“Through here,” the cop said. “I’ll leave you two alone. If you need me—or a doctor—just shout.”
Mary Pat’s room was at the far end of the house, just above the kitchen. Joanna had expected a profusion of chintz and ruffles, but Mary Pat’s bedroom was plain. A practical Berber carpet covered the oak floors. The only ornate touch was the portrait of an elaborately mustachioed Victorian man hanging over the marble fireplace.
Mary Pat lay propped up by pillows on a mid-century maple bed with a matching nightstand on one side and desk on the other. A bay window let in eastern light bright with the August morning.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Joanna?” Mary Pat said. “Sit here.” She pointed to the end of her bed. Pink rimmed her eyes, and the creases on her cheeks had deepened.
Warily, Joanna sat, purse in lap.
“I’m sorry for exploding at you like I did the other day. My brother—my last family member—had died, and I guess I just couldn’t keep it together. I blamed you. That wasn’t right.”
“I understand. You’d had a gigantic shock.”
“I owe you an explanation.”
“Oh, no. Anyone would have—”
“Listen.” Her feather pillow sighed as Mary Pat leaned back. “Not a lot of people know this, but I’m actually Bradley’s older sister. My mother” —Mary Pat raised an eyebrow— “you’ve seen her portrait downstairs?”
Joanna nodded. “The woman in the cloche hat?” With the sour expression and wire-thin lips? she wanted to add.
“Mother was disappointed in me. She’d wanted a boy, someone to replace her own father.”
Joanna followed her gaze to the painting next to the window. Mary Pat’s grandfather. “That’s him.”
“Yes. Grandpa Edwin. He died before I was born, but I feel a kinship with him. We both lived to serve my mother, although in different ways.” Mary Pat was somewhere else now. She absently reached for the water glass. “Bradley and my mother were inseparable. Even when he was a boy, he helped choose her wardrobe and went with her to bridge parties. Meanwhile, I stayed home and, when they were home, too, found refuge in the garden.” Her hand replaced the glass and touched a clutch of asters next to the decanter.
Mary Pat must have followed Joanna’s turn toward the narrow garden, because she said, “It wasn’t always like that.”
“The garden, you mean?”
She nodded. “Bradley was—I hate to speak ill of him, he was my brother—but, well, he was extravagant. And not always a consistent worker. We had to sell off the back part of the garden.”
“That must have been hard on you.”
“Bradley said it had to be done, so it had to be done. Mother’s bones would have combusted in her grave had she known we’d sold the house. So we sold off most of the land.”
“So, you and Bradley weren’t very close,” Joanna said.
“What makes you think that?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “No, we were very close. We needed each other more than ever. Bradley loved Mother, but he wanted to get away. She was pressing him to get married, and, well.” She extended a hand, palm up, as if serving an unspoken explanation. “Anyway, we went to Hollywood. At least, Bradley went to Hollywood, and Mother insisted I go along. Someone had to take care of him, she said.”
“So you went.”
“I went,” she repeated. “At first, I was bored. Bradley was out at all hours, and I sat alone in our apartment—it was so blazing hot that first summer—and played solitaire and listened to Rosemary Clooney records. I did Bradley’s laundry and made dinner for him. I resented Mother for making me go, but not enough that I didn’t long to return home.” She let a hand drop to the coverlet. “That all changed soon enough.”
“How?”
“I was at the laundromat, when a gentleman approached me, said I ought to give a screen test. He said I had a Mary Pickford look.”
Come to think of it, Joanna thought, she did. Mary Pat’s color was returning. She even showed a bare smile.
“Pickford was decades out of style then,” Mary Pat said. “He told me it was time for a resurgence, that the bombshell was overplayed. So, without telling Bradley, I did the test. The studio signed me.”
“What did your brother say?”
She laughed, the morning’s shock momentarily forgotten. “I was afraid he’d be livid. He was supposed to be the important one, not me. But he loved it. He even gave me my stage name, Margay.” She pronounced the name as if offering a spray of lilies of the valley. “Margay.”
“Did you have a lot of roles?”
She shrugged. “A few. It didn’t last long, though.” She raised her gaze to Joanna’s, then looked quickly away. “I fell in love, but that didn’t last long, either. He was a bigwig. A producer.”
“Not the Big Sip?” Joanna said. This was too much of a coincidence.
“Yes,” Mary Pat said. “That was him. He had a wandering eye, but he loved me. I know he did. He’d always gone for the blowsy types.”
Not like Mary Pat.
“Then he met me. He was at his wit’s end with his wife, so possessive, and we both talked about a quiet life where Sip could escape from the craziness in Hollywood and I could keep a big garden. Maybe we’d have children. Does that sound too old-fashioned?”
“Not at all,” Joanna said.
“Sometimes people think Hollywood was all about Manhattan cocktails and mink stoles. Maybe it was for some people. At first. Pretty soon the divorces pile on, then the plastic surgery. Sip didn’t want it. Neither did I.”
“What happened?”
“I still don’t know. I can guess, but I don’t know for sure. Sip stopped returning my calls. The studio mysteriously dropped me, and the next thing I knew, Bradley was packing our bags.” She clutched the coverlet in her fists. “It was his wife, I’m sure. He couldn’t say no to her. Bradley and I came home. Mother died soon after. And here I’ve been ever since.”
In that last sentence, Mary Pat had summed up six decades. This grand old house staring unchanged over the river. Now it felt more like a tomb than a home.
