Jasmine stood with her back to the door, shrugging her way out of the blue gown and letting it fall carelessly to the floor. She was naked except for a brief, lacy bra. She swung around as the door opened. Her mouth tightened when she saw who I was; her face registered equal parts of disdain and disgust.
“It’s you,” she muttered.
She turned away from me as though I wasn’t there and reached for her black satin jumpsuit. It wasn’t done out of modesty. It was more like I was invisible, nonexistent, beneath contempt or notice, and she was busy with her costume change.
“I have to talk to you,” I said.
“Get out.”
“Jasmine, it’s important,” I insisted.
She jerked up the zipper on the jumpsuit and turned toward me; she moved toward me, her body wound tight, like a panther preparing to spring.
I crouched, ready to defend myself. “Don’t try it,” I warned her. “I know those moves too.”
“You son of a bitch, I said get out!” She spat out the words, anger seething in every syllable.
“Jasmine, I’ve got to talk to you. Someone’s trying to pin two murders on you.”
“I’ll give you two guesses who that might be, and he’s standing right here in this room. You’ve got two murders now? You must have been busy today. You’ve added another one since I talked to you this afternoon.”
“Lisen to me, please.”
“I won’t listen to you. You’ve done enough already. You’ve wrecked the tour. No one will touch me now that Westcoast’s been burned. I’m finished, washed up. Are you happy?”
“No, I’m not happy, Jasmine. Who’s after you?”
“What do you mean, who’s after me? Why should I care who they hire next?”
“I’m not talking about the tour. Who’s got a grudge against you? Who would be out to get you?”
“No one.”
“Somebody is. Think for a minute. Any old boyfriends hanging around, maybe somebody with a jealous wife?”
“I already told you. I don’t know of anybody like that.”
At least she was listening to me now, answering my questions. I had finally gotten her attention, even though she continued dressing. “Do you remember when one of your costumes was stolen, that first night here, while they were doing the load-in?”
She nodded. “What about it?”
“We found it tonight, in a dumpster at Dan Osgood’s house.”
“What does that mean? I don’t understand.”
“You remember Dan Osgood?” She nodded. “What do you know about him?” I continued.
Jasmine looked at me and made a face. “You mean other than the fact that he set me up with you?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“He’s done a hell of a lot more than that,” I told her. “From what we’ve been able to noodle out so far, he wore your costume later on that night when he met Richard Dathan Morris down by the market. Osgood probably killed Morris first, then he went to Morris’s house and killed his roommate.”
Jasmine looked dazed, puzzled. “He murdered them while he was wearing my clothes?”
“That’s right. So it would look like you did it.”
“But isn’t that the costume they said Morris stole? If he took it, why was somebody else wearing it?”
“I don’t have an answer for that yet. Have you had any problems with anyone working on the show, Jasmine? Alan Dale, for example, or Ed Waverly?”
She shook her head. “No. None at all.”
I went back to a question I had asked her before, hoping this time I’d get a better answer. “You’re sure there aren’t any extracurricular activities that might be causing difficulty, like with wives or girlfriends?”
“No.”
“What about the guys with the comp tickets?”
Her mouth hardened when she answered, but I couldn’t help the way my mind worked. “No,” she said coldly.
“By the way, is anyone using those tickets tonight?”
“Someone’s there, but I told Ed I was finished. If the tour’s over, so’s the public-relations campaign.”
“Did you see Dan Osgood here at all today?”
“I tried calling him from the hotel, but they said he wasn’t in yet. When I got here, I couldn’t find him.”
“What did you need him for?”
“I wanted to give him a piece of my mind.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe any of this. It doesn’t make sense. What’s going on?”
“Drugs,” I answered. “Drugs are what’s going on. I think Morris stumbled onto what is evidently a major cocaine network. They took him out before he could do anything about it.”