Cuff Me(22)

He shrugged. “Only surviving relative, save for the ex-husbands.”

Jill blew out a breath. “So no magical Spidey sense? Not one of your legendary hunches?”

Vincent shook his head. “Nope. Just good old-fashioned by-the-book investigating.”

“That’s the worst kind,” Jill muttered as she followed him into the building.

Dorothy Birch had indeed moved into the grief stage, if her puffy eyes and red nose were any indication, but she was remarkably poised as she carried a tray over to the coffee table.

Jill sat on the love seat and watched the older woman carefully.

Like her more famous sister, Dorothy Birch was tall, slim, although not frail, despite the fact that Jill knew her to be sixty-six.

Two years younger than Lenora had been when someone had shoved her to her death.

“You two are certainly up and at ’em early,” Dorothy said with a faint smile as she set down an antique gold tray on the table.

Dorothy had told them she was making tea for herself, and although she’d offered to make a pot of coffee as well, Jill hadn’t wanted to burden the grieving woman so she’d accepted tea on behalf of herself and Vincent as well.

A fact Vin was clearly not pleased about, judging from the glare he gave Jill when, with a sweet smile, she handed him his dainty teacup.

His big hand dwarfed the feminine-patterned china as he accepted it.

“Ms. Birch—”

“Dorothy, please,” the woman said as she settled onto the love seat opposite Jill. Vincent retained his standing place against the window. He’d never been good at sitting.

“Dorothy,” Jill said sincerely, “let us just say again how sorry we are for your loss.”

“Thank you.” The woman’s lips pressed together firmly, a trick that Jill knew could be quite effective in staving off a crying bout. “I don’t—Lenora is all I have. Had.”

“You never married?” Vincent asked rudely from behind Jill.

It was all Jill could do not to roll her eyes at his lack of sensitivity.

But Dorothy merely gave him a mild look. “No, Detective. Never married.”

“But Lenora was,” Vincent pressed. “Several times.”

Dorothy’s smile was genuine. “Yes, four times. Engaged two more than that, although those never came to pass. She always kept our last name though. Never took her husband’s on account of her being so famous.”

“Did you resent her for that?”

Oh, for God’s sake. Jill could shake the man.

“Well, resentment would have been pointless, now, wouldn’t it?” Dorothy said, leaning back, lost in thought. “Some say my sister was rivaled only by Marilyn Monroe in terms of her legendary appeal for men.”

“That must have been—”

Jill cut Vincent off before he could further insult a grieving woman who’d been nothing but cooperative and kind thus far.

“Did Lenora keep in contact with any of her exes?” Jill asked.

They’d spoken with Lenora’s latest beau yesterday. A wealthy widower who’d only recently moved to the city from Dallas.

Of everyone they’d spoken with, he’d been the most visibly upset by the news. Really, truly upset. And as they weren’t married, he had no financial motivation to kill her. Even if the man weren’t loaded himself—and he was definitely loaded—he had to have known that he wouldn’t earn a penny from her death.

But money could be a powerful motivator for her exes. If she was on good terms with any of them, there was always a chance they could end up in her will.

“Oh, goodness no,” Dorothy said with a dismissive wave. “As skilled as Lenora was at drawing men to her, she was equally adept at driving them away when she tired of them.”

“Tired of them?” Vincent asked. “They’re not shoes.”

Jill silently echoed the question.

It was an odd way of describing a failed relationship. It spoke of a woman who entered relationships to stave off boredom, or a woman prone to fits and starts of passion as little more than a whim.

“No, of course men aren’t shoes, Detective.” Dorothy took a sip of her tea. “But for Lenora, they may as well have been.”

“She was… fickle?” Jill asked, searching for the right word.

Dorothy’s lips pursed. “More like… Hmm, how do I say this? Lenora was always very aware of how removed she could be from other people. Men in particular. She tended to throw herself into one relationship after another in hopes of connecting with someone.”

“Did she ever? Connect, I mean?” Jill asked, taking a sip of her own tea to be polite. She didn’t have to turn around to know that Vincent probably hadn’t touched his.

“Oh, for a time she would. A few months. A couple years, with some of them. But they always wanted more than she had to give. They’d get jealous. Demanding. Needy. And that’s when Lenora would move on.”

“So it was always her that ended the relationship?” Jill asked.

“Generally, yes.”

Jill silently cursed.

It wasn’t ideal for crime solving. She’d hoped for one ex in particular that had been discarded. It would be a starting point. But from the way it was looking, they had four ex-husbands, two ex-fiancés, and an unknown number of unnamed lovers that could have been wooed and discarded by the famous Hollywood siren.