Chapter 14

As I left the bar, I felt as woozy and disoriented as Dame Sylvia did but I was, in fact, stone-cold sober. This was a nightmare. Charlie and I had been together for four glorious years. Were they glorious to both of us or just me? Was I one of those ignorant spouses who ignored the warning signs and blindly skipped along, oblivious to my spouse’s unhappiness and discontent? Was he sticking it out just to appease me, waiting for some smooth-talking Bollywood heartthrob to sweep him off his feet so he could finally be rid of me? My insecurities bubbled brightly to the surface, making me question every self-absorbed action or comment I had made during our entire relationship. Two years ago I had forgotten his birthday while shooting an intensely dramatic episode of Joan of Arcadia. I was so wrapped up in my role as a kindly minister who counsels Joan on how to deal with hearing God through the voice of a school crossing guard that I stood up Charlie, who was waiting for me at one of our favorite neighborhood haunts, Off Vine. And on his birthday! Was that the moment he decided he had enough of me? Or was it this play? He had been wounded in the line of duty, and instead of staying by his side, I shot off to London in a desperate attempt to reignite my career. But he had encouraged me to go, insisted I go. So how could I have said no? Should I have more thoroughly examined his desire to be rid of me? I questioned everything. But I still lacked a sufficient number of facts. So Charlie met Akshay in the bar, and they were seen leaving together. Did that necessarily mean they were having an affair or that they were hatching plans to run away together?

I glanced over to Ian, the lanky, young desk clerk, who caught my eye and sadly shook his head. Still no messages from Charlie. I saw Arthur looming by the door, a thin, pitying smile on his face. Word had spread fast throughout the hotel. I had been dumped. I hadn’t slept in almost two days. My eyes were heavy, my body slow and lumbering. I had to rest. And taking a nap would at least be a temporary escape from this hellish turn of events.

While I waited for the elevator, I fumbled for my cell phone and speed dialed Laurette. She was still with Larry in Maui, no doubt soaking up the sun and plenty of mai tais. I had received word early on during my stay in London that they were renting a condo on the beach for six weeks because his Disney film had been pushed back a few months after his rising tween star got busted for DUI. Larry was using the free time to work on a new romantic comedy script, which Laurette promised would blow the lid off the Internet dating scene. I got her voice mail, which was no surprise. Why answer your phone if you’re in Hawaii? I waited for the beep.

“Laurette, it’s me. Please call me when you get this. I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but things aren’t going well. And I just need to hear your voice. I’ll fill you in when you call. But please call back soon. I love you,” I said.

I clicked off the phone and tried to keep it together until I was safely hidden back inside my hotel room.

A bell rang, and the gold elevator doors opened to reveal Wallace Goodwin’s wife, Katrina. She wore a gray turtleneck sweater and black pants with a charcoal overcoat. She gripped the handle of a Pierre Cardin carry-on suitcase that rolled behind her. A pair of oversized dark sunglasses nearly covered her whole face. She didn’t even acknowledge me as she brushed past, heading straight for the checkout desk.

“Katrina?” I said.

She stopped and pivoted on her heel. The Savoy was dimly lit during all hours of the day, so Katrina had to lower her gigantic glasses in order to make sure it was me. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying.

“Jarrod, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you . . .” Her voice cracked and trailed off.

“Is everything okay?” I said.

She nodded, but her eyes welled up with tears and she pushed her sunglasses back up over her face to hide them.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Wallace? Isn’t he going with you?”

She stood there, not sure what to do or say. Her whole body started to shake, and I thought for a moment she might collapse to the floor. She was a far cry from the chatty woman I had encountered in Starbucks with her husband just five weeks earlier. I bounded over and gave her a hug.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing, Jarrod. I’m fine. Please, I need to hurry. I have to get to Heathrow. I don’t want to miss my flight home.”

“Did you and Wallace have a fight?” I said.

Katrina’s greatest fear was showing any cracks in her picture-perfect life. That was completely unacceptable. She didn’t want anyone looking down on her, or judging her, or feeling sorry for her. It was important to present a strong, united front even if things were crashing down behind the scenes. Despite the teardrops streaming down her face behind her huge sunglasses, she tried valiantly to keep a smile on for appearance sake.

“Everything’s fine, Jarrod, but thank you for your concern. Are you and Charlie staying in town for a while longer to enjoy the sights?” she said, finally getting a hold of her emotions.

“Charlie’s not here. I don’t know where he is,” I said. “I haven’t said this out loud to anybody, but . . . but I think he may be having an affair . . . with Akshay.”

Katrina burst into tears. I had no idea she was so invested in my relationship with Charlie.

“I don’t really have concrete proof or anything,” I said, taking her hand and trying to calm her down. “But there does seem to be a disturbing amount of circumstantial evidence.”

Katrina sat down in one of the big white and pink striped plush chairs in the lobby. I kneeled down next to her, still gripping her hand. She was sobbing now, gasping for breath, losing her composure completely.

“I’m sorry, Jarrod, I’m sorry, I’m never like this . . .” she wailed.

This was not news to me. Usually she was so tightly wound she could be used as a ball of yarn for a cat to playfully swat around.

“I know, Katrina, I know, but maybe you’d feel better if you just let it all out. Tell me what’s wrong,” I said.

She finally removed her sunglasses to reveal a hollow-eyed, pale, exhausted face. Katrina had gotten about as much sleep recently as I had.

“I understand your fears about Charlie,” she said, still crying. “More than you know.”

“Wallace?”

She nodded. I was stunned. Wallace just never seemed the type to cheat. He was so devoted to his hot little number of a wife. I used to see him gaze at her with a look of utter disbelief as if it were inconceivable to him that he was able to snare such a remarkable catch for himself. He was devoted to her and would do just about anything to preserve their relationship and protect her from any harm. Which left the million-dollar question.

“Who?”

Katrina took a long, sharp intake of breath before she reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a tissue, and began systematically dabbing away the dreaded tears that had so maliciously smudged her face. “Claire.”

I nearly fell out of my chair. Wallace and Claire? Impossible. They were so different. Claire was so vibrant and sexual, and a real live wire. She was like a rich chocolate confection in an expensive stainless-steel dessert cup. And Wallace, well, he was just so Jell-O pudding. Of course, I couldn’t exactly share these feelings with Katrina since, after all, she was married to the guy.

“Katrina, are you sure?”

“I found this,” she said, pulling an aqua blue crystal earring out of her pocket and dangling it in front of my face. “It belongs to Claire. I saw her wearing them after the tech rehearsal when we all went out for drinks. I even commented on how beautiful they were. I just found it in our room.”

“But that doesn’t mean she and Wallace . . .” I said. It was still such a fantastic concept to consider. Claire sleeping with Wallace.

“I confronted him with the earring, and he caved faster than a child caught with candy before dinnertime.”

So Wallace was the one I heard with Claire in her dressing room when I delivered her opening-night gift. He would have been the last man in the theater that I would have guessed. I might have even put the flamboyant Sir Anthony ahead of Wallace on the list. Just goes to show you I’m not the crack detective I sometimes like to think I am.

“The sad thing is, Jarrod, he almost sounded proud. Like it was some big accomplishment that he actually got the great Claire Richards to go to bed with him.” Katrina sat up in her chair and sniffed back her flood of emotions, trying desperately to regain some kind of stoic resolve. “At first he was terrified I might find out the truth. He didn’t know why Claire had singled him out, but he decided to go with it. She was probably just using him for sex.”

Highly unlikely, if you asked me, especially given the strapping physical attributes of her Irish lover, Liam.

“Or possibly she was trying to get her role expanded in the play, or Dame Sylvia’s part cut down,” she said.

Now that was a much more likely scenario.

“Whatever the case, I noticed him acting nervous and jumpy, but I assumed he was just jittery over his first play opening. I never dreamed he was hiding something from me,” she said. “When Claire died, I noticed that Wallace seemed almost relieved. No one would ever have to know what had happened between the two of them. But when I confronted him with the earring, he knew the jig was up.”

With all the backstabbing and bed hopping going on at the Apollo Theatre, perhaps if we had mounted a production about the backstage story of Murder Can Be Civilized, it might have been more widely accepted than the far less exciting script written by Wallace.

“So you’ve left him?” I said, resting a comforting hand on Katrina’s arm.

“Yes. I’m going home to Los Angeles,” she said, rising suddenly. “I don’t know if Charlie has been unfaithful to you or not, Jarrod, but let me tell you this. Before today, I would have told you point-blank you were being paranoid. But now, I have to say anything is possible.”

She grabbed her Pierre Cardin carry-on handle and rolled it behind her toward Ian, who waited with a bright smile behind the reservations desk.

I watched her go for a moment before calling out. “Katrina?”

She placed her room key in front of Ian and circled around to face me.

“Were you anywhere near the make-up station at the theater on opening night?” I said. If Dame Sylvia had been telling the truth, that a woman tampered with the make-up, the only other woman even remotely connected to the company besides Minx was the playwright’s wife.

“I wasn’t even at the theater until ten minutes before curtain. I was shopping on Regent Street,” she said.

I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. But if she was telling the truth about just finding out that her husband was sleeping with his leading lady, then she would have had absolutely no motive to mix the peanut oil into Claire’s make-up.

“Have a safe flight home,” I said.

“Thank you, Jarrod,” she said as Arthur hustled over to help her with her bags.

“Excuse me,” a deep voice said from behind me.

I turned around to find Detective Colin Samms and his chubby-faced, bearish partner hovering over me.

“Yes?”

“We need you to come with us,” he said in a grave tone.

This was serious. Something was wrong. My mind instantly went to Charlie. Had they found him? Was he alive? Or . . . The alternative was too grim to even think about.