Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [76]
Apparently Casey Lloyd, like Duane Hines, didn’t have the financial means that would have enabled him to buy plane tickets and elaborate masquerade masks.
“Is there anyone you can think of from when Midnight Masquerade was filmed who would have a reason to want to see the actors in that movie dead?” Maleah asked.
“I have no idea. I really didn’t get to know the actors all that well. When I coauthored that piece-of-trash script, I was high half the time.”
“Were you sleeping with any of the actresses?”
“Laura Lou kept me on a pretty tight leash,” Casey said. “The lady was my coauthor, my keeper, my lover, and my drug supplier. She’d have cut off my balls if I’d slept with another woman.”
“Was Ms. Roberts a violent person?” Derek asked. “Would she be capable of cold-blooded murder?”
“That bitch?” Casey laughed. “She’d be capable, but she’s a little long in the tooth to do the job herself. She’d hire a hit man if she wanted anybody killed. But I can’t think of any reason she’d want to kill Dean or Hilary or Charlie. Travis Dillard is another matter. She’d love to see that old son of a bitch six feet under.”
“There was bad blood between Mr. Dillard and Ms. Roberts?” Maleah asked.
“They had a business deal—she wrote the scripts for his movies for a little of nothing and she got a percentage of the take. Then Dillard and his lawyers screwed Laura Lou out of God knows how much, but she kept writing for him because nobody else would hire her until a few years ago.”
“If Dillard was the victim, then Ms. Roberts might be our prime suspect,” Derek said. “But he’s very much alive, at least for now.”
“What do you mean at least for now?”
“Travis Dillard has terminal cancer,” Derek explained.
Casey grinned. “Maybe there is a little bit of justice in this old world after all.”
By late afternoon, the crowd outside Lorie’s house had dispersed, leaving behind cigarette butts, drink cans, and a variety of debris littering her yard and the road in front of her house. The flower beds on either side of her walkway had been trampled and the antique white wrought-iron settee in her backyard garden had been moved directly under a window, used by two peeping Tom reporters trying to see inside her house.
Mike had persuaded most of the townsfolk to leave, but it had taken a warning from Special Agent Wainwright to get rid of the press. At least temporarily.
“They’ll be back,” Wainwright had told her. “One at a time or in small groups. Your story is big-time news now that they know you’re one of the Midnight Killer’s potential victims.”
“The Midnight Killer?”
“That’s what the press is calling him, and it seems appropriate.”
“Then y’all are sure it’s a man?”
“Reasonably sure. Most serial killers are male.”
Most but not all, Lorie thought. What if they were wrong? And what if, no matter what the FBI and the Powell Agency did, they couldn’t keep the killer from getting to her?
“Lorie? Lorie…” Mike called her name several times before she snapped out of her thoughts and looked at him.
“Sorry, I was…It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you certain that you want to go to Jack and Cathy’s homecoming party?” Mike asked. “It’s only a small gathering, but—”
“I am not going to allow the media or the good citizens of Dunmore to make me a prisoner in my own home. My best friend is returning from her honeymoon this evening and nothing is going to keep me from being there to welcome her and her husband home.”
“Then you’ll go with me,” Mike told her. “Ms. Gilbert, too, of course.”
“That’s not necessary,” Lorie said. “If you show up with me, people will talk.”
“Let them talk. If you’re escorted by the sheriff, you’ll be safer from the press and from anyone thinking about stalking you when you leave the house.” He grinned. “Remember, I have the authority to arrest people, and for most folks that alone is a deterrent.”
“Aren’t you planning to take your girlfriend to the party?” Lorie asked.
Mike hesitated, and then cleared his throat. “Abby can pick up the kids and meet us there.