Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth
Killer Cocktail (14 page)
If she was telling the truth, that would have been after David and Lisbet had argued, and Lisbet had thrown her ring away “So where does Jake fit in?”
“He shows up—thankfully, without that vicious little arm candy of his. But with his camera. He’s got more champagne and he suggests we make a little movie. In the pool house. Lisbet and me. Or maybe the three of us.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer, but for the record, I asked anyway. “What kind of movie?”
“What do you think?” Veronica rolled her eyes in exasperation, as though men wanting to tape communal sex acts was a regular occurrence. Maybe in her social circle. No business like show business and all that.
“So is it coming out on DVD?” I said, trying to keep her from getting angry one eye still on the champagne bottle.
“You don’t think I did it.”
I shrugged, not sure what answer would be more insulting to her. “Guess it was a pretty offensive request.”
“To say the least. Jake has no sense of composition and his lighting always sucks.”
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to be able to step outside all the questions that were running through my head and enjoy the preposterousness of this diva refusing to perform not because it was degrading but because the director couldn’t guarantee decent production values. But I couldn’t laugh because it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that either Jake or Veronica was a monumental liar. And whoever was lying had killed Lisbet. “So what happened next?”
“I left,” Veronica said indignantly. “Jake turned on the camera and they were all over each other right away. No effort
at art or eroticism, just—” She caught herself, realizing she was admitting she’d stayed a bit longer than her indignation indicated. “I left.”
at art or eroticism, just—” She caught herself, realizing she was admitting she’d stayed a bit longer than her indignation indicated. “I left.”
“With your champagne bottle.”
“I wasn’t about to leave it behind as a prop for Jake and Lisbet. Besides—” She turned to look at the bottle again and burst into tears. Stanislavsky—or Pavlov—himself couldn’t have trained her any better.
In the mirror, I saw Abby appear in the doorway behind me. Time to throw me out, I guessed, but she didn’t say anything, just stared at her weeping leading lady for a moment. “That’s great, Veronica,” Abby whispered after a moment. “Feel that. Remember that. We can use that.”
Veronica smiled damply. “Really? You like it?”
“It’s so authentic.” Abby clutched the linen above her heart and scrunched it up in her hand. “Let’s get that onstage and weave it into our fabric.”
Veronica swept me out of the dressing room in front of her. I thought she was just going to head down the hall with Abby and leave me there, but she grabbed my hand and pulled me close to her. “I need to be part of the CD. It would mean so much to David. We have a complex history and I’m going to be an important part of his getting through this.” She sealed it with a squeeze of my hand.
“I’ll be in touch,” I promised.
Abby looked me over again. “Are—were you a friend of Lisbet’s?”
I figured the truth could be stretched a little more this afternoon. “Yes.”
She pointed to a box beside the dressing room door. “Those are her things, from the dressing room. Would you like to get them to her family or should I ship them somewhere?”
“I could take them to David,” Veronica chirped.
Just to prevent that collision and on the off-chance there was something telling in there, I volunteered. “No, that’s okay be glad to take care of it.”
Abby thanked me and escorted Veronica toward the stage. Quickly peeking in the box, I saw clothes, a few books, makeup. Nothing with a big red neon arrow reading “Helpful” attached to it, but as the song says, “One never knows, do one?”
I picked up the box and headed for the front door, reviewing what Veronica had told me, trying to separate truth from fiction, struggling not to turn right around and grab the champagne bottle from her dressing room. During the whole Teddy thing, I’d been chastised about handling the evidence and Veronica didn’t seem to feel a need to destroy it, so it was probably safe until I could inform the proper authorities. Whoever they were. But there was something else nagging at me, a sense I was forgetting something.
Oh yeah. Where was Cassady?
She was in the shadowy lobby, fixing her hair and makeup with a small compact in the available light. “Glad to see she didn’t kill you with the champagne bottle,” she drawled as she flipped a stubborn curl into submission.
“Me, too. Thanks for watching my back, devoted friend and comrade,” I scowled, balancing the box on my hip while she finished.
