A Knife to Remember jj-5
Page 16
“We'll never know," Jane said. "Maybe it was a lucky guess on his part. But he knew all the gossip in the business and maybe he put together some information we don't have to come to the conclusion that it was Lynette, not Olive."
“Speaking of lucky guesses, isn't that what you're doing?" George Abington said. He hadn't spoken before and his voice now was tired.
“No, we have a film record of him trying to blackmail Lynette into helping Angela get the vacant role. Remember? The public relations man who taped the lunch? Jake had been hand signing to Lynette, telling her he knew that she was a kleptomaniac. I took the film home to throw it away, but I had — I had other things on my mind and I ended up accidentally keeping it. That's why my kitchen was vandalized. Lynette probably didn't understand signing, but Olive did."
“I'm sorry, Jane, but this doesn't make sense," George Abington said. "Kleptomania? That's just a mental illness. Not a very attractive or appealing one, I'll admit, but—"
“Didn't you know, George?" Jane asked him.
He didn't answer for a long moment, then he sighed and said, "I suspected. We were married only a very short time and my life was in a turmoil for the duration, but things did keep disappearing and turning up someplace else. I tried to talk to Olive about it, but she acted so offended that I backed off. Then Roberto came along and it didn't matter to me anymore.”
Olive had looked up for a minute while he spoke and gazed at him sadly, but then she went back to studying her hands in her lap.
Talk, Olive! Jane thought frantically. It doesn't mean anything unless you talk. She heard someone behind her clear his throat and she glanced back to. see Mel. He nodded his encouragement.
“But it mattered to Olive," Jane said. "Olive knew that taking drugs or having affairs or fighting with the I.R.S. were acceptable foibles in the publicity mill. But kleptomania? No, Lynette would have been a figure of fun for that. It isn't, as George says, a very sympathetic ailment or one that most people can identify with. There would have been jokes, suspicion, maybe even arrests, if she'd pinched something valuable and gotten caught with it.”
Shelley was gently patting Olive's shoulder now.
“More important," Jane went on, "Lynette might steal something that did someone genuine harm. She almost did when she took somebody's medicine." "It was in a gold box. A gold pillbox. " Olive said in a near whisper.
It isn't a confession, but it's a step in the right direction, Jane thought. She felt Mel's hand, warm, on the back of her waist.
“So Olive had to silence Jake," Jane went on. "She knew that George suspected the truth, but she also knew he was a good man who wouldn't gossip. But Jake was a different matter, wasn't he, Olive?”
No response.
“Jake had to be silenced before he could tell everybody. And then fate intervened." Jane could have bitten her tongue for saying something so trite, but she had the rapt attention of her small audience and plunged on. "The next day Lynette gave the performance of her life. A performance that would be a classic, that would save and enshrine her reputation. And not only was it a superb performance, it was the last scene of the movie that she was in. It was the perfect time to save her from herself. That's what you did, wasn't it Olive? You saved her from ruining her reputation. You locked her in amber at her peak.”
Jane stopped speaking and waited. The silence around the table was as real as a block of ice with them all frozen into its cold grip. Those at the adjoining tables, sensing the tension, had grown quiet, too.
Finally Olive looked at Jane. And nodded. "Jake was an awful person," she said hesitantly. "He didn't care who he hurt. Poor Lynette couldn't help herself,but he'd have talked about her. People would have laughed at her. And now you've told everyone. You are a wicked young woman.”
Jane stiffened with outrage. This woman had killed two people in cold blood and called Jane wicked? But she managed to keep her voice calm and soothing. "Why now, Olive? You watched over her all her life. Why did you have to kill her? You made her get professional help once. You could have done it again. And eventually it would have worked. She would have been cured in time."
“But I won't be," Olive said.
“You're ill?" Maisie asked her.
Olive nodded. "Cancer," she said bluntly.
This stunned everyone but Shelley into silence. Shelley asked, "How did you get her to drink the tea, Olive? It must have tasted awful.”
Olive looked up at Shelley, her chin quivering. "I told her it was something good for her. She drank it.”
Jane's voice was trembling with anger and sadness. "All we ever saw was Lynette bossing Olive around, but it was really Olive who pulled the strings. Olive told her how to dress, did her makeup, even found the book this movie was based on and persuaded Lynette that it would be a good role for her. Lynette couldn't have found her way out of a closet without Olive showing her where the door was. You wrote the note the limo driver was given, didn't you, Olive?”
Olive nodded.
“And you dressed her and did her hair?" Jane continued.
“I told her some photographers were coming," Olive said in a weary, sad tone. "She was getting sleepy, so I told her to just rest for a bit and I'd wake her when they arrived. It had to be that way. I couldn't have her found in disarray.”
Mel and the other officer had gotten up and moved quietly to each side of her. Shelley stepped back and Mel leaned down to speak to Olive. "I think you should come with us, Miss Longabach, and tell us all about it.”
Olive shrugged as if it didn't matter anymore. "Now everyone knows. It was a waste. Poor little Lynette." She reached into her handbag and took out a handkerchief, which she dabbed at her eyes with before rising. Very calmly and with great dignity, she took the arm of the other officer and let him lead her from the tent.
It was almost ten when Mel returned to Jane's house. She was still in her fancy dress, watching an old movie on television. A local television station, in honor of Lynette's death, was rerunning her first starring film.
Mel came into the living room and sat down beside Jane on the couch. "She was good, wasn't she?" he said.
“She was a wonderful actress. Sometimes. I talked to the others at the table after you left. They all swore to keep the kleptomania a secret if possible, Who knows if they will?”
Mel put his arm around her. "It won't have to come out in a trial. Olive has confessed. Poor oldthing. I don't think she has any idea of what she's really done."
“She was as single-minded as Lynette," Jane said.
“Jane, you did a good thing tonight."
“I don't feel like it.”
She got up and pushed the button on the television to turn it off and forced herself to shake the mood and smile. "What are you doing now?"
“I just wanted to check in with you and I didn't feel like phoning. You look gorgeous. Have I mentioned that?"
“I don't mind hearing it as many times as you care to mention it. Do you have to go back to your office?"
“For about an hour. Why?”
Jane went to the end table where she'd put her purse. Opening it, she took out two white plastic cards about the size of credit cards with an arrangement of round holes punched through. "Todd and Katie are staying with their grandmother tonight and Mike is at his friend Scott's," she said conversationally as she handed one of the plastic cards to Mel.
“What's this?"
“What does it look like?"
“One of those electronic hotel keys. What have these got to do with the case?”
Jane smiled as she walked over and picked up a small overnight case sitting by the window. "I'm happy to say they have absolutely nothing to do with the murders, Mel. They're keys to the room where I'm staying tonight. I checked in this afternoon. Maybe you'd like to drop by later…?”
He stood up and took the overnight case from her. "Janey, it would take a fire, a flood, and half a dozen more murders to keep me away.”
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