by Alina Adams
"I have a question," Gina said.
"What?"
"Why would Chris kill Lucian? It certainly wasn't out of any love for me. It's not like Lucian put up a fight, challenged him to a duel, and Chris had to defend my honor."
"You make a good point."
"Yeah. I thought I did."
"I'll get back to you."
Bex cornered Gabrielle by the vending machine. Bex asked, "You didn't find it odd that Chris flew to Colorado in the afternoon, flew back home in the evening, then flew out with you once again the following day?"
Gabrielle dropped her quarters in the vending machine's slot but was too surprised to punch the button with her order. "He did what?"
"You didn't know?”
The machine beeped insistently. Gabrielle stared at it for a moment, then, suddenly unable to remember what she'd wanted, hit the key to return her coins. "All I know is that Chris and I always intended to fly out together in the morning. We made our reservations maybe a month in advance."
"So you had no idea that Chris actually flew out earlier?”
"No. I mean, Chris said he had some stuff to do that day, so I gave him the time off, but I figured he had last-minute errands to run before the trip. Why would Chris fly back and forth like that?”
Bex said, "I'll get back to you."
She told Craig, "So what I have is means and opportunity. Motive, on the other hand..."
They'd left the claustrophobia of the ice rink (yes, such things were technically allowed, Bex had learned her second year on the job) for the privacy — and warm weather — of a bench underneath a tree in the park across the street from Lucian's rink. Jeremy had asked if he could stay and have lunch with the other kids from the show, leaving Bex and Craig on their own for at least an hour.
Previously, the thought of an uninterrupted moment where all sorts of uncomfortable personal topics were likely to pop up when least expected might have led Bex to a glut of creative excuses and/or simply running screaming in the other direction. But with her mind on Chris and his rather unique frequent-flyer plan, she was more interested in having Craig as a sounding board.
"You're certain Chris is your killer?"
"He was in town, he had a key to Lucian's office, plus the special stone to mess up his blades."
"Which are only relevant facts if Lucian was indeed killed by someone deliberately ruining his skates."
"I saw them, Craig. No way would a pro like Lucian leave his equipment in that kind of condition. If they'd been damaged accidentally, he certainly wouldn't have gone out on them. Not in front of a television crew!"
"What about your other suspects? Don't any of them have the lucky trifecta?"
"The only other person who had means and opportunity was Toni. But she has no motive that I can see. Gina has motive and means, but I don't know about opportunity — wouldn't Lucian have noticed if she snuck out of the house early that morning or late that night? As for Sabrina, she had motive, she had opportunity, but I wonder about means. I don't see her walking around with a handy stone in her pocket."
"Which brings us back to Chris."
Bex summarized her earlier conversation with Gina. To her surprise, the more she talked, the more concerned Craig seemed to grow. By the time she got to the end of her story, with Chris and Lucian both basically informing Gina that neither one particularly wanted her, then sharing a manly laugh about how wacky life could be, Craig appeared downright alarmed.
"Bex..." he began cautiously.
"What?"
"I— um... Have you noticed something peculiar about the motives you've been collecting for all the potential suspects?"
"You mean that this is one creepy, pathetic bunch?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"Well, it seems like... to me, anyway... it's looking like there's a... theme... to all of these stories."
"A theme?"
"A theme."
"Like in a book?" Bex had a General Knowledge degree from Sarah Lawrence. If there was one thing she knew about, it was literary themes and their sundry devices.
"You could say that. Everyone you told me about, their big issues with Lucian or, well, with the world in general, seem to be that of a past relationship affecting a present-day one."
She considered his words. "Okay. So?"
"So..."
"That's short for 'so what?"
"Remember when Gil accused you of being so accustomed to ferreting out murders at skating events that you've started seeing murders where none exist?"
"Yeah. You told me he was wrong. You agreed with me. You said you thought there was something fishy going on here, too."
"I did. I did agree with you. About that."
