Diva's Last Curtain Call (17 page)

“I was here for the recognition program last weekend and I lost a very expensive bracelet. Did anyone turn in a bracelet last weekend?”

“Nope. Sorry,” she said, not impressing me one bit with her customer service skills, and started to swing the door shut.

“There’s a reward,” I called out before the door completely shut. The door opened again and this time Joyce Clark’s entire attitude had changed and a smile was spread across her round face. Ah, the power of money. She stepped aside and gestured for me to come into the office.

“Must be a pretty expensive bracelet,” she said, pulling a chair from against the wall of the tiny cluttered office and motioning for me to sit down. She closed the office door and sat back down behind her desk. There was two-thirds of a large pizza with the works sitting in a box in the middle of her desk. It was still hot and I could see steam rising from it. My mouth watered. She noticed me looking longingly at the pizza, closed the lid and pushed the box aside.

“It’s a diamond tennis bracelet. My boyfriend gave it to me. If he finds out I lost it he’s going to kill me.”

“Well, we do have a lost and found but it’s mostly junk that gets turned in. I doubt anybody would be honest enough to turn in an expensive piece of jewelry. But I could post some signs. What kinda reward are you talking about?” her eyes glittered greedily.

“Two hundred dollars.” She sat back in her chair and I could almost see her mentally calculating how many pizzas she could buy with two hundred dollars.

She leaned down and pulled a drawer in her desk open, withdrew a yellow form and handed it to me across her desk. It was a claim form to report lost property. I grabbed a pen from her desk and started to fill it out, using bogus information, of course.

“I bet you got to meet Vivianne DeArmond last weekend. What was she like?” I asked.

“She was all right,” replied Joyce Clark, shrugging. “Kinda stuck up. But I guess that’s normal for somebody who used to be in movies. That little assistant of hers worked my last nerve though.”

“Really?” I said, my ears perking up.

“She chewed out a member of my custodial staff. Accused him of stealing a necklace of Ms. DeArmond’s. My people don’t steal. None of them even went into that dressing room once Ms. DeArmond and her assistant arrived. I was the only one who kept checking with them to make sure everything was okay and I sure as hell don’t steal. She probably just misplaced it or forgot to put it on, period. Ms. DeArmond was real upset about it but we never found any necklace. Who knows, maybe the same person who found your bracelet has Ms. DeArmond’s necklace.”

“Wow. Did you or any of your staff see anybody strange lurking around her dressing room?”

“You ask me, all them show-business people are strange. Ms. DeArmond’s assistant was doing a good job of keeping people away. I personally saw her turn away about two dozen fans. Only one I saw go in that dressing room was an older, light-skinned black man. Then I had to go make sure the film festival committee members had everything they needed for the presentation. I was running around all morning long. My feet still hurt.”

“You’re right, you know. My bracelet’s probably long gone by now,” I said, handing her the form. “Things got so crazy after that fire alarm went off. I didn’t even realize it was gone until later that night.”

“Girl, crazy is right. We get the auditorium all emptied out after that alarm went off. Then next thing I know Ms. DeArmond’s assistant comes running up to me screamin’ for me to help Vivianne. I thought maybe she had a heart attack or somethin’. I go runnin’ down there like a fool ready to perform CPR and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t know somebody had killed her. Lord Jesus, if I never see a sight like that again it will be too soon.” She pulled a piece of pizza from the box and started eating it to calm her nerves. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one using food for therapy.

So Harriet had been the one to discover Vivianne’s body after the dust cleared. I wondered where she’d been up until that time? What was she doing when the alarm went off? Cleaning blood from her clothes perhaps? Or maybe tossing Vivianne’s purse in the Dumpster. Donald Cabot had said she stuck to Vivianne’s side like glue that morning. Could Vivianne have sent her on some fake errand to get her out of the way so she could do her interview with Allegra? Or is Harriet the one who killed her then pulled the fire alarm to distract everyone?

“Did you ever find out who pulled the alarm?”

