Encore in Death, page 34
“She did, and you knew that very well. Her daughter picked up the habit. Thing is, you like everything just so. And this very bottle is missing from your home bar. You just didn’t put it back. I’m sure you would have, but you were tired, you had rehearsal today. And guess what! It has your fingerprints on it.
“And there’s more,” Eve said before Eliza could recover. “You were observed entering the West End Hotel twenty minutes before Bernstein’s time of death.”
“Who observed me?”
“The two cops I had watching the hotel. Black shirt,” she said as she took it out, “black pants, black sneakers, long black wig with a fringe.”
She laid all of them out on the table.
“I was home all night. I never left my apartment.”
“You’re a damn good liar. I’m going to give you that, but you’re off script now, no rehearsal time. You don’t have the words in front of you, so the lies don’t come across the same.”
Eve took the EDD report out of the file.
“Your private elevator was in use last night, leaving the second floor of your penthouse and going down to the garage, street level. No cams, but we have a superior EDD and they can pinpoint the time of use, and have.”
“Then they’re either mistaken or colluding with you, or my domestics used it.”
“Nope, they need a swipe. You only need your voice to activate it. And the garage does have cams. EDD has the garage feed, which shows a woman in this shirt, this wig, these pants, these shoes, with this bag crossing the garage to the exit. It also shows this same woman entering the same way. Didn’t take you a full hour to get there, kill her, get home again.
“The private elevator going up to your second floor also shows no use of swipe and the time of use. Between that we have the two cabs you used, your pickup and drop-off location coming and going.
“Care to explain any of that?”
Eliza fell to weeping. “She killed Brant, she killed my husband. I lost my mind. You said they just let her go free. I only wanted to talk to her, to confront her. I did take the vodka, I did. But after she told me she wanted me dead, wanted to finally make me pay for Leah, she poured something from that vial into her glass and drank it. She killed herself right in front of me.”
“That must’ve been horrible,” Peabody put in.
“It was! It was. I was so shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I should’ve called the police, but I panicked, and I ran.”
“Took the vodka, the glass you used, and the vial with you,” Eve pointed out. “That doesn’t sound like panic.”
“That might explain the glass, even the vodka, but why the vial, Eliza?”
“I don’t know.” She sent a beseeching look at Peabody. “How could I think straight after that?”
“Straight enough to walk three blocks before hailing a cab,” Eve commented. “Walking time, not running time. Then there’s the water in the tub, bubbles, too. Why take a nice bubble bath if you’re going to drink poison?”
“How am I to know? Maybe she wanted to kill herself in the tub. I shouldn’t have gone there, but I needed to look her in the eye. I needed that.”
“You needed the cyanide when you decided to kill your husband. And you got it. Tyler Vance, metal artist, nephew of your housekeeper. Talented guy, and one who keeps very good records. You could even say meticulous. He hasn’t done any electroplating since your visit, so he has records showing the precise amount he had in his cabinet. We’ve got it to the milliliter, Eliza.”
Eve shuffled out that report.
“I can see you’re wondering how the hell we found out about him, about your visit, about the commission for a sculpture for your good friend Sylvie. A visit two weeks before the party, your husband’s death.”
“Of course I commissioned the sculpture. I certainly didn’t take any poison. I know nothing about that sort of thing. How could I know it was used in his work?”
“I’ve got EDD checking the Internet cafés—easiest way to find out what you needed to know. They’ll get there. We’re really good at what we do here. And then there’s this.”
Eve took out the bottle. “Not much left, but enough to kill a three-year-old kid if she came across it, since it was in her fucking toy teapot.”
“That—that’s cyanide? You—you found it in Clara’s … Sylvie had it! Sylvie tried to kill me?”
Eliza shoved a hand in the air as if warding off an attack.
“I can’t—no, I can’t believe that.”
So much for friendship, Eve thought.
