“The victim is visually ID’d as K.T. Harris.”
She filled in details for the record: the location, the reason for the victim’s presence, the names—including her own and Roarke’s—of the other people in attendance.
“Broken glass and spilled wine here. I observed an open bottle of wine inside the attached lounge.” She stepped to the side, noted a topless pedestal. “Six herbal cigarette butts in this receptacle. The victim’s purse is on the table here, opened.”
She crouched, careful not to touch until she could seal up. “I see lip dye, a small black case, an undetermined amount of cash, and a key card. The victim is wearing the dress she had on all evening as well as the jewelry, the wrist unit. Her left shoe is in place, bunged up on the heel. I see the right one at the bottom of the pool.”
She turned, deliberately blocking the body when she heard Peabody come out.
“If you can’t handle this, I need to know. It’s understandable. It’s acceptable.”
“I didn’t drink that much. I was too nervous and excited. But I took a Sober-Up anyway.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Peabody moistened her lips, and the girls-on-display quivered a little. “I can handle it.”
Saying nothing, Eve stepped aside.
“Oh …” Peabody’s eyes went wide, a little glassy. “’Kay. Maybe I need a minute.”
“Take what you need. Go inside, tag the bottle of wine on the bar. Roarke’s bringing up a field kit. We need to seal up before we get started. I called it in. We’ll have some uniforms to secure the area.”
“Got it.” Peabody stepped back inside.
One scenario, Eve thought, as she studied the scene, the body: Harris comes up to smoke, drink, stew. Slips, thanks to drinking and the mile-high heels, takes a header into the pool and drowns. A simple, stupid accident.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Could be an accident,” she said when Peabody came out again. “Too much to drink, risky shoes, oops. The water’s only about three feet deep. She goes in hard, hits her head.”
“She was knocking them back steady during dinner.”
“So, maybe an accident. Take a look around outside the pool dome, see if you can find anything that indicates she had company up here.”
“Okay, but I’m fine now.”
“Good.” She nodded as Roarke walked out with the field kit. “Seal up, see what you can find.”
Eve opened the field kit. “What’s the temperature down below?” she asked Roarke.
“McNab’s got it under control. He has everyone, including staff, in the living area. He said unless you wanted it otherwise, he’d shift the staff to the kitchen once the uniforms arrive.”
“That works. Vic is confirmed as K.T. Harris,” she said for the record when she pressed the woman’s thumb to her print pad. “Caucasian female, age twenty-seven—got a couple years on Peabody.”
“You’re looking for differences.”
Eve shrugged. “Being dead’s a big difference. TOD twenty-three hundred.” She frowned at her wrist unit. “That would be shortly after the screen show started, I think. People were going in and out before and after. We talked to Roundtree awhile right after, but I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”
She closed her eyes a minute, took herself back. “He put us up front. I don’t remember seeing her after we sat down.”
“She was in the back. I noticed because I intended to avoid her, or see that you did.”
“Our backs were to the room. She could’ve left, come up here after it started. No blood visible.” She took her sealed hands over the head. “Feels like a knot back here, a small laceration.”
She reached in the kit for microgoggles just as McNab came out.
“Four uniforms reported, Lieutenant. I had them …”
He trailed off with every ounce of color leaking out of his face as his eyes tracked over the body. “Jesus. Jesus.”
“She’s older,” Eve said matter-of-factly. “Her bottom lip is thinner, her eyes are rounder. Her feet are longer, narrower.”
“What?”
“The victim is K.T. Harris, twenty-seven, actress.”
“There are some glasses, napkins, on a table in a garden alcove,” Peabody began as she strode back. “I tagged them for the sweepers.”
“Dee.” McNab grabbed her hand.
Peabody gave a little yelp. Eve figured he must have crushed bone against bone before he just pulled her against him, pressed his face to her hair.
“What the—oh. I know. It gave me a major jitter, too. I’m all good. See.” She gave his ass a quick squeeze—something Eve decided, given the circumstances, to ignore.
“McNab, status.” Eve pushed to her feet, and once again angled herself to block the body. “Detective McNab, give me the status.”
“Sir.” He could have passed for a corpse himself under the moody blue lights.
“Eyes on me,” Eve snapped. “Look at me when I’m talking to you. Report.”
“We took the staff—household and the outside catering team—into the kitchen. The rest are in the living area. Two uniforms on each group. They’re asking a lot of questions. Except for Cross. He’s still passed out, and I thought it best to just leave him that way until you advised otherwise.”
“Good enough. Go down, send one of the uniforms on the staff up here to secure this area. You replace him, and start getting names, contacts, and statements. How many have we got?”
“Three household staff on duty tonight, ten catering staff.”
“Okay. Peabody, give him a hand with that. What about security up here?”
“I asked Roundtree. They don’t have cams up here. Security cams on the entrances, but nothing internal or here on the roof.”
“That’s too bad. We’ll want to review what they’ve got, eliminate any possibility of an intruder. Let’s use the dining area for interviewing the owners and guests. Go ahead and get Matthew Zank in there—alone. I’m right behind you.”
Eve waited until they’d gone, with Peabody slipping her hand back in his. “It’s not going to turn out simple.”
“No?”
“It could be an accident. Except the shoe she’s still wearing is scraped up on the back of the heel. And a slight bruise on her right cheekbone.”
“You think she was dragged in?”
“I think it’s possible she was dragged, then rolled in. Or she could’ve scraped it up, bruised her face in a fall.”
“You don’t think so,” Roarke observed.
“No, it looks like drag marks. It looks like her face bumped against the pool coping on a roll. But even if it was an accident, we’ve got a corpse that looks uncomfortably like one of the investigators, a houseful of Hollywood—along with a reporter—and a media machine that’s going to eat it like gooey chocolate.”
“And the primary investigator is the star of the show.”
Eve shook her head, glanced back at the body. “Right now I’d say she has top billing.”
Downstairs she asked Roarke to do a quick review of the security discs, then walked into the living area. Everyone started talking at once.
“Stop. Sit. I’m not going to be able to answer any questions at this time, so don’t waste your breath. I can confirm K.T. Harris is dead.”
“Oh God.” Connie put her hands over her face.
“Until the ME examines the body I can’t give you any more than that. I’ll be talking to each of you individually.”
Andrea held a shot glass. She tossed back the contents, eyed Eve with steady interest. “We’re suspects.”
“I’ll be talking to you,” Eve repeated. “Doctor Mira, if I could have a moment.”
“Of course.”
Mira rose from her position on a sofa, followed Eve out of the room.
“What’s your take? Just a quick thumbnail of reactions.”
“Is it homicide?”
“I can’t tell you. Really can’t. It has earmarks of an accident—or. So until that’s determined, we’ll proceed as if it’s or. What’s your take?”
“Individually and as a group, they’re upset, nervous. Connie’s managed to hold on to her role as hostess. Roundtree had her, and everyone else, half convinced Harris had just passed out like Julian. The producer and the publicist huddled together awhile. He wasn’t happy—well, several weren’t—when McNab confiscated all ’links. But no one caused any trouble. Matthew and Marlo were the most shaken, but as they found her, that’s to be expected.”