Mary, Mary (4 page)
I COULD STILL HEAR
Director Burns’s voice in my head.
I want to hear your take on what happened. . . . We’ll have you back with your family for dinner
.
But would I want to eat after this?
With two dead bodies still inside, the limousine was absolutely fetid. One of the best tricks I’d learned was to gut it out for about three minutes, until the olfactory nerves were numb. Then I would be fine. I just had to get through those three minutes that told me I was back in the homicide business.
I focused, and took in the grisly details one by one.
First came a shocker that I wasn’t ready for, even though I partly knew it was coming.
Antonia Schifman’s face was almost completely unrecognizable. A portion of the left side was gone altogether where she had been shot, probably at close range. What flesh remained—mostly the right eye, cheek, and her mouth—had been slashed several times. The killer, Mary Smith, had been in a frenzy—but only against Antonia Schifman, not the driver, or so it seemed.
The actress’s clothing appeared to be intact. No indication of any kind of sexual assault. And no sign of blood froth from the nostrils or mouth, which meant she’d died and stopped breathing almost immediately. Who would make this kind of violent attack? Why Antonia Schifman? She’d seemed like a nice person, got good press. And everybody liked her, according to, well,
everybody
. So what could explain this massacre? This desecration at her home?
Agent Page appeared and leaned in over my shoulder. “What do you think the cutting is about? Some kind of reference to plastic surgery maybe?”
The young agent had shaken off every subtle and not-so-subtle clue I had dropped that I needed to be alone right now, but I didn’t have the heart to dress him down.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I don’t want to speculate yet. We’ll know more once she’s checked in and cleaned up.”
Now, please let me work, Page
.
A dull-brown wash of dried blood covered the actress’s ruined face. What a terrible waste. And what exactly was I supposed to relay to the president about what I’d seen here, about what had happened to his friend?
The driver, Bruno Capaletti, was still propped up at the steering wheel. A single bullet had entered his left temple before it destroyed most of his head. The blood on the empty seat next to him was smeared, possibly by his own body but more likely by the killer, who had apparently shot Antonia Schifman from the front seat. A small amount of cocaine had been found in the driver’s jacket pocket. Did it mean anything? Probably not, but I couldn’t rule out anything yet.
I finally stepped out and away from the limousine and took a breath of fresh air. “There’s a strange disconnect going on here,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else.
“Neat
and
sloppy?” Page asked. “Controlled, yet out of control.”
I looked at him, and my mouth twisted into something resembling a smile. The insight surprised me a little. “Yes. Exactly.” The bodies had been arranged, just so, inside the car. But the shooting and, in particular, the cuts on Schifman’s face had an angry, haphazard quality to them.
There was a calling card, too. A row of children’s stickers was affixed to the car door: glittery, bright-colored pictures of unicorns and rainbows. The same kind had apparently been left at the scene of the previous week’s murder.
Each of the stickers was marked with a capital letter, two with an
A,
one with a
B
. What was that all about?
Page had already briefed me on the companion case to this one. Another woman in the movie business, Patsy Bennett, a successful production head, had been shot dead in a movie theater in Westwood six days prior. There were no witnesses. Bennett was the only victim that day, and there had been no knife work. But the stickers at that scene had also been marked with capital
A
’s and a
B
.
Whoever was doing this certainly wanted to take credit for the murders. The murders weren’t improvisatory, but the killer’s methods were dynamic. And evolving, of course.
“What are you thinking?” Page asked. “Do you mind if I ask? Or am I getting in the way?”
Before I could tell him, another agent interrupted the two of us. If it was possible, she was tanner and maybe even blonder than Agent Page. I wondered if maybe they’d been put together at the same factory.
“We’ve got another e-mail at the
L.A. Times,
” she said. “Same editor, Arnold Griner, and the same Mary Smith.”
“Has the paper reported on the e-mails yet?” I asked. Both agents shook their head. “Good. Let’s try to keep it that way. And keep a cap on these kids’ stickers, too. If we can. And the
A
’s and
B
’s.”
I checked my watch. Already 5:30. I needed at least another hour at the Schifman property; then I wanted to speak with Arnold Griner at the
Times.
And I would definitely have to meet with the LAPD before the day was over. James Truscott was probably still prowling around outside, too. At home in D.C., I missed meals as often as not. Nana and the kids were used to it, and Jamilla would probably understand, but none of that was an excuse. This had been as good a time as any to break one of my very worst habits in life: missing dinner with my family.