“Yeah, me neither. Trust me, nobody will. You’re good, Eliza, but not that good. You killed Brant because he didn’t bend, this time anyway, to your wants and will. He was looking out for his own career, put that ahead of you and yours. How could he do that to you?”
Eve smacked her fist on the table. “How could he leave you for six months, go so far away when you needed him here, with you?”
“It was selfish,” Peabody murmured it. “It must’ve made you feel so unloved. You’d given him so much. I’ve read about you turning down parts so you could be with him, could stay with him in some location. To be there for him. But he wasn’t going to be there for you.”
“I was always there for him.”
“Of course you were, of course.” Peabody reached over, laid a hand over Eliza’s. “You knew he was the one the first instant you saw him. He was your soul mate. And now, the revival—a highlight of your career—the rehearsals, the pressure, the demands, the need to be at the very top of your game, he was going to desert you.”
“I won’t be second. I won’t settle for second place.”
Peabody nodded sympathetically. “Why would you? You’re Eliza Lane. You’re the best there is. He broke your heart, and your trust.”
“He crushed it! I told him and told him, I asked and I asked. He put himself first. Once that happens, it’s done! So easy after that happens to do it again, to look at another woman and think, why not? She’s younger, she wants me. I will not be humiliated by another man, by anyone. I will not have my needs brushed aside.”
Falling apart now, Eve thought. Couldn’t hold the mask up any longer.
“You’d be better off with him dead than risk that humiliation,” Eve said.
“This is a pinnacle of my career, of my life, and he chose to leave me.”
“So you chose to have him leave permanently. And why not get some benefit out of it? The outpouring of sympathy for you. Clutching your dying and dead husband to your breast, weeping. A hell of a performance.”
“I wasn’t! I loved him. I loved him, more, I realized, than he did me. I did what I had to do for myself.”
“When he brought you the drink, as you knew he would because it’s what he did for you, you slipped the vial out of your pocket, tipped it in. Maybe during a hug, a kiss. Then you handed it back to him.”
“I couldn’t be sure he’d drink it.”
“But sure enough. Then it would look as if someone tried to kill you. More benefit for you. All you had to do was slip into the bathroom when Sylvie and the doctor took you upstairs. Flush the container. The rest of it was already down in that toy teapot where you put it when you, the good friend, helped Sylvie pack up her ex’s things.”
“I am a good friend to Sylvie. I’ve always been a good friend. I warned her about Mikhail, and I was right. I wasn’t going to let Brant do the same to me.”
“A good friend who put her friend’s granddaughter’s life in danger.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She waved that away. “Clara isn’t due to come back for nearly a week. I’d have dealt with it by then.”
“Unless they just popped in one day,” Peabody pointed out. “And the little girl wanted a tea party.”
“It wouldn’t be my fault.”
“Yeah, that’s how you’d see it. Not my fault if the kid drinks the poison I left in her room. Not my fault Brant’s so selfish. Not my fault Debra decided to offer me the perfect patsy.”
Eve waited a beat. “Not your fault if Leah Rose popped more pills than you slipped into her vodka.”
There was shock, Eve thought, and shock. Shock that said: What the hell are you talking about? And shock that said: How the hell do you know that?
Eliza’s face registered the second.
“That’s insane. Leah’s death was ruled an accidental overdose twenty-five years ago.”
“It was, and I can’t really blame the investigators at that time for not seeing through you. The victim was an addict with a history. It was her bottle, they were her pills. You were blocks away, surrounded by witnesses, when she died. She was under so much pressure. Her mother was driving her crazy. I figure, in your way, so were you.”
“I was a friend to her. I tried to help her.”
“Easy to say now. You were jealous of her. Understudy? Second place? Oh no, not Eliza Lane. But you convinced her to let you have some performances. A matinee a week, an evening show a month.”
“That was her idea.”
“Again, easy to say. Might even be true. And it was what you needed. A chance to outshine her, to grab that big break. I bet you asked her not to tell anyone, at least not until you’d shown the director you could handle it. But she told her mother.”
