The 7th Month

by Lisa Gardner

  In the end, it boils down to a question of style as well as logistics. First, are you proud of your handiwork? Would you like the world to see? Or are you an immediate prime suspect, meaning confusing the issue for as long as possible is clearly to your advantage. Second, do you even have the means to transport a body? Deadweight, as the saying goes, is surprisingly difficult to lift or carry. If the body is bigger than you, disposal may involve a chain saw and a bath tub, which is not for the faint at heart.

  Think. Consider. Weigh risk versus rewards.

  Then, make arrangements for disposing or exposing the body. This is step five.

  Chapter 5

  Filming was delayed an hour. The fake tombstone had suffered damage from the actor wannabe’s fake ax and was in need of repair. Natalie had to return to makeup for a complete do over, not to mention a stiff drink. And given all that had just happened, the director had come to an exciting conclusion: The Gravestone Killer would now be a vampire.

  “Very hot, very happening,” the director declared. “Trends solidly with our target demographic of eighteen- to twenty-six-year-olds. Not to mention, a werewolf would involve new casting.”

  The director left to consult with the Gravestone Killer actor, Mark Smerznak, on his new role. Mark had just made it to set, arriving two hours late as apparently his day job at a local restaurant had gone into overtime. Donnie had pounced on the actor and whisked him away to makeup, where he had entered as a tired-looking bartender, and would emerge as a vampiric serial killer.

  In the meantime, D.D. and Joe had plenty of time to talk. She led him out of the cemetery, away from the chaos, to the relative privacy of her parked Crown Vic. They stood beside it, alone in a pool of darkness between streetlights, where D.D. stopped using her nice voice and got straight down to business.

  “Who?” she said, jamming a finger into his chest.

  “Joe Thieriault, FBI.” He smiled, still charming, but also sheepish.

  “Why?”

  “What do you know about movie financing?”

  “Nada.”

  “Well, movies cost money. Anywhere from a couple mil for the going-straight-to-video production to hundreds of millions for feature films starring A-list actors. Cruise, Pitt, Depp.”

  “Brad Pitt’s not on set.”

  “Exactly. Cover Your Eyes is a nice modest twenty-million dollar affair. Big-budget enough to have some cool special effects, low-budget enough to retain campy charm, but better yet, remain a credible financial vehicle in the eyes of tax officials. That’s what this is really about.”

  “You said you were FBI, not IRS.”

  “Yeah, because IRS handles tax fraud, whereas FBI handles money laundering.”

  D.D. stared at him a moment. “The movie is a front. It’s not what’s being filmed; it’s how it’s being funded.”

  “Exactly. Boston has a long history of being home to the finest crime families. From Irish gangs to Italian mobs to transplanted Russian oligarchs, we attract only the most ruthless criminal masterminds. And powerful crime lords have a tendency to be very smart. Meaning, they understand modern banking, and the imperative to make bad money good. Hence, filmmaking.”

  “How?” D.D. asked, genuinely puzzled. She was a homicide detective, not a fraud investigator.

  “It’s a paper game, really. Say you’re Crime Boss A, and you have two million in illegal gains you’d like to make legal gains. You pretend to “loan” half a million to a major producer to finance a film. The film will then earn one point five million dollars in legal profit, even if it never sells a single ticket. Basically, Crime Boss A hands over two million in illegitimate funds, in order to get back one point five in ‘real profit.’”

  D.D. had to think about it. “Crime Boss ‘donates’ two million dollars; half a million goes to the film as an investment expense, one point five million is eventually returned to him as a legal gain—his own money, once dirty, now cleaned up as the earnings of a reputable business enterprise. What happens to the half a million paid to the movie?”

  “It goes into the movie producer’s biz as a legitimate investment, which the producer can then skim, waste, manage wisely, whatever. And business profits abound.”

  D.D. was still frowning. “But how can anyone guarantee the movie makes money? I mean, if a film costs twenty million to make, and never sells a single ticket, won’t the IRS question the one point five million paid to the gangster as a return on investment?”