“No one pulled the alarm. Someone was smoking in the men’s room and set off the alarm. We found some cigarettes in the trash can.”

“What kind of cigarettes? Were they black and milds?” I asked. I felt a little lightheaded. Had Blackie Randall come out of hiding to silence Vivianne? Could he have been the older black man seen going into Vivianne’s dressing room? Joyce Clark just shrugged.

“No idea,” she said. She looked over my form and set it on top of the pizza box. “I’ll have my staff look around for your bracelet, but like I said, mostly we just find junk. We post it on that lost and found board behind you and after a month we pitch it.”

I thanked her and got up to leave and saw the lost and found board propped against the wall by the door. There was an assortment of objects tacked to it: two sets of keys, nail clippers, a tarnished hoop earring, dog tags, a watch with a broken strap, a man’s tie. She was right. Just a bunch of junk but something else caught my eye. There was a framed painting hanging on the wall by the door. The picture showed a group of cowboys gathered around a campfire at night. The skill of the painter was nothing remarkable. It was the subject matter that had gotten my attention. Camping! I suddenly realized I knew where Lynette was.

John Bryan State Park was in Yellow Springs, home of Antioch College, Glen Helen Nature Preserve and children’s author Virginia Hamilton. It was also a mere fifteen-minute drive from Willow. When Lynette and I were Girl Scouts we’d gone camping several times with our troop in John Bryan Park. Lynette used to love it. I didn’t. I remembered her staring at the picture of us as Girl Scouts when I’d gone to her house on the morning of Vivianne’s murder and talking about how our lives had been so uncomplicated back then. I was banking that she was trying to relive that time by going camping again, though she’d have to really be in love with camping—or just plain crazy—to be out in the cold, dreary weather we were currently experiencing.

I arrived at the park. Not surprisingly the parking lot was empty save for two cars, a brown Buick Regal and a familiar black Nissan Altima. Lynette’s car. Hallelujah! I parked next to her car and got out. It was raining again and I rooted around in my trunk, finally finding an old, raggedy umbrella that wasn’t going to offer much protection from the rain but was better than nothing. I also found a lint-covered blue sweater and pulled it on. It smelled moldy, and there was a rust stain on the sleeve from where my tire iron had been lying on top of it, but I didn’t care. It was warm.

I headed back to the campgrounds. It had been years since I’d been to the park, but everything still looked much the same as it had long ago. The rain seemed to make everything look more lush and green, but I could hardly appreciate my surroundings under the circumstances. I squelched through mud in some spots, staining my running shoes, and twice I almost slipped on the wet grass in my haste to find Lynette. The campground was, not surprisingly, empty. No tents were pitched and no one appeared to be in any of the cabins. I walked on, eventually giving up on the useless umbrella and tossed it in a nearby trash can. I clutched my sweater close around me and wiped the rain dripping through the tree branches hanging overhead from my face with the sleeve. Finally, I saw a canvas teepee pitched on a wooden platform in the distance. I hurried toward it and called out Lynette’s name. Nothing. I called out again, louder this time, and finally the flap of the teepee opened and Lynette stuck her head out.

“How’d you find me?” she said when I reached her. She held open the flap and stood aside so I could enter. She was dressed warmly in a gray sweat suit and a jean jacket. The teepee wasn’t exactly toasty, but it was sure better than being out in the rain. I saw a pot of coffee and a pan of what smelled like beef stew warming on top of a propane stove. Lynette actually looked not only happy to see me, but a lot happier than when I’d seen her last. I, on the other hand, was cold, wet, miserable and in no mood for any mess.

“That’s all you have to say to me? How’d I find you? How about saying you’re sorry you ran away and made me, Greg and your mother worry? And that you’re sorry me and your mother almost got into a fistfight in the grocery parking lot? Or that you’re sorry that I went looking for you at the Heritage Arms with Morris Rollins and now everyone in town thinks I’m screwing him, including his girlfriend, Winette Barlow, who tried to kill me with a paper cut!” I snapped indignantly. Lynette’s eyes got big.

