Chapter 15 #2
“What are the odds,” I murmured, grabbing my laptop and setting it up to take the drive.
Charlemagne hopped down and deigned to sit beside me, watching the screen as it populated with a list of several folders, most with huge amounts of data, and one marked just Meeting w/P that had barely anything.
I started there, hesitant to open anything huge just in case Tubbs had something I really didn’t want to see-cough, cough. The Meeting w/T was a media file, an older one I had to download a player to see. “In for a penny, right kitty?”
Charlemagne licked his paw in annoyance.
The file opened and, for a moment, my screen was black. Then a blur of color and sound came up in a rush—whoever had been filming things had moved the camera suddenly.
No, a phone, I realized—the way it was framed, the quality of it, it all indicated it had been shot on someone’s older smartphone and whoever was filming it had been trying to be subtle about it.
Pamela Sommers came into the frame just from the chin down until she sat, holding a glass of wine.
It looked more recent than not judging by her clothes and hairstyle.
“It’s nice to talk again,” she said to someone off camera.
Tubbs replied. “It’s been a long time. Too long.”
Pamela sipped her wine, nodding. “It’s... it’s been difficult. It never stopped hurting.”
Tubbs made a sympathetic sound and joined her on the sofa, a tumbler of something amber with ice clicking in it clutched in one hand and a packet of papers in the other. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t be upset about this, Pamela. I think Beth would like it, honestly.”
Pamela’s lips twisted into a sour grimace. “I don’t know. Gwen is against it. She said Beth deserved rest and.... and well, I agree.” She gulped her wine in two swallows, setting the glass down to one side.
Tubbs was quiet for a long time, sipping his own drink and staring at her thoughtfully.
Pamela fidgeted, fingering the edge of her soft pink cardigan and darting glances around the room.
Finally, she twittered a tiny, fake laugh and shook her head.
“Why are you staring at me, Gerry? I feel like I did something wrong!”
“The night Beth died,” he said quietly, “I went to see her. She was drunk already when I got there. I wanted to beg her not to take that role.”
Pamela went very still. “What are you talking about, Gerry?”
“Beth was leaving. She’d already told you and Gwen. Don’t try to lie about it—my father told me that part himself. He was working with her on an exit. But she couldn’t wait to tell you two. She was excited. Wasn’t she?”
“I... I suppose,” Pamela stuttered. “Why are we talking about that night, Gerry? It was terrible! I lost my best friend. My soul mate! Why are you bringing her death up like this?”
“I thought I’d killed her,” he admitted, reaching out to stop Pamela when she moved to stand.
He wanted, I realized, to keep her in view of the camera.
To keep her recorded. Charlemagne leaned in beside me, making fussy little sounds as his person spoke again.
“We fought, me and Beth. She said I didn’t get it.
That this was it for her and, if I recall her words correctly—and I do—she said none of you people will stop me, damn it.
Wanted to know why ‘we’ couldn’t be happy for her. ”
“She was drunk,” Pamela gasped. “Who knows why drunk people say what they say!”
“So the thing is...” He pushed the papers towards her. “I was wrong. She wasn’t drunk.”
Pamela took the papers and, after one glance, blanched so violently and visibly I thought the color had faded on the video. “How—”
“Money gets you everywhere.”
The video cut there, but picked up at another location.
It looked like they were on a boat—the Beth, I realized.
Had this only been Thursday? My heart was racing as the muffled voices became clearer.
Pamela again, this time smiling broadly, her dainty handbag hanging from her elbow as she took up a spot at the table.
Tubbs settled across from her, placing that bottle of vodka and two glasses on the table between them.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, nudging one glass towards her.
“Oh, not for me, thank you. I had two glasses of wine at that awful party and I’m still feeling it.
I shouldn’t have had any, not with my medication, but you know how these things are,” she laughed, setting her purse down on the table.
Belatedly, I realized this was no longer the phone filming but a laptop—the angle was weird but I could make out that it had been about the place I’d found the fallen computer when I went looking for Tubbs.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Oh my god...”
They talked for a few minutes, mostly about Lester Cove (and I didn’t want to examine how offended I felt about some of their comments) and the upcoming fan convention Gwendolyn and Pamela were to attend, leaving that night to be there early in the morning.
They talked about Nate—-apparently, no one liked Nate but Tubbs admired how he was such a ‘shark’ and admitted Nate had approached him about a job.
“The thing is,” he admitted, “if this comes through, I might let him direct.”
Pamela wrinkled her nose at that. “Nate? Nate? He’d be a terrible director!”
“I don’t need it to be good, just made,” he pointed out. “I assume you’ve looked at the report.”
“Ah. I was wondering when you’d bring it up. I was thinking it’d surely be before you tried to rope that poor boy into your stupid plan.”
Tubbs’ anger flared. “Have any better ideas? I need money, Pamela. And Beth’s not using it.”
“Shut up,” she hissed, pushing to her feet. And there went the glasses and the bottle. “You shut up!”
