Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway (34 page)

Trixie forces a giggle. “Boy, these drinks are strong, aren’t they? I can barely remember my own name!”

I consult my phone so I can spew a few facts and get us over the embarrassing moment. “So
Hamilton
is sold out through September. And people who try to get re-sale tickets are sometimes paying two thousand dollars each.”

“I hear there’s a lottery every night,” Trixie says, “where they give out ten tickets for ten dollars each and five hundred people show up to try to win. Anyhoo, I wonder which musical won the most Tonys ever.”

Shanelle winks at me. “What would you say, Cynthia?” she asks. Her tone is all innocence, but it’s clear she’s in a dangerously mischievous mood.

Cynthia blinks a few times. Then: “Maybe
Phantom of the Opera
?”

I don’t have to consult my phone to know that’s not a bad guess, but it’s not correct, either. “For a long time it was
Phantom
that made the most money. Now that honor goes to
The Lion King
. The most Tonys have gone to
The Producers
, which won twelve.”

“An even dozen!” Trixie chirps.

“
Phantom
won seven,” Shanelle says.

“Anyway, enough about Broadway.” I’m thinking we should spare Cynthia any further humiliation. “Tell us how you got into hairdressing.”

We spend the rest of the meal talking about this and that. I’m whipped by the time the bill arrives. Cynthia splits off to return to her apartment while Trixie, Shanelle, and I hail a cab. I don’t have the energy to get into what Mario said to me outside the haunted townhouse, but I do spill what happened with Jason at the ice rink. I amaze myself by not crying even once during the recitation.

Trixie pats my leg. “I wish you and Jason had more time together. I think that’s all you need.”

“Maybe. But until Rachel goes overseas this summer, we’ll be living in two different cities.” It’s strange how denuded our house feels with so much of Jason’s stuff moved down to Charlotte. And I haven’t even seen his apartment there yet.

“You gotta make those long weekends count, girl,” Shanelle says. “Try to recapture what you two had during all the good times.”

Of which there have been so many, both in recent years and back when we started, although what we had then was all wrapped up with being teenagers. Raging hormones and the wonder of first love can carry a couple a long way. I am also one hundred percent sure that Jason and I burn brighter because of Rachel and all our years of history. Many of those years seemed vanilla at the time, but now they are beyond precious in my memory.

Back at the apartment I discover the “little something” Mario sent for my birthday. I sink my nose into the gorgeous yellow blooms.

“Didn’t he give you yellow roses on Oahu, too?” Trixie says.

He did. At that time they were to congratulate me on my Ms. America win. Now the sentiment on the card is different, and shockingly upfront.

To the woman I can’t forget even when I try. Happy birthday … Mario

“Oh, boy,” Shanelle mutters from behind me, where she sneaked to get a peek at the card. “You want to tell us what happened with Mario today? Because I bet something did.”

Something always does, which is both good and bad. “Let’s save it for tomorrow,” I say. “Tonight I don’t want to keep Jason waiting.”

But I beat him back to the Sofitel. And even after I’ve gotten ready for bed and watched quite a bit of mindless television, he still hasn’t returned. I see from the bedside clock that it’s after midnight when he crawls into bed beside me. We share a kiss before I drop back to sleep.

Something wakens me when it’s still dark outside. It takes me a few seconds to realize my cell is ringing. This time the clock informs me it’s just after six. I leap out of bed. “This early,” I say to Jason, “it’s got to be Rachel or Pop or my mom.” My heart thwacks against my rib cage. Good news never comes before dawn.

I race across the room to grab my phone and see to my amazement that the caller is none of the above. It’s Mario. I glance at Jason, who’s sitting up in bed looking dazed. “Who is it?” he murmurs.

I’m glad all my loved ones are okay, but I don’t like having to tell Jason who’s on the line at this hour. “It’s Mario,” I mouth.

Jason eyes me for a second before shaking his head and flopping back down on the bed. He curls up into a ball.

“I’m sorry to call so early,” Mario tells me, “but the DNA test came back on the ball bearing.” He pauses, then: “Lisette Longley’s DNA is all over that thing.”

“That
was
dried blood you saw on the ball bearing,” Mario tells me. “And guess what? It’s a match with Lisette Longley. There was also a fragment of a strand of her hair.”

I fall into a crouch on the carpet and clutch my cell phone. “Are you telling me it looks like the ball bearing hit Lisette in the head?”

“That’s absolutely what it looks like. And not just to me. The N.Y.P.D. is reopening her case.”

My heart started jumping when I first heard my phone ring and it’s still bouncing around in pretty lively fashion now. “Why didn’t this show up in the autopsy?”

“According to my contact, the autopsy revealed major trauma to Lisette’s head, but it could easily be explained by her repeatedly hitting the stairs. Now, after reviewing the results, the coroner says he sees a wound that could be consistent with a ball bearing striking her.”

“Can you think of any way that could’ve happened by accident?”

Mario’s answer is monosyllabic. “No.”

“Could somebody have thrown it at her?” Somehow that doesn’t seem likely. “But how could they be sure they’d hit her just right?”

“And if they missed, the ball bearing could hit somebody else.”

“Maybe it would be easier to hit her if it was shot in some way.”

“That’s what I think happened. Somebody shot it at her. How they did it is another question.”

None of this ever occurred to me as a possibility. I knew there was nothing slippery on the stairs to make Lisette fall, but I never considered that a killer might use some sort of projectile to knock her off balance. “Trixie, Shanelle, and I were in the audience and none of us saw anything flying toward Lisette.”

“My contact told me it’s clear the ball bearing hit the back of her head.”

