Read Magic Hour for Free Online Page B

than the slickers from New York City. When you really came down to it, we knew we were better human beings. "Let me tell you, you can double the phoniness in spades for movie types. But Mr. Sy Spencer himself seemed to be genuine silk stocking—not at all flashy or fresh."
    "But did you like him?"
    "Well ... now that I think about it, I'm not sure. He was one cool cucumber."
    "Was he cold? Withdrawn?"
    "No. Very toned down, but decent enough. Smiled a lot. Didn't laugh. Never treated me any different the first summer or the fourteenth. But it was like he had a script of how to act with a cook, and that was that. Teasing, like about how he was going to have to mortgage the house to pay for my chickens; I make a very rich chicken stock. But the same joke for fourteen years.
    "And let's see. He was indeed polite: a compliment after every dinner party, and if he didn't like something, which was hardly ever, he wasn't rude. He'd just say, 'I am not entranced by chocolate-dipped fruit.' " She opened a plastic container and handed me a cookie. "Viennese almond wafer."
    "Thank you. Getting back to the maid, Mrs. Robertson. What does she look like?"
    "Short, like I told you. Yellowish skin, but with pockmarks, poor baby."
    The cookie was good. I smiled. "What color is her hair?"
    "My, are you handsome when you smile! You should smile more often. It lights up your face like a Christmas tree."
    "Rosa's hair, Mrs. Robertson?"
    "Originally, only the good Lord and her mother know, although my guess is your basic brown. For all the time she's worked here"—she shook her head sadly—"fire-engine red."
    "And you and Rosa were the only people who work here? I expected valets or chauffeurs or butlers."
    "No. He hired waiters and bartenders for dinners and parties. He had a driver in the city, but he took a helicopter out here and drove himself around in that Italian sports car of his."
    I held out my hand for another cookie. As she gave it to me, I asked: "Who was in the guest bedroom today with Sy Spencer?"
    "What?" She looked startled.
    "Someone used the guest bedroom."
    "Besides Mr. Spencer?"
    "Yes."
    "Really? I have no idea, Steve. You know, he and Lindsay Keefe were living together. But they're in the master suite. What makes you think someone was in the guest bedroom?"
    I took another bite of the cookie. "Just some indications," I answered. "Did you hear anyone upstairs?"
    "Only Mr. Spencer. He was here all afternoon, packing to go to Los Angeles, on the phone. He had been supposed to leave this morning, but then he had to go over to the movie set, so I guess he was changing a few plans."
    "No one with him?"
    "No." She thought for an instant and then added: "I mean, I won't cross my heart and hope to die, because to tell you the truth, you can count the times on one hand that I've been on the second floor of this house. But as far as I know, he was alone."
    "Where was Rosa?"
    "She cleans and does a laundry every morning, then goes home for the afternoon ... she has a little girl. Takes whatever ironing. She comes back about six, to tidy up from my cooking—scours pots, damp mops the floor, takes out trash, that sort of thing. Then she stays through dinner and does the dishes and sets the table for breakfast."
    "Mrs. Robertson, I don't want to embarrass you, but in a police investigation we have to ask some pretty direct questions."
    "Go ahead."
    "Was there any indication that Mr. Spencer had sexual relations in any other room beside the master bedroom?"
    "I go home after dinner. So for all I know, he could be making hay in the sauna or in the screening room or in the wine cellar. All I can vouch for is not in my kitchen, because I would know in two seconds flat. Nobody , not the boss, not God himself, is allowed to mess with my kitchen. Got that, Steve?"
    "Got it."
    "Good."
    Local cops—in this case the Southampton Village P.D.—secure the perimeter of a crime scene. One of them, a gangly kid my grandmother would have called a long