by Angela Henry
Allegra was too preoccupied with her dessert to notice the tidal wave of animosity that her producer was throwing my way. She sat back down in the rocker and didn’t look at either one of us. Noelle set her glass on the railing and smiled at my sister. Considering how mad she’d just been I was amazed she was able to snap back so quickly.
“Allegra, I need to take off. I’ve got conference calls to make about some stories for next week’s shows. I’ll give you a call later, and don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”
Allegra’s mouth was full of ice cream and cobbler, and she merely waved as Noelle hurried down the porch steps, hopped into her rental and took off.
“I’m so glad she’s gone. That chick gets on my nerves,” she said after Noelle pulled away from the curb.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s not as bad as some of those phony asses at Hollywood Vibe. But I can only stand so much of her and I don’t trust her all. She started out as the assistant to the producer that got fired last year after that Ross Abbott mess. People say she was working behind the scenes to make sure he got blamed for it. She was after his job from the beginning. But that’s Hollywood for you. You’ve got a ton of people all after the same small piece of the pie. It’s cutthroat like you wouldn’t believe, Kendra.”
“Is that why you were so afraid to tell her you were having trouble getting the interview?”
“Damn right. I wasn’t the first choice for this job. They’d already offered it to some chick who’d been a runner-up in the Miss America pageant. She had to turn it down because she was hospitalized for anorexia. Then they were going to give it to some rock star’s daughter. She turned it down because they wouldn’t pay her enough. Then it was offered to some has-been soap-opera star. She took the job but quit after one day when she got the lead role in some off-Broadway play. I was fourth on the list. I’m a black woman trying to get ahead in Hollywood. That means I have to be twice as good to get half as far.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted everyone to think I was the star of show, when in reality, I’m just scrambling to keep ahead of the pack. You have no idea how many people I have nipping at my heels wanting to be where I am and waiting for me to mess up,” she said miserably. “And it looks like they’re about to get their wish.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. In light of what she’d just told me, telling her not to worry seemed insensitive. Then I wondered how much, if anything, she knew about Noelle and Kurt. I wanted to know just what the two of them were up to and if it could have anything to do with Vivianne’s death. I told Allegra about seeing Cliff, Kurt and Stephanie Preston at Denny’s.
“I heard they were in town to see Vivianne get her award. Did you know Cliff used to be Vivianne’s agent, as well as her husband?”
“No,” I replied honestly.
“He’s the founder of the Preston Agency. It used to be as big as William Morris. Cliff Preston is the reason Vivianne DeArmond was able to have a career as a leading lady at a time when black actors were hired to play maids, mammies and chauffeurs.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I found out when I was doing research to prepare myself for interviewing Vivianne. Rumor has it Cliff Preston’s talent agency is on its way to being as dead as disco. He was really in town to try and get Vivianne to take a part in some new movie. I think he figured if he could revive Vivianne’s career from the ashes then his business would pick up and maybe he’d get some big-name clients again.”
“What about their son, Kurt? What’s his deal?” Allegra rolled her eyes and gave me an incredulous look.
“What?” I said, as she shook her head and laughed.
“You really don’t remember him?”
“No.”
“Remember that stupid show that was popular about ten years ago called Ninja Dudes?”
I thought for a minute and then realized that’s why Kurt Preston looked so familiar to me. Kurt had been an actor, too, though his career had been short-lived. He’d probably been about fifteen at the time he’d appeared on Ninja Dudes back in the late eighties and I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in anything after that.
“You mean that cheesy show about the widower in Hawaii who adopts three teenage boys of different races who surfed by day and were crime-fighting ninjas at night?” Okay. I watched a couple of episodes. So what?
“Yeah. He played the son named Jabari who wore sunglasses all the time and only got to say stuff like, “Dudes, let’s roll, or “Dudes, chill out.” I don’t think they ever gave that poor guy more than three words to say at a time,” Allegra said, laughing.
