Witness in Death (14 page)

"I guess that little display of temper moved me up the list a few notches."

"Just the opposite. If you'd known about the disc, you'd have attempted a quick castration. You wouldn't have let someone else stick him. You just verified your own profile."

"Well, good for me. Yippee." Nadine dropped into the chair again. "I guess the disc's in evidence."

"Has to be. No one's going to view it for thrills, Nadine. If it helps, you don't show up that much. He angled things so he's in the spotlight, so to speak."

"Yes, he would. Dallas, if the media gets hold of that -- "

"They won't. If you want my advice, go back to work. Keep your mind busy, and let me do my job. I'm good at it."

"If I didn't know that, I'd be on tranqs."

Inspiration struck. "How about a girl night instead?"

"Huh?"

"Mavis and Trina are all set. I don't have time for it, and there's no point in Trina dragging her whole bag of tricks over here and not putting it to full use. Take my place. Go have the works."

"I could use some relaxation therapy."

"There you go." Eve hauled her out of the chair. "You'll feel like a new woman in no time. Go for the body paint," she suggested as she pulled Nadine out of the room. "It'll give you a fresh outlook and sparkling boobs."

Moments later, Eve came back into the parlor, dusting her hands.

"Well done. Lieutenant."

"Yeah, that was pretty slick. They're all down there cooing like... what coos?"

"Doves?" he suggested.

"Yeah, like doves. Now everybody's happy, and I can go back to work. So, you up for a video?"

"Nadine's? Can we have popcorn?"

"Men are perverts. No, not Nadine's, funny guy. But the popcorn's a good idea."

She'd intended to set up in her office, to keep it official. She should have known better. She ended up in one of the second-level lounging rooms, snuggled into the sinfully soft cushions of the mile-long sofa, watching the taped play on a huge wall screen, and with a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

The size of the screen had been Roarke's selling point. It was impossible to miss even the smallest detail when every feature was larger than life.

It was, she realized, almost like being onstage herself. She had to give Roarke points for that one.

Eliza, she noted, had embraced her role of the fussy, irritating nurse assigned to monitor Sir Wilfred. Her period costume was anything but flattering. Her hair was scraped back, her mouth a constant purse. She affected an annoyingly lilting voice like the ones Eve had heard some parents use on recalcitrant offspring.

Kenneth hadn't stinted on his portrayal of the pompous, cranky barrister. His movements were jerky, restless. His eyes sly. His voice would, by turns boom loud enough to shake the rafters, then drop into a crafty murmur.

But it was Draco who owned the play during the first scenes. He was undeniably handsome, outrageously charming, carelessly amused. Yes, she could see how a vulnerable woman would fall for him -- as Vole or as himself.

"Freeze screen." She pushed the bowl at Roarke and rose to move closer to the image of Draco. "Here's what I see. The others are acting. They're good, they're skilled, they're enjoying the roles. He is the role. He doesn't have to act. He's an egocentric, as arrogant and as smooth as Vole. It's a part tailored for him."

"So I thought, when I put his name forward for the play. What does that tell you?"

"That whoever planned his murder probably thought the same thing. And saw the irony of it. Vole dies in the last act. Draco dies in the last act. A dramatic bit of justice. Executed, before witnesses."

She walked back to sit. "It doesn't tell me anything new, really. But it solidifies the angles. Resume play."

She waited, watched. Areena's entrance, she saw now, was brilliant in its timing. That was the writer, of course, the director, but the style of it had to come from the actor.

Beautiful, classy, mysterious, and coolly sexy. That was the role. But that wasn't the true character, Eve remembered. The real Christine Vole revealed herself to be a woman consumed by love. One who would lie for the man she knew to be a murderer, who would sacrifice her dignity, her reputation to save him from the law. And who, in the end, executed him for dismissing that love.

"It's acting on two levels," Eve murmured. "Just as Draco is. Neither of them show the face of their character until the last scene."

"They're both very skilled."

"No, they're all skilled. All used to manipulating words and actions to present an image. I haven't chipped through the image yet. Sir Wilfred believes he's defending an innocent man, and in the end learns he was duped. That's enough to piss you off. If we're correlating life and make-believe. It's enough to kill for."

