“It suits our purposes,” he replied with a little shrug. “There are three bedrooms in back, so my roommate and I each have our own space.”
“I assumed you lived here alone,” I remarked.
“Nope. Got a roommate—Ian Norman. He and I rented this place together about a year and a half ago.”
“Is Ian interested in acting too?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation toward Simon’s world.
“Not these days. He used to be, back when we were in college. In fact, the three of us—Simon, Ian, and I—were inseparable. We took acting classes together. We went to plays together. We pretty much ate, drank, and breathed the theater.
“But Ian took a more practical route and became a computer geek. He runs his own business. He started out working for a few Long Island companies, but now he also has clients all over the country. He’s one of those lucky people who’s able to work from home, so the third bedroom serves as his office.”
“I didn’t realize you and Simon had gone to school together.” Automatically, I glanced toward the back of the house, expecting to see Ian clicking away at his keyboard. “Maybe we should talk more softly,” I said, “so we don’t bother Ian.”
“He’s running some errands,” Kyle explained. “Actually, we do a pretty good job of keeping out of each other’s hair. I’m pretty much out all day at the printing firm where I work. That allows Ian to have the place to himself. So when I’m chilling here at home, like in the evening, he often goes out to give me some space.”
“I didn’t know you worked at a printing firm,” I said.
“It’s not the most exciting job in the world, but it supports my acting habit.” In the resonant voice he used onstage to portray Amelia Earhart’s copilot Fred Noonan, he added, “Advertising flyers by day, Macbeth by night!”
I smiled. “You’re lucky, Kyle. It’s nice that you have something you’re so passionate about. I guess I feel that way about animals.”
“Then you’re the lucky one.” Kyle had grown serious. “Your job and your passion are one and the same. Very few of us aspiring actors get to live out that dream.
“But you’re not here to listen to a grown man whine, are you? You’re here to look at those cuts Monty got while he was chasing squirrels.”
“Right. Let’s get him into the van so I can check him out.”
Once inside, Kyle lifted Monty onto the examining table. “Whoa. Take it easy, boy,” he murmured, holding the animal in place as his paws skittered across the stainless steel surface.
“Any change in appetite or water consumption?” I asked as I examined Monty’s eyes and ears, checked his teeth, and ran my hand along his vertebrae. “Any vomiting or diarrhea? Coughing or sneezing?”
Kyle’s response to all my questions was no.
I weighed Monty—82.5 pounds—and took his temperature, which was normal at 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I studied the two wounds on his right thigh. Both were filled with pus, a sign that they were infected. But there was good news too. The cuts were only about an inch long. And they weren’t very deep, just penetrating the skin but not the muscle beneath it. I cleaned them both with an astringent called ChlorhexiDerm, applying compresses saturated with the warm blue solution.
“How bad are they?” Kyle asked anxiously. “Does Monty need stitches?” He hesitated before adding, “I feel awful that I didn’t have these looked at sooner.”
“They’re not that bad,” I assured him. “I don’t think we’ll need to suture him up. But I am going to put Monty on oral antibiotics. He’s eighty-two pounds—let’s try five hundred milligrams of cephalexin every eight hours for ten days. In addition, apply warm compresses twice a day. And you’ll need to restrict his activity while those wounds are healing. Can you keep him inside the house?”
“Monty won’t like it, but we’ll manage. You’re going to bandage those up, right?”
“Actually, I’d like to leave them open so we can see how they’re coming along. If he keeps licking them, we can get him a collar or put him in a T-shirt. But you should see them start healing in three or four days.”
“What about a tetanus shot?” Kyle asked. “Does he need one? I mean, it was a metal fence.”
“Tetanus is really uncommon in dogs,” I told him. “They naturally have a high resistance to the tetanus toxin, so it’s not something we normally worry about.” Holding Monty’s head in my hands, I looked into his amber eyes and cooed, “Okay, Monty, my boy. You’re all done. You were such a good boy!”
“Thanks, Dr. Popper.” Kyle lifted him off the table. “I promise I’ll keep a close eye on him. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to my best pal.”
“You can take him inside,” I said. “I’ll join you after I jot down some notes in Monty’s file.”
When I went back into the house, I found Kyle rummaging around the living room. “Believe it or not, my checkbook is somewhere in this mess,” he said apologetically. “Why don’t you have a seat while I look for it? If you can find a place to sit, that is.”
“I’ll just move this…” I reached down to remove a stack of white paper from a big upholstered chair, the type that makes you feel as if it’s embracing you with its soft, padded arms. As I picked up the stack of paper, I noticed that typed on the front page were the words Two Boys and a Girl. A One-Act Play by Kyle Carlson.
“I see you’re a writer too,” I observed, placing it on a stack of books as I sank into the chair. It was just as comfortable as I expected, aside from the spring sticking into my butt. “Like Simon.”
“Yes, like Simon,” he repeated sadly, pausing in his frantic search through a desk drawer. “In fact, Simon’s the one who got me interested in writing in the first place. But that was what he was like. He could get anybody fired up about anything. His enthusiasm—his passion, to use your word—was contagious. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I told you Simon did more to shape me, to turn me into who I am today, than anyone else in my entire life. He was really a special person.” With a sigh, he added, “It’s hard believe almost twenty years have passed since we were both theater majors at Brookside University.”
