Peak Season for Murder

by Gail Lukasik

  “What’s Julian got to do with this?” Bob was blowing on his coffee and then taking loud slurps. Powdered sugar ringed his upper lip from the two donuts he’d inhaled.

  “Maybe nothing. How about I drive you to Green Bay this morning, and you can catch a bus home to Milwaukee?”

  “Aw c’mon, Leigh,” he begged, his brown puppy eyes full of youthful petition. “What’s one more day? You’re taking off tomorrow, right? You can drive me to Green Bay then.”

  Driving Bob round trip to Green Bay would take four hours out of my last day with the BT, four hours I could use soaking up BT ambiance. On the other hand, I didn’t trust Bob to stay in the apartment unless I was around, and I didn’t have time to babysit him.

  “Enough with the droopy eyes. Here’s the deal. You can’t leave the apartment. Promise me.”

  “What am I going to do here all day?” He pouted like a petulant two-year-old.

  I picked up the TV remote from the coffee table and clicked the power button. MTV blared a rap song. “There’s TV. Or here’s a novel idea: read a book.” I leaned over and grabbed a mystery novel, P. D. James’s Devices and Desires, from my backpack and shoved it at him.

  He turned the book in his hand as if it were contaminated. “Where are you going to be?”

  “Doing my job, and in case you get any crazy ideas about taking off, I’ll be coming by every so often, and you’d better be here.”

  “You’re not my mom, you know.” He scowled at me.

  “Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” I retorted.

  He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Yeah, well, whatever.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  After I showered and made Bob swear again that he wouldn’t leave the apartment, I drove to the Egg Harbor Library and searched the Internet for information about Julian Finch’s brief sojourn in Hollywood. As I suspected, he’d been in Hollywood the same time as Danielle. Proving nothing except that their paths could have crossed. Would Danielle Moyer have reached out to him when her life spiraled out of control, or would she have been too humiliated? I didn’t even know the tenor of their relationship, which could have been strictly professional.

  Before logging off, I Googled poisons that mimic a heart attack. Though I had no concrete evidence Ryan had been murdered, I was intrigued by Bob’s idea. There was a healthy list of poisons, some of which I could summarily dismiss either because the poison took too long for symptoms to appear or the symptoms didn’t match Ryan’s or the poison was so exotic, like a puffer fish extract, it was too difficult to obtain.

  There were several poisons that fit the bill, mostly plant-based poisons. I jotted down their names. Even though the medical examiner was running more sophisticated tox tests that would most likely detect the presence of poison, I’d have to cross-check the theater’s garden plants against the plant-based contenders later, if for nothing else than to satisfy my curiosity.

  A drop of sweat rolled off my nose and plopped on my notebook. I rubbed at it, smearing the word moonflowers, one of the poisonous plants. What was I doing?

  Other than learning the fate of Danielle Moyer, I was no closer to finding Lydia’s attacker or knowing whether Ryan had been murdered. Poisonous plants, a celebrity’s sudden death—this wasn’t a Shakespearian tragedy.

  I grabbed a tissue from my bag and wiped my forehead before phoning Darwin, California. After being shuttled around, I finally reached someone who was able to confirm the details of Danielle Moyer’s, aka Olivia Williams’s, death. Nina had told the truth.

  As I went over my notes about Danielle’s suicide, it hit me, what had been buzzing around at the back of my brain last night. Harper Kennedy. She’d told me during our interview that Danielle had committed suicide. And when I’d questioned her about the suicide, she’d said something like “What else could have happened?”

  I bounced my pen on my chin, lost in speculation. Had Harper made a lucky guess about Danielle’s suicide, or did she know about it?

  Paging through my notebook, I located the interview with Harper Kennedy. She’d grown up in Peru, Illinois. I Googled the Peru County Sheriff’s Office phone number and called it.

  I explained to Officer Boden that I was doing fact-checking for an article on the BT actors, and that Harper told me she’d been arrested protesting the incinerator. I’d also assured him that whatever he said wouldn’t go in the article.

