'No.'
'But you did know him.'
'Of course I knew him. I was on the tape with him. You said so yourself. I just want to know one thing. That tape was made years ago. Where did it come from after all this time? Did they find it on Martin Shore's body? In his room?'
'Fraymore didn't tell you?' Tanya shook her head.
'It came from Denver Holloway.'
Tanya's eyes widened in alarm. 'Dinky? The director?'
Ralph nodded. 'She received it in her mail yesterday, along with a note from Monica Davenport asking if she knew anything about your previous acting experience.'
The shock of that news wiped out Tanya's last reserves of strength. Her knees wobbled under her. She grabbed the edge of the table for support and eased herself down onto the bench while Ralph leaped to assist her. Amber had been playing contentedly near her mother's feet. Now, instinctively knowing something was wrong, the child clambered onto her mother's lap. Tanya gripped the child tightly as though drawing some of the child's natural resilience into her own grown-up body.
'So the Festival knows about that, too,' Tanya breathed.
Ralph nodded. 'I'm afraid so,' he said.
Tanya shook her head despairingly. 'I haven't done anything wrong, but that's the end of it. The Festival won't keep me on, not with all the adverse publicity.'
'Don't you see? That's why we came,' Ralph said. 'I'd like to be your attorney.'
'Do I need an attorney?'
'Did Gordon Fraymore tell you you were a suspect?'
'No, but…'
'You are,' Ralph asserted. 'In not one but two cases, and unless someone helps you, you're going to jail. Now tell me, was Martin Shore blackmailing you?'
Staring blankly at Ralph's face, Tanya shook her head. 'No. Why would he?'
'To get something you had that he wanted.'
'What would that be? I don't have any money.'
'Maybe he found out you were becoming an established actress, and he wanted you to make another movie for him.'
'No,' Tanya said, shaking her head. 'I'm too old for what he does.'
I had stayed quiet because Ralph was doing an admirable job without any help from me. In that kind of situation, it's best not to interrupt. Now, though, I couldn't help asking a question of my own. It was, after all, the question that had dragged me into this fracas to begin with.
'What about Amber?' I asked. 'Is it possible that he wanted to use Amber instead?'
An almost visible jolt shot through Tanya Dunseth's body, a tremor just like the one I had seen two nights earlier in the Members' Lounge. Tanya hugged a now sleeping Amber tightly to her breast, but the gaze she turned on me was filled with murderous intensity.
'Is that why he came to town?' she asked in a hoarse whisper.
'We don't know,' Ralph answered for both of us. 'That's what we're trying to find out.'
'It wouldn't surprise me,' Tanya hissed. 'If they had tried that, I would have killed them myself. In fact, just thinking about it makes me wish I had.'
'But you didn't?' Ralph asked.
'No. So help me God, I didn't.'
Ralph is good, but he missed the most important part of what Tanya Dunseth had said. My homicide-trained ear zeroed in on it.
'You said ‘they,'' I pointed out quietly. 'They who?'
Tanya looked over at me, her eyes suddenly steady and solemn. 'Martin Shore and Daphne Lewis,' she said. 'Who else did you think I meant?'
Ralph and I exchanged startled glances. 'You knew them both?' I asked.
Tanya shook her head. 'Go away,' she said. 'I don't want to talk about it anymore.'
'But you're saying Martin Shore and Daphne Lewis were connected? That they knew each other?'
'I've said too much already. Leave me alone.' Her eyes filled with tears.
Gordon Fraymore had told me he was looking for a connection between Daphne Lewis and Martin Shore. He claimed that if one existed, he hadn't found it yet. Either he had lied to me-a distinct possibility-or Tanya hadn't told him what she'd just told us. Which was it?
'When Fraymore was here, did you tell him about that?'
Tanya shook her head. 'He's getting paid to find things out. Why should I tell him anything? Why make it easy? Like you said, he already thinks I killed them, and he's going to arrest me.'
She stood up suddenly. 'Where are you going?' I asked.
'To put Amber in her crib. She's too heavy to hold like this. I'll be right back.' With that, Tanya Dunseth hurried into the house, leaving Ralph and me sitting on the picnic benches and stewing in our own juices.
'Will she come back out?' Ralph asked.
'Beats me,' I said. 'That's anyone's guess, but I don't think we'd better go in after her. We weren't invited.'
Where Marjorie Connors was concerned, I wasn't about to take any chances.
CHAPTER 11
We were ready to give up and leave when Tanya returned to the deck. Her eyes were red; she'd been crying. She had changed out of her shorts into a denim skirt. In the soft evening light, she seemed both insubstantial and defeated. This time she sat down on the bench next to Ralph. She folded her hands together on the table and sat staring at them.
'I wouldn't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else, but I'm not ashamed of what I did,' she said thoughtfully. 'Even though I was very young, I'm willing to accept full responsibility for all of it. No matter what anybody says, where I ended up was way better than where I started. But now it's not just me anymore, either. There's Amber to worry about. I've spent all afternoon trying to decide what to do. It's hard to know where to turn, who to trust.'
'You have to start somewhere,' Ralph replied.
She looked over at him through lashes still veiled in tears. 'You want me to talk about it?'
'If you want us to try to help you, yes.'
'But it's so hard. I've spent years trying to forget it-to block it out of my memory, to make myself believe that it never happened. Or, if it did, that it happened to someone else.'
Ralph reached over and gently placed one hand over Tanya's. 'Please tell us, Tanya,' he urged quietly. 'It's the only way.'
When Tanya spoke again, her voice was a hushed whisper. 'I thought I had forgotten about it, but then, as soon as I saw Elise, it came back. All of it.'
'Elise?' I asked. 'Who's she?'
'Elise was what she called herself years ago when I first knew her. Detective Fraymore told me her name was Daphne Lewis.'
'This was when you saw her in the Members' Lounge?' Tanya nodded. 'What came back?' Ralph prodded.
His insistence propelled Tanya up off the bench, away from the table and us. She paced over to the handrail where she stood facing off the deck, gripping the railing with thin, white-knuckled fingers. For several long minutes, she didn't speak.
'Tanya,' I said finally. 'Were Shore and Daphne in the movie business together?'
'Yes.'
