Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (87 page)

“What did Matisse have to do with the Actor?” Palladino asked.

“We don’t know,” Jessica said. “But whatever the motive is for the murder of these two women, we have to assume it applies to Julian Matisse. Connect Matisse to these two women, we’ll have our motive. If we can’t tie these people together, we have no way of knowing where he’s going to strike next.”

There was no disagreement about the fact that the Actor would strike again.

“There is usually a depression phase in the cycle of a killer like this,” Jessica said. “We’re not seeing it here. This is a spree, and according to all the research, he is not going to stop until he fulfills his plan.”

“What’s the link that put Matisse in this?” Chavez asked.

“Matisse was in an adult film called
Philadelphia Skin,
” Jessica said. “And it’s clear that something happened on the set of that movie.”

“What do you mean?” Chavez asked.

“
Philadelphia Skin
seems to be the center of everything. Matisse was the actor in the blue jacket. The man returning the tape to Flickz wore the same or a similar jacket.”

“Do we have anything on the jacket?”

Jessica shook her head. “It wasn’t found where we found Matisse’s body. We’re still canvassing tailor shops.”

“How does Stephanie Chandler figure into it?” Chavez asked.

“Not known.”

“Could she have been an actress in the film?”

“It’s possible,” Jessica said. “Her mother said she had been a little wild in college. She didn’t elaborate. The time frame would match up. Unfortunately, everyone in that movie wears a mask.”

“What were the actresses’ stage names?” Chavez asked.

Jessica consulted her notes. “One name is listed as Angel Blue. The other is Tracy Love. Again, we’ve run the names, no hits. But we might be able to get more of what happened on that shoot from the woman we met at Tresonne.”

“What was her name?”

“Paulette St. John.”

“Who is
that
?” Chavez asked, seemingly concerned that the task force was interviewing porno actresses and he had been left out of the loop.

“An adult-film actress. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try,” Jessica said.

Buchanan said: “Get her in here.”

H
ER REAL NAME
was Roberta Stoneking. In the daytime, she looked like a hausfrau, a plain, albeit busty, thirty-eight-year-old thrice-divorced New Jersey mother of three with more than a nodding acquaintance with Botox. Which is precisely who she was. Today, instead of a low-cut leopard-print dress, she wore a hot pink velour tracksuit and new cherry-red running shoes. They met in Interview A. For some reason, there were a lot of male detectives observing this particular interview.

“It may be a big city, but the adult-film business is a small community,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody, and everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

“Like we said, this has nothing to do with anybody’s livelihood, okay? We’re not concerned with the adult-film business per se,” Jessica said.

Roberta turned an unlit cigarette over and over. It appeared that she was deciding how much to say, and how to say it, probably to place herself as far away from any culpability as possible. “I understand.”

On the table was a printout close-up of the young blond girl from
Philadelphia Skin. Those eyes,
Jessica thought. “You mentioned that something happened during the shoot of this film.”

Roberta took a deep breath. “I don’t know much, okay?”

“Whatever you can tell us will be helpful.”

“All I heard was that a girl died on the set,” she said. “Even that might have been half the story. Who knows?”

“This was Angel Blue?”

“I think so.”

“Died how?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was her real name?”

“I have no idea. There are people I’ve made ten movies with, I don’t know their names. It’s that kind of business.”

“And you never heard any specifics about the girl’s death?”

“Not that I can recall.”

She was playing them, Jessica thought. She sat on the edge of the table. Woman-to-woman now. “Come on, Paulette,” she said, using the woman’s stage name. Maybe it would help them bond. “People talk. There had to be scuttlebutt about what happened.”

Roberta looked up. In the harsh fluorescence she looked every one of her years and then some. “Well, I heard she was using.”

“Using what?”

Roberta shrugged. “Not sure. Smack, probably.”

“How do you know?”

Roberta frowned at Jessica. “Despite my youthful appearance, I’ve been around the block, Detective.”

“Was there a lot of drug use on the set?”

