Celebrity in Death (37 page)

“So he objects?”

“Disapproves. Worries. I tried to switch to herbals as he’s not as rabid about those, but hell. It’s not the same.”

“Anyone else? Smoke or object to it?”

“Andi will bum a drag now and then, either from me or off an herbal. A lot of the crew sneak off for an herbal during breaks. Roundtree designated an area for them, though the studio wouldn’t approve. And Joel pitched a fit.”

Inside, Eve smiled. “Did he?”

“He’s the smoking gestapo.” She straightened again, rolled her eyes dramatically. “I swear, he can tell if you’ve had a single puff an hour before from a half mile away.” She made sniffing sounds, lowered her brows, roughened her voice, and did a dead-on mimic of Steinburger. “Who’s been smoking! I won’t be exposed to it. Preston! Valerie! Get this place aired out, right now!” She made hacking noises, covered her mouth with her forearm. “Somebody get me a lozenge and some spring water!”

Then she laughed, sat back. “I swear, his eyes start watering if somebody so much as thinks about smoking. He and K.T. were at it on that all the time. They’d … Oh, I didn’t mean. It’s not like he’d kill somebody over it. He just can’t stand it, and his eyes do get red.”

“Understood.” Eve smiled. “We know Harris smoked herbals on the roof, inside the dome. DNA. From what you’ve said it doesn’t seem likely she got them from someone else at the party.”

“She wouldn’t ask, believe me. Or share.”

“Then that covers that. Just a minor detail, as I said. I’ve got to get to the briefing, Marlo.”

“Okay. Thanks. Really.” She rose, took Eve’s hand. “It’s probably stupid, but I feel better just talking to you.”

“Glad I could help. I’ll walk you out.”

“You probably think it’s silly,” Marlo said and tugged on her wig. “Wigs and shades and oversized coats.”

“I think I’d hate it if I couldn’t walk down the street, buy a soy dog, take a stroll, grab a slice without having people staring at me, pushing at me, taking pictures of me.”

“It’s part of the package.”

“Everybody’s got a package. You don’t have to like all of it.”

“Matthew and I are talking about going public. What the studio wants, it just doesn’t seem important now. Two people are dead. That’s what’s important, so … And you know what else?” She pulled off the wig, shaking out her short hair as she stuffed it in her bag. “God! That feels better. Screw it. I’m Marlo Durn.”

She shot Eve the megastar smile and strolled toward the glide.

Armed with the additional data, Eve strode to the conference room. Inside, McNab stuffed the last of a doughnut into his mouth.

Peabody turned from the board, goggled. “Holy shit, Dallas.”

“Convinced?”

“Are you kidding? The pattern’s there. Right there. He kills people.”

“Not quite a habit,” McNab put in, “more than a hobby. Or maybe there are others, people who didn’t have a connection to him. In between he kills complete strangers.”

“Possible. But it strikes me as more likely his killing is, to him, just part of doing business. Sometimes you fire, sometimes you dissolve a partnership. Sometimes you kill.”

“It’s almost sicker that way.” Peabody looked back to the board. “If
he profiled like a true serial, we could at least say he’s compelled. But it’s not compulsive when you go years between. It’s—”

“Convenience.”

“Sicker. And to think I was so juiced because he talked to me about the cameo, and how they’d play me up.”

“We’ll get him, She-Body.”

“Now I want a damn doughnut.”

“Got your cream-filled with sugar glaze right here.” McNab pulled it out of the box for her.

She took the first enormous bite as Whitney came in.

“Commander,” Eve began. “Thank you for making the time.”

“You made it sound urgent. Are those doughnuts?”

Peabody, unable to speak with a mouth full of cream, nodded.

“Detectives Peabody and McNab thought they were called for,” Eve told him.

“When aren’t they?” Whitney selected a jelly, topped with sprinkles. But the board caught his eye before he could sample. In silence he studied the data, the pattern.

“Nine?”

