Killer Chameleon (22 page)

“I'm not sure how long ago it started,” I began, since I couldn't remember when the first incident had happened. “Sometime after Halloween and before Thanksgiving.”

“So early November,” Helena said, getting up. “I'm going to take notes. Don't stop, I can hear.” She headed toward the kitchen, returning with a steno pad.

“Okay. I moved out of my apartment about then and have been staying with a good buddy directly across the hall. Someone left a clump of dog poop in front of my old apartment.”

Mary Ellen wrinkled her nose. “Ooh. Not nice.”

I went on from there, trying to put things in order and to include even the most insignificant detail. “The review came in the mail on Monday.” Somehow it seemed like a month ago, so much had happened since.

“Mailed from the main post office here,” Bev said, fingering the envelope. “This is the first time I've been back to D.C. since the auditions for the repertory company. Jeez, that was back in the spring.”

“And didn't call any of us,” Helena said, glaring at her. “So what then, Leigh?”

I described the events of this week, the raving e-mail messages, the circumstances surrounding Claudia's death, and the attempts to track down this pox on my life while she stood on the corner watching and probably laughing her fool head off.

“I still haven't found Nell Gwynn, the West Indian lady, and unless she's in cahoots with this Bernard, I doubt she has anything to do with all this. Although I'd dearly love to know whose bathroom she used out of pure curiosity. But Georgia Keith is definitely out of the picture.”

“Georgia Keith?” Bev gazed into the distance, frown-ing.

“I think Duck is probably right,” Mary Ellen said, eyeing the remains in her wineglass. “This woman's no fool. She wouldn't give the man in the dry cleaners her real name, but I'll bet my salary her initials will be the same as whatever alias she's using.”

They went off on a tangent, Helena expounding about a case of identity theft she'd handled a couple of years before. I felt a nudge from my bladder and asked for directions to the nearest bathroom, which turned out to be the size of Janeece's apartment. I answered the call of nature, washed with Helena's French hard-milled soap, and was drying my hands when someone knocked.

“Your purse was beeping,” Debra said, handing me my cell phone. “Thought it might be Duck.”

I didn't recognize the number in the readout but answered as I strolled back toward the others, Debbie trailing me.

“You
bitch!
” a voice screamed in my ear. “You conniving, double-crossing bitch! No wonder you held me up so I couldn't make the audition! You
knew
that fat, whey-faced cow! She looks like a polar bear in all that white. You ruined my chances because you
knew
her! You ruined my career! I'm going to kill you, do you hear me? I'm sorry about the old lady but I'm looking forward to taking care of you!” She disconnected, evidently slamming the phone onto the cradle.

Stunned, I stood in the family room doorway, trying to make sense of what she'd said.

“That was her, wasn't it?” Debra said. “Jesus, I could hear her from here. She's crazy, all right.”

“Helena, write down this number,” I said, calling it up on the readout, then dialing Duck's cell phone. “Bernard just got me,” I said. “She called from . . .” I gestured at Helena.

She jumped up, showing me the notepad, and I repeated the number for Duck. “Can you get someone to trace it for me? She followed me here, Duck. She must have. She mentioned the white outfit Bev's wearing. And I think . . . wait a minute, hon. What, Bev?”

She was bouncing up and down, waving at me. “I just put it together. Nell Gwynn was the name of one of the English kings' mistresses.”

“So?”

“She was also an actress, a famous one in her day. Don't you remember Prinny Kline's mom going on about being a Howard Player back in the fifties, and the drama professor who named his dog Nell Gwynn?”

I looked at the ceiling in disgust. That's why the name had seemed familiar. Prinny's mom had been one of the few to encourage Bev to follow her star. How could I have forgotten that?

“And wait!” Bev snapped her fingers. “Georgia Keith. Georgia Keith. Sure! That was the name of a character in
August Flames,
the last play I read for at Arena Stage. Didn't get the part, but Georgia Keith was the main character, a dynamite role.”

