Celebrity in Death (In Death #34)(15)

“In the limo.”

“Good. Tell McNab to secure the house—nobody leaves—and to find out if there’s any security running up here. Don’t let anybody but Peabody come up.”

“All right.” He looked at the body a moment longer. “A bad end to the evening.”

“It sure was for her.”

As Roarke went down, Eve took her communicator out of her stupid little purse and called in a suspicious death. Then fixed her recorder on the narrow strap of her party dress.

“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, on record,” she began.

Broken glass, she noted, and a puddle of red wine, likely from the bottle open on the bar inside.

“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.