“What happened to him after the show?” Like I needed to ask. From what I’d overheard at the restaurant, Kurt had become active in pursuits of the pharmaceutical kind.
“Well, I think Cliff tried to get Kurt more acting jobs, but by the time the show was canceled, he was heavily into drugs. He’s been in and out of the Betty Ford Clinic so many times they should name a wing after him. I’ve seen him in a couple of commercials, but that’s it. He sure hasn’t had the career his costar Ross Abbott has had. I hear Kurt and Ross are still good friends.”
Ross Abbott? I’d forgotten he’d been on the show, too. He’d played Todd, one of the other ninja dudes. It was his first role, the one that started his career as an action hero. Was this the reason Noelle didn’t want anyone knowing about her and Kurt? In light of the Hollywood Vibe scandal, it certainly wouldn’t look good if Noelle was dating a good friend of a man who’d sued the show, especially since there had been talk that Noelle was involved in the firing of her predecessor. I started to ask but Allegra wasn’t finished with her story.
“Vivianne was forty when she had Kurt and by the time he was five, she and Cliff were divorced. Cliff got sole custody of Kurt because Vivianne was declared unfit. He raised Kurt with his second wife, Stephanie, an ex-Vegas showgirl twenty years younger than him. Kurt and Stephanie are really close. Vivianne stopped acting not long after she lost custody of Kurt.”
“Why?” I asked. Allegra shrugged.
“No one really knows for sure. One theory is that she could no longer get leading-lady roles and her ego couldn’t take it. Another theory is she had a nervous breakdown after losing custody of her kid. I guess we’ll never know now.”
I was finishing up my lemonade, and Allegra had eaten her last spoonful of ice cream, when an unmarked black Crown Victoria, the kind used by homicide detectives on the Willow police force, pulled up and parked in front of the house. A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach as I watched detectives Trish Harmon and Charles Mercer emerge from the vehicle and approach the house. I heard Allegra groan.
Trish Harmon and I had butted heads before during two other murder investigations. She thought I was stubborn, obstructive and foolish. I thought she was humorless, cold and about as flexible as a corpse in full rigor. I figured we were about equal in our dislike of one another. I noticed she’d let her hair grow out a little from her normal mannishly short do. But she was dressed as drably as usual in a gray suit with a long pleated skirt that I’d seen her in before. Charles Mercer, her chubby sidekick, was looking pleasant, if a bit uncomfortable in his tight blue sport coat and tan dress slacks. I grabbed Allegra’s hand protectively and we both stood as the detectives walked up the porch steps.
“Miss Clayton, we need you to come down the station with us to answer some more questions,” Trish Harmon said, addressing my sister. Allegra squeezed my hand so hard it went numb.
“What’s this about?” I asked Harmon. She ignored me. No big surprise.
“You can either come willingly, Miss Clayton, or we can arrest you,” Harmon said to my sister when she failed to move. Allegra gave me a panic-stricken look as Trish Harmon grabbed her opposite wrist and started to lead her in the direction of the porch steps. I pulled my sister’s other wrist and Allegra was pulled between Harmon and me, arms and legs
outstretched like a piece of taffy.
“Hey. You can’t just drag her off with no explanation,” I complained, tugging her back toward me.
“Yes, we can. Your sister was told to make herself available for questioning and we’ve got lots of questions for her,” Harmon said, calmly pulling Allegra back to her. Uh-oh! What happened? What did they want to talk to her about?
“You don’t have to drag her off like a common criminal. Get your hands off her,” I snapped, holding my ground and tugging my stunned-looking sister back to me.
“We can always arrest you for obstruction. In my opinion, you’re long overdue for a jail cell and I’d love to fix that,” Harmon fired back through gritted teeth.
Mercer was watching the tug of war between his partner and me with amusement. But after a couple of minutes he finally decided enough was enough. He walked over and gently pulled Allegra free of our grasping hands.
