My eyebrows rose and I gave Gary a sidelong look. He looked surprised as well.
“You just ran into her?” I asked. “That seems sort of odd.”
“Looking back on all that now, I can see that it was, but then, when I was twenty-one and foolish … Anyway, I spent the day with Amelia. When she wanted to be, she could be damn charming. I found I enjoyed her company, so much so that I asked her out.”
“I assume you abandoned your plans for an engagement ring for my aunt?”
“I put it on hold,” he confessed. “Anyway, Tillie was busy with her new job—she worked a lot of weekends. So when I was home and she was busy, I-I started seeing Amelia. Before I knew it, I was head over heels for her. She kept pressing me to let Tillie down gently, and to announce our engagement, but I guess deep down there was a part of me that still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted. I kept putting it off, and she kept getting annoyed with me.”
“I see,” I said tightly. “How did my aunt find out you were dating Amelia? From the notation, it didn’t seem as if you told her.”
“I didn’t. Amelia invited me to her house one evening, and one thing led to another. We ended up, oh heck, I’m sure I don’t have to draw you a picture,” he said roughly, pulling his hand through his hair. “What I didn’t know was that Amelia had invited Tillie over for a sleepover when Tillie got out of work. She phoned her late that afternoon and said she had an errand to run for her mother, but she’d leave the back door open and Tillie should just come on up to the bedroom and make herself at home.”
“Oh my God.” I put my hand to my mouth as I realized just what Amelia had done. “She caught the two of you in a compromising position.”
“To say the least. Tillie told me she wanted nothing more to do with me, and then she blasted Amelia and told her that she was no friend of hers. Amelia tried to tell her that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, things just worked out that way, but … Tillie wasn’t having any of it. She never spoke to either of us again, not unless she had to.”
I shot the man a disgusted look. “I can’t say I blame her,” I said.
“Of course, later I realized Amelia had set the whole thing up, and I dumped her,” he went on. “I finished college and moved away, out
to Arizona, where I met my wife. Ona is a wonderful woman. She changed my life in every way.” He gestured toward some framed photographs on the fireplace mantel. “We have two wonderful children, and three grandchildren. We’re happy. There’s no way I could ever endanger that.”
“Endanger that?” Gary frowned. “What do you mean?”
Larry looked at both of us. “What do I mean? I mean blackmail. Pure and simple.”
I gasped. “Amelia blackmailed you? Over what? Surely not what happened with my aunt?”
He shook his head. “No, not that. That was old news, over a long time ago. When my father took ill, I had to come back East to take over the family business. In the beginning, I would just fly in for the weekends. The kids were still living at home, and there was a lot to be done, packing up our house in Tempe to move back here. Ona was great. She took care of all those details so I could concentrate on what needed to be done here. Well, one weekend who should come knocking at my door but Amelia. She’d heard I was in town and wanted to offer her sympathies about my father. I figured she was sincere, so I accepted her apologies and her offer to help.” He let out a long breath. “You have to remember, I was under a lot of stress and wasn’t thinking clearly. One thing led to another and before I knew it …”
“Oh God,” I burst out. “You didn’t! You slept with Amelia again!”
He had the grace to flush. “I’m not proud of what I did, and Amelia swore no one would ever know the truth.” He rubbed at his chin. “Fast forward to a few years ago, when my wife underwent a brief illness. It was around the same time I got on the museum board. Mazie had been appointed director, and Amelia was fit to be tied because it had been done in her absence. Anyway, a post opened and Mazie nominated Melvin Feller. Amelia came to me and asked me to side with her voting against him. She said that he wasn’t the type of person she wanted on the board.” Larry shook his head. “She always talked about that board like it was her personal property. Anyway, I told her that I didn’t see anything wrong with him and I’d vote the way I damn well wanted to. That’s when she showed me the photos, and the video that she’d taken when we were making love.”
Gary and I both let out a gasp. “She filmed it?” Gary cried.
Larry nodded. “Oh, Amelia was a clever one. She had a camera set up in her bedroom, can you believe that? I didn’t even know you could buy a home video recorder back then. She told me that unless I voted with her and continued to give her my support, she’d tell my wife about our brief liaison.” His gaze met mine, and I’d never seen a man look so miserable. “I couldn’t let that happen,” he whispered. “Ona’s heart is weak. Something like that, well, it could kill her.” He curled his fingers into a fist and banged it against the side of the recliner. “Don’t you see! I had no choice! I had to go along with whatever she wanted, damn her.”
I bit down hard on my lower lip. While I simply couldn’t condone this man’s behavior, I could see how tortured he was, and how much he did love his wife.
I also saw that Amelia’s blackmail gave him a perfect motive for murder.
Gary leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry, sir, I realize how upsetting all this is, and how much courage it took for you to tell us the entire story, but I have to ask: where were you between ten forty-five and eleven fifteen last Sunday morning?”
Larry stared at us, and then broke into a laugh. “Of course, you have to ask. I’ve got the perfect motive for murder, right? Well, Josh Bloodgood already asked me, and I’ll tell you just what I told him.
