My hostess gestured toward a plush red couch. Just as I was sinking into it, I caught sight of one of those owls glaring down at me. I felt like Snow White wandering alone through the dark forest. Disney had obviously hijacked my imagination.
Salvation took unexpected form. He was carrying two tall glasses of something pink, but he was no butler. Tall, dark, and handsome—I believe that’s how it’s usually put. He was wearing sleek Italian boots, narrow black pants, and a gray silk shirt cut close to his body. And what a body.
“How sweet of you to bring us our drinks, dear. Raspberry iced tea, lovely. Ms. Caruso, may I introduce you to my son, Burnett Fowlkes? Burnett, this is Cece Caruso. She’s here to interview me for a book she’s writing on old Ventura.”
His hair was curly, and his gaze was steely. In fact, the look he gave me was so intense I felt like I was being x-rayed. The sensation was not altogether unpleasant. I decided to look back and was pleased to see his color rise.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Caruso.”
“Call me Cece.” I couldn’t remember if I had invited her to do the same. I didn’t think so. How humiliating. There was no way I was asking these people for sweetener.
“Burnett is a restoration architect in L.A. He’s here helping me with some detail work upstairs.”
“I could really use you in my bedroom,” I said. Idiot. “What I mean is, the molding is in shambles, and the fireplace has only one andiron and I’ve been looking for a good match for years.” Oh, man.
“There are lots of antique shops in the area. I’d try along Main,” he said graciously. “For a good match.”
Miss Allan was having a rollicking good time now. “Dear, tell Ms. Caruso something about this wonderful house.”
“It was built in the 1920s, for the film star Norma Talmadge. It’s a replica of a seventeenth-century villa belonging to a duke in Florence. There’s only one false note in the whole of it. Miss Talmadge was out to impress Irving Thalberg, the head of the studio, so she had the fireplace in her bedroom decorated with marble reliefs resembling the MGM lion. At parties,” he said, laughing, “she would hire bit players to growl from the closets.”
People growled at my parties without being asked. But I didn’t have to advertise this.
I cleared my throat. “The lion is actually a well-known symbol of the Medici. Maybe your movie star knew more than you’re giving her credit for.”
“I hadn’t considered that. You’re very astute, Ms. Caruso—Cece.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s just that I don’t like being underestimated, so I try never to underestimate others.”
“I’ll remember that—the part about never underestimating you.”
I blushed.
“Mother, I’ve got to run some errands. I’ll be back in a few hours. Cece, I hope we have the opportunity to meet again.”
A look passed between them as he leaned down to peck her cheek. She wanted him to stay, but he left without so much as a backward glance.
“Ms. Caruso,” she said, the lilt now gone, “about your book.”
This was the part I’d been dreading. I didn’t have any legitimate reason to be there except to find out what she did or didn’t know about the murder of her maybe-lover’s wife.
“Yes, well, I think Mr. Wingate might have misunderstood me a little when we set up the appointment,” I said, which was not a total lie, but about as close as you can get. “My book isn’t about old Ventura, not per se.”
She looked at me curiously. I smiled, trying not to show too much gum. Too much gum makes you look insincere. I learned that on the pageant circuit.
“What I’m actually researching,” I continued, “is the author Erle Stanley Gardner. He spent fifteen years in Ventura, back in the teens and twenties, and wrote the first Perry Mason books here.”
“Mr. Wingate doesn’t make errors.”
“No, of course not.”
“He didn’t believe in fairies.”
“Mr. Wingate?”
“Erle Stanley Gardner. He was a plodder. Some people are. They play by the rules. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. You know what I’m talking about.”
You know what I’m talking about. That was exactly what Joseph Albacco had said to me.
“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies. He took up the cause of two young English girls in Yorkshire who claimed to have met a pair of pixies, seen them riding snails and jumping off toadstools and such. The girls had photographs to prove it. I’d love to own those. But I suppose I’m digressing.”
She waited for me to contradict her. She was obviously used to having her every stray thought celebrated.
“Oh, no,” I intoned dutifully. It was for the cause.
She looked satisfied.
“Shall we get on with it then, Ms. Caruso? What exactly might Erle Stanley Gardner have to do with me?”
