Krewe of Hunters The Unholy (5 page)

A giant rat stood next to an equally large penguin. The rat had been used in a public service announcement and the penguin had been animated to advertise a new adventure park in Oregon. Robotic creatures from the last sci-fi movie they’d worked on were lined up together, and above them was an old bicycle being ridden by a very evil-looking big, bad wolf. Zombies created for
Apocalypse from Beneath the Sea
were against the far rear wall, and the bloodied victims from a Victorian-era murder mystery were on the high shelving ten feet above the floor—above the zombies. Madison noted that Sean was staring at the victims, Miss Mary, Parson Bridge and Myra Sue. He was thoughtful, and she suspected he was imagining that the appearance of Jenny Henderson’s body must have been disturbingly similar to these props. The studio was known for the realism of what they created.

“Life imitates art and art imitates life. In this case, the question is which came first,” Sean murmured.

Madison glanced down, troubled by the creatures that were just rubber, plastic, fabric and paint. She’d drawn the designs for some of them; she’d dressed Myra Sue. Suddenly, Myra Sue and the other “victims” didn’t seem like props designed for a movie. They
looked
like flesh and blood.

A lot of blood.

Madison found herself turning away from Myra Sue’s one sightless eye.

“Fire door is still in the back, right?” Sean asked her.

She nodded. “Between these guys and the
Planet Mondo
air creatures over there,” she said, pointing to the door. There was a large sign that said Fire Door, but it was partially obstructed by the wings of one of the
Planet Mondo
air creatures.

“Hasn’t changed much,” Sean said. He nodded to one of the giant robots across t Cbotn="he workstations, beside the climate control room. “I worked on
Hugoman.
He’s been here awhile.”

“Really? He’s fantastic. And I love the movie!” Madison said. She did love the creature in the movie
Hugoman.
He was the invention of a mad scientist who’d given him his son’s personality through partial cloning; the massive machinelike creature was kind and fought only to save lives. Of course, he’d been misunderstood, and when he’d saved the community from an attack by mutant creatures, he had died—a moral about judging people, or creatures, on appearances.
Hugoman
had actually been low-budget and promoted as an action/monster flick, but it had been extremely well written and had become a cult classic.

She flushed; they were here because of a murder, and because someone they both cared about had been accused of that murder. And yet, she wasn’t sure why they were just touring the studio. The murder hadn’t taken place
in
the studio; it had happened in the museum tunnel.

He wasn’t appalled by her sudden enthusiasm; he smiled at her. “Thanks. I loved working here. I needed to go back to Texas for a bit, and then…then you get swept up in life, so I wound up staying and working there. But I did love the time I spent here, working for Eddie Archer. I was proud that we helped create a cult classic on a budget.” His tone became businesslike. “So, as far as I know, that’s our fire door on this side of the building downstairs, and we have another over by the offices?”

It took her a second to follow his quick change of subject, but she managed not to blink.

“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” she told him. “And there are corresponding exits upstairs, with ladders in case of fire. Eddie’s always been very careful, dealing with some of the flammable materials as we do.”

Sean nodded. “Okay, what’s going on in the shop. What are you working on right now?”

“Don’t you know?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s kind of ironic. We’re working on a remake of
Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum.
It’s updated, and it’s been retitled
The Unholy.
The script is really good—and different enough to make this a different movie. From what I’ve seen so far, I’d compare it to
Disturbing Behavior,
which was, in essence, a remake of Hitchcock’s
Rear Window.
”

Sean frowned. “A remake of the movie—
and Jenny was killed in front of the tableau?
”

“Yes.”

“That’s not just ironic,” he told her. “That sounds intentional. And it changes everything.”

“The original movie was filmed well over half a century ago. What could this have to do with the movie we’re making now?”

“Everything,” he said curtly. “It could be a motive for murder. And lockdown—that’s incredibly important, too. Lockdown should eliminate anyone who isn’t close to the studio.”

Madison spoke through clenched jaws. She wasn’t in the FBI or the police; she wasn’t required to understand motive and investigation. “Even when we’re not in lockdown, the curious can’t just wander in.
I
have to have permission to bring in a guest on a regular day, and I wouldn’t have been given permission at all now.”

“Well, there’s permission, and there’s giving yourself permission by dodging the rules. On a regular day, someone could try to slip someone else in.”

“What about the security cameras, Sean? People here don’t want to risk their jobs.”

