Two Cooks A-Killing (14 page)

Angie couldn't sleep. Her mind raced endlessly with her grisly discovery and what it might mean. Her head ached. She remembered the Tylenol behind the bar. Two of those and warm milk, if not a shot of brandy, should do the trick.

A night-light and the continuously glowing fake fire in the fireplace illuminated the room and revealed a figure seated on an armchair.

Angie started, surprised.

Emery Tarleton glanced up. “Angie,” his voice sounded choked. “What are you doing still up?”

“I couldn't sleep.” She hesitated at the entrance. “How are you doing? You were very quiet tonight.”

“Do you know you're the only one who noticed? I sometimes think I walk around here and nobody sees the person behind the façade of ‘director.' I'm a man, I have blood, emotions, a heart. Why doesn't anyone see them?”

And a bit of a ham, she thought, expecting his words to morph into a full-fledged
Merchant of
Venice
speech. His words were slurred, as if he'd had too much to drink. He also sounded like a man filled with great sadness, a man who needed someone to talk to.

She approached the armchair and froze. On the lamp table was an automatic pistol.

“Why is a gun there?” she asked nervously. “Is it a prop?”

“No. It's quite real,” he replied softly, lifting bloodshot eyes to meet hers.

“What's it doing beside you?” She moved closer, close enough to see a stream of tears on his cheeks.

“I was wondering if I'd have the nerve to pull the trigger.” His words were a mere whisper.

“On whom?” Angie asked, horrified.

“On myself.” With shaking hands, he lifted the glass, drained it, then refilled it from the Jack Daniels bottle at his feet.

“Yourself? Why? What's wrong?” Angie sat on the sofa near him. Even with the gun she wasn't afraid of his harming her, only himself.

“A man is dead. A friend.” His voice broke. She was sure he was crying silently. “We went back a long way. He offered to help me find out about Brittany's death. He knew things. He warned it might be dangerous, I'll give him that. But I was stubborn; I had to know. And what's the result? My friend is dead and I'm still not sure who killed Brittany, if anyone.” He sobbed, and drank more liquor.

“The chef knew you suspected that someone killed Brittany?”

“Yes,” Tarleton said, fighting to regain self-control.

“How would he even imagine such a thing?”

Tarleton shrugged. “People underestimated him because of his size. As a result, he learned a lot about everyone. Obviously, he'd learned too much this time.”

“You don't think his death was an accident?”

He cast a long, soulful gaze at her. “No. Now, leave me alone.”

“You think someone killed him?” She had to admit, she thought the same thing, but coming face to face with someone else who shared the suspicion was unnerving. It meant someone in this house was a murderer. “Who did it?” she all but whispered.

He shook his head. “I have an idea, but it doesn't make much sense.”

“Who?”

“I won't say. Not until I'm sure.”

“Rhonda?”

His head jerked up. He stared at her a long moment before averting his eyes. “Of course not.” He was completely dismissive.

To her mind, Goetring had all but accused Rhonda of Brittany's death, yet Tarleton didn't think she'd killed him. Tarleton knew Rhonda a lot better than she did. What was she missing? “Put the gun away,” Angie pleaded.

He drank more whiskey. Much more. His words grew more slurred, his eyes fiery. “No one cares, Angie, no one. The only one who ever cared was Brittany.”

“You loved her?” Angie asked.

“I worshipped her.”

“And she loved you?”

He sighed. “It took her a while to accept me, but yes, I believe she came to love me.”

“Other people love you as well,” she said. “Perhaps not like Brittany, but still, look at all the people you've helped, the work you provided, the careers you've launched.”

Tarleton shook his head, then poured more whiskey. Some sloshed onto the carpet. Neither cared. “I don't think so, Angie.”

“Bart Farrell was nothing but a blowhard,” she began. “He played in two-bit situation comedies—the dumb husband. His marriages fell apart, his career was over until you made him into Cliff Roxbury.”

“And now he can't do anything else.”

“What else is there as lucrative as this? It isn't as if he was some Shakespearian actor. He knows it. Without you and this show, he'd still be doing situation comedy. He didn't have the fine features needed for Hollywood; he had no ability for theater. He would have gone from bad TV shows to playing bad guys in movies—the one the cops shoot halfway through the film and no one remembers. He's indebted to you for everything he has.”

Emery shook his head. “He never said anything like that to me.”

“Did you ever give him the opportunity? What about Gwen and Kyle? They were unknowns. You fought to give them roles. Even Rhonda—if it weren't for you, she would have been written off
the script in the early years when she was a basket case who drank too much. You're the stuff of Hollywood legends, written about in all the star magazines. Everyone knows it.”

