by J. D. Robb
“Otherwise?”
The shrugging indulgence shifted smoothly to cold calculation. “There are plenty of hungry actors waiting for a break. I have another project green lit, and she wanted it. I wanted her for it. But, as I said, she wasn’t indispensable, and I would have made that clear.”
Eve released him, glanced at Mira.
“A position of power and politics,” Mira said. “One he uses and enjoys. He understood her value as a commodity, and would have no problem replacing her—or threatening to—if that commodity devalued.”
“Yeah. Plus, he’s pushy and excitable. You have to wonder what any one of these people would do if the vic had something that threatened their career—which equals ego and bank account—or this specific project. So far it’s clear nobody liked her, and none of them bothered to pretend otherwise.”
“She was particularly unlikable.”
“No argument. Being unlikable isn’t enough to earn you a slab in the morgue.”
“Did she have family?”
“I haven’t checked yet. We’ll run that down, notify next of kin.”
“Always difficult. Would you like me to start detoxifying Julian?”
Eve had to smile at the term. “Yeah. I’ll talk to Nadine while he sobers up. I appreciate the help. I imagine you and Mr. Mira would like to get the hell out of here.”
“Actually, he’s finding it all very interesting. So am I.”
“His socks don’t match.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Mr. Mira’s socks don’t match.”
“Damn it.” Mira let out an exasperated laugh. “I know he doesn’t pay attention, but that got by me.”
“It’s …” Eve searched for the word. “Sweet” was the best she could think of, and it made Mira smile.
“His mind’s always on something else. He’d live in a ratty cardigan, and he’s always worrying holes in the pockets of his pants. He can never seem to find his wallet or anything in the refrigerator. And just when you think he’s not paying any attention to what you’re saying or doing, he comes up with exactly the right answer or solution.”
Mira got to her feet. “People who expect perfection in a mate miss a lot of fun—and sweetness. I’ll go take care of Julian. Should I ask Nadine to come in?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She thought of Roarke, imagined a lot of people looked at him and saw perfection. She knew differently, and decided she had a whole bunch of fun and sweetness in her life.
Even as she thought it he walked in with a jumbo mug of coffee.
“Where did you get that? I get these little girlie cups.”
“Which is why I asked the housekeeper for something more formidable.”
When he set it in front of her, Eve crooked her finger so he leaned down. She kissed him. “You’re not perfect,” she said.
“See if I bring you a giant mug of coffee again any time soon.”
“You’re not perfect, and that makes you just exactly right.”
“Being just exactly right has it all over perfection.”
“Bet your ass.” She lifted the coffee, took a long, lifesaving swallow. “Want to sit in on my interview with Nadine?”
“I would if you share that coffee. If you want an update, Peabody and McNab just finished up their end of interviews. Peabody didn’t want to interrupt yours, and asked if I’d let you know they’ve headed back up to the roof to check on the status of the sweepers. The body’s been removed.”
“Yeah, I got a text from the morgue guys. Undetermined. We’ll need her on a slab before they can rule it accidental or homicide. I’d say self-termination’s out, but you’ve got to keep it in the mix until.”
Nadine carried in her own coffee and a plate of cookies. She plopped the cookies on the table. “Now, look—”
“No, you sit, and you now look.” Eve grabbed a cookie, just in case Nadine got pissy and snatched them away. “You’re a witness to a suspicious death. I’m required to interview you, get a statement.”
“I’ll give you a statement,” Nadine said darkly. “I want my goddamn ’link, my PPC. You’ve got no right to—”
“Oh, knock it off.” Eve bit into the cookie—not bad. “You’re not getting either until I clear it because you’re damn well not contacting your producer or editor or whatever the hell so Channel 75 can throw up a big special bulletin that K.T. Harris was found facedown in Mason Roundtree’s lap pool—details to fucking follow.”
“I’m a reporter, and it’s my job to do exactly what you just laid out. I’m on the scene. I had dinner with the corpse.”
