Eyes of Prey

last time anybody saw Armistead . . . Elizabeth?”
    “This afternoon. There was a rehearsal until about threeo’clock,” the woman said. She stroked the side of her cheek with her fingertips as she remembered, staring sightlessly at the bedspread. “After that, she went home. One of the ticket ladies tried to call her an hour or so before the play was supposed to start, but there wasn’t any answer. That’s the last I know.”
    “Why’d they call? Was she already late?”
    “No, somebody wanted in on a freebee, and she’d have to approve it. But she didn’t answer.”
    “Bucky and Karl are down at the theater, talking to people,” Swanson said.
    “Did you check Bekker?” Lucas asked.
    “No. I will tomorrow, after we’ve got this nailed down. I’ll have him do a minute-by-minute recount of where he was tonight.”
    “Isn’t Bekker the name of that woman who was killed?” asked the woman on the bed, looking between them.
    “Her husband,” Lucas said shortly. “What’s your name, anyway?”
    “Lasch . . . Cassie.”
    “You’re an actress?”
    She nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Full-time?”
    “I get the smaller parts,” she said ruefully, shaking out her red hair. It was kinky and bounced around her shoulders. “But I work full-time.”
    “Was Armistead dating anyone?” Swanson asked.
    “Not really . . . What does Bekker have to do with this? Is he a suspect?” She was focusing on Lucas.
    “Sure. You always check the husband when a wife gets murdered,” Lucas said.
    “So you don’t really think he did this?”
    “He was in San Francisco when his wife was killed,” Lucas said. “This one is so much like it, it almost has to be the same guy.”
    “Oh.” She was disappointed and bit her lower lip. She wanted the killer, Lucas realized, and if she had her way about it, she would have him dead.
    “If you think of anything, give me a call,” Lucas said. Their eyes locked up for a second, a quick two-way assessment. He handed her a business card and she said, “I will.” Lucas turned away, glanced back once to see her looking after him and drifted out toward the living room.
     
    The cop with the hammer was talking to a uniform, who had a middle-aged woman in tow. The woman, wearing a pink quilted housecoat and white sneakers, was edging toward the archway that opened into the living room. The cop blocked her with a hip and asked, “So what’d he look like?”
    “Like I said, he looked like a plumber. He was carrying a toolbox or something, and I says to Ray, that’s my husband, Ray Ellis, Mr. and Mrs., ‘Uh-oh,’ I says, ‘it looks like that Armistead woman’s got troubles with her plumbing, I hope it’s not the main again.’ They dug up the main here in this street, the city has, twice since we been here, and we only got here in ’seventy-one, you’d think they’d be able to get that right . . .” She took another crab step toward the arch, trying to get a look.
    “You didn’t like Ms. Armistead?” Lucas asked, coming up to them.
    The woman took a half-step back, losing ground. A flash of irritation crossed her face as she realized it. “Why’d you think that?” she asked. A defensive whine crept into her voice. She’d heard this kind of question asked on L.A. Law, usually just before somebody got it in the neck.
    “You called her ‘that Armistead woman.’ . . .”
    “Well, she said she was an actress and I said to Ray . . .”
    “Your husband . . .”
    “Yeah, I said, ‘Ray, she don’t look like no actress to me.’ I mean, I know what an actress looks like, right? And shedidn’t look like no actress, in fact, I’d say she was plain. I said to Ray, ‘She says she’s an actress, I wonder what she’s really involved in.’ ” She squinted slyly.
    “You think she might be involved with something else?” asked the cop with the hammer.
    “If you ask me . . . Say, is that the murder weapon?” The woman’s eyes widened as she realized that the cop was holding a hammer wrapped in a plastic bag.
    “Before you get to that,” Lucas interrupted impatiently, “the man you saw at the door . . . why’d he look like a plumber?”
    “ ’Cause of the way he was dressed,” she said, unable to tear her eyes away from the hammer until the cop dropped it to his side. She looked up at Lucas again. “I couldn’t see him real good, but he was wearing one of those coveralls, dark-like, and a hat with a bill on it. Like plumbers