Chapter 15
“Do you have any news on my boyfriend, Charlie?” I said. Detective Samms stared at me glumly, his mind working to make sense of what I had just asked him. Obviously he hadn’t given much thought to Charlie’s mysterious disappearance.
“Oh, right,” he said. “No, I’m afraid not. I’ll assign a detective to the case tomorrow if he hasn’t turned up.”
He still believed Charlie had just taken off. And I was starting to suspect the same thing. But if Charlie had indeed ditched me, he would have at least had the good manners to take the time to write me a Dear John letter. That’s what was so frustrating. Not knowing.
Detective Samms and his partner escorted me to a black sedan and whisked me away from the Savoy. I asked why they needed me for follow-up questioning, but they didn’t answer me. After that, we rode in silence. Within minutes, we pulled up to the police station of our first encounter.
As we entered the lobby area, I saw Minx gathering up her belongings from the desk sergeant. Her hair was mussed, her mascara smeared from crying. She was slumped over, humiliated. She had probably never before been seen in public looking like such a mess, and it was killing her.
“You’re letting her go?” I said to Detective Samms.
“Yes,” he said as he gripped my arm tight and steered me down the hall toward his office.
When we were behind closed doors, Samms gestured for me to take a seat. He circled his desk and sat down to face me while his imposing partner remained standing so close behind me I felt his gut pressing into my back as he breathed in and out heavily.
“So Minx didn’t do it?”
“She’s still a suspect,” Samms said. “But we’re putting everyone under a microscope to see what we can find.”
“Let me be the first to tell you that Dame Sylvia’s story is a bit wobbly,” I said. “She’s certain she saw a woman mixing the peanut oil into Claire’s make-up, but she’s not 100 percent convinced it was Minx. She had been drinking and her eyesight may have been a bit, shall we say, compromised,” I said, choosing to be cooperative and hopefully helpful.
Samms nodded. He wasn’t surprised.
“The peanut oil didn’t kill her,” he said.
“What?” I sat up in my chair so fast Samms’s chubby-faced partner clamped his hands down on my shoulders to fasten me back into my seat. He was afraid I was about to lunge at his partner or try to make a run for it.
Samms slid a manila folder across his desk towards me. I picked it up and flipped it open. It was Claire Richards’s medical records.
“Read what’s highlighted at the bottom of the page,” Samms said.
I scanned down to find a doctor’s scribbling that was highlighted with a yellow marker. I had trouble reading it at first, as all doctors have a tendency to write illegibly. But the facts were clear. Claire Richards had only a mild case of peanut allergy. She didn’t even carry an autoin jector that administers epinephrine, which is the leading antidote for a severe reaction. In fact, her case was so mild it would take nearly six ounces of peanuts to cause any swelling or rashes on the skin.
I glanced up at Samms. “So if she didn’t have a massive immune response to the peanut oil, how did she die?”
Samms shrugged. “The medical examiner so far has found no traces of poison in her body but is going back to redo the autopsy. When he found traces of peanut oil on her face and learned of her allergy, he focused mostly on that. He’s afraid he might have missed something.”
“What does any of this have to do with me?” I said.
Samms unfolded the tabloid that featured Liam Killoran’s exclusive interview emblazoned across the front page. “He’s got a lot of interesting things to say about you in here.”
I sighed. “You know, it’s a bit disturbing that the police pay attention to this trash. In case no one has bothered to tell you, they make 99 percent of this stuff up.”
“It’s the 1 percent of truth we’re concerned about,” he countered.
“You actually believe the tabloids?” I said.
“Not necessarily. But Killoran is a very convincing witness.”
“Witness to what? He didn’t see anything. He’s just making all of this up because he hates me,” I said, my face reddening.
The chubby-faced partner finally spoke up. “Is he lying about how you were the one who stole Claire Richards’s Oscar?”
“Yes! I was the one who caught the thief in Claire’s dressing room! He knocked me over as he ran out with it,” I said.
“So what did this thief look like?” Samms said.
“I don’t know. He was wearing a mask. And it all happened so fast,” I said.
Samms drummed his fingers on the desk as he stared me down. “You were the only one out of the entire cast and crew of the play who saw this mysterious intruder?”
“I was early for a meeting and the only one around at the time. Look, what does this have to do with Claire’s death?”
“We’re simply trying to connect all the pieces, Jarrod,” Samms said, never taking his eyes off me. “We just want to talk to everyone who might have had some deeper connection to Ms. Richards.”
“Well, I’ve already told you, I was not sleeping with her. The man you should be talking to is Wallace Goodwin,” I said.
Samms raised an eyebrow, surprised. “The playwright?”
“He was the one who was having an affair with Claire, not me. He was terrified that Claire was going to spill the beans to his wife. And as I’ve already told DI Bowles, I heard someone having sex with Claire in her dressing room minutes before the curtain on opening night. I can only assume it was Wallace. That’s means and a motive.”
Samms jotted a note down on a yellow pad. “You have proof of this?”
“His wife told me,” I said.
“Where can we find her?” Samms said.
My heart sank. “She’s gone.”
Samms eyed me suspiciously. “Gone?”
“She left the country this morning.”
“How convenient,” the partner piped in, a spray of his spittle landing on the back of my neck. I casually reached behind my head and wiped it away with the palm of my hand.
“Okay, assuming Mr. Goodwin was having relations with Ms. Richards in her dressing room on the night she died,” Samms said, “what were you doing lurking outside?”
“I wasn’t lurking!”
“You were obviously eavesdropping.”
“I was delivering a gift,” I said.
“A gift?” Samms flashed his partner a knowing smile.
“Flowers,” I said, instantly regretting it.
“How romantic. You’re a regular Romeo. For someone who was not at all involved with his leading lady.”
“I gave everybody a gift! It’s kind of an opening-night tradition!” I was on the defensive now.
“Did you ever consider the fact that your close relationship with Claire might have something to do with your boyfriend’s disappearance?” Samms said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“It’s all over the papers. Your boyfriend might have picked up a copy, read all about your escapades, and just decided he’d had enough.”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
They were convinced I was hiding something. Liam had managed to twist their minds around enough so that they actually believed I was Claire’s murderer. But I had to remain steadfast and true and know deep in my heart that eventually the true killer would be revealed. That is, if it was a murder now that the peanut oil had been ruled out as the cause of the death. I had to believe that. Just as I had to trust that Charlie would return to me safe and unharmed from wherever he was and still be in love with me. I just had to have faith. For the sake of my own sanity.