Free Bitter Finish by Linda Barnes Page B

to get a sense of her expectations.
    Her eyes were wide. She hadn't quite worked up a tear but she seemed eager to ooze sympathy. He decided a suitable length of stunned silence was called for. She pressed his palm with her fingertips. Her nails were long and painted red.
    "How did it happen?" he asked finally. It seemed the appropriate question, the equivalent of "Where am I" from the recently revived fainter.
    Did she hesitate? For the best dramatic effect, he knew he should look away. She'd assume he was fighting back tears. But he needed to see her face.
    "I'm not sure," she said. "There were rumors and then I heard it on the radio this morning. I went to the store for the newspaper, but they're all sold out." Her lip was quivering in earnest now. "The police found his body—in some car trunk or something. It's so unreal. I mean, I knew somebody who knew a woman who was killed by the Hillside Strangler, but that's different. That's removed, you know? But Lenny . . . I mean, Jesus. Lenny."
    "Are you okay?" he asked.
    She bit her lower lip. "Yeah. Lenny and I must have split right after you talked to him. I wasn't holding any torch either."
    " He leave you because of the—"
    " We just weren't getting along. He was still living here, but he was using the place like a hotel, killing time until he could move in with some new lady."
    She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Want some tea? I make good herb tea."
    " Thanks."
    She bustled off into the tiny kitchen much to Spraggue's relief. Maybe with her spectacular self out of sight, his mind would engage. The front door was temptingly close. Should he take the opportunity to escape before getting deeper into a net of lies? Dammit, how could he leave when he'd learned so little? He stood up and his knees creaked louder than the wooden floor. Grady, he hoped, would assume he was about to join her. Or maybe she'd think he was pacing the floor in grief at his friend's passing. He made his way to a bureau in the hallway, jerked open the top drawer, covering the motion with a sneeze in case the drawer squeaked. Grady kept a lot of photos of herself. Hell, anyone who looked that good ought to. He shuffled through a pack of Polaroids, came on one of a laughing Grady hugging an unmistakable George Martinson.
    Somehow he didn't think Mary Ellen had snapped the shutter. He heard footsteps and shut the drawer just as Grady emerged from the kitchen carrying two teacups. '
    "Should I put some honey in yours?" she asked. "I don't have any sugar, not even brown sugar. I'm into health foods. I've got lemon and cream."
    " I'll take it straight," Spraggue said, returning to the red cushion.
    "You from around here?" she asked.
    " L.A," he said without thinking. Once the lies started, they were easier than truth. As long as they stayed simple.
    "What do you do?"
    " I'm in the movies." And as long as you kept to as much of the truth as possible.
    "Sure you are," she said.
    Spraggue wondered why he sounded more convincing when he lied than when he told the truth.
    "Are you Equity?"
    "Yeah," he said, thankful he'd given his true name.
    "Screen Actors' Guild? You have a card?"
    "Sure." The SAG card impressed the hell out of her. She got very self-conscious, smoothed her hair back and sat up taller.
    "I can't believe Lenny never told me about you," she said. "And him knowing I could use an in.
    Speak no ill of the dead and all that, but Lenny was such a pain. I mean, I'm really an actress."
    Spraggue gave an inward shudder, but kept a smile glued to his face. So was every pretty woman within two hundred miles of L.A.
    " This stuff . . ." She indicated her artwork, spread out around the perimeter of the room. "This is just a hobby. I was in L.A. for months, trying for a break, you know? Auditioning, cracking my neck going up against stone walls, knowing absolutely no one. I came up here for a rest. I was practically a wreck . . . skin and bones."
    The "skin and bones" part wasn't as hard to believe