Connie huffed off to reapply the pound of eye shadow she always wore. I looked at George and shrugged, trying not to laugh.
“Excuse me, Ms. Peterson? I’m Mike, your driver. We really have to go. Traffic, you know?” The limo driver had poked his head in the door.
“Of course, Mike. We’ll be right out. Thanks.” Then I turned to George. “Thank you so much. This was fun. Watch tonight. And pray that I don’t trip.” I squeezed a couple hundreds into his hand. He opened his mouth to protest. “Don’t even think about it!”
He kissed my cheeks and grabbed his stuff. “Thanks for the hair dryer!” he yelled as he headed down the walk.
Connie and I shuffled out toward the limo, being careful not to drag anything or scuff our shoes. I love limos. They always make you feel festive.
We got in the car. I smiled. “This is gonna be fun, huh? I’m excited. Like George said, it’s just one big party!” Yeah, right. One big murder party.
Chapter 4
I don’t mind admitting I was freaked out, but it was nothing compared to the chicken-without-a-head act they were doing backstage and in the control room. The director was screaming at somebody, anybody, to drop the curtain.
I was hustled off the stage and then bumped and jostled as people started running around.
“Are you all right?”
I turned. Dave Crane’s assistant, Kenny, was eye ing me solicitously.
“Yes, I—I think I am,” I said. I looked down at my hands, which had blood on them. They were shaking. I tried to stop it by wringing them but that just flung the drops around. Finally I started rubbing my hands together so it wasn’t so noticeable. Maybe I wasn’t doing so great after all. In the end I just held them out, trying to keep the blood as far away from my gown as possible.
“Why don’t you go and wash up?” He seemed to have a hard time looking me in the eye.
“Yeah, I will in a minute.” I stared back at the center of the stage.
Somebody had succeeded in lowering the curtain, but now people were just standing around, staring at poor Jackson’s body, trying to avoid stepping in any blood. At least they were smart enough not to try to lower him all the way.
Special security had been hired for the awards, and they took charge, locking the place down, not allowing anyone to leave. The police arrived quickly, flooding the auditorium with uniforms. People were getting antsy. The self-important were demanding to be released. The TV cameras had been turned off; the station must have put on some other programming.
Connie had come backstage to stay with me. I think it was more for her own sake than for mine, though.
“I don’t know how you can stand that,” she said when she saw me.
“What?” I asked.
“You look like something out of one of your early horror movies. You have blood on your forehead,” she said, pointing, “and in your hair. Uh-oh. It looks like that borrowed bracelet got it, too.”
I looked down at my wrist, and sure enough, the cuff had drops of blood on it.
“I’m sure that’s the last thing the jewelry store thought would happen,” Connie said.
“Have you seen Mara?” I asked. “I have to get this stuff back to her ASAP.” My eyes were darting all over. While looking around for Mara, I realized this place was a logistical nightmare!
“I hope the cops are blocking off the rear exits. There are a lot of ways someone could get out of here.” I looked up at the ceiling of the auditorium. “Not to mention, I’m sure there are trapdoors up there leading to the roof.”
Connie stared at me.
“What?”
“Who the hell are you, anyway? What is it about murder that brings out your Nancy fucking Drew?”
I didn’t tell her that I was trying not to scream, which had been my first instinct when I saw Jackson’s body. My whole body felt tense as I continued to force that scream back down my throat.
Uniformed police started to gather near Jackson’s body.
Connie had a tight hold on my arm.
“Connie, you’re cutting off my circulation,” I told her, freeing my arm from her clutches.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m not as hard-boiled as you. All this blood is making me queasy.”
I took offense to that. “I’m not hard-boiled, Connie. I feel awful about what’s happened to Jackson. I can’t even comprehend it. . . .”
“Yeah . . . whatever. This is some fuckin’ tragedy, very sad.” She paused. “But it could work for you.”
Connie, ever the opportunist. Now who was hard-boiled? I know how she works, but this was just a little over the top.
