You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) (16 page)

“God, stop being stupid. Look, I’m upset about what happened last night, okay?”

A quick flash of what I’d seen last night interrupted my intention to remain cool. “You’re upset? Colin got murdered. I found him. His head was bashed in and he’s dead. What is this game you’re playing?”

She chewed her lip in an adorably vulnerable sort of way. Most women who wear makeup would never do that to their lips, and since she was on TV she should be used to wearing makeup. But American women tend on the whole to be far more casual about their appearance than European women.

Also, Penelope was playing a role. And the character she was playing would chew her lip to indicate vulnerability.

Helios’s sidecar. Fine, I’d give her an opening. “Last night Colin called me, said something terrible had happened between the two of you.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did, okay? I was just so…” She waved her cigarette around for emphasis. “So scared. You can understand that, right?”

“Honestly?” I said.

She nodded.

“No!” I screamed in her face, which blew her back on the bed a few feet. I got off the bed and started walking around. “No, I have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about. What in the hell were you and Colin up to?”

Her facial expression went from soft and giddy to focused and not at all giddy, which suited me fine. She sat up against the pillows and crossed her arms. “Listen. How much more damn money do you need?”

“Believe me when I tell you, I am the wrong person to ask that question.”

“Come on. Stop jerking me around. I shouldn’t have said it, okay? I’m not really going to the cops. Just give them to me.”

I thought about what Colin had said last night. “He told me he already did.”

“He didn’t. Lying son of a bitch.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Let me see if I can follow along here. You paid him some money, he gave you something, and once you had it in your hot little hands you said you were going to sic the cops on him for…what was it? Blackmail? But it turned out you didn’t get it, he’s dead, and you’ve got me here.”

“Come on. This is me. I just want them back, okay? They’re mine. He got them for me. I’ve already paid for them.”

“What did he get for you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Why are you being such an idiot?”

“Why Colin? How did he get involved with you?”

She gave me a look. “He said he could help me. I thought he did. He didn’t.”

How like Colin. A pretty woman bats her eyelashes at him, and he falls all over himself to help her out. Not that I could complain too hard about that—I’d made use of that character flaw of his myself.

How could Colin help her, though? Why on earth would she ask him instead of the studio publicist or someone like that?

Oh. She had told me, hadn’t she?
He got them for me.
He had stolen something for her. He gave it to her, she said she was going to accuse him of blackmail, and then he told her he’d given her the wrong thing. She wanted the right one.

I stared right back and let the silence go on for a while before I said, “I don’t have it. Must still be in his apartment.” I knitted my eyebrows together. “Unless…”

“What?” she screamed.

“The cops found it?”

Penelope relaxed and she smiled. “Believe me, if the police had found anything like this there, I’d have heard about it already. Give them back.”

I nodded. “I have one more question, Penelope.”

She stared at me for a second, and then dramatically rolled her eyes.

“How did you get my phone number? It’s less than a day old.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? Get out.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“Get out!” she screamed. She didn’t have a trained voice: the pitch went sharp in the upper registers. “Stop calling me, get out, and give me my goddamn pictures, all right?”

Pictures. Photos. Blackmail. I thought back to the head shots of Penelope in that briefcase. Not those. Something bad enough to be worthy of stealing. And maybe of murder.

The other thing she said came to me. “Love, I need to point out
you
called
me
.”

She shook her head and her mouth opened and closed a number of times. She clearly kept thinking of things she wanted to say to me and then kept thinking better of it. “Fifty thousand more. But that’s it. Not a goddamn penny more.”

Fuck me. What in the hell had Colin picked up for this woman? It was making her a lot more than fifty thousand crazy. Whatever Colin had gotten was worth much, much more than that. Intriguing.

“Done. I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?” she snapped.

I gestured toward the window. Night had fallen as much as it could in such a lit-up city during our little sojourn here in her bedroom. “I think a flashlight moving around his apartment might be noticed. And the cops might be watching it.”

