Beauty Dies Read online

  “When did you shoot it?” I asked her.

  “Over a year ago in some cheap motel.” She stopped caressing herself long enough to think. “It was the Royal Motel.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It was near JFK. It’s been torn down,” Sarah said.

  “Convenient. Who was involved?”

  “Just me and Jackie and this guy with a camera.”

  “Does the guy have a name?”

  “I didn’t ask. He was some creep. I just did what he wanted, took the money, and left.” She nibbled at her lower lip—not out of nervousness, it was more like little love bites. When she finished she said, “All I’m asking is that you don’t show St. Rome the video. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.”

  “You don’t seem too broken up about your mother.”

  Her coffee-brown eyes gave me a slow steady stare as if I were a camera. “I don’t cry.”

  “Not good for the complexion?”

  Her fingers played with the ends of her hair. “Tears are such a contrast to the way I look. I feel removed from them. You know, like they don’t mean anything. So I just don’t cry.”

  “What about shock? Surprise? Sadness?”

  “At what?”

  “At your mother jumping down a stairwell.”

  “My mother was very depressed. I tried to make her happy but God knows I wasn’t her reason for living, otherwise she wouldn’t have left me with my grandparents. She only took me in because I was beautiful.” Her voice broke. Anger flushed her cheeks. “She’d just sit here, drinking, watching me. It was like being in prison. Like … oh, what does it matter.” She ran her slim fingers through her hair.

  “Jackie thought Cybella was murdered,” I said.

  She scrambled to her feet. “Jackie didn’t even know Cybella. And she only met me once and that was when we did the video.” She put her hands on her hips. “Look, all I’m asking is that you don’t show St. Rome the tape. Is it a deal?”

  “Jackie never mentioned the fact that she knew you before you became a big-time model.”

  “So?”

  “So I think she would have told us unless of course you were a big-time model when you did the video.”

  “You weren’t very popular in school, were you?” She flipped some more gorgeous hair back from her face. “You hated girls like me. It still shows.”

  She was right. Girls like her always traveled in twos and threes and stood around in their tight little groups reeking of drugstore perfume and lipstick and exclusion.

  “You know why I don’t like you? You have the power of all that beauty and you use it with all the grace of a sledgehammer.”

  “I guess that means you’re going to show St. Rome the video. Well, fuck you. I’ve gotta get some sleep. I have to go be beautiful tomorrow. Show yourself out.” She stomped into her room and slammed the door.

  Oh, hell.

  I got up and walked into the foyer. Next to the dining room was another door. It opened into a bedroom carefully decorated in the same deep yellow as the living room. Crossing to the front door, I opened and closed it loudly.

  I walked back to the bedroom, stepped inside, and quietly shut the door. Stillness had settled on the room like the weight of a lover’s body. As I moved through the hush, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored closet doors. I looked like a fugitive from the female sex trying to avoid one more mirror. I turned away from my image and studied the room. The bed, draped in a gold-colored damask, displayed a collection of antique linen pillows. A crystal lamp graced the nightstand. A silver-framed photograph showed Cybella smiling at Sarah and Sarah smiling at the camera. Another photograph showed Cybella arm-in-arm with a handsome gray-haired man. They looked like a happy middle-aged couple who had invested their money wisely. What was I doing here? I crossed to a small bookcase filled with leatherbound books. I took one from the shelf and opened it. It was The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, inscribed, To Cybella, with love only a woman can understand, Nora. 1973. The bindings were stiff, the pages untouched. The book had never been read. I took down another one. Madame Bovary. My favorite. This time Nora had written: For Cybella, my love, my life. 1968. Flaubert was unread too. Which woman in this relationship was really Madame Bovary?

