His smile was pleasant, with a dark sort of emptiness behind it. The kind of smile you might see at a psychopath cocktail party. It chilled me to the core.
"What's going on?" I asked, the confusion in my voice genuine as I tried to comprehend the truth that was holding a gun on me. Suddenly it was clear to me that PS Rossi's biggest crime was not smoking in the theater lobby.
"What's going on is I'm tired of you stirring up trouble." His smile might be psycho-pleasant, but his tone was not. It was flat and cold. He held the gun in a rock-steady, nerveless hand. Clearly it wouldn't bother him at all to usher me into the afterlife.
If I couldn't focus, that was just where I'd find myself. I glanced to the left and right, trying to find anything I could use as a weapon. Wouldn't it have been handy if some Viking sword props just happened to be lying around? Why did their current production have to be a love story?
"I'm not here for trouble. I'm…I was just supposed to meet someone."
"I know. But, sadly, she doesn't."
I blinked, realization dawning. "You sent me that text. From Tara's phone."
He nodded slowly.
"You wanted me to meet you here tonight."
"Alone," he emphasized, chiding me with the one word.
I swallowed hard. "Yeah, well, that didn't turn out so well for me last time."
"I don't think it's going to turn out well for you this time either," he told me without a hint of sympathy.
I licked my lips, my heart rate going practically heavy-metal speed. "You killed Rebecca," I said. Which felt a bit like stating the obvious at this point, but I had to keep him talking. It was the only chance I had of coming up with a way out of this life-or-death drama currently playing out on the stage. I glanced to my right. A stray water bottle, a discarded jacket hanging over the back of a chair, a script on the floor. Unless I could defend myself by paper cutting him to death, I was out of luck. "She didn't die by accident. You killed her."
"Did you figure that all out on your own, detective?" Rossi taunted me.
Actually, the gun in his hand had been the dead giveaway, but I kept that to myself. Best not to upset the psycho. "But why?" I asked, hoping the explanation was a long one. "She was your star."
Rossi shook his head. "Does it matter now?"
"Humor me," I asked.
He grinned, though there was little humor involved on either side. "Yes, she was my star. She was also a conniving and thoroughly selfish diva."
Suddenly it dawned on me.
"You were sleeping with Rebecca," I said. "You were the other man."
"I guess it turns out you're not as dumb as you look."
Ouch. "The fight Bryan and Rebecca had at the theater. You must have overhead it and been jealous she still cared about Bryan."
Rossi threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing off the walls like a creepy funhouse gag. "I take it back—you are as dumb as you look."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Enlighten me then."
"I didn't care in the least who Rebecca cared about. Granted, she was a bit of fun when it all started. One does need distractions now and then, you know."
Yeah, like the one I was hoping this conversation provided him while I figured a way out of here. My eyes cut to the stage behind him. I could faintly make out the Exit sign glowing above the door, but there was no way I'd be able to get to it before he could fire off the gun in his hand.
"So what happened?" I prodded.
"What happened is she was an addict. And, like any addict, her next fix was all she really cared about." He paused, almost looking sad for a moment.
"The Fluffy Bunny."
"So you knew about that too. See, I knew you were getting too close."
Oops. Me and my big mouth again. "You killed her because she was doing drugs?" I had to admit, it wasn't adding up as a great motive.
Rossi shook his head very slowly. "No, I killed her because addicts are sloppy and dangerous. Rebecca was threatening to expose our entire operation, and my backer was getting nervous."
"Entire operation…" Facts, faces, and tidbits of information were swirling around in my brain so fast I was having hard time keeping up with all of them. "You're not just talking about the opera production, are you?"
Again with the head shake. "No. Don't get me wrong—we will put on a very nice production of Ethereal Love. But ticket sales will pale in comparison to how much we'll make with our real business."
"Selling Fluffy Bunny," I guessed.
He nodded. "A traveling tour is a wonderful way to move things around the country without questions. No one ever looks very closely at our props. And it's a marvel what my wife can sew into a hoop skirt."
"And Rebecca found out?" I still felt like I was missing a huge part of the puzzle. And running out of time to find it.
"Rebecca was no angel," he said. "Even before I met her. Oh, she'd gone to some meetings, tried to get clean, but at heart, she was still an addict. When she found some pills among my things one day, she knew just what they were. So, I gave them to her."
"You hooked her on drugs again," I said, honestly disgusted. Rebecca had been trying to get her life together, and he had known exactly what her Achilles' heel was. And exposed it.
"I gave her what she wanted to keep her mouth shut. But then she started demanding more and more. She started threatening to expose the show for what it was. My backer doesn't take kindly to threats."
It hit me like a mental ton of bricks. "Your backer is Vincent Gordon. He's the one you were worried about offending with bad publicity." Although I guessed it was less offending and more drawing the attention of law enforcement that he'd been worried about.
"You can see why," he said dryly.
"And she figured that out," I said, remembering her visit to Lucky's Deli.
