“Spill it, girl detective.”
“I can tell you’re mad I visited Adrienne,” I stammered. Mad was an understatement. Truman breathed in and out like a bull ready to charge, so I rushed on. “But I did get some information that I think will help your case.”
I relayed everything Adrienne had told me. She hadn’t told me to keep the information under wraps, and I hadn’t been meeting in my capacity as an attorney. It could only help her.
As long as she didn’t murder Caitlin Quinn or attempt to murder Xavier.
Truman let out a low whistle when I’d finished.
“Iris’s slip of the tongue about that actress being locked in the dressing room doesn’t sound quite so much like an accident,” he mused.
His face turned cloudy again. “Why do people confide in you?” He shook his head and dragged a hand tiredly through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Don’t answer that.”
“It’s time to call L.A., isn’t it.” It was a statement, not a question.
“It’s time for me to call L.A.,” Truman corrected, standing up.
“Oh, c’mon. I cracked this case wide open for you!” I stood up too, suddenly indignant.
“What you’ve done is muddy the waters again.” He sighed, relenting. “Fine. You can stay. But not a peep.”
He shut his door and called the Los Angeles Police Department. But it was a fruitless mission as he couldn’t get ahold of anyone ready to discuss a thirteen-year-old murder, even that of a rising star.
Truman slammed down the phone, frustration rolling from his bearish shoulders in almost palpable waves.
“There is one person we really should be talking to,” I said, my voice small.
“Go on.”
“One night when she was knitting, Dakota said she thought the show might just end if Caitlin went away.”
It was looking like my bride might be the key to the murders, both past and present, finished and attempted.
“I’ll have Faith pick her up.”
* * *
“You have a lot of explaining to do.”
Dakota sat pale yet composed in front of Truman.
“Am I under arrest?”
I squirmed in my seat, still incredulous that Truman had let me stay for his informal interview.
“If you were under arrest, you’d know it.”
Dakota relaxed for a nanosecond, her shoulders sagging in her red cardigan.
“That doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook.”
Dakota sat up sharply again, her metal chair letting out a screech against the old floor tiles as she shimmied closer to the table.
“Caitlin Quinn.” Truman let the name hang in the air and said nothing more.
“What about her?” Dakota’s voice was a mere whisper.
“I want it all.”
Dakota gulped and steadied her hands before her. She was silent for what seemed an eternity but was probably no longer than sixty interminable seconds. Truman waited her out.
“It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a gas leak.” Dakota looked down in her lap. “The police didn’t release that information.” When she raised her violet eyes, they were quivering with tears. “Ginger’s murder wasn’t original.”
“Excuse me?” Truman leaned forward, not understanding.
“Someone borrowed the method.” Dakota let out a hysterical yelp that sounded like a stifled sneeze. “Caitlin was locked in a dressing room. With a blue flower arrangement. The vase was filled with bleach and ammonia.”
“Murder borrowed, murder blue,” Truman muttered.
“Blue was my favorite color,” Dakota mused. “Used to be, anyway. My fans knew it. Everyone knew it.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “Caitlin was locked in my dressing room, not hers.” She unceremoniously wiped her nose with the back of her hand before I fetched her a box of tissues. “The flowers were anonymous, not even from a florist. The note with them was addressed to me, too. That chloramine vapor special arrangement was supposed to be for me, not Caitlin.” She shivered, the trembling in her shoulders not stopping. “I’ve lived with the guilt for thirteen long years. I was supposed to be in that dressing room. Caitlin should be alive, not me.”
“Who was there that day on the set?”
Truman’s voice was calm and monotone. I began to think he was just as good an actor as Dakota, because I could barely detect the fury buried within. But he kept it under wraps, encouraging her to go on. To incriminate herself.