  Inside the mirrored closet doors, clear plastic zippered bags hung in a straight line. The clothes in the bags looked like shadowy corpses. When I unzipped one, a deep, rich perfume drifted into the room. For the first time I had a sense of Cybella alive. Five suits hung on padded hangers, all Chanel. I zipped up the bag and opened another one. Again her perfume summoned a presence so strong, it was as if she were standing next to me. I stared at evening dresses. The empty bodices of the gowns seemed to be waiting for breasts to fill them, to give the gowns their reason for being. Among the chiffon, the sequined, and the basic black was a slip of red silk gown. I took it off the hanger. It looked like the dress Jackie had worn in the video. The label was St. Rome’s. When I hung it back up, the others swayed tipsily on their hangers like slightly drunken ladies. I closed the closet doors. Why were they all lying about this dress?

  I moved to an art deco vanity and went through the drawers. Exquisite lingerie, the sort I could only dream of wearing, was folded with a loving neatness. Lipsticks, makeup, brushes, silvery cases of eye shadow filled the center drawer. Two keys shimmered next to a box of loose powder. I reached for them, knocking the box. Puffs of pink powder floated up into the air and curled away like a spirit. I looked at the keys. One was a Baldwin, like the lock on the front door? I assumed the other was to the lobby door. I slipped them in my pocket, closed the drawer, and slowly crossed the room. The smell of Cybella’s perfume embraced me as I silently let myself out of the apartment. I had disturbed the dead.

  Ten

  SOMETHING RATTLED. THE BONES of dead women rattle. Their teeth rattle when they smile. Old women. Young women. Spreading brittle legs. Offering lifeless breasts. Rattle, rattle.

  “Throw cold water on her.”

  “She’s only asleep, madam.”

  Water? Cold?

  I sat up, peering through strands of tousled hair at Boulton and Claire, who stood at the end of my bed. Claire, all in white, leaned on her ivory walking stick like an angel in exile. Boulton held a tray loaded with a china coffeepot, cup and saucer, pot of marmalade, and a small pitcher of cream. Toast was lined up like envelopes in a silver holder. Something was wrong.

  “Did you sleep well?” Claire asked, tossing me my bathrobe.

  She had a strange expression, maybe an attempt to look motherly. I blinked. Yes, she was definitely trying for a sort of domesticated warmth and kindness. But on her it looked as if she had just bit into the wrong piece of candy in the box.

  “I’m not sure. What’s all this? What time is it?” I struggled into my robe while Boulton, the good butler, stared at the wall just over my head.

  “Time for us to talk,” she said, settling into a chair that had been pulled up beside my bed. “I can’t let you sleep the afternoon away.” Another sickening smile. This one didn’t work either. For a horrified moment I thought she might even start knitting.

  “It’s afternoon?” I felt dazed. Boulton placed the tray on my lap and poured my coffee. His arm brushed against my shoulder. I could smell soap. The tips of his hair looked wet.

  “Is it raining out?” I took a sip of coffee.

  “There now,” Claire said. “Head all clear?”

  I drank some more and nodded.

  “Then please, begin.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. Her large pale hand rested on her ivory stick. The lapis shimmered.

  Two pieces of toast, with marmalade, and three cups of coffee later I recounted the night’s events, omitting only my feminist diatribe at Peep Thrills. Some things should remain personal. She opened her eyes and almost looked at me.

  “Sarah kept the magazines in a box in her closet,” she repeated.

  “That’s what Linda said.”

  “And
Cybella owned the red dress.”

  “It’s in her closet and it’s definitely a St. Rome.” I spread marmalade on another piece of toast.

  “So Sarah Grange does a porno video letting Jackie wear her mother’s dress,” Boulton said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if you consider the tape as not just pornography but also as a tool for blackmail.” Claire’s eyes came to rest on the toast in my hand.

  “How do you force somebody like her to do that?” I asked.

  “The blackmailer says, ‘If you don’t do this video, then I will tell what I know and destroy your career.’ The St. Rome dress is used to show that the video was taped as recently as six months ago. Not one year ago.”

  “So Sarah has something to hide,” I said, licking some marmalade off my finger.

  “Are you going to eat that toast or not!” Claire snapped.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’re sitting there holding it as if it were an award.”

