silly, and she didn’t like all the wars.” Her gaze shot to
the TV, where London was being bombed into what
looked like charcoal clumps.
“Oh.” Judith was disappointed. “At least we know
that somebody besides Bruno read the book.”
“There was one other thing,” Renie said. “You know
my mother—she’s like you, coz. Her main interest in
life is people.”
Judith smiled faintly. It was a great irony that in
many ways, Judith’s personality was more like Aunt
Deb’s. Conversely, Renie had some of the same traits
as Gertrude. Reacting to Renie’s comment, Bill
groaned, but Joe gave a thumbs-up signal. Both men
felt they had a cross to bear when it came to their
mothers-in-law.
“So?” Judith prodded.
“So,” Renie began, “Mom had an old friend, Hattie
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McDonough, who married a man named Carp. In fact,
I guess she married him back in the late twenties, about
the time that my folks read The Gasman. Naturally,
since Carp isn’t a common name, Mom wanted to
know if Hattie’s husband and C. Douglas were related.
Hattie—who, by the way, died a few years ago—said
they were cousins. Bernie Carp—the one Hattie married—was from the Midwest. Iowa or Nebraska, Mom
thought. Alas, Mr. Bernie Carp turned out to be a
drinker, and Hattie divorced him before World War
Two, a war we all know who won by now.” Renie raked
the TV screen with a scathing look.
Judith clapped her hands together. “Damn! Why
didn’t I think of this before? I’m going on-line to find
out about Bruno’s background. If,” she added on a note
of doubt, “I can figure out how to do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Renie volunteered. “I’m semigood at
finding stuff like that. But only after I eat most of this
food. Then you can start putting it away while I surf.
Meanwhile,” she added, pointing to Joe and Bill, “we’ll
leave General Eisenhower and General Patton in here to
beat the stuffing out of the Führer all over again.”
Five minutes later Renie was at the computer in the
kitchen while Judith staggered past, carrying a load for
the freezer. Directly behind Renie’s chair, two of the
boxes fell over and hit Renie on the back.
“Yikes!” she cried. “Watch the shoulder! I’ve had
surgery, remember?”
“How can I forget?” Judith muttered. Favoring her
artificial hip, she bent over to retrieve the boxes and
dropped two more.
Renie jumped out of the chair. “Let me help. You
can’t carry all that at once.”
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223
“I guess not,” Judith admitted. “How are you doing
on the Internet?”
“I just got into one of the main sites,” Renie said as
she scooped up the fallen boxes. “I had to eat a little
something first. Like the steaks.”
“Those I could have frozen,” Judith said, leading the
way down the basement steps.
“I didn’t really eat them,” Renie admitted. “I had
some of that field-green salad, a few tempura prawns,
a piece of fried chicken, and some excellent lox on an
outstanding bagel.”
Arriving at the freezer, Judith shook her head. “All
that in five minutes. How could you?” She always marveled at how much—and how fast—Renie could eat.
She also wondered why she couldn’t have inherited
Renie’s metabolism instead of Aunt Deb’s compassion.
“You’re right,” Renie said as Judith opened the
freezer. “You don’t have much room. Maybe we
should take this stuff out of the boxes and put it in
freezer wrap.”
“There’s some right up here,” Judith said, reaching
for a roll on the shelf above the freezer. “So did you
learn anything about Bruno’s background yet?”
“No, I just got started,” Renie replied, removing
four prime New York steaks from one of the boxes. “I
only learned his age, which indeed is fifty-three as of
March ninth. The next thing I knew, I was being
crushed by your cartons.”
“Here,” Judith said, moving some of the items in the
freezer, “I’ve made some room. We can put those
steaks in this corner by the—” She stopped and sucked
in her breath.
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Renie looked at her cousin with some alarm.
“What’s wrong? Did you cut yourself on something?”
“No,” Judith said slowly as she brought her hand out
of the freezer. “But I did find these.”
She opened her palm to reveal four black rubber spiders, stiff as boards and covered with frost.
FOURTEEN
“GIVE ME A clean piece of freezer wrap,” Judith said
to Renie. “I’ll put the spiders in it just in case there
might be fingerprints or fibers or something on them.”
After securing the evidence, the cousins worked
quickly to store the rest of the food. It was almost
six by the time they returned upstairs to find the
guests in the entry hall, awaiting their limousine.
On a whim, Judith approached them. “Hey, anybody lose some fake spiders?” She held them out in
their shroud of plastic wrap.
Ellie, Winifred, and Dade all gave a start. The
others looked mildly curious. Judith’s eyes darted
around the gathering, trying to assess the individual
reactions.
