A Priestly Affair (Jesse Thorpe Mysteries Book 2)

by Carl Schmidt

  I gathered myself for just a minute. I wanted to be as delicate as possible.

  “You are very honorable, Xavier. Under normal circumstances, I would expect that you tell the truth. But your circumstances are anything but normal. You are under a lot of stress. In our office, I assumed that you might not be telling us the whole story, but the thought that you were fabricating part of it didn’t occur to me until after you had left. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was, ‘What happened to the child?’ If a child had been carried to and from the room, the murderer would have put himself—or herself—at tremendous risk.

  “I interviewed the woman at the front desk of the Rutland Arms, a lively gal named Kitty Wells. She told me that Stephanie checked in on her own. She didn’t have a child with her. Of course, it is possible that someone else brought Diana into the hotel and took her to the room. Perhaps it was the same person who spray painted the security camera on the fourth floor, subsequently strangled Nicole Shepard, and then escaped down the stairwell with a child in his or her arms. But that whole scenario seemed unusually complicated. And, lest we forget, a two-year old can be very unruly.

  “There’s also the problem of how to borrow a child of the right age and appearance for an evening. I was virtually certain that Stephanie had not actually conceived your child. That’s not the way she operated. She extracted money from men.

  “And…there was one more snag. I’m not an expert at sizing up sexual orientations, but after our meeting on Monday, I was left with the impression that you are gay. If I am correct about that, then the affair you said you had with Stephanie Goulet didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “So I reached for Occam’s Razor and shaved away the child.”

  “That’s very impressive, Jesse,” Xavier said. “And, yes, I am gay. I don’t broadcast that to the public, but I’m not ashamed of it either. I just try to keep my affairs in order, so to speak. It’s not the big deal it was during the Rock Hudson era, but movie offers shrivel up for actors when they come out.”

  “It’s a damn shame,” Angele said.

  “It’s just the way it is,” Xavier replied somewhat matter-of-factly. “There are gay roles, of course, but they don’t always go to gay men or women. And besides, those roles are rather stereotyped. They don’t offer much of a challenge to fine actors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fine actor, but I aspire to be one.”

  I was growing more fond of Xavier by the minute.

  “What gave you the idea to invent the child in the first place?” I asked.

  “Stephanie tried to scam someone else at the party. She left with a guy, they slept together, and then ten months later she called him up and said she had given birth to his daughter. She produced a DNA test of the child and insisted he be tested for paternity.

  “He just laughed in her face. He said, ‘Show me the child,’ but she made up some story that she didn’t want him to see her. She said they weren’t going to raise the child together, so he didn’t need to get emotionally involved. She just wanted money.

  “He told her he was going to call the police. When she asked him why, he said, ‘I’ve had a vasectomy, and you’ve just committed a felony.’

  “He never heard from her again.”

  “By any chance was that Allan Roth?” I asked.

  Xavier stared at me wide-eyed and said, “Good heavens. You’ve done a lot of homework. How did you figure that out?”

  “Perhaps I should bring you up to date on what I know and what I think I know,” I said. “Feel free to jump in if I’m wrong or if I get sidetracked.”

  “You’ve been spot on so far, Jesse. By all means, continue,” Xavier said nodding his approval.

  “OK. I’ve seen almost two hundred photographs of the opening night party for Devils Watch. I’ve studied them and internalized them. Here’s what I’ve concluded.

  “I think Tina and Stephanie either crashed the party or managed an invitation through Joaquín Flores, the executive director of the play. Tina left with him at the end of the party. Stephanie left earlier, about 11:20, with your understudy, Allan Roth.

  “Around eleven o’clock, you and Stephanie stepped outside, and she provided you with some cocaine. I’m guessing you bought two one-ounce bags.”

  At that point, Xavier’s eyes grew wide as saucers. Then he closed them tightly and bowed his head.

  “Yes. You’re right,” he said disconsolately. “How on earth did you figure all that out?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I replied. “Why don’t you just fill in the rest of the details? Remember, this conversation is completely confidential. I know you didn’t murder Stephanie, and I doubt that you’re responsible for Armando Perez’s death. But I’m sure you were at his house the night he died, which is why you were, and still are, being blackmailed.”

  29

  Blackmail

  “I loved Armando. He was a great friend. He helped me several times when my career was flagging. But, ‘business is business,’ he said. He told me at the party that he was going to replace me in the play with Allan Roth.

  “Armando loved me as well. We had actually been lovers years before, but that was over. By that summer, we were just good friends.

  “I went to his house later that night and pleaded with him to keep me on. I told him I had an off night, and I’d do much better after a couple of shows. But he had already made his decision. At the party, he asked Allan to step in for the duration of the run. He said that he wasn’t going to change his mind. He was very angry. He knew the critics would pan my performance, and he suspected they’d trash the whole play with it. He also was very drunk—more drunk than I’d ever seen him before.

