Allyn Allyn: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

She’d glanced at Wiley’s left hand before leaving. The golden band was still there. Wiley was genuinely grieving, but was it for his wife or for the loss of a further fortune?

The next morning Lindsey greeted Molly as she entered the office. Her brown eyes were flashing with excitement, and she carried a notebook and a manila folder.

“Here’s all the stuff I got on Ramona, boss.” She glanced at the first page of the notebook. “She came on the scene a little more than six and a half years ago when she recorded a bunch of Mexican ballads in Spanish. She’s described as ‘barely eighteen, shy, speaking broken English.’ In the interviews from that time, her husband, who was also her agent and manager, did most of the talking for her.”

Lindsey looked up. “But she must have been a quick study, because less than two years later, she was described as ‘confident,’ even ‘bubbly,’ and ‘speaking fluent English.’ She was singing more popular tunes, appearing on television, and doing personal tours. When she was twenty-two, she made her first movie. The tabloids didn’t have a bad thing to say about her. Their only complaint was that the husband kept the paparazzi at a distance.” She turned the page in her notebook. “And just two months ago, she landed the position of spokesperson for Dazzle Cosmetics. They were going to call her ‘The Quintessential Woman.’”

“Pretty heady stuff for a poor girl from rural Mexico,” Molly said.

Lindsey nodded. “As for the husband, he’s got an ex-wife who says only that he worked too much and cheated on her a couple of times. She claims they had an amicable divorce — I took that to mean she got a good settlement. There were no kids. I couldn’t uncover any gossip about other women. The servants say Ramona and Tony got along, although one of the maids thought Tony acted more like a father than a husband.”

Molly interrupted. “Rosa mentioned that her sister said something about her marriage being over. Any chance that she was thinking of ending it? If so, Tony would have had a lot to lose.”

Lindsey frowned. “I didn’t think to ask, but” — she thumbed through her notes until she found what she was looking for — “both the housekeeper and the personal maid said Ramona didn’t appear to be angry with Tony. In fact, the maid specifically said that her attitude was apologetic . And she also told me that he didn’t appear to be angry, either. He seemed to be trying to comfort her, but nobody has any idea about what. I got the clear impression that all the servants loved her. Most of them are Hispanic and they appreciated that Ramona spoke their language. Apparently she frequently gave them gifts and told them stories about her family. They said she was like one of them.”

Molly considered. Had Ramona, against all odds, become pregnant and lost the baby early on? That might account for her depression and Tony’s efforts to comfort her. But if she’d become pregnant once, there was at least hope it might happen again — and why should it mean the end of her marriage? “What were you able to find out about her death?” she asked.

Lindsey shook her head, making her brown curls tumble about her face. “They were all pretty tight-lipped. Only the housekeeper was willing to talk to me about that day, and she was adamant that Señor Wiley must not find out. I gather everyone was warned about reporters.”

Molly nodded. “And what did the housekeeper say?”

“She said Ramona was not herself earlier that week. She seemed preoccupied and upset. She wasn’t eating. But the day before her death she appeared to be much better — ‘at peace,’ were her exact words. That’s why the housekeeper said it was such a shock to find her dead the next morning.”

Molly interrupted. “It’s a common phenomenon. When a person finally makes the decision to commit suicide, others perceive a calmness about them and mistakenly think they’re getting better.”

Lindsey nodded. “Also, there was a bottle of vodka in her room. The housekeeper said she’d never seen liquor there before — that in fact, the señora seldom drank, and then only a glass or two of wine when they had dinner guests.”

“Any indication what was on her mind?”

“Uh-uh. The servants wouldn’t feel it was their place to ask, but both the housekeeper and the personal maid agreed that something was wrong.”

Molly frowned. “How did it happen that the housekeeper found her instead of the personal maid?”

“Now that’s another interesting thing,” Lindsey said. “The maid’s quite young, probably still in her teens. Her name is Carmen, and she’s from Hermosillo. The morning before she died, Ramona gave the girl money and told her to go visit her parents.” Lindsey looked up, brows raised. “Do you think she didn’t want the girl to be the one who found her?”

Molly considered. “It certainly looks that way.” She told Lindsay to put a call in to the medical examiner. Then she took the manila folder, which contained copies of some of the articles her secretary had collected as well as photographs of Ramona that had been taken over the years. Placing the pictures in chronological order across the top of her desk, Molly saw the transformation of a shy young woman into a Hollywood personality. The earliest photo was of a pretty Latina, no more than a child, with an air of barely concealed bewilderment in her dark eyes. From left to right, the pictures showed a progression. Ramona had become more confident, comfortable with the aura of glamour. She’d learned how to woo the camera. In the most recent photo, she wore a hot-pink sequined strapless gown that displayed her cleavage favorably. Her signature diamonds dangled at her ears and throat; her head tilted slightly to the right, and her full luscious lips displayed a mischievous smile. The note on the back indicated the picture had been a preliminary shot for the “Quintessential Woman” campaign.

Molly stared at the wide brown eyes looking out of the picture. Where was the girl who’d grown up with a curse upon her? Was she still in there, afraid, ashamed, alone?

Awhile later, Danny McRae came into the office. A small man with a boyish face and sandy hair, Danny was blessed with the best characteristic an investigator could have: People didn’t particularly notice him, and when they did, they never felt threatened. He had a gift for getting others to confide in him. He sat down and whipped out his notebook, but he didn’t bother to look at it. Danny had a photographic memory.

“What did you find out?” Molly asked.

He grinned, momentarily exposing the small gap between his two front teeth. “First, Wiley’s friends. He doesn’t have many — not social friends, anyhow. They all seemed to be business associates. Their stories match closely, however. They agree that Wiley and his wife were more like agent and client or father and daughter than lovers, but they all said he respected and protected Ramona. A couple of them told me they assumed he had other female interests, but no one knew anything for certain. It seems Tony Wiley was unusually circumspect for someone in the Hollywood life.”

Danny closed his green eyes for a moment, as though he were reading the inside of his eyelids. “He uses a very reputable accounting agency, and the scuttlebutt is that there’s nothing funny going on. He managed all of Ramona’s money, and a couple of deals went south, but apparently they were legitimate investments. The upshot is that she made a lot of money and he made the money grow.

“As for her medical history, I was able to find out that she had a couple of recent appointments with a Dr. Hugh Blackman — a gynecologist who specializes in infertility problems. It seems she saw him shortly after she and Tony were married, and some fairly minor procedure was done at that time. No indication what she saw him about lately. Otherwise, she avoided doctors. Except for a couple of sore throats over the years, she’s been very healthy.”