"But you don't agree with me about – "
"Bex." He was doing his best to lead her independently to the obvious conclusion. "Think about it. The theme of a past relationship affecting a present one..."
"I admit, it's a little too coincidental, but..."
"Bex, come on. Lucian, Eleanor, and Gina. Chris, Lauren, and Gabrielle. Heck, even Toni, Lucian, and Eleanor to some degree. It all doesn't remind you of anything?”
"This isn't about Rachel."
Craig exhaled, happy at least to stop talking in metaphors and circles.
"I didn't say that it was. I'm just suggesting that, when your mind is on something, there becomes a tendency to start seeing references to your situation everywhere, even when they aren't necessarily there."
"So? What? Because of you, me, and Rachel, I made up Lucian, Eleanor, and Gina? Or Chris, Lauren, and Gabrielle?"
"Made up? No. Given them more weight in the narrative of Lucian's possible killer than they probably deserve? Possibly."
"That's it!" Bex said. She jumped off the bench.
Craig blinked. "What's it?"
"You're a genius!" The lower half of Bex's body was already on her way back to the rink. The upper, however, stopped, grabbed Craig's face in her hands, and kissed him more fully than she had in days. "You're going to be the first one I thank in my Emmy acceptance speech."
Dumbfounded but pleased, Craig asked, "You've solved your case?"
"No. But I know now who can."
It wasn't easy to get Toni, Gina, Gabrielle, and Sabrina alone in a room where they wouldn't be overheard or interrupted. Even harder was just getting all four women to show up at the same time. Bex felt as though she was corralling drops of mercury. Every time she got three in one spot long enough to go in search of the fourth, one of the original three would wander off. Finally, however, as the afternoon's rehearsals wound to a close, she managed to sequester them all in the ladies' locker room. To make sure no one would come in while they were talking, Bex put a sign on the door advising that there was a leak in the bathroom and everyone should keep out.
"Are we about to chant the opening to Macbeth?" Sabrina asked dryly.
“Too many witches," Toni warned.
Bex said, "I need your help. All of yours."
“To do what?" This was from Gina.
“To prove that Chris killed Lucian."
"You're nuts." Gabrielle stood up and was already heading for the door.
Only Bex's caveat of, "Or to prove that he didn't," stopped her.
"So you don't know for sure," Gabrielle clarified.
"No. I don't. And I just realized — well, a friend helped me realize — I'm not the one who is in a position to find out."
"Meaning what?" Gina asked.
"Here is the thing," Bex explained. "I came into this whole situation like a TV producer. Do you know how we prepare a skating special for air? We all sit around a big table, and we ask ourselves, 'What's the story line we're telling?' We create a narrative thread in advance, and then we show only those bits of footage that fit with our story line. Everything else we ignore and throw away."
"No kidding," Toni, Gina, Gabrielle, and Sabrina said in a frayed version of unison.
That did take Bex back a bi
t. She had no idea TV's tactics were so transparent. And here they all thought they were terribly clever. Or at least subtle.
"How many profiles of me do you think 24/7 has done, focusing on the Eleanor Quinn replacement angle?" Gina mused.
"Or my — what do you all call it? Historical significance to the sport?" Toni added.
"The only time I ever get called for a quote on skating is in relation to suicide," Gabrielle piped in. "Creativity isn't exactly television's forte."
"I don't think you guys have ever met a cliché you didn't like," was Sabrina's final comment.
Okay, okay, Bex got it. She was a hack. They didn't have to harp on it.
Bex said, "That's why I'm turning to the four of you. I've been looking at Chris through a prism. I got a story in my head, and I couldn't let go of it. I was so close to the issue that I couldn't even see what I was doing. A friend had to point it out to me. He was wrong about my motivation, of course. But he was right in that I couldn't see the big picture. I couldn't figure out Chris's motivation for killing Lucian because, as an outsider, I'll never be able to see the whole person that Lucian was. All I'll ever get is snippets of him here, snippets of him there, three-minute up-close-and-personal profiles that barely scratch the surface of the man."
