Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Disappearing Diva Page 4

  "What? I've got coffee breath."

  "You can't chew gum in an opera house," I hissed.

  "Why not?"

  "Because this isn't the county fair. It's—"

  "Hey!" The dark-haired man glared up at us. He made a cut gesture, and the music and singing instantly stopped while every head turned our way.

  "Uh-oh," I whispered.

  "This is a closed rehearsal!" he snapped.

  "Then you should have locked the doors," Irene murmured. She stood. "Are you Patrick Sterling Rossi?"

  He frowned. "That's right. Who are you?"

  "We're detectives," she called back. "We have some questions for you about Rebecca Lowery. You can answer them here and now or later in our office."

  I noticed a hush seemed to fall over the theater at the mention of Rebecca's name.

  "He'll think you're a cop," I whispered.

  "That's the point," she whispered back.

  Rossi made a gesture with his hands toward the stage that must have meant take five, as the rest of the crew scattered, and he made his way up the aisle to us. "I'm sorry we'll have to make this quick. It's been tumultuous around here since Rebecca passed, and we're on a tight timeline." If he was cut up about Rebecca's passing, he didn't show it. I was starting to wonder if anyone was grieving for her.

  "Irene Adler," Irene offered as he approached. She stuck her hand out to shake. "And this is my associate, Martha Hudson."

  "PS Rossi. I'm the director of the show."

  We shook his hand. Up close, he was a handsome man, with a few silvery strands woven into jet black hair, light laugh lines at the corners of gray eyes, the suggestion of a five o'clock shadow, and a tantalizing faint scent Chanel Égoïste cologne.

  "You, uh, said you're police detectives?"

  "Consulting investigators," Irene explained without really explaining anything.

  Rossi frowned but nodded. "Why don't we step into the lobby?" he suggested. "We'll have more privacy there."

  We followed him back to the lobby, waiting while he fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, extracted one with his lips, and lit it with a gold lighter, completely ignoring the smoking-ban laws. "What is it you wanted to know?" he asked impatiently, the cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth.

  "What can you tell us about Rebecca Lowery?" I asked, trying not to inhale the secondhand smoke too deeply.

  He shrugged. "What would you like to know? She was a very talented singer. Her death came as a real shock." While the words were sympathetic, the tone didn't match. He could have just as easily been talking about a hangnail.

  "What role was she playing?" I asked.

  "The Spirit of Love." He looked from Irene to me. "Are you familiar with the story?"

  I'd never even heard of the story. But, then again, I didn't follow opera.

  "Of course," Irene lied. "I love that opera. I've seen it half a dozen times."

  I suppressed a sigh. One day Irene's fibs were going to catch up to her. And I had a bad feeling I'd be standing right beside her when they did.

  "Rebecca was perfect for the part and excited to have it. We were set to open in two weeks for a limited engagement before the national tour."

  "How were her relationships with the rest of the company?" Irene asked. "Did she get along with everyone? Any arguments that you know of?"

  He shrugged. "I don't pry into my talents' lives. All I can tell you is, Rebecca was very talented and gone too soon."

  "Did she have a drug problem?" Irene asked bluntly.

  He looked startled. "A reporter asked me the same question."

  I perked up. That was the second mention of a reporter. Someone was definitely following Rebecca's disappearance for a story. And they seemed to be following our same line of thought. "Did the reporter give a name?" I asked.

  Rossi shook his head. "I don't know. I don't remember. Look, I don't know where the idea of our star being an addict came from, but it's the last thing our backer needs to hear at this point. He's invested a lot of money into this production, and he's rightly concerned about potential bad press from her death."

  Interesting non-answer.

  "Is that a no?" I asked him.

  He leveled those gray eyes on mine. "It's a firm no. I never personally saw any signs of drug use."

  I studied him. While he was looking me straight in the eyes, he was making way too much of an effort to do it. He was hiding something. "You never personally saw it…but you suspected." I paused. "Heard rumors maybe?"

  He seemed reluctant to answer. "No rumors," he said finally. "Just observation. I thought she might have had some history of substance abuse."

