Christietown (6 page)

Ian’s assistant wasn’t there yet, so I made the executive deci
sion to commandeer his office. It was the first one you saw, on the right. Unfortunately, the door was locked. The door to the next office was unlocked, so I let myself in, but it looked like it’d been set up to hot-box prospective buyers, with a framed black-and-white photo of Agatha Christie on the wall, a tin of butter cookies on the side table, and a sheaf of Christietown high-gloss brochures on the console. The third door was the charm. It was empty, or so I thought until I sat down at the desk practically on top of somebody’s half-eaten bagel and cream cheese. It seemed an odd place to stow your breakfast. I found a Ralph’s grocery bag under the desk. Inside was the offending tub of cream cheese, two plastic knives, and a Tropicana juice box, along with the fleecy white minidress from Holly’s Harp, crumpled into a ball.

I shook the dress out and hung it on the hook behind the door. Wren had obviously arrived. Good. The whole thing went bust without my psychic eleven-year-old.

Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Lael. She’d arrived half an hour earlier and stationed herself in the Blue Boar Pub. She said the plasterboard facade of Gossington Hall had been set up in the dining area and that she’d seen Lou, who’d gone
outside to stretch his legs. Wren was with him. She was doing a trial run with the smoke device. The caterers were heating up the food, which smelled wonderful, and the edible teapot centerpiece had been unveiled to gasps all around. Javier, my gardener, was rolling around in his uncle’s wheelchair, which he refused to get out of because he was a method actor. He and Lael were about to run through their lines. That was Lael’s delicate way of letting me know they’d be making out in the corner.

Sir Pilkington (Javier) and the vicar’s wife (Lael) were having a torrid love affair. Sir Pilkington I’d invented. Lael’s char
acter I’d based on Reverend Leonard Clement’s young wife, Griselda, from
Murder at the Vicarage
. Griselda had chosen her middle-aged husband over a cabinet minister, a baronet, three subalterns, and a ne’er-do-well with attractive manners, but I sensed in her a latent lust for power. Thus the allure of Sir Pilkington.

I checked my watch. Still an hour to go, and no Bridget in sight. And Liz—where was Liz? I needed my star. I grabbed her costume and Wren’s and closed the door behind me just in time to run into Ian, who was salivating like a fox with two bunnies on his radar.

Lois and Marlene, my errant showgirls.

“Hello,” Marlene said.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Ian interrupted. “Things have settled down. And can you imagine? After bid
ding adieu to my new friend Joseph I found these two lovely ladies wandering around the parking lot.”

Lois looked down demurely.

“We’ve become quite well acquainted,” he said.

Marlene beamed.

“And I have learned something very important. Like so
many of us, they have wearied of city life. They are seeking something more idyllic, something with personality and charm and, most of all, the company of other like-minded souls.”

“Oh, Ian,” Marlene cooed.

Ian tapped his temple and nodded, as if he’d just solved the riddle of the Sphinx. “I am suggesting our Sittaford Two residences.”

With three bedrooms, two and a half baths, two-car garages, and approximately 1,784 square feet, the Sittaford 2 residences were priced at just over $300,000, meaning Lois and Marlene were only about $300,000 short.

“So, if you’ll excuse us, Cece, I’ll just escort Lois and Marlene into our beautifully appointed office here”—Ian pushed past me toward door number 2—“where we can go over the num
bers in privacy.”

“Ladies,” I began.

“Oh, do you know these charming creatures?” asked a wide-eyed Ian.

“I certainly do,” I said, narrowing my lids.

“We’ve known Cece for years and years,” said Marlene. “She’s had some very bad haircuts in the past, but she’s looking lovely today.”

Lois bobbed her addled head up and down.

“How did you get out here?” I asked.

“We took a taxi,” said Marlene. “We didn’t want to disap
point you.”

“Here you go,” said Lois, handing me a receipt from Yellow Cab in the amount of $179.00. “You can reimburse us later.”

“We hope you don’t mind,” said Marlene. “He was such a nice young man we left him a twenty-five percent tip.”

I explained the mix-up to Ian, who looked stricken until his assistant arrived, accompanied by some
actual
prospective
buyers, a couple in their sixties who’d seen the ad in the
Antelope Valley News
and were very interested in the new homes in the vicinity of the High Street. Ian whisked them away, while Lois and Marlene followed me out the door.

People seemed to be arriving in droves. The parking lot was almost full. The valets were at their station, ready to take over
flow cars to an empty field just over the hill.

“Ian told us all about Agatha Christie,” said Lois, struggling to keep up. One of her heels was held together with Scotch tape. “Her play,
The Mousetrap
, holds the record for the longest run ever in London. Since 1952.”

“That was a good year,” said Marlene, sighing. “I was in the full flower of my youth then.”

“Agatha had a picture-perfect Edwardian childhood,” Lois continued. “She was from Devon, home of mariners like Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“The sea, the sea,” said Marlene.

They could go on like this forever. I’d seen it.

“Sea air promotes the regeneration of brain cells,” said Marlene. “Maybe that’s how she had the energy to write over eighty novels and plays. Living inland, I don’t believe I’ve had the energy to even
read
eighty.”

“You have,” said her sister. “You adore the Harlequin romances, remember?”

“Oh, yes,” Marlene said, smiling. “I do prefer love to murder. What about you, Cece?”

At that moment, I stepped into a mud puddle. So much for my white pants. I bent down to assess the damage.

