“You’re his primary interest, and he views me as someone who might take you away.” He slowed Miss Scrapiron until I was even with him. His hand touched my thigh. “Tell me that isn’t true.”
He spoke with such certainty that I urged Reveler into an extended trot and left him in the dirt. I was no longer Coleman’s primary interest. He had a recovering psycho wife to fill that slot. At my whispered command, Reveler stretched into a canter. Graf could keep up or not.
The scenery was a blur as we raced along the edges of the fields. The wind whipped tears into my eyes, and I could feel the sting on my cheeks and lips. Although the weather was clear, it was still winter. Reveler’s stride lengthened into a full-out gallop, and I made no effort to check him.
At last I slowed Reveler to a trot. The sound of hooves came fast from behind, and he slowed to a walk. Reveler was blowing lightly, but when an empty bag blew across the path in front of us, he sun-fished, nearly unseating me because I hadn’t anticipated his move.
“He’s something else.” Graf’s voice held admiration. “You should have seen you ride, Sarah Booth. I think when we get to Hollywood, we need to do a western. You know, an old-timey adventure of the Old West where the audience can get a full view of your posterior in a saddle.”
For just a moment I saw Graf and me on horseback, riding the rolling hills of a studio back lot. It was tempting. I loved westerns.
When I checked my watch I saw it was after three. We turned the horses back toward Dahlia House at a brisk walk. If I was going to get a nap, I needed to do it soon. “Graf, did Renata have any weaknesses?”
His look told me he didn’t completely comprehend what I was asking. “She had a weakness for chocolate, like most people. She could be very disciplined. Amazingly disciplined.”
“Any kind of chocolate?”
“What is this, Sarah Booth?”
“Humor me. Please.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “She preferred dark chocolate. She said it was loaded with antioxidants.”
“Was she taking any other kind of drugs? Recreational drugs?” I thought of cocaine or ecstasy, the party drugs. There had to be some area in Renata’s life that led to her murder.
“I never saw her take anything. She took care of herself, Sarah Booth. Her body was her vehicle to success.”
“Did she gamble? Play the ponies?” There had to be something.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Was she afraid of aging?”
He gave this question some consideration. “Yes, but not so much lately. I think the idea of a movie deal somehow eased her mind.”
“Who benefits most from her death?” The sun slipped behind a cloud, sucking the color from the day and leaving a sense of nostalgic loss on the air.
“I do. Me and Gabriel, her brother. My debt is forgiven, and Gabriel inherits all of her assets. Of the two, I gain the most.”
He was being brutally honest now. “You and Renata were once close. Aren’t you sorry she’s dead?”
Graf’s gaze held mine. “You asked for the truth, and I owe you that much. I’m not sorry she’s dead. For the past two months she made my life a living hell. Threats, blackmail, temper tantrums, catching me backstage before I went on and getting one more little dig into me. She changed into a harpy and a shrew. I’m free of her, Sarah Booth. She can’t torture me anymore.”
“I see.” Now all I had to do was get through the last performance with a man who might also be a murderer.
Chapter 16
We got home to Dahlia House in plenty of time for me to take a nap, but I found I couldn’t rest. Although I could see it hurt Graf’s feelings, I sent him back to his hotel. Alone, I paced the bedroom until I gave it up and went downstairs. Though the idea of a Jack and water was tempting, I avoided the sideboard where the crystal decanter waited. I had my last performance as Maggie that evening. Drinking was a dangerous trap. I wanted to go onto the stage sober and sharp.
By six o’clock, I’d finally settled down. It was with a sense of nostalgia that I drove to The Club and sat down in Bobbe’s chair to let her work her magic.
“That deputy showed me the picture of that old fart. He’s the guy I saw in Reno,” Bobbe said. “I told the deputy so. He thought that might help your case.”
I closed my eyes as she applied the shadow. “Thanks, Bobbe.”
