I cleared my throat. “Is that what you think? That Johnny didn’t have sex with Bethany? Well, that’s wishful thinking, but that’s not what I heard from the police.”
“Hey, whatever you heard is wrong, okay,” said Donald, his voice finally betraying tension. He pointed his finger at me. “That guy, he was a patsy. I know. Because I know who set him up. The same person who killed Bethany Banks.”
“Oh my God!” Ashley lunged between us, wide-eyed. “Don’t say anything more,” she cried.
“Why not, Mrs. Sutherland?” Donald replied, the pointing finger turning into a dismissive wave. “What does it matter now anyway? Beth’s dead.”
“Sit down, Ashley,” I barked. To my amazement, she did.
“It was Angel who killed Bethany,” said Donald. “I know because I saw Angel leave the room right after the murder. Bethany went down there to have her fling with that waiter. I got wind of it and went down to stop it. But by the time I got there, I saw that Angel had already strangled Beth. She’d killed her before that Johnny person even arrived.”
“Why?” I asked, not yet ready to believe him.
“She was high that night,” said Donald. “And she was crazed because . . . well . . . she wanted me to dump Bethany and marry her instead. She made this declaration to me in private . . . but that was absurd. Angel Stark was a crazy slut and I told her so. She slept with every guy I know. She was just wild oats, a party girl, not someone you’d marry . . . not someone in my position, anyway. Angel lied about Beth in her book, you know? Bethy didn’t sleep around. Angel was describing herself . . . a convenient fuck.”
I looked at Kiki. Her legs were curled up under her like a gawky adolescent. She was biting her pink lips.
“You know all this, don’t you, Kiki?” I asked.
She gave a tense shrug. “Of course.”
My gaze swung back to Donald. “I gather Angel wasn’t happy with your decision.”
“That’s an understatement. Angel claimed she was going to tell the world about me cheating on Bethany, and I threatened Angel right back. I told Angel to keep her mouth shut or I’d turn her in for dealing drugs.”
My eyebrows rose at that. I knew Angel used drugs, she’d said so in her first book. But this was the first I’d heard about her dealing them. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because its true,” Kiki blurted out. “Angel’s been dealing drugs in our circles for years. Johnny Napoli was a Johnny-come-lately to that little business.”
“Where’s your proof . . . for any of this?” I asked.
“I was an eyewitness . . . I saw Angel leave that storage room,” Donald replied. “Her silk jacket was ripped, her face was flushed. When she was gone, I went inside and . . . I found Beth, lying there, not moving . . . I didn’t want to believe she was dead at first, you know? I tried to see if she was breathing, but she was dead all right . . .”
He stopped talking, seemed lost in his own thoughts. He sipped more cognac and I pressed. “Why didn’t you tell the police what you saw? Why didn’t you tell them everything?”
Donald sat back, shrugged. “Klaus von Bülow.”
“Excuse me?”
“O. J. Simpson . . . Michael Skakel . . . The media and private investigators crawl into every nook and cranny of people’s lives when there’s a high-profile murder trial. We didn’t want that. None of us. Bethany was already dead. Nothing could bring her back . . .”
My eyes narrowed on Donald. He was an attractive charmer, but I knew he was holding back. “It was more than that, wasn’t it? Did Angel threaten you somehow?”
Once again, Donald shifted uncomfortably. “After I had gone down there . . . you know . . . and saw Bethany like that . . . my mind started racing. I put it together that Angel had done this . . . I ran back upstairs, found Angel coming in from outside. Her torn silk jacket was gone . . . her long white gloves were gone . . . I pulled her into an alcove.” He shook his head. “I could have strangled her right then and there. I told her we were going to call the police together, but she told me if I called the police, she’d testify that I had killed Bethany. That she’d seen me do it . . . I knew it wasn’t an idle threat . . . I had already touched that belt and Beth’s body . . . I was afraid there would be evidence against me . . .”
“You got scared?” I coaxed. “You panicked?”
“Angel told me that Johnny Napoli was about to go down to have sex with Bethany, and he would be the one to discover the body and the police would discover it was his belt . . . she said the police would pin it on Johnny . . . I knew she was right . . . and I wasn’t thinking clearly . . . so I went along with it . . . when the chaos started, after the body was discovered, I made sure people saw me go in the room and touch Bethany’s body—the grieving fiancé, you know? So the police would be told I had touched her after her murder. Everything went like Angel said, the police took the catering kid away and we all went home fast . . .”
“And when you considered coming out with the truth,” I said, “your family raised the nightmare specter of those celebrity scandals? The Klaus von Bülow case and the Michael Skakel and O. J. Simpson trials?”
“Right,” said Donald.
“And then Angel wrote that book.”
Donald shook his head. “When I saw her in the street, I really cursed her out. It wasn’t enough she killed Bethany, now she wanted to cash in on it.”
“What did she say?”
“She just laughed in that way she does,” said Donald. “She was such a bitch. She jacked up her usual threat level. This time she told me to keep my mouth shut or she’d come out with evidence that I had been cheating on Bethany with Kiki and that Kiki and I killed Bethany together. It was just a bluff. I knew it, but it made me crazy, and I told her to go to hell.”
“Your story is very detailed, Donald. But why should I believe you?”
“Because Kiki and I still have Angel’s torn silk jacket and white opera gloves from that night. There’s blood on the jacket and gloves, so it probably has traces of Bethany’s DNA.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re joking.”
But Kiki shook her head. “I also noticed Angel had ducked outside. Donny saw Angel come in downstairs, but I actually watched her from an upstairs bedroom window. She’d stuck something behind some statue in the garden. And when she came back, she wasn’t wearing her jacket or gloves any longer. I’m sure she expected to retrieve the clothes later, but I went out, took them, and threw them in my car. I thought it was a good idea to hold on to that stuff.”
“You forgot about the other pair of gloves,” said Donald. “They were in that bundle, too.”
“Whose gloves?” I asked. “Kiki’s?”
“No,” said Kiki. “Bethany’s.”
Donald explained. “Angel had taken Bethany’s opera gloves off her corpse. One can only assume she wanted to make sure there was as little physical evidence left behind as possible.”
Kiki nodded. “That’s why there was no skin under Bethany’s fingernails from their fight.”
I blinked in astonishment. The two of them would make a formidable couple, I concluded.
“There’s still something you aren’t telling me,” I said. “When exactly did you two start your romantic relationship?”
Donald and Kiki exchanged glances. It was Donald who spoke. “By New Year’s Eve I was through with Angel, and I was getting tired of Bethany’s endless demands and tantrums. Kiki and I became close over the holidays and hooked up.”
“Kiki said she saw Angel from an upstairs bedroom,” I noted. “But those Cliff Walk mansions are essentially museums. The upstairs rooms are supposed to be off limits, even during private parties. So I’m guessing Donald was with you up there, Kiki? And that accounts for the ‘mysterious’ hour Angel claimed in her book that Donald was missing from the party?”