Angel Among Us (11 page)

‘That's it?' Maggie asked incredulously.

Lupe hesitated. ‘She is a very lonely person,' the girl said. ‘I keep her company and I listen to her talk and, when she will eat, I bring her healthy things to eat.'

‘Really?' Calvano said, unable to help himself. ‘What does she like to eat?'

‘Adrian – really?' Maggie stared at him until he had the decency to look ashamed.

Lupe, who probably had no concept of what a star-struck American would look and act like, took his question at face value. ‘She will eat things that are bad for her unless you tell her not to,' she said. ‘She likes the junky food. But Mr Romero would fire me if I brought her those things. I am only allowed to bring her fruit if she wants something sweet. So even when she tells me to bring her the Twinkie or I am fired, I bring her the fruit.'

‘Her husband tells her what to eat?' Maggie sounded disgusted. Her sturdy body was a machine of strength. She ate like a lion: mostly red meat and more red meat. But she also ate only ruthlessly healthy foods, ran every day and lifted weights five times a week. She was an animal and her body showed it.

‘Ms Wylie says that Mr Romero only wants her to stay beautiful so that she will be a star for a long, long time,' Lupe explained.

Maggie had had enough of talking about the lady of the house. Until she could question her for herself, she had no use for Dakota Wylie.

‘Do you know this woman?' Maggie asked her, handing Lupe a photo of Arcelia Gallagher.

‘This is the woman who is missing,' the maid said softly. She crossed herself. ‘Everyone knows what she looks like. Everyone is praying for her to be brought back home safely.'

‘But have you ever seen her here?' Calvano asked.

The young girl nodded solemnly. ‘She was here last week.'

‘Here? In this house?' Maggie asked. ‘Because everyone else is telling us she's never been here.'

‘Maybe they did not see her?' She had picked up on Calvano's glances and was starting to return them with a shy yet confident flirtatiousness that told me she was used to men admiring her. Oh boy, if he kept that up, Maggie was going to grab the girl's immigration papers and beat Calvano over the head with them like a bad dog. She was all business in these kinds of situations.

‘Tell me exactly how and when you saw her,' Maggie said. ‘Who was she talking to?'

‘She was out on the lawn, talking to the gardener,' the girl explained. ‘I was standing at the window of Ms Wylie's bedroom upstairs, looking out at the flowers. It was a very beautiful day and I was sad to be inside. Ms Wylie always stays inside. The shades and blinds are always drawn in her room. It is a sad place to be on a beautiful day.'

No kidding. It was depressing me just to hear about it.

‘I saw the missing lady pointing to the windows of this house and the gardener nodding. She took something from her pocketbook and gave it to him. Then they looked like they were having an angry talk.'

‘Angry at each other?' Maggie asked.

The maid nodded. ‘I think they were yelling. I could not hear, but Rodrigo looked angry and she was waving her hands at him. But then it looked as if he was thanking her. She held his hand in hers for a moment and then she left.'

‘How can you be sure it was her?' Calvano asked. ‘How far away were you?'

‘Close enough to know it was her. She teaches my nephew Arturo. He is half in love with her. He says he wants to marry her one day and my brother tells me all Arturo does is cry, now that she's gone. You must find her and bring her back.'

Maggie and Calvano looked discouraged. They'd heard the same plea ten times already from various people and were getting nowhere in finding Arcelia Gallagher.

The maid had nothing else to offer and Maggie lost interest.

‘You can go,' Maggie told her. ‘But we need to talk to Ms Wylie. And we're not leaving until we do. I get the feeling that people do not want us to talk to her.'

The maid's eyes grew big. For the first time, I had the sense that she was not being completely honest with Maggie and Calvano. ‘She's very shy,' the maid said softly. ‘She is not very strong and she does not like company. She is not feeling well because of her pregnancy but I will explain to her that she has no choice, that she must speak to you.'

‘You do that,' Maggie told her, watching in disgust as she gave Calvano a final parting glance and he beamed back at her.

‘Really, Adrian,' Maggie complained once the girl had left the room. ‘You're like a little kid in a candy store.'

