Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 04 (14 page)

"Did you glance at the window of number five?"

Once again I was treated to a series of blinks and a blank look. "I think it was dark. Yeah, it was dark."

Plover reappeared before I could twist the thumbscrews any tighter. He studied Gwenneth for a minute, then shook his head slightly and said, "If Miss D'Amourre has finished, I'll take her back to her room and pick up our next interviewee."

"I am simply exhausted," she said, on her feet more quickly than toast popping out of a toaster. "I had to get up really early to do my hair and makeup, and it took forever for Carlotta to help me squeeze into these shorts. I had to lie down on the bed and wiggle so hard I thought I'd pass out."

Plover nodded like a benevolent father confessor. "And how did the filming go this morning?"

She took his arm and herded him toward the door. "Very well, actually. We wrapped the scene on the first take, although for a minute it looked like we'd have to do it again. It's quite a strain for me to reflect genuine emotion over and over again, if you know what I mean."

"I certainly do," said Father Trooper.

The door closed.

I wasted a little time drawing little daggers that pierced Wanda Sue Thackett's name, not a technique I'd learned at the police academy but nevertheless obscurely satisfying. I then had to recopy my notes on a clean sheet of paper, since I had no desire to be categorized as a possessive, immature, unprofessional chief of police.

Les Vernon, one of Harve's deputies, parked out front. I hastily threw away the decorated (desecrated) paper and was busily scribbling notes when he came inside.

"Hey, Arly," he said as he sat down in the seat previously occupied by the illustrious Wanda Sue Thackett.

"How's it going, Les? Heard any dirty jokes lately?"

He had, and obligingly told them, but they weren't worth repeating and I'd already heard them, anyway. "Harve says you want me to poke around on this arson case," he said when the merriment died down. I ran through what we had, then told him I was pretty much convinced Billy Dick MacNamara was our firebug, either alone or with Willard Yarrow as his apprentice. He agreed to check out the latter and to talk to the elusive people who lived on the road near the scene of the fire. When I suggested he tail Billy Dick when it got dark, he politely countered that he was off at six and planning to be at the bowling alley at six-thirty for a tournament.

I doubted I could cajole Harve into assigning me a second man. I sent Les on his errands and idled away a solid five minutes wondering why it was taking Plover so long to walk Wanda Sue Thackett a short way down the road. She sure as hell hadn't shown any signs of any sort of physical handicap; she was bursting out all over with health, especially in the T-shirt area.

However, when he finally showed up with Carlotta, I gave him a cool smile and settled her across from me. We ran through the preliminary stuff. Carlotta Lowenstein, aged twenty-five, from Oakland, a degree in film production and a year with Glittertown Productions. Her residence may or may not have been near Beverly Hills. Her account of their time in Maggody concurred with Gwenneth's: the first evening in the barroom, the next day inspecting sites, another evening drinking with the locals, and the attempt that morning to get down to business at Raz Buchanon's place.

"This is so bizarre," she said, shaking her head. "First Anderson's wife, then poor Kitty. It's like there's a curse on the company."

I gave Plover a brief explanation of her reference to Anderson's wife's murder, then chewed on my pencil while I formulated questions. "While they were in Maggody, Meredith and Miss Kay never said or did anything that seemed odd?"

"Nothing. They were having a grand time, as far as I could see. The script's less than demanding, and both of them are pros. Were pros, I guess."

"What do you know about their relationship?"

"They've been married at least twenty years. According to her autobiography, they met right after Meredith moved to the Coast. Eyes locked across the room, hearts beating as one, the whole thing straight out of one of Kitty's early movies. But I've never heard any dirt about either of them, and I certainly don't think Buddy would tweak her nose, much less do something so vicious."

"And you don't have any idea where he might be now?" Plover inserted, most likely just to hear his own voice.

"No," she began, then stopped and frowned at a fly splat on the wall above my head.

I gave her a minute, but she finally shrugged and looked down at her clipboard. Before I could continue, Plover said, "If Kitty Kaye was so revered, why did she choose to work for Glittertown?"

"Was so revered thirty years ago," Carlotta corrected him. "Once actresses reach a certain age -- and it's not much -- they're offered only minor character roles. A few remain big names, but women like Kitty are replaced with women like Gwenneth, who will fizzle out in the same fashion. That's why I opted for the production end of the industry. It's safer, and although the money's not as astounding, the work's steady and the potential is there."

"Why did you choose Glittertown?" Plover said before I could jump in.

The two of them seemed to be communicating in the same way she had with Anderson, and once again I was excluded. I was not amused.

