“They already have your fingerprints on them,” I said. I dug a plastic bag from my purse and held it open in front of her. “Please drop them in here.”
“What is this about, Mrs. Fletcher? You’re very dramatic, but you’re scaring me.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” I told her, “unless you applied the lipstick to yourself.”
Gould pounded his desk with his fist. “Will you tell me what’s going on? Unlike you, I’m not a fan of mysteries.”
I looked at Gould. “I believe Rowena was attempting to poison her roommate Isla to eliminate her as a competitor for the position as your company’s new face. She even said to you at the fashion show that there was still time for you to choose her. Do you recall her saying that?”
“I do, and I thought that a mink coat was all she was going to squeeze out of me, no matter what she did.”
Ann Milburn groaned. “Oh, Philip, did you really try to buy her off?”
“Never mind. It’s water under the bridge.”
“Miss Milburn, which of these lipsticks did you use on Rowena?” I held up the bag for her to see.
“I’m not sure. I just pulled out whatever was in my pocket and put it on her.”
“We need to call the detective who’s in charge of Rowena’s case. If I’m not mistaken, you used Rowena’s own lipstick on her. It was the one she’d made for Isla, and if she’d included a Chinese ingredient, it made the lipstick highly poisonous.”
“Do you mean I killed her?”
“Clearly not intentionally,” I said. “You had no idea what ingredients Rowena used in her experiments making lipsticks. But she ended up dying from aconite poisoning, and I found a receipt for aconite in the girls’ apartment that had been purchased at an apothecary in Chinatown.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Aaron Kopecky was not happy to see me when he and a colleague arrived at New Cosmetics, but he listened carefully to my theory and pocketed the two lipsticks from Ann Milburn’s smock.
The makeup artist, rattled that she might have unknowingly applied poisonous lipstick to a child, eagerly gave Kopecky a blow-by-blow description of all the makeup plans she had designed for the show and recalled for him each conversation she’d had with the models.
I was sure it was Rowena who had purchased the aconite, but I couldn’t prove it, and until that loose end was confirmed we didn’t have a solution to the seventeen-year-old’s untimely death. Rowena had been an annoyance to her roommates, but was that enough of a reason for murder? I didn’t think so. Isla had coveted Rowena’s fur coat. Would she have killed for it? I doubted it. Not with a pending boon to her income as the new face of New Cosmetics. Instead I was betting that Rowena thought she could eliminate her chief competition for that prize. For me that was enough of a motive in the mind of a spoiled young woman accustomed to getting her way.
When Kopecky had finished interviewing Ann Milburn, I gave him the receipt I still held from the Chinese apothecary.
“You found this in the garbage?”
“Yes, when I pulled out the oatmeal bag.”
“You already told me about this.”
“Yes, but I never went to the store to ask about who bought it,” I said, also offering him Rowena’s model card that Maggie had given me at the fashion show.
“The oatmeal bag was a dead end,” he said, looking at the photographs of the beautiful young model and shaking his head.
“I can’t promise you this won’t be as well,” I said, “but I’m hoping that someone at the herbal remedies shop will recognize the young woman who’d purchased the fu zi, which is another name for aconite root.”
“And if they don’t?”
I shrugged. “It’s my best guess at the moment.”
“I have to say I’m not sure I trust your best guesses.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“I’ll have it checked out this afternoon.” He tucked Rowena’s card and the receipt in a plastic evidence bag and handed them off to his colleague. “By the way, we let your buddy go—for the moment. He’s swearing up and down that he didn’t kill his old girlfriend, but I don’t believe him. We had to release him because of lack of evidence aside from the surveillance tape showing him at her apartment building around the time she died. But he’s still number one on my list.”
Kopecky walked me to the elevator.
“Where are you headed, Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked, making certain I knew that we were still on formal, perhaps even adversarial ground.
“Why are you interested?” I asked.
“Just curious.”
“If you must know,” I said, “I’d like to see Sandy Black now that he’s been released.”
“What do you think you can accomplish by seeing him? He’ll just tell you the same lies he told us.”
“He may very well tell me the same story he’s told you, Detective Kopecky, but I’d prefer to be the judge of his honesty.”
“Suit yourself.”
He turned to walk away but stopped and retraced his steps to me. “You know, Mrs. Fletcher, I’m not some bumbling cop you like to write about in your books.”
“Detective Kopecky,” I said, struggling not to allow my ire to surface, “did you ever see the movie Cool Hand Luke?”
“Yeah, maybe years ago.”
“There’s a famous line from that film, ‘What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.’ Unfortunately, that seems to be true of you and me. One, I’ve never considered you a ‘bumbling cop.’ Two, I don’t portray police officers in my books as ‘bumbling cops.’ And three, it has never been my intention to involve myself in the cases you’re handling. May I remind you that you offered to tell me about those cases and invited my input? All I’ve wanted to do is to be helpful to you. Now please excuse me. I’m going to see your number-one suspect to provide whatever assistance I can.”