“Between ten forty-five and eleven fifty-five every Sunday I am at church with my wife, our daughter, her husband, and her two children. We arrive early to the eleven o’clock service every Sunday and it doesn’t get out until five minutes to twelve—even later if Father Randall gets wordy. Last Sunday I was there until five minutes past twelve. My wife wanted to talk to Father Randall about his sermon. I’ve plenty of witnesses who will swear I was in plain sight at that time. I couldn’t have killed Amelia, although don’t get me wrong: I wanted to kill her, many times. She always said that if anything ever happened to her, those photos would be made public. I must tell you, when I heard she was dead, I was on pins and needles. But, apparently, her threat was an empty one. Had I known that sooner, things might have gone a lot differently for a lot of people.” He pointed his finger at me. “I’d have voted to display your aunt’s posters. I know how proud she was of that collection, and it’s one of the more extensive ones around.” He spread his hands. “Things just didn’t work out that way.”
“What about Andy or Ginnifer?”
He passed a hand across his eyes. “Hard to tell with those two. Amelia had something on them, too. I couldn’t tell you what, just like I couldn’t tell you if their voting against you was their own opinion or Amelia’s. But it doesn’t matter. Neither of them could have killed her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because,” he chuckled, “we all go to the same church, and they happened to be at the eleven o’clock service that day as well. I saw them when they arrived around a quarter to eleven, and they were sitting together two aisles in front of my family. Neither of them moved a muscle.”
I sighed. Just like that, three of my suspects were eliminated. I wasn’t sure whether that made me happy or sad, or just plain determined to ferret out the real killer from the ones who remained.
• Twenty •
“Okay, three down. How many more to go?” Gary took his eyes off the road and his hand off the wheel long enough to give me a wink and my arm a quick squeeze. For my part, I’d been relatively silent ever since we’d left Larry’s house. Now I shifted
slightly in my seat to look at him.
“You know, I was kind of hoping it was him,” I said. “There’s just something about that man that irritates me.”
“No doubt you sense he’s a kindred spirit to Patrick,” Gary said.
“If you mean they both suffer from overactive libido, then absolutely.”
Gary chuckled. “Pat never was very good at resisting temptation, and Peabody seems cut from the same cloth. Your aunt was probably all the better off for not marrying him. He obviously didn’t love her.”
“True,” I agreed. “She and Uncle Bertrand were much better suited to each other. Now there was a real love story. Uncle Bertrand was her boss for years, did you know that? They ran the gamut from boss to subordinate to friends to lovers. They had one of the best marriages I’ve ever seen, unlike my own parents’.”
“But they’re happy now, right?”
“I suppose so.” I drooped forward, chin in hand. “Dad and Darlene certainly seem to be happy, anyway. Mother is, well, Mother. I doubt she’ll ever change.”
“People rarely do,” Gary remarked. “Now, getting back to our original subject. Who’s left in our suspect pool?”
“Not enough,” I said grimly. “I would really like to have another chat with Garrett Knute. He never answered me on the contents of that mysterious envelope.”
“He might feel it’s none of your business.”
“To quote Inspector Godfrey from our show: ‘Murder makes everything my business.’ Particularly when I’m still in that suspect pool.”
“I’d still like to know how your friend Quentin Watson found out about the murder weapon.”
“He’s not my friend. And it’s the probable murder weapon,” I amended. “They haven’t found it yet.”
“Hm. That could mean the murderer took it with him or her. Indicating to me this was definitely something premeditated and not a crime of passion.”
“Yeah.” I slumped down farther in my seat. “Premeditated with me as the intended scapegoat. You know, it really galls me that someone would go to such lengths to frame someone they hardly know.”
“They probably thought it would be easier than framing someone they did know,” Gary laughed. “Ships that pass in the night and all that.”
“I suppose I have no one to blame but myself,” I said. “Arguing with her on the sidewalk in the middle of town was a poor decision. But Quentin Watson didn’t help things with his little article about me in the paper.”
“So, it’s likely whoever murdered Amelia either witnessed your tiffs with her and then with Peabody and McHardy—or heard about them—rather than read it in the next day’s paper,” said Gary.
“The way gossip flies around this town, that could be anyone.”
He clucked his tongue. “You should have stayed in L.A., Shell. At least there the gossip’s out front, not behind your back.”
“Yeah, usually on the front page of some supermarket rag.” I tapped my head against the leather headrest. “You know, I was really looking forward to leading a quieter life, and then this had to happen.”
He reached across again and lightly brushed my fingers with his. “If that’s what you really want, Shell, then you shall have it. We’ll get your name cleared and find the murderer, or my name isn’t Gary Presser.”
“It’s not.” I slid him a glance. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but per your official studio biography, you changed it from Philip Tewksbury, didn’t you?”
His grin was enigmatic. “A mere technicality.”
∞
I was still full from our hearty breakfast of a double stack of pancakes, sausage, and bacon but Gary of the bottomless-pit stomach wanted a snack, so we pulled up in front of Sweet Perks. Rita’s niece was behind the register and she gave us a wave as we walked in. I assumed it was aimed more at Gary than me. I saw Olivia sitting at a table near the window and made a beeline right for her while Gary went to put in our orders: a skim mocha latte for me, God knew what for him.
