Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (88 page)

Jessica wondered if it was Erin Halliwell or her killer who sent the text message. She made a note to have Ms. Halliwell’s cell phone dusted.

“What is your exact position in this company?” Byrne asked.

“I’m Mr. Whitestone’s personal assistant.”

“What sort of things does a personal assistant do?”

“Well, my job is everything from keeping Ian on schedule, to helping him with creative decisions, to scheduling his day, to driving him to and from the set. It can entail just about anything.”

“How does a person get a job like this?” Byrne asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean, do you have an agent? Do you apply through industry want ads?”

“Mr. Whitestone and I met a number of years ago. We share a passion for film. He asked me to join his team and I was thrilled to do so. I love my job, Detective.”

“Do you know a woman named Faith Chandler?” Byrne asked.

It was a planned shift, an abrupt change. It clearly caught the man off guard. He recovered quickly. “No,” Seth said. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“How about Stephanie Chandler?”

“No. I can’t say I know her, either.”

Jessica took out a nine-by-twelve envelope, extracted a photograph, pushed it along the counter. It was an enlargement of the photograph from Stephanie Chandler’s desk at work, the picture of Stephanie and Faith in front of the Wilma Theater. Stephanie’s crime scene photo would come next, if needed. “This is Stephanie on the left; her mother, Faith, on the right,” Jessica said. “Does it help?”

Seth picked up the photograph, studied it. “No,” he repeated. “Sorry.”

“Stephanie Chandler was also murdered,” Jessica said. “Faith Chandler is clinging to life in the hospital.”

“Oh my.” Seth put his hand to his heart momentarily. Jessica didn’t buy the gesture. From the look on Byrne’s face, neither did he. Hollywood shock.

“And you are absolutely certain you’ve never met either of them?” Byrne asked.

Seth looked at the photo again. He feigned deeper scrutiny. “No. We’ve never met.”

“Could you excuse me for a second?” Jessica asked.

“Of course,” Seth said.

Jessica slid off her stool, took out her cell phone. She took a few steps away from the counter. She dialed a number. In an instant, Seth Goldman’s phone rang.

“I’ve got to take this,” he said. He took out his phone, looked at the caller ID. And knew. He slowly raised his eyes and met Jessica’s eyes. Jessica clicked off.

“Mr. Goldman,” Byrne began. “Can you explain why Faith Chandler—a woman you’ve never met, a woman who just happens to be the mother of a homicide victim, a homicide victim who just happened to visit the set of a film your company is producing—called your cell phone twenty times the other day?”

Seth took a moment to compose his answer. “You must understand, in the film business there are a lot people who will do just about anything to get into the movies.”

“You’re not exactly a receptionist, Mr. Goldman,” Byrne said. “I would think there would be a number of layers between you and the front door.”

“There are,” Seth said. “But there are some very determined, very clever people out there. Consider this. A call went out for extras on the set piece we’re shooting soon. Huge, very complicated shot at the Thirtieth Street train station. The call was for one hundred fifty extras. We had more than two thousand people show up. Besides, we have a dozen phones allocated for this shoot. I don’t always have this particular number.”

“And you’re saying that you do not recall ever having spoken to this woman?” Byrne asked.

“No.”

“We’ll need a list of the names of the people who may have had this particular phone.”

“Yes, of course,” Seth said. “But I hope you don’t think anyone connected with the production company had anything to do with these … these …”

“When can we expect the list?” Byrne asked.

Seth’s jaw muscles began to work. It was clear that this man was used to giving orders, not taking them. “I’ll try and get it to you later today.”

“That would be fine,” Byrne said. “And we’ll also need to talk to Mr. Whitestone.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Seth reacted as if he were a cardinal and they had requested an impromptu audience with the pope. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Byrne leaned forward. He got to within a foot or so of Seth Goldman’s face. Seth Goldman began to fidget.

“Have Mr. Whitestone call us,” Byrne said. “Today.”