Calvano defended himself. ‘I was just trying to relax her,' he protested.

‘Sure you were,' Maggie said, rolling her eyes.

A discreet cough from the doorway surprised them. The butler stood at the entrance to the library, his hands folded in front of him. He was a tall man with stooped shoulders and a high, rounded head with a smooth dome. He looked like nothing so much as a vulture staring down from a tree at them.

‘I am here to be interrogated,' he said in a clipped voice. I felt something at odds with his dignity swirling about him. Sorrow or apprehension, perhaps? I wondered what he was hiding.

Maggie waved at him to sit and wasted no time in establishing that the old man had been at the mansion since well before the current residents. For forty years, in fact, as had his wife, the housekeeper.

‘I remember you,' Calvano said. ‘You found the dead guy in the orchard back when I was a kid.'

The butler appraised Calvano. ‘I called the police immediately. Am I to understand that I am
still
under suspicion?'

Either he had the world's driest sense of humor or he had no sense of humor at all.

Maggie laughed, though more at Calvano than at the butler's remarks. ‘No, we want to know if you have ever seen this woman,' she said. ‘And we also would like to know why some of your staff are lying about it.'

The butler glanced at the picture of Arcelia Gallagher. ‘She was here last week talking to Rodrigo, the gardener,' he said carefully. ‘That is the only time I've seen her here.'

‘Talking about what?' Maggie asked.

The butler made a face of disapproval. ‘Something religious,' he said. ‘I am not in the habit of eavesdropping. But Rodrigo had a vial of holy water and some objects that he tried to conceal from me when he came in through the kitchen door after meeting with her.'

‘Well, what do you think it was about?' Maggie asked. ‘Come on. You run this household. You see everything. Why would Rodrigo want holy water?'

‘I imagine he was attempting an exorcism of some sort,' the butler replied stiffly.

‘An exorcism?' Calvano asked. His eyes lit up. ‘Who exactly is possessed?'

The butler looked at him scornfully. ‘The house. I assure you it is not a joke. Ever since I have worked here, there has been a presence here. We hear things at night. Someone running up and down the steps. Books fall off the shelves without warning. Sometimes the lights go on and off. I have felt cold patches appear without warning in the halls and heard whispering at all hours of the day, right behind me, only to turn around and see no one there. You may not believe in such things, but I live with them.'

‘And Rodrigo was bothered enough to want to do something about them?' Maggie asked.

The butler shrugged. ‘Rodrigo is very superstitious. I tried to tell him that the spirit had lived here as long as I had, but it was upsetting to him nonetheless. He claims that one night the spirit tried to smother him in bed. That just as he was about to fall asleep, something heavy pressed down on him and tried to suck the air out of his lungs, he claims. He has not slept well since that night.'

‘Can't say I blame him,' Maggie said. She looked at Calvano, mystified. ‘I think we would like to speak to Rodrigo again,' she said firmly. ‘And after that, we need to speak to your wife.'

There it was again – a wave of apprehension swept over the old man. He struggled to keep his voice under control. ‘I am afraid you will not find an interview with my wife useful,' he said formally. He cowered slightly as he said it, as if he feared they might hit him.

‘Why don't we decide that?' Maggie said mildly. She was staring at the butler. She, too, could feel that he was hiding something.

But Calvano, seldom the sensitive one, had seen something on his way into the mansion that led him to say, ‘Is there something the matter with your wife?'

The butler stood stiffly, saying nothing.

Calvano tried again. ‘Sir, if there is anything that prevents her from talking to us, you need to tell us. We cannot leave until we establish that fact.'

The butler sat stoically, saying nothing. The clock in the corner seemed to tick even louder and I could suddenly feel the presence in the room, the same cold thickness of air I had walked through in the hallway. It seemed to be roaming the room. There was definitely someone there like me. I peered around, checking every corner and high up on the shelves. I could see nothing. I wondered if it could see me.

‘Sir,' Calvano said more kindly. ‘Whatever you say will be kept in confidence.'

