Chapter 68
* * *
McCord badged the doorman at Jane Sebring’s apartment building. “Have you seen Miss Sebring today?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. She left a few hours ago.”
“Could she have returned without you seeing her?”
“It’s not likely.”
“ ‘Likely’ isn’t good enough,” McCord said, stalking into the building.
A security guard in a maroon uniform like the doorman’s was sitting at a desk in the lobby. McCord showed him his badge. “I need to get up to Miss Sebring’s apartment.”
“Apartment Twenty-four-A,” the security guard said, standing up quickly and walking over to the elevator with them. He put his key in the lock and the doors opened. “Get somebody with a key to Twenty-four-A up there right away,” McCord added as the elevator doors opened.
Sam walked inside with him, and her adrenaline level began to climb along with the elevator’s ascent, but her features were perfectly composed. She knew this drill: she’d done it before. She recognized the fear coiling in her stomach; she acknowledged it, and drew on it to keep herself focused. Reaching into her handbag, she unsnapped the holster on her nine-millimeter Glock and let her hand rest lightly on its grip.
No one answered McCord’s repeated knocks on the door of apartment 24A. He was pressing the buzzer yet again when the super got off the elevator carrying a key.
“Are you sure this is okay—for me to let you in, I mean?” the heavyset man asked.
“Would I lie to you?” McCord said, taking the man’s elbow and moving his arm toward the door’s lock.
The lock clicked open, and McCord pushed the man back and away from the door. “You stay over there,” he warned. Reaching inside his jacket, McCord unsnapped his shoulder holster and pulled out a Glock forty-caliber.
“Holy God!” the man mumbled. “What are you doing?” His gaze flew to Sam, as if he expected a well-dressed young woman in an expensive suede suit to bring sanity to the situation. Silently, she stepped out of her heels, pulled her Glock from her handbag, and raised it high, clamped between her hands.
“Ready?” McCord said softly, standing to one side of the door and reaching for the knob with his left hand. He looked at her without a trace of hesitation, as if he knew his life was safe in her hands.
Sam nodded a firm yes, and pressed back against the wall, bracing herself as McCord shoved hard on the door and sent it crashing against the opposite wall.
Pitch blackness and silence greeted them.
Keeping his body out of the line of fire, McCord reached inside, feeling the wall for a light switch.
Overhead lights came on, revealing a living room directly ahead and a dining room on the left. Nobody—alive or dead—was in evidence.
Silently, he signaled Sam to follow him to the right.
Room by room, they searched the apartment from one end to the other. “She must be at the theater,” McCord said, holstering his weapon. “Let’s go.”
“Take a look at this first,” Sam said, leading him to one of the closets she’d checked while he was checking another. With her foot, she nudged a long dressing robe aside and exposed a dark green bundle, rolled and tied. “The missing sleeping bag,” he said tightly.
He was already issuing instructions to the super while Sam hastily stepped into the suede high heels. “Stay in the lobby for fifteen minutes and if Miss Sebring shows up, don’t mention that we were here, but call me immediately. I’ll have a car out in front after that, and you can go on about your business.”
“Sure. Okay, Lieutenant,” the super said eagerly, taking McCord’s card. Like most civilians in similar circumstances, the super had reacted first with horror at the sight of drawn weapons, and then with fascination when the danger was over. “Listen, I don’t want to tell you how to do your jobs,” he said as they waited for the elevator, “but didn’t you two forget a little something when you took your guns out?”
“Like what?” McCord asked dryly, but Sam and he both knew exactly what the super was getting at.
“You know—like this—” He made a motion like someone grabbing the slide on the top of a semiautomatic weapon and racking a round into the chamber.
“That’s only in the movies,” McCord told him as the elevator arrived and they stepped into it.
“It sure looks good,” the super said.
“That’s why they do it,” replied Sam.
He looked disbelievingly at her, and she told him with a smile, “That motion you made sends a bullet into the chamber.” As if she were imparting a secret, she lowered her voice a little and told him, “In real life, we sort of like to have a bullet already in there when we take our weapons out.”
“No fooling!” he exclaimed.
At the front desk, McCord paused long enough to pass along the same instructions to the security guard that he’d given the super.
He was on his phone before they walked through the front doors, arranging to have the building entrance put under surveillance immediately.
Chapter 69
* * *
Jason Solomon was berating a stagehand when he saw Sam and McCord heading swiftly down the aisle toward him, and he turned his ire on them. “What the hell is the matter with you people?” he burst out, stalking toward the front of the stage. “Haven’t you ever heard of making an appointment? It’s polite, it’s—”
“Where is Jane Sebring?” McCord interrupted sharply.
“How the hell would I know? She’s probably at home.”
“She’s not at home. We just came from there. What time does she usually get here?”
“About now, usually, but I fired her this morning. God, what a day this is turning out to be! I’ve got sound problems and a curtain going up in an hour and a half.”
“Shut up and listen,” McCord snapped. “Where’s Sebring’s dressing room?”
“This way—” Solomon said, startled and resentful.
Sebring’s things were still in her dressing room, but she wasn’t there. “Was she upset when you fired her?” Sam asked. “I mean, did she expect it or did it surprise her?”
