The Crossword Murder (29 page)

Rosco stepped into the sunshine. He put his hands in his pockets, and stared out at the water. The case was over; as he glanced back at Belle, he felt a definite sense of loss. He'd miss spending time with her. That fact had become painfully obvious. Why are all the good ones taken? he found himself wondering again. Aloud he said, “We should be heading back, I guess … You don't mind driving, do you? Or skippering … or whatever they call it?”

“Not at all.” Belle smiled and placed her hands around his waist. She moved her lips toward his, but Rosco stopped her.

“I'm not going to do this, Belle,” he said. “I'm not cut out to fool around with a married woman. I'm sorry. That's the way it has to be.”

“But, that's what I've been trying to tell you … I got a letter from Garet. He's not coming back from Egypt.”

“Ever? As in permanently?”

“Well, not for a few years, at any rate. He's found someone else. A ‘soul mate' is the term he used. He wrote that if I wanted a divorce, he'd understand … In his convoluted way, he was saying that he'd prefer to end our relationship … I think he was hinting that I should instigate the action.”

“So, it seems the ball's in your court?”

“It looks that way.”

This time Rosco pulled her close. “Well, no matter how you look at it, I'd say you were separated.”

“By about eight thousand miles.”

POSTSCRIPT PUZZLE

Across

1.
“The ___,” Uris novel

4.
Test

8.
Light at sea?

13.
Where Castro keeps a convertible

14.
List

15.
Shoot for

16.
Sign

17.
Old Staubach stat.

18.
Burke: ___ by strangulation

19.
Principle character?

21.
A Nice farewell

23.
Sounds of contentment

25.
“___ Hur”

26.
Tick ___

30.
Mud tossers

32.
To be in Paris?

33.
Congreve lady

34.
18-Across, e.g.

35.
He

39.
Gaelic

40.
It escapes at a crime scene

41.
Flower part

42.
Easy touch

44.
___Garr

45.
Undefined: abbr.

46.
9-Down's kids grp.

47.
Pretty Spanish girl?

49.
The Emperor and Blanc

53.
Tests

56.
Flapjack home: abbr.

59.
“If, after I depart this ___,” Mencken

60.
New

61.
Church part

62.
Tied

63.
Trap

64.
Give off

65.
Thing in law

Down

1.
___ Cronyn

2.
Aid

3.
Gal Friday?

4.
Down under bird

5.
Housemann has many

6.
She

7.
Cain's crime

8.
Vanish

9.
Al, formally

10.
Carlyle's org.

11.
Squeal

12.
Bib. verb ending

13.
9-Down, e.g.

20.
Black or white

22.
Immigration grp.

24.
Break

27.
Dorothy's dog: pig-Latin

28.
Mean

29.
Views

30.
Back-talker

31.
Day ___

33.
Puzzles for Belle, e.g.

35.
Break

36.
Old Staubach stats.

37.
Cut off

38.
Start the coals again?

42.
Outlaw

43.
It's good in a scrape

48.
Man, e.g.

50.
What Vance is after?

51.
Cheers from 47-Across

52.
Hal Crane, e.g.: abbr.

53.
Switch positions?

54.
___ Howard

55.
One of Frank's

57.
Egg: comb, form

58.
Favorite

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CHAPTER 1

“Where's Jamaica?”

The question was posed by a self-confident male voice, and it raced upward to the second floor of the Pepper home by way of a curving staircase dominated by a spacious Palladian window. All the trappings of wealth and power appeared framed by this window: the manicured gardens grown dusky silver in autumn's evening light, the impeccable view of the Massachusetts coast, the sculpted trees and marble benches arranged artfully beside a reflecting pool. No lesser house, no distant light or neighborly noise disturbed this perfect scene.

The question was repeated. The male voice had become more insistent.

A woman responded from the second-floor master suite. “In the Caribbean where it's always been.” There was an edginess to the tone that could have indicated either anxiety or anger, but it was quickly supplanted by a conciliatory: “Sorry, darling, I just couldn't resist. Jamaica must be still dressing … You know how we women are …”

“Indeed I do!” The first voice reverberated with smug robustness. “You wear half the clothes we males are forced to don for these events—and you still take twice as long.”

“I thought you said we had plenty of time …” Although still attempting humor, the timbre had turned crisp.

“We did before you two started staring into your closets …”

“But cocktails don't begin until seven-thirty—”

“Do you want to arrive at the same moment as every other guest and wait in an interminable line at the entry gate? You know what it's like getting into the club for this party …”

“I'm not going to be rushed … And you know Jamaica won't be …”

The words continued to collide mid-landing and mid-step caroming across the antique Persian carpet, the elegant English landscape paintings, the crystal sconces with their rose silk shades, and the chandelier that hung in their midst like a gigantic, multifaceted diamond.

In a chintz-swagged guest room, the person who had inspired this domestic unease smiled as she walked toward her half-open door. “I'll be down in five, dear ones,” she sang out in a rich contralto, “ten minutes at the very most … Don't squabble now, darlings; you're my best friends in the entire universe, and we're going to have a perfectly glorious evening.”