“I don’t want to cash in on Jackson’s death.”
“Why not? Look what your involvement in Marcy’s death did for you.”
“Yeah, I had to leave a job I loved.”
“You did a movie after that, didn’t you?”
“It went straight to DVD. Connie, I can’t talk about this now.”
People rushed past us, off the stage, on the stage, most of them with panic-filled, glassy eyes. They didn’t know where to go or what to do.
“Uh-oh,” Connie said.
“What?”
“Boyfriend cop at eleven o’clock.”
I went to three other places on the dial before I finally found him. Detective Frank Jakes.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Here he comes,” she said. “I’ll . . . go find Mara.”
I turned and saw Jakes walking toward me, followed by his partner, Detective Len Davis. Since they hauled Marcy Blanchard’s murderer out of the canal behind my house months ago, Jakes had called a couple of times to try to set something up. The first time he said he needed to tie up a few loose ends. I put him off and tied up his faux loose ends on the phone. The second time he asked if we could have a drink. I begged off. The third time he actually asked me out to dinner. I told him I’d call him back. I never did. That had been a month ago, and he hadn’t called since then. God, I thought now, that had been so mean. . . .
The problem—well, not actually a problem, per se—was I had a boyfriend, Paul Silas, a crime scene investigator in private practice. The other problem was I had found Jakes attractive at the time, and watching him walk toward me now, it was clear that hadn’t gone away. If anything, he looked even better.
I’d forgotten how blue his eyes were.
“You didn’t have to get yourself involved in another murder just to see me,” he said as he reached me.
I looked past him and said, “Hello, Detective Davis.”
“Ms. Peterson. Frank, I’m gonna . . .”
“Okay.”
Davis faded away.
“Alex?”
“Yes? Oh, I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”
“I asked how you were,” Jakes said, “but maybe I should ask how you are?”
“I’m not so good, Detective,” I said. “Jackson was a friend of mine. I’ve got his blood on me.” I held my hands out to him like a frightened little girl.
“You knew the deceased?” He was looking at me funny when he asked this. My dress left little to the imagination but he didn’t have to be so obvious.
“His name is—I mean was—Jackson Masters,” I said. “We’re on the same show, and we were supposed to present an award together. He was running late, or a no-show, we all thought, but then . . . this.” I waved at the stage.
“Uh-huh,” he said, staring at me.
I looked him square in the eye and raised my eyebrow. “Do you think this is really the right time and place, Detective Jakes?”
He looked at me, puzzled, and then it registered. He smiled. “Alex, go wash up. . . . You’re a mess.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Come back because I have a few questions for you. Don’t worry. I don’t think you’re going to make a run for it!”
“No, I mean I can’t. You’re on my train!”
He stepped aside, revealing two dark and dirty footprints clearly imprinted on my extremely expensive borrowed gown.
We looked at each other.
“Stupid train,” I grumbled as I made my way to the bathroom.
Chapter 5
When I got into the ladies’ room and saw myself in the mirror, I nearly lost it. Connie hadn’t told me exactly how awful I looked. There was blood in my hair, on my forehead, and on the bridge of my nose. No wonder Jakes had been looking at me like that. I even had blood in my cleavage. Before I tried to fix myself, I ran into one of the stalls and suffered some dry heaves. I was lucky I hadn’t eaten much before coming to the theater.
I did my best with paper towels and lukewarm water, and then I tried to get my hair back into some semblance of order. When I finished up I looked like a member of the B-52s. Only not as good.
I left the ladies’ room and worked my way backstage. Everything was still in chaos there as well as in the front of the house, where the cops were taking names and addresses.
Connie spotted me and started over.
“Al, I found Mara. They won’t let her come over here before they finish questioning people. I’ll give her the jewelry.” She held her hand out. I took the earrings and cuff off and gave them to her.
“Thanks, Connie.” She walked off to the back of the stage. I turned and saw Jakes coming toward me
.
“Hey, you look . . . better.”
