Secrets in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “You’ve still got the recording.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’m going to need that. Who else did she push or threaten or try to exploit?”

  Nadine dropped into a chair again, lifted a hand, nearly raked it through her hair until she remembered her on-screen appearance.

  “Am I getting the one-on-one—here, this morning?”

  “I said I’d give you what you needed.”

  “Fine. Hold on.” Nadine stood again, pulled out her ’link, and walked out of the room.

  “She’s gotta go on screen and say nice things about an asshole,” Trina commented, still snipping. “A lot of assholes in the world though, and most of them probably have some nice parts in there. She had good skin, took care of it. That’s something nice to say.”

  Eve tried to swivel again so she could see Trina in the mirror, but Trina locked the chair in place. “Hold still, I’m fine-tuning.”

  “How do you know about her skin? Mars?”

  “I did her face and hair a few times. She tried buying me away from Nadine. As if.” Trina snorted off the idea of it and kept snipping. “I got my own place, and I do this gig because I like it. Mostly I just do Nadine up for Now, unless we got something big like this. And I don’t work for that sort. She comes into the salon, that’s one thing.”

  Eve read worlds in the tone. “What do you know, Trina?”

  Trina released the chair, turned Eve to face the mirror. “I know you’ve got good hair, and you can thank me for looking after it.”

  Eve honestly couldn’t see much difference, which actually counted in Trina’s favor. “What and who did she talk about when she sat in here?”

  Trina’s ruby-red lips—with three tiny stars at the left corner—pokered up. She lifted her hands into a point over the chair, brought them down like a pyramid.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s the Cone of Silence. Somebody sits in my chair, that’s what they’re sitting in.” Trina’s chin jutted up, held firm as stone. “That’s the integrity of the chair.”

  “Murder evaporates the Cone of Silence.”

  “Maybe.” Those same lips pursed in thought as Trina picked up one of the brushes.

  “Keep that stuff away from me.”

  “You’re going on screen. Nadine’s got the serious reporter look. You need some kick-ass.”

  “I am a kick-ass.”

  “I know that, you know that.” Using the brush for emphasis, Trina pointed the end at Eve. “Which is how I know how to make sure everybody else does. You don’t like it after, it comes off. But if you want me to break the C of S, I need the incentive. C of S is sacred shit.”

  She set down the brush, opened a drawer, took out a small tool. “Your eyebrows need shaping. She tried to wheedle info out of me—just like you are now, right? Sugar-time though, not hard-ass like you. All smiles and just-us-girls shit. I said how I couldn’t tell her anything about anybody, just like I couldn’t tell anybody anything about her.”

  Trina paused, met Eve’s eyes in the mirror with her purple ones. Whatever their color, those eyes transmitted sincere emotion. “She poked at me about Mavis, Dallas—like I’d ever give anybody anything about Mavis. No matter what or who. Ever.”

  Now those eyes fired hot. Another point in Trina’s favor, Eve conceded. Her absolute loyalty to a friend.

  “I know that,” Eve said, to smooth her out a little. “I know that without a single shake.”

  “Right. Okay.” Trina breathed out. “So. She said how she’d pay me for a vid of Mavis and Leonardo and Bella at home. When she saw that pissed me off, she tried saying she meant with their permission. But she didn’t.”

  Listening, considering, Eve tolerated the buzzing at her eyebrows.

  “Did she ever threaten you, Trina? I need it straight.”

  “No.” Stopping her work for an instant, Trina swiped a hand over her heart. “Arrow straight there, solid. More she tried to be the girlfriend, you know what I’m saying? Dropped little digs about Nadine not appreciating me enough. How she’d pay me more on the side than I got here, working with Nadine. She worked you in to the conversation once or twice, just how she’d heard I did your hair for something, and wondered what it was like.”

  She set the tool down, looked at Eve. “Cone of Silence. Absolute.”

  No question, Eve thought. No question whatsoever, whatever the pain in the ass. “Appreciated.”

  “Appreciated or not, that’s my line, get it? I don’t cross it. She finally got that. Maybe because I didn’t tell anybody any of the shit she tried to bribe out of me.”