“Your sister isn’t under arrest, Miss Clayton. We just need her to come down to the station to answer a few questions, that’s all. There’s no need to worry,” he said, leading Allegra down the steps to their car. I believed him like I believed in Santa. I started to follow but Allegra, who’d suddenly regained her composure, stopped me.
“It’s okay, Kendra. I haven’t done anything wrong. Call Carl and have him meet me at the station.” I watched helplessly as they ushered her into the backseat. Harmon turned and tossed me a venomous smirk.
“Don’t you say a single word to them until Carl gets there! Do you hear me?” I called out before they slammed the car door shut.
I went into the house and called Carl and told him to meet me at the station. What in the world could they want to talk to Allegra about now? Did Harriet Randall convince them that Vivianne hadn’t agreed to an interview? There was no proof whatsoever that Vivianne had granted Allegra an interview. She’d wiped the message from Vivianne from her car. She’d been the one who called Vivianne, not the other way around. Vivianne’s own assistant didn’t even know about the interview. Plus, Allegra had been picked-up for trespassing in Vivianne’s house. In light of the conversation I’d just had with my sister about how she was struggling to stay ahead of the pack, I was beginning to wonder just what Allegra was capable of if she were desperate enough. I knew my sister was no murderer. But in her quest to hold on to her job, had Allegra lied about Vivianne’s note on the car? Had she shown up at the award ceremony, hoping to catch Vivianne alone in the attempt to get an interview? And when she discovered her dead, had she had to come up with an excuse as to why she was there? I honestly couldn’t say I wouldn’t put it past her.
I’d been sitting in the near-empty lobby of the police station, with its beige linoleum floors and uncomfortable age-scarred wooden benches, for an hour when it dawned on me that I hadn’t touched base with Greg about Lynette. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed his number. He answered it on the first ring and his anxious-sounding hello answered my question about whether Lynette had come home.
“It’s me, Greg. Any news?”
“She called to check on the kids. But she didn’t sound good,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Where is she? What did she say?”
“She said she needed some time to herself to think. She wouldn’t say where she was. She sounded weird, Kendra. I’ve never heard her sound like that before. I asked if she wanted to cancel the wedding and she started crying and hung up on me.”
I knew I should tell him everything about my last conversation with Lynette, but I could think of no comfortable way to do it. Even Lynette was having a hard time telling him about her sex hang-ups. What exactly was I supposed to say?
“Kendra, I need you to do me a huge favor.”
“What’s that?” I asked with dread. I had enough on my plate with Allegra.
“Please help me find her. The wedding is six days away. I’ll try and stall Justine as long as I can. But you know what she’s like. I don’t want her to know Lynette has taken off. But we’ve got to find her. There’s all kinds of last-minute wedding stuff to take care of and the kids will be asking questions. I’m really worried about her.”
“So am I, Greg, so am I. Look, I’m off on spring break this week. I’ll see if I can track her down tomorrow, okay?”
“Thanks, Kendra. I’ll let you know if I hear from her.” He hung up without saying goodbye. Wonderful. Not only did I have a sister who’d gotten mixed up in a murder, I also had to deal with my best friend, the runaway bride. Could this day get any worse? Yes, it could.
Two hours later, Carl and Allegra emerged from the interrogation room looking like they’d been through hell. Allegra walked straight past me into the nearby women’s restroom without speaking. Carl looked at me and shook his head.
“Out with it,” I demanded, not sure I really wanted to know.
“They found Allegra’s fingerprints on Vivianne DeArmond’s purse. They found the purse in the Dumpster behind the auditorium”
“Huh?” Not a very literate response, I know. But I was stunned. “How in the hell did her prints get on that purse?”
“Allegra said when she walked into the dressing room, she tripped over the purse, which was on the floor. She picked it up and when she walked around the corner, she saw Vivianne lying in a pool of blood. She said she was too shocked to move. Then when the fire alarm went off she dropped the purse and ran. She can’t explain how the purse got in the Dumpster.”
