by J. D. Robb
A woman—those scalpel-sharp cheekbones ran in the family—sat at the head of a long, highly polished red table. She wore black, and her hair, also black, was styled in a smooth coil at the nape of her long, slender neck.
On the table sat a basket of muffins, a platter of fruit, a couple of pots that smelled like pretty decent coffee. Five people sat around the table, working industriously with their tablets as she snapped out orders.
“Get started. Talk to Kit if you have any questions. Michael, I want to see that retrospective before noon. Now, I need the room.”
All five got to their feet, some still tapping and swiping, and hurried out.
“Bebe Hewitt.” She rose, a commanding six feet in her heels, willow slim with sharp, assessing eyes of icy blue. “I would have come to you if you hadn’t come to me. Please, sit, there’s coffee.”
“Before we get started, my partner needs access to Ms. Mars’s office. We’ll need to have her electronics taken in to Central.”
“I can’t accommodate that, without a warrant.”
“A warrant’s being issued.”
“Good. When it is, and legal verifies it, you’ll have what you need. Believe me, I don’t want to impede your investigation in any way, but I can’t violate Larinda’s rights, or the rights of the free media. I need more coffee.”
She pulled over a pot, poured. “Our responsibilities aren’t that different.”
“Aren’t they?”
Bebe studied Eve with those cool blue eyes. “We both serve the public. I believe in what we do here. I respect what you do. And I’m not stupid enough not to appreciate that you—and you as well, Detective—are damn good screen.”
She closed her eyes a moment, drank. “Larinda’s assistant is Ross Burkoff. He should be helpful to you. I’m reasonably sure he handled a great deal of her personal business as well as professional.”
“We’ll speak with him. I also need to speak with Mitch L. Day.”
Bebe let out a small sound that ended in a quick smirk. “That didn’t take long. His office is directly across from Larinda’s.”
Eve recognized the meaning behind the smirk. “You’re aware they’re involved.”
Now Bebe’s smirk deepened, but there was a touch of annoyance in it. “The place is crawling with reporters—and I was one myself for a lot of years. Their involvement was a poorly kept secret until a few weeks ago, when Mitch’s wife kicked him out.”
“How pissed off was the wife?”
“Sashay? She doesn’t get pissed—that might put lines in her face. She discards and moves on. She didn’t care about Larinda any more than you’d care about a cloud rolling over the sun for a minute. You wait until it’s gone. And Mitch? He was like a chipped wineglass.” Bebe lifted her shoulders. “You wouldn’t keep the glass once it’s chipped, right? You just toss it out, get another.”
“Who else was Mars close to?”
“I don’t know that she was ‘close’ to anyone particularly.”
“You didn’t like her.”
Bebe took some time with her coffee, not hedging to Eve’s mind, but aligning her thoughts into words first. “She was superior at her work, had an amazing network of contacts, an enthusiastic fan base—and she knew how to keep them happy and tuning in. She had a strong and appealing on-screen presence, and her ratings were stellar—and growing. She will be missed, and she’ll be very hard to replace. And no, I didn’t like her.”
Bebe added a shrug. “I didn’t have to like her. I imagine you work with and respect the work of any number of people you don’t like on a personal level.”
“Why didn’t you like her?”
“Offscreen, off camera, away from the public, she was a piranha. Careless with people, with feelings. Full of herself, full of demands—most of which I’d meet because she brought in revenue. She earned her own show, her specials, her fussy accommodations and travel demands. She lured in the talent and gave the viewers what they wanted.
“She was a soaring diva and often a pain in my ass, but she leaves a hole in my house that’s going to take time to fill.”
“Why don’t you tell me where you were last night at eighteen-forty?”
“Really?” After a quick blink of surprise—much like her nephew’s—Bebe let out a genuine laugh. “I’m much too smart to kill one of my golden geese, but let me think … What time is that in English? I can never make the translation in my head.”
“Sorry. Six-forty.”