I left him standing in the New Cosmetics office, reached the street, walked half a block, and stopped to take a deep breath. As much as I dislike confrontations of any sort, I was glad that we’d had ours. The last thing I wanted was to alienate a New York City detective, especially one whom I’d gotten to know on a relatively personal basis—which was part of the problem, I suppose. When I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in him as a potential suitor, his ego was wounded, which probably accounted for his sudden frostiness. But that was his problem; he would just have to thaw out.
In the meantime I wanted to hear Sandy Black’s side of the story, assuming he was willing to entrust me with the information. Based on previous encounters with the temperamental designer, it could go either way. I hailed a taxi and after long traffic delays arrived at his building. I rode the creaky elevator to his floor and entered his studio, where, to my delight, his mother came directly to me, beaming.
“You’ve heard,” she said, giving me a hug. “Sandy’s been released by the police.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“Your detective friend told you?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. I’ve just left him at—”
Sandy bounded from his office and opened his arms to me. “Jessica,” he said. “I’m so grateful that you’re here.”
I accepted his embrace and said, “And I’m glad to see you, Sandy. Detective Kopecky told me that you’d been released.”
He shook his head sadly. “They treated me as though they’ve already decided that I killed Latavia. Next they’ll say I killed Rowena Roth, too.”
“What an awful thing to go through,” his mother said, rubbing her son’s back.
“Cut it out, Mom,” he said, shrugging off her hand. He turned to me. “You always help people wrongly accused, Jessica. Will you help me? I don’t want to see the inside of that police station again.” He shuddered dramatically. “It’s a lot worse than what you see on TV.”
<
br /> I thought of Kopecky’s sarcastic comment that the police long ago stopped using rubber hoses in their interrogations. Sandy had a tendency to dramatize things most people would allow to slide off their shoulders—not that I thought being interviewed by the police was a pleasant experience. But I withheld my opinion that his recent confrontation with the detectives was unlikely to be his last. They were probably busy investigating every detail they could unearth about his life here in New York and in California.
“If I’m to help you in any way, I’ll need to hear from you about your questioning, Sandy,” I said. “That is, if you don’t mind reliving it.”
“I guess I don’t mind,” he said, “but let’s go in my office. I don’t want the world to know my business.”
I resisted mentioning the fact that his visit to police headquarters had already been on the news. Instead I followed Sandy into his cramped office, where he picked up bolts of material that had been left on both guest chairs along with a large pair of shears used for cutting the fabric.
“Watch out for that glass bowl,” his mother said as he set down the fabric. “Your grandmother brought that from Italy.”
“Please, Mom. I know what I’m doing.”
“I understand that you were seen on the building’s surveillance camera about the time Latavia Moore was killed,” I said to steer the conversation away from an impending confrontation between mother and son.
He nodded.
“You were there?” his mother said.
Another nod accompanied by “She asked me to come. I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise.”
“She called you?” I asked.
“No. She sent me a text message.”
“When?”
“The same day as my show. That afternoon.”
“And she was killed that afternoon,” I said. “Did the police indicate a time of death for her?”
He shook his head. “No, they said it was around the time that I received the text message.”
“How could she send you a message after she was dead?” his mother asked.
Sandy replied, “The police say that she sent it before she died, and that I responded to it and killed her.”
I thought before asking, “Do you have a copy of her text message?”
“No,” he said. “The police confiscated my cell phone. I showed them the message and they took it from me.”
“They have to get a warrant if they’re going to use it as evidence,” I said.
“Well, they kept my phone anyway. They gave it to some tech guy when I arrived, and they questioned me about the message while I was in their interrogation room.”
“What did she say that caused you to go there?” I asked. “Was she in some sort of trouble?”
“I guess. She wasn’t specific,” Sandy said. “It was a short message, just that it was important—no, she said it was crucial that she see me right away. That was the word that she used. Crucial!” He paused, his face scrunched up in thought. “I can almost remember it verbatim,” he said. “‘I’m in a real mess and need to see you right away. It’s crucial that you come to my apartment. Please, Xandr, come now!’”
I chewed on what he’d said before continuing. “Had you been in touch with her lately?” I asked.
“No. That was the funny part. I hadn’t seen her since she came to New York and became a big-time model, even though she was divorced by then. I figured she didn’t want to relive bad memories.”
“You never even tried to see her?”
He glanced quickly at his mother.
“Sandy, I need to know everything,” I said.
“I, um, I did try to see her at first. I went to her building a couple of times, but she wouldn’t let me in.”
“Oh, Sandy,” I heard Maggie whisper.
“Yeah, yeah. I know, Mom. But I didn’t see her. It was over. She made her point. That’s why I was so surprised to get a text from her.”
“Did you ever use the name Xandr Ebon when you were in California?” I asked.
