Encore in Death, page 16
“Why do you get insulted when I say you think like a cop when you think like a cop?”
“The reasons should be clear to a trained observer. I’ll accept that, situationally, I’m able to think like my cop.”
When they walked in, Summerset stood, scarecrow thin in funereal black, with the pudge of a cat at his feet.
“Together, no visible bloodstains or bruises, and barely an hour late. A red-letter day.”
“We had drinks with two luminaries of stage and screen,” Roarke told him, effectively cutting off Eve’s snark du jour. “Eliza Lane and Sylvie Bowen.”
“Ah. The media’s been ripe all day on Brant Fitzhugh’s murder. I enjoyed your media conference, Lieutenant.”
“That makes one of us.” She sidestepped the cat, currently ribboning his way through her legs, and started for the stairs.
“Is there pie?” Roarke asked. “Pie came up earlier and now I’ve a yen.”
“Lemon meringue.”
“Well now, that’s perfect, isn’t it? Enjoy your evening.”
“I’m nearly out the door. Ivanna’s goddaughter is performing in a string quartet.”
“Give her my best.”
When he caught up to Eve on the stairs, she looked at him. “Why is it a red-letter day? Why isn’t it ever a blue-letter day, or a green-number day?”
“There’s something to ponder on. Absolutely never.”
“I bet you know anyway.”
In her office, he walked over, opened the terrace doors. “Something to do with calendars and marking the dates of festivals in red.”
She went straight to her command center, opened operations. “Then why isn’t it a red-number day? Calendars have numbers, not letters.”
He crossed to the wine cabinet, uncorked a bottle. After he set a glass beside her, he bent down to kiss the top of her head. “We’ll take it up with the management.”
She looked up at him. “Things should make sense, and half the time they don’t. Stuff that shouldn’t make sense, half the time does.”
“Then it all evens out, doesn’t it? Half an hour,” he added, then went into his own office.
“It’s chaos!” she called out. “How is that even?”
“Someone once said chaos is a ladder—but then he died a brutal death.”
“Ha.” She started her update, then paused. “Chaos is a ladder … maybe.”
Witnesses described the scene after Fitzhugh’s collapse as chaos, as confusion. Wouldn’t that be a handy ladder for the killer?
She tucked it away, let it brew while she updated her book, wrote a report for Whitney. Roarke came back as she began to update her board.
“Who said that thing about chaos and the ladder?”
“A character in a screen series. One you’d enjoy now that I think of it.” He answered from the kitchen, where Galahad had followed hopefully. “And, as I think of it, tailor-made for Brant Fitzhugh. Swords and battles, dragons and political intrigue.
“You’ve been fed already,” he said to the cat.
And Eve knew without needing to see that Roarke caved and set out some of the much-loved cat treats.
She worked on the board as he carried out two domed plates.
“You can climb out of a hole or into a window with a ladder, and if there’s chaos, nobody notices.”
“True enough.” He went back for the wine, then stopped by her board to study it with her. “So many well-known faces.”
“And the ones behind them. A party’s a kind of chaos.”
That made him smile. “For you they are.”
“No, really. A lot of people wandering around, clutched into groups, music, food, drinks. Say, controlled chaos. Still, some people, at least some, are paying attention. Servers, for instance, or people who like to watch people, judge what they’re wearing—that’s a big one. Listen to what they’re saying in other groups.”
Absently, she took the glass of wine he offered her. “They’ve got a big space.” She gestured to various photos of the crime scene. “Limited to the main level for the party, though they wouldn’t do regular sweeps of the two other floors if people didn’t get through—like the drunk in the tub.”
He nudged her toward the table. “And with people mingling, moving, the conversation, the music, the space, it’s not hard to tip a bit of poison into a glass.”
