Celebrity in Death

15

Unlike the early-morning pulse and mumble, Asner’s building held quiet midday. Everyone off to school, Eve thought, or to work, or to the shops, running errands.

The minute she unsealed and unlocked the door, she thought someone else had run errands.

“Well, either Asner was a really messy guy, or somebody beat us to it.” Peabody stood, lips pursed, as they surveyed the jumble of the small living area.

The contents of upended drawers scattered over the floor mixed with debris from closets, cabinets. In limp gray puffs, the stuffing spilled out, like disgorged intestines, from the cushions of the faded sofa and armchair.

“It’s empty, but let’s clear it anyway.” Eve drew her weapon, peeled off toward the tiny bedroom.

It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d come in sooner, she thought, replacing her weapon. But damn, it was annoying.

“The killer wanted to make sure he got all copies of the recording. Or Asner didn’t have the original in the office. Either way, this is a thorough job. Careful, too,” Eve observed as she picked her way through, “even with the mess. He didn’t heave things around—too much noise, somebody might complain that time of night.”

“He kills Asner, tosses the office. He took Asner’s wallet, and the vic didn’t have any key code on him. So—”

“Yeah. And I missed something. The vehicle. The killer didn’t have to have transportation. No PI can function without his own ride. He could have taken Asner’s vehicle.”

She took the steps in her mind. “Loading it up, driving it here, tossing the apartment, then ditching the car somewhere, ditching or destroying the electronics. It’s thorough. He had more time to think this one through.”

“But it’s still stupid, Dallas.” Peabody toed a pile of drawer junk. “It’s a recording of a couple of Hollywood stars getting some. It’s just … it’s just not big enough for all this.”

“Yeah, it seems stupid. Seems like overkill—all around. So, there’s more somewhere. Could be Harris had Asner do another job, and he dug up something on the killer. We could be chasing our tails on the recording. Red herring, or only part of the story.”

“His fee was pretty steep.”

“So, maybe fifty for each job. Fuck.” Eve slapped her hands on her hips. “We’re running in circles. Let’s get a search team in here, save ourselves the time. And we need to verify Asner has a ride, and if so get a BOLO out for it. I want the search team to bring sensors. Asner might’ve had a hidey-hole the killer didn’t look for or find. No computer or ’links here, so he took them. It’s a lot of hauling. Let’s check around, see if anyone saw somebody loading up last night.”

After spending considerable time learning nobody saw anything, heard anything, knew anything, there or at the office building—and being offered tattoos at ten percent discount, Eve and Peabody walked back to the car.

“Sometimes I think about it.”

“What?”

“Getting a tattoo,” Peabody told her. “Just a little one. Something fun, or meaningful, or—”

“Why would you pay somebody to cut a picture into your flesh?”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

“Stick with temps.” Eve pulled out her communicator at its signal. “Dallas. Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Have it hauled in. It’ll need to be processed. They found Asner’s ride parked at the Battery Park Marina.”

“Marina, water, dumping ground.”

“Yeah. I think we should do a run, see which of our friends has a boat. What’s better than dumping a bunch of electronics off a pier?”

“Dumping them out in the river.”

“It could be our killer’s using a brain this time around. Let’s head in.” She wanted to put her feet up, and start using hers.

She found the ME’s report when she got to her office, and wished she’d felt able to carve out the time to talk to Morris in person. Still, the report verified her own on-scene. Multiple blows from behind, with the falcon statue. Reconstruction indicated two blows of considerable force came after the victim was prone, and the first two of four had been enough to kill.

The tox showed the vic had several ounces of bourbon in his system at TOD. No other signs of violence or struggle.

Eve added the report, Asner’s picture, the crime scene and apartment photos to her board.

Then she got a large coffee, sat down, put her boots on her desk.

She studied the board while she drank her coffee.

All sorts of connections, she thought. All sorts of egos. Throw in sex, money, fame.

Start with sex, she decided.

