Seaside Lies Read online

  “Come on,” Ryan cajoled. “You can do better than that.”

  “Not and keep my job. Let me get inside and see if I can get someone from GK Productions down here to make a statement, okay?”

  He motioned toward Michael. “What’s he doing here? He’s from Metro homicide. Is he on the case?”

  Molly could just imagine the headlines: METRO CALLED IN TO BAIL OUT BEACH POLICE.

  “No,” she said hurriedly. “Absolutely not. Sergeant Jenkins is in charge.”

  “Then what’s O’Hara doing here? It’s his kind of case, isn’t it? High profile. Politically sensitive.”

  Michael overheard the question and apparently guessed the direction of Ted Ryan’s thoughts. “Can’t a guy go out with a pretty lady without you trying to make something of it?” he inquired lightly.

  He stepped closer and slid an arm around Molly’s waist to lend credence to his comment. Molly shot an incredulous look in his direction. She did not, however, pull away the way any sensible liberated woman might have under the circumstances.

  Ryan looked skeptical, but he stepped aside to let them get into the hotel. “Make it snappy,” he pleaded, glancing at his watch. “I’m desperate.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Molly muttered under her breath as she considered why she had permitted Michael to get away with such a sly innuendo about their relationship. Fortunately, she didn’t have long to consider the implications. The elevator ride to Veronica’s floor was mercifully short, allowing minimal time for introspection.

  Veronica, wearing ice blue satin lounging pajamas with a plunging neckline, opened the door of her suite. She was clutching a tall tumbler of vodka. Molly could fully understand now exactly why Greg had cast her. She would fascinate any man old enough to distinguish between sexy glamour and the mere physical attractiveness of youth. It was pretty much like comparing rare vintage wine to grape juice. The source might be essentially the same, but only a fool thought they tasted alike.

  The dazed expression on Michael’s face told Molly he could fully appreciate the difference. Hooking him was going to be even easier than she had anticipated. What she hadn’t counted on was this nearly uncontrollable urge she had to kick him.

  “Veronica Weston, this is Michael O’Hara,” Molly said.

  At the mention of Michael’s name, Veronica shot a disbelieving look at Molly. It was the same reaction most people had when trying to reconcile his dark-eyed, distinctly Hispanic appearance and faint accent with his Irish name.

  As Molly understood it, the contradiction had to do with a vanished American father who left Cuba before discovering that his lover was pregnant. Michael’s sentimental mother had given her son an Irish name in the man’s honor. No one seemed quite sure if the father’s name had actually been O’Hara, and no one, least of all Molly, knew with any certainty the impact this casual naming had had on shaping Michael’s personality. Lord knew, he had the capacity for typically Latin machismo. The Irish influence was less easy to detect.

  Right now, however, he was displaying a gentlemanly courtliness toward Veronica, who was suddenly radiating charm in sufficient kilowatts to light downtown Miami. The pair of them made Molly sick. Had everyone but her suddenly forgotten about the murder?

  “Don’t you think we should be concentrating on Greg?” she blurted finally, interrupting the flow of compliments Michael was directing toward the actress. Apparently he’d seen plenty of old movies, even if he was sorely behind the times on current filmmakers.

  Both of them turned to look at Molly. Michael appeared slightly startled by her presence. Veronica looked irritated.

  “Why on earth would I wish to discuss that imbecile?” she said, indicating a certain lack of respect for the dead or complete ignorance regarding his recent fate. Molly was so certain of the latter that she turned a look of triumph in Michael’s direction. He was too much a cop not to take the hint.

  “When did you leave the location?” he asked, slipping automatically into the interrogator’s role he’d sworn not to take in this case.

  Veronica answered without the slightest hint that she thought there was anything odd about the question or Michael’s interest in the answer. “It must have been shortly after ten o’clock, wouldn’t you say, Molly?”

  “Later. It was nearly ten-thirty when you sent me to look for Greg.”

  Veronica nodded, sending her shoulder-length sweep of chestnut hair into sensuous motion. “Of course. I waited for some time and when neither you nor Greg came for me, I decided to call it a night.”

  “Was that before or after the police arrived?” Michael wanted to know.

  “Police?”

  Veronica managed a totally blank expression. It convinced Molly, but then she had to concede that they were dealing with a superb actress.

  “You didn’t hear the sirens?” Molly said.

  “Who pays attention?” she said with an indifferent lift of one shoulder. “I spent months in New York, when I was doing that dreadful play on Broadway. Sirens blared all night long. I learned then to tune them out. What’s this all about? Did something happen after I left?”

  “Gregory Kinsey is dead,” Molly said.

  Veronica’s eyes widened, and she took a long, slow drink of vodka, finishing off the last of it. She set the leaded crystal glass very carefully on the coffee table. Finally she swallowed hard, then looked directly into Molly’s eyes.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said convincingly. “How did it happen? I wasn’t crazy about the man, but dead? He was so young.” Without the glass to steady her hands, they fluttered nervously before she finally clasped them in her lap.

  “Someone shot him,” Michael said, his gaze pinned on her, obviously watching for signs of guilt.

  “In your trailer,” Molly added, so the actress would know exactly what she was up against.

