Cutting Room

by T. S. Worthington

  “Go on,” Gellar said sitting down.

  “Well, he was kind of a shy, nerdy guy. I helped him score a few times with girls and he sort of looked up to me. Probably wouldn’t have looked up to me if he’d known I paid those girls to bang him.”

  “Hey, cop here,” Gellar said raising her hand.

  “Oh, shit. Sorry,” Jay said sheepishly. He was an idiot at times.

  “Anyway, what happened? How did you steal his script?” Max asked.

  “Right. Well, he confided in me and felt he could trust me. He asked me to read his script and see what I thought of it before he turned it in. He wasn’t sure about a few things with it and wanted to know if I’d recommend any changes. So I read the thing and it was the coolest script I’d ever seen. I could see it all. The movie was going to be great and I knew we could make it even better together. But it was Henry’s script. I told him it didn’t need any changes and it was fine the way it was.”

  “Ok, so how did it come to be the script that we wrote and made a movie out of?” Max asked again impatiently.

  “Well, at the next day was the day we were supposed to turn our papers in, but Henry had a bit of an accident. He got really drunk. I think there was some girl he was supposed to hook up with he’d met online. He said he’d really fallen for her and she was finally coming up to meet him. She was from Nashville and they’d been talking for like three months. I guess she stood him up and he got depressed. That would have been Sunday and they found his body the next morning. He got hit by a train down on the tracks. Apparently he got drunk and passed out down there.”

  “Shit,” Max said. “That’s awful.”

  “So, how did the script end up in your hands? You keep leaving that out,” Gellar said.

  “Yea, well it’s kind of bad. As soon as I heard about Henry I was shocked as could be. Henry was a great dude and I knew I was gonna miss talking movies with him. But then I thought that it was a shame no one was going to see that script of his. Then I remembered that he had been too scared to show it to anybody but me. I still had the copy of it, because he’d left it at my house. He wanted me to read it again just to make sure there was nothing I would improve on it. He was a bit paranoid about his own abilities and talents. Like I said, he was a very shy dude.”

  “So, you slapped your name on it and turned it in. Get a good grade?” Gellar asked.

  “Yea. The teacher loved it and I knew that we had the thing in the bag. This was going to be our script for our movie,” Jay said.

  “Wow, man. That is kind of messed up,” Max said. “No, actually that is really messed up.”

  “It was an impulse. Besides the man is dead. His legacy might as well live on with that great script he wrote.”

  “Yea, except his legacy won’t live on because his script has your name on it,” Max said.

  “Well, I guess I never looked at it that way. But it worked out for the better. Instead of collecting dust the script was made into an awesome movie by us.”

  “But now that might be the motivation that someone has for all this crap that is going on,” Max said.

  “What? I don’t see how the two are related.”

  “What the hell do you mean? You can’t be this dense. How drunk are you?” Max asked. His agitation was making his nausea worse but right now he felt nauseous for a totally different reason.

  “The killer might have known about the script. That’s why he mentioned your name. I’d say it’s pretty damn certain that he or she knows and they are damn determined to make sure you pay for what you did.”

  “Someone would kill people over a damn movie script? How psycho can you be?” Jay asked.

  “Apparently this person is pretty psycho,” Gellar reminded them.

  “Besides, I knew this guy. He did not tell anyone about this thing,” Jay said.

  “You can’t be sure of that. Maybe there is someone he trusted enough to show? What about that girl he was talking to online?”

  “Well, I guess she might have known, but I really don’t think he would have had the guts to show her that. He was far too sensitive and the whole thing was probably a lot tamer than he thought. I mean she didn’t even show up to meet him, right?” Jay said.

  “Yea, I guess,” Max said. Jay did have a point, but it was still a variable to be considered.

  “I’ll look into it,” Gellar said. “Do you happen to know the name of the girl he was talking to?”

  “No, I don’t have a clue. Some chick he met on Facebook I think. She’s probably a catfish or something,” Jay replied.

  “Maybe not. It might be possible that something else prevented her from coming. Nashville is an eight hour drive and plane tickets are expensive,” Gellar said as she stood from the chair and headed towards the door. “You guys hang tight; I’ll look into this a bit more and let you know what I find.”

  “Great, thanks,” Max said.

  “You get better,” Gellar said to Max before walking out the door.

  Jay waited until she was gone a few seconds before giving Max that evil smile. “Dude, that chick is so into you!”

  Max could not help the goofy grin that was now spreading across his face.

  “Maybe,” Max said.

  “Man, you sound like Henry sometimes with your whole indecisive little boy routine. It’s really sad dude,” Jay said.

  “Maybe I’ll go down by the tracks then,” Max replied. He felt bad about the stupid joke he’d just made, but he was really covering up how scared he was. They might have very well just discovered a huge motive that this maniac had for attacking them.

  It was going to be a very long night of no sleep. He could see that straight ahead.

  A very long night indeed.