“That’s easy. I was having dinner—pre-theater—with my husband, my brother and his wife, and my parents, who’re visiting from St. Thomas. We had six o’clock reservations at Andre’s. Curtain was at eight. I got the text about Larinda right before curtain. Do you need the names and contacts of my alibis?”
“No, just wondering. Who sent you the text?”
She opened her mouth, shut it, seemed to consider. “One of our reporters—the metro beat. He’d gotten a tip from someone who’d been in the bar when it happened. He’s not going to give you that name, Lieutenant, and he wasn’t the only one who got tagged from the bar. I hadn’t reached the lobby, turned my ’link back from vibrate when other tags from other reporters started coming in, as I know they starting coming in to my competitors.”
“Okay.” Eve glanced down at her own signaling ’link. “That’s the warrant. Peabody, get a printout—two copies—for Ms. Hewitt and her legal department.”
“I’ll have them look it over right away.”
“Good. Then my partner will expect access to the office and anything else that pertains to this investigation.”
“I locked down her office personally—I did so last night—to ensure no one went in, disturbed anything. Reporters,” Bebe said again. “If I’d been young and eager, I might have snuck in to see what I could find. No one’s been in. She always locked her office, and the security scan showed no one had gone in since she did so at five-ten yesterday evening.”
“Thank you for your time. We may need more of it.” Eve rose. “Peabody, you have this. I’ll be speaking with Nadine Furst.”
Now Bebe’s lips curved. “I hoped you would be. I respect your relationship with Nadine, as I respect her. I’ll be very disappointed in her if she doesn’t talk you into an exclusive.”
With a shrug, Eve started for the door, stopped.
“I get the impression you’re just not all that surprised someone killed Mars.”
“She made her living on glitz and glamour with one hand, and on dirty little secrets with the other.”
“‘Dirty little secrets’?” Eve repeated, turning back.
“Exposing the affair of some wholesome screen star, or the illegals use, the taste for underage bedmates. She could damage the glossy image—and did when she dug up the dirt. It’s why the viewers clung to the screen—for the gloss and the dirt. She could be fearless in exposing icons. It’s not surprising someone violently objected. Icons have fans, after all, and the word fan is short for fanatic.”
Interesting, Eve thought as she left. And an angle. Blackmail hit stronger for her, but a fanatic wasn’t a bad alternate.
9
“Take the reporter—the Metro beat reporter—and hang tight for her legal to clear the warrant,” Eve told Peabody. “Make sure Mars’s office is locked down—add a seal to it.”
“On that.”
They split off with Eve heading toward Nadine’s territory.
Nadine didn’t just rate an office. As a top-flight screen reporter, one with her own top-rated weekly show, a bestseller, and an Oscar-nominated vid under her belt, she claimed an office, another for her admin, and an array of cubes for her research and production teams.
Eve wouldn’t deny that having a friend—and one she trusted—with that sort of media clout didn’t hurt.
She got as far as the admin, a sharp-looking, pint-sized redhead wearing an ear ’link, carrying a handheld, and working with fast fingers on a mini tablet.
“Hey. Hold.” She tapped her
ear ’link, shot up a finger to signal Eve. “Nadine had to get to makeup. She’s got about twenty before she needs to be on set. I can get somebody to show you the way.”
“I remember it.”
Eve veered off, past more offices, an open area filled with desks, alive with screens, another huddle of cubes. People rushed in a dozen directions, urgency in every step, talking incessantly, to each other, on ’links, into recorders.
A media version (less weirdly dressed) of EDD.
Corridors narrowed, snaked into an area packed with racks jammed with clothes, shelves stacked with shoes where someone plied a puffing steamer over a black suit jacket.
She wound her way to makeup.
Reflected in the mirrored wall behind the long counter, Nadine sat in a high-backed swivel chair, fully draped in a blue cape, eyes closed as she mumbled to herself.
To Eve’s annoyance—she knew it—and considerable unease, Trina stood in front of Nadine, swiping a brush over Nadine’s cheek.
Trina said, “Yo,” and gave Eve a slit-eyed stare in the glass that increased the unease.
