“It sounds lovely,” Jill said with a smile.
“It had its charms,” Dorothy said, handing Jill’s cup to her. Her hands were steadier now. “But both Lenora and I found we preferred the big city. So much energy here.”
Jill nodded and took a sip of tea. Better. Much better. Honestly, why did people pretend that bitter tasted good? Coffee tasted better with sugar. Chocolate tasted better with sugar. Tea definitely tasted better with sugar.
“Ms. Birch—Dorothy—did you know a Bill Shapiro back in your hometown?”
Dorothy tilted her head. “I suppose it sounds familiar, but goodness, it’s been a long time. You have to remember, Lenora and I left Ohio for Los Angeles when I was only seventeen.”
It was exactly the opening Jill needed. A way for her to close out this lead without ruffling feathers if she was wrong.
“Because you both wanted to get into acting?”
There was the tiniest of pauses. “Yes. We used to talk about it all the time.”
Jill nodded. Then nodded again. For some reason her thoughts felt fuzzy. As though they were coming from the very, very back of her head.
She took another sip of her tea and forced herself to concentrate. “You both auditioned for the role of Cora Mulroney, is that right?”
Dorothy’s face had gone a bit taut. At least it seemed that way through Jill’s blurry vision.
Wait… why was her vision blurry?
“Yes, that’s right,” Dorothy was saying.
“And you…” Jill’s teacup rattled to the table as she pressed a hand to her now-spinning head. “You… Bill Shapiro wrote an article—”
Why couldn’t she keep any of this straight?
“I used to have a golden Lab,” Dorothy said.
A golden Lab? Like a dog? Why were they talking about a dog? Jill struggled to keep up, but couldn’t. Thinking felt hard. Like after too much tequila.
“Jensen was his name. The sweetest dog you can imagine. But… he got old. I suppose we all do. They found cancer. Slow-growing, so I didn’t put him down right away, but toward the end he started to hurt a little, and I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.”
Jill tried to make a noise. Tried to think. She couldn’t. She felt herself slump back against the couch and fixed her eyes on Dorothy, trying to put the pieces together.
“They gave me some medication for him. Sedatives, to help him sleep. To make him comfortable.”
Sedatives.
That’s why she was foggy.
Dorothy Birch had drugged her with dog medicine. It was so unbelievably inglorious that Jill wanted to rage, except that would take energy she didn’t have.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Dorothy was saying as she took another sip of her own tea. “I was just so darn angry, Detective. That was my role. I was supposed to be Cora Mulroney. I was supposed to be the star. But then she convinced me that she should get her break first. Because she was older. And that she’d help me get another role. A bigger, better one.”
Dorothy’s laugh was brittle. “We all know how that goes, don’t we? I let it go. For years, I let it go. Let her have the spotlight. Told myself I didn’t want it. But then… then I couldn’t.”
Dorothy’s voice faded to quiet, in a sort of crazy-person way. Or maybe that was Jill’s head, which wouldn’t stop spinning.
She couldn’t see Dorothy anymore, and Jill had a moment of panic until she realized that she’d closed her eyes. Just for a moment. She was so tired.
“Why?” Jill wasn’t sure she’d actually managed to speak the word, or if it just rattled around in her brain, but either Dorothy had heard her, or she was still rambling on, because she answered.
“Lenora promised that we would go to the anniversary showing of A Love Song for Cora together. She was supposed to accept an award—some iconic woman in Hollywood nonsense—and she said she’d call me up on the stage. To give me the recognition I deserved. To acknowledge my sacrifice…”
Jill heard Dorothy stand. Heard the soft pad of orthopedic shoes come closer, before a hand gently touched her head. “She decided not to go, Detective Henley. Jill. She said it sounded boring, and that she was just going to have her agent accept the award…”
Stupid, was all Jill could think. What a stupid, petty reason to kill someone.
“I hope you’ll be okay, Detective. I don’t really know what effect poor Jensen’s sedatives will have on you, but I certainly don’t want you to die. But… either way, honey, I’ll be long gone when you wake up, and I doubt you’ll be finding me. You’d be surprised how easily old people fly under the radar. People don’t see us.”
Jill tried to make her mouth move. Tried to tell Dorothy Henley that she would find her. That she would make her pay for her crimes. That she would—
She would—
And then there was nothing.
Only darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY