Encore in Death, page 17
Eve sat back, rubbed her eyes, drank more coffee.
A lot of siblings of one sort or another. “We’re this far in. Let’s have a look.”
She worked her way down, starting with the father and stepmother. Both the half-sibs lived in the Chicago area, the half brother an architect, the sister a personal shopper for a major department store. She pushed a little deeper but couldn’t find any recent travel to New York. It appeared both of them, the father, the stepmother, had come to New York for Novak’s kid’s birth.
The mother hadn’t, she noted, but both the half- and stepsib from the mother’s third marriage had. No visits from the stepsib old enough to be her father.
So some family ties, she thought, enough to bring them in to see their half niece, step-niece within a few days or weeks of her birth.
But none of them lived in New York, or had any obvious connection to either Lane or Fitzhugh.
“Okay, what happened to the dead one? Rose Bernstein.”
She ran it, skimmed the birth and birthplace, the paternity, maternity. Narrowed in on the date and cause of death.
“Died in ’36, death ruled accidental overdose. Well, Jesus! Age eighteen? New York City, stage name Leah Rose. Son of bitch. Bang!”
12
Roarke strolled in.
“I heard the bang.”
“Damn right! Try this. The choreographer’s mother’s second husband’s daughter, stage name Leah Rose. That’s the one who OD’d on opening night of the original Upstage.”
“Convoluted,” Roarke considered. “And yet a worthy bang. And I’ll add an aha.”
“Minerva Novak’s mother’s on husband number four.”
“An optimist.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Thanks to optimism, Novak’s accumulated a bunch of siblings—the halfs, the steps—and every one of them came to New York when she had a kid a couple years ago—except the last husband’s son. That indicates a certain closeness, right? Odds are she was close with the stepsib who died and opened the door for Lane’s breakout.”
He edged a hip onto her command center, glanced at her screen. “I’d have to agree there. It’s certainly a connection to Lane, and through her to Fitzhugh, that can’t be ignored. Were they aware of that connection?”
“I’m going with no, as nobody bothered to mention it. But I’m sure as hell going to ask. I mean, Jesus, you’d have to think it’s worth mentioning. Oh yeah, by the way, the dead girl whose dance shoes I inherited? She was the sister of the person who decided how many pirouettes we do.”
The idea of it pushed Eve to her feet, had her throwing out her arms. “And Novak. Did she think we wouldn’t find the connection? It’s right there!”
“Different surnames, a many-married mother, and twenty-five years. She might very well have assumed it stayed buried. Or taken that risk.”
“If there hadn’t been so many people at that party—and what looks like the wrong person on a slab—I’d’ve dug it up inside an hour with a…” She dug shallowly at the air with her hand.
“Garden spade?”
“That. I need to talk to her, but I need to read the file on Rose Bernstein aka Leah Rose. Feeney came through with that. I’m going to put Peabody on that, too. I want to know everything there is to know before we interview her.”
She turned to him. “You could do me a solid and do a run on her financials. Her husband’s, too. And since they’re maybe a tight family, at least those directly connected to Rose Bernstein.”
“You want me to poke around in the financial business of complete strangers? No wonder I adore you.”
“You don’t pick up a vial of cyanide at the local twenty-four/seven, so an odd payment or cash withdrawal, likely within the last two or three weeks. Or—”
“I believe I know what to look for.”
“Yeah, right. Yeah.” She stared at the board. “All that mixed-up family. There could be a chemist, someone connected to a chemist. Or a chemi-head who cooks. And there are legit uses for cyanide—photography chemicals, right? And textiles. You have to go through some hoops to get it, document its use and all that, so maybe a paper trail there.”
“And if you find a link there, it adds weight to what you already found.”
“Another bang wouldn’t hurt.” She sat again. “It’s not a damn coincidence.”
“I’ll see if I can find you more weight.”
“Thanks.”
She opened the file Feeney sent, copied it to Peabody along with the data on Minerva Novak.
It didn’t surprise her as she began to read the case file to receive a quick response from Peabody.
It said: Bang!
“With a bing and a boom,” she muttered.
She read to gather facts, information, and to look for any holes in the investigation. And more connections. She studied the facts and evidence, compiled information. Though she didn’t find any holes, at least not on the first pass, she found more connections.
She expanded her board to create a section for the Bernstein case.
Then she read it all again before looking over the various interviews Peabody sent her from articles on Leah Rose’s death, the reactions of cast, crew, friends, compared them to the statements given the police, the interviews conducted by the investigators.
She went back to the pathology report. He’d listed signs of an eating disorder, chronic drug and alcohol abuse, and a terminated pregnancy. Which jibed with her medical history—treatment for anorexia, emergency treatment for an overdose of sleeping pills, and a medically induced abortion.
And all before she’d hit seventeen.
Since the investigation into her death unsealed her juvenile records, Eve found the busts for possession, underage drinking, the court-ordered rehab.
A short, fucked-up life, Eve thought.
She programmed more coffee as Roarke came back in.
“I’m for a whiskey. You know,” he began as he got himself one, “when you do that poking about, finding law-abiding, tax-paying citizens takes all the fun out of it.”
After toasting her, he sat at her auxiliary station and drank. “I’m running more on auto, but I can tell you Novak and Furrier have no dark secrets or murky shadows in that area. He’s fairly successful and draws in a steady income from royalties as well as his fees for current work.”
“He’s the one who makes up the words that go with the tune, right?”
“Yes. Her income took a hit when she injured her knee, but revived when she focused on choreography. She supplemented that, initially, by teaching dance, and will still teach occasionally.”
He paused to sip whiskey while Eve considered the data.
“They bought a nice property about a year ago, Lower East, and they’re investing quite a bit in remodeling same. She also has a share in a vacation home—with her father, stepmother, and half-siblings—on Hilton Head. They opened an education account for their daughter shortly after her birth.”
He studied the new section of her board as he spoke. “She has a cousin of some sort—the family is very convoluted—who’s a tax lawyer. He takes advantage of any option or opening, but keeps them within the law.”
“Is that it?”
“Not altogether. She has a sibling from her mother’s … Ah Christ, which? Third, yes, third marriage who’s a photographer. One who does film—and his own darkroom work—as well as digital. You’ll want to check yourself, but my initial research shows some of the chemicals he uses may contain some cyanide, but he’d have to find a way to extract that, wouldn’t he, so none of the rest showed in autopsy. And there’s no indication I found he purchased any separately.”
“It’s worth a look.”
“As I assumed.” He sipped more whiskey. “Another sibling’s spouse is an office manager for a pharmaceutical company. They have their own chemists.”
“That’s good. Another worth a look.” Eve gestured toward the board. “Rose Bernstein, started dance and voice lessons at two. She started picking up work—ads, local vids, some stage stuff—before she was three. Bit parts, lots of ad work, did the tutor thing to get her high school diploma. Daddy has some money. Mommy—that’s Debra Bernstein—wanted her baby to be a star. I got that out of the case file. Also it looks like she had a pretty solid addiction to amphetamines—to keep off the weight, keep up the energy—and barbs—to come down and get some sleep—by the time she hit puberty.”
Like Eve, Roarke studied the photo of the bright, pretty young woman on the board. “There’s a tragedy already made.”
“She relocated to New York with her mother at fifteen. Bernstein would’ve been married to Novak’s mother for a couple of years—and that was about to end. But Novak and Rose had to spend some time together, especially since Novak also took dance classes.”
“Common interest.”
“Exactly. Anyway, Rose hits all the—they call them cattle calls, which is creepy on every level. She gets busted for possession—that was back in Chicago, age thirteen. In New York she has a close call with the pills, ends up in the hospital. Rehab, treatment. She gets treatment for her eating disorder, but the medical examiner cited recent abuse there at TOD. She gets pregnant and terminates same at fifteen, about six months after she gets to New York.”
“A child still. Where was her mother, as her mother was in charge?”
“A good question. But Rose is getting work, getting good reviews on that work. Then she gets one with what do you call it—billing. She’s sixteen, runs with it for nearly two years—got one of those nominations—the Tony thing.”
She rose, paced.
“The day, and I mean day, she turns eighteen, she boots the mother, gets her own place. A few months after, she auditions for Upstage. She gets the part, and six months later, she’s dead, full of barbs and vodka.”
“A short, sad life. Do you have any reason to think it wasn’t accidental?”
“Looking at the case files, her history, the pathology and tox reports, it plays that way. But I want to talk to the investigator, maybe the ME at the time. Just cross those off. Novak would’ve been about eleven when it happened.”
She tapped Minx’s photo on the board. “Big sister—if she thought of her that way—about to take a major leap in her career. Instead, she’s dead, and Lane gets to make the leap, right into the big, shiny spotlight.”
While Roarke drank his whiskey and watched her, Eve circled the board. “So, try this. You’re sad about that, maybe even resentful, but you’re a kid. Nothing you can do. You push on with your own dream of that spotlight. You even do big sis one better and get accepted into Juilliard. You stay clean, at least as far as it shows re drugs and alcohol, and you’re on the rise.
“Then boom, bad spill, bad knee, dream dashed. Now you’re teaching instead, showing other people how to do what you’ve wanted since you were a kid. You’re choreographing those big-ass shows instead of taking the bows.”
Hooking her thumbs in her pockets, she nodded toward Minx Novak’s photo.
“You get married, have a kid, sucking it all up, living a life. But then, it all comes around, it comes around and shoves it all in your face. There’s Eliza Lane again, making the big splash, riding on the break she got all those years ago because your sister died. Your sister’s dead, and Lane is going to sing and dance right over her dead body, again.”
Eve walked back, picked up her coffee. “All those memories come flooding back. So it’s fuck that, and fuck her. This one’s for Rose.”
She drank some coffee. “It’s a theory, and it smells like motive. Now potentially two lines of means, with two other sibs. And opportunity, no question on that.”
“An opposing view? Even a loving sister—assuming she is—would have a difficult time blaming anyone but Rose herself for her death.”
