“You want me to poke around in the financial business of complete strangers? No wonder I adore you.”
“You don’t pick up a vial of cyanide at the local twenty-four/seven, so an odd payment or cash withdrawal, likely within the last two or three weeks. Or—”
“I believe I know what to look for.”
“Yeah, right. Yeah.” She stared at the board. “All that mixed-up family. There could be a chemist, someone connected to a chemist. Or a chemi-head who cooks. And there are legit uses for cyanide—photography chemicals, right? And textiles. You have to go through some hoops to get it, document its use and all that, so maybe a paper trail there.”
“And if you find a link there, it adds weight to what you already found.”
“Another bang wouldn’t hurt.” She sat again. “It’s not a damn coincidence.”
“I’ll see if I can find you more weight.”
“Thanks.”
She opened the file Feeney sent, copied it to Peabody along with the data on Minerva Novak.
It didn’t surprise her as she began to read the case file to receive a quick response from Peabody.
It said: Bang!
“With a bing and a boom,” she muttered.
She read to gather facts, information, and to look for any holes in the investigation. And more connections. She studied the facts and evidence, compiled information. Though she didn’t find any holes, at least not on the first pass, she found more connections.
She expanded her board to create a section for the Bernstein case.
Then she read it all again before looking over the various interviews Peabody sent her from articles on Leah Rose’s death, the reactions of cast, crew, friends, compared them to the statements given the police, the interviews conducted by the investigators.
She went back to the pathology report. He’d listed signs of an eating disorder, chronic drug and alcohol abuse, and a terminated pregnancy. Which jibed with her medical history—treatment for anorexia, emergency treatment for an overdose of sleeping pills, and a medically induced abortion.
And all before she’d hit seventeen.
Since the investigation into her death unsealed her juvenile records, Eve found the busts for possession, underage drinking, the court-ordered rehab.
A short, fucked-up life, Eve thought.
She programmed more coffee as Roarke came back in.
“I’m for a whiskey. You know,” he began as he got himself one, “when you do that poking about, finding law-abiding, tax-paying citizens takes all the fun out of it.”
After toasting her, he sat at her auxiliary station and drank. “I’m running more on auto, but I can tell you Novak and Furrier have no dark secrets or murky shadows in that area. He’s fairly successful and draws in a steady income from royalties as well as his fees for current work.”
“He’s the one who makes up the words that go with the tune, right?”
“Yes. Her income took a hit when she injured her knee, but revived when she focused on choreography. She supplemented that, initially, by teaching dance, and will still teach occasionally.”
He paused to sip whiskey while Eve considered the data.
“They bought a nice property about a year ago, Lower East, and they’re investing quite a bit in remodeling same. She also has a share in a vacation home—with her father, stepmother, and half-siblings—on Hilton Head. They opened an education account for their daughter shortly after her birth.”
He studied the new section of her board as he spoke. “She has a cousin of some sort—the family is very convoluted—who’s a tax lawyer. He takes advantage of any option or opening, but keeps them within the law.”
“Is that it?”
“Not altogether. She has a sibling from her mother’s … Ah Christ, which? Third, yes, third marriage who’s a photographer. One who does film—and his own darkroom work—as well as digital. You’ll want to check yourself, but my initial research shows some of the chemicals he uses may contain some cyanide, but he’d have to find a way to extract that, wouldn’t he, so none of the rest showed in autopsy. And there’s no indication I found he purchased any separately.”
“It’s worth a look.”
“As I assumed.” He sipped more whiskey. “Another sibling’s spouse is an office manager for a pharmaceutical company. They have their own chemists.”
“That’s good. Another worth a look.” Eve gestured toward the board. “Rose Bernstein, started dance and voice lessons at two. She started picking up work—ads, local vids, some stage stuff—before she was three. Bit parts, lots of ad work, did the tutor thing to get her high school diploma. Daddy has some money. Mommy—that’s Debra Bernstein—wanted her baby to be a star. I got that out of the case file. Also it looks like she had a pretty solid addiction to amphetamines—to keep off the weight, keep up the energy—and barbs—to come down and get some sleep—by the time she hit puberty.”
Like Eve, Roarke studied the photo of the bright, pretty young woman on the board. “There’s a tragedy already made.”
“She relocated to New York with her mother at fifteen. Bernstein would’ve been married to Novak’s mother for a couple of years—and that was about to end. But Novak and Rose had to spend some time together, especially since Novak also took dance classes.”
“Common interest.”
“Exactly. Anyway, Rose hits all the—they call them cattle calls, which is creepy on every level. She gets busted for possession—that was back in Chicago, age thirteen. In New York she has a close call with the pills, ends up in the hospital. Rehab, treatment. She gets treatment for her eating disorder, but the medical examiner cited recent abuse there at TOD. She gets pregnant and terminates same at fifteen, about six months after she gets to New York.”
“A child still. Where was her mother, as her mother was in charge?”
“A good question. But Rose is getting work, getting good reviews on that work. Then she gets one with what do you call it—billing. She’s sixteen, runs with it for nearly two years—got one of those nominations—the Tony thing.”
She rose, paced.
“The day, and I mean day, she turns eighteen, she boots the mother, gets her own place. A few months after, she auditions for Upstage. She gets the part, and six months later, she’s dead, full of barbs and vodka.”
“A short, sad life. Do you have any reason to think it wasn’t accidental?”
“Looking at the case files, her history, the pathology and tox reports, it plays that way. But I want to talk to the investigator, maybe the ME at the time. Just cross those off. Novak would’ve been about eleven when it happened.”
She tapped Minx’s photo on the board. “Big sister—if she thought of her that way—about to take a major leap in her career. Instead, she’s dead, and Lane gets to make the leap, right into the big, shiny spotlight.”
While Roarke drank his whiskey and watched her, Eve circled the board. “So, try this. You’re sad about that, maybe even resentful, but you’re a kid. Nothing you can do. You push on with your own dream of that spotlight. You even do big sis one better and get accepted into Juilliard. You stay clean, at least as far as it shows re drugs and alcohol, and you’re on the rise.