"She was greedy, but she wasn't stupid. Yes, she figured it out. So, she had to go."
I shivered at just how coolly he said the words. Like it was a line in the opera he was cutting and not cutting a woman's life short.
"You killed her, and Vincent's brother, Dominic, was called in to dispose of the body."
Rossi nodded, and an awful thought struck me. Would he call Dominic Gordon to dispose of my body? The idea of it made my skin crawl. I didn't want Dominic Gordon stashing me in his basement refrigerator like some slab of beef. And I certainly didn't want to be propped up in his kitchen to keep him company.
"You had Dominic follow me to Lampley Park?" I said, connecting the dots. I knew that I knew that mud.
Again, Rossi nodded. "Tara told me you'd been leaving her harassing messages all day. It was my suggestion that she agree to meet you there."
"Where you had Dominic hit me."
Rossi shrugged. "It was meant to be a warning. One you didn't heed," he added, clearly none too happy about that.
"But what I don't understand is why?" I pressed, cutting my gaze to my left. Sadly no handy weapons had miraculously appeared. I could only keep him talking for so long, and I was running out of options. "Why hide the body? And if Rebecca was an addict, how did the tox screen come back negative?"
Rossi cocked his head at me, and a slow smile snaked across his face. "So you hadn't figured that part out yet."
Clearly. I puckered my brain trying to figure out exactly what "that" was.
"Rebecca Lowery didn't die from a blow to the head. She died from a drug overdose. Two weeks ago."
If I were a cartoon, my jaw would have been on the floor. Puzzles pieces swirled around me. None of Rebecca's neighbors had seen her in over a week. Neither had her coworkers—she'd been calling in sick. At least according to Rossi. In fact, it was also Rossi who had identified the body in Watson's morgue… "Oh my God, it was never Rebecca!"
His smile grew into a self-satisfied thing that said he thought it was all pretty clever. "No, it wasn't. When Rebecca threatened to expose Vincent if we didn't keep up with her demands, he supplied me with a special blend for her. One that was sure to put her out for good. Only an overdose would require a full autopsy and an inquiry, and that kind of scrutiny wasn't good for anyone. So we silently moved her to Gordon's mortuary, where Dominic kept her on ice for a few days." He paused. "No pun intended."
I cringed. "So who was the Jane Doe?"
Rossi waved that question off as if it were insignificant. "Some woman Vinny knew. A prostitute. She looked reasonably like Rebecca, so we had her meet us in Rebecca's apartment, where she had a nasty fall and hit her head. When the police came, she looked enough like the photos in Rebecca's ID that, along with my positive identification, everyone believed she was Rebecca Lowery. They had no reason not to."
"And no one looked into Rebecca's death."
"Exactly. Once we had Jane Doe at the mortuary, all we had to do was swap out the bodies and cremate the real Rebecca."
"Only no one counted on Rebecca's will stating she wanted an open casket viewing."
His smile faltered. "A diva to the end," he spat out. The gun wobbled in his hand as he grew agitated. "Dominic assured us that he could make Jane Doe look enough like Rebecca to pass her off, but then that sister came nosing around before Dominic had an opportunity to make up the corpse, and he panicked."
"And everyone thought Rebecca was missing."
He nodded. "And she would have stayed that way if you hadn't come along." He paused, taking a step toward me. "And now you have to go."
"I can go now," I offered. "Give me thirty seconds, and it'll be like I was never here."
He shook his head with a sad little smile. "It's too late for that, Miss Hudson. You know far too much. Mr. Gordon won't stand for it. And trust me—my way is much better than his way."
He raised the gun to head level. My head.
A flash of pure terror left me in an instant cold sweat. If I died, who would take care of Toby? Who would taste Mr. Bitterman's toxic creations and run interference with Mrs. Frist? Who would move into the Victorian and finish the repairs? Who would rein in Irene's harebrained schemes and moon over Watson's pouty lips? A terrible thought occurred to me. Would someone else lay claim to those lips?
I couldn't let that happen. I took a deep breath. It was now or never. I might not have a whole lot in the weapons category, but I had one thing he didn't.
Accessories.
I kicked my right foot forward as hard as I could, sending my chunky wedge flying toward the corner of the stage.
Rossi's eyes followed its arc for just a second.
But that was all I needed.
Immediately I shot a stream of hairspray at his eyes, taking grim delight in his pained shriek when it hits its mark. He slapped both palms to his face.
I jumped to my left, grabbing the wooden chair in such a force that the jacket hanging off the back flew to the floor. I swung blindly toward Rossi's head. He went down in a heap, eyes squeezed shut, hopefully glued shut by the Extra Hold hairspray, as the gun clattered to the floor. I grabbed it, holding it in front of me more as a shield than a weapon.
"Don't move!" I yelled. If he had any idea I didn't know the first thing about guns, he might have moved. As it was, I must have been convincing enough, as he just lay there, moaning as the hairspray wore off. I fumbled for my phone and quickly punched in 9-1-1.