Chapter 7 A Circumspect Woman
A Circumspect Woman
“Are you sure he’s not the kind of roommate you had when you were starting out in New York, Bex?” Vic lurched forward to stick her head between the two front seats. “Roommates with benefits?”
Colin Worth had invited them to Ramona’s Hollywood Hills property to talk. He’d already been given the heads up by April.
Sam watched Bex’s face go pink. When she had first hit Broadway as a young woman, Bexley Simon had been notorious for her love life.
In fact, the first time Sam had noticed Bex was when she’d seen her on the cover of American Theater magazine.
She’d been posed without a lot of clothes, lying across the laps of other Broadway babies, holding her Tony in a provocative manner.
If Sam hadn’t fallen in love the very moment she saw that magazine cover, she’d certainly fallen in something.
“Colin Worth is gay,” Bex said. “The last I heard, he was with Christian Stanstedt. Which is quite the pull for a ninety-four-year-old.” Bex tipped her head. “Though not if you’re Colin Worth.”
“Christian Stanstedt is gay?” Sam had to lean away from Vic’s volume. “He’s been Ramona’s plus-one for so many premieres! Star Spy said that his look was a perfect foil for Ramona’s ‘everlasting gamine beauty.’ I don’t know what ‘gamine’ means, but it sounds like something I would date.”
Bex maneuvered aggressively through the stop-and-go traffic, and Sam, as usual when Bex was driving, held onto the handle above the door.
“It describes, usually, someone femme-identified,” Sam said.
“Unusually pretty and fairylike, but also a bit boyish or enigmatic. It’s generally a word for young people, but Ramona is ageless, so she still gets called that.
It’s one of the reasons why The Howling is so successful.
Gamine plays well on a monster-hunting show. ”
“I was right,” Vic said. “Would date.”
Sam mulled over Bex’s mention of Christian Stanstedt while Bex flipped off a delivery truck driver, thankfully from behind dark-tinted windows.
Sam had always thought of Christian as the sixth member of the Ice Crew.
Partly, that was because he’d been the last to join, but it was also because his skater-boy good looks positioned him as an outsider to Chad’s polished blond handsomeness and Sloan’s reputation as an edgy, self-destructive artist. Christian injected as much variety as another white man could into the group.
Of course, the Ice Crew hadn’t called themselves the “Ice Crew.” It had been a name the media came up with to explain this group of young actors who were ice-cold cool and getting famous starring in the biggest movies of the day, often together.
Was it strange that the entire set of surviving Ice Crew actors—Chad, Sloan, Christian, Macie, and Ramona—all seemed to be connected in one way or another to Ramona’s disappearance?
Or was it simply the case, so many years later, that Ramona was the one who connected these people?
Sam swallowed a warning to Bex to slow down before she rammed a braking car in front of them. She hadn’t missed Bex’s driving. Thankfully, the traffic was letting up as they turned off the Boulevard and toward the general area of Chateau Marmont.
“Wouldn’t you think Ramona’s roommate would call someone and file a report?” Vic asked.
“Maybe he did,” Sam said. “It sounds like Macie wouldn’t have known, either way.”
Macie had told them when they called to update her that Ramona had a carriage house she’d let people stay in as friends or tenants on and off over the years.
Macie was aware that Colin was the current tenant but didn’t know him well.
Ramona kept her friendship with Colin separate from her friendship with Macie.
“Ramona has layers,” Bex said. She glanced at her phone, mounted on the dash to help her navigate the confusing streets of West Hollywood.
At the very least, Sam thought, Ramona had a complex decision tree for who was to know what in her life. Her compartments had compartments.
They missed a turn onto Ramona’s property twice.
It was disguised by camellia and a trimmed row of rose bushes.
Finally, Bex rolled slowly up the long, exquisitely maintained pea gravel drive, revealing a fairy-tale olive-green bungalow straight out of the Weetzie Bat books that Sam had devoured in middle school.
Bex turned off the car. “Here we are.”
“I guess we walk around the back and find this carriage house?” Sam unbuckled her seat belt.
“I should have changed my clothes.” Bex was looking with horror at her sweatshirt and shorts. “This is a momentous occasion. I should have worn something fashionlike.”
“It’s not an audition.” Vic opened her door and hopped out of the car. “Which is good news, given what’s happened to your hair.”