Tossing back her streaky hair, Nadine narrowed her cat’s eyes to slits.
“If you think for one hot minute I’m letting another reporter, another channel, another anything or anybody scoop me on this, then think a-fucking-gain. What are you smiling at?” she snapped at Roarke.
“I’m a man, and I’m sitting here having coffee and cookies while two beautiful women snarl at each other. Being a man I’m required to wonder—perhaps imagine—whether there will soon be physical contact. Clothing may be ripped away. Why wouldn’t I smile?”
“Not perfect,” Eve muttered. “Shut up for five seconds,” she ordered Nadine, “before we’re in his head naked, oiled up, and rolling around on the floor.”
“And my smile grows wider.”
“You’ll get your story,” Eve said after baring her teeth at Roarke. “You’ll have the jump on it, and my cooperation—as far as it goes.”
“Which means?”
“What it means. But you did have dinner with the corpse, and when there’s a body in the mix my job trumps yours.”
“I want a one-on-one with you, as soon as we’re done here.”
“I’ll give you what I can give you when we’re done here. You’re not bringing a camera in, not at this point. The longer you argue or try to negotiate, the bigger the window for one of the staff to get word out to one of your competitors. I need your eye, Nadine. Here’s what I know. K.T. Harris is dead. The three people in this room didn’t kill her or cause her to die. The Miras didn’t. Peabody and McNab didn’t. Mavis and Leonardo didn’t. Other than that? It’s up for grabs. So I need your eye, your impressions, and your catlike ear for gossip, innuendo, and bullshit.
“Now let’s get started.”
NADINE SLAPPED HER PURSE ON THE TABLE, opened it, and pulled out a number of cocktail napkins. “Look what I’m reduced to. Scribbling with a pen on cocktail napkins. I told McNab I wouldn’t use the PPC to contact anyone.”
“And if he’d listened to you, I’d have busted him down to Traffic. Tell me this first—and this time it’s official and on record—are you and Julian Cross bumping nasties?”
“You have such a way. No, as I already told you, we’re not. He’s gorgeous, charming, fun. He’s rich, he’s famous. I figured we’d give that area a go. But he’s also just a bit dim. It’s kind of cute, but I like a man with some smarts. Plus, he’d bump nasties with anyone, anytime, anywhere. And I prefer someone more selective. He’s not pushy about it, the bumping or the polite refusal to bump. I enjoy him, but I don’t want to sleep with him. Unfortunately.
“Added to it,” she went on, “the promotion machine is pumping out that there’s heat between Marlo and Julian on- and offscreen. It’s a time-honored publicity angle. It seems to be working well enough, even though there’s just warm between them offscreen—as in friendship.”
“And because Marlo and Matthew have the offscreen heat.”
“They what? They do not. Do they?” Nadine shoved at her hair as she stared at Eve. “Where did you get that? I didn’t get that.”
“It’s my take.” Eve shrugged. “You’ll have to talk to them about it.”
“Shit. Shit.” Nadine pulled a pen out of the purse, scribbled on one of the napkins.
“Meanwhile,” Eve said mildly, “you’ve spent a lot of time on the set. Who’d want to kill K.T.?”
“Is homicide confirmed?”
“No. But.”
“Okay, my answer is who wouldn’t? I’ve been tempted to smash her over the head and drown her myself. Is that what happened?”
“No comment. Why?”
“Fine. Because she’s a bitch. Down to the bone, if you ask me. Selfish, whining, rude. She sulks, she explodes, she snaps, she snarks. She considered herself the superior actor on this project, and made that known at every opportunity. She came at me more than once about the Peabody character, wanting changes, more screen time. She wanted a love scene with Matthew, and pushed—hard—to have her character confront Dallas on investigative points. None of what she wanted worked, but Roundtree, Valerie, Steinburger, Preston—or some unfortunate assistant—had to deal with her nearly every day. She slowed production, and that displeases the suits.”
“Anything specific? Did you ever see her go at it with anyone?”