  "Why?" I asked. "What did you observe?"

  He blew out a final stream of smoke and dropped the cigarette into a paper cup on the floor filled with similar butts. This wasn't the first time he'd illegally indulged in the lobby. "When the company got together socially, Rebecca always stuck to club soda—no alcohol of any sort. Not even a glass of wine. And I never even saw her take so much as an aspirin for a headache. At the time I just assumed…well, you'd be surprised what some singers do to protect their instrument." He paused. "Of course, this is all speculation."

  "I understand you were the one to find her?" I asked.

  His eyebrows drew together, as if the memory was playing out in front of him. "Yes. She, uh, missed rehearsal that morning. Truth be told, she'd missed a few lately. When she just didn't show up on Monday, I was worried she might be really ill. I went to her apartment, and when she didn't answer the door, I got the super to let me in. That's when we found…" He trailed off, as if mentally trying to wipe away the image.

  "You said she'd missed a few rehearsals lately?" I asked. "Any particular reason why?"

  He shrugged. "Said she wasn't feeling well. That flu's been going around."

  This was the first I'd heard of any flu. It sounded like a convenient cover. Suddenly I wondered just what Rebecca had been doing in her last few days when she'd been calling in sick.

  "Were there any other problems in her life that you knew about? Issues with other cast members?"

  He shook his head again. "I told you, I didn't pay attention to her social life. No one came to me with any problems. As far as I can tell you, she was a model prima donna. If I had an entire company of Rebeccas, my life would be much easier."

  "So she was beautiful and talented and easy as pie," Irene said. "Yet she's dead."

  Rossi's mouth twisted in a grimace. "I don't understand. I was told she'd hit her head in a fall, but if the police are involved—"

  I shook my head. "Oh, we're not—"

  "Strictly routine," Irene cut in. "Dotting i's, crossing t's, that sort of thing. Would you mind if we talk to some other members of the company?"

  He paused, looking as if he very much did mind. "Please, be discreet. Everyone is upset as it is."

  "Don't worry," Irene said. "You won't even know we're here."

  * * *

  "Sorry again about knocking over that music stand," Irene said. "I didn't realize they could make so much noise."

  "Don't sweat it, honey." Diana Rossi was a plump fortysomething brunette with ruddy cheeks and a perpetually wet brow—the sort of woman who looked overworked even while sitting still. Her eyes were fixed on the redhead in front of her as she adjusted the puce colored velvet costume in place on her tiny derriere. "The rehearsal needed to end anyway. My husband tends to let them drag on and on until the lights start to melt the stage. It's just the way he works."

  "We're sorry to bother you, but as my colleague here said"—I gestured to Irene—"we're working for Rebecca's sister. We're…tying up some loose ends for her estate." Which was almost the truth and sounded a lot better than looking for her missing corpse.

  "Right. Hold still, Tara. I haven't pinned you yet," Diana told the girl in front of her.

  I didn't think it was possible for Tara to stand still. Everything on her seemed to be moving at once, starting with her shim
mering Disney-princess red hair, to her incredibly large bosom, to the long legs fidgeting impatiently beneath the gown that Diana was currently trying to pin. We'd learned that Tara Tarnowski, the woman we'd seen on stage when we'd entered, had been Rebecca's understudy for the Spirit of Love role in Ethereal Love, which meant she was the new female lead. Not that the promotion stoked my suspicion that Tara could have had something to do with Rebecca's death.

  Until she began speaking.

  "Rebecca was a total B-word." She twisted to glare down at us from the wooden box she was standing on, surrounded by racks of costumes and shoes and accessories. "Thought she was better than everyone around here just because she'd studied in Europe under Giovanni Maximiliano. At least she claimed she had."

  "Hold still," Diana said around a mouthful of pins.

  "Claimed? You mean you didn't believe her?" Irene asked.

  Tara shrugged. "Rebecca had a knack for telling people what they wanted to hear. Especially if it meant getting ahead. I mean, if I thought it would get me the lead, I could have made up some credentials too. But some of us have morals."

