Seaside Lies Read online

  She noticed that Vince did not offer to leave his comfortable bed to join her.

  “I’ll think of something,” she said bleakly. She couldn’t imagine what. The movie’s publicist would probably have more than enough to say for all of them, and none of it was likely to improve the Miami area’s image among production companies.

  How did you put a positive PR spin on the murder of one of the nation’s rising Hollywood talents while he was filming in your own backyard, so to speak? Miami Vice and countless movies had left the country with a slightly skewed impression of murder and mayhem in Miami-Dade County, but at least those deaths had been fictional. This one was distressingly real and likely to be splashed across the front page of every newspaper and tabloid around the globe. It would be a helluva blow to local tourism, and the Miami area film industry alike, unless the police could prove that the murderer was someone close to Greg, an import rather than one of the area’s own criminals.

  Once she’d listened to more advice and warnings from her boss, Molly dialed her neighbor, praying that Liza was home from whatever Third World country she was currently championing. She responded on the first ring with a breezy, cheerful greeting.

  “Liza, it’s Molly. I need a huge favor. You aren’t going out tonight, are you?” The question wasn’t absurd despite the lateness of the hour. Liza Hastings marched to her own particular social drummer. She thought nothing of joining friends at midnight to plan strategy for one of her causes or at dawn to tote a picket sign in front of some business they found offensive.

  “Are you kidding?” Liza said. “I still have another five thousand save-the-rain-forest flyers to label and stamp. I’m surprised my tongue hasn’t dried out. I wonder if all that glue has calories. I need to drop three pounds by next weekend, if I’m going to wear that slinky silver dress to that world hunger benefit performance.”

  “Liza!” If Molly didn’t stop her now, Liza was likely to go off on some convoluted dissertation on world hunger. Her sharp tone apparently registered.

  “Sorry,” Liza said, immediately contrite. “What’s the favor?”

  “Brian is due home from his soccer game any minute and I can’t get away from the film location. Can he stay at your place?”

  “If he can lick stamps, he can stay. How’s he getting home from soccer? Do I need to pick him up?”

  “No. Michael or one of the parents is supposed to drop him off after they all go out for pizza.”

  “Michael, hmm?” Liza had taken an inordinate interest in Molly’s relationship with the tall, dark, and handsome detective who’d investigated the murder in their Key Biscayne condo. The casual mention of his name had clearly placed her curiosity on full alert.

  Hoping to forestall a lengthy interrogation, Molly warned, “Liza, I do not have time to discuss Michael O’Hara or my social life.”

  “Oh?” Liza said, all innocence. “I wasn’t aware that you had a social life or that you could link such activity with Michael O’Hara in the same breath. Does that mean things have changed since I left for Guatemala last month?”

  “It doesn’t mean a damn thing, except that I am at my wits’ end and I do not have time for this,” Molly snapped, suspecting she was wasting her breath. Liza was not known for staying on track or taking a hint, no matter how directly or waspishly it was phrased.

  “What’s happening over there? Is it exciting? Maybe I should take a break from all this disgusting glue and bring Brian over to watch. I know it’s late and all, but it’s not a school night, right? Besides, I wouldn’t mind getting a close look at Gregory Kinsey. From what I’ve seen he’s quite a hunk.”

  “Not anymore,” Molly mumbled.

  “What?”

  “He’s dead.”

  There was an instant of stunned silence. Then, her tone suitably sober, Liza said, “Gregory Kinsey is dead? What happened? Molly, are you okay?”

  Molly responded to the genuine note of caring in her friend’s voice. “I’m as well as can be expected considering the fact that we are about to have police and reporters swarming all over the place, and I don’t have answers for any of them. Not that the police are going to expect answers from me, but the reporters might, and if I don’t have them, Vince will kill me.”

  “Molly, you’re babbling.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she retorted. “Liza, I’ve got to run. I have to get to Veronica. Greg’s body was found in her trailer. I don’t think she knows about it yet.”

  “Oh, my God. Do you suppose…”

  Molly hung up without supposing a thing. She had to find the actress and warn her that all hell was about to break loose. Then she had to figure out how she could help to stem the tide of all the negative publicity.

  Unfortunately, a survey of the outdoor café where she’d left the star less than twenty minutes earlier proved fruitless. Either Veronica was suspiciously aware of the fatal shooting in her trailer and had vamoosed to safer ground—Miami International Airport was a hub for all those tempting Latin American locations that didn’t have extradition treaties. Or she’d gotten tired of waiting for her call and had simply gone back to her hotel in a snit. Either way, the police were not likely to be happy about the absence of a woman likely to be a prime suspect.

  Rather than wasting time trying to guess how Veronica’s mind worked, Molly skirted the crowd outside the murder scene and went back to the production trailer. The same people were gathered inside. Now, though, a palpable tension had replaced the boredom.

  Hank Murdock, his usually affable expression grim, tried to pop open a soda, only to drop the can and send a dark spray all over the pale green carpet. No one moved to wipe it up. Hank just reached for another can. Jerry Shaw sat at the table and drummed his fingers in a nervous rhythm. Molly sat down beside him.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  He shot her a disbelieving look. “Do I look okay? The country’s greatest film director since Hitchcock has just been murdered by a conniving bitch and you ask if I’m okay? Are you nuts, lady?”