She gave me a half-grin. “I knew you were going to be reasonable. Nobody needs to call the police about anything.”

“For fifty thousand? I can be extraordinarily reasonable. I also need to go.”

Penelope got off the bed and swayed over to me. She looked me up and down. When she got close to me, she lifted her arms around my neck and raised herself up on her tiptoes to give me a light kiss. “Let’s talk tomorrow,” she whispered.

I rolled my eyes and pushed her away. She fell back on the bed. “Does that act work on many people?” I asked.

She grinned. “Colin sure liked it,” she said.

I laughed. “I’m sure he did.” I picked up a tissue and made a show of blotting her kiss off my lips. “But he had lots of women he liked, Penelope. Some of them better than you.”

That was how I left her in her bedroom, letting myself out her front door. I signed out with the security guard, winking at him as I handed back the pen.

As I walked back to my car, I was certain of one thing: whatever Colin had gotten for Penelope, he hadn’t given it to her and that had pissed her off something fierce.

And I knew exactly where it would be. Luckily for me, it was nowhere near his apartment.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

THE GUESTHOUSE WAS warm and smelled of citrus and sounded like a sports announcer with a horrible Geordie twang. A plate of fresh orange cinnamon scones was on the counter, the kettle was on, the coffee pot was full, and somewhere in the living room, the giant TV showed a close-up of several athletic men with tight, perfect bodies running around the pitch in shorts and sweaty shirts.

For a second, I found myself wondering if Stevie enjoyed watching football for the same reason I would, but I shook my head. I doubted Stevie had even discovered boys yet.

Stevie came bouncing in. “Arsenal, one-nil. What’s up?”

“Let’s hope they keep the penalty kicks to a minimum, because we have work to do. I need the briefcase.”

She came back with the briefcase and a plastic supermarket bag filled with the cash. I put down the scone I’d taken a bite of—heavenly, as always—and shook my head. “Put the money away. I need the case.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. No need to rush. The briefcase was going to be fine for the next hour or so, whereas these scones had a marked shelf life.

When I was done indulging, Stevie swept off the counter and we put on gloves. She opened the case and angled it toward the nearest light, but the light wasn’t enough to show the inside. I needed a flashlight.

“Should I get the torch?” she asked.

“Please.”

She found our trusty Maglite wherever she’d hidden it and held it over the briefcase, shining the beam all around the edges and over the interior satin.

Stevie shook her head. “I don’t see anything in here. Are you sure—”

“Where’s the best place to hide something?” I asked her. “Hide it in a place that’s already got something hidden. If you opened this and found the money, would you keep looking? Hell no.”

“I’m not certain your experience is enough data to cover everyone’s reactions,” Stevie said.

I ignored her. “And it’s small, whatever it is.” I lightly drew my fingers over the bottom of the case, then in and around the pockets on the top.

Stevie poked and prodded at the lining of the bottom of the case. “Wait!” Her face fell. “No, sorry, that’s a bump from the false bottom.”

At the same time as she said that, my fingers trailed over a bump on the top edge of the case.

There should be slight irregularities with the bottom, since Colin had installed a fake layer to hide the money. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with the top. I grabbed the flashlight and shined it around the edge of the top. “Move over. I need to see this better.”

“There?” she said, pointing to a flaw in the lining.

I peered closer. “No, that’s a tear in the cloth. Over here.” I tapped the side where I’d felt the bump and then dragged my fingertips over the spot again. A closer look made me wonder how I could have ever missed it in the first place.

The false bottom in the briefcase was a lovely piece of work. On the top of the briefcase, the black satin liner had been cut and reattached. As a result, it was pulled to one side. Extremely sloppy work for someone of Colin’s talents.

I slipped my fingernail under the edge of the satin lining. The edge came up, but then I hit the thick strip of glue holding the lining in place. “Get the nail polish remover.”

She came back with a bottle of remover and a box of cotton swabs. “Couldn’t find the tweezers.”

“This’ll do.” And I set to work.

