Читать книгу Gladyss of the Hunt - Arthur Nersesian - Страница 11
ОглавлениеEarly the next morning I awoke to the chirp of my cell phone.
“Tell me again why you think he’s a murderer?” a sandpapery male voice asked.
For an instant I thought it was my brother, talking about Saddam. “Who is this?”
“It’s Eddie,” O’Ryan said. He sounded like he had been up all night.
“Oh, you were probably right.” I said tiredly. “I just thought it was weird that he was standing across the street from the crime scene hours later. You know how murderers do that sometimes.”
“Did you ask him what he was doing there?”
“Yeah. He said he’d just gone to an ATM machine, and he showed me the receipt.”
“So why did it strike you that he could be the killer?”
I couldn’t tell anyone about my possibly Kundalini-assisted intuition, so I said: “First I saw him that morning with you outside the restaurant. The body had only just been found a half block away, so he could’ve killed her just before. And he was having lunch at ten in the morning in an empty restaurant—that struck me as odd, particularly ’cause he mentioned later that he only ate when he felt guilty.”
“And what would be his motive for killing the Jane Doe?”
“That I don’t know yet. Maybe he’s a thrill killer. When we spoke, he couldn’t stop talking about the Green Tea murderer.”
“The Green River murderer,” he corrected me.
“Yeah, right. He was totally awestruck by the guy. I mean, he really seemed envious.”
“How do you know it was envy? Maybe it was disgust.”
“You had to be there. The body language, the tone of his voice . . . He seemed particularly bewildered by the fact that the guy had simply been able to abruptly stop murdering.”
“You mean, he stopped stabbing some girl in the middle of a murder?”
“No, he thought the killer had stopped just before he reached fifty victims.”
“Maybe Holden just has a fixation on the guy. Maybe he has OCD.”
“No, I’m the one with OCD. He’s nuts.”
“Did you ask him for an alibi?” O’Ryan said, apparently growing weary of the discussion.
“Actually I did,” I replied. “He said he was on a flight back from Barcelona after a film shoot. I wrote down the information somewhere.”
“What time do you have to report today?”
“Ten a.m., same as you. Why?”
“Maybe he is the killer,” he said. “I mean that would definitely be a career boost.”
“How would his being a killer boost his career?”
“No, our careers. Businesses will be open at nine, so we have an hour to go to the airline office and check if he was on the flight.”
“Why don’t we just do it over the phone?”
“Even with a subpoena it’s difficult. But if we go to the airline in person, show our shields and use the right balance of charm and grit, we might get lucky.”
I sensed he was doing this to get back in my good graces while casting Noel as a villain, but I was okay with that. I still had hopes for O’Ryan. And if displaying jealousy for the movie actor was the closest I could get to a show of affection from him, so be it.
Within an hour, I was showered, dressed and had my contacts in. O’Ryan rang my downstairs bell just as I was ready to go. I Starbucked a cup of chai, and roughly thirty minutes later we walked up to the counter of Iberian Airlines in Rockefeller Center just as they opened. O’Ryan’s sanctimonious manner created a stronger impact, so I let him lead. He asked the clerk if they’d had reservations in the name of Noel Holden on an incoming flight from Barcelona a few days earlier. The clerk took us over to his supervisor. Again we showed our shields and O’Ryan explained our request.
The supervisor clicked his mouse for a moment until the right screen came up, then he said, “We have a first class reservation for a Noel Holden on a red eye flight from Madrid dated two days ago. And it says that he used the ticket.”
“I thought you said Barcelona?” O’Ryan said. I shrugged.
“Do you know Mr. Holden?” I asked Mr. Rodriguez.
“The Hollywood actor?”
“Yes.”
“I’m wondering if any staff member can confirm that they actually saw him on the plane or leaving the airport that morning?”
He sighed and said the home numbers of airline personnel were confidential.
“This is a murder investigation,” O’Ryan said sternly.
“It would just take a simple phone call to ask one of the flight attendants if they remembered seeing him on the plane,” I said delicately. “We don’t want to have to bring anyone downtown for interrogation.”
The supervisor ran his mouse around its black pad until a list of phone numbers appeared. He dialed a number, then listened a minute, hung up, and dialed a second number. I figured he was getting voicemails. After he dialed the third number, I heard him speak softly in Spanish, then he handed me the phone.
“Hola señora,” I began in my awful high school Spanish.
