Celebrity in Death (13 page)

“Yoga? The kid does yoga?”

“It’s a good activity for the family.”

“Okay. And spring? It’s barely fall.”

“Fashion is forward. Coffee? I have some of Roarke’s blend. I’ve been spoiled.”

“I’ll get it.” At home, Peabody moved through the open space to a newly designed kitchen.

Eve took a moment to glance around. Everything was color—the walls, the art, the fabrics hanging here and there as if at random. They’d separated the kitchen from the living space with half walls of some sort of textured glass.

Every time she came by, it looked less and less like what she’d left behind.

“It looks like you,” she decided. “Like all of you.”

“We’re happy here.”

“Yeah, it feels happy here. Look, Leonardo, I’m sorry to crash into your morning, but—”

Before she could finish, Mavis bounced out, hair bundled up in a curly topknot, a sunburst of color in her snug top with her knee-length pants picking up the pattern with wide cuffs. On her hip, Bella wore similar pants in the same pink as the front door and a white top with
Namaste
spelled out in sparkling rhinestones.

Bella squealed. “Das!” After that, her current name for Eve, she babbled out a stream of the incomprehensible.

“I thought I heard somebody. And Peabody!” Mavis did a quick dance on sparkly red skids. “You’re just in time. Wait till you see this. Okay, Bellissima, go see Dallas!”

“Das!” Bella called as Mavis set her carefully on her feet with the baby gripping Mavis’s fingers.

“You can do it, baby. You can do it.”

Blue eyes huge, Bella took a shaky step on her pink skids. Then another, with her hands waving like bird’s wings when she let go of Mavis’s fingers.

“What’s she doing? How can she do that?” Eve had to will herself not to retreat as the little legs and hands worked, and the blue eyes shone with the thrill of it.

“She’s walking!” Leaving the coffee behind, Peabody eased out of the kitchen. “She’s taken her first steps.”

And finished them by ramming into Eve’s legs, clutching her trousers like a rope off a cliff.

“Just this morning,” Mavis sniffled, “Leonardo put her down to play on the floor while we got her breakfast. And she pulled herself up on the chair, and walked to him. She walked to her daddy. It still waters me up,” she managed, and swiped at her eyes.

Behind Eve, Leonardo sniffled in stereo.

And Bella, head tilted back, fingers clutching, eyes imploring, said, “Das.”

“What does she want?”

“She wants you to pick her up,” Mavis said.

“Why? She can walk.”

“Das,” Bella said again, and managed to infuse the single syllable with absolute love.

“Okay, okay.” With trepidation, Eve reached down, hauled her up.

Bella kicked her feet in delight, shouted, “Slooch!” and pressed her mouth—always damp—to Eve’s cheek. “Hi! Hi!”

“Hi.”

Bella patted Eve’s cheeks, babbled, then threw out her arms. “Peebo!”

“That’s me,” Peabody said, stepping over to take Bella. “I’m Peebo. You’re so pretty. You’re so smart.” Peabody gave Bella a toss in the air that all but stopped Eve’s heart.

“Are you crazy?”

“She loves it.” Peabody tossed the kid again, and made Bella laugh like a lunatic.

“We’re actually here officially,” Eve began, and noted Mavis didn’t seem to mind a bit that Peabody threw her kid around like an arena ball. “K.T. Harris was murdered last night.”

“Murdered?” Mavis’s mouth dropped open. “Come on, we were all there. She was fine, for a total mega b-word.”

“She drowned in the lap pool on the roof. She had help.”

“This is horrible. This is …” Leonardo passed a hand over his wide face. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’d left before the body was discovered, but we need to talk to you both.”

“Listen, why don’t I take Belle in to play?” Peabody suggested. “It’ll go faster and easier that way.”

“Yeah, would you? I don’t want her around the murder vibes anyway,” Mavis decided. “It can’t be good.”

Bella leaned over Peabody’s shoulder as they started out, waved her hand, blew kisses. “Bye-bye. Bye-bye.”

