Echoes in Death (In Death 44)

“I’ll take that and spare the boy. A male, blocked video, told her he was going to fuck her and fuck her right and she’d beg for more. He claimed he was watching her. The second time he called, she thinks maybe a week after the first time, it was more of the same, but he added he liked her in green, how that tight skirt hugged her ass. But he was going to like her naked, tied up, and begging for it even more.”

“Did she report any of this?”

“No, sir.” Trueheart cleared his throat again. “She said she just considered it an annoyance at the time. She didn’t even tell her husband, didn’t relate it to us until she began to get nervous during the interview.”

“When would the suspect have been able to see her in green? Could she pinpoint?”

“She checked her closet records, gave us two dates. The first was a family Thanksgiving dinner, which included some close friends, the second was an anniversary party held at the Corbo mansion, and catered by Jacko’s. We verified that as she wasn’t a hundred percent on it. The first event had about seventy-five people, the second more than two-fifty.”

“We’ll need the guest lists.”

“Working on it. We’re expecting the one from the first shortly,” Baxter said. “The problem with the second is the Corbos’ social secretary is currently on vacation. Some sort of meditation camp—no communications. And apparently nobody else seems to know where to find the guest list.”

“Christ’s sake.”

“We’re pushing.” Baxter shrugged. “The rich really are different. The social secretary has an assistant—and if that isn’t excessive enough, the assistant has an assistant. Neither of them are allowed to access her files. Even if they were, the woman’s so paranoid she took it with her. She works on a portable. We’re running down where she is because nobody there seems to know. We’re on it, Loo.”

“Stay on it.

Your two,” she said to Olsen.

“Gregor and Camilla Jane Lester. Ages forty-eight and twenty-nine respectively. Married two years. His second time around,” Olsen added. “Gregor is chief of emergency medicine at—drumroll—St. Andrew’s. He knew Anthony Strazza well. He chose his words carefully, but clearly, no love lost there. He met Daphne Strazza, briefly and casually at a few events, such as the gala. They have used Jacko’s. Camilla Jane loves to entertain,” Olsen added with an eye roll. “But she likes to mix it up, surprise her guests, and Jacko’s is so, you know, conventional.”

“Bimbo.” Tredway circled a finger in the air, then tapped it at his partner. “Her word.”

“Well, Jesus, if you did a search on the word, Camilla Jane Lester’s picture would pop up. She’s gorgeous, incredibly silly, and her husband adores her. Indulges her. It shows.”

“Guy’s got a face like a hamster, and he lands somebody who looks like that? Why wouldn’t he? Interesting fact,” Tredway continued. “As Camilla Jane, prior to the marriage, she made a living acting. Bit parts, stage and screen. Very bit from the sound of it. And supplemented that living as, we’ll politely call it, a dancer.”

“She was a stripper?”

“Ah, you say tomato. She had some work as an extra on a couple of serials—the daytime sort—played a dead girl once, and so on.”

“Connection to On Screen?”

“Auditioned for a couple of productions there, didn’t get the parts. Did shoot a pilot for them, but it didn’t get picked up.”

“Connects,” Eve stated. “A lot of connections.”

“She hasn’t worked since the marriage—her choice, she says.” Olsen shrugged. “She met Lester when she was further supplementing her income as part of the entertainment on Burlesque Night, a fund-raiser.”

“The kicker? Why they’re up there?” Tredway lifted his chin toward the board. “She swears somebody was in the house last month, and went through her underwear. Took a matching set. Since nothing else was missing they dismissed it. But when she was shopping a few days ago, for more fancy underwear, she says she got a text telling her to buy more purple. It was a good color for her.”

“Her ’link?”

Olsen fluttered her eyelashes. “Well, she got so upset, so angry, she threw her ’link right in the recycler and bought another. Bim with a big bo. We got the name of the boutique, went by. Any security refreshes every twenty-four, and no one could recall a man loitering in the shop.”

“Your number two?”

“Anna-Teresa and Ren Macari, twenty-eight and thirty. Married eighteen months. More trust-fund babies, and these two don’t much pretend to work at anything.”

“Now, Olsen, he has his magic,” Tredway reminded her.

“Right. He’s a magician. That’s his passion. Daddy bought him a magic club where he can perform. A quick check on that shows he’s driving it into the ground playing Houdini, doesn’t actually do anything else there. Neither have used the vendors, but her mother’s used Jacko’s for events, and both the Macaris have eaten there. His father is a major donor at—buzz—St. Andrew’s, and helped defray the costs for a fund-raiser. A masquerade ball last May. At that event, Anna-Teresa was accosted—her word—by a man dressed like the Phantom of the Opera.”

“Wait,” Eve interrupted. “How does anybody dress as a phantom? Aren’t they invisible? Isn’t that the whole stupid idea?”

“It’s a character, sir,” Trueheart explained. “An actor who was burned and disfigured in a theater fire, and went insane. He’s obsessed with a young actress, and kills people he blames for his accident.”