“It was a big mess.” Dakota blew her nose and balled up the tissue. “The show was on hiatus while Caitlin held out for more money. She was the undisputed star, though you wouldn’t think so if you listened to my mother.” She stopped and involuntarily made a face. “The show was behind filming two weeks while Caitlin held her own personal strike. But they opened the set so I could show my friends around and give them a tour.” She took a deep breath and threw the tissue in the trash. “Iris brought Ellie and Leah out to visit me, and Ginger came with them too. My mom and Xavier were together then, and they both had the flu.”
“What about tryouts to replace Caitlin?” I butted in. Truman gave me a death glare, but I couldn’t help myself.
Dakota screwed up her face as if trying to remember.
“There was one frontrunner, and she’d just tried out the day before. Caitlin was getting nervous they might actually replace her and go on with the show. Ellie had tried out too, but Xavier, the producer, and casting thought this woman was better. Her name was . . .”
“Adrienne.”
A look of clarity washed over Dakota and her mouth dropped open. “That’s right. I hadn’t realized. Adrienne was there too that week, then.”
She gathered her thoughts and went on. “Caitlin wasn’t supposed to be on set that day. She just swung by as a favor to me to meet my friends. She stayed on while I showed everyone around. I went back to my dressing room to get something, and it was locked. We got maintenance to unlock the door.” She shuddered. “Little Leah pushed through first, eager to see Caitlin again. But we were hit with this awful chemical smell and Iris had to drag Leah back out.”
The tears had begun anew, coursing down Dakota’s face. “There was the most beautiful arrangement of blue flowers you’ve ever seen, and Caitlin, dead, on the floor. In my dressing room.”
Truman asked one more question, not bothering to comfort Dakota. “Who was the last person to see Caitlin alive?”
“Ginger.” It came out as a whisper. “I paid for her to go to Dunlap. My mother was against it. Ginger felt she owed me, and I wanted nothing more than to leave the show and just go to school with my friends. I always wondered if Ginger murdered Caitlin to grant my wish of coming home. She felt indebted to me.”
Truman’s anger finally bubbled over, ash from Mt. Vesuvius before the lava. “Why didn’t you say a word of this when we found Ginger?”
“They never found out who killed Caitlin,” Dakota sighed. “I didn’t want to implicate any of my friends then, and I don’t want to implicate them now.” She picked at her cuticles, and then looked up, anguish marring her beautiful looks. “I’m so sorry.”
* * *
I left a stricken Dakota with Truman while he awaited a call from the Los Angeles Police Department. I was anxious to learn whether they’d corroborate her story, but I didn’t think Truman would allow me to butt in on his investigation again anytime soon.
At least I know why she hates blue flowers.
Her reaction to Ginger’s death now made sense. I hadn’t thought Dakota’s reaction had been over the top at the time. I couldn’t imagine losing someone so close to me in such a bizarre and horrific way. But the added coincidence of Ginger’s murder mirroring Caitlin’s had obviously resonated with Dakota.
I was torn about her innocence. I drove home on autopilot, while outside my window the dazzling display of Port Quincy’s winter wonderland went unappreciated. I wanted to believe Dakota was telling the truth after all these years. But
why had she hidden that Ginger died in the same manner as Caitlin, exactly thirteen years ago to the day? And why had Ellie, Iris, Leah, and Roxanne kept quiet, for that matter? I could think of no reason, unless they were somehow complicit in Caitlin Quinn’s death. Something terrible had happened in L.A., and they were covering for each other. And now whatever unfinished business had begun thirteen years ago was playing out in present-day Port Quincy.
First, Caitlin was murdered in Dakota’s dressing room via chloramine vapor in a blue flower arrangement. Then the modus operandi was borrowed and replicated last week, killing Ginger. And how did poisoning Xavier with bleeding hearts fit in, other than the fact that he was the director for both Silverlake High and I Do? Maybe he knew something and had realized it, and one of the women had poisoned him.
And we may never know.
Each day I asked for an update on Xavier’s condition, and each day was the same. He still languished in a coma, with no promise or hint of awakening. Whoever had wanted to silence Xavier had succeeded.