  Astonishment filled Veronica’s eyes. “You don’t think… Surely, you can’t possibly…” She glanced from Molly to Michael and back again. “You do, don’t you? You think I did it.”

  “I don’t,” Molly said stoutly. “I’m convinced it had to have happened while you were with me.”

  Veronica watched Michael, then asked, “Do you believe her?”

  “It’s not my case,” Michael replied. “I’d have to say, though, that Molly does have pretty decent instincts when it comes to people. I think I know her well enough to say that I doubt she’d lie just to protect you. Unfortunately, her word may not be enough. From what I understand, there are a few minutes unaccounted for when Molly left you to go look for Greg.”

  “But I could see the trailer,” Molly argued.

  “The whole time? You told me you went inside the production trailer to ask for Kinsey.”

  She hadn’t considered that as a flaw in her defense of Veronica, but she could see now that it might be. “That took thirty seconds, a minute tops,” she argued. “That’s hardly enough time for Veronica to leave the café, shoot Greg, and escape without me or anyone else seeing her. He had to have been killed before that, during the fifteen or so minutes Veronica and I were together. What I can’t figure out is why no one heard a shot.”

  “With all that music blaring from every café on Ocean, I doubt you could hear a bomb drop over it,” Michael reminded her.

  “But…”

  Veronica held up one perfectly manicured hand. “Molly, dear, if you will slow down for just one minute, I believe I can end all this absurd speculation about my role in Greg’s death. I know for a fact that I was not the last person to see him alive, at least if we assume that your theory about the time period in which he was shot is accurate.”

  “What?” Michael and Molly said in unison.

  “It’s true. Just as I left the trailer Greg’s latest conquest arrived. Surely you’ve seen her around the set, Molly. The tall, angular brunette with the kind of bone structure
the camera loves. She doesn’t speak much English, but I doubt Greg was interested in her conversational skills.”

  “Of course, that’s it,” Molly said as the elusive detail clicked into place. She had heard raised voices—plural, not just Greg’s—even after she’d spotted Veronica crossing the street. She hadn’t readily linked the exchange to Greg because the shouts hadn’t been in English. “She’s Cuban, isn’t she?”

  “No. She’s European,” Veronica said with certainty.

  “Italian, then?” To Molly’s ear most of the Romance languages sounded pretty much the same at top volume. She understood Spanish only if someone spoke it very slowly and gestured at the same time. She’d taken French in school, which came in handy in Miami only when she had to deal with the occasional Canadian tourist or the Haitian immigrants whose Creole language owed its roots to French.

  Veronica beamed. “Yes, of course. I remember now. She is a fashion model. She is here for a photo shoot for some European magazine. Greg met her at one of the cafés along Ocean Drive, two, maybe three days ago. You know how he falls in love with a gorgeous face. They’ve been inseparable ever since.”

  “I thought he was romancing Laura Crain,” Molly said.

  “Who’s that?” Michael asked.

  “The producer for the film. Greg was executive producer and director. Laura was the line producer. She handled the details with the studio in L.A. that’s backing the film, saw to it that the budget was in line. She came here even before Greg to negotiate some of the contracts with the local unions, finalize housing for the cast and crew, that sort of thing. I worked with her quite a bit.”

  Michael nodded and turned back to Veronica. “Had Kinsey dumped her for this model?”

  “I doubt it. The model was here only through tomorrow, according to what I heard. Greg probably intended to go right back to Laura the minute she’d gone. Besides, he was a very practical man. He wouldn’t want his producer to take off before the movie wraps.”

  “Nice guy,” Michael said. “Any idea what he and the Italian bombshell were arguing about?”

  “No,” Veronica said. “I was too furious with him myself to listen to the details of some contretemps between lovers.”

  Michael nodded slowly. “Okay. So he’s got these two women on the hook. One of them we know had a fight with him tonight. The other might have discovered his fling and gone after him in a jealous rage. When Sergeant Jenkins gets here, I suggest you tell him everything you know about these two women. I don’t suppose either of you knows the model’s name?”

  Molly and Veronica both shook their heads.

  “Who’s this Jenkins person?” Veronica asked, just as someone started pounding on the door of her suite.

  “Police, Ms. Weston. Open up.”

  “That’s Sergeant Jenkins,” Molly said ruefully. “I don’t suppose there’s another way out of here.”

  Michael grinned at her as he went to the door. “Feeling guilty all of a sudden?”

  “Something like that,” Molly admitted, wishing he weren’t opening the door quite so eagerly to admit the Miami Beach detective. “I did promise to stay out of his investigation.”

  “We all know what that promise is worth,” Michael said.

  Judging from the infuriated expression on Sergeant Jenkins’s face when he realized who was in the room, she regretted she hadn’t risked diving through a window.

  * * *

  Sergeant Jenkins looked more and more depressed as Molly and Veronica combined to shoot holes in his theory about the murder.

  “So, you see, you ought to be out looking for that model,” Molly concluded. “She was probably the last one to see Greg alive.”

  “Terrific. That’s just great. I’m supposed to send people up and down Ocean Drive, maybe even along Collins Avenue, asking for an Italian model whose name we don’t know. Do you know how many of these fashion things are going on over here at any one time?”

