Witness in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Mavis rolled her eyes. “For me, Dallas. We know you. But I think you should give it a try one of these days. I bet Roarke would really go for the Gold-Dust. It does amazing things for the boobs. Makes them sparkle.”

  “I don’t want sparkling boobs.”

  “It’s flavored, too. Frangipani.”

  “Really?” Roarke blew out a stream of smoke. “I’m very fond of tropical flavors.”

  “See? Anyway, you can think about that after you’re all relaxed and your hair’s gooped up. Summerset made snacks.”

  “Goodie. But really, I—oops, there’s the door. I’ll get it.”

  She escaped, forcing herself not to simply break into a run, bowl over whoever was at the door, and just keep running until she reached the sanctuary of Cop Central. She beat Summerset there by half a step.

  “I’m getting it.”

  “Greeting and escorting guests falls into my job requirements,” he reminded her. “Miss Furst is here to see you.” So saying, he bumped Eve aside and opened the door.

  “I should have called.” Nadine knew just how Eve felt about reporters in her home. “I’m not here for 75,” she continued quickly. “It’s personal.”

  “Good. Fine. Come in.” To Nadine’s surprise, Eve clamped a hand on hers and all but dragged her toward the parlor.

  “I’ve taken a couple of days off,” Nadine began.

  “I noticed. I didn’t much care for your on-air substitute.”

  “He’s a putz. But anyway, I wanted to come by and tell you…” She paused, pulled herself back. “Oh, hi, Mavis.”

  “Nadine, hi! Hey, it’s practically a party.” However flighty Mavis seemed on the surface, she had a solid core of sense, with compassion and loyalty wrapped tightly around it. It took less than two seconds for her to see the strain in Nadine’s eyes.

  “Listen, I’m just going to run down and see how Trina’s doing. Back in a flash.” She went out in one, dashing through the door in a blur of color.

  “Sit down, Nadine.” Roarke was already up, leading her to a chair. “Would you like some wine?”

  “I would, thanks, I would. But I’d really like one of those cigarettes.”

  “I thought you were quitting,” Eve said as Roarke offered one.

  “I am.” Nadine sent Roarke a look of gratitude as he flicked on his lighter. “I quit regularly. Listen, I’m sorry to bust in on you both this way.”

  “Friends are always welcome.” He poured the wine, gave it to her. “I assume you want to talk to Eve. I’ll leave you alone.”

  “No, don’t feel you have to go.” Nadine took another long drag of the pricey tobacco. “Jesus, I forget you have the real thing. A bigger kick than herbals. No, don’t go,” she said again. “Dallas tells you everything anyway.”

  Roarke’s face showed surprise. “Does she?”

  “No,” Eve said definitely but lowered to the arm of a chair. “I did tell him about your problem because of his connection to Draco. And his connection to you.”

  “It’s all right.” Nadine managed a weak smile. “Mortification builds character.”

  “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Life would be awfully dull if we could look back without regretting at least one affair.”

  Her smile relaxed. “You plucked a winner here, Dallas. Nothing like a man who says the right thing at the right time. Well, Richard Draco is my regret. Dallas.” She shifted her gaze to Eve’s. “I know you don’t have to tell me, couldn’t obviously during the interview earlier. Maybe you can’t tell me at all, but I have to ask. Am I in trouble?”

  “What did your lawyer say?”

  “Not to worry and not to talk to you without him present.” She smiled grimly. “I’m having a hard time following his advice.”

  “I can’t scratch you off the list, Nadine. But,” she added as Nadine closed her eyes and nodded. “Since you’re coming in dead last, I’d give taking the first part of your lawyer’s advice another try.”

  Nadine huffed out a breath, sipped her wine. “First time I’ve ever been happy to be a loser.”

  “Mira’s opinion weighs heavily, and she doesn’t believe you’re capable of calculated murder. Neither does the primary on a personal level or, considering the current evidence, on a professional one.”

