Grave Endings by Rochelle Krich Page B

waiter who approached, menu in hand. I had scanned the diners but hadn’t spotted Trina.
    â€œPerhaps your friend is in our other room,” he said, beckoning me to follow him to a far wider dining area where I saw a large mirrored bar on the left wall, but no Trina.
    â€œCan I offer you something while you wait?” the waiter asked.
    â€œIced tea would be great, thanks.”
    I chose a booth instead of one of the small square tables in the center of the room. I generally carry a paperback mystery in my purse to keep me from becoming antsy while I’m waiting, but I didn’t need a diversion. I was trying to digest what Creeley had told me.
    Aggie had known Randy.
    They’d worked together at Rachel’s Tent.
    He’d liked her “a lot.”
    I have to admit that my first reaction to Creeley’s revelation had smacked of self-absorption: I was Aggie’s best friend. We’d shared everything—our hurts, our successes, our hopes, our fantasies, the intimate details of our lives. Why hadn’t she told me about Randy?
    Maybe there had been nothing to tell. Maybe Aggie hadn’t been aware that Randy liked her—and what, after all, did
like
mean? It wasn’t necessarily romantic. But if it was? And if Aggie hadn’t reciprocated, which of course she hadn’t, if she’d rebuffed his advances, if she’d angered an ex-convict who did drugs and drank?
    It had occurred to me, as I left the Creeleys’ Culver City home and drove to Hollywood, barely aware of my surroundings or Bobby Darin, who was crooning “Dream Lover” on my favorite oldies station, that this connection between Randy and Aggie was the other evidence Connors had alluded to. It explained why he’d refused to share the information with me, why the police were certain that Randy had killed Aggie, why Porter had been so irritable and evasive, why he’d wanted me gone.
    Why he’d hedged when I’d asked him where Randy had been working around the time that Aggie had been murdered.
    Rachel’s Tent.
    Wilshire had screwed up. Maybe Porter was nervous that if I discovered the truth, I would make it public: The LAPD had let a killer slip through its fingers six years ago. And what if he’d killed again?
    If I phoned Porter, which I had no intention of doing, he’d inform me in his snide way that Randy’d had an alibi. Some alibi, I’d tell him, his sister who adores him and obviously lied for him.
    Yesterday I’d wanted to talk to Trina to confirm my suspicion that Randy hadn’t killed Aggie. Now I wanted to find out why he had.
He told Trina about her,
his father had said.
    I wondered if Aggie’s parents were aware that Aggie had known her killer.
    And I still didn’t understand about Trina’s locket. That was another thing I hoped she could explain.
    It was five after twelve, not terribly late, but Trina had asked me to be prompt. I waited a few minutes before I retrieved the number she’d used when she’d contacted me last night. I placed the call, let it ring, and left a message.
    Maybe she’d set me up, pretended to be anxious, pulled a fast one on the nosy reporter. Maybe acting ran in the family.
    I finished my iced tea, declined a refill, and after another five minutes paid my tab and left.
    Jonnie recognized me when I entered Frederick’s. There was a wariness in her kohl-lined hazel eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday, and I suspected that whatever Trina had told her about me hadn’t been complimentary.
    â€œShe’s not here,” Jonnie said when I asked for Trina. “She phoned and said she had to help with funeral arrangements for her brother.”
    So Trina hadn’t been playing me. I felt better but wondered why she hadn’t phoned to cancel our meeting. I checked my cell phone again but found no messages.
    Maybe she’d been overwhelmed with family and hadn’t had a chance to