“Where’d those spiders come from?” Ben Carmody asked. “They look like the ones in Bruno’s
bed and over the sink.”
“I’m glad they’re fake,” Ellie said. “Those things
creep me out even if they are phony.”
“They devastated Bruno,” Winifred noted. “Why
do they look like they’ve been frozen?”
“Because they were,” Judith responded. “Nobody
wants to claim them, I see.”
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“Gosh, no,” Chips said. “Why don’t you put them
around the door for the kids who come trick-ortreating?”
“I don’t think so,” Judith said, trying not to show
disappointment at the lack of a revealing reaction.
“We shouldn’t be late,” Winifred said as a knock
sounded at the front door. “By the way,” she informed
Judith, “we heard from the hospital. Angela is going to
pull through, but it was a near thing. Dirk will be joining us at Capri’s for dinner.” Along with the others, she
moved toward the door, where their chauffeur awaited
them.
Joe ambled over to the entry hall after the guests had
left. “What was that all about?”
“This,” Judith said, showing him the frozen spiders.
“You should have Woody check them out.”
“Hidden in the freezer?” Joe cocked his head to one
side. “Not a bad place, I suppose. Nobody twigged
when you showed them off?”
“No,” Judith admitted. “Oh, Ellie and Winnie and
Dade gave a start, but that doesn’t prove
anything. I
was hoping that either all of them except one, or none
of them except one, would react. Or not.”
“I think I understand you,” Joe said, taking the spiders from Judith. “Dilys can handle this. She saw the
spider over the sink.”
Judith went back into the living room. Bill, with the
sound on again, was now watching the Allies get revenge for London by blasting the bejeesus out of
Berlin.
“You two sofa soldiers can graze at the buffet,” she
announced. “I’m not making a formal dinner.”
In the kitchen, Renie was staring at the computer
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227
screen. “Interesting,” she remarked. “Bruno was born
in Iowa of an army mother and a German war groom.
They moved to California when Bruno was very
young. His dad got a job in Hollywood as a translator
for German films. Young Bruno grew up obsessed by
the movies. Hence his destiny, but only after two years
of extensive travels in search of his roots. He was married briefly at the age of twenty, divorced before he
was twenty-one, then took Taryn McGuire as his second wife when he was twenty-seven, divorced six
years later, married a third time to a film cutter for five
years, again divorced. The two children by Taryn are
listed, ages eighteen and twenty.”
“Does it give his mother’s maiden name?” Judith
asked.
“Yes,” Renie replied, scrolling up the screen. “Father, Josef Zepf; mother, Helena Walls. No Carp.
Sorry.”
“What about wives number one and number three?
Any names?”
Renie shook her head. “The first marriage was so
brief they don’t mention her. And the film cutter’s
name isn’t listed, either. Since this is an official site,
they may have been omitted because they weren’t
names in the industry. There are other sites, I’m sure.”
“Check those,” Judith urged. “There’s got to be a
Carp somewhere.”
“I’ll try,” Renie said, “but sometimes it’s tricky to
get into the unofficial sites. At least it is for me. Meanwhile, I’ll print out the stuff we’ve already seen.
There’s quite a bit of information about Bruno’s films,
of course.”
In the living room, World War II had ended in Eu- 228
Mary Daheim
rope. The program had moved on to the Pacific, where
General Douglas MacArthur was wearing his game
face. Bill was adding another section to his chart.
“Joe,” Judith said with a sigh, “I thought you were
detecting.”
“I am,” Joe replied. “I’m like Hercule Poirot, letting
my little gray cells cogitate.”
Bill gave Judith an accusing look. “You didn’t let
me finish explaining my chart.”
“You’re right,” Judith said, sitting down on the sofa
arm. “Really, I am interested. Show me.”
While Bill wrestled with his unwieldy chart, Joe reluctantly turned off the TV as a mushroom cloud exploded over Hiroshima. Bill picked up his bamboo
skewer just as Renie burst into the living room.
“Hey!” she cried. “I found something. There’s a
whole Web site devoted to The Gasman and its origins.”
Judith turned to look at her cousin. “What does it
say?”
“I don’t know,” Renie replied. “It’s kind of long, so
I’m printing it out.” She saw her husband with his chart
and pointer. “Oops. Sorry, Bill. Am I interrupting?”
“You usually are,” Bill said with a long-suffering
air.
“Go ahead,” Joe urged, nodding at Bill. “I’d like to
hear this, too. It might help me . . . cogitate.”
“What’s that new section?” Judith asked, noting that
two more circles had been added.
“Morris Mayne and Eugenia Fleming,” Bill replied
with a tap for each of the turquoise circles.