“He wasn’t going to drink it,” she pointed out. “Like the glass you just handed me. That was for me, so you didn’t hold it up here.” She brought the glass up. “We’re talking, drinking, blah blah, I’m more likely to hold the glass up. But you’re taking it across the room, so you’re more likely to hold it down, not really paying attention to it, especially if you’re closing in, having a quick conversation, getting the dumbass kiss-kiss greeting.
“Controlled chaos is still a ladder.”
When she sat, he removed the domes, set them aside. She saw fat hunks of pork smothered in sauce, a cold pasta salad, and a bunch of colorful vegetables she didn’t bother to identify.
“But after,” she continued, and cut into the pork, “chaotic chaos. Shock, panic, people scrambling back or rushing toward. In those first seconds, people react that way—panic—a what the fuck. Except for the killer because the killer knows what the fuck. You could climb that ladder to conceal whatever held the cyanide. If the target’s Lane, you would’ve already done that during controlled chaos. Hell, it’s going to be small, has to fit in your pocket and be easily palmed. You could flush it on a quick trip to the john.
“I’ve asked myself why that night—all those wits—but the fact is, that night was perfect because of all the wits. Jesus, this is really good. What is it?”
“Boneless barbecued ribs. You’re sure about the bartender being clear?”
“Fitzhugh directed her step-by-step. That’s not only her statement, but Vera Harrow’s. And she’s clean, no connection we’ve found to either the victim or Lane, no motive.”
“I’m going to tell you, so far, the same applies to Sylvie Bowen, at least as far as her finances go. She was very generous with her ex, which to my eye, he took regular advantage of while he worked on rejected screenplays. I’ll wager she never had to piss him off to convince him to take some cash for his pocket.”
She shot a finger at him, then shrugged. “I earn a paycheck,” she reminded him.
“And he didn’t, or only sporadically. His finances—I couldn’t resist—are shaky at best. And since she—wisely—transferred her funds out of the account he grabbed from, put a block on him, and had her lawyers contact him using the word embezzlement, I suspect they’ll be shakier.”
Now he shrugged. “Otherwise? Nothing sends up a flag. She actually lives rather conservatively for someone in her position. She has the flat here, a place in the Hollywood Hills, as she often works there, but her parents, both alive and well, live there year-round. She’s given generously to Fitzhugh’s cause.”
“We’ll cross that off. It wouldn’t be about money if she’s involved. It would be about loyalty. If Lane wanted Fitzhugh dead, and Bowen helped, it’s loyalty and friendship.”
“And why would Lane want him dead?”
“Yeah, that’s the stickler.” She stabbed into the pasta. “I’ve got to lean toward Lane being the target, and the killer not having the opportunity to stop him—or maybe not especially caring—when Fitzhugh drank the poison.”
“And that winds you back to Vera Harrow, doesn’t it?”
“She stays high on the list. What I don’t get? Ten years ago, the guy says, ‘Hey, it’s been swell, but I’m going to start banging somebody else.’ Or worse—because wouldn’t it be worse?—‘I’m in love with somebody else.’ But she doesn’t stab his ass with a steak knife or bash his brains in with a doorstop in the heat of the moment. Or, alternatively, do either to Lane. Instead, they keep working together until the project that brought Lane into the mix is finished.”
“That’s entertainment.”
“Is it? You’d think she’d at least have punched him in his perfect face. I’d sure as hell put some bruises on you before I injected you with a paralytic, shaved your head, and tied your dick in a knot.”
“How? That particular appendage doesn’t lend itself to knots.”
“I’d find a way. But instead of finding a way, she waits a freaking decade for payback? I just can’t make it play. Something happened now, in the now, I mean. Something more recent triggered the murder.”
“Lane’s going to get global buzz with this revival,” Roarke pointed out. “Not only talking about that, but how she got her start in the same play. And assuming it’s a hit—and it certainly should be—she stands to make a great deal of money not only as the headliner but as one of the producers. For his part, Fitzhugh’s young production company already has considerable success, financially and critically, and he was off to star in one of his own productions, one with a very big budget.