“There you go.” She tilted the chair up so I could see myself in the mirror, transformed from my everyday Zinnia looks into a glamorous woman. Nothing like my idol, Liz, or my nemesis, Renata—but certainly not the Sarah Booth I recognized. It was fascinating what shadows and the artful application of color could change.
“Did Gordon say when you could leave town?” I asked her.
Bobbe shook her head. “I’ll be packed and ready first thing in the morning. I can only hope the law doesn’t keep me here.”
“Good luck. And thank you.” I gave her arm a squeeze as I stepped out of the makeup room.
“There she is, the dahling of stage and film!” Cece’s rich contralto made me smile. I was even more delighted when she put a huge bouquet of zinnias in my arms. The vibrant colors were magnificent, a reflection of the town I loved.
“Roses are for your everyday star,” she said as she hugged me. “Zinnias are for you, Sarah Booth. Our hometown girl headed for the big time.”
“Sarah Booth, there are some people here to talk to you after the performance.” Keith bustled up, as usual knocking everyone else out of the way in his hurry to make sure his needs were met. “I told them you’d be available for interviews following the play.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m going to a strike party,” I said. The expression on his face was priceless. I’d had to give up my idea for a party, but Harold had stepped up to the plate. He was throwing a bash, with candy lipstick as party favors.
“But. But. I—”
“Keith, she’s jerking your chain,” Cece said, shaking her head at him. “She’ll be here after the play. I’ll make certain of it.” She was edging me away from him as fast as she could without pushing with both hands.
“Thank you, Ms. Falcon. Thank you.” Keith caught one of her hands and kissed it. “Thank you.”
His gratitude was almost comic. When he was gone, I arched my eyebrows at Cece. “What’s the point of killing all my fun?”
“You should be ashamed. Keith isn’t worthy of your torment. He’s too easy a target.”
She was right about that. I shrugged. “Maybe he killed Renata. If it benefited his career, he’d do it.”
Cece looped her arm through mine and walked me toward a quiet stretch of hallway. She let the silence grow between us.
“What did you find out?” I finally asked.
“Not what I’d imagined.” She faced me, and her expression was troubled. “The doctor Renata was seeing in Los Angeles was Christian Varik, a retina specialist. He wasn’t inclined to give details, but he did imply that there was something seriously wrong with Renata’s vision.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. “She was going blind?” That could account for a whole lot of meanness. And for her hitting a dog with a car and not stopping. Speaking of which, Kristine Rolofson was strangely absent from backstage for the last performance. I’d halfway expected her and Giblet to come and wish me luck.
“I’m checking out Renata’s visual issues,” Cece said. “Or should I say Gordon is checking it out. I gave the tip to him. He told me he got an ID on the old geezer that sold you the lipstick.”
“Really?” I was amazed that Gordon had achieved such a quick result.
“His name is Morgan, Robert Morgan. He’s a New York state licensed pharmacist, a former character actor from a few Broadway productions, and a longtime friend of Renata’s.”
“She had a friend?” I didn’t mean it to sound as bitchy as it came out. “I mean, Renata didn’t cultivate a lot of confidantes.” Bubbling in the back of my brain was something Doc had said in his office only that mor
ning. He’d said that if he were hunting the killer, he’d look for someone with a medical background. A pharmacist would have plenty of knowledge of poisons and how they worked and how to administer them. “This has to be the same guy I saw at La Burnisco.” Excitement made me want to dance a jig. At last we’d begun to move forward on the case.
“Let’s hope this is the same guy. Gordon’s got an APB out for Robert Morgan in New York and all around this area. Gordon wants to ask him a few questions.”
“So do I.” Like how in the hell did he manage to pull off selling me a tube of poisoned lipstick without anyone noticing that he did it? “Did Gordon get an address on him?”
She nodded. “Some of New York’s finest went to his apartment this afternoon, and it looked like Morgan left in a hurry. They searched the neighborhood, but he’d disappeared. Gordon says they’ll get him, though. What with credit cards and all of that, it’s nearly impossible for someone to truly disappear in this country.”