“Alicia speaks fluent English,” he assured me.
I introduced myself and asked if she remembered yesterday’s redeye from Madrid to New York.
“What about it?”
“Did you handle first class?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Do you remember Noel Holden being on the plane?”
“Who?”
“You know, the actor Noel Holden?”
“I don’t really follow actors,” she said softly.
“Who was the last celebrity you do remember serving?” I asked testing to see if she was deliberately withholding information.
“Officer, I’ve been up for nearly forty hours over the last two days. I have to be ready in two hours to do a six-hour flight, so unless you have any questions that I can answer, I’d really like to get back to sleep.”
I thanked her and handed the phone back to the supervisor. We thanked him and made it back to the precinct just in time for roll call.
As we patrolled the icy streets of upper Chelsea, we had an on-and-off conversation about the possibility of Noel Holden’s guilt.
“Even though I think it’s highly unlikely that he killed anyone, you can’t eliminate him until you find a witness who puts him on that plane,” O’Ryan said. “Perhaps you can call someone in Spain who was involved in the production.”
“No,” I replied. “We’re already pushing it. If just one of those airline people calls the precinct, we’ll both be in hot water. And I’ll completely blow any chance of getting the homicide assignment.”
“Do you know what the odds are you’ll even get a thirty-day spot?” he said, needling me.
“I’m a tall blonde,” I explained, “just like the three vics.”
“Oh, right—and it would never occur to them to get a seasoned female detective and put a blonde wig on her.”
“Yeah, but they don’t have anyone who is already dating a decent suspect,” I taunted him. O’Ryan nodded his head.
“There really is absolutely no reason he should be a suspect in this case,” he said.
“I’m telling you he was there, right when I—” I had been about to reveal my Kundalini moment.
“What’s his motive? Where is anything to tie him to the killing?” he said. “You’re just like your idiot brother, you see only what you want to see.”
“Don’t talk about my brother that way!”
He apologized immediately, so after a moment I added, “How about the fact that Holden likes tall blondes, and that’s the profile of all three victims?”
“What tall blondes does he like?”
“Me,” I pointed out. “He asked me on a date.”
“And that explains motive too,” he added. “’Cause if all the victims were half as annoying as you—”
“Call me obsessive,” I interrupted, “but I’m going to a party with Holden when he gets back to town. I’ll get his prints and then we’ll know for sure.”
“What is this date anyhow?”
“A big investors party thrown by one of his producers.”
“This all sounds really dumb.”
“I’m doing it.”
“The man definitely has a history of scumbaggery, and that director he hangs with, that Crispin character, is by all accounts even worse,” O’Ryan said emphatically. “And you’re doing it as part of an unofficial murder investigation, which means it’s not only potentially dangerous, it’s grounds for disciplinary action.”
“Hey, you helped me, so you’d be up on charges too,” I pointed out.
“And I was wrong to do it,” he declared. “But it ends here.”
“What?”
“Just suppose he is the murderer?”
“We’ll know once I get his prints.”
“Then I’ll go with you as back-up.”
“Back-up?” I asked. “I’m supposed to be his date. We’re going to a party at his friend’s house. And he knows what you look like. And he hates you.”
“Just keep your cell phone on, and I’ll be in a car downstairs. If there are any problems, I’ll come up.”
“No way!”
“Well I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you do this alone,” he replied.
“You’re not letting me?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What exactly do you think you’re going to do?”
“I’ll report you. I’ll call Farrell and tell him what you’re doing.” Typical macho control shit.
“I can’t believe you’d even consider . . .” My anger paralyzed me, and I couldn’t say another word.
“Look, I care about you, as your friend as well as your partner. You can date whoever you want. I fully respect your private life. But you’re playing detective now, going undercover on a date with a murder suspect without back-up . . . If I did something like that, I like to think you’d care this much about me.”
It was difficult to be angry with him when he put it that way.
“Tell you what,” I compromised. “I’ll call you before I go on the date, and then after I get home to let you know I’m okay. How’s that?”
“You’re not going to sleep with him for his DNA sample or something crazy like that?”
“Hell no! How can you ask me that?” He knew I was a virgin, and now he had the gall to imply I was a slut?
“Frankly, since New Year’s I’ve realized I don’t know you at all,” he said coolly.
“I’ll call you before and after,” I said, which was more than he had done. “We’ll let it go at that.”
