The Shoulders of Giants (22 page)

“Do you remember anything about Foster himself?”

“Not really. I only spent a couple of hours with him ten years ago.”

“Fair enough. I was sure it would be something like that.”

“I understand. With my name linked to two of the victims you had to ask, but you didn’t want to make me feel like you were accusing me of anything. At the same time, you have a job to do.”

“I’m having a wonderful time tonight, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t feel under suspicion.”

I sat across from her as she drank her coffee, and for the first time I looked around the room. Most people there were couples, but there were some larger groups of men in suits. The view was magnificent. It was dark outside, and the lake was black, but it only made the lights on Lake Shore Drive show up all the more brilliantly. I registered it, then tuned back inside, and spent the rest of the meal watching Abby.

When the check arrived, I did not look at it. I didn’t want the horror to show in my face. I simply put it on my Visa, and tried to overestimate the tip. As it turned out, I was still low. I hoped they’d let me back in if we came again.

As I drove her home, Abby was almost purring. She told me several times what a great evening she’d had, and when we said goodbye underneath her porch light, we kissed. I’m not sure if I kissed her, or if she kissed me, but it was a long, deep, intense kiss that said we would see each other again, and soon. Her body felt warm and firm against mine, and in her arms I felt comfortable. I lost myself in the kiss, in the safety and the danger of it, and then it was gone. Abby whispered goodnight, stepped inside, and closed the door.

I stood there, grinning, for a full minute before I felt I’d recovered sufficiently to drive.

Chapter 33

Tuesday morning began with a visit to the theatre.

Grant Foster had been rehearsing a play called ‘Persephone’s Desire’ for several weeks before he died. It was due to go on in the middle of October, and they were rehearsing frantically with their new leading man, who, as far as I could tell from listening to the cast and crew hanging around waiting for their scene, had been the prompt up until the middle of last week. Perhaps I should add him to my suspect list. After all, some people will do anything for their big break.

While I waited to speak to the director, a guy named Charlie, I watched a couple of scenes from ‘Persephone’s Desire’. I quickly realized that if the prompt had killed to get a part in this play, he would be able to plead insanity. The story seemed to be that of a female ostrich, presumably the eponymous heroine, whose desire was to fly. Experimental theatre, I think they call it. Maybe Grant had killed himself to get out of it.

The theatre was small, maybe a hundred seats, decked out in red velvet, each with a little brass plaque showing who had donated them. The stage was deep, but not very wide, as if it had been installed sideways. I guess it meant they had to be more creative using the space, and so people seemed to enter at the back, in near darkness, and come into the light at the front of stage.

Finally, the person with a clipboard that I had spoken to passed on my message to Charlie that I wanted to speak with him, and when the scene ended, he told everyone to take five and came to join me in the stalls.

“Did you write the play yourself?” I asked, after introducing myself.

“Yes,” he said. He seemed proud of the fact. Bizarre.

“It’s an interesting story.”

“Thanks. It represents the struggle in all of us to achieve what we know to be impossible.”

“Yes,” I said, “That’s what I figured it represented. I guess it’s a real blow to have lost your leading man at this stage.”

“I can’t tell you,” he said, gesturing more than is usual, at least for a man. “It couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time.”

“Well, it could have happened the week you were due to go on.”

“That would have been perfect!” He said. I must have looked confused because he went on. “Then we could have cancelled the whole thing out of respect. With a month to go, we had to put it on as a tribute to Grant, and tell people ‘It’s what he would have wanted,’ and ‘The show must go on.’”

“Would he have wanted it?”

“Maybe. If it were any good. But it’s a pile of crap. We were struggling with Grant in the part of Dionysus, but with Luke, it’s all fallen to pieces.”

“Was Grant good?”

“Not really. Not anymore. ‘Course, I knew him way back when. In the beginning, when he was young he was something really special. He had this presence on stage that really gripped you, like something hypnotic. It worked on camera too, if you’ve ever seen any of his early stuff, he had a quality, like a young Newman or Redford. I was sure he was going to make it.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“The usual. He got a little money, went crazy, never quite made it back.”

