But there had been the phone call that had lured her out before seven. Someone had made that call.
“Case got you down?” O’Bannion asked, reading her silence.
“I can’t get a grip on it,” she admitted. “A tape is stolen and then reappears. Krista might be dead but maybe she isn’t.”
“The papers sure think she’s dead. There are bigger headlines than she ever got alive.”
“Anything more from the autopsy?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it. The body showed traces of heroin.”
“Krista Steele wasn’t on heroin!”
“Who knows what she was on, Libby?”
She played with her glass in silence for a moment, then asked, “Could the accident have been faked?”
“Sure. She could have been beaten to death and her teeth messed up earlier, then the killer could have spilled gasoline around the inside of the car, tied down the accelerator and the steering wheel, and aimed it at the tree. The fire would have burned any string or rope that was used.”
“And if the body isn’t Krista’s, whose is it?”
“From the approximate age and traces of heroin, along with the fact that we have no new missing-person report, it could be some prostitute or drifter, chosen because she was about the same size and age.”
“Then you’re willing to accept that as a possibility?”
O’Bannion thought about it. “I’ve been a cop long enough to know that the most likely explanation is usually the true one, Libby. Your idea is pretty far-fetched. Bring me some more evidence and I’ll listen.”
“If the body is that of some prostitute or even a runaway, maybe her fingerprints are on file even if Krista’s aren’t.”
“That’s an idea,” he admitted. “I’ll see how badly the fingers were burned.”
After leaving O’Bannion at the bar, Libby went back to Krista’s apartment to gather up her things. The place still looked the same, even to the empty glasses on the table from the previous night, but Libby didn’t stop to wash them. She was on her way out the door when the whole thing came to her in a flash.
She went back inside, unpacked her other gun, and changed from slacks to a full skirt.
Libby parked across the street from the recording studio and slipped out of the car, moving silently around the side of the building. The figure by the back door heard her just as he popped the lock. He whirled, but she had him covered with the revolver from her purse. “A little breaking and entering, Sonny?”
Sonny Ritz dropped the crowbar and took a step backward.
“Are you after Krista’s tape, too?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Then what are you doing breaking in here?”
“She kept a stash hidden in the ceiling of the ladies’ john. I figure it won’t do her any good now — I might as well have it.”
“I beat you to it, Sonny. Now get lost.”
“What?”
“Get lost before I call the cops.”
He didn’t need to be told again. He hurried down the alley, disappearing from view.
Libby waited another few seconds and then stepped inside through the jimmied door. A pen light from her purse helped guide her along the corridor. She avoided the recording studio Krista had used the previous day and went instead to the smaller, windowless studio that was rarely used. It was locked, of course. Libby fired a single shot into the lock area. The wood splintered but held, and she had to give it a sharp tug before the door finally came open.
A muffled groan reached her ears at once and she knew she’d guessed right. Her searching fingers found the light switch and in the sudden glare of brightness she saw Krista Steele bound and gagged on the leather couch.
Libby put down her pistol and quickly untied her, pulling the gag from her mouth.
“Thank God!” Krista gasped. “How did you find me?”
“I’d have been a hell of a bodyguard if I hadn’t. Your cat—”
There was a sudden gasp from Krista, and Libby turned to see Shawn Gibbs standing in the doorway. He had a .45 automatic aimed at them. “Don’t touch your gun,” he warned Libby, “or I’ll kill you both!”
“I’m not moving,” Libby assured him.
“Raise your hands above your head!” he commanded. “Krista, you stay on that couch.”
“Shawn, this is—”
“Shut up!” He motioned toward Libby.
“How did you find her here? When I heard the shot I thought it was the police.”
“They’re on the way,” Libby bluffed.
“Not likely. You’d have waited for them. But tell me what I did wrong.”
Libby saw the madness in his eyes now and knew she had to keep talking. “I was convinced Krista didn’t die in that crash. Once I knew that, there were two things to implicate you — her purse and her cat. Krista didn’t leave the apartment until 6:55, ten minutes or more after the accident. It couldn’t have been her body in the car, yet the police identified her from the purse near the wreckage. If Krista couldn’t have been there, how could her purse be there? Only if someone took it from the apartment earlier. She’d had it with her yesterday while she was recording. Two people visited us last night — you and Sonny Ritz. Sonny stayed only briefly and I watched him every second. You stayed longer, and you walked around nervously. You had plenty of opportunity to pick up that small purse and hide it under your shirt.”
“You’re a smart girl,” Gibbs admitted.
“You know someone or found someone who resembled Krista in a general way and killed her this morning. You wanted to make sure the crash and the fire worked as planned before you kidnaped Krista, so you waited until after the crash to phone her—”
“He said it was something important about the stolen tape,” Krista told Libby. “He said he’d pick me up in ten minutes.”
“But of course the whole scheme wouldn’t work if I was awake and heard the phone. I might have insisted on coming along. At the very least I’d know who called. How could you be sure I wouldn’t wake up, Shawn? Only if you drugged my drink while you were stealing the purse. You were the one who suggested we have a drink. I only took a sip of mine and left the rest on the table, but tonight the glasses were all empty. If I didn’t finish it, who did? Then I remembered how Tabby likes to climb up on tables and how he licked up my coffee. This morning he slept through two phone calls and Krista’s departure — highly unusual behavior for a cat, unless he was drugged instead of me.”
“You figured it all, didn’t you?”
“Only you could have stolen the purse, only you could have drugged the drink. Stealing the car itself was no problem. You probably took the elevator straight to the garage after you left Krista’s with the purse and used her own key to drive it away. You’d arranged the early-morning appointment with your victim and after killing her you phoned Krista from the crash scene. You picked her up by seven o’clock, drugged her, and brought her here before Zap and the others arrived.
“Figuring she was still alive, I asked myself where you could hide her. Then I remembered this windowless recording studio. These places are all soundproof — where better to hide her? She was going to leave you after this album and record in Nashville — she told me that — and you couldn’t bear to lose her.”
Krista spoke again from the couch. “He said they’d think I was dead and nobody would be looking for me. He’d keep me a prisoner and I’d record just for him. After six months or a year he’d pretend to find the recordings and say they were made before my death. He said they’d be worth a fortune.”
“You can’t keep her here,” Libby told Gibbs, starting to lower her hands.
“Keep them up!” he barked, waving the gun.