“Well, aren’t you a smart one?” He didn’t mean it as a compliment. “How well do you know Mr. Watkins? You can assume by that question that he’s alive. Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that.”
“Happy?” Now she was confused.
“Answer my question.”
“He’s my landlord.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“We found a note to Mr. Watkins from you in the pocket of Mrs. Watkins’s dressing gown. I assume you’re the only ‘Angelica’ in the building.”
Lillian’s stomach contracted, as if she’d been punched hard in the gut. She should have never written that note, should have put Mr. Watkins off in person. His wife must have found it and confronted him in a rage. Lillian tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “A note? My rent was due, so it was probably about that. Mr. Watkins was giving me time to raise it. You see, my mother died earlier this year, and ever since it’s been difficult.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His face remained unchanged, cold. “So you’ve been living here alone since your mother died?”
“Yes.”
He glanced over at the door to the bedroom. “It appears that you and Mr. Watkins were arranging a rendezvous in the coming weeks. Did the two of you enjoy an intimate relationship?”
He was twisting the contents of the note around—that was not what she’d meant at all.
“Intimate?” In her horror, she almost laughed at the image of tubby Mr. Watkins in bed but caught herself. “No. Never.”
“Also, this was found in his desk.” The policeman reached into his pocket and pulled out a magazine clipping of some kind.
She recognized the black-and-white photograph immediately. In it, she wore a bathing costume, black, and had her hands lifted behind her head, like she was sunbathing at Coney Island, even though it had been taken on the roof of the Lincoln Arcade building. Her arms were bare, her legs exposed from mid-thigh down. The ad, hawking the latest in bathing costumes, had run in the back of a magazine. Kitty had never permitted Lillian to do photography sessions for ads—she considered it unseemly—but when one of the lesser-known photographers had approached Lillian in the lobby of the Lincoln Arcade building that first day she’d gone out seeking work, the lure of a quick paycheck had been too tempting to pass up.
Mr. Watkins must have seen it in one of his wife’s magazines and cut it out. The thought of him staring down at it, studying the lines of her shoulders and the curves of her knees, made her feel sick all over again.
“I don’t know why he’d have that.”
“If this is some kind of love triangle, and you had any knowledge that Mr. Watkins was going to murder his wife, it’s better for you to tell me now.”
A love triangle? How could she prove that something didn’t exist? “There’s nothing.” Even to her own ears, the denial came across as feeble.
“We’ll need to bring you in to ask you some more questions.”
The earlier excitement of a few months rent-free evaporated. This man was headed in the entirely wrong direction. “I’m just a tenant, like all the other tenants. Mr. Watkins imagined things in his head, probably. I never gave any impression that I was interested in him.”
He patted the pocket of his jacket. “The note tells me otherwise.”
“I was just trying to put him off politely, it’s simply a misunderstanding.”
“The other tenants tell me you are an artists’ model. I imagine you come upon a number of similar misunderstandings in your line of work.”
She drew back. “There’s nothing sordid about my line of work. I’m no different from you, earning a day’s wage.”
“I highly doubt that.”
She had to figure out a way to reach him, to show that she wasn’t a low-class pocket twister. “I’m going to be a film actress as well.”
The police officer raised his eyebrows, impressed in spite of himself. Silent films were all the rage these days. “Hollywood?”
“Exactly. This time next year I’ll probably be in pictures. I have letters here to prove it.” She got up and rummaged through the pile of bills and papers on the sideboard. “Here. A producer wants to meet me, for an audition for his next film. So you see, I had no need to mess about with Mr. Watkins. I’m a career girl.”
He studied the top letter, written on letterhead from the movie studio. Lillian knew the most important sentence by heart: It would be my pleasure to speak with you about a role in my next venture, if you ever find yourself in sunny Southern California.