Eyewitness, page 2
She turned back toward the detectives and saw the doubt in their faces. They probably thought she was acting. By now they would know her profession.
“Did you see anyone else in or near the building?”
She took her time, waited for another flash. Nothing. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Do you own a gun?”
“What?” She shook her head. “No, of course not.” Her hands clenched into fists. She was trapped in another nightmare, and this time, when she awoke, it would still be there.
“And you don’t remember Mr. Landis being shot to death in the office?”
A moan came from deep inside her throat. “Shot? Why?”
“That’s what we’d like you to help us find out.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I don’t remember anything that happened there.”
Henderson consulted his notes. “There was a cleaning woman in the building. You see her?”
Toni thought for a long moment. “If I did, the memory is lost.”
“She heard shots and a racket in the office above her. She called the police at about ten minutes to eleven.”
The back of Toni’s head throbbed. Finally, a clear recollection surfaced. “There were policemen in the hallway. I think I fainted.”
“Yeah, the officers said they called for the ambulance.”
That explained some things, but what occurred between entering the office with Craig and the arrival of the police later? How could she have no memory of him being killed?
“Am I under suspicion?”
“You passed the powder residue test on your hands,” Henderson said. “You hadn’t fired a gun.”
The news made some of her normal self-assurance return. “So you know I had nothing to do with Craig’s death.”
“Not necessarily. You could have had an accomplice.” Devine moved away from the bed. “Okay, Miss Abbott, why don’t we hold any further questions for a later date? Maybe you’ll remember something helpful by then.” He shuffled back to the door.
“We’ll be in touch, so don’t leave town. Are you still at the East Side address?”
“Yes.” She looked around for more of her belongings. “Where is my purse?”
“It’s locked up at the nurse’s station, but your cellphone is being checked. It’ll be returned later.” He stared at her for a moment.
“We decided you could have the clothes you left on the bench outside the murder scene.” He pointed to her outfit. “The dress you were wearing when they found you has been bagged and sent to the police lab. It had blood on it.”
He handed her his card. “In case you remember something.” He nodded in her direction, and the two detectives turned and left.
She forced her mind to clear. First she must find a phone or borrow one. She’d call the one person she could depend on for help. Yet, was he smart enough to keep her out of jail?
Chapter 2
Three hours after her release from the hospital, Toni stood on the sidewalk in front of a building on West 59th Street. She held a slip of paper with a name and address given her by Nathan Yost, the producer of Beekman Place.
“Sweetheart,” Yost had said, after he picked her up and they’d gained the safety of his car that morning, “not to worry.” In their wake, they’d left a circling swarm of reporters who thrust cameras, microphones, and tape recorders at Toni when she and the producer were discovered leaving the rear exit of the hospital. “The man who can help you is Michael Benedict. He’s a criminal attorney, and he’s very good.”
“The police haven’t arrested me, so why do I need an attorney?”
“They questioned you once and may do so again. Trust me, you need an attorney’s advice before that happens. Don’t worry, the studio is taking care of the cost.” Yost explained that because the men were friends, Michael Benedict had agreed to see her the same afternoon. Accustomed to making her own decisions, Toni didn’t necessarily believe she needed legal advice, but since he was the producer of her show, she thought it wise to cooperate and do as he asked.
With mixed feelings, she took the elevator to the attorney’s office on the third floor of the building.
As the elevator rose, Toni remembered other things Nathan had said about the man. “He’s Harvard Law, sweetheart, graduated tops in his class. His father was career Army, a general attached to diplomatic missions in Western Europe and Asia. Mike knows his way around the world, and he damn well knows his way around a courtroom.” Impressive, to say the least.
She entered a waiting room furnished with a burgundy leather sofa, two matching chairs, and a teak coffee table. On it sat a neat stack of magazines, plus the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
At the reception desk, Toni saw a young woman with short cropped brown hair. She wore a summer dress similar in color to Toni’s navy cotton suit. She looked up, recognition lighting her features, and smiled. “Miss Abbott. Come in. Mr. Benedict is expecting you.”
Toni assumed she’d be asked to wait, but at the woman’s invitation, she followed her down a hallway. They stopped before a mahogany door. The woman rapped twice and opened it. “Mike, Toni Abbott is here.”
“Thanks, Peggy.” His voice was deep and friendly, an encouraging sign.
As Toni entered the office, Benedict rose from his seat behind an outsized desk and came forward to greet her.
He was tall, with medium brown hair, blue eyes, and strong, even features. He appeared younger, maybe late thirties, than she’d expected, given Nathan’s glowing testimonial. He wore a summer weight gray suit, white shirt and striped tie and had a successful, confident air about him. She appreciated the latter, and it further buoyed her spirits. He was also very good looking, a young Harrison Ford.
She’d needed an attorney one other time, the day she signed her contract for Beekman Place. He’d been recommended by someone at AFTRA, the radio and television union, and he’d been extremely brusque, as if she’d taken his valuable time for something unimportant. Now, the urgency that brought her to this attorney left her feeling both anxious and as if she were performing live and had forgotten her lines.
