Celebrity in Death (17 page)

“You’re putting me off, Matthew.”

Now his grin came quick, easy. “See? Marlo and I are team players. And the fact is, this project’s a big break for me. We decided to keep it private—for that, and because we wanted it to be. It’s easy to get caught up in that machine, then you’re hearing or reading about how you’re this or that, or she’s doing whatever. We just want a chance to see where this goes without the hype and the circus. I know a lot of people figure it’s just Hollywood, and actors hit up for shagfests instead of the real. But it feels real with Marlo. The first time I met her … I’ve never felt about anybody like this. We just want a chance. So we’ve been keeping it quiet for us, for the project.”

“K.T. found out about the loft.”

“I guess we got a little careless. I know it seems stupid, putting on a wig or dressing up just to go home—and it is. But at first it was fun, too. But I guess we slipped up somewhere. Coming to the end of the project, thinking we were nearly there. She must’ve followed me. It’s the only thing we could figure because she knew all about the loft. And she said …”

His color came up, and he lifted his drink, gulped some down. “She said she had pictures. That she’d made a vid of the two of us. In bed.”

“From inside the loft?”

“She said she found my swipe and code when she broke into my trailer. How she’d cloned it. And she hired this private investigator to set up a camera in the bedroom, over the closet. Maybe she was blowing smoke, maybe not. But she knew stuff about the loft, the colors, the setup. And when we checked out the security discs, there were a couple of blank areas on two separate days.”

“That must’ve been upsetting.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you could call it upsetting.” His hand fisted on the table, then relaxed, reached for his drink again. “I wanted to kick her
ass, okay? I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but I wanted to hurt her. But I didn’t. You know what she said?”

“I’m all ears,” Eve told him.

“She said I had to dump Marlo—and make it a hard dump. And I had to pick up with her where we left off, only she’d be calling the shots. She wanted a big media announcement on how we’d fallen in love on the set. Who does that?” he demanded. “Who wants somebody who doesn’t want them?”

“And if you refused?”

“She was going to put the video on the ’Net. And she had guys lined up who’d talk about how Marlo had sex with them—all kinds of weird sex.”

The anger seemed to drain out of him, and he said, quietly, “I think she’d lost her mind. I swear to God, I think she’d just lost her fucking mind.”

“When did she give you the ultimatum?”

“God.” He scrubbed at his face. “The day she was killed. That morning. I said I didn’t believe her. She said I was making a fool of her, making her a joke, and nobody got away with that. She said she’d give me a preview that night, so I could see she had the goods.”

“Did she ask you to meet her on the roof, Matthew?”

“She
told
me I’d better meet her. I told Marlo. I wasn’t going to. I was going to handle it on my own, but one of the things we promised each other was to be up-front. No pretenses, no game playing. So I told her. We decided, screw it. It’s our life, right? And like you said, we’re free to be with each other. Being team players doesn’t mean letting some crazy bitch call the shots. Plus, if she had a vid, and made it public, we’d press charges.”

He heaved out a sigh, shoved his drink aside. “Marlo was all over that, maybe it’s being inside a cop’s skin for the last few months. But
she said if K.T. paid somebody to break into our place, set this up, and she used it this way, we’d damn, well see her ass in jail—and if the producers, Roundtree, the public, the media didn’t like it, well, screw them, too.”

“But the two of you went up to the roof,” Eve reminded him.

“Yeah. We had this plan. We went up earlier, before dinner—just to take a look around, sit down, and talk it through. We decided we’d go up together, confront her, make her threaten us again, talk about the PI and the camera, all that. Marlo had a recorder in her purse. Then we’d tell K.T. if she followed through, we’d take the recording to the cops. Maybe people would get off watching the two of us in bed, but they’d get off big-time when K.T. Harris went to jail for blackmail and accessory to … I don’t know. Marlo had a whole freaking list.”

“And how did that go over with Harris?”

