The cousins ascended the back stairs, then entered
the door that led up to the family quarters. Judith sat
down in Joe’s swivel chair and placed her unfinished
Scotch on the desk.
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281
“Okay, so fill me in,” Renie said, seating herself in
the rocking chair that Joe used to relax his back.
Judith complied, and it took almost fifteen minutes.
Renie made only the briefest of comments until her
cousin had finished.
“You’ve got a lot of fragmentary information there,”
Renie pointed out. “Let’s start with A for Angela. She’s
a coke addict who got started by Bruno. He went to
rehab and it apparently worked. She’s still hooked. Is
that a motive for murder?”
“I doubt it,” Judith said, hearing the wind pick up
outside. “But her most recent movie with Bruno turned
out to be a bomb, and Ellie was to have starred in the
next one. That might be more of a motive than mere
drug addiction.”
“Revenge,” Renie murmured. “What does Bill’s
chart say about that?”
Joe had fortuitously brought the chart up to the office before any of the guests could see it. “I don’t think
Bill got to revenge,” Judith said, spreading the chart
out on the desk. “Wait—he did. Bill and Joe must have
worked on this while we were gone. Angela, Dirk,
Ben, Dade, and Chips all have mauve marks, which
stand for revenge.”
“They’re all associated with the Big Flop,” Renie remarked. “But murder doesn’t seem like the right way
to rectify a career stumble. I can’t imagine that any of
those celebrities won’t bounce back.”
Judith studied the chart for several moments. “It’s
got to be something personal. It almost always is.”
“You ought to know,” Renie said with a grin. “I see
Bill’s keyed in jealousy, but he’s marked it only for Angela and Ellie, with a slash for professional rivalry.”
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Mary Daheim
Judith shook her head. “Why would either of them
kill Bruno?”
“Didn’t you say you overheard something about
Ellie’s next movie not being made now that Bruno’s
dead?”
“That’s my point,” Judith replied. “Bruno was worth
far more to Ellie alive than dead. Let’s face it, the only
person in the entourage who got violent with Bruno
was Dirk Farrar. They had that big fight in Marina Del
Rey. Which signifies to me that Dirk wouldn’t hesitate
to duke it out in a disagreement, but he’s not the homicidal type. If he killed someone, it would be in a burst
of temper with his bare hands.”
“You’re ruling out Dirk banging Bruno in the head
with the cupboard door and shoving him in the sink?”
“There would have had to be an argument first,” Judith asserted. “Dirk’s very loud. Joe or I would have
heard the two men quarreling, even from the basement.”
Renie didn’t say anything for a few moments.
“You’re convinced this wasn’t an accident?”
Judith grimaced. “I’m not going down without a
fight to prove otherwise.”
“I don’t blame you,” Renie said. “The problem is,
we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. We don’t even
know who all the guests were last night.”
Judith gave Renie a puzzled look. “Yes, we do. Except for Vito, the ones who came back here after the
premiere are the same people who attended the midnight supper.”
“So where’s Mrs. Mayne?” Renie queried.
“The one dressed as a pioneer woman?” Judith
shrugged. “I assume she’s still at the Cascadia. Morris
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283
told me she wasn’t much of a traveler. She probably
didn’t want to make another move.”
“Let’s find out.” Renie reached across Judith to pick
up the phone on Joe’s desk. “If she’d dug in at the
hotel, you’d think Morris would have stayed with her.”
A moment later she was asking for Mrs. Mayne.
“That’s Mrs. Morris Mayne,” she said. “She and her
husband checked in either Friday or Saturday.” There
was a long silence from Renie. “Oh. Really? Well,
thanks all the same.” She replaced the phone and stared
at Judith. “Mrs. Mayne checked out at noon.”
EIGHTEEN
“I DON’T GET it,” Judith said, stopping herself from
gnawing on another nail. “Why would Mrs. Mayne
be allowed to leave town when the rest of them
weren’t?”
“Maybe because she’s not in the movie business,”
Renie suggested. “Maybe there was a family emergency in California.”
Judith nodded absently. “Maybe she was never
here.”
Renie looked startled. “What?”
“I mean,” Judith explained, “here in this house.
We only assumed that the pioneer woman was Mrs.
Mayne. Do you remember what she looked like?”
Renie hunched her shoulders. “No. She was
wearing a big floppy bonnet. I don’t think I ever saw
her face.”
Judith got up from the swivel chair. “Let’s find
out. We’ll ask Winifred. She’s still in Room One,
sharing it with Ellie.”
But Winifred wasn’t in Room One. As the
cousins reached the second floor, they could hear
her raised voice coming from Room Six. They could
also hear Eugenia’s bellow.
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285
“Now what?” Renie said as they edged closer to the
angry voices.
Signaling for Renie to be quiet, Judith pricked up
her ears. The cousins stood at the door to Room Six
like a pair of sentries.
“. . . more harm than good,” Eugenia shouted.
“That’s not true!” Winifred rejoined. “It was Morris
more than you!”
“Oh,” Eugenia responded, her voice dropping a
notch, “it was Bruno. It was always Bruno. But why
was he killed?”
“Who says he was?” Winifred retorted. “I thought it
was an accident.”
“Nonsense,” Eugenia snapped as Judith gave Renie
a thumbs-up sign. “Think about it. How could anyone
hit a cupboard door or get hit by it hard enough to
knock themselves out? And even if they did, wouldn’t
falling in a sink filled with water snap them back into
consciousness? Why do you think the studio has insisted we stay in this stupid town? Because they’re
doing their own investigating, that’s why.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Winifred huffed. “If
they’re investigating, why haven’t we seen any detectives around here?”
“We haven’t been here all the time,” Eugenia said in
a reasonable voice, which still carried as if she were
speaking into a bullhorn. “The investigators may be
working with the local police. Or maybe they’re arriving tomorrow.”
“Vito said we could leave tomorrow,” Winifred said,
sounding sullen.
“Vito said maybe,” Eugenia responded. “Let’s stop
wrangling. I’d like to retire for the night in peace.”
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Mary Daheim
“Until you got here,” Winifred complained, “I could
retire in peace. Now I have to share my room with that
little twit Ellie.”
“Ellie’s simply immature. And spoiled, but she has