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“Then she should cool off! You expect me to turn on a friend? On someone who counts on my support?”
“Maybe that friend needs help. Maybe he needs to get that help if he—he may not make it, Mr. Steinburger. It doesn’t look good. Julian’s in a coma, and the doctors say he may not come out of it.”
“God. Oh God.”
“Let me do what I can here. While I have the chance.”
“Julian.” He covered his mouth with his hand. “Poor Julian. I shouldn’t have left him alone tonight. He said he would be fine, that he wanted time to rest. He’s been so—he’s been torn up about K.T. It wasn’t his fault, Detective Peabody. You have to understand, it was an accident.”
“What was?”
“Let me explain.” He drew in a breath. “Let me explain what happened. When Julian didn’t come back to the theater, I got concerned. I knew he and K.T. were at odds, and both had been drinking. I went up to the roof.”
“Why the roof?”
“It’s where K.T. went to smoke those damn herbals she’s addicted to. When I got there... It was too late.” He reached across the table. “She was floating, facedown, and Julian was in shock. He was washing blood off the pool skirt, and barely able to speak.”
“She was in the pool, facedown, when you got to the roof?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“And you didn’t attempt to pull her out?”
“It was too late. She was dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Julian said. He said she’d fallen. They’d argued and struggled, and she’d fallen. And when he’d tried to get her up, he passed out. He thought he’d blacked out, you see, and when he came back to himself, she was dead in the pool. I’m afraid that while he was in shock, under the influence, he—he dragged her into the pool. He tried to cover it up. He couldn’t clearly remember, you see.”
“What did you do then?”
“I took him downstairs. He was in no shape to talk to anyone. He all but passed out on the sofa.”
“You didn’t go for help.”
“It was my help that was needed, Detective. I wanted to protect Julian. He needed my protection. It was too late for K.T. It was an accident, Detective Peabody.”
“Let me get the details straight, so we can lay this out for Dallas. You followed Julian up to the roof, where he’d met K.T. In the pool area—under the dome, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
“The dome was closed.”
“Yes, of course. It’s October. The entire area reeked of K.T.’s herbals. It was sickening.”
“I guess you didn’t think to open the dome.”
“Connie prefers it closed in the fall and winter. She swims every morning.”
“See, that’s another discrepancy. The dome had been opened, then closed again. But the thing is, the mechanism’s faulty. It doesn’t close all the way. It wasn’t closed all the way after the body was discovered. And, there wasn’t any scent of smoke in the dome. It had been aired out.”
“Maybe I opened it. I was in shock myself, you understand.”
“Sure. So did you open the dome?”
“Now that I think about it, yes, I did. The smell was horrible. I needed fresh air.”
“When did you open it? Before you dragged K.T. Harris’s unconscious body into the lap pool, or after?”