“Yes, sir. It’s possible there are more, but these dates, times, circumstances I can verify. I’m expecting Doctor Mira, Captain Feeney, APA Reo, and would like to brief everyone on the data and my conclusions at once.”

“Yes. Kyung will join us here at oh-nine-hundred. I can bump that time if you need more.”

“Hopefully not.”

Whitney shook his head. “This is a shit storm.”

A lot of that going around, Eve thought.

She stayed out of the way as Feeney came in, reacted enthusiastically to the doughnuts, then stood munching one as he studied the board.
Mira and Reo came in together, and Eve heard a snippet of their continued conversation about a shoe sale.

Eve waited as each caught the board, as Mira accepted the cup of tea Peabody brought her. As she sat, sipped, studied.

Eve judged the timing, then walked up to the board, faced the room.

“The data, my gut, and a probability of seventy-three-point-eight say that Joel Steinburger killed the nine individuals on these boards. Motives may be murky as yet, but beginning with Bryson Kane, when the victim and the suspect were twenty and twenty-one respectively, the suspect had received a warning of imminent academic suspension due to spotty attendance and failing grades. While records show the suspect’s attendance did not significantly improve, he went from near suspension to honors list in a four-week period.”

“You figure he cheated,” Feeney commented.

“I do. I figure he paid the victim, who was a straight honors student, to write his papers, crib any tests or exams. I believe the victim either wanted to stop or asked for more money. They argued, and the suspect pushed him down the stairs. The suspect’s grades dipped sharply for the three weeks after his roommate’s death. This was put down to natural emotional upheaval at the time. I call bullshit. His grades dipped because he killed his source. He had to find another.”

“How do you prove it?” Reo asked her.

“By analyzing financial data from that period. By interviewing the other roommates, instructors, students.

“Second victim,” she continued. “His fiancée’s wealthy, influential great-grandfather, and the suspect’s boss. At his death, the great-granddaughter—who married the suspect—came into a considerable inheritance. And from the pattern that emerges here, the suspect has a fondness for women.”

“A cheat’s a cheat,” Feeney commented. “He cheats on the girlfriend, Granddaddy finds out, tells him to blow.”

“That’s the one I like,” Eve agreed. “The suspect ends up with a wealthy wife, a solid position at the studio, and the potential to become heir apparent.

“Victim three,” Eve said and worked her way down.

She juggled data and theories, answered questions, reasserted time lines.

“Considering the length of time we’re dealing with,” Reo began, “it would take a miracle to access all the data. The financial records, travel, wit statements. Much less locate and interview all parties involved. Then we have to jog, and trust those memories and impressions.”

“So he keeps getting away with it, because he scatters his kills, changes his method. Nine people—maybe more—are dead because Joel Steinburger wanted them that way. Because he wanted money or sex or fame or a reputation he’d never earned. They’re dead because he wanted the easy way to the red carpet, the media spotlight, the power chamber of a glamorous industry. And he wanted all the benefits that go with it. The money again, the sex, the envy of others.”

“I don’t disagree with you, Dallas. But you’ve got pattern—a logical pattern, a convincing one. You don’t have evidence.”

“We’ll get it.”

“How close are you to getting him for K.T. Harris and/or Asner?”

“Closer than I was. Closer still when you put them together with the others—when you
see
the pattern. Get me a warrant to search his residence, his office, his vehicle. Get me one to confiscate and search his electronics.”

“And would you like me to get you a pony while I’m at it?” The Southern in Reo’s voice went to steel. “Where’s the cause? The judge
and any decent lawyer, which believe me Steinburger will have a fleet of, will point out that many men in their sixties can be connected to nine deaths over the course of their lives. That only one of these cases was designated homicide, for which the individual charged was convicted. I can get a judge to look at this, to see what you see, what I’m damn well seeing, too. And we still won’t get a search warrant.”

“So that’s it?” Eve shot back. “You don’t even try.”

