Vincent wasn’t a movie buff by any stretch of the imagination, but like most guys, he enjoyed a good espionage movie. Enjoyed the car chase movies. Enjoyed blow-’em-up movies.
James Killroy had been the king of those types of movies a decade earlier, and just last year had topped the box offices with a blockbuster about an aging spy brought back into active duty.
Of course, his brooding stare and perfect delivery of one-liners wasn’t why they were here.
“You’re sure I can’t offer you anything stronger?” James asked, lifting his own whiskey in question.
Jill smiled politely. “Normally I’d love that pinot grigio you offered, but alas… working.”
The older man studied her. “Working on the murder of Lenora Birch.”
“Yes sir,” Jill said, giving that perky smile that turned most men to mush.
If James Killroy turned to mush, he was too good of an actor to show it. The man wasn’t cold, or even chilly, but he was definitely holding himself at a distance. He was trying to figure them out as much as they were trying to figure him out.
“You and Lenora were… romantically involved?” Jill asked.
“Hmmm,” James said in confirmation, leaning back in his chair and staring down at the amber liquid in his glass. “Long time ago. Long time.”
“Thirty-eight years ago,” Vincent supplied.
James laughed. “A bit long to have me on the short list of murder suspects, wouldn’t you say?”
Jill gave another one of those sweet smiles. “We’re looking into everyone from Lenora’s past who was in New York at the time of her murder.”
“Well… I can assure you that I wasn’t in New York to see Lenora Birch. It was my son’s twenty-first birthday. He attends Fordham. I flew in to take him to a ridiculously expensive dinner, then paid for him and his friends to go out and celebrate—safely.”
“Your son’s birthday just happens to be the same night that Lenora was killed?” Vin asked skeptically.
James stared at Vincent over his glass, and Vin felt an honest-to-God urge to fidget. “Yes.”
“I assume you’ve checked the hotel security cameras at the Westin where I was staying. I got back to the hotel before ten.”
Lenora had been killed sometime around ten thirty.
“At this point it’s just a couple of questions—due diligence,” Jill said. “You and Ms. Birch… there’s an eleven-year age difference there.”
At this, James smiled. “Yes. And trust me, if there’s ever an older woman for a twenty-two-year-old kid to become enamored with, it’s Lenora Birch.”
“She was quite beautiful,” Jill said.
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean.”
“Oh?” Jill asked.
James sat forward, setting his glass on the table. “I met Lenora at a film premiere. It was one of my first movies, and my role was barely large enough to warrant an invitation. Lenora had nothing to do with the project, but back then premieres were fewer… all the big names in Hollywood leaped at the chance to attend. To stay relevant.”
“Who made the first move?” Vin asked.
“I did,” James said with a small smile. “The studio hosted a party after the viewing. I’d had one more drink than was smart—enough to make me stupidly bold. I saw her standing near the bar, and I just… talked to her.”
There was no softness in the way James told the story; he might as well have been talking about his experience at the car wash.
“And she responded,” Jill said.
James shrugged. “I think she was amused. Perhaps flattered. At thirty-three she was still beautiful, but she was always incredibly aware of her advancing years. Always worried about the hot young starlets on the scene who would steal her throne.”
“But nobody ever did,” Jill said. “Not really.”
“No,” he said, picking up his whiskey again. “Lenora was one of the true greats. Her looks started to change, certainly—the ingenue shifted to the sophisticate shifted to the powerful dame. But her acting only improved with each change.”
“You dated for three years,” Vincent said. “What was the relationship like?”
The actor rolled his eyes. “This can’t possibly be relevant to the case.”
“It is if you killed her,” Vincent said, hardly believing he uttered that sentence to James Killroy.
The older man studied him for several moments, then tipped his glass in Vin’s direction. “You’re direct. I like you. And even though the question is bullshit… The relationship was… stable, at least compared to some of the more volatile relationships I was involved in before and after.”
“Stable?” Jill prompted.
“Lenora was a calm woman. Difficult to rattle even when I left water rings on her expensive coffee table, cigarette burns on her vintage couch. She’d express displeasure, certainly, but she never really got angry. Not with me. Not even when I deserved it, which was often back then.”
“You were happy.”
James rolled the glass between his two palms. “Happy enough. I learned from her. She seemed to enjoy me. I wasn’t always faithful, and I suspect she wasn’t either, but it worked for us.”