He'd thought the same himself, and nodded. "Go on."

"The character of Diana believed every bullshit line Vole fed her. That his wife was a cold bitch, that he was innocent, that he was going to leave her."

"The other woman," Roarke put in. "The younger one. A little naive, a little grasping."

"In the end, won't she figure out she was duped and used and be mortified? Just as Carly learned she was duped and used and mortified. As Christine learned. And there's Michael Proctor standing in the wings, hungry to take it all on."

She studied the faces, listened to the voices, measured the connections. "It's one of them, one of the players. I know it. It's not some tech with a grudge, or with dreams of being in the lights. It's someone who's been in the lights and knows how to wear the right face at the right time."

She fell silent again, watching the play progress, searching for some chink, some instant when a glance, a gesture indicated the feelings and plans beneath the facade.

But no, they were good, she mused. Every one of them.

"That's the dummy knife, first courtroom scene. Freeze screen, enhance sector P-Q, twenty-five percent."

The screen shifted smoothly, with the evidence table enlarging. The knife on it was in clear view from this angle, and enlarged, Eve could see the subtle differences between it and the murder weapon.

"The blade's nearly the same size and shape, but the handle's a bit wider, thicker. It's the same color, but it's not the same material." She let out a breath. "But you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking for it. You expect to see the prop, so you see it. Draco could have looked right at it, hell, he might have picked it up himself, and he wouldn't have noticed. Resume normal play."

Her head was beginning to throb lightly. She barely noticed when Roarke began to rub her shoulders. She watched the change of scenes, the curtain drop, the soundless circling of one set for another. A few techs slipped across behind the curtain, nearly indistinguishable in their traditional black.

But she spotted Quim. He was clearly in charge now, in his element. He gestured, a kind of theater sign language that meant little to her. She saw him consult briefly with the prop master, nod, then glance downstage left.

"There." Eve leaped to her feet again. "He sees something, something that doesn't fit. He's hesitating, yeah, just for a second, studying. And now he's moving off in the same direction. What did you see? Who did you see? Damn it."

She turned back to Roarke. "That was the switch. The real knife's on the courtroom set now. Waiting."

She ordered the disc to reverse, then set her wrist unit to time, and replayed. "Okay, now he spots it."

Behind her, Roarke rose, moved to the AutoChef and ordered her coffee. When he stepped beside her, she took the cup without realizing it, drank.

On-screen, extras moved out to their marks. The bartender took his position, techs vanished. Areena, dressed in the cheap and gaudy costume that suited a mid-twentieth-century barfly, took her seat on a stool at the end of a bar. She angled herself away from the audience.

A train whistle blew. Curtain up.

"Two minutes, twelve seconds. Time enough to stash the knife. Right in the roses, or somewhere no one would notice until it could be moved. But it's close. Very close. And very ballsy."

"Sex and ambition," Roarke murmured.

"What?"

"Sex and ambition, That's what killed Leonard Vole, and that's what killed Richard Draco. Life imitates art."

Peabody wouldn't have said so, at least not if she used the animated painting she was currently trying to study. And pretend she understood. She sipped the champagne Charles had given her and struggled to look as sophisticated as the rest of the guests at the art show.

She was dressed for it, at least, she thought with some relief. Eve's Christmas present to her had been her gorgeous undercover wardrobe designed by Mavis's wonderful lover, Leonardo. But the shimmering sweep of blue silk couldn't transform the Midwestern sensibility.

She couldn't make head nor tail of the creeping movement of shape and color.

"Well, it's really... something." Since that was the best she could come up with, she drank more champagne.

Charles chuckled and gave her shoulder an affectionate rub. "You're a sweetheart for putting up with me, Delia. You must be bored to death."

"No, I'm not." She glanced up at his marvelous face, smiled. "I'm just art-stupid."

"There's nothing stupid about you." He bent down, gave her a light kiss.

She wanted to sigh. It was still next to impossible to believe she could be in a place like this, dressed like this, with a gorgeous man on her arm. And it galled, galled to think that she was much more suited to takeout Chinese in McNab's pitiful apartment.