“I’ll get the coffee.” Leonardo brushed a hand over Mavis’s shoulder as he went to the kitchen.

“This is total shock time. I mean, we were there, we talked to her. Sort of. And that crap she pulled at dinner … Do you know who did it?” Mavis demanded. “Do you have a target suspect? They’re all actors and stuff. How could one of them kill her? They’ve got a major vid going.”

“Sit down, sweetheart.” Leonardo brought out steaming cups on a tray. “I made you some nice jasmine tea.”

“The coffee smells a lot better. Still nursing,” Mavis added, “so I’m mostly off coffee. I had scenes with her, you know? And once we were in the mode, she was good—she was Peabody. I liked her when we were in the mode.”

“Did she have trouble with anyone?”

“Try everyone. Out of the mode, she was the big b-word, and nothing like Peabody. She was always looking to screw with Marlo, and she gave Matthew grief every chance she got.”

Mavis brought up her legs, crossed them under her, sipped at the tea. “I heard her yelling at Julian inside his trailer one day when I was going to mine. And she treated Preston—who’s a total doll baby—like s-h-i-t. She didn’t mess much with Andi. I think she knew Andi would have decked her, plus Andi’s got a mouth and a way of using it that’s better than a punch in the face. She got on Roundtree’s back a few times, but he rolls with that, as far as I could see.”

“What about last night?”

“I wish I’d paid more attention. Honeybee?” she said to Leonardo.

“It was tense. I don’t like when things are tense, especially that way. She broke into my conversation with Andi about a dress for the premiere, insisted I design hers, too. She was drunk and rude, and Andi told her …” His color came up. “It was a suggestion that was physically impossible, if you follow. They got into it a little. K.T. said she had the bigger, more important role, she should come first. Andi made another suggestion. It was very uncomfortable. K.T. backed off, and Andi went right back to discussing the dress as if it had never happened.”

“That’s good to know. Andrea Smythe didn’t mention any of this last night.”

“Oh, I saw K.T. corner Matthew, really in his face,” Mavis added. “I didn’t hear anything, but it looked intense, and she gave him one of these”—Mavis jabbed her middle finger in the air—“before she stomped off. He looked peeved.”

“When was this?”

“Um.” She shut her eyes. “Right before dinner. Yeah, a few minutes before we went in to dinner. And she was talking to Julian right before the show. He didn’t look peeved; he looked bored and annoyed. She
did, though—look peeved. They were both pretty lit by then. I’m pretty sure she went off, sat in the back by herself. I didn’t pay much attention to her because I wanted to see the show. It was fun.”

“Did you notice anybody else? Anyone who left the theater during it?”

“No.” Mavis looked at Leonardo who shook his head. “We were sort of cuddled up together, me and my moon pie. We left pretty much right after. Trina’s aces at sitting, but we didn’t want to be away from Belle too long. We said good-bye to Roundtree and Connie, and sort of eased out. Oh! We saw Julian. He was passed out in the living room.”

“All right. If either of you think of anything else—any detail, let me or Peabody know.”

“K.T.’s dead.” Mavis shook her head as if still trying to take it in. “What happens now?”

“Now we find out who made her that way.”

E
ve filled Peabody in on the way to Central.

“Nobody that Mavis or Leonardo saw having a moment with Harris mentioned it in Interview,” Peabody pointed out.

“Let’s find out why.”

“Do we bring them in?”

Eve considered it. “Yeah. Let’s play this as a routine follow-up, but make them come to us. Contact each one, make the arrangements. I want to get this new info down, start the board and book. Then we’ll see them one at a time. Jog their memories.”

Keep it friendly, Eve thought.

For now.

“START A DEEPER RUN ON THE VIC,” EVE ORDERED
as she and Peabody rode the elevator in Cop Central. “Let’s see if we can find any other connection between her and the other people at Roundtree’s last night, including staff and catering.”

“On that.”

When they stepped off, Eve spotted two of her detectives huddled at Vending outside the bullpen.