I took a deep breath. I had to be on stage in a matter of minutes, and I needed to pull myself together to assume the role of Maggie the Cat.
“I’ll see you after the show. Thanks, Cece.” I kissed her cheek and walked toward the backstage area where I could have a few moments of privacy. This was it for me, my last performance. I hadn’t seen Graf since he’d left the stables, but I had come to trust him—at least on the stage.
“Sarah Booth?”
Coleman’s voice stopped me in my tracks. I had to force myself to turn around. The one thing I didn’t need was to be upset by my ex-boyfriend. “Yes?” I lifted my chin and dared him to start something as I faced him.
“Break a leg.” He turned and walked away.
He was wearing a suit. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him in a suit. I watched him exit the backstage area without ever turning around, leaving me to ponder the multiple levels of the message he’d just delivered to me.
I felt a warm touch on my back, and I turned to find Graf watching me watching Coleman. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” Like Maggie the Cat, I could take it on the chin and still function. “Coleman came to wish me luck in the performance.”
“Doesn’t want his prime suspect out of sight, does he?”
“Thanks, Graf.” I walked away from him, angry that he might be correct in his assumption of Coleman’s actions. And I’d let myself think the sheriff might have actually come to watch the performance. Would I never learn?
The play went off flawlessly. It was, perhaps, the best performance of the entire run. Sir Alfred kissed me as we took our bows, and Graf used that as a perfect excuse to bend me backwards over his arm and deliver a professional Rudolph Valentino kiss. The audience loved it, and we went back for five curtain calls.
Keith brought me three dozen red roses, and with Cece’s instigation, all of my girlfriends in the audience threw zinnias up on the stage at my feet.
I looked out over the audience and saw the faces of people who cared about me, who were proud of me. Bernard had said my folks would’ve been proud, and for a moment I allowed myself to imagine them sitting in the front row, clapping until their palms itched. I took my final bow and left the stage with tears in my eyes.
The cast was swarmed by well-wishers, and Keith waited as long as he could before he drew me aside to speak with a talent agent from Creative Artists Agency and Federico Marquez, the director of five Academy Award-winning films. The agent, Lester Lee, was unbearable, but Marquez was a modest, intelligent man.
“There’s a strike party at Harold Erkwell’s,” I told both of them. “You’re welcome to come, if you’d like.”
“We have a midnight flight out of Memphis,” Marquez said. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other, Ms. Delaney, when you get to Hollywood. Again, congratulations on a brilliant performance.”
When they were gone, I looked at Keith. “You told them I’m charged with murder, right?”
He waved his hands in the air. “Are you insane? Those charges will be dropped by this time tomorrow, and besides, they read the trades. They know all about it. Film-making is a gamble, and they’re gambling that you’ll be free by tomorrow.”
He was gone before I could pin him down on his optimism.
Tinkie appeared and whisked me to the party. Harold had pulled out all the stops for this one, and the entire lane up to his home glittered in white lights. Strands of fairy lights were wrapped around the trunks of huge live oaks, spun through the towering azalea bushes, and woven into the decorations that lined the balustrade of his porch.
Harold met me at the door and reenacted Graf’s kiss, much to my astonishment and the enjoyment of everyone there. Hoots and whistles followed as he raised me back to my feet. I felt the blush climb my cheeks as Harold leaned close and said in a wicked stage whisper, “If Coleman is out of the picture, I’m throwing my hat into the ring.”
“I’m not out of the picture.”
The room fell into silence, and I looked past Harold to see Coleman standing with a ridiculous cup of nonalcoholic punch in his hand. He looked like a bear pawing a petit four.
Harold released his hold on me and eyed Coleman. “If I misread your signals, Coleman, I apologize. It’s just that when you charged Sarah Booth with murder, I assumed the romance had lost its bloom.”
“You know what they say about assumptions, Harold.”