“Well,” I said, talking as fast as I could, “you’re really the only other well-known person to come out of Ventura. I know what Ventura meant to Gardner. I want to find out about its impact on you. I suppose I’m trying to think through the significance of people’s hometowns, you know, how they figure into their accomplishments. Sense of place, that sort of thing. What I’m looking for is another perspective on Ventura, a feeling for what this particular town offered to a young person with talent and energy.”
That was pathetic. Still, I kept going.
“Let’s go back to your teenage years in Ventura, Miss Allan. Were you already interested in fashion then? Where did you buy your clothes? Were there other girls with similar tastes you spent time with? What was it like at Ventura City High for someone like you?”
“I loathed Ventura,” she said. “Every single thing about it. But what I hated most of all was the smell of it, the stink of oil on my father’s fingers. As soon I was old enough, I went as far away from Ventura as I could, away from the derricks and the oil fields, somewhere I could breathe. Is that what you’re looking for, Ms. Caruso?”
“Oh, that would certainly do it,” I answered. Had no one ever told this woman that discretion is the better part of valor? Not that I was complaining.
“No one thought I would live past the age of ten, you realize.” She took a sip of iced tea, wrinkled her nose, and poured the rest into a nearby potted palm. “I had suffered a serious bout of rheumatic fever. When I recovered, everyone treated me like I was made of glass. It drove me mad. I became a ragamuffin. I refused to wash or comb my hair. I ran the hillsides with the butterflies. I swam with the toads. I was a freak, an untouchable with a rich daddy who stank of petroleum.”
We were on her favorite subject now: the life and lore of Meredith Allan.
“When I was fourteen, my mother died and my father began taking me places with him. London. Paris. Rome. My brothers were useless. They stayed home and ran wild while I became a lady. I brushed my hair. I put on perfume. I paid attention. I came home with getups nobody around here understood. Vionnet. Givenchy. Antique jewels worn by the daughters of maharajahs. Around here they thought everything you could ever want was in the Sears catalog. My father understood, though. He was only too happy to foot the bill. At school, the other girls were a little afraid of me. And the more outlandish my outfits, the more scared they were. I liked it. That’s how I developed my sense of style, Ms. Caruso. I wanted to scare people.”
It was definitely working. She was the Colossus of Rhodes of scary. But I wasn’t a psychoanalyst. I had a mystery to solve. But before I could get a word in edgewise she rose from her chair.
“You’ll have to go now. I’m very busy today.”
I had only one chance left.
I followed her to the door.
“It was kind of you to see me,” I said, hoisting my purse on my shoulder. “You’ve been so generous with your time.”
“Not at all.”
“There is one last question I wanted to ask, though.”
“Yes?” she asked distractedly. She’d turned her attention to something far more interesting than I’d turned out to be—a loose door hinge.
“One of the things I’ve stumbled upon in the course of my research is an old Ventura murder case, one that Gardner took quite an interest in. You know what a plodder he was.” I had her attention now. “Well, he was going over the evidence and something just didn’t seem right to him. What’s curious is that the case involved a young couple that you must have known, Joseph Albacco and his wife, Jean. You went to high school with them, didn’t you?”
It was as if I had clipped her wings. Her eyes filled with panic as she spiraled down to earth. She was quiet for a minute. Then she threw back her shoulders and wrapped her hauteur around her. Back where it belonged.
“That was a long time ago,” she said. “Another life. But yes, I knew them both well. A dreadful story.”
“Indeed. Two such wonderful young people, their lives destroyed.”
“Wonderful people?” she repeated, trying to appear unmoved. But there were beads of sweat on her exquisite nose. “I won’t speak about Joe. But Jean Albacco—let me clear something up, Ms. Caruso. She was a nasty bit of goods. Don’t be so foolish as to romanticize her just because she was murdered.”
“Well, her sister did say she had a difficult upbringing.”
“You’ve spoken to Theresa? Oh, she has plenty of stories to tell. Ask her about Lisette Johnson, Ms. Caruso, and watch her blanch. And don’t blame their childhood. Jean was never a child. Children don’t—”
“Don’t what?”
“You know about Jean’s little sideline, of course?”
“Actually, no.”
That may have been one digression too many.
“Never mind. It’s just that my dearest friend was hurt. Ellie thought Jean could be trusted, so she confided in her about an affair with the gym teacher at the high school. And what a mistake that turned out to be.”
“What else can you tell me about Jean?”
“There isn’t enough time. All I’ll say is I think you’re writing the wrong book. Good day.”
Her voice was honey all over again.