Mary Clark - Weep No More, My Lady

" Elizabeth, I know how you must feel about me, but there is something you have to understand. I don't remember what happened that night. I was so damn drunk; so damn upset. Over these months I've begun to have some vague impression of being at the door of Leila's apartment, of pushing it open. So maybe you're right, maybe you did hear me call something to her. But I have absolutely no memory beyond that!'That is the truth as I know it. The next question: do you think, drunk or sober, that I'm capable of murder?"

His dark blue eyes were clouded with pain. He bit his lip and held his hands out imploringly. "Well, Elizabeth?"

In a quick move she darted around him and ran for the gates of the Spa. The district attorney had predicted this. If Ted didn't think he could lie his way out of being on the terrace with Leila, he would say he was trying to save her.

She didn't look back until she was at the gates. Ted had not attempted to follow her. He was standing where she had left him, staring after her, his hands on his hips.

Her arms were still burning from the force with which his hands had grabbed her. She remembered something else the district attorney had told her.

Without her as a witness, Ted would go free.

At eight A.M., Dora "Sammy" Samuels backed her car out of her cousin Elsie's driveway and with a sigh of relief began the drive from the Napa Valley to the Monterey Peninsula. With any luck, she'd be there about two o'clock. Originally she'd planned to leave in the late afternoon, and Elsie had been openly annoyed that she'd changed her mind, but she was eager to get back to the Spa and go through the rest of the mailbags.

She was a wiry seventy-one-year-old woman with steel-gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. Old-fashioned rimless glasses sat on the bridge of her small, straight nose. It had been a year and a half since an aneurism had nearly killed her, and the massive surgery had left her with a permanent air of fragility, but until now she had always impatiently shaken off any talk of retirement.

It had been a disquieting weekend. Her cousin had always disapproved of Dora's job with Leila. "Answering fan mail from vapid women" was the way she put it. "I should think with your brains, you'd find a better way to spend your time. Why don't you do volunteer teaching?"

Long ago, Dora had given up trying to explain to Elsie that after thirty-five years of teaching, she never wanted to see a textbook again, that the eight years she'd worked for Leila had been the most exciting of her own uneventful life.

This weekend had been particularly trying, because when Elsie saw her going through the sack of fan mail, she'd been astonished. "You mean to tell me that seventeen months after that woman died, you're still writing to her fans? Are you crazy?"

No, she wasn't, Dora told herself as she drove well within the speed limit through the wine country. It was a hot, lazy day, but even so, busloads of sightseers were already passing her, heading for vineyard tours and wine-tasting parties.

She had not tried to explain to Elsie that sending personal notes to the people who had loved Leila was a way of assuaging her own sense of loss. She had also not told her cousin the reason why she had brought up the heavy sack of mail. She was searching to see if Leila had received other poison-pen letters than the one she had already found.

That one had been mailed three days before Leila died. The address on the envelope and the enclosed note were put together with words and phrases snipped from magazines and newspapers. It read:

Leila,

How many Times Do I Hai'e to write? Can't YOU get it straight ThAT Ted is sick of you? His new girl is beautiful and much younger THaN you. I told you THAT the emerald necklace HE gave Her matcHes the bracelet he gave you. It cost Twice as much And looks ten Times better. I hear your play is Lousy . You really should Learn your lines. I'll write again soon .

Your friend .

Thinking of that note, of the others that must have preceded it, brought a fresh burst of outrage. Leila, Leila, she whispered. Who would do that to you?

She of all people had understood Leila's terrible vulnerability, understood that her outward confidence, her flamboyant public image was the facade of a deeply insecure woman.

She remembered how Elizabeth had gone off to school just at the time she'd started working for Leila. She'd seen Leila come back from the airport, lonely, devastated, in tears. "God, Sammy," she said. "I can't believe I may not see Sparrow for months. But a Swiss boarding school! Won't that be a great experience for her? A big difference from Lumber Creek High, my alma mater." Then she said hesitantly, "Sammy, I'm not doing anything tonight. Will you stay, and let's get something to eat?"

The years went by so quickly, Dora thought as another bus honked impatiently and passed her. Today, for some reason, the memory of Leila seemed particularly vivid to her: Leila with her wild extravagances, spending money as fast as she made it; Leila's two marriages… Dora had begged her not to marry the second one. " Haven't you learned your lesson yet?" she pleaded. "You can't afford another leech ."

Leila with her arms hugging her knees. "Sammy, he's not that bad. He makes me laugh, and that's a plus."

"If you want to laugh, hire a clown."

Leila's fierce hug. "Oh, Sammy, promise you'll always say it straight. You're probably right, but I guess I'll go through with it."

Getting rid of the funnyman had cost her two million dollars .

Leila with Ted. "Sammy, it can't last. Nobody's that wonderful. What does he see in me?"

"Are you crazy? Have you stopped looking in the mirror?"

Leila, always so apprehensive when she started a new film. "Sammy, I stink in this part. I shouldn't have taken it. It's not me."

"Come off it. I saw the dailies too. You're wonderful"

She'd won the Oscar for that performance.

But in those last few years she had been miscast in three films. Her worry about her career became an obsession. Her love for Ted was equaled only by her fear of losing him. And then Syd had brought her the play. "Sammy, I swear I don't have to act in this one. I just have to be me. I love it."

Then it was over, Dora thought. In the end, each of us left her alone. I was sick, she told herself; Elizabeth was touring with her own play; Ted was constantly away on business. And someone who knew Leila well attacked her with those poison-pen letters, shattered that fragile ego, precipitated the drinking…

Dora realized that her hands were trembling. She scanned the road for signs of a restaurant. Perhaps she would feel better if she stopped for a cup of tea. When she got to the Spa, she would begin going through the rest of the unopened mail.

She knew that Elizabeth would somehow find a way to trace the poison-pen mail back to its sender.

When Elizabeth reached her bungalow, she found a note from Min pinned with her schedule to the terry-cloth robe folded on the bed. It read:

My dear Elizabeth,

I do hope that while you are here you will enjoy a day of treatment and exercise at the Spa. As you know, it is necessary that all new guests consult briefly with Helmut before beginning any activities. I have scheduled you for his first appointment.

Please know that your ultimate happiness and well-being are very important to me.