Cuff Me(46)

Holly Adams was every bit as over-the-top welcoming as she’d been last time they questioned her.

But she’d tweaked her approach, to play up her, um, assets.

In all their years together, Jill didn’t think she’d seen Vincent Moretti quite so uncomfortable. Hell, until today, she hadn’t realized that he could be uncomfortable.

But then, he’d probably never had an elderly femme fatale dressed in a red gown—yes, gown—draped all over him before.

“Um, Ms. Adams,” Vincent said, making yet another futile attempt to shift away from the older woman. “You were telling us about the time that Lenora won the Moonlight Damsel role?”

“Stole,” Holly said with a smile, setting her hand on Vin’s arm. “She stole my role. And my my, do you work out?”

Yes. Yes, he does, Jill thought, remembering all too vividly that moment when Vincent had opened the motel door sans shirt.

Holly’s arm ran up Vincent’s bicep. Squeezed. Vin gave Jill a panicked look, and she took pity on him.

“Ms. Adams, when you say that Lenora stole your role, what do you mean by that? Did she bribe someone? Sabotage your audition?”

Holly’s attention snapped to Jill and her eyes narrowed. “Why are you two so interested in forty-year-old films?”

“You know why,” Jill said steadily. “It’s the same reason we’re here. Again. You have a murky past with Lenora Birch, and now she’s dead.”

Holly leaned forward, her still-impressive bosom all but heaving out of her dress. Vincent’s eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

“And your best bet is looking at aging film stars?” Holly asked. “I have arthritis. Lenora probably did too. Even if we wanted to try and push each other over the staircase, or however she died, it would take agility and coordination that we don’t have.”

Jill kept her face impassive, but damned if she didn’t agree just a little bit with Holly’s assessment. This whole case was starting to feel like a farce.

A geriatric version of Clue.

“Who do you think did it then?” Jill asked.

Holly sat back with a wave of her hand. “The help? Maybe the driver felt underpaid, or the housekeeper got sick of having to pick up Lenora’s dentures from the coffee table. Someone young and angry, not someone old and tired.”

“I don’t think you’re quite so indifferent to old grudges as you’d have us believe,” Vincent said.

Holly’s hand froze in the process of sliding up his thigh. “Oh?”

Vin flicked his gaze to Jill, who picked up on the cue and reached into her bag. Pulled out a Ziploc bag.

She held it out to Holly, who hesitated briefly. “What’s this?”

“A letter you sent to Caroline Jones four months ago. One in which you said if any of the old crew deserved an early death, it was Lenora.”

Holly touched the bag only for a moment before letting it flutter to the table. The corner dipped into the tea and Vincent plucked it back out again, wiping the moisture away before holding it up to the older woman’s face.

“This is your handwriting, yes? Your signature?”

“That bitch,” Holly breathed.

“Careful now,” Vin said easily. “If Caroline Jones ends up dead, you’re going to wish you hadn’t said that in front of two homicide detectives.”

She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “All I’m trying to say is maybe you should look a little harder at the woman who gave you that letter.”

“She’s not the one that wished an early death on Lenora Birch.”

“How do you know?” Holly shot back. “Do you have her side of the correspondence?”

Vin and Jill exchanged a glance. She had a good point.

“Do you have it?” Holly pressed. “Well, of course not,” she huffed. “Her letters are rambling and boring. I throw them out after I skim them. But I can assure you there’s plenty of ranting about Lenora on her end as well.”

Jill subtly blew out a breath without showing Holly how frustrated she was. Not that she’d put a lot of stock in the letter. Caroline Jones had called their office about a half dozen times with “crucial information to the case,” and had been just a tad too eager to send over Holly’s letter.

It smelled more of aging, petty rivalry than it did useful evidence, but in a case that seemed to be nothing but aging, petty rivalries, they couldn’t afford not to act on it.

Holly slapped her palms slightly against her thighs. “Oh, I almost forgot… I have something for you.”

Holly brushed needlessly against Vincent as she stood, and he shot Jill another exasperated look. She grinned widely at him as Holly went to a small writing desk in the corner.

Vin was just starting to stand—no doubt to move to safety—when Holly returned waving an envelope. “Here we go!”

Jill watched Vincent’s face as he accepted the already-open envelope, his eyes scanning the return address with a slight frown before pulling out the paper inside.

His jaw tensed as he read it, and when he lifted his eyes to Jill, she knew then… knew that whatever was in that letter meant that any hope they had of Holly Adams breaking down and admitting guilt had just gone out the window.

He handed it across the coffee table to Jill.