“Thank you.” I tried to muster up a little dignity. “So, what happens now?”
“This is a crime scene. We’re locked down.”
“Are you going to let people go home?”
“Eventually,” he said. “As soon as we get all their particulars.”
“You could get a complete list of attendees from the producer.”
“That’ll be helpful,” he admitted, “but there’s bound to be some people who aren’t on the list. Seat fillers. Event crashers. Right?”
“Yeah, a lot of seat fillers.”
“Okay, so we’re gonna be here a while.”
“Do you know how poor Jackson was killed?”
“They’re taking him down now,” Jakes said. “I didn’t see any obvious wounds. He’s bleeding, but we can’t tell from where. The chain is around his neck. We’ll need the ME to answer your question.”
“Oh.”
“Do you have to get home to your daughter?” he asked.
“No.” I hesitated before I said, “Uh . . . she and my mom are out of town.”
“Really? I thought you and Sarah were glued at the hip.”
“Oh, yeah. We are. It’s just that it’s a family reunion back east. I couldn’t get off work so I sent them without me.” I was nodding my head up and down as I said this. Why did this guy make me so nervous?
“Okay . . . so do you want to leave?” he asked. “I can have somebody take you home. How did you get here?”
“Limo,” I said. “I can go home the same way.”
“Well, if your driver’s in the building, he won’t be getting out until late.”
“I see.”
He wasn’t looking at me when he asked me the next question. “Do you want to call your boyfriend to come over?”
“No.” I hesitated just a hair too long. “He’s out of town . . . on location.”
Then he looked at me. And held my eyes. “So I can have someone drive you home,” he said, “or . . . you can wait around and I’ll drive you myself.”
“Aren’t you keeping me here as a suspect? Like last time?”
He smiled. “No, this time I’m not looking at you as a suspect.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think you would have been crawling around up in the rafters in that dress.”
“Thanks for that.”
“So, that ride?” he said.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll wait around for that ride . . . with you,” I told him. I had a lot of questions to ask about the case. I couldn’t help myself and tried to convince myself my interest in true crime was the only reason I wanted to ride with him.
“All right, Alex,” he said, lightly touching my arm. It was unnerving and weirdly thrilling all at the same time. “Is there any coffee around here?”
“Sure,” I said. “There’s craft services back here, for the show’s hosts and presenters. Come with me.”
Gradually people began to leave the auditorium. But behind the scenes, nobody was going anywhere because they had all been close to the body when it fell. Apparently everybody backstage qualified higher on the list of potential suspects than people in front of the house did. If Jakes was telling the truth, I was the exception.
But based on all of my past dealings with Detective Frank Jakes, I knew he couldn’t be counted on to always tell the truth.
But then again, who could?
Chapter 6
“Okay,” Jakes said when we were both in his car and heading for my house, “fill me in on this Jackson character.”
“Jackson Masters is—was—one of the young hunks of the soap world.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“A lot of the time,” I said, “it means not much acting talent but great abs.”
“A lot of the time?”
“Jackson had some talent. I think in a few years he would have developed his acting chops and had a decent career.”
“So who didn’t want him to move on?”
“You got me.”
“No ideas?”
“None.”
“Come on, Alex,” he said. “You’re my in to the soap world—my expert.”
“Sorry, Detective,” I said, “but on the set Jackson was pretty well liked.”
“And off the set?”
“I didn’t socialize with him.”
“Did he ever come on to you?” Jakes asked.
“What a cliché! Not all actors come on to each other! We’re not always jumping in the sack with anything that moves!”
Jakes was quiet.
I was quiet, too. The fact of the matter was that soon after I joined
B&B
, Jackson did hit on me. Or, at least, he flirted. I hated having to tell Jakes he was right, but I also didn’t want to get in the way of his investigation. If Jackson had been killed
because
of the way he hit on women, then I needed to come clean.
“Okay, so shut up. He hit on me once,” I said, “but I brushed it aside, didn’t pay much attention to it, and he moved on.”