  “She stopped pushing you on it,” Eve prompted.

  “Yeah. So she’d still come in when I was here, not every time, but enough, ask me to buff her up. She’d work her ’link instead of talking to me because she’d figured out I had nothing to say. You get that, too, people who think of you more like a droid.

  “Close your eyes. It’s the eyes that say kick-ass on screen. I’d hear her talking to somebody, making an appointment,” Trina continued. “But sometimes it was the way, like ‘you’d better be there when I say, have what I want, or you’ll pay for it’—that kind of bitch tone.”

  “Names.”

  Trina hesitated, sighed hard. “I think one was Annie Knight.”

  “She works here?”

  “Hell no. Don’t you know anything that’s now? Jeezus-pleezus—sneezus! She’s queen of talk screen. Practically built Talk TV with her own self. Top-rated late-night talk show twelve years running. Maybe more than, who knows? Anyway, I think one of them might’ve been her. I tuned Larinda out until I heard her say the name, ’cause I really like Knight at Night. Okay, open your eyes and hold still.”

  She came at Eve’s eyes with a wand. “None of that weird stuff. Like the red you’ve got on.”

  “If I used color on your lashes, I’d go with a hint of green—pop top-shelf whiskey eyes, but this is for kick-ass, not for sexy. I know another she said was Wylee Stamford.”

  Eve’s gaze shifted, had Trina pulling back the wand and cursing.

  “Mets. Third baseman. Hit three-seven-five last season. That Wylee Stamford?”

  Trina pressed her painted lips together in a satisfied smirk. “I guess you know something about something. He’s got one fine ass on him, that Wylee. Yeah, that’s who I’m saying she said. And she had that snake-hiss tone on her. Mostly otherwise she didn’t use names. It was honey, sweetcheeks, dickwad—depending on the mood. Hey, Peabody.”

  “You’re getting makeup!” Two steps into the room, Peabody gawked.

  “Not by choice.”

  “You got your hair done!”

  “I did not. She just—” Eve mimed snapping scissors.

  “I want makeup!”

  This exclamation slid straight into a whine.

  “I got time. Nearly done with her.” Trina waved a finger toward a chair. “Take a seat.”

  “This isn’t a day at the damn spa. Status,” Eve demanded.

  “Mars’s office is fully secured. Warrant is with legal, and I’m told it should clear through within the next fifteen. I tracked down the reporter—a Mickey Bullion. He confirmed the tag came from someone in the bar, but is reluctant to name the source.”

  As she spoke, Peabody moved in a little closer, to examine Trina’s work on Eve. Eve shoved her back again.

  “It wasn’t hard to do a run,” Peabody added, unabashed, “and find out his brother was on our list of wits. I spoke with him—Randy Bullion—and he confirmed he’d contacted his brother after we released him. Mostly Bullion the reporter’s steamed he didn’t get the tag soon enough to break the story, and Seventy-Five got scooped. I don’t think there’s anything there, Dallas.”

  Trina caught Eve’s chin in the vise of one hand.

  “I don’t want the lip gunk.”

  “It’ll balance the eyes,” Trina insisted. “Did I say it comes off if you don’t like it? Shut it a minute.”

 
; Peabody’s shoulders raised up in a kind of self hug. “Oooh, I love this rosy lip on your palette!”

  “Just mixed that for Nadine. It’d work on you. I think we go for a natural palette for you today—serious yet approachable cop.”

  Though she kept Eve’s chin wedged, she switched brushes, swiped something over the cheeks, swiped something else. And something else until Eve visualized punching Trina in one of her black-and-red-lashed eyes.

  “There.” She turned Eve to the mirror. “Kick-ass, I-don’t-have-time-to-fuck-around cop.”

  Prepared for the worst, Eve scowled. But … maybe her lips were a couple shades deeper—but it still looked like her mouth. Maybe her eyes read more intense, but basically, as with the hair, she couldn’t see a lot of difference.

  “Okay. Get this thing off me, and tell me who and what else.”