Carmichael, her hair twisted up and secured to the back of her head by some sort of clamp, turned. “LT.”

“Detectives.”

“Sanchez here is running down our choices of liquid refreshment.”

“I merely pointed out that the lemon fizzy sold here contains no actual lemons. If you want actual lemons in a fizzy, you go to the deli around the corner. They make theirs on site.”

“And my contention is, the body’s full of chemicals anyway. Why not add more?”

“Fascinating.”

“Well, we’re after some liquid refreshment before we haul in a bunch of lowlifes,” Carmichael told her. “We caught one last night. A couple of bangers went out in that illegals stall disguised as a basketball court on Avenue B. One guy’s dead on scene with a lot of holes in him. The other was still breathing, got holes, and also had his head bashed in with an old iron post—which had his blood, skin on it, but no prints.”

“More interesting than lemons,” Eve decided.

“Since the bashed-in guy croaked this morning, we’ve got a double, that maybe looks at first glance like the two DBs just DB’d each other.”

“But since the DB with just holes didn’t have gloves, wasn’t sealed, and was really completely DOS,” Sanchez added, “it’s hard to buy he wiped his prints off the iron post before he became dead. Plus the ME didn’t find any cloth, rag, or handy shirt inside the DB on the off chance he wiped and ate, and we didn’t find anything that could have done said wiping on scene. We conclude a third party did the bashing and wiping.”

Sanchez was fairly new to her division, but Eve liked his style. “At this point, I would be inclined to agree with that conclusion.”

“So we’re going to haul a bunch of bangers known to associate with both vics, which means a long day of bullshit.”

“Hence the desire for liquid refreshment prior to,” Sanchez finished.

“Hence. Was the iron pipe from the scene?”

“A few of them lying around,” Carmichael confirmed. “Used to be a fence.”

“Look for an initiate, younger banger wannabe or a girlfriend who’s not a full combat member. Another banger would more likely use a
sticker. Pipe’s a weapon of opportunity, and any self-respecting banger wants to cut, not bash.”

“Good point.” Carmichael nodded. “And potentially less bullshit.”

“I’m still not drinking fake lemons.”

“There’s a deli on Avenue B that still does genuine egg creams,” Eve told them. “Cost you ten, but worth it.”

“I know that place.” Carmichael pointed at Sanchez. “I know where that is.”

“Good. You’re buying.”

They started toward the glide, arguing over who should pick up the tab. It was, in Eve’s mind, a good, solid partnership forming in a short amount of time.

“Now I want an egg cream,” Peabody muttered. “I missed breakfast due to asking if I wanted to be asked and sex.”

“Settle for fake lemons, because you’re not going to Avenue B. Do the run, set up the follow-ups. I’ll put the board and book together.”

She walked through the bullpen, through the familiar sounds and smells—fake sugar, fake fat, fake coffee, real sweat, voices, beeping ’links, humming comps—and into her office.

The message light on her desk ’link flashed like neon on Vegas II. She scowled at it, hit the AutoChef for coffee, then ordered a list of callers without the messages.

Reporters, she thought with mild annoyance as the list ran down. And more reporters. Nadine, of course—twice. She’d have to deal with them, and before much longer. But they’d just have to wait until she set up her board, wrote up her notes.

As she began, she had a low-level urge for that egg cream, which made her think of chocolate, and the candy she’d successfully hidden—again—from the greedy hands of the nefarious Candy Thief.

She glanced toward her rickety visitor’s chair where the candy sat snugly inside—she hoped—the bottom of the seat she’d carefully removed and replaced.

The candy would have to wait, too, she decided.

She finished the board, pinning up both ID and crime scene shots of the victim, ID shots of everyone who’d been at the dinner party, more crime scene photos—the purse, the herbal/zoner butts, broken glass—the sweeper’s initial reports, ME Carter’s reports and results.

She sat at her desk, drank the rest of the coffee while she studied the board.

She’d started on her notes, writing up a time line, when she heard footsteps approaching.