“Gah.” Standing in the driveway, Bex pressed her hands against the huge, curly mass. “I didn’t have time to do my whole routine!” She leaned back into the car to look in the rearview. “My God.”
Sam pulled her toward the side of the house, where there was a series of steppingstones. A row of lemon trees and more neatly trimmed rose bushes threw the path into deep shade. In the warm late-morning sun, it smelled delicious. Birdsong filled the air.
“Maybe I should get a place around here,” Vic mused. “Or Laurel Canyon.”
“Are you putting in an order?” Bex asked. “Because I’m not a vending machine for actual whole entire houses in the most expensive neighborhoods of L.A.”
“Hmpf,” Vic grunted.
They walked through a stone archway and found themselves on a large circle of lawn surrounded by English-style plantings.
There was a small, tiled lap pool in the middle of the space, and another stepping-stone path to a second archway that framed a pink Dutch door that Sam guessed must be the entrance to the carriage house.
“This is beautiful,” Bex said. “It doesn’t feel like a property that was closed up before the homeowner took time away. The pool’s open. The flowers on that patio table aren’t even wilted.”
“Hello?”
They turned toward the voice and watched an elderly man who was unmistakably Colin Worth unlatch the bottom of the Dutch door and emerge in tennis whites.
“Mr. Worth?” Bex called out. “Hello!”
Colin, as tall as Sam and not the least bit stooped, stopped in front of them. Other than his snowy hair, looked thirty years younger than ninety-four. “Fuck me, it’s Bexley Simon in the flesh.”
Both of Bex’s hands went to her mouth. “You know me?”
“Shouldn’t I? You don’t leave Broadway, Broadway leaves you, and that’s only if you get too old and sad.
I saw your debut, the one you got the Tony for, and wondered all the way to my pied-à-terre in Hell’s Kitchen if there was anyone I cared to collaborate with on a musical for you to be the lead.
And who wasn’t a Craven’s Daughter fan?”
He winked at Sam. “Thank heavens you’re both here.
I called the community policing line when I couldn’t get ahold of Ramona and she didn’t come home.
I didn’t name names, partly because I was afraid she’d walk in the door and lecture me, but I asked some questions.
They told me the only adult missing persons cases that tend to get seriously investigated are those where there’s reason to worry about the person’s mental state or vulnerability, or there’s evidence of foul play.
I don’t have any of that. I was thrilled to find out Macie pulled you in. ”
Bex didn’t seem to be able to speak after receiving Colin’s verbal mash note, so Sam took the lead. “Macie asked us to discreetly see if we can find out where Ramona is, and if we can’t, they’ll involve the authorities.”
Vic stepped between Bex and Sam and stuck out her hand. “Victoria Simon, associate.”
Colin grinned as he shook it. “Now, I’ve seen you on the gossip sites.”
“Thank you,” Vic said warmly. “I appreciate my fans.”
He laughed. “Well, come on. I would take you into the carriage house where I stay, but there isn’t room for more than two to sit.
I do have a key to Ramona’s to feed her cat when she’s away.
Maybe it will help your project to look around respectfully.
If Ramona found out I’d let strangers go through her things, she’d not let me hear the end of it. ”
Colin led them to the back porch, talking to a pink-cheeked Bex all the way, as Sam took in how utterly fine everything appeared to be.
She couldn’t imagine that the authorities would visit this meticulously kept property, talk to a famous and gregarious roommate, consider the size of the paychecks Ramona earned, and believe that any trouble had come to her.
At least, nothing worse than a sudden whim to shop in Paris or meet a lover.
Maybe that was what had happened.
Except Macie was terrified. When Sam and Bex had been in and out of each other’s pockets in the Craven’s Daughter years, if Bex hadn’t shown up on set, Sam would damn well have known if it was a one-off or if something had gone seriously wrong.
Seeing everything in its place, as neat as a full-color spread in a design magazine, filled Sam’s stomach with heavy dread.
“Here we are.” Colin led them into a four-seasons room lined with bookshelves.
The furniture was vintage, with curvy lines showcasing velvet and leather aged to perfection.
There was art in an eclectic mix of frames everywhere there weren’t books, and at least three abandoned cardigans and shawls.
A cherry-red Fender leaning against a small amp in a wooden case looked recently and frequently played.
A funky pair of reading glasses and a small stack of mail sat on an occasional table with a smooth amethyst stone top.