“There’s a lot of drug use in the whole business. Depends on the person. Everybody’s got their disease, everybody’s got their cure.”

“Besides Bruno Steele, do you know the other guy who was in
Philadelphia Skin
?”

“I’d have to see it again.”

“Well, unfortunately, he wears a mask the whole time.”

Roberta laughed.

“Did I say something funny?” Jessica asked.

“Sweetie, there’s other ways of recognizing guys in my business.”

Chavez poked his head in. “Jess?”

Jessica instructed Nick Palladino to take Roberta down to AV and show her the film. Nick straightened his tie, smoothed his hair. There would be no hazard pay requested for this duty.

Jessica and Byrne stepped out of the room. “What’s up?”

“Lauria and Campos caught a case in Overbrook. It looks like it might dovetail with the Actor.”

“Why?” Jessica asked.

“First off, the vic is a white female, late twenties, early thirties. Shot once in the chest. Found at the bottom of her bathtub. Just like the
Fatal Attraction
killing.”

“Who found her?” Byrne asked.

“Landlord,” Chavez said. “She lives in a twin. Her neighbor came home after being out of town for a week, heard the same music playing over and over and over. Some kind of opera. Knocked on her door, got no answer, called the landlord.”

“How long has she been dead?”

“No idea. ME’s on the way there now,” Buchanan said. “But here’s the kicker. Ted Campos started going through her desk. Found her pay stubs. She works for a company called Alhambra LLC.”

Jessica felt her pulse quicken. “What’s her name?”

Chavez looked at his notes. “Her name is Erin Halliwell.”

E
RIN
H
ALLIWELL’S APARTMENT
was a funky collection of mismatched furniture, faux-Tiffany lamps, film books, and posters, along with an impressive array of healthy houseplants.

It smelled of death.

As soon as Jessica poked her head into the bathroom, she recognized the setting. It was the same wall, the same window treatment as the
Fatal Attraction
tape.

The woman’s body had been taken from the tub and was on the bathroom floor, on a rubber sheet. Her skin was puckered and gray, the wound in her chest had tightened to a small hole.

They were getting closer, and the feeling was energizing the detectives, all of whom had been averaging four or five hours’ sleep a night.

The CSU team was dusting the apartment for prints. A pair of task force detectives were following up on the pay stubs, visiting the bank from which the funds were drawn. The full force of the PPD was bearing down on this case, and it was starting to bear fruit.

B
YRNE STOOD IN
the doorway. Evil had crossed this threshold.

He watched the buzz of activity in the living room, listened to the sound of the camera’s motor drive, smelled the chalky scent of the print powder. He had missed the chase these past months. The CSU officers were looking for minute traces of the killer, inaudible whispers of this woman’s violent end. Byrne put his hands on the doorjambs. He was looking for something much deeper, much more ethereal.

He stepped into the room, snapped on a pair of latex gloves. He walked the scene, feeling that—

—she thinks they are going to have sex. He knows they are not. He is here to fulfill his dark purpose. They sit on the couch for a while. He toys with her long enough to get her interested. Had the dress been hers? No. He bought the dress for her. Why had she put it on? She wanted to please him. The Actor is fixated on
Fatal Attraction.
Why? What is it about the movie he needs to re-create? Earlier they stood beneath huge lights. The man touches her skin. He wears many looks, many disguises. A doctor. A minister. A man with a badge …

Byrne stepped over to the small desk and began the ritual of sifting through the dead woman’s belongings. Her desk had been gone over by the primary detectives, but not with an eye toward the Actor.

In a large drawer he found a portfolio of photographs. Most were of the “soft touch” card variety: Erin Halliwell at sixteen, eighteen, twenty years old, sitting on the beach, standing on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, sitting at a picnic table at a family function. The last folder he looked in spoke to him in a voice the others had not. He called Jessica over.

“Look,” he said. He held forth the eight-by-ten picture.

The photograph was taken in front of the art museum. It was a black-and-white group shot of maybe forty or fifty people. In the second row was a smiling Erin Halliwell. Next to her was the unmistakable face of Will Parrish.