“What is this, Angie, my own personal version of
It's a Wonderful Life?
” He tried to laugh. The sound was pitiful, then bitter. “I don't see myself as Jimmy Stewart.”

“I see you exactly like him. You've done many wonderful things, and you should realize it. Now, get away from that gun and think about the people you've helped. You had no idea your friend would die. The police say it was an accident. It might have been.”

He sat quietly for a moment. “I wish I could believe that. I told myself for years Brittany's death was an accident. I lied to myself.” He sobbed openly. “I don't want to live a lie again! I can't bear the guilt!”

She placed her palm against the barrel of the gun, afraid he might reach for it. “You'll find someone else to love the way you did Brittany. Don't do this to yourself. It's been eleven years. It's time to forget about her.”

“I'll never forget her!”

“What about Mariah? She's seems devoted to you.”

His brow furrowed, confused. “Mariah? What do you mean?”

“Maybe you can learn to love her the way you did Brittany.” Angie suggested.

More tears fell. “Brittany wasn't a girlfriend! She was—”

He stopped, staring at Angie. She had rarely seen a man with eyes so desolate and empty. He bowed his head, and his shoulders heaved with silent sobs.

“What is it?” Angie asked, placing her hand on his knee. “What was she to you?”

He spoke in a whisper. “She was my daughter.”

Angie drew back, scarcely believing what she'd heard. “I'm sorry. I never imagined.”

“No one knew. We had to keep it a secret so that she could get ahead in movies. I was once a movie director, but they don't even give you three strikes in Hollywood. Two, and you're out. I had my two. It ended for me. I didn't want that castigation to descend on Brittany. So, I didn't tell. She started out on
Eagle Crest.
She would have gone far. Instead, she died.

“My soul died with Brittany. And my heart.” He shut his eyes, and a long moment passed. “I didn't want anyone to know, to slander her memory with my reputation. Being the director of
Eagle Crest
might have been lucrative money-wise, but it was a career killer as far as ever getting a chance at the high-budget, serious films I'd wanted to direct. Instead of making films like Milos Forman, or Robert Altman, I'm doing the
Eagle Crest Christmas Reunion
.”

“It must have been difficult for you to go on, to act like a director instead of a father…” Angie shuddered. She couldn't bear to imagine her father's devastation if anything so horrible had happened to one of his daughters.

“I never should have kept quiet,” Tarleton raged, running his fingers through his thin
strands of hair. “When Brittany died, I should have stopped the show, called the police. I didn't want to face the possibility that someone killed her, even though I knew in my heart she wouldn't have killed herself, and as an accident…it just didn't make sense, despite the locked room she was in. I've lived with that guilt for eleven years, and I can't do it any longer. If someone killed her, I have to know who did it!”

“I'll do all I can to help you.” She placed her hand on his. Everything he was doing, the decorations, getting Mariah to dress up as Brittany, all of it made sense. She even understood why all his drinking wasn't enough to chase away his demons. “The Little Drummer Boy has some connection with Brittany, doesn't it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he whispered. “It was hers. She didn't like it and gave it to the studio to use as a prop. Still, it was one of the few things that I recall belonging to her.”

She thought it had belonged to the Waterfields, but this was not the time to argue with the man. “Can I trust you to keep away from that gun, now?” Her smile was sad and slight. “It won't help, and we've got to find out—the two of us—if someone here killed Brittany and the chef.”

“You'll help?” he asked.

“Of course…if you put the gun away.”

Red-rimmed eyes studied hers as if searching for an angle, a scheme, in typical Hollywood fashion. “Can I trust you to keep my secret? Please, Angie?”

Her gaze was direct, open. She nodded.

“Your word?” he demanded.

“You have my word.”

His relief was visible. “Thank you. Now, you've done your good deed for the evening. I suggest you go back to bed, Christmas Angel. I…need to sit alone for a while.”

“I'll see you in the morning?” Her words came out more as a question than she'd intended.

He smiled wanly before giving a definite nod.

“Good night,” she replied and left the room. If she still had a headache, she no longer noticed.

As soon as Paavo arrived at work the next morning, he contacted the St. Helena police department. His ensuing conversation with the officer in charge of the investigation, Tom Baker, yielded one interesting fact. The dead man's real name was Larry Rhone. He usually went by the stage name “Fred Demitasse.”

Paavo had no choice but to break the news to Minnie Petite, and get a few questions answered.

 

Rhonda sat at the breakfast table, slowly stirring a cup of coffee. Her eyes had heavy bags, her face was pale, and her usually flawless hair looked tangled and matted.