Connect Harris to Julian and Matthew. Indirect to Preston due to her threat to shout sexual harassment. She was tossing his alibi for now. In a tight-knit group, people lied for each other.

Possibility Harris connected by sex to others on the list, she mused. Sex was always a possibility.

Connect Matthew with Marlo, and again indirectly due to publicity hype, to Julian. That connects Harris and Marlo through sex, one degree removed—times two.

Connect Roundtree and Connie. Possibility one or both unfaithful at some time, either with the vic or one of the others. Harris claimed to have had an affair with Roundtree, cannot verify. Claimed Marlo engaged in sexual acts with Roundtree, cannot verify.

Connect Steinburger and Valerie, whether that sexual connection was past or present. Harris had had a talent for digging up dirt. Very possible she’d known, threatened to use the information somehow.

No discernible connection through sex with Andrea.

Money.

It just didn’t feel like money. These people had money, though more was always good. Then again, numbers, which equaled money in this case, were the reason for the publicity hype re Julian and Marlo, and the spin and cover on the continual problems with Harris.

So money. She needed to find out more about how that end of it worked for all involved.

Fame. That was like sex, wasn’t it? A rush, a need, and particularly applicable to this set of individuals. Celebrity. The need to have it, the need to maintain it, or grow it. And like sex and money, celebrity held power. Could be used to wield power, and to control.

Circling, circling, she thought. And yet …

Sex, money, fame, power. It was all a mix, all a stew these people worked in, lived in. And all of those things could be weapons, vulnerabilities. Could be threatened, lost, diminished.

Motive. To maintain power at all costs.

First murder. A snap of temper, or even the victim’s own clumsiness. Followed by impulse/calculation. Quick, opportunistic, no real plan or deep thought.

But the second, blow after blow? That’s anger, she thought, with a little desperation thrown in. From behind, not personal. Opportunistic again, grabbing the heavy statue. But not face-to-face. And a careful, thorough follow-through on murder two.

Laborious even, transporting the electronics, loading them into the victim’s car, doing the same at his apartment. Risky, too, though on the low side. Pumped with adrenaline, a definite task to accomplish, a plan of action.

And there had to be more to it than recovering a recording of two people having sex who were perfectly free to have sex.

Add blackmail to sex, money, fame, power.

“Dallas?”

Distracted, she frowned over her shoulder at Peabody. “Working.”

“I know, but K.T. Harris’s brother came in. He asked if he could talk to you. He’s been to the morgue. They’re going to release the body tomorrow. I thought you might want to talk to him, and didn’t think you’d want to do it in here.”

Eve looked back at the board, the crime scene and dead photos of Harris.

“Have somebody escort him to the lounge. I’ll be right there.”

She sat for a moment, checking Harris’s family data to be certain she had it straight. She stood up, surprised to see rain splatting against her window. She’d been in too deep to notice.

When she walked into the lounge with its vending machines, spindly tables and chairs, she picked out Brice Van Horn right away. He didn’t look anything like a cop. A big man, broad in the shoulders, with short, dark hair that looked freshly cut, he sat brooding down at a tube of ginger ale.

He had a rawboned, sunburned look about him—a corn-fed, farmer’s look to her eye. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt with boots that had seen a lot of miles.

He lifted his head when Eve approached the table, and she saw eyes as faded a blue as his jeans, and the lines fanned out from them from squinting into the sun.

“Mr. Van Horn, I’m Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Ma’am.” He got to his feet, shifted the other chair. It took Eve a moment to realize he’d pulled it out for her. She sat so he would.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she began.

“We lost Katie a long time ago, but thank you.” He cleared his throat, folded his big, calloused hands. “I felt like I should come here. I didn’t want my ma … I guess it doesn’t matter what a child does or doesn’t. A mother’s always going to love her anyway. I didn’t want her to make this trip, so I asked her to stay back home with my wife and kids, told her she had to help look after the farm while I came to bring Katie home.”