“Did he get into drugs?”

“I don’t think he ever did. Maybe a couple times at parties, but I doubt he would have paid for them. He got his highs at the roulette table or the track, and that was expensive enough.”

“I hear he had a lot of fiancées.” I said, shifting subject matter slightly.

“Oh yeah, Grant would ask a girl to marry him after knowing her two or three weeks. If they said no, he left it at that. Didn’t want anything more to do with them. They quite often said yes, though. He was a charmer.”

“Would you know how I could get in touch with any of his ex-fiancées?”

“I have the addresses of maybe three,” he said, taking a Blackberry from his shirt pocket. “Let’s see, there’s Emma, she’s an actress, I worked with her while she was engaged to Grant. Not bad.”

“Emma McKinley, is this?”

“Yes. You know her?”

“I’ve spoken to her already. Any others?”

“Okay, next up is Camille. Camille Nicholls. Another actress. Not as talented, but more successful. Grant dated her for a while a few years back. Last, but by no means least, going back into the annals of history, is Shelley Ryan. Not an actress, but a photographer. Grant and I did some modeling for her in the early nineties. Hard to believe now, I know, but I used to do some modeling, some acting. Then I came to my senses and concentrated on what I’m good at. She and Grant were really serious for a while. I’ve got her studio address here, she’s been in the same place for years.”

“Thanks.” I said, “I’ll let you get back to Persephone and her Desire. By the way, do you have any theories about what happened to Grant?”

“That’s your job, isn’t it? My best guess? Maybe he owed someone money, couldn’t pay. That’s what everything comes down to in the end, isn’t it?” With that, he turned back to the stage, and clapped his hands twice. Everyone looked round with an equal mixture of boredom and annoyance on their faces.

I decided not to stick around to see if Persephone ever managed to fly.

The address Charlie had given me for Camille Nicholls was out by the airport, and the one for Shelley Ryan’s studio was in the South Loop, so I headed over there first, and figured I’d go to the office after I’d spoken to her, and have some lunch.

The entrance to the studio was unassuming to say the least. If not for the tiny nameplate saying ‘Ryan Photographic’ under the door buzzer, I wouldn’t have found it. Someone buzzed me in without asking who I was, and I was greeted at the top of the stairs by a youngish woman with glasses who looked like she’d been sucking a wasp.

“Can I help you?” she said harshly, as though I’d disturbed her in the middle of something far more important. I wondered how Ryan Photographic stayed in business if this was how they treated the lucky few who managed to find their well hidden front door.

“Miss Ryan?” I asked, smiling warmly, and failing to get a response.

“No, I’m Shelley’s assistant. Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid not.” I took out my license, and showed it to her. “But I’d like to talk with her anyway.”

“She’s in the middle of a shoot. She’ll be at least a half an hour.”

“I don’t mind waiting.” I cranked the smile up a couple of notches. She remained sour.

“I suppose you’d better come in then. Try not to get in the way.”

I followed her into the studio, and she pointed towards a large box in the corner, which I duly went and sat on.

The room was large, probably forty feet square, and painted stark white. There were no windows, presumably to make it easier to control lighting levels. Maybe twenty powerful lights hung from the ceiling, their cables running along the ceiling until they all met in the corner above me. The bundle of cables, painted white to match everything else, ran down the wall, and into the side of the large metal box I was sitting on, which I figured must be some kind of transformer. The only permanent fixtures in the studio which weren’t white were mounted on the wall behind me. A fire axe, in a glass case, and an extinguisher. I remembered the newspaper story I’d read about Shelley’s house catching fire, and thought maybe these items reassured her, and so shouldn’t be painted white to camouflage them in the bright room.