“I was curious there,” he added. “I checked. Everything points to them having a solid, happy marriage, solid, successful careers. And these last ventures? More fame, more fortune.”
“Money and jealousy. Maybe. Maybe. I need to look at the cast and crew again, but every one of them benefits from Lane doing this show, so why kill her—or, alternatively, him?”
“I imagine they held a lot of auditions, and that would mean a great many walked away disappointed.”
“I didn’t get the part, so die, bitch?” She sat back, sipped some wine. “Yeah, I can see that. Then you have to wheedle yourself into the party. A plus-one, a server. A plus-one’s more likely. The caterer’s fierce about screening. But still, a lot of actor types work in food services to pay the rent. I’ll take another look.”
“I could do that for you while you dig down on the cast and crew. You may find it’s not the person who didn’t get the part, but a friend—as you were looking at Sylvie—a relative, a lover. Someone who’d do the deed for someone else.”
Smiling at him, she ate more pork.
And seeing the trap he’d walked straight into, he drank more wine.
“Don’t say it,” he warned. “It’s redundant, as I can bloody hear you thinking it.”
“You can qualify it as thinking like your cop, but any solid cop’s going to go down the same road. There’s also murder for hire, don’t forget that one.”
“Most who audition aren’t going to have the means to hire a killer.”
“They would if the killer’s in the same basic tax bracket, or under. Scrape up a couple of grand. Alternatively, offer sex, or hold something over their heads. Blackmail’s always good for motivation. Or maybe they come from a wealthy family, but only want the limelight.
“What the hell does that mean?” she demanded. “Limes don’t put off light. I hate when I use an expression that’s bone-ass stupid. Anyway, it’s an angle. Struggling actor breaks, decides if I didn’t get the part, nobody does. Maybe it’s more logical to poison whoever got the part instead, but you take out Lane, the whole deal goes down. Plus, she’s a producer, so she probably had input into who got what. I bet she would anyway. Controlling, she said so herself.
“This is good.”
“The food or the angles?”
“Both. The killer doesn’t even have to get close to Lane to kill her, and if that had worked, I’d be looking hard, really hard, at Fitzhugh.”
She wagged her fork, then ate more. “Which is a solid side motive. Pay them both back.”
“And that circles you back to Vera Harrow.”
“She fits. I don’t like the ten-year gap, but otherwise. She came off believable, but that’s what she does, right? Actors have to come off believable.”
She put her fork down. “I can’t eat pie.”
“Later.”
“Do you really have time to run a bunch of actor types who didn’t get a part in this deal?”
“I do, actually. I went back and did a bit of work last night when you were called in. And I expect you’ll show your gratitude for my time and effort.”
“Always a catch. I guess we got interrupted in that area last night.”
“We did. Aren’t we lucky it’s far from our last chance?”
On impulse, she reached over, gripped his hand. “Yeah, we are. The cop in me looks at Lane, sees spouse, suspect. A spouse can always have a motive that doesn’t show on the outside. She had opportunity. And means? I have to figure she has the means to get the means. But the me in me? I know love when I see it now. She loved him. And all the statements, all the indications, all the evidence points to him loving her. They made a unit, and I know what that is now.”
“As do I. As I know there’s a hole in her heart that will never fill again.”
“The dead aren’t the only victims. Your part of the unit got the meal. My part’s got the dishes. You gave Galahad some of that cat candy, didn’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“Thought so.” As she rose, she glanced back to where the cat sprawled over her sleep chair. “You won’t get any out of me, tubby.”
She dealt with the dishes, then went back to her command center. Programmed coffee. Then took ten minutes to just sit, boots up, coffee in hand, to study the board.
The failed audition was a good angle, she thought. It had to sting to be told: No, not good enough. If it happened over and over, did you give up, or keep working that food service job and trying? Some obviously did one or the other, but a certain type could crack, strike out.
Then there was Vera Harrow. Came off believable, but she made her very good living doing just that. Did she finally exact payback?
