“And why would Lane want him dead?”
“Yeah, that’s the stickler.” She stabbed into the pasta. “I’ve got to lean toward Lane being the target, and the killer not having the opportunity to stop him—or maybe not especially caring—when Fitzhugh drank the poison.”
“And that winds you back to Vera Harrow, doesn’t it?”
“She stays high on the list. What I don’t get? Ten years ago, the guy says, ‘Hey, it’s been swell, but I’m going to start banging somebody else.’ Or worse—because wouldn’t it be worse?—‘I’m in love with somebody else.’ But she doesn’t stab his ass with a steak knife or bash his brains in with a doorstop in the heat of the moment. Or, alternatively, do either to Lane. Instead, they keep working together until the project that brought Lane into the mix is finished.”
“That’s entertainment.”
“Is it? You’d think she’d at least have punched him in his perfect face. I’d sure as hell put some bruises on you before I injected you with a paralytic, shaved your head, and tied your dick in a knot.”
“How? That particular appendage doesn’t lend itself to knots.”
“I’d find a way. But instead of finding a way, she waits a freaking decade for payback? I just can’t make it play. Something happened now, in the now, I mean. Something more recent triggered the murder.”
“Lane’s going to get global buzz with this revival,” Roarke pointed out. “Not only talking about that, but how she got her start in the same play. And assuming it’s a hit—and it certainly should be—she stands to make a great deal of money not only as the headliner but as one of the producers. For his part, Fitzhugh’s young production company already has considerable success, financially and critically, and he was off to star in one of his own productions, one with a very big budget.
“I was curious there,” he added. “I checked. Everything points to them having a solid, happy marriage, solid, successful careers. And these last ventures? More fame, more fortune.”
“Money and jealousy. Maybe. Maybe. I need to look at the cast and crew again, but every one of them benefits from Lane doing this show, so why kill her—or, alternatively, him?”
“I imagine they held a lot of auditions, and that would mean a great many walked away disappointed.”
“I didn’t get the part, so die, bitch?” She sat back, sipped some wine. “Yeah, I can see that. Then you have to wheedle yourself into the party. A plus-one, a server. A plus-one’s more likely. The caterer’s fierce about screening. But still, a lot of actor types work in food services to pay the rent. I’ll take another look.”
“I could do that for you while you dig down on the cast and crew. You may find it’s not the person who didn’t get the part, but a friend—as you were looking at Sylvie—a relative, a lover. Someone who’d do the deed for someone else.”
Smiling at him, she ate more pork.
And seeing the trap he’d walked straight into, he drank more wine.
“Don’t say it,” he warned. “It’s redundant, as I can bloody hear you thinking it.”
“You can qualify it as thinking like your cop, but any solid cop’s going to go down the same road. There’s also murder for hire, don’t forget that one.”
“Most who audition aren’t going to have the means to hire a killer.”
“They would if the killer’s in the same basic tax bracket, or under. Scrape up a couple of grand. Alternatively, offer sex, or hold something over their heads. Blackmail’s always good for motivation. Or maybe they come from a wealthy family, but only want the limelight.
“What the hell does that mean?” she demanded. “Limes don’t put off light. I hate when I use an expression that’s bone-ass stupid. Anyway, it’s an angle. Struggling actor breaks, decides if I didn’t get the part, nobody does. Maybe it’s more logical to poison whoever got the part instead, but you take out Lane, the whole deal goes down. Plus, she’s a producer, so she probably had input into who got what. I bet she would anyway. Controlling, she said so herself.
“This is good.”
“The food or the angles?”
“Both. The killer doesn’t even have to get close to Lane to kill her, and if that had worked, I’d be looking hard, really hard, at Fitzhugh.”
She wagged her fork, then ate more. “Which is a solid side motive. Pay them both back.”
“And that circles you back to Vera Harrow.”
“She fits. I don’t like the ten-year gap, but otherwise. She came off believable, but that’s what she does, right? Actors have to come off believable.”
She put her fork down. “I can’t eat pie.”
“Later.”
“Do you really have time to run a bunch of actor types who didn’t get a part in this deal?”
“I do, actually. I went back and did a bit of work last night when you were called in. And I expect you’ll show your gratitude for my time and effort.”
“Always a catch. I guess we got interrupted in that area last night.”
“We did. Aren’t we lucky it’s far from our last chance?”
On impulse, she reached over, gripped his hand. “Yeah, we are. The cop in me looks at Lane, sees spouse, suspect. A spouse can always have a motive that doesn’t show on the outside. She had opportunity. And means? I have to figure she has the means to get the means. But the me in me? I know love when I see it now. She loved him. And all the statements, all the indications, all the evidence points to him loving her. They made a unit, and I know what that is now.”
“As do I. As I know there’s a hole in her heart that will never fill again.”
“The dead aren’t the only victims. Your part of the unit got the meal. My part’s got the dishes. You gave Galahad some of that cat candy, didn’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“Thought so.” As she rose, she glanced back to where the cat sprawled over her sleep chair. “You won’t get any out of me, tubby.”
She dealt with the dishes, then went back to her command center. Programmed coffee. Then took ten minutes to just sit, boots up, coffee in hand, to study the board.
The failed audition was a good angle, she thought. It had to sting to be told: No, not good enough. If it happened over and over, did you give up, or keep working that food service job and trying? Some obviously did one or the other, but a certain type could crack, strike out.
Then there was Vera Harrow. Came off believable, but she made her very good living doing just that. Did she finally exact payback?
Eliza Lane. Eve could feel deeply sorry for her and still suspect her.
Sylvie Bowen, longtime loyal friend. Whose lover had just ditched her and stole from her to do it in style. It could put a person in the frame of mind to help a pal kill an errant spouse.
The trouble there? No evidence he was, in any way, errant.
But maybe she just hadn’t found it yet.
And that didn’t consider the loyal assistants. It would pay to dig deeper there.
Cast and crew. On the surface, the opposite of motive. But … What if someone took the job for the express purpose of killing Lane? Someone, or someone connected to someone, she’d fired, rejected, hurt in some way.