  “Six last week,” Molly retorted.

  When he gaped at her certainty, she reminded him. “It’s my job to keep track.”

  “And every one of those six shoots had dozens of models, right? Any other helpful suggestions?”

  Molly shrugged. “Sorry. That’s the best I can do.”

  The detective glanced over his notes. “What about this Duke Lane? He seems to be the only member of the cast who wasn’t around tonight. How come?”

  “He wasn’t on call tonight,” Veronica said.

  “But he is your costar, right?”

  “He has second-lead billing,” Molly said quickly before Veronica could deliver one of her scathing comments about Duke Lane. “He should be around here, if you want to speak to him. Everyone was booked into this hotel.”

  Jenkins nodded. “I’ll check before I leave. I assume I can count on all of you to come to me if you think of anything else that will help move this case along.”

  Molly nodded dutifully. Veronica and Michael were slightly more convincing with their replies. At least, the sergeant appeared satisfied.

  As he opened the door to leave, a distinguished-looking man with a salt-and-pepper crewcut and clothes that looked as if they’d been bought on London’s Savile Row hurried down the corridor. He spotted Veronica and held open his arms.

  “Veronica, my dear, what is this terrible thing that’s happened? They tell me Greg is dead. You must be devastated.”

  Before he could embrace the actress, Jenkins stepped into his path. “Who are you?” he inquired.

  “Jeffrey Meyerson, Ms. Weston’s fiancé.”

  Veronica appeared slightly nonplussed by the assertion, but she didn’t deny the relationship. She merely looked the man in the eye and asked, “What are you doing here, Jeffrey? I thought you were flying to Rome this weekend.”

  “I intended to, but I thought I’d stop off and surprise you. Then when I saw Laura in the lobby and heard what had happened, I was doubly glad I did. Are you okay, my dear?”

  “I’m fine,” Veronica said, sounding incredibly sober and convincing for a woman who’d downed several double vodkas over the past few hours.

  Despite Veronica’s reassurances, Jeff Meyerson surveyed the trio of onlookers and suggested, “Perhaps, if you could leave us alone.”

  Jenkins looked disgruntled by the dismissal, despite the fact that he’d been on his way out the door not two minutes earlier. Michael nudged Molly toward the door as well.

  “What’s your hurry?” she grumbled as he tugged her along to the elevator.

  “I want to get to a phone,” he replied.

  “Why didn’t you just use the one in Veronica’s room?”

  “I didn’t want Jeffrey Meyerson listening in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the last flight from L.A. should have gotten in about three hours ago. Unless that flight was very late, it should have put him in town just in time to have murdered Greg Kinsey.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Molly tried not to gloat. She really did. But even though she knew she should leave well enough alone, the first words out of her mouth were, “I knew you couldn’t resist.”

  Michael turned, his expression puzzled. “Resist what?” he asked. He didn’t seem nearly as pleased as she was by the observation.

  “Getting involved.”

  “I am not involved,” he said emphatically. He jammed his hands into his pockets as if that would keep them from reaching for the phone again.

  “Then why are you calling to check on flight schedules?”

  He lowered the receiver of the pay phone back into place. “Instinct,” he admitted. “But you’re right. This is not my case. I’ll find Jenkins and tell him what I suspect. Wait here.”

  Before Molly could protest, he’d stalked off across the black-and-white hotel lobby that looked like a set from some thirties musical with Gi
nger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

  “Well, damn,” Molly muttered as she watched him disappear into the meeting room off the lobby where the police had apparently set up a temporary headquarters. This was not what she’d had in mind at all. Obviously, the hook hadn’t sunk in deep enough. Michael had wriggled loose.

  Thoroughly disgruntled, she walked over to the front door of the hotel, expecting to find the throng of reporters still lurking like seagulls awaiting a tasty catch. Instead, they had vanished, either satisfied by statements from the police or in search of more cooperative sources.

  More likely, like Ryan’s photographer, they’d headed for the fire escapes.

  At any rate, outside it looked like any other Saturday night. Molly watched the endless parade of couples in attire that ranged from the downright eccentric to the most stylish available. As their conversation and laughter filtered through the glass, she tried again to sort through the various relationships she’d observed among the cast and crew on Greg’s production.

  Twenty-nine-year-old Duke Lane, of the slicked-back hair and bad breath, had been Laura’s choice for leading man, from what Molly had read in the trades. His box-office following climbed with each new project. While Veronica’s scathing assessment of the way he’d chosen to play the character of Rod Lukens was right on track in Molly’s opinion, there was no arguing that he was giving a compelling, realistic performance. It was no doubt based on his own experiences. The man had an enthusiastically reported history of charming older women who could advance his career.

  Still, if he hadn’t been the director’s first choice and if Veronica’s complaining was beginning to get through to Greg, was it possible that Duke might have felt he had to kill the director? Molly dismissed the idea almost before it was fully formed. In that scenario, he’d probably have gone for Veronica. Besides, the picture was nearly complete. Greg would not have recast the role at this late date, no matter how he felt about Duke.