The Remake (21 page)

R.J. knew the body count was going to climb. It was going to keep climbing, because this guy was good at what he did. And if he turned out to be just as good at framing R.J., there wasn’t going to be anybody around to stop him from killing again and again.

Henry Portillo might have been able to do it, but he was trapped by police politics, like a fly in a honey jar. He could buzz a little and beat his wings, but he wasn’t going anywhere they didn’t want him to go.

No, it was up to R J. and he had to act fast. Before the killer got to somebody else—before R.J. ended up sitting on the wrong side of a set of bars.

This time R.J. didn’t fall asleep on the plane. He kept working it over in his mind, the one question that could bring it all to an end:
Who? Who had enough stake in the remake that they’d kill to stop it?
But there was no answer. With Kelley dead, it could be anybody. A stranger, one of Wright’s discarded lovers, a film buff—anybody.

R.J. sat and ground his teeth together until he was on the ground in L.A. He got a headache, but no answer.

Henry Portillo was waiting for him. He looked tired, worn down. “I’m sorry, R.J.” was his greeting. “You must come to see the captain right away.”

“Captain Davis?”

Portillo nodded.

“Well, hell, Uncle Hank,” R.J. said. “That makes me sorry, too.”

Portillo had nothing to say to that. He just took R.J.’s arm and led him through the terminal. His big blue Chevy was parked at the curb, the red light showing on the dashboard.

“Get in,” he said to R.J.

R.J. threw his bag in back and climbed into the front seat. Portillo nosed the car into traffic and headed for the freeway.

Portillo didn’t say a word all the way downtown. He wove in and out of traffic at close to 100 miles per hour and they were in Captain Davis’s office in half an hour.

Davis was behind his desk. When R.J. walked in, he leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. There was a smug sneer on his face. “Well, well,” he said. He didn’t offer R.J. a seat, but R.J. took one anyway. Portillo stood stiffly just inside the door. “Glad you could make it, Mr. Brooks.”

“Cut the horseshit,” R.J. said. “If you got something to say, say it and let me get back to work.”

Davis raised an eyebrow. He was enjoying himself. R.J. didn’t like that. If Davis was happy, it wasn’t going to be good news for him. “Work?” Davis said. “What work is that, Mr. Brooks?”

“I know you have a tough time figuring this stuff out, Captain, but there’s a killer out there, and he’s going to kill again. And since nobody else seems interested in stopping him, I thought I might give it a try.”

Davis nodded. “I see. So this killer is going to kill again. You feel sure of that, do you?”

“I know it. You would, too, if you’d take your head out of the commissioner’s ass for five minutes.”

Davis ignored that and R.J. knew he was in trouble. The
captain just looked at him with a secret little smile.

“But I do know it, Mr. Brooks. And I am doing something about it. I’m going to put the killer in jail.” And he gave R.J. the biggest cat-ate-the-canary smile R.J. had ever seen.

R J. felt his stomach do a triple gainer, double back-flip into a swan dive. “You know who it is?” he asked.

“Yes I do, Mr. Brooks.” Davis was almost laughing now. He unlocked his hands and pointed a lazy finger at R.J. “It’s you.”

“Cut the crap,” R.J. snarled. “You know damned well I didn’t do it, and there’s nothing to go on but your goddamned wish that I did it so you could look pretty in the papers.”

“Is that what you think?” Davis said, still smiling.

“That’s what I know,” said R.J.

Davis reached into a drawer and pulled out a plastic evidence bag. “Know what this is?” he said softly.

“A bag. It has an envelope inside.”

“Wrong, smart ass,” Davis said through his teeth. The smile was gone now. “It’s a one-way ticket to Folsom. With your name on it.”

R.J.’s mind was blank. He had no idea what could be so damning about an envelope. “What the hell are you babbling about?”

“This is the envelope the latest death threat came in, Mr. Brooks.”

“So?”

“It’s postmarked Torrington, Connecticut. We know you were in Torrington at the time it was mailed.”

