by Marcus Sakey
“Have you . . . Have you looked at other suspects?”
“We’re looking at everything, Daniel.” Noticing the guy called himself a suspect. “With a celebrity, there’s always the possibility of a stalker. But I’ll be honest with you. Nine times out of ten, when a wife is murdered, the husband is involved. And then there’s . . .” He trailed off, waited for the guy to prompt him.
“What?”
“Well, the day she died, she bought a five-hundred-thousanddollar necklace.”
“What?”
“Monday, November 2, just before noon, at Harry Winston. I didn’t even know necklaces could cost that much, but apparently they can, because she bought one. Damn near emptied your bank account. Now, why would she do that, Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
“She ever do anything like that before?”
“I . . .”
“See, there are a lot of ways to interpret that, but none good. Maybe she was scared, and wanted that for running money. Or maybe you two were getting divorced, and she figured that was a safe way to make sure that she had possession of the cash. Or maybe you forced her to do it, threatened her somehow.”
“Why would I—”
“I don’t know.” Bulldozing the guy, not wanting to let him think. “I don’t know. But that’s just one of the questions bugging me. Another is, you know someone broke into your lawyer’s house?”
There was a pause, and then Daniel asked, “What do you mean?” There was something strange in his voice, like he was choosing his words carefully.
“It’s true. Held her at gunpoint.”
“Is . . . is she okay?”
“She’s fine. My question is, who is he?”
“How should I know?”
“He was asking about you.”
Silence.
“Come on, Daniel. Help me. Help yourself. Who is this guy?”
“I don’t know.”
Uh-huh. Waters bit back his instincts. If they were doing this the right way, in an interview room, home court advantage, marks from the cuffs still on Hayes’s wrists, this would be the moment. You saw a crack like that, you hammered hard.
So bring him in. “There’s another reason I need you, Daniel.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to ask this. But we need you to identify her body.”
A choking sound. “I thought—”
“We found Laney yesterday. The currents took her body south—” He paused, said, “Do you want to hear this?”
“I. Yes.”
“Your wife wasn’t wearing her seat belt. Between the blood on the air bag and the way the windshield was shattered, our guess is that she was killed going through the glass. At that velocity, she would have died instantly.” He opened the folder, flipped through to a map of tidal speed and direction in that area. “Given the height, her body was probably flung thirty to fifty feet farther than the car. Based on the currents, we expected it to drift south-southwest. Yesterday we got a call from a fishing crew down the coast. Her body had tangled in their net—”
“Stop.” The man sounding weak. “Stop.”
“I’m sorry, Daniel. I really am.”
“Oh god. I had. I thought, maybe.”
“I understand.” He stopped talking, just listened to Hayes’s breathing. In the background there were voices, music. The guy was in a public place, maybe using a pay phone. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this. I know how hard it must be. But don’t let her wait in the morgue. Whatever happened between you, she doesn’t deserve that.”
“I didn’t do this.” His voice soft, wavering. Like he wasn’t sure, wanted to be convinced. “I couldn’t. We loved each other.”
“I know.”
“It must have been someone else. Someone forced her to buy that necklace.”
Waters rolled with it. “That makes sense.”
“It does?” Suspicious.
“Sure. A celebrity like that, she would be a target. Lots of people might come after her. They might even have threatened you. Maybe she felt she had to do it.”
“Yes. Wait,” hitting on something, “that guy! The one who threatened my lawyer.”
“I thought the same thing,” Waters said. “As soon as I heard about it.”
“So why aren’t you looking for him?”
“Who?”
“What do you mean who? The guy that—”
“I know, but who is he? We didn’t get any fingerprints, any physical evidence at all. We have Sophie’s description, but that’s not enough. I don’t even know where to start.”
“But—I mean—”
“You might, though. Help me, and help Laney. Because I’ll be honest with you. As long as you’re running, I can’t spend time chasing things that are only possible.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Mr. Hayes—”
“My wife is dead, the guy who killed her is breaking into houses, holding my friends at gunpoint, and you tell me you’re not going to look into it?”
Shit. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that—”
“Yeah, I get it. You’re saying you want this simple. Nine times out of ten, right? So why even look at the tenth.”
“That’s not it at all—”
“I didn’t kill my wife. I have to believe that.”
Have to believe that? What the hell does that mean? “So come talk to me, Daniel. Give your wife peace, and justice. Let’s work together to get the guy who did it?”
The silence on the line stretched. It was shit or get off the pot, and they both knew it.
Finally, Hayes spoke. “You know what, Roger? I don’t think so.”
There was a fumbling sound, and the line went dead.
Waters hung up hard enough that the handset bounced out of the cradle. Goddamnit. For a moment he’d really thought he might be able to talk Hayes in. Hayes was a Hollywood guy, a writer, used to living in his own fantasies, to thinking the world around him was stories. It sounded like he was well on the way to believing his own version of events. The way he’d pretended to be thrown by the jewelry purchase, some of his phrasing, his hesitations. Daniel Hayes most definitely did not pass the bullshit test.
So now what?