“So, you understand. Bradley’s death hit me hard. And now Luke…” Her eyes seemed to have grown larger. “Was it poison?”
Now Joanna understood. Mary Pat was alone. And scared. Even on the modest-sized bed, she looked small. Joanna scooted a few inches closer. “Are you worried you might be next?”
Mary Pat grasped the coverlet. Her gaze darted to the doorway then back to Joanna. “I think he’s done. He—or she—should be done” —her voice dropped— “killing.”
“You mean whoever killed your brother and Luke?”
“Yes. He should be finished, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Come closer.”
Joanna pulled out the desk chair and moved it to the head of the bed. “And who do you mean by ‘he’?”
“My brother’s memoir had some stories that didn’t make certain people look very good.”
“He hinted at that when I saw him. You think that’s what put him at risk? I’d had the same thought.”
“What else could it be?”
“It sounds like you have someone in particular in mind.”
“No. Oh, I don’t know.” She looked perilously close to collapsing into hysteria again.
Joanna poured a glass of water from the bedside carafe and handed it to her. Mary Pat took a dainty sip and set it aside. “Have you talked about this with the police?”
“Not—yet.” Her faltering tone told Joanna that “yet” might never come. Mary Pat collapsed against the pillows.
“And these stories. They must have been more than just embarrassing.”
She nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes. Some of his stuff could have sent people to jail.” She lowered her voice. “For murder.”
“So, you’ve read the memoir,” Joanna said.
“No.” She looked at her fingertips. “But Bradley told me.”
Joanna walked to the window. Trees shaded a stone-paved patio surrounded by parrot-colored canna lilies and other tropical plants Joanna couldn’t name. It was quiet on this side, with the freeway’s hum insulated by the old house.
She turned to Mary Pat. “It crossed my mind that Luke might have blackmailed people and posed as your brother.”
Mary Pat nodded vigorously. “Luke always needed money. Bradley complained about it to me. Luke used to pester him for advances on his pay. Then, once this spring I was setting out a bowl of camellias and I passed him at his computer with Bradley’s memoir. He covered the screen when I went by, but I saw he was looking up addresses. What else could it be? He was angry at Bradley for not advancing him more money, so he thought he’d collect it from someone in the memoir.”
“Maybe he needed to clear certain passages with people. You know, fact checking. Or see if they were still alive.”
“Then why would he hide it from me?”
Joanna couldn’t argue with that. “He was planning to leave this morning, you know. His bags are in the entry hall.”
Mary Pat’s voice dropped. “I’m not surprised. He was packing late last night. I thought he was afraid I’d kick him out now that Bradley is gone, and I tried to reassure him. Now I wonder if he simply wanted to clear out before the police got suspicious.”
Joanna returned to the bed and sat. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. You’ll tell the police about it, of course.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Joanna leaned back and considered Mary Pat. She had been just as privy to the secrets as her brother and Luke. She said she hadn’t read the memoir, but why wouldn’t she have? She’d been in the same house with it for months. She might have been listening outside the door as Bradley dictated. When it came down to it, how could Mary Pat have avoided knowing what was in the memoir? It hadn’t escaped Joanna that Mary Pat had jumped on her theory that Luke’s blackmail had killed Bradley Stroden.
Looking in the older woman’s eyes, Joanna realized she had already figured this out. Whatever this horrible secret was, Mary Pat knew it. Or could know it. The murderer might want to make sure there would be no further demands for cash and definitely no memoir.
“As for the few stories I’ve heard, I haven’t said a peep all these years,” Mary Pat said. “Why would I talk now? Especially given what happened to Bradley?” Her eyes filled with tears.
Joanna wanted to reach out to her, but she still wasn’t sure if the sister would welcome it. “Maybe the murderer knows that.” She chose her words carefully. “Why did you want to talk with me? I still think it’s the police you need to talk to.”
Mary Pat sat up. Her eyes were red, but she showed no signs of further tears. “Oh, no. I can’t. If they start digging up old crimes, I’m dead.”
“Why? Why are you so sure?”
She turned away. “Top drawer of the desk. It came in yesterday’s mail.”
Joanna slid open the desk drawer. Thinking of Luke downstairs, she hesitated to touch it. Noticing, Mary Pat slowly lowered herself from the bed and pulled out the envelope.
“It’s not poisoned. Look.” She slipped a letter from the envelope.
The note was printed on plain white paper like that from any office or house, including this one. The envelope had nothing on it but Mary Pat’s name. It had been hand delivered. That, or Mary Pat had written it herself. “It stops now or you’re next,” the note said. Joanna dropped the letter to the nightstand.
“So you see,” Mary Pat said, “I can’t tell the police.”
“You’re sure the note refers to blackmail and the memoir?”
“What else could it be?”
“But why me?” Joanna asked. “Why are you telling me? The police can help you so much more. They could put a watch on your house, have someone—”
“That would be my death sentence.” Her tone was firm, the firmest Joanna had heard it. “I need your help. I know you’ve been involved in murder cases before. I read about it in the paper, and I’ve seen how interested you’ve been in Luke and Bradley. You didn’t really want Bradley’s clothes. You wanted to know more. You thought I didn’t notice that? And you’re not the police.”
“I know a good detective you can call. He used to be in homicide, but now—”
“No.” Her voice was curt. “You want the Edith Head wardrobe, don’t you?”
Joanna looked up. “Well…yes.”
“You help me, and the costumes are yours.”