He stared down at his ginger ale again, but didn’t drink. “I went to the place where she is. The doctor there …”

“Doctor Morris.”

“Yeah, Doctor Morris. He was very kind. Everybody’s been kind. I’ve never been to New York before, and I didn’t think people would be kind. You shouldn’t feel that way about places you haven’t been, people you don’t even know, but …”

“It’s a long way from Iowa.”

“Lord, yes.” A smile ghosted around his mouth, then vanished. “I know you’re the one who’s been looking after her.”

Eve felt the phrase keenly. “That’s right.”

“I wanted to thank you for that. Katie, she was a hard woman, but she was my sister. You know, it’s been more than five years before today since I laid eyes on her. I can’t do anything about that. Can’t do anything to change being mad at her all this time, having all the bad feelings I had for her. But she didn’t deserve to die like that. Do you know who killed her?”

“We’re actively investigating …” He looked so sad, she thought, so big and out of place. So lost. “I think I do, but I can’t prove it yet. I’m working on it. We’ll do everything we can to identify her killer, to get justice for your sister.”

“Can’t do more than that. Even after all Katie did, my ma’s kept up with what she’s doing. All the Hollywood shows and that—Ma watches. She told me Katie was working on a movie about you.”

The old-fashioned word suited him, Eve thought. “Not about me. About a case I worked.”

“They said how you were there when she died.”

“I was, yes.”

He nodded, looked off. “Ma wants to bury her back home. Katie hated everything about home, but Ma wants it, so … did you know her?”

“No, not really.”

“I guess we didn’t either—now, I mean. We only knew her before.” He took a drink, set the tube aside again. “My father was a hard man. He lived hard, died hard. Katie loved him. Or I don’t know if love’s what it was. She was like him, and I guess that’s why she was the way she was.”

Eve said nothing. If he needed to talk it out, she might learn something.

“He used to hurt my ma, used to hit her. He was big, like me. Like I am now, I mean. She’s not. She used to tell me to look after Katie, because Katie was younger. When he came home drunk and mean, she’d tell me to take Katie off, keep her away. I was just a kid. I couldn’t do anything to help my mother, not then. And Katie? She didn’t want to be away from him.”

He pressed his lips together, shook his head. “Nothing he did was wrong in Katie’s eyes, even when our ma was bleeding, she didn’t see he did wrong. When she got a little older, she’d tell him things—like if Ma talked to one of her friends too long or didn’t get some chore done. Sometimes she’d just make it up, make up something to get him going on Ma, especially if Ma said no to her about something, or wouldn’t let her have what she wanted.”

Learned early, Eve thought. Go with the power/take the power.

“He called Katie his princess, told her how she was better than anybody, how she had to go out and get whatever she wanted, take it if need be. She took that to heart. She was only a child, so maybe it wasn’t all her fault. And he’d buy her things, like a reward when she told him something about Ma. It got so Ma would give Katie most everything she wanted. You can’t blame her. But it was always more, and never enough.”

“It was hard on you,” Eve observed, “caught in the middle, without the power to stop it.”

“One day I thought I was big enough to stop him. I wasn’t, and he beat me so bad I pissed blood for—I beg your pardon.”

Eve only shook her head. “Is that when your mother left him?”

“I guess you know some about it. It seemed she’d take him beating on her, but when he did it to me, she wouldn’t take that. She waited till he passed out drunk, then she took me to the hospital, and she called the law. And there’s Katie screaming how she’s a liar, and her daddy never touched me. People around there knew my father well enough, and his hands were raw from beating on me. Then she—” He paused, took a careful drink. “Then she said how he’d been protecting her because I’d tried to get at her. That way.”

He lowered his head, shook it. “My own sister. They didn’t believe her, and she kept changing the story. But they had to ask questions, do tests and that. Anyway, at the end of it they locked him up.”

“And your mother took you to Iowa.”