I didn’t want to believe Dakota was guilty, but she seemed to be at the heart of it all. Yet just now with Truman, Dakota’s tears had seemed genuine.
She’s also an accomplished actress.
I didn’t want to admit it, but it was looking more and more like my bride was responsible for her costar Caitlin’s death. She’d desperately wanted off Silverlake High, and thought the show would end if the lead star Caitlin went away. The question was how far Dakota had been willing to go to make that happen.
Or how badly Adrienne had wanted to get custody of the daughter she’d just abandoned. I didn’t want to believe Adrienne could have killed Caitlin to secure her role on Silverlake High. But her ambition knew no bounds, and I’d already witnessed her questionable ethics when she wanted to get her way.
And then there was Ellie. She’d wanted to get her mother off her back and had agreed to audition for a role on the teenage soap. Iris was an inveterate nag when it came to pushing her daughters to grab higher and further brass rings. I wondered if the pressure had gotten too intense for Ellie, and she’d gotten rid of Caitlin to improve her chances of landing a role. And Iris herself could have been complicit. I hated to admit it, but it wasn’t a stretch to picture Iris locking Caitlin in Dakota’s dressing room to improve her daughter’s chances. The wild gleam that showed up in her normally soft eyes when she spoke of her daughters’ successes wasn’t new, and she’d already gone pretty far to make things happen for them.
And Iris wasn’t the only crazed stage mother on the scene. Roxanne had been obsessed with Dakota eclipsing Caitlin’s fame. She needed Silverlake High to go on and may have killed Caitlin to grab the limelight for her daughter and to end Caitlin’s strike so the show could resume filming.
And where did Ginger fit in? She’d felt beholden to Dakota since the starlet had paid her tuition fees to the prestigious and expensive Dunlap Academy. She knew her best friend was deeply unhappy and wanted to quit the show and return to Port Quincy. Had Ginger taken her indebtedness too far and helped Dakota out by getting rid of Caitlin?
I shivered as I recalled Ginger’s take-charge attitude and unflappability. But just being a confident woman who had gone after what she’d wanted in life didn’t make her a killer.
Or did it?
Maybe she had known something, just like Xavier, and that’s why she’d been murdered in my office. Or someone had figured out she’d killed Caitlin and murdered Ginger as payback.
The clues were disparate and varied, and they were stacking up quickly. But I couldn’t make heads or tails of all the threads. It was like viewing a pointillist painting up too close. I saw each minute piece of evidence, but they all swam together in a jumbled mess of dots. I hoped Truman and Faith could make sense of things before another murder took place.
But it was time to put the sleuthing on the back burner. I shivered as I left downtown and headed east toward Dunlap Academy. I had a wedding to put on—that was, if my bride didn’t end up in jail next to Adrienne. A tiny smile ticked up the corner of my mouth as I pictured throwing my first jailhouse wedding, Beau kissing Dakota through the iron bars.
* * *
“I can’t wait to see what my sister came up with.” Ellie shut the door to her new office, once Ginger’s, and locked the door firmly behind her. I followed her with frank curiosity through the labyrinth maze of stone hallways and peered into rooms and vestibules.
The medieval fortress motif from the outside continued inside Dunlap Academy. The girls gathered around floor-to-ceiling fireplaces, the rooms we passed alive with chitchat and laughter. We headed up a wide stone stairway toward the dormitories, which appeared more modern than the main structure.
“This wing was added in the 1990s,” Ellie explained as the cold stone floor gave way to cushy carpet. “The school has a lot of history, but parents wouldn’t send their daughters here without modern amenities.” The rooms looked a little posher than the average college dorms with high ceilings, fireplaces, plump upholstered chairs, and rich, dark furniture.
“Leah made a slideshow of memories to play at Dakota and Beau’s wedding. She pored over hundreds of photos and selected music to go along with a video.” Ellie’s face dimmed. “Ginger was going to put it together before the accident.”
Interesting choice of words.