Well, she was just going to keep going to art shows, operas, and ballets until some of it rubbed off on her, even if it all made her feel as if she was acting in some classy play and didn't quite have her lines down.

"Ready for supper?"

"I'm always ready for supper." That line, she realized, came straight from the heart. Or the gut.

He'd reserved an intimate private room at some swank restaurant with candlelight and flowers. He was always doing something like that, Peabody mused as he pulled out her chair at a pretty table with pink roses and white candles. She let him order for both of them because he'd know just the right thing.

He seemed to know all the right things. And all the right people. She wondered if Eve ever felt so clunky and out of place when she found herself with Roarke in posh surroundings.

She couldn't imagine her lieutenant ever feeling clunky.

Besides, Roarke loved her. No, the man adored her. Everything had to be different when you were sitting across candlelight with a man who thought you were the most vital woman in the world. The only woman in the world.

"Where have you gone?" Charles asked quietly.

She jerked herself back. "Sorry. I guess there's a lot on my mind." She picked up her fork to sample the saucy seafood appetizer. The perfection of it on the tongue nearly had her eyes crossing in ecstasy.

"Your work." He reached across the table to pat her hand. "I'm glad you were able to take a break from it after all and come out tonight."

"We didn't work as late as I thought we would."

"The Draco matter. Do you want to talk about it?"

It was just one more perfect thing about him. He would ask and listen if she chose to unburden herself. "No, not really. Can't anyway at this stage. Except to say Dallas is frustrated. So many levels and angles make it slow going."

"I'm sure it does. Still, she seemed her usual competent self when she spoke to me."

Peabody's hand froze as she reached for her wineglass. "She spoke to you? About the case?"

Caught off guard, Charles set his fork down. "She didn't mention it to you?"

"No. Did you know Draco?"

Charles cursed himself, briefly considered dancing around the truth, then shrugged. He'd never been anything but honest with Peabody and didn't want that to change. "No, not really. I happened to be with Areena Mansfield the other night when Dallas and Roarke dropped by to speak with her. I was working."

"Oh." Charles's profession didn't bother Peabody. He did what he did, just as she did what she did. Maybe if they'd been lovers, she'd have a different attitude, but they weren't.

Damn it.

"Oh." She said again, because his profession did a lot more than bother her lieutenant. "Shit."

"Put simply, yeah. It was awkward, but Dallas and I came to terms."

"What kind of terms?"

"We talked. Delia, I've tried not to say too much because it puts you in the middle. I never wanted that."

"You never put me there," she said immediately. "Dallas did."

"Because you matter very much to her."

"My personal life is -- "

"A concern to her, as a friend, Delia."

The quiet censure in his tone made her wince, then give up. "Okay, I know it. I don't have to like it."

"I think things should be smoother now. She had her say, I had mine, and we both felt better for it. And when I explained to her that we weren't having sex, she -- "

"What?" The word squeaked out as Peabody jumped to her feet. Sparkling silver, glittering crystal danced on the white linen cloth. "You told her that? That? Good God. Why don't you just strip me naked and push me into the squad room?"

"I wanted her to know we had a friendship, not a professional agreement. I'm sorry." Recognizing his misstep too late, Charles rose, lifted his hands. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"You tell my immediate superior that I've been seeing a professional for what, nearly three months, and haven't done the mattress dance. No, no, jeez, what could be embarrassing about that?"

"I didn't realize you'd wanted sex to be part of our relationship." He spoke stiffly now. "If you had, you had only to ask."

"Oh yeah, right. I say, how about it, Charles, and I'm a client."

The muscles in his belly went taunt as wire. "Is that what you think?"

"I don't know what to think." She dropped into her chair again, briefly held her head in her hand. "Why did you have to tell her that?"

"I suppose I was defending myself." It was a tough admission to swallow. "I didn't think beyond it. I'm very sorry." He moved his chair over so that he could sit close and take her hand. "Delia, I didn't want to spoil our friendship, and for the first stages of it, I was hung up on someone who couldn't, who wouldn't be with me because of what I am. You helped me through that. I care very much about you. If you want more..."