One of the reasons I was being so careful and neat about it was that the police had to see this briefcase. At some point. I’m not oblivious of the facts of jurisprudence. I wanted to make my snooping seem less obvious. I would snoop, and then I would re-glue. And that was it.

To remove the glue, I had to swab the underside of the lining and then tug, ever so gently, to separate it. Stevie wandered between the kitchen and the living room, alternately watching me and the match. It took me an hour to unseal the top edge of the lining from the leather case.

Which is right when we heard a series of sharp knocks on the front door.

Gary stood in the doorway, peering into the guesthouse. Stevie was looking over her shoulder at the door, paralyzed, yet in position to bolt at any moment.

I muttered a number of maledictions in various languages, mostly at myself for not having considered that he might be around. I wiped my hands on a towel as he rapped on the door again. I swung it open and stood in the middle of the doorway to prevent his coming in. “What?”

“Hm?” He looked at me, and then shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and looked down at his feet. “I came by to apologize.” When I didn’t respond, he grinned with embarrassment. “For my outburst yesterday.” His eyebrows knitted for a second. “It was yesterday, right?”

“It was. Apology accepted.” As to how sincere his apology was? Who the hell knew. The man had two or three Oscars. No one should trust a damn thing he said, ever. That was good advice about anyone, to be honest, and I should know. I started to close the door.

He put his hand on it to keep it open. “Is that Chelsea?” he asked, glancing at the television. Stevie, who was still staring at him, nodded. “Hullo, I’m Gary Macfadyen.” After a quick comparison of the two of us, he nodded. “Is she your sister?”

“My what?”

“Your sister. You couldn’t have a daughter that age. You look a great deal alike.” He moved his hand by the side of his face. “Your hair. The eyes.”

He needed to get out of here. “Gary, darling, we’re in the middle of something, so if you’ll excuse us—”

“Can I come in?” he asked, in a small voice. “Look, I am sorry about the way I behaved. I…I get that way, sometimes. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Oh. You get that way sometimes. Then that’s all right then. Please, feel free to come by and scream at me once in a while.”

He winced at my sarcasm. “Do people not give you an apology very often, or, are you simply incapable of accepting one?”

He was right. I needed to be nicer. At least until such time as we could leave. And the best way to be nicer is to have an excuse for one’s bitchiness. “Today is difficult. My husband was murdered yesterday.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“So you’ll excuse us.” I started to close the door

He held up his hand to stop the door. “Do you think I could watch the match? My house is somewhat…quiet.”

Even famous actors can get isolated and lonely in their hilltop palaces. It wasn’t that surprising. Lots of millionaires didn’t have one person to call friend. But his loneliness didn’t change anything as far as I cared. My focus wasn’t even on myself at that moment, difficult as it might be to believe. I needed to find out what Penelope was so concerned about.

“Honestly, it’s not a good idea,” I said.

His look of dejection was heartbreaking as he nodded and turned around.

I closed the door. “You okay?”

Stevie nodded.

“I think I have the case open. Let’s have a look.”

Stevie followed me into the kitchen. I put on my gloves and tested the edge of the satin lining: it was completely detached. I reached into the space beyond with my index finger, which poked into something flat and plastic, with a hard edge. It hurt. I held the lining open and turned the briefcase upside down.

Strips of film negatives shot out onto the kitchen table. I shook the case again. Nothing.

Hard, sepia-colored film negatives. How low tech.

“Actual celluloid?” Stevie said. “How low tech.”

“Someone didn’t want them found easily, that’s for certain.”

She picked up one of the negative strips and held it up to the light as I stripped the latex gloves off my hands. They had the nail polish remover on them, and I didn’t want to chance hitting the negatives. She turned the strip this way and that, before she dropped her hand and put the strip back on the table with its fellows.

I picked it up. Took me a few turns of the view as well to figure out that the picture showed a blowjob.

Unfortunately, that was all I could tell about it, because it was a tiny image with lights and darks reversed.