Page 31 of Celebrity in Death

“Shock, upset, nerves. Everybody’s nervous when there’s a dead body and a cop in the house, Dallas. Roundtree pacing and brooding, Connie trying to keep everyone calm, Julian passed out drunk, Matthew and Marlo huddled together—which I took as bonding over finding a body—and looking sick. Andi entertaining Dennis Mira or telling Connie to sit down and relax. Steinburger huddled with Valerie—which is SOP—or bitching about McNab taking his electronics—to which I related. Preston talking to Roundtree or me or Steinburger or staring into his beer. It was stilted, awkward, nerve-racking, and difficult. Everyone believes, or wants to believe, it was a terrible accident, and no one’s sure.”

Peabody started in, stopped when she saw Nadine. “Ah. Can I have a minute, Lieutenant?”

“That’s all I need for now, Nadine. You can wait in the living area. We’ll return your electronics shortly.”

“Come on, Dallas. You said I’d have the story.”

“And you will. But I need a minute with my partner.”

“Fine. I’m taking the cookies.”

Sadly, Peabody watched the cookies leave with Nadine. “They looked good.”

“They were. Report?”

“We’ve got all the statements. McNab made a copy for your review and file.” She passed Eve a disc. “It’s got nothing that puts a blinking GUILTY arrow over anybody’s head. The only one who seemed genuinely sad was Roundtree. I don’t think he liked her, but he didn’t not like her as much as everybody else seemed to. The sweepers are wrapping it up. There was blood.”

Eve looked up sharply from her notes. “Where?”

“They picked it up with the lights on the skirt of the pool. A small amount on the coping. It may have been washed off, or may have washed away with the water when the body was pulled out—but since they also found what appears to be the charred remains of some sort of cloth in the fireplace up there, I’m voting for washed off.”

“Two votes.”

“The morgue team confirmed both contusion and laceration on the back of the vic’s head, and that it would have bled some. It’s her prints on the bottle we found on the bar up there—contents of which will be confirmed by the lab—and on the corkscrew. They’ll also run DNA on the cigarette butts, but the brand matches what she had in the case in her bag. It held twelve. She had two left. Marlo’s and Matthew’s prints on the glasses outside the dome.”

“Okay. Let’s take Julian. Give me a minute to feed some of this to Nadine and get her out of here.”

She turned to Roarke. “Do you want to hang in here for the last interview?”

“Darling, I wouldn’t miss you interrogating my counterpart for worlds.”

“Ha. Peabody, go ahead and get him in here. Read him his rights, get him settled. I won’t be long.”

She separated Nadine from Roundtree and Connie while Peabody took a reasonably sober Julian into the dining room.

“The way it looks, she hit her head on the pool skirting, either fell or had help. Could have fallen in. Or tried to get up, drunk and dizzy from the fall, gone in. I’ll know more of that after the ME’s had a look at her.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it, at this point. If she had help, I’ve got statements, interviews, impressions, and a basic time line. If it was an accident, I have the same and we can close it down. But for now it remains undetermined—and either way, I need you to wait thirty minutes before you call it in and start the machine. I want Julian’s statement on record, and him tucked into his place before the frenzy.”

“What difference does—”

“Nadine, if I didn’t trust you’d wait the thirty because I tell you I need it, you’d be held here, without your e-toys, until. But I do trust you’ll wait.”

“Understood.” Nadine sighed it out. “Appreciated. If I didn’t believe you wouldn’t screw with me just because, I’d have found a way to get to a ’link before this and had the story out by now.”

“Also understood and appreciated.”

“There’s one more reason I opted against sleeping with Julian.”

“Okay.”

“He’s not like Roarke, but he gives the illusion of being a lot like him when he’s in the mode. So the idea of sleeping with him felt disloyal—and just, well, icky.”

Eve started to laugh it off, then realized Nadine was perfectly serious. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

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