Encore in Death, page 24
“She missed with Lane.”
“Which may be a reason she didn’t leave New York.”
“Try, try again,” Eve agreed. “Okay, I appreciate it.”
“You’ll have her in Interview soon.”
“Next step.”
“I have another consult shortly. I’ll see if you’re still talking to her when I’m done, and come up to Observation.”
“Thanks for that.”
She headed out, tagging APA Reo on the way.
“I’ve got a suspect in the Fitzhugh case, bringing her into Interview.”
“So I hear.”
“Debra Bernstein, Rose Bernstein–slash–Leah Rose’s mother. Rose Bernstein was the actress Eliza Lane replaced when she—Rose—OD’d.”
“So she killed Fitzhugh to punish Lane?”
“Ninety-three-plus probability Lane was the target. We can place Bernstein in the penthouse earlier in the day, and she had Lane’s award for the play—the dead daughter’s play—in her possession.”
“That gives me a tingle.” Reo did a quick shoulder wiggle. “But theft isn’t murder.”
“I’ve got more, will get more yet. Just giving you a heads-up on it.”
“I’ll let the boss know, and if I can clear things up here, I’ll come in.”
“We’ll copy you the report from the arrest and search.”
When she went into Homicide, Peabody was on her ’link. Eve went into her office, got coffee, sat, and read over the report Peabody had written.
Thorough and concise.
And copied Reo.
Peabody hustled in.
“I actually talked to David Quaid—what a sweetie. He’s on the frail side physically, but still pretty damn sharp. I also spoke with his great-granddaughter. She and her son live with him. He has a medical aide in addition.”
“And?”
“What I got? Debra was an extra on a vid he did twenty-couple years ago—his last project before he retired. They hit it off; she cried on his shoulder about her daughter. He’d lost a grandson to addiction, so was sympathetic. They’ve kept in touch off and on. Mostly, according to the great-granddaughter, when she’s after a handout. But, she said, it’s his money, and it’s never been more than a few thousand every few years. Plus, Debra always sends him a card on his birthday. As for the other one, Steven K. Lewis, he was a high roller when she was in Vegas, they had a thing. She’s only hit him up a few times since.”
“Let’s get her stuff out of Evidence.”
“Anticipating that, I asked McNab to log it out for us. He disabled the passcodes on her PPC and ’link. She had a fail-safe installed on both, so it took awhile.”
She gestured to the AC. “Can I?”
“Top mine off while you’re at it.” Eve opened the file, brought up the security feed for Lane’s building. Started at zero-eight hundred on Monday, pushed the speed until she saw the cleaning crew enter.
“There she is—blond wig, gray uniform, and carrying the big-ass bag we found in her room.”
“Two of the crew with rolly carts,” Peabody observed over Eve’s shoulder. “Cleaning supplies.”
“Check in, IDs verified, and up they go.”
She followed them by the elevator cam to Lane’s main level. Hallway cam, door cam.
“That’s Gretzy talking into the intercom.”
“And Debra keeping her head down. In they go. We didn’t go back this far before. Didn’t see four went in, three came out. What time did they leave?”
“Gretzy said they left at two-thirty—they took about forty-five minutes for lunch. Wayne Rowan made them lunch, and they ate in the kitchen.”
She skimmed until the fourteen hundred mark, slowed until fourteen-twenty. “There they are, the three of them, coming out, main floor again, fourteen-twenty-three, down the elevator, across the lobby.”
Eve ran it, increased speed, until fifteen hundred.
“I’d say forty minutes is plenty of time to get your forgotten bag and leave. Let’s try an hour before TOD.”
They hit at eighteen minutes before TOD.
“She kept the blond wig.” Eve froze the screen when the woman stepped into the hall from the main door. “Fancied it up, but that’s the same color.”
“And that’s the black cocktail dress from her closet.”
“Yeah, it is. She’s keeping her head down—doesn’t want her face on camera. Carrying the same giant bag as she did when she went in as a cleaner. She’s gone before he took the drink to his wife, down and out and gone while the victim’s mingling his way across the room, goes over, talks to his wife and Bowen.”