“She wasn’t drunk,” he said, voice sharp and almost excited. He lumbered to his feet and I lost sight of them, Charlemagne’s hairless flank taking up the screen as he came out, almost a week ago, to see what his person was upset about. “She’d hit her head. She was dying when I saw her.”
“She wasn’t! She wasn’t!” Something thumped heavily and Pamela cried out. “How—”
“The coroner’s report noted head trauma. Bad enough that her skull was cracked. Bad enough that she would definitely die from it if left untreated. Why’d you burn her house down, Pamela?” Tubbs demanded. “You knew already, didn’t you? You knew what you’d done!”
“Shut up!” Her cry was shrill enough to rattle the tiny speakers on my laptop.
“She wasn’t alive! She wasn’t! She fell when I tried to push her away!
She wanted to hug me, to tell me it would be alright but she was leaving us!
It was all ruined!” Something crashed and Charlemagne in the past yowled, disappearing in flash from the screen.
They weren’t there anymore but I could hear them fighting, Pamela sobbing wildly and Tubbs grunting, telling her to stop, to back off.
Then nothing.
Pamela uttered a soft, broken sob and hurried past, grabbing her purse from the table. She swung it over her arm and hit the laptop, knocking it to the floor and ending the recording.
Muffin scooted beside me on the floor, his huge body warm and grounding beside me. “Holy crap,” I muttered. “Holy, holy crap...”
***
I TEXTED HEATH. I have something you need to see. And maybe the MCU group?
His reply was almost immediate. No. Not again. Tell me you’re joking.
Leaving him on read, I hesitated then opened my email on my laptop. It was a bad idea and I knew it, but I saved everything on the flash drive to the cloud, password protecting it for all the good it would do then sent a link to Ben. The password is your favorite tea last week.
I really hoped I hadn’t remembered wrong and he really did like jasmine green tea.
Muffin perked up, ears forward, just a second before the doorbell chimed three times in quick succession.
“Holy hell, Heath,” I sighed, relief and excitement pulsing through me, making me shake.
Pocketing the flash drive, I raced down the stairs in sock feet, slipping on the wood at the bottom, Muffin and Tony on my heels.
I didn’t hesitate, throwing open the door as the bell chimed one more time. “You got here...”
Gwendolyn Terhune, dripping annoyance, eyed me from beneath perfectly plucked, arched brows. She was wearing the puffy coat from the jetty, the one I’d glimpsed in the trunk of her car.
She smiled, gesturing at the spitting weather behind her. “Care to let me in? It’s getting miserable out here.”
***
SETTLED IN THE SITTING room, no tea—Gwendolyn refused, not even politely, when I offered—we stared at one another across the heavily carved occasional table between us.
“I’ll get right to the point, Damien. We’re leaving in the morning—flight’s at nine so we’re going to the airport at five.
” She shook her head, scowling. “It’s ridiculous, having to go through all of that claptrap.
We’re flying first class, for crying out loud!
You’d think that would give us some grace but no, into the TSA lines with everyone else. ”
The way she said everyone would’ve been funny if I hadn’t just learned her friend was a murderer.
Did she know?
She couldn’t know.
The coat. The lighter. The fight in the inn’s foyer...
We’d been quiet for too long. She was watching me, a tiny smile touching the corners of her mouth, softening her expression until it was almost kind. But only almost. She nodded towards the doorway where Muffin sat, ears pinned back as he stared at us. “I don’t think he likes me.”
“He’s had a rough year.”
“Haven’t we all.” She shifted her gaze back to me and let her smile curl.
“You know, I think some tea does sound like a lovely idea after all. It’s been a long morning with packing, having a few phone interviews with some of the trade pubs and a lovely man writing a book about Hollywood tragedies.
” She clicked her tongue, affecting sorrow.
“I almost missed the call thanks to that Heath Nichols. He’s talking with Pamela at the moment.
” Her smile was brief, wispy. “He just wouldn’t take no for an answer when she reminded him how late it is. Nearly nine!”
He must have gone from the station over to the inn almost immediately after I left.
“Everything okay?” She followed me into the kitchen rather than waiting in the sitting room, setting off klaxons in my head.
It took everything I had in me not to glance back at Gwendolyn—hell, not to just bolt out the backdoor.
She didn’t reply for a long moment but I could hear her shifting around, the clink of Tony’s tags as she shooed him away with a hissed tch.
“That girl who caused such a fuss with Gerry the other day is telling tales,” she finally said. “Annmarie? Amelia?”
“Anmorata,” I murmured. “Claire.” Tea made and little tray of cream and sugar and—sue me, my mom instilled polite hosting into my blood at a young age—some cookies arranged, I took a deep breath and schooled my face into close to calm lines.
Carrying the tray and teapot to the table, I set it down between us and took up the seat across from Gwendolyn.
She still had on the coat and was holding her purse in her lap, perched like a vulture with that sharp, thin smile of hers. “So...”
“So,” she said, watching me avidly. “Damien. We’re both too jaded to play games.
” With a smooth, confident motion, she pulled a small pistol out of her purse and leveled it at me.
“I have a tight schedule and can’t be bothered with niceties.
Let’s get this over with. Lock the front door. Both locks.”