Eliza Lane. Eve could feel deeply sorry for her and still suspect her.
Sylvie Bowen, longtime loyal friend. Whose lover had just ditched her and stole from her to do it in style. It could put a person in the frame of mind to help a pal kill an errant spouse.
The trouble there? No evidence he was, in any way, errant.
But maybe she just hadn’t found it yet.
And that didn’t consider the loyal assistants. It would pay to dig deeper there.
Cast and crew. On the surface, the opposite of motive. But … What if someone took the job for the express purpose of killing Lane? Someone, or someone connected to someone, she’d fired, rejected, hurt in some way.
She dropped her feet on the floor, swiveled around.
She started with Tessa Long, the director. Though she’d gone through it before, she read the background again.
Mixed race, age fifty-four, native New Yorker. Mother a pediatric surgeon, father a neurologist. Married fifty-six years.
That got a wow.
One sib, male, age forty-two, orthopedic surgeon. Married nineteen years, wife, general surgery. Two offspring, male, sixteen; male, thirteen.
Bucked family tradition, didn’t you, Tessa?
Married to Mai Li, professional mother status, eighteen years. Two offspring—female twins, age sixteen.
No criminal.
Residence, Chelsea; secondary residence, Oyster Bay.
Solid education, theater major, financially stable. With a steady boost from a trust fund.
Eve skimmed through her employment history. Started young, summer theater work, interning, assistanting, gofering from the looks of it. Worked her way up. No connection to Fitzhugh that showed, except through Lane, whom she’d worked with prior to the current project.
The first, twenty years before, Broadway, Lane headlining, Long assistant stage manager. Then three years later, as assistant director, five years more, director, then as Lane’s director on a screen special four years after that—one that included Sylvie Bowen—and as director on a major vid two years after that. Now this production.
She’d leave it to Peabody’s gossip search to see if there was any juice or scandal or rifts, but from their work history, she’d say no.
She couldn’t see Lane working with someone that often if there was friction.
Add gay and long-term married, so probability very low for any really well-kept affair with the victim. And as Long was listed as one of the producers, money didn’t gel as a motive.
She moved on, ran through the assistant director, the lyricist and composer. The woman who’d written the original book had been dead for eight years—private shuttle crash.
At some point, Roarke glided in, set a piece of pie by her elbow, glided out again.
At some point, she ate it because holy crap it was good.
She programmed more coffee, gave a hard look at the other backers.
Nothing there, nothing popped.
So she moved on again to the choreographer.
Minerva Novak, Caucasian, age thirty-six. Parents Roger Novak, Alyson Crupke, divorced, no sibs from that marriage. Half-sib, male, age twenty-nine, half-sib, female, age twenty-seven, from Novak’s marriage to Heaven (seriously) Colby Novak. One stepsib, female, deceased, from Crupke’s marriage to Lloyd Bernstein—divorced. One stepsib, age forty-four, one half-sib, age twenty-two, from Crupke’s marriage to Benson Pickett. Divorced.
“Jesus, lady, give it up.”
But no, she read on. Try, try again with Edwin White-Mitchell, one stepsib, male, age fifty-three.
“Went for an old guy on the fourth try.” Eve took a quick look at White-Mitchell. “Old really rich guy, and you’re his number four. Let’s see how long that lasts.”
Minerva Novak, born in Chicago, relocated to New York at age sixteen to attend Juilliard, father and stepmother as custodial parents, and under the guardianship of an aunt—father’s side—with New York residency. Father and stepmother remained custodial parents.
Small wonder the mother didn’t get custodial rights, Eve thought.
Novak married Malcomb Furrier, four years, one offspring, daughter, age two.
No criminal—though Malcomb had a drunk and disorderly in his college days. She didn’t hold that against him.
Financials … not rolling in it, but very solid.
No prior work with Lane or Fitzhugh. Plenty of work, though, dancing professionally until an injury sidelined that and turned her to choreography.