“Dallas, she went at it with everyone at some point or other. Then she’d settle down for a few days, and go at someone else.”
“All right, let’s focus on tonight. Besides her pissiness at dinner, did you see her argue with anyone else?”
“She argued with me.” Nadine examined the cookies, carefully selected one, then took a tiny bite.
“About?” Eve prompted.
“She only has a couple short scenes left, and wanted them both expanded. Insisted I need to sit down with Roundtree and work that out, using the changes she’d made to the scenes. I told her, as I had before, that the way she wanted to change it didn’t happen. She told me, as she had before, I didn’t understand the business or artistic license. I told her to write her own book, her own script, and leave mine alone. But not that politely.”
“Were you up on the roof tonight?”
Nadine smirked. “No, not tonight.”
“Did she get into it with anyone else?”
“I imagine she and Connie had words when Connie took her out of the room after dinner. And she had a couple with Andi. K.T. was way out of her league there and knew it, so she tended to keep those words short. I noticed she cornered Preston shortly before dinner, and he didn’t look happy about it. Otherwise, I admit, I wasn’t paying much attention to her.”
“How about during the gag reel thing. Did you notice her leaving the theater?”
“I didn’t. She sat in the back, if I remember right, and I sat down next to Andi because she’s always got the best things to say. Plus Julian was pretty drunk by that time, and sulking, so I didn’t want to sit with him. Then just a few minutes into it I got a tag on the ’link. We’re setting up the on-location show in Dallas, the interviews with the Jones twins. I had to take it, so I stepped out, went into the little sitting room down there. I was on with my producer and director for ten minutes or so. When I came back I just sat in the back until …
“She wasn’t there. K.T.,” Nadine said, squinting as if trying to see. “I glanced around before I took a seat, making sure I didn’t sit too close to her, and she wasn’t back there. I assumed she’d changed seats, but I guess not. She must have gone out. She might’ve gone out before I did. I didn’t notice either way. Sorry.”
“Did you notice anyone else missing?”
“I didn’t, and I popped out to use the restroom the minute the lights came up. It seemed like everyone was in there, or around there, when I came back a couple minutes later. Except for K.T., but I only noticed she wasn’t there because I wanted to avoid another chat with her.”
“Okay, what was the mood in the other room while everyone’s waiting to talk to me or Peabody?”
“Shock, upset, nerves. Everybody’s nervous when there’s a dead body and a cop in the house, Dallas. Roundtree pacing and brooding, Connie trying to keep everyone calm, Julian passed out drunk, Matthew and Marlo huddled together—which I took as bonding over finding a body—and looking sick. Andi entertaining Dennis Mira or telling Connie to sit down and relax. Steinburger huddled with Valerie—which is SOP—or bitching about McNab taking his electronics—to which I related. Preston talking to Roundtree or me or Steinburger or staring into his beer. It was stilted, awkward, nerve-racking, and difficult. Everyone believes, or wants to believe, it was a terrible accident, and no one’s sure.”
Peabody started in, stopped when she saw Nadine. “Ah. Can I have a minute, Lieutenant?”
“That’s all I need for now, Nadine. You can wait in the living area. We’ll return your electronics shortly.”
“Come on, Dallas. You said I’d have the story.”
“And you will. But I need a minute with my partner.”
“Fine. I’m taking the cookies.”
Sadly, Peabody watched the cookies leave with Nadine. “They looked good.”
“They were. Report?”
“We’ve got all the statements. McNab made a copy for your review and file.” She passed Eve a disc. “It’s got nothing that puts a blinking GUILTY arrow over anybody’s head. The only one who seemed genuinely sad was Roundtree. I don’t think he liked her, but he didn’t not like her as much as everybody else seemed to. The sweepers are wrapping it up. There was blood.”
Eve looked up sharply from her notes. “Where?”
“They picked it up with the lights on the skirt of the pool. A small amount on the coping. It may have been washed off, or may have washed away with the water when the body was pulled out—but since they also found what appears to be the charred remains of some sort of cloth in the fireplace up there, I’m voting for washed off.”
