Celebrity in Death

feelings or thoughts—as I’m sure you’ve observed. So he made it very clear how he viewed her behavior. He swore he’d never work with her again. And now, of course, he won’t. And he feels responsible.”
    “He’s not, unless he’s the one who drowned her.”
    “He couldn’t.” Graceful, contained, Connie moved to the sofa, set both cups on the table that fronted it. She sat, folded her hands. “I want you to listen to me. He rants, yells, stomps, and snarls. He’d have blackballed her if he could—and that’s not out of the realm of possibility. But he’d never do physical harm.”
    Eve took a seat. “How about you?”
    “Yes, I’m capable. I’ve thought about this. I think most of us are capable of killing under the right—or wrong—circumstances. I would be. I think I would be. I know I could happily have slugged her, then done a victory dance. I was that angry with her on the night of the party. I can only tell you I didn’t. I want you to find out who did, but I don’t want it to be anyone I care about. It’s hard to reconcile that.”
    “Tell me about Asner. The PI.”
    “You know about Marlo and Matthew.”
    “And apparently so do you.”
    “She confided in me yesterday. She told me everything—that they’d fallen in love, were sharing a place in SoHo, that K.T. found out, hired a detective. She told me about the recording. As I said, I’m a good wailing wall. It has to be the same detective who’s been killed. You wouldn’t be here asking questions otherwise. But I don’t understand it.”
    “He had the original recording, and from what we’ve gathered, intended to sell it to an interested party.”
    “The media.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Who else? Marlo or Matthew?” Obviously exasperated, Connie threw up her hands. “I hope to God they have more sense than that, or that I talked some of that sense into them yesterday. Who cares?” She flicked the wrist of one lifted hand. “Yes, yes, the media would salivate, the blogs will bloat. The video would garner millions of hits. Is it unfair—certainly. Is it a terrible invasion of their private lives—absolutely. If you want fair and privacy, find another line of work.”
    “That’s pragmatic?”
    “It’s survival,” Connie said flatly. “I was furious for them, disgusted with K.T.—even though she’s dead. It was a horrible, unstable, selfish thing to do. But they’re two young, gorgeous, happy, talented people. And this is nothing to get so worked up over. If the recording leaks, itleaks, then you deal with it. Someone like Valerie will take that ball and spin it.”
    “Even if it leaks before the project’s finished, while Julian and Marlo are supposed to be the hot ticket?”
    “That’s just nonsense anyway, isn’t it? Maybe it does boost the numbers, at least initially, but it’s nonsense. The numbers people latched onto this angle, partially because Marlo and Julian do have wonderful chemistry, and partially because the characters they’re playing are real people—a couple, a hot ticket, that the media and public are fascinated with.”
    She smiled at Eve’s expression. “If you wanted to stay out of the public eye and consciousness, you should have found a different husband, and shouldn’t be so good at your work.”
    A little hard to argue, Eve decided, with pithy common sense.
    “Does your husband share your opinion over the nonsense?”
    “He liked the idea of Marlo and Julian perpetuating a relationship offscreen. He felt it kept them in character for longer stretches. But he didn’t know about Matthew. I don’t think anyone did.”
    “Where were you between ten and midnight?”
    “Home. Yesterday was exhausting, and it wasn’t the time to go out and socialize.”
    “Was Roundtree with you?”
    “Of course. They shut down production for the day yesterday, for obvious reasons. And also to add to security. Added to it all was the problem of logistically shooting a handful of scenes that involved K.T. Mason, Nadine, and the scriptwriter holo-conferenced off and on during the day, working that out. After dinner, Mason went down to view and edit, to make some of the changes work more smoothly. I don’t think he came to bed until after two, then he wanted to be at the studioby six, for a breakfast meeting with Joel and two of the studio execs who’d come in from California.”
    “What were you doing while he worked?”
    “I put a droid on the ’links, programmed to get me