“It didn’t, because she was dead when we got up there. Look, I argued with her earlier in the evening. I asked her to forget all this, just grab some sanity and back off before it went too far to handle. And she grabbed my crotch.”

He tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling. “Jesus. She grabbed my balls, and said, ‘I’ve got you by these, baby, and you’d better remember it.’”

He took a breath, looked back at Eve. “We should’ve told you. We should’ve told you everything straight out, but it all seemed so … huge. And we didn’t have any proof. After we realized she was dead, after the CPR didn’t work, Marlo looked through K.T.’s purse.” He winced. “I know that sounds cold, but she was dead, and we wanted to … How would you feel?” he demanded. “How would you feel if a bunch of strangers sat around watching you and Roarke in bed, or you and McNab?”

“I’d probably want to cause harm to the person responsible.”

“We were going to. Marlo’s way—your way. But there wasn’t any vid or any part of one in her bag. She must’ve been lying all along. I don’t get it. I swear to God, I don’t know why she’d lie. Maybe she thought I’d just cave, then when I didn’t she had to save face. I don’t know.”

“Or maybe you’d had enough. You got mad, and you pushed. Who’d blame you? After that, it just happened so fast. Impulse and rage. Maybe you didn’t mean to kill her, didn’t mean for her to drown. You just wanted the video, wanted to protect yourselves, your privacy, the project. But then you didn’t get her out in time.”

“No. No. No. She was in the pool, facedown, when we got up there. We didn’t even think of the video until … I tried. We both tried. Everything happened exactly the way we told you. We left out the blackmail, the threats. But it happened exactly the way we said. I swear to you.”

“Including Marlo going up with you, with a recorder on her?”

“Yeah. Like I said, we were going to—” The light seemed to dawn, like a switch flicked. “Jesus Christ, we’re idiots. We’ve been so … We’ve got a recording. Marlo turned it on when we started up. We tested it first. We have a recording.”

EVE DECIDED TO RESERVE JUDGMENT ON WHETHER
Marlo and Matthew qualified as idiots, innocents, or calculators. In the meantime, she kept Matthew cooling his heels in one interview room while Peabody contacted Marlo, requested she come into Central.

“We’ll take Julian while we’re waiting for her to come in,” Eve told her partner. “When she does, we’ll see what we see—or don’t. And we’ll see if pretend Roarke has any little secrets pretend Peabody sussed out.”

“I don’t like to think of her as pretend Peabody anymore. The more we find out, the meaner and crazier she gets. It’s like it’s bad enough fake Peabody got murdered, but now fake Peabody is a dead, blackmailing asshole on top of it. It’s depressing.”

“Yeah, it’s all really too bad for you.”

“Well, it kind of is. How am I supposed to enjoy the vid now, when I’ll be thinking how behind the scenes I was trying to blackmail McNab
into bed, and the whole time he’s in love with you? And that maybe there’s a vid of the two of you all naked and sexy and—”

“Stop right there before I boot.”

“Hey! Maybe there’s a vid of fake Peabody and fake Roarke all naked and sexy. That would definitely make up for it. Maybe I can get a copy.”

“There’s going to be a vid of me tearing strips off your ass then using them to wallpaper my office. I’ll make copies for everybody. Get Marlo down here. I’ll start on Julian.”

Eve headed to Interview. Inside Julian sat, head in hands. When he lifted his face, he was pale, hollow-eyed, unshaven.

“I don’t feel well,” he began.

“Don’t look well either. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in Interview with Cross, Julian.” She added the pertinent data, sat.

“I’m fasting,” he told her.

“Is that so? Is that a mourning for Harris deal?”

“A—no. I drank too much. Then the Sober-Up, the blocker, and I took a sleeping pill when I got back to the hotel. It’s all too much for my system. I’m taking nothing but clear liquids today, to flush out the toxins.”

“That’s one way.”

“Do I need a lawyer this time?”

“Do you want one?”

