To Have and to Kill (8 page)

Chapter 25

T
he decision was made not to hold classes at the Metropolitan School for Girls the day following the auction. Parents were alerted by robo-call. However, teachers were expected to attend a morning meeting where a psychologist would address them on how to handle the subject of Travis York’s death with the students when they came back to school on Monday.

Jessie Terhune sat amid her colleagues and listened, seemingly absorbed in what the psychologist was saying. But she was distracted. Casey Walden was sitting in the row in front of her. Jessie had to concentrate to keep her eyes on the speaker when all she really wanted to do was look at Casey.

She still loved him. It was torture to know that he loved somebody else.

After the psychologist answered questions from the audience, Michele Cox, the headmistress, came up to the stage and thanked him. Then Mrs. Cox addressed the teachers herself.

“I just thought that you should also know that, thanks to Travis York, the auction was a huge success. Before he was stricken, our auctioneer cajoled over a million dollars from our audience. And this morning, we have been getting calls and e-mails from people all around the country who would like to donate to a fund benefiting our school drama department in his memory.”

So it had worked,
thought Jessie, determined to keep her facial expression solemn. Speaking to the reporters in front of the school last night had done just what she had hoped it would. Suggesting that Travis York supported her drama department was spurring on his fans. Who knew how many people would donate because they wanted to pay tribute to Travis!

Casey turned around and gave her a sad smile. Jessie tried to read it. Was he happy that her department was going to reap a windfall but appropriately melancholy because of the circumstances? Or was his face expressing pity for her because he knew that she still loved him?

Suddenly, Jessie felt self-conscious, aware that she had more than a few gray hairs, her lipstick had worn off, and her boxy suit jacket was four years old.

How frumpy I must look to him, in comparison to Glenna.

But Jessie smiled back, determined not to give him the satisfaction of thinking that she cared about him at all. Let him think that she had moved on, that she was focused on her beloved work. Wait until he saw the dynamic direction her drama department would take now.

Nothing is over yet,
Casey,
she thought, holding on to a hope that they might still have some future together.
You can never tell what’s going to happen next. It could have just as easily been your precious Glenna as Travis York last night.

Life was unpredictable.

Chapter 26

E
veryone was clearly shaken. There were tears and blank expressions and faces contorted in grief as the actors and crew arrived on the set of
A Little Rain Must Fall
. Despite Travis’s death, the show was going on. There was a taping schedule that had to be met.

Quent gathered the staff together in a rehearsal hall. As he waited for everyone to find a place to sit, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He cleared his throat and replaced his glasses before starting to speak.

“First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming at what is, for all of us, a terribly sad and absolutely horrific time. Travis’s death is a profound loss. He was an incredibly talented actor with a charismatic personality. He was a treasured colleague and friend to all of us.

“Just a few minutes ago, I took a call from the police, a courtesy call really, with news that they will reveal later in the day. They have ascertained that the water Travis drank was laced with cyanide.”

Some gasped, some mumbled to those sitting beside them, all of them shook their heads as they struggled to comprehend the idea that the man who had been with them, taping a scene not even twenty-four hours before, had been murdered.

Quent paused and scanned his audience. After several moments, he continued speaking.

“Distasteful as it may be, we have to figure out how Travis’s death will impact the show. The writers and I will gather as soon as we finish here to figure out what to do with the scripts. Once it’s decided how we’ll explain what happened to Travis’s character, we’ll figure out what previously taped scenes have to be amended and what new scenes will be needed to advance our story line. In the meantime, there are some scenes that have nothing to do with Travis’s character that can still be taped as scheduled. So, everyone, let’s take one day at a time and do the best we can. Let’s do Travis proud.”

Quent looked appropriately somber as he finished speaking. Of course, he hadn’t expressed
all
of his thoughts and feelings.

From a business point of view, it would have been better if Glenna had been the one to die.
A Little Rain Must Fall
was losing her anyway. But, then again, even Travis’s dying was incredible publicity.