“Morris Rollins is kicking it with Winette Barlow?”

“Lynette!” I bellowed.

“Okay. Okay. I’m so sorry, Kendra. I truly am. I just had to get away for a few days, that’s all.”

“Well, your vacation is over. Pack this mess up and let’s get going. Your mother is threatening to cancel your wedding if you’re not back home tonight.”

Lynette laughed. I could see no humor in the situation at all.

“Yeah, right. She can’t cancel anything. She was just bluffing.”

“She sure seemed to think that she could.”

“Kendra, you know how my mother is. She can’t stand it when she’s not in charge. I let her help me make all the wedding arrangements, but my name is on all the reservations that were made. She can’t cancel anything without my consent.”

“So you do plan to marry Greg on Saturday?” I asked cautiously.

“Does he still want to marry me? Because I love Greg. Being away from him for the last few days made me realize just how much I do love him. I just hope I haven’t ruined it,” she said looking at her feet.

“Of course he still wants to marry you, fool,” I said and grabbed her hand. “And what about that other issue? You know, the sex thing—”

“I think it’s going to be okay, Kendra. I was under so much pressure and my mother wasn’t making it any better constantly throwing my marriage to Lamont in my face every time I turned around. I started second-guessing myself. I really needed a break to think without the kids and my mother breathing down my neck. But now I know things with Greg will be different. I didn’t mean to make you all worry. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

I hugged her to show that all was forgiven.

“You need me to help you pack up?” I asked, reaching for a nearby cooler.

“I’m not going back tonight,” she said simply.

“Huh? I thought you just said—”

“I already paid for this teepee for the night. I’ll go home first thing in the morning.” She looked like an excited little girl and I had a hard time not smiling.

“You look hungry, Kendra. Let’s have some stew. And then for dessert, guess what I have?”

“I can’t begin to imagine,” I said sarcastically. Like I said before, I hate camping. I watched Lynette as she rummaged through a grocery bag. She turned to me beaming and waving a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers and a giant Hershey Bar.

“S’mores!” We both said in unison

A couple of hours, a bowl of stew and a half dozen s’mores later, I headed home. I called Greg from my cell on the way and told him his runaway fiancée would be home first thing in the morning. I’d leave it up to him to inform Justine. After I hung up with Greg, my cell phone rang and I saw that it was Mama’s number. I didn’t answer. I just wasn’t up to getting a singed eardrum from her ranting and raving over me and Morris Rollins. My cell phone beeped, indicating that she’d left me a voice mail message that I was in no hurry to listen to, either. Instead, I headed home so I could get out of my still slightly damp clothes and take a hot bubble bath. But when I turned onto my street, all thoughts of a bath flew right out of my mind. There was a group of neighbors on the front lawn of my duplex. My landlady, Mrs. Carson, was smack in the middle of the crowd talking and gesturing wildly. I parked and got out. Mrs. Carson came rushing up to me.

“Where you been, missy? Everybody’s lookin’ for you.” I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is they just arrested your sister for murdering Vivianne DeArmond. They carted her off in handcuffs ’bout half and hour ago.”

Great!

W
hen I arrived at the Willow police station I had to fight my way through the crush of media crowded into the lobby. Two officers were keeping the press at bay, preventing them from proceeding beyond the lobby. I tried to explain I was a relative of Allegra Clayton’s, but they wouldn’t let me through. News reporter Tracy Ripkey spotted me trying to shove my way past the officers and decided to get a statement. Bad idea.

“Miss Clayton, how do you feel about your sister being arrested for the murder of Vivianne DeArmond?” She shoved a microphone in my face. Another reporter, a large sweaty man in a tight suit, caught wind that I was a relative of the accused and brutally shoved Ripkey out of the way, practically sending her flying, and stuck his microphone in my face. It was too crowded for me to see where Ripkey had landed, but I was sure her big hair had probably cushioned her fall.

