Private Scandals

Deanna?”
    She started to deny it, but caught the gleam in his eye. She knew he’d recognize a lie. “Yes. So?”
    “So, thanks.”
    She smiled as she lifted her mouth toward his.
     
    Not so far away someone was weeping. The tears were hot and bitter, scalding the throat, the eyes, the skin. Photographs of Deanna looked on, smiling benignly at the sobbing form.Three candles tossed the only light, their flames, straight and true, highlighting the pictures, the single earring, the lock of hair bound in gold thread. All of the treasures on the altar of frustrated desire.
    There were stacks of videotapes, but the television screen was silent and dark tonight.
    Angela was dead, but still that wasn’t enough. Love, deep, dark and demented, had triggered the gun, but it wasn’t enough. There had to be more.
    The candleglow shot the shadow of a form hunched into a ball, racked with despair. Deanna would see, had to see that she was loved, cherished, adored.
    There was a way to prove it.
     
    Finn would have preferred to handle the interview alone. Jenner would have preferred to do the same. Since neither of them could manage to shake the other loose, they drove to Beeker’s office together.
    “Might as well make the best of it,” Jenner said. “I’m doing you a favor, Mr. Riley, letting you tag along.”
    That statement earned Jenner a frigid stare. “I don’t tag along, Lieutenant. And let me remind you that you wouldn’t know about Kate Lowell or Beeker if we hadn’t come to you with the information.”
    Jenner grinned and rubbed his chin, which he’d nicked shaving. “And I get the feeling you wouldn’t have come to me if Miss Reynolds hadn’t insisted.”
    “She feels easier knowing the police are on top of things.”
    “And how does she feel about your being involved in the investigation?” Silence. “Doesn’t know,” Jenner concluded. “As a man married thirty-two years last July, let me mention that you’re skating on thin ice.”
    “She’s terrified. And she’s going to continue to be terrified until you have Angela’s killer under wraps.”
    “Can’t argue with that. Now, this Kate Lowell business. Being a reporter, you might not agree, but I think she’s entitled to her privacy.”
    “It’s tough to argue for privacy when you make yourliving in the public eye. I believe in the right to know, Lieutenant. But I don’t believe in blackmail, or in poking telescopic lenses into someone’s bedroom window.”
    “Got your dander up.” Pleased, Jenner scooted through a yellow light. “Me, I feel sorry for her. She was a kid, probably scared.”
    “You’re a soft touch, Lieutenant.”
    “Like hell. You can’t be a cop and be a soft touch.” But he was, damn it. And since it embarrassed the hell out of him, he took the aggressive route. “She still could’ve killed Angela Perkins.”
    Finn waited as Jenner doubled-parked, then flipped the officer-on-duty sign over on the dash. “Entertain me.”
    “She argues with Angela at the hotel. She’s fed up with Angela, enraged at being made to suffer for something that happened when she was still wet behind the ears.”
    “There’s that soft touch again. Keep going,” Finn prompted as he climbed out of the car.
    “She’s tired of Angela holding it over her head and threatens her. She hears the maid in the bedroom so she leaves. But she follows Angela to CBC, confronts her in the studio, murders her. Then Deanna comes in, and she gets creative. She’s been in films for years. She knows how to set up a camera.”
    “Yes.” There was a quick, nippy breeze that smelled of the lake. Finn drew it in, the easy freshness of it as they crossed the street. “Then she decides to disguise her motive by going public with exactly what she killed Angela over. Better the world knows she’s an unwed mother than a murderer.”
    “It doesn’t play,” Jenner concluded.
    “Not for me. If Beeker has half the dirt Kate thinks, we’ll have a dozen more scenarios by dinnertime.” They walked into the office building, Jenner flashing his badge at the security guard in the lobby.
    Upstairs, Jenner scanned the wide corridor. The oil paintings were originals and very good. The carpet was thick. Tall, leafy plants were tucked into niches every few feet.
    The doors of Beeker Investigations were glass andwhispered open into an airy reception area complete with a tidy miniature spruce for the holiday season.
    A trim, thirtyish brunette piloted a