“Yeah, packed up and left. This woman talked to my ma, about things she could do, and gave her the name of a place we could go, live awhile till we got settled in. I had to stay in the hospital near a week, but when I could travel, we left. Katie hated her for that, hated the both of us, I guess, as she surely made our lives a misery whenever she could. But she had to stay, go to school and counseling because the judge said so. Besides, the old man, he didn’t want anything to do with us, Katie either, when he got out of jail. She blamed Ma for that, too.”

He looked up again. “I’ll tell you something, ma’am, when we got out, it’s the first time I could ever remember my ma going a full week without being hit. How can you blame somebody for wanting to go a week without being hit?”

“I don’t know. I think for some, violence becomes a way of life. It becomes the normal.”

“I guess that’s true. Anyway, he got in more trouble when he got out, and I guess he took on somebody meaner than he was, and that was the end of it. Katie blamed us both—blame, I guess that was her normal, too. She got into trouble at school, stole things, got drunk whenever she could, started smoking zoner, and whatever else she could get. And when she could, she lit out for California. Ma had changed our names legal, but Katie took his back. That shows you something.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“It helps me to know her. Whatever she was, whatever she did. It helps me know her. And knowing her will help me find who killed her.”

His eyes watered up, and he struggled in silence a moment for composure. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. My ma’s grieving, but I can’t. I can’t grieve for my sister.”

“You came here, all this way, to take your sister home. That shows me something.”

“For my ma.” A single tear spilled out. “Not for Katie.”

“It doesn’t matter. You came, and you’ll take her home.”

He closed his eyes, sighed. “When my wife was carrying our first, I was so afraid. I was afraid I’d be what he was, that I’d do what he did. That it was in me—in the blood—like in Katie’s. Then I had my boy.” He turned his palms up, as if cradling an infant. “And I couldn’t understand how, how a father could—I’d cut my arm off first. I swear to God. But Katie, it was like she couldn’t be any other way. Now someone killed her, like someone killed him. Was it supposed to be like that, right from the start?”

“No. I don’t believe that. No one had the right to take her life. She made bad choices, and it’s hard for you to reconcile that. Murder’s a choice, too. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the person who made that choice pays for it.”

“I guess that’s what I needed to hear. I guess that’s why I came to see you. I can tell my ma that, and I think it’ll comfort her some.”

“I hope it does.”

He sighed again. “I guess I better figure out what to do with myself until I leave tomorrow.”

“You’ve got two kids, right?”

“One of each, and we’re having another.”

She pulled out a card—her last—made a note to dig out more. “There’s this kid. Tiko,” she said, scribbling on the back of the card. “He sells scarves and whatever else, on this corner in Midtown I’m writing down. He’s a good kid. Go buy your wife and mother a scarf. Tell Tiko I sent you, and he’ll make you a deal. And ask him where to get your kids some souvenirs from New York at a good price. He’ll know.”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.”

“You can contact me if you need to. The information’s on the card.”

“People oughtn’t say New Yorkers are cold and rude. You’ve been kind and friendly.”

“Don’t spread that around. We New Yorkers have a rep to uphold.”

When Eve walked back into the bullpen, Peabody got up from her desk to meet her. “How’d it go?”

“He’s having a rough time. Guilty because he thinks he’s not grieving, but he is. He couldn’t be more different than Harris—like a big sturdy tree, and she’s that itchy vine that climbs up it. He gave me some insights into her.”

“Speaking of insights, Mira’s in your office.”

“Shit. I forgot about the consult.”

“She’s only been here a few minutes. She said she had an appointment in this sector, and just came by.”

“All right. Stay on top of the forensic guys. Maybe the killer got sloppy with Asner’s car. And I want the search team on the apartment to let me know if they find a drop of dried spit that wasn’t Asner’s.”

“Will do. Meanwhile, I dug on the boat angle. None of them has a boat in New York.”

“Crap.”