I was getting a weird sensation in the pit of my stomach, my mental gears beginning to mesh. The memory was faint but was slowly coming into focus. “Duck, were you able to reach Roland's wife?”

“Yeah, I was gonna tell you when you got back. Bernard told them her first name was—”

“Sarah,” I cut him off. “Oh, my God! Not Bernard. Bernhardt! She's an actress!”

Bev grinned. “That was the next thing I was gonna say. Bernard, my ass! Salut!” She tossed down the last of her wine.

“Beverly?” Duck asked.

“In spades, and thanks to her, I know who's been dogging me, Duck. I even talked to her. Oh, my God! I remember now. I know who she is!”

15

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” I GROUSED AS XAVIER,
Bev's driver, reached in to help me out of the Town Car in Duck's underground garage.

“Know what?” Duck said, slipping a twenty into Xavier's free hand. “I don't give a damn. We had to get you away from there without that lunatic realizing you were leaving. Thanks, man. And thank Beverly for me, too.”

“My pleasure.” Xavier took Helena's wig and coat from me, his expression implacable, as if his passengers played this kind of game all the time. He returned to his place behind the wheel, backed up, and aimed for the exit to the street.

“Let's move it,” Duck said, hurrying me into the elevator. “Tank and Tina are upstairs.”

“What about the Corvette? I feel responsible for it. I can't leave it sitting on Helena's street all night.”

“They'll go get it when they leave here. By the way, that call to you was made from a phone outside a gas station on Connecticut, so she wasn't that far away. Gone by the time the squad car got there, of course. But one of the attendants heard her—not what she was saying, just that she was yelling. He figured it was a lovers' quarrel or something.”

“Did he get a good look at her?” I asked, as the elevator eased to a stop at his floor.

“No, he was around the side, checking the air in someone's tires.”

I cussed. It was incredible how well the woman's luck was holding. I just hoped mine would too. I'd felt like an idiot, sneaking from Helena's garage entrance into the Town Car in an auburn wig and one of her ankle-length Burberry trench coats over my own, hers so long on me I had to hike it up to keep from falling on my face. Bev had come up with the idea and the others had voted for going along with it, including Duck, yelling his two cents at me over the cell phone.

“So who is she?” Tina demanded as soon as we got through the door. “What's the bitch's name?”

“I don't know.” I shed my own coat and tossed it over one of the easy chairs. Duck, Mr. Neatnik, took it and hung it in the guest room closet, leaving the door open so he could hear.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” Hands on her hips, Tina glared at me.

“Just what I said. I don't know. I just remember how I met her months ago, that's all. But once I did, remember, I mean, it began to make sense.”

“Well, it's about time,” she said, throwing herself onto the sofa. “Let's hear it.”

Tank came in from the kitchen, greeting me by raising the bottle of beer in his hand. “Hey, Leigh. It finally clicked, did it?” He passed a second beer to Tina and settled himself on the floor, his back against the couch.

”Yeah, finally. I keep wondering if I'd have put it together eventually, but I doubt it. I don't have the right background. Thank God for the Bitches of Brandywine Hall.”

“Who?” Tina asked, taking a sip of her husband's beer.

“Old law school friends,” Duck supplied, nudging a chair in my direction. “Okay, babe, you've got the floor.”

I sat and tried to recapture an event that, at the time it happened, had meant nothing special.

“Remember back in the spring, around the middle of March, I think it was, when there was a gas leak in a house on Sixteenth Street and we had to evacuate everyone in the block and the one behind it?”

Tina looked blank but Tank and Duck nodded. “Oh, yeah,” they said together.

“Most everybody working the day shift in that district was assigned to check to see that all the houses and apartments had been vacated and then cordon off the area until the leak had been repaired.”

“Guess I must have been in court or something,” Tina said. “So?”