“I want to go home, go to bed. I want to wake up yesterday before all of this happened. It’s like a dream, a really bad dream.”

“You argued with K.T.”

“At dinner.”

“After dinner. Before the gag reel.”

“I did?” His eyes, bloodshot and dull, stared into hers. “About what she said at dinner? I was upset, embarrassed. Did I tell you already?”

“Some of it. How about when she came banging on your trailer door yesterday? What did she want then?”

“I … don’t remember.”

“Bullshit, Julian. You weren’t drunk then. I have a witness who saw her banging on your door. And she was angry, insistent.” The timing worked, Eve thought, and she was banking Peabody had heard Harris yelling outside Julian’s trailer.

“She was always angry about something,” he said with a shrug.

“She wanted you to claim you and Marlo were having an affair.”

“That’s just studio hype. It’s—”

“No, Julian. She wanted you to tell Matthew you and Marlo were screwing around behind his back. Matthew and Marlo are involved. Harris didn’t like it. She wanted you to help her break them up.”

“I didn’t know Matthew and Marlo were a thing.”

“Until?”

“Yesterday. When K.T. started raging about it. They’re really good at keeping it low. I could see it last night, when I looked for it. Up until then, I just thought they were friends. Maybe they had sex—it happens—but I didn’t know they were a thing.”

“Why would she expect you to do what she wanted, to tell Matthew Marlo cheated on him with you?”

“Hell if I know. And I wouldn’t. I like Marlo. I like Matthew.” Sincerity shimmered in his voice. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt them like that.”

“It didn’t bother you that Marlo preferred Matthew to you?”

“Actually, it was good to find out there was a reason she turned me down.”

“Not used to getting turned down, are you?”

“Not much,” he said, without a whiff of pride or shame. “I get a lot of sex. I like it. It’s fun, and after, I’m really relaxed. I’m okay that
Marlo wants to be with Matthew. Somebody else will want to be with me, right?”

Hard to argue, she thought, with someone who seemed to think sex was as simple and available as a fizzy at the corner 24/7. And for him, maybe it was.

When Peabody walked in, Julian visibly winced, then looked down at the table.

“Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview. Thanks for coming in, Julian,” Peabody continued. “Do you want anything? Something to drink?”

He shook his head, then glanced at her. “Actually, could I have some water? I’m pushing fluids.”

“No problem.” Peabody recorded her exit.

“You didn’t want to let Harris in to your trailer yesterday,” Eve continued. “Why is that?”

“She was yelling. I didn’t want a confrontation.”

“What did she have to confront you about?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” He dropped his head in his hands again. “It was always something with her.”

Peabody came back, set a bottle of water on the table by Julian.

“What was she holding over your head, Julian? That was another ‘always something’ with her. What did she say she’d do if you refused to lie about Marlo?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eve glanced at Peabody, nodded slightly.

“Julian.” Peabody reached out, and when she touched Julian’s hand, he pulled back.

“Sorry.” He glanced up, looked down again. “It—you—remind me.”

“But I’m not K.T. I’m not going to yell at you, or threaten you, or say things to make you feel bad. She did that. To you. To a lot of people.”

“I don’t know why some people can’t just be nice. Be happy.”

“She wasn’t happy, and she wasn’t nice. And she always looked for the bad side. Everybody’s got a bad side, or something they don’t want other people to know. She liked to find out, and then use that to make someone hurt, or to pressure them to do something they didn’t want. What did she find out about you?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Okay.”

“And it wasn’t my fault.”

“I believe you.”

“We were clubbing. I’d just landed the lead in
Forgiven.
It was mega, a career-maker, so a bunch of us were celebrating. We’d partied pretty hard all night. Drinking, illegals. I don’t do them anymore, but I did. Maybe a little zoner or Hype, something was always right there, like party favors. Women, too. Just there.”

“Forgiven.
That came out about ten years ago. You were really young,” Peabody said in that same understanding tone. “Hardly twenty.”