Chapter 27

A
rthur Walden and his wife, Laura, sat in tufted leather wing chairs in the office on the top floor of the Madison Avenue building that housed Walden’s Jewelers. They watched the story about the soap opera star’s death on Channel 2’s
News at Noon
. There were two sound bites from the police press conference in the piece, one declaring that Travis York had died of cyanide poisoning, the other asking that anyone with information pertinent to the case come forward and assist the investigation.

At the conclusion of the story, Arthur clicked off the television and turned to his wife.

“It could have just as easily gone the other way,” he said. “This tragedy could have struck much closer to home. It could have been Glenna.”

Laura rested her head on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. “I know,” she said. “Thank God it wasn’t. Can you imagine how Casey would have taken that?”

“He would have been devastated,” said Arthur as he stood up. “But it wasn’t Glenna. Casey can go on with his plans.”

Laura’s head snapped forward at the change in tone of her husband’s voice. She glared at him. “You know you could sound happier about it, Arthur. Casey is your brother and he’s been single all his life. You should be glad that he’s finally found someone he wants to settle down with.”

“It’s not that I don’t want Casey to be happy, Laura,” said Arthur. “What I can’t stand is the fact that all of a sudden he wants to stick his nose in the business. I’m not used to that and I don’t want it.”

“You’ve been spoiled, Arthur,” said Laura. “
We’ve
been spoiled. Never having to answer to anyone, Casey accepting whatever you told him, whatever yearly dividend you sent him. It was naive to think it could go on forever like that. The business was left to the both of you.”

“But I’ve done all the work,” said Arthur.

“And you’ve compensated yourself well for it.”

Arthur began to speak, but thought better of it. Not even Laura knew how well he had paid himself. And if his brother ever found out and demanded that he make restitution—or, worse, filed criminal charges—Arthur would be ruined.

Chapter 28

T
he outside air was cold, the gusting winds made trees and bushes sway, and the forecast was for snow—but Piper was dressed in sandals and wore spandex shorts under her sweatpants as she drove her parents’ car toward the center of town. She was cutting it close. If she was late, the door would be locked and she wouldn’t be able to take her class.

As Piper pulled into a parking space in front of the yoga studio, her BlackBerry sounded. Before answering, she glanced to see who was calling. She hoped that it was someone who could wait. But when she saw it was her agent, she pushed the
ACCEPT
key.

“Hey, Gabe. What’s up?”

“I’m fine, Piper. How are you?” He was being sarcastic.

“Sorry about that,” said Piper. Whenever Gabe called, Piper hoped it would be good news, but today all she wanted was for him to be brief. This was the latest yoga class, and Piper was dying for the workout. Thankfully, he didn’t take long.

“
A Little Rain Must Fall,
Monday. You can phone in for your call time. It should be posted by now. Do you still have the number?”

“Yeah, I do. What about the script? Can they e-mail it to me, or do I have to go to the studio to pick it up?”

“It’s in flux, Piper. The writers are going to be working all weekend trying to figure out how to adapt to losing Travis. They’ll send the lines as soon as they have them.”

T
he first thing that struck Piper was the familiar stench. It was pungent and unpleasant. Still, it smelled a lot better than the place she frequented in New York.

Any Bikram yoga studio she had ever visited had a bad odor. A group of people exercising in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with the humidity at 40 percent, produced gallons of sweat. The idea was to keep the body warm and sweating profusely. It helped get rid of toxins and allowed the body to be more flexible.

Some yogis didn’t like Bikram, because it didn’t stress the meditation aspect of yoga. It was primarily a workout. That was precisely why Piper was a loyal fan. She tried to go four or even five times a week, and she always made it to at least three sessions—unlike her karate refresher classes, which she only took from time to time. Her father insisted she keep up the skills she had begun acquiring when she was eleven years old—also at his insistence. Vin Donovan wanted his daughter to be able to defend herself.

Fluorescent lights blazed from the ceiling. Piper tried to keep her eyes open and focused on the image of herself in the mirror, not looking at the other students, listening only to the commands of the instructor. But Piper was distracted. The murder, her return to the soap, even the realization that there were only two weeks until Glenna and Casey’s wedding, kept her mind spinning. She had no definite plans about what the wedding cake should be, but Piper knew two things: it had to make Glenna happy and it had to make Piper look good.

