“Then we’re all stuck here, like a sequestered jury?”
“Right.”
“But there’s a killer among us. I guess I can do some snooping.”
“Please. You’re a glorified babysitter. Don’t get a notion of being a professional snoop.”
That hurt. Temple found Xoe Chloe pouting into the cell phone. Good thing Molina couldn’t see her. She wiped her brow of the sweat the steamy bathroom had deposited. Better to assume the producers lied and that cameras and mikes were still recording.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Stay with Mariah as much as you can.”
“What’ll we all do?”
“Exercise, eat or don’t eat, watch each other. Alch and Su will be there too. I’ll make sure they look for a suspect a little farther afield than Chloe Zoe.”
“Xoe Chloe.”
But Molina had disconnected.
Temple sat there puzzling. The least likely person on the premises had been murdered. Why? And what about the lurid threats to the show and the mischief inside the house? That seemed to be from an entirely different script than Marjory Klein’s quick, deviously planned death.
Script. Maybe a script for mock mayhem was part of the “reality” here. And someone had taken advantage of the distraction it provided to commit murder for a totally unrelated reason.
Xoe Chloe was going to have to snoop around plenty. Luckily, she had the personality for it. Temple stood up, still puzzling. She didn’t dare leave Mariah alone now though. What to do? She couldn’t be with her all day; they had separate exercise schedules. Mariah would actually appreciate the show’s suspension; she could make more progress.
What to do about Mariah? But wait! Temple knew an “inside” man already on the premises, a pro for her to recruit. It was a fiendish idea, but Molina was giving her no rope so she’d just have to live with any lifeline Temple could come up with on such short notice.
Chapter 36
Diet Drinks
A soft knock on the bedroom door awoke Temple sometime between midnight and five A.M.
She glanced across the gigantic bed. Mariah was a completely concealed lump under the covers. When she was in this state, Temple had discovered, not even an earthquake-style shaking could wake her.
Temple crept to the door nevertheless and turned the interior key in the lock. The person in the hall was about her height, so she edged the door open.
Her aunt scuttled in.
“Are we alone?”
Temple nodded at the giant tortoise shape on the bed. “As good as. But come into my office.”
Once they were ensconced in the bathroom, Temple turned on the small fluorescents surrounding the mirror. Kit Carlson wore her trademark big-frame eyeglasses, and an elegant vintage nylon peignoir set—red, studded with rhinestones which were somehow very attractive on a small, energetic woman. She also carried a Manhattan-big tote bag. From it, she pulled a bottle.
“I never travel without my dessert sherry.”
“Oh, thank God.” Temple pulled the toothbrushes out of the matching water glasses and rinsed them at the faucet. “I deserve a break today, even if it’s tomorrow. What time is it anyway?”
“Three A.M.,” Kit said in a spooky voice. “When ghosts walk.”
“You spot Mrs. Klein in the hall on the way here?”
“No. But I had the oddest impression that someone saw me. Maybe it’s just a hangover from this twenty-four-hour oversight we’re getting.”
“The spy machines are off for now. The homicide lieutenant on this case told me so herself. The show is ‘suspended.’ We’re all stuck here until the police know whodunit.”
“Oooh! Ten Little Indians. Agatha Christie stories made great plays.” Kit lifted her clumsy glass with the toothpaste spatters on it and clicked rims with Temple’s. “You found her dead, poor thing. Drink up, then tell me all about it.”
“I don’t know if I should,” Temple said after a slow sweet swallow. “I’m here on police business myself.”
“Listen. I am one nervous Nellie, niece. A coach was killed. They’ve got us judges and coaches cooped up in one wing, easy pickings. Who’s next? Apparently, someone doesn’t much like being made over.”
“Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t like women reinventing themselves,” Temple said.
“Like who? The Taliban?”
And that remark of her aunt’s put Temple in mind of the lone Middle-Eastern man on the premises: Rafi Nadir. But hadn’t he made over Carmen Molina, to hear tell? It didn’t compute.
“Any controlling man,” Temple said. “The kind who can’t stand women getting out from under their thumbs and becoming themselves. Maybe it’s a cliché, but there’s truth under the truism. I’ll never forget this case I covered when I was a TV journalist in Minnesota. A woman. A wife. A mother. A nurse. Just lost some weight. Just trying to enhance her self-esteem. Soon clear why. The husband—he had to have been abusive—attacked her in the family garage with an electric drill. And she lived. And stood. And he set her on fire. And she burned. And she lived. And she stood. And he ran. And they found her, burned over ninety percent of her body. And she spoke. Save her kids from him. They took her away. And she died. And, you know what, nobody would report what happened to him. Maybe a mental hospital. Maybe he’s out there. I tried to trace where he went, but my station wouldn’t support me. Everything about her was public. Nothing about him was. Reminds me of the vanishing Arthur Dickson.”
“Arthur who?”
“There are too many men who don’t want women to remake themselves. And apparently Arthur Dickson, the man who built this place, was one of them.”
“Ghastly! I had no idea you dealt with such things.” Kit the former actress and current novelist, a creature of empathy, was devastated.
Temple shook off the past and its eternal losses. “Marjory Klein was the most unlikely murder victim in the place. Do you know anything about her?”
“We had meetings together, ate together, compared notes on candidates. Yeah, I knew her, Horatio.”
“Wait!” Temple waved the hand the glass happened to be in. “Is that Horatio as in Hamlet and the skull of Yorick, or Horatio as in CSI: Miami? Given your theatrical background, it’s hard to tell.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I tell you the woman was harmless. Good-natured. A widow. Urn, two, I think, grown children. Utterly committed to her field of work. Been in eating disorder consultation for years. Thought this stupid show was an opportunity to set an example for teenagers with bad, even dangerous, eating habits across the country. She was a much better person than I was, and now she’s dead.”
“That’s a very good point. If one of the coaches or judges was going to be killed, why not Dexter Manship, say?”
“He’s insufferable, yes. And it just isn’t an act. It’s all the time. So tiresome. Egotistic. Elitist. Everything well-balanced people love to hate. But … it’s also his shtick. He’s an entertainer. Killing him for being irritating would be like … offing Jerry Lewis. He’s a whipping boy for the rest of us, which is very healthy. And the French would be devastated.”
“The feelings of the French are not a national priority right now.”
“Oh, pooh. They’re supposed to be that way, as Dexter Manship is supposed to be the way he is. I just don’t understand why poor Marjory was killed. Strangled, I heard.”
Temple considered and decided to keep the suspected manner of death to herself. Not that Kit would tell but she might not be able to down another legume in her life, and that would be a sad betrayal of Marjory’s mission. Temple knew she was taking a very dim view of lima beans right now, as if she wasn’t already skittish about them. Who knew?
“What should I do?” Kit asked.
“Keep an eye open. Does anybody here strike you as suspicious?”
Kit sipped and considered, considered and sipped. “That dark dangerous-looking guy that Savannah Ashleigh calls a bodyguard.”