“So were thirty-two thousand other people,” R.J. said.

Davis’s smile was the biggest, meanest thing R.J. had ever seen. “That’s true,” he said. “But none of them have your fingerprints.” He dangled the baggy daintily over the desk. “This does.”

A thousand things went through R.J.’s mind. The only one that made it out was “What?”

“Your fingerprints, Mr. Brooks,” Davis said, as if he were talking to a four-year-old. “You made one small mistake this
time. Your fingerprints are on this envelope. What happened? Did you leave your gloves in your other suit?”

R.J. looked at Portillo, who was standing up straight now. Portillo shook his head. “I didn’t know, R.J.”

“No, he didn’t know,” Davis said with a smirk. “The lab report just came back, and there’s no doubt about it. A thumb print so clear it’s like for a textbook or something. Plus an index finger and three partials. The lab says there’s not the smallest doubt about it. It’s you, Mr. Brooks. Your fingerprints.”

He leaned forward and there was no more smiling or smirking. Now there was only mean-faced danger. “I’ve got you, buddy-boy. I’ve got you good. And if you think you’re going to wiggle out of this one,
you’re
the one with his head up his ass. This is just the start. It’s enough to arrest you, but it’s only the beginning.”

R.J. noticed Davis’s hand was trembling. He wants me bad, he thought. And he just might have me.

Davis leaned back again, took a deep breath and got control of himself again. “Know what they’ll do to a movie star like you up at Folsom?”

“Sure,” R.J. said. “Same thing you’re doing to me now. But they’ll probably be nicer about it.”

But Davis just stared at him. “It’s funny,” he said. “Now that I’ve got you, your wise-ass attitude doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Well, your dumb-ass one bothers the hell out of me. Have I got this right? You’re arresting me for these murders?”

“In a few minutes. I’m having too much fun right now.”

“I want my lawyer.”

“Sure, Mr. Brooks. You’ll get your lawyer. Not that it’s gonna do you any good.”

“We’ll see about that. For starters, he can look into just how legal it is for you to interrogate me like this without him being here, and without you reading me my rights. Then we can move on to the good stuff, like whether you get to keep your job when I catch the
real
killer and let the whole damn
world know what a brainless asshole you really are, Captain. Do you know what the press is going to do to a dumb, crooked, mean-spirited, butt-head cop like you?”

Davis clenched his jaw so hard R.J. thought he heard one of the caps crack. Then he nodded, just once.

“All right, Brooks,” he said. “You have the right to remain silent—”

CHAPTER 25

Jail wasn’t so bad. It was a lot nicer than the waiting area on the BMT. Fewer punks, too. Some of the guys were pretty nice, in fact, and R.J. found he had a lot in common with them. They were all innocent, for starters. A lot better company than Captain Davis. And some of them thought just as highly of Patrick Ewing as R.J. did.

Of course there was a couple of sour grapes guys who only wanted to talk about how great the Lakers used to be, but you had to expect that in an L.A. jail.

In fact, R.J. probably wouldn’t have minded his stay in jail, not at all, if he hadn’t been worried about Casey. Uncle Hank would have a couple of men keeping an eye on her, sure, but it wasn’t the same as if he was watching her himself.

At least, he hoped it wasn’t. After his last scene with her in the restaurant he wasn’t so sure. For all he knew she could be shopping for a new boyfriend right now, and an L.A. cop might fit the bill just right. These guys weren’t even real cops. Spent
their off-duty time hanging out in juice bars at health clubs. Worrying about how tight their buns were.

Hell, maybe that’s what Casey wanted. Maybe she’d gone native. Got to like driving around with the top down. Got used to the feeling of power. Developed a taste for avocados and sprouts in her salad.

R.J. had some time to think about Casey, and he did. Tried to think his way right into her head and figure out what was going on in there. Couldn’t.