“No. I wanted a fresh start in New York, new name, new direction. But—wait a minute,” he said, coming forward in his chair. “I see what you’re getting at, Jessica. She called me Xandr in her text message. Why would she call me that?”
Maggie looked at me quizzically. “Why wouldn’t she call him Xandr?”
“She hated the name,” Sandy said. “Told me it was stupid, that I should’ve stuck with my real name.”
“She must have thought you’d pay more attention if she called you by your new professional name,” Maggie said.
“Or maybe she didn’t send that text message, at all,” I said. “Maybe someone else used her cell phone to lure you to her building to frame you.”
It was his mother’s turn to sit forward and become animated. “Like the killer,” she offered. “You mean that whoever killed her sent Sandy that message to entice him to go there so he would become the suspect?”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” I said. “It had to be someone who was pretty sure you would respond to a message from Latavia. What happened when you arrived at her building, Sandy?”
“Nothing. The doorman rang her apartment but didn’t get an answer. He let me go up and knock on her door, but she didn’t respond to that either. There was nothing more I could do, so I left.”
“And left your image on the building’s surveillance tape,” I said.
“And fingerprints on her doorbell,” Sandy added with a sigh. “I’m being set up—again. It’s the story of my life when it comes to Latavia Moore.”
“It looks that way,” I said.
“Who would do such a thing?” Maggie asked.
“That’s for the police to find out,” I said. “Did Detective Kopecky show you the entire surveillance tape from that afternoon?”
“No. He just showed me the section with me on it. It was a really clear tape. No doubt it was me. And anyway, I admitted that I was there, but I never saw her. I swear it, Jessica.”
“I believe you,” I said. “Did he happen to say that he’d reviewed earlier portions of the tape?”
“No,” Sandy said wearily. “All he said when I was leaving was that he knew that I’d killed her and that he’d prove it if it was the last thing he did.” He looked at his mother. “Was Jordan able to find me a lawyer?”
“Excuse me,” I said.
I went into the studio portion of the space, pulled out my cell phone, and dialed Kopecky’s cell number.
“Kopecky here,” he answered.
“It’s Jessica Fletcher,” I said. “I’m with Sandy Black and his mother at Sandy’s studio.”
“If he tells you we roughed him up, he’s lying.”
“He hasn’t said anything of the kind. I would like to bring Sandy back to headquarters and view the surveillance tape for the hours prior to his arriving at the building.”
“Why?”
I’d prepared my answer to that potential question. “It’s possible,” I said, “that either he or I would recognize someone who’d arrived ahead of him.”
“So he’s still sticking to his story that he never saw her that day.”
“That’s correct. And you can’t have found his fingerprints anywhere inside her apartment, because he wasn’t there.”
“So he says.”
“He can get a lawyer and subpoena the tape, but you could save us all a lot of money and bother if you’d let us view the tape with you. After all, Sandy knows a lot of people involved in the fashion world, people Latavia Moore would have known, and I’ve gotten to meet many of them, too. I’m not asking to review it in its entirety, just for, let’s say, three hours prior to when Sandy is captured on the tape.”
His silence said to me that he was about to turn down my request. But, to my surprise, he said, “All right, Mrs. Fle
tcher. You and your fashion designer buddy come here and I’ll arrange for the tape to be shown. That satisfy you?”
“Yes, it does, Detective. Thank you very much.”
“Be here in a half hour.” He gave me the address.
I announced to Sandy and his mother the gist of my conversation with Kopecky. At first Sandy balked. “I’m not going back there,” he said. “They might change their mind and lock me up.”
“Sandy, they let you go because the evidence they have is circumstantial. I know that this is a long shot, but there may be someone earlier on the tape that you recognize. Isn’t it at least worth trying?”
“Jessica is right,” Maggie said.
“You’ll come with me?” Sandy asked her.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to test Detective Kopecky’s patience,” I said. “Right now he’s doing me a favor—and I know it. Why don’t you wait here, Maggie? We’ll only be a few hours at headquarters, and we’ll call you as soon as we leave.”
“If you think it best,” she said.
“Come on, Sandy,” I said. “Let’s give it a try. Let’s see if we can catch a killer.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kopecky was waiting for us when we arrived.
“I don’t know why I agreed to this,” the detective said, glaring at Sandy.
“I’m just pleased and grateful that you did,” I said.
He led us to an interrogation room equipped with a video recorder and playback machine. Sandy and I sat at the end of the table; Kopecky took a chair as far removed from us as possible.
“How far back you want to go?” he asked.
I glanced at Sandy before replying. “Can we start at noon?” I suggested. “Sandy has an alibi for that time. He was still at the catering house where the fashion show took place. In fact, he was there for at least an hour or more afterward. You can confirm that yourself, Detective Kopecky. You were there as well. But let’s look at the tape starting at noon.”
“Suit yourself. I’ve got other things to do.” Kopecky conferred with the officer who would work the equipment and left. “Ready?” the officer asked.
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