He probably would have been okay if Cait hadn’t brought up that student of hers. For some reason, that was hammering in his head, too.
“I’m losing my mind,” he said as he looked out of his truck’s windshield again. “Losing it…”
As with his attraction to Cait, he couldn’t exactly explain why things were so different for him all of a sudden. Well, not completely different. He was still focused on payback when it came to his brother. But it seemed as if some other hand was on his steering wheel, turning him this way. That way. In a circle.
Refocusing on his phone, he watched from what felt like the distance of a mile as his thumb hit … call back.
Just as the ringing started, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was the blond-haired man who had tailed him yesterday, stepping out from behind another parked truck. With all the nonchalance of someone who held most of the cards, he put a cigarette between his teeth and flicked a Bic, leaning into the flame.
As he exhaled, he lifted his hand in a wave.
“Hello?” came the response through the phone.
Hang up, Duke ordered himself. Hang the f**k up—you don’t want to do this…
“Hello,” he heard himself say.
Chapter Forty-nine
“So you can understand why we’re curious about where you were.”
As the question came at G.B., he kept his cool, smiling at the detective who was sitting across the interrogation table from him.
First thing this morning, he’d gotten the call to come down to the Caldwell Police Department, and of course he’d complied. He wasn’t stupid.
And he’d watched enough episodes of The First 48 to know how to act.
“You’re just doing your job,” G.B. said with a casual shrug. “But I don’t have anything else to tell you.”
Detective … what was his name? de la Truz? … smiled back. “Well, you could explain why you didn’t think to mention that you and Jennifer Espie had been in a relationship.”
G.B. linked his hands in his lap and was careful to hold eye contact steadily. “That’s because we weren’t.”
“If you want to mince words, fine. But you didn’t tell us you two were sleeping together.”
“It wasn’t a regular thing, Detective. Come on, I’m so busy with work, I have no personal life. She and I have some friends in common, and yeah, sure, we hooked up a couple of times, but it wasn’t anything serious. I just didn’t think it was relevant.”
“The girl was murdered in the theater you both work in, and you didn’t consider the idea that disclosing your past relations might be a good idea?”
“What can I say. I’m a singer, not a lawyer.”
The guy flipped through his little notebook. “I hear you’re an actor, too.”
“Rent’s my first musical.”
Brown eyes lifted. “The director says you’re a natural.”
“That’s really cool of him.”
“He says you’re able to summon emotion on a dime.”
“Well, that’s part of the gig, isn’t it?”
De la Whoever smiled again. “Yeah. It is. Which brings me to another question I have. One of the promoters for that jazz concert you sang backup in … what was that singer’s name? Millicent?”
“Millicent Jayson.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, the promoter said before you went onstage that night, he saw you and Jennifer arguing in her office. You know, the one with all the glass?”
G.B. had expected this. “She was upset with me.”
“And why was that?”
“Like I told you, we didn’t have a regular thing going. She wanted that, though. And she got all up in my face.”
“About what?”
G.B. made a show of rubbing his jaw. “I had a woman come to see me that night, someone I was actually interested in. I asked management if I could use one of the comp tickets they’d reserved for VIPs—you know, if they had any left. They did, and Jennifer was supposed to leave it at will-call for my date. She was also supposed to get me backstage clearance. When I came to get the tags for backstage, she just went off on me.”
“Cait Douglass, right?”
Okay, it was a little surprise that they had that name. “Yeah, that’s her. The woman I invited, that is.”
“She was also supposed to meet you for lunch yesterday.”
“Yeah, she and I were going to grab a quick sandwich down in the break room. Obviously, because of what happened … we didn’t, yeah, you know.”
How in the hell did—
The detective pursued the fight angle for some time, prodding, prompting, clearly trying to trip things up. But G.B. just stayed on message and on tone—calm, cool, helpful and collected.
Eventually, the guy shut that notebook. “Well, there’s only one other thing I’ve got for you, then.”
“Fire away.”
“Why were you down in the basement the night Jennifer was killed?”
G.B. frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but security cameras were installed about a month ago. The crime in that part of town has been rising, and the owners of the theater became concerned about break-ins. The stairwells are all monitored now. We have tape of you coming up the back about ten p.m.”
Fuck … him.
Wait a minute.
G.B. smiled and shrugged again. “I went down to do vocal exercises.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m assuming you’ve been down in that hall, right?”
“Yes. I have.”
Because that was where the body had been, duh. Not that G.B. let on about that—after all, one of the easiest ways to incriminate yourself was to cop to details not provided to you.
“Well, then you know that it extends forever, like, almost from one end of the theater complex to the other. Naturally, it has the best acoustics in the building. I went down there to practice scales—the echoing is incredible; you can practically do a barbershop quartet with yourself.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “No one has reported hearing any singing that night.”
“But that’s the point. If you close the fire door at the base of the stairs, the sound isn’t going to carry.”
“You expect me to believe that you went down there to yodel on the same night that girl was murdered, and no one saw you or heard you singing.”