“Maybe. Listen, do you want some coffee?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“I’m just going to get some coffee.” He rose, went to a shoe box–sized AutoChef on a short counter. It made ominous grinding noises, then clunking ones. “I’ve got to replace this piece of crap.”
He pulled out a mug, and the steam sent out a scent worse than Morris’s morgue coffee.
“I don’t know if it’s anything. But …”
“But.”
Bobbie sat, sipped, winced. “God, this is truly horrible. A asked me some legal questions, hypothetically. Bought me a beer the other day, made it like conversation. But I’m not stupid either.”
“Did he hire you?”
“No, or I wouldn’t be talking to you. It still doesn’t feel right, but he’s dead. Not just dead. Murdered. I liked him, a lot. Everybody liked A.”
“What was the hypothetical?”
“He wondered if somebody had something come into their possession, and they requested compensation of a monetary nature for that something from an interested party, how much legal hassle would there be? I asked straight out if he was talking about stolen property, and he said no. Just a kind of memento. Nothing exactly illegal.”
“Exactly illegal,” Eve repeated, and Bobbie managed a faint smile as he choked down another swallow of coffee.
“Yeah, I caught that, too. I said I couldn’t tell him specifically since I didn’t have specifics, but if he had something that had come to him, without crossing the law, requesting compensation shouldn’t be a problem. But if that something was legally the property of the interested party, or obtained by illegal means, he was in a very shadowy area.
“He said something about finder’s fees, possession being nine-tenths of the law. I hear bullshit all day, and I know when somebody’s trying to rationalize. I also know sometimes A skirted the line in his work. I also know he wanted to retire.”
“And adding things up,” Eve prompted.
“Yeah, adding them up I told him maybe he should give this idea more thought, which isn’t what he wanted to hear. He had this thing about moving to the islands—and opening a little club or casino/bar deal. I got the feeling he saw this as a big score, something that would polish off his retirement plan. I actually thought that’s why he was flush yesterday, and asked him if he’d exchanged the memento for compensation. He said he was working on that. Then …”
He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, still taking it in. Yesterday when he dropped in about the game, I poked at him a little about it. It just bothered me. He said how current events had changed—how did he put it—changed the complexion. How he was rethinking his position, and maybe he’d just pass the memento over to the interested party, take his bird in the hand and be done. He said how we’d grab some coffee tomorrow—today—and he’d tell me how it went.”
Bobbie stared down at his hands. “I’m afraid it didn’t go well, at all. I’m afraid I wasn’t clear or strong enough in how I answered when he asked me.”
“Hypothetically?” Eve waited until Bobbie looked up, into her eyes. “I’d say this event was in motion, and that there was very likely nothing you could have said to stop that motion. I’m sorry you lost a friend.”
“Will you notify me about his body, its disposition? He’s got a couple of ex-wives, no kids. I don’t think either of his exes would be interested in seeing to that. He had a lot of friends. I think we could pool together, take care of him.”
“I’ll let you know.” She started to the door, stopped. “What are you doing in this place, Bobbie?”
“Kind of a dump, huh?” he said as he looked around. “But it’s my dump. I did a couple years as a PD. It’s necessary work, but you don’t get a choice. This may not be much, but I get to choose my clients, when I get one.”
“Good luck. I’ll be in touch.”
Outside Peabody took a gulp of air. “She was really broken up. I got the impression she thought of him as sort of an honorary uncle. She didn’t have anything, Dallas. Nothing she didn’t give us yesterday.”
“Bobbie might have.” On the drive to the studio, she gave Peabody the rundown.
“It pretty much confirms, hypothetically, that he was trying to sell the recording. Or maybe after he heard his client got dead, just give it over.”
“And his interested party found killing easier the second time. Stupid, and greedy. It looks like he saw another big windfall, all for one job of work. Wanted to pad his retirement fund. Now he’s retired, permanently.”
“The killer must have the recording. If Asner took him or her to the office, the recording must have been in the office.”
“We search his apartment. He might’ve been in negotiation mode in the office, still feeling it out. I had the uniforms go over and seal it. We need to check with the night shift at the restaurant, the bar.” Fat chance, Eve thought, but shrugged. “We could get lucky.”
“This isn’t over a sex recording of a couple of single actors breaking no laws or moral codes.”
“You’re right about that. It’s a power struggle turned very nasty. It’s about greed, obsession, and a need to control. About eliminating obstacles or problems.”
“Back to it being almost any one of them. If the killer wanted the recording—whatever the reason—and it was in Asner’s possession at the time of the murder, he’d had enough time to destroy it, lock it up, make a million copies. Whatever, again, the reason.”
“Yeah,” Eve said, and began to think about it.
An assistant to somebody’s assistant met them at Security and escorted them through the labyrinth to a soundstage where a set had been dressed as the conference room in Eve’s home. There, in reality a year before, they had interviewed the three clones known as Avril Icove.
In the observation area, Marlo and Andi enacted a tense, emotional scene between Eve and Mira. Roundtree cut, retook, and cut again, pushing them both. At the end of a take Marlo walked to the observation glass, stared through, face set.
At nothing Eve could see. She supposed that would be added with vid magic. Julian walked in, and to her so they both looked through the glass.
“And cut! Perfect. Let’s reset for reaction shots.”
Now Eve stepped forward. “I need you to hold on that.”
Roundtree turned, scowled at her with the expression of a man deep in his work and unwilling to surface. “Five minutes while we reset. Preston—”
“I’m going to need more than that.”
“If you need to ask questions, again, ask one of us who isn’t trying to
“You’re going to have the media, the paparazzi, the goddamn cops—especially me—crawling up your asses for a little while longer. There’s been another murder.”
The fury on Roundtree’s face died off into sick dread, while others on the set reacted with gasps, mutters, and oaths.
“Who?” he demanded, looking around swiftly, like a father doing a head count of his brood. “Who’s been killed?”
“A. A. Asner, a private investigator.”
Something like relief chased with annoyance took over, face, voice, the sweeping gesture of his hand. “What the hell does that have to do with any of us?”
“Considerable. Now we can arrange for me and my partner to interview the individuals we feel pertain in a manner that causes the least amount of time and inconvenience to your production, or we can shut this production down until we’re satisfied.”
She wasn’t entirely sure she could pull that threat off, but it sounded ominous. Roundtree went the color of