  To my surprise, Officer Boden was more than happy to help a small-town journalist, giving me the details of Harper’s arrest. She hadn’t been arrested protesting the building of an incinerator as she’d said. Harper had been arrested for selling drugs on the street. She’d pled guilty, and because it was her first offense did community service in lieu of jail time. She was eighteen years old at the time.

  “I remember her,” Officer Boden said. “Nice enough girl. Just got messed up with a bunch of dirt bags. Glad to hear that she’s turned her life around.”

  “And what was her community service?”

  “Volunteering with the local Boys and Girls Club.”

  It would have been the last place I’d send a young drug-dealing offender.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The musky scent of perfume hit me as Harper opened her apartment door. I’d bought an elastic wrap for my ankle and two turkey sandwiches at the Egg Harbor Market, gave one sandwich to Bob, stowed the other in the fridge, and dashed over to Harper’s apartment, trying to catch her before rehearsal started.

  “I was just on my way out,” she said, not moving to let me in. “Rehearsal’s in ten minutes.” She was wearing a skimpy pink V-neck t-shirt, bare midriff, skinny black bra straps showing, and white shorts, also tight and skimpy.

  “This’ll only take a minute. Can I come in?”

  She let out a deep sigh and gestured me inside. “Can’t this wait until after rehearsal? You know how Alex is.”

  “Just two questions, and I’m gone.”

  I opened my notebook to her interview just in case she challenged me on what she’d said. “Harper, why did you lie about your arrest? You weren’t arrested for a protest. You were arrested for selling drugs.”

  Instead of being embarrassed, she rolled her eyes and shook her head. “What’s the big whoop? That’s all in the past. I did my community service. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d make a big deal out of it. And look, you’re here, making a big deal out it.” She stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her tiny hips, her perky breasts thrust out. “I suppose now you’ll put that in your article. Well, go ahead. I was a dumb kid. I’m not that person anymore. Is that all you want, ’cause I have to go.”

  “Just one more thing. Why did you say that Danielle Moyer committed suicide?”

  “What’s with you, anyway? Danielle Moyer? I don’t get why you’re harping on about her. Again, old news. She disappeared, she committed suicide, who knows?”

  “Did someone tell you she committed suicide?” I pressured.

  She rolled her eyes again. “Julian might have mentioned it. Now I really have to go.”

  Not waiting for me to leave, she whipped past me, leaving a musky trail behind her. The door was open, and I should have followed her out. Instead, I thought about what she’d told me. If she was telling the truth, Julian knew about the suicide. But she’d already proven herself a liar.

  I glanced around the messy apartment, clothes over chairs, shoes on the floor, an ashtray loaded with cigarette butts (Nina’s?), dirty glasses and dishes piled up in the sink and on the counter top. She wouldn’t even notice my rummaging around. And she hadn’t asked me to leave.

  I went to the door and shut it. I don’t know what I expected to find, but I didn’t trust Harper, and this was too opportune to pass up.

  Gwen’s warning came back to me. “Don’t be fooled by her innocent act. She’s a barracuda.” And a liar and a former drug dealer.

  As I searched the apartment, it was obvious Harper never hung anything up or put anything away
, and only cleaned when she ran out of things. On the coffee table under a stack of playbooks was the PopQ issue featuring Nate Ryan’s death. There was a glass ring stain over Lydia’s photo. The bedroom and bathroom were just as messy. I’m no Susie homemaker, but Harper’s apartment made me look like a domestic goddess.

  Though she was spending the entire summer/fall season with the BT, her two suitcases were still open on the bedroom floor, shoved against the wall as if she was ready to bolt at any moment.

  When I returned to the kitchen, I started going through the cupboards, finding the usual dishware sets and glasses, a box of gourmet crackers, assorted cereal boxes.