“Has your sister confessed to murdering Ms. DeArmond? What was her motive?” The sweaty man asked. Then a third reporter jumped in my face.

“What evidence do the police have against your sister, Miss Clayton?” I was surrounded by reporters and could barely move.

Tracy Ripkey, not at all pleased about being shoved out of the way, rushed up to the sweaty male reporter and stomped on his foot. His face went white with pain and he angrily elbowed her in the shoulder causing her to drop her microphone on another reporter’s foot. Soon it was a free-for-all with the lobby full of reporters punching and kicking each other like bikers in a bar fight. I ducked several punches as I eased my way out of the crowd and clung to a nearby wall. The two officers plunged into the brawling crowd in an attempt to restore some kind of order, leaving me free to rush past them into the main part of the building. I headed around the corner and down a long hallway until I spotted my family: Mama, Alex, Gwen and Carl. Alex and Gwen looked away as I approached but Mama and Carl greeted me with tight angry expressions. I hadn’t done anything. Why were they mad at me?

“Did you know?” Carl spat out at me. Mama was standing rigidly by his side with her arms crossed.

“That Allie’s been arrested? Yeah, Mrs. Carson told me. Where is she?” I asked looking around.

“No, Kendra. Did you know about that check Allegra took from Vivianne DeArmond’s purse? That they found the check in Allegra’s rental car?”

In her rental? That meant that Allegra had lied to me about the check being stolen. She’d had the check all along. I was too stunned to be angry, but my shock at being lied to didn’t keep me from feeling hurt and betrayed. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.

“How’d they find out about the check?” I asked meekly.

“They found out about Vivianne DeArmond’s book. They also found out that she’d been issued a check for an advance against royalties that they didn’t find among her possessions and that hadn’t been cashed. So they had the post office put a trace on it. It had arrived at her house the morning of her murder. Harriet Randall said Vivianne got the mail that morning and she saw her putting some mail in her purse. But no letter was found when they dug the purse out of the Dumpster. They got search warrants for every place Allegra had been staying, including your grandmother’s house and your apartment, plus they impounded Allegra’s second rental car. They found the check in the glove box of Allegra’s rental.”

“Where is she now?” I asked again.

“She’s being processed like a common criminal, having her mug shot taken and being fingerprinted,” Mama said stiffly. I reached out to touch her but she shook my hand off.

I told them everything that had happened after we’d found my apartment broken into and tossed and about Allegra confiding in me about the check. It was too little too late. They were all furious with me.

“Good Lord, Kendra, why in the world didn’t you at least tell Carl about that check? Do you know how this makes your sister look? She doesn’t have the good sense that God gave a goat, but I thought you’d have known better than this. Now, I’m going to have to try and track down your parents in Europe and tell them their daughter has been arrested,” Mama said, sounding close to tears.

She walked away from me, shaking her head, and went to join Alex and Gwen. Gwen put a comforting arm around her. Alex usually stays pretty neutral, but even he was looking at me like I was an idiot.

“I made a mistake. I’m sorry. But I swear Allie told me that check had been stolen during the break-in,” I said to Carl.

Since we’d been dating, I’d never had an occasion to see Carl truly angry, especially not at me. It was not a pretty sight. It looked like it was taking everything in him not to scream, which I would have preferred to him starring daggers at me and not speaking. Had I made a mistake in not telling Carl about the check? Yes. But, hell, I’m not the one who took the damn check in the first place, and I didn’t appreciate being made the scapegoat.

“You know, Carl, I’m really surprised Allie didn’t tell you about the check herself. I mean, you’ve probably seen more of her this past week than I have. In fact, the two of you have gotten quite cozy lately.” I could tell by the way his eyelid started twitching that it had been the wrong thing to say but I didn’t care. Being picked on tends to bring out the worst in me.

