Celebrity in Death (10 page)

“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.”

“All women are beautiful,” he said and smiled for the first time.

“Including K.T.?”

“Sure. Well, she could be.”

“And did the two of you start something?”

“Not recently.”

“What would be ‘not recently’?”

“Oh, well, a couple of years ago, I guess. We had a little fun. And a couple months ago. She was feeling down, so I cheered her up.”

“Did she want more cheering up?”

He shifted, stared hard at his coffee. “The thing is, she didn’t really want that. She really wanted to complain about Marlo, or to get me to complain about her—Marlo, I mean—to Roundtree.”

He looked up then, met Eve’s eyes with his own dull, bloodshot blue. “I wasn’t going to do that. She got bent over it, really hammered at me. I finally went to Joel and asked him to get her off my back. I didn’t like to do it, but she was really putting me off, and screwing with my focus. I guess it just bent her more. I don’t know why she has to be that way.”

He looked away again, shook his head. “I don’t understand why people can’t just be nice, have a good time.”

“Why did you go up to the roof tonight?”

His gaze dropped again. “The view’s mag.”

“Were you alone with the mag view?”

He said nothing for a long moment. Peabody reached over, touched his arm, spoke gently. “Julian?”

He looked at her. “She didn’t really look like you when she wasn’t made up. You have a prettier mouth, and your eyes are nicer. I like your eyes better.”

“Thanks.”

Though Eve saw Peabody’s color come up, her partner maintained.

“Who was on the roof with you tonight?” Peabody asked him.

“When I went up, she—K.T. was there. I didn’t want to talk to her, not when she was in that mood. We’d both been drinking. I didn’t want to talk to her.”

“But you did?”

“A little. I asked her why she’d acted that way at dinner. Connie went to all this trouble. It was our job to be friendly, to make sure all of you had a good time. But she just started up about Marlo, you, Matthew, everybody. I didn’t want to be around her, so I came back downstairs.”

“You argued,” Eve prompted.

“I don’t like to argue.”

“But she did.”

“It’s like she just can’t be happy. I don’t get that when there’s so much to be happy about. Look what we get to do for a living. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but mostly it’s just fun. And they pay us a lot of money. Everything’s easier, it’s better when you let yourself be happy. It’s like she can’t.

“Do you have a blocker?” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sober-Up always gives me a headache, a hangover, and makes me feel kind of dull. I don’t get like that if I just sleep it off. That’s what I was trying to do, just sleep it off.”

Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, offered one of the tiny blue pills.

“Thanks.” Julian smiled at Roarke. “I feel like crap.”

“When were you on the roof with K.T.?” Eve asked him.

“Tonight.”

Eve thought Nadine’s assessment of Julian being a little dim hit bull’s-eye. “What time?”

“Oh. I don’t know. I’d been drinking, and … after dinner. I know it was after dinner.”

“Did you watch the gag reel?”

He stared off into space, brow furrowed. “Sort of. I want to see it again, when I can focus. I just couldn’t. I guess I went up for some air before I watched, then I couldn’t focus anyway. I was falling asleep, so I went out and lay down on the couch.”

“When you came down, K.T. was still on the roof?”

“Yeah. She was still there.”

“Did you see anyone else go up?”

“I didn’t see anyone go up. I wanted to lie down, but Roundtree wanted us in the theater.” His gaze tracked back to Eve. “Are you sure she’s dead?”

“Yes, very sure.”

“It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t feel real. Did you tell me how she died? I can’t remember. Everything’s mixed up.”

“It appears as if she drowned.”

“She drowned?” Julian dropped his head in his hands. “She drowned.” He shuddered. “K.T. drowned. Because she was drunk, and she fell in the lap pool?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Because she was drunk,” he repeated, “and she fell in the lap pool, and she drowned. God. It’s horrible.”

He lifted his head when Peabody came back with a glass of water.

“Thanks.” He laid a hand over Peabody’s. “I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish she’d never gone up on the roof. She wouldn’t let herself be happy. Now she never will be.”

She had Peabody take him out, and sat where she was a moment, sorting through her thoughts. Roarke shifted chairs to sit across from her.

Odd, she thought, really odd to have him in the same chair that Julian just vacated. Odd how clearly she could see the differences between them. The body language, the clarity of eye, the stillness—and the ease of being still.

“He’s a bit of a gobdaw, isn’t he?”

“I couldn’t say. What the hell is a gobdaw?”

“Slow-witted. I don’t think it’s just the drink or the abrupt sobering.”

“Not entirely. Gobdaw.” She shook her head at the term. “Even gob-daws kill.”

“He strikes me as more the harmless sort.”

“Even them. But he’s the only one, so far, who’s admitted to being up there, with her. Could be the gobdaw in him, or the harmless. Or just honest innocence. He goes up, thinks, ‘Hell, I’m not dealing with her again,’ staggers back down. Someone else goes up and does the deal with her. Or she stumbled on her stilts and deals with herself.”