Secrets in Death (In Death 45)

“Who’s the vic?”

“Female vic ID’d as Kellie Lowry, she’s employed by Knight Productions. We’re outside 30 Rock now, and the scene’s secure.”

“I’m—we’re,” she corrected when Roarke raised his eyebrows, “on our way. Do you have an on-scene determination on COD?”

“Yeah. It probably has to do with the gash in her right thigh. She bled out. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

“Hold the line,” Eve told him, and ended the communication.

“She’s not on the list,” Roarke told Eve before she could do a search of her own. “We could go through the books, but I assume you want to get there quickly.”

“Let’s move.”

She retrieved her badge, her weapon, changed skids for boots before rushing down to where Roarke already had her vehicle waiting. “You can drive,” she said. “I want more info on the vic.”

She pulled out her PPC as he drove, keyed in the data she had. “Lowry, Kellie, age twenty-four, unmarried, no offspring. Employed by Knight Productions for two and a half years. Assistant to an assistant producer. Residence in the West Nineties, born in Queens, studied broadcasting at NYU. No criminal.”

She lowered the handheld. “Why does he kill her? Was she a source, an accomplice who had to be cut off? Did she see or hear something? Knight was a target, Mars—according to Nadine’s source—breezed in and out of the studio at will, and often when someone screen and gossip worthy was there. Somebody fed her that info. Might have been Knight herself, but she never mentioned that and she told me things a lot more damaging. Maybe Mars had something on Lowry. The killer, protecting Knight, kills them both.”

“Knight’s longtime partner?”

“He’s protective, devoted. He loves her. But … he respects her. At least that was my sense. Does the shiny knight respect the—what’s it? Maiden?”

“Love and devotion do not preclude respect.”

“No, but a couple of murders do, at least in my book.”

Roarke pulled up to the police barricades blocking off Rockefeller Center at Forty-ninth.

People massed. Plenty of tourists, she thought as she badged them through and worked her way to the crime scene tape, the shields erected. Tourists who’d come out on a cold night to watch the skaters, eat hot pretzels from a cart, throng along the gardens, the shops.

And now got the bonus of a murder to tell their friends back home about.

She ducked under the tape, pushed through the shield.

Lowry’s long, wavy black hair spread like wings over the sidewalk. She lay faceup, brown eyes staring out of a pretty face gone slack with death. It bore a raw, bruising scrape on the right side of the forehead, another on the right cheek. Blood soaked her cheerfully flowered pants. The trail of blood, much of it smeared by foot traffic, ran east.

“TOD’s nineteen-eighteen, LT,” Baxter told her. “We’ve got a couple wits inside the lobby who saw her go down, tried to help her. They turned her over.”

“Yeah, I see where she hit the pavement.” She crouched down, sealed her hands, then carefully spread the slice in the bloody pants to examine the wound. “It looks pretty deep. He wasn’t taking chances.”

Looking up, she studied the blood trail. “How far did she get?”

“Sir, the blood trail starts fifteen feet, seven inches from the main doors.” Trueheart gestured back. “Security has her logging out of Knight Productions at nineteen-oh-eight.”

“Alone?”

“The guard’s still at the desk inside. He doesn’t have anyone logging out with her. I went up to Knight Productions, inquired. She left alone according to the swipe log up there. And I brought down a coworker—a friend, Lieutenant. One of the vic’s roommates. I’ve got her with a uniform. She spoke with the victim before she left. She’s pretty broken up.”

“Any shot on security feed?”

“In the lobby—we’ve got that, and she walked out alone,” Baxter told her. “Out here—nada. She was about a couple feet out of range of the door cams.”

“He’d have known.” Looking up, Eve visualized it. “Had to know when she was coming out, that she—at least usually—came out alone. Walking toward her, that’s how it looks, weapon down at his side. Does he bump into her? Does he just give her the slash? Either way, he can just keep walking.

“Your wits give you anything?”

“A couple of guys here from Boston. A pal’s getting married. They noticed her staggering, thought she’d had one too many. She bumped into some people, kept staggering, then went down. When she hit, they were right behind her. Still thought she was drunk, until they tried to help, turned her over. Saw the blood, called for a cop, a medic. She was gone before either got here.”