  “I didn’t do her that much. Look, mostly everybody knew she was banging Mitch L. He’s got his own stylist, and I’m not here that time of day, so I don’t know the guy. Mitch L., I mean. But I do know Mitch L. was previously banging one of his interns—Monicka Poole. That was on the serious down low, but then he started banging Larinda, and the intern got the axe, and she cried on her friend’s shoulder who happens to use my salon and she told me about it. Which means I told you and violated another C of S.”

  “Not really,” Peabody said, rubbing Trina’s arm in sympathy. “You’re not violating a Cone of Silence when you have to tell the police.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “She bled out, Trina.”

  Eve quashed her instinct to object to Peabody giving Trina too many details.

  “Whoever she was, whatever she did, somebody killed her in a way that meant she bled to death trying to get help. Maybe it was only a few minutes, but it probably felt like hours to her.”

  “She was a bitch,” Trina mumbled. “But … Crap, this is hard to say—it’s like Mega C of S. She’d had some real serious work done.”

  “How do you know?” Eve demanded.

  Trina rolled those purple, black-and-red-framed eyes. “Well, Jesus! I did her face, maybe a dozen times. You think I don’t know when I’ve got my hands on somebody’s face who’s had serious work? Just like I know you haven’t slapped that serum or moisturizer on yours more than maybe a dozen times in the last couple months.”

  She gave Eve a dark look. “Keep that up, you’re going to need some serious work yourself. You got Mr. Frosty Extreme banging you, and you can’t be bothered with basic self-care? What’s your main damage?”

  “Don’t start on me, and don’t worry about the Mega C of S. We already knew about the serious work.”

  Relief all but breathed over Trina’s face. “Solid?”

  “You think I don’t know my job?” Eve countered. Trina smirked.

  “Kick ass. I gotta say something, get it off my chest. Once I started to screw up her look—easy to do, you just use the wrong foundation or colors. It was because she tried to hit me up about Mavis and the baby, and it pissed me off so hard. But I couldn’t do it, even then. Too much professional pride to fuck it up, even though I really wanted to. I could’ve made her look like a vampire under the lights. And now she’s dead.”

  Eve saw Peabody about to speak, but shook her head. “You can’t have too much professional pride. If you could, I might walk away from this investigation now that I know she tried to get to Mavis and the baby, because it pisses me off hard. But I won’t. We do our jobs.”

  Nadine rushed back in. “All right, they’re using filler to cover my scheduled spot, and hyping the upcoming one-on-one. A live one-on-one.”

  “I didn’t agree to—”

  “Live, my office. You look good,” she added. “Hey, Peabody. Let’s go. I’ve got a camera setting things up.”

  “It’s going to be quick,” Eve warned. “I’ve got on my I-don’t-have-time-to-fuck-around face.”

  At Trina’s cackle of laughter, Eve started out. “Peabody, ten minutes, Mars’s office. They damn well better be finished screwing around with the warrant.”

  “You can do me in ten, right?” Eve heard Peabody say.

  “Babycakes, I can make you a star in ten.”

  “I need a jump on the media conference.” Nadine hustled past offices, down halls, through open areas, on her staggering black heels.

  “I’m going to give you what I can give you. Exclusive and ahead of the rest, but you have to pool some of the info.”

  The staggering black heels skidded to a stop. “Wait just a damn—”

  “Kyung set the terms here,” Eve interrupted. “And it works. You control how much you share, and you get that edge. Which takes the time and edge off me for the media conference later today. You get the jump, Nadine, decide what you throw in the pool, and you can work out the fine lines with Kyung.”

  “There are going to be some very fine lines.”

  “Work it out,” Eve said dismissively, then added the bonus round. “And I’m going to give you more, off the record, that you don’t have to share. You’re going to want to start digging, Nadine, and you’re going to want to give a couple people you trust some shovels.”

  “All right.” Nadine held up a finger, walked in a tight circle as she considered the pros and cons. “I’ll toss some into the pool after I talk to Kyung. We’ll work that out. You’re going to tell me, I can already feel it, Larinda pushed somebody too far—poked the wrong bear trying to get to the honey.”

  “More like a herd of bears.”

  “I don’t think bears have herds. What do they have? Why do I care?”