  “Thank you. Thanks.” Nadine lifted a hand to her head, pressed her fingers to the center of her brow. “I keep telling myself this is going to go away soon. That you’ll wrap it up. But the stress is like a spike through my brain.”

  “I’m going to have to give you just a little more. Were you aware Draco had a video of you?”

  “Video?” Nadine dropped her hand, frowned. “You mean of my work?”

  “Well, some people consider sex work.”

  Nadine stared, eyes blank with confusion. Then they cleared, and Eve saw exactly what she wanted to see: shock, fury, embarrassment. “He had a video of…He took—he had a camera when we—” She slammed down the wine, surged to her feet. “That slimy son of a bitch. That perverted bastard.”

  “I’d say the answer’s no,” Roarke murmured, and Nadine whirled on him.

  “What kind of man takes videos of a woman in his bed when she doesn’t consent? What kind of sick thrill does he get from raping her that way? Because that’s just what it is.”

  She jabbed a finger in his chest, for no other reason than he was a man. “Would you do that to Dallas? She’d kick your butt from here to Tarus III if you did. That’s just what I’d like to do to Draco. No, no, I’d like to take his puny dick in my hands and twist it until it popped right off.”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d prefer not to be his stand-in.”

  She hissed out a breath, sucked one in, then held up her hands, palms out. “Sorry. It’s not your fault.” To find control again, she paced, then turned to face Eve.

  “I guess that little display of temper moved me up the list a few notches.”

  “Just the opposite. If you’d known about the disc, you’d have attempted a quick castration. You wouldn’t have let someone else stick him. You just verified your own profile.”

  “Well, good for me. Yippee.” Nadine dropped into the chair again. “I guess the disc’s in evidence.”

  “Has to be. No one’s going to view it for thrills, Nadine. If it helps, you don’t show up that much. He angled things so he’s in the spotlight, so to speak.”

  “Yes, he would. Dallas, if the media gets hold of that—”

  “They won’t. If you want my advice, go back to work. Keep your mind busy, and let me do my job. I’m good at it.”

  “If I didn’t know that, I’d be on tranqs.”

  Inspiration struck. “How about a girl night instead?”

  “Huh?”

  “Mavis and Trina are all set. I don’t have time for it, and there’s no point in Trina dragging her whole bag of tricks over here and not putting it to full use. Take my place. Go have the works.”

  “I could use some relaxation therapy.”

  “There you go.” Eve hauled her out of the chair. “You’ll feel like a new woman in no time. Go for the body paint,” she suggested as she pulled Nadine out of the room. “It’ll give you a fresh outlook and sparkling boobs.”

  Moments later, Eve came back into the parlor, dusting her hands.

  “Well done. Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty slick. They’re all down there cooing like…what coos?”

  “Doves?” he suggested.

  “Yeah, like doves. Now everybody’s happy, and I can go back to work. So, you up for a video?”

  “Nadine’s? Can we have popcorn?”

  “Men are perverts. No, not Nadine’s, funny guy. But the popcorn’s a good idea.”

  • • •

  She’d intended to set up in her office, to keep it official. She should have known better. She ended up in one of the second-level lounging rooms, snuggled into the sinfully soft cushions of the mile-long sofa, watching the taped play on a huge wall sc
reen, and with a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

  The size of the screen had been Roarke’s selling point. It was impossible to miss even the smallest detail when every feature was larger than life.

  It was, she realized, almost like being onstage herself. She had to give Roarke points for that one.

  Eliza, she noted, had embraced her role of the fussy, irritating nurse assigned to monitor Sir Wilfred. Her period costume was anything but flattering. Her hair was scraped back, her mouth a constant purse. She affected an annoyingly lilting voice like the ones Eve had heard some parents use on recalcitrant offspring.

  Kenneth hadn’t stinted on his portrayal of the pompous, cranky barrister. His movements were jerky, restless. His eyes sly. His voice would, by turns boom loud enough to shake the rafters, then drop into a crafty murmur.

  But it was Draco who owned the play during the first scenes. He was undeniably handsome, outrageously charming, carelessly amused. Yes, she could see how a vulnerable woman would fall for him—as Vole or as himself.

