“If Vito is here,” Winifred put in, “he prefers sushi, particularly the spider rolls.”