“Novak’s eleven, and her mother’s on marriage number three. Scars,” Eve said. “Sometimes scars rip right open and bleed again. It doesn’t have to be Lane’s fault Rose died. But it’s her fault for profiting—fame and fortune–wise—from it. She plans to do it again. And there’s the whole payback is a salad thing.”
He looked, as he rarely did, baffled. “All right, there you’ve lost me. How is payback like a salad?”
“It doesn’t have to be hot, right? You eat it cold, a salad.”
“Ah, I think we’ve gone around this one before, so I should’ve gotten it. Revenge, darling Eve, is a dish best served cold.”
“What I said, basically. And I don’t know about best anyway, because a lot of people like it served up all hot and bubbly. But a connection like this isn’t bollocks.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that, only tell you her finances are aboveboard. Her father’s and stepmother’s as well. Solid citizens there. I didn’t see anything to flag on the two—the photographer and the office manager—that may be your cyanide source. The photographer has financial ups and downs, but nothing murky. And the officer manager is clever financially, but straight with it. If either of them accessed the poison, it doesn’t show there.”
“If either did, it’ll show somewhere else.”
“All right then, we’ll each take one, do the run, and see if something pops up.”
“I can toss one to Peabody.”
“I’m sitting right here,” he pointed out, “and may as well keep myself busy until this part’s done and we can go back to where we were interrupted last night.”
“Will do cop work for sex?”
“It’s become my daily mantra.”
He gave her one name, took the other.
She pushed, and hard. An hour later, even after the cat had deserted them, after reviewing her own results, Roarke’s, running probabilities from every angle she could think of, she had nothing more to hang her theory on.
“Could be one of the in-laws; she’s got plenty. Or she found another way to access it.”
“All true.” Roarke took her hand, hauled her to her feet. “You’ll confront her about all of this in the morning and get more answers.”
“I can buy nobody making the connection. Novak to Bernstein to Rose. Plus, nobody, after all this time, would remember Bernstein if it wasn’t for Lane. But Novak not telling anybody? I want the why.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll get it. I have to admit, looking at her, her husband, the family I’ve poked through? She doesn’t strike as the murderous type. And before you remind me,” he added as she walked into the bedroom, “I’m aware of how many murderous types hide under the gloss of innocence.
“Their last big purchase? Furniture for their daughter’s bedroom.”
“Killers have kids.”
“So they do. Did you know Malcomb Furrier wrote the lyrics for ‘Only One’?” At her blank look, he smiled, turned her into his arms. “We danced to it at our wedding. Entertainment unit, play ‘Only One.’”
As the music slid into the room, she had a picture, a vivid one, of dancing with him under summer skies, the scent of flowers everywhere.
“I remember,” she said as she moved with him now. “I remember feeling weird I didn’t feel weird dancing with you while everyone stood around watching.”
“Almost three years now.”
“I had a shiner. Fucking Casto.”
He kissed her under the eye that had been blackened. “It didn’t show, thanks to Trina.”
“Don’t say the name.” She put her head on his shoulder. “I like dancing with you better when no one’s watching, but that was good. I dumped all the plans on you.”
“Fucking Casto.”
She laughed, tipped back her head. “It probably came off smoother without me. It was a really good day.” Then she laid a hand on his cheek. “I love you more now.”
“Eve.”
“Because I know more now. It was all such a rush, wasn’t it? And I know more now. What it takes, who you are, what we have. Even when I piss you off, you’re going to be there. Like I’m going to be there even when you piss me off. So there’s more.”
“Loving you changed everything for me. Being loved by you opened everything for me. Every day is more,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
She remembered the first time he’d kissed her, all that wild urgency and need. And remembered the stunned joy of the kiss on their wedding day, under an arbor of flowers.
Now this, soft, strong, sweet, while music played, after a long, hard day, this gift of knowing, of being home again.
He circled her around, a slow dance, then eased her weapon harness away to set it aside. She tugged the leather tie out of his hair and did the same.
The end of work mode for both of them.
“Replay,” she ordered as the music faded off. She began to unbutton his shirt. “We had a really big party after that dance.”
“We did.”
“It was pretty late when people finally went away, but then we came up here. Like this.” She ran her hands up his chest, then linked her arms around his neck.
“The wardrobe was considerably different,” he pointed out as he emptied her pockets—the badge, the ’link, the communicator. “But otherwise…”
With the memory in mind, he picked her up to carry her to the bed. The cat sprawled over it, stretched out as far as felinely possible.
Eve said, “Scram.”
Galahad opened one eye, aimed a baleful look with it before he rolled, leaped down, and stalked away.
“We’re going to need the room,” she finished as Roarke laid her down. With her arms still linked around him, she drew him down with her.
He simply sank into her, into the kiss, into the moment.
She could wipe the world away for him, and had owned that power almost from the first instant. Those eyes, the color so like the whiskey he’d sipped, looked, saw him, loved him anyway.
Was there a more precious gift?
His fingers skimmed through her careless cap of hair, with tones like a deer moving through sun and shadow. He knew the angles of her face, her body, and the fierce, vulnerable, courageous spirit inside it all.
He’d wanted her, somehow recognized something … something in her, of her, almost from that first instant. And the wanting had only deepened with the having.