“Of course not. Still…”

He walked toward the climate-controlled room, but looked through the windows for a moment, and never tried the door. He seemed uninterested.

“Where’s your workstation?” he asked her.

Her work area was a few feet from the climate-controlled area. She pointed it out to him, and he went over to it.

It seemed bizarre that everything was just where she’d left it on Friday night. There were pieces of the leather coat she’d chosen for the costume of actor Oliver Marshall, playing antihero Sam Stone in the new movie.

“I saw the movie as a kid. But refresh me,” Sean said.

What did this have to do with the murder?

“In a nutshell? There are a series of murders—people ripped to shreds by something in the night. Then an incredibly wealthy philanthropist with a gorgeous young wife is found murdered in a similar manner in his Egyptian Museum. The cops want to arrest the wife, so she goes to Sam Stone. Various clues suggest she’s the murderer, but she denies it. The movie is great because it leaves the audience wondering—was something supernatural happening, or could it all be explained? The Egyptian mummy supposedly sent from the Department of Antiquities turns out to be a priest heading an ancient cult and in the end, need Cthe Depless to say, he proves to be the murderer. Sam Stone falls in love with the wife—Dianna Breen—but she dies at the hand of the priest before she’s proven innocent.”

“Who’s playing Sam Stone?” Sean asked.

“Oliver Marshall.”

“Hmm. How is he to work with?”

“He’s fine. He’s always in the tabloids for being a party boy, but he’s polite and courteous, shows up for his fittings and works well with everyone behind the scenes. He’s very pleasant and makes everyone at the studio think he’s just one of the gang. I like him.”

“Good to hear. When’s the last time he was in?”

“Friday. I was working on his costume.” She gestured at the fabric on the table. “He was in for fittings. Sam Stone carries concealed weapons, so everything about the costume has to fit perfectly.”

“Those…creatures evoked by the Egyptian priest—what’s his name?” Sean pointed to some of their newest creations, including giant fanged jackals, birds and bizarre giant snakes.

“The priest is Amun Mopat, and yes, they’re for the movie.”

“What will the priest be wearing? Same type of costume as in the film noir?” Sean asked. “And who’s playing him?”

“That role hasn’t been cast yet,” Madison told him. “There’s a mannequin over by the wall with a mock-up of the robe he’ll be wearing. It’s an homage to the original film. Almost exactly the same.”

“Where? Show me.”

Madison walked over to the mannequin that stood behind one of the jackal-like monsters created for the movie.

There was nothing but a plain brown monk’s robe on it.

She looked at Sean as shivers of fear streaked down her spine.

“The robe—it was just a mock-up. But it’s gone,” she said. “I suppose someone might have taken it…. Mike Greenwood could have shown it to someone. I’ll ask Mike and Eddie where it is.”

Sean shook his head. “They won’t know—and
the robe isn’t coming back. It’s been used,” he said grimly, “by the killer.” He turned to look at her. “Find tha C. rot robe, and we’ll be on our way to finding a killer.”

3

“H
ey!” Sean touched her cheek. “This is a good thing. Seeing that the robe is gone actually helps. I’m almost astounded that everyone assumes it was Alistair, to tell you the truth. The girl was killed in front of the
Sam Stone
tableau, the studio is doing a remake, the robe is gone. To me, all of that points to someone with an agenda against the studio or the movie.”

Madison nodded. But she didn’t agree that the robe’s disappearance was a
good thing!
A killer had been here, where she worked. A killer had used the robe she’d made to sneak onto a tableau or into the tunnel and slice open a young woman’s throat.

Sean turned her to face the construction area. “What are they working on here?” he asked.

“An old Western scaffold.”

“For
The Unholy?
”

“No, that’s the tail end of our last project—
Ways of the West.
” She gave herself a mental shake and turned toward the sewing machines and a rack of clothing. “Projects overlap, but you know that. Or sometimes we work on several at the same time. Right now, though, as soon as the scaffolding’s out of here, we’ll be doing nothing but
The Unholy.
Or…I assume we’ll still be working on it.”

“The world goes on, despite murder,” Sean said. He motioned to the far wall of the construction area. “And there’s the door that leads from the tunnel.”

It wasn’t really a question. She said, “Yes,” anyway.

He walked over but didn’t touch it. Madison followed him and saw powder all over the whitewashed floor nearby. Black powder.

“The police dusted here,” he said.