  “Freeze screen.” She pushed the bowl at Roarke and rose to move closer to the image of Draco. “Here’s what I see. The others are acting. They’re good, they’re skilled, they’re enjoying the roles. He is the role. He doesn’t have to act. He’s an egocentric, as arrogant and as smooth as Vole. It’s a part tailored for him.”

  “So I thought, when I put his name forward for the play. What does that tell you?”

  “That whoever planned his murder probably thought the same thing. And saw the irony of it. Vole dies in the last act. Draco dies in the last act. A dramatic bit of justice. Executed, before witnesses.”

  She walked back to sit. “It doesn’t tell me anything new, really. But it solidifies the angles. Resume play.”

  She waited, watched. Areena’s entrance, she saw now, was brilliant in its timing. That was the writer, of course, the director, but the style of it had to come from the actor.

  Beautiful, classy, mysterious, and coolly sexy. That was the role. But that wasn’t the true character, Eve remembered. The real Christine Vole revealed herself to be a woman consumed by love. One who would lie for the man she knew to be a murderer, who would sacrifice her dignity, her reputation to save him from the law. And who, in the end, executed him for dismissing that love.

  “It’s acting on two levels,” Eve murmured. “Just as Draco is. Neither of them show the face of their character until the last scene.”

  “They’re both very skilled.”

  “No, they’re all skilled. All used to manipulating words and actions to present an image. I haven’t chipped through the image yet. Sir Wilfred believes he’s defending an innocent man, and in the end learns he was duped. That’s enough to piss you off. If we’re correlating life and make-believe. It’s enough to kill for.”

  He’d thought the same himself, and nodded. “Go on.”

  “The character of Diana believed every bullshit line Vole fed her. That his wife was a cold bitch, that he was innocent, that he was going to leave her.”

  “The other woman,” Roarke put in. “The younger one. A little naive, a little grasping.”

  “In the end, won’t she figure out she was duped and used and be mortified? Just as Carly learned she was duped and used and mortified. As Christine learned. And there’s Michael Proctor standing in the wings, hungry to take it all on.”

  She studied the faces, listened to the voices, measured the connections. “It’s one of them, one of the players. I know it. It’s not some tech with a grudge, or with dreams of being in the lights. It’s someone who’s been in the lights and knows how to wear the right face at the right time.”

  She fell silent again, watching the play progress, searching for some chink, some instant when a glance, a gesture indicated the feelings and plans beneath the facade.

  But no, they were good, she mused. Every one of them.

  “That’s the dummy knife, first courtroom scene. Freeze screen, enhance sector P-Q, twenty-five percent.”

  The screen shifted smoothly, with the evidence table enlarging. The knife on it was in clear view from this angle, and enlarged, Eve could see the subtle differences between it and the murder weapon.

  “The blade’s nearly the same size and shape, but the handle’s a bit wider, thicker. It’s the same color, but it’s not the same material.” She let out a breath. “But you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. You expect to see the prop, so you see it. Draco could have looked right at it, hell, he might have picked it up himself, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Resume normal play.”

  Her head was beginning to throb lightly. She barely noticed when Roarke began to rub her shoulders. She watched the change of scenes, the curtain drop, the soundless circling of one set for another. A few techs slipped across behind the curtain, nearly indistinguishable in their traditional black.

  But she spotted Quim. He was clearly in charge now, in his element. He gestured, a kind of theater sign language that meant little to her. She saw him consult briefly with the prop master, nod, then glance downstage left.

  “There.” Eve leaped to her feet again. “He sees something, something that doesn’t fit. He’s hesitating, yeah, just for a second, studying. And now he’s moving off in the same direction. What did you see? Who did you see? Damn it.”

  She turned back to Roarke. “That was the switch. The real knife’s on the courtroom set now. Waiting.”

  She ordered the disc to reverse, then set her wrist unit to time, and replayed. “Okay, now he spots it.”