  “I bought the cocaine from Stephanie as soon as I heard I was being canned. I wouldn’t have used it if I were going to continue in the play; I no longer mix drugs with work. In fact, I rarely used drugs at all anymore. But that night, I was depressed about being let go. Depressed and embarrassed. I even offered Armando some of the coke, but he had stopped using it a year or two before. He was just sober enough to say, ‘No,’ but hardly sober enough to stand up straight.

  “At first, I tried to be reasonable, after a while I got angry, and in the end, I was terribly sad. We talked for probably half an hour. I told him this would really hurt my career. He said I’d ‘get over it.’

  “Eventually, we moved outside on the deck for some fresh air, but as we neared the railing, he tripped on one of the boards and stumbled. Before I could get to him, he went over the top.

  “There was no staircase leading down from the deck, so I had to go through the house and downstairs to get outside where Armando landed. Without thinking, I let the door close behind me. That locked me out of the house.

  “When I got to Armando, he was already dead. The drop was only about fifteen feet, but he hit his head on a boulder. I’m sure he died instantly. He never made a sound.

  “When I realized I was locked out of the house, I thought about climbing up on the posts that supported the deck in order to retrieve the cocaine, but it looked treacherous, and I had just done a couple of lines. So I fled the scene.”

  “Didn’t you leave fingerprints behind on the bags of cocaine?” I asked.

  “At first I feared that would be my undoing. But I had a guardian angel looking over me, at least for a couple of weeks. The outside of the bags was made of some kind of cotton fabric, probably linen. The inside was lined in plastic. The bag popped open when you pressed on the ends. It was a clever design, probably chosen for just that reason—it wouldn’t leave fingerprints. The police weren’t able to find a single print on either of the two bags.

  “His house was well kept, but dozens of people had been there during the final week of rehearsals. There were so many fingerprints in the place that it became a joke. Almost anyone could have been there that night and left the cocaine. Besides, he was known to have used it himself. There was no way to tell what had happened without a witness. And I was the only one.”
r />   “You were the only eyewitness,” I interjected.

  “Exactly right,” he said ruefully. “Allan thought I had probably gone back to Armando’s. He told me that to my face. It was clear, though, that he was guessing. But Stephanie knew I was there. She sold me the bags of cocaine, and she knew exactly what they looked like. That information became common knowledge as the investigation proceeded.”

  Xavier had been very engaging until then. He had looked directly at me as he spoke, but at that point his eyes clouded over, and he began to stare past me as if I weren’t there. Clearly he wanted to be somewhere else, alone, anywhere that might be safe. But we weren’t done. I decided to bring him back.

  “Allan knew you had a motive,” I said, “so why didn’t he come forward and tell the police that Armando was going to drop you from the play?”

  Xavier slowly refocused and said, “Because he and I were the only ones who knew. He was afraid it would sound as if he was trying to get my job. He might even become a suspect himself. In any event, the publicity would be ugly. The whole incident could jeopardize his career as well as mine. So he kept quiet.”

  “Did you tell him what really happened?”

  “No. I just said that I didn’t know how he died, but that it was probably an accident, because he was so drunk that night. Everyone knew that.”

  “Did Allan pressure you for the role?”

  “No. It wasn’t that big a deal for him, and it would have looked suspicious for both of us anyway. He continued to be the understudy, and he got the chance to do some shows during the week. Quite frankly, he was just as bad at it as I was. In the parlance of our day, ‘We both sucked.’ But I was better known than Allan, so I kept the job. Believe me, though, even before the blackmail, it was an awful time for me. I barely made it through the month.”

  “I’m sure the police questioned everyone at the party,” I said. “Did they question you?”

  “You bet they did,” he said in a heavy monotone.

  “Did they have any reason to suspect you were at Armando’s house later that night?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, Armando and I got into it a bit at the party. At one point, I shoved him—I was so angry that he was letting me go, not to mention the fact that I was high on cocaine.

  “I thought we were alone on the patio, but Joaquín Flores and Stephanie’s friend, Tina, had gone outside for some air—and other things. On their way back in, they heard us arguing. Joaquín stepped between us before it came to blows. He asked what the trouble was, but we both patched it over and said it was just a misunderstanding. I apologized for getting out of line, and the three of them went back inside together. When I calmed down, I returned inside as well.”

  “Did the police know about that incident?” I asked.

  “Yes. They grilled me about it for hours. I told them we were arguing about the play and how to make it better. I wouldn’t say they bought my explanation, but they didn’t have anything else that pointed to me, so I got away clean—for the time being.”

  “So, when and how did the blackmail begin?” I asked.

  “Stephanie dropped in to see me on Friday, August 13th. Can you imagine that? I don’t know if she planned it that way, but that’s how it worked out. Friday the 13th.”

  Angele gasped superstitiously.

  “I was staying in Hyannis that month. Friday evening after the show, I drove to my apartment. Stephanie must have followed me. She ran up to me before I reached the door and said she wanted to talk. I could tell from the moment I saw her that this was going to be trouble. She was a lot more serious and not nearly as friendly as she had been when we met at the party.

  “We went inside, and she laid the whole thing out for me. She wanted forty thousand dollars to keep quiet about the cocaine. It hit me like a freight train.

