After dinner, Marla and Rex excused themselves and returned to his condo, leaving Kitty and Hub to process all that had taken place in the last few hours. They had their own thoughts to process.
“I continue to marvel at what a small world this is,” Marla said as she sipped a glass of red wine.
Rex seated himself next to her on the sectional. “The fact that Hub Sherman knew our victim? That’s on me. I should’ve realized there might be a connection, knowing they were in the same business.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Kitty’s been pretty choosy what she’s told us about the guy. All we knew about was his connection to that flour company. Instead, focus on what we just learned about the relationship between Eloise and Chloe. What we suspected about that free lodging at the new apartment is probably true. Eloise was pimping Chloe. Chloe knew it and didn’t like it. But she went along with it anyhow. Her motive for murdering her boss just got stronger.”
“I thought I’ve taught you not to jump to conclusions immediately.” He held up a hand. “It’s likely, but we need to be sure.”
“I know. I haven’t jumped completely. Maybe just a short hop. So how do you propose we prove it?”
“Time to get them to start turning on each other,” Rex said. “This could get ugly. Hope you have the stomach for it.”
Marla recalled her early years on stage. She’d had to learn fast that not everyone told the truth or had her best interests at heart. She’d been so excited when she got her first part in an off-off-Broadway play because it meant she could begin to replenish her diminishing bank account. Then the show closed after two nights. The backers disappeared, and she never saw a penny of what was owed her. She’d had to pawn a ring given to her by her grandmother just for grocery money.
“Survival in the entertainment industry is not meant for the faint of heart,” she told Rex. Loyalty was a treasured quality in the industry, because it was so easy to turn on friends when parts, money or celebrity were up for grabs. And though she tried not to go there, even as recently as last year that lesson kept repeating itself. She’d trusted the Carruthers showrunners to honor her contract and keep her in the role of Letitia Carruthers, and look how that had turned out. “Are you suggesting if we want to know about the real Chloe, we start with Tanner?”
“You read my mind,” he said, patting her on the back.
“But rather than ask Chloe her opinion of Tanner, why don’t we switch it up with Nell? We ask Nell about Grace and Grace about Brecken.”
“That leaves asking Brecken about Tanner. Does he know him that well?” Rex asked.
“They’ve been playing on the same team a while. We’ll just have to find out.”
“Thanks for meeting me here,” Tanner told them when he greeted them at a coffee shop near his apartment the next morning. “I felt the walls coming at me when we met at my place yesterday.”
“This shouldn’t take as long today,” Rex told him. “We got most of your background information yesterday. Have you had a chance to reflect on how you described Chloe Reardon?”
“You mean, do I want to revise what I told you after thinking overnight about my interview with you? No. I actually fixed myself a champagne cocktail to celebrate having had the nerve to speak my mind for once. I wouldn’t change what I told you.”
“The Chloe we interviewed appeared to be young and innocent, almost naive. That’s a far cry from the devious woman you described. Was she playing us?” Marla asked.
“That’s for you to decide,” he replied. “But since you said, ‘appeared to be young and innocent,’ that makes me think you saw it too. She trades on her youth, and Eloise bought it. Not that she didn’t see through it, but Chloe’s seeming innocence allowed Eloise to be the self-centered control freak she was. Some clients like the wide-eyed sweetness thing. Makes them feel they’re not the self-aggrandizing bullies they really are. Eloise was smart enough to realize she couldn’t fit that mold but wanted to cater to it, so she was mentoring Chloe for that role.”
“Are you saying that Chloe wasn’t unaware that Eloise was using her, forcing her to use her innocence with clients?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“How do you know?” Rex asked. “Did she ever tell you what she was up to or complain about Eloise’s treatment?”
“No, she would never confide like that to me. She marked me as the one to shut out from the first day of her internship. I was too flattered to realize then that she was playing me. She kept asking me what I thought about this and how I’d deal with that. More than once she thanked me for giving her the ‘inside track.’ She even batted her eyes once or twice and touched my forearm like we were confidantes.”
“We hear you, Tanner, but that’s just your interpretation of her actions. What solid evidence do you have that she’s not so innocent?” Marla asked.
Tanner started to respond then stopped. “Why are you giving Chloe so much attention?” He stopped again. “Do you think she killed Eloise?”