“Hey, Shell,” Olivia said as I approached. She frowned as she studied my face. “You look a bit upset. Anything wrong?”
“Nothing much, except the suspect pool is getting smaller. Soon I may be the only one left in it.”
“Uh-oh.” Olivia pushed her cup to the side and propped her chin in her hands. “Tell Auntie Olivia all about it.”
I recounted the day’s adventures, starting with Purrday’s find and ending with Larry’s alibi for Amelia’s TOD. I ended it with, “So now it appears he, Ginnifer, and Andy all have alibis.”
“Well, we never really figured on Ginnifer and Andy anyway, right? It’s just Larry’s alibi that’s frosting your cookies.” Olivia waved her hand. “That type never murders. If he were the kind to do violence, he would have offed Amelia long ago. I could have done without knowing there’s visual evidence of those two together, though. ”
Gary appeared, balancing a tray on which rested three coffee cups and a plate containing a very appetizing-looking muffin. He set my latte in front of me and passed one across to Olivia. “I’m sure you’re ready for a refill,” he smiled. “Rita told me what you were drinking.”
Olivia took the cup and smiled. “Bless her heart, and yours too.”
I sniffed the air and eyed the muffin. “That smells great. What is it?” I asked, reaching for it.
He swatted my hand away. “Oh, no. It’s an apple crumb muffin. Go get your own.” He picked it up and deliberately took a huge bite. I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Children, children, calm down. So, what’s our next step?” Olivia asked. “Who do we investigate now?”
“I would love to know what’s in that envelope that Garrett Knute and Amelia had the shouting match over,” I said. “But I have no idea how I’m going to get that information. Garrett just ignored me when I asked about it.”
“Whdugeweassatsn,” Gary mumbled around his mouthful of muffin.
I gave Olivia an eye roll and turned to him. “Chew, swallow, and then repeat that.”
He did and then said, “Why don’t you ask Watson? He seems to have his finger on the pulse of everything that goes down in this town.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? Quentin Watson does not like me. He wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“No, Quentin Watson merely got back at you the only way he knew how because you didn’t jump to give him an interview. That’s happened to you before, Shell.”
“That’s true,” I said slowly. “Remember Emily Burgess from the L.A. Examiner?” I chuckled. “She printed that story about me and Nathan Fillion having a torrid affair, and I’d never even met the guy.”
“Exactly. And how did you handle that situation?”
“Well, first Max talked me out of suing them.” I laughed. “And then I called her and said that I was sorry, I had a busy schedule, but I’d love to get together with her. And she printed one of the best articles that’s ever been written about me.” I looked at Gary. “So, what. You think I should wave the white flag at Quentin?”
“Can’t hurt. After all, look what happened with Emily.” He popped the last of the muffin into his mouth.
“Emily was reasonable, at least. Quentin is a sleaze.”
Gary grinned at Olivia. “It’s a prerequisite in Hollywood. Every actor refers to every reporter as a sleaze. It’s in our contracts.” He turned back to me. “Give the guy an interview, get on his good side, and maybe you can catch him off guard and find out where he got his info on the murder weapon.”
“It’s a nice plan,” I admitted. “I can think of one downside to it, though.”
“What’s that?”
“If he turns out to be Amelia’s murderer, I might find out about that murder weapon firsthand.”
“I wouldn’t want you to have a go at him alone,” Gary said.
“What did you
have in mind? A double interview? You and me?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of you wearing a wire.”
I goggled at him. “A wire? Now who’s watching too many detective shows?”
“Hey, it would work. We’ll have a code word, and if things start getting too sticky, you say it and I’ll get there with the police faster than you can say ‘Gary Presser’s a star.’”
I looked at Olivia. She shrugged. I looked back at Gary.
“Say I agree to this cockamamie plan, just where are you going to get a wire?”
He grinned mysteriously. “Leave that detail to me. You just arrange a time and place with the sleaze.”
I chewed my lip, thinking, and then whipped out my cell phone. “Why do I think I’m gonna be sorry for this?” I punched in a number, then wiggled my fingers at Gary. “You’d better know what you’re doing—hello, Mr. Watson? This is Shell McMillan. Shell Marlowe. If you’re still willing, I’d love to give you that interview you wanted.”
• Twenty-One •
I arranged an interview with Quentin Watson at noon the next day at the Captain’s Club. True to his word, Thursday morning Gary had a wire all rigged up: inside a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra.
“Do I want to even know how you accomplished this?” I asked, staring at the apparatus dubiously.
Gary chuckled. “Probably not.”
I held the bra up, turned it over in my hand. “This had better work.”
“It’s been tested. Trust me,” he said with a maddening grin and then took off before I could quiz him any further.
Olivia came by and helped me get ready. I chose a flowing black tunic with a split neckline over a pair of deep coral crop pants. I did full makeup: foundation, blush, eyeliner, shadow, mascara, the works—something I hadn’t done since I left Hollywood. Olivia helped me style my hair into a low chignon at the nape of my neck. Gary greeted me with a wolf whistle when I finally walked down the stairs.
The Time for Murder is Meow Page 19