“What about the two of you?” Jack asked. “Did you take up where you left off?”
“A time or two,” he said. “But ten years is a long time and things had changed. We both knew it. But like I said, we had a history, and sometimes that’s nice.”
“A source told us you two were hooked up right before she started dating Peter Trest,” Jack said. “The source told us you were jealous and overbearing. That you fought.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You tell us,” Jack said.
“The theater world is kind of incestuous, for lack of a better term. Everyone gets passed around. It’s just the culture. We’re dramatic and like to pretend that we suffer for our art, or that we’re never appreciated for our true genius. It’s no secret that Juliet and I have taken each other for a spin off and on over the last twenty something years. But I wasn’t jealous. What I was was pissed. And yeah, we fought. I was her safety net. Every time she moved on from one man to the next, she’d stop by my place so I could patch up her broken heart and she could move on to the next guy. I was sick of it. She’s kept me tied up in knots since I was fifteen years old.”
“That must have made you angry,” I said sympathetically.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’d like to have a life at some point. Maybe settle down and have a kid or two. And I told her that, but she didn’t care. She told me she wanted to try again, just the two of us, and see if we could make it work this time. She even popped out a tear or two so it looked like she was sincere.”
“She wasn’t?”
“Hell no,” Bruno said. “There wasn’t a sincere bone in her body. I felt sorry for the girl she was, but the woman she became was a narcissistic she-devil. I told her I was done with her and not to show up at my door again because she wasn’t satisfied with someone else. I told her to go home to her husband and try to make that work for a change instead of ruining some other guy’s life. We got loud, I guess, and she threw a couple of things at me and the neighbor called the cops. By the time they got there she’d already left.”
“And then she started dating Peter Trest?” Jack asked.
Bruno had this far-off look in his eyes, and he was staring at the wall to my left. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer.
“That’s what I heard,” he said. “I took a break from the Curtain Call for a month or so, but when I came back she was hooked up with him. We didn’t really have reason to talk much over the last couple of months. She seemed happy for the first time since I can remember. She was kind of getting her cake and eating it too between her husband and Trest.”
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt Juliet?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Not really. For all Juliet’s faults, people liked her. She was fun. The life of the party. Even the guys whose hearts she broke a little still liked her. She was never mean when she broke things off with a guy, and they usually stayed friends or at least cordial. She had a couple of angry wives come at her a time or two. A man’s marital status never mattered much to her. She always said if they didn’t care about their vows then she didn’t know why she should.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Jack asked.
It was the first time I felt like we were getting a real emotion from him and not something rehearsed like a line from a play. His mouth dropped open in surprise and he shook his head slowly.
“No way,” he said. “Juliet couldn’t have kids. That’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” I assured him. “She was about four months along.”
His eyes narrowed and there was a flash of rage in them so vivid I could most definitely see him killing Juliet in anger. Someone who had an intimate relationship with her. Someone who’d been used by her over and over again.
“We can do a paternity test and see if the child was yours,” I told him.
The anger drained and he just looked sad. “What’s the point? She’s gone. There’s no baby. It is what it is. I loved her a long time ago. I’ll remember the girl I knew instead of the woman. It’s better that way.”
“One more question,” Jack said. “Do you know Jody Burkett?”
A look of confusion came across his face, but he nodded. “Of course I do,” he said. “Mrs. Burkett was our theater teacher. She retired a few years ago. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“She’s dead,” Jack said. “Murdered in her own home.”
“What? What the hell is happening?”
Jack and I got to our feet.
“Am I a suspect?” Bruno asked.
“I wouldn’t leave town, Mr. Corelli,” Jack said. “We might have more questions for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Any word from Betsy?” I asked as we got back into the Tahoe.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m sure the postal service is running behind with the weather. What do you say we pay a surprise visit to Peter Trest? Our warrant might be delayed, but maybe he’ll let us in for cooperation’s sake so he doesn’t look guilty.”
“Guys like that don’t care if they look guilty,” I said. “I guarantee he’s already got expensive lawyers on standby. But we’re thinking along the same lines. He’s a man intrigued by the theater. He loves it enough to have bought the Curtain Call and then spent millions on renovations. He’s an artist. I wonder if he’s got experience with makeup.”
“He fits the build on the man the witness saw,” Jack said. “A whole lot better than Bruno Corelli. But we can’t rule Corelli out. The witness said it was dark and the guy was kind of hunched over. And the description Doug gave was of a bigger guy, fuller in the face.”
“That still doesn’t explain the beard,” I said.
“If makeup artists can glue a beard on Gandalf, I’m sure it can be done to someone like Bruno Corelli.”
“Aww, look at you with your nerd reference,” I said, batting my eyelashes. “You learned so much during the Campus-Con case.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows Gandalf. Knowing the name is like knowing who Santa Claus is. It hardly counts as nerd lore.”
My lips twitched with laughter. “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
Cole’s call interrupted our discussion. “Thank God,” Jack said. “What’s up, Cole?”
“We’re wrapping things up at the crime scene,” he said. “Should be out of here in the next hour and we’ll head to your place. You’re buying dinner.”
Jack smiled. “Don’t I always?”
“I can’t buy for everyone on my lowly salary,” Cole said. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“Oh, good,” Jack said. “I was wondering where that extra money was supposed to go. I’ve just been tossing it out the window. You got anything else for me?”
“Yeah, I called to tell you I got the run on the yellow Ford Fusion. Registered to Donald Lightfoot. It’s his daughter’s car. She’s sixteen and left her purse and keys inside. Apparently, she has a bad habit of doing that.”