“And then Lane gives it back to him, goes and gets Samantha, they go to the piano.”
Seeing it in her head, Eve nodded. “Fitzhugh makes his way up, listens, toasts, drinks. Under twenty minutes, yeah, that plays well enough.”
She shoved back. “I didn’t see it this way, goddamn it. Didn’t see the killer dumping the poison, then taking off before they made sure it worked. Didn’t see the lying in wait, right in the damn apartment. She slipped right through.”
“No, she didn’t. She’s in a holding cell.”
Eve scrubbed her hands over her face. “You’re right. Let’s bring her up, let her sweat in the box while we check out her PPC and ’link. She’ll slip through nothing after this.”
17
After Peabody went out, McNab came in carting an evidence box.
“Peabody gave me a list of what you’d want. If I missed anything, I can go back, check it out.”
“Let’s have a look.”
When he put it on her desk, she opened it.
“Blond wig, maid uniform, cocktail dress. Good, we’ve got her on the security feed with these.” Eve took out the PPC. “Did you go through this?”
“Quick skim.” He sent a longing glance toward her AutoChef, added a winsome smile that went big when she jerked her head in permission.
She watched him, the very clever e-man with his shiny tail of hair, the baggies in screaming red, the black, yellow, red circus-striped shirt over his skinny frame.
“Might as well have my coffee to wash down the chocolate.”
He looked back as he programmed his coffee. “You got chocolate up for grabs?”
“Apparently, I did.”
She imagined hauling his bony ass into the box and grilling him over a candy bar. It brought a rush of satisfaction before she reminded herself:
Priorities.
“Give me the quick skim.”
“I can tell you she did plenty of research on Lane and Fitzhugh over the last few weeks. Enough she nailed down their usual caterer, their cleaning service. She had the party on her fricking calendar.”
“Adds weight.”
“I did a search, just to save you time with it. Nothing on there that came up on poisons or cyanide.”
“That would make it too easy.”
“We love a challenge.” He gulped coffee. “She’s got a spreadsheet on there, names of people she hits up for money, the amounts, the dates. It looked to me like she has a kind of rotation. Ask Joe Soft Touch in May for two grand, whine to Jane Mark in September.”
“That tracks. How about the ’link?”
He nodded toward it when Eve took it out. “Lots of tags, texts, v-mails. Got a pre-interview interview on there with the cleaning service. And texts going back and forth with a J. Z. Kramer setting up the references she gave the cleaning service. Phony websites, ’link contacts. Pretty slick, from my scan. Cost her three grand, and that’s going to be a serious bargain, because it was prime work.”
“Got a history together.”
“Sounded like it from the communications. Like she called him Stud, and he called her Lovie.”
“Isn’t that just adorable? Where is this J. Z. Kramer?”
“I can find out.”
“Do that.” She pulled out two sealed bags of cash.
“The one—eighty-six dollars? That was in her handbag. The other, eighteen hundred and fifty, she had in a panty wallet she was wearing when you busted her.”
“That’s what she had left from the fifteen K she pulled in. She had to have more before she hit up her marks. Enough to get to New York, pay the first week at the hotel. Take out the payment to the Stud, the second week at the hotel. So where’d she spend something like nine thousand in under two weeks? There’s a question for her.”
She looked through the other contents. “Master swipe, burglar’s tools, the award. Yeah, this should be enough for now. I’m going to turn the e’s over to you. See if you can locate Kramer. If he’s not in New York, I think we’ll put the local heat on him wherever he is.”
She looked back at her board. “If you find anything else that adds weight, pull Peabody out of Interview and pass it on.”
“Got that.”
She resealed the e’s, signed them over to him, then heard the click of heels.
She looked over in time to see Nadine stop in her doorway.
“Whose ass do I need to kick in the bullpen?” Eve wondered.