“Look, she’s a bitch, no question, but she’s hardly an impulsive serial killer-type who’s going to strike you down in a building full of witnesses who’d shoot each other to get in front of a news camera and spill their guts. I felt my time could be better spent on other avenues of investigation.”
This puzzle was easily put together. “So where’s Babbling Boy and how badly did you hurt him?”
“I was very gentle. I always am when they’re so young.”
“Have fun?”
“Even better. I have info.”
“Well, well, Mata Hari. Do tell.”
“Did you know Veronica had the lead in this production until Lisbet’s dad pulled a few strings and suddenly, boom, Veronica’s bumped to second string?”
“Fascinating.”
“Wait. It gets better.”
“Then it better go outside.”
We exited the theater and possible eavesdroppers and headed for Ninth Avenue to get a cab. “What’s in the box?” Cassady asked. “Not that I’m offering to help lug the grimy thing around.”
“Personal effects from Lisbet’s dressing room. I volunteered to get them to the proper party.”
“After you’ve gone through them.”
“Of course. I’m pretty sure whatever went wrong out there has its roots back here.”
“You mean something like Lisbet calling Abby Friday afternoon and telling her she was leaving the play because of Veronica, then calling back Friday night and saying she’d changed her mind?”
I took a moment to absorb the news. Veronica struck me as ambitious, but ambitious enough to kill for a role? Or for a role and a soul mate? Had she thought she’d convinced Lisbet to step aside somehow and then, when Lisbet changed her mind, lashed out? “Funny how Veronica failed to mention that to me.”
“Proper incentives.”
“Okay, next time, I get to make out with the handsome boy and you get to take weeping lessons from the creepy actress.”
“Weren’t you listening? Proper incentives.”
“You’d be surprised what Veronica might consider proper incentives. I’ve got a new fact for you. Did you know our new buddy Jake likes to film everything he does?”
“Digital or is he one of those video freaks?”
“That your only concern?”
“No, I want to know if you’re going to call Kyle or go directly to Detective Cook.”
I’d brought Cassady up to speed on my lovely conversation with Kyle earlier in the day. “Neither. Not yet. I want all the pieces to fit together before I say anything or I’ll look like an idiot and it won’t help David at all.”
“Speaking of David, I wonder how his interview with Kyle went?”
“Why don’t you call Tricia and check while I get a cab?” I left Cassady her cell, and the box on the corner and stepped out into the street to flag down a cab. They would’ve stopped for Cassady in flocks, but she’d exercised her charms sufficiently for one afternoon. After a moment, a cab stopped and I reached back to grab Cassady and the box.
The driver leaned over and asked where we were going. I opened the back door and started to give him my address, but Cassady stopped me. She shoved me in the backseat and closed the door. “St. Vincent’s Hospital and don’t you tell me it’s too far away.”
The driver obediently threw the cab in drive and hunched his shoulders over the wheel, leaving me to gape at Cassady all by myself. “Why are we going to St. Vincent’s?”
“Because David just tried to kill himself.”
Dear Molly
, I’ve never had a man start a fight over me. None of my boyfriends have climbed mountains or written songs in my honor. No man I know has ever done anything more dramatic for me than pick up the check without being asked. Am I wrong to be in awe of loves that express themselves on a grander scale? Or should I consider myself lucky because those who date fire get burned? Signed, Just a Little Jealous
, I’ve never had a man start a fight over me. None of my boyfriends have climbed mountains or written songs in my honor. No man I know has ever done anything more dramatic for me than pick up the check without being asked. Am I wrong to be in awe of loves that express themselves on a grander scale? Or should I consider myself lucky because those who date fire get burned? Signed, Just a Little Jealous
“This was an accident,” Tricia assured us as we walked back to the curtained area where David was being treated.
Cassady put her arm around Tricia’s shoulder and gave her a heartening squeeze. I did my best to smile reassuringly, too, but I couldn’t shake the thought that every time I thought I had a viable suspect in Lisbet’s murder, David did something to draw the attention back to himself. Had he done this because he was sad and angry or because he was guilty? I couldn’t bear the thought, so there was no way I could voice any of it to Tricia. Not until I had no other choice.
