Authors: James W. Hall
Dead Last
For Evelyn, always
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank Matt Schudel, whose masterful obituaries for
The Washington Post
inspired me to write this novel, and who answered my questions with the same grace and insight that characterizes all his writing. And I’d like to thank Terry Miller for giving me access to the set and actors and crew members of one of the best shows on TV. Terry, a friend for many years, has risen to the top in a challenging business without ever losing his good humor and charm and creative vision, skills that help him command the respect of his talented and motley crew. And to Al Hallonquist for his professional and no-nonsense assistance with the police procedures he knows so well.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
—Romans 7:18–19
CONTENTS
Act One: Slipping into Second Person
TEASER
THE INTRUDER IS WEARING A
blue stretchy catsuit that covers every inch of flesh as if he’d been dipped in indigo wax. He’s tall, slender, with wide shoulders and narrow hips—an elfin creature slipping down the murky hallway.
The bodysuit’s slippery sheen plays tricks with the frail light, making the prowler appear and disappear like a bashful spirit as he steals through the shadows, moving down the corridor past one shut door after another.
This could be a shabby hotel, or some other failed institution—a VA hospital, a public housing project gone to seed. The ceilings are high, the plaster walls pitted and peeling. Mounted high on the walls, brass sconces cast gloomy light toward the ceiling.
When the intruder reaches a large mirror hanging on the wall, he halts and seems captivated by his own shadowy reflection. He reaches toward the mirror, a finger extended. He touches the glass, tip meeting tip.
A breeze, salt-heavy and breathless, moans through the building.
The blue man breaks away from his reflection and moves on. Somewhere down the hall a television is playing—a cop show with gunfire and sirens. Overheated dialogue punctuated with the yelps and cries of an actress simulating mortal danger.
In his left hand the blue man carries a slip of paper the size of a dinner check. His other hand is empty.
Halfway down the corridor the blue man stops before a shut door and leans close to examine the card fixed to it—the name of the occupant.
William Slattery
The blue man gathers himself, then opens the door and slides into the room. Several night-lights illuminate the room. Their yellow light glints off the guardrails of the bed and gives the room a sickly cast.
The blue man, sleek and lithe, draws close to the bed and looks down at the codger lying there. The sheets are drawn to his throat. Spun white hair halos his head. His face is wan. Dark splotches on his cheeks and forehead. His eyes are shut.
Blue Man places the paper on the bedside table, then takes a cautious grip of the pillow beneath Slattery’s head. He tightens his Lycra fingers and snatches the pillow free.
Slattery blinks and stares up at the faceless man.
The intruder holds the pillow to his chest and is silent while the old man blinks again to clear his vision. Is he still asleep? Is this a dream? Then he cracks a toothless smile.
“Hey, buddy, why so blue?”
Maybe Slattery’s old and frail, but he’s still a joker.
When the blue man does not reply, the old guy’s eyes tighten, the humor drains away. He turns to his bedside table and sees the clipping. The blue man holds still.
“Aw, cripes, you’re the obituary guy. Fuck me if you aren’t.”
Blue Man is silent, unmoving.
“You gotta be joking. Old fart like me? Come on, kid, why bother? Cancer’s taking me down soon enough.”
Is that a noise in the hallway? The blue man looks at the door. But after a moment he seems satisfied it’s nothing and turns back to Slattery.
“Listen, sonny, you won’t believe this, but just today I was talking about you. I was saying to my buddies what you need is a first-rate PR guy. And hey, guess what? Just so happens I was in that racket for fifty years. Here in Miami. Promoted some big names out on the beach. Godfrey, Sullivan, hell, I got the Beatles their first stateside gig. You heard of them, right? The Beatles?”
Now the blue man seems to be listening, which emboldens Slattery.
“Like I say, you got the goods, this act, you could parlay this into something big. It’s creepy shtick, leaving an obit at each scene, taunting the cops. Got the FBI and the TV talking heads lathered up over what the hell the obits mean.
“That’s flair, buddy, but hell, you’re not reaching your full potential. Keeping it in South Florida, hey, that’s penny ante, if you’ll pardon my candor. What you need, you need to make a splash. Put yourself on the big stage, go national, make your mark in Chicago, Dallas, L.A. You’re a hustler, right? You want money, notoriety, whatever. We’re all hustlers, right?”
The blue man is finished listening and he raises the pillow.
Slattery stiffens, saying, “Come on, let’s work this through. I’m being frank. You got something going, a gift for the ghoulish. No offense, Mr. Blue, you aren’t getting the audience you deserve.”
When he sees what’s coming, Slattery starts to yell for help, but the pillow crushes against his face, cutting him off, and the blue man leans his weight into it.
