This gained a complacent agreement.
“Would he have minded if you’d glanced at his journal?”
There was a pause. “I did, once.”
Carol waited.
“Inspector Ashton, I hope you don’t think…”
“Of course not.” Her soothing words were an encouragement.
Nicole said, “Colly wrote what he really thought about people, and the secrets they told him they didn’t want repeated…”
“How long ago was this, when you glanced at the book?” Carol smiled to herself over “glanced”-she was sure Nicole would have avidly read it.
“A few months ago. I didn’t mean to do it, I just happened to see it…”
“So you didn’t see it recently?”
“Well…” A little girl voice. “I think Colly knew I’d peeked. He started locking the journal in his desk, or taking it with him.”
Carol’s tone was one of mild interest. “So he might have had it with him in the hotel?”
“It isn’t here. I’ve looked everywhere, so Colly must’ve taken it with him.”
“We didn’t find it in the hotel room.”
“Where is it, then?” said Nicole petulantly.
Carol didn’t want to give her a chance to embark upon a fruitless conversation about the whereabouts of the journal, as she was sure whoever had killed Raeburn had taken it. She said, “When you did read a little of it, was there anything in particular you remember?”
“Yes,” said Nicole triumphantly. “He said Alanna Brooks was a bitch. That she was just using him.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
Nicole was angry with Carol’s obtuseness. “She was sleeping with Colly. Taking advantage of him. She didn’t care about him at all, but at first he thought she did.”
“They were having an affair?”
“I just told you so!” Nicole snapped. Then, changing to a note of complaint, “Is it any wonder Colly was so upset he didn’t know what he was doing? That’s why he took too many pills-she made him so unhappy and angry. If you like, she killed him!”
Douglas Binns was anxiously contrite. “Inspector, I’m afraid Miss Brooks is still in the rehearsal room walking through her movements for Turandot.” He coughed apologetically. “You could wait in her dressing room…”
“Would you take us to the rehearsal room, please.”
He hesitated, then said, “Of course.”
Carol and Anne followed him through the familiar low-roofed wide corridors, across the Green Room and down a flight of stairs to a large octagonal room with a high ceiling and mirrored walls. Colored plastic tape laid in patterns lined the polished wooden floor. Alanna Brooks was deep in conversation with a small dark-haired man.
“That’s the conductor,” said Binns in a hushed voice. He seemed to want to keep them occupied so they wouldn’t interrupt what he obviously considered an important conversation. He indicated the tape on the floor. “There’s a different color for each opera. Singers have to know the positions of the flats in each scene, and, of course, where the doors are.” Seeing Anne blinking at a large sign which declared, extraordinarily, NO JUMPING AFTER 7:30, he added, “This rehearsal room’s sandwiched in the middle-the Concert Hall’s above us, and the Drama Theater’s below…”
Carol left him with Anne and strode over to Alanna Brooks, who looked up, startled, as she approached. She muttered an excuse to the conductor, then advanced to meet Carol. “Inspector Ashton? I told Douglas I’d be delayed.”
“It’s necessary I speak with you immediately.”
Alanna’s voice was polite, her expression strained. “Of course. Do you want to go to the Green Room, or my dressing room?”
“Somewhere private.”
The narrow window of the dressing room poured dazzling light into their eyes. With a muttered comment, Alanna pulled curtains across to block the glare. “Please sit down.” She licked her lips. “Now, what is it?”
Carol waited until Anne had notebook and pen ready, then she said, “We interviewed Lloyd Clancy this morning.”
Alanna sat very still. “Yes?” she said.
“Why did you wait so long before threatening to take some action against him? You must have known last weekend what he’d said on Saturday night.”
“Inspector, I didn’t know then. I saw you after Aïda on Friday, then went on to a party. James Kant was there and he told me what Lloyd had said-it was the first I’d heard.”
James Karit was a well-known opera and theater critic and had been one of the four Lloyd Clancy had accosted at the Museum of Modern Art; Carol had no doubt he would corroborate her story. “Do you mean to take Mr. Clancy to court, or is it just a threat to shut him up?”
Alanna narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure what you’re implying. I don’t need to shut him up, as you put it.”
Carol said pleasantly, “So this is a serious matter, from your point of view?”
“It’s obvious it is.”
Ignoring the edge in Alanna’s voice, Carol said, “It seems you didn’t tell me the truth about your relationship with Collis Raeburn.”
Her expression didn’t change, but she straightened in the chair. “I believe I did.”
“I have it on good authority that during the last year you were lovers. Is that true?”
“No.”
Carol raised her eyebrows fractionally. The silence hung in the room. At last Alanna said, “We weren’t exactly lovers. I went to bed with him a couple of times, that’s all.”
I can hardly ask if you used condoms… “Why did you lie before?” Carol’s slight emphasis on “lie” made Alanna flinch.
Alanna said earnestly, “It didn’t seem relevant. And I didn’t want to think about it. It was a stupid thing to do and Collis only despised me for it.” She looked for some sign of acceptance. “That’s why I didn’t want to say anything.”
Another pause which Carol deliberately let last until even Anne shifted in her chair. Alanna said, almost desperately, “Is that all? I’ve got to get back…”
“Is there anything else you haven’t been completely truthful about?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Lloyd Clancy?”
Her expression hardened. “About Lloyd,” she said firmly, “I’ve been absolutely truthful. I don’t usually hate people, but with Lloyd I could make an exception.”
Anne waited until they’d been cleared by security at the stage door entrance. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
“Partly.”
Anne fished her sunglasses out of her bag. “I’d hate to be the person to have to tell Raeburn’s lovers that he might have given them HIV-but somebody has to.”
Carol nodded, thinking of Pat James’s younger brother. “I think the news will be out soon.” As Anne looked at her with surprise, she added, “An arrest for murder should do it.”
“Inspector Ashton… Carol,” said Sykes, smiling winningly.
Carol looked stonily at his sleek, self-satisfied face. “Mr. Sykes?”
“As a matter of good PR, I think the time’s right for a statement on your progress with the investigation. I’m afraid the news about Alanna Brooks suing her leading man has stirred things up. I’ve spoken to Eureka Opera’s public relations person, and she agrees we need some damage control here.”
“We?”
He looked taken aback at her tone. “It’s a matter of cooperation. Eureka has been besieged by the media, just as we have. Collis Raeburn’s funeral is on Thursday and that’ll be, I fully expect, an international media event. It would be advantageous if you could indicate something definite by Wednesday.”
“You want the whole case neatly tied up and presented by Wednesday?”
“Not the full written report, of course, but an indication…”
“The Commissioner sent you to say this?”
Even Sykes was not immune to Carol’s contemptuous anger. He flushed as he said, “Not exactly. After all, it is my area-public relations, that is.”