  Hank glared at him. “Shut up, Jerry.”

  Jerry’s face crumpled. “Jesus,” he murmured over and over. “Jesus.”

  “Did you find Veronica?” Hank asked Molly.

  She shook her head. “There was no sign of her at the café. I was hoping she’d come back here. I doubt she ventured back to her own trailer with all that commotion outside.”

  Jerry muttered a cynical remark under his breath, but Molly chose to ignore it. “Maybe I should call the hotel,” she said. “If she’s back there, she should be told what’s happened.”

  “As if she didn’t know already,” Jerry muttered darkly.

  “I thought I told you to shut up,” Hank said. “Taking pot shots at each other won’t help anybody right now. We need Veronica if we’re going to bring this film in, so watch what the hell you say to the police.”

  Molly stared at him. “You intend to finish the picture?”

  The assistant director met her gaze evenly. “There’s a helluva lot at stake here. Besides, it’s what Greg would have wanted. We all owe it to him to pull together and see that his last film is a fitting tribute to his genius.”

  The sound of distinct clapping came from the trailer’s open doorway. “I couldn’t have said it better,” producer Laura Crain said as she stepped inside. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed, but her narrow face was utterly composed.

  Molly couldn’t tear her gaze away from Laura’s performance. Gossip on the set and in the tabloids had linked Laura and her boss romantically from the first day of production. The chemistry between Greg and the older producer had been obvious to anyone observing them in the same room for more than a few seconds at a time. The long, soulful glances, the steamy stolen kisses, the briefest of touches that occurred too often to be accidental.

  From what Molly knew, Greg Kinsey never made a film w
ithout making a conquest in the process. Forty-year-old Laura Crain, with her stylishly cut frosted hair and nearsighted squint, had apparently been chosen as beneficiary of his affections on this production. Had the thin, hyperactive producer known that the romance was doomed to end in the next couple of weeks? Or had she, like all the others in his past, assumed she would be the one who lasted?

  Whatever her emotional turmoil over Greg’s death, Laura Crain wasn’t about to let it show. She was quite possibly the best actress of them all, Molly decided, watching her move to Hank’s side. With her clipboard in hand, she methodically went over a dozen scheduling details as if the murder had been no more than a minor glitch in an otherwise routine day.

  Hank listened for several minutes, then gently placed a hand over hers. “Stop,” he commanded softly. “There’s not a damn thing we can do tonight and you know it, so you might as well give it up. Go tell the crew to start breaking for the night. They can get the equipment loaded. They might as well get a decent night’s sleep, once the cops are through.”

  Laura stared at him helplessly, tears shimmering in her eyes. “But…”

  Hank’s gaze locked with hers. “It’s okay, babe. You hear me? Everything is going to be okay.”

  A fresh batch of tears finally spilled down Laura’s cheeks. Hank stood up and awkwardly pulled her into his arms. As Molly watched, Laura’s shoulders shook with silent sobs.

  Of all the people affiliated with the production, Molly had worked with Laura most closely, but she didn’t feel she really knew her. Laura was one of those women who never seemed to relax around other women, as if she viewed them all as competition, no matter how farfetched that idea might be. Even so, Molly felt she had to say something to her now, offer some sort of consoling words.

  She crossed the trailer. “Laura, I just want you to know how very sorry I am about Greg. I’m here to help you in any way I can.”

  Laura whirled on her, her eyes flashing furious sparks. “Help? It’s because of you that this happened. Greg would be alive today, if you hadn’t convinced him to bring this production to Miami. We could have shot it anywhere, but he told me how persuasive you were, how accommodating.” Her voice turned even more spiteful as she added slyly, “I wonder exactly how accommodating you were.”

  “That’s enough!” Hank said firmly to Laura, when Molly could only stand there gaping. He shot an apologetic look at her. “Molly, maybe you could go out and see what’s happening. The sooner the police talk to all of us, the better. I need to call Duke Lane at the hotel and tell him what’s happened. Then I’ll go talk to the crew about the schedule.”

  Since there was nothing to be gained by standing there defending herself against Laura’s ridiculous accusation, Molly left.

  Outside, the temperature remained in the mid-eighties. The breeze off the Atlantic barely stirred the muggy air. It was still preferable to being inside the trailer where the temperature and the atmosphere were both icy.

  Molly found the off-duty officer still standing outside Veronica’s trailer and introduced herself. “Who’s in charge of the investigation?” she asked him.

  “Sergeant Jenkins. He’s inside.”

  “Any chance you can find out what sort of timetable he has in mind for questioning everyone?”

  The officer was past being anxious to please, but still too much a rookie to know how to dismiss her with the haughty glance his superiors had perfected. “I’m not supposed to leave here,” he said, rather than refusing outright.

  Molly glanced from him to the door and back again. “I’d say you can take two steps, open the door and poke your head in. If you’d rather not, I could do it myself.”