But it wasn’t going to happen, was it? I called Nana at the hotel first, and then I called Jamilla. Then I thought about the poor Schifman and Bennett families, and I went back to work.
“WHY ME, OF ALL PEOPLE?
Why do you think she’s writing these awful missives to
me?
It doesn’t make any sense. Does it? Have you found out anything that makes some sense of this? The mothers being slaughtered? Hollywood’s about to go totally insane over these murders, trust me. Mary’s dirty little secret will get out.”
Arnold Griner had already asked me the same questions a couple of times during the interview. Our meeting was taking place in an L-shaped glass fishbowl of an office at the heart of the
L.A. Times
newsroom. The rest of the floor was a wide expanse of desks and cubicles.
From time to time, someone would pop his or her head over a cubicle wall, steal a quick glance our way, and duck back down.
Prairie-dogging,
Griner called it, chuckling to himself.
He sat on a brown leather couch, clutching and unclutching the knees of his wrinkled gray Dockers. Occasionally, he scribbled something on a legal pad on his lap.
The conversation so far had focused on Griner’s background: Yale, followed by an internship at
Variety,
where he proofed copy and ran coffee for entertainment reporters. He had earned a staff position quickly, and famously, when he managed to interview Tom Cruise on the record at an industry party. Two years ago, the
L.A. Times
had wooed him away with an offer for his own column, “Behind the Screens.” His reputation in the business, he told me, was for “insider” Hollywood stories and “edgy” reviews. He obviously had a very high opinion of himself.
I hadn’t found any further links between Griner and either of the murders outside of the movie-industry connection. Still, I wasn’t prepared to believe that he’d been randomly selected to receive Mary Smith’s e-mails.
Griner didn’t seem inclined to believe it either. His focus was all over the place, though, and he’d been peppering me with questions since we started.
I finally sat down close to him. “Mr. Griner—will you relax? Please.”
“Pretty easy for you to say,” he shot back, and then almost immediately said, “Sorry. Sorry.” He put two fingers to his forehead and rubbed between his eyes. “I’m high-strung to begin with. Ever since I was a kid growing up in Greenwich.”
I’d seen this kind of reaction—a mix of paranoia and anger that comes from getting blindsided the way Arnold Griner had been. When I spoke again, I kept my voice just low enough that he’d have to concentrate to hear me.
“I know you’ve already gone over this, but can you think of any reason you might be receiving these messages? Let’s start with any prior contact you’ve had with Patsy Bennett, Antonia Schifman, or even the limo driver, Bruno Capaletti.”
He shrugged, rolled his eyes, tried desperately to catch his breath. “We might have been at some of the same parties, at least the two women. I’ve certainly reviewed their movies. The last was one of Antonia’s,
Canterbury Road,
which I hated, I’m sorry to say, but I loved her in it and said so in the piece.
“Do you think that could be the connection? Maybe the killer reads my stuff. I mean, she must, right? This is so incredibly bizarre. How could I possibly fit into an insane murder scheme?”
Before I could say anything at all, he threw out another of his rapid-fire questions.
“Do you think Antonia’s driver was incidental? In the e-mail it seems like he was just . . .
in the way.”
Griner was obviously hungry for information, both personally and professionally. He was a reporter, after all, and already reasonably powerful in Hollywood circles. So I gave him my stock reporter’s response.
“It’s too early to say. What about Patsy Bennett?” I asked. “Do you remember the last time you wrote about one of her films? Something she produced? She still produced films occasionally, right?”
Griner nodded; then he sighed loudly, almost theatrically. “Do you think I should discontinue my column for now? I should, shouldn’t I? Maybe I better.”
The interview was like a Ping-Pong match against a kid with ADD. I eventually managed to get through all my questions, but it took almost twice as long as I thought it would when I had arrived at the
Times
. Griner constantly needed reassurance, and I tried to give it to him without being completely dishonest. He
was
in danger, after all.
“One last thing,” Griner said just before I left him. “Do you think I should write a book about this? Is that a little sick?”
I didn’t bother to answer either question. He went to Yale—he should be able to figure it out.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW,
I slouched out to Arnold Griner’s desk to touch base with Paul Lebleau, the LAPD tech in charge of tracing Mary Smith’s e-mails.
He tapped away on the keyboard of Griner’s computer while he spoke to me in a rapid-fire patter. “Two e-mails came through two different proxy servers. First one originated from a cybercafe in Santa Monica. That means Mary Smith could be one of a few hundred people. She’s got
two
different addresses. So far. Both just generic Hotmail accounts, which tells us nothing really, except we do know that she signed up for the first one from the library at USC. Day before the first message.”
