I was too close to the Rosenkrantz house to resist a visit. The way I figured it, I was owed the audience with Chloë Rose that I had been denied the night before. Knox may have thought that he could just throw me off of this thing, but the police wouldn’t let me go that easily. With my name already in, it was for my own good that I meet the other person at the center of the storm. Anyway, Chloë Rose and Stark were co-stars, perhaps she knew Taylor, too.
Soso in mid-morning was a collection of geysers and waterfalls sprinkling the various lawns. It was the Rosenkrantzes’ front lawn and flowerbeds that got the treatment this morning, requiring me to run a gauntlet to the front door. I timed it so I got the minimum shower. A faint shimmering rainbow appeared on the outer edge of the fan of water. It held a beautiful mystique, but collapsed before it could be properly admired, and then threatened to damage my suit a moment later.
I glanced back. There was a car parked out front. It was unmarked, but it said police anyway. It didn’t fit with the neighborhood.
The door again opened before I could ring the bell. This time it was Detective Samuels and another plainclothes cop. Miguel was visible beyond them, wringing his hands like an old maid.
“Don’t you sleep, Foster?” Samuels said.
“No, I’m a vampire, didn’t I tell you.”
“Vampires can’t go out during the day,” the other cop said.
“Go on, you know all about it,” I said.
The other cop looked away, embarrassed.
“I know you’re not here about that murder,” Samuels said. “Right?”
“You know, I heard a funny story about that,” I said. “It had something to do with Chloë Rose being a suspect in your investigation. It was so ridiculous it made me laugh.” I showed him how it made me laugh.
He was unimpressed. “This is a police investigation. You played it straight with me this morning, and I’m grateful for that. But I don’t want any private dicks chasing my tail.”
“And I’ll do whatever I need to, to protect my client.” If I could get her to be my client.
“Except provide her with an alibi. You still claim it wasn’t a divorce job?”
“I don’t do divorce.”
Samuels cocked his head to his partner. “Come on, McEvoy. We’ve got work.”
They waited for the sprinkler to finish its cycle, and then hurried down the wet path to their car.
Miguel came forward to stand in the doorframe. He greeted me like a long-lost cousin, stopping just short of giving me a hug. “That was the police,” he said.
“I hadn’t noticed. Were any others here?”
He shook his head. “No, just those two.”
“When did they get here?”
“Maybe an hour ago. Maybe a little more. They talked to both Mr. Rosenkrantz and Miss Rose.”
“About what?” I said.
He averted his eyes. “I wouldn’t know. They were private conversations.”
“You can skip that bit. What did they say?”
He bobbed his head to show his reluctance, but then opened up as though he couldn’t wait to tell somebody. “About a murder. Another actress in Miss Rose’s movie was killed. They asked Mr. Rosenkrantz about his relationship with this actress, when he had seen her last, did she have any enemies, was she afraid of anything.”
“Sure, I know the drill. And Miss Rose?”
He shook his head. “They kept asking her where she was last night. They would talk about something else, and then they would ask her again if she was sure she had been here the whole time, and had she made any phone calls, and had nobody seen her? She got very upset. She had to lie down. What about you, Mr. Foster? Where were you last night?”
“Out gambling. Where can I find Miss Rose?”
He waited. I started around him. He thought about trying to stop me, but it was only a thought. Instead he led the way. We took the squared arch to the right, entering a dining room with a heavy wooden baroque dining set. We went through a door on the opposite side into a poorly lit antechamber in which hung a portrait daguerreotype of a cat. This opened into the library, which was arranged like a sitting room with Louis XV loveseats facing each other over a delicate Chippendale table. The fireplace was large enough to stand in, but it didn’t look like it had been used anytime during the current administration. The built-in shelves housed richly bound volumes in matching sets. Everything in the room looked like it belonged in a museum.
Chloë Rose was on the loveseat facing the entryway when I came in. If Vera Merton was one kind of woman, then this was the other. She had the kind of beauty that made you nervous you were going to do something that would break it. She wore no makeup, and her eyes were red from crying. She had on a simple navy ankle-length skirt and a white-on-white patterned blouse.
I took off my hat, and gave her a moment to collect herself.
“Your colleagues were just here,” she said. Her accent was faint but it was there.
“I’m not the police, Miss Rose. I’m the private investigator that was hired to protect you yesterday.” I got out one of my cards. She made no motion to take it, so I left it for her on the corner of the table.
“So you know,” she said.
“I found the body.”
Her tears threatened to fall again, but she held them back. “They said you were supposed to be here last night. It seems that the fact that you weren’t is not in my favor just now.”
“No, it’s not,” I said.
“Shem and Mandy were sleeping together. It wasn’t any secret. Everyone knew.”
“It didn’t bother you?”
She looked at me with eyes that were suddenly indignant. “Of course it did. It killed me. But what could I do?”
“You could have left him.”