  The cupboard over the fridge required a chair. I grabbed the desk chair from the living room, stood on it and peeked inside the cupboard. Something was shoved near the back. I reached inside and grabbed what felt like the neck of a bottle. As I pulled it out, I swallowed hard, staring in amazement—distinctive red bottle, white label with a cluster of cherries below the name Sweet Cherry Winery. I’d found a bottle of sweet cherry wine stashed in Harper’s cupboard. What was that doing here?

  Don’t jump to conclusions, I cautioned myself. So there’s a bottle of sweet cherry wine shoved in the back of a cupboard. It could have been there for years, maybe forgotten or left behind for the next actor. And over the years no one had claimed it. Didn’t Steve, the retired car designer from the winery tour, say people liked to keep a bottle around as a souvenir? Those old bottles turned up everywhere.

  But as I studied the bottle, I wondered about the coincidence, Ken’s words playing back to me. “Brownie would have never drunk cherry wine.” And yet, there had been two spent bottles of cherry wine beside Brownie’s dead body.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I jumped, nearly dropping the bottle of wine as I turned toward the angry, accusatory voice. I’d been so engrossed in my thoughts I hadn’t heard the door open.

  Barbara Henry was glaring up at me. Her ample bosom puffed out in indignation. She wore one of her voluminous sundresses. This one was splattered with large blue and yellow flowers.

  “Getting a bottle of wine,” I said, concealing the wine’s label as I stepped down from the chair. Maybe I’d look less guilty if I stated the obvious.

  “Does Harper know you’re in here?”

  “How else would I know where the wine was?” I answered nonchalantly, though my heart was racing.

  For a minute she mulled over my explanation. Then she said, “I don’t know what you’re doing in here. But I’m telling Alex.” She paused. “And Harper.”

  “Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Harper knows I’m here.” I started for the door, cradling the bottle to my chest.

  “And leave the bottle.” She held out her hand.

  “It’s not even drinkable,” I said, reluctantly giving her the bottle.

  “Then why do you want it?”

  When I opened my apartment door, Bob was munching on his sandwich, engrossed in Devices and Desires. He looked up. “What? I’m here, haven’t moved since you left thirty minutes ago.”

  Ignoring his taunt, I went to the desk and picked up the fiftieth anniversary booklet. There was nothing I could do about tattletale Barbara. If Alex asked me to leave, I’d leave. But until he did, I was going to continue my investigation.

  “Scrunch over,” I said, sitting down next to him. I opened to the page containing the photo of Julian and Danielle from Twelfth Night 1988. “Take a look at this.”

  He put the book down on the side table and peered over at the photo. “So, they were in the play together.”

  “Look at it closely. What do you see in their body language?” Something about the photo had stuck with me, and I wanted another opinion to see if I was right.

  Bob studied the photo. “You mean the way Finch has his arms around her like he’s doing her? I’d definitely hit that.”

  “Yes,” I said, exasperated. “And what about her?”

  “What? She’s smiling. She looks happy.”

  “Right. Now look at this.” I pointed to the cast list for A Streetcar Named Desire. “Nate, Julian and Danielle appeared in Streetcar.” Then I pointed back at the cast list for Twelfth Night. “Nate had a minor role in that play. Twelfth Night ran mid-season. And Streetcar was the last play of the season. Nate must have joined the BT mid-season. And Danielle disappeared after Streetcar, at the end of the season.”

  I waited to see if Bob would come to the same conclusion I had. “So you’re thinking Julian and Danielle had hooked up, then Nate comes along and she drops Julian and hooks up with Nate.”

  “It’s a definite possibility.”

  “I wouldn’t go by that picture. They’re actors. Someone probably told them to look like they’re doing it to sell tickets.”

  Bob made a good point. I closed the book and got up, though not ready to concede my supposition. “But Julian knew about Danielle’s suicide if I believe Harper. And he was in Hollywood the same time as Danielle and Nate. Maybe Danielle reached out to Julian for help. And maybe he still had feelings for her. And . . .” I paused, not sure where I was going with this.