  “I didn’t say anything for quite some time. I wanted to consider my options. It occurred to me that she would be in trouble too. I told her that there was no way she would go to the police because she had sold me the cocaine.

  “She just smiled in my face. ‘I didn’t sell you the cocaine, Xavier,’ she said. ‘You offered it to me at the party. Remember?’

  “Well, of course she sold me the cocaine, but that really didn’t matter. Only she and I knew that. There were pictures of us together that night at the party. There were probably pictures of us stepping outside together. The woman with the camera took pictures of everything. It would be Stephanie’s word against mine about where the drugs came from. Even if the police believed me on that issue, I still was the one who ended up with the cocaine. I had the quarrel with Armando, and I’d be the one who left it at Armando’s house.

  “She had me over a barrel.”

  “She certainly did,” I replied.

  We sat together silently for a few moments. Then I continued.

  “So, on Saturday when you met Stephanie at the Rutland Arms Hotel, I assume you were making another blackmail payment.”

  “Yes. Seventy thousand dollars.”

  “And she was alone?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “And you left by the stairs?”

  “Yes.”

  Xavier was very stressed. I decided to change gears.

  “Before we go any further,” I said, “let’s take a breather. I want to make a phone call. Something occurred to me earlier, and I don’t want to forget about it. Relax if you can, Xavier. I’ll go out on the terrace and make the call. I won’t be long.”

  Xavier was more than happy to take a break. In fact, he decided it was time for a drink. He opened a bottle of wine, and Angele joined him.

  I went up the staircase and stepped outside on the terrace. The night air was cold. The city hummed below, but the noise was subdued. Twenty-one floors provides a generous buffer to those who can afford it.

  I dialed Billy’s number. It rang four times before he answered.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I am, Billy.”

  “How’s that?”

  “At this very moment, I’m in New York City on the 21st floor of the Plaza Hotel.”

  “Whatever you do… Don’t jump, Jesse! Things will turn out all right.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure,” he replied.

  “That’s not very encouraging,” I said.

  “OK. Damn sure!”

  “All right. I’ll stay put. Listen, I have a question for you?”

  “Fire away,” he replied.

  “Do you remember the guy you met in Tina’s house?”

  “Oh yeah!”

  “Tell me, did he have an accent? By that, I mean, did he sound like he’s from New England?”

  “Everybody in Maine sounds like they’re from New England, Jesse.”

  “Think carefully. It’s important. Did he have a distinct accent? Did he drop his R’s?”

  “Give me a moment,” he said.

  “Take your time,” I replied. “The view is very nice from here.”

  Billy was quiet for about twenty seconds. I figured the wheels were turning, so I didn’t interrupt his circular meditation.

  “Oh yeah!” he finally said, as if he had had a Eureka moment. “At one point he asked me, ‘Is that your car parked out front?’”

  “So, did he say that with an accent?” I asked.

  “Definitely,” Billy replied.

  “You mean, he didn’t pronounce his R’s?” I asked.

  “Just the opposite, Jesse. He did pronounce them.”

  “Gotcha. Thanks, Billy. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  30

  Tony, Tony, Tony

  I closed the French doors behind me and strolled back inside. I took a few minutes to check out the upstairs appointments. It was an extraordinary suite with beautiful furniture, high ceilings, and luxurious bathrooms, upstairs and down. The bedroom was located directly above the living room. If I had my druthers, I’d have placed the bedroom so it faced out on Central Park,
rather than to the interior of the Plaza, but undoubtedly there were plumbing reasons for building the bathrooms on the outer edge of the building.

  While Angele and I had been waiting for our flight to New York, I did a little research on the history of this legendary hotel. I noticed that Donald Trump had purchased it in 1988 for $407.5 million. His wife, Ivana, was installed as the Plaza’s president. She managed to run it nicely until Marla Maples wound up in one of her husband’s bedrooms. After their divorce, The Donald sold The Plaza for a cool $325 million. So much for the economic advantages of marriage.

  It has been said that, “You get what you pay for.” I wondered if that adage applied in this case. It was hard to imagine Ms. Maples being worth the $82.5 million loss, not to mention the other settlement costs. But who knows? I never met the woman.

  As I rounded the corner of the staircase on my way back down to the living room, I heard Xavier talking in a frantic tone on his cell.

  “I didn’t kill Stephanie Goulet,” he shouted. “I saw her for about an hour. When I left, she was alive and well.”

  I waved both my arms in Xavier’s direction. As soon as he saw me, I put one finger to my lips to suggest he should stop talking. I dashed over to him and covered up the mic.

  “Put it on speakerphone,” I said.

  When he did, we all heard, “… you bastard. I know you killed Stephanie. Your life won’t be worth a nickel when I’m finished with you.”

  “Tony, Tony, Tony,” I said out loud, like a mocking bird. “You need to wake up and smell the coffee, pal.”

  It suddenly got deathly still.

  Finally the voice came back, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Who am I? I’m the bodyguard Mr. LaGrange hired to see to it that no one does him any harm. And, my friend, I know a whole lot more about you than you know about Mr. LaGrange.”

  “Like what?” he fired back.