  “What happened to that phony motherly smile?”

  “It gave me a headache.”

  I bit into my toast.

  “Then why is Jackie wearing the dress and not Sarah Grange?” Boulton asked.

  “I don’t know,” Claire said, tapping her fingers on the head of her walking stick and still eyeing my toast. “This Linda Hansen definitely knows more than she is saying. Aren’t BMWs expensive?”

  “Not if you drive a Bentley,” I said.

  Gerta stuck her head into the room. “Your breakfast is ready, Miss Conrad.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Breakfast?” I said.

  “I’m starving.” Claire stood and stretched. “Listening to you eat your toast made it very difficult for me to concentrate. But my disciplined mind was able to overcome such a minor annoyance.”

  “Breakfast? Wait a minute! You said afternoon. ‘Sleep the afternoon away,’ that’s what you said. What time is it?” I looked at my nightstand. My clock was gone.

  “Seven in the morning,” Boulton said.

  “You mean I’ve only been asleep for two hours?”

  “So it would seem,” Boulton said.

  “Seem?!”

  “You can go back to bed if you wish,” Claire said.

  “I’ve had three cups of coffee.”

  “Well, you know best just how much sleep you need. When you decide to get up, I want you to call St. Rome’s sales representative. I want to see St. Rome here as soon as possible,” she said, walking out of the room. “And don’t forget to locate the Duke Hotel.”

  “Where is my clock?”

  “She put it in the drawer of your nightstand.” I caught a glimpse of my small, two-and-a-half-inch-barrel Navy Colt as Boulton opened the drawer and placed the clock on the table next to me.

  “She couldn’t have waited a couple more hours?”

  “You know she does her best thinking in the morning.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Would you like me to draw your bath? Scrub your back?”

  “No, I would not.”

  He moved to the side of the bed. His expression turned serious. “Maggie, you didn’t have your gun with you last night.”

  “I didn’t need to shoot anybody last night, Boulton.”

  “That’s not the point. You told me you had it.”

  “I didn’t want to lose Linda. I called you and told you what I was doing. Those are the rules and I followed them.”

  “You lied to me, Maggie. My job is to protect. You understand that.”

  “To protect her, not me. I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “The fact that I am not in your hire doesn’t mean you don’t need watching. Especially when you act as stupidly as you have.” His eyes were hard.

  “Boulton, I carried a gun in L.A. and I didn’t like the consequences.”

  “You mean the fact that we’re all still alive? I want you to carry it.”

  “I do not need you to watch over me. And you have no right to prowl around in my room while I’m not here.”

  “A butler never prowls, he insinuates himself.” The brittle English veneer was firmly in place.

  “Why is it that, whenever we talk, you end up hiding behind that butler image of yours?”

  “I am in service, Maggie. And why is it that, whenever we talk, you make it clear you don’t need a man?”

  Again we were reduced to staring at one another. He took the tray and turned crisply on his heels.

  Oh, hell.

  Well, sleep was definitely out of the question. Forty minutes later I was showered and dressed and surveying my reflection in the dresser mirror. I had on my pink and black jacket and black skirt. My brown hair, which just curved under my chin, was brushed back from my face. It would remain that way until I moved my head. My lips shined Wet Red. They looked kissable, but I didn’t feel like being kissed. A paradox. Or was it just hypocrisy? Maybe that’s why women always feel a little surreptitious. We never look how we feel and we never feel how we look. Of course I could go without makeup, but I’ve never trusted women who walk around barefaced. I always feel like they’re hiding something.

  Claire, having eaten, was back to her normal self. Enthroned. Boulton was plumping the pillows on the sofa. Deep in thought, Claire held her walking stick up and peered down it as if it were the barrel of a rifle. I dialed Blanchard Smith.

  “This is Maggie Hill. Do you remember me from yesterday?” I asked Blanchard’s secretary.

  “What do you want?” By the tone of her voice I could tell the memory wasn’t a fond one.