  "So, you think Rebecca lied to get the lead role?"

  But Diana answered instead. "You know that's ridiculous. My husband wouldn't have given her the lead if she didn't deserve it."

  Tara made a harrumphing sound, as if she didn't believe that for a second. "Well, all I'm saying is that Rebecca put the D in diva. I mean, we're two weeks out, and she hasn't even shown up for rehearsals in like, a week."

  "PS said she was sick," I said.

  "Called in sick. Big difference," Tara said, twisting to look at us to make her point.

  "Hold still!" Diana admonished.

  "Well, hurry it up," Tara said. "I haven't got all day to stand here and—ow!"

  "I told you to stand still," Diana said. She winked at us.

  I couldn't help but like her a little.

  "Do you know if Rebecca had any issue with anyone in the cast?" I asked carefully, not adding other than you, in Tara's direction.

  Diana shook her head. "Not that I knew of. Sorry."

  "Was she seeing anyone?" Irene asked. "A boyfriend?"

  "I remember one guy coming around a few times," Diana responded. "Big guy. Looked like a bodybuilder or something."

  Irene's eyebrows went north. "Really?"

  I gave her a down girl look. "Did you get his name?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Sorry, she didn't introduce me. Give me a quarter turn, please."

  Tara pivoted obediently to her right. "As if she would! Queen Rebecca thought she was so far above us."

  "Tara," Diana chided.

  "Well, it's true," she mumbled under her breath.

  "You know, now that you mention it," Diana said, her wet brow furrowing. "I seem to recall an argument between Rebecca and the bodybuilder. A couple weeks ago. You remember that, don't you, Tara?"

  "An argument?" Irene looked practically giddy. "Do tell."

  "There's not a lot to tell. The guy showed up after rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, and they got into it backstage."

  "What did he say?" I asked.

  "Sorry, I didn't really hear what they were arguing over," Diana admitted.

  Irene looked to Tara. "Did you?"

  Tara shrugged. "I wasn't interested in her drama. But I can bet whatever it was, it was Rebecca's fault."

  Drama seemed to be a common theme when it came to Rebecca. Barbara had even referred to her sister as a drama queen. Hard to know if the drama derived from the real or the imagined, and maybe it didn't matter. Rebecca's life had been short, but it hadn't been boring.

  "Did Rebecca ever mention other fights with the boyfriend?" I prodded. "Anything that might have gotten heated…or violent?"

  Tara shrugged. "I don't remember."

  I looked to Diana, but she shook her head. "Sorry. I don't remember her saying much about him. She didn't really talk about her private life."

  Tara snorted. "At least not with the likes of us."

  "Did she ever come to rehearsal with any bruises…or maybe a black eye?" Irene pressed, clearly thinking along the same lines I was. A hotheaded boyfriend sounded promising. And slightly preferable to tracking down drug dealers or necrophilics.

  Diana looked concerned. "Are you asking me if he ever hit her?"

  "That's what we're asking," Irene said.

  Diana shook her head. "No. I never saw anything like that."

  But that didn't mean the boyfriend hadn't gotten violent. It just meant if he had, Rebecca had covered it up.

  "I guess we should congratulate you," Irene said, switching gears and addressing Tara. "You're the female lead now, right?"

  Diana's hands stilled briefly, but she kept her expression neutral as she resumed her work.

  Tara, on the other hand, gave us a self-satisfied smile. "The Spirit of Love role was meant for me."

  "But it didn't become yours until Rebecca died," Irene pointed out. She paused while Tara's face darkened. "Had you been her understudy in any other productions?"

  Tara's lips tightened. "Never. And I shouldn't have been this time."

  "Oh? Why's that?"

  "Clearly you know nothing about opera," she said with a sniff.

  "I think I know enough," Irene said levelly.

  "Let me tell you—"

  Diana touched Tara's arm. "We're done here. Go on and change out so I can get to work."

  Tara speared us with an icy glare before stepping off the box and stomping off without a backward glance.

  Diana busied herself sliding her unused pins into the pin cushion on her wrist. "Don't mind her. Being an understudy is a sensitive topic for her. She's actually very talented in her own right."

