Witness for the Persecution, page 15
‘I’m amazed you don’t see it, Patrick. Even if it were reasonable for an industry to force its key staff to at least appear to be young, which it’s not, for the record, the idea that Reeves can look however he likes but his wife must be young and sexy is not just stupid, it’s offensive to women everywhere.’
At the table to my left, Judy had ordered a small diet soda and was nursing it while scanning the premises for possible threats. She probably didn’t even want the diet soda.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not entirely true,’ he said.
I had been hoping he’d rail against the idea that the significant others of showbiz big shots had to be in their twenties and wear a size zero, but it was not going the way I wanted, which frankly had sort of become my life. ‘What isn’t?’
‘You’re right that it’s silly the business requires that level of physical attractiveness, especially for people who don’t appear in front of the camera,’ Patrick said. ‘But it’s not true that Robert himself can look any way he pleases. He’s not important enough a director for that to be true. He watches everything he eats lest he gain a pound. He pores over photos of other directors to see what they’re wearing. And I’d be frankly amazed if the face he’s wearing right now is his original. That’s a loaner if ever I saw one.’
‘You think Reeves has had cosmetic surgery?’ I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me.
Patrick smiled. ‘Look around this room. I’ll bet fewer than ten percent of the people eating or working here are in the movie business. But maybe eight out of ten have visited the friendly doc at one time or another. It’s more pervasive than you think, Sandy.’
There was no way I was ordering an OKBurger now. ‘Do you want to eat somewhere else?’ I asked Patrick.
‘If you do, love.’ You think only mothers are passive-aggressive?
‘I do,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t have to be Voilà! fancy but the cholesterol level should be considerably lower.’
We stood and Judy was immediately on her feet. Patrick put too much money for the nothing we’d ordered on the table and we headed for the door. A couple of diners recognized him on the way out and he did his friendly-but-not-stopping smile as we made our way out.
I must have been trying to get outside too fast because Judy said, ‘Ma’am,’ which meant that I was ahead of her when she’d prefer I not be. I slowed down.
‘I’ll call Angie,’ Patrick said. ‘She’ll know just the right place.’
‘Tell her to meet us there.’
Patrick nodded.
But just when we made it out to the street I stopped in my tracks. Judy, a step ahead of me, sensed it and spun. ‘Ma’am?’ It was her favorite word.
Patrick was right in my line of vision and he looked concerned. ‘What is it?’
‘That last man who nodded at you on the way out,’ I said.
‘It happens all the time, Sandy. You know that.’
‘He was one of the guys who threw Angie and me into the van,’ I said. My voice sounded dry. My voice wanted Judy’s Diet Coke but the staff had probably cleared it already.
‘Tell me what he was wearing,’ Judy said. ‘You two are going to stay here and I will go back inside.’
‘Red T-shirt and jeans,’ I said. ‘No hat. Blond hair.’
Judy nodded and pulled the door open, once again insisting, ‘Stay here.’
So we did. There was no chance either of us wanted to go meet the kidnapper, whether he was on duty or off. But I was searching the street for the dark-haired one and had not spotted him yet. Suddenly I was uneasy whenever Judy wasn’t within my sight.
‘It’ll be OK,’ Patrick said, and put his arm around my shoulder.
I called Angie while we waited at Patrick’s suggestion. I got the impression he was trying to keep me distracted and that was a good move on his part. I told her where we were and what kind of place we’d like to be in and she said she’d text me an address in a minute. I did not mention that our blond abductor was maybe twenty feet from where I stood.
The only thing left to do was think about the case. It was the only thing I had control over right now. But my prospects there weren’t fabulous either. After a moment I looked at Patrick and said, ‘Do you know James Drake’s wife?’
Judy chose that moment to walk out of OK and her expression … well, Judy doesn’t actually have expressions. Or tones of voice. She is all bodyguard. ‘He’s not in there anymore,’ she said.
I didn’t ask if she was sure. Judy is always sure. ‘Do you think he could have left through a back door?’ I said.
