Celebrity in Death (In Death #34)(51)

“Another notebook, a business card for A. A. Asner, Private Investigations and Security. Stone Street address. And a sealed recording. I’m betting it’s a copy. If she got the original, it’s in that safe box.”

Eve picked up the notebook, tried to open it. “Pass coded.” She thought a moment, then keyed in MATTHEW. The screen flickered on.

“Paranoid, but obvious.” She began flipping through, working from the latest entry back. “She’s got the dinner party in here—time and date, a few pithy comments.

Expect elaborate by Overboard Connie to impress Skinny Bitch and Pleasebody.

“Pleasebody! What the hell.”

“I’m Skinny Bitch, and I barely met her.”

Had enough from Asshole Andi. She’ll shut the f**k up after tonight. And it’s time for Foolian to fall in line. Harlo’s over, and Matthew’s going to come back where he belongs and like it.

Tonight’s the night.

“I guess it was,” Eve said. “Just not the way she figured.”

She flipped back. “I’ve got a note of a cash payment of a hundred grand to Triple A. That would be the PI. Two half payments. First a week from the last entry, second and last three days ago. And there’s a code. 45128. #1337.”

“Lock code and box number?”

“I’d say so,” Eve agreed. “Let’s check banks, Lower West to start, see if she rented a box under her name. Or yours.”

“Mine again?”

“Paranoid,” Eve said again. “And she’s playing you. It’s a natural fit. We finish here, find the bank and box, and pay Triple A a visit.”

Another hour of searching proved they’d already hit the mother lode. While Peabody worked on pinning down the bank, Eve called for sweepers and EDD. She wanted the room processed, the ’links and security checked—and all personal belongings of the vic bagged, sealed, and logged into evidence.

“Still working on it,” Peabody told her.

“We’ll head toward Asner’s office. Keep at it.”

A paranoid, obsessive personality with a substance abuse problem. Why bother to kill her, Eve thought, when she’d probably self-destruct before long anyway?

She could hide her flasks and illegals, but nobody ever hid them well enough. Her colleagues had to have known she had a drinking and an illegals problem. Come at one of them—any one of them could counterweight it with Harris’s secrets.

She considered Matthew and Marlo. They could have killed her, then gone back, made the recording of the discovery. Elaborate, dramatic—but that was their business, wasn’t it? Their nature, to some extent.

The motive seemed weak to her. Sure, having the public consume a vid of them having sex would be embarrassing, but they’d done nothing wrong. The public would goggle, snicker—and sympathize.

Then again, the push/shove/fall, that played like an accident or impulse. It could even be touted as self-defense. She came at me, I pushed her back. She slipped.

The rest might have been panic.

No, it didn’t play like panic. It played like calculation. It said to Eve: I’ve gone this far, let’s just finish it once and for all.

Why take the recording? Why clean off the blood?

Because the recording had value. Because whoever did it was new to the game, assumed her death would be termed accidental drowning as a result of a fall into the pool.

Back to square one. It could have been any of them.

“Got it! New York Financial, and she did use my name.” Peabody hunched her shoulders. “That’s a little creepy.”

“But not unpredictable. What address?”

Eve programmed it into the navigation when Peabody read it off. “Only a block from the PI. We’ll go see him first, get a warrant for the box in the meantime.”

Peabody put in the request, then sat back. “All this, over a guy? And one who dumped her, and was hooked with someone else.”

“No, he’s the—what do they call it—McGuffin. All this is about her. If not Matthew, somebody else or something else. It’s about ego and greed. Power plays and a generally pissy nature.”

“I can’t believe I was juiced when they cast her to play me. Please-body,” Peabody muttered. “She didn’t have any respect for me at all. I wish I’d known what a crappy human being she was before she got dead. I’d have shown her a Pleasebody.”

“How long do you figure you’re going to stew over this?”

“Awhile. I’ve never worked on a vic I wished I’d punched in the face before somebody killed her. I’ve been working on my hand-to-hand.”

“Is that so?”

“That is very so. I think I’m improving. Plus I lost two pounds. Well, one-point-seven pounds.”

“One-point-seven.” Eve slanted a look over. “Seriously? You weigh in decimals?”

“Easy for you, Skinny Bitch.”

“Hey, that’s Lieutenant Skinny Bitch to you, Detective Pleasebody.”

That got a lip twitch that spread to a reluctant smile. “But the point is, I’ve been working on that hand-to-hand, on not telegraphing my moves and all that. I could’ve taken her down, one-on-one.”

“Damn right. You’d have mopped the floor with her if she hadn’t gone and got herself killed first. Selfish f**ker. The least she could’ve done is lived long enough for you to bloody her.”