Nadine’s eyes popped open. “You’re late,” she snapped.
“Gee, I must’ve lost track of time while I was strolling along Fifth Avenue window-shopping.”
Obviously not amused, Nadine, snarled, “You’re not the only one with an agenda or a timetable.”
“I’m the only one with a DB in the morgue.”
“I’ve got to be on screen talking about it in under twenty. I need that one-on-one.”
“And I need information. Do you want to waste time bitching or get down to it?”
“Save the bitching and the rest,” Trina ordered. “I’ve got to do your lips.”
Nadine stared hard at Eve in the mirror, but kept quiet as Trina used some sort of pencil thing to outline Nadine’s lips.
Why did she have to draw what was already there? Eve wondered. Who came up with that rule?
“Decent coffee in the AC,” Trina said as she worked. “Going with a dark rose,” she continued to Nadine. “Matte. You don’t want a big punch or fussy for this, right? Serious lips, not glam.”
Eve got coffee while Trina mixed color from three different tubes on a white square. She applied the blended color with a brush. Stepped back, tilted her head in a way that had Eve wondering why the piled-up tower of red-swirled black hair didn’t tumble off her head.
She squeezed something clear onto another square, used yet another brush, and painted it over the lip color.
Eve couldn’t see any difference.
Working briskly, Trina smooshed yet another brush into almost invisible powder, swirled it over Nadine’s entire face, snatched up a bottle of something, and spritzed what looked like a vapor over that.
She said, “Check it,” and whipped the cape away.
In her somber yet stylish black suit, Nadine studied herself in the glass. “Trina, you’re a genius.”
“Fucking A.”
“We can do the setup in my office,” Nadine began, but Eve simply shook her head.
“Badge first. What was your relationship with Mars?”
“Oh, for Christ’s crying sake.”
“I need to clear some decks, Nadine. I’m going to give you what you want, but I need what I need.” She flicked a glance at Trina. “You don’t have to be here.”
“Yeah, I do.” She held up another cape. “Sit, and I’ll deal with your hair while you get what you get.”
“No.”
Trina tipped that hair-heavy head again. The tower stayed firm. “I do it here and now or I come to your place and give you a full treatment, which anybody with eyes can see you could use.”
Just as Eve feared. “I’m working.”
“You’re working and that’s talking and you can talk sitting on your ass.”
“Oh, sit down, for God’s sake.” Nadine threw up her hands. “A trim and shape isn’t torture. And neither of us has time to waste.”
“So you say,” Eve muttered. “I’m going to ask questions. You might not want the person who paints up your face to hear your answers.”
“About Larinda Mars?” Nadine’s snort didn’t fit her serious-reporter image. “Please. I’ve got absolutely nothing to hide, from you, from Trina, or anyone.” To prove it, Nadine took another seat. “You need what you need, I need what I need. Sit down and give Trina what she needs, and we’re good.”
Eve didn’t like it, but she sat, as the idea of Trina wheedling into her house—and she damn well would—equaled a lot worse.
She immediately felt ridiculous when Trina whipped the cape over her. “Your relationship with Mars,” Eve repeated, balking when Trina picked up a bottle and started spraying the contents on her hair. “What’s that? Why? Stop it!”
“Do you want to ask me questions or ask Nadine questions? It’s just water.” Trina rolled her eyes, currently royal purple framed in thick black lashes tipped with red.
“I didn’t have a relationship with Mars,” Nadine began. “We worked in entirely different areas. I never worked with her, and we didn’t drink from the same pool.”
“Not entirely true,” Eve corrected, trying to ignore whatever was happening to her hair. “She was gossip—a lot of that drank from the celebrity and entertainment pools. You joined that pool with the book and the vid. And you’re up for a whatsit.”
“Oscar.”
“Why Oscar? Why not Harold? Or Tod?”
“There’s an actual answer for that, but I’ll skip it because you have a point on the other.” Nadine swiveled her chair Eve’s way. “I gave her a couple of interviews attached to the book, and the vid, along the way, as it was to my advantage, and because I’m a good soldier. The station wanted it. But that’s not a relationship.”