‘If he did it’s too late for us to find him,’ she answered. ‘My best advice is to get back to the car as quickly as possible.’
Having learned from previous experience, I followed Judy’s advice. I would have followed her advice if she’d told me to dress up like a crow and try to flap my way into the sky. Judy just engenders confidence. Even Patrick, who always wants to be my protector and defender, said nothing as we made our way into his car, Judy in back despite my knowing she would have felt more comfortable in the passenger’s seat up front because it allowed her to have a more comprehensive view.
No one tried to get in our way. But my nerves were already shaken. ‘Is anyone following us?’ I asked once we were underway to the address Angie had given Patrick.
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Jim Drake’s wife?’ Patrick asked as he drove, following the directions his phone was giving him over the car’s audio system. It sounded great, like the woman telling us to make a right turn in five hundred feet were right there in the vehicle with us, directing the trip in warm but insistent tones.
Jim Drake’s … oh yeah. ‘Yes. Have you ever met her? Do you know her well?’ If the rumor Burke Henderson had told me about, that Drake and his wife were separating, perhaps because he was getting a little too friendly with the alleged Tracy Reeves, Drake’s wife could be someone worth talking to, and maybe calling to testify.
‘I don’t know her well,’ Patrick said, following the mellow tones of our pixelated tour guide, ‘but we have met once or twice. Her name’s Marnie? Martha? No. Marta. That’s it. Why?’
‘I think she’s going to be my next stop,’ I said.
‘After dinner.’ Patrick would not let me out of his sight tonight.
‘After today,’ I corrected.
Angie had chosen exactly the right place for me because she has known me since I wore undershirts and, more spectacularly, so did she. Pasta Fazool (no exclamation point) was two steps above a pizza parlor and two under a $200-an-entrée Northern Italian bastion of pretentiousness that people in actual Northern Italy would find hilarious or appalling. Patrick grinned when he saw the neon sign out front, because Angie is his executive assistant and knows him really well too.
By the time my chicken carbonara, Patrick’s shrimp scampi, Angie’s pear and gorgonzola salad and Judy’s another diet soda had arrived, Angie had been brought up to speed on the state of the Reeves case, our elusive kidnapper, Robert Reeves’s many marriages and Patrick’s day of shooting on Torn because he is, after all, her boss. She asked the right questions and listened to all the details, but mostly seemed to be finding the whole situation, including spotting the blond felon, moderately amusing.
‘Isn’t it possible that guy was just there getting a burger?’ she asked when the conversation circled back to our recent assailant.
‘It is possible but it’s a mistake to count on coincidences like that,’ Judy volunteered. Judy’s sense of humor is like her body fat – invisible. ‘We should operate under the assumption that he was intending to do you harm and then adjust to any other facts we can gather.’
‘Thanks for cheering me up,’ I told her.
Judy looked surprised. ‘I was explaining the proper strategy,’ she said.
‘Yes, and thank you, Judy.’ That was Patrick, ever the healer of wounds. Then he faced toward me and, peripherally, Angie. ‘With Judy here to help we need to create a plan.’
I think I closed my eyes and made a clicking noise in my throat. ‘Patrick. Judy is the plan. And yes, thank you, Judy. You’re making my life much more secure.’
‘I hope so, ma’am.’ Ever the ray of sunshine.
‘So we don’t need a plan beyond that, Patrick,’ I continued. ‘You can’t help me strategize for the trial because you’re involved in it. But I do wish you could figure out how you show up on that video of the accident so I can defend against my boyfriend being at the scene of the crime while insisting he’s not.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Patrick said, as if that was news.
The carbonara, which used turkey bacon, was wonderful anyway, but my enthusiasm was somewhat muted. It had been a long day and I was not in a better position – now that it was almost over – than I had been when I’d rolled out of bed this morning.
