She paused, pressed a hand to her mouth. “Past, present. It gets mixed up. I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“You’re doing fine.” Eve wound her through the evening as Mira came back in.
“God. Thank you,” Connie said as Mira set a cup of coffee in front of her.
“Your husband added a splash of brandy.”
“He knows me.”
“Do you remember seeing K.T. leave the theater?” Eve asked her. “Or anyone else leave during the screen show?”
“I’d seen the gag reel, so I slipped out during the opening credits, went in to talk to the caterers. I was in the kitchen for a little while.” As she sipped the coffee, Connie creased her forehead. “I came in toward the end, slipped over to the buffet to make sure we had enough out for post-screening. I didn’t see anyone go in or come out as I did.”
“What about when the lights came up? Was everyone there?”
“K.T. wasn’t. I know that because I’d been keeping an eye on her. She’d been drinking too much, and I didn’t want another scene. I’d planned on getting her out, into a car, and gone, but she wasn’t in the theater.”
“Was anyone else missing?”
“I’m not sure. My focus was on her because of what happened earlier, and the way she’d been stewing. I wasn’t going to risk another scene. I started to go out, see if she’d gone home or was still in the house, but Valerie waylaid me. She wanted a list of the desserts for a story she wanted to pitch on the evening. Then Nadine came up, and we started talking. I let it go.”
Eve caught sight of Roarke, gave him a subtle signal to come in.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s okay. We’re good here for now, Connie. I’ll send for someone else in just a minute.”
“Your sweepers and the morgue team arrived,” Roarke told Eve when he was alone with her and Mira. “They went up to the roof.”
“Let’s move this along. Tell Peabody I want her to take Roundtree, Dennis Mira, and the publicist, in any order, in some other location. That leaves me with Andrea Smythe and the asshole producer and Nadine. We’ll take Julian together last. When we’re nearly there,” she said to Mira, “you could get some Sober-Up in him for me. No point in talking to a drunk.”
“She was a cunt.” Eyes alert, Andrea chugged down coffee. “It’s a term I use for particularly nasty people of either sex, and she was a world-class cunt. I disliked her in the part because I found the character of Peabody so appealing. Water was never wet enough for K.T.”
She paused a moment, smiled. “And that was a very poor choice of words, considering.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I don’t give a rat’s warty ass she’s dead. It only means she’s a dead cunt.”
“That’s a strong opinion.”
“And the only kind worth having. I threatened to shove a stick up her twat and light it on fire just yesterday. Maybe the day before. I lose track as there was rarely a day that went by she didn’t make me want to strangle her with my bare hands after I’d beaten her in the face with a rusty shovel.”
Andrea drank some coffee, smiled over the rim. “She tended to stay out of my way.”
“I bet.”
“I don’t mind being a suspect when the corpse is a shit-for-brains fuckwit, but if I’d killed her it would’ve been bloody and loud. And I’d have enjoyed it too much to keep it to myself.”
For the moment at least, Eve believed her. And cut her loose.
The minute Joel Steinburger strode in, he grabbed for the controls.
“We have to get a few things straight.”
“Do we?”
“Nothing can be released to the media until I, Valerie, or one of my people vets it. This feed has to be carefully massaged. I need my ’link. I can’t be out of contact with my people at a time like this. In addition, I need everyone here—that includes the staff, the police, all the guests—to sign a nondisclosure agreement. We can’t have some server running to the tabloids selling some twisted version of tonight, or some underpaid cop trying to line his pockets with a ’link vid of K.T. lying up there dead. I’m told you plan to have her taken to the morgue. We can’t have that.”
“We can’t?”
“I can arrange for a private facility, a private examiner. Jesus Christ, do you know how much one of those Internet hounds would pay for a picture of K.T. Harris, naked on some slab in the morgue?”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. I need—”
“What you need has to wait because you have the right to remain silent. And I suggest you fucking do so until I finish Mirandizing you.”
“What are you talking about?” He looked genuinely shocked. “What is she talking about?” he demanded of Mira.
“Joel,” Mira began as Eve continued to recite. “Take a breath. Take a moment. Lieutenant Dallas has to do her job.”
“I have to do mine! Everybody involved in this production requires I give this incident all my attention, and make certain it’s handled properly.”
“Do you understand your rights and obligations?” Eve asked him.
“You’re not going to treat me like a criminal.” He folded his arms. “I want my lawyers.”
“Fine. Contact them. We’ll go down to Central and wait for them to get there. No problem.”
“You can’t—”
“Yes, I can.” Eve slapped her badge on the table. “I’m in charge here. This and the dead woman on the roof put me in charge. You can give me a statement here or we can go to Central and wait for your lawyers. That part’s up to you.”
“You’re going to watch your tone or I’ll be speaking with your superiors.”
“Whitney, Commander Jack. Have at it.”
Steinburger let out a long breath. The color that had flooded his face cooled a little. “I want you to understand, this is my project, these are my people. I’m just trying to protect my project, my people.”
“And I’m trying to find out how a woman we all had dinner with a few hours ago ended up facedown in the lap pool. I win. Here or there, Joel. Your choice.”
“Fine. Fine. What do you want? None of us did anything to K.T. It’s obvious she had an accident. I don’t want the media snickering about her being drunk. I don’t want Roundtree and Connie suffering because she got drunk and careless in their home.”
“Were you on the roof tonight?”
“No.”
“Did you have any problems with the deceased?”
“No.”
“Now that’s got to be a lie. Are you the only person in this house who didn’t have one?”
He held up his hands, let out a long sigh. “I’m not saying she wasn’t difficult. She was an artist. Actors are children on some level, often on more than one level. K.T. could be somewhat of a problem child. I’m very good at managing people, dealing with the creative temperament and problem children or I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
“I hear she was a mean drunk.”
He sighed again. “That’s the kind of gossip I want to prevent. She didn’t handle drink well, and she had a temper. She wasn’t a very happy woman, but she could and did do fine work. I don’t want her smeared.”
“Did you and she have any altercations?”
“I wouldn’t call them altercations. She wasn’t happy, as I said, she had complaints about the script, the direction, her costars. I’m used to actors coming to me with complaints.”
“How did you handle them?”
“I smoothed them over when possible, was firm when it wasn’t. K.T. understood if she didn’t cooperate it wouldn’t go well for her career. She was good, very good, but not indispensable. I understand she blew off some steam tonight, and it was rude. It was inappropriate.”
He lifted his hands with a rise of shoulders in a what-can-you-do gesture. “I intended to discuss it with her tomorrow, and urge her to go into rehab, to take some anger management sessions. Otherwise …”
“Otherwise?”
The shrugging indulgence shifted smoothly to cold calculation. “There are plenty of hungry actors waiting for a break. I have another project green lit, and she wanted it. I wanted her for it. But, as I said, she wasn’t indispensable, and I would have made that clear.”