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She made a throwaway gesture.“Oh, that. That was nothing, Chief. Johnny was a vigorous and very physical man who had certain needs, but those boys didn’t mean anything to him. That was just sex, nothing more.”

“But didn’t Jasper find it strange that the man who told him he loved him was… inviting all these other men into his bedroom to, um, do stuff?”

“Do stuff? Oh, you mean sex. You could ask me the same thing. He started this habit when we were still married. Jasper wasn’t the first.”

“And did you? Mind, I mean?” asked Odelia.

The woman thought for a moment.“It didn’t take me long to figure out that Johnny was a very complicated man, and that he was never going to be fully mine. Like the clich? goes, a star belongs to the whole world, and Johnny took that quite literally. I can’t deny that when I first became aware of his infidelities I was disappointed, even heartbroken, but he promised me it didn’t lessen how he felt about me, and I believed him. Johnny compared his nocturnal acrobatics to going to the gym. For him those boys were simply exercise, and he never formed an emotional attachment to them. Until…”

“Until Jasper,” Odelia supplied softly.

She nodded, and smiled a little wistfully.“Until Jasper. I lost Johnny, then. Before, he was simply experimenting, but with Jasper it was decided that I wasn’t going to be his life partner after all. It stung, I won’t deny that.”

“But why did he keep having these fleeting affairs?” asked the Chief.

“Like I said, Johnny was a star, Chief. I don’t expect you to understand. Being in a relationship with a genuine rock star is a very unsettling experience, while at the same time very exciting.” She paused. “I’ll miss him.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?” asked Odelia.

She shook her head.“I have absolutely no idea, Miss Poole. He was a very sweet man, and as far as I know he had no enemies. All I can think is that one of the boys he slept with had hoped to replace Jasper, and when he saw he didn’t stand a chance, took revenge in the worst possible way.”

The chief nodded.“My theory is that Jasper is the one who killed your husband, Mrs. Pistol. He didn’t like Johnny’s, um, appetite and snapped.”

“Oh, no,” said the woman adamantly. “Like I said, Johnny planned to marry Jasper. So there was absolutely no reason for Jasper to kill him.”

“But Jasper didn’t know that,” said the Chief. “You said so yourself.”

“Jasper didn’t know what?” suddenly a voice sounded behind them.

Chapter 19

“Oh, darling, there you are,” said Bryony. A dark-haired young woman had walked in and took a seat on the arm of her mother’s Chesterfield. “These people are from the police. I was just telling them that Jasper didn’t know Johnny wanted to marry him.”

“You knew about this?” asked the Chief.

“Of course she did,” said Bryony. “I have no secrets from my little girl.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner,” said Veronica. “I had a small errand to run in town. I came back as soon as I could.”

“Just a few quick questions if you don’t mind, Miss George,” said the Chief.

“Of course,” she said as she gave her mother a kiss on the top of her head.

Outside, the birds were chirping, and Odelia could see through the open French windows that Bryony’s garden was a regular floral delight. The woman noticed she was looking and said, “I just love flowers, don’t you, Miss Poole?”

“I do,” she admitted, “though I’m afraid I don’t have a green thumb like you obviously have. You have a beautiful home and a beautiful garden, Mrs. Pistol. I envy you.”

“Thanks. That’s why I prefer living in the country. Out here I can have a garden, while back in Manhattan I had to make do with my small balcony.”

“Oh, Mother, you had more than just a small balcony. You had an entire greenhouse on the roof. And possibly the biggest one in the whole city.”

“Yes, but that’s hardly the same as a garden, darling.”

“It was nice enough. To sit there on the roof, surrounded by all that floral splendor, while the city hummed on beneath us. It was simply heaven.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” asked Bryony.

The Chief cleared his throat at this point. All this talk about flowers and gardens clearly didn’t hold his interest. “Miss George, do you have any idea who might have wished your father harm?”

“I don’t,” she said. “My father was the kindest, sweetest man in the world. He might have had his vices, but he would never hurt a fly and was kind to anyone he met. I honestly can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him.”

“What about… your ex-boyfriend? Donovan Rubb?”

A cloud passed over the woman’s face. “Donny is a mistake from my past, Chief, as I’m sure my mother told you. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I hope to keep it that way. That said, I don’t think he’s capable of murder.”

“Did you know he was your father’s supplier of GHB?” asked Odelia.

“And that he supplied the fatal vial? The one that killed your father?”