“Then there’s Vicki, the woman scorned. Jeffrey, the cuckolded husband.” She grinned. “And the rest of the usual suspects.”
“Okay. What kind of poison?”
“Something rare,” Bess mused. “Maybe Oriental. I’ll work on it.” She scribbled a reminder on a notepad. “So they all have a motive for killing him. Even the housekeeper, because he seduced her naive, innocent daughter, then cast her aside. Sometime during the party, we see a glass of champagne. The room’s in shadows. Close-up on a small black vial. A hand pours a few drops into the glass.”
“We’ll see if it’s a man or woman.”
“The hand’s gloved,” Bess decided, then realized how ridiculous it would be to wear gloves at a cocktail party. “Okay, okay, we don’t see it at the party. Before. There’s this box, see? This ornately carved wooden box.”
“And the gloved hand opens it. Candlelight flickers off the glass vial as the hand removes it from the bed of velvet.”
“That’s the ticket. We’ll cut to that kind of thing three or four times during the week of the party. Let the audience know it’s bad business for somebody.”
“Meanwhile, Reed’s playing everyone like puppets. Handing out his personal brand of misery, building the pressure to the boiling point, until it explodes on the night of the party.”
“It’ll be great,” Bess assured her. “Throughout the evening, Reed’s enjoying himself stirring up old fires, poking at sores. Miriam has too much to drink and gets sloppy and shrill. This provides the perfect distraction for our killer to doctor Reed’s champagne. Because it’s slow-acting, the symptoms don’t begin to show right away. We have some fatigue, a little dizziness, some minor pain. Maybe a rash.”
“I like a good rash,” Lori agreed.
“By the time he kicks off, it’ll be difficult for the cops to pinpoint the time and place when the poison was administered. We just might have the perfect crime.”
“There is no perfect crime.”
Both Bess and Lori glanced toward the doorway. Alex stood there, his hands tucked in his pockets. There was a half smile on his face, a result of his enjoyment at listening to them plotting a murder. “Besides, if your TV cop didn’t figure it out, your viewers would be pretty disappointed.”
“He’ll figure it out.” Bess reached for another almond as she watched him, her bare feet propped on the chair beside her. Alex discovered that the baggy slacks she wore effectively hid her legs but didn’t stop him from thinking about them. “Did somebody call a cop?” she asked Lori.
“Not me.” Well aware that three was most definitely a crowd, Lori rose. “Listen, I’ve got to make a call, and I think I’ll run up and peek in on the taping. Nice to see you, Detective.”
“Yeah.” He shifted so that Lori could get through the door, but he didn’t step inside. Instead, he glanced around, annoyed with himself for feeling so awkward. “Some place,” he said at length.
Bess’s lips curved. The room was hardly bigger than a closet and windowless. The table where she and Lori worked was covered with books, folders and papers, and dominated by a word processor that was still humming. Besides the table, there was one overstuffed chair, a small couch and two televisions.
“We call it home,” Bess said, and tilted her head. “So, what brings you down to the dungeons, Alexi?”
The description was fairly apt. They were in the basement of the building that held the studios and production offices for “Secret Sins” and its network. He shrugged off her question with one of his own. “How long are you in for?”
“The duration, I hope.” Casually she rubbed the ball of one foot over the instep of the other. “After the last Emmy, they did offer us an upstairs office with a view, but Lori and I are creatures of habit. Besides, who’s going to come down here and peek over our shoulders while we write?” She recrossed her ankles. “Are you off-duty?”
“I took a couple hours’ personal time.”
“Oh.” She drew the word out, thinking he looked very appealing when he was embarrassed. “Should I consider this a personal visit?”
“Yeah.” He stepped inside, then regretted it. There wasn’t enough room to wander around. “Listen, I just wanted to apologize.”
It was probably very small of her, Bess thought, but, oh, she was enjoying this. “Generally or specifically?”
“Specifically.” He shook his head when she held out the bowl of almonds. “After the robbery attempt, when I took you home. I was out of line.”
“Okay.” She set the bowl down and smiled at him. “We’re dealing with your behavior during the last half hour of the evening.”
His brows drew together. “Everything I said before that sticks. You had no business doing what you were doing, where you were doing it.”
“Get back to the apology. I like that better.”
“I took what I was feeling out on you, and I’m sorry.” Figuring the worst was over, he sat on the edge of the table. “You didn’t react the way I expected.”
“Which was?”