Madison felt a moment’s discomfort.
Her
prints were on that door.

“They’ll get a lot of prints,” she said. “Including mine.”

He looked at her, the curl of his lips gentle, slightly amused. “Elimination,” he told her. “They’ll take everyone’s prints for the purposes of comparison.”

“Eli F. rotemination? But…you believe the killer works here, or is close to someone here? That means we’ve all known him or her…. Actually, any of us might have been killed.”

“No, I don’t think
any
of you could have been killed. The killer didn’t want the police running around looking for a murderer. The killer wanted them to arrest Alistair. His habits were known—he was being watched way ahead of time.”

“Are we going through there?” she asked, nodding at the door.

“No, we’ll let the police find everything they can with their forensic units. I’ll go into the tunnel soon. You don’t have to come with me.”

An uncomfortable sensation crept over her. A horrible murder had just taken place there, in the tunnel. She’d only seen crime scenes on television or at the movies. She didn’t want to see the real thing.

But she was here to help. Help save Alistair. He couldn’t be guilty—and Eddie had called her to assist this man who was somehow going to prove it.

She had to go to the site. If what she’d experienced during her life, the ordeals that had made it so painful, were worth anything at all, the one benefit might be that she could reach the dead girl. Did Jenny’s spirit somehow remain, although her mortal life had been stolen? If so, wasn’t she obliged to try to speak to the girl, to connect with her?

She shook her head, responding to Sean’s comment. “No…if I’m going to help you, I should go all the way.”

He didn’t reply. He was staring at the area around the door. Close to it on the left was another rack of costuming, while a supply of wood had been stacked up on the right. She began to wonder if anyone could have hidden behind the racks of clothing or the wood, staying out of sight of the video cameras. But if someone had been there, waiting, how had that person gotten into the building? Some of the construction crew had been working Saturday; she’d been off herself, as had most of the shop. Sunday, as far as she knew, no one had planned on coming in. So that would’ve meant the person had hidden behind the rack of clothing overnight, with the intent of killing someone who might or might not have been in the tunnel on a night when
no one
should have been there?

Or did she know the killer? Was it someone who walked among them, someone she saw on a day-to-day basis, worked with, laughed with?

“Let’s take a walk through the rest of the place,” he said.

Madison turned and headed back to the hallway, then passed by the reception area and went on to the offices. There were two on the ground floor, both conference rooms more than Komsnd offices but supplied with computers, printers, screens and other work equipment. The walls were lined with movie posters; the hallway had two circular areas decorated with mannequins, all from different movies. There was an adolescent werewolf, a beautiful evil witch, a torn-up robotic trooper, a vampire complete with cape and golden eyes that seemed to follow you and a zombie, a poor girl from one of those “park by the lake and make out even though a dozen couples have already been killed there” movies. This girl had not done so well; she was missing most of her face, and the one blue eye that stared out at them was pretty gruesome.

Actually, with the exception of Myra Sue, their “creatures” rarely bothered Madison. She was accustomed to them. But there were a few mannequins in the offices that were far more upsetting. They were incredibly realistic. In the first office, there was one on an autopsy table, the sheet drawn up, eyes glazed and open, blond hair streaming around a beautiful face. She was the first victim in a murder mystery. In the second office, there was a mannequin of a beautiful, terrorized woman peeking out from the leaves of a bush. Neither victim had been played by a living actress; the work was so good, it just looked like they’d been real.

Entering the second office, Sean commented, “So Matilda is still here.”

“Matilda?”

He flashed a smile. “We dubbed her Matilda. She didn’t have a name, even in the script. She was just ‘devoured victim number one.’ But we all liked her when my crew was around, and we called her Matilda. She used to really creep out a lot of people. A guy named Harry Smith was working on digital back then, and he used to swear that he hated being in the office alone. He felt like Matilda was watching him.”

“You
can
feel like our characters are watching you,” Madison said. “The studio’s always done great work. And when it’s great, it looks real.”

“I agree.”

Sean left the office, and for the first time, Madison felt that “Matilda” was watching her and she, too, hurried out.

In the second hallway circle—complete with vampire, witch and slasher-movie victim—Sean paused for a moment, then headed to the hall with the elevator and the emergency exit that led to the fire escape outside. He didn’t touch the door; he saw that the police had dusted here, too. Instead, he returned to the elevator, then saw that the police had dusted there, as well. “We’ll take it.” He pushed the button and they waited for a moment, listening to the whir of motors.