“Well, they didn’t arrest her so they must have believed her, right?”
“It would have helped if she’d have remembered picking up the purse in the first place when she made her original statement. Now, with her prints on the purse plus the fact that there is no evidence proving she was granted an interview, her story is sounding like bullshit.” Carl ran a hand over his face and sat down on the bench I’d just vacated.
“She didn’t have a purse when I saw her at the auditorium after the fire alarm went off,” I said. But truthfully, remembering back to seeing Allegra coming up the steps from the auditorium’s basement, I only recalled the terrified look on my sister’s face, not whether or not she was carrying anything with her.
“You’re her sister, Kendra. I don’t think what you saw is going to hold much weight with Harmon and Mercer. I just wish there was some proof that Vivianne had really consented to that interview.”
If Allegra had lied about the interview and now the purse and ended up going to jail, she wouldn’t have to worry about going alone because my foot would find a permanent home in her ass.
“But what about Allie’s clothes? Have the tests come back yet?”
“No. They had to send the clothes to the state crime lab, which is understaffed and backed-up. I’m not sure when we’ll get those results.”
“So what is her motive supposed to have been for killing Vivianne?” I was talking to Carl, but my sister emerged red-eyed from the restroom and answered for him.
“They think I showed up at Vivianne’s dressing room uninvited to try and interview her. She told me no and threatened to call the police. When she turned and headed for the phone, I flipped out and grabbed whatever happened to be closest to me, which was the letter opener, and stabbed her in the back. They also think I was trying to make it look like a robbery by taking the purse and tossing it in the Dumpster. I swear I dropped that purse when the alarm went off. I don’t even know where the Dumpster at Cartwright Auditorium is.”
“The only reason why they haven’t arrested her is because her prints weren’t on the letter opener. It was wiped clean,” Carl said.
“Was there anything missing from the purse?” I was hoping that no money in the purse could point to someone desperate for cash, like Kurt Preston.
“They wouldn’t tell us,” Carl said. I told him about the argument I’d overheard between Kurt and Cliff Preston. Carl perked up considerably.
My cell phone rang and I answered without thinking. It was Mama. Just great! I’d been waiting to tell her about Allegra being taken in for
questioning until after it was over. I knew she’d just rush down the station and be worried to death, and in the process, annoy the hell out of me. I knew she had a right to know what was going on with her granddaughter. But don’t I have a right to some peace?
“Is your sister with you? I’m about to go to bed and if she’s not here in the next twenty minutes, she’ll get locked out and will have to stay with you.”
“We’re on our way,” I told her. I wondered how ready for bed she’d be when we told her the latest news?
I spent the night at Mama’s. I had no choice. It was a weird night. After we arrived and told her all about what was going on, she was beyond pissed. I couldn’t tell who she was the maddest at: me for not calling and telling her what was going on or Allegra for getting herself into such a mess or Carl for not being able to do more to get my sister out of her mess. She ranted and raved for a while and then told Carl to go home and me and Allegra to go to bed. She must have forgotten I had a place of my own because when I started to walk out with Carl, she grabbed me and told me to go to bed in a voice I didn’t dare disobey. I had a switch-cutting flashback and hurried upstairs behind Allegra. If it wasn’t for the memory of Mama’s hissy fit ringing in my ears, it would have almost been like old times. Allegra and I were sharing the same room we’d stayed in years ago when we used to spend the night as kids. The twin beds even had the same spreads they’d had all those years ago, white, with little blue—faded now—cornflowers.
Unable to sleep, I slipped downstairs to watch TV with the sound turned down low so as not to wake Mama. At three in the morning I was still awake. I decided to see if there was any peach cobbler left. The house was dark and quiet. So quiet that the sudden sound of a cat yowling from somewhere outside made me jump. I walked into the kitchen. The only light came from moonlight streaming in through the gaps in the closed curtains and the glow of the fluorescent light over the kitchen sink that Mama always left on.