  “Notice Donnie’s wound a little tight?”

  “Noticed.”

  “That’s because guaranteeing profit would be his job. He has two issues, really. One, he needs to be putting together a paper trail so convincing no IRS auditor will ever question Crime Boss A’s great business savvy. Two, as the person directly laundering the money, Donnie needs to make sure he doesn’t, say, lose any socks in the dryer.”

  D.D.’s eyes rounded. “No way!”

  “Foxwoods. Bad round of blackjack. For about a month straight. You’d think Donnie B. would know when to walk away.”

  “He gambled away a crime lord’s dirty money?”

  “About a quarter of a million dollars, according to sources.”

  “Whose?”

  “Andréas Chernkoff.”

  D.D.’s eyes rounded further. She’d heard of Chernkoff, or the Chernobyl of the North, as he liked to be called. He’d arrived in Boston eight years back, intent on conquering new territory, while expanding his empire from caviar and vodka into high-end call girls and cocaine. He liked to say that local investigators were jealous of his car collection. Local investigators were mostly jealous they couldn’t pin a thing to a man who routinely thumbed his nose in their direction.

  “Doesn’t he have a reputation for cutting off ears?” D.D. asked now.

  “And big toes,” Joe said. “I don’t think Donnie is sleeping well at night.”

  D.D. thought about the producer’s obvious nerves, which now made sense.

  “Who knows about all this? I mean, there are a hundred and four people running around this movie set. Are we talking half real movie biz, half plants, what?”

  “Oh all movie biz. Director is legit, actors legit, crew legit. A real movie is being made based on a real script and financed by some real investors. Just not all law-abiding investors. Donnie, as the executive producer, is the money man. From what I can tell, he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Probably was approached by one of Chernkoff’s financial minions and offered a staggering sum to finance his latest project. Being a short-term thinker, Donnie said yes. Later, the fine print probably became clearer to him. Including the risk to not only his professional reputation but also his ability to remain among the living.”

  “Donnie’s pretty desperate?”

  “Day by day, I’ve watched him become wiser and wiser to the mess he’s made.”

  “And Samuel Chaibongsai,” D.D. pressed. “The cop consultant? Surely he started to figure out not everything about the set was up-and-up. Including”—she pinned Joe with her gaze—“I bet he made you.”

  “Day four,” Joe confessed. “Guess I really can’t quit my day job for the big screen.”

  “What did he say?”

  The federal agent shrugged. “Much like you. Pulled me aside. Said he could tell I had on-the-job experience. I came clean. Chaibongsai seemed legit. I wasn’t worried about him.”

  “Have much did you reveal?”

  “Federal agent, working a fraud investigation. Chaibongsai was old school, a retired beat cop. White-collar crime was enough to cool his curiosity. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, those crimes he would’ve found interesting. Fraud . . . I believe his exact words were ‘Better you than me, buddy.’”

  D.D. didn’t like it. She shook her head, chewing her lower lip. “He was found murdered tonight,” she informed the FBI agent. “No way that’s coincidence. Maybe after Samuel’s discussion with you, he did a little digging on his own. Old beat cops love to show up young feds.”
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br />   Joe appeared shaken at the news of Chaibongsai’s death. “He never came to me with anything,” the undercover agent said, a shade defensively.

  “Maybe because he was killed before he had the chance.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes.”

  “Two mil is a lot of motive.”

  Joe hesitated. “How was he killed?”

  “Beat to death with a blunt instrument, possibly a baseball bat. In his own apartment. Landlord found the body. Apparently, the unit below his noticed a drip.”

  Joe thinned his lips, shook his head, thinned his lips again, then sighed heavily. “Sounds like something Chernkoff’s henchmen would do.”

  “You must have backgrounded Chaibongsai,” D.D. said, “before you ‘came out’ to him.”

  The fed nodded. “Nothing in his record or file to indicate he was anything other than a good cop. Retired well respected, with full bennies. No signs of gambling, drinking, no unexplained income in the bank account.”