“People groused about having to stand out in the cold so long, but they cooperated because the house could have gone up any time. But this one woman kept bugging me every ten minutes. She was really agitated, kept asking how much longer it would be because she had to be somewhere soon. She lived in the area and needed to go home and change and get her car. I explained that no one was allowed behind the sawhorses because it was too dangerous. She'd go away for a few minutes, then back she'd come, pleading for me to let her pass. I told her no; it wasn't safe. I mean, you could smell the gas from where I stood.”

“Shoot, you could smell it from Piney Branch Park,” Tank said. “That's where I was but damned if I can remember why.”

“Yes, well anyway, the next time she asked if she couldn't just get her car. Even if she couldn't change, if she could get her car, she might make it on time. It was her big chance, she kept saying. She'd been working toward this for years, she was perfect for it, just what they were looking for. She might have mentioned an audition, but I'm not sure. I think I assumed it was a job interview or something. I felt sorry for her, I really did, but I couldn't let her through and that's all there was to it. She freaked, began cursing at me, saying I was ruining her life. She was completely out of control, practically frothing at the mouth. By that time, I'd had enough. I told her if she took one step beyond the sawhorses, I'd arrest her. Then one of the other uniforms came over and asked what the trouble was. Maybe being confronted by two of us in uniform convinced her to give up. She stormed off. That was it.”

“So what's this about an audition?” Tank drained his bottle.

“It turns out that's where she was going, to open auditions for the Shakespeare repertory tour. Bev mentioned it, and that, along with the review of
Macbeth,
started the wheels turning.”

“What review?” Duck asked.

“Look in my bag. I got that earlier this week and assumed Bev had sent it. Then when Bev caught the implications of the names she's been using . . . And to think I actually met her today, dammit!”

Duck looked up from the newspaper article. “Today?”

“One of Gracie's students described her to a T, so when I saw her on the street earlier today, I recognized her as Georgia Keith. I even stopped her and talked to her and she gave me this perfectly convincing story about how she came to be in the lobby on Monday. The thing is, she looked nothing like the photos from the Bridal Bower. I saw no resemblance at all! The woman's a damned chameleon. Gracie's student said there was a possibility that the teenager was related to Nell Gwynn because there was a slight resemblance, but no one else mentioned it. And Miss Colby? No, Cobey. She went on and on about how much foundation Gwynn was wearing, which makes sense now. Stage makeup. But as far as all of them were concerned, they were two different people. She fooled them all. Hell, she fooled me. I even showed her the pictures of herself. She didn't even blink!”

“Are you sure the names aren't a coincidence?” Tina asked.

“All of the names have a connection to the theater. Helena dug out a volume of
Encyclopedia Britannica
and showed me the section on Nell Gwynn. She might have been a king's bit of stuff on the side but she was also the Sarah Bernhardt of her day. I'd never heard of the play that has a Georgia Keith as one of the characters, but Bev auditioned for it at Arena. They mounted a production of it last year. Perhaps our nutcase was in the play, or saw it. Who knows? But everybody knows about Sarah Bernhardt.”

“Well, okay, but why go after you?” Duck folded the review and dropped it on the coffee table.

“She said I'd kept her from getting to the auditions because I knew Bev, knew she was trying out, too. Which I didn't, of course. None of us even knew she was in town. Seeing us together in front of Helena's must have driven her over the edge, for her to call me there. By the way, Tina, she said she was sorry about Claudia.”

Tina sat up straight. “She admitted it?”

“Only to being sorry about her. Any word on the autopsy yet?”

“Tomorrow.” Relaxing again, she scowled. “They were too jammed up today. Oh, and Tankie, tell them what Willard said.”

“The day she called the police, she used a cell phone stolen from a Steve Castello, who moved here recently from Florida. The phone still had a Florida area code. It hasn't been used since, so she probably tossed it afterward.”

“Terrific,” I said, not the least surprised. “But at least there's a better chance of tracking her down now. We know the general area where she lived, at least back in the spring. We know she's an aspiring actress, which means checking local theater groups to see if anyone recognizes her.”

