L.A. Dead (38 page)

“There’s a phone,” Dino said, pointing at the pool bar.

“This one is private,” Stone replied. “I’ll go inside.” He went into the living room and looked around for a phone, but didn’t see one, so he went into Vance’s study and sat at the desk. Someone had left the bookcase/door to the dressing room open. He got out his notebook and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Betty, it’s Stone.”

“Well, hello there. I heard about the court thing this morning on the news. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, but Marc Blumberg carried most of the water. Listen, I called about something else, something you have to know about.”

“Dolce’s dirty pictures? I probably saw them before you did; it’s earlier here, remember?”

“I’m so sorry about that, Betty.”

“Don’t worry about it; it’s made me a lot more interesting to people here. I’ve already had three dinner invitations this morning.”

Stone laughed. “You’re amazing.”

“I don’t imagine the pictures went down quite as well for you. They must have caused problems.”

“Well, what can I do about it?”

“Treasure the photographs, sweetie; I will. Bye, now.”

Stone hung up laughing. Then he noticed that something seemed to have changed in the dressing room. He got up and walked through the doorway. The dressing room was empty of all Vance’s clothes; only bare racks were left. The chesterfield sofa, where Vance’s trysts with Beverly Walters had occurred, was all that was left in the room.

He was about to turn and go back outside to join Dino and Mary Ann, when he remembered something. He walked to Vance’s bathroom, looked inside, then down the little hallway that separated it from the dressing room. He had noticed something odd here before and had forgotten about it.

He went into the bathroom and, with his outstretched arms, measured the distance to the door from the wall of the bathroom that backed onto the dressing room. Holding out his arms, he walked into the hallway and held his arms up to the wall of the little corridor. Then he measured the distance from the wall containing the dressing room safe to the door, and marked that off on the corridor wall. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, he thought, but with his experience of remodeling his own house, he had. The wall containing the safe appeared to be about eighteen inches deep, instead of the usual four or six inches.

He went back into the dressing room, trying to remember the combination to the safe. “One-five-three-eight,” he said aloud, then tapped the number into the keypad and opened the door. The safe was about four and a half inches deep; it was the kind meant to be installed in a standard-depth wall between the studs. Or it appeared to be. He rapped on the sides of the safe, which made a shallow metallic noise, then he rapped on the rear wall of the safe, which made a deeper, hollower sound. Something was very odd here.

He rapped harder, and the rear wall of the safe seemed to move a little. Then, with his fingertips, he pressed hard on the rear wall. It gave an eighth of an inch. Then there was a click, and the seemingly fixed steel plate swung outward an inch. Stone hooked a finger around the plate and pulled it toward him, revealing a twelve-inch-deep second compartment in the safe. Inside, Stone saw two things: Vance Calder’s jewelry box and a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.

“My God!” he said aloud. “Arrington killed him.” Then from behind him, a male voice spoke.

“I thought so, too.”

Stone turned to find Manolo standing there. “What?”

“When I found Mr. Calder dead, I thought Mrs. Calder had shot him. They had had a big argument about something earlier; there was lots of shouting and screaming. It wasn’t their first.”

“What have you done, Manolo?”

“When I heard the shot and found Mr. Calder, the gun was on the floor beside him, where whoever shot him had dropped it. I thought Mrs. Calder had done it, and my immediate thought—I’m not sure why—was to protect her. So I took the gun and put it in the hidden compartment of the safe, and, so the police would think it was a robbery, I put his jewelry box in there, too, and closed it. They never figured it out.”

Stone took a pen from his pocket, stuck it through the trigger guard of the pistol and lifted it from the safe. “Then it will have the fingerprints of the killer on it. Now we’ll know for sure who killed Vance.”

Manolo shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Barrington; I wiped the gun clean before I hid it. I was so sure that Mrs. Calder had done it. Of course, after this morning in court, I don’t think so anymore.”

“Does Arrington know you hid the pistol?”

“No. I never told her.”

Stone put the pistol on top of the chest of drawers, then, weak at the knees, sat down on the sofa. “So we’ll never know for sure.”

“I know,” Manolo said. “I’m a little surprised that you don’t, Mr. Barrington.” He picked up the pistol by the trigger guard, put it back in the safe’s rear compartment, and closed it.

“I’ll leave it there for a while; then I’ll get rid of it and send the jewelry box to Mrs. Calder.”

Stone was beyond arguing with him.

