Breshear smiled. “Only black people use crack, right?”
Petra ignored that.
He said, “It was powder.”
“She snorted, then what?”
“Then she got kind of… active. Physical.”
“Then you had sex in your car,” said Petra.
“That’s the way it ended up,” he said. New tone of voice. Amused?
“Seven times,” said Petra. “You’d go out and she’d snort and you’d have sex in the car.”
“Actually, five of the times were that way. Twice-the last two-I followed her home and waited till she got ready, then we went out for dinner. But we never dated, as in a real relationship. Both times she had to go home for something.”
“Dope?”
“I don’t know,” said Breshear.
But he did. They both did. So far, his story meshed perfectly with Patsy K.’s.
Breshear sucked in breath. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but you might as well know everything. We never really had intercourse. She just wanted to give to me.”
Looking right at her now, sitting straighter, challenging her to press for details.
Because sex was his thing, and once he got over the initial shame, talking about it boosted his confidence.
Petra said, “Oral sex.”
“Yes,” said Breshear, closing his eyes for a second. “First she’d get high, then she’d do it. Seven nights, once a night, the same routine. The eighth time, she said, ‘I like you, Darrell, but…’ I didn’t argue, because to tell the truth, I thought the whole thing was weird. She wasn’t nasty about it. Very nice, just, like, time to move on. I got the feeling she’d done it before.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just a feeling. She seemed… practiced.”
Petra didn’t speak, and Breshear’s eyes saucered again.
“What is it, sir?”
“It’s hard to think of her… cut up like that. The news said it was brutal.”
Petra gave him more silence, and he said, “She was a beautiful person. I hope to God you catch whoever did it.”
“Hope so, too. Anything else you want to tell me, Mr. Breshear?”
“Nope, can’t think of anything-please don’t call my wife, okay? Everything’s going real well between us now. I don’t want to mess it up.”
CHAPTER
24
After Breshear left, she called Empty Nest and asked for Kelly Sposito, the current flame. Things going well with the wife meant only one on the side?
Sposito was in, had a high, unpleasant voice that got shrill when Petra identified herself and explained the nature of the call.
“Darrell? Are you for real?” But a moment later, she verified Breshear’s alibi.
“So he was with you all night?”
“That’s what I said-listen, you’d better not put this in the paper or anything, I don’t need the grief.”
“I’m a detective, not a reporter, Ms. Sposito.”
“I see my name in the paper, I sue.”
Paper tigress. What was with her?
“Why are you hassling Darrell? Because he’s black?”
“We’re talking to people who knew Lisa, Ms. Sposito-”
“Everyone knows who did it.”
“Who?”
“Right,” said the woman. “Like you don’t. And he’ll get off because he’s rich.”
Petra thanked her for her help, hung up, and drove the five blocks to the studio, used her badge and a combination of firmness and charm to get in. She got directions to Empty Nest from a guy with long hair who looked like an actor but wore a tool belt.
The production company occupied several white clapboard green-shuttered bungalows scattered between whitewashed soundstages and office buildings, the entire place spotless, with that too-perfect Potemkin village look. Billboards for TV shows and movies stood on metal towers. A field of satellite dishes resembled a giant crockery collection.
A woman in Bungalow A told her Breshear worked in D. Petra walked into a small, empty reception area, brass and glass and black wood floors, three phones, no typewriter or computer. More movie posters, cheapie flicks she didn’t recognize, the smell of fish. Through a door she heard voices, and she opened it after the merest knock.
Breshear and two women in their twenties were sitting at a long table mounted with several gray machines- products of a mating between a film projector and a microscope. In an open Styrofoam takeout box were three sushi rolls.
One woman wore an oversized black sweater over skintight black leggings, had a sharp pretty face, bronze skin probably from a bottle, and a mane of big black curls that trailed down her back. The other was arctic pale and had thin blond hair held in place by a pink sawtooth clip. Pleasant-looking but not the buxom looker Curly was. Breshear, sitting between them, started to shift his body backward, distancing himself.
“Detective Connor,” he said. Steaming mug in his hand, Gary Larson cartoon silk-screened on the side. The guy claimed he didn’t dope, but like many ex-alcoholics he had a caffeine jones.
“Hi,” said Petra. “Ms. Sposito?”
Curly said, “What?” and stood. Tall, five-nine, terrific curvy body evident even under the baggy sweater. Her dark eyes were ten years older than the rest of her. She wore so much mascara her lashes resembled miniature wiper blades. Too hard-looking to be a model or an actress but definitely someone who’d turn heads. A lioness, with that mane.
“Just thought I’d drop by and talk to you in person.”
Breshear’s head swiveled fast as he looked at his girlfriend. Trying to figure out what she’d said over the phone that had complicated things.
Sposito glared as she walked toward Petra with big fluid steps.
The blond girl watched the whole thing, baffled.
When she was two steps away, Sposito said, “Let’s talk outside.” To the blonde: “We’re gonna use your office, Cara.”
“Oh, sure,” said the blond girl. “Should I just stay here?”
“Yeah. It won’t take long.”
Out in the front room, Sposito put her hands on her hips. “Now what?”
Your fault, Jungle Girl, all that out-of-proportion anger.
“You had some pretty strong opinions about Mr. Ramsey,” said Petra.
“Oh, for God’s sake! Opinions is all they were-everyone’s saying the same thing. Because Mr. Ramsey was abusive. It’s nuts to even consider that Darrell had anything to do with Lisa just because the two of them dated a couple times. But okay, you asked where he was, I told you. And that’s all there is. I take enough crap for being with Darrell, I don’t need this.”
“Crap from who?”
“Everyone. Society.”
