Celebrity in Death (In Death #34)(53)

“Right. Do you know why she hired A?”

“I wrote up the file. It’s okay to tell you? We’re confidential.”

“I’m the police,” Eve reminded her.

“Yeah, I guess. Well, I wrote up a domestic surveillance file, and the contract for it. We do lots of those ’cause people really cheat, and that’s just not right. A said to leave the amount blank.”

“Is that usual?”

“No way, but I just work here. He said to leave it blank, then he didn’t give me a copy for my files. He said not to worry about it, but I do the billing and the books. I’m good with numbers. Numbers and people.” She smiled, poked out her impressive br**sts. “They’re my strengths.”

“Did she come back?”

“No, she only came in the one time. Fine with me. I don’t like people talking down to me. But A’s been in a really good mood since. Except, I guess this morning. He came in and barely said hello, and he locked himself back in his office. He was okay when he left, though. He gave me a wink. Not that we’re like that, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t get like that with the boss. You’ve got to keep that out of the office, right? Or you don’t get respected.”

“That’s smart, Barbie.”

“Anyway, I haven’t seen Ms. I’m-Too-Good-to-Pee-Body since the one time. Is she in trouble? I wouldn’t care, except because of A.”

“You could say she had some trouble. When A comes back, or you’re able to contact him, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him I need to talk to him.” Eve dug out a card.

“I sure will. I don’t think I’m going to hold the fort much longer, though. We don’t have any appointments in the book anyway. So I’ll leave him a message if I go before he gets back.”

“Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

She beamed. “That’s good. I like to help.”

After they left the office, Peabody shoved her hands in her pockets. “These nicknames are pissing me off.”

“But you’re not I’m-Too-Good-to-Pee-Body. Harris is.”

“It’s my damn name. And now I have to pee. It’s like my bladder has to prove something.”

“Pee at the bank. Consider it a deposit.”

They found another recording in the safe box, more cash, and two dated, handwritten receipts from A. A. Asner for fifty thousand each.

They bagged and labeled, and transported everything back to Central.

“Get the cash logged in and secured,” Eve told Peabody. “I’m going to take the recorders up to Feeney for a quick anal. Write it up. When I’ve finished with the recordings, I’ll swing by the studio, check out the vic’s trailer before I head home.”

“You don’t want me with?”

“Figuring her, she’s too paranoid to have much of anything in her trailer. But we’ve got to look, so I’ll take care of it. Get it written up, copy Whitney. And you can send the file to Mira, get me some time with her tomorrow.”

“Okay. Dallas? I’ve been thinking. There’s no murder weapon. We have motive all over the place, and the same for opportunity. Because this is a tight-knit group, when you think about it. They’ve been spending hours together every day for months—and they’re all in the same business—the same world.”

“No argument.”

“Well, I don’t know if any one of them would tell us if they actually saw someone slip out of the theater. I don’t know if any one of them would tell us if they actually knew which one of them killed Harris.”

“Probably not. Or not yet.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to pin this one, or prove it unless the killer decides to come in and confess.”

“Maybe we’ll arrange just that. For now we take the steps, work the case. And don’t put that you think we’re screwed in the report.”

But she had a point, Eve thought as she headed up to EDD. They had a victim no one liked, one who’d threatened or manipulated or pissed off everyone who’d been on scene at the murder.

Three cops, she thought in annoyance, a shrink, and a former criminal now expert consultant, civilian, right there at the time and the place, and they couldn’t appreciably narrow the list of suspects.

It was as embarrassing as it was infuriating.

She walked into the color and sound of EDD. And movement, she thought when she spotted McNab doing a kind of prancing pace around the room. He weaved or sidestepped when one of his fellow e-geeks strutted or boogied in his path.

Like a strange, disjointed dance, Eve thought, where even the chair-sitters bopped, swiveled, or tapped to some constant internal beat.

She stepped in front of McNab, poked him to get his attention.

“Hey.” He flicked off his earpiece. “Got those financials for you.”

“Two withdrawals of fifty large, each within the last ten days.”

“Well, hell. You spoil the fun.”

“We tracked her PI. Anything else interesting?”

“As a matter of fact. Come, have a seat in the parlor.”

He led the way to his cube, recently decorated, Eve noted, with a poster of a monkey in a tutu riding an airboard with a PPC in one hand, a sandwich in the other while its earpiece flashed green. A smaller monkey rode in a pack on her back.