they looked, how fixed their smiles were as they visited from table to table. Why not? They were in the business of staving off old age, illness and death. This afternoon Sammy had proved it was a pointless game.
As she sat down, Min murmured an apology for being late. Ted ignored Cheryl, whose hand clung persistently to his. 'How
Helmut answered him: 'She's taking it very hard. I gave her a sedative.'
Would Alvirah Meehan never stop fooling with that damn pin? Craig wondered. She had parked herself between him and Ted. He glanced around. Min. Helmut. Syd. Bartlett. Cheryl. Ted. The Meehan woman. Himself. There was one more place setting next to him. He asked Min who would be joining them.
'Sheriff Alshorne. He just came back. He's talking to Elizabeth now.' Min bit her lip. 'Please. We all know how sad we feel about losing Sammy, but I think it would be better if we do not discuss it during dinner.'
'Why does the sheriff want to talk to Elizabeth Lange?' Alvirah Meehan asked. 'He doesn't think there's anything funny about Miss Samuels dying in that bathhouse, does he?'
Seven stony pairs of eyes discouraged further questions.
The soup was chilled peach and strawberry, a specialty of the Spa. Alvirah sipped hers contentedly. The
She could hardly wait to meet the sheriff.
Eleven
Elizabeth stood at the window of her bungalow and glanced at the main house just in time to see the guests drifting inside for dinner. She had insisted that Nelly leave: 'You've had a long day, and I'm perfectly all right now.' She'd propped herself up in bed for the tea and toast, then showered quickly, hoping that the splashing cold water would clear her head. The sedative had left her groggy.
An off-white cable-knit sweater and tan stretch pants were her favorite comfortable clothes. Somehow, wearing them, her feet bare, her hair twisted up casually, she felt like herself.
The last of the guests had disappeared. But as she watched, she saw Scott cut across the lawn in her direction.
They sat across from each other, leaning slightly forward, anxious to communicate, wary of how to begin. Looking at Scott with his kind, questioning eyes made Elizabeth remember how Leila had once said, 'He's the kind of guy I would have liked for a father.' Last night Sammy had suggested that they take the anonymous letter to him.
'I'm sorry I couldn't wait until the morning to see you,' Scott told her. 'But there are too many things about Sammy's death that trouble me. From what I've learned so far, Sammy drove six hours from Napa Valley yesterday, arriving at about two o'clock. She wasn't due till late evening. She must have been pretty tired, but she didn't even stop to unpack. She went directly to the office. She claimed she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't come down to the dining room for dinner, but the maid tells me she had a tray in the office and was busily going through bags of mail. Then she came to visit you and left around nine thirty. Sammy should have been pretty beat by then, but she apparently went back to the office and turned on the copy machine. Why?'
Elizabeth got up and walked into the bedroom. From her suitcase she took the letter from Sammy that had been waiting for her in New York. She showed it to Scott. 'When I realized Ted was here I would have left immediately, but I had to wait and see Sammy about this.' She told him about the letter that had been taken from Sammy's office and showed him the transcript Sammy had made from memory. 'This is pretty much the text of it.'
Her eyes filled as she looked at Sammy's graceful penmanship. 'She found another poison-pen letter in one of those sacks last evening. She was going to make a copy for me, and we were planning to give the original to you. I've written it down as I remembered. We had hoped the original could be traced. The typeface for magazines is coded, isn't it?'
'Yes.' Scott read and re-read the transcripts of the letters. 'Stinking business.'
'Somebody was systematically trying to destroy Leila,' Elizabeth said. 'Somebody doesn't want those letters found. Somebody took one from Sammy's desk yesterday afternoon and perhaps the other one from Sammy's body last night.'
'Are you saying that you think Sammy may have been murdered?'
Elizabeth flinched, then looked directly at him. 'I simply can't answer that. I do know that someone was worried enough about those letters to want them back. I do know that a series of those letters would have explained Leila's behavior. Those letters precipitated that quarrel with Ted, and those letters have something to do with Sammy's death. I swear this to you, Scott. I'm going to find out who wrote them. Maybe there's no criminal prosecution possible, but there has to be a way of making that person pay. It's someone who was very close to Leila, and I have my suspicions.'
Fifteen minutes later Scott left Elizabeth, the transcripts of both anonymous letters in his pocket. Elizabeth believed Cheryl had written those letters. It made sense. It was Cheryl's kind of trick. Before he went into the dining room, he walked around to the right side of the main house. Up there was the window where Sammy had stood when she turned on the copy machine. If someone had been on the steps of the bathhouse and signaled to her to come down…
It was possible. But, of course, he told himself sadly, Sammy wouldn't have come down except for someone she knew. And trusted.
The others were halfway through the main course when he joined them. The empty seat was between Craig and a woman who was introduced as Alvirah Meehan. Scott took the initiative in greeting Ted.
He helped himself to lamb chops from the silver tray the waiter was offering him.
'They're delicious,' Alvirah Meehan confided, her voice barely a whisper. 'They'll never go broke in this place from the size of the portions, but I'm telling you when you're finished you feel as though you've had a big meal.'
Alvirah Meehan. Of course. He'd read in the
Alvirah beamed. 'I sure am. Everyone has been just wonderful, and so friendly.' Her smile encompassed the entire table. Min and Helmut attempted to return it. 'The treatments make you feel like a princess. The nutritionist said that in two weeks I should be able to lose five pounds and a couple of inches. Tomorrow I'm having collagen to get rid of the lines around my mouth. I'm scared of injections, but Baron von Schreiber will give me something for my nerves. I'll leave here a new woman feeling… like… like a butterfly floating on a cloud.' She pointed to Helmut. 'The Baron wrote that. Isn't he a real author?'
Alvirah realized she was talking too much. It was just that she felt kind of guilty being an undercover reporter and wanted to say nice things about these people. But now she'd better be quiet and listen to see if the sheriff had anything to say about Dora Samuels' death. But, disappointingly, no one brought it up at all. It was only when they had just about finished the vanilla mousse that the sheriff asked, not quite casually, 'You people will all be around here for the next few days? No one has plans to leave?'
'Our plans are undetermined,' Syd told him. 'Cheryl may have to go back to Beverly Hills on short notice.'
