Krewe of Hunters The Unholy (15 page)

“Why not kill Alistair, too?” Madison asked.

“The living can suffer much more—suffer unto death,” Sean said.

She nodded slowly, then shook her head. “I still can’t imagine anyone close to Eddie trying to hurt him. Helena needs Eddie. I can’t believe she’d hurt him or Alistair, even if she had the wits to do it. You know Archer’s partner, Andy Simons. There’s no reason I can think of for him to do this. And you know my boss—your old boss—Mike Greenwood. Mike lives for the studio. He’d be out of a job that he loves if the studio fell apart. Let’s see…Benita. They’re divorced. I’m not sure she’s happy about that. I actually thought she did care about him, but who knows? There were some rumors about her and other men…. But she’s not that familiar with the studio, anyway. And then you’ve got…”

“Then you’ve got?”

She sighed. “The forty-plus people who are usually at the studio and the twenty-plus who come in on specific projects.”

“Madison, we have to look at those who are closest to him. I’ve explained why I don’t believe we’re looking beyond that list.”

“But everyone close to Eddie loves him!” she protested.

“That’s what we see on the surface,” Sean said. “We have to get below that.”

As he spoke, Madison heard her cell phone ring. She was going to ignore it, but he said, “Answer—it might be the curious.”

She frowned, not sure what he meant, but she pulled out her phone. Caller ID informed her that it was her supervisor, creative head of the studios, Mike Greenwood. “My boss,” Madison said.

“Answer him.”

She nodded. “Hi, Mike,” she said, watching Sean as she answered.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m fine, Mike.”

“Eddie told me you were helping Sean Cameron. That just beats all—Sean, a G-man!” Mike said. “Anyway, thanks for that. I wasn’t sure if you knew that the studio’s closed for another day. I don’t know when—or even if—they’ll let us reopen the cinema. Anyway, the police have finished with the studio, but they’re holding off one more day because the FBI team comes in tonight.”

“Everything is so…so surreal right now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And we’re really going to have to crank it up when we get back in. Not just to do our part for the American economy, but for Ed ky, wedie. What he’s going through is painful enough. He doesn’t need to be worried about his studio, too.”

“Mike, I’ll crank it up. You know that.”

“Hard to believe how the world can change, huh? As in overnight,” Mike said. “I was in there on Saturday, covering up, making sure we were ready to plow in come Monday morning. Who the hell knew when I cleared the place out on Saturday that Monday wasn’t really coming.”

“Well, it came—just differently,” Madison said. “We’ll get through this,” she added.

“You think?” Mike sounded weary, defeated.

She kept her eyes on Sean, wondering if he could hear Mike. His face never gave a thing away.

“Of course. Eddie is the best,” she said. How many times had she insisted on that fact, one way or another, in the past two days?

“Yeah, well, we’ll have to put on our game face and move forward, right?”

“You got it, Mike.”

He informed her that he had a few more calls to make, and rang off.

“Mike,” she told Sean lamely. “As you’ve no doubt guessed. He’s a great boss. He runs a tight ship, and everyone respects him—and we always hope he’ll come to the work picnics and Christmas parties ’cause he’s a lot of fun.”

Sean shrugged, a half smile on his lips. “Don’t forget I worked for the guy. But either we’re all lying to ourselves and Alistair is guilty—which isn’t true,
we
know that from Jenny—or one of these nice, great people is guilty.”

Madison was thoughtful. “I’m going with the new wife. I don’t hate her or anything, but she’s a user with a capital
U.
”

“I still believe it has to do with the remake of
Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum,
” Sean said. “I don’t know what her association with the old movie could have been.”

“If it was someone associated with the movie, that person would have to be pretty damned old by now,” Bogie pointed out.

Madison nodded. “No one old enough to have been in the movie or to have worked on it is still at the studio, in any capacity.”

“But there was that death on the set,” Bogie said.

“Pete Krakowski?” Sean glanced at Madison. “I read everything I could about the movie when I was on the plane. But while there were rumors running rampant, it appears to have been an accident—partially caused by the fact that Krakowski clowned around on set. His widow was compensated. Still, we should dig a lot deeper.”

“I don’t know. Helena’s out for herself,” Madison said.

“And
you
said she wasn’t bright enough,” Sean reminded her. He stood and looked at Bogie, who’d been contemplating the two of them. “Plus Eddie is kind of her ticket into the movies. She needs him around.”

“But not Alistair.”

“We’ll start sorting it all out,” Sean said. He walked over to Bogie. “Sir, it was a pleasure to meet you. This is the kind of thing that makes it possible to live with my crazy sixth sense or whatever it is. I was, still am and will always be a huge fan.”

Bogie was on his feet. Sean towered over him, but Bogie retained the essence that made him such a unique man, even larger in reality than on the screen. “Thank you, son. Thank you. And for whatever it’s worth, I’m here.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Bogie. You can call me Bogie.”

