by Bill Noel
If Olivia was involved with Starr, could she have drowned Edwina. If so, why? Was she romantically involved with the agent and after learning Edwina had killed him and then killed Edwina out of anger? Did Olivia learn Edwina was going to do something to implicate the bar owner and was killed to prevent it? Could Olivia have killed both Starr and Edwina? Or, was I jumping to farfetched conclusions to get Heather off the hook? There was nothing I knew that could prove any of this. Could I learn anything by talking to Olivia? The one thing I was certain of was there was zero chance of learning anything if I didn’t.
I pulled into the SHADES lot armed with a full quiver of questions and a serious dose of apprehension. Caldwell hadn’t arrived and the Porsche Panamera was the only vehicle there.
I parked and was waiting for Caldwell when the phone rang and Ramsey Promotions appeared on the screen.
“Hi, Caldwell.”
“Chris, got a problem. Mel called and asked if I could pick him up at the Chevy dealer. His car was running hot and the service department said it’d take several hours to get the part from the parts house before they could fix it. I’m going to have to reschedule my meeting with Olivia. Hope I didn’t inconvenience you.”
I told him it was okay and he said he would call Olivia to reschedule as soon as he picked up Mel to keep him from blowing a gasket at the service department. I said that if Mel was going to blow a gasket, the service department would be the best place to do it. Caldwell chuckled and said he’d let me know when the meeting was rescheduled.
Over the years, I had stumbled into a few dangerous situations and had even been ambushed, but never went into a situation that could turn lethal without someone covering my back. It would be foolish to talk to Olivia by myself so I shifted the car to reverse when the bar’s side door opened and Olivia stuck her head out. She squinted at my car, seemed to recognize me, smiled, and waved for me to join her.
I cringed and turned off the ignition.
She looked past me toward my car. “I was expecting Caldwell.”
She seemed satisfied I didn’t have Caldwell with me and waved me in. I told her about his situation and that he would be calling to reschedule and that I was supposed to meet him here.
She wore tight-fitting jeans and a lightweight sweatshirt, much differently attired than in her tailored suit. Lines around her eyes were accentuated by the sunlight and she looked gaunt as she offered me her hand. I gave it a brief shake. Her wrist was still a bracelet collector.
She glanced outside and closed the door. “Why were you joining him?”
Good question, I thought. “He told me he was meeting you and since I had a couple of questions about one of your customers, I asked him if I could tag along. Sorry for the intrusion.”
“That’s fine. I was here catching up on paperwork. Want something to drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Wish you would’ve brought that charming old timer with you. I loved meeting Cal. It’s not often that someone gets to meet a legend.”
Legend? I wondered if she’d confused Cal for someone else.
She didn’t elaborate and said, “Which customer?”
“Edwina Robinson.”
She moved behind the desk and pointed for me to take a seat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. She sat and shook her head and looked at the black, leather memo pad. “The ocean is so unforgiving. It was a tragic death.” She paused and looked at me. “What do you want to know about her?”
“She was a friend of yours, so I hope you won’t be offended by what I’m going to say. I think she may have killed Kevin Starr.”
Olivia’s eyes widened, she leaned forward, but didn’t say anything.
I continued. “I was wondering if she’d said anything to you that could help the police figure it out.”
Olivia leaned back in her chair and twisted a pen in her hand. “Do the police think she killed him?”
“Not really. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”
“Back to your question, I’m not offended at all. I didn’t know Edwina that well. She was in the bar often. I think I told you that she performed several times, and she wanted me to go country. She considered herself an expert on open-mic nights.” Olivia smiled. “She sang at enough of them” Her smile faded. “She had a good voice and was here when I needed her. She’ll be missed.” She set the pen on the desk. “We weren’t friends though.” Olivia smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?”
I declined a second time and was beginning to relax. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Edwina was guilty.
“I think I’ll get something. Last chance?”
I shook my head as she headed toward the door to the bar.
I was curious if I’d been correct when I spelled Olivia’s name for Cindy. I walked to the wall and looked at Olivia’s degrees. I grinned when I saw I had the correct spelling, and headed back to my chair when I noticed one of the many photos of Olivia with various people she had hung in groupings around the room. I had been focused on the Wake Forest diplomas during my first visit and hadn’t noticed the photo.
The photographer had focused on a group of three people standing on the bow of what appeared to be an expensive, ocean-going craft. Olivia was next to an older gentleman who had his arm around her shoulder. She wore a bikini with a flimsy cover-up that failed to live up to its name. Edwina Robinson was on the other side of the SHADES owner. Edwina held a beer, had a smile on her face, and was leaning against Olivia. Hadn’t she just told me she wasn’t friends with Edwina? Sharing time on a boat with Olivia appeared to be something more. I had a sour feeling in my stomach. Was I wrong about Edwina? Was Olivia the killer? I need to make a graceful exit and call Cindy.
Olivia startled me when she returned and coughed to get my attention. I stepped away from the photo and returned to the chair. Olivia smiled but glanced at the photo before returning to her seat.