Ginger’s death had been no accident, and neither had Caitlin’s. Yet that’s how Ellie seemed to frame the incidents in her mind. I’d kept quiet about my recent whereabouts with Truman and Dakota. I didn’t want to tip off Ellie or Iris or anyone else to the fact that they’d probably be hauled in for questioning soon.
We arrived at Leah’s door and Ellie called in for her sister. “Mallory’s here to see the video,” Ellie announced as she pushed open the door to the dorm. Leah must have been hard at work, since she didn’t turn around. She wore huge headphones over her ears, and her purple hair was tied up in a jaunty genie ponytail, the bangs spiked and jagged as usual.
Ellie gave me a shrug as Leah continued to feverishly bang away on her keyboard, lost in her own world. I squinted and caught some text about the Italian renaissance.
“Earth to Leah!” Ellie’s voice rang out through the small room.
“Oh!” Leah shut her laptop with a loud clap and whirled around in her desk chair. “You two scared me.” She placed a hand on her chest and took in a deep breath. “I thought I locked the door, but I guess I forgot. With all the crazy things happening around here, I’m trying to be extra careful.”
I don’t blame you.
Leah was the only person I was sure wasn’t involved in the attempted poisoning and murders of Caitlin, Ginger, and Xavier. Sure, she’d been the first person to discover Caitlin in the dressing room, but she’d only been five at the time. I felt better knowing there was one bridesmaid whom I didn’t suspect of murder.
“Tell me what you think. I know Ginger would have done a better job selecting photos, but I did the best I could to honor her.” Leah bit her lower lip, a bead of a tear forming in each eye, and held out an iPad.
The slideshow was lovely. Leah had selected photos of both Dakota and Beau from when they were infants all the way up to their courtship. The music complemented the slideshow of photos, several of the songs featuring Beau’s greatest hits. I felt determined to pull off a wonderful day for Dakota and Beau no matter what had happened.
“This is amazing. You did a great job.” Ellie pulled her little sister into an impetuous hug. The two women’s faces were so similar they could have been twins, not just sisters, had it not been for Ellie’s sensible shoulder-length chestnut hair and Leah’s punky purple tresses.
“I’ll email you a copy,” Leah promised as she walked us to the door of her dorm room. We exited and turned to leave when I heard a soft moan emanating from the left.
“What was that?”
Ellie frowned and cocked her head to the side. “The wind does odd things in this building. Sometimes it sounds like sighing
. It’s probably nothing.” She gently nudged me along and we started down the hall.
“No, it sounds like a person.” I stopped and held my arm out so Ellie was forced to wait. “Listen.”
Ellie ceased walking and frowned, her brows furrowed. “I can’t—”
“There it is again!”
The sound was barely perceptible, and it was coming from the door to our right. Ellie’s eyes grew wide and she rapped on the door with increasingly panicked knocks.
“Open up—this is the headmistress,” she commanded. When no one complied, she withdrew a large master key from her pocket and inserted it in the lock.
She pushed the door open, and there lay Nora Jennings, the daughter of the heart surgeon who’d argued with Ginger, sprawled on the floor. She was facedown, her limbs all akimbo, a syringe at her side.
“Call nine-one-one.” Ellie sprang into action, rolling the student onto her back and feeling for a pulse.
“She’s still with us, but just barely.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ellie performed CPR while I held Nora’s hand and spoke in low and urgent tones.
“Stay with us. Don’t leave now.” An extra shiver ran down my spine as I recalled Adrienne saying the same thing to a prostrate Xavier. People around me were dropping like flies and there was nothing I could do.
The ambulance soon wailed up the long, curving drive to the boarding school, and by the time the paramedics reached us, there was a horde of girls crowding around the door to watch Ellie’s frantic ministrations. Leah stood at the front, a stream of tears coursing down her face.
“Get back! Everyone out of the way.” The paramedics shoved into the room with a stretcher and worked for a few harried minutes trying to stabilize the increasingly lifeless Nora. She moaned as they loaded her limp body onto the stretcher, her arms dangling off the sides.
Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue Page 21