But he also thought about how his fingerprints got on that damn envelope. Davis wanted R.J. in jail more than he wanted to breathe, and he might bend a few rules to make it happen. But would he manufacture evidence? Coldly frame R.J. by planting his fingerprints on material evidence of first-degree murder?

R.J. didn’t think so. For two reasons: First, it was hard to buy that any cop would do that. Maybe if he
knew
a suspect was really guilty and couldn’t get him any other way—maybe. But not like this.

The second reason was that Henry Portillo worked with Davis. Portillo didn’t like Davis, didn’t approve of the way he worked, but he worked with him. He wouldn’t if Davis was that dirty. Wouldn’t come close to him. Henry was very funny about honor and that sort of stuff, very old-fashioned.

So Davis didn’t plant it. It got there by itself. Also assuming the lab didn’t screw up, and it really was his fingerprints on the envelope. That left only two answers.

Number one: R.J. was guilty. He was pretty sure he wasn’t.

Number two: Somebody
else
was framing him.

That second one was a lot more interesting. It also started a whole string of other questions, like
who
and
why?

There were no answers, nothing he could prove from inside jail, but after a day and a night in jail R.J. had narrowed it down a little. Because in the last week the only envelopes he had touched were in his office, going through his mail. Maybe somebody had gone through his trash, taken and reused an envelope he had handled?

It didn’t seem likely, but there was no other possibility. He hadn’t handled any other—

Hold on a second, R.J. thought.

A picture came to him, a memory of William Kelley’s funeral. Pauly Aponti had handed him an envelope with evidence against Janine Wright. He had taken the stuff out and—

And what? What had he done with that envelope?

He had tossed it. He was sure. Hadn’t even crumpled it. He had just dropped it into a standing ashtray by the door. Could he get the police lab to check it for traces of cigarette ash? Maybe. That kind of evidence would help a little, if he ended up in court.

But more important—who had taken it from the ashtray and used it to mail a death threat? Because envelopes were cheap, and the only reason to reuse that one was to put R.J. in jail. Who wanted that enough to frame him?

The quick answer was Pauly. He was an ex-con, which made him suspect. But why? What ax did Pauly have to grind? He had known Kelley, known him well enough that the dead man had trusted him with his last hope to get back at Janine.

They had been cellmates—had the relationship been even closer than that? Funny things happened in prison. Was Pauly getting a lover’s revenge for the death of Kelley? Killing off the people close to Janine, and eventually Janine herself, to get revenge for Kelley’s imprisonment and death?

But then why drag in R.J.? Why not just kill her and get it over with? It didn’t make sense. Besides, he had seen Pauly, and the man didn’t look strong enough to pull on his own jacket, let alone overpower Levy and snip his head off with scissors. And the killer was free to move around the country. Pauly was still on parole.

No. It had to be somebody else. But maybe with Pauly’s help…? That was a little easier to swallow. So Pauly, on instructions from someone else, sets him up with the envelope—

No, wait a second. There was no way he could be sure R.J. would toss the envelope. He might have just shoved it into his pocket—almost had, in fact. But when R.J. did toss it, Pauly noticed, decided to take advantage of it, snagged it for his Unknown Associate.

R.J. nodded. He was beginning to see some light at the end of this particular tunnel. Okay; Pauly was somebody’s helper.

Whose?

R.J. began to arrange what he knew, and what he could guess, about the Unknown Associate.

Strong, clever, show-biz ties, R.J. already knew. But now he could add, with ties to Pauly. Which probably meant from Somers Penitentiary. Because before that, Pauly had no known ties to Janine Wright, or Hollywood. As far as R.J. knew. He could check that, but for now it was a good bet.

So figure also it was somebody inside Somers with Pauly. Not a guard or a social worker. Cons were funny about that stuff. They would pal around a little with a guard, but they’d never trust him. So it was another inmate. Someone Pauly liked and trusted, who was smart, strong, funny, and had showbiz ties.

William Kelley.

Which was impossible.

The guy was dead.

Wasn’t he?