We ate, we made small talk, and then we headed cautiously out the door to Patrick’s car, which we had parked on the street nearby due to incredible luck finding a space. Normally Patrick uses the restaurant’s valet service, but Angie had chosen Pasta Fazool and it wasn’t ritzy enough to have that amenity.
As always Judy ran an inspection of the car before we got in. Patrick, Angie (who had parked two blocks away where there was no meter) and I stood and watched her with some detachment, not from a lack of concern but because we’d seen her do this many times before.
‘I want a copy of that video,’ Patrick told me. ‘Can you provide it?’
‘To a potential witness? I don’t think so.’
‘There must be some way. I need to study it.’
I thought about that. ‘Let me check with Holly. She might have an idea.’
‘It’s me on the video,’ Patrick started to protest.
‘Ma’am.’ Judy’s normally serious tone was downright chilling.
We all looked at her.
‘There is a device under the car’s chassis,’ she said.
I looked at her, not wanting to understand. ‘A device?’
‘A bomb,’ Angie said.
TWENTY-FIVE
You shouldn’t expect a homicide detective to show up when there has been no homicide. That seems straightforward enough. But the homicide division of the LAPD also investigates attempted homicides, and I would have bet money that having a bomb show up in your car’s undercarriage would have fallen into that category. In addition, I’d become accustomed to Lieutenant Trench showing up whenever one of these weird threats happened to me, so I was looking around as the cruisers showed up to see his unmarked car.
But it didn’t arrive. This time he didn’t even send Sergeant Roberts. I guessed Trench didn’t love me anymore.
They asked the usual questions (we didn’t know anything except to mention that we’d been at the OK restaurant and seen one of the men who had recently been arrested and released for kidnapping Angie and me), and kept everyone well cordoned off from Patrick’s car until the bomb squad showed up in enough armor to defend good King Richard against his evil brother Prince John and show off for a fair maiden at the same time. We all kept very quiet while one of the men approached the car with the sophisticated device of a mirror on a stick to look under the car and determine what we were dealing with.
A long moment passed while he dropped to the ground and actually positioned himself under the car. The vehicles that had been parked on either side and indeed anywhere up the street had been removed, either by their owners or the LAPD, to provide an open space for the intrepid man underneath the Tesla.
I caught myself holding my breath.
‘The car’s not going to blow up this time,’ Patrick said quietly, holding my hand. ‘They know what they’re doing.’
‘So did James Drake,’ I said.
The man under the car pulled himself out and stood up slowly, all the while looking at the Tesla like it was an artifact from another planet, which was entirely possible. I had met Elon Musk at one of Patrick’s premieres. Going to Mars might have been a homecoming for him.
The cop used his mirror-sicle again and turned toward the other bomb squad members standing around the car, because I guess their philosophy was that if one of them blew up, they’d better all blow up. He took a deep breath.
‘It’s a fake,’ he said.
The spectators – that is, Patrick, Angie, Judy and me, as well as a few stragglers who’d been asked to move their cars while they dined at Pasta Fazool – stared at each other. The bomb squad members, who I guessed were used to such things, didn’t even shrug their shoulders as they turned and walked away. Our hero, still standing next to the Tesla, ducked down one more time to look under the car, perhaps wondering who was going to take the silly thing out and throw it away. Judy walked over to him and seemed to strike up a conversation. Judy is ex-military and used to be a cop. She speaks the language, which is good because casual English seems to be beyond her grasp.
When I was capable of speech again, I said, ‘A fake?’ to no one in particular. ‘Who goes to the trouble to put a phony bomb underneath a car just on the off chance that you might look?’
Angie, returning the glance of a bomb squad member who was no longer concerned with bombs, nodded at him and said to me, ‘The same person who sends two guys to kidnap somebody and them strand them in the middle of nowhere without doing anything.’
‘It’s like someone’s daft idea of a prank,’ Patrick said.
‘It’s not funny,’ I pointed out.