"For several reasons," she said thoughtfully. "The experience is good. I do almost all of the preproduction chores, except for financing and distribution. Hal's version of his reputation exceeds him, but he can bully himself into the right places to kiss the right asses."

"You actually wrote Tanya Makes the Team?" Plover said, sounding oddly awed.

She nodded. "To the last touchdown. Hal claims he does the writing, but I do most of it and allow him to take the screen credit. When I've pulled together enough cash, I'll start my own company and try another genre."

"Other than sports stories?" I said, admittedly to hear the sound of my own voice in my own office.

"Something a bit more noir," she answered smoothly.

I decided to get back to the task at hand. "Have there been any problems within the group? Squabbles or bad feelings?"

Carlotta returned her attention to the fly splat on the wall. "Well, this is the fourth film with Frederick and Gwenneth. She's beginning to annoy him, and he needles her whenever he can simply to retaliate. He knows he has to put up with her because of his share of the profit, which is more lucrative than you'd suspect, and she does whatever Hal tells her to do. They're both new and, for the most part, unknown. Gwenneth's limited by a lack of talent, but Frederick's career might take off before too long."

I made a notation about Gwenneth's lack of talent. "What about Fuzzy?"

"He's been fired by every studio on the Coast. He takes whatever work he can get to sustain his haze. He's actually a fairly good cameraman when he's sober, so in addition to everything else I do, I pat him down before we start, confiscate his flask, and watch him like a pit bull until we quit for the day."

"Was he in Ruby Bee's last night?"

"After we ate, he said he had something to do and left. Perhaps he'll be able to remember what it was, or perhaps not. He earned his nickname."

I made a note to search his room for bloodied clothes. "And you left at what time?"

"I'm not sure. About eleven or so, maybe earlier," she said, for the first time in the interrogation sounding a shade flustered.

"Did you and Gwenneth go to the room together?"

"I ... ah, I went for a walk. There are times when I literally loathe the sight of these people, and this was one of them. I wandered around the parking lot and along the road. I returned to my room after an hour or so."

It was challenging to envision this competent young woman with a knife in her hand, but it was equally challenging to think of anything she might have done the previous night worthy of a lie. Maggody is not known for its nightlife. The animal life at the pool hall wouldn't have interested her, and watching people struggle at the self-service pump couldn't have entertained her for long.

"I took a walk," she said, rising, "that's all. I really must get back to Hal before he has some kind of creative seizure over the delay and the revisions. Obviously we'll have to delete Kitty's role, but I can handle that. I don't know what to do about Buddy's role. Our budget's too tight to sit for several days; the meter's running. I don't suppose you've heard anything ... ?"

"Nothing," I said. "We're operating on the premise that he and his wife returned to the room at ten o'clock. Meredith hasn't been seen since then, and according to you, has no transportation. He could have hitched a ride into one of the towns, or headed into the woods for some reason."

"He wouldn't hurt Kitty, Carlotta said firmly. "I think he was married once before, or merely entangled, but he was obsessed with Kitty. As I told you earlier, there's never been a rumor about either of them, and in this industry, that's damn amazing."

"Who next, Chief?" Plover said as he opened the door for Carlotta.

I considered the remaining members of the company: Hal, Fuzzy, Frederick, and Anderson. I decided I couldn't face the first three on an empty stomach, and that I needed to interrogate Anderson without Plover's presence, since he was behaving so childishly every time I glanced elsewhere. The two were waiting for a response, so I finally put down the pencil and said, "Let's grab some lunch at Ruby Bee's and tackle the others after we eat."

"There are approximately a thousand people at Ruby Bee's," Plover said. "We might end up eating breakfast, and only then if we make reservations."

"We agreed to keep the entire area off-limits. Who let her open up?" I said, resisting the urge to snatch up the pencil and snap it.

Plover asked Carlotta to wait outside, and as he turned back, his face was pink. "I did. It seems she knows every last detail of what happened in number five. Hell, she may know more than the rest of us. When I escorted Miss D'Amourre back to the motel, Ruby Bee grabbed me and explained the situation."

"The situation?" I said, mystified.

"The situation in which, if she wasn't allowed to open for lunch, she would tell everybody in town about the vicious murder and Meredith's disappearance. The television station in Farberville was mentioned, as was the minor expense of calling Little Rock to talk to the nice boys and girls at the Gazette."

His face was pink, but mine was heading for cerise. "How'd she find out?" I sputtered.

"She wouldn't tell me, but she wasn't bluffing. I told her she could open. The motel's cordoned off, but the parking lot in front of Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill was full by the time I left."

I almost apologized to the man. I'd been mentally accusing him of snuggling up to Gwenneth -- when he'd been too busy being blackmailed by my mother.