“We didn’t say that, but you have. Our job is to test out your opinion,” Rex said.
Tanner sipped his macchiato, considering. “I guess I understand. I thought I had been giving you evidence.”
“You’ve made a good start. But we need to know actual things she said or did, especially if you’ve got any proof,” Marla told him.
“But that’s the problem, what I’ve been saying about her. She’s smart enough not to provide hard evidence.”
“Maybe if we asked you a few questions?” Rex asked.
Tanner put his cup down. “Ask away.”
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Rex began. “Tell us about the first time you ran into Chloe. What did she say? How did she introduce herself?”
“Actually, it was Eloise who introduced us. They’d just concluded the meeting where Chloe had accepted Eloise’s offer of a paid internship. It was supposed to be for her next-to-last semester of school, but Eloise extended it through the second semester. Chloe smiled a lot but didn’t say much. That’s when Eloise announced I’d be moving to a different desk location so that Chloe could take mine. At least I got to keep my desk. I held my peace and didn’t protest, knowing it would do no good once Eloise made up her mind. But as they were moving on from me I heard her say to Chloe, ‘Good idea seating you close to me so we can work closely.’ Chloe shot me this Cheshire Cat look that let me know she’d engineered the move.”
“You’re saying that Chloe was manipulative right from the start?” Marla asked.
“It’s not the kind of hard evidence you want because it only involved Chloe, me and Eloise, but that should tell you how it was from the start.”
“Did anyone else observe your interactions with Chloe?” Rex asked.
“It was mainly the four of us in the office, so eliminating Eloise and Chloe, that only leaves Nell. You should ask her directly what she recalls about working with Chloe, but one incident comes to mind that involved both Nell and me. You probably heard how Eloise was always pushing the limits with finances. Besides giving more and more of my work to Chloe, Eloise also turned over more and more financial tasks to her, not that Chloe was supposed to handle the accounting, but Eloise made her a go-between with Nell. Probably because she wanted to avoid having to constantly justify her spending to Nell. The thing is, Chloe quickly became another Eloise and challenged Nell at every juncture. More than once she said something like, ‘Consider whatever I tell you to do the same as Eloise telling you to do it.’ Nell responded once with, ‘Don’t try throwing your weight around with me. I’m the one who knows where all the bodies are buried around here. Eloise needs me.’ You’d think that would be enough to put Chloe in her place. ‘We’ll just see about that,’ Chloe told her.”
He paused, searched Rex’s face. “Is that the kind of thing you needed to know?”
“Did you personally observe that particular scene?” Rex asked, not answering his question.
“Yes. I’d been talking to Nell when Chloe came up to her. She didn’t wait for me to leave before she delivered her message.”
“Okay, thanks. We’ll check that out,” Rex said. “Anything else come to mind?”
Tanner took a few more sips of his beverage. “Maybe talk to Eloise’s ex, Brecken. He and Eloise may not get along all that well, but that hasn’t kept him from stopping by every so often. Not too long ago, he and Chloe were talking in our break room when I walked in. ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ he said. ‘It’s free rent. Who would turn that down?’ she replied. ‘You can’t believe it’s really free,’ he told her. ‘What does Eloise expect in return?’ That’s when it got interesting. I was surprised she didn’t wait for me to leave or suggest I get out of there, but she didn’t. I’m guessing she didn’t consider me any kind of challenge. ‘What do you think? She’s smart enough to realize she’s past the age of properly handling her out-of-state visitors. She needs me.’ What does that tell you?”
It told Marla a lot more than they got from Chloe. If Nell and Brecken confirmed what Tanner had just related, the young woman was not the innocent she tried to present to them. It didn’t make her the killer, but it did suggest she’d been hiding her real self from them.
“Thank you. We’ll add what you’ve told us to our notes.”
“Yeah, thanks, Oliver,” Rex said. “If anything else occurs to you …”
“Get in touch. Got it,” Tanner replied.
They grabbed their coffees to go and left Tanner to finish his macchiato back at the coffee shop.
“That was a great idea,” Marla said once they were in the car. “Although it may be more difficult to get the rest of our suspects to rat out the others than it was with Tanner.”
“True, but thanks to Tanner, all we have to do to get started with Nell and Brecken is to verify what he overheard. Then we take it from there.”