Tinkie and Graf went into a huddle, and then they packed it in and started back toward the mansion. I changed into some cool shorts, sandals, and a sleeveless T-shirt and went down to greet them.
Graf swung me into his arms, making me giddy with laughter, as Tinkie looked on with approval. “It’s good to see you happy, Sarah Booth.” She punched Graf’s arm lightly. “I never thought this celluloid playboy could do it, but I was wrong. I think he’s good for you.”
“And she’s good for me,” Graf said.
“And we all have to be good detectives to get this whole mess resolved.” I put my arms around their waists as we walked to the front door. When I told them my plan, they readily agreed.
Tinkie distracted Federico, while I talked to Ricardo. Graf was going to the third floor to see if Sally and Dallas had heard or seen anything unusual.
Ricardo had a room on the second floor in another wing from my room. I knocked on his door, half expecting that he wouldn’t be in.
The door swung open and he stood there, shirtless, in a pair of shorts. Like his father, he was handsome, and he knew it. While his conduct on the set was impeccable, I’d heard he was something of a rake and a scoundrel with the young women who were part of the crew.
“Dad send you to talk to me?” he asked, leaving the door open so I could enter or not.
“No. Why would he?”
He flashed his perfect white teeth. “Because Dad doesn’t like confrontation of any kind.”
“And what have you been doing that would lead to a confrontation?”
“Sleeping with Dallas. Dad is afraid if I dump her she’ll quit in the middle of the film.” His grin was just a hair too smug.
“Your father has legitimate concerns, Ricardo. No one likes to be used like garbage.” Dallas was a beautiful young woman. She could have her pick of any number of men, but Ricardo could make her feel like trash in a ditch.
He shrugged, picked an apple from a table, and bit into it with a loud crack. “I’m giving her what she wants.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Come on, you older people don’t get it. We hooked up. She knows that. When we get back to Los Angeles, she’ll go her way and I’ll go mine. That’s how it is.” He took another huge bite of apple.
“As long as she knows that upfront. We ‘older people’ and most younger ones, too, like to know the rules before we begin the game.” I wasn’t insulted by his rudeness. In terms of maturity, the fourteen years between us was a huge distance. He was handsome, privileged, and felt entitled. “I didn’t come to talk about Dallas. I want to ask you some questions about your sister.”
“Estelle, the psycho queen?” He took the last large bite of the fruit and tossed the core into a garbage can. “What’s she done now?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Ah, hiding in the attic?” He grinned big, proud of what he viewed as his cleverness.
It was peculiar, but I’d talked to Ricardo before, and he hadn’t been such a jackass. “Do you know where Estelle is?” I asked patiently. “Federico is worried about her and so am I.”
The mask of superiority dropped for a moment. “Why? What’s she done now?”
“Nothing, for sure. She’s not answering her cell phone.” I wasn’t certain how to proceed. I’d expected Ricardo to be more cooperative. Our prior conversations had been pleasant; now there was antagonism.
“Sometimes she gets down and doesn’t want to talk to people,” he said. “Maybe she wants to be left alone.”
“That’s a reason for concern. This anger she carries toward your father could be…” I let the sentence fade. He’d supply his own ending.
“She’ll be fine. She’s just pissed about the house. He could have asked her, you know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any of the details. What I’d like to know is how stable is your sister?”
He dropped all pretense of being the smartass he’d been earlier. Motioning to a comfortable chair for me, he sat down on the floor. “Look, Estelle has her ups and downs, but she’s not going to harm herself.”
“Could she harm someone else?”
That really got his attention. “She likes to pretend to be crazier than she is.”
“Someone tried to drown me last night. It wasn’t kidding around. Joey was seriously hurt in that fall. Another woman associated with your father in Los Angeles is dead.”
“And you think Estelle is doing all of that?” The idea shocked him.
“I didn’t come to tell you what I thought. I want to know what you think.”
“What does Dad say?”
“What do you think, Ricardo? Tell me that and then we’ll talk about Federico.”
He considered for a long moment, one hand aimlessly brushing up and down his shin. “She hated Suzy Dutton. She thought…” He looked at me, suddenly much younger than his twenty years. “Estelle wasn’t rational about sex. She has it in her head that Mom died because of Dad and his liaisons with other women.”
“And why did your mother die?”
“She hated herself.”
It was a pretty succinct summation of the terrible disease that had killed Carlita. “Does Estelle know this?”
“In her heart she does, but she won’t admit it. If she accepted that Mom was mentally ill, that Mom starved herself to death, then she’d have to forgive Dad.” He sighed, suddenly tired. “This is all so boring.”
“If Estelle is trying to sabotage Federico’s film, we’re going to have to stop her before she really hurts someone.”
“Good luck. She knows this house inside and out. Grandfather showed her all of the secret passages, the places he had built into it just for her.”
I’d been curious about this. “Why would he construct a house like that?”
“He liked puzzles. He liked playing games with us when we were children. He could hide and we would never find him. He enjoyed that.” He was smiling as he talked. “Estelle adored him. He gave her his undivided attention and I think the only time she really felt loved was when she was with him.”
“I’ve never heard Federico talk of him.”
“For good reason. Dad and Granddad hated each other. Pappy Estoban didn’t believe Dad was good enough for his daughter. He did everything he could to break them up before they married. He told me once that if Mom hadn’t married Dad, she would be alive and happily married.”
“And I suppose he told Estelle the same thing?”
Federico lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “When Dad moved us to California, Pappy was furious. He tried to get the police to stop Dad from taking Mom and us. He had Dad arrested. It was awful.”
I could only imagine the horror of that scene to a child-caught between the grandfather she loved and the family she felt didn’t love her.
As sorry as I felt for Estelle, I still had to know if she was capable of harming another person. “Estelle went to a private boarding school, as you did. Was she ever in trouble?”
His gaze dropped and I knew he was thinking about lying. For all of his sexual suavity, he wasn’t as sophisticated as he thought.
“Tell me the truth, Ricardo. I’m not out to harm Estelle, but if she is behind some of these things, she has to be stopped.”
“Why don’t you ask Dad about this?”
I considered my answer, but I told him the truth. “Whatever Estelle thinks of her father, he’s doing everything he can to divert suspicion from her. I’m afraid he’d color the truth to protect her.”
“And you figured I’d be a stool pigeon?” He was quick to insult.
“No, I figured you’d want to help your sister and could see that the truth was the best way to get there.”
He rose to his feet in one fluid movement. “How about a banana? They’re fresh from a plantation not far from here.”
“Sure.” The bananas available in Petaluma were totally different creatures from the ones in supermarkets.