“My boyfriend goes to law school there,” I interjected.
“Great school,” Kyle said, nodding. “Anyway, we hit it off right away. Simon and I had so much in common. We both loved theater and we were both determined to have successful careers. After we finished school, we got an apartment in Manhattan together—although calling it an apartment is stretching the truth. It was actually more like a room. A very small room.
“But I think of that period as one of the best times of my life,” Kyle went on wistfully. “During those years we lived in the city, Simon and I both continued taking acting classes. We also went to auditions together, rehearsed together, spent hours discussing different theories of acting and planning what our lives would be like when we were both rich and famous. We were inseparable. Which is one of the reasons it’s so hard to believe—” He stopped when his voice deteriorated into a choking sound.
From the emotional way in which Kyle spoke about his long-term friend and one-time roommate, I couldn’t help wondering if there had been more than friendship between them. At least from Kyle’s perspective. He seemed so filled with admiration and awe that he almost sounded as if he’d had a crush on Simon.
Which led me to wonder if Kyle and Ian were more than just roommates. True, they could have simply been two single men in their thirties who found it more convenient to share a place than to live alone, longtime friends who still enjoyed each other’s company.
But the intensity of Kyle’s feelings for Simon made me suspect he was gay. I also sensed that it was something he didn’t want widely known.
The fact that he’d let his guard down prompted me to probe a little further. “Kyle, did you happen to see Simon last Friday, the night he was killed?”
What I meant was, Okay, dude, what’s your alibi?
If he saw through me, he didn’t let on.
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “There was no rehearsal that night. I came back to the house straight from work, around five-thirty. I didn’t budge until the next day.” Sounding a bit defensive, he added, “Ian was here with me the whole time. In fact, when the police asked me that question, I gave them the exact same answer.”
So Kyle had an alibi, one that sounded fairly solid. Although the idea that Ian could simply be protecting Kyle did pop into my suspicious mind.
Along with the idea that Kyle could be protecting Ian. Especially if my suspicion about them being more than just roommates was correct.
Another possibility occurred to me: that Simon, Kyle, and Ian had been involved in a love triangle, just like the one the Simon, Aziza, and Lacey were apparently part of.
“What about Ian?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager. “Did he and Simon remain friends after college?”
Kyle cast me an odd look. “Yes,” he replied uncertainly. “Of course, Ian wasn’t as close to Simon as I was. He never had been. But the three of us stayed friends. And we began spending more time together once Ian and I began rooming together.”
Before I had a chance to think up another question, he commented, “You seem quite interested in Simon.”
I tried to maintain a neutral expression. “Simon and Betty were friends, and she and I are close. She’s extremely upset about what happened. I just wish I could help her cope better by getting some closure. And I don’t think that will happen until the police identify his killer.”
“None of us will get any closure until then,” Kyle said bitterly. “And I firmly believe the answer is staring the cops in the face. For some reason, they’re just not getting it.”
From our conversation at rehearsal the night before, I knew he was referring to Lacey. But I didn’t want to pursue the topic of Simon’s murder any further, since I didn’t want word to get around that I was showing an unusual interest. Blowing my cover would make it impossible to get the other Port Players to open up to me. The fact that Kyle had already made that observation made me uncomfortable enough.
Fortunately, he resumed his search for his checkbook, which he found hiding underneath a throw pillow.
As he wrote me a check, I studied him closely. He apparently had an alibi that, as far as I knew, the police had accepted. Still, there was something about Kyle Carlson that didn’t sit right with me. Something about his relationships with both Simon and Ian too. And it went far beyond the possibility that the three men were gay—or in Simon’s case, perhaps bisexual—and that Kyle seemed determined to hide it. Even more, it was the intensity with which he spoke about Simon. I couldn’t help feeling he was an unusually emotional person. Maybe even emotional enough to be considered disturbed.
I didn’t know if the police had kept Kyle’s name on their list of suspects despite his alibi, but he definitely had a place on mine. And I was inclined to add Ian Norman’s name as well. At least in pencil. Even though I hadn’t met the man, his past was apparently closely intertwined with Simon and Kyle’s. Which meant his present might have been too.
Instead of looking forward to going home, as I usually did, I felt nothing but dread as I turned into the driveway of the Tallmadge estate. Even the idea of seeing my animals after a long day away didn’t make up for the fact that there were currently other forms of life at the cottage that made the idea of going home a pretty unsavory prospect.
My stomach tightened at the sight of the Burbys’ white car in the driveway, next to my red VW. Meanwhile, Nick’s black Maxima was nowhere to be seen. So instead of pulling into my own driveway, I trundled a little farther along the road and pulled up in front of the Big House.
I shut the van door silently, not wanting to alert anyone on the premises to my arrival. Then I sneaked around to the side of the house, hoping I’d find Betty in her kitchen.
Sure enough, through the back door I saw her sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea. As soon as she noticed me through the window, she jumped up.