“But. Roundtree and Steinburger both had one back in New LA—and Julian and Matthew are both experienced sailors, as is Andrea Smythe. She and her husband have a sporting yacht in the Hamptons. So I was thinking, maybe one of them has a friend with a boat docked at the marina, and borrowed it. Or just stole one to do the dump.”

“That’s good thinking. A good angle. Work it.”

“Can I use McNab?”

“I’ve told you I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

“Ha ha. This is going to take a lot of search and cross-referencing. He’s got skills. Oops, I forgot not to mention my sex life.”

“And again, ha ha. Ask Feeney if you want him before end of shift. Once you’re both off, it’s your party. And that’s the end of allusions to your sex life.”

She walked to her office, saw Mira standing at her skinny window.

“A dreary kind of rain,” Mira commented. “It’s going to make traffic a little slice of hell going home.”

“That balances out the easy, stress-free drive I had in this morning. I’m sorry about the delay. I’d have come to you.”

“I was nearby anyway, and Peabody told me you were talking with K.T. Harris’s brother.” She turned, pretty in her rosy suit and favored pearls. “That sort of thing is rarely easy or stress-free.”

“He’s a very decent sort of man beating himself up some because his sister wasn’t a very decent sort of woman. His father tuned the mother up regularly. Harris not only sided with him but passed on info—often false—so he had an excuse to smack the mother around, and reward the daughter for her loyalty. When the son finally got old enough to try to stop him, he ended up in the hospital. The mother finally called the cops and had the fucker put in a cage. Harris wasn’t pleased, claimed it didn’t happen even though her brother’s pissing blood in the hospital. Then claimed the brother tried to molest her, and the father protected her.”

“Lie, blame, lie to shift blame and protect your status quo.”

“Whatever it takes. She also wasn’t pleased when the mother relocated herself and the kids. It seems she made it her mission to follow in Daddy’s footsteps.”

“Taking his name professionally and legally makes a statement,” Mira agreed. “She saw her mother as weak, her father as the one with the power. She sided with power and enjoyed being rewarded. When her mother ended that cycle, it wasn’t just seen as punishment, but again, as taking her power away.”

“And she spent the rest of her life finding ways to have it and keep it. Lies, blackmail, threats. Everyone says she had talent, and she must have enjoyed the work. But that was secondary to taking control of the people around her. And I think making them fear her. Fear and respect? The same thing to her.”

“I agree. She compensated with drugs and alcohol, which probably made her feel more powerful. Did the brother indicate there was any sexual component between father and daughter?”

“No. But I’d say her father was her first obsession.”

“Young girls often fantasize about marrying their father. A benign fantasy, nonsexual, normally outgrown. Harris’s may have been more complicated. She took her power from him, from the bond of violence and betrayal. The men she became involved with later—like Matthew—became obsessions, yes, but not substitutes. She wanted to take more power from the men she involved herself with, wanted to take her father’s role and have the control. Her mother severed her father’s power by leaving him. This couldn’t happen to her. It couldn’t be accepted.”

Eve turned to the board, to the face that, oddly enough, brought nothing of Peabody to mind any longer. “The more we lay her out, the more she sounds like killer rather than victim.”

“Had she lived, she might have escalated to that. Your killer’s escalated with the second victim. More violence, more complicated planning. The first murder was passive. This, with multiple blows, shows a rage he hadn’t felt, or perhaps admitted with Harris. There’s a pattern—taking her ’link, taking Asner’s electronics. The attempt to make Harris’s death look like an accident or misadventure, and the attempt to make Asner’s look like burglary.”

“Crappy attempts both times.”

“Also a pattern. Your killer believes himself—or herself—clever, careful, believes he can create this deception—and with Asner went to considerable time and trouble. He’s intelligent, organized, focused. There was a purpose to the killings, making the motive of this recording feel weak.”

“Oh boy, do I agree with that.”

“It could hold up with Harris’s murder if we theorize an impulsive, angry act, then a hurried cover-up. Asner’s takes this to another level.”

