She had also changed how she presented herself to the world. And, as Heat and Rook watched her run through a track from her new CD, Reboot My Life, they saw a woman whose career and new hard body had undergone a radical makeover.
The blaring music ended and the choreographer called a five. Soleil protested. “No, let’s go again; these guys move like they’ve got snowshoes on.” She went to her first position, her muscles gleaming in the harsh light of the rehearsal room. The male dancers, panting, formed up behind her, but the choreographer shook his head to the playback engineer. “Fine. Remember this, dickweed, when we’re shooting and you wonder why it sucks,” Soleil said to him and stormed toward the door.
As she drew near, Nikki Heat stepped to intercept her. “Miss Gray?”
Soleil slowed her stride, but only to size up Nikki, as if for a fight. She gave Rook a fleeting appraisal, but concentrated on the detective. “Who the hell are you? This is a closed rehearsal.”
Heat showed her badge and introduced herself. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Cassidy Towne.”
“Now?” When Nikki just stared, Soleil dropped an F-bomb. “Whatever your questions are about her, the answer’s going to be the same. ‘Bitch.’ ” She went to the small craft services table in the corner and got a bottle of Fiji out of a cooler. She didn’t offer one to either of them.
“Your dancing’s awesome,” said Rook.
“It’s crap. Are you a cop? ’Cause you don’t look like a cop.”
Nikki jumped in to take that one. “He’s working with us on this case.” No need to freak her out that the press was there.
“You look familiar.” Soleil Gray canted her head to one side, appraising Nikki. “You’re on that magazine, aren’t you?”
Heat ignored that path and said, “I assume you’re aware that Cassidy Towne was killed?”
“Yes. A tragic loss for all of us.” She cracked the seal on the blue cap and chugged some water. “Why are you talking to me about that dead bee-otch, other than to cheer me up?”
Rook joined in. “Cassidy Towne wrote a lot about you in her column.”
“The scumbag printed a ton of lies and gossip about me, if that’s what you call writing. She had these anonymous sources and unnamed spies claiming I did everything from snorting lines off a Hammond B3 to groping Clive Davis at the Grammys.”
“She also wrote that you fired a .38 at your producer during one of the sessions with your old band,” said Rook.
“Not true.” Soleil grabbed a towel from a wicker basket near the window. “It was a .44.” She wiped the sweat from her face and added, “Good times.”
Nikki opened her notebook and a pen, always a means to help folks get serious about conversations. “Did you have any personal contact with Cassidy Towne?”
“What is this? You don’t think I had anything to do with her murder, do you? Seriously?”
Nikki stayed on her own track, getting her facts in morsels, accumulating small answers, and, in them, looking for inconsistencies. “Did you have any conversations with her?”
“Not really.”
There was a deflection, for sure. “So you never talked to her?”
“Yeah. We went to tea every afternoon and swapped recipes.”
Nikki’s newfound sensitivity about gossip helped her empathize with the singer’s attitude about Cassidy Towne, but her cop sense was telling her this sarcasm was a bluff. Time to move the fences in. “Are you saying you never talked to her?”
Soleil held the cool flat side of the bottle against her neck. “No, I’m not saying never.”
“Did you ever see her?”
“Well, sure, I guess so. It’s a small town if you’re famous, you know?”
Did Nikki ever know. “When was the last time you saw Cassidy Towne, Miss Gray?”