63

T
HE CANVASS NEAR
the row house where Julian Matisse was killed produced nothing. Nothing was really expected. In that North Philly neighborhood amnesia, blindness, and deafness were the rule, especially when it came to talking to the police. The hoagie shop attached to the house had closed at eleven, and no one had seen Matisse that night, nor had anyone seen a man carrying a chain saw case. The property had been foreclosed upon, and if Matisse had been living there—and there was no evidence that he had—he had been squatting.

Two detectives from SIU had been tracking down the chain saw found at the scene. It had been purchased in Camden, New Jersey, by a Philadelphia tree service company, and reported stolen a week earlier. It was a dead end. There were still no leads on the embroidered jacket.

A
S OF FIVE
o’clock, Ian Whitestone had not called. There was no denying the fact that Whitestone was a celebrity, and handling celebrities in a police matter was a delicate thing. Still, the reasons for talking to him were strong. Every detective on the case wanted to just pick him up for questioning, but it was not that simple. Jessica was just about to call Paul DiCarlo back to press him on the protocol when Eric Chavez got her attention, waving the handset of his phone in the air.

“Call for you, Jess.”

Jessica picked up her phone, punched the button. “Homicide. Balzano.”

“Detective, this is Jake Martinez.”

The name walked the edge of her recent memory. She couldn’t immediately place it. “I’m sorry?”

“Officer Jacob Martinez. I’m Mark Underwood’s partner. We met at Finnigan’s Wake.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

“Well, I’m not sure what to make of this, but we’re over in Point Breeze. We were working traffic while they tore down the set for the movie they’re making, and the owner of one of the stores on Twenty-third flagged us. She said that there was a guy hanging around her store who matched the description of your suspect.”

Jessica waved Byrne over. “How long ago was this?”

“Just a few minutes,” Martinez said. “She’s a little hard to understand. I think she might be Haitian or Jamaican or something. But she had the suspect sketch that was in the
Inquirer
in her hand, and she kept pointing at it, saying that the guy had just been in her store. I think she said her grandson might have mixed it up with the guy a little.”

The composite sketch of the Actor had run in that morning’s paper. “Have you cleared the location?”

“Yes. But there’s no one in the store now.”

“Secured it?”

“Front and back.”

“Give me the address,” Jessica said.

Martinez did.

“What kind of store is it?” Jessica asked.

“A bodega,” he said. “Hoagies, chips, sodas. Kinda run-down.”

“Why does she think this guy was our suspect? Why would he be hanging around a bodega?”

“I asked her the same thing,” Martinez said. “Then she pointed to the back of the store.”

“What about it?”

“They have a video section.”

Jessica hung up, briefed the other detectives. They had received more than fifty calls already that day, calls from people who claimed to have spotted the Actor on their block, in their yards, in the parks. Why should this one be any different?

“Because there’s a video section in the store,” Buchanan said. “You and Kevin check it out.”

Jessica got her weapon from her drawer, handed a copy of the street address to Eric Chavez. “Find Agent Cahill,” she said. “Ask him to meet us at this address.”

T
HE DETECTIVES STOOD
in front of the location, a crumbling storefront deli called Cap-Haitien. Officers Underwood and Martinez, having secured the scene, had returned to their duties. The façade of the market was a patchwork of plywood panels of bright red, blue, and yellow enamel, topped by bright orange metal bars. Skewed, handmade signs in the window hawked fried plantains,
grio,
Creole fried chicken, along with a Haitian beer called Prestige. There was also a sign proclaiming
VIDEO AU LOYER.

About twenty minutes had passed since the owner of the store—an elderly Haitian woman named Idelle Barbereau—had said the man had been in her market. It was unlikely that the suspect, if it was their suspect, was still in the area. The woman described the man just as he appeared in the sketch: white, medium build, wearing large tinted sunglasses, Flyers cap, dark blue jacket. She said he had come in the store, milled around the racks in the center, then drifted into the small video section at the back. He stayed there for a minute, then headed for the door. She said he came in with something in his hands, but was leaving without it. He didn’t purchase anything. She’d had the
Inquirer
open to the page displaying the sketch.

