Ryan and Esposito arrived at
Elizabeth Nunez’s apartment a while later. A tall, thin girl with a mess of
brown hair opened the door. Based off the fact she was wearing knee-high bomber
boots and a jacket she was probably on her way out.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Ryan and Esposito took out their
badges and introduced themselves.
“We were told Elizabeth Nunez lives
here,” Esposito said. “Are you her roommate?”
“Yeah, Rachel Golightly,” the girl
introduced herself. “Is everything alright?”
“Unfortunately not,” Ryan said. “I’m
sorry to say that Elizabeth was murdered last night.”
“Murdered?” Rachel repeated incredulously.
“I’m afraid so,” Ryan said. “May we
come in?”
“Of course,” Rachel said, stepping
out of the doorway. She led the detectives into a small living room, filled
with books and movies. The walls were covered with posters for various bands
and shows and the like. The apartment had the kind of messy clutter that was a
sign of creativity most of the time.
“Very…Bohemian,” Ryan said. It was
obviously an artistic person’s apartment.
Rachel gave a small smile. “‘Let he
among us without sin be the first to condemn la vie Boheme.’”
“From RENT, right?” Ryan asked. He had, due to a complicated series of
events, seen the movie version of RENT and
actually kind of liked it. Not that he’d let anybody know that. Rachel nodded.
“Elizabeth was in a production of
that show, wasn’t she?” Esposito asked.
“We both are,” Rachel said. “I’m
playing Mimi and Elizabeth is, that is to say she was, playing Maureen. We open
in a month.”
Ryan couldn’t help sizing Rachel up.
Rachel looked to be 23 or so, but could pull off looking 19 for the part. Then
he mentally kicked himself for actually having sized her up like that.
“Were you two in the same plays a
lot?” Esposito asked.
“Not particularly,” Rachel said. “It
sometimes worked out that way, but we didn’t plan it. I auditioned for RENT because Mimi is one of my dream
roles to get to play.”
“So you weren’t competing for the
same roles often?” Ryan asked.
Rachel gave a short laugh. “If I was
going to kill over that it would’ve been months ago, during auditions, not
right before opening night. That’s not the motive you’re looking for,
detectives. No, we didn’t compete for roles a lot. I wanted to play Mimi, she
wanted to play Maureen.”
“How’d you come to be roommates with
Elizabeth?” Ryan asked.
“We shared a dorm at NYU. We became
friends and found we could actually stand living with each other. We both
eventually wanted to live off campus and found this place. We decided to go in
together, save some money by splitting the rent.”
“You two got along well, then?”
“Yes. We were friends. The usual
arguments between two people who live together came up, sure, but other than
that we didn’t really fight.”
“What was she like?” Ryan asked.
“She was nice,” Rachel told him.
“That’s refreshing in show business. You have to have a healthy ego to make it,
and Elizabeth did, but she wasn’t narcissistic. She realized other people have
talent too and helped them show it. She had a great sense of humor and a lot of
energy. She could get a bit unpleasant when it was close to an audition or
opening night, but that was normal, and she wasn’t a total…witch about it. Just
stressed, and everybody realized that.”
“You know,” Esposito said, “for a
while I thought this might be one of those cases where the victim was a total
diva, a real a-hole who gave everybody motive. Maybe it would’ve been better if
it was.”
“That wasn’t Elizabeth,” Rachel said
immediately, seeming almost defensive on her friend’s behalf. “She wasn’t the
‘this jealous actress has a habit of making things sound way too tragic’ type.”
“Had anything been troubling her
lately?” Esposito asked. “Did she seem to be acting unusually, any strange
behavior, something that stood out?”
Rachel thought for a moment. “She
broke up with her boyfriend, Drake, a few weeks ago. That put me in an awkward
position. He’s also in the show, as my character’s…significant other? They love
each other, but don’t really admit it and get the relationship thing down until
the end. Anyways, I have to kiss him for the show. Quite a bit.”
“Why did they break up?” Ryan asked.
“Was she jealous about her roommate and her boyfriend kissing?”
“She knew it was just acting,”
Rachel said. “But I could tell it bothered her a bit. Drake has had quite the
interesting past with women. I don’t think that’s why they broke up, though.
One night she came home from having a night out with him and told me they were
through. She seemed sad, but not like it ended badly. It was the same with
Drake when I saw him at rehearsal the next day but neither of them told me much
about it. My guess is they just decided that it wouldn’t work for some reason
and agreed it was best if they saw other people. I know for a fact that Drake
has no feelings for me, though, if you’re worried about that angle. Trust me,
if he did I’d know, he’s not that subtle.”
“And, um, do you…have any feelings
for Drake?” Ryan asked, looking rather awkward and uncomfortable.
Rachel laughed. “He’s hot, and a
good kisser, but that’s all I’ve got to say for him in terms of my being
attracted to him. I don’t really do the whole relationship thing and, at any
rate, he’s not my type. He’s got a bit too much of an ego for my taste. And,
most importantly, I wouldn’t get involved with my roommate’s boyfriend. I
couldn’t do that to her, ever.”
Ryan blinked. “I didn’t mean you’d
actually do anything if you did have feelings for him,” he muttered.
Rachel moved on. “Listen, feel free
to stay as long as you like detectives, but I still have to go to rehearsal.
Looks like I’ll have to break the news to everyone.”
“About that,” Esposito said.
“Elizabeth was killed in the theater. It’s a crime scene. And your director
knows about Elizabeth, he found the body.”
“What?”
“Can you think of why she’d be in
the theater late last night?” Ryan asked.
Again, Rachel took a moment to
think. “Rehearsal ended at around 6:30, as usual. I was going to go get some
dinner with Jacob and Brian and then go home. Sorry, Jacob plays Mark and Brian
plays Benny in the show. They’re friends of mine; we often grab a bite to eat
after rehearsal. But Elizabeth didn’t want to come. She said she had other
plans. So the three of us had dinner and I came back here. Elizabeth never came
back home last night, but that wasn’t unheard of so I didn’t worry too much
about it. Why she went back to the theater, I have no idea. I never knew what
she did when she went off on her own; it wasn’t any of my business.”
“Would you mind if we took a look
around?” Esposito asked.
“Of course,” Rachel said. “That’s
Elizabeth’s bedroom on the left. Mine’s on the right, but everything else is
kind of shared space.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said.
“Sure,” Rachel said, sounding
distant. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down her phone number and gave
it to Ryan. “If you need anything else,” she told him. “I have to go, meet
people at the theater, find out about…about rehearsal.”
“You actually want to work right
now?” Esposito asked.
“It’s my defense mechanism. I don’t
want to think about Elizabeth being…murdered.” She had to force herself to say
it. Rachel stood up and put her coat back on. “Feel free to stay as long as you
like,” she told the two detectives again, then hurried out the door.
“Did that seem just a bit odd to
you?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah,” Esposito said. “Yeah, it
seemed kind of weird.”
“She’s kind of hot,” Ryan said.
“Don’t even go there,” Esposito warned him.
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