That evening, after my yoga class, I had intended to ask the Renunciate about my mini-Kundalini moment outside the hotel. I specifically wanted to know if wishing for something positive, something selfless, could actually facilitate realizing that thing. Then I realized I’d never even told him I was a cop, and that it could turn into a much longer, messier talk. I went home and at some point during the fifteen minutes that I listened to Maggie while she ate my salad, I idly asked her what she knew about Crispin Marachino.
“His real name is Chris Maron,” she began and proceeded to download his bio from the web site in her brain: “He was a high school dropout who worked as a video store clerk by day and wrote scripts at night. When his mother, who was in the production department at Paramount Pictures, showed one of his scripts to an actor who was big in the 70s, the guy loved it. Marachino agreed to let it go for peanuts, provided he was allowed to direct it. Crime Noir was a big hit. Thirty million opening weekend. His second film, Slim Jim, broke even; his third film, Killers In Love, bombed. Noel Holden had small roles in all three films. Now he’s starring in Fashion Dogs, which premieres in a few weeks.”
“What do you know about Venezia Ramada?”
“Silicone D-cup bimbo. Born Vanessa Ramone. Granddaughter of Ronnie Ramone, the founder of the multinational candy manufacturer. She met Crispin at the Hollywood nightclub Vespers. He proposed to her on the dance floor and decided to make her his next big discovery. Then a month later, on the set of Fashion Dogs, she went crazy for Noel Holden.”
“Which is probably why she was such a bitch to me.”
“Oh God,” she said. “You didn’t fall in love with Noel, did you? Tell me you didn’t!”
“I know this sounds bizarre, but considering O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake . . .”
“Neither of them were found guilty,” she shot back before I could finish my thought. Maggie must’ve been the last kid in class who believed in Santa and the freakin’ Easter Bunny. She swore Michael Jackson was repeatedly being framed.
“I’m supposed to go to some party with Noel.”
“You what?”
“He invited me to the pre-premiere party.”
“But he’s dating Venezia!”
“It’s all just show.”
“He asked you on a date?”
Her right eyebrow twitched and her mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. Celebrity news came from dubious web sites or TV shows. Certainly not from the cynical virgin who lived next door.
“It’s not what you think,” I said, slightly fearful of her reaction. “I’m really not interested in him.”
“Exactly which party are you going to . . .?”
“Miriam someone is throwing it.”
“Miriam Williams!”
“He said she was a producer or something.”
“I’ve worked her parties before. She used to be the mistress of a big film producer. She got him to divorce his wife for her. When he died, she became the big producer. She’s producing Crispin’s latest project.”
Catching herself, she added, “Be careful, Gladyss, these celebrities use little people like us, then toss us away like pistachio shells.”
“I really am not interested in him,” I said again.
“Then why are you going on a date with him?” She was indignant.
“I know what I’m going to say will sound weird, but, I think I had a Kundalini moment involving him.”
“What does that have to do with . . .”
Since she knew so much about the superstar, I just asked her point blank: “I know it sounds weird, but do you think Noel Holden could kill someone?”
“What!”
“Twice in a twelve-hour period I saw him in the vicinity of a murder scene, on Forty-second. A crime scene that was not public knowledge at the time.”
“Forty second Street is hardly the middle of nowhere, is it? And he’s an actor. Just because he happens to be around there, that hardly makes him a murderer.”
“I’m not picking on him because he’s a big actor. I’m just checking his prints and alibi and that’s the end of it. “
She sighed deeply, as if to keep from panicking, then she muttered, “My God, are you kidding? What did I do? What did I do!”
“What did you do?’”
“Don’t you see? I did this! I wrote those letters to him and put all those messages out there.”
“Out where?”
“Out there!” she pointed to the air around her. “And you must’ve been picking them up! Shit!”
“Look I just want to get his prints,” I said, hoping to calm her. “Then I can eliminate him as a suspect.”
“Once you get his prints you’ll back off?”
“I swear.”
“I’m better than I used to be,” she said, showing that she was aware of her own flaky behavior. “I’ve stopped the letter writing . . .” She paused, because I guess she didn’t want to lie, then amended, “Well, at least I’ve stopped mailing them.”
I gave her a hug.
“Oh, look at the time,” she said looking at my Elvis Presley wall clock. “I’m going to miss A Most Singular Man!” Before I could tell her that she was welcome to watch it on my TV, she was out the door.