“What happened?” Cassady asked.
“No one realized he’d been drinking as much as he had and he got into Mother’s medicine chest, looking for something to help him sleep. He just wasn’t paying attention.”
“A little or a lot?”
Tricia didn’t want to answer, which meant a lot, in more ways than one. Including that she wasn’t completely comfortable with the inattention scenario, which probably meant it came from her father.
David was curled up under a sheet, face pale, lips grotesquely dark from the charcoal they give you before they pump your stomach. I’d had other friends wind up in this situation, but most of them had been careless partyers, not murder suspects.
Mrs. Vincent sat beside the bed, fingers laced through David’s. Mr. Vincent stood behind her, conferring quietly with Richard. Rebecca stood across from Mrs. Vincent, quiet and composed. No Aunt Cynthia. She was probably out in the hall, haranguing doctors because it made her feel better.
Everyone but David looked up as we came in and not a single one looked happy to see us. “Mr. and Mrs. Vincent,” I began, not quite sure what I was going to say, much less supposed to say, in such a situation. My etiquette lessons had been sorely tested in the last few days and I was doing a lot of improvising.
“Thank you for coming by,” Mr. Vincent said, smoothly cutting me off. “Tricia appreciates your support. She’ll keep you apprised of her brother’s condition.”
I hadn’t even gotten all the way to the bed and I was being dismissed. Again, I was unsure of the protocol involved, mainly because I couldn’t figure out why he was blowing me off. I made an attempt: “Is there anything we can do to help?”
And then Rebecca cleared it all up for me. “Haven’t you done enough? You and your stupid boyfriend,” she snarled.
“Rebecca,” Tricia warned.
“Tricia,” her father said crisply. The effect was like a choke chain on a puppy. Her head snapped up and her eyes widened. I wanted to take her hand, but I was afraid to move for fear of setting someone else off.
Richard was the one who made the move. He walked over to Tricia, Cassady, and me and gently steered us away from everyone else. “Let’s go grab a cup of coffee.”
Tricia attempted to stand her ground. “I don’t want coffee.”
“Yeah, neither do I,” he replied, half-guiding and half-pushing us back toward the lobby. He’d gotten us as far as the seating area when Tricia smacked him as hard as she could in the chest. He grabbed her hand and held it, but looked at Cassady and me instead of looking at her. “I understand what you’re trying to do, but we’d really like to be left alone right now.”
“Tricia asked us to come,” I pointed out.
“I know, but this is family business,” Richard replied. He was trying to be kind about it, but he was also hanging out the NO DISCUSSION sign.
Tricia pulled her hand out of Richard’s grasp. “This is family
bullshit,
” she hissed at him. I’m not sure whether he was more shocked than Cassady and I were to hear that prim little mouth utter that particular phrase, but it rocked us all for a moment. Then Tricia turned on her heel and marched for an exit and Cassady and I were the ones who hurried after her.
bullshit,
” she hissed at him. I’m not sure whether he was more shocked than Cassady and I were to hear that prim little mouth utter that particular phrase, but it rocked us all for a moment. Then Tricia turned on her heel and marched for an exit and Cassady and I were the ones who hurried after her.
Even when we were all in a cab back to my place, Lisbet’s box from the theater riding up front with the driver, Tricia was winding herself up to the point of explosion. Cassady and I waited, letting her find the words and the moment to
uncoil. “How dare he?” she finally spat, about four blocks from my apartment.
uncoil. “How dare he?” she finally spat, about four blocks from my apartment.
“Which ‘he’ are we talking about?” Cassady asked, sharing my point of view that all the Vincent men were having a less than stellar day.
“My father. Kyle came to talk to David under some arrangement with Detective Cook and David gets all worked up, so Dad gets all worked up and David goes and does this stupid thing and somehow it’s all my fault because I know Kyle.”
“Which is why your dad didn’t want me around either,” I figured out.