“ ‘Upset’?” Jason repeated sarcastically. “She was demented. That is one lunatic woman,” he added, walking toward a tiny office at the end of the hall with Sam and McCord right beside him.
“Why did you fire her?” Sam persisted. “She had good reviews.”
“I fired her because Leigh Kendall wouldn’t appear on the same stage with her, and who can blame Leigh for that?”
“Did Jane Sebring know that was why you were firing her?” McCord asked impatiently.
“Yes, of course. I explained the situation to her agent on the phone this morning when I started negotiating the buyout on her contract. The guy’s a vulture; he—”
“If you fired her through her agent,” Sam interrupted, “how do you know she was ‘demented’ about it?”
“Because she showed up here today, right after Leigh left to go to Valente’s office and then home for a rest.” Solomon stopped in front of his desk and turned to face them as he added, “I told Jane to clear her stuff out of Leigh’s dressing room, but she left everything and ran out of here. The woman’s crazy.”
“What time was that?” McCord asked.
“What the hell difference does—” Solomon broke off and backed around his desk as McCord took one long step toward him. “Between three and four, I think.”
“Get Leigh Kendall on the phone,” McCord snapped. “Call her at whatever number you use to reach her.”
“Can’t you people just wait here until—”
McCord leaned across his desk, grabbed the telephone, and shoved it toward him. “Call her!”
There was no answer at the first number Solomon called, so he tried two others. “That’s odd,” he said worriedly as he hung up. “No one is answering Leigh’s home phones, and she didn’t answer her cell phone either.”
“Did she happen to give you a ce
ll phone number for Valente today?”
“Yes. How did you—”
“What is it?”
Solomon searched through papers scattered on the top of his desk, and found what he was looking for. “Leigh said I wasn’t to give this number to anyone—” he began; then he looked at McCord’s ominous expression and rattled off the number so Sam could write it down. “Where are you going?” he called, following both detectives as they ran down the hall. “Leigh is probably with Valente. They’re in love, you know—”
Chapter 70
* * *
Outside on the street, McCord tossed the car keys to Sam and slid into the passenger seat. He was on the radio, calling the surveillance car assigned to Leigh Manning, when Sam started the engine and turned on their emergency light and siren.
“Where are you?” McCord asked when the surveillance officer answered his radio call.
“Outside Manning’s apartment building, Lieutenant. She got home a little before five, hung around in the lobby talking to a teenage girl for a little while; then she went upstairs.”
“Do you know who Jane Sebring is?”
“The movie star who did the nude scene in that—”
“Yes, right,” McCord interrupted. “Has she gone into Manning’s building since Mrs. Manning went upstairs?”
“No, and I’d have seen her. I’ve got a good line of vision right to the front doors.”
“If you see Sebring, pick her up. She’s A and D.”
The surveillance officer took the warning seriously but was also delighted. “I’ll have to frisk her twice, then—you know, once to see if she’s armed, and once to see if she’s dangerous.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” McCord warned shortly.
“Speaking of that, there’s a guy who keeps showing up in a cab wherever Mrs. Manning goes. He’s hanging around the building right now with a bouquet of flowers.”
“Pick him up. She had a stalker; maybe this is the guy. More importantly, stay close to Leigh Manning if she goes anywhere.”
“Yes, sir. But she’s not going anywhere tonight—at least, not with her maniac chauffeur at the wheel.”
“Why is that?”
“Because they towed her limo away a little while ago.”
Sam felt the same tremor of alarm that tightened McCord’s jaw at the news of the limo being towed away, however, she couldn’t spare him more than a glance when he put the radio down. Traffic was thick and vehicles were moving aside to let hers through, but she was squeezing swiftly through tight spaces with scarcely an inch to spare on either side.
“I’m going to have Shrader and Womack meet us there,” McCord said, reaching for his cell phone.
It rang in his hand as he pulled it out of his jacket pocket, and he turned up the volume so he could hear above the wailing siren. Michael Valente’s deep, tense voice vibrated with enough angry force to carry to Sam’s ears. “Solomon just called me and said you were at the theater looking for Sebring and trying to phone Leigh. She’s not answering my calls, either. What’s happening?”
McCord drew in a long breath, hesitating. “Where are you?”
“Answer my fucking question. What’s happening?”
“We’re on our way to Mrs. Manning’s apartment right now,” McCord explained in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “Sheila Winters was shot this afternoon in her office. We think Jane Sebring killed her and Manning, too. We’re trying to find her. She knows Solomon fired her because Mrs. Manning wouldn’t work with her, and Sebring was—very overwrought.”
“Jesus Christ!” Valente exploded, correctly translating “overwrought” to crazed and probably violent. “I’m on my way to Leigh’s right now. Where are you?”
McCord told him, and Valente said, “I’m closer, I’ll be there before you are.”
“You can’t move through traffic as quickly as we’re doing, but if you get there first, wait for us in the lobby!” McCord warned him.
Valente didn’t bother to reply. “O’Hara is with her and he’s armed—” he said, grasping at hope.