“Bogie,” Sean said, smiling. He reached out to shake Bogie’s hand; Bogie reached out in turn. Madison had to blink. It
appeared
that they’d actually shaken hands.

Sean looked back at her. “All right, I’m on my way to the police station to meet up with my crew. So our plan for tomorrow, if you’re up for it, is to return to the morgue and then the studio.”

They were both startled by a deep sigh from Bogie. “I guess I’ll go to the morgue with you. Maybe make things a little better for Miss Jenny Henderson.”

“Thank you,” Sean said solemnly.

“I’m just not sure how well it’s going to go for your team when they put everyone who works at the studio through the wringer again,” Madison said. “You’re accustomed to this kind of thing. Artists usually aren’t. Our blood and gore aren’t real. People will get edgy.”

“Yes, and if a killer is among them, that’s a good thing. The p k thputolice have talked to people, and now my team will talk to them, too. Comparing their notes with what we find will be important. And anytime there’s an inconsistency, we can bring you in. Thing is, Madison, you know the studio and you know the people working there. You’ll recognize who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.”

“Just like that?” Madison asked. “I’m an artist, not a cop or an agent!”

Sean was already out the door.

She stared after him, incredulous, and then the door opened again, and he poked his head back in. “Oh, I guess I should say this just to be on the safe side—stay away from the studio unless you’re with me, and if you speak with anyone, act innocent.”

“I
am
innocent!”

“Innocent of knowing anything.”

“I
don’t
know anything,” she said flatly. “And neither do you.”

“That will change,” he said. And then he was gone, warning her to lock the door as he closed it.

* * *

The more he worked with Benny Knox, the more Sean felt he wasn’t a bad cop or a jerk, he was just a realist. And to Knox—being a realist—there was no doubt that Alistair Archer was the only one who could’ve killed Jenny Henderson.

He wasn’t sure of the detective’s feelings about him, but at least it wasn’t stone-cold hatred, and his resentment seemed to be ebbing now that a real investigation was under way.

Knox met Sean at the police station, introduced him around and then brought him to a large room dedicated to computer forensics. There, a young cop, Officer Angelo Fontini, was working with the security images from the studio and the Black Box Cinema.

“Takes the young ones to know what they’re doing with this computer stuff,” Knox said. “Hell, so much can be manipulated these days, and I gotta admit, I wouldn’t see half of it.”

Sean nodded. “I was in film, video and digital special effects before I came into law enforcement. And you’re right. It’s an area that can definitely be manipulated.”

Knox laughed. “Then you and Fontini should get along great. Right, Fontini?”

Fontini looked up; his name might be Italian, but he had blue eyes and curly blond hair, and with h kr, th=is ready grin, his appearance was even more cherubic. “These are pretty much straight security shots. The cameras at the studio are set to catch particular areas. They don’t rotate. I’ve tried to compare the studio film with the Black Box
film. And it looks as if they both caught the same stuff. I’ve been staring at this on and off for hours, and I just don’t see how anyone could’ve been there.”

“Let’s see the film from the Friday night before the murder up to the time of the murder,” Sean said.

“That’s forty-eight hours of footage.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll speed it up, and I’ll call
stop
when I want you to slo-mo.”

Fontini hit a key and began showing the footage from the Friday before the murder. Sean watched as people streamed out of the studio on Friday night, the fast-forward making them look like harried, robotic performers. They all chatted as they headed out to their cars; most left between six and six-thirty.

He saw Madison leaving the building close to seven with a tall, lean man who seemed to be in his early twenties. She paused and waved to her immediate supervisor, Mike Greenwood, and Mike waved back.

Greenwood talked to some of the departing employees, then went back into the studio. He appeared from screen to screen as he made his way into the main workroom, stopped to look around, nodded with satisfaction and returned to the guard station. Colin Bailey was on shift, and Greenwood spoke to him before leaving.

Night turned into day. Saturday morning, guard duty changed and Winston Nash came on as Colin Bailey left. A few hours later, Mike Greenwood appeared again, and in time, five other men and one woman entered the building. They all went straight to the main work area, where they completed final construction of the scaffolding he’d seen the other day. The woman made a phone call. A pizza delivery man came to the front entrance, and she hurried out to get the food. The crew ate, then finished hammering and sanding. The workers left. Once again, Mike Greenwood glanced around, checked a power saw to see that it was unplugged and headed out to speak to Nash, who was just changing places again with Bailey. Mike left.

Colin Bailey took out a
Playboy
magazine, placed his feet on the desk and read—or looked at pictures—for a while, and then seemed to snooze.

Sunday rolled around. Nash arrived; Bailey went home. Eddie Archer came in—there was a clock behind the guard desk, and Sean had Fontini stop the video so he could see the time. Exactly 10:00 a.m.

Eddie went into the studio, walked around and adjusted some of the tarps that were covering works in progress. When he seemed assured that all was well at the studio, he went back to the guard station, s krd he tarpsaid goodbye to Nash and departed. Time passed quickly; Nash and Bailey changed places again.