Part 14 (1/2)
”I'm outta the movie,” I finally said.
”What? Oh, G.o.d, I'm sorry. Robert wanted to keep you.”
”I know he did. Where'd this couch come from? Looks like early-brothel.”
”It was the only piece of furniture the owners left. I guess they thought it warmed the room.”
We smiled, but it was obligatory.
”The police showed me the body,” she continued. ”Why would they think I'd know who he is ... was?”
”It's what they do. How did he get in?”
”I don't know. Why would he be killed here?” She clasped her hands tightly.
Not having any answers, I pulled my gray leather jacket more closely around me and stared into the soot-blackened fireplace. Acanthuses were carved in relief on the limestone surrounding. My mother and I and the man who I had given myself to by the pool had once roasted marshmallows in it. Mother was desperate to create the fantasy of a holiday family. A Norman Rockwell sleaze-bag was a stand-in for my father. A man we had both screwed. ”Look!” she had exclaimed. She held her firm white marshmallow, speared on a long-handled fork, over the flames, watching it shrivel and sag. ”It's like seeing a beautiful face age in seconds.” She watched the sleaze-bag pop his gooey blob into his mouth and added darkly, ”And then they eat you up.” And I knew she'd been talking about herself.
Celia reached over and took my hand. ”I'm sorry I got so angry at you.”
”You need to tell me why,” I said.
The double doors opened and Spangler strode in.
”Later,” Celia whispered.
”I'm p.o.o.ped. Do you mind if I sit?” Spangler gestured to the small s.p.a.ce on the cus.h.i.+ons between Celia and me, and squeezed her wide rear end into it. Now all three of us sat jammed thigh-to-thigh and shoulder-to-shoulder.
Grinning, I said to her, ”You're very theatrical in your own way.”
”Am I?” She was pleased. ”Maybe it's because I work the West L.A. Division. It kinda rubs off.” She glanced sideways at Celia. ”I just have a few more questions. You said the house has been empty for almost two years. Why is that?”
”The market. Houses like this that need work are not big sellers right now. And the owners won't come down in price.”
”Does anybody ever use the house?”
”As I said, the owners live in Italy. Genoa.”
”That's where the salami comes from. Do they have a son?”
”They have no children. They're an elderly couple.”
”You never saw signs that the house might have been used for parties? Kids find a way of getting in and using empty homes for all kinds of things.”
”There's a gardener, a pool man, and a cleaning crew that comes in when we need them. They've never said anything. I've told all this to your partner.”
”The kid has keys on him but none of them fit any of the doors to this place. So somebody had to let him in.”
”Or the person who killed him could've taken the key,” I said.
”That was next on my list. Now why would the murderer do that?”
”I don't know but the kid, the body, looked more like a man to me,” I said.
”You're right, Zackary Logan was twenty-eight according to his driver's license.” She swiveled her head back to Celia. ”How'd you get the bruise?”
Celia touched her cheek. ”It has nothing to do with ...”
”Then you won't mind telling me.”
”I fell. I was a little tipsy. I was wearing very high heels.”
”I tried a pair of those on, and I couldn't even stand up in them let alone fall down. Where did you take your tumble?”
”At home. I hit the edge of the coffee table.”
”Had to hurt.” She extricated herself from between us and stood, pulling her blazer down and adjusting her thick blond stub of a ponytail.
”It happened two days ago,” I said, hoping to make it clear to Spangler that Celia's bruises had nothing to do with the dead man in the side yard.
Glancing up at the chandelier, she said, ”I can tell even in this light that they're not fresh.” She thought for a moment. ”Jenny Parson was murdered two days ago. Thank you, ladies, you can go now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY.
It was dark when Celia drove me down Sunset Boulevard to the ocean. Her hands moved nervously on the steering wheel. ”Why did Spangler make that comment about my bruises and when Jenny Parson died? She's an idiot. And what's with the Country b.u.mpkin in Hollywood routine?”
”I think she knows exactly what she's doing,” I said.
”Do you remember when we were sixteen and driving down Sunset in your mother's Mercedes convertible, music blaring, sun in our hair, picking out mansions that each of us would live in when we were successful, madly in love, and married?”
”Gwyn was with us then.”
”Sitting in the back seat.”
I thought of Gwyn's chameleon-like eyes appraising me in the rearview mirror. It was the same jealous expression she'd had when her son, Ben, had kissed me at his birthday party.
”You chose a tiny clapboard house with a brick walk lined with pansies. Gwyn and I thought you were nuts.”
”I chose it because a movie star would never live there.”
”I picked that big Spanish house with the rolling lawn because it was grand and had great curb appeal. Everyone could see it from Sunset.”
”Gwyn picked the old gracious white house with the conservatory.”