“You’d have been at some of the same events, parties.”
“Yes. We didn’t really socialize. I didn’t like her, if that’s what you’re after. She’s dead, and I’m sorry, but I don’t like her any more now than I did when she was breathing.”
“Why?” She asked for form, for procedure. Eve knew Nadine well enough to understand just why.
“Because she was sneaky, underhanded—which aren’t actual flaws in a reporter—but add disloyal, toss in shaky ethics, and top it off with downright mean. She booted two interns just this past year, sent them both off in tears. Fired her last assistant and went out of her way to bad-mouth her to screw with her chances of getting another job.”
“I need those names.”
“You don’t seriously believe—”
“I need them. What else, who else?”
Taking a minute to settle, Nadine breathed out slow. “She went after my people—my admin, my researchers. Subtly and not-so, because they wouldn’t give her information on me. And she tried strong-arming me to get to you.”
Forgetting Trina, Eve swiveled in the chair to face Nadine directly. “When? How?”
As they sat face-to-face in front of the mirror, Nadine’s foxy green eyes met Eve’s.
“The first time? After you saved my life—the first time there, too. After you kept Morse, that prick, from killing me. She brought me a damn fruit basket, tried to play the concerned colleague, which was bullshit so thick she could have smothered in it.”
“You know your bullshit,” Trina said as she worked, earning a quick smile from Nadine.
“I definitely do. What she wanted was dish, and I could respect that to a point. I was, for her purpose, a story. But she wanted details about you and Roarke, wanted more access to you, into your home, into your personal lives, and I said no—not through me. She…”
Nadine rolled her fingers in the air. “We’ll say intimated she could spin the story of my experience, and what happened that night, to twist us all up. Maybe we all set Morse up, maybe you had a reason to want him taken down. I told her to fuck off and spin away. She didn’t like it.”
“Never occurred to you to mention it to me?”
Nadine sent Eve a stra
ight, heated stare. “I handle my own.”
“Okay. Did she come back on you?”
“No, and I shrugged it off. Until the book hit, and the vid deal. She pushed again, hard. Pointed out to me a handful of stories in the tabloids about my personal life, the speculation you and I banged each other or—”
“What?” Eve jerked sharply enough to have Trina mutter a curse. “You and me?”
“That rippled along for a few weeks.” The annoyance on Nadine’s face shifted to sheer humor. “Don’t you pay any attention?”
“Not to crap like that.” Eve wasn’t quite sure if she should be amused or embarrassed.
“Sometimes you made a Roarke sandwich,” Trina put in. “Yummy mmm-mmm.”
Throwing back her perfectly groomed head, Nadine laughed. “Hard to argue with the delicious potential of that one. It’s the bottom-feeder gossip that baits clicks, then dies, Dallas. It’s tabloid bait. Her point to me? She’d fed that bottom, and could keep doing so unless I cooperated.”
Maybe she didn’t pay any attention, but Eve got the system. “You told her to fuck off.”
“I did better. I let her listen to the recording I’d made of our conversation where she’d told me she’d violated Seventy-Five’s rules of conduct, where she’d threatened me, attempted to extort me, which opened her to both criminal and civil action.”
Abruptly, Nadine shoved up from the chair. “Who the hell did she think she was dealing with?” The heated question came with a wide-arm gesture for emphasis. “I told her—and kept the recording going—that if she continued, if I so much as heard a whisper of her continuing to smear my reputation, yours, Roarke’s, to abuse or pressure any of my staff—or anyone else I learned of—I’d take the recording straight to the top. And if she wasn’t terminated immediately, I’d give the station a choice—her or me. And just who did she think they’d stick with?”
“Why didn’t you go to the top then and there?”
“Maybe I should have,” Nadine admitted. “I didn’t like her. I sure as hell didn’t respect her. But … she had a place here, Dallas. She was part of Seventy-Five. Unless she gave me no choice, I didn’t want to make the station choose, or set her off on some vindictive spree. She backed off, so I didn’t have to.”