“I watched him die, right there on the floor. I watched the light go out of his eyes. I watched him stop fighting to breathe. He was just gone, and Eliza was pulling him into her arms and rocking and wailing.”
He knuckled away tears.
“I had to pull her away from him when the MTs got here. She fought me, but they needed to work on him. If there was a chance—I knew there wasn’t, but if I was wrong … I held on to her, and Dolby helped, tried to calm her down, but she was crying so hard. And one of the MTs gave her a sedative. Sylvie—Sylvie Bowen and the doctor … I’m sorry, I never got his name—took Eliza upstairs. We tried to keep everyone calm until the police got here. Somebody called for the police.
“People were saying heart attack, stroke, but I thought, no, no. He was in perfect shape. He’d had a complete physical just last week—studio policy—since he’d start shooting in New Zealand in a few days. And I heard somebody say poison, say cyanide. I thought, ridiculous, dramatic, but when the police got here, I started to wonder, so I looked it up on my ’link. Was he really poisoned?”
“The medical examiner will determine cause of death. As his assistant, his longtime friend, you’d know if anyone held a grudge against him, if he’d received any threats.”
“I can honestly say Brant is—was—one of the best-liked people in the business. He never threw his weight around, and he could have. He took his work seriously, and was always, always prepared. But he also found the fun in it and never took himself too seriously. Now, he would, occasionally, get a letter—the you sucked in whatever vid—and some were on the ugly side, but nothing like a credible threat. Certainly some in the business might have envied him, but he just had a way of defusing resentments and charming people. He avoided conflict and controversy.”
“Former employees, former relationships.”
“He’s had the same agent and the same manager throughout his career. His assistant before me? He helped her land a bit but meaty part in one of his vids—that’s what she wanted, and he helped her. She’s had a low-key but solid career ever since. His ex-wife? They parted as amicably as you can, and he ended up introducing her to her current husband. They just had their second kid.”
Lin shrugged. “That’s Brant. Give me something to do, Lieutenant. I need to do something, anything that can help.”
“Mr. Fitzhugh had a home office?”
“Yes, second floor.”
“Did he have an office outside the home?”
“No, we worked here. Dolby, Cela, Marta, and I have office space on the third floor.”
“We’re going to need to go through those spaces, and the electronics. Detective Peabody can take you to Detective McNab—he’s with EDD. If you can give him any passcodes, provide any personal devices other than what Mr. Fitzhugh had on him at the time of his death.”
“Yes, yes, I can do that. I’d be happy to do that. Eliza. Is there anything I can do for her?”
“She’ll stay with her friend Ms. Bowen for a few days.”
“Oh. That’s good. But … will I be able to take her, to go with her when … She’ll want to see Brant. She’ll need to.”
“We’ll contact you. Peabody, take Mr. Jacoby to McNab, and bring in Dolby Kessler.”
“If you’d come with me, Mr. Jacoby.”
He rose.
“I know this isn’t really relevant, but I saw The Icove Agenda. Twice. Brant worked with Marlo once—one of her first vids—and he’d worked with Julian. After it came out that Julian was nearly killed, and his personal issues became public, Brant reached out to him.”
“Did he?”
“Offered help. Someone for Julian to talk to as he worked his way through those issues. And Brant went to bat for him with the producer, the director putting the Red Horse sequel together. If Julian stays clean and clear, he’ll play Roarke again in the sequel. He and Brant didn’t run in the same circles, not really, but Brant reached out and stood up. That’s Brant. I just wanted you to know.”
When he left with Peabody, Eve looked up at the classy, coffered ceiling.
Brant Fitzhugh might’ve been a solid, stand-up guy, she thought. But he was still very dead.
3
Dolby could’ve given the colorful McNab a run for it in his scarlet skin pants, the sunburst collarless shirt, the black vest with its silver buckles, and the black high-tops with scarlet laces.
Like McNab, he wore an ear full of tiny hoops, and also sported a fancy wrist unit with a red band. His hair fell to his shoulders in tight black curls offset by a single bright red braid wound from his forehead, over the crown, and down his back.
He had skin like polished oak, so his eyes, clear as blue glass, seemed to pop out of a face with razor-sharp angles.
He carried a glass of wine in a hand that trembled.
“They said it was okay if I had a drink.” His voice—baritone, faintly Midwestern—shook, like his hand. “Nobody will let me see Eliza. She’ll need me.”
“She’s with Ms. Bowen.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, but she still needs me. I need to be strong.” He sat, took a long, deep drink of wine. “I need to pull myself together and be strong for her. It wasn’t an accident or a stroke or something. People are talking, and saying it wasn’t an accident. But that doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t understand how Brant could be dead.”
“You work for Ms. Lane.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
He closed those blue-glass eyes, made a little humming sound in his throat as he took three steady breaths.
“Strong,” he said, and opened his eyes again. “I was a wardrobe assistant—low rung—when she did All’s Fair on Broadway. And her personal assistant just couldn’t handle it, couldn’t keep up, and Eliza expects you to keep up, right? So she said, ‘How about working for me, Dolby,’ and I’m, like, ‘Bet your ass.’”
His lips curved a little, and he put his fingertips to his mouth as if to hold back the quick smile. “I actually said that, and she just laughed. I can keep up, and I tell her straight when she asks for my opinion. ‘That color sucks the life out of you,’ or, ‘Don’t mention Gino when you have lunch with Mina because they’re over.’ And I know when she needs a neck rub or wants some quiet time. I help her rehearse, make sure she has her favorite flowers, know when to tell everyone to clear out so she and Brant can have a romantic dinner at home.”
He paused, drank again. “Brant. It had to be an accident or something that just went wrong inside him. He’s the sweetest man in the world.”
“He and Ms. Lane—did they have any problems?”
“You mean like marriage stuff?” His curls swung when he shook his head. “They were like a fairy tale, I swear. Always doing little things for each other. Big stuff’s all that, but it’s the little things that count. I don’t know how she’s going to get through this.”
His eyes watered up again. “They loved each other so much! She was like his queen. She’d say how he always made her feel like the center of the world, and he was her knight in the shiniest armor. He was like a dad to me.”