Reel Stuff (8 page)

“Was there a photo on that union page?”

“No. I looked,” she said. “You know how they use a blank silhouette if someone doesn't post a photo on Facebook?”

“Yeah.”

“That's what it was. Blank.”

“Well, if we run into him, I think I'd recognize him.”

“Distinctive.”

She drove me to the set, and I met James at the trailer.

“Late shoot tonight, pard. We've got to be on duty at eight. It may last until midnight.”

As we walked, I talked him through the afternoon's activities, and he told me about his day's work.

“The key grip was up there. Chad somebody, I've got it written down. Anyway, this guy met the cameraman. You said Greg Handler? Chad says the guy was pleasant and told him that he'd worked this kind of shot before. Filming a fall. Very confident. Chad and his assistant were a yard or so back from the camera when Londell jumped, fell, whatever he did. He told me that they were shocked still for about three or four seconds, then scrambled down the ladder as fast as they could. They never paid any attention to this camera guy and forgot him in all the commotion.”

I tossed a photocopy of Greg Handler's driver's license onto the small kitchen table. James glanced at it.

“James, I have to admit it all sounds strange.” I pointed to the piece of paper.

“What's that?”

“We had Howell make us a copy of the guy's California license so we'd recognize him if we ever ran into him.”

“This is Greg Handler?” James picked up the paper, studied it for a second, and shook his head.

“That's the guy. I told Em he looks like Sacha Baron Cohen in
Borat
.”

“Chad, my grip, he said the guy was slender, blond, and about thirty-five. Good looking, well spoken—”

“We're talking the camera guy on the scaffolding?”

“The same.”

“Only different,” I said. “This guy is not blond, not slender, and he passed thirty-five ten years ago.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Clint Anders was on the set. Second time I'd laid eyes on him. According to Bill Purdue, our head of security, Anders hadn't been seen in three weeks. The show seemed to survive without his daily presence.

This time he had his arm around Ashley Amber, brushing her hair with his free hand, and talking to her in a quiet voice. They walked by me on the set and neither one seemed to notice. They appeared to be lost in one another.

Anders had come in the day before Londell died to do some technical advising, and was to fly back to L.A. today. The advising sounded like a tax write-off to me, an excuse to see his friend Londell, but I only know what I learned in business school. James and I had never had to worry about tax write-offs.

We'd heard that Anders was staying in Miami a couple of days while the coroner's office dealt with the body. When they released it, he was going to fly back to Los Angeles for the funeral. I wondered if consoling Ashley was part of his plan. They seemed very cozy.

As I approached James, he gave me a short wave and started in immediately.

“Problem is,” he said as he stood on the sidewalk by the street, making sure no one got onto the grassy area where filming was about to begin, “Ashley was apparently right. They found a foreign substance in Londell's body. A foreign substance.”

“What is it?”

“No one is saying, but it seems pretty serious.”

“So he was high on drugs?”

“Could be.”

“Unless this wife, Juliana, personally injected a needle into his arm, I don't see any guilt,” I said.

“They found something, partner.”

“How do you know?”

“The buzz. Over in the dinner tent. About an hour ago when I grabbed a sandwich people were talking. I mean everyone.”

“And rumor becomes fact?”

“Remember, Ashley said she had it on good authority.”

“Ashley Amber doesn't seem to be the most reliable person out there, you know?”

“People seem pretty sure, partner.”

I just shook my head. If Londell was high on something and sailed off that scaffolding assuming he could fly, then the murder theory flew away with him. We were desperate for facts, but instead, were ingesting rumors and half-truths. None of it was helping us get any further with the case.

“Em's working the other end, right?” James asked.

She was. We'd made a decision that since James and I were being paid by the Anders organization as security, we couldn't let him know we were moonlighting on his set. It was almost like double-dipping, trying to prove Jason Londell's death was not suicide. So Em was going to interview Clint Anders tonight. Em
wasn't on anyone's payroll so she was safe. She'd tell him she was a part-time investigator and ask him about his relationship with Londell. From what we could find on the Internet and through conversation with some of the crew, Anders and Londell were good friends and had worked a number of projects on the West Coast. We assumed he knew Londell's wife, Juliana, and Em was going to go for details on her. She'd get what she could and report back to us. She was also going to see how a cameraman that no one seemed to know had access to a CA credit card.

Behind us, about twenty yards, bright lights beamed through the dark of night, and extras in formal suits, black tuxedos, and brightly colored ball gowns were walking down a staged white staircase that pretended to empty into a fancy outdoor cocktail party, complete with champagne glasses, a full-service bar, and white-jacketed waiters offering hors d'oeuvres. It was the kind of party that James, with his culinary degree, would probably want to cater.

“Action,” I heard Randy Roberts shout through his bullhorn as the scene began. “Slower. Take your time, stretch it.”

I could see him in his canvas director's chair, holding his signature aluminum coffee mug and I was half tempted to ask him if I could have a sip of whatever he was mixing in there, but security can't drink on the job. Apparently, a director can and did drink all day long.