After an hour and a half in the hot room, twisting into cobra, locust, tree, eagle, and camel postures, Piper’s body glistened with perspiration. She wiped herself with a towel, rolled up her yoga mat, pulled on her sweats, and hurried out to the car in the cold. On the way home, she stopped at the CVS in downtown Hillwood, ignoring the stares of other customers as they watched the young woman with a red face and sweat-soaked hair that was practically still steaming. Piper headed for the magazine racks and pulled off copies of
Brides
and
Martha Stewart Weddings
.

Then she caught sight of the newspaper headlines.

GOING, GOING, GONE! blasted one of the tabloids in inch-high letters over a photo of Travis York’s body cradled in Glenna Brooks’s arms.

TRAVIS YORK TAKES FINAL BOW! announced another insensitively.

The feeling of well-being she had at the end of the yoga class morphed into tension as visions of Travis writhing on the stage came into her head. She felt her chest tighten.
Get it together, Piper,
she told herself.
Breathe. Breathe.

She needed to
do
something. Taking action would make her feel better. She wanted to help in the criminal investigation, but how? She had already racked her memory for anything she might have noticed last night at the auction and had come up empty. She wished she had forced Jack to analyze that threatening letter that Glenna had received. Now, the note was only ashes in the Metropolitan School for Girls’ fireplace. It was so frustrating.

Until the writers finished, she couldn’t even put her energy into studying her script. But there was something constructive she
could
do. She knew she’d feel much better if she did something about designing the wedding cake.

Tomorrow she was going to spend time in the bakery, brushing up on her decorating skills. And she’d also promised to help her mother with a new commercial over the weekend. In the meantime, Piper grabbed the tabloids, added them to her magazines, and carried them all to the register.

O
n Fridays, the Donovans ate pizza.

Piper still loved pizza night—it never got old. It had been happening since her parents were kids. The Catholic Church had placed a ban on eating meat on Fridays. Piper had heard that the ban had very little to do with religion and everything to do with a struggling fish industry. And even though the Church had lifted the ban before Piper was born, the pizza tradition happily lived on.

Piper stopped at Pompilio’s on the way home and ordered a large tomato-and-cheese pie. While she waited, she perused the newspapers. Looking at the picture of Travis York sprawled on the stage floor, she noticed that a photo credit was given to Martha Killeen. Inside, there was a sidebar story recounting the fact that Killeen had been at the auction and had taken the exclusive pictures. Many of the haunting photos she had taken were splashed across the inner pages of the paper. The other newspaper had a theatrical head shot of Travis on the front page, with some grainier shots of the auction action inside. Piper assumed they had been taken with cell phones.

The sidebar didn’t mention how much Martha Killeen had been paid for her pictures, but Piper suspected it would be in the six figures somewhere, maybe even more. Not a bad dividend from a charity event.

B
y seven o’clock, the pizza had been eaten, the dishes had been washed, and her parents were settled in for an evening of television. After going through the bridal magazines, Piper wasn’t sure what to do with herself. A book? A bath?

Was this what her twenty-seven-year-old life had come to?

She pounced on her BlackBerry when she heard it ring.

“Pipe. It’s me.”

“Hi, Me.”

“What are you doing?”

“Please. I wonder that every minute of every day.”

“Did you get in touch with Glenna?” asked Jack. “Did she turn that letter over to the P.D.?”

“Uh-uh,” answered Piper. “There is no letter.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I told her you didn’t think it was anything to worry about, she threw it in the fireplace and burned it.”

“Crap.”

“I know,” Piper responded.

“I’m sorry, Pipe. I was sure that thing was from some crackpot.”

Piper didn’t say anything.

“The silence is deafening, Piper,” said Jack. “Give me a break will you? I feel terrible about this.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jack. We don’t know for sure that the letter had anything to do with the murder. But doesn’t it seem like more than a coincidence that Glenna would get a letter like that and then Travis is killed? That poison could have just as easily been meant for Glenna.”