“I don’t believe this shit. I’m trying to keep your sister from spending the rest of her life in prison, so, yeah, we’ve been spending time together. She’s my client. At least you know who I’ve been with and why. But from what I’ve been hearing, you haven’t exactly been missing me, have you?” He was practically vibrating with hostility.

He’d heard the rumor about me and Rollins. Boy, this just kept getting better and better by the second.

“I haven’t been doing anything that you haven’t been doing,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“You need to grow up, Kendra. And while you’re at it, go home. You’ve upset your family enough and I don’t have time for your petty insecurities,” he said. He turned to rejoin my family, who were gathered around my visibly upset grandmother. No one looked at me.

They didn’t want me there? Fine. I was leaving. I headed out to the lobby and barreled my way back through the now calm and strangely subdued flock of reporters. A couple of the braver ones started to follow me until I whirled around and screamed at the top of my lungs, “No! Comment!” They fell back, looking at me fearfully, like whipped dogs. But one of the photographers snapped my picture midscream. I had a good idea who was going to be on the front page of tomorrow’s
Willow News Gazette
.

I headed for my car, hot tears of frustration and hurt feelings blurring my vision, and ran smack into a very tall man. I looked up. It was Morris Rollins. I clung to him and bawled like a baby while he held me and stroked my hair.

Rollins insisted on following me home even though I told him I was okay. Once at my place, I felt obligated to invite him in for coffee, and of course, he accepted. I just hoped Winette Barlow wasn’t lurking around in my bushes waiting to administer a
Steel Magnolia
-style beat down on me.

“Why’d you come down to the station?” I asked and handed him a mug of freshly brewed coffee. He was sitting at my kitchen table with his long legs stretched out underneath.

“I saw the report of your sister’s arrest on TV. I came to lend my support to you and your family. I knew you had to be very upset.” He didn’t know the half of it. I filled him in. He let out a low whistle.

“I wouldn’t take this too personally, Kendra. Your family is just upset and since your sister wasn’t around right then they were taking their frustrations out on you.”

“Maybe. But you have to admit I did make a big mistake in not at least persuading Allie to tell Carl about that check.” I joined him at the table.

“Why didn’t you?”

“You’ve never met my sister, have you? Her talent for getting her own way is only rivaled by her talent for flirting. She has my whole family wrapped around her finger. All she has to do is start whining and everyone bends over backwards to make her happy. I thought I was immune to it, but I guess not.”

“Are you jealous of your sister?” he asked bluntly. Was I jealous of Allegra? Now there was a loaded question. I thought about it for a few seconds before answering.

Jealousy implied that I resented my sister for all of her accomplishments and begrudged her her success, and that certainly wasn’t the case. On the other hand, I
was
envious of Allegra’s effortless charm, her model looks and her fearlessness in pursuing her career goals even though her choices haven’t always been to my taste.

“I’m very proud of my sister’s accomplishments. I only want to see her happy,” I said simply, avoiding Rollins’s eyes. He let out his infectious laugh.

“Spoken like a true diplomat.”

I saw Rollins to the door about half an hour later. We stood in the doorway awkwardly. Finally, he bent down and gave me kiss on the lips. It started out a nice simple kiss. But it quickly changed into something else. Something deep and warm. An invitation to someplace we knew we shouldn’t be going. At least not yet. But as I thought back on Carl’s angry face and harsh words I found myself wrapping my arms around Rollins’s waist and pulling him closer, inhaling his wonderful scent. His hands were massaging my lower back, pressing me tightly against him. I started sucking on his tongue and heard a low groan escape from the back of his throat. His hands found their way underneath my shirt and felt hot against my skin. I could feel his erection pressing against my stomach and was mere seconds away from pulling him back inside my apartment and tearing his clothes off when we were hit by a bright blast of the car’s headlights.