Speaking of sounding familiar... Wasn't that what Craig told her days ago, perched precariously on the unfolded sofa bed in her apartment? That it wasn't so simple to peg people based on a few, stray facts? That nobody ever fully understood another person's motivations?
"Is this about Lucian or about Chris?" Gabrielle asked.
"It's both. Because to figure out why Chris may have done what he did, I need to fully understand both men. And I realize now that I never will."
"But," Toni pointed out, "you could say the same about any of us. We all only know a small piece of both men, as well."
"Yes," Bex agreed. "But together..."
"What do you want us to do?" Sabrina asked.
"I'm thinking," Bex said, "of an intervention of sorts."
"Meaning?"
"A couple of months ago, at the Nationals, I had a confession from a killer — "
"Oh, yes," Gina bubbled. "I saw that. He killed that poor girl, then strung her up to make it look like an accident. You got that monster to confess live on TV!"
"Well, not exactly. What I actually had was a confession he made only to me, one that I couldn't prove. I then set him up to confess to someone else. What he didn't know was I had a camera running the whole time. That was the confession we broadcast."
"You want us to do something similar here?" Toni didn't look at all pleased by the prospect.
"Well, optimally, if I could set it up..."
"No," Toni said. "Absolutely not."
'Toni," Gabrielle offered diplomatically, "if we do what Bex asks, we can prove that Chris wasn't responsible for Lucian's death. We can get this settled once and for all."
"I am not against speaking to Chris, per se," Toni clarified. "I just don't want to have it videotaped. The fact is, we have no idea what sort of information might come out of this — what did you call it, Bex? This intervention? I am not about to offer it up to 24/7 for their infinite free use."
"She has a point," Gina agreed.
"So you'll do it?" Bex asked. "If I promise no cameras, just the four of you in a room with Chris — and, well, me, too. You have to let me be there. I've been living and breathing this case for days. I have to see how it ends. You'll do it?"
They all exchanged nervous glances. The wordless communication in the room could have made an abstract ballet.
Toni finally spoke for the entire group. "We'll do it."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SKATINGANDSTUFF.COM MESSAGE BOARD
FROM: LuvsLian Posted at 9:34 AM
Wasn't it Eleanor who opened the paper and found out Lucian was marrying Gina and this was before they were even divorced?
FROM: Sk8luv4ever Posted at 9:36 AM
No, it was Toni. Eleanor died in a car accident, I think, and then Lucian married Gina just a few months later. Get your facts straight.
* * *
"What exactly is going on?" Chris asked.
He'd walked into the coaches' lounge at Bex's request, only to come face-to-face with an all-female swarm. And Bex locking the door behind them.
Chris looked from Gabrielle to Toni to Gina to Sabrina to Bex. He said, "Can't help feeling there's a Macbeth joke just dying to come out."
"Did it already," Sabrina responded dryly.
"Apparently," Gina added, stealing a peek in Toni's direction, "we're several witches over the limit."
"Ah, well. So what's this about, then?”
Suddenly, none of the assembled had anything to say. The room became a roller derby of eyes meeting, then quickly recoiling away, of awkwardly shifting feet, of hands that couldn't find a spot to settle, and of heads diving into hunched shoulders, turtle style.
Chris gave them a minute to come up with a single, coherent thought. When that wasn't forthcoming, he said, "Well, we're a few months off my birthday, so this can't be a surprise party. My immigration status has been settled — special talent visa, thank you very much — since I was fourteen, so you all aren't planning to turn me over to the INS. And I don't suppose Bex needed the lot of you on hand to conduct my pre-interview in advance of the tribute. So I'm going to step out on the proverbial limb and presume that we've all gathered here today, this one man and five women, to cross-examine me about our mutual, dearly beloved, dearly departed friend, Lucian Pryce."