“Cece—” Lois said.

“Not now,” her sister interrupted. “Cece knows the rule about white after Labor Day. But she’s under a lot of pressure today.”

“You’re so forgiving, Marlene,” I said.

Lansham Road was a riot of testosterone: men in hard hats carrying piles of lumber; men in green coveralls plant
ing trees; men with walkie-talkies; men with sandbags. The ladies could barely contain themselves. A pickup truck filled with freshly painted street signs kicked up some dirt as it rolled past us. After giving the driver a wave, Marlene stopped to flirt with some muscular specimens unspooling a bolt of wire-mesh fencing. That ended when she spied a short man with a shock of black hair getting out of a dark green Lamborghini and swooned.

Lois asked, “Are you all right, Marlene?”

“Who is that?” Marlene was gasping for air. “He looks exactly like Omar Sharif.”

Lois made exasperated noises. “Omar Sharif, Omar Sharif ! I ask you, will it never stop?”

Marlene had a faraway look in her eyes. “We met backstage at the Flamingo in Vegas. I was married at the time. It was tragic.”

The Omar Sharif look-alike was Dov Pick, known in the business section of the
Los Angeles Times
as the Icepick. I wasn’t surprised he was here today. He was one of the two principal investors in Christietown. Dov hopped around to the passenger side to open the door for a voluptuous brunette, in an oversize sweater and short shorts, who resembled Gina Lollabrigida. Most men would look happy to have a girl like that on their arm. But Dov didn’t look happy. He looked miserable.

Which must have been how I looked when I walked into the kitchen of the Blue Boar a few minutes later, only to be ambushed by Lou, who cried, “Where is Liz? She’s disap
peared!”

C
HAPTER
6

ridget’s disappeared, too,” Lael said calmly. “But if we
keep stuffing people’s faces with scones and clotted cream, they won’t know the difference. Are you familiar with carbohydrate-induced cognitive impairment?”

“I’d love a scone,” said Lois to Marlene. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Quiet!” I said, pointing them to the dressing area. “Now is the time to get dressed.”

Lou, already in his butler costume, was frantic. “Liz can be so difficult. She said she wanted to drive out herself. She wanted time to get into character without being distracted. I thought it was crazy, but you don’t argue with Liz. So okay. I came out with Wren. But we left an hour after she did, and there’s been no sign of her. And look!” He pushed his Velcro rip-away tails out of the way and grabbed something from his pocket.

Liz’s inhaler.

“She lost hers a couple days ago. I picked this one up for her at the pharmacy on the way over. What if she needs it? What then?” He ran his long fingers through his shoe-blacked hair.

I collapsed into a chair.

After a moment, Javier said quietly, “Bridget did not disap
pear. She went to fix her hair.”

“Bridget’s hair is cut into a tight Afro,” I said. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“He means the Estella Raven wig,” said Lael. “Bridget’s been in the bathroom for half an hour. That’s all I was trying to say before.”

“Maybe she’s fallen in the toilet,” said Marlene.

“A person can drown in two inches of water,” her sister added.

“Change! Now!” I commanded them.

“Temper,” cautioned Lois.

“Did you try Liz’s cell phone?” I asked Lou.

“I just get voice mail. She’s either been on the phone, or it’s out of juice.”

“I’m sure she’s stuck in traffic, that’s all.”

Unconvinced, Lou took a seat next to Wren, who was too busy chewing on her nails to offer much in the way of comfort. I handed her the dress she’d crumpled up and sent her to the dressing area, along with Lois and Marlene.

“The freeway is a nightmare,” I added, mostly for my own benefit. “I know Liz is going to be here any second.” She had to be. The play was supposed to start in fifteen minutes.

“Ta-dah!”

We all turned around. There was Bridget in a long blond wig and some sort of sheer, gray-tinted garment that clung to her every curve like a second skin.

“I know. It’s fabulous,” she said, running her hands over her hips. “A Vionnet dress from the twenties. It’s one of the rarest things I’ve ever had in the store. Some poor schlub in Port
Saint Lucie, Florida, didn’t realize what kind of wardrobe his mother had. The thing is, it probably looked like nothing on the hanger. No darts, no decoration, no nothing. Like an old rag. But when you put it on, the body and the dress are one. As Madame Vionnet said, ‘When a woman smiles, her dress must smile with her.’ Do you think my nipples are too prominent?”

“You are supposed to be a
governess
,” I cried. “What part of that do you not get? A proper, British governess!”

“Those types can be very kinky,” she replied breezily. “FYI, the shoes are by René Mancini. Cobbler to the couturiers. Jackie Kennedy used to order twelve pairs of pumps from him every three months.”

“Make way!” The caterer came through the swinging doors with an empty tray in each hand, tossed them in the sink, grabbed two full ones. “They’re eating Cornish pasties like there’s no tomorrow. And the sherry was gone twenty minutes ago. These people are animals. By the way, you’re on, dude. Anybody ever tell you you look like George Hamilton?” She directed her last comments to Lou, who grabbed one of the trays, which I grabbed back, saying, “He’s not a waiter.”

“I’m a butler,” said Lou.

“That’s right,” I said, looking at the motley crew I’d assem
bled. “And you will take your cues from me. All of you. Do you understand?”

Only Javier nodded.

Five minutes now.

Lois and Marlene came out in matching red swimsuits and fringed caps.

“We put the rhinestones on ourselves,” said Lois.