“I think Harris hired Asner for at least one other job, and that he found something more damaging than a couple of Hollywood types in an offscreen sex scene. It may be Marlo and Matthew used that recording as a blind—gave me that so I don’t look under it. Or, if they’re not involved in the murders, something damaging to the killer. Something the rich and famous would risk killing for.”

“You may be right. We know it fits Harris’s pathology. You’ve already discovered she held threats over several heads.”

“And again, like Marlo and Matthew, nothing worth killing Asner over, since the individuals had related those threats on record. Asner gave her something else, or the killer feared he would. Something that didn’t come out in the interviews.”

She glanced at the board. “I need to look at it all again. I told her brother she didn’t deserve to be killed.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I believe she needed to be stopped. You’d say she needed help—therapy, counseling. I lean toward she needed to be punished. No, it’s not a lean,” Eve realized, “it’s a solid stand. Bullies need to pay, but murder’s not the price. So I take that solid stand on punishment, and still stand for her.”

“I think she needed help, and punishment. She had an abusive childhood. I know you don’t see it that way,” Mira continued at Eve’s instinctive shrug, “but she did.”

“Maybe, but she found a way to make it work for her. I wonder …”

“What?”

“Sometimes I wonder what kind of family or environment Stella came from. Was she born bent—selfish, violent, heartless? Or did she get caught up in the cycle? I don’t excuse what she did or was either way. Cycles have to be broken.”

“I’m sure you know Roarke could find out.”

“What I’m not sure of is if I really want to know. Maybe. Eventually. He’s worried about me. I know he wants me to talk to you.”

“Should he be worried?”

“I don’t want him to worry.”

“That didn’t answer the question.”

Eve sighed. She found, for once, she didn’t want coffee, and got them both a bottle of water. “I dream about her. Not nightmares, not really. But strange, lucid dreams. She blames me, which would fit with the way she thought, was.”

“Do you blame you?”

Eve took a moment before answering. “Harris’s brother? Part of him feels guilty because he couldn’t love his sister, and part of him grieves for her. I don’t know if it’s guilt or just acknowledgment that part of me feels. There’s no grief. I told you that before, and it hasn’t changed. I know I’m not responsible for what happened to her. She is. McQueen is. Even my father holds more of the blame than me. But I started the chain when I took her down in Dallas, before I ever knew who she was.”

Eve studied her water bottle even as that moment flashed through her mind. That defining moment when she’d yanked a suspect around, and looked into her mother’s face.

“I started the chain when I pushed her to flip on McQueen. The chain McQueen broke when he slit her throat. I can’t and won’t pretend otherwise. I was doing my job. And other lives, innocent lives were on the line. But doing my job was a factor in her death.”

“Doing your job saved those innocent lives. The choices she made ended hers.”

“I know that. I believe that. But, I’m involved in the death of both my parents. Directly with my father as my hand held the knife. A child, self-defense, yes, all true, all logical. But …” She fisted her hand, as if around a hilt. “My hand held the knife. With her, I started the chain. It’s hard knowing that, no matter what they did to me, no matter what he’d have continued to do to me. It’s hard knowing I ended, or had a part in ending, the two people who made me.”

“They didn’t make you. They performed an act that resulted in conception, and did so with the purpose of investment and profit. They weren’t your parents, and were your mother and father only in the strictest biological terms.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? You’ve begun to call her Stella, that’s an emotional distance. But you continue to call him your father. Why is that?”

Eve stared, fumbled. “I … I don’t know.”

“It’s something to think about, something we might talk about again.” Mira rose from the visitor’s chair, laid a hand briefly on Eve’s shoulder. “Tell Roarke we talked. He may worry less.”

“Okay.”

Alone, Eve frowned at her board. Only her mother and father in the strictest biological terms. By that same benchmark, K.T. Harris was only a daughter, a sister in those same terms.

By choice, Eve decided, Harris had died no man’s child.