She dropped her feet on the floor, swiveled around.
She started with Tessa Long, the director. Though she’d gone through it before, she read the background again.
Mixed race, age fifty-four, native New Yorker. Mother a pediatric surgeon, father a neurologist. Married fifty-six years.
That got a wow.
One sib, male, age forty-two, orthopedic surgeon. Married nineteen years, wife, general surgery. Two offspring, male, sixteen; male, thirteen.
Bucked family tradition, didn’t you, Tessa?
Married to Mai Li, professional mother status, eighteen years. Two offspring—female twins, age sixteen.
No criminal.
Residence, Chelsea; secondary residence, Oyster Bay.
Solid education, theater major, financially stable. With a steady boost from a trust fund.
Eve skimmed through her employment history. Started young, summer theater work, interning, assistanting, gofering from the looks of it. Worked her way up. No connection to Fitzhugh that showed, except through Lane, whom she’d worked with prior to the current project.
The first, twenty years before, Broadway, Lane headlining, Long assistant stage manager. Then three years later, as assistant director, five years more, director, then as Lane’s director on a screen special four years after that—one that included Sylvie Bowen—and as director on a major vid two years after that. Now this production.
She’d leave it to Peabody’s gossip search to see if there was any juice or scandal or rifts, but from their work history, she’d say no.
She couldn’t see Lane working with someone that often if there was friction.
Add gay and long-term married, so probability very low for any really well-kept affair with the victim. And as Long was listed as one of the producers, money didn’t gel as a motive.
She moved on, ran through the assistant director, the lyricist and composer. The woman who’d written the original book had been dead for eight years—private shuttle crash.
At some point, Roarke glided in, set a piece of pie by her elbow, glided out again.
At some point, she ate it because holy crap it was good.
She programmed more coffee, gave a hard look at the other backers.
Nothing there, nothing popped.
So she moved on again to the choreographer.
Minerva Novak, Caucasian, age thirty-six. Parents Roger Novak, Alyson Crupke, divorced, no sibs from that marriage. Half-sib, male, age twenty-nine, half-sib, female, age twenty-seven, from Novak’s marriage to Heaven (seriously) Colby Novak. One stepsib, female, deceased, from Crupke’s marriage to Lloyd Bernstein—divorced. One stepsib, age forty-four, one half-sib, age twenty-two, from Crupke’s marriage to Benson Pickett. Divorced.
“Jesus, lady, give it up.”
But no, she read on. Try, try again with Edwin White-Mitchell, one stepsib, male, age fifty-three.
“Went for an old guy on the fourth try.” Eve took a quick look at White-Mitchell. “Old really rich guy, and you’re his number four. Let’s see how long that lasts.”
Minerva Novak, born in Chicago, relocated to New York at age sixteen to attend Juilliard, father and stepmother as custodial parents, and under the guardianship of an aunt—father’s side—with New York residency. Father and stepmother remained custodial parents.
Small wonder the mother didn’t get custodial rights, Eve thought.
Novak married Malcomb Furrier, four years, one offspring, daughter, age two.
No criminal—though Malcomb had a drunk and disorderly in his college days. She didn’t hold that against him.
Financials … not rolling in it, but very solid.
No prior work with Lane or Fitzhugh. Plenty of work, though, dancing professionally until an injury sidelined that and turned her to choreography.
Eve sat back, rubbed her eyes, drank more coffee.
A lot of siblings of one sort or another. “We’re this far in. Let’s have a look.”
She worked her way down, starting with the father and stepmother. Both the half-sibs lived in the Chicago area, the half brother an architect, the sister a personal shopper for a major department store. She pushed a little deeper but couldn’t find any recent travel to New York. It appeared both of them, the father, the stepmother, had come to New York for Novak’s kid’s birth.
The mother hadn’t, she noted, but both the half- and stepsib from the mother’s third marriage had. No visits from the stepsib old enough to be her father.
So some family ties, she thought, enough to bring them in to see their half niece, step-niece within a few days or weeks of her birth.
But none of them lived in New York, or had any obvious connection to either Lane or Fitzhugh.
“Okay, what happened to the dead one? Rose Bernstein.”
She ran it, skimmed the birth and birthplace, the paternity, maternity. Narrowed in on the date and cause of death.
“Died in ’36, death ruled accidental overdose. Well, Jesus! Age eighteen? New York City, stage name Leah Rose. Son of bitch. Bang!”
12
Roarke strolled in.
“I heard the bang.”
“Damn right! Try this. The choreographer’s mother’s second husband’s daughter, stage name Leah Rose. That’s the one who OD’d on opening night of the original Upstage.”
“Convoluted,” Roarke considered. “And yet a worthy bang. And I’ll add an aha.”
“Minerva Novak’s mother’s on husband number four.”
“An optimist.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Thanks to optimism, Novak’s accumulated a bunch of siblings—the halfs, the steps—and every one of them came to New York when she had a kid a couple years ago—except the last husband’s son. That indicates a certain closeness, right? Odds are she was close with the stepsib who died and opened the door for Lane’s breakout.”
He edged a hip onto her command center, glanced at her screen. “I’d have to agree there. It’s certainly a connection to Lane, and through her to Fitzhugh, that can’t be ignored. Were they aware of that connection?”
“I’m going with no, as nobody bothered to mention it. But I’m sure as hell going to ask. I mean, Jesus, you’d have to think it’s worth mentioning. Oh yeah, by the way, the dead girl whose dance shoes I inherited? She was the sister of the person who decided how many pirouettes we do.”
The idea of it pushed Eve to her feet, had her throwing out her arms. “And Novak. Did she think we wouldn’t find the connection? It’s right there!”
“Different surnames, a many-married mother, and twenty-five years. She might very well have assumed it stayed buried. Or taken that risk.”
“If there hadn’t been so many people at that party—and what looks like the wrong person on a slab—I’d’ve dug it up inside an hour with a…” She dug shallowly at the air with her hand.
“Garden spade?”
“That. I need to talk to her, but I need to read the file on Rose Bernstein aka Leah Rose. Feeney came through with that. I’m going to put Peabody on that, too. I want to know everything there is to know before we interview her.”
She turned to him. “You could do me a solid and do a run on her financials. Her husband’s, too. And since they’re maybe a tight family, at least those directly connected to Rose Bernstein.”