A car was stopped at the corner across the street. The high beams were on us, blinding us momentarily. We pulled apart just in time to see the car make a turn in front of my duplex and speed off down the street, tires squealing. I caught a glimpse of an angry woman’s face. Her eyes were shooting me the dirtiest look I think I’d ever been given. It was Winette Barlow. Had she been out here the whole time? Well, I sure couldn’t say I hadn’t been warned. Winette had told me to stay away from Rollins, and what did I turn around and do? Had myself wrapped around him like Saran Wrap on a tuna casserole. Talk about more drama I didn’t need.

“I think we just pissed off your girlfriend,” I said sarcastically, putting some distance between us. Rollins sighed heavily.

“Winette and I have been out a few times. But it’s not serious. She’s looking for a husband. It’s been less than a year since I buried Nicole. I’m not looking to get married again just yet. Looks like I’m going to have to have a little talk with her,” he said sheepishly.

“Make it soon,” I said sincerely. But I knew it was only a matter of time before Winette made good on her threat.

Later that evening I was lounging in hot lilac-scented bath water, hoping my phone would ring and one of my family members would be on the other end telling me what the heck was going on with Allegra. But I knew it wasn’t going to ring. I wondered what in the world my sister could have been thinking, holding on to that check, and why lie to me about it? Then I realized if she had lied to me about the check being stolen, had she also lied about having told Noelle about the check? I hadn’t seen Noelle since the day I saw her and Kurt with Donald Cabot. Where had she been all this time? Gambling? She wasn’t at the station when Allegra got arrested. Did she even know?

I called the Holiday Inn and had them connect me to Noelle’s room. There was no answer. Why did I have such a bad feeling? Did someone Noelle owed a gambling debt to show up to collect? Had she been beaten up, or worse, killed? I reluctantly left my hot tub and threw on sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. When I got to the hotel I asked which room Noelle was staying in and, of course, they wouldn’t tell me. Our Holiday Inn is nice but very small. Only one story and about fifty rooms. The front half of the building was the oldest. An addition of about twenty luxury suites had been added off the back. The new rooms were bigger and much nicer, complete with Jacuzzi tubs and big-screen TVs. They were also more expensive. I couldn’t imagine a producer for a Hollywood news program staying on the cheap.

I had an idea of a way to find Noelle’s room, but I had to get back to the area where the suites were in order to pull it off. Unfortunately, the door that led back to the rooms was located near the front desk and, for security reasons, was locked. Hotel guests used their room key-cards to open the door. I sat in the lobby as though I was waiting for someone. The hotel clerk, a snotty-looking woman whose features were crowded into the middle of her face, making it look permanently pinched, kept eyeing me suspiciously. It was after ten at night on a Thursday. It wasn’t as if there was much else for her to do except watch me. But what did she think I was going do—make off with the ashtrays? Every once in a while the phone would ring and she’d answer it, but she still kept one eye on me.

I was half-asleep in one of the lobby’s comfortable leather chairs when a party of six men entered the hotel laughing, singing and talking loudly. It was apparent they were very drunk as one of the men was playing matador and had taken off his suit jacket to use as a cape while one of his companions was doing an impersonation of a bull with his index fingers held up next to his head as horns. The bull stumbled around, chasing the matador in front of the desk. The other men roared with laughter. The hotel clerk did not look pleased and had come out from behind the desk to chastise the men. She was addressing the matador, shaking a bony finger in his face, when the bull rushed up behind her and gored her in the butt with his horns, sending her almost sprawling to her knees. Maybe if she’d been nicer to me I wouldn’t have giggled my ass off. Predictably, she didn’t see any humor in it at all. She lost it.

“If you gentlemen do not settle down this instant. I’m calling the police,” she hollered.

The men laughed and the matador threw his cape/ jacket on her head and twirled her around in a circle. I got up to go help her when she suddenly threw off the jacket, spun around, and landed a roundhouse kick in the middle of the matador’s chest. He let out a surprised, “Oof,” similar to the sounds let out by villains on the old Batman series who were getting their asses kicked, and went toppling backwards over a couch in the lobby, knocking the couch over in the process. The men fell silent and looked from their fallen friend to the smug-looking clerk.