Sixty-two

S
TONE STAYED IN L.A. FOR A COUPLE OF MORE DAYS, paying the last of the bills to come to the bungalow and seeing that Vance Calder’s estate was released to Arrington.

After he had packed his bags and was ready to leave the bungalow, Lou Regenstein came into Vance’s study.

“Good morning, Lou.”

“You on your way home, Stone?”

“Yes, I’m done here. Louise can pack up Vance’s things and send them to the house. Manolo and Isabel are still there.”

“Have you talked to Arrington?”

“No, she isn’t speaking to me.”

“I should think she’d be grateful to you for everything you’ve done for her.”

“Maybe, but there are other things she’s not grateful to me for.”

“The business in the tabloid?”

Stone nodded. “Among other things.”

“Well, I want you to know that I am certainly grateful to you. Arrington is now the second-largest stockholder in Centurion, after me, and together, the two of us control the company. If she’d gone to prison, God knows what would have happened here.”

“I’m glad it worked out all right.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Stone?”

“You can have someone drive Vance’s car back to the house,” he said, holding out the keys.

Lou accepted the keys. “I’ll have my driver take you to the airport.” Lou picked up the phone and gave the order. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

Stone looked around. “What will happen to Vance’s bungalow?”

“Charlene Joiner is moving in, as soon as we’ve redecorated it to her specifications. She’s Centurion’s biggest star now.”

“She deserves it.”

They chatted for a few minutes, then Lou’s chauffeur knocked at the door. “Shall I take your bags, Mr. Barrington?”

“Yes, thank you.” He shook hands with Lou. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Stone, you’ll always have friends at Centurion. If there’s ever anything, anything at all, we can do for you, just let me know.”

“When you speak to Arrington, tell her I’m thinking of her.”

“Of course.”

Stone left the bungalow and was about to get into Lou’s limousine, when Charlene drove up in a convertible.

“Leaving without saying good-bye?” she called out.

Stone walked over to the car. “It’s been a weird couple of days; I was going to call you from New York.”

“I get to New York once in a while. Shall I call you?”

He gave her his card. “I’d be hurt, if you didn’t.” He leaned over and kissed her, then she drove away. Before she turned the corner, she waved, without looking back.

Stone got into the limo and settled into the deep-cushioned seat. He’d be home by bedtime.

Back in Turtle Bay, he let himself into the house. Joan had left for the day, but there was a note on the table in the foyer.

“A shipment arrived for you yesterday,” she wrote. “It’s in the living room. And there was an envelope delivered by messenger this morning.”

Stone saw the envelope on the table and tucked it under his arm. He picked up his suitcases and started for the elevator, then he looked into the living room and set down the cases. Standing in the center of the living room was a clothes rack, and on it hung at least twenty suits. He walked into the room and looked around. On the floor were half a dozen large boxes filled with Vance Calder’s Turnbull & Asser shirts and ties. Then he noticed a note pinned to one of the suits.

You would do me a great favor by accepting these. Or you can just send them to the Goodwill.

I love you,

Arrington

His heart gave a little leap, but then he saw that the note was dated a week before their parting scene, and it sank again.

He’d think about this later. Right now, he was tired from the trip. He picked up the suitcases, got into the elevator, and rode up to the master suite. Once there, he unpacked, then undressed and got into a nightshirt. Then he remembered the envelope.

He sat down on the bed and opened it. There were some papers and a cover letter, in a neat hand, on Eduardo Bianchi’s personal letterhead.

I thought you might like to have these. This ends the matter. I hope to see you soon.

Eduardo

Stone set the letter aside and looked at the papers. There were only two: One was the original of the marriage certificate he and Dolce had signed in Venice; the other was the page from the ledger they and their witnesses had signed in the mayor’s office. These made up the whole record of his brief, disastrous marriage.

He took them to the fireplace, struck a match, and watched until they had been consumed. Then he got into bed, and with a profound sense of relief, tinged with sorrow, Stone fell asleep.

Acknowledgments

I AM GRATEFUL TO MY NEW EDITOR, DAVID HIGHFILL, AND my new publisher, Phyllis Grann, for their enthusiasm and hard work on this book. I look forward to working with them both in the future.

I must thank my agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald, and all the people at Janklow & Nesbit, for their continuing fine management of my career and their meticulous attention to every detail of my business affairs.

I must also thank my wife, Chris, who reads every manuscript, for her good judgment and acute insight, as well as for her love.

Author’s Note

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Please turn the page for a preview of Stuart Woods’s

ORCHID BLUES

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