Celebrity in Death

coordinates. The divers expect they’ll pull up more tomorrow. You’re keeping the water cops busy.”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I see what you’re trying to do, believe me. You’re desperately throwing everything you can think of against the wall, hoping something, anything will stick.”
    “Oh, it’s stuck, Joel. You also lifted Harris’s sleeping-aid prescription, using one of your handy pass keys. You kept the vehicle code you lifted off Asner’s dead body. We’ve got you, Joel. There’s no explaining all this.”
    She dumped the entire bag of codes and swipe cards on the table.
    “And last night you sent Julian out of the room, added the pills to the wine you’d so considerately brought him, corked it, put it away. So that tonight, he’d be a good boy and follow your orders. Have himself a couple glasses of wine in his whirlpool tub. The irony of him drowning would be good media, and add to your frame job. He killed himself out of guilt for killing her.”
    Steinburger continued to stare at the pile of codes and cards. Anangry flush worked up from his throat to his hairline. “You went through my home.”
    “Yeah. Home, office, car—and the California cops are doing the same back there. You had access to the boat, to the trailers, to homes, to offices.”
    “Of course I have access. I’m entitled to go where I need to go. Do you understand who I am?”
    “Perfectly. You’re a murderer. Oh, but you didn’t add to the tote board tonight. Julian’s doing a lot better than Peabody indicated.”
    “I did exaggerate his condition a little.”
    “He told us everything. So did Valerie.”
    “Julian would say anything to cover up what he did, and Valerie’s lying for him. She’s in love with him.”
    “I don’t think so. No, Valerie lied for you, because she’s ambitious and a little greedy. Julian did what you told him to do because he trusts you like he’d trust a father. And you, Joel, murder’s just second nature to you. Julian would only have been the last in a long line that started with Bryson Kane, your college housemate.”
    She walked behind him, leaned down close to his ear. “And we’re going to take you down for every one of them. Hand to God.”
    “You have nothing.”
    “Kane got tired of you buying your way through college. And because he’d had enough, wouldn’t cooperate anymore, he got a trip down the stairs and a broken neck.” She pulled out the crime scene photo of Kane’s body, tossed it on the table.
    “Marlin Dressler, old, rich, and breathing, stands in the way of money and power you want—and maybe wasn’t as keen on having you marry his great-granddaughter as he should’ve been.”
    She tossed Dressler’s photo in turn. “A push off a cliff takes care of that.
    “Angelica Caulfield, pregnant, won’t let go, threatens to tell yourwealthy, also pregnant wife.” Eve added Caulfield’s photo to the others. “She gets what we’ll call the Julian Cross treatment—only it worked with her.
    “I can keep going, right down the line. The media’s going to crucify you. And I’m going to pass them the hammer and spikes while my partner and I lock you in a cage for every life you ended.”
    “Who do you think they’ll believe? I’m the most powerful man in the industry. You’re just a cop who married money.”
    “You’re right. I’m just a cop.”
    “I tried to help you,” Peabody said, sorrow in her eyes now. “We have a witness who saw you entering Asner’s office on the night he was murdered.”
    “You’re lying. No one saw me.”
    Peabody nodded. “Sometimes people work late.”
    “If you think anyone will take some cheap lawyer’s or sleazy bail bondsman’s word over mine, you’re mistaken.”
    “How do you know who has the other offices on Asner’s floor?” Eve asked him. “Oops! You were there, Joel. On that floor because you contacted Asner and arranged to meet him at his office. He happened to be with someone when you contacted him. I have her statement, too. You contacted him, arranged for the meet, then you killed him.”
    “That’s absurd. I … went to speak with him because K.T. told me she’d hired him. I only went to speak with him, to buy back any data he might have gathered.”
    “Was he already dead, too?”
    “No. Yes. Yes.”
    “No? Yes? It’s hard to think under pressure, isn’t it? Hard to think when it’s all coming down on you. You usually have more time, more space. You get