  Behind her, Roarke rose, moved to the AutoChef and ordered her coffee. When he stepped beside her, she took the cup without realizing it, drank.

  On-screen, extras moved out to their marks. The bartender took his position, techs vanished. Areena, dressed in the cheap and gaudy costume that suited a mid-twentieth-century barfly, took her seat on a stool at the end of a bar. She angled herself away from the audience.

  A train whistle blew. Curtain up.

  “Two minutes, twelve seconds. Time enough to stash the knife. Right in the roses, or somewhere no one would notice until it could be moved. But it’s close. Very close. And very ballsy.”

  “Sex and ambition,” Roarke murmured.

  “What?”

  “Sex and ambition, That’s what killed Leonard Vole, and that’s what killed Richard Draco. Life imitates art.”

  • • •

  Peabody wouldn’t have said so, at least not if she used the animated painting she was currently trying to study. And pretend she understood. She sipped the champagne Charles had given her and struggled to look as sophisticated as the rest of the guests at the art show.

  She was dressed for it, at least, she thought with some relief. Eve’s Christmas present to her had been her gorgeous undercover wardrobe designed by Mavis’s wonderful lover, Leonardo. But the shimmering sweep of blue silk couldn’t transform the Midwestern sensibility.

  She couldn’t make head nor tail of the creeping movement of shape and color.

  “Well, it’s really…something.” Since that was the best she could come up with, she drank more champagne.

  Charles chuckled and gave her shoulder an affectionate rub. “You’re a sweetheart for putting up with me, Delia. You must be bored to death.”

  “No, I’m not.” She glanced up at his marvelous face, smiled. “I’m just art-stupid.”

  “There’s nothing stupid about you.” He bent down, gave her a light kiss.

  She wanted to sigh. It was still next to impossible to believe she could be in a place like this, dressed like this, with a gorgeous man on her arm. And it galled, galled to think that she was much more suited to takeout Chinese in McNab’s pitiful apartment.

  Well, she was just going to keep going to art shows, operas, and ballets until some of it rubbed off on her, even if it all made her feel as if she was acting in some classy play and didn’t quite have her lines down.

  “Ready for supper?”

  “I’m always ready
for supper.” That line, she realized, came straight from the heart. Or the gut.

  He’d reserved an intimate private room at some swank restaurant with candlelight and flowers. He was always doing something like that, Peabody mused as he pulled out her chair at a pretty table with pink roses and white candles. She let him order for both of them because he’d know just the right thing.

  He seemed to know all the right things. And all the right people. She wondered if Eve ever felt so clunky and out of place when she found herself with Roarke in posh surroundings.

  She couldn’t imagine her lieutenant ever feeling clunky.

  Besides, Roarke loved her. No, the man adored her. Everything had to be different when you were sitting across candlelight with a man who thought you were the most vital woman in the world. The only woman in the world.

  “Where have you gone?” Charles asked quietly.

  She jerked herself back. “Sorry. I guess there’s a lot on my mind.” She picked up her fork to sample the saucy seafood appetizer. The perfection of it on the tongue nearly had her eyes crossing in ecstasy.

  “Your work.” He reached across the table to pat her hand. “I’m glad you were able to take a break from it after all and come out tonight.”

  “We didn’t work as late as I thought we would.”

  “The Draco matter. Do you want to talk about it?”

  It was just one more perfect thing about him. He would ask and listen if she chose to unburden herself. “No, not really. Can’t anyway at this stage. Except to say Dallas is frustrated. So many levels and angles make it slow going.”

  “I’m sure it does. Still, she seemed her usual competent self when she spoke to me.”

  Peabody’s hand froze as she reached for her wineglass. “She spoke to you? About the case?”

  Caught off guard, Charles set his fork down. “She didn’t mention it to you?”

  “No. Did you know Draco?”

  Charles cursed himself, briefly considered dancing around the truth, then shrugged. He’d never been anything but honest with Peabody and didn’t want that to change. “No, not really. I happened to be with Areena Mansfield the other night when Dallas and Roarke dropped by to speak with her. I was working.”