"Wow," Bex said. "And I thought I could pretzel any simple phrase into an overcomplicated mess."
"I come by it honestly. I am English."
"This is about Lucian," Gina agreed.
"Bex thinks..." Sabrina began.
"We wanted to hear your side of the story," Gabrielle interjected.
"Because God knows, you're good at keeping secrets." That was from Gina.
"Bex did make a convincing argument...." Toni said.
"Did you kill Lucian?" Bex, tired of the runaround — and afraid he might start doing linguistic gymnastics again; that was her job — cut to the chase.
Chris looked at Bex. He looked at Toni, Gina, Sabrina, and finally, for the longest time, at Gabrielle.
He was still looking at her when he said, "Yes."
Bex was the one who'd initially entertained the possibility of Chris being Lucian's killer. She was the one who'd concocted the entire scenario of how and when. Yet, in the end, she was also the one who appeared most shocked by his (surprisingly effortless) confession. Everyone else barely blinked. After fighting Bex over so much as questioning Chris only an hour earlier, each woman now looked as if she'd known the truth all along.
"Why?" Sabrina demanded.
"That would be my business, darling."
"Oh, no." Was Gina actually enjoying this now? She sure sounded like she was enjoying it. "I'd say it was all our business. We all might have had moments of wanting to do Lucian in. But you're the only one who actually went ahead and did it. I'd say we deserve an explanation."
"Or a vicarious thrill," Sabrina piped up. No question there, Lucian's daughter was definitely getting a kick out of the proceedings.
"Hush, Sabrina," Toni said. And then, in an equally firm tone, "Christian, we're waiting."
"For what? For me to draw you a color diagram? What would be the point? I'm certain Miss Levy here has already drawn all the necessary arrows."
Bex said, "You flew up from California the night before he died. You had dinner with him and Gina – " A quick, pleading look from the newly widowed Mrs. Pryce told Bex that while Gina was eager to hear the details of Chris's sins, she wasn't nearly as enthused about the prospect of airing her own. And so Bex declined to elaborate on his evening with the Pryces. "Then, afterwards, you used a copy of the key to his office to break in and mess up Lucian's skates with your handy-dandy blade-sharpening stone. Then you hopped back on a plane, returned to
California, and arrived back with Gabrielle the next morning."
"That's a pretty lame alibi," Sabrina offered.
"It wasn't supposed to be one," Chris said.
Bex asked, "You mean you didn't plan this in advance? Killing Lucian? It was some kind of spur-of-the-moment thing?"
Chris shrugged, but he didn't deny.
"Then why the two flights back and forth?"
Chris looked first at Gina, then furtively at Gabrielle. "I — I had something I needed to discuss with Lucian. Privately."
In other words, Chris hadn't wanted Gabrielle to know that the evening before they were scheduled to fly to Colorado together, he planned on flaunting the fact that he'd been sleeping with Lucian's wife in the great man's face.
Sabrina asked, "But weren't you scared Gina or I would tell the police you were in town earlier?”
"The police?” Chris swept one arm around the room. "Do you see the police here anywhere? An old man falls down while skating. What's there in such a tale to be of interest to the police?”
"Bex figured it out," Gina said.
"Bex works for television."
"I still don't understand why," Toni said softly. "You loved him, Christian."
"Not as much as we all apparently thought," Gina chimed in.
"I did love him," Chris admitted. "And he claimed he loved me. He claimed he wanted what was best for me."
"He did," Toni insisted. "Lucian was a good coach. He cared about his students."
"He loved you like a son," Sabrina concurred. "No. He loved you more than that."
"He made you a two-time Olympic Gold medallist," Gina said. As if there was no better evidence of Lucian's devotion.
"Yes. And the first time, I couldn't have been more grateful."
"The first time..." Gabrielle repeated. She hadn't spoken a word up to that point. While the other women gleefully descended on Chris for detail and clarification, Gabrielle had hung back, never taking her eyes off of him.
