Wingate was there, as well as a man taking pictures. Crouched next to Avery’s body was a woman, also dressed in one of those white crime scene suits. Kit guessed she was the investigator from the ME’s office and clearly the person she’d overheard.
“I’ll only need you for a second,” the woman said to Kit. “Just to make an official I.D. for me, okay?”
As the woman stepped to the side, Kit saw that Avery’s body had been turned over and her face was now in view. The skin was mottled with reds and purples, just like her hands were, and on the left temple was an ugly gash, with dark red blood puckered and congealed around the edges. Her eyes were closed. Kit felt a crushing wave of grief.
“Yes, that’s Avery Howe,” Kit said.
“Thank you,” the investigator replied. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
As Kit nodded in reply, the door from the corridor pushed open and two people in navy blue coveralls came into sight, holding a stretcher trolley. Behind them was one of the female patrol cops and Kit could hear her talking to someone who was obviously a tenant.
“You need to stay in your apartment for now, ma’am,” the cop said. “We’ll be coming by door to door to make inquiries.”
It was going to turn into a total zoo, Kit realized, and there would surely be press, too.
“You ready for us?” the guy with the stretcher asked the investigator.
“Give me a couple more minutes.”
Burke grasped Kit’s elbow again and piloted her back up the steps. She felt a sudden wave of nausea—from the smell of sweat in the stairwell, from the thought of Avery’s mottled, lifeless face.
“Are Dara and I free to go now?” she asked when she and Burke reentered the corridor on the fifth floor. “I’d prefer not to stay here right now.”
“Yes,” he said, studying her again, making a silent evaluation. “But we may need to speak to you again as the investigation unfolds.”
She nodded and gratefully watched as he retreated once more into the stairwell. Back in the office, Kit found Dara standing with a phone pressed to her ear and three big shopping bags at her feet, two of them already brimming with files.
“Baby,” Dara mouthed. Kit motioned for the phone.
“Dear God,” Baby said. “Do you think she tripped? That’s what Dara said might have happened.”
“The cops aren’t divulging anything,” Kit said grimly. “Let me wait and take you through everything in person.” She wanted to share the troubling comment she’d overheard in the stairwell but not in front of Dara, not yet anyway. “Are you still okay with me crashing at your place—and can we run the business from there for a bit?”
“Of course. Come as soon as you’re able.”
“I’ll head up there shortly then. I want to be long gone from here before any reporters descend.”
“Speaking of press,” Dara said after Kit disconnected, “we’ve already gotten one call. From Channel 7. They seemed to know that Avery was here last night—maybe they heard it from her assistant. I told the woman I wasn’t familiar with any details. I figured that was better than, ‘No comment,’ which sounds like you know stuff but have been told to keep your mouth shut.”
“Good girl,” Kit said. She paused, thinking. She wanted to know what Burke had asked Dara but a little voice in her head warned her to not come across as overly eager, that it might make Dara uncomfortable. “Did everything go okay with the detectives?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean there wasn’t much I could tell them. They wanted to know what time Avery was expected, what time I split—and whether the elevator was working when I left. I said it was.”
“I’m sure she came up in the elevator—she would have mentioned it to me if she’d had to trudge up the stairs. And it was working when I went out two hours later.”
Dara grimaced. “There’s some other stuff they were asking about—they wanted to know if I talked to you last night after I left here and whether you said anything about your meeting with Avery when I showed up this morning. It was creepy, Kit. They can’t possibly think you had anything to do with Avery falling, can they?”
“No, no,” Kit said. “They’re just being cops, covering all their bases.” But she harkened back to Burke’s question—“You and Ms. Howe. Everything good with the two of you?” Had they sensed she’d been withholding information and thus become suspicious?