Aside from the door I had come in, there was one other, which I took to be a darkroom, as there was a light bulb over the door. Against the wall opposite where I was sitting was a pastel blue velvet sofa. Two extremely tall and very pale female models draped themselves across it. They wore flowing garments in various shades of blue and green, and occasionally stopped to add something or take something off. A black male model with his shirt off and a six-pack stomach sat on the floor in front of the sofa and stared into the distance. He wore only a pair of cream canvas Bermuda shorts and deck shoes. I couldn’t work out if the women were decoration for a picture of him, or the other way round. The assistant who had greeted me so pleasantly rushed around like an idiot, alternately changing the film in cameras, and touching up the model’s make up and brushing their hair. Occasionally she went and sat at her desk to make a note about something in the notepad, or to answer the phone.

The focal point of the room, however, was not the sofa, the desk, or the tall models, but the photographer - Shelley Ryan. She was not heavily built, but had a presence that belied her frame. Amidst the chaos, mainly based around her assistant, she seemed an island of calm. She softly spoke her instructions to the models on the sofa, and they moved accordingly. It was hard not to appreciate the simplicity of her direction.

I sat for maybe half an hour, and when she had all the shots she needed, she came over to me.

“Can I help you?” They were the same words spoken by her assistant outside on the stairs, but this time there was a sense of welcome in the voice.

“You still use film?” I began, pointing at her camera, “I would have thought most photographers work digitally now.”

“I do,” she said, “for still life, car brochures, that kind of thing. When I shoot people I always use film. There’s something about film that just brings a person to life. I don’t care how many megapixels you’ve got, you can’t capture the soul on digital. I’m sorry; I didn’t catch your name.”

“Jake Abraham. I’m a private detective. I’m looking into something which seems to be connected to the death of a man named Grant Foster. A man, I understand, you knew.”

“Many years ago, Grant and I were engaged.”

“What happened?”

“Things change,” she said, “people change. We drifted apart.” Her face fell as she looked back on unhappy memories.

“I hear he gambled a lot. Did that cause problems?”

“When Grant and I met, he was a model. Did you know that? He was a terrific model. I mean, most of them just stand there and look pretty - there’s not much to it.” I glanced over at the models, still within earshot. They did not flinch. “Grant stood out, he had something that made him come alive in front of the camera, like he needed it and it needed him. It was something I’ve never seen in anyone else. I didn’t before Grant, and I haven’t since. But he and I had a connection which meant neither of us had any control.”

“Did the gambling start when you were together?” I persisted.

“Grant became famous. This was before every other model was a supermodel. Fame for a model outside the industry was still rare. It changed him. I mean, it changes everyone to some extent, but Grant became a whole different person. Yes, he started gambling while he was with me. At first he tried to hide it, but in the end he just didn’t care any more.”

“Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to harm him?”

“I haven’t seen Grant in ten years. I don’t know who he knows, where he lives. I saw him on
NYPD Blue
a couple of years ago, but that’s it. I really don’t see how I can help you find who did this.”

She had a point. I wasn’t sure either.

“Well, thank you very much for your time,” I said, “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

I smiled broadly at Shelley Ryan’s assistant as I left.

Chapter 34

On the way from Shelley’s studio to the office, I practically decided there was little point going to visit the other fiancée Charlie had told me about, Camille Nicholls. I figured she would have nothing more to add to what I had already learned. The view of Grant Foster was fairly consistent, a serial monogamist who turned to gambling because he couldn’t cope with fame.

However, as promised, Scott had emailed me Calvin Walsh’s old address, and it just happened to be out near the airport as well, so I could do both at once. I typed a quick thanks to Scott, and sent it, and then got up to leave. My computer beeped to tell me I had an instant message from Scott.

“Guess what?” It said.

“What?” I typed. The familiar phrase ‘Scott Bales is typing a message’ appeared on the screen, and I waited.

“They’re not calling it a serial killer anymore.”

“Huh?”

“They say it’s not a serial thing because the rules say serial killers have longer cooling off periods between the killings, and always go on longer than 30 days unless they’re caught.,” came the reply after a couple of minutes. Scott was not a fast typist. Neither was I.