“I appreciate your seeing me, Mr. Benedict. Nathan was quite persuasive, but I don’t think I need an attorney.”
“Make yourself comfortable.” His tone made her think he somehow understood her feelings. He indicated the client’s chair in front of his desk. “Call me Michael, please. Or Mike.”
Toni sank onto the leather seat. After the ordeal of the previous night, a morning spent defending herself to the two detectives at the hospital, and the mad dash to Yost’s car amid screaming reporters, her body felt spongy and sore.
“You’ve had a very bad time in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded hoarse, as it sometimes did after long hours of rehearsal. She cleared her throat.
Seated once more, the attorney pulled a pen and yellow legal pad closer. “Nathan filled me in on some of the information, but I’d like you to tell me what you remember about last night.”
She began with the few details recorded in her memory: driving to lower Manhattan with Craig and entering the office with the antique furnishings. Then she told him of waking in the hospital, being examined by a doctor and interviewed by Detectives Devine and Henderson.
“Since I haven’t been charged with Craig’s death, I wasn’t sure if I needed a lawyer. Nathan said I should—for insurance, I suppose.” Her hands had clenched in her lap. Gradually, the tension eased.
“I understand you’re an actress, and according to Nathan, very talented.”
She didn’t comment.
“Have you seen the news this afternoon?”
“No.”
He slid open a drawer and removed a black remote. He pressed a button and activated a television set and DVR nestled in the bookshelves that occupied the wall to Toni’s right. Startled, she watched herself on the screen. Her face, framed by the straight-auburn hair that fell to her shoulders, appeared unnaturally pale, as if she’d spent weeks, instead of only hours, in the hospital.
The clamor of the reporters, as they converged on her and Nathan, made their exit a disturbing media circus. Someone pushed a microphone into her face. Questions came at her in rapid succession.
“Where were you when Landis was killed?”
“Did you see who did it?”
“How do you feel after being at the scene of a murder?”
Nathan glowered like a squat bulldog ready to bite in self defense and batted the microphone aside. The remainder of the film consisted mostly of their backs, the producer hustling her through the last of the jostling crowd of reporters to his waiting car.
Reliving the moment reminded Toni of the seriousness of the situation. She shrank against the back of the chair. Yet, she needed to show the attorney a more correct image of her life.
“Mr. Benedict … Michael ….” She got no further than his name because, abruptly, the face of another woman, caught by the camera in a close-up, filled the screen.
Toni hardly recognized herself, groomed and gowned as the character she played on Beekman Place. Alexandra Bradshaw, whom one critic called the “woman you love to hate,” needed no man to run interference for her. As the camera pulled back, it was immediately apparent, from the self-satisfied look in the green eyes to the confident sway of her body, that she possessed not only determination, but a wily stealth worthy of Lucrezia Borgia.
A wig of midnight-black hair fell around a heavily made-up face. Her lithe body sheathed in a strapless black satin gown, she slithered across the opulent room and approached a handsome young man wearing evening clothes. When she was a few feet away, she raised the drink she held in her hand and tossed it boldly in his face. Before he could recover, she hurled the empty glass across the room, striking a large mirror and shattering it with a clamorous sound. Abruptly, the screen went dark.
The attorney returned the remote to its drawer. “This piece has been running on the news all morning.”
The snippet of film, taken out of the context of the show, stunned Toni. Paired with the first one she’d viewed, it made her look quite capable of violence.
“The media jumped right on it. I’m afraid a segment of film like that can sway public opinion.”
Toni turned to him. “It gets worse. Later, I’m—that is, my character Alexandra—is accused of shooting him. Although the police haven’t a shred of evidence.”
“That’s probably why the station chose to run that scene. The parallel is so obvious.”
“Slanting the news.”
“Did she shoot him?”
“It’s a complicated plot. Zach, the man in that scene, had accused her of trying to break up his parents’ marriage, along with stealing a jeweled necklace worth almost half a million dollars. It’s not true, but Charles Winston, who’s incredibly wealthy, is easy prey for Alexandra, though he’s almost seventy. Actually, it was Zach’s wife’s lover who fired the shot.”
“Let’s be grateful for that. Otherwise we would have just seen Toni Abbott firing a gun on network television.”
“It’s ghoulish,” Toni said, meeting the attorney’s gaze. “I know almost everything Alexandra becomes involved in seems sordid, but that’s why it’s such a challenge for me to play that character. I’m nothing like her. My private life is, if anything, too quiet. I don’t toss drinks at men, and I’ve never fired a gun, whatever Detective Devine thinks.”
“According to the newspaper, the police spent the night searching for the murder weapon.”
“At least they know I didn’t fire it.” She repeated what Detective Henderson had said about her being given a powder residue test at the hospital.
The lawyer swiveled his chair to the side, leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. “So, either the weapon is still in the possession of the murderer, or he or she got rid of it elsewhere.”
“And I seem to be the only suspect.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“However, they warned me not to leave town, as if I were going to hop on the first flight to Honduras or some place.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor.”