  Nadine swung into her office, where her cameraman fiddled with some sort of light on a pole, adjusted a kind of umbrella. Nadine closed the door. “You there.” She pointed to a chair, then put in an earbud while the cameraman set up a second camera on a tripod.

  “They wanted this in-studio,” Nadine said as she sat, angled toward the second camera. “But I didn’t want to argue with you about that. The producer will toggle between cameras as we talk, as it works in the booth, and on screen. You just talk to me, as usual.

  “I want sharp focus, no softening filters,” she told the cameraman, all business. “This isn’t a memorial, it’s straight news. I’m going to ask you about what happened in the bar—what you saw, did. You were a witness as well as being the primary. I’ll ask the usual. Leads, suspects, progress, but I’m going to lead off with the eyewitness.”

  “I’m not going to give you every detail, anything that applies to the ongoing that could compromise it.”

  “Understood.” Nadine laid a finger on her earpiece. “They’re about to throw it to me … We’re on in five, four…” She held a hand below camera level to show Eve three, two, one.

  “This is Nadine Furst. With me is Lieutenant Eve Dallas, who has agreed to give Channel Seventy-Five an exclusive interview on the shocking and tragic death of our own Larinda Mars. Lieutenant Dallas, will you confirm you were actually in Du Vin, a popular downtown bar, when Larinda was attacked?”

  “I can. I was off duty, meeting a colleague.”

  “Will you tell us, as an experienced investigator, as a witness, what transpired?”

  Eve laid out what she’d decided to tell the media, answered Nadine’s questions. Yes, they’d interviewed the individual the victim had drinks with before the attack. No, that individual wasn’t a suspect at this time. They played the usual game of pitch and bat away on investigative details. And planted the seed—as she wanted the killer to know—they believed the victim had been target specific, and might have been followed into the bar.

  “The fact that an NYPSD officer was on scene has given us an advantage. The investigation began immediately, and will continue with all possible resources. I can’t tell you any more at this time.”

  Recognizing the signal, Nadine nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant, and let me express particular gratitude from everyone here at Channel Seventy-Five for your dedication in the pursuit of the person respo
nsible for the violent act that has taken the life of one of our family.

  “And we’re clear.”

  Nadine sat back. “You danced around a lot of that.”

  “Open and active. Ditch the camera.”

  “Sam, would you take them out?”

  Eve tapped her ear. Smiling, Nadine removed her earbud. “And this.”

  Eve sat, silent, until they were alone.

  “You can share we interviewed all the staff at the bar, and reinterviewed two this morning. Mars was a regular, and we’ve spoken to her usual waiter twice. We don’t, at this time, suspect anyone on the staff.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Now. Off the record until I give you the green.”

  “Understood.”

  “She may not have been who she said she was.”

  “That’s not understood.”

  “She had substantial face and body work.”

  Almost amused, Nadine sat back. “Dallas, a lot of people, especially on-screen talent, have face and body work.”

  “Substantial. Altering.”

  Nadine’s sharp green eyes narrowed. “As in she changed her face?”

  “DeWinter is working on a possible reconstruction. If she can pull it off, we’ll know, and may be able to identify, who she was before she was Larinda Mars.”

  “That’s interesting. Still, she wouldn’t be the first to want to change faces. And yet…”

  “And yet. She’s got a cache of about a million in cash in her home safe.”

  “A million?” Nadine’s shoulders shot straight. “Cash?”

  “And jewelry worth easily as much. Art Roarke says is up there, too. Two underground accounts—so far. Several million each.”

  “How the hell did she—” Breaking off, Nadine held up a hand. “She didn’t just try to extort for information, for contacts, for career enhancement. Straight blackmail?”

  Handy, Eve thought, when you didn’t have to spell it all out. “She’s going to have tallied up a long enemies list, and some on that list are going to be right here, at Seventy-Five. So, when I say give shovels to people you trust, I mean trust implicitly. We believe her killer to be a male, but that doesn’t mean he’s not connected to a female she blackmailed. And I trust you, Nadine, to tell me if you dig up something on somebody here at Seventy-Five.”