  “He was a good man,” D.D. stated. “Biggest risk factor being his current movie consulting job, where he found himself working a project funded by a Russian crime boss and under investigation by a federal agent.”

  Joe wouldn’t look at her anymore. He stared at the dark sidewalk, nodded curtly.

  “Think he pressed Donnie?” D.D. asked. “Asked too many questions, pushed Don too far?”

  “I would think he would know better than to do that.”

  “Like you said, he was a patrol officer, not a trained investigator.”

  Joe glanced up at her. “Give patrol officers more credit for basic survival skills. Anyone can see Donnie’s losing it. Real question is: Why hasn’t Chernkoff dropped the hammer yet? Surely he’s gotta view Don as a weak link by now.”

  “Night’s young,” D.D. said. “Maybe the murder and mayhem is just beginning.” A new thought occurred to her. “Wait a minute, there’s at least one other person who must know you’re not a real actor—the casting director. Do you think before Chaibongsai talked to you, he talked to him . . . her?”

  “Her, Sally Clarkson,” Joe filled in. “But even she doesn’t know. One of the movie investors owed us a favor. He ‘encouraged’ Sally to hire me as the stand-in. There were three of us who were prepared for the undercover gig, but once we saw who they cast as the lead actor, I was the best physical match for the stand-in position, so I got the job.”

  “You think you’re clean?” D.D. pressed. “Only one who knows your ‘real identity’ was Chaibongsai? Never had the sense of anyone on set paying special attention to you, seeming to watch your every move, maybe rifle through your things?”

  “I left my fed creds at home,” Joe informed her dryly. “Hey, I know how to do my job.”

  “Fine. So how many weeks later, what have you got to show for it?”

  She gave him a skeptical look. He glared at her right back.

  “Look, maybe I haven’t had a major break, but there haven’t been any issues, either. I mean, not before tonight, and well, the discovery of Chaibongsai’s body. Shit.” Joe suddenly raked his hand through his hair. “This is getting out of hand. Whatever’s going on, with the funding, laundering, Donnie Bilger. If this is step one, it’s only going to get worse.”

  “Time to rattle the cage,” D.D. declared.

  “What cage?”

  “Donnie’s, of course.”

  “How? With what? We still don’t know anything.”

  “Ah, but I know someone who knows something.” D.D. whipped out her cell phone. It was three minutes after nine. Meaning Alex was done teaching his class and ready to head to Mattapan.

  “What do you know about blood spatter?” she asked federal agent Joe Thieriault.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then wait till you meet the father of my child. You’re gonna love him. Better yet, by the time he’s done with Donnie Bilger, our producer friend won’t just talk, he’ll sing. Which gives us about twenty minutes to prepare for the show.”

  For those who like to plan ahead, it’s always good to establish an alibi. I have two suggestions:

  First, place a call right before approaching the target victim. You can choose a friend or family member, but a business relationship or associate will have more credibility when testifying later on the witness stand. Of course you’re calling from your cell phone, and you’ll want to keep the conversation brief to make it difficult to later pinpoint the geographic location of the call. Your goal is to establish tone of voice. You want to sound crisp, calm, controlled. Just another morning, afternoon, evening. That way, later, the associate can testify before a jury of your peers that during the time of the murder, you were in fact talking to him by phone. And no, you didn’t sound stressed out, anxious, frantic, enraged. You sounded A-okay normal. Juries like to hear these things. Because we all know murderers can’t be normal right? They can only be freaks with stooped shoulders, disfiguring scars, and the complete inability to make eye contact. That’s the kind of monster a jury wants to find guilty of murder. Not a charming, well-dressed, well-spoken person like you.

  Now, if you don’t trust yourself enough to engage in a rational phone conversation in the minutes before engaging in murder, there is a second approach: Once you’ve incapacitated your victim, finish the deed while listening to the radio or watching TV in the victim’s own bedroom/car/office/motel room. Later, when the police question you, you can say you were at home watching TV or listening to the radio. The cops, of course, will demand to know what channel, which show, what songs, peppering you with questions in hopes of tripping you up. Either you will fail to provide enough specific information or, later, when they cross-reference your answers with the local TV guide or radio playlists for that date or time, they will be able to prove you lied. You, of course, will have plenty of accurate details to supply. “Why, I was watching The Simpsons on Fox. . . . You know, the episode where Homer tries to strangle Bart.”