  “Claire Conrad would like to see St. Rome in her suite at the Parkfaire this morning. It’s very important.”

  “Just a minute.” She put me on hold. I was suddenly listening to Johnny Mathis singing “Misty.” I sang along.

  “Must you, Miss Hill?” Now Claire tapped the tip of her right foot with the stick.

  “One of my favorite songs.”

  “What about unrequited love?” Boulton asked, smacking a pillow.

  “I don’t know that tune.”

  “I suppose if you’re a poet or a songwriter, unrequited love is profitable,” Claire observed. “Other than that, I see no reason for it.”

  “I was thinking of the inscriptions Nora Brown wrote to Cybella,” Boulton replied.

  “Oh, as a motive for murder, that is something quite different. But if Miss Brown killed Cybella for that reason, then why all this business about the video and the red dress?”

  The secretary replaced Mathis. “I reached him at home. He can be at the hotel in a half hour.”

  I hung up. “Half hour.” Then I called information and got the number and the address of the Duke Hotel. Claire slouched down in her chair and leaned her head back. A slight smile played on her lips. “So you believe pornography is male tyranny, Miss Hill?”

  “And men wonder why women get angry,” I observed, watching Boulton. He was inscrutable.

  “It’s his job, as it is yours, to tell me exactly what takes place,” she said.

  “If I hadn’t gone to Peep Thrills, no Linda Hansen would’ve led me to Sarah Grange and Cybella’s closet.”

  “Nobody is questioning your competence. Boulton and I are concerned that your flair for the dramatic lacks discretion.”

  “Discretion? I’ve got a three-hundred-pound guy wearing gold rings the size of my ears who wants to jerk me inside out, and you’re asking for discretion?”

  “Only as a goal, Miss Hill.”

  Boulton smacked another pillow.

  Twenty minutes later the doorbell rang. Boulton showed St. Rome into the room. The designer was in his fifties and had wavy dyed black hair with a touch of real gray at the temples. He was short and lean, with the quick precise movements of a ballet instructor. He had on gray flannel pin stripes and a pink turtleneck. A rose foulard silk square gushed from his breast pocket.

  “Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed your man searching me,” h
e announced to Claire.

  “Please, sit down,” she replied. “This is my assistant, Maggie Hill.”

  He nodded and sat on the sofa as if he had designed it. Boulton took his place behind him.

  “I assumed you’ve talked to Nora Brown?” Claire asked.

  “She’s in an absolute snit. I’m not sure I blame her. Blackmail is so unattractive.”

  “So is murder, Mr. St. Rome. When you look at this tape, I want you to pay close attention to the red gown.” Claire pointed her walking stick at the VCR, I hit the remote, and there were Jackie and Sarah.

  St. Rome stood, peered closely at the dress, then returned to the sofa. “You can turn it off. I have never had one sexual thought about a woman in my entire life. It would be a great irony if I were ruined by something like this.”

  “Mr. St. Rome, do you recognize the gown?”

  “Darling, how can one tell? It looks like a red bag on that poor creature.”

  “You will admit that your couture fall collection of last year had a red evening gown in it?”

  “Of course. But it’s not the dress in that video.”

  “How many of those gowns did you make?”

  “I’m not sure.” He tilted his head to one side.

  “But you would know who you sold the gowns to?”

  “We have records, of course.”

  “Then your records would show that Cybella owned one of the gowns.”

  “Cybella? It certainly would not show that.”

  “And how do you know?”

  “Because I looked up our billing …” He stopped. He licked his lips.

  “Why did you bother to do that?” Claire studied him.

  He fell silent.

  “Mr. St. Rome, one of your gowns is hanging in Cybella’s closet. Would you like the police to look at your records?” Claire pressed.

  “Cybella did not buy the dress.” He paused, moving uneasily. “Look, you must believe me, I know nothing about this video. And I’m not admitting that the dress worn by that sad creature is from my fall collection.”

  “How did Cybella acquire the dress?” Exasperation filled her voice.