“Oh, it’s so easy for a stranger to stand there and say I should have left him. You come in and you know: leave him!”
“I didn’t say you should have, I said you could have. And I didn’t say it was easy.”
She collapsed back on the loveseat again. “What does it matter? Mandy killed. Why does any of it matter?”
“I hope that’s not what you told the police,” I said.
She shook her head, her voice growing pinched again. “No. They just wanted to know where I had been, over and over. I said here. But I can’t prove it. I’m a suspect in a murder. Oh, God! I thought I was finished with the police. Finished with prisons, finished with the police, a new life here in the saint’s city.”
She sounded as though she was just barely keeping hysteria at bay. I remembered Al Knox’s original description. And now I could see the capacity for panic, for melancholy. I took a step forward, but resisted the urge to put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going to be arrested. We just need to figure out what really happened. Then you’ll be in the clear.”
She looked up at me and it was almost as though she noticed me for the first time. “Mr. Foster? What do you want? What are you doing here?”
“Protecting myself as much as you. The studio fired me this morning. I don’t know which of us is being set up here, or maybe it’s both of us, but I needed to talk to you before figuring out what to do next.”
She looked frightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “That’s my job, not yours. Can you tell me what’s this about prisons, and police? Is it connected to something that happened to you in France...?”
I thought she was going to start crying again, but the spell had passed. Now her delivery was cold, her accent heavier than when she had been taking pains to control it. “My father was a safecracker.” She rubbed the heel of one palm against her eyes as she spoke, first the left, then the right. “He was killed in prison many years ago.”
“The police questioned you about his death?”
She turned her look on me. “It was many years ago.”
All the same, I could see how it could play into Samuels’ circumstantial case, if she’d been questioned once about another murder. But I didn’t say anything about that to her. “There’s nothing you could do to document your time last night?”
“I was asleep in bed,” she said.
“Your husband’s son? He’s staying with you, isn’t he?”
“Shem sent him back east yesterday afternoon, before all of this.”
“The neighbors, then? Maybe they could confirm you never went out.”
“They could say they saw my car still here, but there was enough traffic on the street last night, no one could say I didn’t get a ride. Anyway, our nearest neighbors were out late to a gala.”
It was still all circumstantial. They didn’t have the murder weapon, they couldn’t have her prints in Ehrhardt’s house, and they didn’t have a witness. But people went to jail on circumstantial evidence. They certainly went to trial.
I had another idea. “Let’s go back to the man you thought was following you. Was Miss Ehrhardt always there too, when you saw him? You told Al it was usually on the studio lot, right?”
She looked frightened and the pitch of her voice went up. “Why does that matter?”
“Because maybe the man following you was also following her.”
She knitted her brow in thought, shaking her head back and forth. “I couldn’t say, not for sure. Probably yes, she was there, but...” Back and forth, back and forth. “I don’t know about at the first fitting. And I thought there might be someone following my car once or twice; I was alone then.” The memory seemed to trouble her. Her eyes were wide now with fear. She shook her head even faster.
“Miss Rose?”
She sat up rigid. “No, it couldn’t be that he was following Mandy. He’s following me.”
“Don’t get excited.”
“No, no, no.”
I reached for her, but before I could get to her Miguel was there with a drink on a tray. “Try this, Miss Rose. Try this.”
He managed to get the glass into her hand, and she raised it mechanically, still shaking her head. The liquor went in, she shuddered, and fell back. Miguel grabbed the glass from her hand before the last sip could spill. He looked at me, imploring, and then left the room with the tray tucked under his arm and the glass in his hand.
“You don’t have more on the description of that man,” I said, a fighter kicking his opponent when he’s down.
She said nothing.
“Okey,” I said. “I’ll show myself out.”
That didn’t get any reaction either. She just lay there, collapsed, her beautiful face miserable in a way that the public never got to see on screen. It was disconcerting, like seeing the skull beneath the skin.
I made my way back to the front hall. Miguel was waiting for me.
“You see how fragile Miss Rose is?”
“Yeah, I see. Did she pull the same act with the police?”
“Nearly.”
“Samuels can’t want her for this. He’d see right away she’s no good for it. Unless he tries to play her as crazy.” It was my turn to shake my head. “Listen, I didn’t get a chance to ask Miss Rose. Are she and John Stark close? Would she know his friends?”
“Not that I know of. Miss Rose keeps to herself.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” I put on my hat and took a step towards the door. “Call me if there’s an emergency. I’m not wanted here otherwise.”
“Actually, Mr. Rosenkrantz would like to see you.”
I turned back. “And how would Mr. Rosenkrantz know I was here?”
“He saw you come in.” He indicated the stairs and said, “If you’ll allow me.”
I thought about how it was really not my business. I thought about how little I had to go on. I thought about how the studio and the police had told me to clear out and stay clear.
“Lead the way,” I said.