After several retakes he yelled, “Cut,” and things came to a halt.

When the lights were switched off, James and I took our scheduled break as Roberts shouted, “Fifteen minutes, people.”

“Hey, pard, there's Chad. Let me grab him for a brief chat.”

A minute later the tall, lanky black man walked over and shook my hand. He was fairly young, but was going bald and compensated with a mustache and goatee.

Chad Rich had been a grip for ten years. He'd started working
in Hollywood on the TV show
Vegas
. He told me it wasn't that easy to get work in this business.

“Man, we're scrambling for jobs. Always. You find a good vehicle, you stick with it. Reality shows are sucking up the money. If it's not a reality show, it's sports networks and movie networks. Shows like
Deadline Miami
are scarce, man, and I am lucky to be where I am.”

Chad Rich, James, and I were sitting at a picnic table outside a long gunmetal gray trailer. This trailer housed five members of the crew. I don't know how long it was, but it contained five small housing units lined up next to each other. They were for the grips, scenery, prop, camera people. The actors had a bigger trailer, and the four stars of the show had monster trailers all to themselves. Of course, James and I had a rundown Airstream that had seen much better days. The pecking order was everything.

Everyone except for a couple of security guys was on this short break, and I was enjoying the cool evening breeze and the laid-back Miami park atmosphere. The grassy area was on the water, and I could smell the salty air and the odor of iodine and rotting seaweed. Not that unpleasant, but I guess you would have to be here and breathe it in yourself to understand.

“I know James talked to you,” I said, nodding to my partner, “but we've come up with some other questions. Thoughts about Greg Handler. He was the camera guy up on the scaffolding, right?”

I handed him the copy of the driver's license.

“James says he doesn't think this is the Handler you saw.”

“No, man.” He studied the photo. “Not even close. This guy looks like makeup did a bad job on him. Is that his real stash?”

“Couldn't be a picture from a long time ago?” I wanted to make sure. “Maybe four or five years ago?”

“No way,” he said.

“This guy,” James was explaining, “supposedly rented a camera from Howell Video and Sound. With a company credit card.”

“The guy in the photograph?”

“The same. Gave his name as Greg Handler. Said he was filling in on
DM
and paid in advance for the rental and the insurance.” James folded his hands in front of him. I wondered if we were giving this guy too much information.

“Scott Howell, he met with him?”

“No. One of Howell's employees. You know Scott Howell?” James asked.

“Lot of people in this industry know him. Big-time camera guy. Invented some gear that would blow your mind. I actually did meet him on a set in New York with the Rolling Stones.”

“Anyway, you're telling us there is no way the Greg Handler in this picture is the Greg Handler you met on that structure?” I pointed at the scaffolding that was still in place, towering over the set.

“Guys, it isn't the same person. My Greg was a blond, short hair, and wore a big thick black leather bracelet. He was like thirty something. The guy in this picture is an aging hippy. And I'm too young to even know what a hippy was.”

“Can you explain it?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay,” James said. “We're just trying to get all the information we can.”

“Are you cops? You can tell me, man. I'm just wondering why the big press for details?”

“You haven't heard from the cops?”

“Except for that short interview, no.”

“Well, I would bet that you will. In the very near future.” I smiled. So again we were ahead of the organized law enforcement agency? Maybe we really did have a clue as to what we were doing. We at least had an idea. Or maybe we were way off base.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

James headed back to the Airstream, and I strolled over to the scaffold. Standing about where Londell had landed, I gazed up, finding the fateful launchpad. I closed my eyes for just a moment and pictured the video we'd seen. The run, the slight hesitation or jerk of the body, then the fall from seventy feet up until he was out of the frame. I'd seen the real jump, and Londell never went out of frame in that version. I felt an involuntary shudder.

Dim security lights threw faint shadows on the ground, and the monolithic structure with its puzzle pattern laid ghostly images on the grass, almost like a maze where a rat has to find a piece of cheese.

I still had no idea what the scene they were filming entailed. And why did they need the steel configuration? Walking under the catwalk and gazing up seventy feet above my head, I wondered what was going through the mind of the three crew members moments before Londell went airborne.

Did they have a clue? Did they see a look on his face that would have told them he had lost it? Or were they all blindsided by the disaster? Or could one of them have been responsible for the jump? Responsible for his death. Did someone say something
to him? Did they set up a trip wire? There was still that idea. Or maybe all three were in on this together. Dozens of ideas flooded my mind as I stood on the ground looking up.

The phony camera guy, Greg Handler; Chad Rich, the grip; and—I had no idea who the third person was. No frigging idea. Another stellar investigating job by
More or Less Investigations
. Sometimes we really missed the obvious. No one knew who the third guy was. I had to lay this one on James, but then, I always lay the blame on Lessor. And I'm almost always right.

When the breeze died down, the warm, still evening was almost cloying. The humidity coming off the bay and the eighty-plus-degree temperature covered me in a damp coating of moisture. As I turned, ready to walk back to the trailer, I heard what sounded like a cough or someone clearing their throat. Very soft.