Eve rose, walked around the table, leaned down. “She just wouldn’t kick her mother all the way out of her life. I bet you encouraged her to do that, but she just couldn’t. Not all the way.”
“Her mother kept her an addict because it kept her dependent.”
“You’re probably right about that. Debra was a crap mother. But Leah told her anyway. And just like you? Debra’s not going to settle, not going to risk being outshined. So she pushed and pushed, demanded, harangued, and got Leah to kill that agreement. And made sure you knew it, right before your cue. Made sure you knew her Rose would make every performance and never give you the chance to shine. And she slapped you.”
“That’s low,” Peabody commented. “Right before you went on.”
“That burned and churned. You played your part, hit your mark, but it burned and churned. And it burned more when Leah verified. Deal’s off.”
“‘Give it the first month to get her off my back,’ she said. And I could smell the vodka on her,” Eliza added in disgust. “She was weak. She’d made a deal but was too weak to keep it. Even after her mother assaulted me. I knew she’d keep going back to her. She was too weak to stay away from the pills, the vodka, her mother. All addictions, all weaknesses.”
“And you knew that, so you went in her dressing room, put a few pills in the bottle.”
“If I did, and you’ll never prove it, it would have been to make her sick.” She shrugged. “If I did, it would have been to make her just sick enough to miss opening night, maybe a couple more performances.”
“And you’d replace her, not just as understudy. As one of the headliners, because you’d show everyone you were better than she was.”
“I was better. I am better. It’s not my fault she kept taking pills, kept drinking. I wasn’t even there,” she reminded Eve.
“It’s your fault for adding what you did to the bottle. And we will prove it. I’ve seen the backstage at that theater. Do you really believe no one saw you go into her dressing room when she wasn’t in there? Nobody’d think anything of it at the time. You were friends, on- and offstage, you were her understudy. But now? With all we have?”
“It was an accident.”
“Right.” Eve paused as Reo came in. “Reo, APA Cher, entering Interview.”
“Ms. Lane.” Reo sat. “As the lieutenant stated for the record, I’m Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher Reo. You have, on the record, confessed to the premeditated murder of Brant Fitzhugh, to the premeditated murder of Debra Bernstein, and are hereby charged with that second murder. You also confessed to child endangerment, and are hereby so charged. You’re also charged in the matter of Rose Bernstein’s death. We’ll go with Man Two on that one.”
“I won’t serve a day. I’ll take the stand, and no one will believe any of this when I’m done.”
“May I?”
Reo opened Eve’s files, took out the photos of the dead, forensic reports, the child’s teapot holding the bottle of poison.
“Seeing’s believing,” Reo said. “The State of New York will ask for and get two consecutive terms of life, off-planet. And I believe another ten for the heinous risk to a three-year-old child. You may get the Man Two tossed—and I stress may because we’re going to dig up every scrap of evidence there. But you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”
Now Eliza leaned over. “I’m going to get a lawyer, the best there is, and the expert psychiatrists that come with that lawyer. I won’t serve a day.”
“Bring it on. You killed an icon, a man—I’ll use your word—beloved. You killed him because he wouldn’t give you what you wanted when you wanted it. And you were just narcissistic enough to admit it. No deals,” she said to Eve. “She’ll do life.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Eve rose. “I’ll leave her to you, Reo.”
“Lawyer,” Eliza said. “Now.”
“Peabody, take Ms. Lane down, book her on all charges, then allow her to contact her lawyer. Your play just closed, Eliza. Interview end.”
Epilogue
She wrote it up herself—for the satisfaction. She did the damn media briefing, which was a separate kind of hell.
Eliza would get plenty of media attention, but Eve doubted she’d appreciate the tone of it.
After she sent Peabody home, Eve found Reo and Mira talking outside the bullpen.
“Well done on the briefing,” Mira told her. “Or what I saw of it.”