I had to concentrate just to follow Lebleau. Did everybody out here have ADD? “What about the second e-mail?” I asked him.
“Transmission didn’t originate in the same place as the first one. That much I can tell you.”
“Did it come from the L.A. area? Can you tell me that?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“When will you know?”
“Probably end of the day, not that it’s going to be much help.” He leaned forward and squinted at several lines of code on the screen. “Mary Smith knows what she’s doing.”
There it was again—
she
. I understood why everyone was using the pronoun. I was doing it, too—but only for the sake of convenience.
That didn’t mean I was convinced the killer was a woman, though. Not yet, anyway. The letters to Griner could represent some kind of persona. But
whose?
HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR VACATION
so far, Alex? Having a lot of fun?
I took copies of both bizarre e-mails and headed out for a meeting with the LAPD. The detective bureau on North Los Angeles Street was only a quarter mile from the
Times
offices—a Los Angeles miracle, given the cliché that it takes forty-five minutes to get anywhere in the city.
Oh, the vacation’s great. I’m seeing all the sights. The kids are loving it, too. Nana is over the moon.
I walked slowly, rereading the two e-mails on my way to LAPD. Even if the writing was persona-based, it had come from the mind of the killer.
I started with the first one, which described the last moments of Patsy Bennett’s life. It was definitely chilling, this diary of a psychopath.
From: Mary Smith
To: Patrice Bennett:
I am the one who killed you
.
Isn’t that some sentence? I think so. Here’s another one that I like quite a lot.
Somebody, a total stranger, will find your body in the balcony at the Westwood Village Theater.
You,
Patrice Bennett.
Because that’s where you died today, watching your last movie, and not a very good one at that.
The Village
? What were you thinking? What could have brought you to the theater on this day, the day of your death, to see
The Village
?
You should have been home, Patsy. With your darling little children. That’s where a good mom belongs. Don’t you think so? Even if you spend much of your home time reading scripts and on the phone playing studio politics.
It took me a long time to get so close to you. You are a Big Somebody at your Studio, and I am just one of the nobodies who watches movies on video and
Entertainment Tonight
and
Access Hollywood
. I couldn’t even get inside the big arched entrance at your Studio. No sirree.
All I could do was watch your dark-blue Aston Martin going in and out, day after day. But I’m a really patient person. I’ve learned how to wait for what I want.
Speaking of waiting, that incredible house of yours is hard to see from the street. I did spot your lovely children—a couple of times, actually. And I know with some time I could have found a way into the house. But then today, you changed everything.
You went to a movie, in the middle of the afternoon, just like you say you do in some of your interviews. Maybe you missed the smell of popcorn. Do you ever take your little girls to the movies, Patsy? You should have, you know. As they say, it all goes by in a blink.
It didn’t make sense to me at first. You’re such a busy little Big Shot. But then I figured it out. Movies are what you do. You must see them all the time, but you also have a family waiting for you every night. You’re supposed to be home for dinner with little Lynne and Laurie. How old are they now? Twelve and thirteen? They want you there, and you want to be there. That’s good, I suppose. Except that tonight, dinner is going to come and go without you. Kind of sad when you think about it, which is what I’m doing right now.
Anyway, you sat in the balcony in the ninth row. I sat in the twelfth. I waited, and watched the back of your head, your brunette-from-a-bottle hair. That’s where the bullet was going to go. Or so I fantasized. Isn’t that what one is supposed to do at the movies? Escape? Get away from it all? Except that most movies are so dismal these days—dismally dumb or dismally dreary.
I didn’t actually pull out my gun until after the film started. I didn’t like how scared I felt. That was how scared
you
were supposed to be, Big Shot. But you didn’t know what was happening, not even that I was there. You were out of the loop.
I sat like that, holding the gun in my lap, pointing it at you for the longest time. Then I decided I wanted to be closer—right on top of you.
I needed to look in your eyes after you knew you’d been shot, knew that you would never see Lynne and Laurie again, never see another movie either, never green-light one, never again be a Big Shot.
But then seeing you wide-eyed and dead was a surprise. A shock to my nervous system, actually. What happened to that famed aristocratic bearing of yours? That’s why I had to leave the theater so quickly, and why I had to leave you
undone
.
Not that you really care anymore. How’s the weather where you are now, Patsy? Hot, I hope. Hot as Hades—isn’t that an expression?
Do you miss your children terribly? Have some regrets? I’ll bet you do. I would if I were you. But I’m no Big Shot, just one of the little people.