“Now, now. McNab, I just had a whirlwind tour of the house and yard. Looking seriously fine.”
“Check it. Did you catch the water feature?”
“It’s going to be amazing. And Peabody’s kitchen. I know it’s yours, too, but it’s so utterly her.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Should I order up a cheese plate so you two can have some nibbles while you chat?”
Nadine only smiled, and again said, “Now, now,” but McNab grabbed up the e’s.
“I’ll let you know what I find when I find it.” And bounced straight out.
“I’m pressed, Nadine.” Eve replaced the lid on the evidence box.
“I’m sure you are, as I happened to see Peabody taking Debra Bernstein into Interview A.”
“Come on.”
“I’m getting coffee. Would you like some?”
“Jesus.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” In her skinny peacock-colored heels and power suit, Nadine crossed to the AC. “I can also clearly see Bernstein holding a prominent position on your case board. Do you want to know how I so easily recognized her?”
“You’re going to tell me anyway.”
“I am.” Nadine handed Eve fresh coffee. “A lot of media, including Seventy-Five, are doing compilations of Brant Fitzhugh’s career, his personal life, and so on. I thought I’d take a different angle. Tragedy shadowed Upstage twenty-five years ago, and now with this silver anniversary revival, tragedy shadows it again.”
“Why is it silver?”
“Nice attempt at deflection.” She eased a well-toned hip on Eve’s desk. “In order to create this circle—then to now—I, and my most excellent research team, had to go back to then. There was considerable coverage of that tragedy, but primarily in New York. Leah Rose was, after all, a Broadway ingenue. There’s certainly been more coverage since, as Eliza Lane’s career skyrocketed.”
She paused to sip some coffee.
“One of the first pieces of interest we uncovered didn’t rate any real press at the time, and that’s Rose Bernstein, known as Leah Rose, had a younger stepsister acquired when Rose’s mother—that’s Debra on your board—and father divorced and the father married Alyson Crupke Novak. That stepsister, Minerva Novak, is the choreographer on the revival of Upstage.”
Watching Eve over the rim, Nadine sipped coffee. “I’m sure you know Novak was at the party, or at the crime scene, however you want to put it. That’s an odd little twist of fate, wouldn’t you say?”
“Have you contacted her?”
“You were my first stop—well, after my house tour. And very brief sidestep. Mavis’s kitchen. It shouldn’t be, it really shouldn’t be, but it’s just freaking fabulous.”
“Uh-huh. It would be best if you gave Novak a pass, at least for twenty-four hours.”
Nadine sipped more coffee. “I’m going to point out I’m under no obligation, professionally, to share this information with you.”
“You’re not. And I’ll point out I’m under no obligation, professionally, to share with you— Off the record, Nadine.”
Nadine shrugged, sighed. “Off the record.”
“That I know how to do my job, and made this connection, interviewed the subject and her husband. Neither she nor he is a suspect.”
Lowering her coffee, Nadine frowned. “Because? Off the record, Dallas.”
“First, no motive. If you’ve done your job, and I have no doubt, you know Rose Bernstein had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. As she was well aware of this, Novak has no motive to harm Lane or Fitzhugh. A thorough search—with their cooperation—of their residence, their work space, their electronics, their financials, turned up no evidence whatsoever. They’ve got a kid, Nadine, and another in the pot.
“I know my job,” Eve repeated, “and they’re clear. You know yours, and when you do interview them, you’ll agree.”
“All right, but it’s part of the circle.”
“It is.”
“So is Debra Bernstein—someone my crack team was unable to locate. Since you did, brought her in, you already know her history.”
Nadine gave the evidence box on Eve’s desk a long look. Eve just said, “No.”
“Well, back to history. A lot of petty crimes and cons in there, enough to earn Debra a little time served and fines and some outstanding warrants. Add…”
Nadine pushed up—tapped Debra’s face on Eve’s board. “I interview people, and if you’re any good at it, which I am, you know how to read them, size them up. So add what strikes me, after digging up some of this one’s old interviews after her daughter’s death, as a grasping narcissist who’d have no issue crawling over her dead daughter’s body to grab a gold ring. But nothing in the same universe as murder.”
