Toni settled into the corner of a booth in the cocktail lounge of the Waldorf and dropped her purse at her side. Michael ordered drinks for both of them. After the drinks arrived, Toni said, “I had a slight suspicion in the back of my mind that the phone call wasn’t from Suzanne. But I was so shocked to hear about salacious pictures of me, I could think of nothing beyond hurrying to her house as soon as possible.”
She sipped her drink. “I never posed for Craig, other than publicity photos. Either that’s some other woman in the shots, or else he filmed me through a door that wasn’t quite shut or something. Maybe when I was changing costumes.”
Michael took a swallow and set his glass down. “So where are those pictures?”
“I don’t know. When I entered her house, I called her name, but she didn’t respond. Then I found her body.” She touched the paper napkin to her mouth.
“So you never saw any photos.” He frowned. “Did she plan to blackmail you, threaten to sell them to a tabloid?”
“She told me to come to her house right away or she would. Now I’ll never know. If the pictures exist and fall into the wrong hands, it could cause me a lot of trouble.” She reminded Michael about Leo’s crusade to have her eliminated from the show.
“I’m sure the police will do a thorough search of the house. If pictures like that show up, they’ll keep them private. They don’t want that sort of publicity any more than you do.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe if any such photos show up, they’ll be of some other woman.”
“Yet, Suzanne called me.”
Michael frowned. “That is strange.”
Toni sipped her drink and let the muted conversations of other cocktail lounge patrons wash over her.
Finally, Michael said, “You’ve become very quiet. Is something else on your mind?”
She nodded. “Suzanne.” The scene she’d witnessed still haunted her mind. “I found her body, just as I found Craig’s. The knife that killed her might have been the one taken from my apartment. I even considered the possibility I’d have been killed if I’d got to her house a little sooner. It frightens me.”
“That’s perfectly natural.”
“What about Suzanne? First her husband Craig is killed and now her. Why?”
He looked puzzled. “You’re right. What’s the connection? We’ve spent hours trying to learn who might have killed Craig. Imagined suspects among the people who knew him—Leo, Janet, Ted, Kristianna, even Suzanne. Yet now Suzanne is dead too. Who wanted to kill her? Why?”
Toni pushed her drink aside. “I can’t imagine, except it must be linked to Craig somehow.”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense, at least so far. The detectives will investigate, and maybe there was something going on in her life that no one else knew about.”
“If there was, and Craig was aware of it, he might have told someone. We weren’t that close anymore, but I think he might have told me if she was having problems.” She shrugged. “He never mentioned anything like that. From his attitude during our last photo sessions, I got the impression Suzanne was content to be his wife and spend his money in upscale fashion houses.”
“What about the model he was seeing? You said Suzanne started a fight with her at the funeral. Did that escalate to the point where Kristianna decided to kill her?”
“Anything is possible, of course.”
“Especially when money is involved. If Craig left money to Kristianna for the child—”
“In that case, wouldn’t Suzanne want to kill the model instead of vice versa?”
Michael gestured. “Maybe they argued, perhaps fought, and Kristianna prevailed.”
“But that was my kitchen knife in Suzanne’s back.”
“We don’t know that for sure. The police will check it out.”
Toni stared at the table top. “No, I don’t see those women resorting to such drastic measures. Even if the knife isn’t mine, I still think Suzanne’s death is related to Craig’s.”
Michael shrugged and shifted in the booth. “Okay, let’s go down that path for a moment. Why would both Craig and Suzanne be killed? Craig might have made enemies on the set of Beekman Place, but Suzanne was never there, was she?”
“Rarely, and come to think of it, when she did come by, she seemed to get along well with the cast members.”
“Okay, what other reasons are there for both to be targets for murder?”
Toni pressed her hand to her chin for a moment. “Something else that they were both involved in. Some other business, perhaps, that the rest of us knew nothing about.”
“It sounds like a job for my investigator, Gil.”
“If Gil were to try to answer the question, where would he begin to look?”
“Well, I think he said he always started with things that are easy to check. He often said that, except for professional hit men, murderers often leave incriminating evidence around because they’re not experienced.”
“What kinds of things are easy to check?”
“Phone calls and other records of people the victims knew or worked with.” He sipped his drink. “Of course, the police can get phone records, but we can’t. Dead end.”
“Not necessarily. You said, ‘other people the victims knew.’ ” She straightened her back and let her memory lead her words. When I visited Craig’s photo studio a few months ago, the time he had to redo a close up of me, I noticed a Rolodex file on his desk. Don’t those things contain names and addresses of friends and business associates?”
“Yes, they do. Maybe he keeps it as a backup to information he’d inputted into his phone. My secretary, Peggy, has one on her desk and it holds the names and numbers of my clients.”
Toni smiled. “Then that’s where we should look.” She reached for her purse.
Michael apparently caught her meaning. “Excellent idea. Go to the photo studio and look at Craig’s Rolodex.”
“Right.” She slid out of the booth and glanced at her watch. “Now, before the studio is closed for the day.”
Michael stood. “Of course, we could pass this idea on to the police and let them work on it. In fact, they’re probably pursuing it already.”
“Maybe they are, but they haven’t taken me into their confidence and don’t intend to. Yet, I was the one next in line to be killed, remember?”
* * *
Michael rang the bell at the photo studio, but no one came to answer the door. “It’s not five yet, but it seems to be closed.”
Toni tried the knob, and the door opened. “No, it’s not. Just too busy to answer, perhaps.”
They entered, and Toni called out, “Ted?”
When she got no answer to three more calls, she headed straight for Craig’s office. Michael shrugged and looked around, then followed her inside.
A Rolodex sat alongside a telephone amid a haphazard clutter of pens and pencils on Craig’s desk. Next to the desk, a credenza held two ancient cameras, a leather case and a view finder.
Toni picked up the Rolodex. “This is what we came for.”
She stepped to the doorway and glanced around the quiet studio, unnerved, as if Craig’s spirit hovered beneath the vaulted ceiling and watched her. Aware she and Michael were trespassing, she wanted to take the Rolodex and make a quick exit.
“For all we know, Ted could be out on an assignment,” she said. “He might not return for hours. What do you think?”
“I think we should ‘borrow’ the Rolodex and get the hell out of here.”
Toni nodded. “Ted shouldn’t care. He’ll never even miss it, especially if I return it quickly. But it’s important to us if it holds a clue to Craig and Suzanne’s murders and the threat to my life. I’ll call Ted tomorrow and explain.”
Going into Ted’s office, Michael found a note on the desk and showed it to Toni. It read: “Am in the dark room. Don’t open the door. I’ll be out at 5:30.”
Michael checked his watch. “That’s half an hour from now.”
Toni moved toward the dark room, which was marked by a large red sign, “No Admittance.” She listened at the door but heard nothing.
“Shall we wait or go?” Michael asked.
“I say we go.” She tucked the Rolodex under her arm.
Michael nodded. “I suppose we could go through all of Craig’s client cards tonight and return the Rolodex to Ted tomorrow.”
Toni raised her hand. “In case there’s trouble, I don’t want you involved.” She hurried to the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. “My story is I did this alone. You were never here.”