When they were inside the elevator, he said, “Did you know there’s a key to get to the basement—or the end of the tunnel?”

“What?” Madison asked, surprised. As far as she was aware, the elevator K thm">

Sean pointed to a little metal piece where a key could be inserted. “The elevator can go to the first and second floors
and
to the basement…or to the tunnel entrance. As far as I’m aware, no one’s used it—except for Eddie Archer, maybe—since Eddie’s owned the place. I think there’s only one key and he has it. But I saw the plans once, and this elevator will go to the basement. I wonder if Eddie thought to mention that to the police.”

“I don’t know if he did,” Madison said. “I have my keys with me, of course. And I have keys to almost everything, but not the elevator.”

“I don’t want to try getting down to the basement yet. I’m going to ask if anyone’s checked it out. For now, we’ll stay clear until the crime scene units have gotten what they need.”

Upstairs, the basic floor design was the same. They passed by a circle of prop creatures and came to Eddie’s office—home to several charming little gnomelike beings from a children’s fantasy movie—and then moved on to the large office occupied by Mike Greenwood, managing artist of the studio. Mike liked aliens, and his office was filled with sci-fi and space creatures and miniatures of a spaceship that appeared several stories tall on film.

A window in the back of his office looked over the rear of the property; it was high enough that the cemetery in back with its historic family vaults and funerary art could easily be seen. Sean paused there, gazing out.

“Peace Cemetery,” he murmured, glancing at her. “Did it ever disturb you to work in the midst of a cemetery?”

“No,” she said curtly, perhaps too curtly.

“That’s an old, old place.”

“And still accepting burials,” Madison said. “I think Eddie loves that it’s there. He says it’s a place where history and contemporary life meet.” She hesitated a moment. Eddie knew she had a sixth sense, as he called it, because of the cemetery, because of the times they’d walked there together—and the day he’d caught her talking to a ghost. “There are dozens of stories about the cemetery, secret burials and, of course, ghosts. Naturally, it’s got a reputation for being haunted.”

“Most cemeteries do,” Sean said. “Eddie told me once that if he ever had time between the projects that paid the bills, he’d love to do a documentary on the cemetery.” She had the uneasy feeling that he was looking inside her soul. Good Lord, Eddie hadn’t told him she was some kind of a freak who talked to ghosts, had he?

“Does it mean anything to you?” sh Kto eige asked. “The cemetery being there?”

He shrugged. “Right now? I see it as a place where a killer could escape—that’s what I see. Let’s keep going, shall we?”

They returned to the first floor and stopped at Bailey’s station. Sean thanked him and asked, “You’re not working around the clock now, are you?”

“No, but I’ve always taken on the Sunday evening shift. You know how Eddie Archer loves his cinema. And it’s not even like we have break-ins or anything of the kind, but I take over for Winston Nash at five in the afternoon on Sundays and work until morning. Today I’m in because I was already here, and because I’d do whatever I could for Eddie Archer.”

“And Nash didn’t report anything?”

“No, Nash said it was quiet as a tomb all day. I saw Alistair when he went into the Black Box.”

“Did you see when Ms. Henderson showed up?” Sean asked.

Bailey flushed. He shook his head. “But she knew I was here. Even if I weren’t, there’d still be a guard watching over the place. I think she parked on the other side of the cemetery—well, that’s where they found her car—and came around through the graveyard. The front of the cemetery is only on the one side, but the graves stretch around to the back. I assume she slipped around the building. We must’ve caught her entry on the security cameras, but I admit I wasn’t watching that screen when she got in. From what I understand, Alistair told his father that Jenny Henderson said he’d forgotten to lock the front door.”

“And
had
he forgotten?” Sean asked.

“I haven’t talked to Alistair since I raced over to the Black Box when he came for me. He was…he was crazy, hysterical, when I saw him. He was screaming that a monster killed Jenny. I went back to the tunnel with him…” He shook his head. “It was a pure zoo here last night! When Alistair ran up to this door it was as if he was being pursued by demons. I saw the blood on him and hit the call button for the police, and they were here within minutes. I tried to calm Alistair down enough to talk, but he just kept screaming about the priest and the mummies.”

“Did you go down to the tunnel?”

“Yes. I walked in, saw Jenny Henderson and the blood and walked out again. But I had to check it out because he was so hysterical. It’s my job.”