If Olivia’s return hadn’t startled me enough, I nearly jumped out of the chair when my phone rang. The screen indicated that it was Cindy. I held up my forefinger for Olivia to give me a second. I wanted to leave the room to take the call, but was afraid it’d make Olivia suspicious.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said to the chief.
“Ma’am? What Boy Scout possessed your body? Never mind,” she continued without taking a breath. “I hate to admit it. You finally got something right. A woman with the highfalutin name of Mona Alliendre was a registered guest at the Tides for five nights, which happened to be over the same timeframe that the slimy agent discovered Heather. And yes, he of guessing right for a change, Ms. Alliendre had stayed there two other times over the last twelve months.”
“Interesting.”
“Interesting. That’s all you can say. I think you’re on to something. Sounds like your smarmy agent and Ms. Alliendre, aka Olivia Robinson, were, umm close.”
How do I say I need help without coming out and saying it? I hesitated, and said, “Oh, I see.”
“Chris,” Cindy whispered. “Calling me ma’am, thinking what I found about her was only interesting. Is Olivia there?”
I smiled at Olivia, and with as calm a voice as I could muster, told Cindy, “Yes.”
“At SHADES?”
“Thanks for calling. Yes, you’re right. Go ahead and have them repair it. Know when they’ll be done?”
“Are you in immediate danger?”
“Don’t know. See you soon. Bye.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
I hit End Call, glanced at my watch, smiled at Olivia, and said, “Sorry for the interruption. They’ve been having trouble finding a part for my air conditioner.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s finally arrived.”
Olivia didn’t smile. My smile ended when I realized she had substituted a handgun for the pen she had had been twirling. She wasn’t twirling the gun. It was pointed at my head.
“Chris, we have a problem.”
36
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nbsp; I couldn’t have agreed more. I looked at Olivia but the image of the gun burned into my retina. I wasn’t certain how she had planned to solve the problem. What I did know was unless I could stall until Cindy arrived, the outcome wouldn’t be to my liking.
I tried to slow my breathing and gave her my best smile. “Olivia, what’s going on?”
“You know the answer.” She shook her head. The direction of the gun never wavered. “Did you think you could just waltz in here and trick me into telling you I killed Starr?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I told you Edwina killed her agent. He had been ripping her off and she had to do something?” I nodded at the gun. “What’s that about?”
“And I suppose you think Edwina got careless and drowned?”
“That’s what everyone thinks. Isn’t that what happened?”
“It would’ve been if you hadn’t appeared at the door. Why’d I let you in? Why’d I leave the room and let you nose around? Why’d I leave that damned picture on the wall? And, why’d I lie to you about how well I knew Edwina? Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
I didn’t see any upside by acknowledging her questions or agreeing with her about it being stupid, yet had to keep her talking. “You killed both.”
She grinned.
“Why?”
“One, I wanted to.” She shrugged. “Two, I had to.”
A brief answer like that wouldn’t kill enough time. “Tell me about it.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Why not?” I said, and nodded toward the gun. “You have no intention of letting me out of here.”
“You’re not that stupid after all.”
I nodded and looked around for a weapon. The large executive mahogany desk between us was too heavy to shove into her. The leather letter tray on the desk was outside my reach. Her Gucci briefcase was beside the desk and out of reach.
She watched me looking around. “Kevin Starr,” she said. “He walked in here a year ago. Had a rock band blaring out there and I was working the room. He sat at a table by himself, had a half glass of Maker’s and water in front of him. Thin, full head of hair, nice looking guy, clean cut, well dressed. Was little younger than me.” She shrugged. “He wasn’t the kind of patron I normally get.” She sighed. “Was a light crowd and I returned to his table and asked if he needed anything else.” She stopped and looked down at the gun.
“Go on.”
“He said I could join him for a drink. I made the biggest mistake I’ve made in years. I sat down. He told me he was a music agent out of Nashville and was developing a chain of bars across the South—he called them nightclubs, sounded classier, I suppose. I had a decent amount of money from my husband’s estate and was getting bored with this.” She waved her free hand around the room.
I nodded. “And he said he was looking for partners to open these, umm, nightclubs?”
“See, more proof you’re not stupid. Yeah, and I fell for it hook, line, and heart. He gave me a sales pitch that could convince a mouse to adopt a pet cat. He came back the next night. In fact, it was the night he met Edwina. He listened to her sing and signed her on the spot. I was happy for her.” She hesitated. “Also, I was a little jealous about the attention he was lavishing on her.”
“What happened?”
“To make a long story shorter, let’s say he and I became much closer over the next few months. I didn’t want to take him to the house—I’m old-fashioned about that. Besides, I’d been dating a guy who was so jealous if he got a hint I was seeing someone else, there’d be big trouble. I started getting Kevin and me rooms over on Folly. He liked going to some of the bars there, said he was fishing for talent. Anyway, he brought some partnership papers over and I gave him three hundred thousand dollars—a big chunk of all I had.”
I glanced at my watch and realized it had only been five minutes since I’d talked to Cindy. The last thing I wanted was for Olivia to make the long story shorter. “What was he going to do with it?”