“Who made the coffee?” Angie asked.

“I did. I'm not totally useless, you know,” Rhonda said bitterly. The spoon hit the saucer with a
clunk.

Angie was troubled by the actress's appearance and words. She poured herself a cup and sat across the table. “Where is everyone?”

“Your mother went for a walk with Sterling. I haven't seen any of the others. They're still asleep, I suppose. Or dead.” She chuckled to herself. “Isn't that what happens in this house? Accidental deaths to one and all. The actress, the cook, even the mother of the house, for all we know.”

“Crystal Waterfield was ill,” Angie said, horrified at the innuendo.

“Was she? How do we know? Whose word can we take for it? Watch your mother, Angie. And yourself. There hasn't been a death in the ‘friend-of-the-family' category…yet.”

Angie stood. “That's sick! Get a grip on yourself. You have no business insinuating things about the Waterfields. The police said Goetring's death was an accident.”

Rhonda raised cold, hard eyes, chilling Angie to the bone. “You don't believe them, do you?”

 

Angie stood out in the courtyard. She couldn't stay in the same room, the same house, with Rhonda Manning. The woman was vile.

This morning, she'd spoken to Paavo again, listening to his warnings to be careful. She'd given him the names of everyone in the house. He'd be at Eagle Crest within twenty-four hours.

A shiver went through her. In the light of day, surrounded by scenes of Christmas joy, the cold fact struck her even harder than it had last night talking to Tarleton. If Goetring's death—or Demitasse's, as Paavo called him—wasn't an accident, it meant someone in the house was a killer.

The first time, Brittany Keegan's death looked
like an accident. This time, the accident theory wasn't so cut-and-dried.

She touched the tall outdoor Christmas tree and felt its rubber bristles, the plastic snow that hung on the branches looking so beautiful from afar, but up close, so very phony.

The ghost of Brittany permeated this house, as Marley's had when he visited Scrooge. Only if someone could find a way to right the wrong that had been done here would sunlight and truth fill these rooms and everyone's hearts again.

 

“I need to talk to you.” Paavo stood on the doorstep of Minnie Petite's house.

“Have you found Fred?” Her voice was harsh, her glare fierce.

“I'd like to come in.” He spoke softly.

Concern flickered across her face, then vanished. “All right.”

“Have either of your roommates come home yet?” he asked, once they were settled in the living room.

“Not yet.” She watched him, her body stiff and wary.

There was no way he could lessen the heartache he was bringing. Sometimes it was more difficult to face those left behind, those whose lives would be shattered by his words. “I've got bad news.”

She nodded.

“Mr. Demitasse has been found dead.” She shut her eyes. Paavo quickly gave her the details.

“Eagle Crest?” she murmured. “As a cook? Why was he there? He was no cook. He was an actor!”

“I'm sorry. Is there anyone you'd like me to call? Someone to stay with you for a while?”

She pursed her lips. “Stay with me? Hell no. I've been alone most of my life. No sense changing that now. Damned old fool! Falling in a wine barrel. He's lucky he's dead, or I'd have killed him for such a dumb stunt. Christ, but I'm going to miss him.” She fought back tears.

“One quick question, Ms. Petite,” he said, “then I'll leave you. Connie told you my fiancée was at Eagle Crest, and then you came to me to find Fred. I take it, then, you knew or suspected he was there all along. Why didn't you just go there to find him yourself? Why this charade?”

She stared at the wall to maintain her composure and, he couldn't help but suspect, to decide how much to tell him. “I wanted to know about the others there. How they were connected to Fred. I couldn't just show up. They wouldn't have told me anything.”

“I don't follow,” Paavo said.

“The police would have found out things, then you'd come and tell me. I've watched
Law and Order, The Shield, NYPD Blue.
I know how these things work.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn't think he'd go and get himself killed!”

Although he still didn't understand what the TV shows had mistakenly led her to expect of him, it was time to leave, time to let her set aside her hard demeanor and brave front, and mourn for Fred and his untimely passing. “I've written down the phone number of the officer in St. Helena who can help you. He'll provide the contact you'll need for the…arrangements.”

Her gaze was lost. “I didn't expect this,” she murmured, her head bowed. “Of all the things I did expect, his death was not one of them.”

“I will let myself out now, Ms. Petite,” he said gently. “We'll talk more another time. Call me if there's anything I can do.”

She looked up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Forget it, Inspector. I don't want any more to do with cops.”

 

“Angie, how are you doing?” She turned around at the sound of Sterling's voice. He had on a green and gray houndstooth cap and matching jacket, looking more like an Englishman ready to go for a country drive than a California plastic surgeon. He crossed the courtyard to stand beside her. “I'm so sorry about Goetring. Finding him must have been terrible for you.”