Judy walked over from her torrid assignation (for her) with the bomb squad cop and stood with her back to the Tesla. Even when it was clear the car wouldn’t explode, it was Judy’s instinct to stay between me and the potential danger. I started to wonder if it was appropriate to tip a bodyguard.
‘It’s a relatively convincing device but it’s made largely of plastic,’ Judy reported. ‘It’s possible that much of what is under that car was created using a 3D printer.’
‘Isn’t technology grand,’ Patrick said.
‘Had the officer seen anything like it before?’ I asked Judy.
‘He said he’d seen things like it when he worked on security for film or TV shoots in the area,’ she answered. ‘It looks very much like a movie prop.’
The cop she’d been talking to was now jacking up the front of Patrick’s car, presumably to make it easier to remove the stupid joke and have it analyzed by the Division of Phony Bombs in the LAPD’s police lab. He kept looking at the thing, which was barely visible from where I stood (particularly with Judy between us) and wearing a befuddled smirk, like he’d seen something ridiculous in a YouTube video of a tortoise playing with a golden retriever.
Because Patrick is my liaison to the movie business, I looked toward him. He was looking at me because he does that a lot. ‘Who do you know who could make something like that?’ I asked.
‘Probably any prop maker in town,’ he answered. ‘I doubt it’s terribly sophisticated.’
‘Officer DuBois said it was unusually detailed and had clearly been designed for maximum authenticity,’ Judy told him.
Patrick looked away, which is unusual. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Who does that sound like?’ I said, noting the look in his eye.
‘A lot of people.’
That spoke to me because it’s not in Patrick’s nature to be evasive. He’s very head-on, probably too much so, and when he decides to duck a question it’s usually because he thinks I’m not going to like the answer. ‘You have someone in mind,’ I told him.
‘I don’t want to say anything,’ Patrick said. ‘I’m not supposed to interfere in your case, remember?’
So I turned toward Angie, who knows everything Patrick knows but in alphabetical order. ‘Who does he think it is?’ I asked.
She hesitated only to glance at Patrick, who made no sign. ‘Burke Henderson,’ she said.
Huh? ‘I thought he was a stunt coordinator,’ I said.
Patrick, the fount of information on the film business, tilted his head to indicate he understood the confusion, said, ‘His background is in properties. But with so much being done digitally now, Burke has had to branch out into stunt work, which he’s been doing for ten years.’
‘Isn’t most of that being done with computers these days?’
‘Not as much. Between the two, an outside contractor like Burke can make a very considerable living.’
I wanted to sit. The bomb squad cop Judy had identified as Office DuBois had removed the cute little instrument of disaster from under Patrick’s car and lowered it (the car) to the ground after taking many pictures with a tablet computer he carried. I looked over at Judy. ‘Do you think we can get back in the car now?’
‘I will ask,’ Judy said, turning toward the car. Then she turned, and just to make sure that I knew I was the idiot in the conversation, she said, ‘Stay here.’ She walked over to DuBois and talked to him for a bit.
I leaned against a lamppost, hoping not to look like I was trying to get lucky for the night. Patrick walked over, ever attentive, and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Nobody was trying to blow us up, Sandy,’ he said.
‘That’s the part that bothers me. If they wanted to kill us, I could guard against that. But whoever it is seems just to want to annoy us or scare us, and that doesn’t make any sense to me. Patrick, do you think Burke Henderson is behind this, really?’
Patrick’s face became impassive. ‘I really don’t know him that well, but I can’t understand why he would want to. Even if he actually cut the cables himself, and there’s no evidence I know of that he did, that would be a balmy plan. Making dangerous-looking props would only draw attention to him when he’d want it to be anywhere else. And how would Burke find two men to kidnap you and Angie? I don’t think it was him.’
Angie was watching from about twenty feet away. She knows when to stand back and doesn’t mind it. She says. But her face showed concern and I couldn’t tell if it was because we’d just found a fake bomb under Patrick’s car, or if she was worried about the state of my romantic relationship with him. Angie puts on a good show but she cares about Patrick and me.
