Eternity in Death (In Death #24.5)(3)

“Everything you tell me may help in the investigation,” Eve prompted.

“Yes. Well…when you take care of someone, you know when they’ve had a…an intimacy. She had a lover in her bed every night for a week or more.”

“But you never saw him.”

“Never. I come at eight every morning, and leave at six, unless she needs me to stay longer. He was never here when I was here.”

“Was it her habit to turn off her security system from in-house?”

“Never, never.” Dry-eyed now, Estella shook her head decisively from side to side. “It was never to be disengaged. I don’t understand why she would have done that. I saw it was off when I came in this morning. I thought there must be a glitch in the system, and Miss Tiara would be angry. I called downstairs to report it even before I went up to the bedroom.”

“All right. You came in at eight, noted the security was off, reported it, then went upstairs. Is that your usual routine, to come in, go up to her bedroom?”

“Yes, to get Biddy.” Estella bent her head to nuzzle the dog. “To take him for his morning walk, then to feed him. Miss Tiara usually sleeps until about eleven.”

Estella’s brow creased. “Later these last days, since—the new lover. Sometimes she didn’t come downstairs until into the afternoon, and she ordered all the windows draped when she did. She said she only wanted the night. It worried me because she looked so pale, and wouldn’t eat. But I thought, well, she’s in love, that’s all.”

After a long, long sigh, Estella continued. “Then this morning, Biddy wasn’t waiting by the bedroom door. He always waits there for me in the morning. I went in, very quietly. He was coming to the door, but he wasn’t walking right.”

Eve frowned at the dog. “What do you mean?”

“It was…I thought: Biddy looks drunk, and I had to hold back a laugh because he looked so funny. I went in more, and I smelled…it was the candles at first. I could smell the candles, so I thought she’d had her lover in the night. But then there was another smell, a hard smell. It was the blood, I think,” she said as her eyes welled again. “It must have been the blood and…her, I smelled her, and when I looked over at the bed, I saw her there. I saw my poor little girl there.”

“Did you touch anything, Estella? Anything in the room?”

“No, no. Yes. Biddy. I grabbed Biddy. I don’t know why exactly, I just grabbed little Biddy and I ran out. She was dead—the blood, her face, her eyes, everything. She couldn’t be anything but dead. I ran out screaming, and I called security. Mr. Tripps came right up. Right away, and he went upstairs. He was only a minute, then he came down to contact the police.”

“Could you tell if anything’s missing?”

“I know her things. I didn’t notice…” Distressed again, she glanced around the room. “I didn’t look.”

“I’m going to have you look through her jewelry first. You know her jewelry?”

“I do. Every piece. I clean it for Miss Tiara because she doesn’t trust—”

“Okay. We’ll start there.”

She sent Estella to the dressing area with two cops and a recorder. She was scribbling a few notes, adding time lines when Peabody tracked her down.

“Tripps reports that the maid contacted Security at eight-oh-two to report the system was down. She contacted them again at eight-oh-nine, hysterical. He came up personally, went upstairs, verified the death, contacted the police. Times jibe.”

“Yeah, they do. What did he say about the system being down?”

“He said—and documented—that Kent told him she would be shutting it down internally near midnight, and would re-engage it when she wanted. He advised against, she told him to mind his own. She did the same every night for the last eight days, though the time of shutdown varied. She’d re-engage before dawn.”

Thoughtfully, Eve tapped her fingers on her own notes. “So the boyfriend didn’t want to be on the security tapes. Got her to shut it down, came in her private entrance, left the same way. She must’ve been monumentally stupid.”

“Well, she wasn’t known for her brains.”

Eve slanted Peabody a look. If it was gossip or popular culture, Peabody usually had her finger on the pulse. “What was she known for?”

“Clubbing, shuttle-hopping, shopping, scandals. The usual, I guess, for a fourth-generation—I think it’s fourth—megarich kid. She got engaged a lot, broke up a lot—usually publicly and with a lot of passion. Went to premieres, shuttled off to wherever the current hot spot might be. Hobbed and nobbed. Usually something on her in the tabs or one of the gossip or society channels every day.”

“Who was she running with these days, and why did I feel I had to interview the maid about her lifestyle when I’ve got you?”

“Well, she’s tight with Daffy Wheats, and Caramel Lipton, recently disengaged to Roman Gramaldi, of Zurich. But she hangs with the sparkles of the young, rich, and looking-for-trouble club.”

“Trouble she found,” Eve commented, then glanced up when Estella came rushing in.

“Her pendant, her blue diamond pendant, and the cuffs, her peacock earrings. Gone, all gone.” Her voice pitched up sharply enough to cut glass. “He robbed my poor little girl, robbed her and killed her.”