“Does she realize the wolves are drooling at the door?” Eve wondered. “‘Eliza Lane, charged with two counts of murder.’ ‘Eliza Lane poisons Brant Fitzhugh.’ ‘Eliza Lane allegedly complicit in the death of Leah Rose.’ Hell, the tabloids will scream it. ‘Eliza Lane launched her career with murder.’”
“Take one of these.” Mira held out a blocker. “The headache shows, and Roarke will push one on you when you get home. Take it now.”
“Fine.” She popped it. “Lawyer?”
“She actually tried for Greene.” On that, Reo’s voice was nearly giddy. “Major conflict of interest there, since she murdered his client. She got a good one, and one smart enough after reviewing some of her interview statements to ignore her pleas of being framed, of you wanting a career boost by arresting her, to ask for a deal. Twenty for each count of murder, served on-planet and concurrently. Drop the other charges.”
“Fuck that.”
Reo smoothed a hand over her smooth do. “I said that, but in much more legal and ladylike terms. So her lawyer went over my head to my boss.” Reo smiled. “Which pissed my boss off. They will have her evaluated by their expert shrinks, try for diminished capacity, insanity, whatever.”
“She’s legally sane,” Mira put in. “She’s a malignant narcissist with borderline personality and well able to convince herself nothing she did was her fault, but the fault of the victims. But she knew right from wrong, knew what she was doing every step.”
“They’re going to rip her to shreds in the media. I could see it. I gave Nadine a heads-up because she won’t do it for the juice, and she’ll do it right. She’ll get off on Leah Rose.”
“Maybe—likely,” Reo admitted. “Legally anyway, but not in the court of public opinion.”
“That’ll have to do. I’m going home.”
“Good job, Dallas,” Reo told her. “You and Peabody, good job.”
“Good job all around.”
The job, the case, played through her head on the way home, but the headache went into retreat.
And when she drove through the gates, every muscle in her body relaxed. She’d done the job, and the job was done. Once out of the car, she realized she’d started to feel the barely two hours of sleep, but she didn’t want sleep.
She just wanted home.
Summerset waited, of course, along with the cat.
“It appears you’ve closed a case without any major injuries or blood loss.”
“Day’s not over,” she said, and kept going.
The cat beat her to her office, headed straight for her sleep chair. She heard Roarke in his, let him be.
She wanted to take down her board, close her book.
But she simply stood a moment, studying it, and Roarke came out.
“Welcome home.” He went to her, wrapped his arms around her from behind. “I caught a good portion of your briefing.”
“They’ll eat her alive—mostly because she’s Eliza Lane. I’m not sorry for it.”
“Why should you be?”
“If she didn’t outright kill Rose Bernstein, she was responsible. She not only lived with that, she thrived on it. Debra? Offered herself as a patsy. A selfish, stupid, sick woman who wanted what Eliza had, and didn’t have the talent. Didn’t deserve to die for it, and hell, she got a lot of it right. Her kid was dead because Eliza wanted the part, simple as that.”
Roarke kissed the top of her head.
“Brant Fitzhugh. She loved him, as much as she was capable of loving anyone but herself. She lived with him, slept with him, ate with him, talked with him in the time between her taking that poison from the artist to dumping it in the champagne she counted on him drinking. All he had to do, in her mind, was say: ‘I’m not going. I won’t leave you. You come first.’ And he’d still be alive. That’s how she sees it. His fault.”
“Love, when it’s real, doesn’t hang on conditions.”
“You gave things up for me.”
“I gave up things—and was already heading that way before I met you—for us.” He turned her to face him. “We compromised, and still do, though that doesn’t always come easy for us. Love doesn’t hang on conditions, but marriage bloody well hangs on compromise.”
“I would never poison you if you had to take an extended trip without me.”
“I’m very relieved to hear you reconfirm that.”
“I love you.” She framed his face with her hands. “There’s not a single condition attached. I want to take down this board, then I want to eat outside, in the air. And I really want it to be pizza.”
