Unlike Day’s space, it held a desk, fussy, fancy, but a working desk with a slick little data and communication center. Floor-to-ceiling curtains of pale gold covered the windows behind it.
The sitting area, in the fancy/cozy style, used deeper golds and shimmering blues.
Like Day’s, hers offered a full bar and a dressing area.
Eve started to speak, then Nadine stepped to the doorway.
“Need something?” Eve asked her.
“This is you doing your job.” Nadine leaned on the jamb. “And me doing mine. If you’re about to do something the public doesn’t have the right to know, I can come in, close the door—and hold whatever needs to be held until. Otherwise, this can go into the pool.”
“Christ.” Eve chose to ignore her. “Peabody, alert EDD, the electronics will be tagged and waiting for pickup and transport.”
“Already did. Scarlet Silk—you nailed it, Dallas. I guess she could be called fresh and young. I guess she could be called an actress. And her name reflects her current videography. Her latest is Hard, Hot, and Hammered.”
“Figured. Contact her, verify his alibi.”
“Mitch’s?”
“You got your one-on-one, Nadine,” Eve reminded her, pulling open a drawer in the desk.
Unused memo cubes, a passcoded tablet, a couple of pens, a couple of cubes of sticky notes. Eve held up the notes. “Did she use these?”
Nadine shrugged. “You had your interview, Dallas.”
Already fed up by the swamp of bullshit in Day’s office, Eve rounded on her. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“Then don’t treat me like somebody who does.” Nadine stepped in, shut the door. “Larinda was well-known for slapping stupid stickies on comp screens, doors—even on the foreheads of her staff.”
“Where is her staff?”
“Mostly in cubes, in the area to the right. Neither she nor Mitch wanted their staff on top of them. Mitch, I think, because he likes his quiet time. Larinda because she enjoyed having them run back and forth at her beck. And she used them on a board—like you, sort of.”
“What board?”
“This one.” Peabody rolled out a white board covered in colored stickies. “I guess we could call it her case board.”
Some of the stickies held names, others what Eve thought of as motivations or acts: sex, dollar signs, illegals, abuser, rapist. Some feel-good on there, too: engaged, expecting, honeymoon, charitable interests. Arrows connected some of the notes, and on some she’d
tagged initials in the corners.
“Too accessible to be her marks. These would be her, well, marks, but professionally. People she’s digging to dish on. Not illegal—it’s her job. But let’s tally up the names, coordinate them with the suspected dirt or offense. It could be somebody got wind of her scratching around and decided to take her out first.”
Eve wandered over to the clothes racks. “These are for on screen?”
“She never wore the same outfit twice on screen,” Nadine confirmed. “Wardrobe provides. And she often walked off with what she wore—which isn’t part of the deal. You can buy it at a discount or return it to the rack for return to the vendor—who’ll sell it at a discount—or the station buys it outright and somebody else uses it.”
She collects, Eve thought. Information, secrets, people, money, jewelry, clothes. Hoarder.
She had to have another place to stash her collections.
And her own secrets.
Peabody looked at her signaling ’link. “Scarlet Silk, tagging me back. Ms. Silk,” she said, moving away as she spoke.
“Who’s the porn star?”
Eve considered, decided she’d get more, potentially, by sharing. “Day’s alibi for the time in question.”