She nodded.

“This time at Eagle Crest hasn't turned out at all the way I'd hoped it would for you. I'd hope it would be a happy time.”

She studied him, and the little bit she'd learned about his life here caused her to ask, “Was there ever a happy time since this house became Eagle Crest? With these troubled actors, with the crew taking over and changing almost everything, I have my doubts.”

His face fell at her question, and with it, all his years descended on him. “You don't miss much, do you, Angie? For all your sunniness and good nature, there's a serious streak that runs through you, the same as in all the Amalfis.”

He placed his elbows on the adobe wall and
small, watery brown eyes peered hard onto the hillside. She joined him, saying nothing. Waiting.

“When I was first contacted by the producers, I thought it was a dream come true,” he said. His breathing quickened and he folded his hands tightly. “Crystal was so excited. We never gave a moment's thought to what it would mean to our privacy, our home, the very nature of our relationship with each other or with our boys.”

“More than your privacy was lost?”

“Crystal ‘went Hollywood,' so to speak. It was all she could think of. She couldn't act, didn't try to, but she spent all her time there, meeting actors, agents, producers. People ‘in the know.' Everything she'd known before
Eagle Crest
bored her. Her home, her life, me. Even our boys.”

“Tell me about your boys,” Angie urged. The more she got to know them, the more puzzled she'd grown by their behavior.

“What can I say? Silver is set on wasting his life the same way his mother did, watching the TV-and-movie crowd, wishing he could be a part of it, but not lifting a finger to give it a try, as if the ‘wishing' was much more fun than trying, or the possibility of failure, could ever be. And Junior…how I've failed Junior.”

“You're worried about Junior and Brittany, aren't you?”

His head snapped toward her. “No!”

“You knew he was infatuated with her, and that he had…troubles…with women.”

“I knew.” His hands clenched. “But he wouldn't have hurt her. No! Never! I'm talking about other things. Fatherly things…times I
should have been there for him and wasn't; things I've never taught him; words I've never said.”

“Perhaps it's not too late,” she said.

“Isn't it?” He turned toward her, studying her face as intently as he had the hillside, and then smiled.

“Why do you do that?” She touched her face nervously. “Is something wrong?”

“Do what?”

“Look at me that way. As if you see something in my features that troubles you. Perhaps something that shouldn't be there, or should be changed.”

“It's nothing—”

“Don't say that! I can see it in your eyes. Tell me.” She lifted her chin. “Please.”

With that, he burst out laughing. “Angie, my dear girl! Why didn't you tell me? It's nothing like that.”

She felt suddenly very foolish. “What, then?” her voice was small.

“Come with me.”

She followed him up to his bedroom suite. In one corner of the room was a table with several framed photographs. He lifted one and handed it to her.

Sterling, Crystal, and her parents stood in front of a brightly lit Christmas tree, presents and decorations all around them. The four were young and smiled happily.

“Look at Serefina's face in that picture, Angie,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever met. I see perfection in my work all the time—false perfec
tion brought about by plastic surgery, implants, procedures that sound more like something Mengele would do than a physician. Your mother's beauty is natural and honest. She's full of life and love and warmth. I fell in love with her back then. I knew I wouldn't stand a chance, and never spoke a word of how I felt. Being around her brightened my life, my soul, in ways you couldn't begin to imagine. Having her here means very much to me.”

“I see,” she said, replacing the photo, stunned and bothered by his revelation.

“When I first met you, Angie, all I saw was the hair, the expensive clothes, the panache and polish. Serefina is earthier, more…full-bodied, even when she was young. But then I studied your face, and it all came crashing back to me, forcing me to remember. You are her, all over again. Even after all these years, I still love her, and I still know there's not one damn thing I can do about it.”

His words settled deep in her heart as she studied the picture of the young couples. Of his disappointment with his own life and marriage. Of his unrequited love for her mother. Looking at her mother through another's eyes was startling, as was thinking of the force of her mother's sunny, loving nature, her joy in life, and what it must have meant to someone with the sterile, cold existence of Sterling Waterfield. He was a thin, scarecrow of a man, fit, tanned, wealthy, with more than one beautiful home, hobnobber of the rich and famous, and yet he lived in a plastic, artificial world of his own creation.

“I had no idea,” she said, suddenly very sorry for him.

His hand lightly brushed the picture. “Neither does she. You won't say anything, will you, Angie? I wouldn't want to make her uncomfortable.”

Angie saw tears glisten, and felt her own eyes fill. “It's our secret.”