Toni shifted in her chair and grimaced. “How badly am I going to need it? I have no guarantee he won’t arrest me tomorrow or next week.”
He shook his head as if to allay her fears. “Don’t worry about that. Probably he won’t. I’ll call Detective Devine and tell him I’m representing you.”
“But I don’t remember what happened in that office.” All morning she’d willed her memory to return, but it was as impossible as trying to climb aboard a cloud. “What scares me is that memory is such an important part of what I do. Every scene I’m in requires me to learn pages of dialogue. Given the cues, I could probably quote every line I’ve spoken from every scene I’ve been in over the past month. Yet, I can’t tell you what occurred in that office last night.”
She rubbed the sore spot on the back of her head. “Before I left the hospital, the doctor told me I’m suffering from temporary amnesia brought on by my fall, or possibly by shock.”
“Because you saw something?”
She grasped desperately for an image that would fill in one of the blanks. “I wish I could answer that, but I’ve told you all I remember.”
“Was it normal to shoot publicity pictures away from the studio?”
“No. Craig is … was … a fashion photographer, but he did publicity photos for the show. That’s probably why we were there last night. He chose the location because the office has authentic antique furnishings. I’ve been told my character will be hypnotized and experience a past-life regression for a few episodes. That is, if she lasts that long.”
“Why at night?”
“The office wasn’t available during the weekday, and Craig spent every weekend at his summer home in the Hamptons.” She paused. “I couldn’t refuse. If it weren’t for Craig, I might not be in Beekman Place at all.”
“Landis helped you get the part?”
She phrased her answer with care. “When he found out a new character was being developed for the spring episodes, he told me about it before the call came out in the trades. Then he spoke to Leo Krueger, the director, and arranged an audition. The part went completely against my type—which was always girl next door—so Craig suggested I buy a black lace body stocking and talked a friend into lending me her fox coat. Sometimes you have less than two minutes to make an impression. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I did it.”
“And you got the part.”
“Yes. The director hired me after one reading.”
“So, Krueger liked you from the first.”
“I wish.” Her gaze shifted to the ceiling momentarily. She could still hear Leo ranting and raving like a second-rate Erich von Stroheim. “Oh, Leo seemed pleased at first, but later, he took a dislike to me. He went from being my mentor to my worst critic—disparaging my acting in front of the cast.” The more Alexandra became the most talked-about character on the show, the more unbearable Leo became.
“Do you know why?”
“I haven’t a clue. Leo is the director of the most popular new soap opera, but Craig said he’ll never make another feature film. His last three pictures barely cleared the cost of the negatives. He needs Beekman Place.”
“In that case, it doesn’t seem at all logical for him to undermine his own show. Clearly he had his reasons, something worth investigating.”
“It worries me to think my role might be snatched from me any minute. Leo could set my career back to square one.”
“I assume you worked hard for this break.”
“Five long years of waitressing, summer stock, and bit parts, that’s all.” She broke off. “Look, I didn’t mean to burden you with my problems on the set. Being a possible suspect in Craig’s murder is bad enough.”
The attorney returned to a previous comment. “This office you were using last night … who knew you’d be there?”
“Any number of people could have known about the shoot.”
“Tell me who, specifically.”
“The producers, of course—that is, if Craig told them where we’d be shooting.”
“Anyone else?”
She thought a moment. “His wife, Suzanne, I suppose. Leo. Janet Whitman, who’s the star of the show, and Heather Dunn, who plays Lane Winston. Possibly some of the other actors. Maybe Craig’s partner. I’m guessing, of course.”
“Those are people Landis might have told. What about you? Did you mention it to anyone?”
“I don’t recall specifically, except for Heather, but it was no secret, and I had no reason not to tell anyone.”
“That makes for a long list of suspects besides you.”
“Except I was there when he was killed. I’m afraid the police think I went into shock because I committed the murder, not because I saw it committed.” She shut her eyes for a moment. Awful as the events of the previous night must have been, she wanted to remember them. Nothing came.
“How well did you know Landis?”
She hesitated a moment before deciding the attorney didn’t intend to insinuate anything. “Not nearly well enough to want to kill him.”
He smiled at that. “How long did you know him, then?”
“We met about three years ago when I was waitressing at Somerset Grill. Craig usually came in several times a month and always sat in the area I served. He was from the East; I told him about Iowa. Mostly, though, we talked about our professions.”
For a moment, a picture of Craig as he appeared in life came into her mind, and sudden tears stung her eyes. She took a breath and returned to the subject.
“Then he told me a new character was being added to Beekman Place, and he arranged for my audition.”
“Did you ever date?”
She hesitated a beat. “He took me to a gallery opening once, dinner and the theater another time. We met for drinks maybe twice. More than a year ago.”
“Who broke it off?”
“He did.” She saved him the trouble of asking why. “When I first met Craig, I had no idea of his reputation, but in time I discovered he was a womanizer—never satisfied with just one. He enjoyed the chase too much. He hit on me a few times, but I didn’t respond, and in the end I think he decided I wasn’t his type.”