  "I'm sure she is," I said. "We didn't mean to imply otherwise."

  "I know you didn't." She smiled. "We were very lucky to have two talented coloraturas in the company. It's just that Tara saw the understudy role as second best, when it's not that at all. She'll be wonderful playing the lead."

  "Had Tara and Rebecca known each other before Ethereal Love was cast?" Irene asked. "Did they travel in the same circles?"

  "I really couldn't say. I think they both considered me more of a den mother than a confidant." Her smile was rueful. "If you'll excuse me, I really should get started on her costume. Can I help you find your way out?"

  We declined the offer, said our thanks, and threaded a path through the wardrobe room and the backstage labyrinth of halls and doorways back to the stairs at stage left. A few straggling members of the orchestra were still putting their instruments away as we made our way up the aisle.

  "Well," Irene said, "that was enlightening."

  "In more ways than one," I mumbled, thinking about the way Tara had insinuated at least three untoward different things about Rebecca in the course of a few minutes.

  "What do we think of the understudy?" she asked, as if reading my mind.

  I shrugged. "I think she's catty and jealous, but I'm not sure about killer."

  Irene blinked at me. "Come on! Really? Professional rivalry is a fabulous reason to kill."

  "But what about the boyfriend. You'd really put your money on the waif-thin redhead over the bodybuilder?"

  Irene shrugged. "Hey, if the opera world is anything like the business world, rivals will do just about anything to get ahead. And, let's not forget, so far Tara is the only person who seems to have benefited from Rebecca's death. That makes her number one on my suspect list."

  She had a point. "Okay," I conceded. "But I still like the boyfriend. He'd have access to her home and much more opportunity. Plus he'd be strong enough to give her a good hard shove into the granite countertop, and don't forget, he was a hothead."

  "We don't know that for sure," Irene said. "We know they had at least one fight. Lots of couples fight, and it doesn't necessarily end in murder."

  "Still," I said. "It's worth looking into."

  "What's worth looking into?" a voice resonated behind us. br />
  I turned to see PS Rossi reentering the theater from the lobby, presumably after another cigarette break.

  "Is there anything else we can help you with?" he asked again, looking like helping us was the last thing he wanted to do.

  I glanced at Irene. "As a matter of fact, there is," I said. "Did you know Rebecca Lowery's boyfriend?"

  "Her boyfriend?" He frowned, thinking. "Why?"

  "We just wanted to make sure someone had informed him of her death," Irene quickly lied.

  He frowned and shook his head. "I'm sure he already knows. He is a police officer, after all."

  "A police officer?" Irene repeated. "Are you sure about that?"

  He nodded. "I mean, I never met him, but I heard Rebecca mention him once or twice."

  "Did she mention a name?" I asked. Funny that Tara hadn't thought the boyfriend's occupation important to note. A police officer would know exactly what kind of evidence could condemn a killer…and be in a better position than anyone to make a body disappear to hide that evidence.

  "I think his name was Bruce…or no, Bryan. Bryan Steele."

  Irene looked at me. "A police officer."

  I had the feeling Tara had just become the understudy again. This time on our suspect list.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "He'll be retired by the time we find a parking spot," Irene complained.

  "Don't give up now," I urged her. "We've only been around the block three times."

  According to Irene's online searches, Bryan Steele's precinct was a one-story historic brick building three blocks south of Golden Gate Park. A chilly wind scented with saltwater and fast food swept in through our open windows, hurling wispy filaments of fog at the patrol cars parked up and down the narrow street, hogging every inch of curb.

  "I love the idea of a police officer stealing a corpse," Irene said.

  Love wasn't exactly the word I would use. In fact, the idea of one sworn to protect-and-serve actually shove-and-running and taking the body with him made me shiver. I pointed. "Someone's pulling out up there."

  A few minutes later, we were looking through a window of bulletproof glass at the desk sergeant—a barrel-chested man with flat eyes and one hair wound around his scalp seventeen times. Telephones rang faintly in the background, and the garlicky scent of takeout laced the air.