She smiled again, then caught her reflection in the mirror. For a split second the radiant expression froze, transforming itself into something neither pleasant nor happy. Then, as rapidly, the speaker resumed her buoyant facade and tone. “You don't know how much good it does me to be here with you both. I feel positively reborn. I'll never miss Los Angeles. Never. Never!”

“Say that after you experience one of our New England winters, Jamaica,” the man's voice called back.

“Nothing you say can scare me. I'm here to stay. A new life. A new me!”

Jamaica Nevisson—or Cassandra Lovett, as she was better known to a legion of adoring fans addicted to the daytime drama
Crescent Heights
—had spent thirteen years in the City of Angels creating, inhabiting, and eventually becoming the raven-haired, emerald-eyed, conniving
femme fatale
of the show. Jamaica had been wearing Cassandra's jet-black wig and emerald-tinted contact lenses so long she'd almost forgotten what she looked like without them.

“I really should thank my lucky stars for that odious photographer,” she continued. “I needed a catalyst. I needed to reexamine my priorities!”

“No more disembodied chat, Jamaica.” The man called up the stairs again. “I have some very good champagne sitting in ice down here. Two more minutes alone, and I'll be forced to pop the cork.”

“Aye aye, sir,” was Jamaica's amused response. No sound came from the master suite.

Jamaica finished dressing by pushing a strand of her own short, sandy-brown locks beneath “Cassandra's” black wig. She shook her head slightly, giving the false hair a totally natural appearance, then strolled to a Louis XV dressing table surmounted by a matching mirror. “Forty-five,” she murmured. “Almost forty-six.” It wasn't a joyful sound.

She smoothed the flesh-colored lines of a skintight, floor-length sheath that had been constructed to appear as if only the random pattern of sequins concealed her body's secrets. From five feet away, Jamaica Nevisson might have been wearing nothing more than a sparse and shiny bouquet. Then she applied a final coat of black mascara to her pale brown lashes, outlined her lips in the dense, carmine color for which “Cassandra Lovett” was famed. While working, she tossed around the words she'd heard moments before: “Where's Jamaica?”, and her serene expression darkened into an angry glare.

How many times had some wandering-palmed director or overweight stage manager mangled the same phrase? How many predawn hours had she endured, dragging herself to that wretched studio in the godforsaken San Fernando Valley only to be greeted by a bevy of backbiting scriptwriters armed with
clever
quips about the stupidity of actors and the brilliance of their own art? And how many evenings had she finished taping at eight, or even nine o'clock at night—only to find twenty pages of new dialogue shoved toward her weary chest with a dismissive: “Let's try to get it right tomorrow, huh, babe? For a change—
Cassie, babe
?”

Jamaica glowered at the mirror, shook her raven hair again, and attempted a more winsome pose, but her wrathful expression seemed permanently stuck. Embittered, middle-aged female, it all but shrieked. Stalled career, no permanent relationship, no true and loving home.

Jamaica's shoulders sagged, and her back, always held so proud and straight—and youthful—drooped in despair. Forty-five, she thought again, with all the wrinkles, lines, and blotchy skin to show it. Forty-five in an industry where twenty was considered “seasoned.”

When had her age begun to betray her? she wondered, although she already knew the answer. It had been when one particular
paparazzo
had decided to make her his moving target. Catching “Cassandra Lovett” with her proverbial pants down had become his obsession. Jamaica hadn't been able to shop at Neiman's or dine in a Santa Monica bistro without encountering this demon with a Leica. She hadn't been able to approach her home in Holmby Hills without finding him encamped by the gates—or lurking in the neighbor's bougainvillea—waiting for her to take her daily swim, then squeezing off a roll that had ended up as
CASSANDRA BARES ALL
according to
The Hollywood Globe
's salacious headline.

Reggie Flack was the cretin's name. On retainer with
The Hollywood Globe
, his main assignment was to photograph Jamaica Nevisson in poses as revealing—and unkind—as possible. He'd stalked her obsessively, taking perverse pleasure in affixing bitingly sarcastic theatrical quotations to each published photo.

The last straw had come several weeks earlier. Jamaica had sailed to Catalina Island on her Oceanis 352 with an “unidentified male friend”—as
The Hollywood Globe
later trumpeted—and had opted to take advantage of a supposedly secluded cove for a topless frolic. How Flack had discovered the outing, she didn't know, but he'd followed the pair to the island, scaled a cactus-infested hillside, and managed to snap a good many unflattering photos, all of which appeared in a full-color center spread under the caption:
The Island of Jamaica
—“
the Bounded Waters Should Lift Their Bosoms Higher Than the Shores
.”

On the day the photo spread had appeared, Jamaica had marched bravely into the studio. She'd been determined to ignore the wretched press, but Phil Carney, the foul-mouthed actor who played the show's patriarch, had goaded her unmercifully. “Philly” took delight in torturing the female performers, extras and leads alike, with a daily torrent of off-color comments—behavior the studio greeted with deaf ears.

His lewd remarks about Flack's photographs had pushed Jamaica over the edge. She'd slapped him across the face, stormed into the production office, told the head honcho to “take this job and shove it up your expletive deleted!”, and slammed back to her dressing room. From there, she'd placed a call to her longtime friend Genevieve Pepper in Newcastle, Massachusetts.