He gave her a quick, appraising glance before returning his attention to his driving. She got the feeling that she had not exactly surprised him; rather, she had confirmed some impression that he had already formed.
“Yes,” he said.
The one-word answer was devoid of all emotion, but it told her just how much he hated the cane and what it represented.
“Understandable,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I don’t indulge my taste for speed when there is a passenger in the car.”
“I don’t have a problem with speed,” she said, “so long as I trust the driver.”
“Given that I am permanently hobbled with a cane due to a serious failure of judgment that nearly got me killed, I won’t ask the obvious question.”
“You won’t ask me if I trust you?”
“No. Too soon for that.”
“Nothing personal,” she said, “but I’ve experienced some rather serious failures of judgment, myself. I’ve concluded it’s probably best not to trust anyone.”
“Safer that way.”
“Yes.”
“So much for trust. Aren’t you going to ask me the question that everyone else wants to ask?”
“You mean, what really went wrong at your final performance?”
“Right,” he said. His hands flexed a little on the steering wheel. “That question.”
“No,” she said.
“Why not? You’re a reporter. Aren’t you curious?”
“You have always maintained that it was an accident and that the rumors of attempted murder were baseless. There’s no reason to think you would change your story tonight, not for a reporter from a scandal sheet. Besides, I’m in Burning Cove to cover another story, remember?”
“I remember. About this other story you’re chasing.”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t just another movie-star-scandal piece, is it? I can tell this is personal for you.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s personal.”
“Do I get an explanation?”
She had known that sooner or later he would ask for more information. That afternoon as she had used pins to set the deep waves in her hair, she pondered just how much to tell him.
“Ten days ago another Whispers reporter died,” she said at last. “Her name was Peggy Hackett.”
“Hackett? The gossip columnist who became a raging alcoholic and managed to get herself fired from her own column?”
“My boss hired her about six months ago. Peggy was working on a story involving Nick Tremayne when she died. According to the authorities, she slipped and fell in the bathtub. She drowned.”
She waited for Oliver to make the connection. He did. Immediately.
“Like Gloria Maitland,” he said quietly.
“Peggy died in a bathtub, not a pool, but, yes, almost exactly like Gloria Maitland.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“I’m the one who found Peggy’s body. Trust me, there are a lot of similarities between the two death scenes. Blow to the back of the head. Blood on the tiles. Death by drowning. A link to Nick Tremayne.”
“And you don’t believe in coincidences.”
She studied his hard profile. “Do you?”
“No,” he said. “Any idea what Hackett’s Tremayne story involved?”
“Peggy was pursuing the usual angle—Tremayne Rumored to Be Smitten with Aspiring Actress. This Time It Looks Serious. That kind of thing. But I think something happened in the course of Peggy’s research.”
“What makes you say that?”
“When she started the piece, she treated it like any other assignment. It was going to be a very nice little scoop for Whispers. But at the last minute, just before deadline, Peggy told our editor that she needed more time. She said she had uncovered something much bigger than another Hot Star Seduces Young Actress story. But a few days later she was dead.”
Oliver contemplated that for a moment. “How did it happen to be you who found the body?”
Irene watched the road unwind in front of the powerful car. “There’s no big mystery about that. One morning Peggy didn’t show up at the office. When Velma couldn’t get her on the telephone, she sent me to Peggy’s apartment to make sure everything was all right. She was afraid that Peggy had started drinking heavily again. When I got there the door was unlocked. I went in and . . . found the body in the tub.”
“I can see why a second drowning death would make you start to wonder about a pattern.”
“I went into the living room and telephoned for the police and an ambulance, but it seemed to take forever for them to arrive.” Irene shivered. “I was going to wait outside on the front step but I kept thinking about the scene in the bathroom.”