Inscribed on the bottom, in a flourish of blue ink, was the following:

ONE DOWN, MANY MORE TO COME.

YOURS, IAN.

62

T
HE
R
EADING
T
ERMINAL
Market was a huge, bustling market located at Twelfth and Market streets in Center City, just a block or so from city hall. Opened in 1892, it was home to more than eighty vendors and covered nearly two acres.

The task force had learned that Alhambra LLC was a company established exclusively for the production of
The Palace.
The Alhambra was a famous palace in Spain. Quite often, production companies form a separate enterprise to handle payroll, permits, and liability insurance for the duration of the shoot. Quite often they take a name or a phrase from the film and name the company office for it. It allows the production office to open without a lot of hassles from would-be actors and paparazzi.

By the time Byrne and Jessica reached the corner of Twelfth and Market, a number of large semitrucks had already parked there. The film crew was setting up to shoot a second-unit sequence inside. The detectives were only there for a few seconds when a man approached them. They were expected.

“Are you Detective Balzano?”

“Yes,” Jessica said. She held up her badge. “This is my partner, Detective Byrne.”

The man was in his late thirties. He wore a stylish navy blazer, white shirt, khakis. He had an air of competence about him, if not secretiveness. Narrow-set eyes, light brown hair, eastern European features. He carried a black leather binder and two-way radio.

“Nice to meet you,” the man said. “Welcome to the set of
The Palace.
” He extended his hand. “My name is Seth Goldman.”

T
HEY SAT AT
a coffee bar inside the market. The myriad aromas wreaked havoc with Jessica’s willpower. Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, seafood, Termini’s bakery. She had eaten a peach yogurt and banana for lunch.
Yum.
It was supposed to last her until dinner.

“What can I say?” Seth said. “We’re all terribly shaken by the news.”

“What was Ms. Halliwell’s position?”

“She was production manager.”

“Were you very close to her?” Jessica asked.

“Not in the social sense,” Seth said. “But we were working on our second film together, and during a shoot you work very closely, sometimes spending sixteen, eighteen hours a day together. You eat meals together, you travel in cars and on planes.”

“Were you ever romantically involved with her?” Byrne asked.

Seth smiled, sadly. Apropos of the tragic occasion, Jessica thought. “No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”

“Ian Whitestone is your employer?”

“That’s correct.”

“Was there ever any kind of romantic involvement between Ms. Halliwell and Mr. Whitestone?”

Jessica saw the slightest tic. It was quickly covered, but it was a tell. Whatever Seth Goldman was about to say wasn’t going to be the complete truth.

“Mr. Whitestone is a happily married man.”

Hardly answers the question,
Jessica thought. “Now, we may be nearly three thousand miles from Hollywood, Mr. Goldman, but we’ve heard that sometimes folks from that town
have
been known to sleep with folks other than their spouse. Hell, it’s probably even happened out here in Amish country once or twice.”

Seth smiled. “If Erin and Ian ever had a relationship other than professional, I was not aware of it.”

I’ll take that as a yes,
Jessica thought. “When was the last time you saw Erin?”

“Let’s see. I believe it was three or four days ago.”

“On the set?”

“At the hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Park Hyatt.”

“She was staying at the hotel?”

“No,” Seth said. “Ian maintains a suite there when he’s shooting in town.”

Jessica made a few notes. One of them was to remind herself to chat with some of the hotel personnel about whether or not they had seen Erin Halliwell and Ian Whitestone in a compromising position.

“Do you recall what time that was?”

Seth thought about this for a few moments. “We had a shot in South Philly that afternoon. I left the hotel at maybe four o’clock. So it was probably right around that time.”

“Did you see her with anybody?” Jessica asked.

“No.”

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

“No.”

“Did she take a few days off?”

“It was my understanding she called in sick.”

“You spoke with her?”

“No,” Seth said. “I believe she sent a text message to Mr. Whitestone.”