The Girl Who Knew Too Much(18)

“Call me as soon as you have something I can print,” Velma rasped.

“I will but it’s not going to be easy,” Irene said. “The Burning Cove Hotel has tighter security than most banks.”

“So what? Banks get robbed all the time. Do your job.”

“Yes, Boss. But there’s another problem—”

“Now what?”

“I only planned to spend one night here in Burning Cove,” Irene said. Automatically she glanced down at the calf-length skirt and flutter-sleeved blouse she was wearing. “I just brought a single change of clothes with me. Housekeeping at the Burning Cove Hotel took the things I was wearing last night when I went into the pool. I haven’t seen them since. I’m not sure if they survived.”

“Reversing the charges for phone calls is one thing. But if you think I’m going to pay for a new wardrobe, you can think again. Go rob a bank.”

Time to play her high card, Irene decided. “This is about Peggy, Boss. Her death wasn’t an accident. We both know that.”

There was a short, taut silence on the other end of the line.

“You don’t have to remind me,” Velma said finally. She sounded gruff but worried. “Promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t want to lose another reporter. Whispers is a Hollywood gossip paper. We care about which actors are sleeping with which actresses. We don’t cover murder.”

“Except when one of our own is a victim.”

Velma heaved a sigh. “Agreed.”

“We need to follow up on this story, Boss.”

Ten days ago Peggy Hackett had drowned in her own bathtub. The death was called an accident. For years she had been a Hollywood legend, the gossip columnist of one of the biggest papers in L.A.

Peggy had also been a chain-smoking, martini-swilling reporter who, in her younger days, had been known to sleep with her sources—male and female—in order to get a story. As her looks began to fail, she had not been above using leverage, as she termed it, to convince people to talk.

In the end the drinking and hard living had exacted a toll. She was fired from the newspaper that had carried her column for so long.

Six months ago, she wound up on the doorstep of Whispers. Velma hired her. Peggy had gained some control over the drinking, but she was no longer young enough or pretty enough to seduce her old sources. Most of the insider secrets that she had once used as leverage had become old news involving faded stars. But she had been determined to rebuild her career.

It was Peggy who had convinced Velma to hire Irene in spite of her lack of experience. Glasson’s got the grit, Peggy had argued. That’s what matters. Reminds me of myself when I was just starting out. Hell, I can teach her everything else she needs to know.

Theirs had been an odd relationship, Irene thought. Jaded and afflicted with a chronic cough, Peggy had seemed to gain a new lease on life when she undertook the task of mentoring Irene. I owe you, Glasson, she had said more than once.

I owe you, Peggy. You were a friend when I needed one.

“All right,” Velma said. “Follow the story but just be damned careful.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Irene promised.

But she was speaking to a dead line. Velma had hung up on her.

She set the receiver back in the cradle and gave Mildred Fordyce a bright smile.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I reversed the charges.”

Mildred turned around, beaming, and studied Irene with rapt attention. “So you’re the reporter who found the body of that poor woman last night.”

“I see you read Whispers.”

“Not until today,” Mildred said cheerfully. “But I picked up a copy at the newsstand this morning after I saw the front page of the local paper. Can’t rely on the Herald to give you the whole story, not when the story involves Oliver Ward’s hotel.”

She pushed a copy of the Burning Cove Herald across the desk, turning it around so that Irene could read the headline.

TRAGIC ACCIDENT AT LOCAL HOTEL

“Yes, I saw the piece that ran in the Herald,” Irene said. “You’re right. It’s not the whole story, not by a country mile. More like a small obituary notice.”

Mildred tapped the front page of the Herald. “According to this, that woman’s death was accidental. It says the cops think she slipped and fell on some wet tiles. Cracked her head and went into the pool. Probably unconscious so she drowned.”

“That does seem to be the prevailing theory at the moment,” Irene said.

Mildred got a speculative expression. “But the article in Whispers claims that there was someone else in the spa.”

“There was someone else there,” Irene said. “I didn’t get a good look but I heard him. Or her.”