It was painful to watch the butler struggling between his dignity and what he knew he must do. ‘My wife is suffering from dementia,' he finally said, his voice unconsciously dropping to a near whisper. ‘Mr Romero does not know. If he or his advisors find out, they will let her go. I do not have the money to pay someone to care for her. I will have to quit my job to care for her and then we will have nowhere to live. And no money to live on.'

‘Surely Mr Romero would never throw you out on the street,' Maggie said.

‘I would not be so sure,' the butler said. ‘Mr Romero has a habit of viewing people as disposable. He is particularly bad about it when his agent is involved in the decision.'

‘Then there is no need for us to talk to your wife, but we do need to talk to the gardener again. Anything you can do to convince him to be more forthright with us would be best for everyone,' Maggie said.

‘I will inform him,' the butler promised, hiding his gratitude to them behind a façade of formality. As he left the room, I felt the presence pass in front of me. Ouch. There it was again – a sharp pain, as if I were still alive and someone had bounced a slap off my head. What the hell? There was definitely someone else in this house, someone more like me than like the living. I glared in its direction and could have sworn I heard laughter.

The gardener was nowhere to be found. The butler returned looking shocked and apologetic. Rodrigo had left, apparently upset by the police questioning. There was nothing he could do.

‘Sure there is,' Maggie told him. ‘You can go upstairs and tell Ms Wylie that she must come down and speak to us.'

The butler risked giving advice. ‘If you wish to speak to Ms Wylie, I recommend that you go upstairs to her. I will see that she is ready to receive you.'

Maggie agreed, but I don't think that she, or Calvano, or any of us in the room – seen or unseen – were prepared for how odd that interview would be.

T
he whole world knew Dakota Wylie as a willowy blonde with a face so sweet that men, literally, had stopped to stare when she passed by, even before she became famous. Her hair was the color of butter and as fine as corn silk. She had based a career on appearing slightly dumb with a goofy, clueless sense of humor. As a result, everyone longed to protect her. Or at least every male. On the television screen, she had seemed forever young, caught on the cusp of womanhood and unaware of her astonishing beauty.

Her bedroom at the mansion felt nothing at all like this public persona. It should have been painted pink with a white frilly bedspread and flowers everywhere. Instead, it was painted an unforgiving white, harsh even in the dimmed lighting. The curtains were blood red and shut against the afternoon sun, creating a permanent twilight in the room. Her bed was a huge canopy affair, with white gauzy curtains all around, creating a barrier between her and any visitors. When Maggie and Calvano entered her room, with me hot on their heels, she was leaning back against a pile of satin pillows behind the bed curtains, her head wrapped up in a blue silk scarf as if she were heading out for a drive in a convertible on a winter's day. Huge sunglasses covered most of her face. All you could see of her fabled beauty were her hands, which she clasped on top of a pillow she had pulled over her lap as if to shield her from bad intentions.

Her maid sat in a chair by her side, looking apprehensive. I got the feeling she was as close to a female friend as Dakota Wylie had ever had.

The starlet did not seem to take any notice of Maggie or Calvano at all. She was staring at her windows, though the heavy curtains made it impossible to see anything outside.

‘Has he left yet?' she asked her maid in a whispery voice. That voice had been her trademark. It was three-quarters Marilyn Monroe and one quarter her own – a throaty honey-colored voice with just a trace of southern drawl.

The maid jumped up and scurried over to a window, opening the curtains a crack to peer outside. ‘He is leaving for the airport now,' the maid said.

I followed her to the window. Below us, an entire caravan of luxury cars rimmed the circular brick driveway that curved in front of the house. Enrique Romero was sliding into the back seat of a Rolls-Royce as the butler stoically packed the trunk with enough bags for a three-year stay away. His agents and lawyers were each eyeing their own cars, anxious to leave. Rats deserting a sinking ship. For a man with a young and heart-stoppingly beautiful wife, he was curiously willing to leave her to fend for herself.

‘I expect he has a plane to catch and is in such a hurry that he forgot to say goodbye,' the star told her maid in a dreamy voice. ‘He can be so silly that way.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' the maid said dutifully, though she surely knew the truth.