Mary Clark - Weep No More, My Lady

Bartlett wanted to discuss the list of defense witnesses Craig had prepared for him. He read it off to Ted-a glittering array of famous names.

"You don't have the President on it," Ted said sarcastically.

Bartlett fell into the trap. "Which president?"

"Of the United States, of course. I used to be one of his golf partners."

Bartlett shrugged and closed the file. "Obviously this isn't going to be a good working session. Are you planning to eat out tonight?"

"No, I'm planning to stay right here. And right now I'm planning to nap."

Craig and Bartlett left together. "You do realize this is getting hopeless," Bartlett told him.

At six thirty Craig received a call from the agency he'd hired to investigate the eyewitness, Sally Ross. "There was some excitement in Ross's apartment building," he was told. "The woman who lives directly above her walked in on an attempted bur-glary. They caught the guy-a petty thief with a long record. Ross didn't go out at all."

At seven o'clock, Craig met Bartlett at Ted's bungalow. Ted wasn't there. They started toward the main house together. "You're about as popular as I am with Teddy these days," Bartlett commented.

Craig shrugged. "Listen, if he wants to take it out on me, it's all right. In a way, I brought this on him."

"How do you figure that one?"

"I introduced him to Leila. She was my date first."

They reached the veranda in time to hear the newest witticism. At Cypress Point, for four thousand dollars a week you get to use some of the pools. For five thousand you get to use the ones with water in them .

There was no sign of Elizabeth during the "cocktail" hour. Craig watched for her to come up the path, but she did not appear. Bartlett drifted over to the tennis pro and his girlfriend. Ted was talking to the Countess and her group; Cheryl was hanging on his arm. A morose-looking Syd was standing off by himself. Craig went over to him. "That business about 'proof.' Was Cheryl drunk last night or just talking her usual drivel?" he asked.

He knew Syd wouldn't have minded taking a swing at him. Syd considered him to be, like all the parasites in Ted's world, the bottleneck to Ted's largesse. Craig considered himself more of a goalie -you had to pass him to score.

"I would say," Syd told him, "that Cheryl was giving her usual splendid dramatic performance."

Min and Helmut did not appear in the dining rooms until after the guests had settled. Craig noticed how gaunt they looked, how fixed their smiles were as they visited from table to table. Why not? They were in the business of staving off old age, illness and death. This afternoon Sammy had proved it was a pointless game.

As she sat down, Min murmured an apology for being late. Ted ignored Cheryl, whose hand clung persistently to his. "How is Elizabeth?"

Helmut answered him: "She's taking it very hard. I gave her a sedative."

Would Alvirah Meehan never stop fooling with that damn pin? Craig wondered. She had parked herself between him and Ted. He glanced around. Min. Helmut. Syd. Bartlett. Cheryl. Ted. The Meehan woman. Himself. There was one more place setting next to him. He asked Min who would be joining them.

"Sheriff Alshorne. He just came back. He's talking to Elizabeth now." Min bit her lip. "Please. We all know how sad we feel about losing Sammy, but I think it would be better if we do not discuss it during dinner."

"Why does the sheriff want to talk to Elizabeth Lange?" Alvirah Meehan asked. "He doesn't think there's anything funny about Miss Samuels dying in that bathhouse, does he?"

Seven stony pairs of eyes discouraged further questions.

The soup was chilled peach and strawberry, a specialty of the Spa. Alvirah sipped hers contentedly. The Globe would be interested to learn that Ted Winters was very clearly concerned about Elizabeth.

She could hardly wait to meet the sheriff.

Elizabeth stood at the window of her bungalow and glanced at the main house just in time to see the guests drifting inside for dinner. She had insisted that Nelly leave: "You've had a long day, and I'm perfectly all right now." She'd propped herself up in bed for the tea and toast, then showered quickly, hoping that the splashing cold water would clear her head. The sedative had left her groggy.

An off-white cable-knit sweater and tan stretch pants were her favorite comfortable clothes. Somehow, wearing them, her feet bare, her hair twisted up casually, she felt like herself.

The last of the guests had disappeared. But as she watched, she saw Scott cut across the lawn in her direction.

They sat across from each other, leaning slightly forward, anxious to communicate, wary of how to begin. Looking at Scott with his kind, questioning eyes made Elizabeth remember how Leila had once said, "He's the kind of guy I would have liked for a father." Last night Sammy had suggested that they take the anonymous letter to him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't wait until the morning to see you," Scott told her. "But there are too many things about Sammy's death that trouble me. From what I've learned so far, Sammy drove six hours from Napa Valley yesterday, arriving at about two o'clock. She wasn't due till late evening. She must have been pretty tired, but she didn't even stop to unpack. She went directly to the office. She claimed she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't come down to the dining room for dinner, but the maid tells me she had a tray in the office and was busily going through bags of mail. Then she came to visit you and left around nine thirty. Sammy should have been pretty beat by then, but she apparently went back to the office and turned on the copy machine. Why?"

Elizabeth got up and walked into the bedroom. From her suitcase she took the letter from Sammy that had been waiting for her in New York. She showed it to Scott. "When I realized Ted was here I would have left immediately, but I had to wait and see Sammy about this." She told him about the letter that had been taken from Sammy's office and showed him the transcript Sammy had made from memory. "This is pretty much the text of it."

Her eyes filled as she looked at Sammy's graceful penmanship. "She found another poison-pen letter in one of those sacks last evening. She was going to make a copy for me, and we were planning to give the original to you. I've written it down as I remembered. We had hoped the original could be traced. The typeface for magazines is coded, isn't it?"

"Yes." Scott read and re-read the transcripts of the letters. "Stinking business."

"Somebody was systematically trying to destroy Leila," Elizabeth said. "Somebody doesn't want those letters found. Somebody took one from Sammy's desk yesterday afternoon and perhaps the other one from Sammy's body last night."

"Are you saying that you think Sammy may have been murdered?"

Elizabeth flinched, then looked directly at him. "I simply can't answer that. I do know that someone was worried enough about those letters to want them back. I do know that a series of those letters would have explained Leila's behavior. Those letters precipitated that quarrel with Ted, and those letters have something to do with Sammy's death. I swear this to you, Scott. I'm going to find out who wrote them. Maybe there's no criminal prosecution possible, but there has to be a way of making that person pay. It's someone who was very close to Leila, and I have my suspicions."

Fifteen minutes later Scott left Elizabeth, the transcripts of both anonymous letters in his pocket. Elizabeth believed Cheryl had written those letters. It made sense. It was Cheryl's kind of trick. Before he went into the dining room, he walked around to the right side of the main house. Up there was the window where Sammy had stood when she turned on the copy machine. If someone had been on the steps of the bathhouse and signaled to her to come down…