The sheets bulge and ripple. The old man’s hands break free and he flails his skinny arms, clawing wildly. He’s a fighter, but no match for the blue man, who bears down until Slattery’s arms slow, and finally drift back to the sheets.
Still the blue man applies pressure. Seconds pass and Slattery’s body relaxes against the mattress.
The blue man raises the pillow and drops it at the foot of the bed. He stands still for a moment surveying his work, then picks up the paper from the bedside table and tacks it to the corkboard on the wall beside Slattery’s bed. It’s a newspaper clipping with jagged edges like the blade of a circular saw.
He turns to leave, but something in the bed catches his attention. A noise? Movement? The blue man returns to his victim’s side and bends low, presses a Lycra finger to Slattery’s throat. Could he be alive? Was he faking?
He tips his head down to peer into the dead man’s face.
Slattery erupts. He’s upright, huffing, lashing his right hand, then his left, a catfighter with his claws out. He snatches at the blue man’s face. Stuns him momentarily, then the blue man punches Slattery flat in the nose, but the blow only revs the old man’s thrashing hands.
The blue man draws back his fist for another strike, Slattery slapping and slashing, when one of the old man’s fingers snags the seam at the blue man’s throat—where hood meets bodysuit.
Slattery freezes. Weighing the consequences.
It’s a standoff, neither moving. Then, slowly, the blue man raises a hand and takes hold of Slattery’s frail wrist, and begins to pry the man’s hand away.
But no. With a wild grunt, Slattery strips off the hood.
Revealing a woman with short platinum hair.
Slattery slumps back. Breathing hard, nothing left.
The woman has winter-gray eyes, skin as pale as sun-bleached bone. She has a high forehead, arched eyebrows, severe cheekbones, and swollen lips. She’s exotic, a stunner with the dramatic bone structure and imperious bearing of a runway goddess who has grown immune to cameras, harsh lights, and prying stares.
She lets Slattery drink her in. He’s shocked, too exhausted to speak.
She moves her blue hands to his throat and closes her fingers.
“It’s all right,” she says in a soothing voice. “I’ll be gentle.”
Her hands tighten and the old guy makes a feeble swat at her arms, but he’s got nothing left. As the seconds count away, his eyes close. The vigor drains from his features.
When the woman is done, she settles Slattery’s head on the pillow. Just so. Arranging him to look as serene as a strangled man can appear.
She straightens his hair with a gentle blue hand. There’s a postcoital poignancy to her gestures, as if the intimacy they shared has touched her.
Finished, she pulls the hood back on and tugs it into place.
She turns to the corkboard and straightens the page, admires it.
It’s an obituary from the newspaper, a three-paragraph summary of the life of some girl named Annie Woodburne. The headline reads
Molecular Biology Student, Planned to Teach
The woman in blue turns from the obituary and walks from the room. The door closes. Slattery is motionless. His expression flat.
A beat, another beat.
“And cut!”
Gus Dollimore rose from his canvas chair, pulled off his earphones, draped them around his neck, and looked around at the assembled cast and crew, then raised his fist and pumped it twice.
“Terrific stuff. A real nut-grabber. You guys killed it.”
Sawyer Moss held back a smile. Gus was hamming it up for their visitor—the guy sitting next to Sawyer with this week’s script open in his lap.
The usual turmoil resumed. Two dozen crew members hustling and bustling, making ready for the next scene. The unit production manager was on his handheld radio barking orders, first assistant director on the cell with some off-site problem. Grips, gaffer, camera guys, the cable draggers and equipment haulers, the makeup and hair assistants, the stand-ins, assorted construction men and prop people. Guys taking down the lights, carrying off the bounce boards.
The DP, Bernie Bernard, consulted with Mills, who was still strapped in the leather harness carrying the weight of the Steadicam. It was Mills, head cameraman, who’d trailed the killer down the hallway, staying tight on the blue suit, playing with the shadows.
Bernie and Mills huddled at the monitor, studying the playback of the last few seconds. The hand-fighting, hood ripped off, the actors’ expressions.
“Tell me we got it, Bernie,” Dollimore said. “Tell me it’s perfect.”
“Could’ve opened the lens half a crack more. A few shadows I don’t like. But it’s decent. Good enough for cable TV.”
Mills chuckled; the best boy and one of the electricians hid their smiles in deference to the outsider.
Sawyer unfolded his call sheet to check the next setup. A dozen more scenes to shoot before they punched out tonight. Next up was an exterior in the courtyard—murder aftermath, patrol cars and EMTs arriving, Miami patrol officers, then the homicide guys shuffling in, rumpled, with their thimbles of Cuban coffee. Some dialogue with the owner of the nursing home—she’s horrified at Slattery’s death. Nothing dramatic, but a necessary bridge.