Coleman was so angry steam almost came from his head. He didn’t hold a candle to my wrath, though. “You don’t have any say in what I do or who I kiss,” I told him hotly.
Tinkie stepped between us. “This is a party to celebrate Sarah Booth’s success. For those of you here with other intentions, please leave.”
She put her arm around my waist and steered me into the front room that had been decorated with cutouts of elegant movie stars. An old reel-to-reel projector was running a film of This Property Is Condemned, and Harold had brought in a movie popcorn machine that was going crazy. The smell of hot, buttered popcorn filled the air, and I was suddenly starving. I no longer had to worry about fitting into my mother’s dress. I snatched a bag and stuffed a handful into my mouth.
“Your fingers are going to be too greasy to hold a champagne glass.” Tinkie disapproved of my eating habits, though pound for pound, she could easily outeat me.
“I’ll suck the champagne through a straw.” I leaned so I could whisper. “It’s my party, and I’ll gorge if I want to.”
She rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do about Coleman? He’s as sore as a wolf with his leg in a trap.”
“I’m not going to do a damn thing.” I was way too mad to think about Coleman’s feelings.
“You should talk to him, Sarah Booth. He’s terrified you’re going to Hollywood.”
“And if I am, it’s because of him!”
She hugged me tight. “I know he hurt you.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.”
“Look, Graf is here.”
I glanced up to see my costar enter. Every female in the room followed his progress with their gazes. Even Kristine Rolofson and Giblet, who appeared from one of the other rooms. I was surprised to see them, but in some ways they were almost a part of the cast. I gave them a wave.
“Harold invited a dog?” I asked Tinkie in a whisper.
“Kristine overheard the plans. It was awkward. Harold didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” Tinkie smiled and held up her champagne glass at Kristine, who headed toward us, Giblet trotting obediently at her heels.
“You were marvelous, Sarah Booth. I’ve seen almost every performance of the play since New York, and this one was by far the best. It was stellar!” She picked Giblet up and the little dog leaned over to lick my face.
“Thanks. To both of you.” I gave the dog a pat. “Kristine, when Renata hit Giblet, do you think it was possible that she didn’t see the dog?”
“If she was that blind she shouldn’t have been driving.” Kristine wasn
’t going to give an inch.
“Think about it. Renata may have had a problem with her vision.”
Emotions played across her face as she thought. “It’s possible, but that still doesn’t make it okay. She could have apologized, made an effort to show she was sorry for what happened.”
“You’re right.” I didn’t intend to challenge Kristine’s stand on the hit-and-run. There was no excuse for Renata’s behavior. “You’ve watched every performance of the play. Did she act differently?”
Kristine considered. “You know, now that you mention it, toward the end, she seemed to be ... brittle. I guess I wanted to believe that I was making her a nervous wreck, that Giblet and I were getting to her. Was it something else?”
I couldn’t answer for sure. Instead, I pulled out the pictures of Robert Morgan and showed them to Kristine. “Have you ever seen this man?”
“About a hundred times. When the play was running on Broadway, he was always hanging around backstage. He was some kind of apothecary or something like that.” She shook her head. “Like an old-timey pharmacist, is what he said.”
My stomach fluttered, and I snatched a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “He told you that?”
She nodded. “He was very angry at me, and he told me if Giblet and I didn’t leave Renata alone, he was going to poison Giblet.”
“Holy cow.” Tinkie’s eyes were huge. “He actually threatened to poison the dog?”
She nodded. “He drove this little blue BMW when he delivered things to Renata. Every time I saw it in the parking lot of a theatre, I put roofing tacks under all four tires. I’ll bet he had about two hundred flat tires.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Kristine was not intimidated by anyone, and she had no remorse for her actions. I liked that. “Do you know anything else about him?”
“He showed up all over the place. I thought for a while that he was Renata’s lover, but I don’t think so. There wasn’t that passion between them; there was something else, another kind of bond.”
“Thanks, Kristine.”
Ham Bones Page 15