“So it would have had to come from—”

“Backstage.”

I look across the room at Jason, an inert mound in bed. The ball bearing had to have come from backstage. Where Kimberly insists she was. Where lots of other people were, too, to be fair.

But the one I keep coming back to is Kimberly. Actually, I keep coming back to someone else, too: Junior. He claims he was in his office when Lisette fell, but he could be lying. Don’t forget Violet Honeycutt, either, I order myself. It’s hard to imagine her shooting a ball bearing at Lisette—actually, it’s hard to imagine her shooting anything at anyone except perhaps an insult at a poorly dressed individual—but she had a strong motive to want Lisette gone.

It is obvious now, though, that Tonya could only be guilty if she were in cahoots with somebody else. She was standing on the stage in plain sight.

I clear my throat. “If this is true, Mario, it means Lisette was murdered.”

“Yes. You were right all along about that, as farfetched as it seemed.”

I take a deep breath. I’m too shocked to be pleased. Half the time I was sure I was nuts even to entertain the idea. And now this means there’s a killer on the loose, one who nearly committed a perfect crime. For if I hadn’t found the ball bearing and Mario hadn’t gotten it tested, no one would be asking any questions about how Lisette died.

“The ball bearing is being tested for prints,” Mario goes on. “By the way, I told my contact it was you who found it. But so far nobody else knows.”

I wonder what Warren Longley would think if he found out. Would he hate me more or less? “I almost changed my mind last night,” I tell Mario. “I almost called to ask you to forget about a DNA test.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” He chuckles. “And just so you know, I’m never going to doubt your instincts again.”

We both fall silent.

“By the way,” he says a second later in a more confidential tone, “I don’t take back a word of what I said to you yesterday. It’s as true now as it was then.”

In bed, Jason shifts. “I have to go,” I say to Mario.

“We’ll talk later,” he says, and clicks off.

I’m just rising from my crouch on the carpet when Jason sits up in bed and frowns at me. His hair is mussed and he’s got stubble on his jaw, but from the penetration of his stare I get the idea he’s fully awake. “What does Mario Suave have to do with police business?” he asks me.

I almost tumble back onto the carpet. “What?”

“You heard me. You just had a conversation with Mario about DNA tests, ball bearings, murder, and Lisette Longley. What does he have to do with that stuff?”

I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say. I forgot Jason might overhear that conversation. I was sure he’d fallen back asleep.

“Happy?” Jason gets out of bed and approaches me. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and a scowl. “What’s up with that?”

I’m too flustered to give better than a lame reply. “I’m not supposed to say anything.”

“So it’s a secret?” He arches his brows. “You two are keeping secrets?”

I have to tell Jason. I have to explain. So I do. “This information could hurt Mario professionally,” I add at the end. “Hollywood people don’t know about his F.B.I. work. If they did, his career would blow up.”

Jason is standing very close now, looking down at me with intense eyes. “So Hollywood people don’t know this. But you do. How long have you known?”

“He told me on Oahu.”

Clearly that comes as a shock. “Way back then, he told you?”

“He pretty much had to. At one point he pulled out his F.B.I. badge and he knew I saw it.”

“Still. Wow. I’m sure he could’ve made some excuse. But he didn’t. He trusted you with his innermost secrets even when he barely knew you.”

Jason looks away. I know he’s thinking that the connection between Mario and me goes even deeper than he thought.

It’s late enough now that there’s noise in the hotel. I hear the next-door shower start to pound and a squeaky room-service cart rolls past our door.

Jason turns his gaze back to me. “So now the cops think that woman Lisette was murdered?”

“By a ball bearing. Apparently it was used as a projectile.” I leave out that it was shot from backstage. I don’t want to get into that unless I have to.

“It sounded like you had something to do with the DNA test.”

There’s no getting around it. “I was the one who found the ball bearing.”

Very slowly Jason nods. His eyes never leave my face. “So you were right. That woman was murdered.” He steps back and runs a hand through his hair. “At least now Kimberly is off the hook.” When I don’t say anything, he nears me again. “She is, right?”

Again I don’t know what to say. “Of course it’s very unlikely Kimberly murdered Lisette. But the ball bearing was shot from backstage and—”

“Oh, I get it.
Now
you believe Kimberly was backstage. Now that she could have shot a ball bearing at Lisette, you believe her.”

“You think I’m not being fair.”

“You got that right.”

Jason spins away from me. I feel a terrible hollowness inside, but this still isn’t over.

He turns back to face me again. His eyes are so cold and distant that he doesn’t even look like my Jason anymore. “You know, Happy, I was never going to fall in love with Kimberly. I liked that she was into me, yeah, but that was as far as it was going to go.”

“I believe you.”

“The problem is you and Mario.” He rubs his forehead as if he can’t quite process everything he heard this morning. “It was bad enough when he was just a rich, famous, good-looking Hollywood stud. But now he’s an F.B.I. god, too. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

I step closer to Jason. “You don’t have to compete with that.”

He steps back. “How do you figure? This guy’s half in love with you. This guy who’s got everything. And then there’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody, and I mean nobody, thought that woman Lisette was murdered. You were the only one. And now you turn out to be right! Even the effing N.Y.P.D. got it wrong. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

I throw out my hands. “Jason, you don’t have to compete with any of this! Just be happy I’ve found something besides wearing a lined bikini that I’m actually good at.”

“You know who else is good at police work, Happy? Mario. He’s so good he works for the F.B.I. That’s another thing you two have in common.” He shakes his head. “It just keeps coming down to the same thing.”