Celebrity in Death (25 page)

He’d believed in love despite the lack of it in those early years, or perhaps because of the lack. But it had taken her to show him what love meant, what it gifted, what it cost, what it risked.

Breath quickened as the fire built to a blaze. She moved over him, supple as silk, then under him when he turned her. When he filled her.

Once again he took her hands, once again their eyes met, then their lips. Joined, they let the fire take them.

L
ater in her office, her board set up, her computer on the hum, she studied the faces, the facts, the evidence, the time line.

And felt as if she studied a blank brick wall.

“I don’t understand them. Maybe that’s why I can’t get a good hold on this. Acting, producing, directing—and all that goes into it. It’s a business, an industry, but it’s based on pretending.”

“You’re equating pretending with pretense,” Roarke responded. “They’re not the same. Imagination’s essential to the healthy human condition, for progress, for art, even for police work.”

She started to disagree about the police work, then reconsidered. She had to imagine, to some extent, the victim, the killer, the events in order to find the reality.

Still.

“These people—the actors. They have to become someone else. They have to want to become someone else. Playacting, isn’t that a term for it? Play. But they have to make a living at it. So you get agents and managers, directors, producers.”

She circled the board. “The director. He has to see the big picture, right? The whole of it even while he separates it into sections, into scenes. He calls the shots, but he’s dependent on the actors taking his direction, and being able to …”

“Become,” Roarke finished. “As you said.”

“Yeah. The producer, he’s got the financial investment and the power. He’s the one who says yeah, he can have that, or no, you can’t. He has to see the big picture, too, but with dollars and cents attached. So he needs more than what the actors and director put on-screen. He needs them to cultivate image and generate media so the public can imagine the real lives—the glamour, the sex, the scandals—of the actors who make their living being someone else.”

She circled again. “So specifically, you’ve got Steinburger as producer—and I imagine the suits that line up with him, because suits always line up—seeing to it the public are fed Julian and Marlo as an item. Because they consider the public largely made up of morons—and I don’t disagree—who’ll buy into the fantasy. More, who
want
that fantasy and will fork over the ready for more tickets, more home discs. Because, back to business, everybody wants a return on their investment.”

“What does that tell you?”

“For one thing, Julian, Marlo, and everyone involved went along
with that angle. Most of their interviews are playful, flirtatious, without actual confirmation or denial. If one or both of them is asked if they’re involved romantically, they give clever varieties of the old ‘we’re just good friends’—with little teases about chemistry and heat. The same goes for Matthew and Harris.”

Eve stopped her pacing in front of the board. “That’s more low-key, as the investment in their fantasy isn’t as important. K.T. did more playing that up—chemistry again, how much she enjoys her scenes with Matthew. He talks more about the project as a whole, or the cast as a group. He’s careful, even in the interviews, not to connect himself too solidly with Harris. He doesn’t want that fantasy in his head, or the public’s. That’s strictly the work on the set. He’s careful,” she said again.

“And that tells you?”

“She wasn’t important to him, not really. People kill what—or who—isn’t important, but that’s not what we’ve got here. He and Marlo were upset, pissed off, but not murderous. If they’d argued, and it got physical, that would have been that. She was alive when she went in the water. She wasn’t important enough to either of them to kill, because over and above the invasion of privacy, some embarrassment, they’d both have gotten through that—and reaped public support—everybody loves a lover.”

“They’re happy,” Roarke added. “Happiness is exceptional revenge. If she’d played it through, she’d have looked the fool, not them. I agree, it doesn’t work.”

“There’s Andrea. K.T. threatened her godson, his hard-won peace, his reputation. Mothers kill to protect their young. She didn’t give me a buzz in Interview, but she’s a seasoned and talented pro. So she’s on. Then there’s Julian. If the relationship between Marlo and Matthew came out—now, before the end of the project, before he’d had any opportunity to walk back all that flirting and chemistry, some might see
it as Marlo preferring the lesser star, the sidekick you could say, to the big guns. That could make him look like a fool, or less—chip that women-can’t-resist-me image he’s got going. Added, she embarrassed him at dinner. Added, he was drunk. A confrontation, a scuffle, temper, ego, pride, and alcohol. That’s got a solid ring.”

“I think you enjoy considering me—my counterpart in any case—as your prime suspect.”

“It has a certain entertaining irony. But more, he’s just not too bright, and the drunken stupor on the sofa afterward could read as burying his head in the sand. Let’s make this go away.”

She nodded as it played out in her head. “In the imagination portion of police work, I can see him killing her—mostly through accident followed by cover-this-up, followed by avoidance of reality.”

Eve eased a hip on the corner of her desk. “Steinburger, who I need to talk to again. She’s threatening his profits, the shiny gleam to the project. She’s a major pain in his ass. And, as she had something on several other players here, she may very well have had something up her sleeve on him. Same scenario. Confrontation, fall, cover up.

“She’s threatening Preston—same deal. This project’s a major break for him, working with Roundtree, major stars, major budget, and she wants to screw him because he can’t give in to all her demands. He doesn’t have the power, but she doesn’t care about that.”

“So far you’ve only eliminated Marlo and Matthew,” Roarke pointed out.

“And Roundtree. He just couldn’t have gotten out of the room, up on the roof, killed her, and gotten back in the time frame. He was too much front and center. But Connie wasn’t, and by her own admission left the theater. She was furious with Harris, and since my impression is Roundtree talks to her about the work, the ups and down, likely already had a nice store of pissed-off going. Again, no buzz, but again,
she’s a pro. And again, K.T. may have had something on her, or on Roundtree.

“Then there’s Valerie. Keeps quiet, does the work, follows orders. She’s the one spinning the promotion wheel, and K.T.’s threatening to throw pliers in it.”