“Two votes.”
“The morgue team confirmed both contusion and laceration on the back of the vic’s head, and that it would have bled some. It’s her prints on the bottle we found on the bar up there—contents of which will be confirmed by the lab—and on the corkscrew. They’ll also run DNA on the cigarette butts, but the brand matches what she had in the case in her bag. It held twelve. She had two left. Marlo’s and Matthew’s prints on the glasses outside the dome.”
“Okay. Let’s take Julian. Give me a minute to feed some of this to Nadine and get her out of here.”
She turned to Roarke. “Do you want to hang in here for the last interview?”
“Darling, I wouldn’t miss you interrogating my counterpart for worlds.”
“Hah. Peabody, go ahead and get him in here. Read him his rights, get him settled. I won’t be long.”
She separated Nadine from Roundtree and Connie while Peabody took a reasonably sober Julian into the dining room.
“The way it looks she hit her head on the pool skirting, either fell or had help. Could have fallen in. Or tried to get up, drunk and dizzy from the fall, gone in. I’ll know more of that after the ME’s had a look at her.”
“That’s it?”
“That is it, at this point. If she had help, I’ve got statements, interviews, impressions, and a basic time line. If it was an accident, I have the same and we can close it down. But for now it remains undetermined—and either way, I need you to wait thirty minutes before you call it in and start the machine. I want Julian’s statement on record, and him tucked into his place before the frenzy.”
“What difference does—”
“Nadine, if I didn’t trust you’d wait the thirty because I tell you I need it, you’d be held here, without your e-toys until. But I do trust you’ll wait.”
“Understood.” Nadine sighed it out. “Appreciated. If I didn’t believe you wouldn’t screw with me just because, I’d have found a way to get to a ’link before this and had the story out by now.”
“Also understood and appreciated.”
“There’s one more reason I opted against sleeping with Julian.”
“Okay.”
“He’s not like Roarke, but he gives the illusion of being a lot like him when he’s in the mode. So the idea of sleeping with him felt disloyal—and just, well, icky.”
Eve started to laugh it off, then realized Nadine was perfectly serious. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“All right, not completely understood, but appreciated anyway.”
“I hear he bangs like a turbohammer.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t like Roarke.”
“Oh, that was cruel. Maybe I’ll give him a spin after all.” Nadine fluffed back her hair. “I’m going to say good night to Roundtree and Connie. I’ve got my car service, so if you’re done with the Miras I can give them a lift home.”
“And pump her for impressions.”
“Naturally.” Nadine gave one of her strands of pearls a quick twirl. “But I’d give them a lift anyway.”
“Yeah, you would. They can leave anytime.”
When she returned to the dining room, Julian was slumped, pale and obviously miserable, over a cup of coffee.
“You’ve been read your rights?” Eve began.
“Yes. She said it was for my protection.”
“That’s exactly right.” Eve took a seat across from him. “Do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“You know Marlo and Matthew found K.T.’s body on the roof.”
“Yes.” He shook his head as if coming out of a dream. “God. God! It’s horrible. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re doing it right now by talking to us. Were you up on the roof tonight, Julian?”
“No—I mean, yes.” He sent Eve a pitiful look. “I’m confused. I had too much to drink. I shouldn’t have, but I was upset after that scene at dinner. I want you to know I wasn’t—I’d never try to, ah, start something with you, and right in front of you,” he said, appealing to Roarke.
“But you would in back of me?”
Julian actually went a shade paler. “I didn’t mean—”
“Just winding you up, mate,” Roarke said, smile very, very cool.
“Oh. Okay, I wouldn’t want you to think I’d hit on your wife. She’s fascinating—I mean to say I’m kind of fascinated, and playing you, it gets intense with Marlo. But I—and Marlo and I aren’t—not really. Just for work, for show. It’s just part of the deal. I mean, I would—they’re both beautiful women, but—”
“Is that a requirement?” Eve asked. “Being beautiful.”