  “Julian knew about Danielle’s suicide? How’d you find that out?” Bob questioned, taking another bite of his sandwich.

  “Harper told me. But she’s already lied to me once. So I’m not sure I believe her.”

  He munched on his sandwich, considering what I’d proposed. “I don’t get where you’re going with this,” Bob said.

  Where was I going? “Still putting the pieces together.”

  “Aw, c’mon Leigh, I’m not going to do anything. You can tell me.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing to tell yet, just a lot of speculation. But you’ll be the first to know.” I went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out my sandwich. “Gotta run. And remember, stay put.”

  I didn’t wait for his reply, but limped down the walkway and the stairs and over to the rehearsal building area. Sequestered under a shady cedar, I found one of the green canvas chairs, sat and ate my sandwich.

  “Hey, Leigh.”

  Did this guy have a GPS device set on me? I wondered as I took another bite and accidentally bit the inside of my cheek as well.

  “Mind if I join you?” Rich asked. Dixie was with him. She jumped up and sniffed my sandwich.

  I tore off a small piece of turkey and gave it to Dixie. “Free country,” I retorted.

  “Still mad, huh?”

  I didn’t answer, just kept chewing and looking out toward the water. I could ask him the names of the poisonous plants in the BT garden. But the question might lead back to Bob, so I didn’t.

  He stood there, running his fingers over his balding head as if searching for his missing hair. I could feel his intense stare.

  “You’re wrong about me. You’ll see.” And then he was gone, Dixie trailing behind him.

  I didn’t like his “You’ll see.” The words were harmless, but his tone threatening. But I wasn’t going to hide from him anymore. Tomorrow I’d be outta here. Hopefully that would put an end to his unwanted attention. If not, that’s what restraining orders were for.

  After about an hour, the cast and crew emerged from the rehearsal building. Julian was out the door first, walking fast in the direction of the quad apartments. I didn’t see Alex or his henchwoman Barbara.

  “Julian,” I called after him, running to catch up, my ankle protesting in pain.

  He stopped and turned around, smiling. “Leigh. I’ve been meaning to come by and see how you are settling in. Anything you need from me, just ask.”

  Julian should be the PR director, I thought, gazing up into his warm and inviting face.

  “There is something.”

  “Walk with me. I’ve only fifteen minutes.”

  He was practically trotting. I quickened my pace, trying not to put too much weight on my ankle.

  “You’re limping. What happened?”

  “Nothing, just clumsy.”
<
br />   “I’ll slow down. So what do you need?”

  “You remember Danielle Moyer?” My intention was to start easy, earn trust, then go in for the kill.

  “Of course. I acted with her in several plays. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Right, I saw that in the fiftieth anniversary booklet. It seems she disappeared after the production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Do you have any idea why she did that?”

  We’d reached the flagstone steps leading up to the apartments. He stopped. “I always wondered. One day she was there and the next, it was like she vanished into thin air. Her parents were never the same after that. It killed them.”

  Was he lying? He seemed so sincere. “Well, here’s the thing. Harper told me Danielle committed suicide in California. Danielle went there to be with Nate. But it didn’t work out.” I paused, letting that information sink in, studying his reaction—head tilted in surprise, a quizzical look. “And Harper said you told her about Danielle’s suicide.”

  He smiled, then chuckled, shaking his handsome head. “Dear sweet Harper. I don’t know where she got her information, but it wasn’t from me. I never knew what happened to Danielle.”

  “But you were in love with her?” It was an outrageous question to ask him, but I had to ask it. I had to see if there was any validity in my interpretation of that 1988 photograph.

  Unexpectedly he put his hands on my shoulders as if he had to steady me. “Actors fall in and out of love from play to play. We had a brief fling, and then it was over. So are we good?”

  “Sure.” There was nothing else to ask him.

  He started up the flagstone steps, then turned back. “Everyone’s heading over to Serenity House after the play tonight. Why don’t you join us? It’s your last night with us, and Matt’s threatening to sing show tunes.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”