Celebrity in Death

I figured he got caught up on work. Look, you should just go to his office. I don’t like talking about a buddy to the cops. It feels off.”
    “Understood. We appreciate the time.” Eve took out a card. “Listen, if you do happen to see him at the gym, just tell him to contact me.”
    “Sure. I can do that.” He slipped the card into his bag. Relaxed again, he smiled. “If you see A first, tell him he owes me twenty.”
    “Will do.”
    Eve waited until the neighbor jogged down the steps. “We might as well try the office. It’s not far, and he might’ve bunked there, especially if he spent the day gambling and got stung.”
    Once they were in the car, Eve ran through her suppositions, conclusions, and theories reached the night before.
    “I agree about Matthew and Marlo,” Peabody said. “They’re happy lovebirds. Not that lovebirds don’t kill—the inconvenient spouse or ‘rich, just won’t give up and die’ Great-aunt Edna. But not only doesn’t Harris apply, but neither has a spouse, and they’re both more than sound financially. Was there anything on the recording I should know about?”
    “They had sex, some post-coital mushy pillow talk. They did some yoga together, then ordered Chinese food, ate it while they—what do you call it—ran lines on upcoming scenes. He helped her with the choreography of a fight scene. Talk that wasn’t work-oriented stuck mostly to choices of a getaway. It’s between Fiji and Corfu—or was. They watched some screen in bed, had another—shorter—round of sex, went to sleep.”
    “Sounds kind of normal,” Peabody observed, “settled. Happy lovebirds.”
    “The morning routine was no surprises. A workout, shower sex—which I assume, as they left the bathroom door open and the audio picked up some sex sounds—fruit and yogurt for breakfast, more work and getaway talk. They laugh a lot. Dressed and out the door.”
    “No sign of Harris, or the PI picking up the cameras?”
    “He’d have edited himself out, if he had a brain. Since the recording ends with them leaving, he has a brain. No sign of Harris, and very little said about her from either spied-on party. Which probably burned her ass.”
    Eve parked, checking Asner’s office window as she got out. The overcast sky made the day a little gloomy, but no lights shone in his office.
    “He’s either not in yet, or still asleep.”
    As they went in, started up, she asked herself why, if he had a brain, he dodged the cops. He had to know they’d pin him down, and the longer it took, the less friendly the pinning. Maybe working out a story, a cover, maybe consulting his lawyer.
    Or maybe he’d taken his big paycheck and smoked.
    She didn’t much like that idea, and liked the other possibility that circled her mind even less.
    She approached Asner’s office door, started to rap on the glass. “It’s not secured.”
    The other possibility stopped circling to hover. She drew her weapon, as did Peabody.
    “He could have forgotten to lock it,” Peabody said quietly.
    “A waste of good locks.” She nodded, counted off, and they went in the door together.
    The quick initial sweep showed her the disorder of the reception area. All that was left of the computer on the desk was the screen. The drawers had been pulled out, upended.
    Again at Eve’s signal Peabody moved toward the inner office. She pulled open the door, swept right while Eve swept left.
    Disorder reigned here, too, as well as death. A. A. Asner lay facedown on the floor. The back of his skull had been smashed in, presumably with the statue of a bird that lay nearby covered in blood and matter.
    He wouldn’t be paying his gym buddy the twenty, Eve thought, and was beyond being pressured to talk about his equally dead client.
    Eve holstered her weapon. “Go get the field kit, and I’ll call it in.”
    “Hit him from behind,” Peabody said. “Hard, and more than once. No calling this one an accident.”
    She hurried out while Eve contacted Dispatch, reported the DB, requested uniforms for securing the scene and canvassing, a sweeper unit, and a morgue team.
    She took out her recorder, fixed it on, engaged it. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, entered the offices of Asner, A. A., Private Investigations. The door was not secured. Detective Peabody has returned to our vehicle for a field kit. Dispatch has been contacted, and support teams have been requested.
    “The victim, identity yet to be confirmed, has