  He decided there was less to lose by asking himself than giving her permission to venture inside. Molly’d been right. It took him exactly two steps to reach the door. After one swift glance to make sure Molly hadn’t followed, he opened the door a discreet crack and called to the sergeant.

  A minute later a tall black officer who looked as if he’d played tackle for the Dolphins loomed in the doorway. He leaned down, listened intently, glanced at Molly, nodded, made a terse comment she couldn’t hear, then shut the door. Firmly.

  “He says he’ll let you know when he’s ready to take statements,” the off-duty officer told her, an undeniable glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “Meantime, he says, don’t go far.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” She spotted an open table at the café across the street. “I’ll be right over there, whenever he needs me.” There wasn’t a chance in hell that she’d go back to the trailer for another round with Laura Crain. She glanced back at the policeman. “If any reporters want a statement from my office, can you direct them across the street?”

  He looked hesitant, but finally decided that wouldn’t be breaking any of the rules drummed into him about crime-scene protocol. “I’ll send ’em over. You might make out a list of everyone from the production company who was on the set tonight. It’ll save Jenkins some time.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she said, then walked back to the café and settled down to wait.

  Apparently, Sergeant Otis Jenkins did not regard her as a primary witness. Nor did he seem all that interested in the list she had diligently prepared. Perhaps he’d merely decided to save the best for last. At any rate, by the time he finally got around to strolling across the street and joining Molly, she was awash in a sea of iced tea. It was a wonder she didn’t slosh. Her nerves jangled from all the extra caffeine.

  Sergeant Jenkins didn’t waste a lot of time on preliminaries. Nor did he try to finesse any surprise answers from her. He merely announced that he’d already zeroed in on the killer. All he wanted were any of Molly’s observations that might help him clinch the case.

  Since catching a killer took time—unless he was foolhardy enough to stand around with a smoking gun still in his hand—Molly regarded the policeman skeptically.

  “Was there an eyewitness?”

  “Not to the shooting,” he admitted.

  “What, then? Fingerprints on the gun?”

  “How about I ask the questions?”

  “Ask away,” Molly invited.

  “Did you hear the argument between Gregory Kinsey and Veronica Weston?”

  “I heard the noise, not the content,” she said. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Molly realized exactly where Otis Jenkins was heading—straight out on an obvious limb.

  After the way he’d deliberately snubbed her earlier, she could hardly wait to saw it off.

  CHAPTER 3

  “I don’t think there’s any question about who’s responsible,” Sergeant Jenkins told Molly with a certain amount of grim satisfaction written all over his face. He resettled his bulky frame in the cramped plastic chair, trying to find a comfortable position. He finally gave up and perched on the edge of it.

  “Given the timing, the fact that Kinsey and Veronica Weston were overheard arguing all day long, and the fact that he’s lying on the floor of her trailer, it all adds up to one thing,” he concluded, snapping his little black notebook shut.

  Before he could say what that one thing was Molly stepped in to question his addition.

  “Where’s the murder weapon?” Molly interrupted as casually as if she were inquiring about the location of the Atlantic Ocean across the street. “Was it in the trailer?”

  Jenkins looked slightly miffed, a surefire indicator that she’d hit on something that was equally troubling to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll find it. And when we do, I’m sure we’ll find Veronica Weston’s prints on it.”

  Even though she couldn’t dismiss the fact that Veronica was every bit as absent as the gun used to kill Greg, Molly shook her head. She was absolutely certain of Veronica’s innocence.

  “I don’t think so,” she told the disgustingly smug detective. “Besides, all the killer would have to do is to
ss it in the canal along the MacArthur Causeway or take a midnight ride into the Atlantic and toss it overboard. Odds are you’ll never find that gun. So much for means.”

  Jenkins cast a pleading glance heavenward. “God, I hate people who think they know everything just because they watch reruns of Perry Mason.”

  Molly scowled at him. “Forget Perry Mason. All it takes is a little common sense. It’s pretty obvious you haven’t got diddly beyond opportunity and, believe me, that’s pretty shaky. What’s Veronica’s motive supposed to be? Gregory fought to give her this role. It was a break she badly needed. Why would she kill him in the middle of the production?”

  His expression suggested he couldn’t imagine why women did anything. He glossed over the problem. “Lady, by the time the night’s over and we press charges, I guarantee we’ll have means, motive, and opportunity pinned down.”

  To be sure she got the message, he ticked them off on his fingers. “If she came into town with a gun, we’ll know it. If she bought one here, we’ll find the record. There’s your means. She was in that trailer. There’s opportunity. The man was pushing her on the set, disregarding her opinions. I have half a dozen witnesses or more who’ll swear in court that she hated the man’s guts.”

  “Having a professional disagreement hardly translates into hating his guts,” Molly shot back. “Besides, what about the fact that he was still alive when she left the trailer?”

  The words were out of her mouth before she even realized consciously that she actually was able to provide Veronica with a nearly airtight alibi. Greg had been alive when Veronica crossed that street! Suddenly there wasn’t a doubt in her mind about that.

  Just as suddenly, the detective’s gaze was riveted on her. “How do you know that?”

  Molly considered her answer carefully, trying to determine exactly why she was so certain. It went beyond mere intuition, though she never dismissed that either.