Witness in Death

She tossed the Seal-It to Peabody. "Cause of death, stabbing, single wound. Visual exam and minimal amount of blood indicate a heart wound."

She crouched, and with her coated fingers picked up the knife. "Wound inflicted by what appears to be a common kitchen knife, serrated blade approximately eight inches in length."

"I'll measure and bag, Lieutenant."

"Not yet," Eve murmured. She examined the knife, dug out microgoggles, examined it again from hilt to tip. "Initial exam reveals no mechanism for retracting the blade on impact. This is no prop knife."

She shoved the goggles up so they rested on the top of her head. "No prop knife, no accident." She passed the knife to Peabody 's sealed hand. "It's homicide."

CHAPTER TWO

"I could use you," Eve said to Mira while the sweepers worked over the crime scene. Draco's body was already bagged, tagged, and on its way to the morgue.

"What can I do for you?"

"We've got a couple of dozen uniforms logging names and addresses of audience members." She didn't want to think about the man-hours, the mountains of paperwork that would go into interviewing over two thousand witnesses. "But I want to start the interview process on the main players before I kick them clear for the night. I don't want anybody lawyering on me until I get a better handle on the setup."

Right out in the open, Eve thought as she studied the stage, the set, the tiers after tiers of plush velvet seats that had held a rapt audience.

Someone was cool and cocky. And smart.

"People are comfortable with you," she went on. "I want Areena Mansfield comfortable."

"I'll do what I can."

"Appreciate it. Peabody, you're with me."

Eve crossed the stage, moved into the wings. There were uniforms scattered throughout the backstage area. Civilians were either tucked behind closed doors or huddled in miserable little groups.

"What do you give our chances of keeping the media locked out of this until morning?"

Peabody glanced over at Eve. "I'd say zero, but that's optimistic."

"Yeah. Officer." Eve signaled a uniform. "I want guards posted at every entrance, every exit."

"Already done, sir."

"I want the guards inside. Nobody leaves the building, not even a cop. Nobody comes in, especially reporters. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

A corridor bent off the wing, narrowed. Eve sca

She only lifted her eyebrows when she saw Roarke sitting on a royal blue daybed, holding Areena's hand.

The actress had yet to remove her stage makeup, and though tears had ravaged it, she was still stu

"Oh God. Oh my God. Am I going to be arrested?"

"I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Mansfield."

"They wouldn't let me change. They said I couldn't. His blood." Her hands fluttered in front of her costume, fisted. "I can't stand it."

"I'm sorry. Dr. Mira, would you help Miss Mansfield out of her costume? Peabody will bag it."

"Of course."

"Roarke, outside please." Eve stepped back to the door, opened it.

"Don't worry, Areena. The lieutenant will sort this out." After giving Areena's hand a comforting squeeze, he rose and walked by Eve.

"I asked you to keep your ears open, not to cozy up with one of my suspects."

"Trying to keep a hysterical woman lucid isn't particularly cozy." He blew out a breath. "I could use a very large brandy."

"Well, go home and have one. I don't know how long I'll be."

"I believe I can find what I need here."

"Just go home," she said again. "There's nothing for you to do here."

"As I'm not one of your suspects," he added in a quiet voice, "and I own this theater, I believe I can come and go as I please."

He ran a finger down her cheek and strolled off.

"You always do," she muttered, then went back into the dressing room.

It seemed to Eve that dressing room was a lowly term for a space so large, so lush. A long, cream-toned counter held a forest of pots, tubes, wands, bottles, all arranged with soldierly precision. Over it all gleamed a wide triple mirror ringed with slim white lights.

There was the daybed, several cozy chairs, a full-sized AutoChef and friggie unit, a trim, mini-communication system. Wardrobe hung in a long closet area, open now so that Eve noted the costumes and street clothes were as precisely arranged as the makeup.

On every table, in groupings on the floor, were flowers. The over-fragranced air made Eve think of weddings. And funerals.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." Areena shivered slightly as Mira helped her into a long white robe. "I don't know how much longer I could have stood… I'd like to clean off my makeup." Her hand reached for her throat. "I'd like to feel like myself."

"Go ahead." Eve made herself comfortable in one of the chairs. "This interview will be recorded. Do you understand?"

"I don't understand anything." With a sigh, Areena sat on the padded stool in front of her makeup mirror. "My mind seems numb, as if everything's happening one step after it should be."

"It's a very normal reaction," Mira assured her. "It often helps to talk about the event that caused the shock, to go over the details of it so they can be dealt with. Set aside."

"Yes, I suppose you're right." Shifting her gaze in the mirror, she watched Eve. "You have to ask me questions, and it has to be on the record. All right. I want to get it done."

"Record on, Peabody. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Mansfield, Areena, in subject's dressing room at the New Globe Theater. Also present are Peabody, Officer Delia, and Dr. Charlotte Mira."

While Areena creamed off her stage makeup, Eve recited the revised Miranda. "Do you understand your rights and responsibilities, Miss Mansfield?"

"Yes. It's another part of the nightmare." She closed her eyes, tried to envision a pure white field, tranquil, serene. And could see only blood. "Is he really dead? Is Richard really dead?"

"Yes."

"I killed him. I stabbed him." The shudder ran from her shoulders down. "A dozen times," she said, opening her eyes again to meet Eve's in the center of the triple mirror. "At least a dozen times, we rehearsed that scene. We choreographed it so carefully, for the biggest impact. What went wrong? Why didn't the knife retract?" The first hint of anger showed in her eyes. "How could this have happened?"

"Take me through it. The scene. You're Christine. You've protected him, lied for him. You've ruined yourself for him. Then, after all that, he blows you off, flaunts another woman, a younger woman, in your face."

"I loved him. He was my obsession – my lover, my husband, my child, all in one." She lifted her shoulders. "Above all else, Christine loved Leonard Vole. She knew what he was, what he did. But it didn't matter. She would have died for him, so deep and obsessive was her love."

Calmer now, Areena tossed the used tissues into her recycle chute, turned on the stool. Her face was marble pale, her eyes red and swollen. And still, she radiated beauty.

"In that moment, every woman in the audience understands her. If they haven't felt that kind of love, in some part of themselves they wish they had. So when she realizes that after all she's done, he can discard her so casually, when she fully understands what he is, she grabs the knife."

Areena lifted a fisted hand, as if holding the hilt. "Despair? No, she is a creature of action. She is never passive. It's an instant, an impulse, but a bone-deep one. She plunges the knife into him, even as she embraces him. Love and hate, both in their highest form, both inside her in that one instant."