He could always use the media. Change Hayes’s status from suspect to wanted man. Put his photo everywhere, maybe even call him armed and dangerous; man did have permits for three guns. It was a crude tool, but it would make it hard to hide.
His phone rang and he picked it up. “Major Crimes, Waters.”
“This is Detective Nancy Palmisano, LAPD. Is this Detective Waters?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re working that TV actress? The one with the husband?”
“Laney Thayer and Daniel Hayes, yeah. What can I do for you, Detective?”
“One sec.” There was another voice, someone asking about prints, and Palmisano said, yeah, check the outside of the window too, then came back on. “Sorry. I’m on a scene. Guy broke into a building in Studio City, killed a security guard.”
“Okay . . .”
“Reason I’m calling—guess whose office we found the body in?”
H
e had something to live for.
Daniel scooped up another forkful of eggs, chewed mechanically. Stared out the Denny’s window to Sepulveda. From a huge billboard, a surly black dude pointed a gun at him, an ad for an upcoming movie called Die Today. The guy’s name was Too G. Mom and Pop G must be so proud.
“More coffee?”
He nodded, pushed his mug forward.
“You’re going to vibrate out of here.”
“Huh?”
“From all the coffee.” The waitress was a Latina with a pretty
smile. Daniel gave her a nod, and she moved on.
At first, he’d been furious with the detective, the asshole gaming him. Trying to lure him in, like he was a moron, like he didn’t know that the first moment he set foot in a police station was the last moment he’d have a choice in
the matter. But he’d let the guy think he was scripting the conversation, and played for information.
He hadn’t expected to hear about Laney, though. His beautiful girl, drifting in the cold currents of the Pacific. Dark hair waving like seaweed, body tumbling slow—stop.
But now he had something to live for. Someone had killed his wife. There was a lot he still didn’t understand, but one thing he knew for certain—hell, the cop had all but told him—was that the police weren’t investigating. The sheriffs were so sure they had their man that they were letting everything else slip through the cracks. Well, he could do something about that.
The waitress set his check on the edge of the table, “For whenever,” and breezed away. Daniel slurped his coffee, finished his bacon. He collected his new cell phone—a prepaid he’d bought at a gas station—and hit the bathroom. Splashed cold water on his face and finger-combed his hair, used paper towels to sponge-bathe his armpits. Then he walked out into a bright blue morning, Los Angeles sick with sunlight, same as ever. He unlocked the BMW, got in.
Nine times out of ten, when a wife is murdered, the husband is involved.
Okay. So what about that tenth time? What then?
Think like a writer. Why do people kill?
Love and money, the old song went. It seemed like money was some sort of factor, given the jewelry Laney had bought. But that didn’t help him much, or at least wouldn’t until his memory returned.
Which left love. And on that one, he did have a thought.
He started the car and headed north. Navigating on autopilot, innately knowing how the streets connected, which were the fastest routes. Some of the places he passed seemed familiar—a bar he might have haunted, a café with a patio that he could almost remember the view from. He could feel the pressure of his memories, the way they surged and throbbed behind the levee his unconscious had erected to protect him from himself. Maybe the levee would give on its own; maybe he needed more information. Maybe he needed to find the person who had done this.
A lot of maybes. But that was the way things were for now. And he was tired of reacting. It was time to get proactive.
Then he turned the corner, and saw Laney looking at him.
The studio wall was thirty feet high, not tall enough to hide the enormous soundstages beyond. But it did serve nicely to display enormous billboards of the major FOX shows: American Idol, The Simpsons, . . . and Candy Girls. The shot was of Laney with her “sisters,” the redhead smiling and innocent, the blonde with a scheming seductive look, and Laney smiling that head-cocked Emily Sweet Special.
Daniel stared up at his dead wife. Wasn’t there a point where life couldn’t get more surreal?
Apparently not. As he watched, a guy in a spacesuit drove a battered Tercel up to security and rolled down his window, passing something to the guard. A moment later, the gate went up and the spaceman drove through. The guard wiped his brow, hitched his belt, and trundled back to his booth.
Daniel sucked air through his teeth, stared across the street. Cars came and went, pausing at the gate in both directions. He thought of the tabloid lines he’d read last night, all that dirty laundry.
“Laney was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. Everyone adored her. Me? I loved her.”
Robert Cameron. Her “hunky costar.” The one that fuck Perez Hilton had said she was rumored to be having an affair with, that People magazine had shown pictures of with Laney, the two of them shot in a nightclub, dancing one of those sexy Latin dances.
He didn’t want to believe that she might have strayed. But if nine times out of ten the husband was to blame, maybe on the tenth, it was the lover. It was the kind of obvious angle the cops should have followed up on, but apparently hadn’t, because they were certain Daniel was to blame.
“Laney was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. Everyone adored her. Me? I loved her.”
“I bet you did,” Daniel said. The light changed, and he pulled away. His wife’s eyes hung in his rearview mirror.
But how to get to Cameron? The man’s phone number and address would be unlisted. No way Daniel could stake out the studio and watch for him to leave. For one thing, security would notice; for another, the lot was big. Who knew how many entrances it had, which one Cameron used, or what he drove. So what then, Star Maps?