“Jessica! What a lovely surprise!” she exclaimed as she opened the door.
Betty wasn’t the only one who gave me a warm greeting. Frederick, Winston’s spirited wirehaired dachshund, came scurrying across the kitchen floor on his short legs. He jumped up to say hello, wagging his tail wildly.
“Hello, Frederick,” I cooed, stroking him. “How’s my favorite four-legged next-door neighbor?” He was such an engaging and affectionate animal that it was difficult to believe dachshunds had originally been bred to hunt badgers—dachs in German—slipping into their narrow burrows and dragging them out.
As soon as I’d dropped into the chair opposite Betty’s, she said, “I’m glad you stopped by, Jessica. I’m anxious to hear how the investigation is going. Have you developed any theories about who might be responsible for what happened to Simon?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t gotten very far,” I told her apologetically. “In fact, the only people I’ve had a chance to talk to so far are Lacey Croft and Simon’s friend Kyle Carlson. Maybe after I’ve gone to more rehearsals.”
“I’m sure you’re doing a fine job,” she insisted. “I certainly don’t mean to pressure you. It’s just that it’s so unnerving, not knowing who I can trust and who might have…”
Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “So many of those people are my friends, Jessica. Yet throughout the rehearsals, I can’t stop thinking about poor Simon and the fact that someone in the Port Players could be a murderer. Sometimes I wonder if Winston’s right that I should just drop out of the production.”
“You can’t be serious!” I cried. “Betty, you can’t drop out! Not only would you leave Derek in the lurch, you’d also feel terrible knowing that a wonderful play you’ve been rehearsing for weeks was going on without you.” I sat up straighter and squared my shoulders. “I’ll just have to try harder.”
“I really appreciate it,” Betty said. “Especially since I know how busy you must be entertaining your future in-laws. Are you having fun getting to know them?”
She’d barely asked the question before my hands flew to my cheeks and I wailed, “Betty, they’re driving me absolutely insane!”
“Oh, dear. You sound like you need a cup of my special tea.”
What made it special, I knew, was the shot of whiskey she always added, one of the critical ingredients in her tried-and-true recipe. Given the way I was feeling, I wasn’t about to protest.
She filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove to boil, and joined me at the table. Frederick, who’d been watching her every move, curled up under the table between us and sighed contentedly.
“Tell me,” Betty ordered. “What have they been doing to you?”
“It’s—it’s everything about them!” I exploded. “I can’t do anything right. And of course Nick, their beloved son, can’t do anything wrong. Every word Dorothy says to me, or even about me, is a put-down. She hates my animals, and she acts like my cottage is a—a cardboard box on a street corner. She complains about everything and somehow finds a way to blame it all on me!”
“I know how you feel,” Betty commented. “I’ve gotten the exact same reaction from Winston’s children.”
I blinked. “You have?”
She shrugged. “It’s not that surprising. After all, I’m an interloper, just like you.”
“I didn’t know you’d met Winston’s children. In fact, I didn’t even realize he had any.”
“Two. A son and a daughter, both of whom live in England. James is a barrister—a lawyer—in Bristol. Chloe runs a bookshop in London. She’s married to a very wealthy man she apparently treats like a servant. He’s an investment banker who, for reasons that are entirely incomprehensible to me, dotes on her. Chloe came to New York a few weeks ago for a trade show, and James came with her expressly to meet the woman they’re certain is marrying their beloved father for his money.”
My mouth dropped open. “But, Betty, you hard
ly seem like someone who needs to marry for money!”
She shrugged. “I must admit, Winston did his best to convince them that we’re very much in love. But the minute his daughter got me alone, she looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Have you and my father discussed how your marriage is going to affect our inheritance when he dies?’”
“Oh, my! What an awful thing to say!”
“Especially since Winston has always been so generous with both of them,” Betty agreed. “They have tremendous trust funds that have made it possible for them to pursue whatever interests them. Chloe’s shop is apparently more of a hobby than anything else. And James has a good job, but he’s quite adept at spending money on expensive toys like Ferraris and yachts and fashion models.”
“They both sound like people who can’t imagine anyone not being attracted by someone else’s money,” I mused.
“That was certainly my impression.” The teakettle had started to whistle, and Betty hurried over to the cabinet and took down two delicate Limoges cups decorated with pink roses.
“You’ll feel better after a cup of my tea,” she reassured me as she made her signature drink, Earl Grey meets Jack Daniel’s. “And please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make this ‘invasion,’ as you call it, easier for you. Maybe I could stomp over and pretend to evict you.”
“If that happened, Dorothy would probably insist that we get a single room at a hotel so we could continue with all this togetherness,” I muttered. “It’s bad enough tripping over them in that tiny cottage. But now Nick is insisting that we all go out for dinner at the Bayside Bistro tomorrow night. Since only the principals are rehearsing, I can’t even use the play as an excuse. I happen to love that restaurant, but I can already imagine Dorothy complaining about the menu, the decor, the waiters…”
“At least you’ll eat well,” Betty commented. “I’ve heard wonderful things about that place.”
Who's Kitten Who? Page 10