While the man was in the back of the store, she had called her grandson up from the cellar—a strapping nineteen-year-old named Fabrice. Fabrice had blocked the door and gotten into a pushing match with the subject. When Jessica and Byrne talked to Fabrice, he looked a little shaken.

“Did the man say anything?” Byrne asked.

“No,” Fabrice replied. “Nothing.”

“Tell us what happened.”

Fabrice said he had blocked the doorway in the hope that his grandmother would have time to call the police. When the man tried to step around him, Fabrice grabbed the man by the arm, and within a second the man had him spun around, his own right arm pinned behind him. In another second, Fabrice said, he was on his way to the floor. He added that, on the way down, he lashed out with his left hand, striking the man, connecting with bone.

“Where did you hit him?” Byrne asked, glancing at the young man’s left hand. Fabrice’s knuckles were slightly swollen.

“Right over there,” Fabrice said, pointing to the doorway.

“No. I mean on his
body.
”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I had my eyes closed.”

“What happened then?”

“The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, facedown. It knocked the wind out of me.” Fabrice took a deep breath, either to prove to the police he was all right, or to prove to himself. “He was strong.”

Fabrice went on to say that the man then ran out of the store. By the time his grandmother was able to get out from behind the counter, and onto the street, the man was gone. Idelle then saw Officer Martinez directing traffic and told him about the incident.

Jessica glanced around the store, at the ceilings, at the corners.

There were no surveillance cameras.

J
ESSICA AND
B
YRNE
searched the market. The air was dense with the pungent aromas of chilies and coconut milk, the racks were filled with standard bodega items—soups, canned meats, snacks, along with cleaning products and a variety of cosmetic sundries. In addition, there was a large display of candles and dream books and other assorted products associated with Santería, the Afro-Caribbean religion.

At the rear of the store was a small alcove bearing a few wire racks of videotapes. Above the racks were a pair of faded film posters—
L’Homme sur les Quais
and
The Golden Mistress.
In addition, smaller images of French and Caribbean movie stars, mostly magazine cutouts, were attached to the wall with yellowing tape.

Jessica and Byrne stepped into the niche. There were about one hundred videotapes in all. Jessica scanned the spines. Foreign titles, kids’ titles, a few six-month-old major releases. Mostly French-language films.

Nothing spoke to her. Did any of these films have a murder committed in a bathroom? she wondered. Where was Terry Cahill? He might know. Jessica was starting to think the old woman was imagining things, and that her grandson had gotten body-slammed for nothing, when she saw it. There, on the bottom rack on the left, was a VHS tape with a rubber band doubled-banded around the center.

“Kevin,” she said. Byrne walked over.

Jessica pulled on a latex glove and picked up the tape without thinking. Although there was no reason to think that there might be an explosive device attached to it, there was no telling where this murderous crime spree was headed. She chastised herself immediately after picking up the tape. This time she had dodged the bullet. But there
was
something attached.

A pink Nokia cell phone.

Jessica carefully turned the box over. The cell phone was turned on, but there was nothing visible on the small LCD screen. Byrne held open a large evidence bag. Jessica slipped the videocassette box in. Their eyes met.

They both had a pretty good idea whose phone it was.

A
FEW MINUTES
later they stood in front of the secured store, waiting for CSU. They looked up and down the street. The film crew were still gathering the tools and detritus of their craft—spooling cables, storing lights, breaking down craft service tables. Jessica scanned the workers. Was she looking at the Actor? Could one of these people walking up and down the street be responsible for these horrible crimes? She glanced back at Byrne. He was locked on the façade of the market. She got his attention.

“Why here?” Jessica asked.

Byrne shrugged. “Probably because he knows we’re watching the chain stores and the independents,” Byrne said. “If he wants to get a tape back on the shelf, he’s got to come somewhere like this.”

Jessica considered this. It was probably the case. “Should we be watching the libraries?”

Byrne nodded. “Probably.”

Before Jessica could respond, she received a transmission on her two-way radio. It was garbled, unintelligible. She pulled it off her belt, adjusted the volume. “Say again.”