Well, he couldn’t risk being himself. Fine. Then he had to be somebody else. He could show up at a cattle call, try to land a part as an extra. The studios always needed bodies. But that could take a long time. Besides, he had to imagine those people were thoroughly handled—no one wanted aspiring writers tracking down Al Pacino to thrust a script into his hand.
No, he needed to have reasonably free access. Who came and went on the lot? Who didn’t work there, but wouldn’t draw attention? Who did they let in, then not look at?
Got it.
Daniel gunned the car.
5
The uniform supply place was at the south end of downtown, and from the outside looked like a warehouse, blank walls and loading docks. The place was in the shadow of the 10. Traffic was a steady roar, and the air was exhaust.
The showroom took up only a portion of the whole, but even so, it was startling. Racks and racks and racks of outfits, the kind he’d never really thought about. Cops had to get the uniforms somewhere, he supposed. And firemen, and chefs, and maids . . .
He fingered a police uniform, thought about maybe changing his plan. The uniform was incomplete, of course; it didn’t have the flashing or the insignia. But what average citizen would think to look for those things?
No. People look at policemen . He wanted to be invisible. In a section toward the back, he found a pair of shiny gray slacks. Polyester to avoid ironing, cut in a distinctly unfashionable style, and with a vertical stripe of shiny blue running up the leg. They were hideous. He grabbed them.
Next was a short-sleeve polo: diamond knit, the texture of paper towel, bright yellow with blue stripes ringing the collar and the sleeves. Perfect. He paid, then went looking for a screen printing shop.
5
Timing was key.
He’d gotten everything he needed by eleven, so he killed an hour at a communal table in a Coffee Beanery, between an actor reviewing headshot possibilities and a well-dressed woman sipping a latte and reading a Robert Ludlum novel. Daniel spent the time trying passwords on the laptop, but none worked.
Shortly before noon, he pulled up to the studio gate. The lunch rush had cars going in both directions, and it took a couple of minutes before he reached the security booth.
He left his sunglasses on, rolled down the window. “Hey man. Delivery for,” he paused, grabbed the clipboard from the seat beside him. “Robert Cameron.”
“Name?”
“Cameron, C-A-M—”
“No, your name.”
“Oh, my name’s Jay Dobry, but it should be under Arrow Couriers.” He pointed to the logo on his bright yellow polo shirt. The guy at the screen printing shop had done nice work with it, put the words in italics with little speed trails following them.
The guard hoisted his own clipboard, scanned it, shook his head. “I don’t see—”
“Yeah, it was expedited. They’d have called down.”
“Let me check.” He stepped back into the booth. Daniel fiddled with the radio, trying to look bored. A moment later, the guard returned. “No, no badge for Arrow. You’re going to need to—”
“Look, man, my boss called me, said it was absolutely urgent I pick this up,” he hoisted a plastic bag with the logo of a vitamin store on it, “and rush it down before lunch. Something about Mr. Cameron’s agent threatening to pull him if he didn’t get this?”
“What is it?”
Daniel laughed, pulled the bottle from the bag and read aloud. “A natural probiotic supplement of papaya and garlic from the Colombian Andes that helps metabolize protein, remove toxins, and reduce bloat.” He passed it over, and the man looked at it.
“So what’s the r
ush?”
“I just drive, man.”
The guard hesitated, and Daniel shrugged. “You want to call my boss, he can call the agent, you guys can figure it out, but I’m going to need you to sign to prove that I was here on time. Cameron’s agent paid for the Urgent Response Package, which means within an hour, and it’s at,” he looked at the dashboard clock, “fifty-seven minutes now, dude, and so if you want to hold it, that’s up to you, but I’m not getting caught in the middle, you know?”
Someone honked, and the guard looked up, made a conciliatory gesture to a Porsche. Then he sighed, passed the diet pills back to Daniel. “Stage sixteen. You know where you’re going?”
“Dude, I’m here all the time.”
“All right. Next time, make sure they call first, okay?” He reached into the guardhouse, pulled out a purple parking pass. Daniel tossed it on his dash, then drove through the open gate, smiling to himself. A courier in a BMW rush-delivering diet pills. Hollywood.
The studio lot unfolded in broad avenues and vast, cream-colored soundstages with art deco façades and an air of competent activity. Crews dressed hipster-chic and flannel-grunge carried lights and cables while suits buzzed about in golf carts. Rows of white trailers lined up like race horses in front of a hundred-foot-tall mural of Marilyn Monroe lounging against some guy. He passed through a section of suburban America, complete with broad grass lawns, a church, and a bandstand in a small park. Looking one direction, he half expected to see kids playing tag; in the other, massive windowless warehouses like the Manhattan Project.
He had the same muscle memory pull of directions, and it took only moments to find the correct stage. Apart from the number at the top, it looked just like the others, a colossal block plunked down from space. He pulled into a parking garage and killed the engine. The shade cooled the afternoon, brought relief to his scrabbling headache.
Nice work. You’re super-fly. Now what?
The engine ticked. He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and middle finger.
Well, now you get out of the car and ask Robert Cameron if he was sleeping with your wife, and if he killed her.