“So the conversation with Kyle didn’t go well?” Cassady asked delicately.
“How well can a conversation about ‘When did you stop beating your girlfriends’ go?” Tricia stroked my arm halfheartedly. “Kyle was a gentleman and very professional, but the men in my family didn’t respond in kind.”
“But what did David tell Kyle?”
“The truth. His old girlfriend filed complaints against guys as a way of breaking up with them. And he’d never raised a hand to Lisbet and absolutely didn’t kill her.”
What else was anyone expecting him to say? Even with the rocky history and the overdose, David looked like a mess, not a murderer. And there was no gain in this for David. Breach of decorum was a cardinal sin in the Vincent family, but it couldn’t be worth killing over. The jealousy theory still fit best and it was tailor-made for Veronica; she was the one who benefited most from Lisbet’s death.
Once we were up in my apartment, Tricia flung herself on the couch, Cassady got out the cocktail pitcher, and I opened the box from the theater. “I’m sorry it didn’t occur to me to leave this with your father,” I told Tricia as I sat
down on the floor. “He probably would’ve preferred to send it to Lisbet’s parents himself.”
down on the floor. “He probably would’ve preferred to send it to Lisbet’s parents himself.”
Tricia rolled over enough to watch me. “I think it’s fine that you have it. Who knows what Dad might have done with it.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not sure.”
Cassady handed us each a whiskey sour and scooted herself under Tricia’s feet on the couch. She lifted her glass in a toast. “A sour to make everything else seem sweet.”
We toasted and sipped, but I wasn’t ready to change the subject. “Do you think your father knows something he’s not sharing?” Could Mr. Vincent be aware of something I’d missed?
“No, he just doesn’t want anyone else to know things he doesn’t. Which is why he was so unpleasant to you at the hospital.”
“I don’t expect anybody to be winning congeniality awards right now, me included.” I shrugged, putting down my drink and starting to go through the contents of the box. It seemed to be mainly clothing and some odds and ends, probably the trinkets and makeup Lisbet had kept on the vanity table before Veronica banged in and swept it all away.
Tricia leaned off the couch, bitterly intent. “There’s no excuse for bad manners. Ever. I believe it’s the Vincent family motto.
Image vincit omnia
or
semper perfectum
or some such thing. Which is why the boys choosing Rebecca and Lisbet was so shattering for Mother and Dad.”
Image vincit omnia
or
semper perfectum
or some such thing. Which is why the boys choosing Rebecca and Lisbet was so shattering for Mother and Dad.”
“What about Veronica?”
“Veronica Innes?” Tricia slithered off the couch to sit on the floor next to me.
“What did your folks think of her?” I pulled a deep purple satin robe out of the box. There were heavy smudges of
makeup around the collar and it smelled of Armani Mania. I tried to envision Lisbet wearing the robe as she prepared for a performance. Instead, I suddenly remembered being seven and going on my first sleepover, but taking my mother’s pillow with me because it smelled of the Aquamarine body lotion she put on before bed. I really was going to have to ship all this back to her parents when I was done. It’s difficult to tell what people are going to cherish as mementos when they lose someone, but I didn’t want to risk keeping—or worse, tossing—something that might provide them some measure of comfort.
makeup around the collar and it smelled of Armani Mania. I tried to envision Lisbet wearing the robe as she prepared for a performance. Instead, I suddenly remembered being seven and going on my first sleepover, but taking my mother’s pillow with me because it smelled of the Aquamarine body lotion she put on before bed. I really was going to have to ship all this back to her parents when I was done. It’s difficult to tell what people are going to cherish as mementos when they lose someone, but I didn’t want to risk keeping—or worse, tossing—something that might provide them some measure of comfort.
“I don’t think they took their dating seriously because David didn’t seem to,” Tricia responded after a moment’s thought.
“I don’t think many people take Veronica seriously,” Cassady offered, seizing the opportunity to stretch out on the couch now that Tricia had moved.