“Said he was going to expand the agency. He needed some of the money to provide services for his clients he couldn’t do now. Said he should pay for the demos instead of having the clients foot the bill, and wanted to pay off some debts. He would use some of the money to open a Nashville bar. Said it would be bigger and better than anything there.”
Some of it was now beginning to make sense. “Did you and Edwina go to Nashville?”
“Several times. Kevin wanted us to get a feel for the city’s successful bar business, and he wanted Edwina to start performing at some of the venues.”
“The Bluebird?”
“Yeah, that’s where Edwina met Heather Lee. She got to liking Heather, and I started getting bad vibes about Kevin.”
“Why?”
“I kept asking about the partnership agreement I’d signed. He tried to charm his way around telling me he hadn’t filed it yet. He gave some feeble excuses, legal mumbo-jumbo.”
“He had your money?”
“And I had nothing except a lying lover.”
Her gun hand began to shake. I was afraid she was going to squeeze the trigger. “That’s too bad,” I said, hoping to calm her.
“Yeah.”
“Is that when you decided to kill him?”
“Yes. I had to figure a way to set someone up for it. If the police started looking deep, they’d find a money trail that led to me. I couldn’t have that, could I?”
“Heather?”
“It was perfect. Edwina kept dragging me over to Nashville and insisted on appearing at the Bluebird. She was convinced fame was going to be staring at her from the audience. I stood in line with her some of those times. It didn’t take a detective to learn Heather had a gun—think someone named Quinn or Gwen gave it to her. Everyone knew it; knew she kept it in her car, the car with the broken lock.”
“You stole the gun.”
She nodded. “I wanted to give Kevin one more chance to make good on his promises. I met him at an out of the way bar so no one he would know would see us.”
“Top Ten Bar?”
“Yeah. He tried to slather his charm on me. I’d had enough of it and told him so. All he did was shrug. That did it. I stormed out.”
“And shot him with Heather’s gun and put it back in her car.”
“The perfect crime, or so I thought.”
My phone rang again and I thought Olivia was going to pull the trigger. Instead, she said, “Let it ring.”
After five rings, it kicked to voice mail. A minute later an icon indicated that I had a message.
Olivia looked at the screen and said, “Put it on speaker.”
We heard Cal say, “Chris I … whoops you ain’t real. Danged machine. Anyway, good news. Something finally came back to this ancient, pickled brain, something you need to know. When I was talking to you on the phone about what I knew about Starr’s killin’, guess who was in the bar and close enough to hear me say I needed to tell you? Never mind, you don’t have to guess. It was that lady who has the rock bar we went to. Think that’s a clue? Well, call when you get this and I’ll tell you more. There’s not much else to tell. Crap, you don’t have to call; that’s all I know. Have a great day.”
“What more can happen?” Olivia asked. She rubbed her eyes with one hand but held the gun steady with the other. “Now I’ve got to take care of him.”
“You saw him leaving Cal’s and bashed his head in?”
“Yeah, thought I’d killed him. Damned hard head. I was in there when he called you and I overhead him saying he knew something about Starr and Folly. I didn’t know what it was. Whatever it was it could lead to me. I was supposed to meet Caldwell at Cal’s the next night and saw the cowboy coming out when I was headed to the door. There was a scrap of wood next to the building. I grabbed it and smacked him and left. I didn’t think anyone saw me. I couldn’t take a chance of staying around to make sure he was dead.”
I glanced at my watch. It’d been nearly twenty minutes. Where wa
s Cindy? Olivia was getting antsier and I didn’t know how much longer I could stall. If Cindy barged in now, what would I do? I could drop down in front of the desk out of Olivia’s sight.
“He lived,” I said.
“Now I have to do something about that.”
“Why kill Edwina?”
“Hated to do it. She was a good kid and always wanted to help. Kevin had made the mistake of screwing her over. He took more money from her than he should have. She got riled and threatened to kill him. Too many people heard her, and the police started to look at her.”
“But Heather was already in jail.”
“Yes. Some busybody”—she pointed to me with her empty hand—“started asking questions. I was afraid the cops would start questioning Edwina. She knew too much about me. I couldn’t wait to see if she’d fold.”
“Did she know about your, umm relationship with Starr?”
“She wasn’t stupid.”
“How’d you kill her?”
“It was tricky. It had to look like an accident. I told her I was going out on my boat and wanted her to go with me. Said we’d swim in the ocean. She loved the water and jumped at any chance to get in it.”
“That’s how you got her in a bathing suit?”
“Yes. Pretended like the engine was acting up and I told her something was stuck in the prop. She went in the water in to see what was wrong. She’s a good swimmer so I had to keep pushing her away with a paddle; she’d swim away and I’d go after her and hit her again. We were far enough out that no one was around and nobody could see us from shore. She finally wore down.” She sighed. “It took forever. I had to pull her on board and dump her close enough to the beach so she’d wash up and be found. I figured the cops would figure the cuts and bruises were from her being tumbled in the waves and on the rocks.”