  It’s tending these little details that enables one to get away with murder. Carefully consider what must be done before, during, and after the killing. Plan accordingly.

  Concoct an alibi. This is step six.

  Chapter 6

  D.D. was a sap. Maybe it was hormones or a pregnant woman’s biological response to the father of her unborn child, but each time she saw Alex, her heart skipped a beat. Didn’t matter that it was nearly ten P.M., freezing-ass cold, and they stood outside a fake-fogged cemetery. She took in her man, his salt-and-pepper hair, trim build currently hunched beneath a charcoal gray wool coat, strong legs striding toward her, and she beamed like a giddy school girl, awaiting the star quarterback’s approach.

  “I thought you said he was a teacher,” Joe said beside her. They remained next to D.D.’s car, where they could confer with Alex in private. It was dark here, the wind kicking up and delivering a knife-edged chill. Joe, wearing only a thin sports jacket, was shivering hard. D.D., carrying around her own private heater in the form of an incubating baby, felt great.

  “Teaches crime scene management at the police academy,” D.D. supplied.

  “He doesn’t look like a teacher.”

  “He still likes to get out in the field. That’s how we met. Family annihilation. Husband took out three kids and his wife with a kitchen knife, before shooting himself point-blank in the head.”

  Joe glanced sideways at her. “That’s your romantic first-meet story?”

  D.D. rolled her eyes. “Fraud investigators. No stomach for real crime.”

  Alex drew to a halt in front of them. He glanced at D.D. first, the warmth of his smile reaching his blue eyes. And she felt herself melt a little bit more. No lecture or whiff of censure that it was ten P.M. on D-Day and she still hadn’t given him an answer. Instead, she asked for help, he came. She smiled at him, and he beamed back with his entire body.

  She was an idiot. Stubborn, foolish, but worse than all that, a scared ninny. When had Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren ever allowed herself to behave so cowardly? W
hen had she ever tolerated fear?

  Beside her, Joe cleared his throat. Belatedly, D.D. and Alex turned to him.

  Alex stuck out a hand. “Alex Wilson.”

  “Joe Thieriault,” the FBI agent said.

  The men didn’t exchange titles or departments, given that in the dark it was difficult to know who else might be listening. They finished shaking hands, then Alex enveloped D.D. in a quick hug. “How are you feeling?” he murmured in her ear.

  “Jazzed. Cranked up. Ready to rumble. Oh, and if anyone says anything about me possibly chasing a vampire through the cemetery . . . total exaggeration. Joe did all the heavy lifting, right Joe?”

  “Right,” Joe agreed.

  D.D. decided the federal agent was a good guy after all.

  Quickly, she and Joe brought Alex up to speed. The idea of crime bosses using major film projects to launder money didn’t faze him the least. D.D. explained about Chaibongai’s murder, and movie producer Donnie Bilger’s prime suspect status. Alex had a couple of questions, then he was ready to go. Joe nodded his approval. D.D. got out her cell phone and arranged for Donnie to meet her back at his trailer. She’d never signed the initial contract, she reminded him. Of course, they should get that done.

  Donnie had grumbled, but agreed to see her there.

  Then D.D., Joe, and Alex climbed into D.D.’s car, and she drove them over to base camp.

  This time of night, with just the dim parking lot lights illuminating the space, D.D. found the endless rows of twin white trailers to be eerie. Like a bad science experiment. Pod after pod after pod. She shivered as she pulled into the rear of the parking lot, then killed the car lights.

  Five minutes later, the set van pulled up, and Donnie B. stepped out. He never glanced their way. Just climbed the metal step to his trailer, yanking open the door. One more minute, then D.D. looked over at Alex and nodded.