Folding the cool, slithery robe was trickier than I’d imagined. I laid it in my lap and smoothed it. As I ran my hand over the fabric, I felt something stiff underneath. A little poking around revealed a pocket in the seam.
Inside, there was a small envelope with a florist’s name, Back to the Garden, stamped on it. The address printed underneath was just a few blocks from the theater. The envelope was hand-addressed to Lisbet at the theater, with a small notation of last Thursday’s date in the lower left-hand corner. I slid out the card. The printed message on the card was: CONGRATULATIONS. The handwritten message, in big block letters, was: LEAVE AND LIVE. No signature.
I held the card up for Tricia and Cassady to look at. “I know theater people have a lingo all their own, but how does ‘Leave and live’ translate?”
Cassady took the card to look at it more closely. “Parse it all you want, it’s a threat. Or an ultimatum.”
Tricia peered over Cassady’s wrist. “Veronica Innes was dating David before he met Lisbet.”
“She also had the lead in that play before Lisbet came along,” Cassady added.
“Your new little actor friend told you Lisbet was going to quit the play, then changed her mind?” I asked Cassady. She nodded. “Maybe Veronica was threatening her to scare her off, make her quit. Lisbet started to give in, then changed her mind.”
“So Veronica killed her?” Tricia said a little too cheerily. She heard it, too, rushing her hand to her mouth as though she’d burped. “Sorry. I just …”
“Don’t want it to be David. We know.” I patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, then looked at my watch. “Now, where does a director go after rehearsal?”
Cassady raised her hand like an overachieving third grader. “I know, I know.” She grabbed her purse, plunged her hand in, and pulled out a matchbook. “Where the stage manager’s brother tends bar because if you’re with the show, he pours with a heavy hand.”
A very heavy hand, judging by Abby’s demeanor. By the time we’d gotten to The Last Tankard, a dark but boisterous brass and oak tavern a few blocks north of the theater, she was already relaxed and actually seemed pleased to see us. Then again, maybe she was just a lightweight and we were catching her several drinks into the evening. Whatever the case, she seemed happy and approachable, sitting at the bar with several other pale young women. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure we had the right person, her face looked so different with a smile on it.
“You tried to crash my rehearsal!” she shouted cheerily, wagging a finger at Cassady and me as we approached. Her eyes drifted over to Tricia. “Why didn’t you come?”
“Sorry. I was busy,” Tricia answered.
“I’m so glad I caught you. Is Veronica here?” I asked. We’d scouted as thoroughly as possible from the front door and hadn’t spotted her, but I wanted to be sure before I got in too deep.
Abby’s face lengthened. “You came to see her.”
“No, we came to see you. We just wondered if she was here.”
Abby thumped her fist on the bar. “No. I sent her home to get some sleep. She’s clearly drained by the events of the weekend. How stupid was I to give them the time off for that fool party? Even though it gave me extra time with the male chorus. They just aren’t coming together as a cohesive unit, which completely undercuts their dramatic weight in the swimming pool scene where—”
“Abby? I came to talk to you,” I said gently, not wanting to spoil her mood, but not wanting to wait through an entire recap of rehearsal either. The two women she was sitting with leaned forward to get a better look at me, but fortunately Cassady and Tricia flanked them and distracted them by asking for their recommendations on the house drink list.
Abby reacted with delight. “That’s so nice of you.”
“About Veronica and Lisbet.”
Abby leaned forward conspiratorially. “I could help with the tribute CD, too.”
I almost asked her what she was talking about, but thankfully remembered before I blew the cover story. “That would be so great. But before we start talking about that, I wanted to ask you about Lisbet quitting the play.”
Muddy as her thinking was, that bumped Abby. “Why?”
The improvisation resumed. “If she was unhappy about the show for some reason, maybe we shouldn’t pursue the idea of putting a song from the show on the CD.”
Abby sat up two inches taller than I’d realized she was. “Our show? On your CD?”
“We’re just talking at this point.”
“It wasn’t the show she was upset with, it was Veronica. She called me from Southampton Friday afternoon and said she was leaving the show because she’d walked in on Veronica and David.”
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