“Of course I’m going to try. Damn it. I want to put this creepy bastard away for the rest of his life. I’m telling you we’re going to get a big, fat, solid no on a search warrant.”

Eve paced away.

“I’ll talk to your boss,” Whitney told Reo, “and as many judges as it takes. If Doctor Mira will reprofile. If you have some thoughts on this, Doctor Mira.”

“Yes.” It was the first word she’d spoken since entering the room. “I have some thoughts.”

“Before that, as a backup.” Eve turned back. “What about a warrant to monitor his transmissions? An EDD trace on his ’links, his comps. Everything. He’s my primary suspect in two current murders. I can eliminate several of the others present at Harris’s death. I have a partially open dome, evidence the vic was smoking herbals laced with zoner. And a statement that can and will be verified that the suspect has a strong, even passionate aversion to smoke. The dome was closed, and the mechanism faulty. The suspect was unaware of this. When he opened it to clear the smoke, he was unable to close it completely after he killed Harris.”

“I can work with that,” Reo calculated. “I could work a trace. And we’ll work with the prosecutor on the Pearlman suicide. If your contact on that can locate the evidence, the files, we may be able to toggle back now that we have this secondary account. But if you don’t get something
off the trace in short order, we’re going to have a tough time keeping it in place when he leaves New York. And the rest.”

Reo turned to the boards again. “I want to believe we can prove it, but realistically, it could take years to put it all together.”

“He’ll kill again.” Mira spoke up now. “He won’t wait years between this time. He’s killed twice in two days. It’s a new kind of power. He murdered Asner with extreme violence, the kind he’s only exhibited, that we see here, one other time. There’s a pattern there as well. His privacy was infringed. He reacted with violence, then took and we assume destroyed all that pertained to him. In this case, Asner isn’t the end of it. If Valerie was paid or compensated to give him an alibi, she’s now a new threat. He’ll need to eliminate her, and I don’t believe he’ll wait. Not years, not months. Weeks perhaps. He’ll need to finish it to feel fully in control again.”

She looked at Eve. “He’s more dangerous now, without that feeling of control. He is organized, so he’ll plan. He’s self-serving and can justify all his actions as necessary. And he is ruthless. Whatever gets in the way of his comfort, his success, his ambition must be eliminated. He’s killed for his own needs for forty years, and has become a powerful, respected, famous, wealthy man. On the one hand, killing is the same for him as it is for a paid assassin.”

“Business,” Eve said.

“Yes. And on the other, it’s intensely, intimately personal. Friends, lovers, former wives. You may find he had a sexual relationship at one time with K.T. Harris. Only twice were his kills not part of his intimate circle.”

“And those he killed with extreme violence.”

“He could let that violent nature out with them. I believe when you interview his ex-wives and any former or current lovers they’ll tell you—if they’re honest—he preferred rough sex, likely with rape role-playing.
The violence is there, always. Ending lives gives him a sense of control, and at the same time, the need to end them when threatened controls him.”

“He’s going to be real unhappy when we take away his control and put him in a concrete cage. Get me a warrant,” Eve told Reo. “Whatever you can get.”

After a quick knock, Kyung stepped in. “Do you need me to wait?”

“No.” Eve angled her head. “It’s good timing. If everyone could stay a few minutes more. I’ve got a way I think we can get something on that EDD trace sooner rather than later.”

She jerked a thumb at the box on the conference table. “Have a doughnut,” she invited Kyung.

“
YOU NEED TO SET UP ANOTHER MEDIA CONFERENCE
,” Eve said to Kyung.

“I’m afraid so.” After a brief perusal, he selected a conservative glazed, broke it tidily in half. “It’s necessary.”

“Okay, but it has to wait until APA Reo finesses a warrant, and EDD is set on a tap and trace.”

“Well.” Kyung spread his hands in surprise. “You’re very agreeable.”

“I hope to say the same about you. We’re going to announce there’s been a break in the case, and I feel an arrest is imminent.”