“That’s wrench, but just the same.”

“She could’ve confronted K.T., warned her to cooperate, and the scenario plays out.”

“All right, Lieutenant, you’ve laid it out. Who do you like for it?”

“Just hunch and supposition, or imagination, I guess. In descending order: Julian, Steinburger, Valerie, Andrea, Connie, Preston. Which means I talk to all of them again, go back to the beginning, and try to shake them up. After I talk to the PI. I may get something out of him that changes that order.”

She pushed up to go around the desk and sit. “But it’s one of them, and whichever one is nervous, worried, and sweating it out. First kills will do that to you.”

EVE YANKED HERSELF OUT OF THE DREAM AND
into the hazy light of dawn. Breathing, just breathing, to give herself a moment to be sure she was awake, and not making that jerky transition from one segment of a dream to another.

Her throat begged for water, but she lay still another moment, eyes closed, waiting for her pulse to slow.

Roarke’s arm came around her, drew her close against him. Anchored her. “I’m here.”

“It’s nothing. I have to get up, get started.”

“Ssh.”

She closed her eyes again. She hated this waking fragility, this thin, shaky sensation as if she’d crack if she moved too quickly. She knew it would pass, it would smooth away again, but she hated it nonetheless.
Hated, too, knowing he’d broken his habit of being up, dressed, and having accomplished God knew what in the business world before she stirred.

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing,” she repeated, but he brushed his lips over her hair. Undid her.

“Stella, in the bedroom of the place she had in Dallas. The one we searched. But it’s like the bedroom from before, too, when I was a kid. I don’t know where we were then. It doesn’t matter. She’s sitting at this little table, with all her lip dyes and creams and paints—all that stuff. I can smell her, that perfume—too sweet. It makes my stomach hurt. Her back’s to me, but she’s looking at me in the mirror with all that hate, that contempt. I can smell that, too. It’s hot and bitter.

“I need some water.”

“I’ll get it.”

She didn’t argue, no point. In any case, she felt a little better, a little stronger. Just a dream, she reminded herself. And she’d known it for what it was while she’d been in it.

That had to matter.

She took the water Roarke brought her, ordered herself to drink it slowly.

“Thanks.”

He said nothing, only set the empty glass aside, took her hand.

“Her throat,” Eve continued, bringing her fingers to her own. “Blood pouring out of her throat, down the front of the pink dress she was wearing when I busted her, when I wrecked the van. She’s so angry. It’s my fault, she says. Look at her dress. I ruined it. I ruined everything. Then I see him in the mirror, I see him behind me. McQueen. Or my father. It’s so hard to tell. I reach for my weapon, but it’s not there. I
don’t have my weapon. And she smiles. In the mirror, she smiles, and it’s horrible.

“I have to get out, I have to wake up. So I wake up.”

“Is it always the same?”

“No, not exactly. I’m not afraid of her. I want to ask why she hated me so much, but I know there’s no answer. I’m not afraid until, at whatever angle the dream takes, I go for my weapon and it’s not there. Then I’m afraid. So I have to wake up.”

“None of them can touch you, not ever again.”

“I know. And when I wake up I’m here. It’s okay; I’m okay, because I’m here. I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll just feel guilty.”

“I’ll try to worry only a little so you’ll only feel a little guilty.”

“I guess that’ll have to do.” She shifted so they were nose-to-nose and heart-to-heart. “Don’t change your routine because of this. That’ll get me wired and worried. Besides, if you don’t keep up with your predawn quest for world financial domination, how are you going to keep me in coffee? If you slack off, I’ll have to find another Irish gazillion-aire with coffee bean connections.”

“That would never do. I’ll continue my quest if you promise to tell me when they come.” Gently, he trailed his hand over her hair. “Don’t keep them from me anymore, Eve.”

“Okay.”

“And since it appears the very core of my happiness rests on your addiction to coffee, I’ll get you some.”

“I won’t say no, but I’ve got to get moving. I’m meeting Peabody at Asner’s place. I want to hit his apartment early before he gets out.”

“Asner?” Roarke said as he rose and walked to the AutoChef.

“The PI.”

“Ah, yes. A light breakfast then.” The cat bumped against his legs, wound through them. “For some of us.”

She got up, knowing he’d try to pamper her into taking her coffee—and possibly the light breakfast—in bed. She took the mug from him, knocked some back.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” she told him. “You’d better catch up on the world domination.”

“I’ll get right on that, after I feed the cat.”

He did so while she went for the shower. Then, drinking his own coffee, stood by the window.

Careful with each other, she’d said. Yes, they were just now. And it looked as if they’d need to be for a little longer yet.

S
he felt like herself—maybe even just a little better due to the magic coat—when she drove downtown. She left the windows down so the brisk air could slap her cheeks, pleased that the ad blimps had yet to start their hyping lumber in the sky, and the snarl and piss of New York traffic could rage on without the blast from above.

Too early for blimps, too early for most tourists. It felt like New York nearly belonged to New Yorkers. Glide-carts did their morning business, heavy on the soy coffee and egg pockets. Maxibuses burped and farted their commuters to the early shift or breakfast meetings while those on foot clipped along or swarmed the crosswalks like purposeful ants.

She had a plan, and it started with cornering A. A. Asner. Charges of breaking-and-entering, criminal trespass, electronic trespass, accessory to blackmail—to start—and the threat of losing his license and livelihood should make him talk like a toddler on a sugar high.

She’d bargain some of that against him turning over the original recording—and all copies, as well as spilling any and all data he had on K.T. Harris, her movements, her intentions, her meets.

If he hadn’t done some research on Harris, some shadowing, she’d eat her new magic coat.