Duck leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, and fixed a penetrating gaze on me. “Let's define some terms here, specifically this ‘we' you're talking about. It includes Evans and Thackery. They investigate murders, suspicious deaths. And if Bernhardt/Keith/ Gwynn said she was sorry about Claudia, that's proof at the very least that she was there. I've left a message for Thack and Evans, letting them know there have been new developments and you'll fill them in tomorrow.”

“Fine.” I wasn't looking forward to it, but they did need to know.

“‘We' also includes Willard,” Duck continued. “He'll need copies of the photographs. This Castello might recognize her. And she's made threats by phone, another black mark against her he'll want to add to his list.”

“Eddie made plenty of copies for me.”

“Good. Now, as far as the three of us are concerned, Tank will keep in touch with Willard, who evidently appreciates all the help he can get. Tina's riding herd over her contact at the medical examiner's and is also trying to find out what happened to Claudia's car. She obviously drove it here to pick up Clarissa. Our girl may have used it to get away last night. Me, I'll be dogging Evans and Thackery. Thus ends the ‘we.' You, my love, are getting the hell out of town.”

I looked at him sidewise. “Excuse me?”

“I've packed a bag for you and I'm driving you to Ourland tonight. If we're taking the house, we might as well use it.”

Not only did my hackles rise, they stood at attention. “Now, just wait a minute, buster,” I began, simmering.

“Hear me out, babe. I should have thought of this last night, but I was more concerned about how Clarissa was holding up. This crazy woman's done enough. For the moment, let's forget the Hawaii reservations and your suit.”

“No,” I interrupted. “Let's not.”

He held up a hand. “Leigh, it was one thing when she was simply a pain in the butt, but she's crossed the line. She invaded my apartment under false pretenses, removed personal property. She's been stalking you; that's a crime in itself, her e-mail to you may be, too, for all I know. But now a perfectly innocent woman is dead. For all we know, Clarissa may be in danger, too. And that call to you tonight says she's completely out of control now. She's gone way past harassment. I'm taking her threat against you seriously. If I had my druthers, I'd put you on the next flight to Asheville, but I know you'd go kicking and screaming. So Ourland will have to do, and I don't want to hear any argument.”

My simmer had escalated to a full, rolling boil. “Who died and made you boss?”

“Claudia,” he said quietly.

He had a point but it was beside the point. The other one, I mean.

“I'm not going, Duck. I refuse to run away. If nothing else, I owe it to Claudia and Clarissa to stick it out and put an end to this reign of terror. As far as I'm concerned, the wedding suit is the least she's stolen from me; that's replaceable. She's stolen my name, my identity, my peace of mind. I want it back, all of it.”

“Don't think I don't understand that, babe. But how am I gonna concentrate on the job if I'm worrying about whether you're okay, whether you're safe?”

I stood up. “Seems to me we've been down this road before. If I remember correctly, it's the same argument you put to me earlier this year when you backed me into a corner so I'd have no choice but to break our engagement. You couldn't concentrate on the job if you had to worry about me out on the street doing
my
job. I fell for it then. Not this time.”

“It's different this time,” he said, his hands on my shoulders forcing me to sit again. He got down on one knee. “I'm not trying to break our engagement. I'm trying to protect the life of the woman I love.”

Tina and Tank got up. “Uh, we'll leave so you two can talk.”

“Sit down,” Duck ordered, still focused on me. “I want us married, babe. I want you
alive
! If you were in Ourland—”

“I wouldn't be any better off than I'd be here. She followed us there, remember? If your precious manhood depends on my giving in to you on this, we're in big trouble because I'm not running, Duck. No way, José.”

Rising, he glared down at me, his temple throbbing. “God protect me from hardheaded women!” He stormed out, went into the bedroom, and slammed the door.

Tina folded her hands in her lap. “Well. I'm not absolutely sure, you understand, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say I think the man's really upset.”