“You’re right,” Judith said. “We can’t ignore them.
They were here last night, too. What else can you tell
us?”
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229
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Bill began, tapping
the corner of the chart. “We’re talking about Hollywood, and we should keep a few things in mind. One
is power. Who has it here? Bruno, of course. He was
one of the most powerful men in the movie industry.
That’s a very exclusive club. Who else, then?”
Judith felt she was in the classroom with Bill, and
automatically raised her hand. “Winifred? She was so
close to Bruno.”
Bill nodded solemnly. “That’s right. If nothing else,
Winifred would have had the power to say yes to a proposal or a script. Anyone in Hollywood can say no. But
saying yes is a risk. Winifred was probably able to do
that because of her close association with Bruno.”
“Then Eugenia would have power, too,” Judith conjectured, “because she’s Bruno’s agent?”
“Only to the extent of allowing access to the people
in her stable,” Bill replied. “Eugenia also represents
Dirk, doesn’t she? The amount of her power depends
more on her clients’ clout.”
“What about Morris?” Joe asked.
“Morris Mayne is a studio flack,” Bill said, tapping
the smaller of the circles in his addendum. “Morris can
be replaced on a whim. The only way publicists have
any power is if they’re keeping a secret. Let’s say, covering up for Angela’s overdose today.”
“Blackmail,” Joe said. “Morris is more likely a victim than a perp because he knows too much. Blackmailers are always vulnerable.”
are bankable. Doesn’t that give them some power?”
“Dirk, yes,” Bill said. “But not Angela. She’s a big
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star, though I doubt that a producer or a studio could
get a large investment on her name alone. Bruno could
and did with Dirk.”
“What about Chips Madigan?” Joe asked. “He’s a
successful director.”
Bill shook his head. “Chips is under contract to
Paradox. His power is limited. In fact,” he continued,
tapping at several of the smaller circles, “no one here
really has power except Bruno, Winifred, and Dirk.
Writers in particular are way down on the food chain.”
“Ellie had power,” Judith pointed out. “She was the
reason Bruno got a big chunk of money for The Gas-
man.”
Again, Bill shook his head. “That was a fluke. Ellie
had connections, which isn’t the same. Until now, her
father wasn’t a player.”
“But,” Renie said, “do people murder for power in
Hollywood? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a
thing.”
Bill pointed the pointer at Renie. “That’s right,” he
said approvingly. “They don’t. If Bruno was murdered,
I doubt that power was a motive.”
“You really think he was murdered?” Judith said eagerly.
Bill shrugged. “How do I know? But you and Joe
seem to be operating on that premise. Judging from the
studio’s involvement, they are, too.”
“So,” Renie inquired, “what’s the other factor besides power?”
“Factors, really,” Bill responded, then studied his
chart for a moment. “Image, for one. I realize it’s not
like it used to be in Hollywood, where studios manufactured images and personalities. Stars were shielded
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231
from bad publicity; they had to live up to certain standards. Of course they misbehaved, but either they were
protected from the press or the reporters themselves
turned a blind eye. Nowadays actors don’t have that
kind of buffer. And journalism is different—no turn
goes unstoned, as they say. The tabloids not only exploit the stars’ misdeeds, but they invent some of
them.” Bill took a deep breath. “All that being said, it’s
only human nature for actors to want to keep certain
unsavory things from the public. Such as Angela’s apparent cocaine habit.”
“Dirk, too?” Judith offered. “If he and Angela were
romantically involved, isn’t it possible that he also had
a coke addiction?”
“We don’t know about Dirk,” Bill replied. “Do we
have proof?”
On the sofa, Joe stretched out his legs. “Only the
coke dust my bride discovered in the downstairs powder room and traces I noticed in the bathroom Angela
and Dirk used after they commandeered Bruno’s room
last night.”
“But that could have been only Angela,” Bill
pointed out.
“What about the bathroom Angela and Ellie shared
the first night?” Judith inquired of Joe. “Did you notice
anything in there?”
Joe shook his head. “It could have been cleaned up,
of course.”
Judith persisted. “The night that Dirk roomed with
Ben, they had access to Bruno’s bathroom, because it’s
the largest and it’s shared by Rooms Three and Four.”
“Nothing there, either,” Joe responded. “Angela
may not have wanted to haul out her stash while she
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was sharing a room with Ellie. They don’t like each
other much. Ellie might have lorded it over Angela
somehow. Haven’t we figured that Angela used the
bathroom on this floor to do coke?”
“That’s right,” Judith allowed.
“What else?” Bill asked, impatient with the latest
digression. “We’re talking image and reputation here,
remember.”