"How did you get to Philadelphia?"
"Amtrak."
"What hotel did you stay at?"
"The Winston."
"Didn't any of the doormen or the concierge tell you what had happened when you came home?"
"They didn't see me. I entered through the garage and came right here."
"Were you going to produce Mary Ann's screenplay?"
"I'm not in the movie business. I showed her story to a producer friend of mine and he was interested." His eyes narrowed. "How did you know I was seeing Mary Ann?"
"I read her e-mail."
"I told her to use a password but she didn't think she needed it because she lived alone."
"Can I assume that you have a password for your e-mail?"
"Of course I do."
"Did your wife know it?"
No. Adele and I respected each other's privacy." His eyes focused on the bloodstains on the living room rug. "Who found them?"
"Mary Ann's mother."
"Her stepmother," he blurted. "They couldn't stand each other."
"I got the impression that they were close to each other."
"Just the opposite. Mary Ann's father left her his entire estate. He'd been married to Elizabeth for only three years, and she signed a prenuptial that left her three hundred thousand in the event of his death. That's not a lot of money for a woman with her lifestyle."
"Mr. Harrison, I need to go with you to your apartment."
"Why?"
"Do you have an answering machine on your phone?"
"Yes."
"I need to listen to it."
"My wife hated guns. I don't think she ever held one in her hand. Detective, Adele was a religious woman. She would never kill another human being, and she certainly would never kill herself."
"I know."
"May I come in?" Parker asked forty minutes later, his hard eyes fixed on Elizabeth Gardner's face. She stepped aside. He walked into her fourteenth-floor Park Avenue apartment, his eyes sweeping the large living room. He turned to face her. A nervous twitch invaded her right eyelid. He said: "Women never commit suicide by blowing out their brains, they just don't."
Her mouth fell open.
"Adele Harrison recorded your conversation on her answering machine. It's all there, you telling her about the affair, suggesting that you come to her apartment to discuss it. You weren't sure what you were going to do, were you? All you knew for sure was that Mary Ann was happy over her screenplay and you hated her all the more for it and wanted to cause her pain. You told the concierge you were going to the Goldmans' party. You went to the Harrison apartment instead. At some point Adele Harrison excused herself. That was when you saw her husband's gun on his dresser. It all came together then, didn't it? You quickly snuck into the bedroom, took the gun, and stuck it into your pocketbook. Then the two of you went to Mary Ann's apartment. During their confrontation you stood beside Adele. At some point you took out the revolver, shot her in the temple and then killed Mary Ann. You then wiped the gun clean of your fingerprints, pressed it into Adele's hand in order to get her prints on the gun, dropped it on the floor next to her body, and then went to the Goldmans' party."
"You can't prove any of that."
"I'm getting a warrant to take your clothes to the lab. Our forensics people are going to find particles of gunpowder that match the powder tattooing on Adele Harrison's temple. That and the tape will convict you."
The color drained from her face.
"Why, Elizabeth?"
"Money. I stood to inherit if Mary Ann died."
"How did you find out about the affair?"
"I dropped by Mary Ann's unexpectedly. The concierge was busy and didn't see me, so I just went on up. I walked in and found them in bed." She started to shake. "What's going to happen to me?"
"You'll probably spend the rest of your life in prison."
She got up slowly and darted out onto the terrace. He ran after her. She threw herself over the railing. He leapt to grab her, but she was gone. Watching her silent plunge to the street, he thought of the two murdered women and realized that everyone has their own dying time.
For Whom The Beep Tolls by CAROL HIGGINS CLARK
If only the answering machine hadn't stopped working…
Ellie Butternut pushed open the door of her apartment with a sigh of relief and then slammed it shut behind her. The sight of her small but cozy apartment on the ground floor of an old two-story building in West Hollywood always eased the tension that had been building up all day. She plopped on her couch, pulled off her shoes, and stretched her aching feet out onto the ancient coffee table as her cat, Twister, jumped up to join her.
Ellie had been running around the whole hot afternoon, from audition to audition, praying against the odds that she'd finally land some sort of stint. The thought that she hadn't gotten a single acting job for three months was dispiriting. She'd auditioned for everything from a mother superior who always turns out the lights in a South Coast Power industrial film to a two-layered shortbread cookie doing jumping jacks for a national commercial. All for naught. "Thank you for coming in," they'd say in a flat voice. Or even worse, a resounding "Next!" The last job she had had was playing in a safety video that the owner of the local car wash decided to produce. He figured it would be a good item to sell by the cash register, where an array of whatchamacallits for use inside a car was already on display. While customers waited for wheels to get shined, they often couldn't resist another plastic drink holder or dangling air freshener. Why not a reasonably priced video on how to protect yourself while getting to and from your car in dark parking lots and garages?
That's show biz, Ellie thought as she glanced out her window, which was flanked by overgrown bushes. It's a tropical look, she decided. Raising her eyes, she gazed up at the Hollywood Hills in the distance beyond Sunset Boulevard and her local 7-Eleven. Everyone out here is chasing some sort of dream. Or has a screenplay. Including me, she thought, as she stared at a mansion way up yonder that from her vantage point was no bigger than a speck. Someday I'd like to have that speck, she thought. Or at least live in its neighborhood.
Wiggling the toes of her swollen feet, she picked up the remote control and flicked on the television.
"Oh, God," she murmured as she watched the face of her biggest rival, Lucy Farnsworth, playing the part of a harried housewife complaining about her husband's dirty socks on a commercial for Force, the latest sensational laundry detergent. "If it weren't for you, that would be my face peering into that washing machine," Ellie said aloud.
Ellie had been on first refusal, which meant that she couldn't accept another job doing a laundry-detergent commercial without first alerting the folks from Force, but she had ultimately been released from her obligation. She had already been planning how she would spend the residual checks that would have arrived in her mailbox with a pleasing regularity, but the part had gone to Lucy. Now her cash was once again running low and there were so many things she needed.
"Oh, well," Ellie said to herself with her usual optimism, "maybe it means a better commercial will come along."
She hoisted her sturdy 5'4" frame off the couch and stood up, glancing into the gold-leaf mirror that her aunt Evelyn had given to Ellie just last year. "I know how you like to collect old stuff for your apartment," she'd said. "I'd like for you to enjoy this mirror before I die."
Ellie pushed back her frizzy auburn hair. Her pale skin was dotted with freckles and beads of sweat from the California heat. Stretching out her arms like a singer in agony, she smiled a crooked smile at her reflection and her green eyes glinted. "So I'm a character actor, what can I say?" She knew that she would always play the best friend. Thirty-four years old and slightly overweight, she also knew that if she could only land that one great comedic role, her life would change. She didn't have to play opposite a gorgeous leading man, but a leading man in her life wouldn't be so bad. It was just so hard to find Mr. Right. She couldn't even scrape up a Mr. Right Now.