After easing her hip on the desk again, Nadine gestured with her mug. “Yet there she is, on your board and in Interview A. Maybe you figure she figured take Lane out, the show goes under, and she closes the circle. And,” Nadine added, “maybe cashes in on the revived publicity.”
“You’d have given her some of that,” Eve pointed out. “And it’s Fitzhugh in the morgue, not Lane.”
“I see your board, I study the known facts, and conclude somebody shot an arrow and missed the bull’s-eye. And yeah, I’d have given her some of that. But if what I figure you figure she figured is correct, it won’t be the kind of publicity she’ll enjoy or profit from.”
“Well, this has been fun, but—”
“Dallas, we’ve both got a job to do. We both happen to be very skilled and smart at that job. Kyung says he doesn’t have a time for the day’s media briefing.”
“And he won’t until I conduct this interview.”
“Give me something. ‘A source from the NYPSD states.’ Something, Dallas. I saw Debra Bernstein being escorted into Interview. I can go with that—nothing off the record when I saw it before we spoke—but I can hold that, if you ask me to, because I know you’d ask me to for good reasons. So, give me something else.”
She would hold it, Eve acknowledged. If she asked, Nadine would hold that information until she cleared it.
“Hold it, and I’ve got those good reasons. Meanwhile … A source from the NYPSD states something of value was taken from the Lane/Fitzhugh residence on the night of the murder.”
“This wasn’t a botched burglary.”
“That’s not what I said. Something was taken, and taken Monday night.” Eve hesitated, considered. Decided. “And has since been recovered.”
Nadine’s gaze shifted to the evidence box. “I see.” After setting her mug aside, Nadine straightened. “I’ll go do my job, let you do yours.”
“Good idea.”
She started out, stopped, looked back at Eve’s board. “It does make a circle. Rose to Bernstein to Novak to Lane. Like a classic triple play.”
“Jesus, Nadine, that actually gives me physical pain.” And Eve rubbed at her heart. “A classic triple is Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Eve shot up a finger for each name. “Three.”
“Okay, well a quadruple play.” She ignored Eve’s wince. “Whatever. A circle, with the award-winning Broadway musical at the center. But circles have straight lines, too. Radius, diameter.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. A lot of names, a lot of history on those lines. But the circle goes round and round.”
It did, Eve thought when Nadine left. It went round and round, but there were points along the way that made it go round and round.
Rose to Bernstein to Novak to Lane.
She needed to think about those points, and the lines that crossed the center to connect them.
But now, she had a suspect to grill.
Picking up the evidence box, she walked out to the bullpen.
Everyone got very busy all at once, but sharp cop’s eyes noted a few stray crumbs.
“Betrayed for cookies? Et tu, fuckers.”
“They were double chocolate chunk, Loo.” Jenkinson didn’t have the grace, or maybe the gall, to look ashamed as he brushed some of those stray crumbs off the tie of insanity. “You can’t fight the double chocolate chunk.”
“I didn’t get any.” Peabody rose, aiming a hard look at her brothers and sisters in arms. “Nothing left by the time I got back. She spotted me, Dallas, taking Bernstein to Interview, but I had to get her in there. And the cookies were history, Nadine was already in your office by the time I got here.”
“With me,” Eve said, and walked out.
“Honest to God,” Peabody began when she caught up.
“It’s not your fault. This time.”
“Praise Jesus. I figured you’d deal with Nadine however you wanted, and I’d stay out of the way.”
“She connected Minerva Novak—I called her off for a day there, gave some information off the record and enough on to satisfy her. She’d also connected Bernstein even before she saw you. She’s working on a circle thing—Upstage, tragedy then, tragedy now.”
“I can see that. But—”
“She’ll hold off on us having Bernstein in Interview. I had to give her the award in exchange. Not specifically, just something had been taken that night, and we’d recovered it.”
