“Naturally.” Nadine gave one of her strands of pearls a quick twirl. “But I’d give them a lift anyway.”
“Yeah, you would. They can leave anytime.”
When she returned to the dining room, Julian was slumped, pale and obviously miserable, over a cup of coffee.
“You’ve been read your rights?” Eve began.
“Yes. She said it was for my protection.”
“That’s exactly right.” Eve took a seat across from him. “Do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“You know Marlo and Matthew found K.T.’s body on the roof.”
“Yes.” He shook his head as if coming out of a dream. “God. God! It’s horrible. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re doing it right now by talking to us. Were you up on the roof tonight, Julian?”
“No—I mean, yes.” He sent Eve a pitiful look. “I’m confused. I had too much to drink. I shouldn’t have, but I was upset after that scene at dinner. I want you to know I wasn’t—I’d never try to, ah, start something with you, and right in front of you,” he said, appealing to Roarke.
“But you would in back of me?”
Julian actually went a shade paler. “I didn’t mean—”
“Just winding you up, mate,” Roarke said, smile very, very cool.
“Oh. Okay, I wouldn’t want you to think I’d hit on your wife. She’s fascinating—I mean to say I’m kind of fascinated, and playing you, it gets intense with Marlo. But I—and Marlo and I aren’t—not really. Just for work, for show. It’s just part of the deal. I mean, I would—they’re both beautiful women, but—”
“Is that a requirement?” Eve asked. “Being beautiful.”
“All women are beautiful,” he said and smiled for the first time.
“Including K.T.?”
“Sure. Well, she could be.”
“And did the two of you start something?”
“Not recently.”
“What would be ‘not recently’?”
“Oh, well, a couple of years ago, I guess. We had a little fun. And a couple months ago. She was feeling down, so I cheered her up.”
“Did she want more cheering up?”
He shifted, stared hard at his coffee. “The thing is, she didn’t really want that. She really wanted to complain about Marlo, or to get me to complain about her—Marlo, I mean—to Roundtree.”
He looked up then, met Eve’s eyes with his own dull, bloodshot blue. “I wasn’t going to do that. She got bent over it, really hammered at me. I finally went to Joel and asked him to get her off my back. I didn’t like to do it, but she was really putting me off, and screwing with my focus. I guess it just bent her more. I don’t know why she has to be that way.”
He looked away again, shook his head. “I don’t understand why people can’t just be nice, have a good time.”
“Why did you go up to the roof tonight?”
His gaze dropped again. “The view’s mag.”
“Were you alone with the mag view?”
He said nothing for a long moment. Peabody reached over, touched his arm, spoke gently. “Julian?”
He looked at her. “She didn’t really look like you when she wasn’t made up. You have a prettier mouth, and your eyes are nicer. I like your eyes better.”
“Thanks.”
Though Eve saw Peabody’s color come up, her partner maintained.
“Who was on the roof with you tonight?” Peabody asked him.
“When I went up, she—K.T. was there. I didn’t want to talk to her, not when she was in that mood. We’d both been drinking. I didn’t want to talk to her.”
“But you did?”
“A little. I asked her why she’d acted that way at dinner. Connie went to all this trouble. It was our job to be friendly, to make sure all of you had a good time. But she just started up about Marlo, you, Matthew, everybody. I didn’t want to be around her, so I came back downstairs.”
“You argued,” Eve prompted.
“I don’t like to argue.”
“But she did.”
“It’s like she just can’t be happy. I don’t get that when there’s so much to be happy about. Look what we get to do for a living. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but mostly it’s just fun. And they pay us a lot of money. Everything’s easier, it’s better when you let yourself be happy. It’s like she can’t.
“Do you have a blocker?” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sober-Up always gives me a headache, a hangover, and makes me feel kind of dull. I don’t get like that if I just sleep it off. That’s what I was trying to do, just sleep it off.”
Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, offered one of the tiny blue pills.
“Thanks.” Julian smiled at Roarke. “I feel like crap.”
“When were you on the roof with K.T.?” Eve asked him.
“Tonight.”
Eve thought Nadine’s assessment of Julian being a little dim hit bull’s-eye. “What time?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I’d been drinking, and … after dinner. I know it was after dinner.”
“Did you watch the gag reel?”
He stared off into space, brow furrowed. “Sort of. I want to see it again, when I can focus. I just couldn’t. I guess I went up for some air before I watched, then I couldn’t focus anyway. I was falling asleep, so I went out and lay down on the couch.”
“When you came down, K.T. was still on the roof?”
“Yeah. She was still there.”
“Did you see anyone else go up?”
“I didn’t see anyone go up. I wanted to lie down, but Roundtree wanted us in the theater.” His gaze tracked back to Eve. “Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Yes, very sure.”
“It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t feel real. Did you tell me how she died? I can’t remember. Everything’s mixed up.”
“It appears as if she drowned.”
“She drowned?” Julian dropped his head in his hands. “She drowned.” He shuddered. “K.T. drowned. Because she was drunk, and she fell in the lap pool?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because she was drunk,” he repeated, “and she fell in the lap pool, and she drowned. God. It’s horrible.”
He lifted his head when Peabody came back with a glass of water.
“Thanks.” He laid a hand over Peabody’s. “I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish she’d never gone up on the roof. She wouldn’t let herself be happy. Now she never will be.”
She had Peabody take him out, and sat where she was a moment, sorting through her thoughts. Roarke shifted chairs to sit across from her.
Odd, she thought, really odd to have him in the same chair that Julian just vacated. Odd how clearly she could see the differences between them. The body language, the clarity of eye, the stillness—and the ease of being still.
“He’s a bit of a gobdaw, isn’t he?”
“I couldn’t say. What the hell is a gobdaw?”
“Slow-witted. I don’t think it’s just the drink or the abrupt sobering.”
“Not entirely. Gobdaw.” She shook her head at the term. “Even gob-daws kill.”
“He strikes me as more the harmless sort.”
“Even them. But he’s the only one, so far, who’s admitted to being up there, with her. Could be the gobdaw in him, or the harmless. Or just honest innocence. He goes up, thinks, ‘Hell, I’m not dealing with her again,’ staggers back down. Someone else goes up and does the deal with her. Or she stumbled on her stilts and deals with herself.”
“Roundtree finally talked Connie into taking a soother and going to bed,” Peabody announced as she came back in.
“Probably a good thing,” Eve decided. “I don’t need her—or him—anymore tonight.”
“What do you need?” Roarke asked her.
“To go home, I guess, and let this work through in my head. It’s rare to interview so many witnesses/suspects in one lump. We’re witnesses, too, and right now I feel like a lousy one.”
“Because you can’t zero in on the killer—if indeed there is a killer—almost before the body reaches the morgue?”
“We were right here.”
“I keep going over and over it.” Peabody blew out a breath. “Asking myself did I see, even sense, somebody sneaking out, sneaking in. But I was so into the show. It was funny and so iced. I remember different people calling out some remark, but can’t pinpoint the timing. Mostly it was just a lot of laughing or good-natured groaning. I’ve got nothing.”