  Chapter 8

  “A Big Surprise”

  Gellar knocked on the door and waited. The apartment complex was a bit eerie, especially when it was dark. The hallway was drafting with cool air that smelled like mold and dust mixed together wafting across her nose. She tried not to inhale too deeply, but her lungs were starting to hurt and she had no choice but to take a breath of the stagnate air.

  She was currently standing in the hallway of the White Oak apartment complex on the outside of town. It was not exactly the best neighborhood to be in late at night, but Gellar went where the work was and this was a part of her job that she was forced to tolerate from time to time.

  After spending a few hours researching Henry’s family and seeing who might be open to speaking with her she had found his twin sister, Haley. Haley was in fact Henry’s only living relative. Their parents had both died in a car accident when they were five and they had been raised by an aunt and uncle who had both died of bad health a few years ago.

  Henry’s death was still pretty fresh. It happened about eight months ago and though Gellar hated drudging up things like this she had to find out more about Henry and who he might have shown that script to. She had phoned Max and Jay later to ask if they knew anything else and Jay really didn’t know Henry that well, even though he considered him a friend. That was typical Jay she was learning; the guy had the IQ of a fruit fly.

  After several moments the door opened up to reveal a painfully shy, but pretty girl with thick wire rimmed glasses. She looked like Harry Potter if he’d been born female. She was even wearing a big purple robe. It was creepy to see a real life fictional character in front of her, but she tried not to let it distract her from the task at hand.

  “Yes?” the girl asked.

  “Hi, I’m Detective Gellar. We spoke on the phone?” Gellar asked.

  “Oh, yes. Please come in,” Haley said.

  Gellar entered the apartment and was shocked to find that it was fixed up in a very nice, homey fashion. It was cozy and clean, much unlike the rest of the building that looked more like an abandoned building. The rest of the building was going through renovations, but they appeared to have stalled about five years ago from what Gellar could tell
.

  Haley led her to the living room and Gellar sat down on a surprisingly comfortable couch. It looked like a throw away from first glance or maybe something people dropped off at Goodwill, but it was very nice and covered up with some heavy quilts that would come in handy on those nasty West Virginia winter nights.

  “Would you like some tea? I was just about to have some,” Haley said.

  Her mannerisms reminded Gellar of someone three times her age. It was understandable though; the girl had been through a lot in her young life.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Haley poured the water from the teapot into two cups and sat the tea bags in them before bringing them over to the coffee table. She sat down and dunked her bag nervously, barely making eye contact with Gellar. She was used to this sort of thing and did her best to be non-intimidating, which is why she’d worn a hoodie and a pair of jeans to be less informal and to look less like a cop. Besides it was late evening of a very long day and she wanted nothing more than to get this over with and catch some sleep.

  “So, I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your brother,” Gellar said.

  “Ok,” Haley’s voice was meek and a bit withdrawn. Talking about her brother was obviously very hard for her.

  “I understand that he was found down by the tracks and that his blood alcohol level was excessively over the legal limit. Was he known to be much of a drinker?”

  “No, he hardly ever drank more than a beer or two. I never saw him even close to being drunk in my life,” Haley said.

  “Why did he get drunk this time? Do you have any idea about anything that was bothering him? Was he having any personal issues?”

  “He told me about a girl he was talking to,” Haley replied.

  Bingo. There was the girl that Jay had mentioned. So he wasn’t making any of that up.

  “Ok, what can you tell me about her?”

  “Her name is Emily Holden. He met her online. She goes to school in Nashville,” Haley said.

  “Ok and how long were they seeing each other?”

  “Well, they’d been talking for a while. Every time I saw Henry he told me about her. I had never seen him that excited about anything before. It was nice. Henry didn’t really ever have that much to be excited about.”

  “Why not? Was he depressed?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say he was depressed. I’ve struggled with depression off and on since I was a kid, but things always seemed to roll off Henry’s back. At least that was what he pretended. I caught him crying a few times in his room when we were growing up. I could hear him through the walls.”

  “So, it sounds like he was fighting some issues,” Gellar said.

  “Yea, I would say that. But he was never diagnosed as actually depressed. He was fine most of the time. I always leaned on him. Since our parents died we were really all we had to look out for ourselves.”

  “You didn’t have any other family around?” Gellar asked.

  “Well, we had some here and there, but no one close. It’s pretty tough to replace your parents,” Haley said. “Henry always blamed himself I think.”

  “Blamed himself for what?”

  “Their deaths. It was silly, but he thought that if we’d been in the car then one of us would have seen that car running the red light and would have yelled at our dad to slam on the brake. But I doubt we would have seen it any more than our father did. It’s just wishful thinking really. When a tragedy like that strikes, especially as a child, your mind comes up with all sorts of scenarios where you are able to fix it. Sometimes you even dream about it. My therapist says that is just a healthy way that people cope with things. It helps to break them down or to rearrange them in ways that are more easily accepted and understood. It keeps you from feeling so powerless. It has helped me to realize that a lot.”

  Gellar sipped her hot tea. It felt soothing and comforting. She was having a hard time hearing all of the pain that these two had gone through. It was very sad. And then for Haley to lose her brother and perhaps her only anchor to the world was heartbreaking. Gellar did not know how this girl was that strong to cope with it all.