“The limo was towed away a little while ago,” McCord said tightly. “I repeat—do not go up to that apartment until we get there.” He took the phone away from his ear after a moment and began punching in Shrader’s number. “Valente hung up on me,” he told Sam.
Sam nodded, slammed down on the accelerator, and then hit the brake, cutting diagonally across an intersection and skidding around the corner in a perfectly executed maneuver that drew a grim laugh from McCord, who was waiting for Shrader to answer his call.
“Where are you?” he asked Shrader, and then he filled him in on what was happening. When McCord disconnected the call, he said, “Shrader and Womack will be about ten minutes behind us.”
Chapter 71
* * *
At the edge of Leigh’s consciousness, an odd A humming sound blended with a hammering in her skull, the ringing of telephones, and the sensation of being paralyzed. Nausea rolled in her stomach, rising to her throat, and she swallowed hard, forcing her eyelids open, automatically searching for something to focus on to steady her reeling senses.
Her eyelids seemed to work, but what Leigh saw in front of her open eyes had no meaning to her. Her entire field of vision was obstructed by two similar hues of cream; one of them seemed to be flat and horizontal, the other vertical and wavy.
She blinked repeatedly, trying to refocus, and in the process she became aware of the different textures of the two shades. The horizontal cream color against her cheek was rough . . . carpet. The vertical, wavy cream color was . . . fabric . . . like . . . the dust ruffle on her bed? She was evidently lying on the floor beside her bed with her hands behind her back. She tried to move her hands, but they seemed to be bound at the wrists, and her legs seemed to be stuck together at the ankles.
Lifting her head with an effort, Leigh turned her face in the opposite direction, and the sight she beheld made her senses swim. Jane Sebring was sitting at the dressing table, wearing the red dress Leigh had worn to her opening-night party. The actress was humming and putting on Leigh’s lipstick, but it was smeared grotesquely around her mouth and partially over her cheeks. Strewn across the floor near her feet were the slashed remains of several of Leigh’s other dresses.
Lying on the table, near her left elbow, was a gun.
Sebring glanced down and saw Leigh’s face reflected in the wide, lighted mirror above the dressing table. “You’re awake!” she exclaimed. “You’re awake. My audience is awake. . . .”
Leigh snapped her eyes shut.
“No, no, no, don’t pretend you’re sleeping. . . .”
Leigh kept her eyes closed, and heard the upholstered stool at the dressing table squeak a little as Sebring whirled it around and stood up. “Wake up, you bitch!” she snarled close to Leigh’s ear; then she grabbed a fistful of Leigh’s hair and nearly jerked it out by the roots. “That’s much better,” she exclaimed, her garish red mouth parted into a smile in front of Leigh’s terrified eyes. In her other hand Sebring was holding a pair of long, sharp scissors.
“Let me help you sit on the bed. I don’t like my audiences to fall asleep,” she said, jerking hard on Leigh’s hair to “help” Leigh slide awkwardly onto the bed. In the process, Sebring’s scissors cut a searing path across Leigh’s upper arm, but Leigh scarcely felt it. Fear, the greatest natural anesthetic, was pumping wildly through her veins. Her feet were bound with one of her silk scarves; the binding at her wrists seemed to be another scarf, but very tight.
“Your blood matches my dress,” Sebring said, looking at the blood oozing from Leigh’s cut. She rubbed her fingers on Leigh’s wound and smeared some of Leigh’s blood onto her own arm.
Every nerve ending in Leigh’s body was screaming in terror, but her mind was snapping into focus, searching wildly for explanations and solutions. Somehow, she had to stall until Joe or Hilda or someone came looking for her. Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, “What are you doing, Jane???
?
“I’m getting ready to go to the theater, of course,” Sebring said, studying Leigh’s face. “You look pale. You need lipstick.” She sauntered over to the dressing table, picked up a lipstick tube, and carried it over to Leigh. Leigh jerked her face away, and Sebring didn’t seem to mind. With the barrel of the lipstick clenched in her fist, she rammed it at the side of Leigh’s face, rubbing it hard while she promised between her teeth, “Before too long, I am going to cut you into little pieces. I’m just marking my starting place.”
She stepped back and surveyed her work; then she sauntered back to the dressing table and sat down. Holding the scissors in her right hand, she studied Leigh intently in the mirror; then she lifted up a fistful of her long red hair and chopped it off at shoulder length—like Leigh’s. “Logan loved me,” she informed Leigh. “We found that mountain cabin together one day. He wanted to leave you, but that bitch shrink talked him out of it.” Tipping her head to one side, then the other, she studied the effect of her garish, one-sided hairstyle while she asked Leigh conversationally, “Would you like to know what your husband was doing just before he died?”
Her question sent a shudder through Leigh’s entire body. Swallowing a surge of bile, she forced the word out. “Yes.”
“He was making love to me on your sleeping bag in front of the fireplace. I surprised him at the cabin with a bottle of wine, and we drank it together and made love. And then—” She picked up the scissors and made another vicious assault on her hair. “—that spineless bastard told me he was finished with me for good. He told me I had to leave because she was coming to the cabin.”