  “So, what else can you tell me about this girl, Emily?” Gellar said trying to turn the conversation back around to the real reason for her visit. She wanted to get the information and get out of there as soon as she could. If Haley kept talking about the pain she had gone through Gellar felt that she might break down in tears. It was so damn sad.

  “Well, she really seemed to care for my brother and she reached out to me a bit after his death. She was supposed to meet him that night for the first time. But she chickened out. She thought that he wouldn’t like her or something. When she heard what happened to him she was mortified. She felt that it was her fault for not showing up.”

  “What did you say when she said that?” Gellar asked.

  “I told her it was her damn fault. She said she texted him that something came up and she wasn’t going to be able to meet him. He tried to convince her to come down, but she said she stopped replying to his texts. She’d been up late studying the night before and she went to bed. He took the fact that she was not replying to mean that she was blowing him off, I think. Or maybe he just thought she was making stuff up and that she was really fake or something. He was a fragile person, my brother. He didn’t have many friends and had never felt comfortable with girls. He was so fragile. And he got really drunk and went down by the tracks.”

  “Do you think he meant to hurt himself?” Gellar asked.

  “No. I don’t think that at all. I know that he didn’t kill himself. My brother would not have done that. He would have stayed alive just for me, if anything. He knew all about my depression and everything I go through. He would not have left me.”

  Haley’s eyes were swimming with tears now.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about all of this. He sounds like a great brother. Sometimes freak accidents happen to good people,” Gellar said. She wasn’t sure if her words were at all helping; this had never particularly been her strong suit.

  “Thanks,” Haley said reaching for a tissue off the coffee table. She dabbed her eyes quietly.

  “Did Henry ever talk to you at all about school? He was in the film program, right?”

  “Yea, that was his thing. He had been interested in making movies since he was a little kid. He was so excited when he was finally accepted into the program. He worked really hard at it and I know he would have been a great film maker.”

  “Did he ever show you any of his writing? A few of his friends said he was working on a great script for one of his classes. Did he ever tell you about any of that?” Gellar asked. She was trying to tread softly here and not get Max or Jay in any more unnecessary trouble.

  “No, he was very protective of that. I knew that he did some writing, he had since we were kids. But he would never show anybody. I often wondered how he was going to deal with that in school when he had to turn in samples of it, but I guess he was getting by that somehow.”

  “Do you know any enemies he might have had at school or anywhere else?” Gellar asked.

  “No, not to my knowledge. He mostly kept to himself, but the few people he did let into his little world generally liked him.”

  “Ok, I want to thank you so much for your time,” Gellar said standing up to leave.

  Haley seemed almost sad to see her go. Gellar doubted that the poor girl received many visitors and that she was clamoring for much needed attention. Gellar was glad to have given that to her tonight.

  Haley saw her to the door and Gellar said goodnight, ready to face the darkness of the hallway to the elevator once again.

  When she got home she made herself another cup of tea (the first one had wet her appetite) and sat down in front of her computer. It was getting late, but was not quite ten o’clock yet. She now had a name of the girl that Henry was talking to and she wanted to find out if she knew anything at all about the script, a
lthough if this girl (or Haley—she was not ruling anyone out here) was the one doing all of this then she probably would have lied about it anyway.

  But it was a start. Maybe she would pick up on something.

  It took her about twenty minutes to track down the right Emily Holden who went to school at Vanderbilt. The girl was pretty and very normal looking. She kind of reminded Gellar of one of those girls who was pretty and popular in school, but did not belong to any specific clique. So somehow she was friends with everyone. Gellar hated those people in school. Pick a group and stick to it. Although if hard pressed she would have to remind herself that she didn’t really fit into any specific mold back then either, but being an athlete she was automatically lumped in there.

  She sent Emily a private message and asked her if she would please contact her ASAP about Henry.

  After that she hopped in the shower, enjoying the hot water rolling across her skin and washing away the festivities of the day. It had been a long couple of days actually. Stepping under the water she found herself thinking about Max Collins and somehow the idea of him being in the shower with her popped into her head.

  She had to try to stop herself from thinking about it, but she could not deny the fact that she was very attracted to him. He was physically not the type she normally went for. He was skinny and a bit awkward, but he had a certain charisma and charm to him that really got to her. It was seductive without trying. She loved that.

  He was also very funny and she could see that he was truly a genuinely sweet guy. It had been a while since she’d dated a really sweet guy. Her last relationship had ended a while ago, and she had to admit the guy was a bit of a jerk. But she wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time; as a detective climbing the ranks a relationship was the last thing she wanted or needed. They say a good cop is married to the job. She was definitely married to it and she was definitely a good cop.

  But there was something about Max that she couldn’t put her finger on, something else there. She was having difficulty being around him without staring and flirting. It had been a long time since she’d felt that way about a guy and it was kind of fun. But she wasn’t sure she was going to let anything happen with it. She’d seen him checking her out as well, but he had just lost his girlfriend to a brutal murder and with all the craziness going on in her life he was probably not ready for anything right then.